BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Pope Benedict leads the world
in celebrating Blessed Teresa's
100th birth anniversary


26 Aug 10 (RV) Mother Teresa of Calcutta is an “inestimable gift for the Church and the world”, said Pope Benedict XVI Thursday in a message to the Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Blessed’s birth.



Born in Albania August 26, 1910, for over 45 years Mother Teresa ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.

The message, written personally by the Pope, was read out during Mass celebrated by the Archbishop of Calcutta, Lucas Sirkar in the Motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity, the same house where on October 7 1950 she founded her order dedicated to the care of the sick, the destitute and the dying.


Celebrations at the Mother Teresa Center in Kolkata today. Right photo: Sister Mary Prema, the German nun elected last year to be Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity.

This morning’s celebration begins a special year dedicated to Mother Teresa, a year that Pope Benedict said he is confident will be “for the Church and the world an occasion of joyful gratitude to God for the inestimable gift that Mother Teresa was in her lifetime”.

Speaking to the Mother’s “spiritual children”, the many thousands of religious sisters, brothers and lay workers who carry on her mission of bringing Christ’s love to the “poorest of the poor”, the Pope urges them to draw constantly from the spirituality and example of Mother Teresa and, in her footsteps, to take up Christ’s invitation: “Come, be my light”.

Sr Mary Prema is Superior General of the Order, which today comprises an estimated 450 brothers and 5,000 sisters worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

In a Letter sent to each of these missions, Sr Prema writes: “Her life and work continue to be an inspiration for young and old, rich and poor from all walks of life, religions and nations”. She adds that those who follow in her footsteps are called to share God’s love with those around us “beginning with our families”. And concludes in the Mother’s words: “A smile generates smiles and love generates love”.

Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997. Following her death on 19 October 2003 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.


Russia to honor
'most famous nun of all times'



MOSCOW, August 26 - A monument to the most famous nun of all times - Mother Teresa - will be erected in Russia.

The name of this Catholic ascetic, who dedicated her life to helping other people, is recognized in the whole world and is closely associated with holiness and kindness. This year, she would have celebrated her 100th birthday.

The monument to Mother Teresa will be erected in the Kaluga region, at the Etnomir (Ethnic World) cultural and educational center. The center is being currently built in the town of Borovsk, the Kaluga region, 90 kilometers far from Moscow. The center will have 52 ethnic areas representing customs, traditions and cultures of different countries.

Mother Teresa established her congregation, yhe Missionaries of Charity, at the end of the 1940s in Calcutta, India. In Russia,
On August 26th, 2010 the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata [Calcutta].

Mother Teresa, a devout Catholic, abandoned everything to follow Jesus into the slums and serve him amongst the poorest of the poor. She lived her life at a very deep spiritual level and was admired by millions throughout the world.

She cared especially for those who were often treated as outsiders in their own communities - the starving, the crippled, the impoverished, the diseased and the dying, from the old woman with a brain tumor in Calcutta to the young man with AIDS in New York City.

Her special focus was the care of mothers and their children. This included mother who felt pressured to sacrifice their unborn children by want, neglect, despair, and philosophies and government policies that promote the dehumanization of inconvenient human life.

“Roe v. Wade”, she said “deformed a great nation (America). She added, “The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships...It has portrayed the greatest of gifts-a child-as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.”

She believed that loneliness was “the greatest poverty” of all and saw the West as prey to a soulless materialism. Though she received many awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 she confessed “It is not success, but the dedication to one’s faith that is important.”

Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. Today, over 3,000 nuns and over 500 monks in 710 institutions in 133 countries of the world are members of her order, the Missionaries of Charity.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien:
Pope will remind Catholics in Britain
how they should live their faith today
By Peter Jennings

Thursday, 26 August 2010



The Archbishop's House in Morningside, Edinburgh, Pope Benedict XVI willl have a private lunch on the first day of the for a private lunch; right, Cardinal O'Brien.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, and president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, hopes that Pope Benedict XVI will remind Catholics how they should live their Christian faith today.

Speaking at his home in Edinburgh on Wednesday August 4, the eve of his silver jubilee as a bishop, 1985-2010, the Archbishop said: “I should particularly like the Holy Father to remind Catholics in Scotland of the basics of our Catholic faith and how we should be living it in these challenging times.”

Asked what had been most precious to him during his 25 years as a bishop, Cardinal O’Brien said: “My relationship to my priests and my people. I succeeded Cardinal Gordon Gray and now after 25 years as a bishop in this archdiocese I have inherited that fatherly mantle which he passed on to me.”

The cardinal, 72, added: “I was ordained archbishop at St Mary’s Cathedral here in Edinburgh on August 5 1985. It has been a very happy 25 years in this wonderful diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.”

Pope Benedict XVI is due to fly from Rome to Edinburgh on Thursday September 16 at the start of his four-day state visit to Britain.

He will travel directly from the airport to the Palace of Holyroodhouse where he will be met by the Queen.

During this interview. Cardinal O’Brien said: “The people of Edinburgh will have an opportunity to see the Holy Father when he is driven from Holyroodhouse in the popemobile along Princes Street to my home in Morningside on the feast of St Ninian, the first acknowledged missionary to Scotland.”

The cardinal said that while the crowds are waiting for Pope Benedict to pass by they will be entertained by a procession of pipe bands and a pageant by schoolchildren from the archdiocese.

In the pageant, characters from Scottish history will process down Princes Street in front of the popemobile, including St Ninian, St Andrew, Mary Queen of Scots, St Margaret, Bonnie Prince Charlie – and the leader of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox.

Cardinal O’Brien said: “After his arrival here the Holy Father will go to my private chapel for a few moments of quiet prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.”

In the chapel the cardinal pointed out the two stained-glass windows depicting two great Scottish missionaries – St Ninian who brought the Gospel to Scotland, and St Columba who founded of the monastery of Iona. St Columba died on June 9 in 597.

Cardinal O’Brien pointed out the words on the altar cloth: “Serve the Lord with Gladness.” He said: “This is the motto that I chose in 1985 when I was appointed by Pope John Paul II as archbishop of this diocese.”

The cardinal added: “I will entertain the Holy Father and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and other close aides at a private lunch.

“After a rest the Pope will be taken by motorcade to Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, where he will celebrate a late afternoon Mass for the Catholics of Scotland.”

Twenty-eight years ago, on May 31 1982, during the six-day pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II to Great Britain, this correspondent travelled in the motorcade with the official Vatican party behind the popemobile as it travelled along Princes Street.

The Polish Pope had just been given a rapturous reception when he addressed more than 40,000 young people from all over Scotland at Murrayfield Stadium.



What a sweet gesture from the Holy Father, and for a most unusual occasion, because not many world leaders are still young enough to have newborn children.

Pope Benedict congratulates
UK Prime Minister on 4th child


LONDON, AUG. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI sent a note to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife to congratulate them for the birth of their fourth child.

"The Holy Father is pleased to learn of the birth of the daughter of the Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha, and sends his congratulations," the note said, which was released today by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

Samantha Cameron, 39, gave birth to a baby girl Tuesday while the family was on vacation in region of Cornwall. The couple's oldest son, Ivan died last year at 6 years old from complications related to cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy. They have two other children: Nancy, 6, and Arthur, 4.

The newest member of the prime minister's family was given the name Florence Rose Endellion.

Endellion is a traditional Cornish name that derives from St. Endelienta, who was born circa 470 and is said to be one of the daughters of St. Brychan, King of Brycheiniogking. Endelienta evangelized North Cornwall, and is said to have led a very austere life.

Friday, August 27, 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Center painting is Andrea del Verrochio's 15th-century homage to St. Monica, in the Church of Santo Spirito, Florence.
ST. MONICA (b Tagaste[in present Algeria] 331, d Ostia, Italy, 387), Widow
Born to a Christian family of Berbers (indigenous white people of North Africa) in Roman North Africa, she was given in marriage to Patricius, a pagan, who had a violent temper and was adulterous but apparently respected his wife for her charity and piety. Her prayers would lead to the conversion of her husband one year before his death, when the oldest of their three children, Augustine, was 16. Sent to study in Carthage, Augustine turned out to be licentious and embraced the Manichean heresy. His lifestyle distressed his mother who for a while refused to let her eat or sleep in her house. But a vision told her that Augustine would eventually return to the faith, so from then on, she stayed close to him and prayed and fasted for his conversion. He became a teacher of rhetoric and had a son by one of his mistresses. At age 29, when Augustine decided to pursue his career in Italy, he got away by tricking Monica, who followed him nonetheless all the way to Milan. Augustine came under the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who also became Monica's spiritual adviser. Augustine started Christian instruction under Ambrose, who baptized Augustine and some of his friends at Easter 387. Shortly afterwards, Augustine decided to go back to Africa with his mother and son. In Rome's port city of Ostia, where they were to take the ship for Africa, Monica fell ill and died after a few days, having told her son. "I do not know what there is left for me to do - all my hopes in this world have been fulfilled". She was buried in Ostia, where her remains were transferred to a secret crypt in the sixth century, and after a cult to her developed in the 13th century, Pope Martin VI ordered her relics brought to Rome, where they now repose in the Church of St. Augustine in Campo Marzio. She is venerated as the patroness of wives and mothers.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082710.shtml


OR today.
Two papal stories in this issue: Benedict XVI's letter to the Missionaries of Charity on the centenary year of Mother Teresa's birth, and a story on the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis seminar which starts today in Castel Gandolfo. Page 1 international news are updates on the proposed resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks, the civil war in Somalia, and continuing terrorist attacks in Iraq.


The Vatican released the annual message from the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog greeting
Muslims around the world on the Feast of Id-al-Fit'r, marking the end of the fasting month Ramadan.

Having been effectively 'out' all day yesterday, I did not realize that an adviser to French President Nicholas Sarkozy had directed hate speech against Benedict XVI for the general statements he made at the Angelus on Sunday, as follows:

---

The liturgical texts today remind us once more that all men are called to salvation. It is also an invitation to learn how to accept legitimate human differences, following the example of Jesus who came to gather together men of all nations and of all languages. Dear parents, may you educate your children in universal brotherhood!

---

Because he said it in French, the media reported the statement as a reference to the recent French law to expel Romanian-born gypsies from the country.

To which the Sarkozy adviser, Alain Minc, said yesterday:

---

One can say what one wants about the gypsy issue, but not a German Pope. John Paul II perhaps, but not him [Benedict XVI]. We saw his insensitivity when he reinstated a negationist bishop, his insensitivity to history - which, like all Germans, is inherited...

---

That anyone in the 21st century, let alone a Frenchman, can be so openly bigoted, striking not just at the Pope but all Germans as well, is unforgivable and unacceptable. As though any German has lost the right to express himself on anything concerning mistreatment of people because of the Nazi record.

Minc's comments bring a new low to the ad-hominem attacks against Benedict XVI by secular liberals who interpret every statement he makes, no matter how general and reasonable, not to mention right and irreproachable to any sensible person.

Once again, this called for an immediate protest from the Pope's Secretary of State, but will we hear from him, or from anyone at the Vatican at all? On the part of the French, at the very least, Sarkozy should be decent and civilized enough to denounce his adviser's bigotry and to apologize to the Pope for the offense.


All this, even as the Archbishop of Paris weighed in directly on the gypsy issue yesterday, while not referring to the Pope's Sunday statement. The following AP story, that does not carry the Minc comments (apparently made later yesterday), provides the background facts to the story, NB: The gypsies are referred to as 'Rom' in Italy, but it appears that the Anglophone press has now adopted the term 'Roma' to call them collectively.


Paris archbishop calls
gypsy crackdown 'a circus'
By ANGELA DOLAND


PARIS, August 26 (AP) — The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, joined the tide of criticism over France's crackdown on Gypsies, calling it a "circus," while the EU's justice commissioner on Thursday denounced French officials' discriminatory tone about the vulnerable minority.

A poll says the French are split on the issue, and meanwhile the government puts more Roma on planes home to Eastern Europe. Citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, both EU member states, benefit from free circulation within the bloc, but the French labour market is not fully open to them and if they do not have a job and lodging after three months they are required to leave the country.

France brushed off the criticism and put nearly 300 Gypsies, or Roma, on two flights to their home country of Romania on Thursday. A poll showed the French are divided about the tactic, though slightly more favor it than oppose it.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government has linked the Roma minority to crime, from prostitution to child exploitation, and is dismantling their illegal squatters' camps and sending many back to Eastern Europe.

The policy has attracted widespread criticism from those who say it amounts to racism toward one of the European Union's most impoverished minorities, and that Sarkozy is playing to the far right before the 2012 presidential election to boost his poor approval ratings.

Amnesty International said it is concerned French comments linking Roma to crime may "lead to even further discrimination" against them. It added: "No one should be returned or expelled simply because they are Roma."

Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois told Europe-1 radio that he planned to meet with the interior minister to tell him what Roman Catholics think, "and to remind him that there are certain lines that must not be crossed."

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI urged people to accept "legitimate human diversity" in remarks widely interpreted as a message about the Roma.

The cardinal — asked about a recent sermon that alluded to a circus — responded: "I spoke of a circus, which was the manner in which this affair was handled during the summer."

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who had until now avoided confrontation with Paris, said "some of the rhetoric that has been used ... has been openly discriminatory and partly inflammatory."

A day earlier, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux dismissed criticism as "political blather" and insisted racial prejudice was not behind the operation. He said 117 camps have been dismantled so far and hundreds sent home.

At Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport, dozens of Roma, including children and babies, were escorted by police onto a flight to Romania. The country's Mediafax news agency said a total of 284 Roma arrived from France on Thursday.

France says most of the Roma who leave have done so voluntarily and are given euro300 per adult and euro100 per child to help resettle.

Human rights groups say the policy is absurd because many Roma simply return to France. Romania and Bulgaria are members of the European Union, and their citizens can enter France without a visa, but they must get work permits to work in France or residency permits to settle long-term.

One 36-year-old Roma woman who was recently turned out of an illegal camp in the Paris suburbs said she has already been expelled to Romania once before but immediately returned to France.

"I could not stay more than four days because I had no house," the woman, Rodica, told Associated Press Television News, declining to give her last name amid the crackdown. "I could not stay there. So I had to ask my family, which stayed in France, to send me some money and then I bought a bus ticket to come back."

A support group called Romeurope estimates that as many as 15,000 Roma live in France. French authorities have no official estimate.

A poll Tuesday and Wednesday of 1,000 people by the CSA agency for Le Parisien newspaper showed that 48 percent of those surveyed favored the expulsions, while 42 percent are opposed. No margin of error was given.

Meanwhile, French Minister for European Affairs Pierre Lellouche met with Romanian officials in charge of security and Gypsy issues.

Many Roma say they face less discrimination and better prospects in France than in Romania. Lellouche said he pressed Romania to make progress on "integrating minorities who are in great difficulty. We are experiencing the consequences in France."

I'm still looking for an Anglophone report about the Minc remarks.

Another story that I have 'sidelined' in the past week - because I found it more a nuiscance than anything else - is about the Lefebvrians and claims made by Bishop Williamson in his blog recently, claiming a new Motu Proprio by Benedict XVI will allow the FSSPX to ergain full communion with the Church of Rome without demanding overt acceptance of Vatican II.

A claim obviously designed to provoke outrage from both the militant elements in Rome who have no sympathy for the FSSPX and from Lefebvrian extremists like Williamson himself who scorn any 'compromise' with Rome over Vatican II. The FSSPX superior-general has now spoken about Williamson's claim:


Bishop Fellay denies any knowledge
of a new Motu Proprio on the FSSPX
by Brian Mershon

Aug. 25, 2010

Superior General Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), one of four bishops whose excommunications were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in January 2009, today categorically denied any knowledge of an alleged special motu proprio being planned by the Holy See for the SSPX as stated recently by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson.

This rumored MP would not require the SSPX to take any sort of oath of acceptance where Vatican II and the New Mass are concerned. [An erroneous assumption to begin with, because the Profession of Faith required by the CDF does not refer to Vatican II at all, and therefore makes a Motu Proprio unnecessary!See text below. Why should a discriminatory document be issued for the FSSPX?]

“I’m very annoyed by the whole thing,” said Bishop Fellay. “Bishop Williamson’s statement is an unauthorized statement and is his own personal statement and not that of the Society.”

“It has never been the policy of the Society to base any kind of action or policy on gossip. I have absolutely no knowledge of any motu proprio.”

Earlier this week, Bishop Richard Williamson — who has allegedly been asked to refrain from publicly speaking on matters outside of faith and morals by the SSPX leadership — wrote a letter that was published initially on his website and then picked up by the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli.

In the letter, Bishop Williamson warns Catholics about the “danger” of a rumored motu proprio designed to lure the SSPX lay faithful into union with Rome and said, “…there is no way in which the neo-modernist teaching of Vatican II can be reconciled with the Catholic doctrine of the true Church.”

Bishop Williamson also said that according to both Holy See and SSPX sources, the ongoing doctrinal discussions have allegedly “run into a brick wall.”

However, in today’s interview Bishop Fellay categorically denied this assertion. He said that the doctrinal talks with the SSPX representatives and Holy See theologians are ongoing and proceeding as planned with the next meeting scheduled in September.

“Nothing has changed,” said Bishop Fellay. “All of this is gossiping and rumors and I’ll have nothing to do with rumors and gossiping. All of this is void — empty.”

“For the time being, everything is fine and everything is going smoothly according to plan,” he said.


Here is the text of that Profession of Faith:

---

Conforming to Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Ad Tuendam Fidem (1998), this Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity supercedes the Profession and Oath of 1989.

PROFESSION OF FAITH

I, N., with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith, namely:

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman p\Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

---

Of course the word Magisterium covers everything that is considered Church teaching, including that which comes from ecumenical councils. But in the modern era of cafeteria Catholicism, are the Lefebvrians any more sinful in rejecting elements of Vatican II than the tens of millions of Catholics who ignore the more basic teachings against abortion, contraception, divorce and the like?

Pope's former students to discuss
Vatican-II in August 27-30 seminar
Translated from the 8/27/10 issue of


The hermeneutic of the Second Vatican Council is the focus this year of the traditional summer seminar held by former students of Benedict XVI known as the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis.

The seminar takes place August 27-30 at the Mariapoli convention center in Castel Gandolfo. Some 40 theologians, lay and religious, who obtained their doctorates from various German universities, with Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as their thesis adviser, have taken part in these yearly reunions since 1977.

The principal speaker this year is Archbishop Kurt Koch, former Bishop of Basel, and since July 1, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. (He was chosen for this assignment long before he was named to his new position.)

He will be giving two lectures entitled "Vatican II between tradition and innovation: The hermeneutic of reform between that of continuity with rupture and ahistorical continuity"; and "Sacrosanctum concilium and the post-conciliar reform of the liturgy".

Salvatorian Fr. Stephan Horn, president of the Schuelerkreis, told the OR that the choice of the principal speaker and of the seminar theme were chosen, as usual, by Benedict XVI himself, from short lists submitted to him by the seminar organizers.

Most of the Schuelerkreis members are from Germany and Austria, but it also includes an Italian, an Irishman, a Dutchman, a Korean lady, and an Indian. [Also an American, Fr. Joseph Fessio, and an African, the monsignor from Benin, now in the Roman Curia, whose successful defense of his thesis was being celebrated with Prof. Ratzinger and his sister on the day the nomination as Archbishop of Munich was announced.]

Two bishops are in the Schuelerkreis - Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, and the auxiliary Bishop of Hamburg, Hans-Jochen Jaschke; the rest are professors, parish priests, members of religious orders, and lay theologians.

As usual, the seminar sessions are not open to outsiders. Fr. Horn, who recently celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood, said that Mons. Koch's lectures on Friday and Saturday will be followed by free discussions, at which the Pope is expected to participate.

In the past three years, a group of theology students specializing in Joseph Ratzinger's theology have also been invited to the seminar.

On Sunday, the Holy Father will concelebrate a Mass with the Schuelerkreis priests at the Mariapoli center, after which all participants will have breakfast with the Pope at the Apostolic Palace. They will then take part in the noon Angelus.

Fr. Horn says that the Schuelerkreis will be presenting the Pope this year with the book based on the acts of the 2008 seminar, entitled 'Conversations on Jesus', published by the Munich-based Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation (Stiftung).

The Foundation institutionalizes the Schuelerkreis with the aim not just of organizing the annual seminar and publishing its acts, but generally to promote and disseminate the theology and spirituality of Joseph Ratzinger and his spirituality.

The first Schuelerkreis seminar was held in the summer of 1977 shortly after Prof. Ratzinger became Archbishop of Munich, and has taken place annually since then.

Planning, protocol and pluralism:
UK envoy to the Vatican prepares
for the papal visit
By Cindy Wooden



VATICAN CITY,aUG. 17 (CNS) -- The life of an ambassador to the Vatican is filled with meetings, liturgies, conferences, reports and social events.

About a dozen members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican seem to be everywhere -- at every papal event, every big conference and even at the lectures of guest speakers at pontifical universities.



Francis Campbell, the British ambassador to the Vatican, is one member of the group of diplomats who seem to spend every afternoon and evening running from a meeting to a conference and then on to a reception or dinner party.

Somehow, despite the busyness, he and at least one other member of the diplomatic corps find time to plan fairly elaborate practical jokes to play on their colleagues and on journalists.

But for the past year, he has had what he described as being almost another full-time job: preparing for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Great Britain Sept. 16-19.

At its most basic level, the job of an ambassador is to explain his home government to his host government and explain his host government to his own bosses.

Obviously, the people who read his regular reports to London know what the Vatican is, who the Pope is and what the main issues of mutual concern are.

But a lot more people from various sectors of government and civil society are involved in a papal visit -- in setting the schedule, inviting the guests and organizing security -- and it's the ambassador's job to make sure all of them are up to speed on the relationship between the British government and the Vatican.

The previous time Great Britain hosted a papal visit was 1982 when Pope John Paul II made the trip.

No one who is now in the British Embassy to the Holy See was working there at the time, but there are files of information about the visit 28 years ago.

"This time around it's a very different visit for a number of reasons," particularly because the 2010 visit is a state visit as well as a pastoral one, Campbell said.

Pope John Paul did meet Queen Elizabeth II and various government leaders in 1982, but the whole atmosphere was restrained because the United Kingdom and Argentina were at war over the Falkland Islands and the Vatican was treading carefully.

The first appointment on Pope Benedict's calendar on Sept. 16 is a meeting with the Queen at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, followed by a reception with 450 people, he said.

"The Queen will introduce the Pope to about 120 people representing different walks of life," he said.

Campbell said he expects the event will attract a lot of attention in Great Britain, but he also thinks the Pope could make a big impact when he speaks Sept. 17 in London's historic Westminster Hall, a building completed in 1099 and once used for coronation festivities and as a venue for courts of law. In fact, St. Thomas More was condemned to death at Westminster Hall in 1535.

Leaders of British civil society, including artists, politicians, scholars and business officials, will attend the Pope's speech in Westminster Hall.

Campbell said the fact that the Pope was invited to speak in the same place where Thomas More was condemned -- for not siding with King Henry VIII in his debate with the Roman Catholic Church at a time of extreme church-state tensions -- "symbolizes a rapprochement" between British society and the papacy.

"It also says something about where we are as a country, the extent of religious pluralism and of tolerance and acceptance of people of other faiths and other denominations," said Campbell, the first Catholic to serve at British ambassador to the Vatican since the Reformation.

Campbell said that while many people in Italy, including at the Vatican, describe Great Britain as "very secular," 70 percent of the population identifies itself as Christian and the churches are very active in public debates. [But church attendance is very deficient and steadily declining!]

Britain, he said, "is not a society that is apathetic about religion," and that can be seen in the media coverage in the run-up to the Pope's visit" [But Britain's secular society is worse than apathetic to religion - it is militantly hostile, atl east thoese elements who are regularly given wide play in the media!]

"Some people would say, 'Well, do you prefer indifference or antagonism?' and I think I would prefer antagonism because it means you're relevant," he said. [Or as Cardinal Ruini puts it, 'Better attacked than irrelevant!' - which is, of course, a valid way of looking at it, i.e., the militant hostility as an indication of fear of religion and its influence, as much as their scorn.]

In late August, Campbell's role in the planning process transformed into service as a consultant on the speeches government officials will make to the Pope, on finalizing the guest list for government-hosted events and on organizing a working dinner for Vatican officials, British government representatives and leaders of other Christian churches and religious groups.

People who do not understand why Great Britain continues to have diplomatic relations with the Vatican haven't taken the time to see how many issues of concern to Great Britain are also issues of concern to the Vatican, including international development and showing solidarity with the poor, particularly by providing education and health care, he said.

The working dinner, which the Pope will not attend, will cover "themes that are of importance in the state-to-state relationship between the U.K. and the Holy See. Those include climate change, disarmament, ethics in the economy, levels of international development spending, interfaith dialogue (and) ecumenism," he said.

Campbell will complete a five-year term at the Vatican in December "and to finish with a visit is something fantastic, but it's like a completely different full-time job," he said.


Damian Thompson disputes the Campbell-Ruini attitude to militant antagonism against the Catholic Church, and offers some nuanced insights, but also persists in dissing the Church's organization of the papal visit:


Is the British ambassador right
about antagonism to the Church?

August 27, 2010

Francis Campbell, Britain’s charming and thoughtful Ambassador to the Holy See, has given an interview to the US Catholic News Service about the Pope’s visit in which he says: “The British press is not indifferent to the visit of the Pope. Some people would say: ‘Do you prefer indifference or antagonism?’ I think I would prefer antagonism, because it means you’re relevant.”

Is he right? I think it depends what you mean by “antagonism”. Old-fashioned Protestant antagonism to the Pope, of the sort supplied by Pastor Jack Glass when John Paul II visited in 1982, is oddly reassuring: if fundamentalists regard Rome as the Whore of Babylon then, repugnant as that view may be, it’s evidence that the papacy still has the power to disturb Christians who (from an orthodox Catholic perspective) adhere to a truncated and brutalised version of the faith.

Also, I can’t get too worried about Professor Richard Dawkins, who despite his secular views is essentially the successor to Pastor Glass (though he lacks his intellectual subtlety). If Dawkins’s followers hate the Pope for being the Pope, that’s their problem. Their Pythonesque plans to arrest the Holy Father are more likely to draw a smile from the British public than to provoke modern-day Gordon Riots.

But it’s media antagonism that Campbell is talking about. Here we need make a distinction between columnists ranting about the evils of religion and Catholicism – it’s a free country – and journalists telling lies about the Pope’s supposed complicity in abuse cases or otherwise manipulating the suffering of victims to torpedo the visit.

We’ll know soon enough if certain media outlets have decided to go ahead with their planned dirty tricks. If those tricks work, “antagonism” could lead to a disaster. If they don’t, for one reason or another, then the papal visit could be an unexpected triumph.

Indifference is still a threat, though. Catholic indifference, that is.

The Bishops of England and Wales made no attempt to sell Benedict XVI to the faithful until they had this visit sprung on them: most Mass-going Catholics don’t have a clue why this pontificate matters because its reforms and initiatives are ignored by their pastors.

Meanwhile, Eccleston Square has not only done its best to arrange thoroughly un-Benedictine liturgies for the Pope’s visit, but it has also made such a hash of organising the open-air events that most Catholics don’t seem particularly interested in attending them.

If Catholics can’t be bothered to turn out in large numbers to greet the Successor of Peter, that will damage the reputation of the Church in England and Wales far more effectively than the campaigning of militant secularists. Yet it could so easily come to pass.

The Birmingham beatification is expensive to attend, difficult to get to and threatens to trap “pilgrims” in mind-numbing queues. The Hyde Park prayer vigil, meanwhile, promises to be an aesthetic and musical fiasco. Whether it can be turned around in time I don’t know – but, at the very least, the Vatican should demand that the “pilgrim packs” include ear plugs.

(Glasgow is a different kettle of fish: apparently the Scottish bishops have persuaded the Pope to attend a performance by Susan Boyle, so that should bring him into contact with plenty of the faithful.) [That's not how I understood the news reports at all. I cannot imagine that the Pope will arrive during the pre-Mass warm-up just to listen to Ms Boyle. Perhaps, instead of letting her just do the warm-up and singing in the Choir, they might have arranged for her to sing Panis angelicus or something equally appropriate, as Placido Domingo has done during Communion for papal Masses under both John Paul II adn Benedict XVI.]

Three weeks to go. That’s a scary thought. Perhaps it’s time for the Church to play the old politician’s trick of lowering expectations.

And that's about as gloomy and disheartening a prediction as one can make about the visit. Should not Thompson and other Catholic writers seek instead to accentuate the positive in the little time left until the event is on us?


Here however is a more substantial criticism of the UK bishops who, from all accounts, have pretty much followed a 'laissez faire' laxity, failing to demand that the faithful remain faithful to their faith - isn't that their duty, after all? Not bending over backwards and being too politically correct with respect to their own religion!

English bishops must reject
homosexualist agenda or
lose ground on life issues
By Hilary White



LONDON, August 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – John Smeaton, the head of the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and one of the most prominent pro-life advocates in the world, has called for the Catholic bishops of Britain to cut their ties with Catholic groups that promote homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle.

But there is little hope of that, says one prominent Catholic campaigner, while the archdiocese of Westminster, Britain’s leading Catholic see, continues to host bi-monthly public celebrations of homosexuality.

“It’s high time,” Smeaton wrote, “the Catholic bishops of England and Wales defended the culture of life by cutting their ties with pro-homosexual ‘rights’ campaigning Catholics.” Smeaton said that there can be no separation of issues for Catholic leaders, that even tacit support for the homosexualist agenda creates moral confusion among the public.

He was referring to an article that appeared in the Guardian newspaper by homosexualist activist Martin Prendergast who said that the loss of Catholic adoption agencies to pro-homosexualist legislation is “a victory for vulnerable children.”

Prendergast is the force behind the infamous Soho Masses Pastoral Council that hosts Masses and other events promoting the homosexualist ideology within the Catholic Church. The group was publicly accepted by the archdiocese in 2007, under Cormac Murphy O’Connor, then Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. They were allowed to hold their Masses at the Church of the Assumption & St Gregory, Warwick Street, London; this situation has continued under the new archbishop, Vincent Nichols.

Daphne McLeod, the head of the Catholic campaign group Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, told LifeSiteNews.com that the situation has not improved under Nichols. The Soho Mass group, she said, is “getting worse, more brazen. They’re spreading and have groups now to attract the young people.”

McLeod has organized prayer vigils outside the church where the homosexualist events are held. “I see these nice young people go in there and I’m sure they don’t know how wrong it is. They’re not being taught about it in Catholic schools.”

McLeod’s organization has written to and visited Vatican officials begging that the situation be addressed. “We write to Rome all the time, we went to Rome, with all those dossiers and nothing was done. We spoke to Cardinal [Francis] Arinze [then-head of the Vatican’s Congregation of Divine Worship and Sacraments] and he said, ‘I’m not going to do anything about the Soho Masses.’”

However, there can be little doubt that the ideological orientation of the Soho Masses is opposed to “the Vatican.” A homily from the most recent celebration, by the former head of the Dominican order and frequent celebrator, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, openly criticized “the Vatican” for maintaining and promoting the Church’s perennial teaching on sexuality.

“[T]his is a tough time to be a Catholic,” Radcliffe said. “The Church … is largely ruled by old men, even older than me, who seem out of touch with the world. Every statement that comes from the Vatican seems to provoke more misunderstanding, more embarrassment, more frustration.”

McLeod said she has spoken several times to Archbishop Nichols who, she said, “is no help at all.” The archbishop maintains that the Masses are only for the pastoral help of homosexuals who adhere to the Church’s teaching on chastity.

“But these people don’t even pretend to be chaste. At least they’re honest,” McLeod said. “[Nichols] tries to pretend they are, but he really must know they’re not.”

In one conversation, McLeod said, Archbishop Nichols gave away what she believes to be the driving interest of the Catholic bishops in their tacit support of the homosexualist movement’s agenda.

“They’ve been brainwashed into believing that is the only way to go. Nichols has said this to me, ‘We must have unity at all price. If I speak out against it, there’ll be disunity among the bishops, and we can’t have that’.”

But she said this is to place unity above the truth. “Unity is their great graven idol. I can’t judge their hearts, but I wonder what they’re thinking.”

She said that the only solution she sees now is prayer and support for a new generation of good young priests who support the Church’s teaching. “The Lord has a solution, and the good young priests are probably that. They’re beginning to get parishes.”

Smeaton, paraphrasing Pope John Paul II, said, “It is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.”

SPUC has campaigned heavily against the support of the Catholic Church, including by Archbishop Nichols, for the government’s strongly pro-abortion and pro-homosexual sex education programs.

US bishops call for ‘new social contract’
based on the Pope’s third encyclical

August 25, 2010


In their annual Labor Day statement, issued on August 24, the bishops of the United States said that the time is ripe for a new social contract, with Pope Benedict’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate providing needed guidance.

Much as Pope Leo XIII brought the light of the Gospel to bear upon the new economic realities of his day, Pope Benedict has done the same in our time, writes Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Citing passages from the encyclical, Bishop Murphy reflected upon work, workers, and the economy; the market, the state, and civil society; and wage fairness and a new social contract.

“While it is not the role of the Church to propose a concrete economic blueprint for the future,” he writes, “the words of Pope Benedict should remind us that a key, perhaps the key, to overcoming the current economic situation is to unleash the creative forces of men and women.”


The complete text of the USCCB statement can be found on
www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/labor_day_2010.pdf

Before anything, let me note that John Allen devotes his weekly column on 8//27/10 to discussing the Rodari-Tornielli book ATTACCO A RATZINGER,
ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/attack-ratzinger-italian-book-assesses-benedict...
Allen's piece turned me off right away because he leads off with his usual condescending and hyperbolic platitudes about the 'image problem of a Pontificate defined by train wrecks' - the very condescension of a know-it-all (who treats Benedict XVI as if he were a silly schoolboy who keeps making the same mistakes) that turned me off Allen starting about two years ago. To say nothing of other strange claims he makes that do not exactly pass the truth test.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from the final chapter of Rodari and Tornielli's book, which Il Foglio published yesterday. Much of it quotes the opinions of other journalists, who offer few new insights into the conclusions that the two authors have drawn (which they state forcefully at the start of the chapter), and who, in the specific case of the New York Times Rome correspondent that they cite, ideologically reject the idea that they are attacking the Pope at all!


All the blows against
Pope Benedict XVI
by PAOLO RODARI and ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from

August 27, 2010

Editor's Note: We publish here excerpts from the concluding chapter of the book ATTACCO A RATZINGER written by the Vaticanista of Il Foglio, Paolo Rodari, adn the Vaticanista of Il Giornale, Andrea Tornielli, which was published this week by Piemme.

Five years under attack. Five years of Joseph Ratzinger on Peter's Chair, characterized by continuous incomprehension.

On the one hand, he, Benedict XVI, whose words are never conformed to the mentality of the world. On the other hand, a world that does not understand him, and which, almost after every statement he makes, often reacts in one way only - by attacking him.

Simply by looking at the reportage in the international media, one must admit there exists a real attack against Papa Ratzinger. An attack demonstrated in terms of negative prejudice that is quick to jump on anything the Pope says or does. Quick to underscore certain details, quick to create international 'cases'.

This concentric attacks come from outside the Church, but not infrequently, from within as well. And it is unconsciously aided by the reaction - more often a non-reaction - of those around the Pope who could certainly do much more to anticipate and prevent crises and to manage them effectively once they arise.

This book is not intended to present a pre-constituted hypothesis. It does not start off from the theory that there is a conspiracy directed by some shadowy directorate, nor even that this is a media conspiracy - the notion that has become a convenient cover for some of the Pope's collaborators to justify their slow and inefficient reactions. [I wish the authors had named which ones exactly! Because indulging in conspiracy theory is often resorted to by cowards and people who want to shirk their own responsibility.]

But it is undeniable that Papa Ratzinger has been and is under attack. The criticism and controversy raised by the Regensburg lecture. The scandalous case of the Polish Bishop Wielgus who was forced to renounce his nomination as Archbishop of Warsaw because he had been an informer for the Communist secret services. The bitter polemics following the publication of his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Revoking the excommunication of the four Lefebvrian bishops which took place just as a Swedish channel broadcast statements by one of them minimizing the Holocaust. The diplomatic crises over his words regarding condoms and AIDS at the start of his first trip to Africa. The wide play given to the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests - which shows no sign of abating and risk casting a shadow over the final years of John Paul II's Pontificate.

From one media storm to another, from controversy to controversy, the effect has been to 'anesthetize' the message of Benedict XVI, crushed as it were by the cliche of a retrograde Pope and robbing his message of the weight it deserves.

[But that is the 'elitist' view, that of those who look down their noses at the Christian message in any case, whether there had been these media problems or not. What, for example, did that elite retain of John Paul II's Christian preaching, after 25 years of a Papacy they looked on as nothing more than performance art on a global scale, with a man they invested with the superficial traits of the 'rock star' that they described him to be?

I don't think that for sensible Catholics - those whose faith does not swing and sway with prevailing cultural winds - the Pope's message has been lost or diminished in any way! If that were so, people would have stopped coming to his public events, because why would they be interested in someone they believe to be discredited?

If that were so, the Vatican publishing house has simply been throwing money away by literally grinding out pamphlet after pamphlet of Benedict XVI's teachings. But the fact is they have not done so much business as in the past five years because there is a steady appetite to buy Benedict XVI's writings.

I think perhaps a major omission in the Rodari-Tornielli book is the point of view of the Catholic faithful - represented by those who came to the Papa-Day rally last May 16 in St. Peter's Square. The authors apparently documented what the international MSM commentariat has said in rivers of anti-Benedict polemic, and additionally, sought some of them out for interviews for this book, in effect providing reflecting scho chamber for the critics' narcissistic navel-gazing. But what about the faithful 'faithful'? They're the ones who matter, because they are the ultimate recipient of the Pope's messages. ]

"It's difficult to say that there is a plot against the Pope", says Marcello Foa, Giornale correspondent, foreign affairs analyst, professor of journalism at the University of Lugano, and author of the book Gli stregoni della noticia: Da Kennedy alla guerra in Iraq. Come si fabrica informazione al servizio dei governi (Wizards of news. From Kennedy to the Iraq War. How information is fabricated in the service of governments) (2006).

---

Certainly, what has been happening in the past few years indicates an attempt to diminish the influence of the Church in the world. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a process began tending towards the continual weakening of traditional institutions states, churches, etc) and the transfer of power to the large private corporations, international organizations, special interest lobbies, that are sometimes overt but often hidden.

During the Cold War, the Church - and particularly, John Paul II - had an important role: she represented a moral bulwark for the West, she contributed to regulate society, and at the same time, through her influence on Eastern Europe, she was a thorn in the side of the Soviet Union. [That does not explain the secularization that was immediately manifested by the Eastern European countries including the most Catholic ones like Poland and the Czech Republic after the Communists left! Obviously, six decades of Communism - three generations - managed to supplant the Christian message and encourage the narcissistic individualism that characterizes secularism.]

After the Soviet empire collapsed, the prevailing parameters and interests changed. The Church was no longer a bulwark but an obstacle, a conservative force, a potential counterpower.

For the past two decades, there has been a continuous erosion of the prestige of the Vatican through the work of the media, including film. Film has enormous persuasive power. How many feature films have been international hits that portrayed the Church or the Catholic faith as a model or even something interesting? Very few. On the other hand, how many films have there been which portray the Church and cardinals as evil, intrigue-driven and hypocritical. More than you can think of. And that has not been by chance.

The erosion goes on via the Internet, by books of opinion and even of fiction, like those of Dan Brown.

---

So who has been leading the attack?

---

I have no proof, but it would seem to be the establishment which impalpably encourages diminution of national sovereignty in favor of supra-national institutions that promote globalization and the supremacy of finance over other economic sectors, and whose power of conditioning emerged forcefully in the crises of 2008 and 2010.

---

Says church historian Alberto Melloni:

---

I don't think there is a conspiracy against the Pope. But that does not mean that there are not quite a few issues about which the Catholic Church can be perceived antagonistically, and therefore, it cannot be ruled out that there is someone or some elements intent on causing her great embarrassment in order to weaken her message.

But I wish to point out right away that in my opinion, these issues are not of an ethical nature. I don't believe that the positions of the Church against abortion or gay marriage are really that galling to governments and states. But her attitudes about war, probably so.

I recall that during an audience at the Vatican, George Bush was heard to ask John Paul II what was happening in the Church in the United States with all the pedophile scandals. At the end of the audience, John Paul II reportedly remarked to those around him, "I should have asked him how many Republicans are pedophiles..." [That's not a nice anecdote at all about John Paul II. It makes him sound petty.]

---

The Russian journalist Alexey Bukalov, director of the Roman bureau of the Itar-TASS news agency, speaks of an 'objective' attack against the Pope.

---

There is an attack against the Church which seems to me 'objective' - from those who have never looked favorably on this Pope, who is looked on with suspicion so that everything he says and does is turned against him.

They cannot forgive him for being German, for being the age he is and therefore, having been a witness to the Second World War... And they are determined not to cut him any slack, much less give him any free pass.

And he, on the other hand, does not react to their attacks and continues to take steps that are considered politically incorrect but that reflect his personal integrity, his theological vision. I think he truly suffered when he was elected Pope. He clearly would have wanted merely to study, read and write, play Mozart.

I cannot speak of the precise circles from which these attacks originate, but from the Leninist point of view, they are political interests. Think of the very tense situation in the world - the aggressiveness of forces like Islamic fundamentalism and of secularism - and it is clear that some circles are looking for this Pope's weak point.

And so they have tried to blame him for the entire pedophile scandal, but on this issue, I think the great part of the blame should be attributed to the preceding Pontificate.

---

The Pope's battle against relativism is one of the causes for the attacks on the Pope, according to George Weigel, writer and essayist, who belongs to the Ethics and Public Policy Center and wrote a monumental and thoroughly documented biography of John Paul II.

---

I don't think there is a plot against the Pope in the sense of an organized campaign to block his initiatives or derail his Pontificate. But in the eyes of the secularists of Europe and North America, he embodies the last institutional obstacle to what he himself has called 'the dictatorship of relativism'.

And so he has enemies, and they are not few - who generally also have access to the world media. The secular agenda often coincides with that of those Catholics who are still dreaming about a revolution that never was: I am referring to Hans Kueng and his journalist allies - who are ready to imagine yet another Ratzinger different from the caricature which they themselves have created and propagandized.

As in the case of John Paul II, the enemies of Benedict XVI refuse to confront his ideas but limit themselves to denouncing them and lament what they erroneously depict as his reactionary theology.

---

Decidedly opposed to accrediting the hypothesis of a media campaign against Ratzinger is the Rome bureau chief of the New York Times, Rachel Donadio.

---

I categorically reject the idea that an attack against Benedict XVI is behind the articles on the systemic problem of sexual abuse of minors by priests and on the historical reluctance on the part of the Vatican and local bishops to punish priests who have committed crimes that violate both civil and canon law.[How can she so self-righteously make such a sweeping statement considering the minuscule percentage of priest offenders out of the world's 400,000 priests, and as though the Vatican and local bishops never did a single thing to pursue these offenders???? The deliberate and systematic malice of the media in their reportage of this issue has been clothed in brazen sanctimony of the kind Donadio so cavalierly displays.]

I think that the notion of 'attack' itself shows the obvious cultural differences between American and Italian journalism. In Italy, it is generally presumed that there is always something behind any critical journalism, and criticisms against the Church are read in the context of a long history of ant-clericalism. [Another superciliously sweeping statement, and this time, one that is almost insulting to honest and conscientious Italian journalists!]

But in the United States, there is a profound tradition of investigative journalism and a belief rooted in the public that the role of the press is to examine and keep under check any institution or person in a position of power. [Oh the arrogance of this sanctimonious presumption - that the press is the ultimate power over any other power. Which implies, of course, that it is just as corruptible by a power that it so arrogantly wields like a club, not in equal measure on everyone, but only on those that it chooses to target. Where is their outrage over worse and more widespread crimes against minors by individuals in civilian institutions????]

In this sense, the articles in the New York Times about the Pope and the Church do not differ in any way from the articles on any other politician or multinationals [whom the Times chooses to target, that is]. As the correspondent of the Times at the Vatican, during the worst moments of March and April, I felt like I was between two parallel trains going on different tracks. On the one side were my editors who asked why crisis management in the Vatican seemed so questionable (as when Cardinal Sodano, on Easter Sunday, profoundly offended the victims by calling the accusations against the Church 'gossip'[A GROSS UNTRUTH in which Donadio retroactively picks up Cardinal Schoenborn's deliberately wrong interpretation of Sodano's words - which obviously referred not to reports about the abuses committed but to the accusations jerry-rigged against Benedict XVI personally, since he was delivering a short message of support for the Pope in behalf of the College of Cardinals at a difficult time, not a defense of offending priests! And I say Donadio 'retroactively' picks up Schoenborn's outrageous interpretation, because this sanctimonious notion of 'profoundly offending the victims' was not expressed by Donadio herself in her own report about Sodano's Easter Sunday tribute.]

And on the other was the Vatican itself which asked why the Times was 'attacking' the Pope. [You know what, Ms Donadio? When you report lies and build up all sorts of negative insinuations against Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, as the New York Times doggedly did on the Munich and Milwaukee cases, that constitutes 'attack' - and don't pretend that it was simply honest investigative journalism, and the operative word here is 'honest'. Dishonest journalism of the kind the Times has exercised against Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is not legitimate investigative journalism - it is calumny, and therefore an attack.

---

The American Vaticanista John Allen says:

---

A great part of the media coverage of the Catholic Church and Benedict XVI, with regard to the sex abuse crisis as in other issues, had been undoubtedly shoddy and unjust. In general, however, I don't think that this is the result of a 'campaign' to strike at the Church.

[If a large part of the reporting on any issue about the Church is shoddy and unjust, as Allen has just acknowledged, how can it not be a 'campaign' - which is defined as any systematic effort to espouse, negatively or positively, an idea, interest or person? No journalist worth the name is deliberately shoddy, and I am sure Allen's colleagues will vehemently object to their work being described as shoddy and unjust - because they believe they are all knights in shining armor smiting the perfidious evildoers in the Church starting with Benedict XVI.]

In particular, conspiracy theories are a distraction from existing real problems that have to do with the public perception of the Vatican and the Church. [But who exactly at the Vatican is purveying the notion of conspiracy, Mr. Allen? Certainly not Benedict XVI. Vaticanistas like you have been slinging around this statement cavalierly but never without any names - it is always attributed to those conveniently anonymous 'Vatican sources'. It is yet another way of (not always) subconsciously insulting the hierarchy at the Vatican by making them appear paranoid and evasive when they are offended by fabricated charges. When was the last time anyone in the Vatican denied that some priests have committed horrible crimes? In the 1960s perhaps?]

I will list these problems: the high rate of 'religious illiteracy' which characterizes the principal media; the instinctive skepticism of journalists about institutions and authority; the pressure for them to adapt to the increasingly short time for the 21st century culture of 'instant news'; and the approach to communications which shows a lot of incompetence on the part of many Church functionaries that often becomes counter-productive to the Church. {A very good list!]

---

The dean of Italian Vaticanistas, Benny Lai - who can proudly show off his first accreditation card at the Vatican Press Office signed by Giovanni Battista Montini when he was deputy Secrretary of State - finds the current situation 'absolutely unprecedented". He says:

---

I cannot remember a situation analogous to what is taking place today. In the past, there were more moments of crisis, even furious disputes among cardinals, and more than one Pope in the 20th century had to defend himself on various occasions against detractors from within the Church itself. Often it was bishops against bishops disagreeing on important issues for the Church.

But it never came to the situation we have today. It goes without saying that questions would have been raised anyway about a Joseph Ratzinger who came to Vatican II with the reputation of a progressive theologian [Yes, but it is important to distinguish what he was progressive about and in respect to what] and later changed, referring to 'the pathos typical of young persons' [???? I am not aware that Joseph Ratzinger ever used that to justify himself, only that he maintains 'It was the others who changed, not I".]

But all it takes is to follow ecclesiastical developments to become aware that many times, it is the central government of the Church that has to carry water, and that persons who ought to assist the Pope in governing the Church are usually scarce. [If John Paul II has often been accused of 'neglecting' Church administration in favor of his global evangelizing, the obvious implication is that in a 26-year Pontificate, he had no one really competent to carry out that task!]

Of course, one can also say that Benedict XVI, with his reserved character, has not helped make things better. But precisely because of this, he should have working for him a well-oiled machine that can be his major support. [Which obviously and unfortunately, he does not have!]

It is not at all easy to work in the Roman Curia. Montini, when he became Paul VI, took his time before deciding anything - and he had been Secretary of State for years and years!

---

The French Vaticanista Jean-Marie Guenois seeks to turn the cards upside down.

---

Is it really Benedict XVI who is in the crosshairs? Is it really he who is the ultimate target of a media campaign? Or is it rather he, with his gentleness but firm clarity at the same time, who is carrying out an 'offensive', so to speak?

More than the Pope being attacked, I would say that the Pope himself has launched an 'attack' on several fronts, carried forward in a very subtle way but with precise and well-honed language.

The cause of the attacks against him must be seen in his approach to certain problems. For example, on liturgy, on the relation between faith and reason - which is much disputed in France where there is an insistence on separating faith and reason, and where the rationalists who have always been antagonistic to the Catholic Church now find themselves embarassed because in Benedict XVI, the Church speaks their language.

That is why I think it is not the Pope under attack - it is he who is on the attack in very clear ways [on the issues that matter to him]... So the attacks against him are basically a kind of resistance to the problems that he poses. [A novel way of looking at it, but rather fuzzy - and I expected better of Guenois - because he nonetheless acknowledges explicitly that the Pope is under attack!

---

Saturday, August 28, 21st Week in Ordinary Time

ST. AUGUSTINE (b 354, Tagaste 354, d Hippo 430 - both in what is now Algeria], Bishop, Theologian, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI devoted six discourses to St. Augustine on his pilgrimage in April 2006 to the saint's tomb in Pavia
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/travels/2007/index_vigevano-pavi...
and five General Audience catecheses in January-February 2008
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/inde...
In addition, he has referred to him countless times during the past five years alone, that it is surprising the Vatican has not yet published a compilation of his papal texts referring to St. Augustine. Not to be repetitive, here is a link to a couple of brief articles about Benedict and Augustine that I posted on this day last year on this thread:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082810.shtml


In today's OR, the only story about Benedict XVI is a front-page commentary on his coming visit to the UK. Other Page 1 items: Seven months since the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, more than 700,000 persons are still living in refugee camps, and the government projects at least $1.6 billion will be needed for basic reconstruction; another million Pakistanis in the southern coastal region are fleeing the threat of new flooding, as monsoon rains continue unabated, international aid is sparse and slow, the threat of epidemics among the homeless is ever more real, and the Taliban are taking advantage to launch new terrorist attacks; a new report shows that the largest African economies will reach the level of Brazil and Russia by 2050; and the Vatican Archives is coming out with the first volume of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli's notes of his daily meetings with Pius XI as his secretary of state. Another three articles about it in the inside pages, including Cardinal Bertone's Foreword to the book; and an interview with the Prefect of teh Pontifical Council for Social Communications about an international conference he is organizing for next month on the role that Catholics must play in the digital world.


No Vatican bulletins today.
It is the second day of the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis's annual reunion seminar in Castel Gandolfo, focused
this year on the hermeneutic of the second Vatican Council.

Here is an impressionistic little essay by an OR contributor:

Awaiting Benedict XVI:
Where the heart of England lies
by Ferdinando Cancelli
Translated from the 8/28/10 issue of


At 4 p.m. on a summer afternoon, London seems like a busy anthill of tourists, a babble of languages in which English itself is rarely heard.

A more attentive look would show that the crowds, almost as though they were following invisible arteries, are frequenting the same places attracted by the easy attractions of ostentatious good living and the mandatory tourist sights that no guide would fail to show off.

The Church in Old Chelsea is not one of them. Virtually reflected on the Thames River by which it is located, in a neighborhood not served by regular public transport, it is so off the beaten path that even the cabdriver asks us to look carefully at the city map to make sure we are going in the right direction.

And yet it is in the heart of an old and elegant quarter in central London, in the shade of the same plane trees which discreetly screen from view the illuminated windows of a place where in the past, personages like Oscar Wilde, Howard Carter, John Singer Sargent and Agatha Christie dined.

Getting off here, one notes a statue which looks silently on the river, and one is overcome by emotion which becomes a quickened heartbeat when one realises that it is Zt. Thomas More, like a living and reassuring presence.

Here is one place where one can understand fully the motto chosen for the Holy Father's coming visit to the United Kingdom - which was Cardinal Newman's on his cardinal's coat of arms: "Heart speaks to heart".

The heart of the Church in England [and Wales and Scotland!] speaks to the heart of the faithful even - and especially - through her saints, and she does so in a voice that can usually be heard most clearly in places that are often forgotten.


From left, the More statue outside Old Chelsea Church; a modern icon of More; a medieval illustration of Becket's assassination; and the altar in Canterbury cathedrla that commemorates that killing.

By his own explicit desire, the remains of St. Thomas More lie somewhere in the Old Chelsea neighborhood. Within the church itself, one can still admire a lengthy inscription that escaped destruction from the German bombings of the Second World War, in which More himself, in 1532, in remembrance of his first wife, expressed the desire to be buried in the same place.

We do not know for sure if his daughter Margaret carried out what her father wished, but the inscription is enough to break through the patina of time and the superficiality of voracious tourism which makes churches like these into pale and faded museums almost devoid of the life that continues to animate tragic episodes of the past.

Like that which happened about 50 kilometers east of London, almost by the North Sea. On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was confronted and killed by four men in the north transept of the Cathedral of Canterbury.

That place, where today there is a modest altar of bare stone surmounted by a modern Crucifix of two stylized crossed swords, is among the places recommended during a visit to the cathedral, but is probably one of the church's least 'spectacular' features compared to the brilliant medieval stained glass windows or the tombs of English kings and queens.

In order to feel the heartbeat of St. Thomas Becket who followed the Lord in his martyrdom, one must pause, observe silence and allow oneself to be permeated by the human dimension of the drama that played out in that obscure transept nine centuries ago.

'Heart speaks to heart'. There are places like this to which one must return to synchronize one's own heart with that of the Church, to learn and truly heed the words which, from the heart, Benedict XVI will address to the faithful in his trip not three weeks from today.



3,000 gypsies coming
to Birmingham
for the Pope's visit
by Edward Chadwick

August 28, 2010




COUNCIL chiefs say they expect 3,000 gypsies to come to Birmingham during the next few weeks for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit.

They are frantically drawing up plans for huge temporary camps to house gypsy pilgrims’ caravans on disused industrial land where they can erect toilet and water facilities.

And they say they have selected a number of potential sites for the travellers to use for free for up to four weeks. They said the aim was to keep the gypsies off playing fields and parkland.

But they admitted it would be the taxpayer who would pick up the bill to fund the works.

City parks chief Coun Martin Mullaney said: “If we charge them. unfortunately they will be back on the parks, which is something we want to avoid.

“I have met with the travellers and they say they will do their best to keep land tidy but because of the weather they cause damage to the land.

“It makes sense to give them somewhere to stay because we don’t want the bureaucracy of moving them away each time they move.

“I have been told that there could be up to 3,000 travellers and we have to make sure we are ready for that.

“There are no tickets left for Cofton Park but the people I have spoken to say that they will be happy just to hear the Pope’s voice. There will be a lot of economic benefits for the city of the Papal visit and also some costs, including this one.”

The travellers sparked anger among locals living near Sarehole Mill in Hall Green – said to be the inspiration behind for JRR Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings saga – when they forced their way on to the historic site earlier this week.

After being served with an eviction notice, they moved to nearby playing fields off Cole Bank Road on Thursday and were yesterday given seven days to leave.

Just four caravans were on the sites yesterday morning but they were joined by another eight families who said they had been kicked off land in Shirley.

One woman from Leeds said: “If we can stay on here for a few weeks in peace and quiet it would be lovely.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. If I could just hear the Pope’s voice, I would feel blessed.”

Coun Mullaney said that the temporary travellers’ sites would be set up in the next week, but refused to speculate where they might be.

He said he was asking the Irish press to circulate the message that all tickets for the Mass and beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park on Sunday September 19 have been allocated.


PROTECT THE POPE comments on the above report:

Irish travellers’ enthusiasm
for the Holy Father’s visit
an example to us all


This is welcome news after the past couple of weeks of reports that have focused on indifference or reluctance to attend papal events. The marginal and those held to be of no account will always confound the strong and wise.

Another happy story for a change. I hope there are more of these local stories about people's participation in the visit...

Schoolkids plan trip to see Pope
by Susan Lochrie

August 28, 2010


HUNDREDS of school children from Inverclyde will get the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the Pope when he comes to Scotland next month.

Coach-loads of kids from the three Catholic secondary schools are off to Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on Friday 16 September to join thousands of worshippers for a public Mass led by Pope Benedict XVI, pictured.

Second-year pupils from Notre Dame have been invited to take part in a special parade in Edinburgh to welcome him to Scotland.

Since his visit was announced, Catholic pupils in Inverclyde have been working on projects to mark the big event.

Notre Dame’s principal religious education teacher John Paul McGovern said: “There is a real buzz about the school.

“The very next day after it was announced I had pupils at my door asking what we would be doing to celebrate. We are all really excited about the event.”

A party of around 120 senior pupils from the Greenock school will head to Bellahouston while the second-year pupils are heading to Edinburgh.

Around 200 pupils in total from St Columba’s High, Gourock, and St Stephen’s, Port Glasgow, are going to Bellahouston Park for the public mass.

On the day, they will be treated to special performances as part of the build-up from international superstar Susan Boyle, who was made famous on Britain’s Got Talent, as well as Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus.

It is expected many more people from Inverclyde will be heading to Bellahouston Park.

Pope Benedict XVI is coming to Scotland in his first visit to the UK at the invitation of the Queen.

The last papal visit to Scotland was made by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

Next month, Pope Benedict XVI will meet the Queen at Holyrood Palace in the capital before heading out in the Popemobile for a St Ninian’s Day Parade.

On the big day, pupils in Inverclyde have permission to be absent from school if they are going to Bellahouston with their families.


I saw this notice on the official visit site two weeks ago, when the special issue officially came out but I did not get around to looking up the Isle of Man site for better visuals till now:

Monday, August 29, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF THE MARTYRDOM OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

The drunken oath of a king with a shallow sense of honor, a seductive dance, and the hateful heart of a queen combined to bring about the martyrdom of John the Baptist. The greatest of prophets suffered the fate of so many Old Testament prophets before him: rejection and martyrdom. The “voice crying in the desert” did not hesitate to accuse the guilty, did not hesitate to speak the truth. This great religious reformer was sent by God to prepare the people for the Messiah. His vocation was one of selfless giving. “I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). Scripture tells us that many people followed John looking to him for hope, perhaps in anticipation of some great messianic power. John never allowed himself the false honor of receiving these people for his own glory. He knew his calling was one of preparation. When the time came, he led his disciples to Jesus: “The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus” (John 1:35-37). It is John the Baptist who has pointed the way to Christ. John’s life and death were a giving over of self for God and other people. The celebrates two featss dedicated to John the Baptist during the year - his nativity on June 24, and his beheading.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082911.cfm


No OR today.


No events announced for the Holy Father today.




The Holy Father has accepted the resignation of Cardinal John Patrick Foley as Grand Master of the Equestrian Order
of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, who has reached canonical retirement age, and named Mons. Edmond O'Brien,
till now Archbishop of Baltimore, to be the Pro-Grand Master. Earlier this year, Cardinal Foley effectively retired
back to his native Philadelphia after an acceleration of the leukemia first diagnosed in 2009.

George Weigel has written this beautiful pre-visit essay for a monthly British journal of culture and ideas which prides itself in presenting a spectrum of international writers. It is a welcome initiative in re-focusing attention in the UK on Benedict XVI as something other - far above and beyond - the besieged, beleaguered and bumbling Church leader that the media have made him out to be in their latest caricature version of him.



Britain can benefit from Benedict
by George Weigel

Issue of September 2010


On May 13, 2004, a septuagenarian German intellectual gave a lecture in the Capital Room of the Italian Senate. Ironies — or at least paradoxes — abounded.

The lecturer was a Catholic priest and bishop; the modern Italian state had been born in a decades-long spasm of anti-clericalism. The lecturer, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was known throughout the world as the living embodiment of Catholic orthodoxy.

The man who had invited him to speak, Senate president Marcello Pera, was a non-believer and a philosopher of science in the school of Karl Popper.


Pope Benedict XVI and Marcello Pera. The Senate lecture became the nucleus of a joint book.

Cardinal Ratzinger chose as his topic, "The Spiritual Roots of Europe: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow". As he spoke, Europe was nearing the end of a fierce, year-long debate over whether biblical religion had had anything to do with what was noble in Europe's past, or might have something important to say about Europe's present or future.

As Joseph Ratzinger, the man who became Pope Benedict XVI, comes to Great Britain on a state visit on September 16 that will include the beatification of John Henry Newman, his lecture in the Italian Senate some six years ago is well worth revisiting.

It serves as a reminder that seemingly endless stories of clerical sexual abuse and the mismanagement of these sins and crimes by Catholic bishops are not the only story to be told about the Church at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

Important as the airing of the abuse story has been in compelling the Church to address grave problems that had long been buried beneath the carapace of a self-protective clerical culture, the press's obsession with clerical sexual malfeasance has also been a distraction — doubtless welcome in some quarters — from grappling with important arguments the present Pope and his predecessor have made about the ideas shaping democratic societies today, arguments that invite serious men and women to think seriously about the democratic future.

And if the sanguinary 20th century ought to have taught the West anything, it was the truth of Keynes's famous observation that "ideas...both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else."

The man who comes to Britain as the 264th successor of St Peter is many things. Britons who rely on media imagery to form their impressions of public personalities will find some of those things surprising.

Those who expect to meet "God's Rottweiler" (as his theological enemies caricatured Cardinal Ratzinger decades ago) will find instead a shy, soft-spoken man of exquisite manners.

Those determined to portray Pope Benedict as the central figure in a global criminal conspiracy of child-rapers and their abettors will, it may be hoped, discover the man who did more than anyone else in the Roman Curia to compel the Church to face what he once called the "filth" marring the priesthood.

Those looking for a hidebound clerical enforcer will meet instead a man of deep faith, a gentle pastor who has met, wept with, and apologised to the abused victims of his brother priests and bishops.

Joseph Ratzinger is also a man of ideas: a world-class European intellectual with an intriguing analysis of contemporary Europe's present circumstances and bold proposals to make about Europe's future.

During the Pope's visit to Britain, those who ignore those proposals because of their fixation on scandal are depriving themselves of an opportunity to think seriously about the moral and cultural condition of the West — and indulging that intellectual anorexia at a moment when the West's future seems anything but secure demographically, economically, fiscally, strategically or morally.

Like several other notable German intellectuals of his generation (Ratzinger was born in 1927 and was reluctantly conscripted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War), Benedict XVI's thinking about the West and democracy unfolds under the long shadow of the Weimar Republic: a meticulously constructed democratic edifice that rested on insecure moral and cultural foundations.

The architects of Weimar, including the great social scientist Max Weber, imagined that they were building a rational structure of governance. Weimar's political institutions and their relationship to one another would be the products of reason, not tradition — and certainly not revelation.

Yet as Joseph Ratzinger put it to the Italian senate in 2004, "reason is inherently fragile", and political systems that imagine themselves to have solved the problem of democratic legitimacy by relying on reason alone "become easy targets for dictatorships".

That, in his view, is what happened in the Germany of his youth: "the collapse of Prussian State Christianity" in the aftermath of the First World War, "left a vacuum" that Weber and his fellow-architects of Weimar imagined could be filled by rationality, but which in fact "would later provide fertile soil for a dictatorship."

After that dictatorship was defeated at an immense cost in human suffering (and with half of Europe consigned to the suzerainty of another dictatorship), efforts were made to reconstruct Europe on the basis of what the founding fathers of today's European Union — Robert Schuman, Alcide de Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer — believed to be a moral consensus derived from biblical religion.

Their efforts, Ratzinger readily acknowledges, produced three generations of a Europe at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity. Yet, as he told the Italian Senate, the new Europe still suffers from an idea-deficit, the implications of which were becoming ever more troubling as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.

For, as he put it in 2004: "The complex problems left behind by Marxism continue to exist today. The loss of man's primordial certainties about God, about himself, and about the universe — the loss of an awareness of intangible moral values — is still our problem...and it can lead to the self-destruction of European consciousness."

The key to grasping Ratzinger's analysis is to see that he thinks of Europe's contemporary crisis of cultural morale as a matter of self-destruction. Or, as he put it in an earlier version of his address to the Italian Senate, it is impossible not to "notice a self-hatred in the Western world that is strange and can even be considered pathological".

For as "the West is making a praiseworthy attempt to be completely open to foreign values...it no longer loves itself. [Indeed], it sees in its own history only what is blameworthy and destructive [and] is no longer capable of perceiving what is great and pure."

This, it seems to Benedict XVI, is little short of suicidal: for "in order to survive, Europe needs a new — and certainly a critical and humble — acceptance of itself: that is, if it wants to survive".

But that will-to-survive (which is not for Ratzinger a will-to-dominate, but a commitment to share with others the truths the West has discovered about the dignity of the human person), will not attain critical mass in contemporary Europe for so long as Europe is "on a collision course with its own history".

And that, in turn, is why Ratzinger constantly asks the contemporary West to reconsider its hyper-secularist reading of the past, in which black legends of Christian perversity dominate the historical landscape and the dignity of man is asserted only with effective cultural and political force in the Enlightenment.

Thus, in his lecture to the Italian Senate, Ratzinger, echoing the opening sequence in Kenneth Clark's TV series, Civilisation, reminded his audience that Christian monasticism saved European culture when it was in grave danger of losing hold of its classical and biblical heritage.

In remote places such as Iona and Lindisfarne, the monks of St Benedict, he recalled, were the agents of a rebirth of culture, and did so precisely as "a force prior to and superior to political authority" (which, in the Dark Ages, had largely disappeared from the scene).

Moreover, Ratzinger proposed, it was Christianity itself that initially suggested and defended that "separation" of religious and political authority (or, in the vulgate, the "separation of Church and state") so prized by modern secularists: in the first instance, when the late-fifth-century Pope Gelasius I drew a crisp distinction between priestly and political authority.

Later, in the 11th century, when Pope Gregory VII defended the liberty of the Church against the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV's attempts to turn the Church into a department of the state by controlling the appointment of bishops.

Remove Gelasius I and Gregory VII, Ratzinger suggested, the rich social pluralism of European life in the first centuries of the second millennium would have been much less likely to develop — and, to bring the point home in terms of Britain, there would have been no Magna Carta and all that flowed from there.

It was the Church, in other words, that made the first arguments for the "separation of Church and state", not the philosophes of the continental Enlightenment.

Which, as Ratzinger surveys contemporary European high culture, brings us to yet another irony: the inability of the rationalism proclaimed by the Enlightenment to sustain Europe's confidence in reason.

As the late John Paul II saw it, and as Benedict XVI sees it, "Europe" is a civilisational enterprise and not simply a zone of mutual economic advantage.

That civilisational project rests on three legs, which might be labelled "Jerusalem", "Athens", and "Rome": biblical religion, which taught Europe that the human person, as child of a benevolent Creator, is endowed with inalienable dignity and value; Greek rationality, which taught Europe that there are truths embedded in the world and in us, truths we can grasp by reason; and Roman jurisprudence, which taught Europe that the rule of law is superior to the rule of brute force.

If Jerusalem goes — as it has in much of post-Enlightenment European high culture — Athens gets wobbly: as is plain in the sandbox of post-modernism, where there may be your truth and my truth, but nothing properly describable as the truth.

And if both Jerusalem and Athens go, then Rome — the rule-of-law — is in grave trouble: as is plain when coercive state power is used throughout Europe and within European states to enforce regimes of moral relativism and to punish the politically incorrect.

The collapse of faith in reason, the embrace of crank theories of racial superiority and the emotive power of atavistic nationalism brought down the Weimar Republic and led to the brutal dictatorship of German National Socialism.

The collapse of faith in reason today — the insouciance about truth displayed in post-modernism-will also have its consequences, in Ratzinger's view.

Some are already evident, as in the soul-withering nihilism that is the cultural root of Europe's demographic suicide. Others lurk menacingly on the near-term political horizon, in the threat of what Ratzinger famously called, the day before his election as Pope, the prospect of a "dictatorship of relativism".

For, as he put it to Italy's senators: "In recent years, I find myself noting how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends towards intolerance, thereby becoming a new dogmatism." Thus relativism becomes a kind of new "denomination" that seeks to "subordinate" every other form of conviction "to the super-dogma of relativism".

These are not popular claims to make, on either side of the English Channel (or either side of the Atlantic, for that matter). But that they are claims deserving close attention and not clownish dismissal (pace the New Atheists), only the truly rigid dogmatists of the secularist super-denomination will deny.

Those who wish to explore how Pope Benedict's analysis of the current civilisational crisis of the West is engaged by a serious mind can do so by reading the lectures given by Ratzinger and the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas at a joint appearance in Munich three months before Ratzinger's address to the Italian Senate.



Many expected an intellectual donnybrook at the Catholic Academy of Bavaria on January 19, 2004: in one corner, the pre-eminent European secularist philosopher of "democratically enlightened common sense", himself deeply influenced by the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt School; in the other, the Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, inevitably described by most reporters as "the successor to the Inquisition".

The question Habermas and Ratzinger were to examine was also contentious, especially in the context of a Europe then furiously debating whether Christianity ought to be mentioned when the draft European constitutional treaty described the sources of 21st century Europe's commitments to civility, tolerance, human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

The issue put to Habermas and Ratzinger in the language of political theory — the question of the "pre-political moral foundations of a free state" — was in fact the very same question being argued passionately throughout Europe: do 21st-century democracies, in which political and spiritual authority is separate and the public sphere is "secular", depend for their legitimacy on moral presuppositions the secular state itself can't provide or guarantee?

Habermas, who had previously co-authored an op-ed article with the French post-modernist Jacques Derrida, arguing that the new Europe must be "neutral between worldviews", was expected by many to uphold the standard of the European naked public square: a space constitutionally shorn, not only of religious conviction, but of religious informed moral argument.

Ratzinger, the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, would, it was assumed, denounce the false claims of secularism and warn sternly that an apostate Europe would be an offence against God and man. Both men gravely disappointed the conventional expectations.

For his part, Habermas lamented "the transformation of the citizens of prosperous and peaceful liberal societies into isolated monads acting on the basis of their own self-interest, persons who use their subjective rights only as weapons against each other".

He also expressed concern over what he termed (in language demonstrating that German philosophers continue to speak an idiom uniquely their own) "the ethical abstinence of postmetaphysical thinking, to which every universally obligatory concept of a good and exemplary life is foreign".

The European future he imagined was one in which "secularised citizens" do not, "in their role as citizens of the state", deny "in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth" — including the truths about the human person that are the moral-cultural foundations of democratic self-governance.

Religious fellowships, Habermas conceded, had "preserved intact something which has elsewhere been lost". Might that "something" be the will to live in solidarity with others, coupled with the capacity to give a reasoned account of one's democratic commitments?

For his part, Ratzinger acknowledged "pathologies in religion that are extremely dangerous and that make it necessary to see the divine light of reason as a ‘controlling organ'" in public life.

As the first millennium Fathers of the Church had taught, "religion must continually allow itself to be purified and structured by reason". At the same time, there were "pathologies of reason" that had led to a loss of faith in reason.

Thus, the prime cultural imperative of the moment was to recognise the "necessary relatedness between reason and faith and between reason and religion, which are called to purify and help one another", and which must "acknowledge this mutual need".

In brief, the Munich debate was a serious exploration of the cracks in the foundations of the Western democratic project, conducted by two men determined to avoid what Edward Skidelsky once labelled the "Punch and Judy show" character of so many debates between "science and religion".

It seems that Richard Dawkins was not paying much attention to what transpired in Munich in January 2004. But perhaps others, less dogmatic in their anti-dogmatism, will pay attention when Pope Benedict XVI explores some of these same themes in his Westminster Hall address.

If his 2004 debate with Habermas and his lecture to the Italian Senate three months later give us, in capsule form, Ratzinger's analysis of Europe's cultural condition today, what role does he envisage for the Catholic Church in helping repair the damage that nihilism, scepticism and relativism have done to what he called, in the Italian Senate, "that which holds the world together"?

Pope Benedict has sometimes been accused of being a nostalgic for the intact (Catholic) culture of his Bavarian youth, which was first destroyed by the Third Reich and then supplanted by a new Germany that eventually turned its back on both its Catholic and Lutheran roots.

There is something to this, but Ratzinger is far too intelligent a man and far too sophisticated an analyst of the tides of history to imagine that any kind of rollback to a pre-modern (or pre-postmodern) past is possible.

Rather, his first obligation, as he understands it, is to make Europe look closely at itself, in the unsparing but non-scolding way he did in the Italian Senate in early 2004:

---

At the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems hollow, as if it were internally paralysed by a failure of its circulatory system that is endangering its life, subjecting it to transplants that erase its identity. At the same time as its sustaining spiritual forces have collapsed, a growing decline in its ethnicity is also taking place.

Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as if they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen as a liability rather than as a source of hope.

There is a clear comparison between today's situation and the decline of the Roman Empire. In its final days, Rome still functioned as a great historical framework, but in practice it was already subsisting on models that were destined to fail. Its vital energy had been depleted.

---

Having held the mirror of reality up to faces that might have been reluctant to gaze into it, for fear of what they could find there, the man who became Benedict XVI then urged his audience of Italian political leaders to reject Spenglerian gloom and to refuse to concede that the West was "rushing heedlessly toward its demise".

Rather, he proposed that men and women of conscience adopt a vision of possibility drawn from Arnold Toynbee, in which "the energy of creative minorities and exceptional individuals" can lead to a revitalisation of culture that will allow "the inner identity of Europe to survive throughout its metamorphoses in history".

The Catholic Church, Benedict XVI believes, can be one of those "creative minorities" in 21st- century Europe and indeed throughout the West. To be that, the Church must regain a clear sense of its own identity, primarily through a resacralisation of its worship.

It must recover a firm grasp on the truths it proposes, putting behind it the "liberalism" in religion that John Henry Newman deplored.

It must raise up a generation of bishops and priests who are persuasive evangelists and witnesses, according to the model established by John Paul II.

It must demonstrate, not so much by argument as by sanctity and beauty, that it offers the men and women of today a path on which they can encounter "that which holds the world together."

And to do all of that, the Church must purge itself of its corruptions, a point on which Pope Benedict has been insistent for years, most recently in regard to the appalling defaults of Irish Catholicism.

This will take some time, given the density of clerical culture and the fact that popes are not, pace media distortions, absolute monarchs who can effect massive institutional change at the click of a finger. It will probably take more time than Anglophone cultures will like, given the still-languid, Italianate ways of the Vatican.

No one should doubt, however, that Benedict XVI understands that, for the Church to become the "creative minority" of his imagination, it must be a credible minority that lives the truths it proclaims and deals decisively with those in its midst who betray the trust given them.

Benedict's vision of the Church in Europe's future has nothing to do with the rebuilding of a mythical ancien régime. He has shown himself sympathetic to the desire of some Catholics to worship according to the old ways, but he has no truck with the restorationist political fantasies that are at the root of the Lefebvrist movement.

As he sees the Catholic future, in Britain and elsewhere, the public task of the Church is to form alliances with those who understand that the democratic project requires a far more secure moral cultural foundation than that offered by pragmatism or utilitarianism.

And in the Pope's mind, those alliances should be built in a genuinely intercultural and pluralistic way, formed around the truths we can know to be true as a result of putting various religious and philosophical traditions into vigorous conversation.

That is the proposal of the man who will beatify Newman and challenge Britons to lift themselves out of the slough of secularist despond.

If that proposal gets drowned out by a cacophony of media scandal-mongering (itself amplified by the usual Vatican communications incompetence), and by the antics of the New Atheists (to which British and American editors seem curiously addicted), Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, will not be the loser.

One of Scotland's leading newspapers has come out with an editorial on the side of reason - and a recent poll....


Welcome the Pope
Editorial

29 August 2010

THE latest evidence suggests the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, which begins in Scotland on 16 September, will be a more harmonious occasion than had previously been anticipated.

There is now polling data on Scots' attitudes to the papal visit which reveal a more welcoming environment than might have been suggested by the rumblings from certain quarters when the visit was announced.

Sectarianism, which it was feared might damage Scotland's international reputation if manifested during the visit, is still a malevolent presence in Scotland and must not be treated with complacency - but this opinion poll suggests it has significantly diminished.

The poll, commissioned by the Scottish Catholic Media Office, found that 31 per cent of respondents were "very or fairly favourable" to the papal visit, while 63 per cent were neither for nor against it.

Those opposed comprised a smaller than expected minority, with 3 per cent objecting and just 2 per cent "strongly" objecting.

If this survey had been conducted 50 years ago, when historical antipathies were still mainstream opinion in this country, the results would have been very different. Even 15 years ago, opposition would have been significantly greater.

That is not to gloss over the fact that 5 per cent of objectors represents a quarter of a million people in a population of just over 5 million. It would be wrong, however, to make assumptions about their motives.

Early on, the Orange Order, bastion of hardline Protestantism in this country, announced that it would respect the state visit - the Pope, after all, is the guest of the Queen.

Although the poll did not explore the opinions of those opposing the visit, a reasonable supposition would be that many are motivated by their opposition to the Pope's unyielding line on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Or the Church's conduct over recent child abuse accusations. Or simply because they are secularists who question the Catholic Church's status and influence.

These are legitimate points of view, and critics of the Catholic Church have a right to use the visit to give voice to their opinions.

Even among these groups, however, proactive opposition to the visit seems limited. An organisation called Protest the Pope has now abandoned plans to demonstrate in Scotland, though it intends to hold a march in London.

Scotland will be on display to the world during the papal visit, with the global television audience estimated at more than one billion. And Scotland being Scotland, for every sectarian there are two curmudgeons - the people who complain about every public event in our capital city, from the G8 summit to the papal visit, on the grounds they are inconvenienced by roads being closed, etc.

Their tiresome bleating does no-one any good, and makes us all appear petty and small-minded. This particular group may like to consider a vow of silence along the lines practiced by the Catholic Trappist order of monks.

Benedict XVI is the head of a worldwide religion with more than a billion adherents. This event is primarily for the Catholic community in Scotland and nobody should underestimate the importance it has for the Pope's flock.

His visit to Scotland is a significant, even historic, moment. The authorities should make every effort to ensure its success and the wider public should be encouraged to extend traditional Scottish hospitality to this distinguished visitor.

Some Scots strongly disagree with certain teachings of the Catholic Church; but disagreement should not engender discourtesy. The most formal part of the visit, the Pope's reception by the Queen, will take place at Holyroodhouse and it is gratifying that such an occasion of state should be hosted on Scottish soil. Let us show the world how Scots welcome a guest to this country.


Against the Pope's visit?
Just 5% of Scots say yes
By Tom Peterkin
Scottish Political Editor

April 29, 2010

SCOTLAND'S sectarian wounds appear to be healing, according to a new poll that suggests that only 5 per cent of the population objects to the Pope's visit.

A survey of more than 1,000 Scots of all denominations found that only 2 per cent "strongly objected" to Pope Benedict XVI's Scottish visit while a further 3 per cent simply "objected".

At the other end of the scale, one-third of those questioned viewed the papal visit favourably.

In a predominantly Protestant country, the majority of Scots appeared to be relaxed about the Holy Father's trip to Edinburgh and Glasgow next month with 63 per cent indicating that they were "neither for nor against it".

The poll, commissioned by the Catholic Church, was carried out by Opinion Research Business, who surveyed 1,007 adults.

Yesterday, the Catholic Church said that it was greatly encouraged by the findings, claiming that they suggested that sectarianism was less of a threat now than in 1982 when Pope John Paul II came to Scotland.

Despite government fears, there were no major incidents during his two days in Scotland, although demonstrations were led by Orangemen and hardline Protestants at which 67 people were arrested.

According to the Catholic Church, today's opposition to the Pope's visit, which begins on 16 September, is far more likely to come from secularist organisations than from evangelical Protestants.

Secularist organisations object on grounds such as the allegations suggesting that the Church covered up the sexual abuse of children by clergy, or the Pope's views on homosexuality and abortion.

Protest the Pope, the pressure group involving the National Secular Society, has organised a march through London. But plans for a similar event north of the border have not materialised.

According to the Catholic Church, the poll results also run contrary to received wisdom, which suggests Scotland is getting more secular: 70 per cent considered themselves Christians - up on the 2001 census figure of 67 per cent. The poll also suggested that more people worship regularly than thought: 20 per cent said that they went to church once a week or more; 26 per cent once a month or more.



On the other hand, a really bleak picture of the Church in Britain is what we get in this article from a former editor of the Catholic Herald.

Pope Benedict's visit:
Beleaguered Church struggles
against secular tide
by Peter Stanford

August 29, 2010


As Benedict XVI's arrival in Britain on 16 September draws ever closer, the list of those attacking him grows longer.

First, there were militant atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who want the Pope to be arrested for what they allege is his complicity in covering up the crimes of paedophile priests. Then a Foreign Office mandarin, in a leaked memo, took a pop at papal teaching and suggested Benedict should be asked to visit an abortion clinic or launch his own brand of condoms.

There has also been a growing chorus of complaint about why British taxpayers, in this age of austerity, should pay £12m towards the cost of the pope's three days in Britain.

And now Penguin is to publish, on the eve of the visit, The Case of the Pope, a polemical tract by a leading human rights barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC, arguing that Benedict should be stripped by the international community of his status as "the one man left in the world who is above the law".

Confronted by this assault on their spiritual leader, Britain's six million Catholics are under scrutiny as never before – and many seem to be uncomfortable in the spotlight.

That, at least, is one explanation being offered for their reluctance either to cough up their required £7m contribution for the visit, or take up the tickets that have been sent to their parishes by organisers, but which are now being returned unclaimed[Call me a constitutional optimist about the Church, but I just cannot give credence to such reports!], despite the announcement last week that Susan Boyle, the overnight singing sensation from Britain's Got Talent, will serenade Benedict in Glasgow.

[But to make it look as though UK Catholics might have more incentive to attend a papal Mass if a pop star were thrown into the mix demans both the pilgrim as well as the Pope!

I don't get it that Catholic writers like Damian Thompson and Sanford - both former editors of the Catholic Herald - should show such alacrity (bordering on Schadenfreude) in presenting the Church in the UK only in its worst colors, especially at a time like this. They are gifted writers - and there are ways to speak unhappy truths without being brutal about it (Take an example from the Holy Father - he does so all the time.)

And surely, something good can be said about all the selfless priests, deacons and religious who serve God and the Church faithfully, obediently and humbly every day, and all the Catholics who go to Sunday Mass and avail of the Sacraments. And even the occasional bishop - surely there must be a few - who are still fully in communion with the Pope!]

To stand up publicly and be counted as a Catholic in Britain right now can be to invite a tirade, as I found when I accepted an invitation from the Oxford literary festival to defend the role of faith schools against an author who had published a book questioning them.

Five minutes before we went on stage, the organisers announced to me that philosopher AC Grayling had kindly agreed to chair the event. That is AC Grayling, the second-best known militant atheist in the country, hardly your typical neutral chair.

And then as we were walking into the hall, Grayling informed me that "Richard" had agreed to make a contribution – Richard Dawkins, that is, the best-known atheist in the country on account of his diatribe against religion, The God Delusion.

An even playing field? Of course not, and had a representative of any other minority been set up in such a fashion the entire literary world would have been signing petitions. But I was defending the Catholic church, so normal rules didn't apply.

There is, granted, much that many Mass-goers feel ashamed about in their Church's recent conduct. The number of Catholic priests in this country accused of sexually abusing children may stand at 0.4% of the total – accused, that is, not convicted – but the revelation that they had so degraded a vocation that Catholics have always been taught to hold in the highest esteem came as a profound shock.

As did the efforts of bishops worldwide, up to and including the future Pope Benedict, according to some unsubstantiated but well-publicised allegations, in covering up these crimes. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales until 2009, had, while a bishop in the 1980s, moved a known paedophile priest from one posting to another where he continued to prey on children.

So there are immediate reasons why British Catholics are cautious about launching an all-points defence of their Church in the current climate when confronted by the new breed of abrasive secularists. But the vacuum left by that reluctance to hit back is now being mercilessly exploited.

Much of the current wave of criticism of faith schools, for example, has been directed almost exclusively at Catholic educational establishments, with the charge being laid that they practise religious indoctrination out of the public purse and flout government admissions guidelines.

There is a debate by proxy going on here. The real concern of many who attack faith schools appears to be the granting of voluntary-aided status (state funding) to Muslim schools, where there is some evidence that it is not always being spent in the cause of toleration and mutual respect.

But the critics are nervous of being seen to attack Islam, lest they are labelled bigots, but Catholic schools – where the evidence of abuse is, according to the government's own inspectors, slight – apparently provide a useful and risk-free alternative.

In a recent interview, composer and devout Catholic James MacMillan, who has produced a new setting of the Mass to mark the papal visit, labelled the current wave of anti-Catholicism as "the new anti-Semitism of the liberal intellectual". [He, of course, was not the first one to make that observation, but bless him! I have to look it up but I am pretty sure someone else in the Anglophone world said it before.]

So why don't other Catholics follow MacMillan's example and speak up more often in their own defence?

One reason is history, the lingering sense that Catholics are here in Britain "on tolerance" and so attacks are something to be endured – or offered up, as my Christian Brother teachers used to tell us.

For almost three centuries after Henry VIII's break with Rome, those who remained Catholic in Britain faced something much worse than verbal attacks. It was a period of intense persecution with penal laws, Catholics barred from holding public office and even, at times, owning land, and the prospect of imprisonment, torture and execution if caught attending Mass.

It was only in 1829 that the Catholic Relief Act allowed Catholics once more to vote and sit in parliament, and, even then, it took until the late 1940s for a Catholic – Richard Stokes – to be appointed a government minister.

The fact that today it is scarcely noticed whether MPs or ministers are Catholics is a mark of how far tolerance and integration have progressed, but the experience of persecution has left its mark in a Church that instinctively keeps a low profile and shrugs off criticisms rather than confronts them.

While they may feel different from their fellow citizens, most Catholics would dismiss the idea that they face much by way of prejudice because of their beliefs – or any more prejudice than other people of faith in secular times.

"It is really not something that I have ever experienced," says author Mary Kenny, master of The Keys, the Catholic writers' guild, "except from old-style 70s feminists who will say, 'Oh you're so Catholic, you're so rightwing'."

However, the debate about a residual anti-Catholic prejudice has been more animated in Scotland. James MacMillan has spoken publicly about how discrimination against Catholics is still alive and kicking there, referring to it at the Edinburgh festival as "Scotland's shame".

And it is from Scotland, too, that most of the pressure has come for a symbolic repeal of the final piece of official post-Reformation discrimination against Catholics – the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars them from the throne.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Scottish Catholic church, has labelled this piece of legislation "state-sponsored sectarianism" that has no place in a multicultural, tolerant society.

The difference between the experiences of Kenny and MacMillan, both high-profile Catholics living in Britain, is instructive and points to some of the internal tensions in British Catholicism that make it less effective in tackling its external critics.

There seem to be almost as many forms of Catholicism here as there are Catholics. There is, in simple terms, no single, shared template for the British Catholics who will be greeting Pope Benedict next month.

For a start, the Vatican regards Britain as two separate entities, for reasons that date back to the time when England and Scotland were independent kingdoms. So the Pope will be greeted on his arrival in Edinburgh by Cardinal O'Brien as the leader of an 800,000-strong Scottish Catholic church, and in London by Archbishop Vincent Nichols as head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, which numbers 5.2 million.

This figure – produced by an Ipsos Mori poll in 2009 – shows a steep increase from the 4.2 million (or 8% of the population) reported by the 2001 census and is usually ascribed to the influx in recent years of immigrants from the Catholic countries of eastern Europe.

Even vocations to the priesthood are currently showing a gentle upturn, after decades in freefall, with 150 men now in seminaries and another 40 expected to join them in September.

How to define membership in the context of Catholicism is equally problematic. In theory, for example, all Catholics are "obliged", according to the Catechism (or rule book), to attend Mass each Sunday.

Yet of the 6 million British Catholics, roughly only one in five is in the pews every weekend. This high rate of setting aside official teaching – in a Church that is still perceived by its secular critics as authoritarian and controlling – reveals the à la carte approach of the current generation of believers to what were once the non-negotiables of the faith.

A Church that likes to present itself as unchanging in the face of the modern world is, in fact, changing pretty rapidly.

And then there is the wide divergence in parish life around Britain. I have been spending August in Norfolk, where our local Catholic parish is 100% white and quietly prosperous, and where my wife and I, in our late 40s, still qualify as "that nice young couple".

By contrast, for the rest of year we attend a vibrant, multi-ethnic Catholic parish in west London with a predominantly young congregation that combines Filipinos, Ethiopians, Chinese, Europeans of every description and those like the wonderful Queenie, 91, with her nine children and countless great-grandchildren, who represent a still powerful ethnic Irish contingent.

Similarly difficult is any attempt to neatly divide British Catholics into factions. Yes, at the extremes there are organisations (usually tiny, but articulate) that bang the drum for their particular causes. Cwo (pronounced "Quo"), for instance, supports female priests and plans to mark the pope's visit to London with advertisements on buses shouting "Ordain Women".

At the other end of the spectrum, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice offers "an orthodox response to the crisis in the Church" but struggles to muster more than a dozen protesters for its vigil in London where, to its fury but with the blessing of the bishops, a Mass is said each week for the gay and lesbian Catholic community.

Such demarcations tend to go over the heads of most British Mass-goers, who seem effortlessly to combine so-called "traditionalist" and "liberal" approaches to their faith.

"We have always been a broad Church with 57 varieties," says Mary Kenny, "which is why we need the Magisterium [teaching authority of the Pope] to pull us together."

It is a point echoed by Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton. "I am often told by those Catholics who dislike the way our Church operates in this country that they are the 'silent majority', denied a voice by people like me in the hierarchy," he says.

"The reality is that they are a very small minority. Pope Benedict is coming to a country where Catholicism is unusually stable, cohesive and vibrant enough in the current overall context of decline of interest in the church in western Europe. Indeed, I think he may well be relieved to be coming to a place where, unlike some of his other recent trips, there are no big problems for him to sort out."

Well, that might be going a bit far. Catherine Pepinster, editor of the influential Catholic weekly the Tablet, offers a more nuanced assessment.

"If you developed an interest in British Catholicism by reading the various 'Catholic' blogs that have sprung up in recent years, you would conclude that we are in the midst of vicious cultural wars," she says.

"But when you get to the parishes, nobody seems to be at anyone else's throat. The idea that there is a crisis is mistaken [Wait a minute! Doesn't the Tablet thrive on fostering the notion it has been promoting that the Catholic Church and its hierarchy are and have been in crisis for decades for failing to conform to the Tablet's secularist liberal views??? Or have I been 'brainwashed' by Damian Thompson into thinking that?], though the Church should nevertheless be asking itself why there are so many lapsed Catholics."

One blogger popular with more conservative Catholics is writer and Catholic Times columnist Joanna Bogle. "Yes, I write passionate things sometimes," she says, "and I criticise our bishops who scarcely can be counted as men of vigour and vision in these turbulent times, but blogs aren't necessarily the real world. I do think there is a crunch coming between the grassroots movement of young Catholics in groups like Youth 2000 who are interested in liturgy, in prayer, and above all in Jesus Christ, and the bishops who won't be able to control these movements as they challenge and renew Catholicism here." [Well, Hooray for these young Catholics! God bless...]

Her criticism of the bishops reflects a minority view within the British Church that would like to see them be more assertive and disciplinarian.

Yet another legacy of the history of the faith here and its accommodation to the prevailing norms of the wider society has been a reluctance on the part of the hierarchy (save, perhaps, in Scotland, where they are more outspoken) to hammer home from the pulpit contentious Catholic teachings that deem homosexuality, abortion and the use of condoms sinful.

In this, the bishops are simply being realistic. Survey after survey of Catholic opinion has, for example, reported that very few follow papal teaching against contraception – hence the near extinction of the once traditional Catholic family of eight children and upwards.
{Because 'very few follow' is no reason to stop preaching what ought to be preached! Bishops are not running in a popularity contest. And they should be able to tell their flock - gently but firmly, constantly and consistently, as Benedict XVI does - that Christianity is not easy, that Christ never said his way would be easy, that religion is a discipline, and that whatever the Church teaches has its basis in what Jesus said.]

Yet that pragmatism, coupled with an innate reluctance to be drawn into public confrontation, today comes at a cost when the Church is being attacked from without by militant secularists. Pope Benedict may indeed want to stiffen the collective Catholic resolve.

Bishop Conry professes himself puzzled by the secularists' claims. "No one ever defines secularism," he complains. "If they mean an absence of interest in spirituality, for instance, then I would say that there is plenty of evidence of exactly the opposite."

But he concedes there may be a case for him and his colleagues to engage in "a little more searching and even brutal debate". It will be music to the Pope's ears.

ANGELUS TODAY



The Holy Father reflected on the Gospel today about Jesus dining at the house of a Pharisee and the lessons of humility and free generosity in the parables he told.

He also paid tribute to St. Louis IX of France who wrote about true humility, and on St. John the Baptist whose martyrdom the Church commemorates today.

He offered prayers and encouragement for the trapped miners in Chile, and recalled that in Italy, the Church marks the day to Safeguard Creation on Sept. 1.






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

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the Gospel this Sunday (Lk 14, 1.71-14), we encounter Jesus as a guest at the home of a Pharisee leader. Observing how some guests chose to take the best seats at table, he recounted a parable that takes place during a nuptial banquet.

"When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, 'Give your place to this man'... Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place, so that when the host comes to you he may say, 'My friend, move up to a higher position" (Lk 14,8-10).

The Lord did not intend to give a lesson on etiquette nor on the hierarchy among diverse authorities. Rather, he insisted on a decisive point which is that of humility: "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14,11).

This parable, in a deeper meaning, also makes us think of man's position in relation to God. 'The lowest place' may, in fact, represent the condition of mankind degraded by sin, a condition from which only the Incarnation of God's only begotten Son would raise him.

For this, Christ himself took "the lowest place in the world - the Cross - and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid" (Enc. Deus caritas est, 35).

At the end of the parable, Jesus suggests to the chief of the Pharisees that he invite to his table, not his friends, relatives or rich neighbors, but those who are poor and emarginated, who have no way to repay him (cfr Lk 14,13-14), so that the gift is free.

In fact, the true reward, in the end, will come from God "who governs the world, not we. We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength" (Enc. Deus caritas est, 35).

Thus once more, we look on Christ as a model of humility and gratuitousness: from him we learn patience when tempted, gentleness when offended, obedience to God in sorrow, in the hope that he who invites us to his banquet will say to us: "My friend, move up to a higher position" (cfr Lk 14,10). The true good, in fact, is to be near him.

St. Louis IX, King of France - whose liturgical feast we observed last Wednesday - put into practice what was written in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "The more you are great, the more you are humbled, and you will find grace before the Lord" (3,18). Thus he wrote in his 'Spiritual testament to his son": If the Lord gives you prosperity, not only must you humbly thank him, but beware that you do not become worse through vainglory or in any other way - beware, then, of not opposing God or offending him with his own gifts" (Acta Sanctorum Augusti 5 [1868], 546).

Dear friends, today we commemorate the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, the greatest of Christ's prophets, who renounced himself to make way for the Savior, and who suffered and died for the truth. Let us ask him and the Virgin Mary to lead us along the way of humility in order to be worthy of divine reward.

After the prayers, he said:

On September 1, the Day for Safeguarding Creation will be observed in Italy, promoted by the Italian bishops' conference. It is an occasion that has now become customary and which is important even on the ecumenical level.

This year, we are reminded that there can be no peace without respect for the environment. In fact, we have the duty to leave the earth to the new generations in a state that even they may live in it worthily and continue to conserve it. May the Lord help us in this task!

In his Spanish greeting, he had a special message:

In greeting the Spanish-speaking pilgrims taking part in this Marian prayer, I wish to remember with particular affection the miners who are trapped in the mine of San Jose, in the Chilean region of Atacama.

I commend them and their families to the intercession of St. Lawrence, assuring them of my spiritual closeness and continual prayers, so that they may remain calm as they await the happy ending to the work that is taking place to rescue them.

I invite everyone to accept the Word of God in order to grow in faith, humility adn generosity.

---

Sorry for being very late in making the Angelus post, as I was once again away for the whole day yesterday.

Monday, August 30, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. MARIE DE LA CROIX (JEANNE JUGAN)(France, 1792-1879), Founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor
Jeanne was one of eight children in a family in Brittany who lost their father at sea. They were so poor that Jeanne learned to read and write from religious women belonging to the Third Order of St. John Eudes. She was a shepherd until at age 15, she was hired to be a maid with a wealthy family. She went on to become an assistant nurse at a local hospital but she had to resign because of health problems. By then, she had joined the Eudes lay order, one of whose wealthy ladies hired her to be her companion. She worked with her and in their common apostolate until the lady died 12 years later. In 1837, Jeanne found herself sharing rooms with two companions aged 72 and 17. An encounter with a blind old lady to whom she gave her own bed crystallized her mission to attend to abandoned old people who were numerous in post-revolutionary France. Begging for everything they needed, her work soon attracted other women. They banded into a community for which she wrote the rules. She took the name Marie de la Croix (Mary of the Cross). Ironically, even if Jeanne had been elected, the local bishop named a 21-year-old to be the Superior of the new order - a rebuff that Jeanne accepted humbly and did not deter her from carrying on her organizing work away from the motherhouse. The Little Sisters of the Poor would not be formally recognized by the Vatican until 1852, but meanwhile, Jeanne's work won for her a national prize in 1845 awarded yearly to a 'poor man or woman for meritorious social work'. The prize money seeded the order's first house and soon she had set up four more in other French cities. When the order was formally recognized, Jeanne, now 60, was recalled to the motherhouse where she worked with younger members who never realized she was the foundress of the community until after her death. She would live for another 27 years. By the time of her death, her Congregation numbered 2,400 Little Sisters in 177 homes on three continents. The Little Sisters, a semi-contemplative order, have remained faithful to Jeanne Jugan's original mission. She was beatified in 1982, and canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 19, 2009.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/083010.shtml


No OR today.


The Vatican announced that yesterday, 8/29, the Holy Father gave a private audience to Mons. Kurt Koch,
emeritus Bishop of Basel and President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Mons. Koch
was the principal lecturer at the seminar-reunion of the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis held in Castel Gandolfo
this weekend.

The title of the artilce is, of course, sardonic if not sarcastic, since it reads very much like a John Allen recapitulation of 'Benedict XVI's greatest blunders'... For now, I will simply post the first part of the article in purple to signify that it is all questionable at the very least, and also because the specifics the writer cites have been recycled and reworked to death - and distorted with every new turn - but were mostly dealt with in the Rodari-Tornielli book and the couple of good revfews of the book recently posted on this thread.


Is Pope Benedict's media team
up to the challenge?
by Paul Donovan

Monday 30 August 2010


Pope John Paul II was seen as the great communicating pontiff, a man who went out from the Vatican to engage with the world. The message was clear and the symbolism spot on: remember him kneeling to kiss the ground when he came to the UK during the Falklands war in 1982?

The present pope, Benedict XVI, could not be more different. A scholarly man who made his way as the previous pope's enforcer in the Vatican, he is not a natural communicator.

Benedict XVI's regime has seen several PR disasters: the Regensburg address in 2006, which was widely interpreted as an attack on Muslims, then the suggestion that saving humanity from homosexuality was as important as saving the rainforest, and the decision to pardon Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying British bishop.

Those close to the inner sanctum of theCchurch say the problem is that too many people seem to be participating in communicating the message. Statements are disjointed, as if several contributors have been involved and then it has all been hacked together by the Vatican press officer, Father Federico Lombardi.

This is in marked contrast to the way the media operation worked under John Paul II, when the legendary press secretary Joaquín Navarro-Valls handled the operation. He was present at all meetings and had control of the message – a very modern spin doctor.

However, the mishaps experienced so far by the present Pope and his media team slide into insignificance when compared with the potential damage that mishandling of the international child abuse scandal could wreak. Earlier in the year, PR weaknesses were exposed as abuse cases were uncovered in America, Germany, Austria, Holland, Ireland and Belgium.

Abuse appeared endemic in the operation of the Church. The global media sensed blood as the crisis seemed to move closer to the Pope himself. The first response from the Vatican was to try to shoot the messenger, accusing the media of dishonest reporting. The stories were said to be part of an "obvious and shameful" campaign to "damage" Pope Benedict "at all costs".

As the crisis gathered momentum, there were unhelpful contributions from Father Rainero Cantalamessa, the preacher at the pontifical household, who compared attacks on the Pope to anti=semitism, and from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the college of cardinals, referring to "petty gossip".

Finally, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, suggested a link between paedophilia and homosexuality. Against this background, the first visit of a Pope to Britain as a head of state was announced.

The trip, from 16-19 September, offers plenty of potential pitfalls, with the atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens claiming to be investigating the possibility of arresting the Pope over allegations that he was aware of child abuse in the Church and did nothing.

Then there is the human rights activist Peter Tatchell's "protest the pope" campaign, and the National Secular Society's constant questioning of the £19m cost of the visit.

The attitude of the British government may be one of welcome, but hostility does not lie far below the surface in Whitehall, as shown by the infamous "blue-sky thinking" Foreign Office memo in April that suggested a brand of condoms be named after the Pope and that he should visit an abortion clinic as part of the visit.

The handling of the facetious memo was one of the more astute pieces of public relations from the church, which in effect turned the other cheek in public while in private obtaining more concessions regarding the costs of the papal visit from a government keen to make amends.

The consistent strand that runs through 10 years of changes in official Catholic communications is a lack of people involved who have worked as journalists.

The approach of the Catholic Communications Network (CCN) has been, on the whole, professional but reactive. It never seeks to set the agenda. This allows some of the more mischievous in the media to portray the church as "sex-crazed", interested only in issues such as abortion, birth control and civil partnerships.

There has, however, been some improvement since Vincent Nichols took over from Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as the archbishop of Westminster last year. More comfortable with the media than his predecessor, Nichols has spoken out on issues as varied as the economic crisis and youth violence.

One commentator on all things Catholic is Cristina Odone, the former editor of the Catholic Herald, who is a regular talking head, particularly on the BBC, despite having left the editor's chair more than a decade ago.

It has no doubt been in part to fill the vacuum that Odone and other chatterers have utilised that Austen Ivereigh, Murphy-O'Connor's former press secretary, and Jack Valero, the director of Opus Dei in the UK, have combined with the Catholic Union to create Catholic Voices.

Ivereigh says the model for Voices "is inspired by the experience of the Da Vinci Code Response Group in 2006, when the release of the Dan Brown film created a similar demand for Catholics to be ready to discuss its claims, however far-fetched".

The fact that the media may not want to hear from these people seems to have escaped the organisers' notice. It is good copy to get the most outrageous Catholic voices who can be found on issues such as abortion, civil partnerships and child abuse.

Many in the media are not interested in a rational voice from the Catholic church – it's not good box office. What is more, Catholic Voices has already hit choppy waters, being accused of ageism because of its upper age limit of 40, and a rival group called Catholic Voices for Reform has already been set up.

The question is: how will this all pan out? The worst-case scenario for the Catholic church here is that before the Pope's visit journalists discover recent abuse cases. [Does anyone have any doubt they already have such 'bombshells' reaady to lob????]

This would shoot to pieces the strategy that has attempted to separate the Church in the UK from the rest of the world on child abuse, arguing it acted properly and put in place rigid guidelines.

CCN is certainly confident, issuing weekly communiques counting down the days until the Pope arrives. However, if abuse cases surface from the past 10 years and a Catholic Voices representative ends up pitched against Dawkins or a Catholic Voices for Reform sharpshooter, anything could happen. In that situation, prayers may prove not to be enough. [And yet, NON PRAEVALEBUNT! In God we trust...]


And how about this alarmist nonsense which portrays the Pope as though he were a decrepit on the verge of requiring life support at any second!

Hospitals go on high alert
for the Pope's visit
by Deborah Anderson

August 30, 2010

Hospital staff across central Scotland will be placed on high alert next month for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

Fears over the Pontiff’s health have led to every hospital on or near his route between Edinburgh and Glasgow being asked to make preparations.

The Vatican has been trying to play down fears for the 83-year-old.

But officials now say they are not prepared to have just one designated hospital – standard procedure on overseas visits.

Pope Benedict takes medication for a heart condition following a mild stroke in 1991.

A year later he suffered haemorrhaging after he cut his head in a fall, also believed to have been caused by a stroke.

Last December, traditional Christmas midnight Mass was held two hours earlier than scheduled because he was tired. The Pope also recently broke his wrist after slipping.

Concern has been raised that congestion on Glasgow’s Kingston Bridge could put his life at risk in an emergency.

[Have you ever read such a ridiculously tendentious account of Joseph Ratzinger's health history - which is remarkably scant for a man his age and who has always been constitutionally fragile!]

The visit to the UK, from September 16-19, will be the Pope’s fourth overseas trip this year. He will meet the Queen in Edinburgh before coming to Glasgow to say Mass at Bellahouston Park.

A survey of more than 1000 adults across Scotland has found that 2% of Scots strongly object to the Pope’s visit, 3% object and some 63% are neither for nor against it.



ZENIT has put together a summary of recent events that bode ill for the visit...But then, I don't think any sensible Catholic - least of all the Holy Father himself - has ever thought this trip would be a cakewalk, since each of his detractors is aflame with the ambition and zeal to be the one who will 'bring down' the Pope and the Church!


Pope to brave persecution in UK:
Hostility intensifies as visit approaches
By Father John Flynn, LC


ROME, AUG. 29, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As the date for Benedict XVI’s mid-September trip to Scotland and England draws closer, the anti-religious hostility is becoming more intense.

Peter Tatchell, a well-known critic of the Catholic Church, penned an opinion article published Aug. 13 in the Independent newspaper. “Most Catholics oppose many of his teachings,” he claimed in regard to the Pope.

In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme.

Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.

It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported Aug. 3.

Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack “dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.

The attacks have not gone unanswered. Although not official representatives of the Church, a group of Catholic speakers was set up under the name of Catholic Voices. Under the leadership of Jack Valero, who is a director of Opus Dei in the United Kingdom, the team of speakers are offering themselves to defend the Church’s teachings.

Support is also coming from secular sources. Self-declared atheist Padraig Reidy criticized the extreme nature of the anti-Catholic rhetoric in an article published by the Observer newspaper on Aug. 22.

On July 28, Kevin Rooney, also an atheist, writing for the online site Spiked, described the attacks on the Church as “illiberal, censorious and ignorant.”

Rooney, who grew up as a socialist republican in Belfast, said that not only do the critics oppose the teachings of the Church, but they also want to prevent it from speaking out at all. Moreover, he noted, any accusations made against the Church are immediately taken as being true, without any need for proof.

“As with the right to free speech, it seems the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty does not extend to the Catholic Church,” he observed.

The problems faced by the Church are far from being limited to verbal hostility. A raft of laws on so-called hate crimes and anti-discrimination create a continual series of legal challenges for Christians in the United Kingdom.

According to a booklet just published on this topic by Jon Gower Davies, there are more than 35 Acts of Parliament, 52 Statutory Instruments, 13 Codes of Practice, three Codes of Guidance, and 16 European Commission Directives that bear on discrimination.

In "A New Inquisition: religious persecution in Britain today," (Civitas) he outlined a number of recent cases where Christians have suffered from these laws.

The latest example of this was the loss by Leeds-based Catholic Care in a High Court appeal on the issue of whether they could continue to deny placing adopted children with same-sex couples.

The origin of the case was a 2007 sexual orientation regulation, which outlawed adoption agencies from such "discrimination."

According to an article published Aug. 19 by the Telegraph newspaper, Catholic Care is the last remaining Catholic adoption agency to resist the regulations. Since the law came into effect in January 2009, the other 11 Catholic adoption agencies have had to either shut down or sever their ties with the Church.

There have been numerous other cases in past months where Christians have faced legal battles.

-- A foster caregiver won her struggle to continue fostering children, after she had been banned by Gateshead Council. The ban was due to the fact that a girl aged 16 that she was caring for decided to convert from Islam to Christianity. The caregiver, who remained anonymous in order to protect the identity of the girl, had fostered more than 45 other children. Although the matter was righted in the end, the woman suffered considerable financial losses due to the ban. (The Christian Institute, July 11)

-- A Christian preacher was arrested for publicly saying that homosexuality is a sin. Dale McAlpine was locked up in a cell for seven hours and subsequently charged with "causing harassment, alarm or distress” (The Telegraph, May 2). After widespread protests the charges were dropped. (The Christian Post, May 18)

-- A Christian relationship counselor was denied the opportunity to go to the Court of Appeal regarding his dismissal by Relate Avon after he admitted he could not advise same-sex couples because of his beliefs. Gary McFarlane lost his claim of unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal and at a subsequent tribunal appeals hearing. (Christian Today, April 29)

-- Shirley Chaplin, a Christian nurse, lost a claim for discrimination after she was moved to desk duties following her refusal to remove a crucifix on a necklace. Even though John Hollow, the chairman of the employment tribunal panel, admitted that Chaplin had worn the crucifix for 30 years as a nurse, he said that wearing it was not a requirement of the Christian faith. The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, mentioned the case in his Easter sermon. He said there was a ''strange mixture of contempt and fear'' toward Christianity. (The Telegraph, April 6)

Earlier this year the situation reached the point where the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, together with six other Anglican bishops, wrote a letter to the Sunday Telegraph complaining that Christians in Britain are being persecuted and treated with disrespect.

As an article on the letter in the March 28 edition of the Sunday Telegraph explained, the bishops argued that, while believers of other religions are shown sensitive treatment, Christians are punished.

"There have been numerous dismissals of practicing Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilized country," the letter declaimed.

The notoriety of restrictions on Christians reached the point where the Pope publicly intervened. During his speech on Feb. 1 to the bishops of England and Wales, present in Rome for their five-yearly visit, he commented on the topic.

Benedict XVI observed that their country was noted for its equality of opportunity to all members of society. He then urged the bishops to stand up when legislation infringed on the freedom of religious communities.

"In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended," the Pope said.

"Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others -- on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth," he added.

Given the Pope's concern over this matter, and the continuing cases of Christian persecution, we may well expect him to speak out on it during his visit next month.

The Italian service of Vatican Radio has the only report so far - datelined Sunday - about the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis seminar reunion which ended yesterday in Castel Gandolfo. And it's about post-seminar events...

Mass with Pope Benedict
closes Schuelerkreis reunion;
Schoenborn gives the homily
Translated from the Italian service of

August 29, 2010

The Holy Father today had a private audience with Mons. Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity after the Ratsinger Schulerkreis seminar at which he was the principal speaker.

The annual reunion of theologians who earned their doctorates from various German universities with Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as their thesis adviser ended today with a Mass concelebrated with the Pope at the Centro Mariapoli where the seminar was held Friday and Saturday.
The topic was about the interpretation of the teachings by the Second Vatican Council.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna, delivered the homily. Sergio Centofanti reports:

before the Mass, the Pope greeted the participants of the seminar, with reflections on the Gospel of the day regarding privlileged positions at God's banquet, with Jesus's exhortations on humility and love freely given - by sharing what we have with those who are in position to pay back.

Speaking in German, the Pope said:

---

Dear friends, in today's Gospel, the Lord points out how we actually continue to live like pagans: when we invite only those who can invite us back, and we give only to those who can give back.

But God's style is different - and we experience it in the Holy Eucharist. He invites us to his banquet - we who are lame, blind and deaf. He invites us who have nothing to give him....

In particular, at Mass, we are called on to be touched with gratitude for the fact that even if we have nothing to give God and that we are full of sin, he invites us to his table and wants to be at table with us...

But we should learn to feel our sinfulness, the fact that we have hardly emerged from pagan ways because we still barely live following the novelty of God's style.

And so, let us start Mass by asking forgiveness - a forgiveness that will change us, that will make it easier for us to be more like God, more in his image and likeness.

---

In his homily, Cardinal Schoenborn also reflected on the theme of humility, recalling that Jesus and entrusted the Kingdom of the Father to the Apostles, but that in order for this great calling not to make them presumptuous, he had placed them - and particularly the first amoing the Apostles - in the 'lowest place'.

He then went on to talk about the Christian attitude to humiliation and insults - that when they are despised, they bless their enemies.

"Humility transforms insults into grace. Thank you, Holy Father, because you embody for us the attitude of Christ who is meek and humble of heart. Is this not a wonderful thing in the Christian faith and experience> The joy that the parameters of heaven are so different for us..."

I originally started posting this last night, but after all the fisking I did of it, I lost the post to one of those maddening episodes where my 'fat finger' inadvertently struck who knows what and exited me from the window. But as you will see from the content of the article, it is not something one can let go without vehement commentary! Beware, even if it starts off with the most unexceptionable sentiments!

George Carey (born 1935) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2002. According to Wikipedia, his time as archbishop saw the Church of England allow the ordination of women priests and a rising debate over attitudes to homosexuality at the Lambeth Conference of 1998. So you can see where he's coming from (and there's much worse). He was made Baron Carey of Clifton after he retired in 2002, as is customary for retired Anglican hierarchs. Apparently, he blogs for NEWS OF THE WORLD, a Sunday British tabloid so notorious for its purple journalism that it has been nicknamed 'News of the Screws'. But probably, Lord Carey does not mind because with a circulation of 2.9 million, it is the UK's largest newspaper by far and the world's second largest English newspaper (you'd be surprised that #1 is the Times of India, with a daily circulation of 3.2 million)....



'I enthusiastically welcome
Benedict XVI but...'
By Lord Carey
Emeritus Archbishop of Canterbury


Like many others, I will be among those enthusiastically welcoming Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Britain next month.

But I cannot deny there is vicious intolerance in the air. Unfortunately, a minority have been making noises which go beyond reasonable criticism to hate-filled bigotry.

The world’s most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, has declared the Pontiff head of the world’s "second most evil religion", while writer Claire Rayner describes the Pope’s views as "so disgusting, so repellent, and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him."

There have been rumours, too, of plans to arrest him while he is in Britain and countless groups are attempting to mount protests.

The hysterical overreaction of so many people who claim to be rational freethinkers reveals anti-Catholic bigotry from the 16th century is still alive and well 500 years on.

And today it is allied to a strident and shrill secularism which seeks to banish religion from public life altogether.

The same intolerance is behind much- publicised cases of banning crosses, marginalising the celebration of Christmas and the sacking of Christian civil servants who won’t bow the knee to the gods of equality and diversity.

So how should the vast majority of Britons view the visit of His Holiness, Pope Benedict?

Well, let’s acknowledge the positive, to begin with. The Catholic Church is a massive force for good in the world.

I have seen for myself, in many travels in the developing nations, the leadership displayed by the Roman Catholic Church in tackling Aids and poverty, and in providing education and opportunities to children. Even here, its contribution to our country is immense.

However, with sadness I have to say that there has been an increasing defensiveness in the Vatican to the cry of many Catholics for further reform following the Second Vatican Council.

Take for example, the issue of clerical abuse of children and the chilling cover-ups which have emerged. To a lesser extent other churches are guilty of the same offences. And the same goes for secular institutions too.

Few organisations are without sin as far as the abuse of children is concerned. But it is the scale of these offences in the Roman Catholic Church that is the truly scandalous matter. We are talking about thousands of cases in the States, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Austria and beyond. People ask if the Roman Catholic Church can be trusted with their children.

[This is completely sanctimonious. Lord Carey is no moron, and surely he knows that he is exaggerating - and that like almost all of the MSM, and even Catholic writers, who write about this issue, he fails to provide a context that shows the problem in its true scale.

The 2002 John Jay College study of this problem in the United States covering the period 1950-2002 found that a total of 4,392 diocesan priests, deacons and religious were identified to have been accused of sexual offenses against minors in that period. The figure represents 4% of the total clerical community in the US in the first decade of the 21st century (around 110,000). 75% of the alleged incidents took place between 1960-1984, that is to say, during the period of sexual and moral laissez-faire among priests that came with Vatican-II and the 1960s counterculture. Almost all the 5,392 accused priests were investigated by the police, but only 384 (9.1% of those accused)ended up being charged in court, and 252 were convicted. The convictions therefore amounted to 252 out of 110,000 - or 0.23% (one-fourth of 1%) of the US clerical community.

If we assume the US as the worst-case scenario - because it is the largest of all the churches that have had 'massive scandals' over pedophile priests, and because its criminal justice system is rather efficient even if imperfect - and extrapolate those figures to the worldwide total of about 415,000 secular and regular priests today, then 4% of them would mean that about 16,600 priests worldwide may have been accused (even if not with the police as in the US) of child abuse, and clearly a painstaking summation of abuse reports from the major countries implicated will turn up nowhere near 16,000, of which potentially, only less than 1% are guilty, which at the more 'generous' estimate of 1% instead of 0.23%, would mean 4,150 priests, or one-fourth of that at the actual conviction rate, just over a thousand, in a community of 415,000!

That is context, and that is scale, Lord Carey. So hold off with the Schadenfreude!]

Personally, I do not think that the hierarchy fully comprehend the gravity of the problem. Nor how difficult this is making the Catholic Church’s mission in the developed world. [Yeah, fine, if you persist in making it appear that Benedict XVI and the Church he leads are so dense and insensitive that they do not see that at all!]

The recent gaffe when they revised church law, putting the ordination of women in the same category of ‘crimes’ under church law as clerical sex abuse, reveals a Church with an odd set of priorities. [That such a comment should come from an ex Archbishop of Canterbury is outrageous, because someone like him should understand that the CDF norms had to do with canonical crimes against faith, the sacraments and morals - and surely, women's ordination, which Carey champions, is, at the very least, a canonical crime against the sacrament of Holy Orders.]

Disturbingly, no open debate is possible or allowed on the issue of clerical celibacy and its link to abuse. [Carey ignores that not a few books have been written by both Catholic and secular authors showing that there is no statistical basis for associating pedophilia and priestly celibacy, which is consistent with the obvious intuition that the pedophile priests would be pedophiles even if they had not been priests and had free access and choice of sexual activities! There may be some books that take the contrary notion, but only on the basis of anecdotal and empirical grounds that have no statistical power, a technical term that measures the probability that comparison of statistical data proves a cause and effect relationship. Scientifically, such statistical significance is required before you can claim cause and effect. In medicine and epidemiology, this is a matter dealt with daily, with respect to every finding that is advanced. That is not to say that an association - which is not at all cause-and-effect - may not be found between priestly celibacy and pedophilia, but the association would not be surprising.]

Earlier this year the great Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Kueng, who in 1979 was stripped of his licence to teach Catholic theology, cited celibacy as a cause of the Church’s uptight attitude to sex. He may be wrong, though I share this view — but much more Vatican openness is needed. [OK, now we know where else Carey is coming from! After all, Kueng has been far more 'evangelical Anglican' than Catholic in his views. A man after Carey's heart! If in his judgment, Kueng is a 'great Roman Catholic theologian', what does that imply about what he thinks of Benedict XVI's theology?]

At the very least, clerical celibacy has drastically reduced the pool of potential priests in Western Europe, in turn magnifying the problem of priestly abusers. [No, it does not. Not until decades from now when that 'reduced pool' are priests themselves, and who knows how they will behave in this respect?]

It has to be said that the Roman Catholic Church in this country has led the way in responding to clerical abuse with child protection measures. Let’s hope the Pope listens carefully to expertise here. [Excuse me! Who in the Vatican was responsible for urging bishops in the early part of the decade to tighten their protection of children especially against abusive priests????]

The danger of next month’s visit is that calls for a greater openness and engagement between the Roman Catholic Church and the world will be lost amid protests. In turn, these will reinforce the Vatican’s defensiveness. [What defensiveness? I dare Lord Carey to cite a single statement by Benedict XVI that was ever 'defensive' in this respect! Has Carey forgotten Cardinal Ratzinger's much-publicized meditations and prayers for Good Friday in 2005 - which included a stinging denunciation of 'filth' within the Church and the need for sinful priests to recall their vocation as representatives of Christ? All his subsequent statements as Pope have been proactive in exhorting self-purification in the Church, not just when the 'sex abuse scandals' erupted anew this year!]

But I hope for a different outcome. A new openness, a candid recognition from the Holy Father that other Christian churches are equally blessed by God[That echoes Carey's broadside against Cardinal Ratzinger for DOMINUS IESUS in 2000 - which, coming from the leader of a church that broke off from Rome 500 years ago, is ludicrous because he and other equally offended Protestants are thereby berating the Catholic Church for being Catholic! Hey, you are the break-offs, not the main tree of Christianity] - and an acknowledgement that the priesthood of the Catholic Church has failed so many children. [Has Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI not acknowledged that enough and constantly in the past decade???? These pedophilia-obsessed detractors of the Church have become like the professional Jewish anti-Christians who choose to view the Church from that sliver of reality ruled by their particular monomania. For people like Carey and the Hitchkinses, the Church will always be nothing but a pedophile-ridden institution, and for such types as the militant leaders of the Anti-Defamation League and ultra-orthodox rabbis, nothing but a Jew-hating institution.]

So you are welcome, Pope Benedict, to Britain — a land truly blessed by the Christian message in which the Catholic church has played and continues to play a part.

I believe you are here as a friend. Not an enemy. But if we want to change the world the Catholic Church must start with itself. [Dear Lord, can anyone be more sanctimonious and condescending???? Why would he even think the Pope could come as an enemy! And hHow about the disarray in an Anglican Church whose leadership - harking back to Carey's own administration - has simply given in to liberal tendencies that violate the teachings of Christ? The Pope does not want to change the world - he wants each individual, especially if Christian, to change himself in accordance with what Jesus expects. ]

Eieiei... sometimes this type of ignorance just makes me want to to puke!! What a joke!!


God, do I wish this dreadful trip was over already!!
As much as they (not only the Catholics) really, really this Papal visit in the UK, I'm NOT happy about this trip! AT ALL!!

I don't really think people are prepared to listen.





I was busy translating Messori's piece - I may not always agree with everything he writes, but he can be counted on to think outside the box - so I did not realize you posted a comment until I got a page change!

I think the media campaign is just going to get worse - and even perhaps unprecedented in its viciousness - between now and September 19. And thEre aren't just enough good orthodox Catholic writers to counteract these attacks which come from a variety of sources.

What I am praying for at best is that the true Catholic faithful of England, Scotland and Wales will make their presence seen, felt and heard during the visit, as Benedict XVI will, whatever he does.

And speaking of ignorance, I think much of it is willful or feigned. What else can one conclude when the former Archbishop of Catnerbury can be dolt enough to make the statements he makes - which are generally variations of the MSM themse against the Church and the Pope? Increasingly, public opinion in the West is shaped by ignoramuses - willful or otherwise - who have been steadily debasing the cultural level and ratiinal discrimination of the public whose opinions they make!

And NO!, those who dislike the Church will never listen to anything other than their own voices... If God were a mega-boombox blaring his Word into their ears, they'd smash him to smithereeens (at least they think they can) in the snap of a finger....

TERESA