BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Monday, Sept. 21

ST. MATTHEW
Apostle, Evangelist and Martyr


No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops

- Mons. Renato Boccardo, Archbishop of Spoleto-Norcia

- Participants in the meeting among new bishops sponsored by the Congregations for Bishops
and for Oriental Churches. Address in Italian.


The Vatican released the text of the telegram of condolence sent by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
in the Pope's name to the Military Vicar of the Italian armed forces, on the death last week of
six Italian soldiers in a terrorist bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan.






I have no explanation, other than sheer malice - and a chance to get world headlines for a few days at least - for what motivates Swedish TV to trigger off what seems to be carefully programmed time bombs intended to blow back badly on the Vatican and indirectly on the Pope.

After their Jan. 2009 broadcast of a November 2008 interview with Bishop Williamson, aired in time for the Pope's revocation of the FSSPX excommunications, now they are apparently preparing to do a follow-up broadcast this week that virtually accuses the Vatican of bad faith, if not outright lying, as to what it knew about Williamson's negationism and when it knew.

Yesterday, 9/20/09,

posted the following item from a European source, based on the SVT Swedish channel's online blurb to promote the program (the site is in Swedish, so we have to rely on the source's translation):

---

Swedish TV, Part 2:
Upcoming attack on the Holy Father
scheduled for Wednesday


Next Wednesday, September 23rd, the Swedish public TV channel, SVT, in their program series called ”Uppdrag granskning” will broadcast a follow-up of their program from January this year about the SSPX.

This time the spotlight is directed towards the Vatican: what did the Vatican actually know about SSPX and the private opinions of Bishop Richard Williamson? In the promotion for the program it is said:

---

Last winter the Catholic Church was shaken by the interview made by Uppdrag granskning with Bishop Richard Williamson. The Pope and the cardinals in charge assured the world that they had not known about the interview, but this is not true.

Swedish Bishop Arborelius: "From our side we passed the information on. That is so to say the usual way of doing it, the local church passes important news about the Church on to the papal representation.”

What did the Vatican know about the Holocaust-denying bishop?

---

The new program will feature an interview with Cardinal Walter Kasper in connection with his visit to the choral festival Pueri Cantores in Stockholm in July, in which the Cardinal clearly explains that, just before the lifting of the excommunication, he had not received any information internally from within the Vatican, but that he had a general knowledge of the sympathies of Bishop Williamson.

He further states in the interview that he thought this was something widely known making it a matter of surprise for him that the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei did not know.

The Catholic Diocese of Stockholm had already warned the local Anglican parish priest, who lent out his church for Bishop Williamson in June 2008, about his supposed extremism.

Despite the fact that Bishop Arborelius immediately after the January program said that SSPX is not a part of the Catholic Church, his office has been greatly concerned with the presence of SSPX in Sweden.

Even a confidential letter sent to the diocese office was exposed in the now famous TV program from January to prove that measures had been taken by the diocese to stop the SSPX.

The diocese also cooperated with Swedish TV in making the documentary with the Williamson interview. The reporters were even invited to dinner at the bishop’s office, which was noted in the blog of one of the journalists.

This time Bishop Arborelius will also be interviewed about his actions before the Williamson interview was broadcast. According to him, in an answer to an inquiry made by the Nuncio’s office, well in advance before the program in January, he had sent information regarding the contents of the text of the interview with Richard Williamson to the Vatican.

In the program, the Nuncio to Scandinavian countries, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, will also be questioned.

We have thus to prepare for another attack, aiming not so much at the SSPX as at the Holy See and the Pope, and we have to prepare for another wave of lies in an effort to put the Catholic Church under suspicion for extremist political views.

Swedish TV has earlier explained that this topic is of little interest for Swedish viewers. However, they choose to spend a lot of time and money on it and this in good timing with the first round of discussions between the representatives of the Holy See and SSPX.

---

The most glaring impression one takes away from this is the apparent cooperation of the Bishop of Stockholm, the Apostolic Nuncio to Scandinavia and Cardinal Walter Kasper in the documentary. And the obvious hostility of the Diocese of Stockholm to the FSSPX.

I don't know what the Nuncio may have said on the broadcast, but both the Bishop of Stockholm and Cardinal Kasper seem to be outdoing each other in breast-beating.

The bishop claims he informed the Nuncio about the Williamson interview 'long before' the excommunications were lifted, while Kasper reiterates his complaint that "Hey, no one consulted me. If they did, I could have told them!"

Not to mention that the Stockholm bishop apparently courted the STV people in what one can only assume was a bid to put the FSSPX in the worst light possible - without thinking of its implications for the entire Church and for the Pope.

It's hard to imagine more deplorable instances of plain and blatant selfishness on the part of the prelates involved.

Why do these prelates even lend themselves to external machinations by elements who are obviously not acting in good faith towards the Church and the Pope?

More papal lessons for bishops:
'Constant union with God
ensures fruitful ministry'






VATICAN CITY, 21 SEP 2009 (VIS) - At midday today in Castelgandolfo the Pope received participants in a congress, regularly held at this time of year, for recently-consecrated bishops.

The congress is jointly sponsored by the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Orienetal Churches.

Addressing them, the Holy Father recalled the importance of "not forgetting that one of a bishop's essential tasks is that of helping priests - by example and fraternal support - to follow their vocation faithfully and to work enthusiastically and lovingly in the Lord's vineyard".

Priests, said the Pope, must "remain united to the Lord; this is the secret of the fruitfulness of their ministry".

Increased workload, difficulties, and the new requirements of pastoral care "must never distract us from intimate and personal union with Christ. Our readiness and openness to people must never diminish or overshadow our readiness and openness towards the Lord.

"The time that priests and bishops consecrate to God in prayer is always time well spent", he added. "This is because prayer is at the heart of pastoral work, it is the 'lymph' which gives it strength, it is a support in moments of uncertainty and discouragement, and an endless source of missionary fervour and of fraternal love towards everyone".

The Holy Father went on: "At the heart of priestly life is the Eucharist". In this context he indicated how "one special way to prolong the mysterious sanctifying action of the Eucharist throughout the day is the devout recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, as is Eucharistic adoration, 'lectio divina' and the contemplative prayer of the Rosary."

The holy 'Cure of Ars'", he concluded, "showed us the importance of priests' immersing themselves in the Eucharist and of educating the faithful in the Eucharistic presence and in communion".

Here is a translation of the Pope's full address to the bishops:

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THE POPE'S REMARKS
TO THE NEW BISHOPS

Dear brothers in the Episcopate!

I thank you from the heart for your visit on the occasion of the convention for bishops who have recent begun their pastoral ministry.

These days of reflection, prayer and bringing yourselves up to date are truly propitious for helping You, dear brothers, to familIarize yourselves better with the tasks that you are called on to carry out as pastors of your diocesan communities.

They are also days of friendly living together that constitute a singular experience of that collegialitas affectiva that unites all bishops in one apostolic body, together with the Successor of Peter, "perpetual and visible foundation of unity"(Lumen gentium, 23).

I thank Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, for the courteous words that he addressed to me in your name. I greet Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, and I express my acknowledgment to all those who have worked together in various ways to organize this annual encounter.

This year, your conference takes place in the context of the Year for Priests, decreed for the 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean Marie Vianney. As I wrote in the letter sent on the occasion to all priests, this special year is intended to contribute towards "promoting the commitment to interior renewal of all priests to enable them to give stronger, more incisive evangelical testimony in today's world".

Imitating Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is for every priest, the obligatory way to one's own sanctification, and the essential condition for responsibly exercising the pastoral ministry.

And if this goes for priests, it is even more applicable to us, dear brother bishops. Indeed, it is important not to forget that one of the essential tasks of the Bishop is precisely to help his priests - with his example and fraternal support - to faithfully follow their calling, and to work with enthusiasm and love in the vineyard of the Lord.

In this respect, my venerated predeecessor John Paul II, in his post-synodal exhortation Pastores gregis, observed that the priest's gesture of putting his own hands into the hands of the Bishop on the day of his priestly ordination, commits both of them, priest and Bishop.

The new priest chooses to entrust himself to his Bishop, and on his part, the Bishop commits himself to look after these hands (cfr No. 47). This is a solemn task which ,for the Bishop, is a paternal responsibility to protect and promote the priestly identity of those who are entrusted to his pastoral care, an identity that today, unfortunately, we see being put to a hard test by growing secularization.

Thus, the Bishop, Pastores gregis goes on to say, "must always act with his priests like a father and brother who loves them, who welcomes them, corrects them, comforts them, seeks their collaboration, and as much as possible, applies himself towards their human, spiritual, ministerial and economic wellbeing (Ibid, 47).

The Bishop is called on, in a special way, to nourish the spiritual life of his priests, to promote in them a harmony between prayer and the apostolate, following the example of Jesus and the Apostles, whom he had called specially 'to be with him' (Mk 3,14).

The indispensable condition, in fact, for producing fruits of goodness, is that the priest remains united with the Lord. This is the secret of fecundity for his ministry: He can only bear fruit if he is incorporated into Christ, who is the true Vine.

The mission of the priest - and for more reason, of a bishop - today involves a mountain of work which tends to absorb him continually and totally. Difficulties grow and encumbrances tend to mutiply, if only because of new realities and pastoral demands that have grown considerably.

Nonetheless, attention to the problems of everyday and the initiatives taken to lead men along the way to God should never distract us from intimate and personal union with Christ.

Being at the disposition of the faithful should not diminish or obscure our availability to the Lord. The time that the priest and the Bishop consecrate to God in prayer is always time that is best spent, because prayer is the soul of pastoral activity, the 'lymph' that instills strength into it, support in times of uncertainty and discouragement, and the inexhaustible spring of missionary fervor and fraternal love for all.

At the center of the priest's life is the Eucharist. In the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis. I underlined how "Holy Mass is formative in the most profound sense of the term, insofar as it promotes conformation to Christ and reinforces the priest in his vocation" (No. 80).

So may the Eucharistic celebration illumine youe entire day and that of your priests, conferring its grace and spiritual influence on moments that are sad or joyous, agitated or peaceful, action or contemplation.

A privileged way of prolonging through the day the mysterious sanctifying action of the Eucharist is the devout recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, along with Eucharistic Adoration, lectio divina, and the contemplative praying of the Rosary.

The Holy Curate of Ars teaches us how precious is the priest's identification with the Eucharistic presence and communion.

It was with the Word and the Sacraments - as I noted in the letter to all priests - that St. Jean Marie Vianney edified his people. The Vicar General of the Diocese of Bllay, when naming him parish priest of Ars, told him: "There is not much love for God in that parish, but you will bring it there." And that parish was transformed.

Dear new bishops, thank you for the service that you render to the Church with dedication and love. I greet you all with affection and assure you of my constant support joined to prayer that you may "go and bear fruit that will remain" (Jn 15,16).

For this, I invoke the intercession of Mary Queen of Apostles, and from my heart, I impart to you, your priests and your diocesan communities a special Apostolic Blessing.

---

Heavy workloads must not let bishops
forget to make time for Christ



CASTEL GANDOLFO, Sept. 21 (CNS) -- As priests and bishops juggle an ever-increasing workload attending to their pastoral and administrative duties, they must never forget to make time for Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The secret to a fruitful ministry is being fully "incorporated by Christ," he said during a Sept. 21 audience with newly ordained bishops. The bishops were participating in a special meeting hosted by the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops.

Priests and bishops today face a huge amount of work "that tends to continually and totally absorb them," said the Pope.

The number of tasks and difficulties they face has multiplied, in part, because of "new realities and growing pastoral needs," he said.

"Nevertheless, the attention paid to everyday problems and initiatives aimed at leading people along the path to God must never distract us from an intimate and personal union with Christ," he said.

"To be available to the people must never diminish or overshadow our availability to the Lord," he added.

Spending time in prayer with God is still time well spent, he said, because prayer is the soul of pastoral activity and the lifeblood that infuses it with strength.

Prayer is one's "tower of strength for moments of uncertainty and discouragement, and is the inexhaustible source of missionary zeal and brotherly love toward all," said Pope Benedict.

Celebrating the Eucharist also brings light to one's day with its "mysterious sanctifying action," he said.

The Eucharist offers its "grace and spiritual influence to moments that are sad or joyous, troubled or soothing, full of action or contemplative," said the Pope.

Missionline's Giorgio Bernardelli writes another good background story on the Synodal Assembly for the Middle East, this time for Avvenire.


That 'tiny flock'
dear to the Pope's heart
by GIORGIO BERNARDELLI
Translated from

Sept. 21, 1990


Pope Benedict XVI's decision to call a special assembly of the Bishops' Synod on the Middle East in October 2010 must be seen as the culmination so far of a series of important steps.

In announcing it yesterday, he himself recalled that attention to the Eastern-rite Churches has always marked his Pontificate from the beginning.

On Christmas 2006, Papa Ratzinger addressed a specific message to the Christians of the Middle East, in view of the tragic stories from the war in Iraq and the exodus of Christians from the Middle East.

On the very day that the Church was remembering the birth of Jesus in that part of the world, the Pope chose to address that 'tiny flock' directly. To reassure them but also to invite the entire Church not to leave them alone.

"For some time," he wrote then, "many Christians have been leaving the Middle East, so that the holy places risk being transformed into archeological zones, devoid of ecclesial life."

"Certainly, dangerous geopolitical situations, cultural conflicts, economic and strategic interests, not to mention aggressiveness which seeks to justify itself by claiming a social or religious matrix, make the survival of minorities difficult, and that is why many Christians have yielded to the temptation to emigrate. Often, the damage can be somewhat irreparable.

"Nonetheless, it must not be forgotten that even just staying close to each other and living common suffering together can act like balsam on wounds, and dispose the community to thoughts and works of reconciliation and justice.

"That gives rise to a familial and fraternal dialog, and in time and with the grace of the Spirit, it can change into dialog on a broader front - cultural, social and even political."

But besides the contingent difficulties being experienced by the Christians of the Middle East, there is also another aspect that recurs in Benedict's concerns: the conviction that the experience lived by the Church there in its early years is a crucial experience to be rediscovered. Indeed, it was there that many of the Fathers of the Church lived to whom Papa Ratzinger has been devoting his Wednesday catecheses.

The churches of the East were also the objects of the missionary journeys of the Apostle of the Gentiles to whom the Pope dedicated a Jubilee Year.

The churches of the Middle East, then, constitute not just a community in danger that must be protected, but a living experience to be treasured.

Benedict XVI said so clearly last May, during his trip to the Holy Land, in the Greek Melkite Cathedral in Amman.

"The ancient living treasure of traditions in the Oriental Churches," he said then, "enriches the universal Church and must never be understood only as something to be kept passively. All Christians are called on to respond actively to the mandate of God to bring others to know him and to love him".

Finally, there's an ultimate aspect that deserves attention - an unprecedented face of Christianity in the Middle East: the presence in the Gulf States of hundreds of thousands of Christian workers coming mostly from Southeast Asia [mostly Filipinos, and therefore, mostly Catholic].

In the note that the Patriarchs gave the Pope on Saturday, one of the points precisely had to do with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Kuwait and the other Gulf emirates.

And in this regard, Benedict XVI has already taken very important steps, such as receiving in audience the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emir of Bahrain, reiterating on these occasions how fundamental the right to religious freedom is in these countries. And certainly, the Synodal assembly for the Middle East will see this point discussed.

Tuesday, Sept. 22

ST. LORENZO RUIZ (b Manila 1600, d Nagasaki 1637)
AND FIVE COMPANIONS, Martyrs
Killed during the persecutions
of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. Beatified 1987.
Ruiz, a Chinese-Filipino, is the first Filipino saint.



OR for 9/21-9/22:

At the Sunday Angelus, Benedict XVI says religious and political authorities must work
with impartiality, truth and respect for all:
'Only men of peace can make peace'
Expresses profound sorrow for military and civilian victims in Afghan conflict*
Other Page 1 stories: The Pope's address to new bishops (right photo;full text translation on this page yesterday);
US general in Afghanistan says mission will fail without more troops; Oabama, Netanyahu and Abu Mazen to meet at the UN;
unemployment crisis continues in Europe and the US despite signs of economic recovery. In the inside pages is a sbustantial
excerpt from Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco's address to the Permanent Council of the Italian bishops conference which opened
its fall session yesterday.



No events scheduled for the Holy Father today.


*OR carried a picture of the funeral (left photo below) but its story only quoted the telegram of condolence. This is the AsiaNews report.

Pope’s telegram read at funeral
of six Italian soldiers killed in Afghanistan




Rome, Sept. 21 (AsiaNews) – A telegram of condolences from the Pope was read during the state funeral for Antonio Fortunato, Matteo Mureddu, Davide Ricchiuto, Roberto Valente, Gian Domenico Pistonami and Massimiliano Randino, the six Italian soldiers killed a few days ago in a suicide attack in Kabul. The ceremony was held this morning at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in the presence of thousands of people.

In the papal message signed by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, the Pontiff wrote that he was “deeply saddened” by the loss of military and civilian lives in Kabul. He said that he felt close to the families of those killed, to the Italian military and the Italian nation.

In it, the Holy Father offered his prayers to Mary Queen of Peace “that God, inexhaustible source of hope and a force for the good, support those who are engaged on a daily basis in building solidarity, reconciliation and peace in the world.

In his homily, Mgr Vincenzo Pelvi, chief military chaplain, emphasised the value of reconciliation that is behind the mission of Italian soldiers in Afghanistan.

“If a state cannot protect its own population from grave and continuous violations of human rights, or from the consequences of humanitarian crisis caused by nature or man, the international community has to intervene, exploring all possible diplomatic ways and paying close attention and encouraging even the least sign of democracy or desire for reconciliation,” he said.

This is not strictly about Benedict XVI. However, on Friday, Italian state TV will present a program on Vatican-II using footage taken during the 1962-1965 Council. Apparently included in the selection for the program will be part of Cologne Cardinal Josef Frings's now-historic intervention prepared for him by his theologian consultant from the University of Bonn, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. One can only hope that an Anglophone TV outlet will soon purchase the program and present it in translation.


Italian state TV to broadcast
Vatican-II documentary this week



TURIN, Sept. 22 (Translated/Adapted from ASCA) - RAI-3, the third channel of Italian state TV, will broadcast Friday night a documentary on "The Council", in its 12-year-old series 'La Grande Storia' (The Big Story) which has focused heretofore on portraits and biographies of the Popes.

This was announced by RAI executives at a news conference and preview of the documentary.

Thanks to the decision of Pope Paul VI to allow daily audio and film documentation of the sessions of Vatican-II, the program is said to be a 'true and proper' account of what is considered to be 'the greatest modern development in the history of Catholicism', which also led to the troubled history of the Church in the five decades since the Council.

Announced by John XXIII on January 25, 1959, and following three years of preparation, the largest ecumenical council in church history opened on October 11, 1962, in St. Peter's Basilica, with the participation of 2,500 bishops from around the world. It ended three years later (with sessions held September-December), on December 8, 1965.

Paul VI, who succeeded John XXIII in June 1963, presided over most of the Council and had the unenviable task of overseeing the initial implementation of its decisions.

"During the years that the Berlin Wall was being constructed," said Rai-3 director Paolo Ruffini, "the Church was opening to the modern world. Without the Council, the Church would not have the language it does today."

Among the curiosities in the documentary is the fact that the Council sessions were conducted in Latin. [Also a great irony, considering that the progressivist 'spirit of Vatican II' fanatics swiftly moved to eliminate Latin from the liturgy and from the curriculum in seminaries, contrary to explicit statements in Vatican-II documents about the use and study of Latin.]

But most interesting to today's audiences would be the unscheduled intervention of a German bishop who told the Council at the beginning that it did not have to follow the agenda set down by a preparatory commission of the Roman Curia, and that the participating bishops should be allowed to speak for themselves.

The address, which was applauded enthusiastically, was co-written by a young theologian called Joseph Ratzinger.

During the Council, Phillips donated the recording equipment used as well as all the recordings made.


Unfortunately, it does not look as if the documentary would show any footage of Prof. Ratzinger at the time, or it would have been mentioned explicitly.

Thanks to Lella and her followers

for alerting me to this.

I am unable to find more information about the writer of this blog, other than he must be fairly young (he graduated in 2004) and that he is the CEO of a company called S.A.F.E. involevd in 'renewables and the environment'. I have read a number of his essays on his blog FIDES ET FORMA which is primarily dedicated to the importance of beauty and form in the faith as indicators of substance and content.

I find this overview of Benedict XVI's Pontificate - from the perspective of the progresivist opposition to it - both compelling and long overdue. I have interjected a few points where I thought it necesssary.


The post-Vatican-II progressivists'
'strategy of tension' against the Pope
by Francesco Colafemmina
Translated from

Sept. 22, 2009


We have been witnessing for the past several months - if not for at least three years - a true and proper strategy of tension that has clusters of powerful rebels opposed to the actions and directives of His Holiness Benedict XVI.

This strategy deserves to be uncovered once and for all and analyzed in its most intimate phenomenology.

In 2005, the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Ratzinger Pope. The cardinal's measured and prudent views were well known regarding the 'revolution' carried out after Vatican-II in open contradiction of Conciliar decisions and yet claimed to be done in the 'spirit of the Council".

Cardinal Ratzinger was not only John Paul II's trusted right-hand man who could assure unquestionable continuity with the late great Polish Pope. He was also the Prefect of what had been the Holy Office, who had kept Catholic Orthodoxy firm and focused during almost a quarter century of ethical and doctrinal upheaval.

The election of Ratzinger was seen by many as a sign of profound continuity with the Pontificate of John Paul II. Also, that it was certainly the work of the Holy Spirit.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that since April 2005, the new Pope immediately found himself facing a tenacious group of cardinals and other high prelates ready to oppose him in every way.

They have chosen to wield a strategy that is subtle, fluid and flexible. Mainly by seeking to 'expose' the Pope to secular winds, hoping thereby to ditch everything that with great courage and goodness, he has been offering to Catholicism in order to rescue it from the abyss into which it seemed destined to fall.

They understood quite evidently that the only way they could defeat him, their ideological 'enemy' - along with all those who oppose the secularization of the Church and the interpretation of Vatican-II as a rupture with the past and adherence to the contemporary world - was not simply to oppose him but also to inconvenience in every way his interaction with the world.

If the Holy Fahter is attacked by 'civilian society' (perhaps the better term is 'uncivil society') and by the media for his 'entrenched' positions (in the words of neo-Catholic Tony Blair) on abortion, contraception, euthanasia, etc., then the task of these ecclesial rebels would be made much easier, and their subtle ability to maneuver the levers they can within the Church also becomes rwarded almost every day in the media.

It will be clear to the informed reader that such levers can be counted on one hand, and that they can easily be found simply by walking from the Vatican press office, to the cubicles of those who are in charge of translating papal speeches, after going through the Curial undergrowth of the Secretariat of State.

To these practically unassailable and omnipotent bastions, through which all information about the Vatican is filtered and controlled, even if they do not appear to have any visible prestige, one must add some Curial congregations and Pontifical Councils who are on permanent war footing with the Pope, starting from their very heads.

If we add to these systems the interpersonal relationships and charisma of the individual combatants [as a result of their long experience in the Church], then one has a complete picture of the forces in play.

Now let us recapitulate, briefly and dwelling only on the most obvious aspects, what has happened in the past four years.


2005
Despite the fact that the start of the Ratzinger Pontificate was almost simultaneous with the Italian referendum on liberalizing the law on assisted reproduction ['won' by the Church], the initial monhts were relatively smooth.

The Pope roused great fervor from the young people in Cologne, he surprised everyone by receiving Hans Kueng in Castel Gandolfo, and he was clearly in continuity with John Paul II even if he had a style completely his own.

Until December 22, 2005, when in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia, it was clear that something new was in the air. The Pope asserted the hermeneutic of continuity for the correct reading of Vatican-II - and many trembled at the very thought of any 're-interpretation' of the Council other than what they had managed to make of it for 40 years. But they had yet to make their moves.


2006
In January Sandro Magister wote a very detailed article identifying the 'adversaries' of the new Pope: 1) the Neocatechumenals - who insist on defining their own liturgy and defying the dioceses where they operate; 2) the internal dissident fringe of cardinals and prelates; and 3) the office for the translation of papal texts. it was an analysis that would prove to be very well-founded.

Benedict XVI's first encylical, Deus caritas est, was published - and some quarters saw an affinity between Ratzignerian thought and that of the late great theologian Romano Amerio [whose views were not particularly welcome to the Church of the 1950s]. But still, this had more to do with cultural, not ideological, tastes.

Still to come was Benedict XVI's first truly worldwide media exposure [and baptism by fire!]: the Regensburg episode.

This episode was born from a combination of journalistic ignorance, anti-Papal prejudice and the deep underground workings of the rebels within the Vatican itself. [Not incidentally, an Arabic trnaslation of the speech was not made available by the Vatican ujtil after several months!]

The Press Office was obviously incapable of stemming the controversy, issuing belated and hardly incisive bulletins on what had happened. Worse, voices within the Vatican itself distaned themselves from the Pope and expressed their 'surprise' [as well as disapproval] at what the Pope said [the citation about Mohammed].

And they came to define the Regensburg lecture - which was a hymn to Logos and to the classical culture founded on Logos as reason - as Benedict XVI's first 'diplomatic fiasco'.

(Personally, I contributed ny own bit to the subsequent discussions of the Regensburg lecture by publishing the first complete translation of the dialog between Manuel Paleologue and his Persian interlocutor, from which the Pope took the controversial citation).

In November, he gave a series of incisive addresses to Swiss bishops who were on ad limina visit, but to which few paid attention.

And by year's end, the Wielgus case erupted in Poland, the responsibility for which lay almost entirely with the Congregation for Bishops [and the Secretariat of State, through its Nuncio in Poland - since both organisms are responsible for vetting candidates for a bishop's miter before submitting names to the Pope]

The man recommended to the Pope to be the next Archbishop of Warsaw turned out to be a documented collaborator with the Communist regime. On December 21, the Vatican Press Office issued a statement that the Pope had been informed 'exhaustively' about the candidate, Mons. Wielgus, and that he had full confidence in his nominee.

Then the 'incriminating' documents from Polish secret archives were exposed, and by January 7, Mons. Wielgus was forced to resign before he could be formally installed.


2007
In January, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini launched one of his most visible anti-papal and secularizing statements in a wide-ranging L'Espresso interview on questions regarding the sacredness of life.

In March, the Pope and the bishops of the Holy Land strongly reproved the Neo-Catechumenals for their 'autonomous' activities.

Then, with the publication of JESUS OF NAZARETH, Cardinal Martini, in the guise of a favorable book review, managed to oppose the Pope's theology from the pages of Corriere della Sera.

The climax of anti-Benedict dissent was to come in July with the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. The dissenting voices were strident and found welcoming support in the newspapers.

The rebels decided this was the time to come out in force. They knew that their opposition to the 'Latin Mass' would be seen by secular society as a dutiful and necessary protest against a 'retrograde' Pope who would take back the Church to the 19th century. Open warfare was declared.

In September, during the Pope's visit to Austria, the outgoing master of papal liturgical celebrations, Mons. Piero Marini, allowed him to appear in ridiculous Smurf-colored garments at the Mass in Mariazell. [In fairness to Mons. Marini, the primary responsibility for that spectacle goes to the Austrian bishops' conference under Cardinal Christoph Schoneborn who approved the Mariazell vestments before they were presented as a fait accompli to Marini when he made his pre-visit site inspection.]


2008
New nominations to the Curia would appear to assure the Pope more peace and calm. But at the same time, the insidious work done in the past one-and-a-half years by the in-house rebels started to bear good fruit for them: their incitement of secularist dissidence found resounding expression when the Pope was forced to cancel a speaking engagement at the Roman university of La Sapienza, which had been founded by a Pope.

At around the same time, a dispute with the Jewish world had started.
[Actually, it started in May 2006, when Jews protested that the Pope's remarks in Auschwitz said nothing aout anti-Semitism and did not apologize for the Holocaust in the name of the German people; then blazed up ferociously soon after the Motu Proprio in July 2007.]

The liberalization of the traditional Mass was a cue for the Jews to protest the Good Friday prayer for the Jews used in the old rite [even if they never protested it during the John Paul II years when it was used by the few communities granted an indult to celebrate the traditional Mass.

Benedict XVI promptly revised the prayer using the language of St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans, to express an eschatological wish for Jews and Christians to come together at the end of time - in place of the open wish for conversion expressed in its previous form, even after it was revised by John XXIII in 1957 to eliminate its references to the 'blindness' of the Jews. But that did not 'placate' some Jews who seem determined to say "Gotcha!' to Benedict XVI every chance they can get.

BTW, were these 'venerable' rabbis never taught that age deserves a certain respect? It's hard to understand why they delight in slamming 'Gotcha!' in the face of an 82-year-old man who also happens to be the spiritual head of the world's largest religion?].

This tension with the Jews has been growing constantly to include their opposition to beatifying Pius XII and the Pope's revocation of excommunication from a Lefebvrian bishop who minimizes the Holocaust, and indirectly, the re-acceptance into the Church of a traditionalist minority who have been pictured in the media as generally anti-Semitic.

[Not to mention the perennial Jewish carpers who continually call into question Benedict XVI's own personal commitment to anti-Semitism and his 'responsibility' for the Holocaust by the mere fact that he is German.]

The double track of opposition to Benedict XVI by secularists and rebels within the Church itself is reinforced every now and then by the doctinal statements from Cardinal Martini which seem to become more borderline heterodox with time.


2009
The annus horribilis so far. It all started with the 'Williamson case'.

As revealed in behind-the-scene stories reconstructed by Il Riformista and Il Giornale from a dossier circulated in the Vatican after the Pope had revoked the FSSPX excommunications, the 'direction' behind the elaborate anti-Papal plot started with two lesbian journalists in France, working with some moles in the Vatican, Germany and Sweden.

Certainly, it must have been a Vatican informant who gave the cue for Sweedish TV to broadcast a November 2008 interview given by Mons. Williamson on the very day (January 21) the Pope was to sign the decree lifting the excommunication. The decree itself was not made public until January 24.

As usual, the Secretariat of State under-estimated the situation and did not react at all until several days later - with a terrible communique that appeared to include 'recognition of the Holoaust' among the dogmas of the Catholic Church!

Days in which the Pope was alone in the center of a media storm that was negative and relentless, further incited by many bishops and cardinals who outdid each other in giving interviews meant to show that the Pope was 'isolated' and that the Vatican did not have its act together.

Benedict XVI - who was buffeted at the same time by strong Jewish pressures demanding repeated condemnations by him of the Holocaust (and 'Please do not forget to specify that six million Jews were murdered!') - decided to write a letter to all the Catholic bishops of the world to explain his reasons for opening a door to the Lefebvrians [and to reiterate his priority mission 'to bring back God to the world'].

The media would give it little play [nor would dissident bishops, it seems, for they continue to be defiant]

Shortly thereafter, he travelled to Africa. A statement about condoms and AIDS [mis-stated as well as reported out of context] - during a brief in-flight Q&A enroute to Cameroon re-ignited worldwide controversy around Benedict XVI.

Indeed, representatives of international institutions and some European governments rained down invectives on him [Never mind that he had merely stated documented fact that just happens to contradict the conventional and politically correct belief of the condom ideologues].

It seemed to be the point of no return. From then on, everything the Pope said would be used against him, [I disagree it was only 'from then on'. As far as his diehard critics are concerned, it was always so!]

In May, his pilgrimage to the Holy Land - when every word and gesture of the Pope was closely watched for any word that could be exploited or any action that would ignite a new battle.

And so it was - although the most his Jewish critics could manage was to protest that at Yad Vashem the Pope had said Jews had been 'killed' in the Holocaust when he should have said 'murdered', and that again, he failed to say the murderers were Germans and that their victims numbered six million.

In July came the publication of Caritas in veritate which signalled a momentary truce. The Pope's words were appreciated by almost everyone, and even the secularists approved much of what the encyclical said.

The apparent good will was such that some newspapers even wrote about a possible conversion to Catholicism by Barack Obama after meeting the Pope! [I never mentioned any of that arrant foolishness on the Forum, because the two articles I read were clearly wishful thinking by a couple of Obama fanatics in the Italian media. Though why they would want their Messiah to become Catholic is rather baffling. Shouldn't they have a new church all his own?]

But in the Apostolic Palace, the strategy of tension shows no signs of faltering.

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, Swedish TV is launching is second attack on the Pope, a sequel to their January 'bombshell' about Williamson. This time, the protagonists of the attack are clearly from within the Church. [Who apparently had no hesitation whatsoever about expressing their disapproval and/or distancing themselves from the Pope on the pre-and post-handling of the Williamson case, for a project they knew would be used against the Pope!]

The year has not ended, and I don't think I am presuming to be a prophet when I say that there will be new media assaults on the Pope [incited from within the Vatican!] before long.

Nonetheless, for those who may think that these attacks are simply against the person of Joseph Ratzinger must understand that, more importantly, he is being used as the instrument to attack the Catholic Church from within.

Perhaps from those who are seeking to pave the way for future Popes who may yet seal the tomb of the Church's bimillenary tradition in order to adhere to the world completely - and be assimilated by it.

Wednesday, Sept. 23

ST. PIO DA PIETRELCINA (1887-1868)
Born Francesco Forgione
Capuchin, Mystic, Stigmatist
Canonized 2002



OR today.

The only papal news in this issue is the Pope's telegram of condolence
for the killing of an Italian fidei donum priest in Brazil. Page 1 stories:
US and Russia set to start talks for new round of disarmament; Libya's
Ghaddafi not allowed to pitch a tent to live in during his visit to the United
Nations; hunger spreading in the Horn of Africa due to prolonged drought;
and previewing a major exhibition at the Quirinale on art in imperial Rome.



THE POPE'S DAY
General audience today - The Pope dedicated his catechesis to St. Anselm of Canterbury (and Aosta),
Doctor of the Church, on the 9th centenary of his death. The Holy Father celebrated Vespers in the Cathedral
of Aosta last July 24 but did not speak on St. Anselm then as expected.

Unusually on a GA day, the Holy Father also met with
- Bishops of Brazil (Northeast sector 1-4) on ad limina visit.


The Vatican has released the names of the cardinals, bishops, experts and auditors named by the Pope
to participate in the coming Special Assembly for Africa of the Bishops' Synod.


Vatican Radio also announced that the cardinal's commission overseeing the operations of the Vatican bank IOR
has named a new managing board for the bank, which then elected one of them, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, as president.
(Stories posted in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread)

WHAT'S WITH THE VATICAN SECRETARIAT OF STATE
AND THE VATICAN PRESS OFFICE THAT IS UNDER IT????



The item about the Swedish TV broadcast tonight has been out there since Sunday, fed further by a separate statement by the Bishop of Stockholm yesterday to the news agencies, saying he told the Nuncio in Stockholm all about Bishop Williamson's negationist statements for Swedish TV before the Pope's revocation of the FSSPX excommunications was made known. This is the same statement he reportedly makes in the program to be aired tonight (around this time, in fact) in Sweden.

And yet, not a single pre-emptive pip out of the Vatican! Three days headway was not sufficient for them to put together a pre-emptive response????

If the Nuncio in Stockholm was told, it was his duty to report it immediately to his bosses in the Secretariat of State. Did he? And if he did, what did the Secretariat of State do? Was it the same cavalier inaction as at the time of the Wielgus case, when it was the duty of the Nuncio to ride herd over the vetting of a bishop's nomination before the name was even submitted to the Pope? The Nuncio - and his bosses at State - failed embarassingly then, although no one was really embarassed in public but the Pope alone, for the failure of his subordinates in carrying out a routine task.

Inaction by the Secretariat of State, yet again, is hardly turning the other cheek - it's sheer stupidity. And insensitivity. And inability to learn a lesson.

And how can one not consider all this as other than utter and inexplicable disregard for the interests of the Holy Father and the Church by the very people who hold the highest responsibility for safeguarding those interests?????


P.S. Just as I finished typing up this post, I see from Lella's blog that Fr. Lombardi finally made a statement addressing the issue - and as far as I can see, it is a non-answer answer:


Fr. Lombardi makes a statement



VATICAN CITY, Sept. 23 (Translated from Apcom)- "It is absolutely unfounded to say or even to insinuate that the Pope had been previously informed of the (negationist) positions of Bishop Williamson".

Vatican press director Fr. Federico Lombardi made this clarification regarding the news about a Swedish TV broadcast tonight on the 'Williamson case'.

"To re-launch the Williamson case," Lombardi said, "only serves to continue to create purposeless confusion."

In short, the Pope did not know, and "This (prior knowledge by the Pope) was clearly denied in the February 4 note from the Secretariat of State [Remember the initial Swedish TV broadcast was on January 21, and the decree made public January 24 - yet it took the Secretariat of State two weeks to answer back!] which also expressed very plainly the radical dissociation of teh Pope and the Catholic Church from any anti-Semitic position or negation of the Holocaust".

Moreover, he said, "the letter of the Pope to the bishops of the world on March 10 put an end to the question, and there is therefore no reason to reopen it. The Pope explained the sense of remitting the excommunications as a gesture to promote unity within the Church, and at the same time, he showed the total lack of foundation for the accusations directed at him for lack of respect towards teh Jewish people. he also acknowledged simply the limits of internal adn external Vatican communications and provided a new status for the Ecclesia Dei Commission, precisely to guatantee and better and more secure way of proceeding with questions relative to relations with the traditionalists."


BUT FR. LOMBARDI DOES NOT ADDRESS IN ANY WAY THE QUESTIONS POSED BY THE CONTENT ITSELF OF THE NEW SWEDISH BROADCAST!


This content consists of interviews given by three Catholic prelates - the Bishop of Stockholm, the Apostolic Nuncio to Stockholm and Cardinal William Kasper. And what they say is what Fr. Lombardi needed to address, because there would have been no program at all if they had simply refused to be interviewed!

1) Was the Nuncio in Stockholm informed about Williamson's interview beforehand or not? If he was, did he pass it on to the Secretariat of State? If so, who in the Secretariat of State? And what did this individual do about the information?

2) What about the cooperation of the Bishop of Stockholm with this second broadcast? He did not have to do it, but he did. Is he not accountable to the Vatican for such behavior? Likewise, for Cardinal Kasper who gave his self-serving contribution to the broadcast in July (repeating statements he made over Vatican Radio, for God's sake, shortly after the Williamson scandal erupted last January!).

Arborelius is obviously hostile to the Lefebvrians but why should his personal opinions override the Pope's gesture of reconciliation? As for Kasper, his statements have more than just a touch of deliberate malice and childish pique against the Pope - "Take that, for not consulting me!" - as well as hostility to the Lefebvrians.

At the very least, Fr. Lombardi should have said whether anyone at the Vatican has tried talking to both Bishop Arborelius and the Nuncio to get their stories first hand.

In this age of hyper-reporting capability and indulgence, the Press Office cannot just ignore easily verifiable reports because they contradict the scenario painted by the Secretariat of State on Feb. 4. (And did they really need two weeks to come up with that?]

And it cannot pretend as it does that the problem is 're-launching the Williamson case'. No, the problem is getting to the truth about the obviously defective information chain for which, in this case, the Secretariat of State, is primarily responsible.

Like the Boffo case, this will not go away until readily available facts are made known.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect of Fr. Lombardi's statement is that, in effect, he is saying, "The Pope in his March 10 letter acknowledged responsibility for not learning about Williamson's negationism beforehand. That should be enough."

It is not! The Pope, in effect, took on responsibility for all of his incompetent and cowardly subordinates - and I include his own trusted Secretary of State - who, even now, are leaving him alone to be exposed to this new onslaught.


P.S. What exactly do we know about Mons. Anders Arborelius, Bishop of Stockholm? Other than that he wined and dined the Swedish TV team before their January broadcast on the Williamson case, according to the journalists' blog?

The Italian blog messainlatino says he is a good friend of Cardinals Lehmann and Kasper. That figures! There must be a worse epithet than 'snake in the grass' one can use for these consecrated vipers, sons of Satan (or perhaps, more appropriately, brothers of Lucifer in his overweening pride)! The sort whose head 'the woman' was sent by God to crush!


P.S. #2
Now, AP has a report on the broadcast based on a preview of the program. I wonder if the Vatican tried in any way to obtain a preview of the program so it could have answered better. Did anyone in the Vatican even try to talk to Bishop Anders or to the Nuncio after Swedish TV advertised this program last Sunday????


Swedish TV says Vatican knew
about Holocaust-denier - but
does not suggest the Pope knew
By KARL RITTER



STOCKHOLM, Sept. 23 (AP) – A Swedish TV program to be aired Wednesday claims that top Vatican officials knew that an ultraconservative British bishop was a Holocaust-denier when his excommunication was lifted in January.

The program, which was obtained by The Associated Press prior to broadcast, could add new fuel to the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson.

Jews and Catholics worldwide were outraged after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Williamson, along with three other ultraconservative bishops, in an attempt to bring dissidents back into the mainstream church.

The order, dated Jan. 21 [but only made public by the Vatican on January 24], came as Sweden's SVT aired an interview recorded two months earlier in which Williamson said he didn't believe any Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.

Vatican officials have said they didn't know about the interview at the time. Benedict later condemned Williamson's remarks and spoke out against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Yet in a follow-up report, SVT says the Vatican had been informed of Williamson's Holocaust-denial shortly after the interview was recorded in November. It doesn't suggest, however, that the Pope knew about the remarks. [Well, thank God for that.]

The program singles out Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who had been leading efforts to heal the schism with the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X. The Vatican announced in July that Castrillon Hoyos was stepping down [as he had long declared he would] after reaching the customary retirement age of 80.

The SVT program says Sweden's Catholic diocese informed the apostolic nuncio — the Vatican envoy to Sweden — about Williamson's remarks and that he in turn informed Vatican officials, including Castrillon Hoyos.

"Naturally we passed all the information that we had on to the nuncio. After that I don't really know how it moved along," Stockholm Bishop Anders Arborelius told SVT.

In a statement Wednesday, the diocese reiterated that it had sent a report about the content of the interview to the Vatican in November 2008. [To the Vatican directly, or through the Nuncio? Or did it also inform the Vatican separately?]

The SVT program says the Vatican envoy, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, confirmed off-camera that he contacted several people in the Vatican, including Castrillon Hoyos, immediately after receiving the report in November. [In this case, Cardinal Castrillon, wherever he is, must speak out now and give his side. Could he have been so irresponsible as not to inform the Pope about it? Also, someone in the Secretariat of State must have been told by the Nuncio, because his line of command is at the Secretariat of State, and to inform Castrillon Hoyos, if he did, would have been a service on his part.]

Tscherrig did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

In a statement commenting on the program, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was "absolutely without foundation to claim or even insinuate that the Pope was informed in advance of Williamson's positions."

"The Pope has explained the reason for the remission of the excommunication as a gesture in favor of church unity and at the same time showed the total groundlessness of the accusations that he (the Pope) showed a lack of respect for the Jewish people," Lombardi said.

The statement didn't address whether other Vatican officials knew about Williamson's remarks.

Castrillon Hoyos said in a newspaper interview Jan. 29 that no one at the Vatican knew about Williamson's views until after the decree had been signed.

"We absolutely didn't know anything about this Williamson," he told the Corriere della Sera.

Castrillon Hoyos had been head of the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, which was charged with reconciling with the Society of St. Pius X. In announcing his retirement on July 8, the Vatican said that effort would now be headed by Cardinal William Levada, the highest-ranking U.S. churchman in the Vatican hierarchy.

Levada heads the Vatican's powerful orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed for decades before becoming Pope in 2005.

"(The Pope) recognized with candor the limits of internal and external Vatican communication, and gave a new status to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, just to guarantee a better and safer way in dealing with matters relating to relations with traditionalists," Lombardi said in the statement Wednesday.

"To relaunch the 'Williamson case' can only serve to continue to create confusion for no reason," he said.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said in a statement that the new SVT report "calls into question the repeated Vatican assertions it had no prior knowledge of Bishop Williamson's views, and would be a source of deep distress that the Vatican has not been candid with survivors of the tragedy of the Holocaust." [And here come those Jews who seem to live for the purpose of finding any occasion to say "Gotcha!' to the Pope!!!]

In last year's Swedish interview, Williamson denied that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He said about 200,000 or 300,000 were murdered and none were gassed.

Williamson later apologized for his remarks, saying he would never have made them if he had known "the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise." But he did not say his comments had been erroneous, nor that he no longer believed them. [He said, as ridiculous as it is, that he would study books about the matter further!]


SO I HOPE CARDINAL CASTRILLON SPEAKS OUT RIGHT AWAY - ALONG WITH WHOEVER IT WAS IN THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE THAT THE NUNCIO INFORMED.

Just because the Swedish broadcast does not directly accuse the Pope of lying does not keep the Jews hostile to the Pope from saying so. He will always be the scapegoat to critics of the Church.

The least that his subordinates can do is own up to what they did and did not do, in order to clear up this muddle. In these days, the Church, most of all, which preaches truth and rectitude, is no longer allowed to sweep unpleasant things under the carpet.


P.S. #3
Here now is an English news release from STV about its broadcast - it is not at all friendly - and seems deliberately intended to incite Jewish hostility! And yes, this news item, at least, as much as says the Pope must have lied.

Interview with Williamson
was no secret to the Vatican
by PETER BAGGE

23 September 2009 - 13:43


(The program) Uppdrag granskning reveals that the Vatican was, in fact, aware of the now world-famous interview with Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson when the decision to lift the excommunication was made - despite prior statements to the contrary.

The interview with then-excommunicated Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Catholic traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (the SSPX), aired on Swedish TV in the investigative journalism program Uppdrag granskning in January 2009, sparked off the most serious crisis between Jews and Catholics seen in recent times.

In the interview, Bishop Williamson denied that the Holocaust had taken place. "I believe there were no gas chambers," is one of many statements on the subject.

Only three days later, the Pope's and the Vatican's decision to lift the 20-year-long excommunication of the bishop was announced, sending shock waves throughout the world. [Without mentioning that the decree had been, in fact signed days earlier - January 21 according to the document date, but according to the testimony of Bishom Fellay, at least two days earlier, Jan. 19, when he was given a copy of the decree at the Vatican.]

Israel reacted by demanding that all diplomatic ties with the Vatican be severed, congressmen in the US sent letters of protest to the Pope, and ministers in several European countries openly criticized the Vatican's pardon.

The Vatican has maintained that they had no knowledge of the interview with Richard Williamson when the decision to lift the excommunication was made.

Uppdrag granskning is now able to reveal that the Vatican was, in fact, aware of Williamson's statements well before the decision was made, and that one of the Pope's closest associates, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos had been informed. [

The information was included in an internal report written by the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm, Sweden, as early as November 2008, not long after Uppdrag granskning had interviewed Williamson in Germany.

The report includes remarks made by Richard Williamson expressing his view that the Holocaust never took place, and that statements to that effect are a criminal offense in Germany.

The Catholic Diocese of Stockholm asserts that this report was passed on to the Vatican's emissary in Stockholm. According to Bishop Anders Arborelius of the Swedish Catholic Church, "He (the Papal representative) was very troubled and he attempted to send the report on to Rome."

The Papal representative has declined to be interviewed, but has confirmed that he immediately passed the report on. In addition to this, he also contacted a number of officials at the Vatican - including Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, who, along with the Pope, has denied all knowledge of the TV interview.

For eight years, Cardinal Hoyos was the Pope's closest associate in the negotiations with the SSPX. The cardinal is presently 80 years old and is now retired.

The Vatican continues to maintain that the Pope had no knowledge of the events. In an e-mail sent to Uppdrag granskning, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi ensures us that he is: "certain the Pope is telling the truth."


I would like to see tne entire e-mail from Fr. Lombardi! The statement he is "certain the Pope is telling the truth" sounds too absurd and BLAH! - As if the Pope were an ordinary human being who has to be defended from a charge of lying!

The Pope is the Pope - he is a man of God; he cannot lie, and even if he could, he would not!

I see the AP writer who watched the program missed the screaming implication that the Pope must have lied if 'his closest associate in the negotiations with the FSSPX knew'...


P.S. #4
SVT has now made the text of Fr. Lombardi's e-mail available - but in Swedish with a terrible English translation which I will reproduce as is:


Fr. Lombardi's e-mail to SVT

23 September 2009 - 20:00

---

Dear Mr Fegan,

the only thing I can say is that I did not have any knowledge about your interview with Bishop Williamson before it was broadcasted. After that I was informed about it by journalists and Swedish colleagues of Vatican Radio.

Card. Castrillon said me no word about it before the interview was broadcasted.

I did not know that an information was sent about Williamson to the Vatican, and I do not know who has received it and read it. No one said me any word about it.

The Pope has said that he was not informed as he approved the lifting of the excommunications. I am sure that the Pope tells the truth.

As I informed my Superiors about your interview with Williamson, I saw that the decision about the lifting of the excommunications was already done. [It would have been, because if we go by Mons. Fellay's account, he got a copy of the signed decree on Jan. 19.]

Therefore the only thing I could do, was to distinguish strongly between the sense and the intention of the decision of lifting the excommunication by the Pope, and the absolute inacceptability of the negationism of Williamson as his personal position which was not connected in any manner with the origin of the excommunication. This is what I have repeated many times in those sad days.

I hope that this answer is clear. Thank you for your attention. Best regards.

F. Lombardi

---

CARDINAL CASTRILLON, PLEASE SPEAK UP!!! YOU ARE NOW THE ONLY NAMED FALL GUY. THE INCOMPETENT COWARDS AT SECSTATE ARE STILL SLOUGHING THEIR SKINS DOWN IN THE CURIAL UNDERGROWTH.

GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY:
ON ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY & AOSTA



Pope Benedict XVI flew by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo for the General Audience in Aula Paolo VI today, returning to the summer residence afterwards.

Here is the Holy Father's English synthesis of his catechesis today on St. Anselm:

---

Our catechesis today turns to an outstanding churchman of the eleventh century, Saint Anselm of Canterbury.

Anselm received a monastic education in his native town of Aosta, in the north of Italy, and entered the Benedictine monastery of Bec in Normandy. Under the guidance of his prior, Lanfranc of Pavia, he devoted himself to study and prayer, and eventually was elected abbot of Bec. Some time later he succeeded Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anselm’s years in England were marked by the reorganization of ecclesial life in the wake of the Norman invasion and the struggle for the Church’s legitimate freedom from political inroads, which resulted in his being exiled for three years.

This great spiritual leader was also a brilliant teacher, writer and speculative theologian. In the prayer which opens his most celebrated work, the Proslogion, he expresses his desire to understand the faith, the divine truth which his heart already believes and loves.

May Saint Anselm’s life and teaching inspire us to a more fruitful contemplation of the mysteries of the Christian faith, and a deeper love of the Lord and his Church.

---

Here is a translation of the full catechesis:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

In Rome, on the Aventine hill, we find the Benedictine Abbey of St. Anselm. As the seat of an Institute of Higher Studies and of the Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation, it is a place that unites prayer, study and governance, the three activities that characterized the life of the saint to whom it is dedicated: Anselm of Aosta, the ninth centenary of whose death we observe this year.

The multiple initiatives promoted especially by the uiocese of Aosta for this happy occasion have shown the interest that that this medieval thinker continues to arouse.

He is also known as Anselm of Bec and Anselm of Canterbury because of the cities with which he was associated.

Who is this personage to whom three sites distant from each other and in three different countries (Italy, France and England) feel particularly bound?

He was a monk of intense spiritual life, an excellent educator of the young, a theologian with an extraordinary speculative capacity, a wise man of government, and an intransigent defender of libertas Ecclesiae, the freedom of the Church.

Anselm is one of the eminent personalities of the Middle Ages, who could harmonize all these qualities thanks to profound mystical experience which always guided his thought and action.

St. Anselm was born in 1033 (or in early 1034) in Aosta, the firstborn of a noble family. His father was a coarse man, dedicated to the pleasures of life, who dissipated his goods. His mother, on the contrary, was a lady of elevated breeding and profound religiosity (cfr Eadmero, Vita s. Anselmi, PL 159, col 49).

It was the mother who took care of her son's early human and religious formation, which she then entrusted to the Benedictines in a priory in Aosta.

Anselm, who as a boy - his biographer tells us - imagined the dwelling of the good God among the high and snowbound peaks of the Alps, dreamt one night that he had been invited to this splendid kingdom by God himself, who had a long and friendly conversation with him and at the end, asked him to eat 'a bread that was very white' (ibid., col 51).

This dream left him convinced that he was called to carry out a high mission. At the age of 15, he asked to be admitted into the Benedictine order, but his father opposed it with all his authority, and did not yield even when his son, who fell seriously ill and feeling himself near death, implored to take on the religious habit as a consolation.

After he got well, and with the premature death of his mother, Anselm went through a period of moral dissipation: he neglected his studies, and overcome by earthly passions, he became deaf to God's call.

He left home and started to wander throughout France in search of new experiences. After three years, he reached Normandy, where he went to the Benedictine Abbey of Bec, attracted by the fame of its prior, Lanfranco of Pavia.

It was for him a providential encounter that was decisive for the rest of his life. Under Lanfranco's guidance, Anselm resumed his studies with vigor, and in a short time, became not only his teacher's favorite pupil but also his confidante.

His monastic vocation was rekindled, and after careful consideration, he entered the monastic order at age 27 and was ordained a priest. Asceticism and study had opened new horizons for him, enabling him to recover, to a higher degree, the familiarity with God that he had as a child.

In 1063, when Lanfranco became the Abbot of Caen, Anselm - after barely three years of monastic life - was named prior of the monastery at Bec and master of the cloister school, in which he revealed his gifts as a refined educator.

He did not like authoritarian methods. He likened young people to small plants which develop better if they are not enclosed in a glass house but given 'healthy' freedom.

He was very demanding on himself and with the other monks in observance of the monastic life, but instead of imposing discipline, he sought to make them follow him through persuasion.

With the death of Abbot Erluino, who had founded the abbey of Bec, Anselm was unanimously elected to succeed him - it was February 1079.

Meanwhile, many monks had been called to Canterbury to bring to their colleagues across the Channel the (spiritual) renewal that was taking place on the Continent. Their work was well received, to the point that Lanfranco of Pavia, abbot of Caen, became the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

He asked Anselm to spend some time with him to instruct the (English) monks and help him in the difficult situation that the ecclesial community found itself after the Norman Conquest (1088).

Anselm's stay in Canterbury proved to be very fruitful. He earned such sympathy and esteem that at the death of Lanfranco, he was chosen to succeed him in the archiespiscopal chair of Canterbury. He received his solemn episcopal ordination in December 1093.

Anselm immediately engaged in an energetic battle for the freedom of the Church, courageously sustaining the independence of spiritual power from the temporal.

He defended the Church against the unwarranted interference of political authorities, above all, of King William the Red and Henry I, finding encouragement and support from the Roman Pontiff towards whom Anselm always showed courageous and heartfelt adherence.

This loyalty cost him in 1003 the bitterness of being exiled from his seat in Canterbury. It was only in 1006, after Henry I renounced his claim to conferring eccclesiastical investitutres, as well as raising taxes and confiscating the goods of the Church, that Anselm was able to return to England, where he was welcomed festively by the clergy and the people.

Thus ended happily the long struggle that he fought with the weapons of perseverance, ierceness and goodness. This sainted Archbishop, who roused such admiration wherever he went, dedicated the last years of his life above all to the moral formation of the clergy and to intellectual research on theological subjects.

He died on April 21, 1009, accompanied by the words of the Gospel at the Holy Mass of the day: "It is you who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom..." (Lk 22,28-30).

The dream of that mysterious banquet, which had been the start of his spiritual journey when he was but a child, thus found its realization. Jesus, who had invited him to sit at his table, welcomed St. Anselm on his death into the eternal kingdom of the Father.

"God, I pray to you, I want to love you, I want to know you and to be able to enjoy you. If in this life I am not capable of this to the full measure, then may I one day progress until I reach that fullness"
(Proslogion, cap.14).

This prayer makes us understand the mystical spirit of this great saint of the medieval era - the founder of scholastic theology, whom Christian tradition has given the title of 'Magnificent Doctor', because be cultivated the intense desire to know the divine mysteries in depth, fully aware that the search for God never ends, at least not on this earth.

The clarity and logical rigor of his thought always had the end of "elevating the mind to the contemplation of God" (Ivi, Proemium). He states clearly that whoever intends to do theology cannot count on his intelligence alone, but should cultivate at the same time a profound experience of faith.

The activity of the theologian, according to St. Anselm, develops in three stages: faith, which is a free gift from God to be accepted with humility; experience, which consists in embodying the word of God in one's own daily life; and thus, true knowledge, which is never the fruit of aseptic reasoning but rather of contemplative intuition.

Remaining even more useful today for healthy theological research and for whoever wants to study deeply the truths of the faith are his famous words: "I do not seek, Lord, to penetrate your profundity because I cannot even remotely confront it with my own intelligence. But I wish to understand, at least up to a certain point, your truth which my heart believes and loves. Indeed, I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand" (Ivi, 1).

Dear brothers and sisters, may love for the truth and a constant thirst for God, which marked the entire life of St. Anselm, be a stimulus for every Christian to search without ever tiring a union that is ever more intimate with Christ - the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Moreover, may the zeal full of courage that distinguished his pastoral activity, and which sometimes earned him misunderstanding, bitterness, and even exile, be an encouragement to Pastors, to consecrated persons, and to all the faithful, to love the Church of Christ, to pray, to work and to suffer for her, without ever abandoning or betraying her.

May this grace be obtained for us by the Virgin Mother of God, for whom St. Anselm had a tender and filial devotion. "Mary, it is you my heart wants to love," he wrote, "it is you that my tongue wants to praise ardently".

---

Left photo, Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (Honduras) and president of Caritas International, was among the prelates present today.

This story appears to bear out the French news agency I-Media's report last week that besides the trip to Malta in April 2010 (already officially announced), a papal visit to Britain in 2010 was 'almost certain'.



Pope Benedict XVI
to visit Britain next year
by Francis Elliott and Ruth Gledhill

Sept. 23, 2009


LONDON - The Holy See will announce soon the first papal visit to Britain since Pope John Paul II made a pastoral visit in 1982.

The historic event will overshadow even the triumphant visit of Pope John Paul II, which almost did not take place at all because of the Falklands War.

During his time in the country, expected to take place in September next year, Pope Benedict will have a meeting with the Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and will be accorded the full panoply of a state visit. It is possible the Pope will also stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. [That would be highly unlikely, since the observance during the Pope's travels abroad is that he stays at the residence of the Apostolic Nuncio to the host country. Tbe rule was never broken in all of John Paul's 104 trips abroad, nor in paul VI's before him.]

Gordon Brown extended a formal invitation during a private audience in February and preparations have been under way for some time.

A draft itinerary is understood to include London, Birmingham, Oxford and Edinburgh.

As part of the visit next year Pope Benedict XVI is not expected to visit Northern Ireland, according to British officials.

It is thought he will visit Ireland on a separate occasion.

One issue likely to be central to the celebrations will be the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a ceremony that could take place with Benedict in Birmingham, where Newman founded his Oratory.

It will be a triumphant beginning for Archbishop Vincent Nichols, near the start of his ministry leading the Westminster diocese. It will also provide a boost for Conservative leader David Cameron, likely to be Prime Minister then.

As a practising member of the Church of England attending an Anglo-Catholic parish in Kensington, Cameron is expected to find a soulmate in the conservative-minded and doctrinally sound German Pope.

The visit comes after repeated overtures from Downing Street and Catholic leaders in recent years. Tony Blair, the Church’s most famous living convert, also offered an invitation while he was Prime Minister and, in 2006, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, then Archbishop of Westminster, wrote to the Pope asking him to consider a visit.

When John Paul II visited he met the Queen but did not visit Downing Street or meet the Prime Minister.

The visit is expected to include an invitation to the Pope to address both houses of parliament at Westminster, in the same Westminster Hall where St Thomas More was tried and condemned in 1535 for opposing the Act of Supremacy.

This was the act that made King Henry VIII "supreme head" of the emerging new Protestant body, the Church of England, signalling the formal breach with Rome.

Although there was no official confirmation from Downing Street or the Holy See last night, senior Government figures are confident an announcement from the Vatican is expected soon.

Responding to speculation earlier this year a Downing Street spokesman said: "When the Prime Minister visited the Pope at the Vatican recently he extended an invitation for the Pope to visit all parts of the UK and the invitation was warmly received. The response from the Vatican spokesman was very positive."

Pope John Paul II's six-day trip to Britain in 1982 attracted huge crowds and the Church’s leaders will hope from a similar response from the country’s 4 million Catholics.

A key architect in the plans is understood to have been Britain's ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell, himself a Catholic. Campbell's tenure in Rome comes to an end in October, shortly after the visit. He has raised the profile of the job to the extent that for the first time ever it is likely to become a political appointment.

One of his achievements includes facilitating the closest relations ever since the Reformation between Rome and Britain. The visits to Rome by Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown have led to an unprecedented warmth in relations between the Holy See and Britain and next year's official Papal visit to Britain is one result of that.

Senior figures already being talked about as future ambassadors include the convert from Anglicanism, Ann Widdecombe and Ampleforth-educated Michael Ancram QC.

THAT NOXIOUS SWEDISH BROADCAST!

I have been adding the news updates to my original post earlier today on this page about this horrid affair, because I do not want it to displace the more important news about the Pope's GA and catechesis, and his possible trip to England next year.

I have since added the AP report about the Swedish TV broadcast itself [the writer was able to preview the program before the broadcast] to the earlier post about the whole unfortunate episode, which reflects badly on the Pope's subordinates who, however, continue to leave him alone as the scapegoat for the 'Williamson case'. Shame on them all!

And I have now added the Swedish TV's own carefully poison-laced news release about the broadcast.

Latest addition - Swedish TV's terrible English translation of Fr. Lombardi's e-mail to them regarding their original broadcast in January, saying no one told him about it until after the broadcast, by which time the decree lifting the excommunications had been signed.

A trip in history to rediscover
the Christian roots of Europe
by Mario Ponzi
Translated from
the 9/23/09 issue of





PRAGUE - Only the last details are lacking, but Prague is ready to receive Benedict XVI, the second Pope to visit the land of the Bohemians and Moravians.

In the Church of St. Mary of Victory, the vestments of the image of the Infant Jesus of Prague are freshly pressed. The Cathedral dedicated to St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert has been completely re-scoured.

The great altar on the field adjoining the airport of Brno has been completed, and the great iron Cross which will be left there to commemorate the visit has been set into place.

And in Stara Boleslaw, they have completely prepared the esplanade along Melnik road that will hold at least 100,000 persons expected for the papal Mass to be celebrated at the site of St. Wenceslas's martyrdom.

Yesterday, Sept. 22, Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press office director, explained details of the Pope's program in the Czech Republic.

He recalled that this will be the fourth time the Czech Republic welcomes a Pope. Papa Wojtyla made three trips - in 1990, 1995 and 1997.

Even for Benedict XVI, it will be a second visit. On March 30, 1992, he was in Prague as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to take part in a seminar on the Catechism of the Church.

He gave a lecture entitled "That God may be everything in everyone: Christian faith in eternal life".

Benedict XVI's visit to the Czech Republic - his 13th trip as Pope outside Italy - will take place From Sept. 26-28.

He will arrive in Prague on Saturday, Sept. 26, at the international airport Stara Ruzyne. It has some historical significance for the Czechs. Like many other places in this land, it has been a theater of confrontation and encounter of all the good and all the bad that has marked this nation's history.

Through this airport, all who had been forced to flee various dominations returned from exile to reanimate the life of the nation in re-found freedom. It was also from this airport that the Soviet army came in to occupy Prague.

Nearby are two other places that are equally symbolic. On the one hand, the Benedictine monastery of Brevnov, founded by St. Adalbert in 993, remains as testimony to a millennary effort to promote culture in the land, besides being a symbol of its Christian roots.

On the other hand, there is the prison of Ruzyne, symbol of totalitarianism and the cruelty of totalitarian regimes, but also of the spiritual strength of those who opposed it. Here, tbe students who rebelled in 1939 were massacred, and in the 1950s, this is where enemies of the regime were interrogated.



After the welcome ceremony, Benedict XVI will proceed to the Church of Our Lady of of Victory, which houses the image of the Infant Jesus of Prague, who has a worldwide following of devotion. That is why the Church is always full of foreign pilgrims. Here, the Pope will meet with a group of families.

After a brief rest at the Apostolic Nunciature - his residence during his three-day visit - the Pope will pay a courtesy visit to the President of the Republic at the presidential residence in the world-famous Prague Castle.



After meeting the President, he will meet with the civilian and political authorities and the members of the diplomatic corps.

Afterwards, the Pope will walk to the Cathedral of Prague - part of the monumental complex and 200 meters away from the Castle - to celebrate Vespers, his last event on Day 1.



The Cathedral of Prague is an imposing Gothic edifice which in its present form dates back to 1334. A project of the King of Bohemia, Charles IV, it was executed by the architects Mattia di Arras and Pietro Parler. The Kings of Bohemia rest in its crypt, along with Czech patron saints Wenceslas, John Nepomuceno, and Adalbert.

It was last restored in 1929 for the millennial anniversary of St. Adalbert. Today, the cathedral is dedicated to Saints Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert.

The following morning, Sunday, the Pope will go to Brno, the Republic's second largest city, capital of Moravia. It is also the Czech city with the greatest number of Catholics.



On a large field adjoining the airport, the Pope will celebrate the mass of the XXVI Sunday in ordinary time. He will return to Prague after the Mass.

In the afternoon, he will have two meetings. The first will be with representatives of other religions. This will take place in the Throne Room of the Archbishop's Palace, where he will receive representatives of the ecumenical council.



Afterwards, he will return to Prague Castle, about 300 meters from the Archbishop's Palace, where, in Vladislavsky Hall, he will meet with representatives of the academic world. They will include the rectors of Czech universities and representatives of their professors and students.



On Monday morning, September 28, which is the Czech National Day, the Pope will travel by car to nearby Stara Boleslaw to celebrate the Solemnity of St. Wenceslas in the place where he was martyred, a destination for annual pilgrimages to a place many Czechs consider to symbolize the birth of their nation.

Before celebrating Mass, the Pope will visit the Church of St. Wenceslas, erected on the place where he was killed by his own brother Boleslaw. [Strange that the place is named after the assassin, not the saint!]

In the Church, he will meet with about 20 old priests invited by the Czech bishops' conference.

After the Mass, a youth representative will greet the Pope in the name of his colleagues, to start the part of the program reserved for the Pope to meet the youth.

The Holy Father will return to Prague in time for lunch with the Czech bishops at the Archbishop's Palace.

He will leave for Rome in the afternoon, after a farewell ceremony at the airport. He is expected to be back in Castel Gandolfo by 8 p.m.


Meanwhile, the Office of Liturgical Celebrations has posted online the missal for the Czech trip. The principal language used is Latin.

The first Anglophone commentary I have seen on the Swedish TV flap is from Robert Moynihan, reporting from the USA. He has some interesting angles, but unfortunately, he makes an erroneous claim about how an Italian newspaper reported it today.


After a quiet summer,
clouds gather over Rome...
by Dr. Robert Moynihan from America

Sept, 24, 2009


A storm is about to be unleashed on the Pope, the Vatican, and, by extension, the Catholic Church.

The first drops of rain have just fallen, with public accusations that the Pope lied this winter in connection with the "Williamson affair."

What is it about?

Whether this storm will "blow over," or intensify into a "perfect storm," only time will tell.

But whatever happens, there is this to keep in mind: many, inside and outside of the Church, would like the Church's traditional liturgy, known as the Latin Mass -- the old liturgy celebrated up until 1970, and two years ago designated by Pope Benedict XVI as the "extraordinary rite" of the Mass -- to disappear.

And they are irritated that Benedict -- against many and vociferous objections -- "restored" the old liturgy, which many thought had been buried definitively.

As strange as it may seem, this battle is in part about that -- about the survival of the Church's old liturgy -- about her way of worshipping God.

But when I say this, I do not mean to downplay other, quite obvious concerns, for example, the tense situation in the Middle East, or in the world economy.

I mean to say that, on a fundamental level, it is not simply a political or economic battle, as important as political and economic factors are, but a spiritual battle.

Is Rome alone?

And at a time like this, when many forces in the West (the European Union, the new US administration) seem to be aligning themselves in favor of a thoroughly secularized "new world order," the ally most helpful to Rome may well be the ally who still celebrates a divine liturgy which has not been modernized: the Orthodox.

And the most numerous and powerful of the Orthodox are the Russians.

In this perspective, these attacks on the Pope and the Vatican may drive Rome to ally herself, after a thousand years of separation, with Constantinople, and with Moscow -- reuniting the "three Romes"...

The allegation this morning is that Vatican officials (but not the Pope) lied when they said this winter that no one in the Vatican knew about Bishop Richard Williamson's views about the Holocaust when the Pope decided to lift his excommunication on January 24.

However, this allegation has been exploited by the Church's current antagonist in Italy, Prime Minsiter Silvio Berlusconi, through his media empire, to suggest that the Pope, too, lied.

This allegation made headlines today in Italy, where the Catholic Church and the Italian government of Prime Minister Berlusconi have been sparring for months over Berlusconi's immigration policies and his alleged sexual impropriety. This morning, Berlusconi (or those close to him) took the gloves off.

For the first time in the many months of acrimony, Berlusconi (or his associates) directly attacked the Pope. This escalates the battle.

Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's family, carried the exaggerated headline "He Lied" ("Ha mentito"), referring to the Pope and his handling of the "Williamson affair."


At this point I must break in and correct Dr. Moynihan, because in fairness to Il Giornale, its headline today clearly referred to the Swedish program as making the allegation:


The headline reads: In Sweden, a maneuver against the Pope: "He lied".

The article itself is quite factual in describing the allegations made by the Swedish TV program, based on the trailer by the TV channel and by the fiercely Pope-loyal post in Rorate caeli that had first alerted everyone last Sunday. It is not a hatchet job against the Pope at all!

Indeed, the issue also carries an account by Andrea Tornielli, who makes clear what I had been mentioning in my comments - that Mons. Fellay had personally received the decree two days before the Swedish TV broadcast (and the indicated date of the decree, which was signed by Cardinal Re of the Congregation for Bishops, not by the Pope). I will post Tornielli's story as soon as translated.

Moynihan apparently based his impression of the Il Giornale story on a blog by Damian Thompson
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100011034/berlusconi-turns-his-guns-on-pope-bened...
who cites another blog Catholic Conservation
cathcon.blogspot.com/2009/09/case-of-williamson-again-threatens...
for the conclusions they draw regarding Il Giornale's story today. It is a strange conclusion to draw, since Berlusconi has no reason to want to antagonize the Pope, much less harm him with a direct personal attack.

Il Giornale committed an unforgivable journalistic crime in the hatchet job it did on Dino Boffo where editor Vittorio Feltri clearly distorted facts and sources to paint the worst possible picture of Boffo, but this time, their article on the TV program - and even the headline - are factual and unexceptionable.


An unexpected 'bonus' from the Swedish broadcast, which can be seen here -
svtplay.se/t/103535/uppdrag_granskning
was this previously unpublished picture of the meeting in Castel Gandolfo in August 2005 between Benedict XVI and Mons. Fellay of the FSSPX. Cardinal Castrillon was present.



I have not had time to watch the whole program - just the first five minutes, but it starts out, judging from the visuals, with a brief exposition about the FSSPX and what appears to be the fact that they function in three places in Sweden.

The producers have said no one in Sweden - which has no great reputation for spirituality or religion and is mostly Protestant - is really interested in this topic but why is SVT pushing an anti-FSSPX and anti-Pope agenda?


Here is the translation of Tornielli's piece, which appears on his blog today, but his information, to the cardinals' meeting at the Vatican, was also part of the main story referred to above.


The Williamson case:
Who knew, and what they knew
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from

Sept. 24, 2009


In yesterday's Il Giornale, I had an article dedicated to the new attack from Sweden against Benedict XVI with regard to the Williamson case, in which the same channel - which last January broadcast the now infamous and unfortunate interview given by the Lefebvrian bishop who said the Nazis used no gas chambers on the Jews - broadcast a second installment on the issue last night.

Before writing it, I asked Fr. Lombardi for a statement which I reported yesterday [the reason why the statement was not posted by the Vatican]. The news was taken up today by other newspapers [and by the Italian news agencies yesterday], who cited Fr. Lombardi's statement that the Pope had no prior knowledge of Williamson's negationism before lifting the FSSPX bishops' excommunication.

But I have been much struck by the text of an e-mail that the same Fr. Lombardi as director of the Vatican Press Office, sent to the Swedish channel.

In the e-mail, Lombardi writes: "I did not know that information about Williamson had been sent to the Vatican [as claimed by the Bishop of Stockholm and the Apostolic Nuncio in Sweden], nor do I know who received it and read it. No one told me a single word about it," adding that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos had not said anything to him about the matter.

It is evident that there is an intention to exploit the issue in a way that would involve the Pope, who was, unfortunately, in the dark about all this.

However, the Vatican spokesman's e-mail makes clear that he (Fr. Lombardi) wants to set himself apart from those who would have been responsible for the communication failure. [Indeed, the e-mail was all about Fr. Lombardi making clear he had no responsibility for the failure of information to reach the Pope, and the one line that he sought to 'exculpate' the Pope was expressed in an absurd way, as I commented yesterday.]

I remember that on the afternoon of January 22 (two days before the decree lifting the FSSPX excommunications was officially announced and published - though it had been given to Mons. Fellay even earlier; and the day after the first Swedish TV broadcast on Williamson, which was pre-announced by the German magazine Der Spiegel), there was a meeting at the Secretariat of State among Cardinals Bertone, Levada, Hummes, Re and Castrillon, along with the Deputy Secretary for Internal Affairs, Mons. Fernando Filoni, and Archbishop Coccopalmiero (responsible for legislative texts). Fr. Lombardi was not invited.

From what I gathered afterwards, the prelates never brought up Williamson's interview, only discussing the significance of the Pope's gesture and whether this meant full communion, etc. They also decided that the decree was 'sufficiently clear' and that there was no need for an explanatory presentation to the media.

[This is definitely shocking. The Williamson interview had already been aired, the whole world was talking about it, and all these eminent cardinals did not consider it worth discussing at all????]

Mons. Fellay already had a copy of the decree, but the announcement was not to come until two days later, so after the TV broadcast, the decree could have been held pending clarification.

The gravity of Williamson's statements was greatly under-estimated by those who knew about it. From last night's broadcast, the Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, makes it clear that he had informed the Apostolic Nuncio about the interview before the end of 2008.

How and when was this information transmitted to the Vatican? Who received it there and what did he/they do with it?

And how could it happen that an act of mercy and reconciliation on the part of the Supreme Pontiff was thereby transformed into a boomerang which brought new tensions with the Jewish world and harsh contestations from within the Christian world itself?

Certainly, despite the evident miscalculations and delayed reactions in managing the case after it had erupted, any attempt to involve Benedict XVI in the fiasco can only be contrived and exploitative. Through the Note from the Secretariat of State on February 4, he had made it known that he was unaware of Williamson's negationism.

The case - unfortunately not the only one - 'documented' the functional problems of the Curial machinery (not the Vatican communications media, which has its share of shortcomings, but in this case, had no direct responsibility). But one had thought this particular problem had been absolutely overcome after Papa Ratzinger's extraordinary letter to all the bishops of the world in which he took upon himself the failures of his subordinates.

Responsible officials in the Curia committed serious errors of judgment, but without a doubt, there were also those, including some in the Vatican itself, who blew on the flames, by volunteering enough inopportune statements to project the image of a totally fragmented Curia.

Benedict XVI, who was totally faultless in all this, courageously took on the responsibility for the fiasco to the Church and to the world.

One cannot understand why this painful case should be reopened at this time, except to once again make things difficult for the Pope.

Thursday, Sept. 24

ST. PACIFICO DA SANSEVERINO (Italy, 1651-1721)
Franciscan,Preacher and Abbot
Canonized 1839


OR today.

At the General Audience, the Pope speaks on St. Anselm of Aosta and Canterbury:
'Whoever loves the Church serves her without abandoning or betraying her'
Right photo shows the Pope with Cardinal Maradiaga of Honduras, whose country is undergoing a constitutional crisis. Page 1 also
contains the start of the list of participants in the coming special assembly for Africa of the Bishops' Synod. Other Page 1 stories:
UN secretary-general expresses hope for a total ban of the atomic bomb as the UN General Assembly opens; and a story on
the G20 summit in Pittsburgh this week.



THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father met today separately with two more groups of bishops from northeast Brazil on ad-limina visit -
the sixth and seventh groups of Brazilian bishops he has seen in the past two weeks. Brazil is the largest
Catholic country in the world in terms of Catholic population.


The Vatican also said that a video of the Pope's message in English on climate change that he read at
the General Audience on August 26th was sent to the UN summit on climate change in New York.

And this makes three - I-Media scores again. We now have, semi-officially, for 2010, Malta in April, Fatima in May, and the UK in September. It seems the Pope is prudently rationing his trips abroad to no more than three a year.


Portugal says Pope Benedict XVI
to visit Fatima in May 2010
By BARRY HATTON




LISBON, Portugal, Sept. 24 (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI will visit the Fatima shrine in Portugal next year, the Portuguese president's office announced Thursday.

The Pope will preside at the shrine's annual May 13 ceremonies, a brief statement said. Three shepherd children claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary during apparitions in Fatima in 1917, the first time on May 13 of that year.

Fatima, a small town 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of the capital Lisbon, attracts an estimated 6 million visitors each year. Pope Benedict's visit will be the fifth by a pontiff. Paul VI was the first, in 1967.

The Roman Catholic church in Portugal, meanwhile, is fighting political challenges to its teachings. The Socialist government passed a law allowing abortion two years ago. Portugal has parliamentary elections Sunday, and the Socialists say if they are re-elected they will propose a law to permit gay marriage.

The three Fatima children — Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, who were cousins — said the Virgin Mary appeared to them on the 13th day of each month and predicted events, such as world wars, the re-emergence of Christianity in Russia and one that Church officials say foretold the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

The last visit to Fatima by the head of the Roman Catholic Church was by John Paul nine years ago.

John Paul, who died in 2005, believed the Virgin of Fatima saved his life after he was shot by a Turkish gunman in St. Peter's Square in 1981. The attack, on May 13, coincided with the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, and John Paul credited the Virgin's intercession for his survival.

In 2000, John Paul visited Fatima to beatify Jacinta and Francisco. It was his third visit to the shrine in 18 years.

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI put Lucia, who died in 2005 at age 97, on a fast-track to possible sainthood.

The customary waiting period before beginning the process that can lead to sainthood is five years after a person's death. Lucia, who became a nun, was granted the same waiver as was given in the cases of Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

Other possible trips by Pope Benedict XVI next year include Malta and Britain.


Cardinal Ratzinger leads a procession in Fatima on Oct. 13, 1996.




The Fatima shrine website opens its homepage today with the news, which I have translated from the Portuguese:




FATIMA AWAITS THE POPE WITH JOY

The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima and the Rector of the Shrine of Fatima confirmed the news today that His Holiens sis coming to Portugal adn Fatima in May 2010 - news which is cause for great institutional and personal rejoicing.

At a September 24 meeting of the Priestly Fraternity of Leiria-Fatima, Mons. Antonio Maro and Fr. Virgilio Antunez expressed the joy that everyone feels for this visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Fatima on May 12-13, 2010.

Cardinal Spidlik says the Pope's visit
will help to unite Europe spiritually
Translated from
the Italian service of

Sept, 24, 2009


PRAGUE - Final preparations are being put into place in the Czech Republic for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI on September 26-28. He will be going to Prague, the capital; Brno, capital of Moravia; and Stara Bloleslaw, the site where the Czech patron saint Wenceslas was martyred.

His feast day on Sept. 28, the Czechs' National Day, is the occasion for the Pope's visit. Sergio Centofanti reports from Parague:

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Serenely built, as Rome was, on the gentle slopes of seven hills, it is traversed by the sinuous Moldau River, which reflects the imahes of a parst that speaks to us of a Christian faith translated into Romanic, Gothic and baroque architecture. A pearl in the heart of Europe.

In these lands more than a thousand years ago, the brothers Cyril adn Methodius began their mission to lay down the first bridges between the Judaic-Greco-Latin world and that of the Slavs, inventing an alphabet for the Slavic languages so that the Slavs could read teh Gospel in their own languages.

The two brothers did not have an easy time of it, nor those who sought to emulate them. This is a land of martyrs. St. Wenceslas, who was killed because the Gospel does not favor teh interests of the powerful. St. Ludmilla, his grandmother, who was strangled to death simply because she gave her family Christian advice. St. Adalbert, pierced by a lance for preaching that Jesus was God made man. St. John Nepomuceno, who was drowned in the Moladau for refusing to reveal a secret of the confessional to the king. St. John Sarkander, who was tortured and killed because during the religious wars, he refused to be on any side but God's.

It is a land of pain and rebirth. In Brno, at the foretress prison of Spielberg, the Italian patriot Silvio Pellico, after eight years of suffering, rediscovered his faith and forgave his persecutors, and wrote the book "My Prisons", which was the first treatise on the rights of detained persons.

It is a land that has been vilated by two totalitarianisms, Nazism and Communism - both of which sold the illusory claim of building a world against God and without God.

Twenty years ago, the regime imposed by the Soviets fell, putting an end to the illusion that communism could rid mankind of all social adn economic cares.

And twenty years ago, John Paul II made his first of three visits here, and canonized Agnes, teh Bohemian princess who in the 13th century gave away all her goods to the poor so she could follow Christ's way of the Cross.

Mankind's anxieties have been well described by the great writer Franz Kafka, born in Prague, who lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In his works (Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle), man is overcome by a mysertious fate that he must expiate without knowing why. By an irresolvable evil that crushes life in the meanderings of a daily existence without sense.

John Paul II, in his three trips to this country, proclaimed the Truth which liberates man from this unsupportable weight and from teh violence that comes fron it. He announced the mercy of God. Which requires that man himself should forgive.

He asked forgiveness and offered forgiveness - for sufferings caused by the Church (he explicitly mentioned the Czech reformer Jan Hus who was burned at the stake in 1415)), and for the sufferings the Church underwent.

God's forgiveness has its own logic, its own grammar, and generates thlughts and actions that are completely new. Above all, it has its own mysterious timing to bear fruit which contemporary man, impatient in his perpetual haste, is unable to understand.

Benedict XVI comes to this land in the footsteps of John Paul II, with the same call not to be afraid, not to doubt, to always start from the basis of faith - the timing belongs to God. A Czech proverb says the mills of God work slowly but surely.

One of the outstanding personalities of teh Church in the Czech Repuublic today is Cardinal Thomas Spidlik, botn in Brno 90 years ago. A Jesuit, he was forced to work in the quarries under both the Nazis and the Communists. He became a priest at age 30 ddespite difficulties of all kinds.

A world-famous theologian who became known for his books on teh spirituality of teh Oriental Churches, he lives and works at the Centro Aletti in Rome with Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik (artist of the mosaics in the Padre Pio shrine in San Giovanni rotondo).

For almost 50 years now, he has worked with Vatican Radio, dlivering a meditation every Friday. John Paul II MAde him a cardinal in 2003.


Left photo, the two Czech cardinals Spidlik and Vlk (Archbishop of Prague); right photo, Cardinal Spidlik.

Helen Destombes spoke to Cardinal Spidlik about the Pope's trip:

CARDINAL SPIDLIK:

---

John Paul II came here 20 years ago, after the Berlin Wall fell, and later wehen Communism itself collapsed and the new Europe was born. He said then that the purpose of his visits was to work for the spiritual unity of Europe.

Benedict SVI comes here 20 years later, to Prague, which is the geographical center of Europe. and so it makes us reflect once more: we need to build a Europe that is spiritually united.

The Pope's visit is not political but spriitual. The Czechs are a people of Oriental origin who have lived the past 2000 years in a wEstern civilization and culture. We can conciliate these two mentalities so that Europe - which for so long was divided in two - can become one Europe again.

---

Here's a 2004 report from Prague Radio about Cardinal Sidlik shortly after he got the red hat.

The second Czech cardinal



The Czech Republic has had two Catholic cardinals since the ordination of Tomas Spidlik in 2003. This week, Cardinal Spidlik was in the Czech Republic for the first time since then.

Ironically, his visit coincided with a spat between the Czech state and the Vatican after President Vaclav Klaus had rejected a draft treaty between Prague and the Holy See. [NB: The treaty is still pending give years later.] Despite this, Cardinal Spidlik is philosophical about his homeland's relations with the Catholic Church:

"I explained it to our President with a very simple comparison - when two young people get married, I tell them they love one another but that this will pass. I then tell them that they will have difficulties, which will pass also, but that they should never stop speaking to one another. When people keep talking to one another then the issue will be resolved."

Cardinal Spidlik is well known in the Czech Republic from his days as a broadcaster for Vatican Radio during the communist era. He is also a renowned scholar of Eastern spirituality. One of the reasons for his visit was to give a lecture on spirituality in the European Union. This is something Cardinal Spidlik feels is lacking despite closer economic integration:

"Europe is unifying economically and politically, but we have not achieved the spiritual unity of Europe. And that is something that we can anticipate, because in 2000 years we have amassed many beautiful things."

Cardinal Spidlik believes that Europe should focus on the ethical ideals that contributed to the continent's development so that it can establish common spiritual values. It could then present these to the rest of the world and use them as a bridge between the East and West.

Despite his own deep religious convictions, Cardinal Spidlik comes from one of the most secular countries in Europe. Although statistics show that a majority of Czechs claim to be atheist, Cardinal Spidlik doubts whether this actually proves that Czechs have really turned their backs on their Christian heritage and embraced modern rationalist values:

"Statistically, it is very relative. For instance, Czechs don't like to say that they are religious, but what they feel in their hearts is another issue. The Czechs are in the centre of Europe. They have always had western German civilization, but their origins are in the east. I always say that they have the German head and the Slavic heart. And when these are not sufficiently in harmony with each other, the consequences are catastrophic. We must find harmony and not be in conflict."


And what about the other Czech cardinal? Hre's a news item from CTK last February - weeks after it was known the Pope would be visiting the Czech Republic.


Czech Cardinal Vlk joins criticism
of Pope over Holocaust denier





Prague, Feb. 2 (CTK) - Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk has joined the critics of Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier, British bishop Richard Williamson, Vlk has written on his website, daily Lidove noviny (LN) reported.

Prague Archbishop Vlk, primate of the Czech Catholic Church, wrote that Vatican had made an impression of having played down the step.

Vlk recalled that at the beginning he defended the Pope's "gesture of mercy" lifting the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, and tried to stand up against the wave of criticism it had stirred up.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is responsible for relations between the Vatican and the Jews, admitted that the Pope had not consulted his step with him, Vlk wrote.

"No one has apparently taken Bishop Williamson's opinions into considerations during this act," Vlk added.

"As a Catholic bishop I definitely condemn any anti-Semitism as it is incongruous with the Catholic Church's doctrine," Vlk wrote.

[But Williamson's anti-Semitism had nothing to do with why he was excommunicated! The Pope lifted the excommunication - that doesn't mean he condones everything that each of the four bishops stands for or does, if they do wrong!

In this case, it did not mean - even if the Pope knew about Williamson's negationism beforehand - that he was condoning it by lifting the excommunication. Why is it difficult for anyone with common sense to see that?

Lifting the excom from the four bishops was a class action, arising from the fact that all four were illegally ordained together on the same occasion. If in the meantime, one of them had been found to advocate apartheid or slavery, he cannot be exempted from the class action exercised by the Pope because objectionable socio-political views have nothing to do with why he was excommunicated to begin with. ]

LN writes that Czech theologist Odilo Stampach is of the view that the stance of Vlk and other Church dignitaries is very surprising, as the Roman Catholic Church is traditionally considered a strictly hierarchical structure with the Pope on the top having everything in control.

Stampach said the resistence towards the Vatican was a positive signal, proving that the Church is opposing the "retreat from the reform course," Lidove noviny writes .

[Tsk-tsk! Cardinal Spidlik's reference to the Czech's 'German education' is showing itself in the liberal Lehmann/Zollitsch-like reasoning of Stempach.]

The Vatican decided to lift the 20-year-long excommunications of four traditionalist bishops on January 14. The most controversial of them is Williamson who in an interview denied the existence of gas chambers and the extent of the Holocaust. This is why his rehabilitation leashed stormy criticism.

The Pope condemned Williamson's words and expressed solidarity with the Jews at a general audience on January 28.


I wonder if Cardinal Vlk - and any of the other dissident bishops for that matter - ever wrote the Pope after the March 10 letter to all the bishops, to at least acknowledge they got the letter even if they could not bring themselves to apologize for their distinct and deliberate lack of communion with the Successor of Peter.


BTW, The newsphoto agencies had these measly two photos today (two because there are two of each kind) to illustrate 'preparations' in Prague for teh Pope's visit. Looks to me like just a couple of picutres taken at the Church of Our Lady of Victory, home to the miraculous image of the Infant Jesus:


Why do they never take pictures of the posters and streamers that are usually in abundance for a papal visit? Even during the visit itself, they somehow manage to avoid taking pictures of these objects that most characterize a papal visit - in a way that hardly ever happens for anyone else, not even by a President of the United States!

Friday, Sept. 25

ST. ELZEAR (1285-1323) & BLESSED DELPHINE (1284-1358), France
Lay Franciscan married couple who kept a vow of chastity
and were legendary for their daily works of charity.



OR today.


Papal stories in today's issue besides the routine announcements
are two inside-page stories on the Pope's trip to the Czech Republic
tomorrow. There are also four items related to a new book on John
Paul II, Un Papa che non muore. L'eredità di Giovanni Paolo II,
by the journalist who co-wrote Cardinal Dsiwisz's memoir A Life
with Karol. The editor's choice for Page 1 stories are a textbook
illustration of meaningless political correctness, namely: The United
Nations sets off on a course of multilateralism [it's multilateral by
nature!]; at the Security Council, the time has come for nuclear
disarmament[even as the UN has been helpless to stop North Korea
and Iran from developing nuclear weapons]; the IMF reminds the G20
nations meeting in Pittsburgh that the crisis is not over; and UN
secretary-general may call another summit on climate change before
the major Copenhagen conference in December [they just had one
this week in New York! - how does one more summit before then help?].


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with yet another group of Brazilian bishops
(from the northeast sector) on ad limina visit. Address in Portuguese.

Pope Benedict to confront secularism
on his visit to the Czech Republic
by Jeffrey Donovan



ROME, Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI will confront secularism when he visits the Czech Republic, a former communist nation with a centuries-long history of religious and ideological conflict where the percentage of Roman Catholics is declining.

The Catholic leader, who speaks out often about the risk of secular Europe losing its Christian roots, arrives in Prague tomorrow for a three-day visit to one of the few European countries yet to ratify a treaty on relations with the Vatican.

The trip is his first as Pope to the Czech region, the theater of religious wars from the 15th to 17th centuries, and comes 20 years after the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in Prague.

“The Czech Republic is geographically and historically in the heart of Europe, and after having endured the dramatic events of the previous century, it needs, as does the entire continent, to rediscover the reasons for faith and hope,” Benedict said on Sept. 20 in Castelgandolfo, south of Rome, site of the papal retreat.

Benedict’s trip comes as religious practice is at a historic low in the country, where the government and the Catholic Church have yet to resolve a dispute over the restitution of property confiscated by the former communist authorities.

Atheist groups have called the visit a violation of the secular constitution, while critics of the Vatican’s ban on artificial means of birth control plan to hand out 10,000 condoms during a papal Mass in Brno on Sept. 27, the CTK news agency said on Sept. 24.

The Pope will focus his trip on the country’s dwindling Catholic population, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said. He “will encourage the local church to bring hope and vitality to a very secularized environment,” Lombardi told reporters in Rome on Sept. 23.

Benedict, 82, will address Czech political leaders and Prague-based diplomats in a speech in English tomorrow at Prague Castle. While German was spoken widely in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia before World War II, the German-born pontiff will speak in public only in English, Italian and Czech during the visit, Lombardi said.

About 100,000 people, including pilgrims from neighboring countries, will attend the Mass in Brno, the capital of Moravia, the country’s most Catholic region, Czech Bishop Vaclav Maly told reporters in Prague yesterday.

Some 50,000 will be present when the Pope leads a ceremony celebrating St. Wenceslaus, the Czech patron saint, on Sept. 28 in Stara Boleslav, north of Prague, Maly added.

“His themes will touch on Europe, on the construction of Europe, on its Christian roots, and on democracy and freedom” in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the autumn of 1989, Lombardi said.

He added that the Pope won’t discuss relations with the Czech state or the property dispute, though such issues may come up in a meeting between Prime Minister Jan Fischer and Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

The Catholic Church has a tumultuous history in the region. Jan Hus, a forerunner of the Reformation, was burned at the stake by Catholic officials in Constance in 1415, becoming a national martyr. His death helped set off two centuries of religious wars that devastated the area.

Centuries of Austro-Hungarian rule that sought to re-impose Catholicism also left a lasting mark, said Father William S. Faix, a U.S.-born Catholic priest at St. Thomas Church in Prague.

In 1939, about 80 percent of the population was baptized Catholic, Faix said, adding that the number had fallen to 40 percent by 1990 and stands at just 20 percent of today’s population of 10 million.

The Czech Republic was the second-least religious country in Europe, after Estonia, according to a 2005 Eurobarometer poll, which found that only 19 percent of Czechs believed in God.

“The Czech nation was under the tutelage of the Hapsburgs from 1526 to 1918, and they did use religion as a source of centralization, and this created a sense of resentment on the part of the Czech people,” Faix said in a telephone interview. “They felt manipulated, ideologically and politically, and this was only exacerbated by the communist regime.”





Security high for Pope's visit,
public anticipation muted

By Tom Clifford

PRAGUE, Sept, 24 - A massive four-day police security operation will begin Sept. 25 for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

The visit comes against the backdrop of a domestic political crisis and a treaty, still to be ratified, between the Czech Republic and the Vatican.

One leading Church spokesperson claimed controversially that the
Church was "the largest alternative to politics causing the crisis we are witnessing."

The treaty has been the single most contentious issue between the Vatican and the Czech Republic and, while not officially on the agenda, it is highly likely to be discussed.



The Pope will arrive at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 26 at Ruzyně International Airport and depart at 5:45 p.m. Sept. 28.

He will celebrate Masses in Brno and in Stará Boleslav, where St. Wenceslas was killed in 935.

The security operation will include a parking ban at terminals 3 and 4 at Ruzyně Airport during the hours prior to his arrival and departure.

The Pope will stay at the Apostolic Nunciature on Voršilská street (between Národní street and Ostrovní street), where there will be "a complete ban on transit vehicles and parking" according to Lubomír Kvíčala, director of the Unit for the Protection of Constitutional Officials.

Karmelitská street in Malá Strana will be closed Saturday, Sept. 26, from 9 a.m. for about four hours until 1 p.m., said Eva Miklíková, spokeswoman for the Prague police.

Miklíková confirmed Hradčany Square outside Prague Castle will be closed from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 26.

On Sept. 27, there will be a massive security operation around Brno Tuřany Airport, where the pope will celebrate Mass. A 6-kilometer stretch of the D1 motorway near the airport will be sealed off to allow parking for 2,000 buses.

But Miklíková also issued a warning that further disruption to traffic in Prague is a probability.

"Further closures will be implemented by the police and will last as long as necessary if the need should arise," Miklíková said.
The police have confirmed there are no plans to close any bridges over the Vltava (Moldau) river.

As well as these measures, dozens of police vehicles will be on the streets of Prague, coordinated by eye-in-the-sky helicopters to ensure the smoothest flow of traffic as possible.

The Pope is visiting the Czech Republic not only as the head of the Vatican state but "as the symbol of Europe's own spiritual values," said Aleš Pištora, Prague Archbishopric spokesman. Pištora linked the visit to the political crisis facing the country.

"It is important to remember our own Christian roots, and, especially today, when the Church as guardian of this tradition is the largest alternative to politics causing the crisis we are witnessing."

The Pope will be in the Czech Republic officially as a result of a joint invitation from President Václav Klaus and the Czech Bishops' Conference, papal spokesman Juan Provecho said.

"The goal is to visit and support Christian life here. The Pope's words are an encouragement for believers and, for many at least, an opportunity for reflection."

The visit is not entirely related to pastoral matters. The Czech-Vatican Treaty, which has yet to be ratified, could provide a mechanism to resolve the status of Church property taken by the state and will be discussed at least on an informal basis, according to Church sources.

After the communists came to power in 1948, Church property was seized by the Czechoslovak state. Since the Velvet Revolution [of 1989], the return of Church property has been a contentious issue.

In 2002, a treaty on the position of the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic was signed but has yet to be ratified. It was rejected by the lower house of Parliament in 2003.

The treaty did not itself cover a settlement over disputed Church property but was seen as an important first step to settling issues between the church and state.

"The treaty between the Czech Republic and the Holy See is an international treaty that has been signed but not ratified by the Parliament of the Czech Republic," Provecho said.

"The treaty is certainly important, but, more importantly, in my view, is the will to work together. The treaty does not address property relations, but rather the promise of early settlement, which has so far failed. Unfortunately, we have not seen enough political will to complete the issue."

Pavel Bém, the mayor of Prague, acknowledged that it was an honor to have the Pope in his city but was cautious about the public's response.

"It is an honor, and the visit is important regardless of our beliefs. Prague has always been a place where different religious or political cultures meet, and the visit by the pope is a phenomenal event.

"In comparison with John Paul II, the role of the present Pope is far more complicated, but we will see how the public accepts him."




The Pope in the Czech Republic:
A voyage among non-believers
by VICTOR L. SIMPSON



VATICAN CITY,Sept. 25 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI is going to the heart of central Europe 20 years after the fall of communism ended restrictions on religion. But what he will find is a Czech Republic where nearly half the population professes to be non-believers.

Like an ancient missionary on his three-day pilgrimage starting Saturday, Benedict will try to reinvigorate the faith with a series of religious services, make a side trip to the traditional Catholic heartland in Moravia and repeat reminders of the country's Christian roots as he pays tribute to the nation's patron saint, Wenceslas.

The Czech Republic "like the entire continent, needs to refind faith and hope," Benedict told a crowd in St. Peter's Square on Sunday as he asked for prayers to make his pilgrimage a success.

"The Pope is traveling to the heart of Europe, where Christianity has made a central contribution,'" said Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi. But he said that secularism is so widespread "that the practice of religion is reduced to a minority."



Even after Communism fell in 1989, the Catholic Church is still battling for the return of St. Vitus Cathedral, the Gothic centerpiece of Prague's Hradcany Castle that the Communists gave to the state along with other church property. It is used for religious services but ownership remains with the state.

The 82-year-old Pope is making the 13th foreign trip of his papacy, many of them centered around the warning that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives and making religion irrelevant in public life.

It will be Benedict's first foreign journey since he broke his right wrist in a fall in his bedroom while vacationing in the Italian Alps in July. Doctors said the fall was not related to any underlying medical condition and that his overall health is good.

Decades of Communism dented religious faith in many countries — but the Czech Republic has been unusual in showing a particularly steep fall in the numbers of Church members since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

According to the 2001 census, some 3.3 million people in the nation of 10 million said they belonged to a church — down from 4.5 million in 1991.

A poll on the issue conducted by the STEM agency showed some 48 percent of Czechs saying they do not believe in God, while 28 percent are believers and 24 percent don't know. The margin of error of the poll was 2.5 percentage points.

The Rev. Tomas Halik, who was secretly ordained under communism and now teaches at Prague's Charles University, said the roots of non-belief date to Czech nationalism in the 19th century, when Czech lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the church was seen as the empire's ally.

The Communists took anti-Church policies to a new level of repression.

"The Czech part of Czechoslovakia witnessed an attempt to establish a totally atheistic society," Halik said. "The Church here was suppressed more than in any other Communist country."

The Communist regime, which seized power in 1948 in what was then Czechoslovakia, confiscated all the property owned by the churches and persecuted many of the priests. Churches were then allowed to function only under the state's control and supervision.

In 2008, the government drafted a bill that would compensate all religious organizations, including the Catholic Church, for property seized by the former Communist regime, but the bill has never been approved by Parliament.



The Catholic Church and the Czech government had long fought over rights to the 14th century St. Vitus Gothic cathedral, but the Supreme Court ended the dispute in March after some 17 years by ruling that it belongs to the state.

Pope John Paul II made three trips to the Czech Republic starting in 1990 in a push for religious revival after the persecutions of the communist years. Benedict visited Prague as a cardinal in 1992.


Brno-Turany airport and the Mass site. Inset shows its ultra-modern terminal building.

This week, workmen have been busy preparing for what is expected to be the best attended event of Benedict's trip, an open-air Mass beside the airport in Brno on a field that can accommodate as many as 200,000 people.

The Vatican estimates the number of Catholics as 3.2 million; the government puts the figure at below 3 million.

"I don't think that Czechs are less religious than other Europeans," Lenka Studena told Associated Press Television in Brno. "It's more that they lost trust in institutions."

In that they are not alone in Europe among lands emerging from Communism.

While about 78 percent of Germans say they believe in God, a 2007 survey showed, the number drops to 36 percent in the former communist east.


From an Italian site on the papal visit

which translates items from Czech sources:



A Czech-language biography
of Benedict XVI




Prage, Sept. 22 (CTK)- A biography of Pope Benedict XVI has been published in the Czech Republic in time for the Pope's visit.

Entitled (in English translation) Benedict XVI: A bridge between two sides, it was written by E. Munarova, who is in charge of catechism in the diocese of Ostrava-Opava, and Fr. T.C. Havel.

The authors describe Joseph Ratzinger on the basis of available historical and current data, and without hagiographic excess.

"What emerges is the portrait of a man who has always followed his conscience as a theologian worker in the vineyard of the Lord," the introduction says.


And although the Czech post office may not have issued a stamp to commemorate the visit, they have put out a commemorative postcard or envelop (I cna't tell asa I do not understand Czech)"

Here's the article John Allen alerted us that a Czech newspaper asked him to write for the visit. The accompanying cartoon is rather literal and crude, but the article is excellent, especially for the secular audience it is addressed to.


The Pope still matters
Even in the increasingly secular West,
the Pontiff remains a key political and social force'
By John L. Allen Jr.

Sept. 23, 2009




Soviet Prime Minister Joseph Stalin, informed of an anti-communist declaration by Pope Pius XII during the 1940s, is said to have contemptuously asked, "How many divisions does the Pope have?"

Pius, a career diplomat and no stranger to Realpolitik, nevertheless offered a decidedly spiritual reply: "He will meet my divisions in the next world."

Forty years later, another Pope, John Paul II, wasn't quite so patient about picking up the gauntlet Stalin had flung down. By aggressively supporting the Solidarity movement, the Polish Pope helped send the dominoes tumbling that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism.

Today, Stalin is remembered as one of the arch-villains of the 20th century, while John Paul the Great is conventionally lifted up alongside Nelson Mandela and Gandhi as one of the century's iconic heroes.

All this offers a reminder that, while the Pope's divisions may belong to the next world, the social and political influence of the papacy is very much part of this one.

Forget about theology for a moment. In purely empirical, sociological terms, the Catholic Church is to religion what the United States is to geopolitics: the lone superpower, or at least the lone "indispensable nation," without whose involvement resolution of virtually any global crisis is difficult to imagine.

Worldwide there are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, scattered in every nook and cranny of the planet. While Catholicism may be struggling in the West, it's exploding elsewhere. The Catholic population of sub-Saharan Africa went from 1.9 million in 1900 to 130 million in 2000, a growth rate of almost 7,000 percent.

Moreover, Catholicism is the world's most vertically integrated religious organization, with clear lines of authority radiating out from Rome down to local parishes in Africa, Latin America and points beyond. (As a thought exercise, try asking yourself sometime who's in charge of Islam, or Christian Pentecostalism, and you'll begin to see what makes Catholicism unique.)

Catholicism is also the only religious body to have its own diplomatic corps. The Holy See, the formal name of the Vatican as a sovereign state, has diplomatic relations with 177 nations (including the Czech Republic) and enjoys observer status with every major international organization, including the United Nations.

No global leader makes a trip to Italy without calling on the Pope, and usually that meeting draws far greater interest than a similar session with the Italian prime minister.

The papacy is the biggest bully pulpit on the religious stage. Analyses of global media outlets routinely show that the Pope (any Pope) is the most-covered, most-quoted religious leader in the world, easily outpacing his nearest rival, the Dalai Lama.

The unique blend of mystery, ritual and theater in Catholicism still captivates the public imagination. Can one really imagine Dan Brown selling millions of copies of a potboiler novel about the Lutheran World Federation?

To be sure, the papacy in the 21st century is not what it once was. Centuries of secularization have weakened its hold on the West, particularly in Europe, where, in some places, the Catholic Church seems a shell of its former self.

The numbers of priests and nuns have plummeted, less than 20 percent of European Catholics bother to attend Sunday Mass, and the Church's political weight is so attenuated that it couldn't persuade the European Union to include so much as a generic reference to God in its draft constitutional document.

Even in ultra-Catholic Italy, abortion and divorce are both legal, condoms are for sale just a few feet from the Vatican walls, and scantily clad women cavort every night on prime-time television.

Inside the Church, too, the Pope's authority is hardly absolute. These days, issuance of a Vatican ruling is tantamount to blowing a starter's whistle to see which bloc of dissident theologians and in-house critics can win the sprint to denounce it.

Opinion polls routinely show that majorities of self-declared Catholics in the West disagree with the Pope on all manner of issues, from birth control to female priests.

That said, Popes who know how to spend whatever social capital they have left can still change history.

John Paul II's role in ending communism is the best known example, but one could cite any number of other cases. In the mid-1990s, the Vatican and Islamic countries prevented a UN conference on population in Cairo from recognizing a right to abortion in international law. (Critics dubbed their intervention an "unholy alliance.")

In 2003, John Paul's staunch moral opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq helped the Muslim street to distinguish between the foreign policy of the Bush administration and broader Western sentiment, thereby dampening anti-Christian backlash in the world's 56 majority Muslim states.

More recently, Pope Benedict XVI set off a firestorm in the Islamic world with a Sept. 12, 2006, lecture in Regensburg, Germany, in which he linked Muhammad with violence.

Since then, however, carving out an "alliance of civilizations" with Islam has become Benedict's top inter-faith priority, and there's considerable evidence that it's working.

When Benedict traveled to the Middle East in May, Islamic leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, welcomed him with open arms, vowing to stand together against secularization.

However emancipated European societies may claim to be, they too pay close attention to the Pope. When Benedict XVI recently declared on a trip to Africa that condoms make the AIDS crisis worse, he was formally denounced by the Belgian Parliament, and Spain's Socialist regime shipped 1 million condoms to Africa in protest.

What's striking is that other religious leaders say this sort of thing all the time; it took the Pope to make secular elites react.

Even when the Pope stumbles, heads turn. ['Even when'? Especially when!] When Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of four traditionalist Catholic bishops last January, including one who is a Holocaust denier, without adequately explaining the logic for doing so, it set off a crisis in Jewish/Christian relations and triggered a global media frenzy.

In short, for good or ill, the Pope still matters.

To Catholics, of course, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, so, even if he couldn't influence a single vote or draw the interest of a single journalist, he would still be a central presence in their faith.

Yet the most ardently convinced atheist ought to realize that religion remains an enormously important motivating force in human affairs, and that the Pope is the most important religious leader on the planet.

While it may take faith to recognize the Pope's spiritual authority, all it requires to grasp his relevance, even in the early 21st century, is opening one's eyes.


The author is the senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter in the United States and the Vatican analyst for CNN and National Public Radio. He is the author of The Rise of Benedict XVI (Doubleday, 2005) and will be in the Czech Republic covering the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

Finally, someone in the media did seek out Cardinal Castrillon, who does not mince his words in reply to the allegations made by the Bishop of Stockholm in the Sept. 23 Swedish TV broadcast. I can only translate what is now available online from SZ, and other interview excerpts posted in Italian translation on the blog Fides et Forma.



'None of us had the slightest idea'
The scandal over the FSSPX* shook the Catholic Church.
A key role was played by the traditionalist Cardinal Hoyos
who talks for the first time in this SZ interview.

*The scandal was not about the FSSPX exactly but about Williamson.




He is for many people in the [Catholic] Church the bad boy: Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 80, a cardinal from Colombia, who was head of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei till he retired last July, and who had been responsible for the dialog with the traditionalist Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X.

He is considered the main person responsible for the scandalaround the FSSPX Bishop Richard Williamson, whose excommunication Pope Benedict XVI lifted in January. [He certainly has been named the scapegoat by people as diverse as Fr. Lombardi, Cardinal Kasper and Cardinal Re.]

Was it not incumbent upon Hoyos [the correct surname is Castrillon; Hoyos is his mother's surname and comes after the paternal surname in Spanish] to know that before the Pope's merciful act Williamson had given an interview to Swedish TV in which he said Jews were not gassed by the Germans? Or that the British bishop had held these views for some time?

In an interview with SZ, Castrillon takes a stand:

---

SZ: You say that you were not aware of Williamson's interview. What would the Pope have done if he had known?
I cannot hypothesize what the Pope might have done. I can only relate what he knew when the revocation of the excommunications was made public. At that time, none of us had the slightest idea about what Bishop Williamson had said. None of us! And no one was duty-bound to know it.

---

Since 2000, the arch-conservative prelate has handled the Vatican's liaison with the FSSPX, but not about the traditionalists' objections to important points made by the Second Vatican Council. Castrillon's concern were the canon law questions.

Did the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre commit an act of schism when he consecrated four priests as bishops in 1988? And were these bishops, who were excommunicated [automatically by virtue of their illegal ordination] considered to have defected from the faith?

[The writer misrepresents the problem. The FSSPX keeping the faith was never questioned. The problem was the legitimacy of their episcopal ministry and the acts that come from that; and more fundamentally, to find a way to bring them back into full communion with Rome, as some of their splinter groups had done.]

---

Do you share the positions of the FSSPX?
They believe that they are defending the truth of holy Tradition and that no one can be excommunicated for that. That is understandable, even if I don't agree with their view, because it is undeniable that they had violated a fundamental rule of the Church [episcopal ordination without the approval of the Pope].

---

Rome has always explained it simply: The FSSPX had violated Church discipline [more correctly, canon law], However, the illegally ordained bishops are not considered heretics, but had strayed from Church discipline. For this reason, Rome could carry on a dialog with them.

And for this, they have in Joseph Ratzinger an advocate. In 2007, Benedict XVI rehabilitated the traditional Mass. Cardinal Castrillon was among the very first to celebrate the old rite [in London's Westminster Cathedral]. Meanwhile, the lifting of the excommunication was being pursued in secret. The decision which had been made and passed on to the FSSPX one week earlier was made public on January 21. [NO! The date of Cardinal Re's signature on the decree was January 21, but the Vatican did not make the announcement until Jan. 24].

This would have been nothing more than an internal Church event, had not Williamson in November 2008, attending a priestly ordination in Zaitzkofen near Regensburg, given the now infamous interview to Swedish TV.

The channel waited to broadcast the interview until January 2008 when the lifting of the excommunication was already fait accompli. Castrillon considers it a 'slip' that the Pope and he were compromised accordingly.

And yet, Williamson's position should have been known [at the Vatican] beforehand. The Bishop of Stockholm claims that at the end of November 2008, he had learned what Williamson said in the interview and had informed the Nuncio in Sweden, who presumably informed the Vatican Secretariat of State.

It is probable that the information was simply filed away since the Secretariat of State was not aware of what the Pope was planning to do about the Lefebvrians.

But Cardinal Castrillon also explains the more basic reason why Williamson's negationist position has nothing to do with the lifting of the excommunication which was a prescribed discipline for a specific violation of canon law.

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Did you ever ask yourself whether your decisions could have any political consequences?
Lifting the excommunications is not a political matter at all. It was an act of mercy. It had to do with a pastoral-theological problem. Nothing at all with the Church being drawn into the political sphere. So I was not concerned with that at all. My work was not to judge a fellow bishop. That is for the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But the Catholic Church has a position on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust...
The Church has always been fully clear in its rejection of the extreme act of violence that was done to the Jewish people. Such a racially-motivated genocide is an immoral crime against humanity.


Then why did you lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier?
Williamson was excommunicated because of his illegal ordination, not because of his theories, judgments or statements about the Holocaust. To see it any other way is a gross German mistake.

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The whole interview with the ex Curial Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos can be read in the Friday issue of SZ, Sept. 25, 2009. The interview was done by Camilo Jimenez.


Francesco Colafemmina provides more excerpts in Italian translation on his blog:

Castrillon says the Bishop of Stockholm
has spoken a 'calumny'
Translated from


Cardinal Castrillon has shown himself to be a real Cardinal, a man (unlike other homunculi) dressed in cardinal red to remind himself of the blood he must be ready to shed for the Church of Christ.

Above all, the Cardinal is not naive or ill-prepared, and despite his age (80), he has always been known to be an expert on software and computers (though he does not use it to send e-mail to journalists!).

Cardinal Castrillon spells out his positions [on the Williamson case and the second Swedish TV broadcast about it] in a lengthy interview with the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

He bluntly calls the statements made by the Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, as a 'calumny', adding, "Excuse me, but I find his statements very questionable because it is wrong... We archive all the documents we receive [at Ecclesia Dei] in digital form. Bishop Arborelius should say how, to whom, and when he communicated his information [about Williamson's Nov. 2009 TV interview], and if he did it in writing or orally."

As we have said before, one must seek responsible parties in the office that is responsible for relations with the Apostolic Nuncios: the First Section for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State. [This was and is under Mons. Fernando Filoni, who, Andrea Tornielli says, was among those who met at the Secretariat of State after the first Swedish TV broadcast in January and before the decree lifting the excommunications was made public. Tornielli says that the Williamson interview was never even brought up at the meeting! Which is really unnatural since everyone was buzzing over it.

And is it really conceivable that if Mons. Filoni had indeed received information about it as far back as November, he would have kept silent at this post-broadcast meeting? Normal fallible human beings who are not men of the cloth would most likely just shut up, but a man of the cloth is supposed to be more upright than the rest of us.

But let us give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that if the Nuncio in Sweden had indeed forwarded Arborelius's information to the Secretariat of State, whoever received it never passed it on to Filoni. If the Nuncio in Sweden did send up the report, did he ever follow up to find out what action was taken, especially if no one acknowledged getting the report?]

In what drawer of which office did Arborelius's report on Williamson end up?

Castrillon says, when asked about his relations with Benedict XVI.
"We always worked very closely together. The Pope is an excellent theologian, a champion of the faith, and a friend who has always shown his trust in me."

Castrillon's interview is not available in full on the site of the newspaper. But thanks to a reader, we have been able to translate most of the interview which essentially makes clear the position that the Church of Christ must take on this issue.

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You knew nothing about Williamson's negationist statements in 2009?
I knew that he had been interviewed when he ordained a deacon last year. But I did not know what he said until February 5, when the Nunciature sent me the information in a sealed envelope.


But the Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, says he informed the Nunciature in Stockholm back in November 2008...
I truly deplore this statement, which cannot be taken seriously, because it is false. It is a calumny to spread this kind of information.

We save all documents we receive in digital form. Bishop Arborelius should say how, to whom and when he furnished the information, and if he did so in writing or orally.


The magazine Der Spiegel reported the interview with Williamson in 2008. Did no one ever read it in the Vatican? [Let me check back, but I am almost sure that Spiegel only wrote about the interview on January 19, in the article that pre-announced the Swedish TV broadcast on July 21.]
It is possible that the German department in the Secretariat of State may have seen it. Not me.


Mons. Fellay, the Superior General of the FSSPX may have already known the contents of the interview with Williamson, if we go by the letter he sent SVT on January 21 seeking to stop the broadcast... [I was under the impression then that Mons. Fellay wrote the letter on the basis of what Der Spiegel printed, that is why he only wrote on the day of the broadcast itself.]
I know nothing about that.


Williamson says that he met you at lunch once...
That was when I had just been named president of Ecclesia Dei. And I had noticed a group of priests in full cassock although it was the height of summer. So I asked my secretary who they were. He said they were Lefebvrians. So I invited them to lunch.


What impression did you have?
That they were fine men, but sometimes a bit fixated on the idea that everything wrong with the world has its origin in the reforms of Vatican II. So I sought to lighten the mood, and jested that If I had to choose a language for the Mass, I would prefer Aramaic, the language Christ spoke, and that it beats me who could have had the terrible idea of replacing the language of Christ with that of his persecutors. They found it a terrible joke. After that meeting, there was some dialog with John Paul II, and then in August 2005, Mons. Fellay met with Benedict XVI.


Can you give us a description of Richard Williamson?
He is an honest man, in some ways eccentric. He is not foolish, but he is obsessive and stubborn.


An honest man?
Yes, he says what he thinks. He does not strike me as one who wants to deceive anyone. Rather, he is an uninhibited person who, however, has extreme positions. But, I think, with simple and honest conviction.

....

Cardinal Re [prefect of the Congregation for Bishops] has said he felt you deceived him...
As far as I know, he has never said that. But I know that he did say some indiscreet words about me to the media. So I wrote him a letter saying that if anyone should have known beforehand about Williamson's interview on the Holocaust, it would have been he. He worked for years in the Secretariat of State. In his present work, it is part of his task to monitor bishops.


Has this scandal changed your relationship with the Pope?
Yes, for the better! We have always worked closely together. And not just as the Vicar of Christ but as a first-class theologian and defender of the faith, he has always placed his trust in me. That has not changed.


Have you felt knocked up by the media?
I have had distinct experiences with the media, and now I am hardened to it. I have never asked them to correct themselves, because it is useless. Truth finds its own way. And the truth is what I have just said [in the interview].

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