BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries for 4/3/10.









EASTER VIGIL MASS



Libretto Illustrations from a 15th century hymnbook, Bergamo diocese.















From the English service of Vatican Radio online, here is a translation of the Holy Father''s homily:

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

An ancient Jewish legend from the apocryphal book “The life of Adam and Eve” recounts that, in his final illness, Adam sent his son Seth together with Eve into the region of Paradise to fetch the oil of mercy, so that he could be anointed with it and healed.

The two of them went in search of the tree of life, and after much praying and weeping on their part, the Archangel Michael appeared to them, and told them they would not obtain the oil of the tree of mercy and that Adam would have to die.

Subsequently, Christian readers added a word of consolation to the Archangel’s message, to the effect that after 5,500 years the loving King, Christ, would come, the Son of God who would anoint all those who believe in him with the oil of his mercy.

“The oil of mercy from eternity to eternity will be given to those who are reborn of water and the Holy Spirit. Then the Son of God, Christ, abounding in love, will descend into the depths of the earth and will lead your father into Paradise, to the tree of mercy.”

This legend lays bare the whole of humanity’s anguish at the destiny of illness, pain and death that has been imposed upon us. Man’s resistance to death becomes evident: somewhere – people have constantly thought – there must be some cure for death.

Sooner or later it should be possible to find the remedy not only for this or that illness, but for our ultimate destiny – for death itself. Surely the medicine of immortality must exist.

Today too, the search for a source of healing continues. Modern medical science strives, if not exactly to exclude death, at least to eliminate as many as possible of its causes, to postpone it further and further, to prolong life more and more.

But let us reflect for a moment: what would it really be like if we were to succeed, perhaps not in excluding death totally, but in postponing it indefinitely, in reaching an age of several hundred years? Would that be a good thing?

Humanity would become extraordinarily old, there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation.

The true cure for death must be different. It cannot lead simply to an indefinite prolongation of this current life. It would have to transform our lives from within. It would need to create a new life within us, truly fit for eternity: it would need to transform us in such a way as not to come to an end with death, but only then to begin in fullness.

What is new and exciting in the Christian message, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, was and is that we are told: yes indeed, this cure for death, this true medicine of immortality, does exist. It has been found. It is within our reach.

In baptism, this medicine is given to us. A new life begins in us, a life that matures in faith and is not extinguished by the death of the old life, but is only then fully revealed.

To this some, perhaps many, will respond: I certainly hear the message, but I lack faith. And even those who want to believe will ask: but is it really so? How are we to picture it to ourselves? How does this transformation of the old life come about, so as to give birth to the new life that knows no death?

Once again, an ancient Jewish text can help us form an idea of the mysterious process that begins in us at baptism. There it is recounted how the patriarch Enoch was taken up to the throne of God. But he was filled with fear in the presence of the glorious angelic powers, and in his human weakness he could not contemplate the face of God.

“Then God said to Michael,” to quote from the book of Enoch, “‘Take Enoch and remove his earthly clothing. Anoint him with sweet oil and vest him in the robes of glory!’ And Michael took off my garments, anointed me with sweet oil, and this oil was more than a radiant light … its splendour was like the rays of the sun. When I looked at myself, I saw that I was like one of the glorious beings” (Ph. Rech, Inbild des Kosmos, II 524).

Precisely this – being reclothed in the new garment of God – is what happens in baptism, so the Christian faith tells us. To be sure, this changing of garments is something that continues for the whole of life.

What happens in baptism is the beginning of a process that embraces the whole of our life – it makes us fit for eternity, in such a way that, robed in the garment of light of Jesus Christ, we can appear before the face of God and live with him for ever.

In the rite of baptism there are two elements in which this event is expressed and made visible in a way that demands commitment for the rest of our lives.

There is first of all the rite of renunciation and the promises. In the early Church, the one to be baptized turned towards the west, the symbol of darkness, sunset, death and hence the dominion of sin. The one to be baptized turned in that direction and pronounced a threefold “no”: to the devil, to his pomp and to sin.

The strange word “pomp”, that is to say the devil’s glamour, referred to the splendour of the ancient cult of the gods and of the ancient theatre, in which it was considered entertaining to watch people being torn limb from limb by wild beasts.

What was being renounced was a type of culture that ensnared man in the adoration of power, in the world of greed, in lies, in cruelty. It was an act of liberation from the imposition of a form of life that was presented as pleasure and yet hastened the destruction of all that was best in man.

This renunciation – albeit in less dramatic form – remains an essential part of baptism today. We remove the “old garments”, which we cannot wear in God’s presence. Or better put: we begin to remove them.

This renunciation is actually a promise in which we hold out our hand to Christ, so that he may guide us and reclothe us. What these “garments” are that we take off, what the promise is that we make, becomes clear when we see in the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Galatians what Paul calls “works of the flesh” – a term that refers precisely to the old garments that we remove.

Paul designates them thus: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like” (Gal 5:19ff.). These are the garments that we remove: the garments of death.

Then, in the practice of the early Church, the one to be baptized turned towards the east – the symbol of light, the symbol of the newly rising sun of history, the symbol of Christ. The candidate for baptism determines the new direction of his life: faith in the Trinitarian God to whom he entrusts himself. Thus it is God who clothes us in the garment of light, the garment of life.

Paul calls these new “garments” “fruits of the spirit”, and he describes them as follows: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22).

In the early Church, the candidate for baptism was then truly stripped of his garments. He descended into the baptismal font and was immersed three times – a symbol of death that expresses all the radicality of this removal and change of garments. His former death-bound life the candidate consigns to death with Christ, and he lets himself be drawn up by and with Christ into the new life that transforms him for eternity.

Then, emerging from the waters of baptism the neophytes were clothed in the white garment, the garment of God’s light, and they received the lighted candle as a sign of the new life in the light that God himself had lit within them. They knew that they had received the medicine of immortality, which was fully realized at the moment of receiving holy communion.

In this sacrament we receive the body of the risen Lord and we ourselves are drawn into this body, firmly held by the One who has conquered death and who carries us through death.

In the course of the centuries, the symbols were simplified, but the essential content of baptism has remained the same. It is no mere cleansing, still less is it a somewhat complicated initiation into a new association. It is death and resurrection, rebirth to new life.

Indeed, the cure for death does exist. Christ is the tree of life, once more within our reach. If we remain close to him, then we have life. Hence, during this night of resurrection, with all our hearts we shall sing the alleluia, the song of joy that has no need of words. Hence, Paul can say to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice!” (Phil 4:4).

Joy cannot be commanded. It can only be given. The risen Lord gives us joy: true life. We are already held for ever in the love of the One to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given (cf. Mt 28:18).

In this way, confident of being heard, we make our own the Church’s Prayer over the Gifts from the liturgy of this night: Accept the prayers and offerings of your people. With your help may this Easter mystery of our redemption bring to perfection the saving work you have begun in us. Amen.

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[No other pictures so far of the Vigil Mass!]


POPE MARKS EASTER VIGIL AMID ROW
Sunday, April 4,2010

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Easter Vigil Saturday night as the Vatican newspaper attacked what it called a "vile defamation operation" against him over the clerical abuse scandal.

Benedict presided over the evening service in St Peter's Basilica, commemorating the night before Easter, when Christians believe Christ rose from the dead.

The Pope did not directly refer to the scandal in his homily, focusing on life, death and immortality, pondering what would happen if modern medicine could remove death altogether.

"Would that be a good thing?" he asked. "Humanity would become extraordinarily old, there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation," he said.

Rather than prolonging death, he said, baptism offered the "medicine of immortality".

During the service, Benedict baptised six people - a traditional feature of Easter eve papal Masses.

Meanwhile, in an article, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano denounced what it called the "vile defamation campaign" against the Pope and cited messages of solidarity that had arrived from bishops from around the world.

The Vatican has accused the media of fanning the scandal by reporting on cases of priests who raped children and bishops who either did not report it to police or were stopped from pursuing church trials by the Vatican. [THAT IS NOT AT ALL WHAT IS BEING PROTESTED! It's the systematic attempt to link Benedict XVI personally to covering up the abuses! The new line in the MSM - now that the Vatican has kept up responding to every new 'link' imagined or evoked - is that "The Vatican blames the messenger for the bad message!" ]

Benedict, who celebrates Easter and delivers his "Urbi et Orbi" speech today, has not made any explicit reference to the scandal since he released a letter on March 20 to the Irish faithful about the abuse crisis in that country. [Please stop expecting the Vicar of Christ to behave like Obama or some other mundane political leader who descends to pettiness when personally attacked!]

April 4, EASTER SUNDAY

The Resurrection, from left: Duccio, 1308; Fra Angelico, 1400a; Titian, 1520; El Greco, 1590s; Di Giovani, 15th-cent.

Greek Orthodox and Russian icons; extreme right, Coptic icon.


OR today.

Illustration: The Deposition from the Cross, from a 13th-cent. Syrian Evangelarium.

The Holy Father at the Colosseum 'Via Crucis' says the Cross is a new beginning for man:
'From betrayal to forgivenes, from hatred to love'
The Easter Sunday issue reports the papal liturgies on Good Friday - first the celerbation of the Passion at St. Peter's Basilica; and then the Via Crucis. Other Page 1 stories: An essay on the Easter tradition in the Syro-Occidental church; international diplomacy mvoes to present a new war in Gaza; Al Qaeda terrorists kill 25 in random machinegun slaughter on a village south of Baghdad; and Francw has 8 million people living below poverty level, representing 13.4% of the population, mostly immigrants and single parents.



THE POPE'S DAY
Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square

Urbi et Orbi Easter message and blessing from the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica



Today is also the feast day of St. Isidore of Seville (560-636), Doctor of the Church.

EASTER SUNDAY MASS



Libretto illustrations: Cover, Iesu Risorto, and Pentecoste (extreme right), Iacopo da Balsemo, 15th cent.; first 2 phoros, lower panel, from a 15th century hymnarium. Source: Diocese of Bergamo.



NB: Despite the heavy rain throughout most of the morning, the Italian police estimated the Easter crowd at St. Peter's as more than 100,000.















The Pope gave no homily because he gave his Easter homily last night, and the morning Mass was followed by his Urbi et Orbi message.

THE HOLY FATHER'S
EASTER BLESSING
'URBI ET ORBI'







Here is the text of the Holy Father's Easter message, from Vatican
Radio's English service online:

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I bring you the Easter proclamation in these words of the Liturgy, which echo the ancient hymn of praise sung by the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea.

It is recounted in the Book of Exodus (cf 15:19-21) that when they had crossed the sea on dry land, and saw the Egyptians submerged by the waters, Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and the other women sang and danced to this song of joy: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed wonderfully: horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!”

Christians throughout the world repeat this canticle at the Easter Vigil, and a special prayer explains its meaning; a prayer that now, in the full light of the resurrection, we joyfully make our own: “Father, even today we see the wonders of the miracles you worked long ago. You once saved a single nation from slavery, and now you offer that salvation to all through baptism. May the peoples of the world become true sons of Abraham and prove worthy of the heritage of Israel.”

The Gospel has revealed to us the fulfilment of the ancient figures: in his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has freed us from the radical slavery of sin and opened for us the way towards the promised land, the Kingdom of God, the universal Kingdom of justice, love and peace.

This “exodus” takes place first of all within man himself, and it consists in a new birth in the Holy Spirit, the effect of the baptism that Christ has given us in his Paschal Mystery. The old man yields his place to the new man; the old life is left behind, and a new life can begin (cf. Rom 6:4).

But this spiritual “exodus” is the beginning of an integral liberation, capable of renewing us in every dimension – human, personal and social.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, Easter is the true salvation of humanity! If Christ – the Lamb of God – had not poured out his blood for us, we would be without hope, our destiny and the destiny of the whole world would inevitably be death.

But Easter has reversed that trend: Christ’s resurrection is a new creation, like a graft that can regenerate the whole plant. It is an event that has profoundly changed the course of history, tipping the scales once and for all on the side of good, of life, of pardon.

We are free, we are saved! Hence from deep within our hearts we cry out: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious his triumph!”

The Christian people, having emerged from the waters of baptism, is sent out to the whole world to bear witness to this salvation, to bring to all people the fruit of Easter, which consists in a new life, freed from sin and restored to its original beauty, to its goodness and truth.

Continually, in the course of two thousand years, Christians – especially saints – have made history fruitful with their lived experience of Easter. The Church is the people of the Exodus, because she constantly lives the Paschal Mystery and disseminates its renewing power in every time and place.

In our days too, humanity needs an “exodus”, not just superficial adjustment, but a spiritual and moral conversion. It needs the salvation of the Gospel, so as to emerge from a profound crisis, one which requires deep change, beginning with consciences.

I pray to the Lord Jesus that in the Middle East, and especially in the land sanctified by his death and resurrection, the peoples will accomplish a true and definitive “exodus” from war and violence to peace and concord.

To the Christian communities who are experiencing trials and sufferings, especially in Iraq, the Risen Lord repeats those consoling and encouraging words that he addressed to the Apostles in the Upper Room: “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:21).

For the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that are seeing a dangerous resurgence of crimes linked to drug trafficking, let Easter signal the victory of peaceful coexistence and respect for the common good.

May the beloved people of Haiti, devastated by the appalling tragedy of the earthquake, accomplish their own “exodus” from mourning and from despair to a new hope, supported by international solidarity.

May the beloved citizens of Chile, who have had to endure another grave catastrophe, set about the task of reconstruction with tenacity, supported by their faith.

In the strength of the risen Jesus, may the conflicts in Africa come to an end, conflicts which continue to cause destruction and suffering, and may peace and reconciliation be attained, as guarantees of development. In particular I entrust to the Lord the future of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea and Nigeria.

May the Risen Lord sustain the Christians who suffer persecution and even death for their faith, as for example in Pakistan.

To the countries afflicted by terrorism and by social and religious discrimination, may He grant the strength to undertake the work of building dialogue and serene coexistence.

To the leaders of nations, may Easter bring light and strength, so that economic and financial activity may finally be driven by the criteria of truth, justice and fraternal aid.

May the saving power of Christ’s resurrection fill all of humanity, so that it may overcome the multiple tragic expressions of a “culture of death” which are becoming increasingly widespread, so as to build a future of love and truth in which every human life is respected and welcomed.

Dear brothers and sisters, Easter does not work magic. Just as the Israelites found the desert awaiting them on the far side of the Red Sea, so the Church, after the resurrection, always finds history filled with joy and hope, grief and anguish.

And yet, this history is changed, it is marked by a new and eternal covenant, it is truly open to the future. For this reason, saved by hope, let us continue our pilgrimage, bearing in our hearts the song that is ancient and yet ever new: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious his triumph!”

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[He follows with Easter greetings in multiple languages, after which he grants his Apostolic Benediction to the city and to the world.]











P.S. Cardinal Levada is the latest to become 'collateral damage' to the Irish-German-etc sex abuse stories. The story is included in this pre-Easter situationer from Agence France Presse...

Pope to address world at Easter
under cloud of scandal




VATICAN CITY, April 4 (AFP) - The pope celebrates Easter Mass and makes his traditional Urbi et Orbi message "to the city and the world" Sunday with the Catholic Church shaken internationally by paedophile scandals.

As Christians prepared to celebrate the day when Christ is believed to have been resurrected, the top bishops in both Belgium and Germany issued forthright condemnations of the Church’s role in covering up child abuse within its ranks.

And in the United States, fresh allegations emerged in court documents late Saturday that a cardinal there had reassigned a US priest and alleged child molester in the 1990s without warning his parishioners.

US Cardinal William Levada, a staunch defender of Pope Benedict XVI in the abuse scandal gripping the Vatican, was cited in court documents from an action brought by victims of paedophile priests.

In sworn testimony in 2006 about his time as archbishop of Portland, Oregon (1986-1995), Levada said he had reassigned a priest implicated in child abuse allegations after he had undergone therapy.

In the testimony, Levada was asked if he had warned parishioners about the Oregon priest’s past. Levada answered no, although he had fully briefed the pastor of the parish and assigned him as the priest’s supervisor.

A transcript of Levada’s testimony was provided to AFP by a lawyer representing victims of child abuse by Oregon priests.

[Obviously, Levada was not hiding anything since he said all this in a sworn statement!]

Belgium’s Andre Joseph Leonard, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel, criticised the church for its past mismanagement of the crisis.

"With a guilty silence, it often gave preference to the reputation of certain men of the Church over the honour of the abused children," said an advance copy of his Easter sermon.

His Easter homily cited a recent letter by Pope Benedict XVI to Catholics in Ireland apologising for abuse there as an example of what needed to be done.

Germany’s Archbishop Robert Zollitsch wrote in his Easter message: "Today particularly we must set out together and examine inconceivable events, awful crimes, the Church’s dark aspects as well as our shadowy sides."

The message, on his diocese website, added: "The Church must not be inactive: we need a new beginning."

But the scandal has been gaining momentum, putting the Vatican on the defensive, with Pope Benedict XVI’s personal preacher drawing criticism on Saturday for likening attacks on the pontiff to anti-Semitism.

Jewish groups and those representing victims of abuse by Roman Catholic priests condemned Father Raniero Cantalamessa for quoting the comments, which he said were made in a letter from a Jewish friend, in his Good Friday sermon.

The Vatican distanced itself from the very comments, but defended the preacher’s intentions.

"Comparing the attacks on the pope for the paedophile scandal with anti-Semitism is not the line that is followed by the Holy See," spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

But the row cast another shadow over what is supposed to be the most joyous day in the Christian calendar, marking the resurrection of Christ. [IT IS STILL THE MOST JOYOUS DAY - regardless of the earthbound concerns that preoccupy the media about the Church! The 'news of the day' affects not an iota of the Christian faith nor of the reality of Christ and his presence among us!]

The child abuse scandal has unleashed harsh critiques of the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of the scourge — even from other top religious leaders. [The only one so far is Rowan Williams - and he was since apologized for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time!]

Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans, apologised for comments recorded during the week in which he said the Irish Catholic Church had lost "all credibility".

Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, said he was "stunned" by Williams’s comments.

The Pope himself faces allegations that, as archbishop of Munich and later as the Vatican’s chief morals enforcer, he helped to protect predator priests. [So now the media accusation against the Pope has been codified into that!]

Leading prelates have rallied around the Pope, and the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano has published messages of support from around the world.

In its Sunday edition, the newspaper denounced the "slanderous attacks and the defamation campaign surrounding the drama of abuse by priests."

It cited the archbishop of Paris, Andre Vingt-Trois, calling it "an offensive aiming to destabilise the pope and through him the Church."

When the Vatican Radio commentator for EWTN said this morning just before the Mass began that Cardinal Sodano was going to say some words at the beginning, I suspected immediately that it would be a messgae of support for the Pope - and I thanked God that the cardinals had decided to do something concrete like this. Sodano's words were very touching, but the best part was the Holy Father's reaction, in the way he rose right afterwards to wait for Sodano to approach him, and in the fraternal hug they shared!


Pope hailed as 'unfailing' leader at Easter Mass,
Pontiff remains silent on abuse cover-up allegations
by FRANCES D'EMILIO



VATICAN CITY, April 4 (AP) -- A senior cardinal staunchly defended Pope Benedict XVI from "petty gossip" on Sunday as the Pontiff maintained his silence on mounting sex abuse cover-up accusations during his Easter message.



The ringing tribute by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, at the start of Mass attended by tens of thousands of faithful in St. Peter's Square, marked an unusual departure from the Vatican's Easter rituals.

Sodano's defense of the Pope's "unfailing" leadership and courage, as well as of the work of priests worldwide with children entrusted to their care, built on a vigorous Vatican campaign to defend Benedict's moral authority. [NO! If there is anything to defend at all, it is against an unfair and often unfounded media assault on the person of the Pope as a way to attack the Church itself! The Pope's moral authority - in his function as Vicar of Christ, and in his own private person - does not need to be defended to the faithful.]

The Pontiff and other Church leaders have been assailed by accusations from victims of clergy sexual abuse that he helped shape and perpetuate a climate of cover-up toward the crimes against children in parishes, schools, orphanages and other church-run institutions.

Dressed in gold robes and shielded from a cool drizzle by a canopy, Benedict looked weary as he listened to Sodano's speech at the start of Mass in the cobblestone square bedecked with daffodils, tulips and azaleas.

In early evening, the Pope, who turns 83 later this month, was to fly by helicopter to the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside retreat in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome, where he will greet pilgrims from the palace courtyard balcony on Monday.

Easter Sunday Mass was the highlight of a heavy schedule of public appearances by the Pope before the thousands of faithful who have poured into Rome for Holy Week services.

"With this spirit today we rally close around you, successor to (St.) Peter, bishop of Rome, the unfailing rock of the holy Church," Sodano said. "Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers."




At the end of the two-hour long ceremony, Benedict delivered the papacy's traditional Easter "Urbi et Orbi" message -- Latin for "to the city and to the world" -- which analyzes humanity's failings and hopes.

Benedict singled out the "trials and sufferings" of Christians in Iraq and Pakistan, noting that these believers have risked persecution and death for their faith. He urged hope for the people of Haiti and Chile, devastated by earthquakes. He said Easter could "signal the victory of peaceful coexistence and respect" in crime-ravaged areas of Latin American countries plagued by drug trafficking and said he would pray for peace in the Middle East.

But, despite repeated appeals by victims of clerical sexual abuse that he take responsibility for his role in the handling of pedophile priests, he stayed silent on that issue. The victims contend there were decades of systematic cover-up by bishops in many countries, including the United States, Ireland and Benedict's native Germany. [Why must he take responsibility for his role, which he has always carried out in an exemplary way? When the US scandals broke out in 2001-2002, did they ask John Paul II to take responsibility? He was not responsible for bishops deciding to cover up for offending priests, much less for the individual offenders, and neither is Benedict XVI.

Fr. Cantalamessa's Jewish friend hit it right on the button when he pointed out "the use of stereotypes, the passage from personal responsibility and culpability to make it collective" that is glaringly obvious in media reporting of this cause-du-jour, one they have handpicked because it is easy for them to exploit and instrumentalize shamelessly. Simply because the secular world at large - and even some liberal Catholics - has always been ready not just to find fault with the Church, but to behave as though the Church were the only institution on earth that has fallible members!]

They want him to demand the resignations of bishops complicit in any conspiracy to shield pedophile priests by shuffling them from parish to parish instead of kicking them out of the priesthood.

The accusations against the Pope stem from his leadership as archbishop of Munich before he came to the Vatican three decades ago [ONE CASE! ONE CASE! that is tenuous at best, as well as his long tenure in Rome leading the Holy See's office dealing with a growing pile of dossiers about pedophile priests. [Look how shameless D'Emilio is! As one of AP's most veteran Vaticanistas, she knows full well that he took charge only in 2001, and that the record of the CDF since that time - and by all previous accounts, even in the media - has been excellent, especially in comparison to the typical pace of the Vatican bureaucracy! How can this woman - and all her fellow deliberately dissimulating journalists - face themselves in the mirror?]

Sunday's edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano denounced the accusations against the Pope as a "vile defamation operation."

Benedict hasn't made any explicit reference to the sex abuse scandals since he released a letter to the Irish faithful concerning the abuse crisis in that country on March 20. [The implication being that he hasn't done so because he has no answer! The Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth - does silly D'Emilio really believe he - or any Pope - would stoop to answer petty charges directed against him personally? Any Pope who did that would be unworthy of being Vicar of Christ!] these petty charges against him that are being made to appear even worse than the sexual abuses committed by the priest offenders?]

Sodano defended the Church's priests as well as the Pontiff.

"Especially with you in these days are those 400,000 priests who generously serve the people of God, in parishes, recreation centers, schools, hospitals and many other places, as well as in the missions in the most remote parts of the world," the cardinal said.

In rushing to Benedict's defense [And why shouldn't it 'rush to his defense?' when he is defamed right and left by every two-bit tyrant in the media????], the Vatican has angered abuse victims and their advocates. [Like the Jews about the Holocuast, they will carry their unrelenting anger with them to their graves, so what's new with that??? The Church and the faithful can only invoke the Holy Spirit on them.

Jewish leaders also fumed after the papal preacher in a Good Friday sermon told the Pope that the accusations against him were akin to the campaign of anti-Semitic violence that culminated in the Holocaust.

The preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, told Corriere della Sera daily in an interview Sunday that he had no intention "of hurting the sensibilities of the Jews and of the victims of pedophilia."

"I have sincerely regretted and I ask forgiveness, reaffirming my solidarity with both" lobbies, he was quoted as saying.



Please do not under-estimate the nature of the poison AP is sowing and instilling! It is the largest news agency in the world, meaning that majority of the world's media outlets - newspapers, radio and TV - pay AP an annual fee for the right to use their news reports, since obviously the overwhelmingly majority of media outlets caanot afford to field reporters of their own to cover what's happening around the world.

Therefore, far more than the New York Times (whose news service very few outlets subscribe to - though those outlets will recycle what the New York Times says, each in their own way, and not have to pay them any fee), what the Associated Press chooses to disseminate shapes opinion around the world. To a lesser degree, the same is true of Reuters and AFP, the other two major news agencies.

That is why I foam at the mouth and stomp my feet - I wish they were elephant hooves - at all their built-in bias, inaccuracies adn distortions of fact!]


Apparently, the two other AP Vaticanistas filed an earlier story in which they load all their condescending conclusions in a double-decker headline for an item that is 90 percent speculation... But you can see that its purple index is expectedly higher than usual even for AP.

Small coterie advises Pope,
but decisions are his own
The Pontiff's gaffes often cause the church spokesman grief.
By Nicole Winfield and Victor L. Simpson
The Associated Press

Vatican City, April 3 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI has surrounded himself with a small group of men he believes he can trust, but he acts very much on his own.

That isolation and shunning of advice have frequently created problems and are increasingly under scrutiny as the clerical sex scandal inches closer to him. ['Inches closer to him'? The last I looked, everyone was saying it had already reached him because of Fr. Hullermann in Munich and Fr. Murphy in Wisconsin!]

Early on in his 5-year-old papacy, Benedict provoked a furious reaction from Muslims when he linked the Prophet Muhammad to violence in a speech Vatican officials said he wrote himself. [They make it sound as if the 'Vatican officials' said, "Hey, don't blame us for anything. He wrote it himself!" as if Benedict XVI would let anyone else take responsibility for something he himself wrote! He never passed on the responsibility for Regensburg to anyone. To begin with, no culpability was involved.]

Then he enraged Jews for the "unforeseen mishap" of being unaware that a bishop whose excommunication he lifted was a Holocaust-denier.

The Pope similarly is unlikely to have known that his personal preacher, during a solemn Good Friday sermon, would compare the uproar over the church's sex abuse scandal to persecution of Jews. [NO AND NO AND NO! Factually wrong on both counts of their premise - The statement was not Fr. Cantalamessa's, to begin with; and the comparison made by his Jewish friend was not at all between the attacks against the Church because of the sex abuses and persecution of Jews, but between the manner of the attacks and analogous aspects of anti-Semitism. But they mis-state everything to fit their narrative of "Yet another PR catastrophe by the 'Pope's preacher'" (and by extension, the Pope himself). If they did quote what Cantalamessa's Jewish friend wrote, then not even they - nor the Jews - could dispute its validity!]

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi -- who has frequently had to put out these fires [So now we are supposed to sympathize with 'poor Fr. Lombardi', because he has to 'pick up' after a boss who is either an arsonist recidivist or a truculent hardheaded schoolboy who will not stop playing with fire!] -- said Saturday that such a comparison was not the line of the Vatican, the Catholic Church or even the intent of the preacher himself, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa.

That the Vatican has had a communications problem during Benedict's papacy is fairly well-established. Amid a swirling scandal at the Pope's feet, Lombardi recently said he hadn't spoken to the Pontiff about his letter to Irish Catholics, and that his information on Benedict's views on it was second hand.

While part of the problem is Benedict's reserved personality, perhaps more to blame is a culture of secrecy at the Vatican, rooted in Church history for centuries, and its tendency to shun being held accountable to the secular world. [But what a non-sequitur! What does that have to do with a communications problem? In none of the 'gaffes' the MSM love to harp on was the question of secrecy ever the issue! Not even with this latest and worst of the MSM-fabricated 'scandals' - because Benedict XVI has always been open about the sex abuse problem. Even in that one statement he gave in answer to an ambush news conference question in 2002 - it was a news confernece about a theological seminar on Christology - about the sex abuse problem in the United States, he did not deny the existence of abuse cases. He commented that the media is playing it up because of a campaign against the Church, true then and true now, as I once pointed out, and that the offenders make up a tiny percentage of all the priests in the United States, true then and now, and not just in the USA but everywhere else.]

The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer who has testified in U.S. court cases about Vatican secrecy and sex abuse, has written about the medieval-era canonical concept of the "privilege of the forum" — whereby clerics accused of crimes were tried by church courts, not civil courts.

"Although this privilege is anachronistic in contemporary society, the attitude or mentality, which holds clerics accountable only to the institutional church authorities is still active," he wrote in a recent article.

"There is a cult of secrecy in the Catholic Church. It's a paranoid culture," Doyle, who worked as a canon lawyer in the Vatican's U.S. nunciature in the 1980s, said in an interview Saturday. [The man is talking about what it was in the 1980s! To suggest in any way that the US scandals did not change the Church bureaucracy for the better is completely irresponsible!]

Against that backdrop sits Benedict's inner circle. It is formed principally by the Vatican's No. 2 official, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Benedict's trusted deputy during his long years as a Vatican official; and Benedict's private secretary, fellow German Monsignor Georg Ganswein.

The Pope also is known to still consult his former personal secretary, Monsignor Josef Clemens, now the No. 2 at the Vatican office for the laity.

Benedict's closest friend is his older brother, Georg, a retired priest who often visits from Germany but who himself has been drawn into the scandal stemming from his years leading a pre-eminent German choir. [Implying that he is part of the scandal, without explaining that he was not even in Regensburg when the cases happened.]

"The Pope listens to his collaborators, but then he's very autonomous in his decisions — above all on questions of doctrinal and theological nature," noted Ignazio Ingrao, the Vatican columnist for Italy's Panorama newsweekly. [DUH! If you were Joseph Ratzinger and Pope, would you make others make a doctrinal and/or theological decision for you????]

The top adviser is Bertone, a 75-year-old soccer aficionado who used to give play-by-play commentary on local television when he was archbishop of Genoa. [As though that were Bertone's primary qualification! I am not very happy with how namby-pamby Bertone has been about standing up for the Pope when push comes to shove - he has not once done that yet - but his credentials and record, ecclesiastical as well as academic, are substantial and generally excellent.

The Pope trusts him deeply, and shows a real affection for him. But Bertone has also been accused of not shielding the Pope enough from pitfalls.

Ganswein, a former ski instructor often satirized because of his good looks, is extremely solicitous and protective of the 82-year-old Pope. [Again, they make it appear as if 'ski instructor' were GG's primary qualification. He holds a doctorate in canon law from the same university Joseph Ratzinger attended, and he was a professor of canon law at the Opus Dei pontifical University in Rome when he was fradated into Curial work.]

But Vatican insiders say he lacks the political savvy of his predecessor as papal secretary, the Polish Stanislaw Dziwisz, now cardinal-archbishop of Krakow, Poland. [GG must be mortified to learn he is considered a 'papal adviser'. And please God, keep him free from 'political savvy' if that means all sorts of curial maneuvering pro or con certain proteges!]

"John Paul met a huge variety of people from all walks at his breakfasts and lunches," said Marco Politi, a biographer of the late pope. The future Pope Benedict would stay for dinner after their regular Friday afternoon meetings.

As Pope, Benedict is known to eat alone. [Not alone. From all accounts, he always eats with his household - his family now! And is it supposed to be a demerit because he chooses not to socialize as John Paul II did? He has a different personality. And what does the outside world know of the guests he asks to dinner or lunch - his personal friends from Regensburg and Munich, to begin with? It comes out when they talk later about their experiences with him after he became Pope.]

"In reality Benedict doesn't have an inner circle. He has collaborators, not advisers," said Politi. [And what is wrong with that? No one can possibly come close to the level of authority and decision-making that a Pope has, so no one can possibly qualify as a real 'adviser' to a Pope.

Would Politi say that John Paul II had any advisers - other than Joseph Ratzinger, whom, he consulted to provide the theological rationale for many of his decisions - including the 2000 string of apologies - as everyone in the Vatican acknowledges then and now. But we also know now, if we had not already inferred much earlier, that John Paul II did not always take Cardinal Ratzinger's position on the sexual abuse problem!

The absurd thing is that by ending their article with Politi's statement, Winfield and Simpson have negated the whole premise of their article. Benedict XVI has no advisers, merely collaborators - in simpler words, co-workers, who give him their expertise and let him make the decisions.]]

*****************************************************************************************************

And indeed WE DO!

I bet the New York Times and all the Pope's detractors were 'shocked' - and most likely enraged - that all the crowds for the Holy Father have not abated despite their dirty tricks.... The show of enthusiasm from the crowds has been amazing - from the Wednesday GA to yesterday's Mass and Urbi et Orbi. For tens of thousands to stand there in St. Peter's Square for hours, through mostly rain and eventual sunshine, is the sort of testament to Catholic faith that seculars miss seeing.

Anyway, Welcome to the Forum, Marie Therese! (My own first name is Maria-Teresa, which I always write with a hyphen, especially needed in the USA, where they tend to drop the second part - with the result that thousands of girls and women from Hispanic countries and the Philippines who have Maria 'prefixed' to their name end up being called Maria by everyone!)


I hope you can register soon.

MARIA-TERESA
aka TERESA BENEDETTA

Hmmm... I must say the 'accusations' are turning into the old stereotype kind of thing. This isn't really news. Is it? I imagine this article could have been written five years ago. Simply substitude the abuse part with the Hitler youth part.

The only Gaffe is can see is the lack of brain by the press, who seem to find it too time consuming or difficult to actually understand Joseph Ratzinger's personality and /or his thinking.
I do believe that they're furious that he stubbornly ignores their demands for statements!!

God Bless Him!!


BTW: I'm totally freaking with happiness, because of Liam's First Communion tomorrow!!
I hope it's not too much to ask to include him in your prayers. As tough as it is, I'll do my very best to keep him on the 'straight road'!





Dear Heike...

What a wonderful event to mark! Please post pictures if you can. I'll start a thread on THE CATHOLIC EXPERIENCE for such photos and accounts and start iT off with Papino's recollection of his own first CommunioN, when he answered a question from one of the First Communion children in Rome back in October 2005 - his first Q&A ever as Pope.

Sorry for the delayed response. I haven't quite gotten back into my usual stride since my Palm Sunday Internet outage, and my continuing 'deficit' just built up with all the Holy Week events right up through Easter and all its corollary social obligations....

Love and prayers for yourself, your family, and especially, Liam on his big day. (I looked up what his name means - 'strong-willed warrior'. Is there Irish ancestry in your family line or your husband's?]

TERESA

Quite a number of Easter Sunday articles in the Italian papers speaking up for the Holy Father that deserve translation! But even some US publications allowed pro-Church and pro-Pope statements on Easter Sunday. Such as this one which the Washington Post accommodated on Page 15 of its Section-A yesterday. But thank heaven for small blessings:


Resurrection and redemption
as the Church copes at Easter
By Donald W. Wuerl
Archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Sunday, April 4, 2010


Today, Christians worldwide celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Lent is over; Good Friday has passed. To a Church that has experienced the deep pain of clergy sexual abuse, these days are a reminder that from pain and sorrow eventually come hope, redemption and new life.

This new life will come only by confronting sexual abuse head-on, taking responsibility for the wrongs of the past and committing to doing all that we can never to allow the tragedy of abuse to happen again.

In the United States, we bishops have put in place tough standards for reporting allegations to civil authorities because we recognize that abuse is not only a sin but also a serious crime.

In the Archdiocese of Washington and in dioceses nationwide, we mandate child protection training for adults and education for children. Seminarians, clergy, volunteers and employees who work with children must undergo criminal background checks.

Independent advisory boards of lay experts guide our work, and, perhaps most important, we continue to reach out to those harmed to help them heal from their pain.

In 2008-09, 6 million children in the United States received lessons on recognizing inappropriate behavior and what to do if someone tries to harm them or makes them feel uncomfortable. Two million adults underwent background checks. Here in Washington, we have had a written child protection policy for nearly 25 years.

This commitment to safety has been done with the support and leadership of Pope Benedict XVI.

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Pope John Paul II, were strong voices supporting the American bishops when we asked for changes in canon law and for special norms to expedite the removal of priests involved in sexual abuse of minors in a quick and decisive manner.

Pope Benedict has made pastoral care a priority. Two years ago this month, he stood with us at Mass at Nationals Park and spoke about the sexual abuse of minors:

"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention. Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the Church."

One of the most poignant moments of the Holy Father's visit to our city was his private visit with victims of clergy sexual abuse. He spoke with each person, he listened to them, he prayed with them and he heard how devastating the abuse was to their lives.

Clergy sexual abuse, and in fact all sexual abuse, must be addressed wherever it occurs. No child should ever be harmed. But the wrong actions of some do not justify the vilification of all.

The priests who harmed children violated the heart of their ministry and have harmed not only our young people and our community of faith but also the vast majority of their brother priests who faithfully live out their promises to serve Christ and his people.

It is not easy to be a priest today. In a culture sometimes overly focused on material goods and getting ahead professionally, it may be hard to understand why someone would voluntarily choose a life of service and a job that is 24-7.

Priests are there for others when they are in despair, grieving and destitute. They help people find hope in the darkness, a reason for living and the love of God.

Some of the most significant work of priests is found in what so many take for granted -- directly, quietly, caringly and effectively serving people in parishes.

Priests celebrate Mass, baptize children, witness marriages, bring reconciliation through confession, serve the poor, console the sick and bury our loved ones. Their selfless ministry helps hold together the Catholic faith family and the wider community.

Priests don't expect thanks and often don't receive it. They see the priesthood as an opportunity to bring the love of Christ to others and to help them come closer to God. It is in earthen vessels that we carry a magnificent treasure.

As the Catholic Church continues to face the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse, we must pray for the victims, recommit to doing all that we can to keep children safe, and remember and pray for the priests who every day faithfully live out the deep love that Christ has for all of us.


AMEN!


In Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris gave an interview to the newspaper Le Parisien, and the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, was interviewed on Italian state TV.

I am still looking for the full text of Cardinal Sodano's tribute to the Holy Father before the Easter Mass yesterday. I am shocked that the Vatican site does not carry it at all! (Not so far, anyway.)

Here's the best I have found so far, from

It may not be the full text, but at least it's presented consecutively. Note that Caridial Sodano addressed the Pope in his first line with Catherine of Siena's greeting to the Pope of her time, 'dolce Cristo in terra' (dear Christ on earth). 'Dolce' in Italian has multiple connotations (sweet, gentle, mild, dear) that cannot be rendered by a single English word.



CARDINAL SODANO'S TRIBUTE

---

A happy Easter, Padre Santo. The Church is with you, 'dolce Cristo in terra'...

The liturgy of the Church invites us to a holy joy. Even while rain is coming down on this historic piazza, the sun shines bright in our hearts, as we feel ourselves close to you, the rock of the Holy Church of Christ.

We are profoundly grateful for your strengTH of spirit and apostolic courage.

We admire your great love which, with a father's heart, holds out hope for all mankind today, especially the poor and the suffering...

Today, I speak in behalf of the whole Church who wish to say to you in unison - Happy Easter, Holy Father! The Church is with you.

With you are the cardinals and your co-workers in the Roman Curia.

With you are the bishops who lead the Church's 3,000 ecclesiastical districts and those 400,000 priesys who serve the People of God generously in parishes, schools, hospitals and in the missions.

With you are the people of God who do not allow themselves to be affected by petty gossip.

As you taught us on Maundy Thursday, citing St. Peter, Jesus when insulted does not reply with insults, and helps us in our trials: In the world, Jesus tells us, you will have tribulations, but have courage because I have defeated the world.

---

In Lella's blog, skepticism has been expressed by some of her readers because of Cardinal Sodano's known role, for instance, in 'protecting' the late Fr. Marcial Maciel, directly against Cardinal Ratzinger's efforts at the time.

But I agree with the readers who also said everyone deserves a second chance - just as Jesus gave Peter, after he denied him three times - and that, perhaps it is Sodano's way of saying how much he now realizes all the defensiveness and secrecy in the past about priestly abuses have come to be blamed almost completely on Benedict XVI, and this is his way of apologizing to him personally for that.

In any case, Cardinal Sodano spoke principally as the dean of the College of Cardinals, generally considered the most senior in the Church hierarchy after the Pope - as Cardinal Ratzinger was at the time of John Paul II's death. In that capacity, Cardinal Sodano was the most appropriate person to articulate what is undoubtedly the sentiment of the majority of Catholic bishops, priests and faithful around the world.

Monday, April 5

ST. VICENTE (Vincent) FERRER (b Spain 1350, d France 1419)
Dominican, Prior, Preacher, Miracle Worker
Born in Valencia to an English father and a Spanish mother, Vicente joined the Dominican order at age 18,
and soon distinguished himself for his great scholarship in philosophy and theology, as well as by unusual
gifts of preaching. He was named prior of his friary at Valencia shortly after he was ordained by the
Spanish cardinal De Luna who would become the anti-Pope Benedict XIII. Ferrer lived through the turbulent
second half of the Western Schism, when there were two Popes, one in Avignon and one in Rome. Unlike his
great contemporary Dominican, Catherine of Siena, Ferrer supported the Avignon Popes - first Clement VII,
and then Benedict XIII, who made him Apostolic Penitentiary and Master of the Palace Household. However
in 1399, Benedict allowed him to resume preaching which he would do through most of Western Europe,
Britain and Scotland for the next 21 years. In his own homeland, his preaching led to the conversion of
many Jews (as many as 25,000) and Moors (8,000). He was said to have the gift of tongues, since he only
spoke the dialect of Valencia, and Latin, but inspired extraordinary ardor in his listeners. He became
known as the 'Angel of the Apocalypse' for his fierce sermons on sin, penance and teh Last Judgment. He
also performed numerous miracles, being credited with at least 25 episodes of raising dead people to life
(a record among saints), including a few after his death. Towards the end of Ferrer's life, as the monarchs
of France and Spain withheld their support for Benedict XIII, Ferrer tried in vain to persuade him to resign,
but he would not. In fact, in 1409, when the Council of Pisa decided that the three claimants to the Papacy
should all resign so a new Pope could be elected, Benedict XIII was the only one who refused to resign.
Ferrer died in Vannes, Brittany, during one of his preaching tours.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/040510.shtml


No OR today.
It announced in the Easter Sunday issue that the next OR will be
the edition of April 6-April 7.


THE POPE'S DAY
'Regina caeli' on Angel's Monday - from the summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

'REGINA CAELI' WITH
THE POPE TODAY

The Holy Father is in Castel Gandolfo for his customary rest following his Holy Week schedule. The Vatican said he went to Castel Gandolfo yesterday afternoon after the Easter Sunday events in St. Peter's Square. He will also be preparing for his visit to Malta in two weeks time.

He addressed the faithful at noontime today, leading them in the Regina caeli which takes the place of the Angelus during Eastertide. The occasion today is 'Angel's Monday' which he spoke about in his mini-homily.

This is what he said in English:

---

I am very pleased to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims present here today for the Regina Cæli prayer.

In these first days of Easter, we celebrate intensely the mystery of the Resurrection of the Lord. Like the women in today’s Gospel passage, may all of us, especially those baptized this Easter, keep alive in our hearts our awe and great joy in the presence of the Risen Lord. God bless you all!

---

Here is a translation of the Pope's words today:

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

In the light of Easter - which we celebrate this whole week - I renew my most heartfelt wishes for peace and joy.

As you know, the Monday that follows Easter Sunday is traditionally called Angel's Monday, and it is very interesting to examine this reference to an angel.

Naturally, we think immediately of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus, in which appears the figure of one these messengers of God.

St. Matthew writes: "And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow" (Mt 28,2-3).

All the evangelists specify that when the women went to the sepulcher and found it open and empty, it was an angel who announced to them that Jesus had resurrected.

In Matthew, this messenger of God tells them: "Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said" (Mt 28,5-6). Then he shows them the empty tomb and entrusts the women with carrying the message to the disciples.

In Mark, the angel is described as "a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe" who gives the same message to the women (Mk 16,5-6).

Luke speaks of "two men in dazzling garments" who remind the women that Jesus had pre-announced his death and resurrection (cfr Lc 24,4-7).

Even John describes "two angels in white" who were seen by Mary of Magdala as she was weeping by the empty tomb, and who asked her: "Woman, why are you weeping?" (Jn 20,11-13).

But the angel of the Resurrection also recalls another meaning. It must be remembered that the term 'angel' - besides defining the spiritual creatures endowed with intelligence and will who are servants and messengers of God - is also one of the oldest titles attributed to Jesus himself.

We read, for instance, in Tertullian: "He (Christ) was also called 'angel of counsel', therefore, an annunciator which is a term that defines his function, not his nature. In fact, it was his duty to announce to the world the grand design of the Father to restore man" (De carne Christi, 14). So wrote that Christian writer of antiquity.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, was therefore also called the Angel of God the Father: He is the messenger par excellence of bis love.

Dear friends, let us think now of what the risen Christ told the disciples [on the evening of Easter Monday, in the Gospel of John]: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (Jn 20,21); and he communicated to them his Holy Spirit.

This means that just as Jesus was the annunciator of the love of God the Father, we too should be messengers of the charity of Christ: We are messengers of his resurrection, of his victory over evil and death, bearers of his divine love.

Of course, we remain by nature men and women, but we have received a mission as 'angels', messengers of Christ - a mission given to all of us in Baptism adn in Confirmation. And in a special way, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, it is received by priests, ministers of Christ, as I am happy to underscore in this Year for Priests.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us turn now to the Virgin Mary invoking her as Regina caeli, Queen of Heaven. May she help us to receive fully the grace of the Paschal mystery and to become courageous and joyous messengers of the resurrection of Christ.

He closed his plurilingual greetings after the prayers with a message for the Italian-speaking faithful:

Finally, I greet the Italian-speaking pilgrims, with a special thought for the authorities and the residents of Castel Gandolfo.

I also address an affectionate greeting to the pilgrims in St. Peter's Square who took part in this prayer encounter.

To each and everyone, I wish you all to experience a serene Angel's Monday, which resounds with the power of the joyous announcement of Easter.

---

Dear Papino! Always something new, something substantial, something inspiring to say, after all the great homilies of Holy Week and Easter! Most in the media at their nastiest are not worthy to be in the same space as he is!

I decided to make this a separate post - it's a desecration to place this kind of report next to the Holy Father's homily on the mission of Christians to be 'angels' of Christ, messengers of his love.


Pope visits Malta mid-month,
sex abuse cases await
By GEORGE CINI





VATICAN, April 5 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI visits Malta in two weeks, and some victims of sex abuse by priests on the predominantly Roman Catholic island say they want him to use the trip to apologize for their suffering.

The trip is the first foreign visit that Benedict will make since the clerical abuse scandal tore across Europe. Noting that he has met with victims and denounced clerical abuse on previous foreign trips, the Vatican on Monday didn't rule out that the Pope might break his recent silence on the matter in Malta. [WHAT SILENCE????DIDN'T THE LETTER TO THE IRISH SAY IT ALL - AND MORE???]

Lawrence Grech, a 37-year-old man who says he was abused as a child at a church-run orphanage, has written to the Vatican demanding an apology. He said the pope should use the two-day trip April 17-18 to address himself to victims as he did in his letter to Irish Catholics last month.

"He should recognize that these things happened in Malta, reflect about the victims' suffering and issue a formal apology," Grech said.

Grech is one of 10 people who have testified behind closed doors in a case against three priests facing charges of child abuse. The proceedings have been going on for seven years.

Last week, as the European Church, the Vatican and Pope were under fire for accusations of covering up sex crimes by its priests, a response team in Malta announced that it had received 84 allegations of child abuse allegedly involving 45 Maltese priests since it was established by the Maltese Catholic Church 11 years ago.

Vatican statistics list 855 priests on the island as of 2006. [48 out of 844 - that's a troublesome proportion (5.4%)!]

A spokesman for the Maltese Church, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said the response team's work is carried out in secret.

The spokesman did not say how many of the priests investigated were found guilty. He said disciplinary action was taken by the bishops or superiors of religious orders when allegations were proven true, but did not say whether any priest had been defrocked.

Retired Judge Victor Caruana Colombo said last week that no criminal action could be taken - even when police were informed - against an abusive priest without the victim's consent. He said he did not feel an obligation to refer sexual abuse cases to the civil authorities because in most cases victims prefer not to involve police and make their suffering public. [This is something that the media hardly ever take into account, and yet it comes up consistently in the statements of those who have actually worked on trying to resolve these cases!]

Grech says he was sexually abused in the 1980s and early 1990s as a youngster at St. Joseph Home, an orphanage for boys.

A Vatican spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was premature to know what the Pope would say in Malta. But he noted that Benedict has issued apologies and met with victims while traveling in the U.S. and Australia.

On Monday, Benedict again didn't refer directly to the scandal in his public remarks. Speaking from the papal summer retreat in Italy where he is resting after busy Easter Week services, Benedict urged priests to be messengers of love that conquers evil and said Christ supports the Church at times of difficulty.

All Christians should be like angels, he said, messengers of Christ's "victory over evil and death, the bearers of his divine love." He added that this was especially true for priests.

The Maltese Church is traditionally powerful on the island of 400,000 people, 98 percent of whom are Roman Catholic. Divorce and abortion are banned.

One prominent case in Malta involved a U.S. congressman, Rep. Mark Foley.

The Florida Republican resigned from Congress in 2006 after he was confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he had sent to male teenage congressional pages. His attorneys have said that Foley is gay, suffers from alcohol addiction and was molested by a Catholic priest as a teenage altar boy.

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, who has retired to Malta, has admitted having inappropriate encounters with Foley, including massaging him in the nude and skinny-dipping together. He denies ever having sex with Foley.


The Malta trip was announced last year. Why did it take all these months for AP to come up with a story about sex abuses by priests in Malta, especially since it reports an incidence of 5.4% in a country that's 98% Catholic. One has the impression they did not really look up this very relevant fact until recently, and only because the topic is the media cause-du-jour. An opportunistic exploitation of a sad reality that will however deflect from - if not overshadow - the broader purpose of an apostolic visit by the Holy Father.

Liam is the Irish version of William -> Wilhelm in German.
My uncle Willi was a navy sailor in WW2 and went down with a war ship called Bismarck. Quite a ship, quite a battle.
Wilhelm is actually the Germanic origin of William and it does mean determined defender.

His full name is Liam Gabriel -> no explanation needed, there!

We have an arch angel in determined defensive mode. Not bad, eh?!







WOW! Thanks for sharing, proud Mamma! ... They're GOD'S LITTLE ANGELS - AND ARCHANGEL!

GOD BLESS, LIAM!!


Teresa

I am glad it I did not comment out of turn, nor mistakenly, in my initial reactions to the new Jewish fit of pique against the Church, judging by the reactions of both Vittorio Messori and Luigi Accattoli... It reassures me I'm not just overly paranoid about the MSM and the Jews, who build a whole cause celebre over the wrong premises! Even if, in this particular case, Benedict XVI himself is not the direct target of the contumely!


The Vatican and its media mishaps:
This time, Jews condemn Cantalamessa
remarks on the wrong premises
by VITTORIO MESSORI
Translated from

April 4, 2010


The most diplomatic reaction was from the rabbi in charge of inter-religious relations in the American Jewish Committee: "What the Pontifical Preacher said was probably just an unfortunate use of language".

Very different from the reaction of the Jewish world to the citation from 'a letter from an Jewish friend' in the Good Friday homily delivered by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa.

A Capuchin I have known from the days when he was a young and brilliant professor of the New Testament at the Catholic University of Milan. A religious who not only possesses great culture but also an authentic Franciscan vocation, who resigned his prestigious university chair to dedicate himself completely to apostolate work.

Because of this and his consistent objectivity in his many best-selling books, he was called [by John Paul II] to the sensitive and influential post of Preacher of the Pontifical Household.

How could we expect a 'mishap' such as that of Good Friday from a man who has always coupled his pastoral zeal with his experience and prudence, the first of the Christian virtues?

But first of all, was it a 'mishap'? If we complete the American rabbi's 'innocent' reading, I think the more appropriate word is inopportunity, given the place and the liturgical occasion. Fr. Cantalamessa's words may be arguable but certainly not condemnable.

The usual journalistic simplification has made it appear that he had - scandalously - equiparated the persecution of the Jews in the past to the obligatory harshness against clerical pederasty.

But when you look at the text, the Pontifical Preacher had first made clear in his homily that he did not intend "to speak about the unfortunate stain of pedophilia that has involved some members of the clergy" since, he said, "this has been spoken about, and spoken about a great deal in the outside world".

But what he wished to point out was "the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope, and all the Catholic faithful in many parts of the world" [the words in quotation marks re lifted from the letter of solidarity written to him by a Jewish friend].

His target, in short, was the growing 'anti-Christian complex' (particularly, anti-Catholic) which the historian Ernesto Galli della Loggia wrote about in this newspaper on March 21.

Cantalamessa sees these attacks as signs of persecution of the Church and its members that is under way and which could grow worse. And they are signs that his Jewish friend, he noted, is qualified to identify out of his own long experience, "knowing, as a Jew, what it means to be the victim of collective violence".

And those signs mentioned by the Jewish friend are 'the use of stereotypes' and 'the passage from personal responsibility to that of collective responsibility".

To stick with the pedophile crisis, the stereotype is in those descriptions which have now become commonplace, that equate religious life with pederasty. Or which sees in Catholicism only the hypocritical morality of those who, in secret, are much worse sinners than others since they practice unconfessable vices.

[I previously used stronger terms to describe the dominant media stereotype - that the Catholic Church is nothing but a pedophile brothel run by conniving lying prelates. It is a stereotype I find far more offensive than the pre-Nazi centuries-long European prejudice against Jews as being cunning and corrupt and guilty of financial manipulations simply because they were prosperous.]

And from here, the passage to generalizations, as if every baptized Christian were, being Christian, a potential sex maniac - in the same way that in anti-Semitism, every Jew is tarred as an infidel and a bloodsucker of non-Jews.

What Fr. Cantalamaessa's Jewish friend - and he, as well, having cited it - were denouncing is the gravity of the persecution against the Jews in the past, and the possibility that Christians are being persecuted in the same way.

It is a view that, moreover, has become reality: If in the Western world, there is a secular desire to push back all Catholics into a reservation, cutting them off from society in a sort of religious apartheid, in other parts of the world, it is not publishers ink that flows so copiously - it is Christian blood itself.

Going by the statistics of Amnesty International, Christianity has been for the past two decades, the most persecuted religion in the world. The list of martyrs among Christian believers in the recent past justifies the denunciation of a growing anti-Christian persecution.

The list of victims is not limited only to the missionary orders but even to local Churches who mourn their parishioners who are often massacred in the most cruel ways.

It was this scenario of global anti-Christianity, one that has now gone on for over two decades, that Fr. Cantalamessa was referring to, not to the current sex-centered yellow journalism against the Church.

And so, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi was also right to reassure the Jewish world that Fr. Cantalamessa never intended to compare the anti-Semitic campaigns in the past to the public outcry against pedophilia.

Certainly, there was no intention to equate or place on the same level the persecution of innocent Jews and the demand for justice to be meted to priests and religious who have violated not the commandments of God but also men's laws.

And Fr. Lombardi was right to point to Fr. Cantalamessa's actual text to show that Fr. Cantalamessa's intention, far from making such a cynical comparison, was to show his gratitude to a Jewish friend for showing his solidarity.

Read in this way, the Pontifical Preacher's 'scandalous' comments are shown not to be that at all. Rather, they deserve to be reflected on because even as they deprecate past violence against the Jews, they also denounce a present and a possible future for Catholics that could see the same violence.

[But on this point too, I believe that the moral and psychological violence now being unloosed against Catholics by relentless media stoking is just as harmful and catastrophic as physical violence! Outside of the Nazi press and earlier anti-Zionist elements such as those responsible for the horrid fabrication 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', I don't think anti-Semitism received such worldwide ventilation as anti-Catholicism today, if only because media in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not yet global in reach.]

Once this has been acknowledged, the fairly calm rabbi from teh American Jewish Committee was also right to refer to the 'unfortunate use of language' by Fr. Cantalamessa.

But rather than 'unfortunate', let us say it was inopportune. As the Chief Rabbi of Rome pointed out, the time to bring up such issues which are likely to lead to equivocation was certainly not Good Friday

The misunderstanding [one would qualify it as 'deliberate'] of which Fr. Cantalamessa has been the victim. recalls that which provoked an uprising from the other monotheistic religion, Islam.

It was, of course, Benedict XVI's citation in Regensburg of an anti-Mohammed statement by a 15th-century Byzantine emperor, which was reported by the news agencies as though they were the Pope's own thoughts.

Other - and too many - mediatic misfortunes have involved the Catholic hierarchy in recent years. The causes? Perhaps, first of all, the excess of spoken and written words; then the deficient quality of the Church 'machinery' that is responsible for checking out such texts; and finally, a certain ingenuousness among Church prelates.

Used to complex and detailed discourses, they do not take into account the media's drive to reduce everything to headlines or soundbites, often crude if not outright distorted.

Then, trained as they are in principles of truth and fidelity, they expect the 'world' to have the same standards, when in fact, most of the secular media are just waiting to seize anything they can use to damage the Church that they consider an adversary. [Because the Church is the only significant opposition to most of the social causes that dominate the liberal agenda.]

Hence, my modest proposal to avoid these misfortunes: Those demanding courses to update prelates on their Biblical and theological knowledge should be accompanied by meeting with some veteran hard-boiled journalist who can warn too-trusting pastors of all the possible traps and ambushes in the media system, and the honest but also cunning ways to avoid them.



In his blog yesterday, Luigi Accattoli had a terse but equally powerful comment on statements by both Fr. Cantalamessa as well as Cardinal Sodano.

'Petty gossip'
is just what it is!
Translated from

April 4, 2010


I find that both Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa last Friday and Cardinal Sodano today spoke correctly.

The accusations against the Capuchin preacher are simply used as a pretext - he has always been an ardent speaker about teh significance of the Shoah. The accusations are not only a pretext, they are also full of ignorance.

Ignorance of what words he said, their precise significance, their context and their antecedents.

Cardinal Sodano used the term 'petty gossip'. The correct and appropriate term [for what's happening these days]. Even the denunciations of Fr. Cantalamessa is mere petty chattering.


And a 'surprise' item from the USA:

Rabbi urges charity in
Current Catholic-Jewish flap
By Martin Barillas

April 4, 2010


In contrast to other American Jewish leaders, Rabbi Jack Bemporad – director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding – was balanced in his reaction to a sermon pronounced by Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa on Good Friday, April 2.

In the homily, the Franciscan priest quoted a letter from an unnamed “Jewish friend” who wrote that recent accusations against Pope Benedict XVI reminded him of the “more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

According to AP reports, Rabbi Bemporad said the Pontiff and the Catholic Church are doubtlessly now under attack by sectors of the media and legal community.

Bemporad said that he understood Rev. Cantalamessa and what he was saying in that the Jewish community has often been persecuted for things for which they bear no collective responsibility.

While comparing anti-Semitism to anti-Catholicism is an exaggeration, the rabbi said “It would be nice if there was a little more charity and understanding” on the part of the Church’s critics.

[The article wastes two paragraphs on the Pavlov-dog reactions from people like Abraham Foxman, so I am omitting those].

Rabbi Bemporad will join with Catholic and Jewish leaders in Washington, D.C. on May 7 at the Catholic University of America to discuss "The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the New Testament," a statement from the Catholic Church that outlines a new approach to how Catholics understand the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian scriptures. [Let me check - it seems to be the same paper Cardinal Ratzinger issued on behalf of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the early 2000s.]

Co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Center for Law and Religion, the Catholic University of America, the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and the Rabbinical Committee for Interreligious Dialogue, the goal of the conference is for Catholics and Jews to explore how they can be true to their own faiths without being false to the beliefs of others.

"At a time when violence between races and religions is defining our lives, the new statement from the Vatican on relations with the Jews is a powerful sign of hope," said Rabbi Bemporad. "The Vatican's statement changes many of the stereotypical attitudes towards the Jewish people and their scriptures that in the past have been destructive to creating mutual respect and reconciliation."

"We are in an era of remarkable progress in the relationship between Catholics and Jews," said William Cardinal Keeler. "The Holy See's new statement on the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament is a important next step in our efforts to build bridges of understanding between our two faiths."

Attending the conference will be Cardinal William Keeler, Prof. Joseph Jensen O.S.B., Catholic University of America, Rabbi Bemporad, as well as Father Elias Mallon, Acting Dean of the Auburn Theological Seminary, and Rabbi Martin Cohen, Professor of History at Hebrew Union College.

Rabbi Bemporad had numerous audiences with Pope John Paul II, including a 1990 celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Vatican II in which he gave an address on Christian-Jewish relations on behalf of the world Jewish community. In 2000, he presented the Holy See with a menorah in remembrance of the Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Affection and solidarity for
the Pope from all the world
Translated from
the Italian service of

April 5, 2010

From all over the world testimonials of affection and solidarity continue to come to the Holy Father for the attacks that he has been undergoing these days over the abuses on minors perpetrated by some members of the Catholic clergy. Sergio Centofanti reports:

Simple folk and men of culture, believers and non-believers. So much affection is coming these days to the Pope, the kind that the media does not report on, in contrast to their runaway defamatory campaign which, according to some commentators, is not aimed at the pedophile priests as much as it is against Benedict XVI himself - despite his decisive actions against the 'filth' within the Church.

A campaign that is even more strange and paradoxical when one reads a United States government report from 2008 on sexual abuses against minors: more than 64% are committed by parents, relatives or housemates of the victims, therefore within the family, and that in US schools, 10% of children experience sexual abuse. In this overall report on seal abuses against minors, less than 0.03% are attributed to Catholic priests.

[It is not 'strange and paradoxical' at all - it is deliberate on the part of the media, especially in the United States, almost never to provide a quantitative context for sexual abuses committed by priests, in order to leave the powerful but false impression that 1) such abuses are committed exclusively by priests; 2) that the number of abuses committed by priests is significantly elevated; and 3) that the scandal is an ongoing one - when most of the cases reported in this recent wave of the 'scandal' date back decades and hardly a single one is current!

In a very specific case, we have their constant and almost uniform reference to "cases of cover-up by Benedict XVI when he was Archbishop of Munich and as Prefect of the Vatican office in charge of investigating sex abuses", although there has been exactly one case of each that they have been able so far to point to and 'stretch' into an appearance of 'culpability'.

The objective is very clear: to portray the Catholic church as evil inthe worst way possible, by making it appear that the entire Catholic church is ridden with predatory priests tolerated by their superiors up to and including the person who is now the Pope - without ever acknowledging what the Church in general, and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, in particular, have done since 2001 to remedy the problem of the relatively few rotten apples in the clergy.]

And so, they ignore the annual reports in the USA that show a greatly reduced and steadily declining number of new complaints against priests today compared to when the problem peaked in the 1960s-1980s.]

For the American intellectual George Weigel, interviewed by the newspaper La Stampa, the Pope is under attack because he affirms the existence of truth which 'powerful forces in the West' deny. For instance, the Church defends justice, and the first justice is the right to life, and a defense of the family founded on the matrimony between a man and a woman.

Thus, he says, there are those who see "in the failings of some Church members, an opportunity to destroy the teachings of the Church", thus excluding the Church from the public debate on crucial social issues. Not to mention the "unscrupulous lawyers who are now attempting to place the assets of the Vatican itself within reach of the courts".

In this attack, Weigel sees the involvement of Catholic sectors who are "pursing a revolution they have not been able to realize: the end of priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, and diminishing the authority of bishops".

"Christianophobia is growing", says the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto (Italy), Mons. Bruno Forte. It is a fact, but one that is not publicized in the media, that Christians are the most persecuted religious group today - 200 million Christians in various countries of the world are victims of attack and discrimination.

In the West, the vociferous elements are indignant over so many things, big and small, often things made to appear as cause for indignation, but there has been little indignation for the Christian who was burned alive in akistan or the seven Christians crucified in theSudan, and the dozens of Christians killed through targeted assassination in Iraq and India.

The Archbishop of Trieste, Mons. Giampaolo Crepaldi, underscored that it would have been good if the media gave a fraction of their attention to this as they have given to pedophile priests.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, says that "there has never been in the past a sequence of attacks so violent and with such proportions" against the Church, because of its opposition to "dominant ideologies which are intent on imposing a culture of death" and speaks of "very powerful lobbies such as multinational drug companies promoting abortion" and "scientific research that are against the dignity of the human being".

For Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, "to be attacked is in the nature of the Church herself" which "can and should emerge from this buffetting purified and even reinforced in the truth".

Likewise, the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, who said that "For the Pope to undergo iniquitous and false accusations is part of his being a disciple of Christ". he cites the ast Beatitude which says "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil falsely against you because of me.".

And from a letter sent by a group of detainees in the jail of Augusta-Brucoli to Benedict XVI: "Holiness", they write, "Jesus was crucified to execute an unjust condemnation, result of an iniquitous sentence. Jesus crucified is the silent truth of Love. On the other side is violence and falsehood. Holiness, you are in teh hearts and prayers of your children in this jail".



Damian Thompson has publicized an Easter Monday editorial by his newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, that starts out with surprising words of support for Benedict XVI but leads in to criticism of Fr. Cantalamessa and Cardinal Sodano for their respective statements recently.

Cantalamessa is by now forever endowed with a millstone round his neck - the media distortion of truth-speaking citation from a Jewish friend, much as they distorted Benedict XVI's Manuel II citation in Regensburg by attributing it to him personally. Subsequently, Thompson makes like John Allen at his most annoying:


Benedict XVI and the child abuse crisis:
the Telegraph's view

April 5, 2010


The Daily Telegraph’s editorial verdict today on the Pope and the child abuse scandals haunting the Church makes uncomfortable reading for Catholics – and for those in the media who have lazily or maliciously attempted to place the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the centre of the cover-ups:

---

In his Easter address yesterday Pope Benedict XVI made no direct mention of the row that has engulfed the Catholic church over child abuse. In truth, we know what he thinks of the scandal from his pastoral letter to Irish Catholics a fortnight ago. [The first acknowledgment of obvious fact that I have seen in the MSM, who have uniformly harped in their headlines that "the Pope continues to remain silent" about the scandals!]

In a heartfelt statement of contrition, Pope Benedict spoke of “the shame and remorse that we all feel” towards the victims of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests dating back decades: “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry…your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated”.

The apology was sincere and absolutely merited by the monstrous nature of the betrayal. The Pope spoke from the heart because he has been prominent in the battle to expose abusers and those who have protected them.

It is unfortunate that the Vatican has not been able to maintain that tone. On Good Friday the Pope’s personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, likened the criticism being levelled at the Catholic Church over child abuse to the “collective violence suffered by the Jews”. He later apologised.

Meanwhile, the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, said during Easter Mass that the controversy amounted to “petty gossip”. [That is extrapolating his remarks tendentiously. He never claims anywhere that the issue of sex abuse by some priests is 'controversial' because he never speaks about child abuse in the remarks. What he called petty gossip refers to the persistent and tenuous fact-stretching by the media as a basis for relentless personal attacks on the Holy Father. The whole of his remarks was not about child abuse but about support for the Holy Father in the face of the unjust personal attacks against him. Surely anyone who can read can see that - unless they have not bothered to look at a translation of Sodano's text.]

In is perhaps understandable for the Vatican to react so defensively but it is hardly productive. [Why is it obbjectionable for the Vatican to defend itself? And who is it counterproductive for to point out the truth? Not for the Vatican!]

Closer to home, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, yesterday showed far greater sensitivity, talking of the church’s shame while “acknowledging our guilt and our need for forgiveness”.

Repairing the damage caused by the child abuse scandal will be a long process but cannot even start until the Vatican demonstrates the same determination to root out abuse – and the same penitence – as Pope Benedict himself has shown. [Obviously, Cardinal Sodano and Fr. Cantalamessa by themselves do not represent the Vatican, and in these cases, what they said was true and right even if very decidedly 'politically incorrect".]

---

I don’t think you can say fairer than that. My own thoughts:

1. The betrayal of the innocent by a small minority of Catholic priests and a much larger proportion of Catholic bishops and bureaucrats was truly monstrous. Pope Benedict XVI was right to acknowledge the Church’s deep shame. His predecessor should have done so.

2. Although the Pope may not have been vigilant enough when he was Archbishop of Munich [Mr. Thompson, you really believe that????], once he was in the Vatican he was disgusted to discover the scale of the crimes of predator priests – and fought a sometime lonely battle against complacent colleagues, from whom he eventually had to wrest authority to deal with canonical aspects of these cases in 2001. After that, their prosecution was speeded up. No wonder, since the Italian monsignori who previously dealt with them had spent most of the day plotting and stuffing their faces in their favourite trattorie.

3. Benedict XVI is still not well served by the people around him. Did no one bother to check what the papal preacher was going to say on the supremely sensitive subject of child abuse in his sermon to the Holy Father? Did no one think to suggest that, maybe, this might not be the moment to make misleading analogies with the persecution of Jews? [First, I don't think the Pontifical Preacher needs to submit his homilies to vetting by anyone. He gets to his position not as an inexperienced prelate fresh out of the seminary but by virtue of an established record of theological orthodoxy and prudence. Two, and most importantly, Thompson, like most of those who have denounced Fr. Cantalamessa, also evidently did not bother to read what Fr. Cantalamessa actually said, because anyone who does so will see immediately that there was no analogy made at all, either by Cantalamessa or by the Jewish friend he cited - between denunciations of child abuse and persecution of the Jews. The analogy to anti-Semitism was clearly with respect to the pattern of attack against the Church and the Pope. And it saddens me when someone like Damian Thompson can so easily fall into such a trap.]

And what more evidence do we need that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, one of the useless old guard, should be put out to pasture in a very obscure country diocese? [While I myself have always had many misgivings about Cardinal Sodano - princiapally his widely accepted championing of Fr. Maciel (it differs from John Paul II having done the same thing only because he is not John Paul II, but being John Paul II did not make his apparent protection of Fr. Maciel correct, either) - what he said before Easter Sunday Mass was not just admirable and unexceptionable, but necessary. Besides, he is clearly retired but he can't be 'put out to pasture' entirely because he is rightfully dean of the College of Cardinals.]

4. As the Telegraph says, it’s time for the Vatican to show the same “determination to root out abuse” that Benedict has manifested. For that to happen, the Pope must act ruthlessly, not least against Vatican officials.

In the matter of coddling pedophile priests and their bishop protectors, I do not think Point #4 applies to 'the Vatican' any more:
- The competence for canonical handling of sex abuses by priests has been in the hands of the CDF since 2001. Does anyone think that Benedict XVI has any less influence on the CDF now because he is no longer its Prefect?
- In the matter of bishops named since he became Pope, by all accounts, he has been much more proactive and personally involved in choosing them than his predecessor, although the burden for preliminary screening of candidates for bishop still lies with the Apostoic Nuncios (read Secretariat of State) and the Congregation for Bishops.
- And general overview of the world's 400,000 priests has been the responsibility of Cardinal Claudio Hummes, one of the darlings of the liberal media before Benedict XVI called him to the Vatican. Surely, no one has accused him of covering up for pedophile priests - if only because the great majority of pedophile cases date back to the second half of the 20th century. Besides, the administrative responsibility for priests rests with and has always been with the diocesan bishop, not the Vatican.

So exactly which Vatican officials should the Pope move against now on the matter of pedophile priests? In this case, Thompson is shooting from the hip, with no specific targets. In this, he shares an all-too-common tendency with the garden-variety MSM.]



I fell very much behind posting the statements of bishops who came out in support of Pope Benedict XVI in the past week, but at least let me post two which were in English.


'The strongest ally we had
was Cardinal Ratzinger...'
by Cardinal Sean O'Malley
Archbishop of Boston

April 2, 2010


the media reports on the situation of the Church in Europe and on the Holy Father have been very disturbing to all faithful Catholics. We are saddened by much of the news and also saddened knowing that victims of sexual abuse in our own community are, in a sense, re-victimized every time this issue comes to the fore.

Since being named Bishop of Fall River in 1992 and subsequently as Bishop of Palm Beach and Archbishop of Boston, I have had the painful but privileged opportunity to meet with hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their loved ones.

During the course of Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States in 2008, at a meeting with survivors from the Archdiocese of Boston, I presented the Holy Father a book inscribed with the first names of 1500 children who had been sexually abused by clergy and shared that the names marked with a gold cross were children who had died under tragic circumstances. The Holy Father was visibly moved as he read the names.

There is much confusion and misinformation about the Holy Father’s historic role in dealing with the problem of sexual abuse of children by clergy.

What is very clear to me — and I think to all who are fair-minded — is that Cardinal Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict has been dedicated to eradicating sexual abuse in the Church and trying to rectify the mistakes of the past.

Until the sexual abuse crisis really became part of the consciousness of the Church in Europe, there were many who were unsympathetic to our efforts in the U.S. to deal with the problem in a transparent way and assure that our Catholic schools, parishes and agencies would be safe for children.

During this period of at least a decade, the strongest ally we had in this effort was Cardinal Ratzinger. As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he allowed us to move forward with the Essential Norms which became local Church law in the U.S. and facilitated the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The Norms allowed for mandated reporting to civil authorities and embraced a zero-tolerance policy for abusers. In addition, the Charter called for abuse prevention training that has been attended by literally millions of Catholics. It also requires yearly public audits to ensure that dioceses are in compliance with these requirements.

During this Holy Season I urge all of our Catholics to pray for the survivors and all who have been impacted by the tragedy of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy. I also hold in my prayers and ask us all to pray for those persons for whom this crisis has been an obstacle to the continued practice of their faith.

Let us pray, too, for our Holy Father, that God will grant him the light and wisdom he needs to guide the Church. And during this Year for Priests, let us pray for our priests, who labor quietly everyday doing the good works of the Lord.

Tuesday, April 6

ST. CRESCENZIA HOESS (Germany, 1662-1744), Franciscan Nun
She was a weaver's daughter in Augsburg who showed remarkable piety that even as a child she
was called 'little angel'. She was refused admission to the novitiate by the Franciscans because
she had no dowry, but four years later, she was admitted with help from a philanthropist. However,
she was discriminated against and given menial jobs. Later, under a new supervisor, she became
mistress of novices and financial manager. She not only improved the convent's finances and its
spiritual level. but she soon started attracting people, including cardinals and princes, who came
to her for spiritual advice. Always afflicted with one illness or another, she was crippled towards
the end of her life, with a condition that led her to be curved permanently in a fetal position. She
was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2001.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/040610.shtml


No OR today.


No events scheduled for the Holy Father today.


The Vatican announced that the Holy Father has named an Archbishop Coadjutor
for the Diocese of Los Angeles, in Mons. Jose Horacio Gomez, who was up till now
Archbishop of San Antonio. (The appointment is of interest because Cardinal
Roger Mahony is set to retire in a year when he turns 75).



Here is how the LA Times reported the appointment, jumping forward to a probable, perhaps even obvious, conclusion:


Pope selects Latino bishop
from Texas to succeed Mahony
By Henry Chu and Maria de Cristofaro

April 6, 2010 | 6:20 a.m.


Reporting from Rome and London - Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday named a Texas bishop to take over the archdiocese of Los Angeles after Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's expected retirement next year.

The Pontiff appointed Jose Gomez as co-adjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, an assisting position that essentially puts him first in line to succeed Mahony, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops in February.

Gomez is archbishop of San Antonio, a post he took up five years ago, during the last few months of John Paul II's papacy. Gomez, 58, is also a member of Opus Dei, the controversial order favored by John Paul II for its conservative teachings.

The selection of Gomez was apparently a nod to the demographics of Los Angeles, where Latinos form a large part of the overall population and especially of the region's Roman Catholics. Gomez was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and speaks fluent Spanish.

His appointment comes as the Vatican struggles to contain the biggest crisis so far of Benedict's papacy, an upwelling of complaints of physical and sexual abuse by priests across Europe.

The scandal mirrors an earlier one in the U.S., which has roiled the L.A. archdiocese and Mahony's tenure as archbishop. Three years ago, Mahony agreed to a record $660-million legal settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of clerical abuse.

The archdiocese's handling of abuse cases is also the subject of an ongoing investigation by a federal grand jury.

Mahony has served as head of the archdiocese for 25 years. In 1991, he was elevated to cardinal, a promotion that probably also awaits Gomez after, as expected, he takes over from Mahony at the top of the biggest Catholic archdiocese in the U.S.

"I welcome Archbishop Gomez to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with enthusiasm and personal excitement," Mahony said in a statement posted on the archdiocese's website.

The cardinal is expected to introduce Gomez at a news conference at the L.A. cathedral Tuesday morning, and a welcoming Mass for the new co-adjutor bishop is scheduled for May 26.

Gomez became a priest at 26, and was appointed as an auxiliary bishop in Denver in 2001. He moved four years later to the archdiocese of San Antonio, which covers a population of 2 million, about one-third of whom are Catholics.

The Los Angeles archdiocese is home to more than five times as many people, of whom Catholics make up about 39%.


I wasn't sure, but I thought I had read when Mons. 'Mietek' Mokrzycski was appoined Coadjutor Archbishop of Lviv of the Latins, it meant he would take over as Archbishop when the latter retired - as indeed he did, when Cardinal Jaworski reitred in October 2008. And that seems to be a canonical rule, confirmed by part of the anouncement from LA diocese today:

---

As Coadjutor, Archbishop Gomez, 58, will automatically become head of the three-county Archdiocese of Los Angeles upon Cardinal Roger Mahony’s retirement at age 75 on February, 27, 2011.

---

Two contrasting articles from the conservative Wall Street Journal, now the largest-selling daily newspaper in the United Sattes. (Very surprising since it is owned by the same News Corporation that also owns the venomously anti-Catholic and proudly ultra-liberal Times of London.)


The Pope and the New York Times
Cardinal Ratzinger did more than anyone to hold abusers accountable.
By WILLIAM MCGURN

April 6, 2010



Unlike the Roman papacy, in certain circles the New York Times still enjoys the presumption of authority. So when the front page carries a story headlined "Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Deaf Boys," people notice.

Written by Laurie Goodstein and published March 25, the thrust is twofold. First, that the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest who abused children at St. John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee from the 1950s to the 1970s, went unpunished. Father Murphy, she wrote categorically, "was never tried or disciplined by the church's own justice system."

This all feeds the kicker: "the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency." In other words, Murphy got off scot-free, and the cardinal looked the other way.

Ms. Goodstein cites internal Church documents, which the Times posted online. The documents were provided by Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan. They are described as "lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee."

What she did not tell readers is that Mr. Anderson isn't just any old lawyer. When it comes to suing the church, he is America's leading plaintiffs attorney.

Back in 2002, he told the Associated Press that he'd won more than $60 million in settlements from the church, and he once boasted to a Twin Cities weekly that he's "suing the s--t out of them everywhere." Nor did the Times report another salient fact about Mr. Anderson: He's now trying to sue the Vatican in U.S. federal court.

None of this makes Mr. Anderson wrong or unworthy of quoting. It does make him a much bigger player than the story disclosed. In fact, it's hard to think of anyone with a greater financial interest in promoting the public narrative of a church that takes zero action against abuser priests, with Pope Benedict XVI personally culpable.

Asked about the omissions in an email, Ms. Goodstein replied as follows: "Given the complexity of the Murphy case, and the relative brevity of my story, I don't think it is realistic for you to expect this story to get into treating other cases that these attorneys have handled."

[What McGurn omits to say is that the documents posted by the Times itself do not prove any of the outright accusations and insinuations liberally strewn throughout Goodstein's article.]

Martin Nussbaum, a lawyer who is not involved in the Murphy case but who has defended other dioceses and churches in sexual abuse suits, emailed me four interesting letters sent to Murphy from three Wisconsin bishops. These documents are not among those posted online by the Times. They are relevant, however, because they refute the idea that Murphy went unpunished.

In fact, the letters from these bishops — three in 1993 and one in 1995, after fresh allegations of Murphy's misconduct — variously informed the priest that he was not to celebrate the sacraments in public, not to have any unsupervised contact with minors, and not to work in any parish religious education program.

It's accurate to say Murphy was never convicted by a Church tribunal. [Because he died before the canonical trial could be concluded.]

It's also reasonable to argue (as I would) that Murphy should have been disciplined more. It is untrue, however, to suggest he was "never" disciplined. When asked if she knew of these letters, Ms. Goodstein did not directly answer, saying her focus was on what was "new," i.e., "the attempts by those same bishops to have Father Murphy laicized."

As for Rome, it did not get the case until 1996, when the archdiocese of Milwaukee informed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Back then, the CDF handled abuse cases when they involved a breach of the Sacrament of confession (Murphy was accused of using the confessional to solicit boys). At that time, too, the only real option for reducing Murphy to the lay state was a Church trial. And the bishops in Wisconsin did begin a trial.

Ms. Goodstein's original article said simply that Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy halted Murphy's trial after the priest sent the cardinal a letter saying he was dying and asking for clemency.

A follow-up Times article last Thursday clarified that Rome came down the way it did because Murphy had shown "apparent good conduct" for the last 24 years, and "it would be difficult to try him" because "so much time [had] passed between the crimes and the trial." [Didn't realize there was a follow-up - must look it up. But the fact alluded to here was already clear in Cardinal Bertone's reply posted online with the original article!]

Plus, his bishops had already stripped Murphy of his priestly faculties, the equivalent of taking a doctor's medical license. Does all this really suggest people callously looking the other way?

A few years later, when the CDF assumed authority over all abuse cases, Cardinal Ratzinger implemented changes that allowed for direct administrative action instead of trials that often took years. Roughly 60% of priests accused of sexual abuse were handled this way.

The man who is now Pope reopened cases that had been closed; did more than anyone to process cases and hold abusers accountable; and became the first Pope to meet with victims.

Isn't the more reasonable interpretation of all these events that Cardinal Ratzinger's experience with cases like Murphy's helped lead him to promote reforms that gave the church more effective tools for handling priestly abuse?

That's not to say that the press should be shy, even about Pope Benedict XVI's decisions as archbishop and cardinal. [They have not been shy at all! Quite the contrary, they have been reckless - stretching already tenuous facts to the breaking point in their effort to pin some culpability on Benedict XVI.]

The Murphy case raises hard questions:
- why it took the archbishops of Milwaukee nearly two decades to suspend Murphy from his ministry [No, they suspended him immediately in 1974 or thereabouts, and then dismissed him from duties a few months later, so that he spent the last 26 years of his life as a retired priest]
- why innocent people whose lives had been shattered by men they are supposed to view as icons of Christ found so little justice;
- how bishops should deal with an accused clergyman when criminal investigations are inconclusive;
- how to balance the demands of justice with the Catholic imperative that sins can be forgiven.

Oh, yes, maybe some context, and a bit of journalistic skepticism about the narrative of a plaintiffs attorney making millions off these cases.

That's still a story worth pursuing.


McGurn's article came as a surprise to me since this weekend, the WSJ's resident Catholic editorialist, Peggy Noonan, had written a column I found outrageous because she portrays the media as 'kinghts in shining armor' who rescued the Church from its own perversion and blindness - she glorifies the media to the point of ignoring the usncrupulous war of innuendo they are now doing!

Of course, the Boston Globe was right to break the story out into the open - like necessary surgery to lance a putrid boil. But the actual facts became the pretext for a no-holds-barred media witch hunt against the Catholic Church as sort of payback for her firm opposition to the liberal causes that media advocates - and most probably, an expression of latent anti-Catholicism that was only waiting for an excuse to erupt full-blown.

It continues to this day, and gained almost exponentially in virulance with the new disclosures in Europe. Yet Ms. Noonan mentions none of this, even though she clearly does not agree with their guiding narrative about Pope Benedict, thank God for that!]



The Catholic Church's catastrophe
The press and the Pope deserve credit for confronting scandal.
By PEGGY NOONAN

April 4, 2010


There is an interesting and very modern thing that often happens when individuals join and rise within mighty and venerable institutions. They come to think of the institution as invulnerable — to think that there is nothing they can do to really damage it, that the big, strong, proud establishment they're part of can take any amount of abuse, that it doesn't require from its members an attitude of protectiveness because it's so strong, and has lasted so long.

And so people become blithely damaging. It happened the past decade on Wall Street, where those who said they loved what the street stood for, what it symbolized in American life, took actions that in the end tore it down, tore it to pieces. They loved Wall Street and killed it.

It happens with legislators in Washington who've grown to old and middle age in the most powerful country in the world, and who can't get it through their heads that the actions they've taken, most obviously in the area of spending, not only might deeply damage America but actually do it in.

And it happened in the Catholic Church, where hundreds of priests and bishops thought they could do anything, any amount of damage to the Church, and it would be fine. [If they were true Christians, I don't think their consciences would have told them 'that would be fine'! No, they committed the offenses even knowing they were committing sin.]

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." That is Mathew 16:18, of course, Christ's great promise to his Church.

Catholics in the pews have been repeating it a lot lately as they — we — absorb the latest round of scandal stories. "The old Church will survive."

But we see more clearly than Church leaders the damage the scandals have done. It is damage that will last at least a generation. It is an actual catastrophe, a rolling catastrophe that became public first in the United States, now in Europe. It has lowered the standing, reputation and authority of the church. This will have implications down the road.

[Ms. Noonan is speaking from her position within the US media system - and though that is the reading given by the Western media, I do not think it represents the thinking of the Catholic faithful, the greater majority of whom live outside the West. But even in the West, if that were really so, we would not have seen the crowds at the Vatican and the Colosseum for the Holy Week liturgies - and their obvious affection and enthusiasm for their media-beleaguered Pope.]

In both the U.S. and Europe, the scandal was dug up and made famous by the press. This has aroused resentment among church leaders, who this week accused journalists of spreading "gossip," of going into "attack mode" and showing "bias."

But this is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant.

All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press — the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe —has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue.

Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it.

The press forced the Church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the Church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The Church shouldn't be saying j'accuse but thank you.

Without this pressure — without the famous 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight series with its monumental detailing of the sex abuse scandals in just one state, Massachusetts — the Church would most likely have continued to do what it has done for half a century, which is look away, hush up, pay off and transfer.

In fact, the press came late to the story. The mainstream media almost had to be dragged to it. It was there waiting to be told at least by the 1990s, but broadcast news shows and big newspapers weren't keen to go after it.

It would take months or years to report and consume huge amounts of labor, time and money — endless digging through court records, locating victims and victimizers, getting people who don't want to talk to talk.

And after all that, the payoff could be predicted: You'd get slammed by the Church as biased, criticized by sincerely disbelieving churchgoers, and maybe get a boycott from a few million Catholics. No one wanted that.

An irony: Non-Catholic members of the media were, in my observation, the least likely to want to go after the story, because they didn't want to look like they were Catholic-bashing.

An irony within the irony: Some journalists didn't think to go after the story because they really didn't much like the Catholic Church. Because of this bias, they didn't see the story as a story. They thought this was how the Church always operated. It didn't register with them that it was a scandal. They didn't know it was news.

[All of the above is pure bias in favor of the media - in which Noonan portrays the press to be as lily-white and pure as the Church is iniquitous in this matter!]

It was the Boston Globe that broke the dam, winning a justly deserved Pulitzer Prize for public service.

Some blame the scandals on Pope Benedict XVI. But Joseph Ratzinger is the man who, weeks before his accession to the papacy five years ago, spoke blisteringly on Good Friday of the "filth" in the church.

Days later on the streets of Rome, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported, Cardinal Ratzinger bumped into a curial monsignor who chided him for his sharp words. The cardinal replied, "You weren't born yesterday, you understand what I'm talking about, you know what it means. We priests. We priests!"

The most reliable commentary on Pope Benedict's role in the scandals came from John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, who argues that once Benedict came to fully understand the scope of the crisis, in 2003, he made the Church's first real progress toward coming to grips with it.

As for his predecessor, John Paul the Great, about whom I wrote an admiring book which recounts some of the scandals — I spent a grim 2003 going through the depositions of Massachusetts clergy — one fact seems to me pre-eminent.

For Pope John Paul II, the scandals would have been unimaginable —literally not imaginable. He had come of age in an era and place (Poland in the 1930s, '40s and '50s) of heroic priests. They were great men; they suffered.

He had seen how the Nazis and later the communists had attempted to undermine the church and tear people away from it, sometimes through slander. They did this because the great force arrayed against them was the Catholic Church.

John Paul, his mind, psyche and soul having been forged in that world, might well have seen the Church's recent accusers as spreaders of slander. Because priests don't act like that, it's not imaginable. And he'd seen it before, only now it wasn't Nazism or communism attempting to kill the church with lies, but modernity and its soulless media.

[My comment to the above apologia for JPII is this: I love John Paul II and pray to him every day, but fair is fair. If Karol Wojtyla chose not to accept the bitter truth that some priests are sexual perverts preying on children, nor that some bishops chose to cover up for them, then he is just as responsible for the failure to address the problem much earlier. And why is it acceptable to Noonan for JPII to blame the 'soulless media' but wrong of Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sodano to call the media games 'petty gossip'????

If John Paul II had been confronted about it after the US scandals broke, he would probably have been forced to 'face the music'. But no one confronted him about it. Perhaps because he was also 'protecting' his friend Fr. Maciel, and no one in the media was prepared to point an accusing finger at an undoubtedly saintly Pope. But saintliness does not mean perfection, and very likely, this was John Paul II's one obvious failing.]

Only they weren't lies.

There are three great groups of victims in this story.

The first and most obvious, the children who were abused, who trusted, were preyed upon and bear the burden through life.

The second group is the good priests and good nuns, the great leaders of the Church in the day to day, who save the poor, teach the immigrant, and, literally, save lives. They have been stigmatized when they deserve to be lionized.

And the third group is the Catholics in the pews — the heroic Catholics of America and now Europe, the hardy souls who in spite of what has been done to their church are still there, still making parish life possible, who hold high the flag, their faith unshaken.

No one thanks those Catholics, sees their heroism, respects their patience and fidelity. The world thinks they're stupid. They are not stupid, and with their prayers they keep the world going, and the old Church too.


Thank God Noonan ends on the right note. But what she says about the 'Catholics in the pews' - and she is speaking here of Catholics in the USA, where she lives - puts the lie to her earlier statements about the 'catastrophe' that this media-generated firestorm is causing to the Church!

That 'catastrophe' is all in the collective imagination of the media which thinks that by saying something often enough, it will prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, just as by repeating the same lies often enough, they will get to be accepted as fact.



Here's a new entry in the culture war now being fought ostensibly over the future of Catholicism in a secular world. Pat Buchanan is an intellectual and a Catholic but he does not normally write about his faith because he is best known now for being a political ultra-conservative who once sought the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. Before that, his primary career was journalism. You can tell - because in this article, he gives as good as the MSM can hit out with - and better, because he does not traffic in innuendo but in provable fact. Human Events is a conservative newspaper whose writers are among the most prominent names in American political conservatism.
www.humanevents.com/about-he.php



Anti-Catholicism and the Times
by Patrick J. Buchanan

04/06/2010


"Anti-Catholicism," said writer Peter Viereck, "is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual."

It is "the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people," said Arthur Schlesinger Sr.

If there was any doubt that hatred of and hostility toward the Catholic Church persists, it was removed by the mob that has arisen howling "Resign!" at Pope Benedict XVI.

To American Catholics, the story of pedophile priests engaged in criminal abuse of children, of pervert priests seducing boys, is unfortunately all too familiar. That some bishops covered up for pedophiles and seducers and enabled corrupt clergy to continue to prey on boys was equally disgraceful.

But to American Catholics, this is an old story. The priests have been defrocked, some sent to prison, like John Geoghan, who was strangled in his cell. Bishops have been removed. "Zero tolerance" has been policy for a decade.

Pope Benedict came to America to apologize for what these men did. And no one has been more aggressive in rooting out what he calls the "filth" in the church. And as the recent scandals have hit Ireland and Germany, why the attack on the Pope here in America?

Answer: The New York Times is conducting a vendetta against this traditionalist Pope in news stories, editorials and columns.

"Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys," blared the headline over a Laurie Goodstein story that began thus:

"Top Vatican officials -- including the future Pope Benedict XVI -- did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys ...

"In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee's archbishop at that time."

The facts:

That diabolical priest, Lawrence C. Murphy, was assigned to St. John's School for the Deaf in 1950, before Joseph Ratzinger was even ordained.

Reports of his abuse of the deaf children surfaced in the 1950s. But, under three archbishops, nothing was done. Police and prosecutors were alerted by parents of the boys. Nothing was done.

Weakland, who became archbishop in 1977, did not write to Rome until 1996.

And as John Allen of National Catholic Reporter noted last week, Cardinal Ratzinger "did not have any direct responsibility for managing the overall Vatican response to the crisis until 2001. ... Prior to 2001, Ratzinger had nothing personally to do with the vast majority of sex abuse cases, even the small percentage which wound up in Rome."

By the time Cardinal Ratzinger was commissioned by John Paul II to clean out the stable, Murphy had been dead for three years.

Yet here is Times columnist Maureen Dowd's summation of the case:

"Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed 'God's Rotweiler,' when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys."

In Goodstein's piece, Weakland is a prelate who acted too slowly. The controversy over his clouded departure from the Milwaukee archdiocese is mentioned and passed over at the bottom of the story. It belonged higher.

For Weakland was a homosexual who confessed in a 1980 letter he was in "deep love" with a male paramour who shook down the archbishop for $450,000 in church funds as hush money to keep his lover's mouth shut about their squalid affair.

According to Rod Dreher, Weakland moved Father William Effinger, who would die in prison, from parish to parish, knowing Effinger was a serial pederast.

When one of Effinger's victims sued the archdiocese but lost because of a statute of limitations, Weakland counter-sued and extracted $4,000 from the victim of his predator priest.

Dreher describes Weakland's tenure thus:

"He directed Catholic schools ... to teach kids how to use condoms as part of AIDS education and approved a graphic sex-education program for parochial-school kids that taught 'there is no right and wrong' on the issues of abortion, contraception and premarital sex. He has advocated for gay rights and women's ordination, bitterly attacked Pope John Paul II, denounced pro-lifers as 'fundamentalist' and declared that one could be both pro-choice and a Catholic in good standing."

Speaking of sex-abuse victims in 1988, Weakland was quoted: "Not all adolescent victims are so innocent. Some can be sexually very active and aggressive and often streetwise."

Just the kind of priest the Times loves, and just the kind of source on whom the Times relies when savaging the Pope and bashing the church.

As the Catholic League's Bill Donahue relates, 80 percent of the victims of priestly abuse have been males and "most of the molesters gays."

And as the Times's Richard Berke blurted to the Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association 10 years ago, often, "three-quarters of the people deciding what's on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals." [And now you know the dirty secret behind 'all the news that's fit to print'!]

Is there perhaps a conflict of interest at The New York Times, when covering a traditionalist Catholic Pope?

So now it appears that in the New York Times's unseemly rush to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for alleged 'inaction' and failure to defrock the late Fr. Murphy of Wisconsin, another of the many weak links in their 'trial by publicity' case against the Church has now been exposed! You would think that before stepping out on a limb as they did, they would at least have had the documents they were provided translated properly and vetted by people who know Italian!


How relying on a computer trasnlation
of a key Vatican memo helped the NYT and AP
to misconstrue facts to suit their ends


Denver, Colo., Apr 5, 2010 (CNA) - A “very rough” computer translation of a memo recounting a key Vatican meeting about a Milwaukee priest who abused deaf children appears to have skewed media attempts to implicate Pope Benedict.

Contradicting the New York Times and the Associated Press, the memo shows that the Vatican never ruled out defrocking the cleric.

An expert translation of that document provides evidence that appears to exonerate Vatican officials accused of wrongdoing in the case. Participants at the May 30, 1998 meeting in Rome said that a lack of evidence, such as missing records from the archdiocesan archives, prevented the lawful laicization of the Milwaukee priest.

However, in the memo, they emphasized that unless the accused priest showed genuine penitence, he still risked penalties including removal from the clerical state, a process commonly known as defrocking.

These comments were poorly translated or even excluded from the English-language translation of the meeting minutes published on the New York Times web site, which also reproduced the Italian original.

The translation of this document may have affected both the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s treatment of the case and the 2010 media reports about it.

The case concerned Fr. Lawrence Murphy, a Milwaukee priest who abused some 200 deaf children in an archdiocesan school from 1950 to 1974, sometimes even in the confessional. Local authorities did not act on allegations. Although not barred from ministry, the priest was given no more parish assignments.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee revisited the case in 1996 after victims’ advocates sought to have Fr. Murphy defrocked. Fr. Murphy’s appeal protesting the charges extended the case through 1998. The priest was in very poor health when Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland ordered the case “abated” on or before August 19, 1998, two days before Fr. Murphy died.

The New York Times claimed that then-Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), ordered Wisconsin bishops to halt a canonical trial that could have defrocked Fr. Murphy.

In a March 24 story, the Times cited Archbishop Weakland’s claim that at a final meeting at the Vatican on May 30, 1998, he failed to persuade Archbishop Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. The lede to that story claimed that “top Vatican officials including the future Pope Benedict XVI” did not defrock the priest, an interpretation already strongly challenged by critics.

More reasons to question the New York Times’ claims come in the translation of a memo from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on what the New York Times called “the final meeting on the case.”

That memo recounted the minutes of the 1998 Rome meeting between Archbishop Bertone, Vatican officials, and the American bishops who had requested the meeting. The U.S. bishops were Archbishop Weakland, his auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba and Bishop of Superior, Wisconsin Raphael Fliss.

In its story on the Fr. Murphy case, the New York Times links to an August 15, 1998 letter to Bishop Fliss from Fr. Thomas Brundage, then-judicial vicar of the archdiocese. In a discussion several weeks before, he wrote, “I indicated that I had put the CDF memo through a computer translator.”

“It is a very rough translation and the computer certainly cannot distinguish some of the peculiarities of canon law,” Fr. Brundage wrote. “Nevertheless, it does give us non-Italian speakers a rough idea of what happened.”

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s translation contains many errors of tense and incomplete sentences. Several significant phrases and sentences are left out entirely. Paragraph four of the Milwaukee version says Archbishop Weakland should try to have Fr. Murphy declared impeded for ministry and says three psychologists “would have to examine” the priest and decide if he is a typical pedophile. This sentence closes with a non sequitur, “which therefore. To the”.

The awkward translation continues:“The Secretary, Gianfranco Girotti, stated that the priest must give clear signs of repentance, otherwise he must be applied to a trial..[sic] It is recommended that Fr. Murphy be entrusted it[sic] to a priest who like his spiritual director then would have periodic meetings with him every one or two months."

According to a translation from Lori Pieper, a professional translator who writes at the blog “On Pilgrimage,” the memo’s paragraph four in fact says that Archbishop Weakland compared Fr. Murphy to a “difficult child.” The archbishop undertook to seek a “declaration of repentance” from him, not to have him declared “impeded from ministry.”

While the Milwaukee translation indicates that the priest had not yet been examined psychologically, the memo says that all three psychologists who examined him believed him to be a “typical” pedophile who “considers himself a victim.”

The Pieper translation says that CDF Under-Secretary Fr. Gianfranco Girotti repeated that the priest “will have to give clear signs of penitence” or officials will “have to have recourse to a trial.”

The Milwaukee translation excluded Archbishop Bertone’s proposal that the priest be ordered to a time of spiritual retreat to understand whether his penitence is genuine. If not genuinely penitent, he would risk “more rigorous measures,” including dismissal from the clerical state.

Archbishop Bertone then summarizes the territorial restrictions for the priest’s celebration of the Eucharist and “the admonition to induce him to show remorse.”

Pieper’s expert translation, which was sent to the National Catholic Register, also calls into question the Associated Press’s version of the Murphy case.

While the AP said Archbishop Bertone “decided the alleged molestation occurred too long ago,” it did not note the problems in the case such as a lack of records in the archdiocesan archives.

The memo notes that the length of time since the crimes occurred had rendered a civil lawsuit impossible and posed “the true problem” for a canonical trial as well.

The archbishop further mentions “the broad right of [self]-defense that exists in the U.S. and the difficulties that would be put forward by the lawyers in this direction,” the memo reports. He also notes the difficulty that hearing impaired have in providing proof “without aggravating matters.”

The AP also claimed Fr. Murphy was “spared a defrocking” because he was “protected by the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the Pope.” The memo reconfirms that Cardinal Ratzinger was not in attendance in the meeting.

While the AP depicted penitence and restrictions on Fr. Murphy’s ministry as lesser alternative to laicization, the memo says Archbishop Bertone stressed “it is unacceptable for him to be able to go and celebrate the Eucharist in the deaf community in Milwaukee.”

Before the unreliability of the documentation was revealed, the Times and Associated Press stories had been criticized for misrepresenting other facts of the case, misunderstanding the Vatican judicial system, and imputing the actions of subordinates to the Pope himself.

Critics of the Catholic Church have seized on the New York Times and Associated Press Milwaukee reports and tried to link them with abuse allegations surfacing in Europe. Recently, Washington Post syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson claimed the Milwaukee allegation was “the most explosive” facing the Pontiff.

Cardinal William J. Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticized the news coverage in a statement last week. “I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, the New York Times,” Cardinal Levada wrote. “Both the article and the editorial are deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness that Americans have every right and expectation to find in their major media reporting".


Unfortunately, I have not found the time to go through the documents that the Times posted on March 24 with the first story on the Murphy case. But for any reporter to rely on a computer translation is rally being extremely foolish or downright ignorant about translating.

Computer translations are literally literal from what I have seen. The computer translates word for word, as they appear in the original, and if the syntax is fairly simple and follows the normal word order in English, the computer translation will make some sense even if the language sound weird and stilted. However, when the syntax is different from English word order, it can cause all sorts of problems, in which subject and objects get all mixed up, typically.

A computer translation can give you a very rough idea of what an article is about - but do not depent on it for details and specifics, much less for nuance and connotation!

**************************************************************************************************

PLEASE, PLEASE, DO NOT POST THE NEW 'DER SPIEGEL' ARTICLE ON B16 ON THIS THREAD.

I've already taken note of it in the TOXIC WASTE thread and provided a link (if you are a masochist!)....

I'm NOT even going to read it!! Clicking onto their site gives them advertising support. Actually, I won't read it anywhere!
Only the thought of thinking about reading it makes me shudder with disgust!!

Joseph Ratzinger has been on their 'target list' for 30 years! Joined now by Müller, Mixa and Meisner, the three 'M's' as they are called.

www.kath.net/detail.php?id=26258

...is a good interpretation of a very strange relationship.





Excellent but looooong Tagespost article! I hope I can translate it before the GA tomorrow! I'm not even halfway through looking up my English resources today.... BTW, how about Archbishop Marz for a fourth M????

I didn't read the Spiegel article either. I took one look at the headlines, immediately took an extra anti-hypertensive pill to avert a stroke, and fled the site!


TERESA

What the crisis is NOT about
by Michael Sean Winters

April 6, 2010


One of the most surprising aspects of the reaction to the return of the clergy sex abuse scandal has been the way some commentators, especially those on the Left, have used the crisis to advance causes that do not actually have much to do with the underlying problems.

My colleague Father Martin has already explained below that celibacy is not the source of this problem, and ending the requirement for clerical celibacy would not end the scandal.

But, what has my back up this morning is the argument that because of the scandal, the entire hierarchical structure of the Church should be overturned and the most extreme liberal interpretation of Vatican II be accepted.

Exhibit A is an article in yesterday’s Boston Globe by Mr. James Carroll. In the first paragraph, he tips his hand by calling Pope Benedict an "enabler bishop" which is something in contention not proved, at least not proven beyond the "show trial" quality of justice that the blogosphere metes out. [My only misgiving about this post was that it necesssarily had to cite Mr. Carroll and his latest article.]
He goes on to accuse the Pope of "Catholic fundamentalism" in which the papacy functions the way the Bible does for Protestant fundamentalism. Carroll gives a brief history lesson about the emergence of the modern papacy that is a tissue of inaccuracies.

Carroll writes, for example, "In the past, bishops were elected by local churches." Certainly, the Vatican’s role in the selection of bishops has become steadily more pronounced in the past two hundred years. But, the role of the Congregation of Bishops and the nuncios in the selection of new bishops did not replace elections by the local church; it replaced nomination by local government.

And, one of the principal causes of the Vatican’s enhanced role in the selection of bishops was the emergence of the civil doctrine of church-state separation. That fact, alas, does not fit into Carroll’s imagined plot of reactionary bishops frustrating the effects of the Enlightenment, so it goes unmentioned.

But, if Carroll really prefers the old way, let him imagine the kind of bishops that would have been nominated by the U.S. government during the eight, long years of George W. Bush’s presidency.

In another section of his essay, Carroll writes: "Vatican II was a step toward the democratizing of the Catholic Church, which is why Catholic fundamentalists have been seeking to undo it ever since. Fundamentalist-in-chief has been Joseph Ratzinger."

I have searched the documents of Vatican II for evidence of this "democratizing" step Carroll perceives. It is not there. The phrase "People of God" is reclaimed, but the reclaiming is from the Hebrew Scriptures not from the Enlightenment.

As well, anyone with even a cursory awareness of Ratzinger’s writings would know that such a simplification of his thought is beyond unfair. Ratzinger certainly is more skeptical of modernity’s claims than Carroll who approaches "democracy" and "the laity" with the same discriminating sensibility exhibited by my St. Bernard when he approaches his dinner.

Ratzinger is no fundamentalist: His writings constantly face, they do not evade, the bumps in the modern road, the challenges of social and cultural pluralism, the complexities of dialogue in an age that is, after all, marked by relativism, the ugly, genocide-laden history of modernity.

And, it would be strange indeed to find any bishop who shares Carroll’s commitment to a liberal, Protestant ecclesiology, which is a fine ecclesiology to have, just not a Catholic ecclesiology.

Timothy Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, writing in the Washington Post yesterday, had a similar, albeit less grandiose, take on what the scandal demands. He writes that the Pope and bishops must "convert their culture to one that is centered on loving God from the depths of their souls and to leading a church that is as much mother as father, as much pastoral as theological, as much spiritual as doctrinal."

[The problem with Catholics by accident of birth - Shriver is a Kennedy-Shriver - who have become cafeteria Catholics of the make-your-own-salad kind, is that they presume to give lessons on Catholicism to the Pope himself! They do not see that you cannot profess a religion if you are unwilling or unable to follow its basic disciplines. To pit your own personal preferences against tenets and practices that have stood for over two millennia is the height of arrogance. An arrogance that mirrors their individual arrogance over God.]

It sure seems to me that the Pope who wrote those beautiful homilies last week was "centered on loving God" and I utterly reject as facile and misguided these false dichotomies between being pastoral and theological, and between spiritual and doctrinal.

For a Catholic, the sources of our spirituality are our doctrinal claims: You don’t make a crèche unless you believe in the doctrine of the Incarnation, you don’t pray the rosary unless you accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, and you do not invoke the protection of the saints, nor light a candle at their statues, unless you believe the dogmatic claims about the Communion of the Saints.

The sex abuse scandal is horrific and it should not be hijacked for ideological purposes. Some conservatives use the scandal to bash gays. Now, some liberals use it to advance their ecclesiological agenda. Shame on them both.

We honor the victims by addressing the real and the root causes of the scandal, not by making the same tired arguments about Vatican II that were being made before the scandal ever happened. [Arguments for laissez-faire Catholicism, but a Catholicism that refuses to be bound by the disciplines of the faith, especially on life and death and bioethics, is no longer Catholicism nor even Christianity!]


I am surprised that Winters apparently rejects the false claims of the Vatican II 'spiritualists' [to use the term the Holy Father taught us for those followers of Joachin da Fiore], especially since he writes for AMERICA!

BTW, I will continue to use the Via Crucis panel to symbolize the attacks on Benedict XVI, becuase his Via Crucis does not end with Easter. The Way of the Cross is the daily way of the Christian following in the footsteps of Christ. Most especially, the day to day Via Crucis comes with the title and function of being the Vicar of Christ on earth.

From the very beginning of his Papacy, when all the liberal voices jumped on him literally as soon as Cardinal Estevez pronounced 'Josephus Ratzinger' following 'Habemus Papam...', it was obvious that the new Pope's daily Cross would not be physical illness as his predecessor's had been but the weight of militant secularism as espoused by the mass media and the weaker Church leaders who are willingly in bed with the secularists.

But Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is strong because he is pure of heart, and because he knows Christ is always there to take him by the hand, and he has the love and prayers of all the faithful who are both full of faith, as well as faithful in their loyalty to the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.


Then there is this ambivalent article by Henri Tincq, a veteran religious correspondent who has not been kind to Benedict XVI in the past.


Benedict XVI's Way of the Cross
Accused of covering up priestly crimes, no one
in the Church has done more to combat the evil
by Henri Tincq
Translated from

April 4, 2010


If Easter is for all Christians the feast of the Resurrection of Christ, Easter 2010 is today marked with pain in the bosom of the Catholic Church shaken by a storm of rare amplitude.

From top to buttom she seems today to be corrupted by a cascade of disclosures about pedophile acts committed by some of her clergy.

It is placing Benedict XVI, 83, under a severe test of all the personal virtues he has been endowed with. The Pope is personally 'suspect' as former Archbishop of Munich, where serious scandales have erupted [???? Is there anything else other than the Hullerman case that the press insists on hanging around his neck?] and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to have been guilty of a strange passaivity with respect to sex abuse cases. [Strange comment to make, since he was never passive, from the time in 2001 when the jurisdiction for canonical adjuication of these cases was given to the CDF!]

But the paradox is that Benedict XVI - who marks the fth anniversary of his eleftionas Pope on April 19 - will leave in history the memory of a man of the Church who failed by his silence on certain matters [WNAT MATTERS????] but at the same time, as the Pope who did the most to combat this evil.

[Tincq then summarizes the 'charges' made against the Pope as Archbishop of Munich and as CDF Prefect, as the media see it - so I will not bother to translate.]

And so, the net is tightening around Benedict XVI. Many Catholics are today reeling, at a loss, from what they consider to be a pounding away by the media (See the Petition of intellectuals published in Figaro on April 2).

Several national episcopates, including that of France, have rushed to the Pope's aid. They all admit the extent of the evil [What extent? They admit it exists and must be fought, not that it is as 'extensive' as the media paint it to be when they never give a context for the numbers cited - in any case, a few hundred in Germany, and even in Ireland, about 2000 - accused priests, not yet found guilty], the damage and grief it has caused, and they call for the whole truth to be laid out.

No one disputes that the Church hierarchy has committed serious failures and 'dysfunction'. But they also acknowledge the Pope's desire to shed light on these scandals, they underscore the courage he has shown in assuming the weight of the priests's crimes and the failures of their superiors, and praise his compassion for the victims.

He is without a doubt the Church figure who has been most involved in efforts to confront the problem of sexual abuses committed by priests - at the level of prevention, reparation and determination that justice be rendered to the victims.

His earlier experience at the CDF has given him a familiarity with the cases filed. Shortly before he was elected in 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger expressed his disguest at the revelations that had come to his knowledge: "How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!"

This frankness may well have earned him votes in the Conclave. As Benedict XVI, he has multipled his isntructions and appeals to local episcopates int his matter and has not shown any indulgence.

In the United States in April 2008, to everyone's surprise, he met with some victims of priestly abuse. A few months later, in Australia, he renewed his condemnation of pedophile priests and said a Mass in private with some victims.

In February 2010, he called to order the bishops of Ireland whom he met at the Vatican, and on March 21, he published a touching letter to the Catholics of Ireland expressing his 'shame and remorse'.

It was he who in 2006, ordered the retirement to privacy and penitence of Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, virtually canonized in the eyes of his followers, supported against all odds by John Paul II, and who died in January 2008, under the weight of the most serious charges -a double life, committing sexual abuse on seminarians and concubinage with many women with whom he had children. A disciplinary inquiry into the ranks of the powerful and militant congregation he founded was ordered by Benedict XVI and he has received the report, expected to lead shortly to appropriate disciplinary measures.

But this part of Benedict XVI's record is rarely cited in news reports and commentary, in which he alone is made to carry the blame for a culture of suspicion that has insinnuated itself into every level of an institution which has too long preferred to stifle and cover up the offenses committed by some of its priests instead of acting.

Of an institution where the members ignore or no longer understand the rules of discipline, as is evident from the revived debate over the possible connection between priestly celibacy and pedophilia.

But should we not point out that in France, although pedophilia represents more than 60% of cases currently in trial, which only a tiny minority of the accused are single?

Yes, some priests have destroyed the promise of life for many children who became victims of their odious crime. But it ought to be remembered as well that more than 90% of pedophilia is committed by a relative, a father or a neighbor, not a priest,

To present the marriage of priests as a solution to combat pedophilia among them is inane! One may be against priestly celibacy, but this is not an argument that belongs here.

More geneally, the culture of suspicion around the Church seems to be the expression of resentment against a Church which has chosen to remain counter to the evolutions of the modern world [DIM]8upt[=DIM][only where it concerns ethics and morality, in which it will not deviate one iota from what Christ taught more than 2000 years ago.].

The gap is growing between, on the one hand, the efforts of this Pope to maintain a discourse with universal significance, in denouncing 'relativism' and 'nihilism' which, according to him, dominate the spirit of the times, and on the other hand, public opinion which is not impressed at all by calls to order nor by authoritative discourse.

An opinion that is witnessing - almost with as much delight as scorn - the eruption of this crisis at the summit of a Church which they consider backward and out of date. A crisis which the Church owes to its own failures and weaknesses. A crisis of credibility from which it will not emerge without extra efforts towards clarity, a change in its procedures, a closer collaboration with civilian authorities, and a reflection on its place in society. [She knows very well what her place in society is - but the secular society will not acknowledge that she has a place at all!]

The great injustice would be to extend the stain of pedophilia over the entire Church, to see a potential pedophile in every priest. [But that is the impression given by the arguments Tincq has just laid out - as if the Church was nothing but an institution that makes pedophiles possible!]

One forgets the participation of priests in the fight against poverty, in defending human rights in those countries where they are not respected, in helping improve conditions of life and health for many disadvantaged people around the world.

However, there is reason to demand that the Church show more modesty and relevance in its ethical discourse. Its mission should be to respond to the demand for 'values', meaning and moral references other than through prohibitions.

[Tincq, alas, has not been really listening to what Benedict XVI has been saying all along - even when he was a cardinal. That Christianity is a great Yes to the will of God, Yes to the positive ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments, Yes to the joy of life lived according to the one Great Commandment to love God and each other!]

In France, an online 'APPEAL FOR TRUTH' launched online on April 1 now has more than 18,000 signatures, including people like philosopher Remi Brague, and several Catholic journalists, including, to my surprise, Henri Tincq of Le Monde,who has not been very kind to Benedict XVI at all, but who in recent days, has written a couple of pieces recognizing what the Holy Father has said and done with regard to the problem of perverted priests. You may sign up by clcking on their link...
www.appelaverite.fr/



Here is a translation of the rationale for the appeal:

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APPEAL FOR TRUTH
by intellectuals, journalists, artists and personalities of civilian society, Christians or not.

The cases of pedophilia in the Church are, for all Catholics, a source of profound pain and extreme sorrow. Members of the Church hierarchy have had, in some cases, grave failures in discharging their functions, and we welcome the desire of the Pope to shed light on all these cases.

As members of the same Church, Catholic lay faithful take on, along with the bishops, the weight of the crimes committed by these priests and the shortcomings of their superiors. As Christ has asked us to do, we resolutely place ouselves alongside those who have suffered most from these crimes, namely, the victims, even as we pray for the sinners.

We wish with all our heart that all the truth be known, and that with the participation of all men and women of good will, everything that has made possible these offenses - which are also offenses against Christ - can be discussed calmly and fraternally within the Catholic Church.

At the same time, we regret the runaway media escalation that has accompanied all this. Beyond the right to information, legitimate and democratic, we cannot help but observe with sorrow, as Christians but even more as citizens, that many media outlets in our country (and in the West in general) treat these cases with partiality, lack of information, and even gloating.

By resorting to generalizations, the image of the Church in the press today does not correspond at all to that which Catholic Christians experience.

While reiterating our horror in the face of pedophile priests and our solidarity with the victims, we call on the media to exercise an ethic of responsibility that should begin with a more deontological (dutiful) approach to reporting.

The phenomenon of media exaggeration is by no means limited to the Church, but we are sick and tired of such generalization.

We think of the many priests who carry, sometimes alone, the message of Christ with courage. We are with them.

We welcome the letter of the bishops of France to Benedict XVI, and we hope to see the Catholic Church emerge with calm and responsibility from this painful trial.


We want the truth on sexual abuses.
The events of pedophilia in the Church are a scandal. It is imperative that all the truth be told; that the victims obtain reparation and that measures be set in place to remedy the problem without bringing into question the sacred character of the priesthood, which has become the object of a false debate.


We want the truth about Benedict XVI.
Five years ago, one week before the death of John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, who had prepared the meditations and prayers for the Way of the Cross on Good Friday, raised his voice on this very issue: In the Ninth Station, when Jesus falls for the third time, this is what he said: "What filth there is in the Church, especially among those in the priesthood who should belong totally to you."

Benedict XVI voluntarily took the risk of truth. He is the first Pope to frontally attack the problem, without making any concessions. Paradoxically, he is now the object of attacks seeking to cast doubt on him personally, attacks that are relayed with some complaisance by some part of the press. We support his voluntary initiatives in this regard and deplore thet attempts to implicate him personally.


We want the truth about the Catholic Church.
More generally, the media treatment that has been reserved for the Catholic Church since life issues have come into play does not reflect the reality of Catholic life at all. During the Holy Week of 2010, as Christians live through the ascent towards Easter - Crucifixion followed by the Resurrection - we call for support and solidarity with all Catholics, their priests and their Pope.

This appeal was launched at the initiative of François Taillandier (writer), Frigide Barjot (parodist), Natalia Trouiller (journalist and bloggre), Koz (blogger and lawyere), and François Miclo (philosopher).

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