Tuesday, November 30, First Week of Advent
ST. ANDREW, Apostle and Martyr
Benedict XVI's catechesis on June 14, 2006, was dedicated to St. Andrew:
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060614...
Called the 'Protoklitos' (first-called) in Greek because he and his brother Simon Peter were the first disciples to follow Jesus, he is considered to have established the See of Byzantium in AD 38, which later became the Patriarchate of Constantinople, of which he is the patron saint. After Pentecost, he is said to have preached in Asia Minor, parts of present-day Ukraine and Russia, and Greece where he was martyred in Patras by crucifixion on an X-shaped cross, now called St. Andrew's Cross (it appears in the flags of Scotland and the United Kingdom). He is a patron saint of Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Scotland, and Sicily.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/113010.shtml
OR today.
At the Sunday Angelus, Benedict XVI speaks about Advent:
'Mankind is in waiting'
At the First Vespers on Saturday, he asked that unborn life be welcomed and respected
The other papal news in this issue is the Pope's address to Philippine bishops on ad limina visit. Other Page 1 news: A UN follow-through conference on climate change opens in Cancun; North Korea aims missiles at the Yellow Sea area where the US and South Korea are holding war games. And a long article on the archives of Vienna's late Cardinal Franz Koenig who collected some 2,000 accounts of persecutions undergone by Christians under the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.
No events announced for the Holy Father today.
The Vatican released various papal texts:
- The Holy Father's eulogy for Manuela Camagni, read by his secretary, Mons. Gaenswein, at the funeral Mass
yesterday for the late Memores Domini member of the papal household, in her hometown of San Piero in Bagno.
- The Pope's message to His Holiness Bartholomew I of Constantinople, on the Feast Day of St. Andrew today.
The message, written in English, was delivered personally by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical
Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who heads the Vatican delegation to the feast day observance in Istanbul.
- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's homily today at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan,
where he is making a four-day official visit, on the occasion of which he delivered a relic of St. Andrew from
the saint's remains venerated in Amalfi, as a gift from Benedict XVI to the Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan.
La Stampa's Vaticanista Marco Tosatti, commenting on the Wikileaks revelation that the US State Department had discounted Joseph Ratzinger as the possible successor to John Paul II, 'confesses' wrily in his blog that he was the 'Deep Throat' who pushed the name of Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos as one of two leading papabile in a April 16,2005, article. And that 'a major Roman newspaper' [he means La Repubblica] had pushed the candidacy of Milan Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi ['and it turns out he got very few votes even on the first ballot']. While it was his colleague Luigi Accattoli, then writing for Corriere della Sera, who advanced the hypothesis that Cardinal Ratzinger would get a lot of votes on the first ballot but would subsequently lose support, as Accattoli also recounts in his own blog. Tosatti's final line: 'If I were a US taxpayer, I would worry how my tax dollars are being spent if this were the level of 'inside' information that my government has'.
Probably the only humor that can be derived from the disastrous, maliciously massive and massively malicious dump of confidential US government documents by hackers untroubled by any scruple.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/12/2010 19:06]