BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

October 24, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
World Mission Day

ST. ANTONI MARIA CLARET (b Spain 1807, d France 1870), Weaver, Priest, Missionary, Founder of the Claretians, Archbishop, Writer and Publisher
A Catalan born near Barcelona, Antoni learned his father's trade as a weaver and worked in the textile mills of Barcelona, studying Latin and printing while he did this. He was a mediocre Catholic, but a near-drowning accident revived his faith. When he decided to enter the religious life, he wanted to be a Carthusian or a Jesuit, but in both cases, he was rejected due to ill health. He became a diocesan priest and was ordained at age 28. He became a famous preacher and retreat master throughout Spain. He was a fiery orator with extraordinary charisms (prophecy, exorcism and miracles) and attracted enormous and enthusiastic crowds. He stressed devotion to the Eucharist and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After spending 15 months as a missionary in the Canary Islands, he came back to the mainland and at age 42, he and five young priests started the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (commonly known as the Claretians). Later, he would also found the order of the Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate. Just as important, he founded what became the great religious publishing house of Barcelona, now known as Libreria Claret, which went on to publish millions of cheap editions of the best Catholic works, old and new. Claret himself, in his lifetime, published over 200 books and pamphlets. In 1850, Pope Pius IX named him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba to reform the Church on that Caribbean island. His reforms, both in the clergy and in social practices, were bitterly opposed in the anti-clerical atmosphere of that era. when Freemasons were highly influential. Particularly resented was his campaign to have families produce a variety of crops for their own use and for the market, instead of everyone merely devoting themselves to cultivating sugar cane. At least 15 attempts were made against his life. After seven year,s he was recalled to Spain to be the chaplain to Queen Isabella II. He agreed on three conditions: he would not live in court; he would only come to hear the Queen's confession and instruct her children; and he would be exempt from court functions. He used his influence to help the poor adn to propagate learning. He established a monastic school at the Escorial, which had a science laboratory, a museum of natural history, a library, a college and schools of music and languages. In the Revolution of 1868, he fled with the Queen's entourage to Paris, where he used his time preaching to the Spanish colony in France. he continued his popular missions and distribution of books and pamphlets wherever he went. When Isabella recognized the government of the new unified Italy, Claret went to Rome where he was summoned by Pius IX. In 1869, he took part in the First Vatican Council where he defended the concept of papal infallibility. During an argument by liberal bishops opposing it, he had a stroke from which he never recovered. He retired to a Cistercian monastery in southern France where he died the following year. In 1897, when his relics were transferred from France to his mission house in Vic, near Barcelona, to the mission house at Vic near Barcelona in 1897, his heart was found to be incorrupt. He was beatified in 1934 and canonized in 1950. Today, the Claretians have 450 houses and 3100 members, with missions in five continents. and hundreds of educational institutions around the world are named for him.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/102410.shtml


OR today:

At the end of the Synodal Assembly, Benedict XVI thanks the Synodal Fathers
and praises the rich plurality of the Middle Eastern Churches:
'A polyphony of the one faith'
Besides the wrap-up story (translated and posted yesterday on this thread in the preceding page), the issue contains the full text of the Synodal Assembly's final message. Other Page 1 stories: G20 finance ministers meeting in Seoul agree to give nations with emerging major economies more voice in a reformed International Monetary Fund; and the Wikileaks hackers unload 400,000 documents containing classified information about the US war in Iraq.


THE POPE'S DAY

Concluding Mass of the Synodal Assembly on the Middle East - The Holy Father reaffirms the major points of
the assembly's final message, underscoring that the world must never resign itself to the absence of peace. He also
announced a General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod in 2012 to discuss New Evangelization.

Noontime Angelus - He noted that today is also World Mission Day for the Church, and that the theme this year
was related to the theme of communion and witness in the Synodal Assembly on the Middle East. He paid tribute to
Sr. Alfonsa Clerici (1860-1930), an Italian nun who was beatified yesterday in northern Italy.