BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, Sept. 4, 22nd Week in Ordinary TimE


Benedict XVI venerated the saint's incorrupt body when he visited Viterbo in Sept. 2009.
ST. ROSA DI VITERBO (Italy, 1233-1251), Virgin, Franciscan lay sister
Rosa achieved sainthood in only 18 years of life. While still very young, she began a life of penance in her parents’ house. She was as generous to the poor as she was strict with herself. At the age of 10 she became a Secular Franciscan and soon began preaching in the streets about sin and the sufferings of Jesus. Viterbo, her native city, was then in revolt against the Pope. When Rosa took the Pope’s side against the emperor, she and her family were exiled from the city. When the Pope’s side won in Viterbo, Rosa was allowed to return. Her attempt at age 15 to found a religious community failed, and she returned to a life of prayer and penance in her father’s home, where she died in 1251. Rosa was canonized in 1457. Her feast has been celebrated in Viterbo with a procession on the eve of the feast featuring a monumental lighted tower (called the 'macchina di Santa Rosa') topped by her image. A more detailed account of her life was posted in the PASTORAL VISITS thread
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=859...
when the Holy Father visited Viterbo.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090412.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

No events announced for the Holy Father.

The Press Office said it will hold a news briefing on the papal visit to Lebanon on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

It also finally published the text of Benedict XVI's extemporaneous homily delivered in German at
the concluding Mass he celebrated for the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis on Sunday morning. Will post as
soon as translated. (Much of it was reported in the Vatican Radio news item I posted on Sunday,
but paraphrases never do justice to the Holy Father's thought, much less ro how he expresses himself.)






- Paolo Gabriele is back in Italian media headlines, as is his accomplice, Gianluigi Nuzzi, because on a TV program last night, Nuzzi played the entire interview he did back in May with a camouflaged, voice-altered Gabriele which he had only played in part then. Not that the viewer found out anything new, other than more of Gabriele's sanctimony and his direct statements about having been inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The surprise - which makes me more outraged - is that he also cited the double murder-suicide involving a Swiss Guard commandant, his wife and a younger Swiss Guard years ago, as well as the Orlandi case 30 years ago, as examples of what he thinks is wrong with the Vatican - "Serious crimes like this can happen, and overnight, the Vatican gives an explanation that does not answer anything". Both cases, of course, took place before Benedict XVI became Pope.

Gabriele's other mantra is that "Benedict XVI really wants to clean up, but he is being blocked from doing so", this time implying that the Pope is utterly helpless against obstructive elements in the Church!

If you have ever had occasion to deal with simple-minded folk who believe that they are actually unrecognized geniuses, you will know that it is impossible to divest them of any of their certainties. No reasonable arguments will work with them, especially if, as in the case of Gabriele, he is convinced he was chosen to be the channel of the Holy Spirit. (Yes, he, not the Pope who was elected, as all good Catholics believe, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Oh no, the "Dove' appears to have preferred this time to channel himself to a self-confessed 'crow'!)

- BTW, an awkward translation of the posthumously published Martini interview can be found on
cathcon.blogspot.com/2012/09/cardinal-martini-speaks-to-church-f...
If I find the time, I will do a translation. It's good to have it on the record.

Andrea Tornielli notes somewhere that the cardinal wasn't saying anything he wasn't already saying back in 1993. That is not the point. Whether it was in 1993 or 2012, he is talking as if the Pope (John Paul II or Benedict XVI) was not aware of the urgent problems of the Church, many of them because of priests and bishops who have turned into bureaucrats and powermongers instead of servants of the People of God.

In reiterating his sweeping denunciations just a few weeks before his death, he failed to even acknowledge what Benedict XVI has been doing - even with the child-abuse issue. For a man of God, I find the cardinal's completely one-sided view of what he calls 'the institutional Church' most uncharitable. And to virtually preach to Benedict XVI that the renewal must begin with him, the Pope himself, is simply unconscionable.