BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Thursday, Sept. 6, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

BLESSED CLAUDIO GRANZOTTO (Italy, 1900-1947), Franciscan priest, Sculptor
Born to a peasant family near Venice, Claudio was the youngest of nine children and grew up
doing hard work in the fields. At age 15, he was drafted into the Italian army, where he served
more than three years. His artistic abilities, especially in sculpture, led to studies at
Venice’s Academy of Fine Arts, which awarded him a diploma with the highest marks in 1929.
Even then he was especially interested in religious art. When Claudio entered the Friars Minor
four years later, his parish priest wrote, "The Order is receiving not only an artist but a saint."
Prayer, charity to the poor and artistic work characterized his life, cut short by a brain tumor.
He died on the feast of the Assumption and was beatified in 1994.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090612.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

At the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo, the Holy Father met with

- H.E. Madame Irena Vaišvilaitė, Ambassador from Lithuania to the Holy See, who presented her credentials

- Cardinal Godfried Danneels, emeritus Archbishop of Mechlin-Brussels (Belgium)

- 12 bishops of Colombia (Group 2) on ad-limina visit.




There's a 10-second video, slowed down to prolong the image, now on YouTube (and preceding some images of Cardinal Martini's final resting place
i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt96/MARITER_7/2012-1/120901.jpg
showing the last meeting between Benedict XVI and the Cardinal in the Archbishop's residence in Milan last June 2.

I must admit that when I first saw the video yesterday on an Italian TV news service, I questioned that it could have been that meeting because 1) the cardinal looks very much like he did back when he visited at the Vatican in May 2005, and certainly nothing like the gaunt pictures of him taken in 2011-2012, and 2) he was standing, and not in a wheelchair.

But it was taken last June, and in an article in today's Avvenire, which I will post when translated, Marina Corradi says it was a cellphone recording, which will explain why the clip made public wouldn't have shown the cardinal in his wheelchair or any other circumstance that would have been an unwarranted public look at his illness.

I feel even more foolish - and guilty of monumental inattention - because the front-page photograph used by the OR on Sept. 2 to illustrate its coverage of the cardinal's death seems to have been lifted from that video, when all along I thought it was an older file photo, because never having enlarged the small screen image of the OR from which I copied the photo from, I failed to read the caption that clearly said, "The last meeting between Benedict XVI and Cardinal Martini which took place last June 2 in Milan."

Before anything else, a follower of Lella's blog has said that the videoclip now on YouTube was originally from the Vatican's own CTV, not from the cellphone video of an onlooker at the June 2 meeting between the Pope and Cardinal Martini.

Images of two men from a 10-second video -
and what they tell us more than words
by Marina Corradi
Translated from

Sept. 6, 2012




It's a video taken by a cellphone and lasts for only a few seconds. It was June, when Benedict XVI went to Milan [for the World Meeting of Families] and far from the cameras, had what was to be his last meeting with Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. [If the video was indeed taken by CTV, it must be pointed out that the Vatican's own media do photograph and record any significant event with the Pope, including private meetings, not necessarily for public consumption but for the historical record and for the Vatican's own archives, and they are scrupulous about respecting personal privacy.]

The video has been picked up by the TV newscasts and is now on YouTube. It is worth the trouble to take a look.

The meeting took place on June 2 in a reception room of the Archbishop's Residence in Milan. As the video clip begins, the cardinal is standing between two aides, and one can imagine the effort it must have cost him to do that [since he had been using a wheelchair for over two years now, but for an 85-year-old in the advanced stage of Parkinson's, he looks amazingly normal].

The Pope comes into the room, and Martini extends out his right hand to greet him. The Pope moves towards him eagerly, as one would to a friend one has not seen for some time. But instead of simply shaking the cardinal's hand, the Pope lifts his right hand to his shoulder [as Martini lifts his left hand to grasp the Pope's arm], and to bring him closer.

Martini's elegant face - already showing the signs of his illness and not as we remember him [I disagree - maybe my eyesight is poor, but he looks amazingly well!] - bends forward [towards the Pope's left}. Here we do not see whether he kissed him on the cheek and/or murmured something into his hear.

What is beautiful to watch is the silent images of their hands. Benedict's right hand which grasps the cardinal's shoulder and draws him close affectionately.

The cardinal had begun by holding out his right hand for a ritual handshake. But as they come close together, his left hand does not just rest on the Pope's right arm - his long fingers appear to press hard on the arm.

The cameraman had the good sense to zoom in to that hand - showing how in a second, a 'formal' gesture has turned into something authentic and almost dramatic.

It was perhaps the gesture of a man who knows he is in a terminal stage of illness, holding on to a dear friend as if to say, "Stay with me".

I have watched the clip over and over, even slowing it down further, and I find in those few seconds, something that contradicts what the newspapers have been saying since the cardinal died: Martini the rival, Martini the anti-Pope, Martini the symbol of a 'modern and good' Church against the obscurantist Church led by the Pope.

Of course, they have had disagreements over the years, different views, even tensions. [It must be pointed out that these were never directly with each other, but through the media's presentation and interpretation of these differences. But the differences have been real and concrete, and have affected the Church negatively because it showed a ranking cardinal openly questioning the Magisterium of two Popes. Martini himself explained it by saying he thought it was his role to be the 'ante-Pope', someone who could point the way to the actual Pope - whether it was John Paul II or Benedict XVI - on how he thought the Church should be run, or what its position should be on certain contemporary social issues.]

But look at these two men, born in the same year 1927 (Martini in February, the Pope in April), at what would be their last meeting. Perhaps Martini was not expecting the Pope's spontaneous approach. But it was as if in that instant, many things were said and fulfilled.

Benedict's embrace appeared to have generated a change in the other - at first, the right hand held out for a handshake, and then, the left hand holds on to the Pope, almost like a shipwrecked person holds on to a rock. [That's rather melodramatic. Perhaps the strong contraction of Martini's hand was a natural manifestation of his illness which directly affects the muscles that control movement!]

It is singular that the few seconds of a videoclip can show a different story about the relationship between the Pope and the emeritus Archbishop of Milan. Because even if there was a true division between the two, the language of their gestures seems to show a rapprochement far greater than their 'division'.

There is a benevolence and magnanimity which the newspapers are incapable of even imagining [much less, recounting].

What is behind such an embrace, of two octogenarians who find themselves facing each other, knowing full well the passions [and virtues!] and the limitations of the other? Surely it is not just some vague generosity or a 'feel-good' sentiment that closes its eyes to misunderstandings. There is something more in that embrace - there is reciprocal acknowledgment of being with a fellow witness to Christ, brothers to each other, seekers after the same treasure. Christ is in that embrace.

And this is the Church - beyond all the sins her members commit: men of God bringing Christ among their fellowmen, earthen vessels like themselves, but somehow mysteriously filled with gold.

This - with all the sins of her members - is the Church, whose essence has escaped the most avid critics of Vatileaks. There is something else in the Church that is not measurable by the terms in which the media judge political parties, ideologies or multinationals.

Look at the two men and how Martini seems to be anchoring himself on Benedict. [Again, the symbolism is beautiful but it could also be nothing more than a weaker man - and an ailing one who has not been unassisted for several years - holding on to a healthier and stronger person, even if they are of the same age.]

Someone other is behind them as witness and guarantor of a love that is humanly incomprehensible, that lasts for always, that does not betray, that obstinaytely forgives.


Video-caps from a brief clip showing Cardinal Martini leaving the Archbishop's Residence in Milan last June 2.


I can understand the tendency to be sappy - even if reverential - on an occasion like the death of a major figure in contemporary Church history, and I do not question that Ms. Corradi's sentiments are genuine. But perhaps commentaries like these might not have been necessary at all if media had not depicted the Ratzinger-Martini comparison exclusively as a personal rivalry between two distinctly different personalities, rather than as a conflict between their ideological views about the Church. Among men of God like they are, I doubt that their conflicting views affected the way they considered each other - brothers as bishops and brothers as Christians.

Which makes me wonder all the more why the cardinal decided to be so unilaterally negative about the Church in his last interview, even suggesting that repentance should begin with the Pope himself. (I am sure the Pope's confessor is only too aware of the sins of which Benedict XVI accuses himself when he comes to confession.)But that bit about the Pope himself needing to repent is personal and rather presumptuous = even apart from the fact that the cardinal chose to say nothing about everything Benedict XVI has been trying to do to bring the Church back to the essentials, but before that can be effectively done, to effect a genuine conversion of hearts. Not even the most self-righteous person on earth could possible accuse Benedict XVI of failing his pastoral ministry in that respect! And

P.S. I deliberately did not comment on the turnout for Cardinal Martini during his lying in state and on the day of his funeral, but I am now forced to do so, before I had thought it proper. Because the editor of the Dehonian publication Il Regno has affirmed to Vatican Radio that Cardinal Martini should be considered a Father of the Church like Saints Ambrose and Saint Anselm were, and that there was popular support for this. judging by the 'river of humanity that came to pay their last respects' when the funeral lay in state in the Milan Cathedral.

First, on the Father of the Church designation - it is nothing formal like Doctor of the Church, but a designation conferred by Tradition on leaders and thinkers of the early and medieval Church, centuries after they lived and died. The last to be considered such a Father of the Church was Bernard of Clairvaux, who died in 1153, and before him, John of Damascus in the 9th century.

The Church Fathers were influential theologians, some of them eminent Christian teachers and great bishops, whose scholarly works were used as Church precedent and reference for centuries to come. They are not all saints, and some of them were not even priests. At the same time, a number of them are Doctors of the Church.

So perhaps, even by chronology alone, Cardinal Martini would not qualify. For instance, Thomas Aquinas, born in 1225, and therefore less than a century since the death of Bernard of Clairvaux, and considered by many to have been the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher, is not considered a Father of the Church. I have not found an explanation of why not. But if Aquinas is not considered a Father of the Church, surely the Dehonian priest (Fr. Lucio Brunelli) is not suggesting Martini is more deserving.

In any case, the hagiographical enthusiasm of Cardinal Martini's ardent admirers continues to know no limits, to the point that the editor of the Jesuits; influential Roman journal, La Civilta Cattolica, said today that making Martini 'an idol' was a way to 'silence his voice'. Strange observation, considering that the cardinal's voice was mostly suppressed already, if not silenced, by his adulators in the media during all his three decades of prominence, when they chose to publicize only his statements contradicting the 'official' Church and ignoring the rest of what he believed.

Now, to my quibble about the 'river of humanity'. The Italian media estimated that about 150,000 paid their last respects to the cardinal while he lay in state at the Cathedral of Milan on Saturday and Sunday. The Archdiocese of Milan said 200,000, and that at the funeral Mass itself, 6,000 were crowded into the Cathedral, and another 15,000 were in Cathedral Square.

Frankly, I had expected much more, since the Catholic population of the Archdiocese comes to 4.8 million. I thought perhaps many of the faithful considered him to be 'far back' enough in time as not to be an immediate priority for them at this time. But it has only been ten years since he retired as their Archbishop, after which he made headlines now and then everytime he said something that contradicted the official position of the Church. So they cannot have forgotten him so fast - after all he was their bishop of 22 years.

My conclusion is that perhaps the media gave a false picture of his popularity (whether it was himself as a person or his views, or both) all this time, and that his reach (or hold) on the general faithful was more wishful [and now being mythified) on the part of the media rather than real. He reached the media which shapes public opinion, and they did their best to promote his views, but did he really connect to the faithful? With his controversial views, he was preaching to the choir, after all, but how many more gave up their orthodox views to embrace his?

Of course, popular turnout for the funeral can only be an indirect and partial measure to gauge the effect Cardinal Martini had on his diocesan faithful.

But this is a metric that the media ignores as irrelevant - or inflates in generalities - because they prefer to impose their own measurements on someone they groomed to fight their battles for them against the Church, in the way cockfighters groom their birds - for the sport and not out of love.

9/9/12
P.S. For the record, here is my translation of the Magister piece, which was not really a commentary, as he chose to let others do the talking...

After Martini, fighting over
his spiritual testament
His last interview, published posthumously, has kindled the controversy.
However, the Church hierarchy has let it pass in silence, with the lone exception
of Cardinal Camillo Ruini. One more reason to analyze it critically.



ROME, Sept. 6, 2012 - "Cardinal Martini has not left us a spiritual testament, in the explicit sense of the word. His legacy is all in his life and his teaching, from which we must continue to draw at length. But he did choose the words for his tombstone, taken from Psalm 119(118): 'Your word is a lamp for my steps, light on my journey'. In this way, he himself has given us the key to interpret his existence and his ministry".

With these words pronounced on September 3 in his homily at the funeral for his predecessor, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, rejected the label 'spiritual testament' for the interview with Martini that was published in Corriere della Sera the day after he died.

Indeed, if this interview had truly been the quintessence of Martini's legacy to the Church and to the world - as the interviewers themselves would have us believe - then the figure of the late cardinal would truly correspond to the label of 'anti-Pope' which has been applied to him for years by some circles within the Church and outside it, but which runs against the elevated expressions of esteem expressed many times for him by Benedict XVI himself, most recently in his unusual message to the Archdiocese of Milan at the funeral Mass for the cardinal who was its Archbishop from 1980 to 2002. [As Joseph Ratzinger has never been known to badmouth any individual - let alone a cardinal -before and after he became Pope, he only did what comes naturally to him, noblesse oblige and as a good Christian: To pick out the good points he can praise in public, and which he can say without hypocrisy, while he goes on to fight the worst of the negatives through his leadership of the Church and by his personal example. ]

Those responsible for the interview, done on August 8, three weeks before the cardinal died, were the Austrian Jesuit, Georg Sporschill, and an Italian who lives in Vienna, Federica Radice Fossati Confalonieri.

Fr. Sporschill is the same one who in 2008 was co-author (as interviewer) of Martini's most successful book, Conversazioni notturne a Gerusalemme (Nocturna conversations in Jerusalem).

If one adds to that book the other interview books published by Martini in recent years, which were 'written' with 'borderline' Catholics like the late Don Luigi Verze and physician-politician Ignazio Marino - rife with ambiguous or heterodox ideas on the beginning and end of life, on matrimony and on sexuality - the divergence between the cardinal and the last two Popes appeasr even more marked.

Among the ranking Church personalities who expressed himself in recent days about Cardinal Martini, only Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI) from 1991 to 2007, has not passed over this divergence.

In an interview with Marina Corradi in Avvenire on Sept. 1, Ruini responded to the observation that on topics like artificial fertilization and homosexual unions, "Martini seemed more open to the arguments of a certain secular culture" and "has publicly expressed positions that are clearly far from those of the CEI":

"I will not deny that - as I will not hide that I remain firmly convinced of the validity of the CEI's positions, which are also those of the Papal Magisterium and which have profound anthropological roots".

In a subsequent interview with Corriere della Sera published on Sept. 5, he commented on Martini's statement in the last interview, that "The Church is 200 years behind the times".

"In my opinion, one must distinguish two forms of distance from the Church in our time. One is a true lag, due to the limitations and sins of men of the Church, especially the inability to see the opportunities that have opened up today for the Gospel. The other distance is very different. It is a distance from Jesus Christ and his Gospel, and consequently, from the Church in whatever time, including ours and the time when Jesus lived.

"This distance calls for conversion not only of persons but of culture and of history. In this sense, the Church is not behind, but is way ahead, because the key to a good future is in conversion". [One of my good intentions to translate was that interview with Ruini, on the day that his new book Intervista su Dio (Interview about God), was published, for the very premise of his book! And not just because after Joseph Ratzinger, he is perhaps the theologian I most admire in the Church hierarchy, and my favorite cardinal as an outstanding example of the pastor-teacher-governor tria munera, as well as of concrete political pragmatism and indubitable spirituality. Imagine how efficient the Secretariat of State would have been if he had been Benedict XVI's Secretary of State! But he was CEI President at the time and the Pope's Vicar for Rome, not to mention that he was on the eve of turning 80 and mandatory canonical retirement,.]

But besides Ruini, no other important personality in the Church has even referred after his death to the controversial elements of Martini's figure. [Obviously, everyone is going by the axiom, 'Say nothing but good of the dead'. And what would it serve them to spike the controversy, anyway? Ruini did not volunteer his comments - he was asked directly, and I think he managed diplomatic but not dishonest answers both times.]


Recollections have been limited exclusively and generically to Martini's merits as Biblical scholar and pastor, to his School of Words, to his promotion of charities, to his dialog with non-believers, and to his empathetic closeness to various existential situations.

In other words, the tributes from the Church hierarchy have been for Martini the archbishop, not Martini as an opinion leader exalted by the media for many years and by Catholic advocates of a fantasy Third Vatican Council and a democratized Church.

And so one has witnessed in recent days a deluge of highly selective commemoration. With near-universal silence on the problematic aspects of his personality and his public pronouncements in recent years. [But the adulatory media have been doing all of that - because what orthodox Catholics would see as problematic about Martini is precisely what they praise him for -what they had been praising Hans Kueng and his ilk for decades, on the principle that the best way to attack and weaken the Church is to use her own most prominent internal critics as media's guided missiles.]

This did not prevent the interview from being presented nonetheless as the cardinal's 'spiritual testament' - "read and approved by him", say the interviewers - read and hailed around the world by enemies of the Church, and consolidating that image of an alternative prophet that the Church hierarchy wishes to exorcise.

One more reason to re-read and critically analyze this posthumous interview, as does Prof. Pietro De Marco, professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy.

If you did not already read it, the English translation of De Marco's article can be found on
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350318?eng=y


How pathetic it is that such a paltry negative document - one that has not a single positive element in it about the Church - would be considered Martini's 'spiritual testament"! His adulators are so delirious about having all that negativity to hit the Church with that they don't even seem to realize this tragic paradox. But the cardinal was obviously so convinced of his righteousness that he wanted this to be his last words to the world. Rest assured, Your Eminence! - Benedict XVI, and all those who serve Christ and the Church faithfully as he does, are doing all they can to keep the Church 'young and alive' as this Pope himself declared ringingly in the homily on his inaugural Mass. And that this Pope will continue to fight the dictatorship of relativism which you appeared subject to in your lifetime.

Pope to new Lithuanian envoy:
Concern that freedom of faith has been
reduced to mere freedom of worship

September 6, 2012



"The conversation with the Holy Father was, I would say, intellectually very intense" says the new Ambassador to the Holy See from Lithuania, Madame Irena Vaišhvilaité, following her audience with Pope Benedict in Castel Gandolfo on Thursday.

A former chief advisor to the Lithuanian President and vice-chancellor of the European University of Humanities, Ambassador Vaišhvilaité is also a past colleague having worked at the Vatican Radio between 1991 and 1998.

The Ambassador holds a degree in Art History from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and a doctorate in Church History from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Speaking to us following the meeting, she described her audience with the Pope as very “exciting and welcoming”:

“The Holy Father received me with great warmth. I brought him greetings from the President who has fond memories of his visit here two years ago. The Holy Father thanked me for the greetings, then, we spoke of the invitation to the Pope to travel to Lithuania”.

Ambassador Vaišhvilaité continued :“The conversation with the Holy Father was, I would say, intellectually very intense. The Holy Father was well informed about Lithuania and the political situation. But he tackled a few issues such as the development of post-communist societies and the transition in these decades, the generations that reached their maturity under oppression, under a totalitarian state, and generations that already were formed under freedom. And that brings very different attitudes towards freedom, liberties, rights and religion, the role of religion in society. What worries the Holy Father is the narrowing of the freedom of faith to mere freedom of worship."

Pope Benedict gets a new electric car to use
within the Vatican and in Castel Gandolfo



The Pope with Renault chairman Carlos Ghosn; and the new car.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Sept. 6 (AFP) - French automaker Renault has given Pope Benedict XVI an electric car to whizz around in within the grounds of the Vatican and his summer home of Castel Gandolfo, the Holy See said Thursday.

The new white Pope-carrier, a Kangoo Maxi Z.E. model bearing the pontifical crest of arms on its side, may also be used to shuttle the Pope between churches outside the Vatican, spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

Benedict, who is a vocal defender of the environment, backed the project, set up two years ago to "promote a form of clean energy," Lombardi said.

A second car, which is blue, will be used by the Vatican's police force.

The vehicles were presented to the Pope on Wednesday at Castel Gandolfo by Renault chairman Carlos Ghosn, before being unveiled to the press on Thursday.

When asked whether the automaker is considering producing an electric pope-mobile to be used during the Pontiff's trips abroad or for long distances, Renault's head in Italy, Jacques Bousquet, said it would present a security risk.

"There's a problem in terms of power and security, because a completely electric car would not have sufficient acceleration power in the case of a security problem" such as an attempted attack on the Pope, he said.

The new cars, which are 100-percent electric, are silent and emit no pollutants whatsoever, Renault said in a statement.



Additional info from


The police car is blue with a yellow and white stripe down the side. The Kangoo has 60 horsepower, and a range of just over 100 miles.

While the regular Kangoo is equipped with a spacious rear bench, the Pope's cars use two individual rear seats, suitable for the Pope and his aide. It also features an opening roof, and a retractable side-step to ease boarding and alighting.

The cars, built in conjunction with French coachbuilder Gruau, were handed over to his Holiness by Renault Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Though not intended to replace the famous "Popemobiles" - electric cars are deemed "too slow", given the huge amount of armor normally applied to his cars - the cars should help reduce the Vatican's energy needs just a little further. [That's stupid. It's not the saving here which matters - it's publicizing the whole idea of clean energy whenever you can get it.]

True religion and
the Law of God
by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

Septembeer 6, 2012

---

“The law of God is his Word that guides man along the path of his life. It causes him to go out of his egoism and conducts him to the land of his true liberty and life.”
— Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus, September 2, 2012.

---

During this past summer, the Holy Father has limited himself to brief audiences and statements. By all accounts his health has not been too good. [??? What could have given Fr. Schall the idea??? Nothing has been said about the Pope's health lately - and no speculations even by idle newsmen suffering Vatileaks withdrawal syndrome!]Yet, even when he says only a few paragraphs, what he says is worth reading.

Sunday’s Angelus, which is traditionally quite short, began with a reference to the Gospel of the Sunday. The law of God is a theme found in Hebrew religion. In Christianity it finds its completion “in love.” The law of God is His Word that guides us along the path of our lives. It leads us out of the “slavery of our egoism.” It teaches us “true liberty.”

In the Bible, the law is not seen as a “weight” or a limiting horizon but as the most precious “gift” of the Lord. It is the testimony of His paternal love, of His will to be near His people so that they might write together a great story of love. The Psalmist found the law of God to be his “delight” and happiness (119).

In the Old Testament, he who speaks in the name of God transmits the law to the people. This is Moses. On the threshold of the Promised Land, Moses tells the Israelites to listen to the law and put it into practice when they enter into the land that the Lord would give them.

Yet here is a “problem.” When the people settled in the land and the law is deposited among them, they are tempted to replace their joy and security in something that is not any longer the Word of the Lord. They look to “material goods,” to “power,” to other "gods" which in reality are “vain.” They are idols.

It always seems strange and perplexing that the Jews could repudiate their own laws so regularly and quickly. The law of God did not exactly go away from them, but too often it no longer remained the most important thing for them. The law became a kind of “covering” or outward show. The Scribes and Pharisees were concerned with what they wore, with how they were treated. Their lives followed other roads, “other rules,” the egoistic interests of individuals and groups.

Thus, religion can miss its authentic sense which is to live in the hiddenness of God to do His will. This is the truth of our being. If we do this, we would live well in true liberty. We can be in danger of using secondary things, which rather satisfy the human need to feel oneself in place of God.

Here is a “grave risk” to every religion. Jesus encountered it in His time. It can be verified also in Christianity. Thus the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel deal with the Scribes and Pharisees, how He chastises them for missing the main issues. The people, we read in Isaiah, honor God with their lips but are far from Him. Men follow their own law, not that of God.

This little comment of Benedict in an Angelus indicates his awareness of the temptations of our time, as they were temptations during the time of the Hebrews and in the time of Jesus. We make religion something external, how it looks. We do not pay attention to what goes on in our own souls. It is the function of a Pope to remind us of these things.


Two days earlier, Fr. Schall had this essay in which he goes back to Benedict XVI's comprehensive dusquisition on faith and reason in Regensburg...

On Christian humanism
By James V. Schall, S.J.

September 4, 2012

For many, the stranger claim of Christianity is that, with the existence of faith and grace, with the Incarnation and its effects, man can be more, not less, human, more, not less, complete in the being he is intended to be.

He is, in short, more himself, provided he lives by reason, faith, and the virtues. If he does not, he will likely turn into the opposite of what he ought to be. Both faith and reason are gifts. In that sense, as we know by introspection, we do not cause ourselves to be or to be what we are.

Terms like “atheist” or “secular” humanism describe the alternatives to Christianity. They generally imply that faith is “alien” to man. Either it demands too much and, therefore, it is inhuman, or it claims that man is not completed by his own powers. He requires something superhuman even to be human. He is therefore a plaything of the gods and not his own master.

No doubt, if we look at human history in every time and place, we see how difficult it is for man to avoid disorders of soul and body. His inhumanity is often more graphic to us than his goodness. One strategy to deal with this unpleasant, yet recurring, fact of human vice is to call vices virtues.

Another way is to blame the disorders on religion itself. This strategy goes back to Epicurus and regularly recurs in human history, including today. Get rid of religion and everything will be dandy.

Experience cautions us, however. The atheisms and secularisms that have gained power have usually turned out to be the most anti-human regimes. This experience ought to deter us, but it does not always seem to. Likewise, not every religion turns out to be also human. Religion is not an univocal term.

Recently, I received an e-mail from a Marine Corps officer. He told me that often in his experience the most vehement opposition to natural law and reason came from chaplains. Some thought that the use and place of reason in religion indicated lack of trust in God or Scripture.

Logically, this view would mean that no Christian “humanism” exists but only Christian faith. Muslim faith is pretty much like this also. If it is not in the Book, it is not relevant. God can always do the opposite of what He commanded before. Human reason and Logos do not mix.

Catholicism, for its part, argues that both reason and faith derive from the same source. They do not contradict each other but reinforce each other. Benedict XVI speaks of faith as healing and encouraging reason. Thus, Catholicism manifests a confidence in reason, even when its implications are political and culturally denied.

The Pope worked much of this out in his Regensburg Lecture. Christianity was from the beginning directed to the philosophers, not to other religions. Christianity is eager to know what the world makes of itself, how it explains human life and its existence in the cosmos. When it considers such issues, Christianity finds that human life has its own reality that it does not “create” but receives.

The Swiss philosopher, Martin Rhonheimer, argues that Christianity is a salvation ethics and morality. By this he means that we are to observe both the natural law and the prescriptions of faith directed to our reason.

Even if the culture is depraved in one or another way, Christians should still follow, in private and public, the Socratic prescription: “It is never right to do wrong.” Efforts of proportionalism or consequentism to mitigate what Nietzsche called “the tension” between faith and autonomous choice result, not in fostering, but in harming what it is to be human.

When we understand that our ethical and political lives are themselves salvation-oriented, we do not mean to establish a Kingdom of God in this world, but to indicate the real locus and end of each human life. This recognition is why, in agreement with Plato, Benedict keeps reminding us of a final judgment that pronounces on how we have actually lived.

A Christian humanism is one that is directed to the virtues. But living virtuously also is directed to achieving our transcendent end. Intellectually, what Christian thought recognizes is that each case of not living virtuously is, in fact, a deviation from reason fully healed and understood.

All of the things that Christian attention to reason and revelation recommend are in fact what “true humanism,” to recall Jacques Maritain’s phrase, is about. In the public order today, what thinkers like Hadley Arkes, Robert George, J. Budziszewski, Russell Hittinger, and numerous others are noted for is not their faith but their reason.

That is, the logic of opposition to the basic truths of reason and faith turns out to be, at each point, incoherent, unreasonable, not fully human.

Friday, Sept. 7, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

BLESSED ANTOINE-FREDERIC OZANAM (b Milan 1813, d Marseilles 1853)
Husband and Father, Professor and Writer, Founder of St. Vincent de Paul Society
Born in Milan to French parents, Frederic studied law at the Sorbonne, where his faith was often challenged. To back up his defense of it
by deeds, he and his friends started visiting the poor in Paris tenements to help them out as best they could. This was the nucleus for the
charitable Society of St. Vincent de Paul which he founded as a lay apostolate in 1833. In Paris, his circle included Chateaubriand and other
leaders of what was then a neo-Catholic movement. As a contributor to many periodicals even as a student, he also wrote books on literature
and sociology (after his death, his complete works were published in 11 volumes) came to be considered the leading historical and literary
critic in the neo-Catholic movement of this time - more learned, more sincere, and more logical than Chateaubriand. After receiving his
doctorates in law and in literature, he became a professor, first in Lyons then in Paris. In 1841, he married Amelie Soulacroix with whom
he had a daughter. His society was flourishing and he travelled throughout Europe to promote it. After the 1848 Revolution, the French
government asked the Society to supervise government aid to the poor, and Vincentians throughout Europe came to their aid. Frederic
started a newspaper promoting the cause of workers and the poor. He was always sickly, and in 1853, when he was just 40, he died of TB.
By then, his Society had more than 2,000 members. Today, it is a worldwide society with over 100,000 members whose councils are active
in most of the major cities of Europe and the United States. Frederic was beatified by John Paul II in ceremonies at Notre Dame de Paris
in 1997.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090712.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

At the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo, he met with

- Seven bishops from Colombia (Group 3) on ad limina visit

- New bishops in mission territories who have been attending a formative course at the Congregation
for the Evangelization of Peoples. Address in Italian.


This time last year...
We were all looking forward with some trepidation to the Holy Father's apostolic and state visit to Germany,
which had been preceded, like most of his trips, with the direst forebodings of massive protests and general
embarrassment for the Church and for the Pope. Once more, of course, the prophets of doom were wrong
about Benedict XVI, but perhaps even more wrong about the ability of the opposition to mount any
significant protest against him and the Church. The fears are different for his trip to Lebanon next week
which have to do with the general situation in the area, with Lebanon a next-door neighbor to Syria in the
grip of civil war. So far, however, there appears to be an overall green light for the Pope's trip from the
security stnadpoint. Let us pray for its success for the sake of the Middle East, for the Pope's safety
and continuing good health, and for a general improvement in the region.

Pope to missionland bishops:
'The young Churches of the world
are the hope of the universal Church'

Sept. 7, 2012



Pope Benedict XVI today received a group of bishops recently appointed to serve in mission territories at the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo.

The bishops have been participating in a formative course organized annually for new bishops by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

In his remarks to the prelates, the Holy Father encouraged them to place their confidence in the Gospel, its renewing power, its ability to reawaken consciences and to encourage reconciliation and the building of brotherhood.

Referring to young Church communities, especially those in Asia, Oceania, Africa and Latin America, the Holy Father said that, despite difficulties, there are positive signs such as the growth of the diocesan and religious clergy that serve as a counterweight to the reduction in the number of missionaries serving.

The Holy Father noted the growth in the number of priests who leave their countries of origin to serve outside their own Churches.

“The young Churches,” said Pope Benedict, “constitute a sign of hope for the future of the Church universal.”

Here is a translation of the entire address:

---

Dear brothers,

I am happy to be meeting you here, who have gathered in Rome for the formative course for recently named bishops, under the auspioes of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

I greet Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the dicastery, and thank him for the kind words he addressed to me in your name. I greet Mons. Savio Hon Tai-fai and Most. Protase Rugambwa, secretasry and undersecretary of the Congregation.

To them and to all who have contributed to the success of this seminar, I express my appreciation.

This course is taking place close to the opening of the Year of Faith, a precious gift of the Lord to his Church, to help all who are baptized to be actively aware of their faith and to communicate it to those who have not yet experienced its beauty.

The communities of whcich you are the pastors - in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania - although in different situations, are all involved in their first evangelization and the work of consolidating the faith.

You are aware of their joys and hopes, as well as their wounds and concerns, like the Apostle Paul who wrote: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Col 1,24). He adds, "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (v 29).

May trust in the Lord always remain firm in your heart! The Church is his, and it is He who leads her in difficult times as in times of serenity. Your communities are almost all recently founded, and present the price and the weaknesses associated with their brief history. They show a participative faith that is joyful, lively and creative, but often, not yet quite rooted.

Therefore, enthusiasm and apostolic zeal will alternate with moments of instability and inconsistency, in which frictions and abandonments will emerge.

Nonetheless, they are Churches which ae maturing thanks to pastoral activity, but also to the gift of that communio sanctorum, the communon of saints, that allows a true and prooer osmosis of grace among the Churches of ancient tradition and those that have been recently constituted, beyond that which comes before - between the celestial Church and the pilgrim Church.

For some time, there has been a decline in the number of missionaries, which has been balanced off by an increase in diocesan clergy and religious. The numerical increase of local priests also produced a new form of missionary cooperation: Some young Churches have started to send their own priests to sister Churches lacking priests in the same country, or to nations in the same continent. It is a communion that should always inspire evangelizing activity.

Therefore, the young Churches constitute a sign of hope for the future of the universal Church. In this context, dear brothers, I encourage you not to spare your strength and courage in carrying out diligent pastoral works, to commemorate the gift of grace that was sowed in you by your episcopal ordination, and which can be summarized in the tria munera (three offices of the priest} to teach, to sanctify, and to govern.

Keep to heart the missio ad gentes, the inculturation of the faith, the formation of candidates for the priesthood,l care of your diocesan, religious and lay faithful.

The Church was born of mission and grows with mission. Adopt for yourself the interior appeal of the Apostle of the Gentiles, "Caritas Christi urget nos" (The love of Christ urges us) (2 Cor 5,14).

Correct inculturation of the faith helps you to embody the Gospel in the cultures of various peoples and to take up that which is good in these cultures. It is a long and difficult process which must not in any way compromise the specificity and the integrity of the Christian faith (cfr Enc. Redemptoris missio, 52).

Mission requires pastors configured to Christ in the sanctity of their lives, who are prudent and farsighted, ready to give themselves generously for the Gospel and to carry in their heart a solicitude for all the Churches.

Watch over your flock, paying special attention to the priests - guide them by example, live in communion with them, be ready to listen to them and to accept them with paternal benevolence, with appreciation for their diverse abilities.

Be committed to ensure for your priests specific and periodic formative encounters. Make sure that the Eucharist is always the heart of their existence and the raison d'etre for their ministry.

Look at the world today with the eyes of faith, in order to understand it profoundly, and with a generous heart, be ready to enter into communion with the men and women of our time.

Do not fail your first responsibility as men of God, called to prayer and in the service of his Word for the good of the flock. May it be said of you as the priest Onias said of the prophet Jeremiah, "This is a man who loves his brothers, and prays much for the people and the holy city" (2Mac 15,14).

Keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, Pastor of pastors: the world today needs persons who speak to God in order to be able to speak of God. Only thus will the Word of salvation bear fruit (cfr Address to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, Oct. 15, 2011).

Dear brothers, your Churches know full well the context of instability which impacts in a most concerning way on the daily life of the people. Emergencies in food, health and education confront the ecclesial communities and involve them directly. Indeed, their attention and their work are much appreciated and praised,

Besides natural calamities, one must add cultural and religious discriminations, intolerance and factiousness, which are the result of fundamentalisms which reveal mistaken anthropological views and which lead to under-estimation if not to dis-recognition of the right to religious freedom, as well as respect for the weakest, especially children, women and the handicapped.

Finally, there is the weight of renewed conflicts among ethnic groups and castes which result in unjustifiable violence. Trust in the Gospel, in its renewing power, its capacity to reawaken consciences and to provoke from within the rescue of persons and the creation of a new brotherhood. Spreading the Word of the Lord will cause the gift of reconciliation to flourish and favor the unity of peoples.

In my message for the next World Day for Missions, I wished to recall that faith is a gift to be welcomed in one's heart and life, and for which to thank the Lord always. But faith is given so that it may be shared, a treasure that is passed on so that it may bear fruit, a light which must not be allowed to remain hidden.

Faith is the most important gift that has been given to us in life: we cannot keep it to ourselves. "Everyone... has the right to know the value of such a gift and to have access to it", said Blessed John Paul II in the encyclical Redemptoris missio (11).

The Servant of God Paul VI, reaffirming the priority of evangelization, said: "Men can save themselves by other paths, thanks to the mercy of God, even if we announce the Gospel to them. But can we save ourselves if, through negligence, fear, shame, or as a consequence of false ideas, we fail to announce it?" (Ap. Exhort. Evangelii nuntiandi, 80).

May that question resound in our heart as an appeal to feel the absolute priority of our mission of evangelization!

Dear friends, I entrust you and your communities to the Most Blessed Mary, first disciple of the Lord and the first evangelizer, having given to the world the Word of God made flesh. May she, Star of evangelization, always orient our steps. In this sense, I impart on you my Apostolic Blessing.

---

An amazing reminder, if we did not already know it, of the uniqueness of Lebanon's multi-cultural, multi-religious national reality, which has miraculously survived a punishing civil war from 1975-1990 and the general anti-Christian hostility of the overwhelmingly Muslim Middle East.

Lebanon Prime Minister declares next Sept. 15
a national holiday in honor of the Pope


BEIRUT, Sept. 8 - Prime Minister Najib Mikati Friday announced that next Saturday, Sept. 15, will be an official holiday in honor of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Lebanon.

In a statement, Mikati said all public administration branches, public institutions, municipalities, schools and private and public universities will close Saturday.

The Pope arrives next Friday, and Mikati’s statement said the official holiday would allow various sections of the population to participate in his visit.

The Pope's visit is expected to draw large crowds, and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel expressed confidence in the security measures taken to protect the Pope.

In remarks published in Thursday’s edition of An-Nahar, Charbel said extra precautions would be taken on account of the Pope’s importance as a spiritual figure and head of the Vatican state.

Declining to discuss the details of the security procedures, Charbel said they must be kept secret “for the mission to be successful.

“But we can be reassured that all security forces, including the Army and Presidential Guard, have taken full precautions and plans are coordinated to protect the Pope’s convoy, movements, and where he will be staying.”

Charbel said security forces are working with a delegation from the Vatican, and they have established a joint operations room to manage the work of various forces.

Calling the security measures unprecedented in “any plan to protect a President or leader visiting Lebanon,” Charbel said this was the case because of the “sensitivity of the current situation.” Charbel added that it is especially important to protect the Pope while he is on the road.


Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai Friday met with the Future Movement’s Secretary General Ahmad Hariri and a delegation of Future Movement officials to discuss the upcoming visit.

After the meeting, Hariri said that their visit to the patriarch was intended to show the “Future Movement is involved with the pope’s visit, especially the spiritual, social and political aspects.”



Christian and Muslim yough of Beirut
to hold a prayer vigil Sept. 12
to invoke God's protection for the Pope
Translated from


BEIRUT, Sept. 7 - A Muslim-Christian vigil to invoke the protection of God and the Virgin Mary over Benedict XVI's Sept. 14-16 visitg to Lebanon will be held Sept. 14 in Beirut.

On the eve of the Pope's arrival, four processions will start off from four different parts of the Lebanese capital to converge at the so-called Garden of Mary, near downtown Beirut's Museum Square.

The vigol begins there at 8 pm, with songs, scriptural readings from the Koran and the Bible, and invocations to God and the Virgin Mary, that all Lebanese may welcome the Pope and experience his visit as a blessing for the land of cedars.

The theme of the vigil is "Together in peace, love, liberty and security".

"It will be part of a national popular celebration," said Fr. Antoine Daou, secretary of the Lebanese bishops' conference commisison for dialog with Islam, "to show the world that even in these diffiocult times, Lebanonb remains a nation of coexistence among Christians and Muslims".

The Pope will be meeting with officials and representatives of Lebanon's various communities during his brief visit.

"The September 12 vigil," said Fr. Daou, "is not an isolated event. These days, in all the Lebanese dioceses, there are hundreds of intiatives for common prayer and reflection during which the faithful of the country's diverse Christian communities are preparing for their encounter with the Successor of Peter".

"All the Lebenase people, including political and religious leaders sjuch as the heads of Hezbollah, the Druses and the Sunni politicians, await the Pope's visit as a grace for Lebanon, which could favor a genuine national unity that will show the world that lebanon can indeed be a model for multicultural and multi-religious coexistence".

Looking ahead to Lebanon

Sept. 8, 2012

The forthcoming journey of the Pope to Lebanon is universally recognized as an act of great courage, and of hope.

Benedict XVI will issue a document which will be of fundamental importance for the life and mission of the Catholic Church in the Middle East, for its witness to the Gospel, and its role in promoting dialogue and peace.

The decision to make this journey to Lebanon, where the Catholic community is particularly numerous [compared to other countries in the Middle East], was made before the situation in Syria had descended into open and bloody conflict.

Although the conflict does not pertain directly to the Pope’s journey, it demonstrates that many of the difficulties which were addressed by the Middle Eastern Synod two years ago – people of different faiths and religious beliefs living together, dialogue with Islam and Judaism, the call for Christians to emigrate from the region, religious liberty and democracy – not only remain unresolved today, but they have become much worse.

As for the rest, all the movements of the so-called “Arab Spring” had not yet intensified by the time the Middle Eastern bishops had returned to Rome. With the situation having changed so drastically, the Church’s mission within the region has become more urgently needed and more challenging, yet its presence – inspired and guided by the Pope – is all the more valued and desired.

Catholics and Christians, who are in the minority, can and must be a witness of peace, and promote dialogue, not only among peoples and religious groups in the Middle East, but also to the international community: a world that seems to not recognize the tensions and geopolitical global atmosphere that are tragically represented by the region’s conflicts.

Benedict XVI will call for hope, and express his desire for peace for the region. We hope that he is heard.

Earlier this week, the Vatican posted on its website the booklet for the Pope's visit to Lebanon, in French and Arabic:



It has a very good introduction explaining the rationale for this trip, but I have to translate it from the French first.

The following is as close as we can get to a formal statement on the Vatican's position vis-a-vis changes in the Middle East and Arab Africa as a result of the prematurely baptized 'Arab spring' and its immediate and medium-term consequences. The Vatican is naturally most concerned about the impact of these developments on the Christian communities in the Middle East.

Vatican says Middle East must
develop 'a culture of democracy'

Sept. 8, 2012

The need to nurture a “culture of democracy” in the Middle East is of great importance, the Vatican’s newly appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Fr. Miguel Ayuso, told participants at a two-day International interfaith conference in Istanbul, on Saturday.

However, Fr. Ayuso, a Spanish Comboni missionary, added: “Each country convulsed by the 'Arab Awakening' will have to develop its own model of political governance, resisting any such model imposed from outside”.

Hence the call for Muslims and Christians, as believers, to enlighten those who bear the heavy responsibility of leading societies to discern the degree of humanity of their decisions.

Nearly 200 religious officials and opinion leaders from 23 countries, including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Vatican are taking part to discuss transformation processes in Mideast and North Africa.

Mehmet Gormez, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, former Lebanese president Amine Pierre Gemayel, Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered opening speeches on the first day of the conference.

Below the full text of Fr. Ayuso’s intervention:

---

Address of Rev. Father Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot
Secretary
Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to thank Professor Kenan Gürsoy, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the Holy See. for the invitation to this International Conference on “The Arab Awakening and Peace in the Middle East: Muslim and Christian Perspectives”.

Thank you also for the kind remarks and warm welcome and for the work done to make this encounter possible in such an important historical city for Christians and Muslims alike.

My gratitude goes as well to the Marmara University Institute for Middle East Studies and the Center for Islamic Research for their invaluable help in organizing and supporting this event.

I have been asked, as the invitation noted, to “add the voice of the Holy See to those that support peaceful and orderly transition in the region as well as the legitimate aspirations of the people of the Middle East and in particular North Africa for freedom, dignity and democracy”.

It seems best to begin with the words of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI as a useful synthesis of the Holy See's view of all that has taken place in the Arab world in 2011 and its continuing effects.

In his address to the Diplomatic Corps this January 2012 Pope Benedict spoke about the source of the unrest which has spread across North Africa as coming from a sense of uncertainty about the future felt by the young, due to poverty and unemployment, prompting them to launch the call for reforms and “a more active share in political and social life”.

Despite an initial optimism, the Holy Father noted the resulting violence and the fear that this unrest has become a means for maintaining or seizing power, rather than the recognition of the “inalienable dignity of each human person and of his or her fundamental rights.”He called on the international community to help build “stable and reconciled societies” ending discrimination, especially religious discrimination.

Pope Benedict has often suggested that the promotion of human rights is the most effective strategy for obtaining the common good that is the basis of social harmony.

Democracy presumes its foundation on a respect for human rights. In the growing efforts to enable democracy to take hold in the fabric of society in the Arab world, the hope is that it will lead to greater consideration of these basic rights.

As this city itself testifies, an important element of the fabric of society is religion and its values. Indeed, as Pope Benedict has stated in many different situations, religious freedom is an intrinsic human right and it would be "inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - in order to be active citizens."

Christians in the Arab world, alongside their fellow Muslim citizens, are ready to play their part as citizens who together strive to build societies that respect the human rights of all citizens, acknowledging that "a vision of life firmly anchored in the religious dimension can help to achieve this, since recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman favours conversion of heart, which then leads to a commitment to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to promote justice and peace".

As we all know, the first fruits of the Arab Awakening have been victories of Islamist political parties in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. While it is clear that this has been the exercise of democracy through the holding of electoral contests, there now needs to be a follow-up to further develop and nurture a 'culture of democracy' that includes developing a clear rule of law, where all are equal before the law, as well as developing needed state institutions which are at the service of all citizens.

The holding of democratic elections has been an important first step in establishing the legitimacy of those who now must speak on behalf of the people. Let us not forget the danger, however, that democracy potentially could be used to legitimize extremist and fundamentalist ideologies. Such ideologies with their beliefs and practices represent a fundamental threat not only to religious minorities in the region, such as Christians, but also to Muslims who would identify themselves as 'moderate'. They too are fearful of religious extremism and the imposition of Shariah as the exclusive source of law.

Nurturing a 'culture of democracy' will take time, effort, patience and education. There needs to be a real effort on the part of civic and religious leaders to educate towards the respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of religion, freedom of expression, etc., as the guarantee of fundamental human freedoms, particularly for religious minorities.

The new leaders of the Arab world need to respond to the real and concrete problems of unemployment and economic disadvantage of the masses, which goes hand-in-hand with efforts to develop a 'culture of democracy'. If the new Arab leadership, self-described as 'moderate Islamists', fails to address such economic issues, it will only strengthen the position of the more fundamentalist Islamists.

As we have seen, the Islamist parties that have come to power in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, have for the most part adopted the language of pragmatism and moderation which appears as a positive first step, although, in some quarters, a certain skepticism exists.

Many of the key actors that have come to prominence in the “Arab Awakening” have previously had the experience of living in the milieu of western democracies. Unfortunately, their appreciation for western democracy has been often dampened by what they would regard as the excesses of western society such as immorality, the rejection of religious values, consumerism and so forth, not to mention the perceived attempts of western democracies to impose aggressive, secularist ideologies which are contrary to Islamic and Arab culture.

This has created a kind of collateral damage to the civil groups in Arab countries that have championed the values of western secular democracies; they are easily dismissed as 'godless', or un-Islamic, and even non-Arabic. The affiliation of such groups with Western organizations opens them up to being called instruments of western imperialism.

The political upheavals in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have not yet found their natural political equilibrium. Indeed, it may be some time before such balance can found, underlining the need for the international community to direct its every effort to ensure that the period of political transition now underway does not degenerate or provoke a further instability within the society itself or its political structure.

Since the political turbulence of 2011, with its protest movements and political activists, there has been a search as to which political models to follow among various ones being presented. Ultimately, each country convulsed by the 'Arab Awakening' will have to develop its own model of political governance, resisting any such model imposed from outside.

In North Africa we see two basic models taking shape: first of all, the incremental development of a constitutional monarchy in Morocco in which political power is shared rather than devolved, and secondly, the emergence of parliamentary governance in Tunisia where the new interim President has ceded much of his executive powers to a Prime Minister who commands a parliamentary majority.

Such a development, while at base more democratic, risks descending into a negative form of “majoritarianism”. It remains to be seen what Egypt will choose as its form of government. It may move from a presidential style government to a parliamentary government.

Al-Azhar University issued several documents in response to the “Arab Awakening” which are an important initiative, although it is still unclear as to the impact these documents will have in shaping political life in Egypt.

The document on Fundamental Freedoms offers a reflection on the fundamental relationship between Islam and the State at a time of delicate political transformation in Egypt. The documents support the establishment of a democratic and constitutional form of government elected by universal suffrage that guarantees and respects individual freedoms.

This is in harmony with traditional Islamic teaching, which, as indicated in the Al-Azhar document, has never sanctioned or practiced theocratic rule. Instead, traditional Islamic jurisprudence and systems of governance have been based on respect of Sharia law as one of the principal sources of legislation.

Citizenship, rather than religion, is underlined as the sole criterion for participation in the responsibilities of society. The Al-Azhar document also affirms the principles of dialogue, tolerance and respect (no one should be accused of being an atheist) and rejects the instrumentalisation of religion as a tool to create discord among the various components of the nation.

The document affirms four basic freedoms as the foundation of a democratic and constitutional system of government:
- Freedom of belief;
- Freedom of opinion and expression;
- Freedom of scientific research;
= Freedom of literary and artistic creativity.
In supporting these four basic freedoms the Al-Azhar document rejects the fundamentalist approach.

As we meet together today, the tragedy of the situation in Syria is not far from our minds and hearts. From the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, the Holy See, and many times the Holy Father himself, has condemned the violence and terrible loss of human life.

The Holy Father, affirming the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people, has repeatedly called upon all those in authority or in positions of responsibility, to end the violence and rather to enter the path of dialogue as the true means to address such concerns.

The position of the Holy See regarding Syria has been:
1) to call for an immediate end to violence from whatever part;
2) to dialogue towards reconciliation as the necessary path to respond to the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people;
3) to preserve the unity of the Syrian people regardless of ethnicity and religious affiliation;
4) to ask Syria, as a member of the family of nations, to be also cognizant of the legitimate concerns of the international community; and finally,
5) the Holy See appeals to the international community to dedicate itself to a process of peace in Syria and the entire region for the benefit and well-being of all humanity.

Christians in Syria seek to live in peace and harmony with their fellow Syrians. They are naturally fearful that the growing violence, destruction and displacement, the continuing loss of life, endangers not just Christians but all Syrians, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

The spectre of what has happened to Christians in Iraq hangs heavily over the Christian communities in Syria. Christians do not want to be marginalized in Syria nor do they wish to seek partisan advantage. Rather they want to be in the service of the common good, to be points of reference, or bridges with, and between, all communities.

It would be regrettable if the choice of Christians to avoid partisan politics should be interpreted as cowardice instead of courage. The choice to be open to all communities, to transcend partisanship, requires perhaps a greater courage. Christians have as their mission to be builders of peace, harmony and unity, among all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation, as the way of living in the difficulty of the struggle of their nation.

As believers, Muslims and Christians have to enlighten those who bear the heavy responsibility of leading societies to discern the degree of humanity of their decisions.

If we recognize the singularity of the human person, his or her vocation, we are all compelled, leaders and ordinary people, to ask if politics, economy, laws are at the service of the human person, created by God who wants humanity to be a family.

We have to indicate, not only in words but by deeds, that a society can only be built and thrive by recognizing the legitimate rights of its people, each person’s human dignity, freedom to worship and finally to contribute his or her gifts to the society in which each lives, regardless of race, religion or ethnic base.

This is true of established societies as well as those in profound transition as we see in the countries of the so called “Arab Awakening”. I believe this addresses the question of our conference: to find the true path to “peaceful and orderly transition … for freedom, dignity and democracy.”

---

I note that Fr. Ayuso uses the term 'Arab awakening' rather than 'Arab spring' - perhaps that is the direct translation of the term used in the Arabic title for the conference, but the English accounts I have seen in Turkish newspapers use the term of 'Arab spring'...

I find the term 'Arab awakening' a bit sinister and threatening, frankly, if the sense is about rousing a sleeping giant. Somehow, I don't think it means 'awakening'. as in bringing Muslims, Arabs or otherwise, to their senses and make them first, as Benedict XVI suggested in Regensburg, undergo their own 'era of enlightenment' as the Western world did in the 18th century in order to bring reason to contribute to faith, and consequently, to apply a reason-tempered Islam reasonably to the challenges of contemporary society.

Saturday, Sept. 8, 23rd Week in Ordinary Time
FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY

Illustrations: From left, Icon (10th-cent.);Domenico Beccafumi, 1543; Master Bertram of Minden, c. 1500; Esteban Murillo, 1658.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090812.cfm



WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

At the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo, the Pope met with

- Professor Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio Community and Prof. Marco Impagliato, current president
of Sant'Egidio, along with Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

- Seven bishops of Colombia (Group 3) on ad-limina visit

- Participants in the 33rd International Mariologic Conference. Address in Italian.

Surprisingly gratifying court decisions this weekend in connection with two Christians who have become symbols of anti-Christian in Iran and Pakistan...

Iranian court acquits Pastor Nadarkhani
of apostasy and he has been set free
by Lilian Kwon

September 8, 2012

Youcef Nadarkhani, the Iranian pastor who captured the hearts of millions as he stood firm in his faith while facing execution, has been acquitted of apostasy.

Two organizations that have closely been monitoring the case and have sources in Iran reported Saturday that Nadarkhani, who went on trial early Saturday, has been released from prison and is at home with his family.

"Thank you to everyone that has supported me with your prayers," Nadarkhani said, according to Present Truth Ministries.

Though acquitted of apostasy, the Iranian pastor was found guilty of evangelizing Muslims. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment but was released because he already served this time.

"We give thanks to God for His deliverance and the answer to our prayers," Jason DeMars, founder of Present Truth Ministries, said in a statement.

"We commend the Iranian judiciary for this step, which is a triumph for justice and the rule of law," said CSW Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas. "While we rejoice at this wonderful news, we do not forget hundreds of others who are harassed or unjustly detained on account of their faith, and CSW is committed to continue campaigning until all of Iran's religious minorities are able to enjoy religious freedom as guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is party."

Nadarkhani, pastor in a network of house churches, was arrested on Oct. 13, 2009, after protesting the government's decision to force all children, including his own Christian children, to read the Quran.

He was initially charged for protesting but the charges were later changed to apostasy and evangelism to Muslims. In 2010, he was sentenced to death and the ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court of Iran last year.

According to Islamic Sharia Law, an apostate has three days to recant. The Christian pastor had refused to recant his faith.

Christians around the world have prayed and appealed for Nadarkhani's release. A Twitter campaign advocating for his freedom reached more than 3 million.


Pakistan court grants
bail to young Rimsha


ISLAMABAD, Sept. 7 - Finally, a district and session court in Islamabad on Friday granted bail to Rimsha Masih, who is an accused of Blasphemy.

Judge Muhammad Azam Khan directed Rimsha’s lawyer to submit two surety bonds worth Rs 500, 000 each.

Pakistan’s minister for national harmony Paul Bhatti told AFP that she has been released and she has been taken to a safe place where she will meet her parents.

The girl, who is suffering from Down’s Syndrome (her age continues to be uncertain, anywhere from 11 to 14), was arrested in a poor suburb of the Pakistani capital on August 16 and accused of burning papers containing verses from the Holy Quran.

The counsel for Rimsha had submitted before the court that the girl was entitled to bail as she was a minor and that the FIR lodged by the police did not say that she desecrated a copy of the holy Quran.

On the other side, the complainant’s lawyer alleged that the girl had confessed to her guilt and hence was not entitled to bail.

The investigation officer informed the court that Khalid Jadoon, the cleric who had been accused of tampering evidence, had deliberately added pages of the holy Quran to the plastic bag that the girl was carrying (stuff she had picked out of a garbage dump).

Counsel for complainant also alleged that the police, including the investigating officer, and doctors were manipulating the case to get the girl freed under international pressure. He expressed the fear that the accused would be immediately sent abroad if bail was granted and that then the case would come to an end.

Earlier, Islamabad police arrested Khalid Jadoon after eyewitness Hafiz Muhammad Zubair claimed in a statement before the magistrate that he (Jadoon) changed the evidence to make the case strong.

A local court earlier handed over Jadoon, a prayer leader, to Adiala police on 14 days judicial remand.

It appears that Rimsah will still face the possibility of being tried unless the case is dismissed because of the Muslim prayer leader planting the incriminating evidence. I have been unable to find a story about the reaction from the prominent Muslim religious leader who came to Rimsah's defense alst week, saying his organization would take her under its protection.

Reuters reports a surprising circumstance in Rimsah's release, with a corresponding videoclip. Does this apparent involvement of the government presage something more encouraging about her case?

Military chopper takes Rimsah
from jail to safe location
by Katharine Houreid



Security officials surround Rimsha Masih as they move her to a helicopter after her release from Adyala jail in Rawalpindi (city that gave rise to the capital Islamabad). (Vieocaps from the REtuers newsclip)

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 8 (Reuters) - A Pakistani military helicopter plucked a young Christian girl accused of blasphemy from a prison yard on Saturday and flew her to a secret location after she was granted bail.

Live broadcasts showed heavily-armed police surrounding Rimsha Masih, believed to be no older than 14, covering her face with a green scarf as she walked to the helicopter.

A judge granted Masih bail on Friday and her lawyers are applying to have charges that she burned pages from the Koran dismissed after a local cleric was detained on suspicion of planting false evidence to stir resentment against Christians.

Even before that arrest, Masih's case provoked international concern as she could face execution under Pakistan's blasphemy law despite her young age and reported mental problems.

The dramatic nature of Masih's release underlined the fear for her life. The lawyer prosecuting her suggested she could be lynched if found not guilty. Blasphemy charges are frequently followed by deadly riots against minority communities.

Despite international condemnation, the blasphemy law still enjoys widespread support among ordinary Pakistanis.

Two high-ranking government officials who had suggested its reform were shot dead, one by his own bodyguard. Lawyers threw rose petals at that killer and the judge who convicted him was forced to flee the country.

The number of cases brought under the law is rising rapidly and rights groups fear it is mostly being used to settle personal vendettas.

Since 1987, there have been almost 250 blasphemy cases, according to Pakistani thinktank the Center for Research and Security Studies.

It said 52 people had been killed after being accused of blasphemy since 1990.

Pope cites Mary as
a model of faith

Sept. 8, 2012



Pope Benedict on Saturday received participants who have been attending the XXIII International Mariological Congress here in Rome, who have been discussing the theme "Mariology since the Second Vatican Council: Reception, Assessment and Prospects”.

Welcoming the participants to the Apostolic Residence in Castelgandolfo, Pope Benedict reminded them the opening day for Vatican II selected by Blessed John XXIII was October 11, the day in 431 when the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary as the Theotokos, Mother of God.

Thus, this October 11, the Church will observe what Benedicvt XVI called 'an extraordinary event' - the opening of the Year of Faith he hada decreed earlier to mark both the 50th annviersary of the Council opening and the 20th anniversary of the post-Conciliar Catechismk of the Catholic Church [which was prepared and published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when he was Prefect].

The Pope also drew the attention of those present to the fact that on October 11th this year, what he called an “extraordinary event” will occur, that being the opening of the Year of Faith and he went on to describe Mary herself as an exemplary example of Faith.

September 8th marks the feast of the Birth of Mary, a date which the Holy Father said stands out in the extraordinary mosaic that is the divine plan of salvation for mankind.

Looking back to his own participation as a young theologian at the Second Vatican Council, Pope Benedict said he “was able to see the various ways of dealing with issues about the shape and role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in salvation history.”

The Holy Father said the Council offered a chance to enrich the Constitution of the Church with a specific chapter on the Mother of God in which the figure of Mary appears “in all her beauty and uniqueness tightly inserted in the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith.”

The Pope underlined that the Mother of God must continue to be studied as a way of deepening ones faith: "We must look on Mary, said Pope Benedict as a beacon of light and as a model of Christian maturity from whom we can draw an enthusiasm and joy to live with ever greater commitment and consistency our vocation as children of God, and brothers and sisters in Christ.”


Here is a translation of the Pope's address:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

With great joy, I welcome all of you here to Castel Gandolfo, as you conclude the XXIII International Mariologic Congress. Very opportunely, you have been reflecting on the theme "Mariology after the Second Vatican Council: Reception, assessment and perspectives" as we prepare to commemorate and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of that great assembly on October 11, 1962.

I greet Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood, as president of the Congress; Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Coordinating Council of the Pontifical Academies; as well as the president and academic officials of the International Pontifical Marian Academy, whom I thank for organizing this important event.

I greet the bishops, priests, religious, and the presidents and representatives of Mariological societies who are here, and everyone who is taking part in the work of the Congress.

Blessed John XXIII wanted the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council to open on October 11, the day in 431 when the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary as the Theotokos, Mother of God (cfr AAS 54, 1962, 67-68).

In that circumstance, he began his opening address with significantly programmatic words: «Gaudet Mater Ecclesia quod, singulari Divinae providentiae munere, optatissimus iam dies illuxit, quo, auspice Deipara Virgine, cuius materna dignitas hodie festo ritu recolitur, hic ad Beati Petri sepulchrum Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum Secundum sollemniter initium capit». (Mother Church rejoices because, through a special gift of Divine Providence, the much-desired day has come - under the patronage of the Virgin Mother of God, whose maternal dignity we celebrate today - when the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council begins solemnly here at the tomb of St. Peter.)

As you know, next October 11, in order to commemorate that extraordinary event, the Year of Faith will open solemnly, as I had decreed through the motu proprio Porta fidei, in which, presenting Mary as the exemplary model of faith, I invoke her special protection and intercession for the journey of the Church, entrusting to her - blessed because she believed - this time of grace.

Even today, dear brothers and sisters, the Church rejoices in the liturgical celebration of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the all-Blessed, dawn of our salvation.

We are reminded of the sense of this Marian feast by St. Andrew of Crete who lived between the 7th and 8th centuries, in a famous homily on the Feast of Mary's Nativity, in which he presented it as a precious piece of the extraordinary mosaic that is the divine plan of salvation for mankind.

"The mystery of God who became man, the divinization of man assumed by the Word, represent the peak of the gifts that Christ has given us, the revelation of the divine plan and the defeat of every presumptuous human self-sufficiency. The advent of God among men, as a splendid light and clear and visible reality, is the great and wondrous gift of salvation that is extended to us.

"Today's feast honors the nativity of the Mother of God. But the true meaning and purpose of this event is the incarnation of the Word. Indeed, Mary was born, nurtured and raised to be the Mother of the King of centuries, of God" (Discourse I: PG 97, 806-807)

This important and antique testimonial brings us to the heart of the theme you have been discussing, and that the Second Vatican Council wished to underscore in Chapter VIII of the dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, "The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the mystery of Christ and of the Church".

It is part of that nexus mysterium - the intimate linkage among the mysteries of the Christian faith - that the Council indicated as the horizon for understanding the singular elements and the various affirmations in the patrimony of the Catholic faith.

In the Council in which, as a young theologian,I took part as an expert consultant, I was able to see the various approaches to the figure and the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the history of salvation.

In the second session of the Council, a large group of Council Fathers requested that the subject of Our Lady be considered at the heart of the Constitution on the Church, while an equally numerous group maintained the need for a separate document that would adequately bring to light the dignity, the privileges and the singular role of Mary in the redemption operated by Christ.

In the voting on October 29, 1963, it was decided to choose the first proposal, and the schema (draft) of the proposed dogmatic Constitution of the Church was enriched with a chapter on the Mother of God, in which the figure of Mary, re-interpreted and re-proposed - on the basis of the Word of God (Scriptures), the texts of patristic and liturgical tradition, as well as ample theological and spiritual reflection - appears in all her singularity and beauty, closely woven into the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith.

Mary, whose faith is primarily underscored, is included in the mystery of lovee and communion of the Most Holy Trinity. Her cooperation in the divine plan of salvation and the unique mediation of Christ, is clearly affirmed and placed in appropriate relief, thus making her a model and reference for the Church which recognizes herself in Mary, with her very vocation and mission.

Popular piety, which had always turned to Mary, was finally supported by Biblical and patristic references. Of course, the Conciliar text has not exhausted all the problems relating to the figure of the Mother of God, but it constitutes the essential hermeneutic horizon for every further reflection, whether it is strictly theological, spiritual or pastoral in nature.

Moreover, it represents a valuable point of equilibrium a;ways necessary, between theological rationality and the believers' affection. The singular figure of the Mother of God must be understood and analyzed from various complementary perspectives. While the via veritatis (way of truth) always remains valid and necessary, one cannot fail to follow as well the via pulchritudinis (way of beauty) and the via amoris (way of love) to discover and contemplate even more profoundly the crystalline and solid faith of Mary, her love for God, her unshakable hope.

That is why in the Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, I invited everyone to follow the line laid down by the Council (cfr No. 27), an invitation I sincerely make to you, dear friends and scholars.

Offer your competent contributions of reflection and pastoral propositions so that the coming Year of Faith may represent for all believers in Christ a true moment of grace, in which the faith of Mary precedes and accompanies us like a luminous beacon and as a model of fulfillment and Christian maturity, whom we should regard with trust and from whom we can draw enthusiasm and joy to live with ever greater commitment and consistency our vocation as children of God, brothers in Christ. living members of his Body which is the Church.

In entrust all of you and your work of research to the maternal protection of Mary and I impart to you a special Apostolic Blessing. Thank you.

---

The AP's follow-up story to the news yesterday that an American court had found Mons. Robert Finn, Bishop of Kansas City, guilty of 'failing to report suspected sexual abuse of children', emphasizes the reaction by local-area liberal Catholics feigning outrage.

What exactly did Finn fail to do? He allowed his subordinates to handle reports of 'suspicious behavior' by a diocesan priest who was subsequently found with child porn photos on his laptop, and then, after learning of the case details more than a year later, he did not turn over the photos to the police but sent the priest to a retirement home, where apparently he continued to take photos of children. WHEW! Some offense, that!

Still, it's rightly a misdemeanor - not a felony - in criminal terms, but a dreadful lapse in judgment by Finn, considering that this all took place fairly recently, and therefore amid the continuing and assiduous effort by the media and assorted Church detreactors to bring the sex-abuse scandal back to the headlines at the slightest pretext. Did he never read about the similar but worse judgment lapses by Mons. Magee in Cloyne diocese?

Bishop Lynn's's misdemeanor conviction
intensifies calls for him to resign
By BILL DRAPER


KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Calls for Bishop Robert Finn's resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal.

Soon after a Missouri judge found Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled "Bishop Finn Must Go."

Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops.

Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.

"Now that our justice system says he's guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese," Patricia Rotert, a Catholic church member in Kansas City, said Friday. "He's lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don't think he can bring people together."

Finn's attorneys would not comment on the bishop's future in the church, saying it was a legal matter.

However, Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph spokesman Jack Smith indicated that Finn wasn't going anywhere.

"The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court," Smith said in an emailed statement Friday.

Finn's conviction comes four years after the church paid $10 million to settle 47 pending sexual abuse claims against the diocese and 12 of its priests. When announcing that deal in 2008, Finn apologized for the abuse that occurred at the hands of current and former clergy members, and promised that steps were being taken to make sure such abuse never happened again.

The diocese posted an update about the 2008 settlement on its website in June 2011 stating that Finn had written 118 letters of apology to plaintiffs or their families. That same month, Finn apologized for not responding to warnings the diocese received a year earlier from a parish principal detailing suspicious behavior by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan around children.

Instead of reading the memo and looking into the claims, Finn left it up to subordinates to handle the matter. He later admitted it was a year before he finally read a five-page document that a parish elementary school principal wrote detailing suspicious activities by Ratigan around children.

Finn also was informed of nude photos of children found on Ratigan's laptop computer in December 2010, but instead of turning them over to police, Finn sent Ratigan to live at a convent in Independence, Mo.

Monsignor Robert Murphy turned the photos over to police in May 2011 — against Finn's wishes, according to court documents — after Ratigan continued to violate Finn's orders to stay away from children and not take any pictures of them.

Ratigan pleaded guilty last month to five child pornography counts, but hasn't been sentenced. Prosecutors have requested he spend the rest of his life in prison.

Finn apologized again Thursday in court for the pain his failure to report Ratigan caused.

The bishop has avoided facing charges in Missouri's Clay County, where Ratigan was charged, after reaching a settlement in November 2011. For five years, Finn must report to the Clay County prosecutor directly each month about any suspected child abuse in the diocese's facilities in the county.

"I said for years that we wouldn't be in the mess we were in today if about 30 bishops had said 'I made a mistake, I'm sorry, I take full responsibility and I resign,'" said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "I think we're at a state in the life of the Church when a bishop is convicted of a misdemeanor, found guilty of not doing what he was supposed to do, I think he should resign for the good of the diocese and the good of the church." [Of course, AP would seek out Reese. One must conclude they couldn't find one prominent Catholic in Finn's diocese to say what they want to hear, which is what Reese says.]

Support for Finn's resignation is far from unanimous. Some say they agree he made a mistake, but it's not one that should force him out, especially with even more stringent safeguards in place to protect children.

"There's always been fights in the church, and there will continue to be fights in the church," said Kansas City parishioner Bruce Burkhart, a member of the Serra Club, which supports and promotes priests.

"I think people may walk away, but that's their business," he said. "If they think their children are any more safe in public schools, or in another church setting where people are working with youth, the data indicate they're not. The Catholic Church in America is probably now today the safest place for children."

While Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be charged in the U.S. with shielding an abusive priest, Albany Law School professor Timothy Lytton said the June conviction of Monsignor William Lynn in Philadelphia broke the ice on criminal convictions against members of the Catholic hierarchy.

Lynn, who supervised other clergy as an aide to the cardinal, was convicted of felony child endangerment and became the first U.S. church official sent to prison for his handling of abuse complaints. He is appealing his three- to six-year sentence.

Still, Finn's conviction is significant because it proves Lynn's criminal prosecution was not an isolated event, but instead something that is likely to embolden prosecutors to go after church leaders who fail to protect children.

"Kansas City might mark a trend," Lytton said. "It's no longer good enough to just file civil suits; criminal justice may be much quicker to get involved. Kansas City normalizes this kind of reaction to the scandal."

The lesson from all this is that no bishop should ever treat any reported 'suspicious behavior' by one of his priests lightly. If there is a report, refer it to the police right away and let them investigate - they may get nowhere as Milwaukee police did who investigated dozens of allegations against Fr. Murphy in the early 1970s and found none of them actionable - even as you give the suspected priest a chance to explain himself to a diocesan inquiry.

The watchdog group Media Research Council called attention to this recent editorial in a Colorado newspaper and its online version.

The sex-abuse stories you never read about:
Planned Parenthood 'worse than Penn State'
by Wane Laugesen
Editorial

August 26, 2012

We take sexual abuse of children quite seriously in the United States, but only selectively.

When Americans learned that Penn State employees didn’t make use of evidence that assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was having sex with children, we were collectively outraged. After Sandusky’s conviction on 45 counts of sexual abuse, the culture rightly wanted heads to roll. We demanded to know who knew what, when they knew it, and why those people had not moved heaven and earth to stop the abuse.

Former FBI director Louis Freeh found that late head coach Joe Paterno and other university leaders “repeatedly concealed critical facts” about suspicions pertaining to Sandusky.

Paterno’s statue was removed from campus. Ranking university officials, including the president, were fired. The NCAA fined Penn State $60 million and hit the football program with a four-year postseason ban.

Public outcry is so enormous that some say the very existence of Penn State is in question, as the Middle States Commission on Higher Education has threatened to pull the school's accreditation.

When society learned that several Catholic bishops had covered up for child molesters, mostly decades prior, the Church was sued out of more than $3 billion. The costs keep rising, with some suits that involve cases so old the alleged victims and defendants are dead.

Most would agree that all of this is good. No civilized society tolerates cover-ups of sexual abuse of children.

Yet our federal government pays more than $1 million a day to Planned Parenthood, which probably covers up more sexual abuse of children than any other institution in the United States. Evidence is overwhelming.

In 2002, an organization called Life Dynamics launched a sophisticated sting operation that employed tactics similar to those used by Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series. The organization hired an actor/investigator who completed and recorded calls to 813 Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation abortion clinics in the United States. Hear the calls at www.ChildPredator.com.

In Colorado and all other states, workers in medical facilities are required to report evidence of sexual abuse of minors.

The caller told intake workers she was a 13-year-old who had been impregnated by a 22-year-old — a sexual relationship forbidden in all states. She asked if they would tell anyone about the boyfriend and her pregnancy. In 91 percent of calls, abortion workers agreed to conceal the relationship. In a substantial number of those, abortion workers coached the girl on helping them to cover up rape.

In a typical call, an abortion clinic intake worker tells the girl: “I mean, you know, I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but there’s no way that I can know for a fact that who you bring in here is not your mom or dad.”

The girl/investigator called back and said: “I was talking to my boyfriend, and I told him what you said about getting someone to come in that was old enough to look like my dad.”

Abortion worker: “Yes, yes, yes.”

Girl: “Well, he’s got an uncle who is 50 who said he would do it.”

Abortion worker: “Well, as long as he doesn’t tell me he’s not your father, then we’re alright.”

As a young UCLA student, Lila Rose launched multiple stings in which she posed as an underage girl who was impregnated by an adult. She recorded abortion workers coaching her about protecting the predator. Since graduating, Rose has made a full-time career of catching and recording Planned Parenthood workers willing to actively cover up statutory rape.

Ohio attorney Brian Hurley represents two clients who sued Planned Parenthood for neglecting state laws that may have resulted in investigations of their rapists. One case involved a 13-year-old girl who was raped by her adult soccer coach, John Haller. He impregnated the girl and took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. The clinic declined to report evidence of rape, the girl’s parents sued, and a judge ruled against Planned Parenthood in 2010.

An ongoing case involves an adult who was repeatedly raped by her father, who eventually went to prison. She claims Planned Parenthood declined to contact authorities, even after she told them her father routinely forced her to have sex.

President Obama, instruct the Justice Department to investigate Planned Parenthood. That institution has no more business than Penn State covering up sexual abuse of children. —

I finally got around to translating the last interview with Cardinal Martini recorded on August 8, and published Sept. 2 in Corriere della Sera. I was hoping that the entire interview would place the isolated citations from it in a context that would soften their harshness, negativity and general unfairness. Not so, alas. Nor the fact that the cardinal chose rhetorically to use 'we' and 'us' when he poses his accusatory questions. (The omissions indicated by ... are as published.) All the objections I had to the isolated citations remain and apply to the whole interview. Not that I think my opinions matter at all, especially against the word of a man who could have been Pope if the Holy Spirit had so wished, but because the statements lend themselves to immediate logical and factual objections.

One of the interviewers, Mrs. Confalonieri, told Corriere della Sera: "The idea was that the text would be part of his testamentary legacy, and Don Damaso (Modena, the cardinal's longtime secretary), has already given it to the executors of the cardinal's will". The lady lives in Vienna and became close to the cardinal after she was presented to him in Jerusalem in 2008. She served as the Italian interpreter for Fr. Sporschill, an Austrian, who was the cardinal's co-author of the book-length interview Nocturnal Converstions in Jerusalem published in 2008 and said to have been the cardinal's best-selling book.

'The Church is 200 years behind the times:
Why does she not rouse herself? What do we fear?'
The last interview with Cardinal Martini
by Georg Sporschill, SJ, and Federica Radice Fossati Confalonieri
Translated from

September 2, 2012

How do you see the situation of the Church?
The Church is tired, in affluent Europe and in the United States. Our culture is old, our churches are large, our religious houses are empty, while the bureaucratic apparatus of the Church is in the ascendancy, and our rites and vestments are pompous. But do these things express what we are today?...

Affluence weighs us down. We find ourselves like the rich young man who went away sadly when Jesus called him to become a disciple. I know we cannot leave everything easily. Much less can we find men who are free and truly close to their neighbors - like Mons. (Oscar) Romero was and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador. Where are those among us who are heroes to inspire us? There is no reason that we must constrict them by their bonds to the institution [the Church]. [Surely the cardinal was aware that the greatest saints celebrated their bonds to the Church and did not find them 'constricting!]

[Antonio Socci rightly disputed these last statements, in which the cardinal shows so little faith in his fellow Christians - that, in fact, there are countless examples in the Church, but that the cardinal obviously did not find them among his own followers and in the circles within which he moved! One might mention simply the missionaries who give their lives every year in the service of Christ and his Church, or the Christians who suffer in anti-Christian lands like China and the Arab countries, or the many men and women who silently live their lives according to the Gospel. And how can one ignore the figure and model Christian that Benedict XVI provides for the Church and the world? ]

Who can help the Church today?
Karl Rahner often used the image of embers hidden by ashes. I see in the Church today so much ash covering the embers that I am often assailed by a sense of powerlessness. How can the embers be rid of the ashes in order to rekindle the flame of love?

In the first place, we must find the embers. Where are the individuals who are as generous as the good Samaritan? Who have faith like the Roman centurion had? Where are the enthusiasts like John the Baptist? Who can dare something new as Paul did? Who are as faithful as Mary of Magdala? [But what a pessimistic view to have of the Church, as he approached the end of a long life in which the Church enabled him to achieve what he did! If he could so easily generalize like this, would he therefore say that all his pastoral efforts were in vain since he did not seem to see any Christian worthy of his criteria? And is this not a blatant and ultimate lack of charity?

I would advise the Pope and the bishops to seek out twelve persons outside the box for directional instruction. [Why should they do that when the Word of God is the primary directional instruction for the Church? What does 'outside the box' mean in this context? You either follow the Word of God, in or outside whatever box, or you don't.]

Men who are closest to the poorest of men, who are surrounded by young people and who experience new things. [So, in the cardinal's eyes, neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI qualify by these criteria! Some critics remarked in the Italian media about the notable scarcity of young people among those who came to pay tribute to the cardinal at the Cathedral of Milan, estimated to have totalled 200,000, and that those who came were generally those who remembered him fondly from the 22 years that he was Archbishop of Milan. I know you can't compare a cardinal to a Pope, but when Benedict XVI went to Milan in June this year, Cathedral Square was filled to capacity, with about 100,000 faithful, and a million came to the papal Mass in Milano-Bresso. (Let us not even mention the WYD crowds!] In these days of general cynicism, especially in the secularized West, it is a miracle that the Pope continues to be a crowd drawer - but the faithful are not drawn to the Pope, whoever he is, just because he is the Pope, but because in their heart, they do see him as the Vicar of Christ on earth. And to imply, as the cardinal seemed to do - notwithstanding the outward respect that he showed Benedict XVI - that either John Paul II or Benedict XVI were/are delinquent as the Vicar of Christ, is yet another example of an inexplicable lack of charity.]

We need to be in contact with men of ardent faith so that the spirit can be disseminated everywhere. [Yes, Your Eminence. One hopes you have now met up in the great beyond, with all such ardent men of faith like the missionaries who gave their lives for the faith, and whose surviving colleagues are no less praiseworthy because they are still alive. It's too bad you apparently found Blessed John Paul II and our blessed Benedict XVI men of less than ardent faith, who were not interested in disseminating the spirit of Christ wherever they could/can!]

What tools would you recommend against the exhaustion of the Church?
I would recommend three very strongly.

The first is repentance. The Church should recognize her own errors and must follow a radical path of change, starting with the Pope and the bishops. The pedophile scandals urge us to undertake a path of repentance. In the excerpts, I found this statement the most offensive, because 1) it assumes that neither Benedict XVI himself nor any in the Church hierarchy does not realize this, and 2) worse, because Benedict XVI has not ceased urging this self-purification as the necessary condition for true renewal. I am sorry, but being an eminent cardinal on the verge of death did not justify propagating falsehood, or at the very least, willful disregard of facts!]

Questions about sexuality and all the subjects that regard the body are an example [of mistaken Church teaching???] - they are important for everyone, and sometimes, perhaps, even given too much importance. We must ask ourselves if the people still pay any attention to what the Church teaches about sexuality.Is the Church still an authoritative reference on this subject or simply a caricature in the media? [Again, the remarks seem to show such monumental disdain for the obedience of the non-secularized faithful who strive to follow what the Church teaches. What about all the millions in Africa who have been following the Church's ABC for protection against HIV - the A being the priority emphasis on abstinence for unmarried Catholics, and B for 'being faithful' to one's spouse if one is married? Perhaps the cardinal was never exposed to young Catholics who, in the United States, openly proclaim on EWTN their respect for the Church's admonition against pre-marital sex, and has never listened to countless catechists who have been inspired by John Paul II's 'theology of the body'. No one knows whether they are in the majority of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, but their very existence and public activity indicate they are not 'insignificant' for the Church.]

The second is the Word of God. The Second Vatican Council restituted the Bible to Catholics... Only those who perceive the Scriptures in their heart can help in the renewal of the Church and will be able to respond to personal questions in the right way. The Word of God is simple, and seeks the companionship of a heart that listens... Neither the clergy nor canon law can replace the Word of God in man's heart. All external rules, laws, and dogmas are given us in order to clarify the internal voice and spiritual discernment. [Memo to the cardinal if he were still with us: Benedict XVI called a Special Synodal Assembly on the Word of God and wrote a most powerful post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation called Verbum Domini (the Word of God). Not to forget that the young Joseph Ratzinger's major Vatican-II contribution was to the drafting of Dei verbum, the dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. In the nonchalant lingo of the street, Benedict XVI can well say "Been there, done that, still doing that" for both Suggestions 1 and 2.]

Thirdly, who are the sacraments for? This is the third instrument of healing. They are not an instrument for discipline, but an aid for man during the journey of life and in his weaknesses. Are we bringing the sacraments to those who need new strength? I am thinking of all divorced Catholics who have remarried, and their extended families. They need special protection. [To reduce 'the sacraments' to this limited issue and to this special-interest group - the Church is surely not teeming with remarried divorcees - is a constricted view of the sacramental life. Benedict XVI's catecheses on the sacraments and his post-synodal exhertation on the Eucharist, Sacramentum caritatis, are among the most beautiful teachings. His teachings on Baptism, Penance and Holy Orders are truly memorable.

The only sacrament that remarried divorcees are denied by the Church is the Eucharist, and this rule is a logical consequence of her teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. No one has a 'right' to be given Communion - it must be earned by valid confession and repentance. Did the cardinal mean by 'special protection' that remarried divorcees should be given a sort of class exemption from the rule of the indissolubility of marriage? As if God had not said in Scriptures, and the Biblical expert par excellence surely knew - "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder"?

To deny communion to remarried divorcees - whose first spouses are still alive and whose first marriage was not canonically annulled - is not 'punishment' as Martini sees it, but a consequence they were well aware of when they made the decision to divorce and to remarry without a canonical annulment of the first marriage, or the first spouse having died. They made their choice openly and deliberately, so they cannot then turn around and excoriate the Church for 'punishing them'.(Frankly, I think many of the complaints are prompted by 'social embarrassment' - as if the whole world knew at a glance that they cannot receive communion, and it makes them feel branded!) because Benedict XVI has reminded them that they have the comfort of all the other sacraments, and that spiritual communion is very much an option they can always use.

I would find it the greatest irony if it turns out, as it probably would if a study were done, that those who complain about not being able to receive communion do not even go to Church regularly. On the other hand, even if they do not accept the ecclesial consequence of their choice to divorce and remarry, nothing stops them from raising their children as good Catholics if they want to, in which their own experience of having broken a basic tenet of the faith, could be a 'teachable' example of error.]

The Church maintains the indissolubility of marriage. It is a grace when a marriage and a family succeed... [It is a grace but also a reasonable expectation, and one that committed Catholics strive to achieve.] The attitude that we take towards extended families will determine the proximity of the Church to the children of these divorcees. [I anticipated this line of argument in my last comment above.]

A woman is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion who takes care of her and her three children. This second love is a success. If this family is discriminated against [Application of Catholic teaching is not 'discriminating against' anyone!], not just the mother but also the children are cut off from the Church. [Not necessarily, as argued earlier. Nothing stops her from raising her children as observant Catholics, and if her children are 'cut off' from the Church, it certainly is not the Church who is cutting them off!]

If the parents feel excluded from the Church or do not feel support from the Church [A bogus sense of victimhood, since they knew very well what to expect when they made their free choice to divorce and remarry, and an attitude they ought not to pass on to their children], the Church will lose the next generation. [Contemporary testimonials and studies are rife with children turning out to be more 'conservative', 'traditional', or religious than their parents, so that is no argument for exempting remarried divorcees from the rule of the indissolubility of marriage. Pastoral common sense would be to deal with each case and counsel the aggrieved couple accordingly so they can 1) see the incorrectness of asking to be exempted from the rule, 2) learn to welcome the solace of spiritual communion [from personal experience, I cannot say how comforted and grateful I am everytime I pray, "Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, Say but the word and my soul will be healed" after saying the Act of Contrition - and by the way, Your Eminence, was that not the very faith and the immortal words of the Roman centurion you cited earliier? And the very same spiritual communion that Benedict XVI has counselled for unhappy remarried divorcees!]; and 3) raise their children to be good Catholics.]

Before Communion, we pray, "Lord I am not worthy..." We know we are not worthy. Love is a gift, The question about whether remarried divorcees can receive communion should be turned on its head. How can the Church come to the aid of people with complex family situations with the power of the sacraments? [Again, receiving the Sacraments is not an inherent right. Outside of Baptism, one has to earn sacramental grace. The cardinal might as well have argued that the Church should give communion to everyone who presents himself - which would include persons who have not necessarily gone to confession, or any Tom/Dick/Harry of whatever religion who gets it into his head that he wants to participate in a Catholic communion rite - and that ecumenical discussions can now be closed about sharing Communion since the Church has decided to 'dispense' Communion to anyone and everyone. And all this, just because a minority of Catholics had decided to disregard the sacramentality of marriage to begin with!]

What would you do personally?
The Church has remained behind by 200 years. Why on earth does she not rouse herself? Are we afraid? Afraid of courage?

[I'm still trying to figure out why the cardinal cited such an interval, or was it arbitrary? 200 years ago would put us in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars and the aftermath of the French Revolution which was the most violently anti-clerical event since the Reformation. Is the Church behind the times for rejecting the secular changes imposed by the French Revolution, for holding up saints of that era like Jean Marie Vianney and Jean Eudes as enduring examples of the faith, or, going forward to the epoch of the First Vatican Council, because Blessed Pius IX decreed his Syllabus of Errors against modernity in the mid-19th century?

And in contemporary times, because she still preaches the indissolubility of marriage (which God himself commanded, and which the cardinal acknowledges in the interview) and condemns homosexual acts (one of the major vices for which God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah)? In short, because she will not be swayed by the trend of the times? Was that really Cardinal Martini's ecclesiology - that the Church must change with the times? If he had ever become Pope, and as such, dutybound to preserve the doctrine of the faith, would he have been so ready to cast off teachings and practices he did not personally favor?]

Nonetheless, faith is the foundation of the Church. Faith, trust, courage. I am old and sick and must depend on the help of others. The good persons around me make me feel their love. [And is that not their own way of showing the virtues demanded by the cardinal of Christians? Did the cardinal not see the heroism of small deeds, in his caregivers as in others?] This love is stronger than the feeling of distrust that I have every so often regarding the Church in Europe. Only love can conquer exhaustion. God is Love.

For my part, I have one question for you: What can you do for the Church? [Mrs. Confalonieri says the cardinal directed this last question to Fr. Sporschill whom, she says, 'was visibly shaken as I have never seen a person do'!]

Sandro Magister has written a commentary on this interview on
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350318?eng=y

To publicize the interview as a 'prophetic indictment' of the Church today is intellectual dishonesty on the part of the MSM and Martini admirers, who would validate his sweeping statements against the Church in toto, without regard for what Benedict XVI is doing - and with him, the men of the Church who, like him, try to live the Gospel as best they can - on the very points that the cardinal has been most condemnatory. I do not doubt his sincerity - that he meant every word he said - nor his concern for the Church, but I do mind and take offense that he made it appear that no one else in the Church today has thought about these things, and that no one is doing anything about it.

Sept. 9, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

ST. PEDRO CLAVER (b Spain 1581, d Colombia 1654), Jesuit, Missionary, 'Apostle to the Slaves'
Born to prosperous and pious parents in a village near Barcelona, Pedro studied at the University of Barcelona and at the Jesuit College in Palma de Mallorca, where he volunteered after 2 years to be a missionary in South America. He was 19 when he left for the New World in 1610, landing in Cartagena, Colombia, a rich port city that was a center of the slave trade that had been flourishing between the Americas and Africa for nearly 100 years. Claver, who was ordained a Jesuit in 1615, took on the mission of his predecessor, Fr. Alfonso de Sandoval, who had devoted himself to serving the sales for 40 years. Pedro assumed care for the slaves as soon as a new slave ship came in, ministering to the sick and exhausted passengers with basic necessities as well as their first instructions in the faith, During the 40 years of his ministry, it is estimated that he instructed and baptized at least 300,000 slaves. At the same time, he became a moral force in the city, preaching in the city square and spreading the Word in the countryside, where he stayed in slave quarters rather than take the hospitality of their masters. Illness kept him inactive in the last four years of his life, but when he died, the city officials ordered a big funeral for him at public expense. He was canonized in 1888, and Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among slaves.
Readings for today's Mass;
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090912.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

Sunday Angelus - After reflecting on Jesus's command "Effata" (Open up) to a man he healed of a speech impediment,
the Pope dedicated his message in French to his coming trip to Lebanon, saying it was, by extension, a trip
to all of the Middle East, under the sign of peace, in Jesus's words "My peace I give you" (Jn 14,27).

SUNDAY ANGELUS
Sept. 9, 2012



Christ's mission: To open up
man's heart to the voice of God


A word that sums up Christ’s mission on earth was the focus of Pope Benedict XVI’s Angelus reflections this week: "Effata," which means, "Open up", taken from this Sunday's Gospel, Mark Chapter 7, which recounts Christ’s healing of a deaf mute.

Pope Benedict XVI said Jesus “became man so that man, made inwardly deaf and dumb by sin, would become able to hear the voice of God, the voice of love speaking to his heart, and learn to speak in the language of love, to communicate with God and with others”.

After the prayers, he spoke about his trip to Lebanon on Sept. 14-16 as a visit that takes place in the sign of peace, calling for all parties concerned in the Middle East to make dialog for peace and reconciliation their priority.

Here is a full translation of the Pope's words:

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

At the center of today's Gospel (Mk7,31-37), there's a small word which is very important. A word which, in its profound sense, summarizes all of Christ's message and work.

The evangelist Mark reports it in the language of Jesus himself, as he said it, so that we hear it even more vividly. This word is 'Effata', which means 'Open up'.

Let us see the context in which it is used. Jesus was going through the region called Decapoli between the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon and Galilee - therefore, an area which was not Jewish. They brought him a deaf-mute to be healed - evidently Jesus's fame was widespread even there.

Jesus took the man aside, touched his ears and his tongue, and then, looking to heaven, he gave a deep sigh and said, "Effata". which means 'Open up'. And immediately the man could hear and he could speak (Mk 5,37).

This then was the historical and literal significance of that word: The deaf-mute, thanks to the intervention of Jesus, 'opened up'. First, he had been closed, isolated -it was difficult for him to communicate. Healing was for him an 'opening' to others and to the world, an opening which, starting with the organs of hearing and speech, involved his whole being and life: Finally, he could communicate, and therefore, he could relate to others in a new way.

But we all know that man's closedness, his isolation, does not just depend on the organs of sense. There is an interior closedness, which has to do with the person's profound core, that which the Bible calls 'heart'.

It is this that Jesus came to 'open up', to liberate, in order to make us capable of fully living our relationship with God and with others. That is why I said that this little word - "Effata", 'Open up' - sums up in itself the mission of Christ.

He became man so that man, made interiorly deaf and mute by sun, could become able to listen to the voice of God, the voice of Love that speaks to his heart, and thus, he in turn can learn the language of love, to communicate with God and with others.

For this reason, the word and the gesture of 'Effata' have been included in the Rite of Baptism, as one of the signs that explains its significance: The priest, touching the mouth and the ears of the newly baptized says: ""Effata", praying that he may soon be able to hear the word of God and profess the faith.

Through Baptism, the human person begins, so to speak, to "breathe' the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had invoked from the Father with his deep sigh, in order to heal the deaf-mute.

Let us now turn in prayer to the Most Blessed Mary, whose Nativity we celebrated yesterday. Because of her singular relationship with the incarnate Word, Mary is fully 'open' to the love of the Lord - her heart is constantly listening to his Word.

May her maternal intercession obtain for us that we may experience every day, in faith, the miracle of "Effata", in order to live inc communion with God and with our brothers.

After the prayers, he spoke about his coming trip to Lebanon in his message to the French-speaking faithful:

Dear pilgrims who are present or who are taking part int his Angelus through radio or television, in the next few days, I will be going to Lebanon on an apostolic trip to sign the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, the outcome of the Bishops' Synod's Special Assembly for the Middle East held in October 2010.

I will have the happy occasion to meet the people of Lebanon and their officials, as well as the Christians of this beloved land and those who will come from neighboring countries.

I am not unaware of the often tragic situation now being lived by the peoples of this region which has been battered too long by incessant conflicts.

I understand the anguish of many residents of the Middle East who are plunged everyday into suffering of all kinds, which sadly affect, and often mortally, their personal and family life.

I am constantly concerned for those who, seeking a place of peace, leave their family and profession for the uncertainty of exile.

Although it is difficult to find solutions for the various problems of the region, one cannot be resigned to violence and the worsening of tensions. An engagement for dialog and reconciliation should be the priority for all the parties concerned, and it must be supported by the international community, that must ever be more aware of the importance for the whole world of a stable and lasting peace in all of the region.

My apostolic trip to Lebanon, and by extension, to all of the Middle East, takes place under the sign of peace, in the words of Jesus, "My peace I give you" (Jn 14,27). May God bless Lebanon and the Middle East! May God bless you all!

---

Pope says Beirut trip is
a Mideast peace pilgrimage


CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday characterized his trip to Beirut later this week as a pilgrimage for peace for the entire Middle East region and its anguished people.

Benedict told pilgrims at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome that while finding solutions for the Middle East's problems seems difficult, people "shouldn't resign themselves to violence or worsening tensions."

He noted that during his three-day visit to the Lebanese capital, which begins Friday, he would meet with Lebanese authorities as well as Christians from Lebanon and other nearby countries.

"I am not unaware of the often dramatic situation endured by the populations of this region which has been for too long torn by incessant conflict," Benedict said. "I understand the anguish of many Middle Easterners steeped daily in sufferings of every kind, which afflict sadly, and sometimes mortally, their personal and family life."

The Pope urged the international community to support efforts at dialogue and reconciliation, as he stressed "the importance for the whole world of a stable and lasting peace in the entire region.

"My apostolic voyage in Lebanon, and by extension in the Middle East in its entirety, comes under the sign of peace," Benedict said.

In recent weeks there was concern that spillover in parts of Lebanon from the fighting in Syria might derail the trip by the 85-year-old Pontiff. But the Vatican has assured the faithful that despite a climate of tensions in Lebanon the pilgrimage is going forward.

Benedict's visit is also aimed at encouraging his flock in the Middle East. Some Christian communities there have suffered for their faith, including terror attacks in Iraq.

His schedule also includes his celebrating Mass in Beirut and attending a gathering with youth.

Pope's videomessage to 10 Italian cities:
'Ten Commandments are man's way
to true freedom and happiness'
by Salvatore Izzo




CASTEL GANDOLFO, Sept. 9 (Translated from AGI) - "May the sad experiences of history, especially in the past century, remain a warning for all mankind", Benedict XVI says in a video message to the ecclesial movement Rinnovamento nello Spirito (Renewal in the Spirit) which this weekend promoted assemblies on the Ten Commandments in ten major Italian cities.

"The way of love indicated by the Commandments and perfected by Christ is the only one that can make our lives and those of others and our communities fuller, better and happier", whereas "When man, in his existence, ignores the Commandments, not only does he alienate himself from God and abandons the covenant with God, but he also distances himself from life and lasting happiness".

The Pope responds in the videomessage to the question of what the Decalogue means for us "in the actual cultural context, in which secularism and relativism threaten to be the criteria for every choice, and in society today where people seem to live as if God does not exist".

"We respond that God gave us the Commandments to educate us in true freedom and authentic love, in order that we may truly be happy... The commandments are a sign of the love of God the Father, his desire to teach us the right discernment of good from evil, of true from false, of just from unjust".

He said they are "understandable to everyone, and precisely because they set the fundamental values in concrete rules, man by putting them into practice can follow the path of true freedom which sets him firmly on the way that leads to life and happiness".

He says "The Decalogue brings us back to Mt. Sinai, when God entered the history of the Jewish people in a very special way, and through them, into the history of all mankind, by giving the 'Ten Words' that express his will and that are a kind of ethical code to construct a society in which the relationship of alliance with the Holy and Just God illuminates and guides relationships among persons".

Then, in the Gospel, "Jesus brings to fulfillment the way of the Commandments with his Cross and Resurrection, which represent the radical overcoming of selfishness, of sin and of death, through the gift of himself for love of mankind".

"Jesus came to fulfill the words of the Decalogue, exalting them and summing them up in the double commandment of love: 'Love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your spirit, and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as you love yourself'... Only if we accept the infinite love of God and trust in him, will following the path he indicated to us give a profound sense to life and open a future of hope".

Monday, Sept. 10, 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. TOMAS DE VILLANUEVA (Spain, 1486-1555), Augustinian, Bishop and Confessor
We know him better by the Italian form of his name, Tommaso da Villanova, since the parish church in Castel Gandolfo is named for him. He was an Augustinian who was a brilliant professor (though he was known to be absent-minded at times) and was considered the greatest preacher of his day, by his example as well as by his words. Elected head of the Augustinian order in Spain, he sent the first Augustinian missionaries to the New World. He was the confessor to Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, who said upon hearing him preach the first time, "This man can move even the stones!" He refused his nomination as Archbishop of Granada but eventually agreed to be Archbishop of Valencia. Known since his university days for his personal austerity, he was devoted to charity all his life. As bishop, hundreds of poor people came to his door every day for food and alms. Sometimes called the Spanish St. Bernard [of Clairvaux] because of his profound theology on Mary, he was also devoted to the welfare of children, defended his diocese from Muslim threats, and brought about public conversions. He died of a heart attack at age 67, and was canonized in 1618, 63 years after his death. His biography was written by his townmate Francisco Quevedo, who was born 15 years after Tomas died, and became oe of Spain's greatest literary writers during her Golden Age of Literature. Tomas's complete writings were published in 1881 in six volumes.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091012.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY


Pope Benedict XVI met with

- Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan

- H.E. Vladeta Jankovic, Ambassador from Serbia, with his wife, on their farewell visit.

- Bishops of Colombia on ad limina visit, The Holy Father, who has met with them in three groups
in recent days, addressed them in Spanish.

Benedict XVI encourages participants
in 26th International Meeting for Peace
taking place this year in Sarajevo

Sept. 10, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI has sent a message, through Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, to the Archbishop of Vrhbosna-Sarajevo, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, expressing his appreciation of and encouragement for the 26th International Meeting for Peace, which brings together representatives of the world's religions to foster understanging, reconciliation and coexistence in the "Spirit of Assisi".

The meeting has been organized annually in a different city by the Sant'Egidio Community, working with the religious communities of the major faiths in the host country.

Last Saturday, the Holy Father received leaders of the Sant'Egidio Community in Castel Gandolfo - Minister Andrea Riccardi, founder of the movement, and Prof, Marco Impagliato, current president - who briefed him on preparations for the meeting. They were accompanied by Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.




Here is the text of the papal message:

---

To His Eminence
Cardinal Vinko Puljic
Archbishop of Vrhbosna-Sarajevo
SARAJEVO

Your Eminence,

I am particularly glad to convey the heartfelt greetings and appreciation of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the illustrious Representatives of the Christian Churches and Communities and of the great world Religions, as well as to the people of Sarajevo, whom are particularly dear to Him, and to all those who are gathered to celebrate the 26th International Meeting for Peace organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio.

It gives joy and comfort to see that this pilgrimage of peace, started in Assisi in October 1986 by Blessed John Paul II, continues to bear fruit.

The Supreme Pontiff Himself wished to underline its significance last year, 25 years since its beginning, going as a pilgrim to the city of Saint Francis, together with many believers and men and women of good will, who are engaged in a sincere search for truth and are therefore commited to building peace.

On that occasion, He observed how the cause of peace is today threatened by a twofold danger: on the one side the exploitation of religion for violent ends, and on the other the rejection of God in the name of a completely secularized vision of man, which in turn is capable of producing boundless violence.

The combined effects of these two negative forces were experienced in tragic proportions, also in the city of Sarajevo, during the war that started twenty years ago, waging death and destruction in the Balcans.

As an antidote to this recurrent threat, in Assisi Pope Benedict XVI revived the covenant between people of religion and people engaged in a sincere search for truth, though they do not feel they belong to any religious tradition, convinced as He is that a profound and sincere dialogue may be, for the former an engagement to the ever necessary purification of the religion they profess, and for the latter a way to remain open to the major questions of humanity and to the Mystery that enfolds the life of man.

Therefore, the common pilgrimage towards truth may turn into a shared pilgrimage towards peace. An expression of this are the International Meetings for Peace promoted by the Community of Sant'Egidio. And the meeting this year in Sarajevo bears a special relevance.

As the Blessed John Paul II, who felt so profoundly bound to this city, once said: "It cannot be forgotten that Sarajevo has become the symbol of the suffering of the whole of Europe. It was so at the beginning of the 1900s, when the First World War had its beginning here; it was so in a different way this second time, when the conflict took place entirely in this region of yours" (Homily in Sarajevo, 13th April 1997).

Today, from Sarajevo, a message of peace shall rise, thanks to the meeting of many men and women of different religions. Peace needs to be supported by hearts and minds that search for truth, opening up to God's action, stretching out their hands to others.

It is important, then, to widen our vision to the whole world and to realities that are problematic in terms of living together, reconciliation and peace, with hope and commitment: the threat of terrorism persists in many parts of the world, many wars shed blood on the earth, violence against one's brother seems to have no end.

Our world truly needs peace! From our world a cry rises, stronger and stronger: "May peace come!". The Holy Father's thought in these days goes especially to the Middle East, to the tragic situation in Syria and the Apostolic Journey he will soon carry out in Lebanon.

His wish is that these lands, and all lands that are in need of reconciliation and tranquillity, may soon find peace in serene coexistence, in stability and in the respect of human rights.

The long experience of dialogue, developed also through these Meetings, shows how faulty the culture of the clash is, while the value of dialogue is revealed, set on the solid tracks of truth, which peace stems from:

"This living together is in fact a precondition that derives from our being human. And it is our duty to give it a positive content. This living together can transform itself into living against one another, it can become hell if we do not learn to accept one another, if everyone only wants to be himself or herself. But it can also be a gift when we open up to one another, when we give ourselves to one another" (Benedict XVI, Message to the International Meeting for Peace of Munich, 1st September 2011).

It is an awareness that must grow in the consciences of men and women and peoples.

'Living Together is the Future'! This vision for us Christians is rooted in faith: "The God in whom we Christians believe is the Creator and Father of all, and from him all people are brothers and sisters and form one single family. For us the Cross of Christ is the sign of the God who put “suffering-with” and “loving-with” in place of force" (Benedict XVI, Speech in Assisi, 27th October 2011).

While conveying His wishes of a fruitful meeting, the Holy Father is united spiritually to all those who are present, in the certainty that the Lord, Father of all men and women, will continue to guide us on the path of peace and peaceful meeting among peoples, blessing our every effort.

I join the wishes of the Supreme Pontiff and avail myself of this occasion to express to You, dear Cardinal, my feelings of consideration and esteem in Christ.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
Secretary of State

---

Opening rites of the Sarajevo meeting. Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej joined Catholic prelates led by Cardinal Kurt Koch at the opening Catholic liturgy in Sarajevo Cathedral

All photos taken from the Sant'Egidio website.

Benedict XVI to the bishops of Colombia:
'Amid persistent violence, continue to protect
human life and to promote a culture of peace'



Pope Benedict XVI met Monday noon with the bishops of Colombia at the Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo. Yhey make up the second batch who have come to Rome on their ad-limina visit. The Holy Father met with them in three separate groups last week.

Here is a translation of his address to them, delivered in Spanish:

---

Dear brothers in the Episcopate,

1. With profound joy, I extend to you a most heartfelt welcome to this encounter of communion with the Bishop of Rome and head of the Episcopal College.

I am grateful for the kind words of Mons. Ricardo Tobón Restrepo, Archbishop of Medellin,with which he expressed to me the affection of the bishops, priests, deacons religious communities and faithful laymen in Colombia, as well as the major lines of the pastoral task that is taking place in your local churches, as they make their way between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God" (cf Lumen gentium, 8).

2. Your visit to the tombs of the Princes of the Apostles, as you well know, constitutes an important moment in the life of the ecclesiastical circumscriptions of which you are the Pastors, because it consolidates the bonds of faith and communion which unite you to the Successor of Peter and to the entire body of the Church.

For the Pope as well, this is an occasion of profound significance because it allows him to express his concern for all the churches. May your presence in Rome, then, be an opportunity to revive your effective and affective unity with the Pastor of the universal Church and among yourselves, so that in everyone that ideal = which has identified the ecclesial community from its beginnings: "They were of one heart and one soul" (Acts 4,32). = may be intensified and positively reinforced among the faithful.

3. The history of Colombia is indelibly marked by the profound Catholic faith of its people, their love for the Eucharist, their devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the witness of charity by her distinguished priests and laymen.

The announcement of the Gospel has borne fruit among you with abundant vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life, in the willingness that has been shown for the missio ad gentes, in the resurgence of apostolic movements, as well as in the pastoral vitality of the parish communities.

Along with these, you yourselves have observed the devastating effects of growing secularizstion which forcefully affects lifestyles and distorts the scale of values that persons have, undermining the very foundations of the Catholic faith, of matrimony, of the family and of Christian morality.

In this respect, the indefatigable defense and promotion of the family as an institution continues to be a pastoral priority for you. That is why, in the midst of difficulties, I call on you not to step back from your efforts and continue to proclaim the integral truth about the family, founded on matrimony as a domestic church and sanctuary of life (cf Address at the Closing of the V World Meeting of Families, Valencia, July 8, 2006).

4. The Global Plan (2012-2020) of the Bishops' Conference of Colombia states that its general objective is "to promote the processes of new evangelization which will form missionary disciples who will animate ecclesial communion and who will affect society with the values of the Gospel" (cf No. 5.1).

I accompany this intention with my prayers, a goal which I had an opportunity to comment upon when I opened the V General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops in Aparecida, asking God that in bringing this about, the ministers of the Church may never tire in identifying themselves with the sentiments of Christ, the Good Shepherd, who went forth to meet everyone with mercy in his heart in order to offer them the light of his Word.

Thus, the dynamism of interior renovation will bring your compatriots to revitalize their love for the Lord, the spring from which the ways will emerge that will establish firm hope in order to live the faith responsibly and joyfully, and to radiate it everywhere (cf Inaugural Speech 2.5).

5. In a fatherly spirit, consecrate the best of your ministry to the priests, deacons and religious who are under your care. Give them the attention they need for their spiritual, intellectual and material life, so that they may be able to live their own ministry faithfully and fruitfully.

If necessary, do not spare them your timely, clarificatory and charitable correction and orientation. But above all, be the model for them of Christian life and commitment to the mission you received from Christ.

And do not fail to favor the cultivation of vocations and the initial formation of candidates for holy orders and the religious life, helping them to discern the truth of God's call so they may respond with generosity and the right intentions.

In this respect, it is opportune that, following the orientations of the the Magisterium, you may promote a revision of the content and methods of their formation, so they may better respond to the challenges of the present hour and to the needs and urgencies of the People of God.

Ir is equally important to promote a correct pastoral ministry for the young, through which the new generations may clearly perceive that Christ seeks them and wishes to offer them his friendship (cf. Jn 15, 13-15).

He gave his life to that they may have abundant life, so that their hearts may not be dragged down by mediocrity or by propositions which end up leaving emptiness and sadness behind.

He wants to help those who have the future ahead so they can realize their noblest aspirations, so that they may contribute fruitful sap to society in order to follow paths that will safeguard the environment, ordered progress and real solidarity.

6. In spite of some hopeful signs, violence continues to bring sorrow, solitude, death and injustice to many brothers in Colombia. Even as I acknowledge and thank you for the pastoral mission which - many times, in places full of difficulties and dangers - you are carrying out for so many persons who are suffering wrongly in your beloved nation, I encourage you to continue contributing to the protection of human life and the culture of peace, inspired by the example of our Savior and humbly imploring his grace.

Sow the Gospel and you will reap reconciliation, knowing that, wherever Christ is, concord opens the way, hate gives way to forgiveness, and rivalry is transformed into brotherhood.

7. Dear brothers in the Episcopate, in assuring you once more of my nearness and good will, I commend each of you to the maternal protection of the Most Blessed Mary, in her manifestation as Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquira.

May she intercede for the ordained ministers, the religious, the seminarians, the catechists and the faithful of your archdioceses and dioceses, increasing in them the desire to love and serve her divine Son.

To all, I impart from the heart an affectionate Apostolic Blessing as a token of abundant celestial favors.

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Sorry I can't do much more with the photos. The first 3 are from the OR, the fourth one from a thumbnail on Vatican Radio. I can understand RV online limiting itself to thumbnail illustrations, but the OR has been terribly inattentive to the technical quality of the photos it publishes, which is inexcusable at a time when digital tinkering can rescue the worst of photographs!

Most newspapers have a photo editor to make sure that the photos used are of the best technical quality possible, and who works with the newspaper's art director to ensure the best possible and consistent graphic look for the entire product. If the budget does not allow for having such persons on staff, the editors themselves are dutybound to carry out the function.

It's not happening at OR, where the very choice and presentation of the photos that the editors do decide to use are often arbitrary (not the best representation of an event), sometimes inappropriate (presenting the Pope as an indistinct tiny figure in photos featuring the backs of bishops' heads in the foreground), and rather heterogeneous (disparate lighting, color and sharpness in photos taken of the same event.

It's appalling to find such consistent disregard for professional journalistic standards in 'the Pope's newspaper'. And this is only with respect to photographs! The general reporting style is something else, but then Italian-style reporting is often too unstructured, rambling and idiosyncratic compared to the generally crisp, systematic and unequivocal presentation of Anglo-Saxon journalism. About the only 'structure' I find consistently in OR reports on papal events it that they never fail to list, at the end, all the Vatican dignitaries in attendance, always including "the editor of our newspaper".

I do admire the OR for providing a good daily compendium of international news, regardless of the slant the editors sometimes give; for its original stories on art and culture, some of which can be found only in the OR (which I regret I will never have the time to translate, except for items like the newly discovered Origen manuscripts); and for its consistent effort to highlight important events and developments in the world of religion (not just the Catholic Church, but other Christian confessions and the major non-Christian faiths).

Since I have never been a 'feminist' - we never needed women's lib in the Philippines where our society has always had a distinctly matriarchal line of authority - I am not levitating because editor Vian is paying more attention to women's issues and having more women write for the OR; I consider that a simple necessity and par for the course. (Modesty aside, I became the first female managing editor of a national newspaper in my country before I turned 30, and without even aiming for it, so I judge the OR on editorial and technical matters based on my professional training and experience.)

I probably wouldn't be so upset if I did not need to use the OR stories and photos to provide a complete record in the Forum of Benedict XVI's activities. Also, until the OR began posting the entire issue online about two years ago, I had never seen the entire newspaper, and only went by the front page which it has always published online and the stories they chose to feature. sometimes in abridged form.