Google+
 

BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 23/08/2021 11:16
Autore
Stampa | Notifica email    
22/04/2010 20:26
OFFLINE
Post: 277
Post: 46
Registrato il: 28/05/2007
Registrato il: 19/02/2009
Utente Comunità
Utente Junior







See preceding page for earlier posts today, 4/22/10.





I read it the other day. Didn't really like it too much, I must say.
HIs reluctance might also be interpreted as careful evaluation and the fact that he thinks forced change won't take fruit. A change of hearts will.



Sorry to use your space again, Heike, for the page heading! I wasn't expecting a page change just now...

You are referring, of course, to Damian Thompson's anniversary post on our dear Papi. I really think the occasion deserved more, that Damian should have taken time to write a more considered commentary - this one sounded like his routine posts.

And I agree that we cannot dispute the Pope's reasons for what seems to be a reluctance to make changes. On the other hand, I do think he has made the changes that he needed to make in the Curia - but he cannot easily change the local bishops who are already in place unless they are clearly a party to wrongdoing, as some of the Irish bishops were. And the responsibility for what happens in the local Churches is the bishop's, not the Curia. Even admirers of John Paul II concede that one of his weaknesses was the kind of bishops he named...

What B16 has done is to appoint bishops who are more clearly in line with his thinking, especially in the US and Canada. All bishops who have been openly defiant of him were certainly not his nominees!

TERESA


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/04/2010 23:03]
22/04/2010 22:45
OFFLINE
Post: 19.996
Post: 2.637
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran


From my backlog....


An abuse victim about the Pope:
'He cried listening to me -
you have a saint in Italy,
do you know that?'

by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from

April 19, 2010


"It was truly the most beautiful gift, after all the suffering - we all cried, even the Pope", says Joseph Magro, 28, showing proudly the rosary he received from the Holy Father.

Along with seven other victims of sexual abuse at the St. Joseph Orphanage in Malta, Joseph was able to speak one on one with Benedict XVI, away from cameras, in the chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature in Rabat early Sunday afternoon.


Can you tell us what happened to you?
I underwent sexual abuse from age 15, from 1988-1990, at the St. Joseph Orphanage. A priest, Fr. Charles Pulis, would come to wake me up in the morning and kiss me on the mouth and fondle me. I could not speak up, I could not rebel, I could not say anything, because he threatened to throw me out of the orphanage. It has been seven years since my case was filed in court, but there has been no progress, and I have yet to get justice.

How was the meeting with the Pope?
I had lost my faith in priests, but now, after this moving experience, I have begun to hope again. You in Italy, you have a saint. Do you understand? A saint!

May I ask you what words were exchanged between you and the Pope?
When I told him my name, the Pope opened his eyes wide and said, "Joseph! Like me!"... I asked him, "Why did the priest do what he did to me? Why did he abuse me?" He had no answer, but to say he would pray for me...and we prayed together.

How did the Pope act while you were with him?
I was struck most by the fact that he showed great pain. I could see he was suffering with me. I did not want him to suffer, I did not recount to him the abuses I experienced, but he cried with me, even if he had nothing to do at all with what happened to me.

Did you expect this meeting?
No. It was a great gift to me to be received the way he received me and for him to listen to me. I heard his speech at the airport on Saturday afternoon, in which there was no reference at all to the problem. But this morning (Sunday, April 18), after 9 a.m., I received a telephone call to go to the bishop's house so we could all go see the Pope. Finally, I have some peace because of this meeting. He gave me a rosary - this one I am now wearing around my neck.



Because of miscellaneous circumstances that have combined to make me do far less than I would have wanted to do for the Forum in the past few days, I have not even run a single birthday and/or anniversary commentary by the Italian Vaticanistas!. Since I have just posted an article by him, here is Andrea Tornielli's anniversary commentary:[/CIM]




Papa Ratzinger's first 5 years
going against the current

by ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from

April 20, 2010


Yesterday, Joseph Ratzinger's Pontificate completed five years. In his first discourse after being elected Pope, on the morning of April 20, 2005, Benedict XVI said: "The new Pope knows that his task is to make the light of Christ shine before the men and women of today - not his own light, but that of Christ".

These words pre-announced the style of his pontificate; the Pope has no desire to be a 'protagonist', only to make the true Protagonist - Christ - emerge and shine.

Without ever worrying that he is going against the current, Papa Ratzinger - who for years had been painted by the media as the Panzerkardinal, and who is still presented today as an inflexible and retrograde restorationist - has chosen words like love, beauty and joy as keys to his Pontificate. Indeed, he dedicated his first encyclical to love in all its forms.

In 2007, h4 gave back full 'citizenship' to the traditional Roman missal - certainly not to go back into the past or to nullify the reforms of Vatican II, but to promote reconciliation with traditionalist groups and a reciprocal enrichment between the ordinary Roman rite [as established by Paul VI] and the pre-conciliar liturgy.

Benedict XVI's liturgical Magisterium is part of his wider and deeper examination of the recent history of the Church and on the place of Tradition in its continuing journey.

In December 2005, the Pope spoke of two ways to interpret the Second Vatican Council. The first, that of 'discontinuity or rupture', has created confusion; the second, that of 'reform', has borne fruit.

Whereas the first interpretation, in the name of 'the spirit of Vatican II', ended up justifying every arbitrary change even if it violates the letter of Vatican II, the second interpretation, which the Pope proposes and applies, is precisely what John XXIII said in his speech to open the Council, that it should transmit Christian doctrine 'purely and integrally', while understanding it more deeply and presenting it "in a manner that corresponds to the need of our time".

It is along this line that the Pope has dedicated himself in order to favor healing old wounds. And that is how his decision to lift the excommunication of the four Lefebvrian bishops must be read, as well as the Apostolic Constitution for Anglican communities who intend to return to full communion with Rome.

Another important thread that runs through this Pontificate is the relationship between faith and reason, which the Pope has also specified as the right ground for authentic dialog among religions.

Benedict XVI has explained that dialog cannot be reduced only to politics and diplomacy, but to the search for the fundamental rationales held in common by all men.

And speaking of reason itself, the Pope has shown how our age is characterized by a self-limiting reason, content to say that it cannot say anything about God nor about any of the 'ultimate things' that concern all men at heart.

It is this reflection that is the basis for Benedict XVI's insistence on natural moral law, which is man's innate capacity to tell right from wrong, good from bad.

The recourse to natural law would promote true dialog and confrontation between believers and non-believers not so much on questions of faith but in order to build a common grammar of ethical standards.

But an assessment would be incomplete if one failed to take into account some incidents which have stood out in the past five years: from the controversy and exploitation of the Regensburg lecture to the Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson, one of the Lefebvrian bishops.

And now, the current storm over pedophile priests which is seen -even though it is still not perceived as such at the Vatican - to be the most serious crisis for the Church in the past several decades.
[Tornielli has lost me here. How can an artificial storm - albeit whipped up to hurricane force, over a rehash of the far more scandalous first outbreak of pedophile outrage regarding US cases almost 10 years ago - be 'the most serious crisis' now????

In many cases, these incidents have shown evident deficiencies in strategy, governance and communications at the highest levels of the Roman Curia, who often, instead of helping the Pope, end up creating problems for him. [I don't know that this statement applies to the question of pedophile priests, at least not in Benedict XVI's Pontificate, though it evidently was a problem under John Paul II! Except, of course, for Cardinal Bertone's rash remark about homosexuality and pedophilia, which could only have been provocative under the circumstances. Levada at CDF and Hummes at Clergy, who are the two dicasteries most directly involved in the pedophile priests issue, have done their part well.]

The success of the trip to Malta, and the impact of the moving encounter between the Pope and some of the abuse victims, demonstrate that when Benedict XVI intervenes personally, as he did when he humbly took on the responsibility for the Williamson fiasco in place of his co-workers, the difference is clear.


Like Thompson, Tornielli could have done much better for this piece. Perhaps he should have written it way ahead, instead of during or immediately after the Malta trip which he also had to report.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/04/2010 23:21]
23/04/2010 01:17
OFFLINE
Post: 19.998
Post: 2.639
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



One can count reliably on Jose Luis Restan for an original approach:


A time of trial,
a time of grace

by José Luis Restán
Translated from

April 22, 2010


Eighty three years old. And five as Pope. A colleague murmured to me, with what sounded like sincere commiseration: "Poor Pope!" And I answered, "Why poor?"

A reader of Avvenire wrote the editor saying that for her, Benedict XVI has been these days like 'a living Gospel'.

"I thought I would be supporting him with a letter like this, but I realize that it is he, with his words and his actions, who helps us live day by day".

In her, the people have spoken, the good People of God. He truly helps us to live - and is not that the function of Peter?

Benedict XVI's short visit to Malta offers us a singular parable of his Pontificate. There had been fear of street demonstrations, and it had been announced that organized groups were coming in from various European capitals to demonstrate against him during the visit. But the volcanic ash from Iceland left them all grounded. Poetic justice!

And the ancient and beautiful island that has waged so many battles to defend Christianity opened its heart to our 'dear Christ on earth'.

What a paradox that the identity of this small nation was born in a shipwreck - that of Paul of Tarsus enroute to Rome where he was to preach some more and then die for the faith.

The Pope used the metaphor well: "The shipwrecks of life are part of God's plan for us and they can be useful for new beginnings in our lives".

The world was watching this trip very closely, hanging on every word - and every silence. From the BBC to the New York Times, from La Republica to Der Spiegel, and all those who assassinated his character with arrant hypocrisy in the past few weeks.

But he does not think of them, nor does he bother fending off their blows. He thinks only of his people, such as those who welcomed him on the wide esplanade of Floriana or on the beautiful waterfront of La Valletta's port.

He lives for his flock, he loves them and suffers for them. And to the Maltese, he spoke of the Church that they have always known as a safe haven and hearth of life.

"I know Malta loves Christ, and loves his Church which is his Body, and Malta knows that if this body is wounded by our sins, the Lord nonetheless loves his Church, and his Gospel is the true force that purifies and heals".

Days earlier, in Rome, he spoke indirectly of the mediatic storm, calling it a grace - because it opens us to penitence. With the Pope leading ahead, taking up the burden of so much filth that, as always, accompanies the arduous journey of this Body of Christ.

In Rabat, he faced sight victims of sexual abuse by priests - he listened to them one by one, looked them in the eye, wept with emotion and outrage. And he spoke to them, prayed with them, and blessed each one with his hand on their head in a gesture that the apostles might have done. Afterwards, one of them would say that he felt liberated of a great burden and that he once again felt he was a son of the Church.

Later, the Pope came by boat to the meeting with 15,000 young people, who awaited him with their questions and confusions of everyday. he listened to their representatives with his profound and welcoming look, full of peace.

Then he spoke to them of the unimaginable profundity and intensity of God's love for each of us. A love which can be felt in an encounter with Christ, capable of dissolving the hatred and anger that can inhabit the human heart, as it had done with the impetuous Saul of Tarsus, who had been a persecutor of Christians.

God rejects no one, the Holy Father reminded them, and the Church rejects no one, but invites everyone with great love to change and be purified.

Benedict does not gloss over the fact that they will always find opposition to the announcement of the Gospel in the world - the same opposition that he spoke about a few days earllier when he spoke about the dictatorships that had cruelly persecuted Christians in the 20th century, but also of that subtle form of dictatorship today which consists in obligatory conformism, the obligation to think and do as everyone thinks and does.

He said then that obedience to God is the foundation of human freedom, and now he called on the young people not to be afraid to live the joy of having met Christ and to follow him within the great family of the Church.

Returning to Rome, the Pope had lunch with the cardinals on the fifth anniversary of his Pontificate. He speaks to them about a time of tribulation for the Church but without melodrama. He assures them he does not feel alone, and recalled his favorite teacher Augustine of Hippo who had described the Church's pilgrimage on earth "between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God".

He demonstrates once more his freedom and simplicity, speaking openly of a Church that is wounded by the sins of her children, and surprises yet again by adding that it is precisely at a moment of apparent weakness that the comfort of God can be experienced more strongly.

These days, the figure of Benedict XVI reminds me specially of Paul VI at the end of the 1970s, the predecessor Benedict honored when he visited Paul's native city of Brescia last November.

In his homily at the Mass in Piazza Paolo VI, he recalled that in the midst of the tremendous torment that seemed to be a martyrdom for Papa Montini, Paul VI said he was aware many wanted him to make a dramatic gesture or forceful statements but "the Pope does not consider he should follow any other line than that of trust in Jesus Christ, whose concern for his Church is greater than for anyone else. It will be he who rides out the storm.... This expectation is neither sterile nor inert; rather, it is attentive watching in prayer... and the Pope, too, needs the help of prayer."

These words that Benedict XVI quoted from an address Paul VI gave to a group of seminarians also illuminate the fifth anniversary of his Pontificate.

The great French intellectual Alain Besançon compared both historic moments in the two Pontificates in a commentary he wrote for L'Osservatore Romano, observing that the glory of such Pontificates is not visible (i.e., not sensational) because it is the glory of martyrdom.

I sympathize with Besançon's intuition, but I do not know if I can share it fully: martyrdom is a glory characterized by pain and suffering, but the glory is evident to those who have their eyes open, like the reader of Avvenire whom I cited at the beginning.




The following is one of the best tributes written for the Holy Father's anniversary - unpretentious but very direct, and very emotional:

Benedict XVI: 5 years of
resisting the wolves

By Elizabeth Lev


ROME, APRIL 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- This April is a month of anniversaries. April 21 recalls the birthday of Rome with pageants and free entrances to museums, but this year the most celebrated reoccurrence is that of the fifth year since the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papal throne as Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005.

While most of the world chose to remember the Pope in prayer, the New York Times, among many other secular news outlets, greeted this half decade-mark by listing the controversies (all media generated) of his pontificate -- some stretching their indictment of this papacy to besmirch even the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

As prescient as he is wise, Pope Benedict predicted all this five years ago, during his inaugural homily when he asked the world to "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another" (April 24, 2005).

The wolves were not long in coming. Their first sally arrived the day after his election when the U.K. Guardian paid 'homage' to the new sovereign head of the Roman Catholic Church with the headline "From Hitler Youth to the Vatican." Among the many who leapt to clarify the Pope's wartime record was the New York Times, penning a careful and balanced piece in defense of the Pope.

A year later, the tides (or the Times) had turned. In June 2006, Pope Benedict was criticized during his visit to Auschwitz for not apologizing on behalf of the Germans and Catholics for the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

The New York Times led the charge this time critiquing "While he spoke eloquently about 'forgiveness and reconciliation,' he did not beg pardon for the sins of Germans or of the Roman Catholic Church during World War II."

From that day forth Pope Benedict could do no right with the secular media.

Three months later, after Pope Benedict's address at Regensburg, where he quoted a 14th century text regarding faith and reason among Muslims and Christians, the New York Times pronounced its sentence in the editorial, "The Pope’s Words." Their verdict? "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology."

In the intervening years, Pope Benedict has come under fire for condemning the use of condoms to fight AIDS in Africa, for not looking sad enough at Yad Vashem, and for refusing to deny the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII.

The secular media, presenting itself as the voice of moral high ground, has demanded apology after apology from the head of the Catholic Church.

In 2010, the U.K. Guardian and the New York Times have joined forces; while one wrongly links the Pope’s name with sex abuse on the front pages, the other calls for his arrest.

As more and more apologies are demanded by the secular media, it becomes apparent that the only acceptable apology is for the Church to deny its moral teachings and its witness to Jesus Christ -- in short, its very existence.

As the wolves howl in this bleak forest of poisonous ink, it seems like a time to be afraid.

But indeed on this fifth anniversary, Pope Benedict has truly earned the name given him by the Wall Street Journal after his Regensburg address, "Benedict the Brave." In a world increasingly marked by religious intolerance, he has rallied his flock to the words "God is Love."

The first Pope to meet with victims of clerical sex abuse, he has confronted the ugliest stain on the Church by witnessing the damage done to its victims firsthand.

He has forayed into concentration camps, mosques and synagogues, knowing that only a few will respond to his call for healing and dialogue. He has gone to the heart of secular Europe to bring the unpopular message of the Gospel.

If John Paul II exhorted us to "be not afraid," Pope Benedict has lit the path laid by his predecessor for the rest of us.

The Italian bishops gave the Pope a special gift this year, a day of prayer in all the parishes of Italy. Along with many others the world over, we prayed for the long reign and continued courage of our Holy Father.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2011 15:56]
23/04/2010 02:16
OFFLINE
Post: 19.999
Post: 2.640
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



POPE PRAISES MACEDONIA'S
CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL HERITAGE






VATICAN CITY, 22 APR 2010 (VIS) - Gjoko Gjorgjevski, the new ambassador to the Holy See of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, today presented his Letters of Credence to the Holy Father.

In his address to the diplomat, the Pope mentioned "the good relations" that exist between the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Holy See, relations "characterised by cordial co-operation".

He likewise expressed his pleasure "at the joint commitment shown recently in the construction of new places of Catholic workshop at a number of sites around the country".

"Macedonians", the Holy Father went on, "show visible signs of those human and Christian values, incarnated in people's lives, which constitute the priceless spiritual and cultural heritage of the nation, one eloquent testimony of which are the stupendous religious monuments built at various times and in various places".

The Pope also highlighted how the Holy See considers this heritage "with great respect and consideration, favouring ... historical study and research for a greater knowledge of the cultural and religious past".

"Firm in their spiritual identity", the Macedonian people "will be able to offer European peoples the contribution of their own experience", said Benedict XVI.

In this context, he expressed his hope for the success of the country's "growing efforts to become part of the united Europe, while accepting the relative rights and duties, and with reciprocal respect for the collective demands and traditional values of each people".

The commitment of Macedonians to fomenting dialogue and co-existence among the various ethnic and religious groups that make up the country, said the Pope, "has favoured the creation of a climate in which people consider each another as brothers, children of the same God and citizens of one country.

"First and foremost", he added, "it is certainly the task of leaders of institutions to identify ways to translate men and women's aspirations for dialogue and peace into political initiatives. Yet believers know that peace is not just the fruit of human plans and activities, but is above all a gift of God to men and women of good will. Justice and forgiveness represent the columns that hold up this peace. Justice ensures full respect for rights and duties, while forgiveness heals and reconstructs relations among people from their foundations, relations which are still experiencing the consequences of the ideological clashes of the recent past".

The Holy Father continued his address: "Having overcome the tragedy of World War II, and following the sad experience of a totalitarianism that denied the fundamental rights of the human person, the Macedonian people are now on the road to harmonious progress. ... Stable social and economic development cannot but take account of people's cultural, social and spiritual requirements, just as it must make use of the most noble popular traditions and resources".

He likewise noted that globalisation, "while on the one hand bringing a certain levelling of social and economic differences could, on the other, aggravate the imbalance between those who take advantage of the increasing possibilities to produce wealth and those who are left on the sidelines of progress".

"My hope is that, in a general context of moral relativism and scant interest in religious experience affecting a part of European society", the Macedonian people "may exercise wise discernment in opening new horizons of authentic civility and true humanism.

"To this end, we must seek to strengthen and maintain the principles that lie at the roots of this people's civilisation, at both the individual and community level", the Pope concluded.

These principles include: "dedication to the family, defence of human life and the promotion of religious needs especially among the young. The Catholic Church in your nation", he told the ambassador, "though representing a minority, wishes to make her sincere contribution to building a more just and united society, founded on the Christian values that have enriched the minds of its inhabitants".



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 22:00]
23/04/2010 04:20
OFFLINE
Post: 20.000
Post: 2.641
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran





I'm not too sure it was a good idea for OR to do this on its pages, and on Page 1, no less. It's playing Kueng's game and giving him far more prominence on OR than he deserves. It's one thing for George Weigel to write one for FIRST THINGS - or even if he published it in, say, the Washington Post, where he contributes regularly to their 'On Faith' section.... Besides, this is rather tame and gingerly, compared to Weigel, so I don't know that it accomplishes much....

I do appreciate what Cabra says about charity, because I have always noted that about Kueng's comments - the utter lack of Christian charity and the absolute arrogance of someone who looks down on everybody else as his inferiors. Worse than that, I don't believe Kueng ever even mentions Christ or God... It's always what's wrong with the Church and the people who run it, never about the message of Christ....



Open letter
to Hans Kueng

by Pier Giordano Cabra
Translated from
the 4/23/10 issue of




Editor's Note: We are publishing an open letter to the Swiss theologian from his first publisher in Italy:


Dear Hans,

Reading your letter to the bishops, I agreed when you wrote: "If today, in this or that diocese or community, parishioners are deserting the Mass, if pastoral work turns out to be ineffective, if there is no openness about the problems and the evils of the world, if ecumenical cooperation is reduced to a minimum, one cannot lay all the blame on Rome. Everyone, from the bishop to the priest to the layman, should commmit themselves to the renewal of the Church in one's own circle, whether big or small".

Indeed, renewal has been understood in many ways these years, depending on personal and cultural preferences and starting with changing structures, as well as personal and communitarian conversion.

The rest of your letter, it seems to me, focuses attention predominantly if not exclusively on 'structural' reforms. I would have liked to see even one reference to the scandal of the Cross which is what remains, after all other scandals have been rid of - hence, about the seriousness of following Christ, which is always scandalous; about the love of God that we must live and spread, often against the current; about the need for penitence and humility.

Shall it then be simply an act of ecclesiastical engineering that will resolve the problem of Christian witness?

And then: why, precisely in the name of completeness, should you not render homage to He who operates the evangelical renewal of hearts first, rather than structural renewal?

There is also a question of style, which betrays substance, namely, a non-recognition of the primacy of charity, or of charity in truth: "If I do not have charity, then I am a resounding gong", St. Paul says in his first Letter to the Corinthians.

Charity is kind, it is benevolent: one must read all of Paul's hymn to charity, which is the program for the ecclesia patiens, the casta meretrix (chaste whore), who is able to renew herself and to survive all the storms because "where there is charity and love, there God is".

Truthfulness is necessary but 'the greatest of all [virtues] is love" (cfr 1Cor 13,13), which generously acknowledges the work of others, which does not oppose nor divide, which does not magnify sin, which is aware that every prophecy is imperfect.

Perhaps if your letter had contained at least a whiff of the hymn to charity, it might have been a more eleganly evangelical wish for your former colleague on the occasion of his anniversaries, and a more fruitful contribution to the Church which is suffering from the frailties of her children.

I hope I am not lacking in charity myself in telling you this, because without charity, then there is nothing.

I would not like to be considered a pious ecclesiastic expressing pieties about serious matters, because then, one must distinguish among the texts of the New Testament those which are meant for pious persons and which are meant for serious ones.

Since I consider myself neither a particularly pious nor serious person, I beg for the understanding of your charity.

Always with esteem for your impressive work...



Tonight, I finally had to look up the Kueng letter referred to above, which he had the unabashed cheek to address tp the 'the bishops of the world' on the fifth anniversary of the Pontificate of 'Joseph Ratzinger'. I think he must have imagined himself Pope Hans the Heroic, Savior of Christianity, enlightening the world with an encyclical. Except that the document is his now-familiar tissue of lies and half truths, of deliberate mis-statements of obejctive verifiable fact, and a desperate last-ditch attempt to pull up the tattered shreds of Vatican-II progressivism around his unrepentant ego, imperiously calling on 'the bishops of the world' to rise up against the Pope and the Curia! It is both pathetic and preposterous.

I made it a point to check out if he mentioned God or Christ at all: He mentions God once, but only to tell the bishops they owe no obedience to the Pope only to God - i.e., he brings in God only to use as a foil to the Pope. [Compare it to Benedict XVI's reflection on obedience to God in his extemporaneous homily to the Pontifical Biblical Commission last week!] And he uses Christ once, in a satirical mention of 'the Vicar of Christ'. Indeed, the very model of the progressive theologian who has left God and Christ out of his theology!

All his professions of concern for the Church - the rationale for his public pronouncements since Vatican II - ring empty because Christ cannot be secondary to the Church. He is empty of charity because he is empty of Christ.




[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 14:21]
23/04/2010 06:13
OFFLINE
Post: 20.001
Post: 2.642
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



Benedict XVI and the silence
of society's pedophilia enablers

by Vittorio Messori
Translated from

April 19, 2010

No one expects the minister in charge of the state's boarding schools to meet with those who have been abused by a teacher of or a staff member to express his 'sorrow and shame'.

Nor does one expect that of ship captains, where the fate of minors taken on as crew is well known. Nor of officials responsible for youthful sports, where showers and dressing rooms attract, as everyone knows, a quite predictable fauna of preying adults.

Pedophilia (or pederasty - age limits are uncertain and varied according to tastes and cultures) has always been present, wherever there are men and women, children and adults. Often present even in non-clandestine ways, or even praised openly and highly recommended by philosophers and intellectuals as they did in ancient Greece, and by the generation of 1968 in Europe and the United States.

The leader of the Green Parties in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he once charismatic head of the 1968 student protests, has boasted that he not only recommended but practised sex with minors when he was a teacher.

Mario Mieli, ideolog and initiator of the homosexual movement in Italy, in what has become a cult book published by the otherwise austere Einaudi publishing house, said that sex between an adult and a minor (the younger the better) was a 'redemptive act' for both participants.

Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Foucault and Jack Lang (who would become Jacques Chirac's Culture Minister), were among the intellectuals who signed a famous manifesto which, in the name of 'sexual liberation', demanded the decriminalization of sezual relations with minors, including children.

All of them were simply reviving a long European tradition. The philosopher venerated by the French Jacobins, starting with Robespierre, and by most of the revolutionary elite. was not the blasphemous Voltaire, but the edifying Jean Jacques Rousseau, the apostle of infantile education - in all senses, that is, since he wrote smugly about having bought a ten-year-old girl in Venice who 'knew how to lift him out of depression'.

And yet, although the pulpits from which pontifications rain down on him are laughable; despite the impenetrable silence of those who represent circles actively and widely involved in the sexual abuse of minors; despite all this - Benedict XVI continues to show that the Church 'is different', to the point of humiliating himself.

In Malta, he repeated what he had done earlier in the United States and Australia: he met some of those who were victims, usually decades earlier, of the unwelcome attentions of religious 'educators'.

As he did in his dramatic and moving open letter to the Catholics of Ireland, he did not cite extenuating circumstances or point fingers elsewhere to remind the world, as he well could, that so many of his 'judges' would do much better to shut up.

The fact is that Papa Ratzinger is fully aware that the sins of Christ's priests do not only have canonical and penal consequences, but even metaphysical echoes.

From the Gospel viewpoint, the face of a child is God's face - and he who would scandalize their innocence would do better to have a millstone around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea (cfr Mt 16,8). Terrible words from the Gospel.

The Pope knows with how much trust parents - not just Catholics but those of other religions - put their children into the hands of ecclesiastical institutions inspired by evangelical ideals. Betrayal of that trust is intolerable for someone like him.

Thus he shows that the Church, even when it falters, is not a place like everywhere else. Yes, it is an environment like any other where sin is present. But the sin here would be considerably worse than elsewhere, because the ideal is the highest, the duties more urgent, and the Master the most demanding.

The sorrow and the shame that he speaks of come from true suffering and is not hypocritical melodrama. And yet, through the evangelical paradox, his humiliation does not diminish but increases his credibility as the leader and warranty of Christianity.

23/04/2010 13:39
OFFLINE
Post: 20.003
Post: 2.644
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran





Aspiring British PMs all say
they welcome Pope's visit but...


23 Apr 2010


The leaders of Britain's three largest political parties last night united in welcoming the visit of Pope Benedict to Britain in September, but said that his views on a range of issues - including contraception and homosexuality - needed to be discussed and challenged.

The exchange occurred during the second TV Leaders' Debate - which excluded Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru - on Sky and the BBC.

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg all said they welcomed a positive role for faith in public life, recognised the importance of the Pope's impending visit for Catholics and others, but made it clear that they disagreed with some of his doctrines.

Pope Benedict XVI is the spiritual and temporal head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

The issue of the cost of the impending visit and how it should be paid for was not discussed, although the questioner, Michael Johns - who highlighted what he saw as the disastrous consequences of the Church's stance against condom use for the HIV-AIDS crisis, and its anti-gay equality positions - had clearly wished that they would.

However the response of the three party leaders, who will between them produce the next UK Prime Minister, clearly poses a significant challenge for the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in the north of Ireland.

In addition to touching on the child abuse crisis for the Church, which produced an unprecedented public apology from the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, yesterday (22 April 2010), the three men showed great respect for the Pope and for faith - but said that this should in no way mean that vital issues raised by his public statements should not be debated openly.

Gordon Brown, who described himself as of "the Presbyterian faith" made an impassioned plea for more work on bringing the faiths together and discovering common values in a conflicted world.

The full statements on the issues of the Pope's visit were as follows, in order of presentation:

David Cameron (Conservatives)

I do think it’s welcome that the Pope is coming to Britain and if were your Prime Minister I would want to support that visit and make sure I could do everything in my power to make it a success. There are millions of people in our country who would welcome that, who share the Pope’s Catholic faith and I think we should try and make a success of it but do I agree with everything the Pope says? No.

I don’t agree with him about contraception, I don’t agree with him about homosexuality and I think the Catholic church has got some very, very serious work to do to unearth and come to terms with some of the appalling things that have happened and they need to do that but I do think that we should respect people of faith, I think faith is important in our country.

I think faith-based organisations, whether they are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu do amazing things in our country, whether it is working in our prisons or providing good schools or actually helping some of those vulnerable people in our country, so a country where faith is welcome, yes. A good visit from the Pope, yes, but does that mean we have to agree with everything he says? No.



Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats)

My wife – I’m not a man of faith – my wife, Miriam, is Catholic, my children are being brought up in her faith so I have a little bit of an insight into the immense feelings of anguish in the Catholic community here and elsewhere and I think many Catholics themselves feel really extremely torn apart by what’s happened and I think they do want to see the Catholic church express greater openness and repentance. You can’t keep a lid on sin and of course you need to move with the times.

I do welcome the Pope’s visit but I hope by the time he does visit there is a greater recognition that there has been terrible, terrible suffering, there has been abusive relationships which have left immeasurable scars on individual people’s lives and we need a process of openness and then healing. You can’t undo the tragedies of the past but you can be open about them so people can start to move on.



Gordon Brown (Labour)

I’ve met some of the people who have rightly complained about the abuse that they were subject to when young and it never leaves them, it’s something that is with them always and no matter what you can try to do to help, there is always this problem that they have to face up to every day that they were abused, cruelly abused, by people in whom they placed their faith and trust.

So the Church has got to deal with these problems and it has got to make sure there is an open and clean confession about what has happened and that we help those people that have been put into difficulty by this abuse.

But you know, I welcome the Pope’s visit to Britain and I want him to come to Britain for two reasons. One is the Catholic church is a great part of our society and we should recognise it as such and I hope every British citizen wants to see this visit by the Pope take place, and secondly, we must break down the barriers of religion that exist in our world.

The faiths must come together and recognise that they have common values and common interests. We all believe that we should be good neighbours to each other, I’m from the Presbyterian religion but I support the visit. I not only support it, I want religious faiths to work more closely together in society.



Unfortunately, all three have bought completely into the media narrative on sex abuses by some priests - and speak as though the church and the Pope have done nothing at all to be open about it, much less to have carried out reforms of the kind that have produced dramatic results in the USA in the past decade.

One expects politicians hoping to be the next Prime Minister of Britain - a post once occupied by the likes of Winston Churchill - to be better informed and to convey their 'better information' to the people, not pander to their worst prejudices and preach 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' to the Church, as all three politicians do.





Motto for UK visit is
Cardinal Newman's
'Cor ad cor loqutur'
(heart speaks to heart)


The theme for Pope Benedict XVI's 2010 visit to the UK is Cor ad cor loquitur - Heart speaks to heart. Cardinal John Henry Newman chose the words as the motto to go on his coat of arms.


Heart speaks to heart is a fitting choice for this papal visit as, on the final day of his Apostolic Journey, the Holy Father will beatify Cardinal Newman - the much-loved Victorian theologian.



When Newman became a Cardinal in 1879, he had to choose a motto to go on his coat of arms. He chose the Latin words Cor ad Cor loquitur – heart speaks to heart. Where did these words come from? At the time, Newman thought they came from the Imitation of Christ (written in the 1400s), but in fact he was mistaken – they're from St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) a French Bishop and great spiritual writer whom Newman revered.

In fact, Newman chose to put a painting of St Francis above the altar in his own Chapel at the Birmingham Oratory.

'Heart speaks to Heart' – who is speaking to who? The phrase has different levels, which together tell us a lot about Newman, his understanding of what it is to be human, and his vision of a humanity redeemed by Christ.

Newman thought that true communication between us speaks from our heart to the heart of others around us – much more than just clever talking.

He wrote in an Anglican sermon: "Eloquence and wit, shrewdness and dexterity, these plead a cause well and propagate it quickly, but it dies with them. It has no root in the hearts of men, and lives not out a generation....By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on heaven, we can... truly and without figure witness that Christ liveth".

Truth speaks from the centre of the person, from their heart, In the age of the Internet, Newman tells us that however we communicate, what we say should come from the heart, the fruits of a moral life lived in communion with Christ.

In fact, Christ speaks to us from his own Heart. 'Thou art the living Flame, and ever burnest with love of man' – he is 'the Word, the Light, the Life, the Truth, Wisdom, the Divine Glory.'

So, in the end, it's the Heart of God himself which speaks to us – in prayer, in the Mass, through the Scriptures. But also through other faithful Christians, and in the teachings of the Church.

As Newman says, 'when the Church speaks Thou dost speak.' The Church has no other heart than the Heart of Christ himself.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 22:57]
23/04/2010 15:19
OFFLINE
Post: 20.004
Post: 2.645
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran


Friday, April 23

ST. GEORGE (b Roman Palestine 281, d Nicomedia [now part of Turkey] 303), Soldier and Martyr
One of the most popular saints especially in the Orthodox world, he is probably also the best-known of military saints.
His father was a famous Roman commander in Palestine in the time of Emperor Diocletian, and his mother was Judean,
but the family was Christian. George presented himself to the Emperor Diocletian in Nicomedia, then the eastern capital
of the Roman Empire, to be a soldier, and he soon became a member of his Palace Guard. However, the emperor decreed
in 302 that all Christians in the Roman army be arrested and offer sacrifices to the pagan Gods. George refused and
professed his faith before the emperor, who sought to bribe him with money and lands to change his mind. Diocletian
had no choice but to order his execution. He underwent many tortures including being dragged through the streets
before he was beheaded. His body was brought back to Palestine where Christians venerated him as a martyr. His cult
spread throughout the eastern Roman Empire and reached the west in the 5th century. He was canonized by Pope Gelasius I
in 494. The Crusades brought him new fame when the Crusaders rebuilt the fourth century basilica erected in his honor.
Chivalric orders dedicated to him sprung up all over Western Europe. England's Edward II put the Order of the Garter
under St. George's patronage and by the 12th century, England's ships wre flying the Cross of St. George. His name was
an English battlecry during the Hundred Years War. Today he is the patron saint of England, Greece, Portugal, and
Russia among others. Images of St. George are all based on the legend of St. George and the dragon, akin to ancient
fables of a hero slaying a dragon to save a princess from death.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/042310.shtml



OR today.

Page 1 features an open letter to Hans Kueng replying to his April 16 letter to the bishops of the world, and the text
of the Pope's address on receiving the credentials of the new ambassador from Macedonia; President Obama's plan
to impose more regulation on Wall Street; a European Commission Report that faults the European Union for not doing
its share in development aid to poorer countries; and Israeli confirmation yet again that it will proceed with
building new houses in east Jerusalem.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education
(Seminaries and Institutes of Study)

- Mons. Claudio Maria Celli, President of the Ponticical Council for Social Communications

- Ms. Maria Voce, President of the Focolari movement

- Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (weekly meeting)


The Vatican announced that the Holy Father has accepted the resignation of Mons. Roger Joseph Vangheluwe
as Bishop of Bruges (Belgium) under Canon 41, Section 2, of the Code of Canon Law. [In a statement from Bruges,
the bishop disclosed he had improper relations with a minor when he was a priest.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 15:20]
23/04/2010 15:52
OFFLINE
Post: 20.005
Post: 2.646
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



The Associated Press may have found its next 'nugget' to mine for maximum damage against Benedict XVI... This has an April 22 dateline, so I am surprised not many outlets have picked it up so far... I picked it through the Boston Globe... I wonder why the headline and lead was not 'Future Pope approved of letter praising French bishop for not reporting abusive priest', but it will soon be if it gets picked up by more outlets...


Colombian cardinal defends
Church's abuse policies

By Luisa Fernanda Cuellar



BOGOTA, Colombia, April 22 (AP) — A senior cardinal defended the Roman Catholic Church's practice of frequently not reporting sexual abusive priests to the police, saying Thursday it would have been like testifying against a family member at trial.

Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also said in a radio interview that Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was involved in a 2001 decision to praise a French bishop for shielding a priest who was convicted of raping minors.

"The law in nations with a well-developed judiciary does not force anyone to testify against a child, a father, against other people close to the suspect," Castrillon told RCN radio. "Why would they ask that of the church? That's the injustice. It's not about defending a pedophile, it's about defending the dignity and the human rights of a person, even the worst of criminals."

While the Church stands by "those who truly were victims (of sexual abuse)," he added, "John Paul II, that holy pope, was not wrong when he defended his priests so that they were not, due to economic reasons, treated like criminal pedophiles without due process."

His comments came just days after the Vatican posted on its website guidelines telling bishops they should report abusive priests to police if civil laws require it. The Vatican has claimed that was long its policy, though it was never written before explicitly. [As Italian Vaticanistas report it, the layman's guide to CDF guidelines was based on internal guidelines formally laid down in 2003.]

The Vatican posted the guidelines as a response to mounting criticism that it mandated a culture of secrecy that instructed bishops to keep abuse quiet, letting it fester unchecked for decades.

Outrage over the Church's handling of sexual abuse allegations against priests is spreading across Latin America, where the large majority of more than 500 million people are Roman Catholics.

In Brazil, an 83-year-old priest was detained this week on allegations that he abused at least three boys, beginning when they were 12-years-old. A bishop in Brazil who oversaw three priests accused of sexual abuse acknowledged on Thursday the "shame and dishonor" brought upon the church.

Chile's bishops on Tuesday asked for forgiveness for past cases of abuse. On Thursday, a prosecutor announced a criminal investigation of a popular retired priest, Fernando Karadima, accused of sexually abusing five young men in his parish residence.

Castrillon -- the 80-year-old Colombian cardinal -- was an influential figure at the Vatican before his recent retirement from active duty, heading the Vatican's office for clergy as well as efforts to reconcile with ultraconservatives who had broken away from the Church.

Recently the cardinal himself has been drawn into the international scandal over the Church's handling of child abuse by priests due to the surfacing of the 2001 letter, which he wrote, praising the French bishop.

Castrillon said last week in Spain that he showed the letter to then-Pope John Paul II, who authorized him to send it to bishops worldwide.

On Thursday, he said the letter was the product of a high-level meeting at which Ratzinger was present.

"It was a meeting of cardinals. Therefore the current pope (Benedict XVI), who at that time was a cardinal, was present. The pope (John Paul II) was never at those meetings. However the Holy Father was indeed present when we spoke about this matter in the council, and the cardinals ruled."

At the time the letter was drafted, Castrillon was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and president of the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission.

The cardinal also accused unnamed insiders and enemies elsewhere of feeding the sex abuse scandals hurting the Catholic Church.

"Unfortunately there are ... useful idiots inside (the church) who lend themselves to this type of persecution," Castrillon told RCN, using a term for people duped into sympathizing with a foe of their interests. "But I'm not afraid to say that in some cases it's within the Masons, together with other enemies of the church."

He would not give details, however, saying that "since I'm not stupid, I don't tell everything I know. Only drunks, children and idiots tell, and I'm not a child, nor a drunk, nor stupid."

This week, after the 2001 letter made news, a Catholic group in the United States announced it would find someone else to celebrate a special Mass this weekend marking the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's inauguration. Advocates for abuse victims had objected to Castrillon's presence.


For the good of everyone, Cardinal Castrillon should shut up, or learn to choose his words better!

Obviously, however, no one from the Vatican has bothered to reach him, as they should have the moment the story about his letter to the French bishop came up. It's just normal courtesy and prudent action - to get his side and to coordinate answers - especially after he was literally 'thrown under the bus' by Father Lombardi's statement.

So, even if for the most justifiable reasons, Castrillon first threw in John Paul II's name and now Benedict XVI in a most unseemly manner - that also reinforces the media-generated public opinion of a systematic cover-up from the very top while obscuring the canonical [seal of the confessional] and pastoral reasons for the decision, if it was a collegiate decision taken by the Curia and the Pope.


23/04/2010 17:30
OFFLINE
Post: 20.007
Post: 2.648
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran




Spanish bishops discuss Pope's visit
and 'culture of death' at plenary assembly





MADRID, Spain, APRIL 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The situation of family values is not improving in Spain, and instead, there is a "serious retreat toward the abyss of the culture of death," cautioned the president of the Spanish episcopal conference.

Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, archbishop of Madrid, said this when he opened the plenary assembly of the conference.

His address included a look at Benedict XVI's upcoming trips to Spain and an affirmation of the prelates' union with the Pope.

The Holy Father will travel to Spain in August for World Youth Day and again in November, to Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela.

"Benedict XVI has said that he is traveling to Santiago as one more pilgrim," the cardinal said. "But it is the first time that the Pope comes to Santiago on the occasion of the Holy Year, which will contribute, undoubtedly, to revive the awareness of the Jacobean meaning of our ecclesial and even general history. Spain, in fact, cannot be understood without Santiago [St. James] and without the Jacobean tradition."

The Ano Jacobeo jubilee year is celebrated every time the Apostle James' feast day, July 25, falls on a Sunday, as is the case this year.

In Barcelona, the Pope will consecrate the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) church.

The cardinal said this act will give the opportunity to "reflect on aspects of great relevance for our Church today."

"From the point of view of the social doctrine of the Church," he explained, "it evokes the need to continue proposing the natural and Christian conception of marriage and the family as the basis of just social coexistence, given that it is the ambit in which the person should be called to life and which permits him to configure his personal identity in a way that conforms to his dignity and to the corresponding psychological and educational needs."

Cardinal Rouco Varela noted that Monday was the fifth anniversary of Benedict XVI's election to the See of Peter.

"We thank God, who willed to call to the Chair of Peter a man dedicated to the service of the Church in such a far-sighted and generous way," he said. At the same time, "we Spanish bishops are with Benedict XVI. Also with him is the immense majority of the faithful."

Referring to the attempt to "stain [the Pope's] figure to make people believe that [sexual] abuses were frequent among priests and religious, and without the bishops and Pope acting appropriately," the cardinal said that precisely Benedict XVI is responsible for the "dispositions directed to preventing and correcting abuses in the mentioned area and in other realms of the life of the Church."

Reflecting on the topic of the family, the cardinal lamented that "it does not seem that the situation has improved among us."

"On the contrary," he observed, "soon it will be five years since the new regulation of marriage in the Civil Code, which has ceased to recognize and protect marriage in its own specificity inasmuch as an alliance of life between a man and a woman. And a recently approved new 'law of abortion' has not yet entered into force but in practice it leaves without legal protection the life of those who are to be born and, therefore, implies a very serious retreat toward the abyss of the culture of death."





Birthday image for the Pope:
1,200 faces of youth





MADRID, Spain, APRIL 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- With the idea of making a birthday gift for Benedict XVI, organizers of World Youth Day 2011 organizers used their official Facebook page to collect 1,200 personal photos in 48 hours for a collage that forms the image of Benedict XVI.

The image was published on the Pope's birthday -- April 16 -- at the World Youth Day Web site.

"It is like seeing the whole Church at a glance," one youth reflected.

And the Holy Father himself is participating in the external preparations for the Aug. 16-21 event in Madrid. During the general audience of Holy Week, one of the World Youth Day organizers, Paula Rodríguez, presented him with a hat embroidered with the official logo.




"He took the cap, put it on, and looked at me as though asking "does it look all right?,'" Rodríguez recounted excitedly. "He was very affectionate, he was truly a father, excited also with me."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 18:03]
23/04/2010 19:07
OFFLINE
Post: 365
Post: 12
Registrato il: 17/05/2006
Registrato il: 02/05/2009
Utente Comunità
Utente Junior
Does the Pope bear some personal responsibility for the sex abuse scandal?
Euronews television channel is today running the story about the US law suit against the pope, spiced up with the latest scandal, the resignation of Belgian bishop of Brugge who admitted to sexual abuse of a boy. The channel is also running a poll: "Does the Pope bear some personal responsibility for the sex abuse scandal?"

It takes two seconds to vote. Here is the link:

http://www.euronews.net/news/you/





Thanks for the link, Crtochet...
I haven't checked back to see if I can vote as many times as I want...

TERESA


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 21:02]
23/04/2010 19:35
OFFLINE
Post: 20.008
Post: 2.649
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



20,000 expected for
Papal mass in Cyprus


Nicosia
April 19, 2010


Nearly 20,000 people are expected to attend holy mass at Nicosia’s Eleftheria Stadium on June 6 to conclude the three-day official visit to the island of Pope Benedict XVI, the first Pontiff ever to set foot in Cyprus.

Although the closed stadium has a capacity of 7,000, some 13,000 other faithful, mostly Catholics working here or married to Cypriots, will be watching outside.

The visit has been warmly welcomed by the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus that has sought to improve ties with the Vatican ever since Archbishop Chrysostomos II visited the Holy See three years ago, and it follows an invitation from President Demetris Christofias who was received by the Pope in March last year.

The pontifical visit also aims to thaw relations with the greater assembly of Orthodox churches as both faiths try to get closer and rid themselves of centuries of discord in the face of growing fundamentalism around the world.

The representative of the Archbishop of Cyprus, Fr. Demosthenis Demosthenous, said that the Church of Cyprus expresses joy and pleasure for the Pope’s visit, leading towards “peace, symbiosis and the final reconciliation.”

The ‘apostolic journey’ begins on Friday, June 4, when Pope Benedict will arrive in Paphos, in the footsteps of the apostle Paul of Tarsus, and will make a pilgrimage to the landmark St Paul’s Pillar at the archaeological site within the grounds of the Ayia Kyriaki church.

“The visit of the Holy Father is a pastoral visit with many dimensions,” the Apostolic Nuncio in Cyprus, Antonio Franco, said at a press conference on Monday.

On Saturday, June 5, the Pope will meet Archbishop Chrysostomos II and on Sunday he will present to all the prelates of Catholic churches in the Middle East attending holy mass in Nicosia with the “Instrumentum Laboris” the document for the Synod of Middle East to be held in Rome next October.

Youssef Soueif, the Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus, stressed that the visit of Pope Benedict “is a grand and important event in the recent history of Cyprus and is a gesture of love and peace”.

He said that the Pope will meet President Christofias and the Catholic community at the Elementary School of Saint Maronas in Anthoupolis, followed by Mass at the Holy Cross Latin church in Nicosia. On Sunday, after the Holy mass at Eleftheria, the Pope will visit the Virgin Mary of Graces Maronite Cathedral at Paphos Gate.



Cyprus eager to welcome Pope.
embassy officials say




ROME, APRIL 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Officials at the embassy of Cyprus before the Holy See are affirming the "historic importance" of Benedict XVI's visit to the island, scheduled for June 4-6.

President Demetris Christofias, as well as the local Church, invited the Pope to make the visit, which will be his 16th international trip.

During his three days on the island, he will meet with both government and Church leaders, as well as making a pilgrimage to the Pillar of St. Paul in Paphos, the embassy reported.

The apostolic visit comes as Cyprus continues to struggle with Turkey over the northern section of the island.

There have long been tensions between the Greek Cypriot majority and Turkish Cypriot minority; since 1974, the latter has controlled a third of the island. In 1983, the Turkish Cypriot-occupied area declared itself the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," but only Turkey recognizes this.

In recent years, the United Nations has encouraged the island to renew unification efforts. But little progress has been made and the conflict is one of the reasons keeping Turkey out of the European Union.

Moreover, on April 18, the Turkish-Cypriots elected a hardline president, Dervish Eroglu.

But the Pope, in his 2009 address to the diplomatic corps, observed that "the hope of peace is alive in Cyprus."

Besides adding his voice to this call for peace, the Holy Father will do something else momentous in Cyprus: On June 6, he will present the "instrumentum laboris" for the special synod on the Middle East, set to be held in the Vatican this October.

23/04/2010 21:40
OFFLINE
Post: 20.010
Post: 2.651
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran


STATEMENT FROM THE BISHOPS
OF ENGLAND AND WALES






Child abuse in the Catholic Church has been such a focus of public attention recently, that we, the Bishops of England and Wales, wish to address this issue directly and unambiguously.

Catholics are members of a single universal body. These terrible crimes, and the inadequate response by some church leaders, grieve us all.

Our first thoughts are for all who have suffered from the horror of these crimes, which inflict such severe and lasting wounds. They are uppermost in our prayer. The distress we feel at what has happened is nothing in comparison with the suffering of those who have been abused.

The criminal offences committed by some priests and religious are a profound scandal. They bring deep shame to the whole church. But shame is not enough. The abuse of children is a grievous sin against God. Therefore we focus not on shame but on our sorrow for these sins. They are the personal sins of only a very few. But we are bound together in the Body of Christ and, therefore, their sins touch us all.

We express our heartfelt apology and deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse, those who have felt ignored, disbelieved or betrayed. We ask their pardon, and the pardon of God for these terrible deeds done in our midst. There can be no excuses.

Furthermore, we recognise the failings of some Bishops and Religious leaders in handling these matters. These, too, are aspects of this tragedy which we deeply regret and for which we apologise. The procedures now in place in our countries highlight what should have been done straightaway in the past. Full co-operation with statutory bodies is essential.

Now, we believe, is a time for deep prayer of reparation and atonement. We invite Catholics in England and Wales to make the four Fridays in May 2010 special days of prayer.

Even when we are lost for words, we can place ourselves in silent prayer. We invite Catholics on these days to come before the Blessed Sacrament in our parishes to pray to God for healing, forgiveness and a renewed dedication.

We pray for all who have suffered abuse; for those who mishandled these matters and added to the suffering of those affected. From this prayer we do not exclude those who have committed these sins of abuse. They have a journey of repentance and atonement to make.

We pray also for Pope Benedict, whose wise and courageous leadership is so important for the Church at this time.

In our dioceses we will continue to make every effort, working with our safeguarding commissions, to identify any further steps we can take, especially concerning the care of those who have suffered abuse, including anyone yet to come forward with their account of their painful and wounded past.

We are committed to continuing the work of safeguarding, and are determined to maintain openness and transparency, in close co-operation with the statutory authorities in our countries.

We thank the thousands who give generously of their time and effort to the Church’s safeguarding work in our parishes and dioceses.

We commit ourselves afresh to the service of children, young people and the vulnerable in our communities.

We have faith and hope in the future. The Catholic Church abounds in people, both laity, religious and clergy, of great dedication, energy and generosity who serve in parishes, schools, youth ventures and the care of elderly people. We also thank them.

The Holy Spirit guides us to sorrow and repentance, to a firm determination to better ways, and to a renewal of love and generosity towards all in need.

April 22, 2010



23/04/2010 21:54
OFFLINE
Post: 20.011
Post: 2.652
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



DECLARATION OF U.S. LAWYER
on latest suit against the Vatican



VATICAN CITY, 23 APR 2010 (VIS) - With reference to the lawsuit against the Holy See which lawyers in the United States have filed at a federal court in Milwaukee, in the name of a victim of sexual abuse by a member of the clergy, the Holy See Press Office reiterates a declaration released by Jeffrey Lena, the Holy See's attorney in the U.S.A., the complete text of which is given below:


First and foremost, sympathy is due to the victims of the criminal acts committed by Fr. Lawrence Murphy. By sexually abusing children, Murphy violated both the law and the trust that his victims had placed in him.

While legitimate lawsuits have been filed by abuse victims, this is not one of them. Instead, the lawsuit represents an attempt to use tragic events as a platform for a broader attack - this one dependent on re-characterising the Catholic Church as a worldwide 'business enterprise'.

The case against the Holy See and its officials is completely without merit. Most of the complaint rehashes old theories already rejected by U.S. courts. With regard to Murphy himself, the Holy See and its officials knew nothing of his crimes until decades after the abuse occurred, and had no role whatsoever in causing plaintiff's injuries.

Given its lack of merit, the lawsuit - together with its de rigueur press conference and news releases - is simply the latest attempt by certain U.S. lawyers to use the judicial process as a tool of media relations.

If necessary, we will respond more fully to this lawsuit in court and at the appropriate time.




DECLARATIONS ABOUT THE RESIGNATION
OF THE BISHOP OF BRUGES



VATICAN CITY, 23 APR 2010 (VIS) - Given below are the texts of two declarations, one by Bishop Roger Joseph Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium, concerning his resignation from office, and the other by Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium. Both declarations were delivered during a press conference held at midday today in Brussels.

From Mons. Vangheluwe:

When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment. The victim is still marked by what happened.

Over the course of these decades I have repeatedly recognised my guilt towards him and his family, and I have asked forgiveness; but this did not pacify him, as it did not pacify me.

The media storm of recent weeks has increased the trauma, and the situation is no longer tenable. I profoundly regret what I did and offer my most sincere apologies to the victim, to his family, to all the Catholic community and to society in general.

I have presented my resignation as bishop of Bruges to Pope Benedict XVI. It was accepted on Friday and so I retire.


From Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels:

We are facing a particularly serious situation. Our thoughts go first and foremost to the victim and his family, some of whom have learned the shocking news only today. For the victim this has been a long Calvary, which has clearly not yet ended.

As for Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, as a person he has the right to conversion, trusting in the mercy of God. However, as regards his function, it is vital that, out of respect for the victim and his family, and out of respect for the truth, he should resign from office. This is what he has done. The Pope immediately accepted the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, which is at this moment is being published in Rome.

The Church thus underlines the importance of not procrastinating in such cases. We hope to contribute to the rehabilitation of the victim.

The decision of the bishop of Bruges, and the calling of this press conference, express the transparency that the Catholic Church in Belgium rigorously wishes to apply in these matters, turning a new page with respect to the not-so-distant period in which the Church, and others, preferred the solution of silence or concealment.

It goes without saying that this event will cause great suffering in the whole Catholic community of Belgium, especially because Bishop Vangheluwe was considered a generous and dynamic person, much appreciated in his diocese and in the Belgian Church.

We, his confreres, are aware of the crisis of trust this will provoke in many people. Nonetheless, we dare to hope that wisdom will prevail and that the bishops, and especially the priests, of this country will not be unduly discredited as a group, because the vast majority live a lifestyle coherent with their vocation, with a faithfulness for which I here publicly express my thanks.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2010 21:57]
24/04/2010 02:50
OFFLINE
Post: 20.012
Post: 2.653
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran




The following is a biased review by someone who is obviously on the side of the Vatican-II 'spiritists', and yet he concedes that there really has not been any fundamental difference between what Joseph Ratzinger said about Vatican-II to what Benedict XVI has been saying - except, he claims, his attitude towards collegiality, which Nash attempts to spin as a change that resulted because Professor Ratzinger then went on to be 'the head of the most powerful curial congregation' for 24 years...

Of course, the caveat is that a reviewer can choose to cite only those statements that support his bias, and that is precisely the criterion employed here.

A note about the book: It first came out in English in 1996, and has since undergone three editions, I believe, the latest in 2009 (the re-editions are in themselves a surprising sign, probably remarkable for a book that does not purport to be a formal history of Vatican II). Beats me why it is only being reviewed now... but I seem to recall a Commonweal review of it last year (I'll look it up)....






The arc from Fr. Ratzinger to Benedict XVI
THEOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF VATICAN II
By Joseph Ratzinger
Published by Paulist Press, $16.95

Reviewed by NICHOLAS LASH

April 21, 2010


After each of the four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger, the young German theologian who acted as expert adviser to Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne, Germany, published a booklet reporting on the session just concluded.

In 1966, the year after the council ended, these booklets were gathered into book form, in both German and English. This book has now been reissued, with an introduction by Jesuit Fr. Thomas Rausch.

Although the first session of the council produced no concrete results, it was, according to Ratzinger, of outstanding importance for two reasons. In the first place, in refusing to endorse the materials prepared by the Roman curia, “the body of bishops” demonstrated that it “was a reality in its own right.”

The preparatory schema on revelation, for example, was “utterly a product of the ‘antimodernist’ mentality,” according to Ratzinger. Would the “almost neurotic denial of all that was new” be continued? Or would the church “turn over a new leaf, and move on into a new and positive encounter with its own origins, with its brothers, and with the world of today? Since a clear majority of the fathers opted for the second alternative, we may even speak of the council as a new beginning.”

In rejecting the schema on revelation “the council had asserted its own teaching authority. And now, against the curial congregations which serve the Holy See and its unifying functions, the council had caused to be heard the voice of the episcopate -- no, the voice of the universal Church.”

In the second place, the first chapter of the Constitution on the Liturgy “contains a statement that represents for the Latin church a fundamental innovation.” The statement in question is the stipulation that, within certain limits, episcopal conferences “possess in their own right a definite legislative function.”

Ratzinger sees this as of outstanding importance: “Perhaps one could say that this small paragraph, which for the first time assigns to the conferences of bishops their own canonical authority, has more significance for the theology of the episcopacy and for the long desired strengthening of episcopal power than anything in the Constitution on the Church itself.”

Whereas previous popes had “regarded the curia as their personal affair on which a council had no right to encroach,” as a result of Pope Paul VI’s opening address to the second session, “the theme of curial reform was ... in a sense officially declared open for council debate.”

At the heart and center of debates on the schema on the church was the notion of collegiality: “Just as Peter belonged to the community of the Twelve, so the Pope belongs to the college of bishops, regardless of the special role he fills, not outside but within the college.”

Later discussion of the schema on bishops sought concretely to implement the concept of collegiality by decentralizing power to bishops and episcopal conferences, and by proposing appropriate forms of centralization through the creation of “an episcopal council in Rome.”

Ratzinger’s reflections on the debates on ecumenism, the schema on which may be seen as “a pastoral application of the doctrine in the schema on the church,” contain an interesting discussion on the relationship between “churches” and “the church” in the form of a detailed response to the Protestant ecclesiology laid out in October 1963 in a lecture in Rome by Edmund Schlink of Heidelberg, Germany.

This session saw the promulgation of the first two conciliar texts, the Constitution on the Liturgy and the Decree on the Media of Social Communication.

Paul VI’s formula of approbation broke with the custom, since the late Middle Ages, of regarding conciliar decisions being put into effect as papal law: “Paul, bishop, servant of the servants of God, together with the council fathers” (my stress).

In September 1964, “the chapter on the collegiality of bishops was passed on the very first ballot by a two-thirds majority.” Unsurprisingly, Ratzinger’s chapter on the third session, during which the Constitution on the Church was promulgated, concentrates on the doctrine of episcopal collegiality and on the not unrelated structural issue of the relations between Pope and council.

On the former, Ratzinger says that the notion that the Church, which consists of worshiping communities, is “accordingly built up from a community of bishops ... is probably the central idea in the council’s doctrine of collegiality.”

He puts his finger on what he calls “the actual weakness of the debate on collegiality”: “So much energy was focused on the relation of collegiality to the primacy that the intrinsic problems of the collegial principle itself, its complexity, its limits and its historical variability were no longer seen.”

Where the relations between Pope and council are concerned, he believes that the papal interventions during November 1964, however necessary in the interest of mediating between opposing forces in the council, showed that “the papacy had not yet found a form for the formulation of its position,” that is not, and does not appear to be, monarchical. This, he believes, is a practical rather than a theoretical problem in the sense that its resolution will take time: “Patience is necessary.”

The most striking feature of the chapter on the third session, however, comes in its concluding remarks. Noting that “the episcopate became more open-minded from year to year,” and that as the bishops, “from somewhat timid and tentative beginnings,” found voice and courage, they boldly made statements that “five years ago would have been virtually unthinkable,” Ratzinger suggests that the “true event” of the council has been “the awakening of the church.”

Caught up in a worldwide unity of purpose, “this spiritual awakening... was the great and irrevocable event of the council. It was more important in many respects than the texts it passed.”

Now things really are getting interesting, for this is exactly the assessment made by the late Giuseppe Alberigo, in his conclusion to the fifth and final volume of the massive History of Vatican II, of which he was general editor.

[Not so! From the statement quoted, Ratzinger was referring to a 'spiritual awakening of the Church', in the orthodox sense of spiritual, i.e., the transcendent - whereas Alberigo and his acolytes took the word 'spirit' to describe their interpretation of the Council texts, which was predominantly political and ideological. Their 'spirit' was and still is all about power and who holds it in the Church - as we can read in Hans Kueng's last letter, after all these decades. The 'spiritists' appear to have cast off Christ from the equation, to concentrate on the structure of the Church rather than its essence.]

For several years now, officials of the Roman curia have been conducting an energetic campaign of polemic and misrepresentation against this history, in an attempt to discredit the story it tells (I examined this campaign in the final chapters of my book Theology for Pilgrims). [Why is it polemic and misrepresentation when someone opposes the 'spiritist' interpretation, which, looking back over the past four decades, had been nothing but polemic and misrepresentation itself????]

The question arises, and it is a question of far more than merely academic importance: To what extent does Pope Benedict XVI agree with young Fr. Joseph Ratzinger?

The fourth and final session of the council “would have to face the hardest problems, problems which had been postponed for three years” -- religious liberty, Christianity and Judaism, and the problems associated with the production of an entirely new kind of conciliar document, the document that became Gaudium et Spes.

“Despite all disavowals,” there remained in the text of this constitution “an almost naive progressivist optimism which seemed unaware of the ambivalence of all external human progress.” [I believe Joseph Ratzinger has been consistent in his misgivings about Gaudium et spes, a significant difference with John Paul II.]

It is worth noting that, in discussing the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, he remarks on the question of priestly celibacy: “In view of the shortage of priests in many areas, the church cannot avoid reviewing this question quietly. Evading it is impossible in view of the responsibility to preach the Gospel within the context of our times.” Forty years later, the shortage of priests approaches crisis level, and yet Benedict seems to have succeeded in continuing to evade it. [He has not! In the interview books that made him familiar to many Catholic readers, he accepts the advent of smaller Catholic communities as part of the general falling-off from religion that also includes the loss of vocations, and has obviously come to the conclusion that priestly celibacy must stay in place. He has argued for it at every chance he gets as Pope. That is not evasion. That is making a decision.]

Paulist Press is to be congratulated on reissuing these lucid, perceptive and enthusiastic reflections on the four sessions of the council. As I have already indicated more than once, they raise very sharply the question of the relationship between the views of the young peritus and those of the present Pope.

In his introduction, Jesuit Fr. Thomas Rausch says that Ratzinger’s “own views, with a couple of exceptions, have remained remarkably consistent over the years.” On which, two comments.

The major exception which he mentions is the liturgy. However, I see no inconsistency between Ratzinger’s enthusiasm for the Constitution on the Liturgy, on the one hand, and, on the other, his increasingly critical assessment of what has happened, liturgically, in recent decades.

In the second place, few things come out more strongly from this book than Ratzinger’s wholehearted support for the council’s central project: namely the elaboration and implementation of the doctrine of episcopal collegiality as the framework for, in his words, the “long desired strengthening of episcopal power.” [Later below*, I will cite a most important consideration by Joseph Ratzinger on the 'collegiality' statements of Vatican II, which Nash conveniently fails to mention although ti is supremely relevant to the issue!]

Benedict is obsessed by the importance of reconciling the Lefebvrist schismatics with the Church. It is this obsession, I believe, that explains two of his more extraordinary undertakings: the motu proprio allowing general use of the unreformed missal of 1962, and the Apostolic Constitution establishing “ordinariates” for disaffected Anglicans.

The first was done without consulting the bishops, and against the known views of considerable numbers of them. [That he failed to consult the bishops is an outright lie. The reason it took him till July 1977 to issue the Motu Proprio was that he was precisely trying to get a general sense of the 'lay of the land'. Of course, there were outspoken high-profile opponents, but they can hardly have made up a significant proportion of the world's 5000 bishops!

And I bet Joseph Ratzinger never argued that 'collegiality' meant 'democracy' in the Church, much less that the Pope should find himself dictated to by the bishops. Besides, I believe his preferred term for the relationship among bishops is 'communion' rather than 'collegiality'. In practically every official Vatican II document, the proviso is very clear that 'the bishops must be in communion with the Successor of Peter', not the other way around! Popes are given the prerogative of a Motu Proprio (literally, 'of their own will'], as well as encyclicals, because the immediate good of the universal Church - in continuity with what went before - cannot be placed to a vote.

Paul VI might never have promulgated Humanae Vitae if he had subjected it to a vote by the bishops, but even he - the Pope of the Council and the immediate post-Council - did not think collegiality applied to his 1968 encyclical. Nor, it must be pointed out, did he think it applied to his Novus Ordo, which was entirely the work of a handful of progressives and was never reviewed beforehand by the bishops of the world before it changed the entire liturgy literally overnight!

And should John Paul II have consulted the bishops of the world before he came out with his 2001 Motu Proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela which gave the CDF responsibility for investigating and canonically adjudicating sexual abuse cases?

You see, Mr. Nash, you cannot selectively single out what Benedict XVI has done as Pope - perfectly within his rights and following his two post-Conciliar predecessor - without looking at them too! Especially poor Paul VI, whose final years were a martyrdom as he watched how his Council had bred a Satanic monster that was far from what he thought Vatican II had accomplished. And the Frankenstein behind that monster - still not thoroughly exorcised - was precisely the spiritists like you, Mr. Mash.]


The second was even more breathtaking: A major structural innovation in the church was enacted without consulting the other bishops of the Catholic church (to say nothing of senior members of the Anglican Communion). [Nash overlooks the fundamental fact that both initiatives are in fulfillment of Peter's function to bring the flock together in the universal Church. Local bishops cannot do that - their flock is their diocese, nothing more. The Successor of Peter is dutybound to look after the stray sheep too, universally....

And BTW, the senior members of the Anglican Communion can have nothing to say as to how the Catholic Church runs its internal affairs - it would have been anomalous and absurd to consult them! Moreover, the traditional Anglicans, who had long since left the grater Anglican Communion, begged Rome for years to allow them a mechanism for mass conversion. The Vatican did not proselytize them in any way. ]


It seems to me that a Pope who could do these things in the manner in which they were done could not be said to have an ounce of genuinely collegial imagination. [Because the spiritists interpret collegiality to mean 'parliamentary democracy', with the College of Bishops as a Parliament and the Pope as a mere titular monarch!]

We need to remember that between the young theologian, Joseph Ratzinger, so critical of the Roman curia and so enthusiastic for the restoration of episcopal power, and Pope Benedict XVI, there stands Cardinal Ratzinger, for 24 years the head of the most powerful of the curial congregations.


What a vicious and mendacious way to end! The 'power' of the CDF has been exaggerated all this time because it suited the media narrative of the Panzerkardinal.

In practical terms, the CDF is far less powerful than the Secretariat of State which controls the entire internal administration of the Curia as well as all of the Vatican's foreign relations. The CDF was only seen as powerful when Cardinal Ratzinger was its head because he came to be seen as John Paul II's right-hand man, not Cardinal Sodano, who was Secretary of State. Sodano's predecessor, Cardinal Casaroli, was certainly far more powerful and influential with John Paul II and on the affairs of the Church, than Cardinal Seper, who was Cardinal Ratzinger's predecessor at CDF. And who will even think that Cardinal Levada today is more powerful and influential than Cardinal Bertone?

Even Cardinal Ratzinger's influence with John Paul II was limited to theological and intellectual support. He obviously had no administrative input, otherwise he would not have encountered opposition to his intentions to investigate Cardinal Groer and Father Maciel when and as he wanted to.

The CDF's primary function of keeping the doctrinal purity of the faith cannot be seen as political power in any way - we are no longer in the Middle Ages and there is no Inquisition now. Nor can its adjunct function since 2001 of dealing with sexual abuse cases. Its power is normative and disciplinary on both doctrine and on the behavior of priests. In both cases, it disciplines individuals, case by case, out a Church numbering almost 1.2 billion. To call that 'power' is to misuse the term!



Here is that addendum on 'collegiality' I referred to above, from the September 2002 issue of a monthly Australian journal of religious opinion

in which Valentine Gallagher writes:


While professor of Theology at Tubingen University, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published his Theological Highlights of Vatican II. An English translation appeared in 1966.

The Cardinal devoted some space to the explanatory note appended to the document treating of episcopal collegiality. The "nota praevia explicativa" was devised as a guideline for interpretation but was not incorporated into the Council text.

The Cardinal wrote:

As is well known. this note injected something of bitterness into the closing days of the session otherwise so full of valiant hopes. A detailed analysis of this very intricate text would take us here too far afield. The end result, which is what we are concerned with, would be the realisation it did not create any substantially new situation.

Essentially it involved the same dialectic and the same ambiguity about the real powers of the college as the Council itself manifested. Without doubt the scales were here further tipped in favour of papal primacy as opposed to collegiality. But for every statement advanced in one direction the text offers one supporting the other side and this restores the balance, leaving interpretations open in both directions.

"We can see the text as either 'primatialist' or collegial. Thus we can speak of a certain ambivalence in the text of the 'explanatory note', reflecting the ambivalent attitude of those who worked on the text and tried to reconcile the conflicting tendencies. The consequent ambiguity is a sign that complete harmony of views was neither achieved nor even possible
. (page 115).


In other words, there was no clear consensus at the Council about the nature and mechanics of 'collegiality', much less that it overrode papal primacy at all - so why do the spiritists behave as though Vatican II had decided the Church would be a parliamentary democracy with a figurehead monarch in the Pope????

And as for Nash's facile comparison of Prof. Ratzinger with Benedict XVI, let me quote from Joseph Small, Director of Theology of the Presbyterian Church, in an article he wrote for an excellent little volume published last year, entitled The Pontificate of Benedict XVI: Its Premises and Promises, edited by the Lutheran William Rusch, professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary and Yale University Divinity School - in which scholars from various religious traditions offered their theological perspectives on various aspects of Joseph Ratzinger's work. The volume was published for the fourth anniversary of Benedict XVI's election. Small writes:


Scholars who are thoroughly familiar with the thought of Joseph Ratzinger observe that he has been remarkably consistent in his views, at least since the supposed 'conservative turn' in the late 1960s. Nevertheless, it is risky to trace straight lines from professor to prefect to Pope.

Professors, even professors of Catholic theology, speak and write from a far more personal social location than heads of Vatican congregations and commissions. The constranints on prefects are different from the momentous responsibilities of Popes.

The professor who wrote Introduction to Christianity, the prefect who was reponsible for Dominus Iesus and Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Certain Aspects of the Church in Communion, and the Pope who delivered Deus caritas est are the same man, yet one whose intellectual wrok has taken place indifferent settings and has had different purposes.

A professor's books and a prefect's clarifications do not predetermine a Pope's encyclicals. Even so, the concerns of a lfietime have not undergone wide swings; consistent themes have been bothe deepened and focused through immersion in a remarkable ecclesial life.


It dawned on me, reading this, that this 'immersion in ecclesiastical life' that Joseph Ratzinger has had - as professor, pastor (Archbishop of Munich). prefect and now Pope - is an experience no other theologian of his stature has had.

Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar remained pure scholars, as did Hans Kueng and the anti-Ratzinger German theologians. Karl Lehmann went on to a long career as archbishop of a major diocese, but has had no Curial exposure. Walter Kasper's itinerary was perhaps most like Ratzinger, from theology professor, to bishop of a German diocese, to long service in the Curia. But neither Lehmann nor Kasper produced a body of theological work anywhere near Ratzinger's. The closest parallel one can find among theologians to Joseph Ratzinger's career is Bonaventure of Bagnaregio. The analogy was so striking when the Holy Father gave his recent series of catechesis on Bonaventure. Of course, Bonaventure did not become Pope, but he is a Doctor of the Church, of which there are 33 now compared to 265 Popes so far. You know where I am going...

And yet Hans Kueng, without any pastoral experience at all, not even as a parish priest, dared write an open letter recently to the bishops of the world! Go figure...


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2010 13:17]
24/04/2010 12:11
OFFLINE
Post: 20.014
Post: 2.655
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



The author of the following article is a French philosopher (born 1971) of Tunisan Jewish heritage, who was an atheist, anarchist and nihilist until he converted to Catholicism in 1998 and has since written many books about religion. He won France's Grand Prix Catholique de Literature in 2006.

The last Beatitude and
the attacks on Benedict XVI

by Fabrice Hadjadj
Translated from
the 11/24/10 issue of




"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5,10).

The believer cannot forget that: the tempest that is hitting the Church these days points us to a Beatitude, the last one.

Of course, the crimes committed by priests can only arouse horror. Benedict XVI has underscored all that with terrible words that unfortunately, have not found great resonance:

"Urgent action is needed to address these factors, which have had such tragic consequences in the lives of victims and their families, and have obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing" (No.4, Letter to Irish Catholics)

We should weep at our sins, because when Christians do not fight the shadows, they become the worst accomplices to the forces of darkness and they are reduced to less than a pagan persecutor. Nonetheless, according to the surprising words of the Sermon on the Mount, we should rejoice at persecution since it is not an obstacle but the space itself within which one can realize the radicalness of witness, that is to say - it becomes the occasion for supernatural charity towards the persecutor.

I would like to point out other reasons to rejoice even amid this media lynching.

The most anti-papist media have become apologetists for the faith despite themselves. That they have been obliged to distort facts, that they have persistently truncated or falsified information to attack the Pope and to sling mud all over the clergy, is proof that they actually have little to att5ack them with [on the issue of child abuse].

If they were made in a lucid and rational dispute, the attacks would be on target. But the irrationality of their reaction plays against them and provides reasonable minds with reasons to believe instead in the truth of the pontifical Magisterium.

After all, when the Pope speaks, it should not concern the non-believer. He could say he only speaks to Catholics who are trapped in obscurantism and rigidity. But as this episode shows, on the contrary, he is affected, uneasy, as though the voice and actions of the Holy Faher touched him personally.

From such a reaction, an outside observer can easily deduce that the non-believer is not really all that non-believing. Rather, one might say he instinctively feels the Magisterium, the spiritual paternity of the Supreme Pontiff, his role as the universal witness.

If the violence experienced by the abused children and minors appears to us so serious, how can we not see in this the impact of the Gospel? In many societies, the child is considered an imperfect being, without great importance, one who can be put to work and whom oen can abuse.

But Christ had these extraordinary words - and it needed centuries of Christianity, till Francis de Sales and Don Bosco to draw the consequences: "Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18,3).

The child is no longer seen not simply as not an imperfect being, but the symbol par excellence of the perfection of spiritual life. Hence, the respect and profound attention that he deserves and has received from adults. [Too bad secular people do not show the same respect and attention for the unborn child, whom they do not even consider a human being!]

By showing themselves scandalized over what is inappropriately called pedophilia [literally, love of children], the media are showing themselves to be under the Christian influence.

If they are particularly scandalized by the fact that such abuses are committed by priests, it is because they also instinctively appreciate the special dignity of the priesthood. Their attacks are n unwitting contribution to the Year for Priests and a homage to the highest ideal of purity in the priesthood.

What is it that favors the tendency to abuse children these days? Is it paternalism? No, rather it is the logic of the horizontal society, where the sense of fatherhood is attenuated, where the hierarchy of generations is no longer recognized.

This is the logic of the 'social contract' when society is not a natural entity based on the family, but a contract among mere individuals, regardless of membership, sex or affiliation, in which everyone appears on the same level. Why then would sexual relationship between an adult and a minor not be possible?

The 'contractee' would answer: Because the child is not capable of agreeing. That may be. But this is the proof that society cannot be based only on ondividual consensus: it must be founded on the natural family.

Consequently, in order to get out of this impasse, the sense of fatherhood must bs restored - divine fatherhood as well as human faterhood, passing through the spiritual faterhood of the priest.The very existence of a 'Holy Father' indicates the necessity for a radical and verticsal love for children which prohibits all abuses made possible by the horizontal society.

As Julian Carron [head of Comunione e Liberazione] showed in his letter to La Repubblica, behind the scandal and the horror of child abuse, is the crying need for justice, for infinite justice. Such a justice should not be reduced to lynching the guilty and sympathizing with the victims.

Instead, it should open up a future of communion and happiness, not close itself into a negative atttude of vendetta and morbid remorse - this would be false justice that is both cursory and barren, and instead of making life bloom again, it would make us complicit in its destruction.

We can punish the guilty, but who does it help if life itself - for them and for their victims - has lost meaning? True justice can only be ordered on hope. One must condemn the sexual abuses perpetrated on children but if, at the same time, one rejects all those who work with them and are witnesses to hope and reconciliation, then in turn, this would be cammitting spiritual abuse on these children.

It would be turning them over to a consumer world, without redemption adn without a future. And for such an abuse, for this insidious killing of souls, we would have to be jduged one day.

The papacy is not a human institution. It is an article of faith because it is an ultimate consequence of the Incarnation. The Word was made flesh - and therefore, it is necessary that believers unite not only around a series of teachings, but also around a face, a person anchored in their selfsame humanity as the image of Christ among his apostles. Without this mystery of 'vicarity', Christianity would tend to disincarnate and dissolve into spiritualism.

There is something else: In becoming flesh, the Word was able to take upon itself the sufferings of mankind. The same thing happens in the Papacy. The articles of faith cannot be wounded or murdered, but one can wound and kill the Pope.

This vulnerability is necessary to show that Christianity is not reduced to the anonymous intelligence of a moral system, but springs from the free and dramatic encounter with a Person.

Thus the attacks that Benedict XVI is undergoing can only conform him better to Christ and allow the believer to look to him all the more as the unhoped-for Vicar, or representative, of Christ on earth.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2010 12:15]
24/04/2010 13:06
OFFLINE
Post: 20.015
Post: 2.656
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran





Benedict XVI is a model of faith:
The Pope as a friend of Jesus

by Jens-Martin Kruse
Pastor of the Lutheran Community of Rome
Translated from
the 11/24/10 issue of






On Laetare Sunday, last March 14, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Lutheran evangelical community of Rome, and took part in a Vespers liturgy at the Christuskirche.

It was a small but important and incisive sign of mature and solid ecumenical relationships, of an ecumenism that is lived, as it has been the practice in Rome for many years among various Christian confessions.

The Pope was received warmly and heartily by the Lutheran community, who impressed them with how he addressed the members, for his participation in the liturgy, and for the profound and substantially rich homily.

This encounter demonstrated clearly and concretely what is essential for Benedict XVI adn for his Petrine ministry. The Pope spoke on a passage from the Gospel of John (12,20-26) which recounts how some Greeks came to the apostle Philip and said to him: "We would like to see Jesus".

In his meditation on these verses, the Pope said, "We are moved by these words since we all long ever more ardently to see and to know him. I think there are two reasons why these Greeks interest us: on the one hand their situation is the same as ours; we too are pilgrims asking about God, in search of God. And we too would like to know Jesus better and truly to see him. Yet it is also true that, like Philip and Andrew, we should be Jesus' friends, friends who know him and can show others the way that leads to him."

Pilgrims in search of God who are, at the same time, also friends of Jesus, can open to other persons a door to him. In this way, the Pope describes the fundamental characteristics of Christian life.

And these two images express two ideas that show clearly how Benedict XVI conceives of his service and carries it out, imprinting his Pontificate with a specific character.

Whoever meets the Pope meets a Christian who does not place himself or his ministry in the center but only Jesus Christ. He himself wants to know him even more and to lead others to meet him, because he has experienced himself that faith gives comfort and hope, fulfillment and meaning to life.

This is what Benedict XVI does in his homilies, in his catecheses, on his pastoral visits - with prudence, discretion adn humility - but in such a convincing way that makes him a model of faith even for us Lutherans.

Pope Benedict XVI is without a doubt one of the most important personages of our time. He has decisively confronted, in a way that will endure, the great questions and themes of the contemporary world: the relationship among religions, values and traditions; the economic crisis; human rights, among others.

But at the same time, the Pope contributes daily to the Christian faith. As a pilgrim and friend of Jesus, he is constantly meeting persons, bearing witness to the Gospel message, thus encouraging others to believe. With small gestures and signs that often do not resonate greatly - and Benedict XVI knows this - but are indispensable to keep the community of the faithful vibrant and to make the faith grow.

In this sense we interpret the liturgy that he celebrated with our small Lutheran community. Without ignoring the difficulties in the ecumenical effort, the Pope urged that the Christian churches, rather than lamenting this, "should first of all be grateful that so much unity already exists. It is wonderful that today, Laetare Sunday, we can pray together, sing the same hymns, listen to the same word of God, explain it and seek to understand it together; that we look to the one Christ whom we see and to whom we wish to belong and that, in this manner, we are already witnessing that he is the One who has called us all and to whom, in the deepest way possible, we all belong."

Already, the day after his election, Benedict XVI, addressing the cardinals who elected him, described it as his primary task "to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers... aware that good intentions do not suffice for this. Concrete gestures that enter hearts and stir consciences are essential, inspiring in everyone that inner conversion that is the prerequisite for all ecumenical progress".

The Pope has always been ready to make these gestures which express communion, which consolidate the faith, and at the same time, have visionary power. So it was at the liturgy in Christuskirche - the closeness and communion lived on that occasion will continue to be expressed in a visible and lasting way.

Benedict XVI concluded his homily with these words: "Let us pray for each other, let us pray together that the Lord will grant us unity and help the world so that it may believe".

And so, we must do, each for the other, and together - grateful that in Benedict XVI, we have a Pope who considers himself a pilgrim in the journey towards God and who is a friend of Jesus.

24/04/2010 13:34
OFFLINE
Post: 20.016
Post: 2.657
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



The Pope has replaced George Bush
as the man some people love to hate

By David Quinn

April 23 2010


Joseph Ratzinger was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II five years ago this week. Already a controversial figure, he has since gone on to become the hate figure du jour in certain circles, a sort of replacement bogeyman for George W Bush.

Those circles include aggressive secularists, angry ex-Catholics and some within the Catholic Church itself who still suffer from the delusion that the purpose of the Second Vatican Council was to turn the church into another form of failed liberal Protestantism.

Obviously, Benedict is in the news now because of the scandals and the ongoing, and mostly unfair, attempts to implicate him in the mismanagement of those scandals. But even without the scandals, Benedict was and is a hate figure for some.

Admittedly he has not always helped his own cause. For example, he would have been better off not quoting that Byzantine emperor's criticisms of Islam in his Regensburg address of September 2006.

He was also unwise to lift the excommunication order on Bishop Richard Williamson -- a Holocaust denier -- without, at a minimum, a full and proper explanation.


[Naturally, I dispute these assertions! Sorry, Mr. Quinn.]

But in other respects he has been attacked without any proper justification. For example, in December 2008 he was widely condemned for comparing homosexuality with the destruction of the rainforests, except that he did no such thing. In that speech, he never even mentioned homosexuality.

A few weeks later, on his way to Africa, he defended the church's opposition to condom promotion in fighting the spread of HIV/Aids. He was excoriated for this and blamed for helping to cause the deaths of millions.

But none of his critics paid any attention to the actual scientific evidence, which shows that no condom promotion campaign aimed at general populations has ever succeeded in reducing the spread of HIV/Aids. What works, according to the evidence, are fidelity campaigns.

Attacks on Benedict, and on the Catholic Church generally, come from many directions. The Church is attacked over its supposed attitude towards Protestants, Jews, Muslims and the other religions generally.

Benedict and the Church are attacked over their attitude towards homosexuality and human sexuality generally. They are attacked over their defence of the right to life of the unborn, the elderly and the sick. They are attacked over their defence of marriage.

But in a way, all these attacks are an attack on the same thing, namely Benedict and the church's defence of objective truth and morality, its belief that certain things are right or wrong in themselves regardless of opinion or circumstance.

In an age of moral relativism, nothing is more offensive than the person who says, however calmly, that not all 'truths' are equal, that morality is not simply a matter of opinion, that religions are not all equally true or equally false, and that not all lifestyle choices are equal.

With regard to sex, for example, the Church says that sex has an objective meaning and purpose and that one such purpose is procreation, which is intrinsically linked to heterosexuality.

This is connected to the defence of marriage. One reason the Church says men and women should marry before they have sex is because it believes children have a right to be raised by their two married parents.

But many people, not least cohabiting couples, single parents and homosexuals find this offensive and it leads them into a denial that children have any need for, or right to, a married mother and father. The Church cannot go down that road.

Nor can the Church say all religions are equal because then it would have to deny that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. But this doesn't mean the Church can't treat other religions with respect.

Why is this so difficult to grasp? Presumably we're all able to treat most of the people with whom we disagree with respect. Well, the Church does the same, contrary to popular prejudice. [And it is not as if Islam or Judaism do not likewise preach, each for itself, that they are the true religion, the spiritual path to follow.]

The paradox of relativism is that it claims to treat all points of view equally but in fact it damns and condemns those who deny relativism.

In other words, relativists defend their point of view as trenchantly and aggressively as the worst fundamentalists and will brook no opposition.

The Pope calls this ultra-aggressiveness the 'dictatorship of relativism'. The main reason these liberal fundamentalists spend so much of their time and energy attacking the Pope and the Church is because the latter are the foremost defenders of objective truth and morality in the world today.

Destroy Benedict, damage or co-opt the Church he leads, and you go a long way towards destroying opposition to liberal fundamentalism. This is a cataclysmic battle between those who believe in objective morality and those who think morality is relative. Joseph Ratzinger is smack bang in the middle of the hottest part of this battle.


The first Irish Catholic writer I 'discovered' - at the height of the AIDS-condoms controversy - to be a staunch admirer of benedict XVI is John Waters, who has given this beautiful interview to the UK Catholic Herald. There should be more Irish Catholic voices like him and David Quinn to speak up against all the negativity:


It’s impossible not to have hope:
Why Benedict XVI can lead the Church
out of the abuse scandal

by Joanna Bogle

23 April 2010


John Waters says: ‘No one wants to read what the Pope has actually said – they’ll even tell you that they don’t need to do so. They have just been given a narrative, and they accept it.’

At any time, I suspect, Waters would be a fascinating companion for a conversation. Talking to him on a day when the most horrendous media storm, of unprecedented nastiness, had erupted around the Holy Father, was decidedly memorable.

His soft and pleasant Irish voice and his enjoyable turn of phrase brought unexpected shafts of light on to all the topics that cropped up: he’s living in Dublin so of course these included the current issues in the Church, and the Pope’s letter, and more.

John Waters’s latest book, Beyond Consolation, tackles the whole question of how the illuminating truths of the Christian faith make sense of our human condition.

The book, he says “fits somewhere in the middle” of his previous book, Lapsed Agnostic, in which he tracked his own spiritual odyssey.

He’s a huge fan of Pope Benedict, and aghast at the mockery and attack now being hurled at him. And he’s emphatic about the roots of the crisis which has engulfed the Irish Church.

“There was a strange way in which Christ was being presented,” he said. “It was rather sentimental really. He was shown as a figure of the most perfect moral goodness – someone you wouldn’t want to hurt or offend. So it all became a matter of moral teachings – he became a moralistic figure, and Irish Catholicism and the Irish clergy intensely moralistic.

“Everyone was broadly familiar with the gospels, with the story – but when it came to Easter it almost seemed like a play. It was though the reality was a step too far.

“We needed to step back and look again, and discover Christ in terms of what he himself said – to go in, as it were, by the side door and discover the truth about Christ and his divinity.”

Today, he said, the favourite phrase that people use is that they aren’t much in favour of religion, but of spirituality.

“They’ll tell you ‘Oh, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.’ Now, I want to get people thinking, to ask if they see themselves as they really are, to see life as something extraordinary, to ask why we are here and where we are going.”

He’s not doing this at any easy time: “When you are invited on to a radio programme, all they want to talk about is sex abuse,” he said. And the Pope – whose writings on beauty, truth, on the nature of man, on Christ, he finds absolutely gripping and of huge importance – is caught up in a drama where no one really listens to what he has to say or takes any notice when it is explained to them.

“They’ll just repeat what they are told – that the Pope insulted Muslims or whatever, and they don’t want to know any more. They don’t want to be challenged. I remember when he spoke out about condoms and Africa – well, I’d been in Uganda and knew that what he said was true, and the facts on the ground there proved it. But when presented with this information on a radio debate, people just didn’t listen, didn’t want to know.

“And all of this is being conducted in an arena which is provided by the media, so in a sense it’s hostile. I don’t mean that there is a deliberate attempt to make it so – I just mean that all the assumptions are entirely secular.” [And therefore, inevitably hostile to anything that hsa to do with religion!]

It’s almost comic, he noted. “No one wants to read what the Pope has actually said, his speeches, his books – they’ll even tell you that they don’t need to do so. They have just been given a narrative, and they accept it and stick to it, and that’s that. There’s no openness, no opportunity to dialogue.”

Waters is a successful journalist and a single father and has rediscovered the Church and is exploring spiritual truths with an evident sense of delight and enchantment. How does he view the future of the Church in Ireland?

In the short term, bleakly. “But perhaps it’s like a garden that’s been overgrown with weeds. Pulling them up by the roots is a dirty messy business but it’s necessary for the garden to bloom and grow in the future.”

One major problem, he believes, is that the generation of people now generally running things in the West, the “baby boomers”, have managed to combine both the holding of power with the language of opposition.

“They’ve been in charge for a good while now, and they have imposed their views – a limited vision of freedom and a specific view on human sexuality – all expressed as being very idealistic. This makes it harder for a younger generation to find its own voice,” he argued.

“There is somehow this feeling the only alternative is a sort of reactionary traditionalism – and that isn’t what the young really want either.” He’s seen signs of hope in, for example, the Communion and Liberation movement in Italy. “And there is always hope – it’s impossible not to have it.”

In his book, he quotes at length from Spe Salvi, the Pope’s encyclical on hope, especially on the subject of eternity.

Benedict XVI writes that it is “like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time – the before and after – no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.” [WONDERFUL! The single most striking and most beautiful statement in that singularly striking and beautiful encyclical - one that Hindus and Buddhists would appreciate perfectly as their idea of samadhi and nirvana!]

And he evidently not only relishes the beauty of the Pope’s style but the whole of his approach, setting before men a greater vision of what life is, and could be in eternity with God, and hence why we are all here.

A favourite cliché today, says John Waters, is about consumerism – which everyone likes to feel they oppose. “But in reality, when you hear the news on the radio, so much of it is about money, about pensions, property, banking. Well, of course we all need and want some security in life – but now this is seen as what really matters.

“And the real things – the extraordinary fact of life itself, our human reality, our ability to take a step back and discuss things – is seen as a recreational extra, a leisure pursuit.”

He keeps returning to this idea of “stepping back”, of seeing things as they really are: “If you do that, and take a real look at life – at human existence itself, at simply being alive – and then confront the Gospels again, you see things differently.”

He now sees Christian moral teachings not as a set of rules, but as part of a greater whole, integral to the reality of Christ. And he believes that the West is ready for a whole new discussion, but is shirking it, refusing to do what is necessary and engage with a challenge to its own assumptions.

“In the writings of Wojtyla and of Ratzinger there is a vision of the human project for which the world is waiting. But, especially in the case of Ratzinger, it’s leading us forward right now and people can’t see it – it’s ahead and they don’t want to look. It’s as though they can barely see him.”


I think, Mr. Waters, that is true for those who are not seeking God at all or - in most cases, it amounts to the same thing - who are not ready for him to come to them... I've often wondered what I might have been if I had not been born and raised in the faith. How soon, if at all, would I have been ready for God?




POPE'S EX-VICAR IN MUNICH
GIVES HIS SIDE


April 23, 2010


I must post an important clarification about the MSM narrative regarding Archbishop Ratzinger's involvement in the assignment of Fr. Hullerman to pastoral duties when he came to undertake therapy in Munich for pedophilia.

Two days ago, one Thomas Fox at National Catholic Reporter posted a snarky and tendentious report about the denial made by the Archbishop's former Vicar, Mons Gerhard Gruber, to a report by the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the magazine Der Spiegel, which claimed he said he had been pressured by the Archdiocese to give a statement assuming responsibility for the assignment of Fr. H.

Reporter Fox has now made up by publishing a translation of Mons. Gruber's entire letter - which SZ did not publish - and the ex-vicar's clarification is very informative. I will omit the introductory paragraphs:



...I was never summoned to the archbishop`s office. I never had to sign a document which had been prepared and over whose text I was permitted no influence. I have signed nothing.

The fact of the matter is:

The archbishop’s office received a particular inquiry from the press. As is customary in such cases, the intention was to provide an immediate response. However, neither the current vicar general and his staff nor our current Archbishop had any knowledge of what had been going on at that time.

The appropriate files were fetched from the records office. Based on their evidence, a statement was drafted. As it was obvious that I had signed the documents as the then vicar general, it seemed appropriate for a personal statement on my part, and a draft was included in the general statement.

In the late afternoon of March 12, 2010, I was telephoned and informed of that plan, and received the draft via fax. I should make alterations to the text wherever and whenever I thought necessary. This I did.

The expression “on his own authority” which was made public by the press officer was not contained in the draft and had not been discussed with me, and annoyed me deeply, because the ordinary reader may understand it as misuse of office instead of understanding it in the general sense of church law, meaning “in the mandate of that office or position.”

As for the remarks of the psychotherapist Professor Dr. Werner Huth, my recollection is that in the telephone conversations at the time he did indeed point out the risks in connection with the pedophile priest, but he did not completely exclude a successful result of therapy.

Archbishop Marx has never called me dishonest in this context.

In the last few weeks, which have been very stressful for me, I have received from several of you encouraging and supportive calls and letters. For these I thank you all sincerely.

It was particularly encouraging for me to receive a phone call from FM Cardinal Wetter, who has also talked to our new archbishop about my difficult situation. Incidentally, shortly before Easter, Archbishop Marx sent me his best regards and also expressed his gratitude for my “contribution”.

Dear Brothers, I hope to see many of you at our forthcoming meeting and ask you for your prayers.

Salvete in Domino!

+ Gerhard Gruber



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2010 15:12]
24/04/2010 13:47
OFFLINE
Post: 20.017
Post: 2.658
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran



Jack Valero is one of a number of British Catholics in a group called Catholic Voices that has been mobilized to use the mass media in order to propagate what the Church stands for in preparation for the Holy Father's visit to the UK in September. It is gratifying that the Times of London has accommodated this article about a most fundamental issue that few in the media have looked at - out of sheer prejudice against the Catholic Church, which has become the scapegoat for a societal affliction.


Abuse isn't just a Catholic problem
Yes, the Church needs purging of paedophiles,
and has brought in tough guidelines to throw them out,
but what of abusers in schools and families?

by JACK VALERO

April 23, 2010


When I was growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s sexual abuse of minors by relatives or older friends was not uncommon. But none I knew had been abused by priests; the perpetrators were teachers and relatives.

And that has been the case ever since. In all my years trying to help people with their spiritual struggles, none of those who have confided in me that they were abused as children has ever told me they had been abused by a priest.

It seems amazing that, despite moving within Catholic circles for so long, the first victim of clerical sexual abuse I ever met was when I appeared recently on the BBC Big Questions programme.

Yet the knowledge that there has been abuse by priests, and that it was, in many instances, poorly handled by bishops, is inescapable. As the gracious statement of the English and Welsh bishops yesterday makes clear, “Catholics are members of a single universal body. These terrible crimes, and the inadequate response by some church leaders, grieve us all.”

There can only be one response by Catholics to what has happened: it starts with acknowledgement of shame and fault, and leads through contrition and compensation to reparation and, eventually – with God’s help - healing.

I shall be among those Catholics across the UK who, each Friday in May, as the bishops urge, offer their prayers that justice be done, reforms be swiftly introduced, and the Church’s house be put in order. Above all, I shall pray for the victims of abuse and their shattered trust. I shall pray that through trust in God they might again learn - if this can’t happen now - to trust and love.

But I have another feeling, which is almost as strong; namely, that sexual abuse of minors is not a “Catholic” problem, and that the blowtorch directed at the Church on this issue reveals something unhealthy about society around us.

What had begun to be talked of in the 60’s has become a problem so endemic that it seems at times too big to be tackled; and rather than tackling it, we have created a surrogate – the Catholic Church – to take the flack which belongs more widely.

The statistics are scattered about, but not hard to find. Professor Charol Shakeshaft of Virginia University studied 290,000 cases of alleged abuse in the ten years between 1991 and 2000. Out of a sample of 225 teachers who admitted to sexually abusing a pupil, not a single case was reported to the authorities.

Yet the John Jay College of Criminal Justice study of 2004 – independent auditors commissioned by the US bishops -- found 10,667 people who made allegations about sexual abuse by priests and religious in the 52 years between 1950 and 2002 (roughly 200 a year compared to the 29,000 a year in public schools). The allegations were made against 4,392 priests, of whom 56 per cent were accused of only a single incident, some of which were never proved.

As a result of the Dallas norms introduced by the US Catholic Church in 2002, last year the entire Catholic Church in the US – which has 65 million members – received six contemporary allegations of clerical abuse.

In the UK, where the Nolan Report of 2001 led to strict guidelines, the Catholic Church is unique among institutions for making public each year the number of allegations of sexual abuse by priests. For 2007 the number of such contemporary allegations was precisely four for the whole of the UK – in a Church of about 5 million.

At least in the UK and the US we can now state with confidence that the Catholic Church is one of the safest environments for children and young people.

Who else can claim this? A recent investigation by the Associated Press into sexual abuse by American teachers found that in the five years between 2001 to 2005, over 2,500 teachers were convicted of sexual abuse -- that’s 500 teachers a year, compared to six priests.

AP discovered that most of the abuse never gets reported, and cases reported often end with no action. And no one – not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments – has yet found a reliable way to keep abusive teachers out of classrooms.

In Sweden’s secular state schools, a recent study found that 60 per cent of girls and 40 per cent of boys have been abused. Even in Ireland at the height of the abuse scandal exposed by the Murphy Report, the number of pupils that had been sexually abused never exceeded five per cent. Consider Britain, where the latest yearly report from the NSPCC gives a figure of 21,000 sexual abuse allegations in 2009.

Aren’t we missing something? More than 75 per cent of all sexual abuse of minors happens in the family, perpetrated by family members, mostly those who are married, and by others known to the victims. Most of it is never spoken out. Only seldom is a relative denounced.

Thanks to the media the Catholic Church has been brought to task. Its failures have been highlighted. And reforms have been put in place – above all by Pope Benedict XVI.

He has been the first Pope to meet with victims, to lift the wall of silence, to fast-track the punishment of priests through laicisation. He promises action, and is delivering.

Guidelines of the sort that exist in the US and the UK are being drawn up for application to the universal Church. The Church is putting its house in order.

But when it is in order, what then? Will public opinion then be able to turn to what has been going on behind closed doors – in the heart of families, under the veil of silence – in far greater numbers, and for far longer, and with far greater impunity?

Who, in those places, can the media hold to account? Who there can introduce Catholic Church-style guidelines and reforms?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2010 14:01]
24/04/2010 13:57
OFFLINE
Post: 20.018
Post: 2.659
Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009
Administratore
Utente Veteran




ON THE ANNIVERSARY TODAY

OF BENEDICT XVI'S FORMAL INAUGURATION

AS THE 264TH SUCCESSOR OF PETER






Offer the Spiritual Bouquet too!


www.institute-christ-king.org/bouquet/







In Turin, a novena for
the Pope began yesterday

Translated from the Italian service of

April 23, 2010


The Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Severino Poletto, has called on all the parishes and churches in the diocese to a novena of prayers for the Pope starting today, April 23, to Saturday, May 1, eve of Benedict XVI's pastoral visit to venerate the Holy Shroud, now on public exposition.

The cardinal called the Pope's visit 'a great event of grace', and expressed the wish that "the numerous pilgrims coming to the Shroud, and all those who will be in Turin on Sunday, May 2, to welcome the Pope, may experience an abundant harvest of spiritual fruits for themselves, their families and all of society".

"I am certain that this prayerful unison will be very effective in experiencing the spiritual significance of the Pope's visit, who will not fail to remind us that contemplation of the suffering of Christ, in the image of the Shroud, will help us to see, comfort and sustain the innumerable physical, moral, spiritual and social sufferings of so many among our brothers".

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2010 14:20]
Nuova Discussione
 | 
Rispondi
Cerca nel forum

Feed | Forum | Bacheca | Album | Utenti | Cerca | Login | Registrati | Amministra
Crea forum gratis, gestisci la tua comunità! Iscriviti a FreeForumZone
FreeForumZone [v.6.1] - Leggendo la pagina si accettano regolamento e privacy
Tutti gli orari sono GMT+01:00. Adesso sono le 11:48. Versione: Stampabile | Mobile
Copyright © 2000-2024 FFZ srl - www.freeforumzone.com