BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, February 28, First Week of Lent

Panel shows the African Memorial Cathedral of Dakar, Senegal.
BLESSED DANIEL BROTTIER (France, 1876-1936), Spiritan Priest, Missionary, Wartime Chaplain, Worker of Charity
Daniel was ordained a diocesan priest in 1899 and started out as a teacher, but four years later, he joined the Congregation
of the Holy Spirit (CSSp) in order to serve as a missionary in Africa. He served in Senegal for eight years but had to return
to France due to poor health. However, he started to raise funds to build a cathedral for Dakar to honor Africans who had died
for France. [In fact, the cathedral was inaugurated just four weeks before he died in 1936, but he was too sick to attend]. In
1914, he volunteered to be a chaplain on the battlefronts, where he served the wounded and the dying for 52 months. He would
attribute his survival to St. Therese of Lisieux, in whose honor he built a chapel in Auteuil, the Paris suburb where he spent
the last 10 years of his life, which he dedicated to a foundation for orphans and abandoned children which continues flourish
today. Less than 50 years after his death, Fr. Brottier was beatified by John Paul II in Paris in 1984.
Reading for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022812.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father is on retreat (Day 3).

The Vatican released a joint communique on the third meeting of the Vietnam-Holy See working group
which met in Hanoi Feb. 27-28, aimed at eventual establishment of full diplomatic relations.




- Two new Vati-leaked documents published today by Il Fatto Quotidiano appear to provide a new embarrassment for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The general facts were reported in the Italian media last year - to the effect that Bertone wanted to take control of the Toniolo Institute but failed. The letters provide concrete details of the circumstances.

Is a letter faxed to Cardinal Dionigio Tettamanzi in March last year, when the latter was still Archbishop of Milan, Bertone dismissing him outright (although his term lasts till 2013), in the Pope's name, from the presidency of the Permanent Council of the Board of Directors of the Toniolo Institute, one of the premier commercial institutions run by the Church as a private foundationin Italy. (It owns the Catholic University of Milan, the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, universities in Brescia, Cremona, Piacenza, Rome amd Campobasso, the Vita e Pensiero publishing house in Milan, and other media venntures and cpommercial interests all over Italy.) Bertone also informed Tettmanzi that the Pope had named constitutional lawyer Giovanni Maria Flick, in his place. The second letter, dated two days after Bertone's letter, was Tettamanzi's to Benedict XVI, asking him directly if the Bertone actions were in fact approved or ordered by him. Shortly thereafter, the Pope granted an audience to Cardinal Tettamanzi, and according to Andrea Tornielli's reconstruction last August of Bertone's maneuvers to gain control of the Toniolo, the Pope froze any further action, on the grounds that he had not been given the whole picture previously. See http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/homepage/news/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/4617/ (Tettamanzi was accused of mismanagement by Bertone and his financial advisers in the Roman Curia, but he presented documents to refute the accusations made against him point by point.) Tettamanzi continues to head the Toniolo, and will presumably hand it over to the new Archbishop, Cardinal Scola, when his term expires.

Obviously, the letters made public today appear to be part of the systematic campaign to discredit Bertone and perhaps force the Pope to replace him as Secretary of State. Nonetheless, it raises another question mark about Bertone's 'style' of trying to assert his power.

The letter does not start by saying "His Holiness has asked me to inform you regrettably that..." No, there are several sentences suggesting that Tettamanzi may have stayed too long as President of the Permanent Council (even if his term does not end till 2013), and then, the sentence: "Now that the terms of some members of the Permanent Council have expired, the Holy Father intends to proceed to a renewsl, in connection with which Your Eminence is now relieved of this onerous burden". Rather disingenouous, what?

What's more, from the criterion of elementary decency alone, that is not the kind of letter you write to a brother Cardinal - who was Archbishop of Milan and once the Italian cardinal considered most likely to be elected Pope in 2005 - to dismiss him summarily without prior notice; and to make it worse, to fax him such a letter. (SecState's assistants never heard of scanning a document and then sending it by e-mail to better protect it? Or how about sending it by express messenger delivery?]

It is comparable in its effrontery to his letter to Cardinal Bagnasco right after the latter was elected president of the Italian bishops' conference, to inform him that as of that moment, the Secretariat of State alone would handle political relations with the Italian government - something that the Italian bishops conference had always handled, and quite effectively in the 16 years that Cardinal Camillo Ruini led the CEI. From all accounts, Bagnasco wisely ignored the letter.

Cardinal Bertone has never struck me as other than affable, pleasant and completely worthy of his rank, but a letter such as the one to Tettamanzi makes it easy for his enemies to portray him as ambitious and scheming and not above using underhanded means to advance his plans - which, if minimally true, is unworthy of the Pope's right-hand man. And there must be a rational reason, other than just the Pope's obvious affection, to explain how and why Bertone has been excused by the Holy Father for this unseemly maneuver against Tettamanzi. (After he rescinded another major maneuver attempted by Bertone last autumn - for the Vatican to buy majority control for at least 250-million euros of the vast but financially strapped San Raffaele complex in Milan, after which the Pope asked him to withdraw the bid.) Two major miscalculations hand in hand! What makes Bertone think he's suddenly Donald Trump and Mitt Romney rolled into one - with no prior record of financial management behind him? I can't wait to read what Sandro Magister may have to contribute to this discussion.