BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Monday, April 4, Fourth Week in Lent

ST. ISIDRO DE SEVILLA (Isidore of Seville), 560-636, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI devoted his catechesis on 6/18/08 to the first of three Spaniards so far declared as a Doctor of the Church (the others are Teresa of Avila and Juan de la Cruz)
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080618...
Born in Cartagena, southeast Spain, of a family that included three other saints, he was educated (severely) by his elder brother, now Saint Leandro, whom he succeeded as bishop of Seville. It was a time of conflict and growth for the Church in Spain. The Visigoths had invaded the land a century and a half earlier and shortly before Isidore's birth they set up their own capital. They were Arians —Christians who said Christ was not God. Thus Spain was split into Roman Catholics Arian Goths. Isidore reunited Spain, making it a center of culture and learning, a teacher and guide for other European countries whose culture was also threatened by barbarian invaders. An amazingly learned man, who was also known for his austere piety, he was sometimes called "The Schoolmaster of the Middle Ages" because the encyclopedia he wrote was used as a textbook for nine centuries. He required seminaries to be built in every diocese, wrote a Rule for religious orders and founded schools that taught every branch of learning. Isidore wrote numerous books, including a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a history of Goths and a history of the world—beginning with creation! He completed the Mozarabic liturgy, which is still in use in Toledo, Spain. In the last six months of his life, he increased his charities so much that his house was crowded from morning till night with the poor of the countryside. Because of his vast knowledge and far-ranging influence,, he has been suggested as patron saint of the Internet. As one of the major Spanish saints, he is among the Patrons for the World Youth Day in Madrid this year.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/040411.shtml


No OR today.


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne

= Mons. Franz-Josef Overbeck, Bishop of Essen (Germany)

- Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò, Secretary-General of the Governatorate of Vatican City State

- Six bishops of India's Syro-Malabar Church (Group 4) on ad limina visit. Individual meetings.


ONE YEAR AGO TODAY...



This day last year, it was Easter Sunday. Despite Holy Week, the media was still nastily hounding Benedict XVI for supposed personal participation in the sex-abuse cover-ups, and Cardinal Sodano's simple tribute and expression of support for him before the start of the Easter Mass on St. Peter's Square, fueled the flames farther.

The MSM howled, claiming that the phrase he used ('idle chatter') - to describe the unfounded accusations against the Pope - referred to media stories about sex-offender priests. This built on the MSM - and Jewish - outrage over Pontifical Preacher Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa's Good Friday sermon in which he recounted a Jewish friend writing him that "some aspects of recent attacks against the Pope and the Church, including the use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt" reminded him of the worst aspects of anti-Semitism.

The widespread protest this roused in liberal and Jewish circles all but said it was all right to make such attacks against Catholics but wrong to do so against Jews. In other words, Catholics are fair game for anyone, and it's open season on them any time! Which is, unfortunately, one of the morally reprehensible notions that underlie the new age of Christian persecution in the world today.




- It is amazing that the few accounts I have seen so far of the US-based History Channel's telecast Saturday called 'Secret Access' report on the sequences taken at the Vatican in 2007 by the late Giuseppe De Carli's RAI crew as though it were a completely new thing! Not surprising that those who wrote the reviews have never seen it before, since only Italians and Germans who watched the documentary for the Pope's 80th birthday then, along with Benaddicts who seek out any and all videos of the Pope, would have been expected to have seen it. But I should think that the History Channel, or whoever produced 'Secret Access' would have credited RAI-TV for these video sequences and not pass it off as the 'world premiere' of a docu that is four years old by now.... And a UK Daily Mail review makes a big deal out of the orange juice the Pope drinks in the lunch sequence shown on the docu, only she thinks it is Fanta, 'the fizzy drink'. Who would serve a fizzy drink in a pitcher, and why should the Pope have to drink soda in his own household where he can have freshly-squeezed orange juice whenever he wants it? Sorry for the trivia, but it is annoying...