BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

I did not realize there was a page change after I posted this entry early this morning...




Apropos the Holy Father's recent milestones - and the one-year anniversary of John Paul II's beatification tomorrow - I think it is appropriate to reproduce here this post from one year ago:

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New Wikileaks documents show
US diplomatic analysts quickly
reversed their prejudices
about Benedict XVI


ROME, April 29, 2011 (Translated from ANSA) - Benedict XVI "avoids having too many private audiences, wishes to do away with the rockstar image of the Papacy, and return to the Papacy its role of promoting the Catholic faith".

This is apparently how US diplomatic analysts re-assessed oseph Ratzinger after their initial prejudices about him. Before the 2005 Conclave, the US State Deartment thought that he would be "too rigid and too jealous of the prerogatives of the Roman Curia".

The revelations come from Wkilieaks documents acquired by the Italian weekly newsmagazine L'Espresso and appear in an article in the magazine issue that went on sale today.

The documents claim that shortly after Benedict XVI became Pope, the analysts revised their views and thought he was "more open to discussion and debate than what he was described to be", and that he was "calm, learned, modest, ahd had no desire to be under the spotlights as his predecessor was".

"The marked difference with his predecessor," one assessment says, "could be the key to his success: his ability to be the Pope in his own way and ignore the gigantic shoes that he had inherited".

All very well, but two fallacies in the above: First, the task of every Pope since Peter has been to promote the faith. Much of what John Paul II did was to that end, even if Benedict XVI is doing it in other ways that are 'markedly different'.

The other is that it was never a question of Benedict XVI 'ignoring the giant shoes' he had to step into, because no one who eventually became Pope had written as much about the responsibility of the Papacy as Joseph Ratzinger had done.

But if the analyst(s) meant that he was not awed or intimidated by the fact that he was succeeding a 'giant' figure, despite his characteristic humility, then they are right. His quarter-century relationship with John Paul II was, from all accounts, on the basis of intellectual equals - each of them formidable and extraordinary - and therefore, their reciprocal recognition of each other's qualities probably cancelled out any 'awe' they may have felt about each other.

Last consideration: It was obvious the so-called 'analysts' had not done due diligence on 'backgrounding' Joseph Ratzinger, and that they only started realizing what his CV really was after he became Pope!

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Also worth re-posting is this surprisingly good and off-the-beaten-path commentary from the Italian news agency TMNews which, for some reason, did not see fit to give a byline to what is an exceptional report...

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Continuity and discontinuity
between two Popes who worked
together for so long
Translated from




VATICAN CITY, April 29 (TMNews) - Papa Ratzinger's decision to beatify John Paul II is a homage to his predecessor, more than just a response to the widespread devotion that surrounds Papa Wojtyla even six years after he died.

However, the more time passes, the more Benedict XVI's Pontificate has taken on a face of its own, even showing profound differences if not divergence between his Pontificate and the long one that preceded it.

Certainly there was great affection and close collaboration between the two. Elected Pope in 1978, the Polish Pope finally managed to persuade the then Archbishop of Munich to come to Rome in 1982 as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This happened several months after the assassination attempt by Ali Agca which left the Pope debilitated for some time. Cardinal Ratzinger became the official 'guardian of the faith' for the Wojtyla Pontificate. Many considered him the ideologue of the Pontificate, although John Paul II himself had a solid theological formation and made his decisions autonomously.

It was Ratzinger who oversaw the doctrinal work of the Pontificate, from the guidelines regarding liberation theology to the first 'turns of the screw' against priestly pedophilia. And yet Benedict XVI sometimes refers to the late Pope in conversation as 'the Pope' or 'the Holy Father' as if he were still around.

But even during the Wojtyla years, there was no lack of differences between the two, often subtle. Those who claim to know Ratzinger well say that although he did not make any great show of his objections, he was not in perfect agreement with John Paul II's first inter-religious meeting in Assisi, and would have preferred unequivocal rationalizations for the series of 'mea culpas' issued by the Pope during the Jubilee Year of 2000. Nor was he too happy with the grandiose style that characterized the Jubilee celebrations.

On pedophile priests, he was always among the most firm about confronting the problem decisively, but from all accounts, he came up against others in the Roman Curia who were part of John Paul's inner circle. [Despite his personal relationship with the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was never part of any 'circle' in the Curia.]

Two of the other 'irregularities' reported in the past few months - in the management of the real estate holdings of Propaganda Fide, and in the affairs of the Vatican bank IOR - had their roots in the Wojtyla years, but only under Benedict XVI, have they been brought under control and with new rigor.

Any 'attritions' that may have been registered in Church relations with Judaism and with Islam under the German Pope - generally the result of misunderstood or ill-received initiatives - have perhaps appeared to indicate a less easy rapport, although much more frank and direct, with the two other monotheistic religions.

Less sensitive to major geopolitical issues [a strange and highly questionable assumption, considering that one of Joseph Ratzinger's strong points has always been his unflinching analysis of international affairs!], Benedict XVI has also distinguished himself from his predecessor by less vigorous interventions on war and peace ['Less vigorous' only because he has a naturally gentler tone than John Paul II who could be stentorian as he often was in his denunciations of ongoing or potential conflicts] although he has not failed to intervene when necessary in his messages, addresses and encyclicals.

And he has, of course, decided to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi next October, but in his own way, and not as mere repetition of the first event.

The most obvious difference between the two Popes is their style. And Benedict XVI spoke about this without evasions in his interview-book with Peer Seewald.

He wondered aloud whether a Pope should offer himself to the crowds to be acclaimed as if he were some celebrity, and admitted that pastoral visits demand a lot "from somebody like myself".

And is he bothered at all by the comparisons with his predecessor? "I simply say I am who I am. I don't seek to be someone else. I give what I can, and when I cannot, I don't even try".

And of course, the contrast between the two in terms of physical activity was enormous. One skied, climbed mountains, swam. Whereas Benedict XVI says he does not even have time for sports, and that in any case, thank God, he says, he does not need it now. [The writer ignores that for Joseph Ratzinger, walking has always been a daily exercise, and one that obviously has served him well because he moves with a grace and stride remarkable in an octogenarian.]

But there are undoubtedly differences of [non-doctrinal] substance between the two Popes.

Papa Wojtyla apparently had considered whether he should resign when his ailment started to rob him of some normal physical functions, but he never gave any indication of this in public. In any case, he decided he could go on and did. But Benedict XVI says openly that he thinks a Pope could resign if he felt he was no longer able to carry out his functions.

On the question of priests who desire to get married, the Polish Pope opposed this with all he could [seeking to impose a waiting period on their requests for dispensation from the priestly office in the hope they would change their minds]. Papa Raztinger thinks otherwise: if a priest is involved with a woman and wants to get married, then it is better that he do so (especially if there are children) and leave the priesthood.

On the question of pedophilia and priest offenders, Papa Ratzinger says of the infamous Marcial Maciel - who had his protectors in Papa Wojtyla's entourage, "Unfortunately, his case was approached too late and too slowly. His offenses were well covered, and it was only in 2000 that we started having concrete points of reference for investigating him".

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Monday, April 30, Fourth Week of Easter

ST.PIUS V (b Italy 1504, Pope 1566-1572), Dominican, Pope and Confessor
Any first reading of the basic facts about Pius V's life and six=year Papacy is bound to raise the question, why is he not called Pius V the Great? He was a thoroughly holy man who faced great political and ecclesial challenges decisively, beginning with having to implement the epochal Council of Trent (which sat from 1545 and ended in 1563, just three years before he became Pope). What he did in the six years of his papacy, at the peak of the Counter-Reformation, defined the outward identity of the Church for the next 400 years. Born Antonio Ghislieri to a poor family near Turin, he took the name Michele when he became a Dominican friar, distinguishing himself as a professor of theology in Pavia for 16 years. Strongly committed to the defense of the faith, he asked to be named an Inquisitor and caught the attention of Paul IV who made him a cardinal and the Supreme Inquisitor. He was opposed by the next Pope, Pius IV, who deprived him of his office, only to be elected as his successor in 1566 - without the support of any Catholic monarchs, as was usual at the time, but championed by the man many thought would have been elected Pope, the future St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan. Pius V inherited a Church that was plagued by corrupt clergy and the immediate consequences of the Protestant Reformation, as well as a Holy Roman Empire under threat from the Turkish armies, and constant bickering among the new nation states of Europe. At the same time, it fell to him to implement the Counter-Reformation measures of the Council of Trent. He established seminaries for the proper formation of priests; he published a Catechism of the Catholic Churchduring his first year as Pope; he promulgated a standard Roman Missal in 1570 by purging the existing Roman liturgy of non-essential additions over the centuries - a Missal which remained in use, except for minor revisions, until Paul VI's liturgical reform of 1969-70); he revised the breviary for priests; he legislated against clerical abuses; and he served the poor of Rome by using papal funds for banquets to build and fund hospitals. He proclaimed Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church and promoted the liturgical music of Palestrina. He dismissed eight French bishops for heresy and declared Elizabeth I of England a heretic. He organized the Catholic states of Europe into the Holy League that defeated the Turks in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto against all odds, a victory he attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary, also called Our Lady of Victory after Lepanto. Interestingly, he helped Malta in its role as an outpost of Christian defense by sending his architect to design the fortifications of La Valletta, the capital. Yet all his life, he kept strictly to the Dominican Rule of prayer, fasting and austerity. Like a previous Dominican Pope, Innocent V, he preferred to wear his white Dominican habit, and ever since, Popes have worn white. Because of his enlightened defense of the faith, he is the patron saint of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and was canonized in 1712.
Readings of today's Mass: www.usccb.org/bible/readings/043012.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura, with
- Mons. Frans Daneels, O. Praem., Secretary of the Tribunal

- Mons Jean-Louis Bruguès, O.P., Emeritus Archbishop of Aners (France), Secretary of the Congregation
for Catholic Education (Seminaries and Higher Institutes of Study)

- Mons. Luciano Russo, Apostolic Nuncio to Rwanda, with his family members.


The Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's message to the President of the Pontifical Academy
of Social Sciences, Prof. Mary Ann Glendon, and to the participants of the Academy's XVIII Plenary Session
being held in Rome (April 27-May 1) on the theme: "The Global Quest for Tranquillitatis Ordinis:
'Pacem in terris', Fifty Years Later", commemorating the social encyclical by John XXIII.

Reflecting on John XXIII's 'Pacem in terris',
Pope says forgiveness must find its way into
international discourse on resolving conflicts

April 30, 2012

Here is the text of the letter sent by the Holy Father to Prof. Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and to the participants of the Academy's XVIII plenary session at the Vatican (April 27-May 3).

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To Her Excellency Professor Mary Ann Glendon
President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

I am pleased to greet you and all who have gathered in Rome for the Eighteenth Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

You have chosen to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Blessed John XXIII’s Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris by studying the contribution of this important document to the Church’s social doctrine.

At the height of the Cold War, when the world was still coming to terms with the threat posed by the existence and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Pope John addressed what has been described as an "open letter to the world".

It was a heartfelt appeal from a great pastor, nearing the end of his life, for the cause of peace and justice to be vigorously promoted at every level of society, nationally and internationally.

While the global political landscape has changed significantly in the intervening half-century, the vision offered by Pope John still has much to teach us as we struggle to face the new challenges for peace and justice in the post-Cold-War era, amid the continuing proliferation of armaments.

"The world will never be the dwelling-place of peace, till peace has found a home in the heart of each and every human person, till all preserve within themselves the order ordained by God to be preserved" (Pacem in Terris, 165).

At the heart of the Church’s social doctrine is the anthropology which recognizes in the human creature the image of the Creator, endowed with intelligence and freedom, capable of knowing and loving.

Peace and justice are fruits of the right order that is inscribed within creation itself, written on human hearts (cf. Rom 2:15) and therefore accessible to all people of good will, all "pilgrims of truth and of peace".

Pope John’s Encyclical was and is a powerful summons to engage in that creative dialogue between the Church and the world, between believers and non-believers, which the Second Vatican Council set out to promote.

It offers a thoroughly Christian vision of man’s place in the cosmos, confident that in so doing it is holding out a message of hope to a world that is hungry for it, a message that can resonate with people of all beliefs and none, because its truth is accessible to all.

In that same spirit, after the terrorist attacks that shook the world in September 2001, Blessed John Paul II insisted that there can be "no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness"[/G} (Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace).

The notion of forgiveness needs to find its way into international discourse on conflict resolution, so as to transform the sterile language of mutual recrimination which leads nowhere. If the human creature is made in the image of God, a God of justice who is "rich in mercy" (Eph 2:4), then these qualities need to be reflected in the conduct of human affairs.

It is the combination of justice and forgiveness, of justice and grace, which lies at the heart of the divine response to human wrong-doing (cf. Spe Salvi, 44), at the heart, in other words, of the "divinely established order" (Pacem in Terris, 1).

Forgiveness is not a denial of wrong-doing, but a participation in the healing and transforming love of God which reconciles and restores.

How eloquent, then, was the choice of theme for the 2009 Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops: "The Church in Africa at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace". The life-giving message of the Gospel has brought hope to millions of Africans, helping them to rise above the sufferings inflicted on them by repressive regimes and fratricidal conflicts.

Similarly, the 2010 Assembly on the Church in the Middle East highlighted the themes of communion and witness, the oneness of mind and soul that characterizes those who set out to follow the light of truth.

Historic wrongs and injustices can only be overcome if men and women are inspired by a message of healing and hope, a message that offers a way forward, out of the impasse that so often locks people and nations into a vicious circle of violence.

Since 1963, some of the conflicts that seemed insoluble at the time have passed into history. Let us take heart, then, as we struggle for peace and justice in the world today, confident that our common pursuit of the divinely established order, of a world where the dignity of every human person is accorded the respect that is due, can and will bear fruit.

I commend your deliberations to the maternal guidance of Our Lady, Queen of Peace. To you, to Bishop Sánchez Sorondo, and to all the participants in the XVIII Plenary Session, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
27 April 2012

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Yet another great example of how Benedict XVI hardly ever makes any 'routine' messages. To advocate 'justice with forgiveness' in resolving international conflicts is absolutely revolutionary from the secular point of view, but it is the most natural way - the only way - in Christian praxis. This is why the Pope jas been calling on lay Catholics to engage in politics and public service, thereby helping to promote Christian principles in the public sphere and in legislation that concretely affects the entire citizenry. One might extrapolate this to the legal sphere as more and more, international courts created by the UN and the European Union are getting to decide matters affecting all citizens in their jurisdiction.

How much harder it is to raise Catholics today
than it was during the Pope’s childhood
Despite tremendous hardship, the Bavaria in which
the Ratzingers were raised was a happy place
By Francis Phillips

Monday, 30 April 2012

I was interested to read Piers Paul Read in the Charterhouse column of the Herald for April 27; he is lamenting the fact that none of his children, now adults, practise their faith – this despite a Catholic education and a conscientious and believing Catholic father.

What went wrong? Read blames the Catholic schools they attended, where the emphasis was on justice and peace and the Catechism was simply ignored. [I continue to find it truly anomalous that any Catholic school should simply 'ignore' catechism, at least 'orthodox' Catechism in any form, and am thankful that as a five-year-old in Catholic kindergarten, the good sisters of St. Paul started to drill me in the Baltimore Catechism which begins by telling us that we are in the world 'to know, to love and to serve God'. 'Justice and peace' are concepts that arise Ten Commandments and Jesus's great commandment of love. To 'teach' them apart from the bedrock of Christian principles is a secular undertaking, not Catholic.]

Of course, it is more complicated than this. At the same time as Catholic schools were abdicating their responsibility to pass on the Faith, the world outside had embraced the Pill and sexual freedom, and had developed an aversion to what seemed to be old-fashioned morality with its censoriousness and prejudices.

Hugh Greene was Director-General of the BBC, Mrs Mary Whitehouse was a figure of fun, the Abortion Act was passed and the Second Vatican Council had left confusion and disarray in its wake. It has not been a good time to try to bring up children to be practising Catholics. [I do not have the least idea about the allusions to Hugh Greene and Mary Whitehouse whose names I have not heard before, but I don't think we miss anything if I fail to go and check out who they are just now!]

Contrast England from the 1960s onwards with Bavaria in 1920. I say this because I am just reading the most moving memoirs of Mgr Georg Ratzinger, My Brother the Pope (published by Gracewing for £16.99.) Mgr Ratzinger, as is known, is the older brother of Pope Benedict. Now aged 88, he lives in retirement in Regensburg where for over 30 years he was the conductor and choirmaster of the famous cathedral choir.

The traditional Catholic culture of Bavaria was still strong when the Ratzinger boys were growing up – as the Pope himself has testified to in his own memoir: Milestones. Family life was very stable, mothers did not go out to work, divorce had not impinged, parish life was vigorous and there were no televisions, computers or mobile phones.

Life was not easy – Mgr Ratzinger recalls his father, a policeman, being paid by the day and his earnings being almost immediately worthless because of inflation; there was also the growing political threat from the Nazi Party, which Ratzinger senior abhorred. Yet there was none of the lack of a shared morality between the generations and between family and the outside world inferred by Piers Paul Read’s article.

Two things stand out in Mgr Ratzinger’s book: the strength of family life and the seemingly natural development of both sons’ vocations to the priesthood that sprang from their homelife and parish activities.

The author admits that he and his brother did not know that his father, at last financially secure enough to afford to marry, had put an advertisement in the local Catholic newspaper in April 1920: “Mid-level government official, single, Catholic, 43 years old, with an irreproachable record, from the country, seeks to marry in the near future a good Catholic girl who is tidy and a good cook and can do all the household chores and is also proficient at sewing and has her own furnishings.”

There is no mention of wanting “fun” or a “partner”, the wish to “travel” or the need for a “good sense of humour”, so common to today’s personal ads. Feminists would also want to lynch the good policeman for sounding so obviously “sexist”. But actually the couple – she was 36, had been working as a cook and was probably glad of an upright, devout spouse with a secure income and accommodation to go with it – made a very happy marriage, recalled by their sons with great affection and love.

By the time he had finished primary school the musical elder son already knew he wanted to become a priest. He went to the junior seminary aged 12, to be followed by his bookworm younger brother at the same age. Today junior seminaries no longer exist in this country; it is thought to be psychologically unsound to select boys at such a young age.

But for the Ratzinger brothers, loving music and the liturgy, growing up in a family that prayed together every evening (and ate three meals a day together in the kitchen-cum-dining room), enjoying walks and family sing-songs, it was the ideal culture to nurture a vocation.

As Read’s article suggests, raising children as Catholics today is a very different matter.

To those who may not be familiar with Piers Paul Read, he is a very successful British author of fiction (with the strongly Catholic themes of sin and redemption) and non-fiction, who is best known for his book ALIVE: The story of the Andes survivors about the persons who survived a plane crach in the Andes in part by having to eat the flesh of their dead companions. A couple of decades after reading that book, I came across his name again in searching for articles about Cardinal Ratzinger shortly before and after his election as Pope. He was one of the few who correctly predicted he would become Pope, and wrote one of the best post-Conclave articles at the time.



The following item popped up on my browser without searching for it, but it's a specific bit of trivia to pass on anyway, about something I was only dimly aware of.

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8661 Ratzinger (1990 TA13) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 14, 1990 by Lutz D. Schmadel and Freimut Börngen at Tautenburg. Named after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

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And now I have to find out whay they decided to name it for him... OK, found the explanation on the NASA site, and it is quaintly anachronistic...hich :

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Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (b. 1927), German professor of theology, is one of the most authoritative voices in the Vatican. Under his supervision, the Vatican opened its archives in 1998 to enable researchers to investigate judicial errors against Galileo and other medieval scientists. The name was proposed by the first discoverer (i.e., Lutz Schmadel).

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Better yet, the site enables you to locate just where the asteroid is today, 4/30/12:

Isn't that nifty?

There really is nothing new here, but Edward Pentin sums up, for the print edition of 'the good NCR', the situation as it appears today with recent developments that seem to point to a positive outcome.

SSPX-Vatican rift nearing an end?
Response to Holy See outreach offers hope
by Edward Pentin, Rome Correspondent

Monday, Apr 30, 2012

The Society of St. Pius X may be on the verge of returning into full communion with Rome, bringing a 24-year rift to an end and fulfilling a key goal of Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told journalists April 18 that the Society of St. Pius X had taken an encouraging “step forward” by clarifying its response to a “doctrinal preamble,” a Vatican document that has become the basis of any reconciliation.

The society’s initial response to the document, given in January, was rejected by the Vatican as “not sufficient to overcome the doctrinal problems that are at the basis of the fracture,” leading the SSPX to submit clarifications of its position on April 17.

As of this writing, the society has no canonical status in the Church, according to Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, and its ministers “do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.”

Father Lombardi said the document the society has now signed is “substantially different” to the earlier version , which he took to be an encouraging sign. [NO! It was not 'substantially different', and that is why Lombardi found it encouraging. 'Substantially different' would effectively mean a fundamental disagreement on the terms of the Doctrinal Preamble! I hope this was a typo dropout, not the way Pentin wrote it!]

The society insisted “a step and not a conclusion” had been reached and played down media reports that it had given a “positive response.”

SSPX stressed that its clarifications, submitted by the society’s superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, must now be examined by the Vatican and the Pope, as disclosed in a Vatican statement April 18.

The Vatican has received the news positively. One official told the Register that the fact the society has now signed the doctrinal preamble “is very important,” adding that it “definitely is a positive response that may well, please God, lead to a full reconciliation.” [The FSSPX denies that anything has been 'signed', since they are still awaiting Pope Benedict's decision on their 'final response', with the modifications they want.]

Lay members and friends of the traditionalist organization also appear optimistic.

“We are all praying and hoping for reconciliation,” said Toni Brandi, a worshipper at a SSPX church in Rome. “Most members want it, and we don’t think [Bishop] Fellay will make any compromises.”

Some remain skeptical, however, with some seeing the society in particular as unable to make necessary sacrifices and internally split. They also argue that such hopes for reconciliation have emerged before — only to be dashed at the last minute.

But as few people, including inside the Vatican, have seen the contents of the preamble, which has been kept strictly confidential, it is hard for anyone outside the talks to gauge the chances of success. [Me, I go by practical 'clues'. I don't think Fr. Lombardi would ever have volunteered the statements he did if he had not been given indications that the FSSPX 'final response' was now 'adequate'. This is too crucial a subject for the Vatican spokesman to speculate upon.]

The society, founded by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969, believes that the Second Vatican Council’s declarations on religious freedom, ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and the liturgy represented a surrender to modernity that has wreaked havoc on the faithful. The consequence, they argue, has been a crisis of faith that has led to a collapse in vocations and Church attendance in the West and the adoption of irreverent liturgical practices.

Based in Menzingen, Switzerland, the FSSPX is bucking the trend of many Western dioceses by attracting a steady increase in vocations.

Predominantly French, it has six seminaries, three universities and 70 primary and secondary schools worldwide, as well as more than 550 priests and 200 seminarians.

Benedict XVI has long argued the Second Vatican Council did not represent a “rupture” with tradition (what is called the “hermeneutic of continuity”), and he has taken various steps to bring the SSPX back into the fold.

These have included freeing up the traditional Latin Mass, lifting the excommunications on four SSPX bishops ordained without Pope John Paul II’s approval in 1988, and initiating talks with the society in 2009. Those talks culminated in the “doctrinal preamble.”

Although the document’s contents have yet to be disclosed, what is known is that Pope Benedict has said he will not accept reconciliation if the society continues to reject the Council’s declarations and that a key requirement is “religious submission of intellect and will” to official Church teaching. [This is terminology contained in the prescribed Profession of Faith that is said to be part of the Doctrinal Preamble, indicating the professant's acceptance of the Church Magisterium at various levels.]

“The crucial point is how to interpret the Council,” said the Vatican official, adding that he didn’t think the Church would make any compromises. [But the matter has gone beyond that! The doctrinal discussions were held on the four major sticking points raised by the FSSPX, which are the areas they think Vatican-II has 'added' to the deposit of faith. Despite all the FSSPX propaganda about questioning the entire Council - in which after all Marcel Lefebvre was a Council Father who signed all the Vatican-II documents freely - their agreement to the Doctrinal Preamble rests on their acceptance of the Vatican 'defense' of the issues they raised.]

He believes that even if reconciliation should fail, “the process will help to promote the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ in the interpretation of the Council.”

The slow negotiation process, he said, is “simply the only way such a difficult situation, which has a 40-year history, can be resolved.” Any agreement, he stressed, “would be very significant for the whole Church.”

Once any reconciliation is reached, the Vatican could give the SSPX its own ordinariate, along the lines of the Anglican structure or a “personal prelature” similar to Opus Dei, where a prelate leads a non-territorial diocese.

“It’s important for the society that it is given its own structure or congregation that reports directly to the Pope,” said SSPX worshipper Brandi. “It should not be answerable to a body such as the Italian Bishops’ Conference, whose members are usually modernist and progressive.”

But even if reconciliation does take place and a suitable structure is found, some believe further problems could then emerge.

Roger McCaffrey, an American publisher who once produced Latin Mass magazine, believes any reunion would amount to hitting a “reset button on the entire post-conciliar era", causing modernists in the Church to scatter and revolt. He said “a lot depends” on how the Church in the United States handles such groups. [How much of a 'revolt' could they raise? Is this going to their chance to show that they - the progressivist 'spirit of Vatican II' self-deceivers - are not about to die out as a breed as most observers think? I suppose there will be the usual seven-week media uproar until MSM has flogged all the headline-making potential out of it, and then back to 'normal', i.e., the 'revolters' will still not have the courage to leave the Church.]

Others, meanwhile, remain skeptical about the society’s ability to reintegrate into the Church, believing many of its leaders are simply unable to view certain aspects of the Church’s teaching under post-conciliar Popes as anything but heresy. [Actually, that's the view of those within the FSSPX, like Mons. Richard Williamson, who do not ever want to reconcile with Rome. I wonder if they will have enough supporters to finance them if they decide to carry on with a rump sede-vacantist outgrowth of the FSSPX,]

McCaffrey praised Bishop Fellay’s conduct during what has been a “very difficult situation,” but he believes that the longer a final decision takes, the chances of reconciliation will diminish. At the moment, however, he sees an agreement as “very likely.”

His optimism will no doubt be shared by the Holy Father, who views reconciliation as vital if the Church is to effectively confront increasing secularist intolerance and attacks on human dignity. [??? The Church can do that without the FSSPX! The Pope's overriding objective here is internal unity, and the corollary that the FSSPX could well provide a model for other Catholics in how to live according to Catholic Tradition.]

Thanks to John Allen for writing his piece - there's a ton of reports about this topic in the Italian media, and I was finding it difficult to find an adequate one to translate in homage to this extraordinary lay economist. I have not fact-checked the article, which starts without giving the exact time period of Toniolo's life (I put it in)...

First economist saint
packs contemporary punch
by John L Allen Jr

April 30, 2012



ROME -- Giuseppe Toniolo (1845-1918), a renowned lay Italian economist and political theorist, was beatified on Sunday in Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the final step before a formal declaration of sainthood.

Among other claims to fame, Toniolo is now the first economist ever beatified by the Catholic Church.

(Toniolo’s sainthood process began in 1951. He was declared “venerable” by Pope Paul VI in 1971, and beatified under Benedict XVI in 2012. That’s a gap of 20 years to cross the first threshold, and 41 years to reach the second. If a similar trajectory continues, we can probably expect canonization in about 80 years, somewhere around 2092.) [That's a silly comment. A second miracle could be attributed to him tomorrow, and canonization would follow as soon as it is certified!]

During his Regina Coeli remarks on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Toniolo as a figure of “great relevance” for today.

For one thing, says Stefano Zamagni, a leading Italian economist who advised Pope Benedict XVI on his 2009 social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, given the state of the global economy these days, the “dismal science” could undoubtedly use some celestial support.

More broadly, Toniolo’s legacy has a contemporary feel for five reasons.

1. An exclamation point on social teaching
Toniolo was among the pioneers of Catholic social teaching during the period of its infancy. He helped lay the intellectual groundwork for Pope Leo XIII’s landmark 1893 encyclical Rerum Novarum, and was among the most energetic propagators of a distinctively Catholic approach to the new social questions raised by the industrial age.

Toniolo was an early Catholic advocate of labor unions (he favored the so-called “white unions,” as opposed to the “red” unions linked to Marxism), the fight against child labor and exploitation of workers, mandatory days off work, just wages and access to credit, and a number of other social reforms.

He was part of a budding European network of Catholic social thinkers in the late 19th century pushing similar ideas; one of his fellow-travelers in Germany was a fiery social priest and founder of a political party for farmers and workers by the name of Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, who, as it happens, was the great-uncle of Benedict XVI.

In that sense, Toniolo’s beatification is a way of putting an exclamation point on the legacy of Catholic social teaching, which is sometimes wistfully called the church’s “best-kept secret.”

2. Intermediary bodies
On the level of theory, Toniolo advocated a form of what’s known as “corporatism,” a vision with historical roots in the guild system of medieval Italy. (Toniolo grew up in the Veneto region, centered on Venice.) In practice, Toniolo put great stress on intermediary institutions standing between the individual and the state – the family, professional groups, voluntary associations, unions, and so on.

Toniolo saw these intermediary bodies as the best expression of what Catholic social thought would later come to call “subsidiarity,” meaning not substituting centralized authority for what can better be handled at lower levels, or privately.

Especially at a time in the United States when there’s ferment about the ability of faith-based groups to play this intermediary role without compromising their religious identity, that aspect of Toniolo’s thought may be of special relevance.

3. Political homelessness
Politically speaking, Toniolo parted company with both the dominant trends of his time: laissez-faire capitalism as articulated by Adam Smith, and state-centered socialism as advocated by Karl Mark. He insisted that classic capitalism rested on a false anthropology (assumptions of psychological individualism and egoism), while Marxism centered on a false idolatry of the state.

In remarks to a Rome symposium on Toniolo Sunday afternoon, Zamagni suggested that Toniolo’s unwillingness to side with either of these intellectual and political currents left him “completely isolated,” and, for a time, “almost completely forgotten.”

Translated into the terms of the 21st century, Toniolo was at home neither on the left nor the right. That’s probably a salient reminder that anyone who takes Catholic social theory seriously is likely to wind up “politically homeless,” and that any Catholic who feels too much at home in any of today’s major political camps might want to ponder Toniolo’s example.

4. The lay role vs. neo-clericalism
Toniolo was a layman, a married man and father of seven children. In that sense, many observers regard Toniolo as a forerunner of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65)in its vision of the laity as the primary agents in transforming the secular world.

Reflecting on Toniolo’s memory could act as an antidote to what Italian Vatican writer Andrea Tornielli recently described as a growing tendency of “many prelates to interest themselves too much in politics, in political alignments, in who gets nominated for public entities, in the mass media, and to intervene often – sometimes, extremely often – in issues where it could be done with greater liberty by lay Catholics.”

To be clear that he wasn’t just talking about Italy, Tornielli warned of a “neo-clericalism emerging in various countries … which seems to consider the laity solely as the ‘secular arm” of a hierarchy that directs everything, or at least wants to direct everything, often well beyond the boundaries of its competence.”

In a message dispatched to a symposium organized to celebrate the memory of Toniolo, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, underlined his importance as a model of lay activism.

“In every historical moment there were pioneers who gave a new impulse and vigor to the gospel’s perennial message of salvation,” Bertone said. “In the first millennium it was predominantly the monks, and in the second it was the mendicant orders. In the third, I’m convinced it will be principally the laity, as the witness of Giuseppe Toniolo demonstrates.”

5. Overcoming polarization
Catholicism in the Italy of Toniolo’s day was every bit as polarized as the Church of today. The fault lines didn’t run along today’s culture wars, but the so-called “Roman question” concerning whether Catholics could make their peace with the loss of the Papal States and the new secular Italian nation.

Beneath that divide was a fundamental clash between Catholics nostalgic for the ancien régime, the so-called “intransigents,” and modernizers eager for détente with democracy and secular thought.

At a time when virtually everyone felt compelled to stand in one camp or the other, Toniolo was a rare figure who seemed to span both. He took part in the organizations linked to the intransigents, but also kept open lines of communication with the modernizers, engaging in frequent and warm correspondence with the leading liberal thinkers.

Ecclesially, of the four popes during his lifetime (Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X and Benedict XV), Toniolo was probably closest in spirit to the reform-minded Pope Leo XIII. Yet when the staunchly conservative Pius X took over in 1904 and launched an anti-modernist crackdown, Toniolo never went into the opposition camp; he once wrote, “I desire and want, with the grace of God, to adhere to the Holy See in every argument without exception.” [How many Catholic intellectuals today would have the humility to profess such loyal obedience to the Church and her Magisterium?]

That adhesion, however, was never uncritical. During the anti-modernist years, he gently tried to cajole the powers that be toward engagement with the new world being born. Italian Culture Minister Lorenzo Ornaghi compared Toniolo to English Cardinal John Henry Newman, another towering figure of 19th century Catholicism, in the sense that both men “offered the motives for a reasonable faith to those who believe, and laid the basis for friendship with those who don’t.”

Toniolo tried to found an international Catholic association for the progress of science even at the height of the anti-modernist period, which arrived still-born. Yet he also inspired the foundation of a new Catholic university in Italy, which became the massive University of the Sacred Heart (Sacro Cuore) in Milan.

In that sense, Toniolo’s legacy perhaps offers a lesson for navigating the tribal divisions in Catholic life today. In effect, he’s a model for how to remain in touch with officialdom, without surrendering the effort to push the Church forward.

(As a footnote, it’s ironic that the memory of someone who tried hard to straddle the divides of his day recently became embroiled in a classic example of ecclesiastical in-fighting.

As part of the Vatican leaks scandal, correspondence surfaced in early March showing that Bertone had attempted last year to take control of the Toniolo Institute, which is the governing body for the University of the Sacred Heart. The university’s affiliated institutions include the famed Gemelli Clinic in Rome, where a private suite of rooms is always reserved for the Pope.

In the end, Benedict XVI sided with the Italian bishops, a rare instance in which he overruled Bertone, a longtime friend and aide.)
[Not that rare. This is going off-topoic, but an important point must be made, As far as is publicly known, Bertone has had other turndowns by the Pope, always with matters that have to with the functions of the Italian episcopate, as was the Toniolo affair - very strange conduct, for someone who was a bishop himself of two Italian dioceses. First, the Pope turned down Bertone's proposed candidates for president of the Italian bishops' conference to succeed Cardinal Camillo Ruini - Bertone proposed names of people he could manipulate - but Benedict instead chose Angelo Bagnasco, a 'Ruinian'. Then, as soon as Bagnasco took office, Bertone tried to take over what has always been the prerogative of the Italian bishops (guaranteed by the Lateran Pacts) - dealing with Italian government officials on matters affecting the faithful. Bagnasco wisely ignored Bertone's letter, and has carried on the CEI as it had been under Ruini, with the Pope's apparent approval. Then, there have been Bertone's attempts to push his proteges to be assigned to major Italian dioceses, in which the Pope has apparently followed his own counsel. Then there was Bertone's other 'ntrepreneurial' attempt, far bigger than the Toniolo - in which he bid 250 million euros of Vatican money to take over the troubled San Raffaele health conglomerate; fortunately, the Pope ordered him to withdraw the bid before it could be taken up!]

Tuesday, May 1, Fourth Week of Easter

First anniversary of the beatification of John Paul II, one of the most memorable days in the recent history of the universal Church.

But in all the excitement about the beatification of John Paul II last year and that the date chosen for it fell on Divine Mercy Sunday - not to mention the secular
holiday of Labor Day in the Western world - even Catholic commentators seemed to have overlooked that it was also the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker,
the second of the annual feasts celebrated by Catholics for the Foster Father of Jesus, who is also the Patron of the Universal Church, and Benedict XVI's
name saint. So, on the first of May, let us not forget to pray to St. Joseph and add extra prayers for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. His first Angelus led from
the Pope's study window overlooking St. Peter's Square took place on May 1, 2005.

May 1, Feast of St. Joseph the Worker
Patron of the Universal Church

HAPPY NAME DAY ONCE AGAIN

TO OUR BELOVED HOLY FATHER!

NB: Our Pope has four name days during the year:
March 19 and May 1, for St. Joseph;
March 21 (observed by the Benedictines)
and July 11 (official Church holiday) for St. Benedict.



NB: Today is also our third anniversary on this Forum.
My profound thanks once again to Gloria for being our very gracious and generous host.




No events announced for the Holy Father today.


BENEDICT XVI'S
PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR MAY 2012

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General intention:
That initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.

Missionary intention:
That Mary, Queen of the World and Star of Evangelisation, may accompany all missionaries in proclaiming her Son Jesus.

---

When Pope Benedict
beatified John Paul II ...

May 1, 2012

A year ago, Benedict XVI beatified his beloved predecessor, John Paul II, in front a vast sea of pilgrims - more than a million - who had gathered in St. Peter's square and spilled into the nearby streets.

It was a prayerful moment but also a joyful one and pilgrims from Karol Wojtyla's native Poland attended in great numbers.

Over a dozen heads of State were present alongside the cardinals, bishops , priests and men and women religious who were seated up close to the altar.

Only six years had gone by since the death of John Paul II, and in his homily on this occasion the Pope mentioned how he had wanted the cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste: " And now the longed-for day has come,it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed..."

Benedict XVI pointed to how this ceremony was timed to coincide with the Second Sunday of Easter which the late Polish Pontiff had 5/2/12

5/2/12
P.S. CNA finally did file a JP2 story at yesterday afternoon reporting on the April 30 prayer vigil....

John Paul II's beatification
remembered one year later
By David Kerr


Vatican City, May 1, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News) - Blessed Pope John Paul II was remembered one year after his beatification with a candlelight prayer vigil at the site where he hosted World Youth Day 2000 in Rome on April 30.

“What was the secret of John Paul II? I think I can say, the unity between faith and life. He lived for God and for man to bring to God, because he was happy,” said Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome at the vigil.

He addressed thousands of young people from the Diocese of Rome and beyond at Tor Vergata on the eastern outskirts of Rome. It was here that Pope John Paul II had told millions of young pilgrims to World Youth Day 2000 that “in saying ‘yes’ to Christ, you say ‘yes’ to all your noblest ideals.”

Last night the World Youth Day cross returned to Tor Vergata along with many of those who were in attendance 12 years. This time, however, they arrived with their husbands, wives and children to thank Blessed John Paul for his inspirational witness.

“Twelve years ago I was here, under this same Cross, on stage with the choir of the diocese of Rome,” said one female pilgrim to Vatican Radio.

“Today, after 12 years, I am here to thank him again, because I’m here with my family, my husband, my son who is called John Paul Emmanuel.”

“I am getting goose bumps just at the thought of being here,” said another veteran of World Youth Day 2000 who described that encounter with Pope John Paul as “a moment that changed my life, which matured my faith, which made me really see what the faith truly was and that the faith could be the center of my life.”

In his homily Cardinal Vallini recalled Pope John Paul II’s message of hope and urged the young and not-so-young people in attendance to continue to continue to be “generous” with God.

It was on May 1, 2011, that Pope Benedict XVI beatified his predecessor six years after Pope John Paul’s death. The beatification ceremony in Rome was attended by over 1.5 million pilgrims. Included in their number was Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, the French nun whose miraculous cure from Parkinson's Disease paved the way for the beatification.



Just to bring back the flavor of that very special day, here is the photo summary I attempted of it the day after...

---

John Paul II's Beatification Day yesterday, May 1, 2011, was a truly historic event only likely to be equalled by what will almost certainly be the next big moment in the great Pope's story, his canonization...

Very appropriately, the event has left the mass media - including the normally logorrheic commentariat - relatively dumbstruck. The ceremony said it all, and what needed to be said in words was expressed so magnificently, and with his usual simplicity, by Benedict XVI in his homily. All other words are superfluous, but not the photos...

As I have been unable to do anything more than sort the available newsphotos, here is an impromptu montage - snapshots from the Powerpoint pages on which I sort and group the photos for eventual formatting and posting - until I can post them in the regular manner...

PHOTO SUMMARY:
BEATIFICATION DAY


The mini-slideshow from Vatican Radio online with highlights of the day, and an AP fact sheet on John Paul II.





Establishing shots of St. Peter's Square. In the top photo, I inserted an inset of the Mass that took place outside Cracow.



Photos I used for the Beatification Day banner.




Pope Benedict arrives for the ceremony.




As usual, too few photos of the Mass. The bottom panel shows the presentation of the Blessed's relic to Benedict XVI
by Suor Tobiana, John Paul II's chief housekeeper at the Vatican, and Sr. Marie Simon Pierre, the late Pope's 'miracle nun'.



Panel shows a videocap showing the Pope giving his homily, on a split screen with a JP2 poster, and photos from the End of the Mass,




Pope Benedict in prayer before the casket of John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica; the other prelates at the Mass followed.



The Pope met the President of Poland and his wife, and President Napolitano of Italy, as well as other visiting heads of state,
before the Basilica was opened to the public to pray at the casket.

---

Trust the Irish media to try and push this nearly 30-year-old story as far as they can to blacken the Vatican - knowing that headlines simply saying 'the Vatican' would be seen by the ordinary reader as a 'current' event affecting this Pontificate. Moreover, it gives the reporter a chance to rehash some crime-related scandals under the previous Pontificate.. I've seen this report so far only carried by the Belfast Telegraph, a story filed by its Milan reporter... And the 'one billion lire' is a further attempt to inflame the biased reader's negative reaction by using the pre-euro lire instead of the present equivalent at about $400,000 dollars.

Vatican 'accepted one billion lire'
to bury mobster in basilica
next to former popes
By Michael Day in Milan

Monday, 30 April 2012

Te Vatican is facing a deepening controversy over the burial 22 years ago of a notorious crime boss, with reports emerging that the church accepted a one billion lire (£407,000) payment from the mobster's widow to allow his interment in a basilica.

A source at the Holy See told the ANSA news agency that "despite initial reluctance", the then vicar-general of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, "in the face of such a conspicuous sum, gave his blessing" to the controversial interment of Enrico De Pedis, the former boss of Rome's notorious Magliana gang.

The money was reportedly used on missions and to restore the Basilica of St Apollinare, where the mobster was laid to rest next to popes and cardinals after his death in 1990.

The claims, which the Vatican has not commented on, may explain how such a reviled criminal was buried in such a hallowed site. Last week, to deflect growing criticism and to help resolve a 30-year-old murder mystery, it emerged that Vatican officials had decided to move the remains of De Pedis from his special crypt.

Pressure mounted earlier this month when a prosecuting magistrate, Giancarlo Capaldo, claimed senior officials at the Vatican knew much more than they were letting on about the Magliana gang's links to the Holy See, and the gang's suspected kidnap and murder of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican official, in 1983.

"There are people still alive, and still inside the Vatican, who know the truth," he said. Some believe Emanuela's father had evidence linking the Vatican Bank, Istituto per le Opere di Religione, to organised crime, and that she was snatched to keep him silent. The theory is that De Pedis, who was shot dead in 1990, organised the kidnapping.

For the past two decades, there has been speculation that Emanuela's remains were put in the tomb alongside De Pedis. The girl's brother, Pietro Orlandi, has joined those calling for the tomb to be opened.

The Vatican – under heavy scrutiny after a set of scandals – denies the claims and has hinted that investigators will be able to witness the re-opening of the crypt, in a bid to quash the rumours.

"It seems that nothing has been concealed and there are no Vatican secrets to reveal," said a spokesman for the Vatican, Father Federico Lombardi.

It is likely that the body of De Pedis will be moved to a less high-profile place of rest. The location may be decided at an upcoming meeting. Even if the girl's remains are not found in the crypt, the mystery surrounding her disappearance will remain.

Other theories surrounding her fate are not in short supply. One, more palatable for the Vatican, suggests that Magliana gang members snatched her at the behest of Turkish extremists, who wanted to use her as a bargaining tool to win the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

But others have implicated Paul Marcinkus, the disgraced and deceased former head of the Vatican bank, which was involved in the bankruptcy of Italy's largest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, in 1982.

Soon after the news of the scandal became public, the president of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.


A homegrown event in Ireland was more 'significant', and the reporter sounds sympathetic to the protesters.{


Protestors at Dublin nunciature
denounce 'silencing' of dissenters
by Gerard O'Connell

April 30, 2012

More than 200 people participated in a silent vigil outside the Holy See’s Nunciature in Dublin on April 29 to protest the silencing or censuring of several Irish priests by the Vatican and to ask for the revocation of these disciplinary measures and their replacement by dialogue.

This large crowd [200 is large? Greater Dublin haas a population of 1.8 million!] of committed Catholics, which included several priests and many nuns, braved icy-cold weather conditions to publicly protest their strong feelings against the silencing of five Irish priests whose names have been made public and others whose names are still being kept secret.

Brendan Butler, a spokesman for the Catholic lay group We are Church Ireland which organized the vigil said, "So many Irish Catholics are expressing their anger at this heavy-handedness by the Vatican against Seán Fagan, Tony Flannery, Gerry Moloney, Owen O’Sullivan and Brian D’Arcy — all outstanding priests of the Irish Church." ['So many' that 200 showed up to protest!]

He claimed that there are at least four other priests, not yet publicly identified, who have had censorship imposed on them by the Vatican.

Dressed in anoraks and overcoats, the protestors walked up and down, in silence, for one hour, in front of the Nunciature on Navan Road that is also the residence of the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles J. Brown.

Many wore yellow and white Vatican colored gags over their mouths to symbolize the silencing or censuring of the priests by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Others walked up and down carrying placards that bore such statements as “God has no voice but ours”, “Justice for our theologians”, “Vatican is silencing Christ”, and “Is Vatican II dead or alive?”

The group handed in a letter for the Nuncio calling for the revocation of the silencing of the priests by the CDF which, it said, "punished these men without due process and through secretive procedures with no right to appeal".

It requested a meeting with Archbishop Brown to discuss the recommendation of the 1971 Synod of Bishops that everyone’s right to freedom of expression and thought should be recognized. [Not in the case of priests who vow obedience and teaching the Magisterium when they are ordained, and then have the audacity to publish their heterodoxy in Catholic journals!]

Butler said the group had received messages of support and solidarity from the international We are Church movement and other groups in many countries, even from as far away as Brazil. Many Irish people too sent apologies for not being able to join them,

An elderly nun dressed in a red anorak, Sister Kay Mulhall, told Ireland’s RTE television, that she considered the silencing of the priests “absolutely disgraceful” because all they had done was “spoken the truth out of love for the Church”.

She said she had come to the vigil “out of love for the Church, but I know the dogs in the street are talking about the reforms that the Church needs, and they are not even allowed on the agenda.”

An older nun, Sister Siobhan Ni’ Mhaoilmhichil, a member of the Dominican Order for almost 50 years, told The Irish Times that she was angered by the way the priests had been treated. “These are all good theologians who have worked for the Church for many years and we are here to show our solidarity with them”, she stated. [Sister, 'good theologians' do not contradict what the Church teaches!]

David Quinn, an Irish Catholic journalist and commentator, said the Vatican has a right to say what is and what is not Catholic doctrine, and what is up for discussion and what is not, but he wondered whether it was “prudent” to have acted in this way, saying it should have been left up to Church authorities in Ireland to deal with this. [I believe all those who were disciplined belong to religious orders and are not therefore under the bishops. I have not read the circumstances regarding the other 'silenced' priests, but in the case of the two Redemptorists, the CDF informed the Redemptorist Superior-General of its recommendations, and he took the action. I should think the CDF followed the same protocol in the case of the Marist and Passionist priests who were disciplined (O'Connell makes a significant omission by not stating the orders of the five priests he mentions, nor summarizing briefly why each of them was disciplined.)... And if any diocesan priests needed to be similarly disciplined, I doubt the Irish bishops would have the courage to do it, since they are already under severe reproof for their disattention to the sex-offending priests in the past.]

Butler told Vatican Insider he was “very pleased” with the size of the crowd considering the bad weather. He said the “most significant fact” was “the presence of priests and of many sisters (women religious) from various religious orders, many of whom occupy senior positions”. All this “marked a watershed in Irish Catholicism”, he claimed. [Yeah, right! If We are Church Ireland were more than just a fringe groupl and its members felt so passionately about this cause, there should have been more than 200, no matter what the weather was! If 80-year-old nuns could stand the cold, why not others?]

He concluded by saying, “We await a response from Archbishop Brown to our request for a meeting, and we intend to continue and not allow this issue of silencing to fade away as I’m sure the Vatican would hope.” [Wake up, Butler, and read your catechism again as to whatthe Church has a right and a duty to do in defense of the faith, and the respect and obedience that Catholic faithful owe to the Magisterium.]

---

To say someone's opinion does not correspond to the doctrine of the Catholic Church is not a violation of human rights.

Everyone can express what he wants to, according to his own conscience. But the Church should be able to tell its faithful which of those opinions corresponds to the faith, and which do not. This is her right and her duty, so that Yes remains Yes, and No is No, thereby preserving that clarity which she owes to her faithful and to the world.
- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Munich, 1979

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Here's one of the stories I failed to translate promptly...
The final word on this:
No cats in B16's papal apartment ever
But he does have a new feline friend -
Chico of Pentling, meet Ciccio of the Vatican Gardens
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from

April 29, 2012

Joseph Ratzinger never had a house cat in Rome.

He didn't have one when he was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and lived just outside the Vatican walls at Piazza della Citta Leonina.

Nor does he have one now that he occupies the papal apartments on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.

That does not mean he does not love cats. His co-workers know his fondness for felines quite well, as do now those responsible for the care of fauna within the Vatican Gardens.

Prof. Klaus Friedrich and Giulia Artizzu, who work under the Secretary of the Vatican Governatorate, Mons. Gabriele Sciacca, have put up a little cat cottage in the Vatican Gardens for the use of a very special cat - Ciccio, formerly known to Vatican enployees as 'the Museum cat'.

Ciccio is a black male cat who is "very sociable and very sure of his own attractiveness", writes Artizzu in All'ombra del cupolone {In the shadow of St. Peter's Dome), the informal organ of the Governatorate's employees.

Ciccio is well-known to all who frequent the Vatican Gardens, including Pope Benedict XVI who walks in the gardens every afternoon with one or both of his private secretaries, up to the grotto dedicated to the Madonna della Guardia (Patroness of Genoa) at the summit of the Gardens, and back to the Apostolic Palace.



Of course, there are other cats the Pope is likely to encounter during this walks in the Vatican's 'green lung' which hosts a variety of natural fauna - from parrots and hummingbirds to frogs, newts and glowworms.

But Ciccio is apparently the only one with the 'individual personality' to catch the attention of Garden habitues including its most famous one.

When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope, it was Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Archbishop of Genoa but before that, #2 man to the future Pope at the CDF, who first spoke to the media about the new Pope's love for cats. He told Famiglia Cristiana in an interview:

"During his years at CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger used to talk to the cats he met along the way. He would stop and say something to them in German, probably in the Bavarian dialect. He always had something with him to feed the cats, and they would follow him to the courtyard of the Palazzo del Sant'Uffizio."

These were the words which fed what has since been shown to be another Roman myth. Just like the stories that Paul VI brought his pet cat with him to the Apostolic Palace when he became Pope, or that Pius XII kept two goldfinches, so Benedict XVI was believed to have brought a beloved cat to the papal apartment.

Now we know for sure: there is no cat in Benedict XVI's papal household, although his great fondness for cats is very real.

Vatican sources say that a few weeks before the 2005 Conclave, Cardinal Ratzinger had given a cat as a gift to a cardinal friend to help him get over a depression.

But shortly after the Conclave, cat stories began proliferating about the new Pope. Chico, a marmalade-colored cat belonging to the Pope's next-door neighbors in Pentling outside Regensburg), caught the fantasy of newspapers around the world and became immortalized as 'the Pope's cat'.

Ingrid Stampa, for years Cardinal Ratzinger's housekeeper (now employed in the Secretariat of State for the translation of papal texts to German), almost immediately told newsmen, "We do have two cats - but both are porcelain". Part of her daily chores as housekeeper had been to descend to Borgo Pio and leave leftovers for the stray cats of the neighborhood.

Recently, one of the Pope's two private secretaries, Mons. Alfred Xuereb, 53, who has worked with the Pope since 2007, was interviewed about his days with Benedict XV, during which he spoke about the cat that the Pope never had.

"It is not true that we have a cat in the papal apartment, even if the Pope loves animals. It has been said that as a cardinal, he would stop on the streets to talk to cats. Someone reportedly asked him, 'Your Eminence, do you talk to the cats in Italian or in German?' And he answered, 'They don't understand languages, but they do understand your tone of voice'..."

In short, there is no cat in the papal apartment. But lately, there has been a privileged cat in the Vatican Gardens - Ciccio, for whom a little home has been built in the world's most exclusive address.

Pope donates quarter million dollars
to ordinariate in England, Wales
By Carol Glatz


VATICAN CITY, May 1 (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has donated $250,000 to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham to help support its clergy and work.

The gift "is a clear sign of (the Pope's) personal commitment to the work of Christian unity and the special place the ordinariate holds in his heart," said Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Vatican nuncio to Great Britain.

The ordinariate made the announcement in a press statement May 1.

"The gift will help establish the ordinariate as a vibrant part of the Catholic Church in England and Wales," the statement said.

The ordinary, Msgr. Keith Newton, said, "This gift is a great help and encouragement as we continue to grow and develop our distinctive ecclesial life, whilst seeking to contribute to the wider work of evangelization."

Pope Benedict established the ordinariate to welcome former Anglicans into the Catholic Church. The structure provided a way for entire Anglican parishes or groups to become Catholic while retaining some of their Anglican heritage and liturgical practice.

Our Lady of Walsingham was the first ordinariate to be created after the Pope issued his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009.

The ordinariate in England and Wales faces some logistical and financial challenges such as finding church buildings to use and supporting the former Anglican clergy -- many of whom are married with families to support.

Local Catholic parishes have been encouraged to share their churches with members of the ordinariate, and the Catholic bishops of England and Wales contributed 250,000 pounds to a fund that was set up to help to establish the ordinariate and to help pay for the salaries of its pastors.

An additional 100,000 pounds had been donated by the St. Barnabas Society, a Catholic charity established to support clergy entering the Catholic Church from non-Catholic Christian denominations.


Did I wake up today to a parallel universe where John Paul II was never beatified one year ago today? How else can I explain why neither CNS nor CNA has one word about the snniversary in the stories they did file today? When each of them did have a significant story about Pope Benedict - CNS with the news above on the Ordinariate, and CNA with a story from Spain about St, Juan de Avila, whom Pope Benedict said last year he would proclaim a Dcotor of the Church (see below)...

Spanish bishops anticipate formal proclamation
of San Juan de Avila as the 33rd Doctor of the Church


Madrid, Spain, Apr 30, 2012 (CNA) - At the conclusion of their annual meeting on April 27, the bishops of Spain issued a statement lauding Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming official proclamation of St. John of Avila as a Doctor of the Church.

The “originality” of St. John of Avila is found in his “consistent and ever-current theological knowledge, in the soundness of his teaching and in his vast knowledge of the Fathers, saints and great theologians,” the bishops said.

St. John of Avila will be the fourth Spaniard to be made a doctor, after St. Isidore of Seville, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Aviia, and the thirty-third person ever to be given the honor.

Pope Benedict is expected to officially name him Doctor of the Church in Rome this year although a date for the ceremony has not yet been scheduled. [Could the proclamation come during the canonization of new saints this October? And will the Pope also be proclaiming Hildegrade von Bingen a Doctor of the Church at that time?]

In their statement, the Spanish bishops noted that St. John of Avila ranks among the Church’s doctors because of his study and contemplation of the mysteries of the faith “with unique clairvoyance” and for his ability to explain them and to help the faithful live their lives in accordance with Church teaching.

John of Avila was born in 1499 or 1500 in the town of Almodovar del Campo, where he grew up and learned his faith. He studied law at the University of Salamanca and Liberal Arts and Theology at the University of Alcala. He was ordained a priest in 1526.

In 1946 he was declared patron saint of the secular clergy in Spain by Pope Pius XII, and in 1970 he was canonized by Pope Paul VI.

He was known for his work promoting vocations at every level in the Church, whether to the priesthood or religious life, or to building of the vocation of the laity.

The saint was also considered a man who was “generous and in love with God and lived detached from material possessions,” they added.

The bishops recalled that after he was ordained a priest in 1526, he celebrated his first Mass in his home town and celebrated the occasion “by inviting the poor to his table and distributing his abundant inheritance to them.”

It was said of him at the time that “if the Church were to lose the Bible, he could restore it on his own because he knew it by heart.”

He was also known for his important writings, including a treatise on the spiritual life entitled, “Audi, Filia,” which he began writing while being held in prison by the Inquisition in Seville. He was eventually absolved of the false accusations against him.

In Spain, the Church recruits
candidates for priesthood from
the country's vast unemployed pool:
Those who have a calling will reply
by Lauren Frayer



A priest prays at the Cuatro Vientos air base outside Madrid during World Youth Day festivities in August 2011. Right, a highly-watched priest recruitment YouTube video by some Spanish bishops.

MADRID, April 30 (CNA) - Spain has Europe's highest unemployment rate, with nearly 1 in 4 people out of work. The country has dipped back into recession, and layoffs are on the rise.

But there's one organization there that's still hiring: the Catholic Church. A group of bishops has launched a savvy campaign on YouTube to recruit new priests from the swelling ranks of Spain's unemployed.

The 2 1/2 minute video starts with words emerging from a smoky background. "How many promises have they made to you, which haven't been fulfilled?" a voice asks. Then a young priest pops up.

"I don't promise you a big salary," he says. "I promise you a permanent job."

Young priests speak into the camera one after another, mixed with footage of them performing marrriages, praying for the sick and to a man behind bars.

"I do not promise luxuries," another priest says. "I promise your wealth will be eternal."

The video, released last month, is part of the Catholic Church's attempt to boost its otherwise dwindling numbers when so many are out of work. And it appears it's had some initial success: Enrollment in seminaries here rose 4 percent last year, compared with falling 25 percent over the past decade.

Bishop Josep Ángel Saiz Meneses commissioned an ad agency to help create this video, and says he's thrilled with the result.

"For two days, this was the most-watched video in Spain, with hundreds of thousands of downloads," he says. "It went viral, and we've had journalists calling us from five continents. Venezuela has even asked for the copyright."

But church attendance is still falling in Spain. And it's tough to find young Spaniards willing to take a vow of celibacy for life, no matter what the economy is like.

"I personally don't believe in God. So I wouldn't do that," says 18-year-old Guillermo Cique, laughing.

He and his friends are skateboarding off curbs in front of Madrid's soaring cathedral on a recent day. An iPod blasts Spanish hip-hop, and his friend improvises a rap about corruption and banks.

The jobless rate in Spain is more than 50 percent for those under 25. Still, Cique says there's no chance he'd consider the seminary. "Why would you want to be a priest? In jail, you get free food also," he says.

Even Meneses, the bishop, acknowledges it's a hard sell for today's youth.

"I don't think any youngster is really going to enter the seminary just for job security. That idea came from the marketing people," Meneses says. They put it in as a bit of a provocation — to grab your attention, to shock you and get you to watch the video."

And it worked for that. But the bishop says Europe's debt crisis could help his recruitment drive in another way. He's targeting people bewildered by bailouts and unemployment — people searching for what's really important. It's something even economists note about people in a recession.

Gayle Allard is a professor at Madrid's IE Business School. "They pass from a materialist to a post-materialist phase, where they start thinking more about quality of life and meaning of life," Allard says.

"The good thing about crisis is that maybe it awakens this other side of us, and helps us to step off the treadmill a bit, and think about why we're here — besides just paying a mortgage," she says.

As for whether the Church will benefit from that, Meneses shrugs: "We'll have to see next year's numbers."

Wednesday, May 2, Fourth Week of Easter

From left, 2 Greek icons of the saint, followed by 2 Coptic icons, a statue in the Vatican, the Four Doctors at the foot of Peter's Chair (from left, Ambrose, Athanasius, John Chrysostom and Augustine),
and another Greek icon.
ST. ATHANASIUS (Egypt 297-373), Theologian, Patriarch of Alexandria, Champion against Arianism, Patron of the Coptic Church, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis on June 20, 2007, to this towering figure of the early Church, who is considered the Doctor of Orthodoxy. He was born in Alexandria, acquired a classical education and became secretary to the Bishop of the city, late being named Bishop himself. He was always a great champion against Arianism which denied the divinity of Jesus and was prevalent at the time. Because of his disputes with the Arians, he was exiled by Emperor Constantine, later restored by his son, but deposed again by Arian bishops. Pope Julius I called a Synod to review his case and returned him to his seat, but five times more in his lifetime, he would be exiled for defending the divinity of Christ. All his life, he was devoted to monastic ideals, and his biography of St. Anthony Abbot became the first universal best-seller in Christianity, inspiring the beginnings of Western monasticism. He argued against the Arians in the first Council of Nicaea. His most famous theological work is De Incarnatione, in which he made the statement "God made himself man so that we may be made God". He died peacefully in Alexandria, but his remains were brought to Italy where it stayed for centuries until Paul VI returned them to the Coptic Pope in 1970. Athanasius's tomb is now in the Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo. Athanasius was one of the four great Doctors of the Eastern Church proclaimed by Pope St. Pius V in 1568, along with Saints Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzene and John Chrysostom.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050212.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

General Audience - The Holy Father, continuing his catecheses on Christian prayer which he began a year ago,
reflected today on St. Stephen's courageous testimony about Jesus before he was stoned to death, becoming
the first Christian martyr.

No OR today because yesterday was a religious and official holiday in Italy.

GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY



Reflection on St. Stephen's
prayer before his martyrdom

May 2, 2012

Prayerful meditation on Sacred Scripture in communion with Jesus and his Church can help us face all of life’s difficulties and even persecution, just like St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, Pope Benedict said today at the General Audience, attended by about 40,000 pilgrims.

Continuing his series of lessons on prayer in the Acts of the Apostles, Pope Benedict XVI focused his catechesis on Stephens. discourse before the Sanhedrin, delivered before his death.

Forty thousand people thronged St Peter’s Square, and speaking to English pilgrims the Pope noted: “Stephen’s words are clearly grounded in a prayerful re-reading of the Christ event in the light of God’s word”.

---

In our catechesis on Christian prayer, we now consider the speech which Saint Stephen, the first martyr, delivered before his death. Stephen’s words are clearly grounded in a prayerful re-reading of the Christ event in the light of God’s word.

Accused of saying that Jesus would destroy the Temple and the customs handed down by Moses, Stephen responds by presenting Jesus as the Righteous One proclaimed by the prophets, in whom God has become present to humanity in a unique and definitive way.

As the Son of God made man, Jesus is himself the true temple of God in the world; by his death for our sins and his rising to new life, he has now become the definitive "place" where true worship is offered to God.

Stephen’s witness to Christ, nourished by prayer, culminates in his martyrdom. By his intercession and example may we learn daily to unite prayer, contemplation of Christ and reflection on God’s word. In this way we will appreciate more deeply God’s saving plan, and make Christ truly the Lord of our lives.

---

In his main catechesis, the Pope recalled that Stephen was "one of the seven [deacons] chosen for the service of charity" while the Apostles attended to announcing Christ.

---

Stephen’s discourse before the court, the longest of the Acts of the Apostles develops from this prophecy on Jesus, who is the new temple, who inaugurates the new worshipcult, and replaces the ancient sacrifices with the offering of himself on Cross.

Stephen wants to show how unfounded the accusation is that he had subverted the law of Moses, and illustrates his vision of the history of salvation, the covenant between God and man. He thus re-reads the biblical narrative, the itinerary contained in the Holy Scripture, to show that it leads to the "place" - the ultimate presence of God, which is Jesus Christ, especially His Passion, Death and Resurrection. This is also the perspective from which Stephen reads his discipleship to Jesus, following him to martyrdom...

The life and discourse of Stephen is suddenly interrupted by his stoning, but his very martyrdom is the fulfillment of his life and his message: he becomes one with Christ.

---

New decree strengthens ties between
the Vatican and Caritas Internationalis

May 2, 2012

The Secretariat of State has issued a new General Decree clarifying and strengthening the ties between the Vatican and Caritas Internationalis, the confederation of the world’s national Caritas agencies.

In its 61 years of existence, Caritas Internationalis has always been a privileged instrument of the Church’s charitable activity. In recent years, the Holy See has sought to update the juridical status of the organization, in order the better to support its activity in the context of the modern world.

In the General Decree published on Wednesday, the Secretariat of State has clarified the role of the principal Vatican departments involved with Caritas, most importantly the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

“The Pontifical Council promotes the identity and ecclesial spirit within the Confederation,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah, the President of the Council Cor Unum. “In particular, it must ensure that the activities of its members - coordinated internationally - are carried out in collaboration and in communion with the local Churches, with the involvement of their pastors.”

The Decree establishes that at least three members of the Executive Board be papal appointments, to underline the close bond between Caritas Internationalis and the Holy Father. It also defines the Federation’s relationship with the different sections of the Secretariat of State itself.

Cardinal Sarah told Vatican Radio said the new norms will not change the fundamental mission of Caritas.

“Caritas will continue to be an instrument of the Church at the service of the Ministry of Charity, “ he said. “This is important, because Caritas is an organization known and appreciated around the world.”

Addendum:
Caritas is a global movement working for a fairer world and 'zero poverty'. The 165 Caritas national programs believe they can do more to combat injustice by combining their resources. The Caritas network is diviced into seven global regions. Its members work in over 200 countries and territories.

At the General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis last year, Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga Rodriguez, Archbishop of Tegicigalpa (Honduras), was re-elected to a second four-year term as president.

Caritas welcomes new statutes
after a five-year papal review


VATICAN CITY, MAY 2, 2012 (Zenit.org) - Benedict XVI, acting through his secretary of state, has approved new statutes and rules for Caritas Internationalis.

The aid organization is the umbrella group for 164 national Catholic aid and development agencies.

Caritas Internationalis President, Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, received the new statutes and rules and a general decree during a morning meeting at the Vatican today.

“This is a day of joy and hope for Caritas Internationalis,” said Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga. “Our new Statutes and Rules will modernize our work in delivering humanitarian assistance and development in service to the poor. They will provide us with the framework to carry out our work as part of the mission of the Church.”

The revision of the statutes and rules began in 2007. They have been updated to reflect the fact that Blessed Pope John Paul II granted Canonical Legal Status to Caritas Internationalis in 2004.

Caritas Internationalis Secretary-general Michel Roy said, “Our immense gratitude to Pope Benedict for granting these new Statutes and Rules and the staff of the Holy See who have worked with us through this long process. The new Statutes and Rules clarify that Caritas Internationalis is an organization both at the service of the confederation members and of the Holy See.”

The new statutes and rules are effective as of today and can be found along with the general decree on the Caritas Web site.
http://www.caritas.org/about/CanonicalLegalStatus.html

The BBC has apparently done its usual ultra-liberal hatchet job against the Church and its hierarchy on Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and president of the Irish Bishops' Conference the same way the BBC went against the then newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI in a notorious 2005 documentary on Irish victims of predator priests.

Being Pope by then, Joseph Ratzinger could hardly rebut the falsehoods with a personal statement as Cardinal Brady is able to do today. If he were still a cardinal when the documentary was released, would he have responded? He gave an interview to one of the leading German newspapers in 2000 to answer stinging criticisms of Dominus Iesus, so he might have replied in some way, if only to say that 1) he was a theology professor in Bonn at the time the CDF issued the Latin document that the BBC claimed was a direct order to bishops to cover up for sex-offender priests and 2) the BBC ought to hire a competent Latin translator to find out what the document actually said...

Of course, when MSM and its 'big guns' like the BBC want to make their point, they have absolutely no scruples about making false statements and distorting facts... On the other hand, Cardinal Brady's response sets forth for the first time - for the general public outside Ireland - the circumstances of his part in the 1975 diocesan investigation of a Norbertine priest who was serving in the diocese... What the cardinal does not state here (probably because they are known facts from his biodata) is that he was a 36-year-old professor at a Catholic school in the diocese of Kilmore (to which he was assigned when he was 28 and had just completed his theology and canon law doctorates at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome), when he was asked by his bishop to assist in this particular investigation, so he was not even a diocesan official...


Primate of all Ireland responds
to BBC program that blatantly
misrepresents his role
in a 1975 child-abuse case

Responding to the BBC ‘This World’ programme entitled ‘The Shame of the Catholic Church’, broadcast on 1 May 2012, Cardinal Seán Brady has issued the following statement through the Irish Bishops' Conference:

---

On Tuesday 1 May 2012, the BBC ‘This World’ series broadcast a programme entitled ‘The Shame of the Catholic Church’ on the BBC Northern Ireland network. In the course of the programme a number of claims were made which overstate and seriously misrepresent my role in a Church Inquiry in 1975 into allegations against the Norbertine priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

In response to the programme I wish to draw attention to the following:

Six weeks before broadcast (15 March 2012) I drew the attention of the programme makers to a number of important facts related to the 1975 Church inquiry into Brendan Smyth, which the programme failed to report, and which I now wish to restate for all other media who report on this matter:

To suggest, as the programme does, that I led the investigation of the 1975 Church Inquiry into allegations against Brendan Smyth is seriously misleading and untrue. I was asked by my then Bishop (Bishop Francis McKiernan of the Diocese of Kilmore) to assist others who were more senior to me in this Inquiry process on a one-off basis only;

The documentation of the interview with Brendan Boland, signed in his presence, clearly identifies me as the ‘notary’ or ‘note taker’. Any suggestion that I was other than a ‘notary’ in the process of recording evidence from Mr Boland, is false and misleading;

I did not formulate the questions asked in the Inquiry process. I did not put these questions to Mr Boland. I simply recorded the answers that he gave;

Acting promptly and with the specific purpose of corroborating the evidence provided by Mr Boland, thereby strengthening the case against Brendan Smyth, I subsequently interviewed one of the children identified by Mr Boland who lived in my home diocese of Kilmore. That I conducted this interview on my own is already on the public record.

This provided prompt corroboration of the evidence given by Mr Boland;
In 1975 no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor. No training was given to priests, teachers, police officers or others who worked regularly with children about how to respond appropriately should such allegations be made.

Even according to the State guidelines in place in the Republic of Ireland today, the person who first receives and records the details of an allegation of child abuse in an organisation that works with children is not the person who has responsibility within that organisation for reporting the matter to the civil authorities. This responsibility belongs to the ‘Designated person’ appointed by the organisation and trained to assume that role.

In 1975, I would not have been the ‘Designated Person’ according to today’s guidelines. As the Children First State guidelines explain (3.3.1): ‘Every organisation, both public and private, that is providing services for children or that is in regular direct contact with children should (i) Identify a designated liaison person to act as a liaison with outside agencies and a resource person to any staff member or volunteer who has child protection concerns.(ii) The designated liaison person is responsible for ensuring that the standard reporting procedure is followed, so that suspected cases of child neglect or abuse are referred promptly to the designated person in the HSE Children and Family Services or in the event of an emergency and the unavailability of the HSE, to An Garda Síochána.’

The commentary in the programme and much of the coverage of my role in this Inquiry gives the impression that I was the only person who knew of the allegations against Brendan Smyth at that time and that because of the office I hold in the Church today I somehow had the power to stop Brendan Smyth in 1975.

I had absolutely no authority over Brendan Smyth. Even my Bishop had limited authority over him. The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order. [It's surprising that most MCM reporters do not seem to be aware that memebrs of religious orders are not answerable to the diocesan bishop but only to their monastery superior and higher authorities in the order.]

As Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, confirmed in an interview with RTÉ this morning, it was Brendan Smyth’s superiors in the Norbertine Order who bear primary responsibility for failing to take the appropriate action when presented with the weight of evidence I had faithfully recorded and that Bishop McKiernan subsequently presented to them.

The following statement from Monsignor Scicluna had been made to the BBC programme makers six weeks in advance of its broadcast but was not acknowledged by them in any way:

---

It is clear to me that in 1975 Fr Brady, now Cardinal Brady, acted promptly and with determination to ensure the allegations being made by the children were believed and acted upon by his superiors. His actions were fully consistent with his duties under canon law.

But the power to act effectively to remove Brendan Smyth from priestly ministry lay exclusively with the Abbot of Holy Trinity Abbey in Kilnacrott and his superiors in the Norbertine Order. This is where the sincere efforts of Bishop McKiernan and others like Fr Brady to prevent Brendan Smyth from perpetrating further harm were frustrated, with tragic consequences for the lives of so many children.

I know that in his role as President of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Brady has worked tirelessly with his fellow bishops to ensure such a situation could never occur again and that the civil authorities in Ireland are now promptly informed of allegations of abuse against children. We have all learned from the tragic experience of the Church in Ireland but also from the sincere efforts of so many lay faithful, religious, priests and bishops to make the Church in Ireland an example of best practice in safeguarding children".

---

In fact, I was shocked, appalled and outraged when I first discovered in the mid 1990’s that Brendan Smyth had gone on to abuse others. I assumed and trusted that when Bishop McKiernan brought the evidence to the Abbot of Kilnacrott that the Abbot would then have dealt decisively with Brendan Smyth and prevented him from abusing others.

With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them. However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.

As to other children named in the evidence recorded during the Inquiry process, I had no further involvement in the Inquiry process once I handed over the evidence taken. I trusted that those with the authority to act in relation to Brendan Smyth would treat the evidence seriously and respond appropriately.

I had no such authority to act, and even by today’s guidance from the State I was not the person who had the role of bringing the allegations received to the attention of the civil authorities.

I was also acutely aware that I had no authority in Church law in relation to Brendan Smyth or any other aspect of the Inquiry process.
Today, Church policy in Ireland is to report allegations of abuse to the civil authorities.

It recognises the Gardai and HSE as those with responsibility for investigating such allegations and that any Church investigation should not take place until the investigation by the civil authorities has been completed.

I have fully supported this policy and have worked with my fellow Bishops and the leaders of Religious Congregations to put this policy in place.

The programme made reference to a statement I made in the course of an RTE interview in which I suggested that if my failure to act on an allegation of abuse against a child led to further children being abused, that I would then consider resigning from my position.

The programme failed to point out, however, that I gave this answer in response to a question specifically about someone in a position of ‘Management’, someone who was already a Bishop or Religious Superior with ultimate responsibility for managing a priest against whom an allegation has been made.

In 1975, I was not a Bishop. I was not in that role. It was misleading of the BBC programme to apply my response to the RTE interview on a completely different situation to my role in the 1975 Inquiry. [As the Irish Prime Minister used a statement made by Cardinal Ratzinger to make it seem he said it about the sex-abuse situation!]

It is my view that the ‘This World’ programme has set out to deliberately exaggerate and misrepresent my role in these events. The programme suggested that no response to their questions had been provided before the programme was completed, whereas in fact a comprehensive response had been provided to the programme six weeks in advance and only days after the ‘door-stepping’ interview with me in Limerick.

I deeply regret that those with the authority and responsibility to deal appropriately with Brendan Smyth failed to do so, with tragic and painful consequences for those children he so cruelly abused.

I also deeply regret that no guidelines from the State or the Church were available to guide the sincere and serious effort made to respond to the allegations made by the two boys interviewed in the Inquiry process.

With many others who worked regularly with children in 1975, I regret that our understanding of the full impact of abuse on the lives of children as well as the pathology and on-going risk posed by a determined paedophile was so inadequate.

It is important to acknowledge that today both the Church and the State have proper and robust procedures in place to respond to allegations of abuse against children. I fully support these new procedures which include the obligation to report such allegations promptly to the civil authorities. I have worked with others in the Church to put these new procedures in place and I look forward to continuing that vital work in the years ahead.

---

Thursday, May 3, Fourth Week of Easter
Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles

Second from right: St. Philip, in El Greco's series on The Apostles; the other paintings are by unidentified painters.
ST. PHILIP THE APOSTLE (d. 80 AD)
Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis to him on Sept. 6, 2006, citing him as the model for all Christians who desire to know Christ - 'Come and see, as he told his friend, who later became the apostle Bartholomew. He is always mentioned fifth among the Twelve. Widely accepted tradition says that he was martyred by crucifixion in Phrygia (what is now central Turkey) where he had gone to preach with his sister Marian and Bartholomew, after praching in Syria and Greece.

Second from right: James the Minor in El Greco's series on The Apostles; extreme right, by Georges de la Tour.
ST. JAMES THE MINOR (or JAMES THE LESS)
His title distinguishes him from St. James the Major, brother of the Apostle John. Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on June 24, 2006, to him, pointing out that he was the author of the first catholic epistle in the New Testament (i.e., not addressed to a specific Church, as Paul's letters were). He was important in the early Church for his relations with the Jews. His Epistle is famous for saying that good works are the normal work of faith [a statement that Benedict XVI says complements Paul's words about justification by grace), and for advocating that Christians should abandon themselves to God's will. Legend also says that he died a martyr, being cast off a tower by the Jews and then stoned to death.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050312.cfm


WITH THE POPE TODAY

This morning, the Holy Father visited the Rome campus of the Catholic University of Sacro Cuore
to mark the 50th anniversary of its Faculty of Medicine and Surgery named after the university
founder Fr. Agostino Gemelli (for whom the faculty's attached teaching hospital is also named).
Address in Italian.


Pope will celebrate Mass
in Frascati on July 15
Adapted and translated from

May 3, 2012

The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household announced today that the Holy Father, accepting the invitation of Mons. Raffaello Martinelli, Bishop of Frascati, will say Mass on the morning of Sunday, July 15, at the Piazza San Pietro of Frascati, in front of the Cathedral.

The announcement was also made today by Mons. Martinelli suring the Eucharistic Celebration at the Cathedral of the Feast of the Apostles Philip and James, patrons of this suburbicarian diocese. [Frascati is among the famous wine producing towns in the regiuon called Castelli Romani near Rome.]

After the Mass, the Pope will return to Castel Gandolfo to lead the noontime Angelus prayers. [He will have begun his summar residence in Castel Gandolfo earlier in the month of July.]

This is one of the most exciting archeological discoveries in recent times that have to do with the Apostles...

Discovering the Apostle Philip's tomb in 2011:
Interview with lead Italian archaeologist
By Renzo Allegri

ROME, MAY 2, 2012 (Zenit.org).- On May 3, the Church remembers St. Philip and St. James the Less, two apostles who formed part of the Twelve.


Hierapolis, which literally means 'Holy City', is full of antiquities and has been declared a orld Heritage site by UNESCO.

Last summer the news broke that the Apostle Philip’s tomb was found at Hierapolis, in Phrygia. “The value of this finding is undoubtedly of a very high level,” says Professor Francesco D’Andria, director of the archaeological mission that made the discovery.

D’Andria teaches archaeology at the University of Salento-Lecce and is the director of the School of Specialization in Archaeology of that university. He has been working in Hierapolis for more than 30 years, looking for St. Philip’s tomb and, since the year 2000, he has been director of this mission.

We asked Professor D’Andria to speak to us about St. Philip and the exceptional finding that he and his team of researchers carried out.

D'ANDRIA: Historical news on Saint Philip is scarce. From the Gospels we know that he was a native of Bethsaida, on Lake Gennesaret (Lake of Galilee); hence, he belonged to a family of fishermen. John is the only evangelist who mentions him several times.

In the first chapter of his Gospel, he recounts that Philip entered the group of the apostles from the beginning of Jesus’s public life, and had been among those called directly by the Master. In the order of calling, he is the fifth after James, John, Andrew and Peter.

In the sixth chapter, when he recounts the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, John says that, before doing this miracle, Jesus turned to Philip and asked him how all those people could be fed, and Philip answered that 200 denarii worth of bread would not be sufficient even to give a piece to each one.

And in Chapter 12, John says that after Jesus’ triumphal entrance in Jerusalem, some Greeks wished to speak with the Master and went to Philip. And during the Last Supper, when Jesus spoke of the Father (“If you had known me, you would have known my Father also”), Philip said: “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.”

From the Acts of the Apostles we know that Philip was present with the others at the moment of Jesus’ Ascension and on the day of Pentecost, when the descent of the Holy Spirit took place. Written information ceases on that day. All the rest comes from Tradition.

What does Tradition say in addition?
After Jesus’s death, the Apostles dispersed through the world to spread the Gospel message. And, according to Tradition and ancient documents written by the Fathers of the Church, we are told that Philip carried out his mission in Scizia, in Lydia, and in the last days of his life, in Hierapolis, in Phrygia.

In a letter written to Pope Victor I, Polycrates, who toward the end of the second century was bishop of Ephesus, recalls the important personalities of his Church, among them the Apostles Philip and John. Of Philip, he said: “He was one of the twelve Apostles and died in Hierapolis, as did two of his daughters who grew old in virginity … Another daughter of his … was buried in Ephesus.”

All scholars agree in considering that Polycrates’s information is absolutely reliable. The Letter, which dates back to about 190 after Christ, 100 years after Philip’s death, is a fundamental document for relations between the Latin and the Greek Church

It refers to the dispute about the date of the celebration of Easter. And in that letter, Polycrates, who was patriarch of the Greek Church, claims the nobility of the origins of the Church in Asia, stating that just as the trophies (mortal remains) of Peter and Paul are in Rome, the tombs of the Apostles Philip and John are in Asia.

Moreover, from that letter we know that Philip spent the last years of his life in Hierapolis, with two of his three daughters, who undoubtedly helped him in his work of evangelization.

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea says that Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis at the beginning of the third century, knew Philip’s daughters and from them learned important details of the Apostle’s life, among them also the account of a tremendous miracle: the resurrection of a dead man.

Is it known how and when the Apostle died?
Most of the ancient documents state that Philip died in Hierapolis, in the year 80 after Christ, when he was about 85. He died a martyr for his faith, crucified upside down like St. Peter. He was buried in Hierapolis.

In the ancient necropolis of that city an inscription was found that alludes to a church dedicated to St. Philip. On an unspecified date, Philip’s body was taken to Constantinople to remove it from the danger of profanation by barbarians. And in the sixth century, under Pope Pelagius I, it was taken to Rome and buried, next to the Apostle James, in a church built specifically for them.

The Byzantine-style church, which was called “of Sts. James and Philip,” was transformed in 1500 into a magnificent Renaissance church, which is the present one called Chiesa degli Santi Apostoli.

When did research begin on St. Philip’s tomb in Hierapolis?
In 1957, thanks to professor Paolo Verzone, who taught engineering at Turin’s Polytechnic and was very passionate about archaeological research. An agreement was stipulated between the Italian and Turkish Republics, which enabled our team of archaeologists to carry out searches in Hierapolis.

Professor Verzone was the first director of that mission. He began immediately, of course, to look for the Apostle Philip’s tomb. He concentrated the excavations on a monument that was already visible in part and known as the church of St. Philip, and he discovered an extraordinary octagonal church, a genuine masterpiece of Byzantine architecture of the fifth century, with wonderful arches in travertine stone.

All this complex of constructions made with so much care and detail made one think that it was a great church of pilgrimage, a very important shrine, and Professor Verzone identified it as the Martyrion, namely the martyrial church of St. Philip. And therefore he thought that it was built on the saint’s tomb. Hence he had several excavations carried out in the area of the main altar, but he never found anything that made one think of a tomb.

I myself thought the tomb was in the area of the church, but in 2000, when I became director of the Italian archaeological mission of Hierapolis, by concession of the Ministry of Culture of Turkey, I changed my opinion.

Why?
All the excavations carried out over so many years had no result. I also carried out research through geo-physical explorations, that is, special explorations of the subsoil, and not obtaining anything, I was convinced we had to look elsewhere, still in the same area but in another direction.

And towards what did you direct your research?
My collaborators and I studied a series of satellite photos of the area carefully, and the observations of a group of brave topographers of the CNR-IBAM, directed by Giuseppe Scardozzi, and we understood that the Martyrion, the octagonal church, was the center of a large and well-developed devotional complex.

We identified a great processional street that took the pilgrims of the city to the octagonal church, the Martyrion at the top of the hill, the remains of a bridge that enabled pilgrims to go across a valley through which a torrent flowed; we saw that at the foot of the hill there were stairs in travertine stone, with wide ascending steps that led to the summit.

At the bottom of the stairs we identified another octagonal building that could not be seen from the surface but only on satellite photos. We excavated around that building and realized it was a thermal complex.

This was an enlightening discovery that made us understand that the whole hill was part of a course of pilgrimage with several stages. Continuing our excavations, we found another flight of steps that led directly to the Martyrion, and on the Square, next to the Martyrion, there was a fountain where pilgrims did their ablutions with water, and near there, a small plain, in front of the Martyrion, where there were vestiges of buildings.

Professor Verzone had not dared to carry out an excavation in that area because it was an immense heap of stones. In 2010, we began to do some cleaning and elements of extreme importance came to light.

Of what sort?
A marble architrave of a ciborium with a monogram on which the name Theodosius could be read. I thought it was the name of the emperor, and so that architrave made it possible to date the martyrial church between the fourth and fifth centuries.

Then, little by little we found vestiges of an apse. Excavating and cleaning the floor, a great church came to light. Whereas the floor of the Martyrion was octagonal, this floor was that of a basilica, with three naves. A stupendous church with marble capitals refined decorations, crosses, friezes, plant branches, stylized palms in the niches and a central pavement with marble tesserae with colored geometrical motifs: all referable to the fifth century, namely, the age of the other church, the Martyrion. However, at the center of this wonderful construction what enthused and moved us was something disconcerting that left us breathless.


Two views of Philip's tomb.

And it was?
A typical Roman tomb that went back to the first century after Christ. In a certain sense, its presence could be justified by the fact that in that area, before Christians built the proto-Byzantine shrine, there was a Roman necropolis. However, examining its position carefully, we realized that that Roman tomb was at the center of the church.

Hence, in the fifth century the church had been built precisely around that pagan Roman tomb, to protect it, because, evidently, that tomb was extremely important. And immediately we thought that perhaps that could be the tomb where the body of St. Philip was placed after his death.

And did you find confirmations of this supposition?
Indeed. In the summer of 2011, we carried out extensive excavation in the area of this church with the coordination of Piera Caggia, research archaeologist of the IBAM-CNR, and extraordinary elements emerged that confirmed are suppositions fully.

The tomb was included in a structure in which there is a platform that is reached by a marble staircase. Pilgrims, entering in the narthex, went up to the higher part of the tomb, where there was a place for prayer and they went down on the opposite side.

And we saw that the marble surface of the steps was completely worn out by the steps of thousands upon thousands of people. Hence, the tomb received an extraordinary tribute of veneration.

On the façade of the tomb, near the entrance, there are nail holes which undoubtedly served to support an applied metallic locking device. Moreover, there are grooves in the pavement that make one think of an additional wooden door: all precautions that indicate that in that tomb there was an inestimable treasure, namely, the apostle’s body.

And on the façade, on the walls there are numerous graffiti with crosses, which in some way consecrated the pagan tomb.

Excavating next to the tomb we found water baths for individual immersions, which undoubtedly served for healings. After venerating the tomb, sick pilgrims were submerged in the baths exactly as happens in Lourdes.

However, the main -- I would say mathematical -- confirmation which attests, without a shadow of a doubt, that that construction is really St. Philip’s tomb comes from a small object that is in the Museum of Richmond in the United States. An object in which there are images that up to now could not be fully deciphered, whereas now they have an obvious significance.

What object is it?
It is a bronze seal about 10 centimeters (four inches) in diameter, which served to authenticate St. Philip’s bread to be distributed to pilgrims. Icons have been found that represent St. Philip with a large loaf in his hand. And, to be distinguished from ordinary bread, this bread was marked with the seal so that pilgrims would know that it was a special bread, to be kept with devotion.


Right, the 'bread seal'.

There are images on the seal. There is the figure of a saint with a pilgrims’ cloak and an inscription that says “Saint Philip.” On the border is a phrase in Greek, an ancient phrase of praise to God: "Agios o Theos, agios ischyros, agios athanatos, eleison imas" (Holy God, strong Holy One, immortal Holy One, have mercy on us).

All the specialists of Byzantine history who know that seal have always said that it came from Hierapolis. However, what is most extraordinary is the fact that the figure of the saint is presented between two buildings: the one on the left is covered by a cupola, and it is understood that it represents the octagonal Martyrion; the one on the right of the saint, has a roof like the one of the church of three naves which we have now discovered.

The two buildings are at the top of a stairway. It seems that it was an image of the complex then existing around St. Philip’s tomb. A 'photograph' made in the sixth century. Moreover, in the image of the seal there is an emblematic element: a lamp hanging at the entrance, typical signs that served to indicate a saint’s sepulcher. Hence, already indicated in that seal is that the tomb was in the basilica church and not in the Martyrion.

You have made all these discoveries in recent times.
I would say very recent times. We did so between 2010 and 2011. Above all 2011 was the year of the greatest emotions for us: we discovered the second church and Philip’s tomb. We concluded a work begun 55 years ago. The news has gone around the world. And it has attracted scholars and the curious to Hierapolis. Among others, at the end of last August, hundreds of Chinese arrived, as well as numerous Koreans and journalists of several nationalities.

Last Nov. 24, I had the honor of presenting the discovery, at the Pontifical Archaeological Academy of Rome, to scholars and Vatican representatives. Also, Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, primate of the Orthodox Church, wished to receive me to know the details of the discovery, and on Nov. 14, feast of St. Philip in the Orthodox Church, he celebrated Mass precisely on the tomb found in Hierapolis. And I was present, when after almost 2,000 years, the chants of the Greek liturgy resounded among the ruins of the church.

In the forthcoming months, we will take up the works again and I am certain that other important surprises await us.

The Pope to Catholic University:
Science and faith applied
to the task of the university

May 3, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI called on faculty and staff at Rome’s Catholic Scared Heart University to restore the "wings" of science and faith to research and healthcare Thursday, as he marked the 50th anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine at what is more popularly known by Romans as the “Gemelli” after its founder, Fr. Agostino Gemelli and its well-known teaching hospital.



The midmorning appointment outside a newly erected University Centre for Life, gave Pope Benedict the opportunity to return to one of the central themes of his seven-year pontificate: the affinity between science and faith.

The Holy Father told the authorities, professors, healthcare professionals and students gathered before him that they have a mission to help modern society move beyond the reductionist view of science and medicine, which excludes God and the transcendent, and which has generated a dangerous imbalance between “what is technically possible and what is morally good” with “unpredictable consequences”.

Pope Benedict then developed his address around what is perhaps the most worrying of these consequences: the loss of the meaning of things. This he said is a result of a progressive “weakening of thought and ethical impoverishment”.

To reverse this trend the Pope said “we must rediscover the wellspring that scientific research shares with the search for faith” upon which European culture and its value system were built, but now seems forgotten - the wellspring of creative Reason.

He said: “Science and faith have a fruitful reciprocity, an almost complementary requirement of intelligence of what is real. But, paradoxically, it is the positivist culture, in its exclusion of the question about God from the scientific debate, that is determining the decline of thought and the weakening of the capacity of intelligence for what is real”.

Pope Benedict continued “it is the love of God, which shines in Christ, that renders the eyes of research sharp and piercing and help grasp that which no study is capable of grasping”, the “face of Christ in the suffering”. Father Gemelli he said “brought the human person in his fragility and greatness back to the centre of attention” no less aware of the limits and the mystery of life

And he concluded, “Without love, even science loses its nobility. Only love guarantees the humanity of research”.



Addendum translated from


Welcoming the Holy Father upon his arrival cardinal at the Gemelli Hospital (Policlinico Gemelli) were Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Pope's Vicar-General for the Diocese of Rome, and Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan and president of the Toniolo Institute for Higher Studies, which is the governing body of Sacro Cuore and its various affiliates.

Also there were Mons. Lorenzo Leuzzi, Auxiliary Bishop of Rome and its representative for pastoral care to health workers; Mons. Sergio Lanza, assistant ecclesiastic-general for the university; Hon. Lorenzo Ornaghi, Italian minister for Culture; Prof. Franco Anelli, pro-rector of the University; Dott. Giancarlo Furnari, director of the Rome campus; Prof. Marco Elefanti, administrative director, Dott. Maurizio Guizzardi, director of the Gemelli Hospital, and Prof. Rcoo Bellantone, chairman of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.

The Pope met the university community in the square fronting the Auditorium of the Faculty of Medicine, with the presence of professors, doctors, personnel and students of the University and the teaching hospital.

Authorities present included the president of the Otalian House of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, Health Minister Renato Balduzzi, Piero Garda, Minister for Parliamentary Relations, Lazio Regional President Renata Polverini; Nicola Zingaretti, president of the Pronice of Rome; and Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno.

After greetings by Cardinal Scola and by Pro-Rector Anelli, the Holy Father delivered the following address, presented here in translation:

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Dear Cardinals,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Honorable President of the Chamber of Deputies and Honorable Ministers,
Distinguished Pro-Rector, authorities, professors, doctors,
health and university personnel,
Dear students and patients:

I take a special joy in meeting you today to celebrate 50 years since the establishment of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery serving the Agostino Gemelli Hospital. I thank the President of the Toniolo Institute, Cardinal Angelo Scola, and the pro-Rector, Prof. Franco Anelli, for their kind words.

I greet the President of the Chamber of Deputies, the Hon. Gianfranco Fini, Ministers Lorenzo Ornaghi and Renato Balduzzi, the numerous authorities as well as the professors, doctors, personnel and students of the Policlinico and the Catholic University. And a special thought for you, dear patients.

On this occasion I would like to offer some reflections. Ours is a time when the experimental sciences have transformed the world view and understanding of man. The many discoveries and innovative technologies that are developing at a rapid pace, are reason for pride, but often are not without troubling implications.

In fact, behind the widespread optimism of scientific knowledge, the shadow of a crisis of thought is spreading. Rich in means, but not in aims, mankind in our time is often influenced by reductionism and relativism which lead to a loss of the meaning of things. As if dazzled by technical efficacy, man forgets the essential horizon to the question of meaning, thus relegating the transcendent dimension to insignificance.

In this context, thought becomes weak and an ethical impoverishment gains ground, which clouds legal references of value. The once fruitful root of European culture and progress seems forgotten. That culture included the search for the absolute - the quaerere Deum - the need to deepen the secular sciences, the entire world of knowledge (cf. Address to the Collège des Bernardins in Paris, September 12, 2008).

Scientific research and the search for meaning, in fact, even in their specific epistemological and methodological physiognomy, spring from a single source, that Logos that presides over the work of creation and guides the mind of history. A fundamentally techno-practical mentality generates a risky imbalance between what is technically possible and what is morally good, with unpredictable consequences.

It Is important then that the culture rediscover the vigour and dynamism of the meaning of transcendence - in a word, it must open up to the horizon of quaerere Deum. One is reminded of Augustine's famous phrase "You created us for you [Lord], and our heart is restless until it rests in you" (Confessions, I, 1).

One can say that the same impulse to scientific research stems from the nostalgia for God which lives in the human heart: after all, men of science tend, unconsciously, to reach for truth which can give meaning to life.

But however passionate and tenacious human seeking is, it is not capable of finding a safe harbour by its own means, because "man is not able to fully elucidate the strange shadow that hangs over the question of eternal realities ... God must take the initiative to encounter man and speak to him" (J. Ratzinger, (Saint) Benedict's Europe in the Crisis of Cultures, Ignatius Press).

To restore to reason its native integral dimension, it is therefore necessary to rediscover the wellspring that scientific research shares with the search for faith - fides quarens intellectum , in St. Anselm's intuition.

Science and faith have a fruitful reciprocity, almost a complementary exigency for intelligence about the real. But paradoxically, it is positivist culture itself, which excludes the question of God from scientific debate, that has brought about the decline of thought and the weakened capacity for knowledge of the real.

But man's quarere Deum would be lost in a maze of paths if it does not find a way of illumination and sure orientation, which is that of God himself who makes himself close to man with immense love: "in Jesus Christ, God not only speaks to man but seeks him out...It is a search that comes from God's intimate self and has its culminating point in the Incarnation of the Word" ](Giovanni Paolo II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 7).

A religion of Logos, Christianity does not relegate faith to the sphere of the irrational, but attributes the origin and sense of reality to Creative Reason, which is manifested as love in the God who is crucified, and which invites us to follow the road of quaerere Deum: "I am the way, the truth and the life".

St. Thomas Aquinas comments: "The point of arrival of this way is in fact the goal itself of human desire. Man desires two things principally: in the first place, that knowledge of truth which is part of his nature. In the second place, the (desire for) permanence of being, a property that is common to all things. In Christ, one and the other are found...So if you are seeking where you should pass through, welcome Christ because he is the way" (Expositions on John, Chap. 14, Lesson 2),.

The Gospel of life thus illuminates the arduous journey of man, and in the face of the temptation to absolute autonomy, it reminds us that "the life of man comes from God, it is his gift, his image and impression, participation in his vital breath (Giovanni Paolo II, Evangelium vitae, 39).

It is precisely through following the path of faith that man is made able to glimpse into the very realities of suffering and death, which traverse his existence, sd erll sd an authentic possibility of goodness and life. One recognizes the Tree of life in the Cross of Christ, revelation of God's passionate love for man.

Caring for those who suffer is thus a daily encounter with the face of Christ, and the dedication of mind and heart to such caring becomes a sign of God's mercy and his victory over death.

When lived in all its integrity, seeking is illuminated by science and faith, and derives its impulse and thrust from these two 'wings', without ever losing humility, a sense of one's own limitations.

In this way, searching for God becomes fruitful for the intelligence, a ferment for culture, a promoter of true humanism, a search that does not stop at the merely superficial.

Dear friends, let yourselves be guided always by the wisdom that comes fromm on high, by a knowledge illuminated by faith, remembering that wisdom demands the passion and effort of research.

This is the context in which we see the irreplaceable task of the Catholic University - a place where the educational relationship is placed at the service of the person in the construction of qualified scientific competence, rooted in a patrimony of knowledge that generations have distilled into wisdom of life; a place in which the relationship of care is not an occupation but a mission - where the Good Samaritan occupies the first cathedra and the face of suffering man is the Face of Christ himself: "You have done it to me" (Mt 25,40).

The Catholic University of Sacro Cuore, in its daily work of research, teaching and study, lives in this traditio which expresses its own potential for innovation: No progress, much less on the cultural level, can be nourished by mere repetition, but always demands a new beginning.

It also requires a readiness for confrontation and dialog which opens the intelligence and bears witness to the rich fecundity of the patrimony of the faith. In this way, it gives form to a solid personality structure, where Christian identity penetrates daily living and is expressed in excellent professionalism.

The Catholic University, which has a special relationship with the See of Peter, is called today to be an exemplary institution which does not restrict learning to the functionality of economic ends, but extends the breadth of its projections so that the gift of intelligence investigates and develops the gifts of the created world, transcending a merely productivist and utilitarian view of existence - because the human being is made for giving, which expresses and realizes the dimension of transcendence (Caritas in veritate, 34).

It is precisely this conjugation of scientific research and unconditional service to life that delineates the Catholic physiognomy of the Agostino Gemelli Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, because the perspective of faith is interior - not superimposed nor juxtaposed - to the acute and tenacious search for knowledge.

A Catholic faculty of medicine is a place where transcendent humanism is not a rhetorical slogan, but a rule lived in daily dedication. When he dreamt of an authentically Catholic faculty of medicine and surgery, Fr. Gemelli - and with him so many others, like Prof. Brasca - brought the human being, in his frailty and greatness, to the center of attention, with the ever new resources of passionate research and in the awareness of the limits and the mystery of life.

That is why you have instituted a new center, a University for Life, which supports other already existing entities like, for instance, the Paul VI International Scientific Institute, and thus, encourages attention to life in all its phases.

I wish to address, in a special way, all the patients who are now at the Gemelli, to assure them of my prayers and my affection, and to tell them that here, they are always followed with love, because the suffering Christ is reflected in their faces.

It is precisely the love of God, which shines forth in Christ, that makes research acute and penetrating, and enables us to grasp that which no study is able to grasp. Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo was well aware of this, in affirming that it is in the nature of man to read the image of God-Love in others, and his imprint in Creation.

Without love, even science loses its nobility. Only love guarantees the humanity of research. Thank you for your attention.

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/05/2012 22:11]