BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, April 9, Second Week of Easter

ST. CASILDA DE TOLEDO (Spain, 950?-1050)
She was the daughter of the Muslim king Al-Mamun of Toledo, at the height of Moorish dominance in Spain. She is one
of the earliest saints of whom a version of the following legend is told: Casilda used to bring bread to Christian
prisoners in secret; one day, caught by her father sneaking out, he challenged her to show what she was carrying in
her basket. She did - and there were roses instead of bread. Later she fell ill with what is now believed to have been
uterine cancer; she went to the healing waters at a shrine to St. Vincent the martyr in Burgos province, where she
was baptized. She stayed on in the area living a life of solitude and penance. and was said to have lived to age 100.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040913.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- H.E. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, his spouse and delegation.

The Vatican announced that yesterday, the Pope met with

= Mons. José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M., whom he appointed earlier this week to be the Secretary of the Congregation
for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.




Aqua has just called my attention to Amy Welborn's blog entry yesterday, April 8 - the work it must have taken for her to choose the appropriate GIFs she used to illustrate it! - amywelborn.wordpress.com/
which could reflect much of what some of us have been experiencing in the past few weeks since February 11, 2013. I will quote some lines that capture a gut reaction to the monomania in the media these days...

---

...But then the hits just keep on coming. The implication that we’re in a “fresh new era” and that it’s *all* so much better now, without mozettas and crap. Even from bishops! Talkin’ about the Refreshing Fresh Air and Fresh New Tone of Freshness. Not to speak of the Refreshing Simplicity of the Fresh New Simple Tone. So I’m all:
(GIF)
And trying to hold it in. Especially when people are all intense about the new Pope, who is great, (I think), but they’re all:

And they’re all like: ERMYGAWD ITHINKIMSUPPOSEDTOHELPTHEPOORBECAUSEOFPOPEFRANCIS and I’m all like:
What is wrong with you?
Did you NEVER read a freakin’ GOSPEL before March 13?...

---

Thanks to Beatrice for leading me to this item from Korazym, which she describes on her webpage 'APRES LE PONTIFICAT'
benoit-et-moi.fr/2013-II/
as "break(ing) with the ambient unanimity". In it, the reporter seeks to talk to others who are not necessarily part of the Hallelujah chorus, who have not been afflicted by a self-willed amnesia about the Pontificate of Benedict XVI that seems more and more opportunistic on the part of the media and those whose opinions they shape.

Indeed, if I were still a reporter and were covering, say, the Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square on March 31, I would not have limited myself to just quoting persons completely enraptured by the new Pope, but would have sought some balance (not numerical, but attitudinal) by quoting others - and surely there are plenty - who did not just drop all memory of Benedict XVI into a black hole of oblivion but remember him for what he was (and is) and what he did, as the reporter does in this article (although she does not quote any Francis partisans, because the point of her story is to counteract the one-sided image presented by the media.)

But when was the last time since March 13, 2013, that anyone in the media, including Catholic media, ever showed objectivity and impartiality on this subject? No, they only cite what will tend to support the narrative they choose to present to the world about any event or personality. This is not to cast doubt at all on the authenticity of Pope Francis and of the adulation and admiration he inspires, but a judgment on those who habitually misuse their power to inform by presenting only a highly biased account of events.

Thanks to Pope Benedict....
by Elisa Bertoli
Translated from


Almost two months have passed since that February 11 when Benedict XVI announced to the world that he was resigning the Papacy. Two months during which [going by media reports and commentary] Catholics have gone from stunned surprise and confusion about the Pope's decision. to the hopes pinned on the Conclave that would elect his successor, and then the enthusiasm which continues to mount for Pope Francis.

In less than two months, the eight years of Benedict XVI's
4ntificate have seemed to become nothing more than an old memory. [Worse than that - as if they had never happened at all. Except, of course, when the media choose to bring up Vatileaks or the issue of sex-offender priests or some other blacker-than-black misdeed they choose to see as a personal 'crime' committed by that unworthy scoundrel Benedict XVI! In hindsight, all the unfavorable comparisons with John Paul II now seem less objectionable compared to the present situation.]

But among the faithful, Benedict XVI continues to be a living memory. [To begin with, he has not died!]

"I keep expecting Benedict XVI on the Popemobile - I am still not accustomed to not seeing him here anymore", says Paola, just a few minutes before Pope Francis's expected entry into St. Peter's Square.

"I saw Pope Francis directly for the first time, but I felt like I was watching a film. On TV, I had become accustomed to seeing him [as Pope], but in St. Peter's Square, it is very different for me. I still cannot seem to believe that the man in white is not Benedict XVT".

To listen to many who have seen Pope Francis live, but have not promptly forgotten Benedict XVI, one realizes that human memory can be longer than that which is dictated by the media. The latter 'forget' in great haste, but the faithful do not always take their cue.

Many do not simply not forget Benedict XVI as the universal Pastor of the Church for eight years - so many will never forgot how much he transformed their lives. [Popes have the singular power to do this - not just for isolated cases but for many. Just as already the media have been recounting the transformations effected by Pope Francis.]

Liliana was a victim of domestic violence that was moral, psychological, economic and physical. After 20 years of marriage and two children (13 and 8), "I was undergoing the darkest time of my life - I thought life was futile and despair was consuming me".

But then she recalled Benedict XVI's continual admonitions to pray - "Pray with your heart. Prayer is your winning weapon. Pray and miracles will happen. Pray and you will change your life".

"It was 2010," she says, "but suddenly, I felt that the Pope was speaking directly to me. So I started to pray, with the help of a prayer book that I had kept in a drawer for a few years and had never opened. Then Benedict XVI came to Mestre [suburb of Venice, where the Pope held a Mass for 350,000 on his pastoral visit to Venice] which is near where I live. Immediately, despite many practical difficulties,I made arrangements for me and my children to go see him... And afterwards, I went home feeling a strange calm that serenity that I asked for in my prayers, and for which I invoked his prayers - 'Pope Benedict, pray for my children, for myself, and for the whole world'... Within two years, the 'miracle' happened for me, and today I live with my children far from the place where we had suffered so much. I have work and we have a home, but the most important thing is that we are all free, serene and at peace".

She continued: "When Benedict XVI decreed the Year of Faith, I was truly moved, because I realized that with sincere faith, I had warded off more evil, and my heart has been full of serenity. And I wish that every woman who has been victimized like me can find strength in prayer, because prayer can move mountains".

Elisa is a student of modern literature, and she says she came to 'know' Benedict XVI by coming to St. Peter's Square some time last spring.

"I was in Rome with a friend to attend a conference, and our schedule included the Pope's Wednesday audience in St. Peter's Square. Walking towards the Vatican, I was thinking that I would find the usual image of the Vatican as a place concerned exclusively with power, and the Pope - described as a cold German theologian - as someone rich and powerful and remote from the people.

"But what I experienced that day in St. Peter's Square was a profoundly human Pope, someone who was close, and I started to see the Church in a new light, to feel that I was indeed Catholic. I can still see the moment: Benedict XVI in the Popemobile passed in front of us, and I realized how physically exhausted he looked, as if he were literally carrying the weight of the whole Church on his shoulders. And yet, ever after, seeing him so many times on TV, following him on his travels and his various encounters with the faithful - my eyes perceived both his humanity as well as the beauty of the Catholic Church.

"He has left me with an important legacy. He made me understand that the Church is not renewed with 'progress' understood as showy 'openings' but with simple gestures. That the face of the Church improves simply by showing that it is possible to be in the world but not of the world and a society where power is everything. Benedict XVI ultimately made the humble choice of renouncing the Pontificate".


On her blog, Lella has been soliciting responses from all those who wish to share their personal memories and/or experiences about Benedict XVI - and that should eventually be a rich lode to mine, I shall choose the most interesting to translate. Meanwhile, I have searched for the existence of any Pope Francis website online other than the Vatican site, and thought I hit paydirt with the link
www.the-pope-francis.com/
But it appears to be an initiative begun by the blog server wordpress and contains nothing so far but a "Hello world!" post dated March 14, 2013 at 12:00am. I hope a true unofficial website gets started to which we can all run to as a more-or-less comprehensive reference for all-things-Pope-Francis, just for convenience, because there is obviously no lack of sites or links rife with Pope Francis material, only one has to access them one by one...

Also picked up from Beatrice's website, this commentary published in Corriere della Sera...

Too much rhetoric about Pope Francis:
Beware of those who would rashly imitate him
by Piero Ostellini
Translated from

April 3, 2012

The saccharine mélange that has flooded the media of an ill-digested do-gooding rhetorical progressivism that is also quite clerical [viewing religion as an instrument of power] and even bigoted appears to be submerging Pope Francis himself.

The Italian media have treated Italians, believers or otherwise, as if they were devoid of an autonomous capacity to judge for themselves and to whom one can sell a Pope as one does a detergent. [In fairness, the media chorus has not been so much 'selling' Pope Francis - who 'sells himself' so effectively by a series of gestures and decisions that have clearly marked him off as different from any Pope before him - as exploiting his inherent marketability as a Pope who possesses the maximum possible common denominator of populism that they did not have even with John Paul II.]

It is mortifying that an influential part of the nation should manifest an incapacity to objectively observe - with respect to religion, the Church and the secular State - an event as important as the election of the Pope.

In the media view, ecclesiastical pauperism is the sales pitch for now of the Church, and the political essence of her hierarchy, beyond her mission of charity.

It is wrong to interpret the actions of Pope Francis as the prodrome for a 'doctrine of poverty' which would apply not only to the Church but even to politics and the lifestyles of civilian coexistence.

In truth, it is perhaps more correct to say that the choices made by the Pope so far are only the manifestations of his personal fastidiousness against the external magnificence of some of the historic rituals of the Church as an institution. A fastidiousness that he uses as a form of evangelization.

The long dominion of the Church, including a political one, on the faithful is often felt concretely both in the invasiveness of her theological authority [i.e., her moral position on social issues!] as well as her own ability to exercise secular control [And when was the Church able to do this in the modern era? Not even in Italy, which is the context for the writer's reflections.]


First built as a fortress in 1267, it was completed as a church over the next 200 years and is the largest brick building in the world. It was made a UNESCO World Cultural heritage site in 2010.

The cathedral of Albi, in southern France, which with its overpowering dimensions, dominates from its fortress altitude the tiny village where it is located, is a symbol of that Church dominion in the past. It is the concrete representation of the victory of Catholicism over the 13th-century Albigensian heresy [also known as the Cathar heresy, from the Greek word for 'pure'; Albigensian is a term that came to be used when the movement gained its widest foothold near Albi, France] which theorized a good God and an evil God, salvation for everyone, and multiple salvific reincarnations.

In short, the Albigensians preached 'an interior church', vary far from that of Rome, in which Christ would be at the center, not the Church hierarchy. [but since when has Roman Catholicism every preach that anything or anyone other than Christ be the center of the Church and of the faith???? Actually, a Wiki backgrounder says that the Cathars practised and advocated the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching. No problem with that, except that they considered Jesus only as an angel in human form, and their moral doctrine was based on the belief that the material world including the flesh was intrinsically evil, since it stemmed from the evil demiurge, and so they were celibate. Likewise, the Cathars did not recognize civil authority since this was the rule of the physical world. They called themselves the 'good men' or 'good Christians'.].

And yet a church that disapproved of baptism, the Eucharist and any form of worship. That opposed monotheism and the doctrine of original sin, Augustine's symbol of evil and man's ultimate condemnation.

The Albigensians believed man owes his salvation only to divine grace and his own reformed and enlightened free will, not to sacraments, much less to the edification of churches and basilicas that concretized the magnificence of the Catholic faith nor through any charity done through the mediation of the Church hierarchy. [Of course, they eventually developed their own hierarchy in southern France and northern Italy, with bishops, priests and deacons who went out and evangelized.]

The Cathar heresy was used as a pretext by the French State, with the active connivance of Catholics, to quell the autonomism of the Duke of Toulouse through the massacre of thousands of Cathar followers. [The writer bringing up the Cathar heresy and its doctrine of perfection, poverty and preaching is hardly subtle at all but not completely apropos either!]

Pope Francis's personal militancy as a Jesuit and the dark legends of the Society of Jesus during the Counter-Reformation, could induce some disquieting hypotheses about this Pontificate which has just begun. It would be a mistake to do so.

Only what he will do during the Pontificate will tell us exactly who he is - this Pope who is Jesuit by premise and Franciscan by promise. But the fact remains that his pastoral modalities threaten to serve as a model to be imitated, which is a risk for the necessary separation of politics from ethics, even if the Church is immersed in contemporaneity - child of Macchiavellian realism, liberal skepticism and most importantly, of her own secularization.

What form it takes - this danger of the clericalization of politics by a Third World Pope - is quickly apparent. It is in the 'imitative' vocation of our weak national (Italian) culture. We have become a nation of Zeligs, quick to imitate the person who happens to be next to us, not having our own individual identity, and it is realistic to hypothesize that sooner or later, someone will emerge in politics or civilian society who will think it his duty to imitate the suggestive populist pauperism of the new Pontificate. Which, one must admit but not concede, would be compatible with what seems to be the Church of the Third Millennium, conditioned not just by the financial nonchalance of the Vatican state [What financial nonchalance? As if Benedict XVI's financial transparency law and Moneyval's controls had never happened![, but also by a bourgeois spirit, by the industrial and economic revolutions, by liberal democracy and by the mediatic society. All of which would be physiologic to the politics and lifestyle of a post-modern nation.

One already sees the first signs of a certain counter-reformatory spirit manifested in anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist tendencies that were already infiltrated into our political culture by a Marxism that would have scandalized Karl Marx himself.

Rather, we must arm ourselves against all attempts to criminalize the market, profit and wealth itself - as the very dung of the devil. A criminalization that is the symbol of the mistaken idea of 'equality and social justice', which in a time of 'pluralistic values', of consumerism and the diffusion of mass wellbeing, is anachronistic.

The imitation, on the political level, of the salvific mission of "a poor Church for the poor', according to the Latin-American version of liberation theology [Latin America is the only place where it has prospered to any degree!] that the Church has long denounced, would be mortifying for Italian civil society and Catholicism itself - with the right aspiration for a purifying change within the Church herself - which shows no signs of aspiring to, favoring, and much less sustaining, any 'counter-revolution' even in the secular world.

Pauperism, elevated to political culture, would nullify the historic separation between Church and State - which Cavour wanted at the time of Italian unification, and which was reaffirmed after World War II by the great Catholic Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi.

It would also cancel out the wise renunciation by the Church authorities themselves of exercising over Italy any secular hegemony as she did in the remote past.

Let the Pope be the Pope, according to the historical order and the doctrine of the Church herself. But whoever would be tempted to follow his example in politics needs to reflect well on it, and above all, to forget it.

Very apropos, a quotation resurrected since the death of the great Margaret Thatcher of Britain yesterday was a terse denunciation of pauperism - "The poor will not be better off if only the rich were less rich!" A companion aphorism to her more famous saying that "Socialism works until you run out of other people's money". Social justice is not wealth redistribution - it is providing equal opportunity for all after making sure that everyone knows how to fish, not just giving them fish. I wish I could express it as elegantly and tersely as Lady Thatcher expressed herself.

Wednesday, April 10, Second Week of Easter

ST. MADDALENA DI CANOSSA (Italy, 1774-1835),Founder, Daughters of Charity and Sons of Charity
She was a descendant of Countess Matilda of Canossa, who in the late 12th century, famously brought together Pope Gregory VII
and the German King Henry IV at her castle in central Italy. Maddalena herself was born in Verona and joined the Carmelites when
she was 15. But she left them later because she thought she could carry her apostolate for the poor better if she had no restrictions.
The rich noblewoman worked to help the poor and the sick, as well as delinquent and abandoned girls. Soon, she started taking girls
into her home, then she opened a school to provide them with practical education and religious training. She left her palatial home in
1808 to dedicate herself completely to her apostolate. This led her to found the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity dedicated
especially to the educational and spiritual needs of women. She established her congregation in several cities in Italy, and then
started the Congregation of the Sons of Charity. Eventually, the Canossians dedicated themselves to missionary activity, celebrating
150 years of missionary work in 2010. Today, some 5,000 Canossian religious are found all over the world carrying on their founder's
mission. Mother Maddalena was canonized in 1988.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041013.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

General Audience - Pope Francis's catechesis at the General Audience today in St. Peter's Square focused
on the meaning of the Resurrection for Christians and their daily life.

The Vatican posted a reminder that the Pope will make his first visit as Pope to the papal basilica of St. Paul
outside the Walls on Sunday, April 14, where he will concelebrate Mass with the current Arch-Priest of
the Basilica, his two predecessors, and the abbot of the Benedictine monastery located in the Church complex.




This time last year, Pope Benedict XVI was spending the week in Castel Gandolfo for the Octave of Easter and would shuttle to the Vatican the next day for the General Audience.

And we were looking forward to a coming double anniversary - his 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his Pontificate (no one of thought it would be the last one!)



Peter Seewald says that already
Benedict XVI counts among
the great Popes in history


MUNICH, April 10 (Translated from kath.net/KAP) - Munich publicist Peter Seewald says Benedict XVI is already 'one of the great Popes in the history of the papacy'.

He has dedicated himself to an inner renewal of the Church, and possesses the intellectual and spiritual ability to provide the world an anchor, said Seewald in an interview published today in the Passauer Neue Presse. Seewald has published three book-length interviews with Joseph Ratzinger (two as cardinal and one as Pope).

Seewald also pointed out that Benedict XVI is the last Pope to have taken part in the Second Vatican Council from 1962-1965, and so "in some way, he represents the Council today".

He said new research has shown that the contribution made by then theology professor Joseph Ratzinger, as theological consultant to Cologne's Cardinal Josef Frings, was far greater than what has been known so far.

Seewald said the Bavarian professor priest made decisive contributions to two major Vatican-II texts - Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, and Dei verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation.

However, he said, Joseph Ratzinger was not an iconoclast. "For him, the Catholic way is not to aggravate conflicts but to defuse them".

Now, as Pope, Seewald, says, Benedict XVI has the mission to "make Vatican-II 'weatherproof'". As a centrist, he said, the Pope would always decide for 'what is truly good as against a lesser good'.

Seewald also commented on the Holy Father's much-commented address to German Catholics in Freiburg last September about a 'demondanization' of the Church [the German term Entweltlichung - giving up worldliness - is much more direct). [2013 P.S. Considering the headlines that the address generated in 2011, it was quite shocking that Vaticanistas and some cardinals thought it was earth-shakingly original when soon-to-be-Pope Bergoglio spoke against the worldliness of the Church - though he defined it strangely as 'living within herself, of herself, and for herself' - in his pre-Conclave intervention at the General Congregations, and in subsequent references after he became Pope.]

He said that Prof. Ratzinger had first used the term back in 1958 to mean "turning away from power, from Mammon, from cronyism, from false appearances, from deception and self-deception".

For the young Ratzinger, Seewald said, "Entweltlichung meant far more recourse to the spiritual - the preservation of the spiritual resources of mankind which are vital for survival. But this does not mean turning one's back on the social and political issues that touch on the lives of the faithful".

This is really a companion post to Benedict XVI's extemporaneous reflection on the 'peripheries' that I posted yesterday, but I did not add it on yesterday, because my main point was to recall how Benedict XVI spoke - completely off the cuff and taking his cue from a word used in a question posed to him by a young couple from Bari- about the 'peripheries' of contemporary life in a wider context long before the word 'peripheries' was picked up from Pope Francis's vocabulary and celebrated by the MSM as though no other Pope before him had ever thought about it.

First, the text of the Pope's address to the young people who gathered for a prayer vigil on the Plain of Montarso ourside Loreto
on Sept. 1, 2007. As usual, he is at his pastoral 'best of the best' whenever he speaks to young people in a language that is direct, intimate, loving and very clear:

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BENEDICT XVI'S ADDRESS TO ITALIAN YOUTH
Loreto, Sept. 1, 2007

My dear young people who make up the hope of the Church in Italy!

I am happy to meet you in this quite singular place, on this special evening, rich with prayers, song, silences, hopes and profound emotions.

This valley, where in the past, even my beloved predecessor John Paul II met most of you probably, has become your agora, your public square, without walls or barriers, in which thousands of roads converge and depart.

I have listened with attention to those who spoke in the name of all of you. In this place of peaceful, authentic and joyous encounter, you have arrived for thousands of different reasons: some because you belong to a group, some invited by friends, some because of intimate conviction, some with some doubts in your hearts, some out of simple curiosity.

But whatever reason led you here, I can say that it is the Holy Spirit who brought us here together. Yes, the Spirit guided you here. You have come here with your doubts and certainties, your joys and concerns. And now, it is up to you to open your hearts and offer everything to Jesus.

Tell him: "Here I am - certainly not yet as you would want me to be, I cannot even understand all of me myself, but with your help, I am ready to follow you. Lord Jesus, tonight, I wish to speak to you, adopting the interior attitude and the trustful abandon of that young girl who, more than 2000 years ago, said Yes to the Father who chose her to be your Mother."

The Father chose her because she was meek and obedient to His will. Like her, like the young Mary, each of you, my dear young friends, must tell God with faith: "Here I am - be it done to me according to your word."

What an amazing spectacle of young and engaged faith we are living tonight! Tonight Loreto has become, thanks to you, the spiritual capital of the youth - the center of convergence for the multitudes of young people who inhabit the five continents.

At this moment, we feel surrounded by the expectations and hopes of millions of young people of the whole world. Right now, some are staying up, some are sleeping, some are studying or working. Some are hopeful and others are desperate; some believe, and others cannot get themselves to believe; some love life while others are wasting it.

I would like my words to reach everyone: the Pope is close to you, he shares your joys and your pains; above all, I share your most intimate hopes; and for each of you, I ask the Lord the gift of a full and happy life, a life that is rich in sense, a true life.

Unfortunately today, not unusually, a full and happy existence is seen by many young people as a difficult dream, and sometimes almost unrealizable. So many of your contemporaries look at the future with apprehension and ask themselves many questions.

They are concerned about how to fit themselves into a society marked by numerous and grave injustices and sufferings. How to react to the selfishness and violence which often seem to predominate. How to give a sense of fullness to life.

With love and conviction, I repeat to you, who are present here, and through you, to your contemporaries around the world: Do not be afraid! Christ can fulfill the most intimate aspirations of your heart. Are there are unreliable dreams when it is the Spirit of God who inspires and cultivates them in the heart? Is there anything that could dampen our enthusiasm if we are united with Christ? Nothing and no one, the Apostle Paul would say, can ever separate us from the love of God, in Jesus Christ, our Lord (cf Rom 8,35-39).

Allow me to repeat this to you tonight: if yo0u stay one with Christ, each of you can do great things. That is why, dear friends, you should not be afraid to dream with open eyes about great plans for good, and you should not allow yourselves to be discouraged by difficulties.

Christ has confidence in you and he wants you to realize each of your noble dreams for authentic happiness. Nothing is impossible for whoever trusts in God and entrusts himself to him.

Look at the young Mary! The Angel proposed to her something truly inconceivable: to participate in the most intimate way possible in God's greatest plan, the salvation of humanity. Before such a proposal, Mary was troubled, aware of the smallness of her being compared to God's omnipotence, and so she asked: How is it possible, why me? But she was willing to fulfill the divine will, and readily gave her Yes, which changed her life and the story of all mankind. Thanks to that Yes, we are here together tonight.

I ask myself and you: Can the requests that God makes of us - no matter how demanding they may seem to be - ever equal that which God asked of the young Mary? Dear boys and girls, let us learn from Mary to say Yes, because she knows what it means to answer generously to the requests of the Lord.

Dear young people, Mary knows your most noble and deepest aspirations. Above all, she knows your great desire for love, your need to love and be loved. Looking at her, following her obediently, you will discover the beauty of love - not a throwaway love, fleeting and deceptive, imprisoned in a selfish and materialistic mentality - but true and profound love.

In the most intimate part of the heart, every boy and girl who faces life, cultivates the dream of a love which can give full sense to one's future. For many, this finds fulfillment in the choice of matrimony and forming a family in which the love between a man and a woman is lived as a reciprocal gift of faithfulness, as a definitive gift, sealed by the Yes pronounced before God on the day of matrimony, a Yes for all of one's life.

I know that this dream is becoming even more difficult to realize. How many failures of love surround us! How many couples give up and separate! How many families are breaking up! How many children, even among you, have seen the separation and divorce of their parents!

To whoever finds themselves in such sensitive and complex situations, I would like to say tonight: the Mother of God, the community of believers, the Pope, are near to you and pray that the crisis which threatens the family in our time does not become an irreversible failure.

May Christian families, with the help of Divine grace, stay faithful to that solemn pledge of love taken with such joy before the priest and the Christian community on the solemn day of matrimony.

In the face of such failures, this question is not infrequent: am I better than my friends and my parents who have tried and failed? Why should I succeed where others have given up? This human fear can hamper even the most courageous spirit, but on this night before you, at the foot of her Holy House, Mary repeats to each of you, dear young friends, the words which she herself heard the angel address to her: Have no fear! Do not be afraid! The Holy Spirit is with you and will never abandon you. Nothing is impossible to whoever trusts in God.

And this is valid for those who are destined for married life, and even more for those to whom God proposes a life of total detachment from earthly goods in order to dedicate themselves fulltime to his Kingdom.

Among you, there are those who are headed to the priesthood, towards the consecrated life, perhaps some who wish to be missionaries, even knowing what risks and how much risk this means. Think of the priests, the religious and the lay missionaries who have fallen in the trenches of love in the service of the Gospel.

About that life, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi can tell you so many things, he for whom we all prayed during his period of captivity in the Philippines, and whom we joyously welcome among us today. In him, I wish to greet and thank all those who spend their existence for Christ on the frontiers of evangelization.

Dear young people, if the Lord calls you to live more intimately in his service, then respond generously. You may be certain that a life dedicated to God is never spent in vain.

Dear young people, I end my words tonight, not without first embracing you with the heart of a father. I embrace you one by one, and I greet each of you from the heart.

I also greet the bishops present, starting with Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, president of the CEI, and Archbishop Gianni Danzi who is our welcoming host in his ecclesial community.

I greet the priests, the religious, the spiritual advisers who accompanied you here. I greet the civilian authorities and all who were in charge of realizing this event.

A little later tonight, we shall once again be reunited 'virtually' and we will see each other again tomorrow morning, after this night of vigil, for the high point of our encounter, when Jesus himself will be present in the Word and the mystery of the Eucharist.

I would also like to make an appointment to see you in Sydney, where within a year the next World Youth Day will be held. I know - Australia is very far away, and for Italians it is literally at the other end of the world.

Let us pray that the Lord who can work every wonder may grant to many of you the gift of being there. That he may grant it to me, and grant it to you. This is one of so many dreams that tonight, praying together, we will entrust to Mary.

---

The following article is also extraordinary because it was probably one of only two or three articles Marco Politi ever wrote during Benedict XVI's Pontificate that was in any way favorable - and this one is totally sympathetic, other than the expression 'iron Pope' used in the opening paragraph (an expression I don't think anyone else every used for Benedict XVI, about whom the media consensus changed, after the release of Deus caritas est, to the effect that this was not the Panzerkardinal or God's Rottweiler of media lore... And because Mr. Politi is a good reporter (perhaps a better reporter than analyst, when his analyses are tainted by prior obvious bias), his report captures the incredible electricity of the Youth Agora in Loreto, no less intense than the WYD in Cologne that preceded it, nor the WYD in Sydney that followed it....

The Pope among 400,000 youth:
'You must change the world'
He listens to their stories
and is clearly moved
By MARCO POLITI
Translated from

Sept. 2, 2007

LORETO - Tears well up in the light blue eyes of Benedict XVI. The iron Pope is moved while listening to the story of Ilaria from Rome, born into a troubled family, with a violent father who was often away, so that she had often wished she had never been born.

Then she meets a priest who not only prepares her for confirmation at a late age but also finds treatment for her [miscellaneous psychosomatic ailments, starting with anorexia]. Today, she is married and the mother of a two-year-old but she cannot forget that so many others her age 'are crying for help'.



Afterwards, Papa Ratzinger would hold her in a long hug. But meanwhile, he tells her and the 400,000 other young people present at the Plain of Montorso yesterday, "The world must be changed, and it is the mission of the youth to do that. Society needs solidarity, a sense of legality, as well as the creativity of everyone."

This interaction was the most immediate and refreshing in the Agora of Italian Youth, a two-day kermesse half prayer assembly, half mega-pop concert which has assembled some 400,000 young people here in Montorso just outside Loreto.

Young people who had been bivouacked under the sun for hours, waiting for the Pope's arrival - many with shirts off (males) and navels exposed, in a climate of 'everyone at the beach' (the Adriatic shore is a few hundred meters away), jumping and clapping as the tireless activities-dj tells them on the PA system.

The Agora is a mini-WYD planned by the Italian bishops conference following the formula for the Wojtylian megashows for the youth which were never entirely to Joseph Ratzinger's liking.

But the testimonials by some young people, which prompted questions posed directly to the Pope - there would have been more if the organizers had been more courageous* - gripped the Pope who ignored answers earlier prepared by his aides to answer them off the cuff.
[This was, in fact, a surprising disappointment yesterday, because the organizers had previously announced there would be a Q&A as the Pope has had previously with the youth of Rome, with seminarians and various local clergy. The Pope ended up answering only two questions - both were necessarily 'huge' but he did very well bringing them down to practical proportions.]

Luca from Rome spoke of a disoriented childhood lived in marginal and precarious conditions. Giovanna and Pietro of Bari spoke of their marginal suburb of San Paolo, describing these 'peripheries' without hope, inhabited by 'the discards of globalization' - one friend barely escapes the trap of chronic petty crimedoing by finding work, while another friend wastes her days waiting for a boyfriend who is in and out of the local jails. And another four friends are killed one day in a barroom brawl. How, they asked, is it possible to hope at all if reality just destroys every plan one has for life?

Sara of Genoa recounts how her family took in a street waif her age when they were both 7, but who never did well because he was convinced that "if one is born unfortunate, one will die unfortunate."

Sara tells the Pope: "It is not easy to speak about God to friends who feel they are at the margins of life. Many of them see the Church as a reality that judges young people harshly and opposes their desires for happiness and love. I believe in the God who has touched my heart, but I have so mich fear within me, and I feel my loneliness. Holiness, in this silence, where is God?"

Benedict XVI replies spontaneously. "All believers experience the silence of God. A book on Mother Teresa has just come out, and she, with all her charity and strength of faith, suffered from the silence of God." Great applause rose from the plain, and then they held their breath for the rest of the Pope's answer.

He recalled to them a Russian scientist who told John Paul II: "For me, as a scientist, God does not exist, but when I find myself amidst the majesty of the mountains, then I think God exists."` It is important, the pope told the young people, to know how to interpret a silent God because this also helps us to understand non-believers.

But besides learning how to accept a silent God, he said, we must also be able to listen and see - because God shows himself and speaks to us in creation, in the liturgy, in the good things of the world.

Yes, he said, it is difficult to speak of a God who is perceived only as an authority who imposes 'commandments', or of a Church that appears to be an institution :limiting freedom and imposing prohibitions."

But the Church, he said, is not a power center - it is a community of companions, fellow Christians. And in a world where political and economic institutions wield the real power, it is essential to rediscover asnd nurture the vital cells of society represented by the family and the church community.

"For the Church, there are no peripheries. Wherever Christ is, everyting is central." And the faith creates great networks of solidarity and courage which are centers against despair, because in the eyes of God, everyone is important and no one is peripheral.

Later, the Pope would come back to the theme of the family. He invites his audience not to give in to 'disposable' love, to be committed to a matrimony that lasts for all of one's life, not to allow couples to break up, and to do everything so that the crisis of the contemporary fmaily does not become an 'irreversible failure'.

As the sun set slowly over the plain of Montorso, the image of the Black Madonna of Loreto was borne in on a symbolic boat. Andrea Bocelli sang Gounod's Ave Maria.

Before the Pope left, the multitudes would once again chant his name in rhythm, 'BE-NE-DET-TO, BE-NE-DET-TO', as they had done throughout the afternoon.

In their ears, they would have retained yet another exhortation from the Pope - that they should know how to say Yes not only to matrimony but also to the priesthood if they heard the call, "because a life dedicated to God is never onde spent in vain ."

He cited missionary prist Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, who had come onstage to thank the Pope and the young people and all who prayed for him during his captivity by Muslim rebels in southern Philippines.

But the night had only just begun. From the Holy House of Nazareth in the Sanctuary of Loreto, the Pope would later be telecast to the assembly in Montorso to start off an all-night prayer vigil by the youth, with a prayer that he had composed specially for the Agora.

Before leaving Montorso, the Pope greeted the entertainers who were to take part in the show prepared by RAI state TV for primetime airing.

After that, the youth had a choice of eight 'fountains of light', or areas where they could reflect on isues regarding confession, problems of couples, personal issues, vocations. Volunteers went around making sure that those who had not made a recent confession took advantage of available confessors.

Vatican denies Benedict XVI
has serious illness
Spanish reporter speculates about 'dramatic
deterioration' in the emeritus Pope's health
by Edward Pentin

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Vatican reiterated Wednesday that Benedict XVI does not have any specific illness apart from the problems associated with old age after a Spanish author claimed the Pope Emeritus must have a grave illness after suffering a “dramatic” deterioration in his health.

Paloma Gomez Borrero, a correspondent for Spanish media at the Vatican, said Benedict XVI’s health had “dramatically diminished over the past 15 days,“ adding that one can only conclude “he must have something very serious.”

“We won't have him with us for very much longer,” she said in a report in the Spanish newspaper ABC. “It is unlikely that the Pope Emeritus will appear again in public,” she said. Gomez made the comments on Tuesday, at the launch of her new book on the conclave called “From Benedict to Francis”. [It is truly execrable for the woman to exploit Benedict XVI in such a cruel way for the purpose of calling attention to her book. She knows no better than any of us about the state of the emeritus Pope's health, yet she makes these wild statements, knowing they would make headlines for at least a few hours until her shameless mendacity would be exposed.]

The journalist added the Pope’s decision to resign was a "very bitter chalice" for him and that he showed "great humility" in doing so. [How can she presume to say it was a 'very bitter chalice' for him??? A man who makes a decision after consulting his conscience before God - not over a matter of days but perhaps months - cannot possibly think the decision he makes is 'bitter' in any way! Not once, by word or look, has Benedict XVI ever shown bitterness about his renunciation - no one who is bitter could show the unfailing serenity that Benedict XVI shows in his face and demeanor at all.]

But speaking to the Register Wednesday, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said that Benedict “has no illness” and that “the problems are those connected with age.” His comments are consistent Vatican statements on this issue since Benedict announced his resignation on February 11.

Many had noticed how much more frail the former Pope looked when he met Pope Francis last month, and that he had appeared to have aged considerably in the three weeks he had been out of office.*

Vatican doctors had noted with concern how he had become much thinner back in January, before he resigned. He had also begun to tire quickly and his personal physician, Dr. Patrizio Polisca, said his blood pressure was having strong fluctuations. He advised the Pope to avoid air travel.

The Vatican revealed in February that Pope Benedict had a pacemaker fitted a number of years ago and his biographer, Peter Seewald, confirmed he was unable to see out of his left eye, creating problems when walking, especially up and down steps.

Benedict XVI has used a walking stick for the past couple of years because of pain in his right hip and ankle.

In response to the speculation, the Vatican has regularly insisted that Benedict, who turns 86 next week, is not suffering from anything other than the physical trials of old age. So far, his plans to move into a converted convent in the Vatican at the beginning of May remain unchanged.


*[I would be the last person to dismiss any concerns about Benedict XVI's health, but I have remarked more than once since he announced his decision to give up the Papacy, about the effort he makes to appear 'normal' in public - just by comparing how we walks and looks in the moments preceding coming out in front of a crowd - as in Aula Paolo VI at his next to last GA, or coming out of the elevator at the Apostolic Palace the day he left it on February 28, or his walk to the balcony in Castel Gandolfo for his last public appearance as Pope, and then again, during his meeting with Pope Francis. He appeared perfectly 'normal' - i.e., his usual self - welcoming his successor at the heliport - but entering the chapel of the Apostolic Palace later, several steps behind Francis, he looked as effortful as he did on his way to the balcony on February 28. So to conclude that he must be suffering from a grave illness because of his apparent 'deterioration' in three weeks is completely irresponsible, and ignores the evidence that became apparent after February 11. I think it is because the new CTV director decided to show images of him 'behind the scenes' as it were, and therefore we got to see those poignant images of the visible toll his age has taken on him.

I felt that these images proved, if proof were needed at all, that he decided to bow out at the right time - before he would present to the world the image of yet another debilitated Pope, at a time when the enemies of the Church would have used that image to hammer home their message about a Church that was decrepit and in need of renewal. And believe me, the media wolves would never have given him the indulgence that they gave John Paul II for his illness...

Before Fr. Lombardi's statement to Edward Pentin, Damian Thompson ran this on his blog:

Pray for the health of
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI


I think all of us were distressed by the fragility of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI when we saw him greet his successor, Pope Francis. The footage was almost too painful to watch. [I disagree, but only because I had been prepared by earlier video clips before and on February 28 for the actual visible toll that age has taken on Benedict XVI. We should not have been surprised, after all, because his older brother Georg, who was always the sturdier of the two brothers, started showing his age-related decline at an age at least 3-4 years younger than Benedict XVI is now.]

Now, according to the excellent Fr Ray Blake, a Spanish newspaper says he is suffering from something "very severe", and that "we won't have us with him for very much longer". His condition has apparently continued to decline. [One worries when even experienced observers like Fr. Blake and Damian Thompson are flustered by statements that are obviously speculative, but their concern is obviously genuine and urgent.]

I thought twice about repeating this, but I'm sure Catholics and others would wish to pray for the man many of us regard as the most inspiring pope of modern times. No pontiff for centuries has written and preached so brilliantly about the relationships between liturgy, evangelism and the shape of history. If only he had been a younger man when he was elected to the chair of St Peter!


I especially invoke the intercession of the two heavenly figures whom I have been invoking for all health-related prayers - Padre Pio and John Paul II.

APROPOS... I would start a movement to beatify a living person - all right, I'm exaggerating - but I would light a candle if not offer a Mass for the first cardinal anywhere who will take the opportunity of this speculation about Benedict XVI's health to make a public statement offering his prayers and best wishes for the emeritus Pope and asking the faithful to devote a few seconds everyday to remember him in their prayers. That extraordinary cardinal would also be a candidate santo subito if he had the decency to add a simple statement to the effect that "We thank Benedict XVI for his service to the Church all his life but especially as our Pope for almost eight years".

I cannot get over my utter disillusionment - and rage, frankly - with all the cardinals without exception, who preceded even the media in willingly going into selective opportunistic amnesia about Benedict XVI, to the point of not even mentioning him at all since March 13, 2013. They have pointedly ignored the cue of the man they elected to be his successor whose first thought when appearing on the loggia on March 13, 2013, was to say a prayer for his predecessor - a gesture for which I will always have an extra reason to pray for him, Pope Francis, not just because he is our Pope.

Will someone please explain this obvious distancing from Benedict XVI by every Catholic priest and prelate who has ever been quoted in the media since March 13 - as if Benedict XVI were the devil himself that they must abjure and exorcise from their memory, let alone even approach with a ten=foot pole? Half of them he named cardinals - will they consider that a badge of shame now? Let me not even go into their encomiums for the new Pope that all but scream to the world -"Now we have the Pope we always needed - who will cure the Church once and for all of Curial bureaucracy and ineptitudes, of the IOR scandals, of pedophile priests and permissive bishops, who can purify the Church, who can lead the new evangelization, unify all Christians, and make friends with all Muslims Jews, Protestants and what have you", necessarily implying that the nameless, suddenly unacknowledged Pope who was in the Vatican earlier did nothing at all about all that! And since when did it become taboo for the 'Princes of the Church' to even mention the previous Pope, especially someone who is still very much alive?

For any priest, bishop, or cardinal to feign today, as they do, that Pope Francis is the first Pope ever to say the mission of the Church is to get out and evangelize is a sign of non compos mentis - as their selective collective amnesia is - because was that not Christ's mandate to his Apostles and therefore to the Church? What then are the Year of Faith and the New Evangelization and the continental mission for Latin America, but concrete initiatives to spur Christian mission today - not just in traditional missionary lands but everywhere, including the countries where Christianity had been most rooted?

With all due respect, Cardinal Bergoglio's four-point pre-Conclave intervention to the cardinals in General Congregation - and his follow-up statements subsequently as Pope - does give the impression that he thinks the Church has been seriously remiss in its work of evangelization and has not been doing anything about it. Which is wrong, and at the very least, unfair, because he knows very well from the experience of Latin America; to take the most obvious example, that the hemorrhaging of Church membership to new evangelical sects is not a trend that can be reversed overnight, and that task is precisely within the purview of New Evangelization.

And equally difficult to remedy overnight is to improve the overall quality of priests that have been formed since Vatican-II, many of whom chose the path of least resistance to neglect the study of philosophy, theology and liturgy (not to mention Latin) in the belief that they were free to preach and practice whatever their 'conscience' impelled them to do. Priests are, after all, the shock troops of the army of Christ, and if the shock troops are seriously deficient, it doesn't bode well for the mission.

How admirable if every priest immersed himself so much in the flock entrusted to him that he acquires the very 'odor of his sheep' - something they ought to be doing, anyway, with or without papal admonition - but in order to do that properly and well, should they not meet minimal criteria to make sure they teach the right things to the flock, not just listening to them, but guiding them properly along the way of Christ as the Cure d'Ars or Father Jorge Bergoglio would have done?

It's ill-conceived 'immersion' that led to the application of liberation theology to the poor communities of Latin America, to begin with - improperly formed priests began to think their mission was primarily political rather than spiritual, preaching Jesus as a social revolutionary not as the Son of God, seeking to be the social messiahs that even Jesus never pretended to be.

And yet these are the considerations that follow from the admonition to 'step out into the peripheries' which is not as easy as it sounds and as a totally a-critical reception of it seems to suggest.

Legislating financial transparency for all Vatican offices and agencies, and opening up the Vatican to inspection and evaluation by an international financial watchdog group surely constitute one of the most significant administrative reforms effected by Benedict XVI, and in the history of the Church. More than reform, in fact. It was a true quiet revolution that broke, mirabile dictu, almost two centuries of 'Vatican secrecy'.

If it had been done by any other Pope but him, the world's media and chattering heads would have instantly likened him to Gregory the Great. But they have even barely reported these developments. Just because it is the work of a Pope they never expected to be anything but merely transitional and therefore inconsequential - despite all the accomplishments that have been duly documented and reported by them (they could not well ignore concrete things that happened, after all, but they limited themselves to the barest accounts)...


Vatican response to financial evaluation
will exceed Moneyval requirements


Vatican City, Apr 10, 2013 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican plans to demonstrate its commitment to financial transparency by presenting progress it has made in areas the Council of Europe’s money laundering prevention committee is not requiring.

“With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” says an April 10 statement from the Vatican.

The Council of Europe’s financial oversight committee, known as MONEYVAL, requires that the states or institutions it reviews submit an update on how they are working to comply with shortcomings highlighted in the “core recommendations” section of its report.

The report also lists items that are less important, which are called “key recommendations,” but entity being evaluated is not obliged to inform the committee on how it is progressing in those areas.

The April 10 communiqué from the Vatican explained that the European financial committee “accepted the Holy See’s own proposal that this next report cover not only the Core Recommendations, but also all the areas covered by the Key Recommendations.”

The Vatican’s financial team will make a report on its progress to the full MONEYVAL assembly in December.

The original evaluation began in Feb. 2011 and the committee’s report was issued in July 2012.

It found the Holy See and Vatican City State to be largely in compliance, with 9 key and core areas receiving a positive assessment and seven needing improvement.

One item that has already been fixed was a conflict of interest created by Cardinal Attilio Nicora having a role in both the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency [the Financial Information Authority] and its monetary policy body. He resigned from his position with the policy unit in July 2011 but remained [remains???] the president of the watchdog agency.

I have searched in vain for the [April 10 communique' mentioned above but it is not yet on any of the Vatican's various media outlets! I bet there is no mention of Benedict XVI at all. The CNA item quoting the communique does no.t

Not that the above story will impress at all those in the media - including Catholic media and commentators - who have convinced the world that the IOR is a perennial scandal that is irretrievable for the Church, the same gaggle of gossipy silly geese who ignored Moneyval's favorable interim evaluation in 2012 of the Vatican's financial transparency measures legislated by Benedict XVI in December 2010. And ignored it because it turned out to be favorable, and not the colossal failing card they had earlier predicted. But I am very much afraid that by the time Moneyval gives its final seal of approval to the Vatican, none of the credit will go to Benedict XVI, whose name will probably not even be mentioned at all by the Vatican's own media...

In effect, the media have effectively crushed Benedict XVI's Pontificate to non-existence between the 27-year Pontificate of a Pope universally acclaimed as 'the Great' upon his death, and the 27-day Pontificate so far of a Pope who is already 'Magno subito' for his adulators.

Thursday, April 11, Second Week of Easter
Memorial of St. Stanislaus

ST. STANISLAW SZCZEPANOWSKI [Stanislaus of Szczepanow] (Poland, 1039-1079)
Bishop and Martyr, Patron of Poland
Born near Cracow, Stanislaw was appointed preacher and archdeacon for the Bishop of Cracow upon his ordination.
When he became bishop himself, he quickly became influential in the politics of the time (Cracow was the capital
of Poland then). He started opposing King Boleslaw II for waging unjust wars and for his personal immoral acts.
The king appeared to relent and become penitent for a time, but soon returned to his old ways. This time, Stanislaw
excommunicated him. The enraged king ordered him killed, and when his ministers refused to do so, he killed the
bishop himself, then had him hacked to pieces and thrown into a lake. Tradition says that the body miraculously
reintegrated; his remains are kept in Cracow's Wawel Cathedral. The king was forced to flee Poland after the murder,
and some say he retired in penance to a Benedictine abbey. The cult of Stanislaw began immediately upon his death.
He was canonized in 1253. In the following centuries, he became a symbol of Polish unity. Starting in the 13th
century, all the Kings of Poland were crowned before his tomb, and in periods of crisis and dismemberment, Poles
like to say they will be reintegrated again just as Stanislaw's body was.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041113.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- H.E. Alberto Clementino Vaquina, Prime Minister of the Republic of Mozambique

- Ten bishops of the Tuscany region on ad-limina visit, resuming the series of current ad-limina visits
by the Italian bishops that had begun under Beneidct XVI. The grop today was led by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori,
Archbishop of Florence.

- Members of the US-based Papal Foundation, which raises funds for specific charities worldwide chosen
by the Pope. This is their annual visit to present funds gathered during the preceding year and a report
on what they have done. The current chairman of the Foundation is Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of
Washington, DC.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of John XXIII's social encyclical, Pacem in Terris.




One year ago...
Pope Benedict XVI offered wide-ranging post-Easter reflections in his catechesis at the General Audience in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday in the Octave of Easter. He flew to the Vatican from Castel Gandolfo where he was taking his post-Holy Week rest.



Here is a translation of the full catechesis:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

After the solemn celebrations of Easter, our meeting today is pervaded with spiritual joy. Even if the skies are grey, we carry in our hearts the joy of Easter, the certainty of the Resurrection of Christ who triumphed definitively over sin and death.

First of all, I renew to each of you a heartfelt Easter wish: In all homes and in all hearts may the joyous announcement of the Resurrection of Christ resound in every heart for a rebirth of hope.

In this catechesis, I wish to show the transformation that Jesus's Pasch caused in his disciples. Let us start from the evening after the Resurrection. The disciples were locked in their homes for fear of the Jews (cfr Jn 20,19).

Fear grips their heart and keeps them from going forth to meet others, to meet life itself. The Master is no longer around. The remembrance of his Passion nourishes their uncertainty. But Jesus has his people at heart and is about to fulfill the promise that he had made to them during the Last Supper: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you" (Jn 14,18), and he says that to us, too, even in grey times: "I will not leave you orphans".

This situation of anxiety among the disciples changes radically with the arrival of Jesus. He passes through the closed doors, he is in their midst, and reassuringly wishes them peace: "Peace be with you" (Jn 20,19b).

It is a common greeting which now acquires a new meaning because it results in an interior change: It is the Easter greeting, which causes the disciples to overcome all their fears.

The peace that Jesus brings is the gift of salvation that he had promised his disciples during his farewell: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid" (Jn 14,27).

On this day of Resurrection, he gives peace in fullness and it becomes for the community a source of joy, certainty of victory, security in reliance upon God. "Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid" (Jn 14,1), he tells us, as well.

After this greeting, Jesus shows his disciples the wounds on his hands and his side (cfr Jn 20,20), a sign of what had happened and which would never be cancelled: his glorious humanity remains 'wounded'.

This gesture has the purpose of confirming the new reality of the Resurrection: The Christ who is now among his people is a real person, the same Jesus who three days earlier had been nailed to the Cross.

Thus it is that in the dazzling light of Easter, in the meeting with the Risen One, the disciples grasp the salvific significance of his passion and death. Therefore, they go from sorrow and fear to joy.

Sorrow and Jesus's wounds themselves become a source of joy. This joy arises in their hearts because they 'saw the Lord' (Jn 20,20). He says to them once more: "Peace be with you" (v 21).

It is evident that from now on, ti is no longer just a greeting. It is a gift, a gift that the Risen One wishes to make to his friends, but at the same time it is also a mandate: This peace, acquired by Christ with his blood, is for them but also for everyone, and the disciples should bring it to the whole world.

Indeed, he adds: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (ibid.). The risen Jesus has returned among his disciples in order to send them out. He has completed his work in the world - now it falls on them to sow the faith in the hearts of men so that the Father may be known and loved, and bring together all his children who are dispersed.

But Jesus knows that there is still fear among his people, that there will always be fear. That is why he performs the gesture of breathing on them, regenerating them in his Spirit (cfr Jn 20,22). This gesture is the sign of the new creation.

With the gift of the Spirit that comes from the risen Christ, a new world begins. Sending off the disciples on mission inaugurates the journey through the world of the people of the New Covenant, people who believe in him and in his work of salvation, people who will testify to the truth of the Resurrection.

This novelty of a new life that does not die, which is brought by Easter, is to be disseminated everywhere, so that the thorns of sin that wound the heart of man can be replaced by the seeds of Grace, of the presence of God, and his love which triumphs over sin and death.

Dear friends, even today, the Risen One enters our homes and hearts, even if at times the doors are closed. He enters to give us joy and peace, life and hope, gifts that we need for our human and spiritual rebirth.

Only he can turn away that sepulchral stone that man often places on his own feelings, his own relationships, his own behaviors - stones that ratify death, divisions, enmities, rancors, envy, suspicions, indifference.

Only he, the Living One, can give meaning to existence and can allow those who are tried and sad, disheartened and devoid of hope to carry on.

It was the experience of the two disciples who on Easter day were walking from Jerusalem towards Emmaus (cfr Lk 24,13-35). They were talking about Jesus, but their 'sad faces' (cfr v 17) expressed their dashed hopes, uncertainty and melancholy.

They had left their homes to follow Jesus and his friends, and they had discovered a new reality in which forgiveness and love were no longer just words but touched concretely on existence. Jesus of Nazareth had made everything new, he had transformed their life. But now he was dead and everything seemed over.

Suddenly, however, it was no longer two but three persons who were walking together. Jesus had come alongside the two disciples and was walking with them, but they were incapable of recognizing him.

Of course, they had already heard the rumors of his Resurrection, and in fact, referred to these: "Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive" (vv 22-23).

And yet all this was not enough to convince them because "him they did not see" (v. 24) [although they went to the tomb to see for themselves].

Thus Jesus, patiently, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures" (v 27). The Risen One explained Sacred Scripture to the disciples, offering them the fundamental key to reading them, namely, he himself and his Paschal mystery. It is he to whom the Scriptures are a testimonial (cfr Jn 4,39-37).

The sense of everything, of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, suddenly opened up and became clear to their eyes. Jesus had opened their minds to the intelligence of the Scriptures (cfr Lk 24,45).

Meanwhile, they had reached the village, probably the home of one of the two disciples. Their unknown travelling companion "gave the impression that he was going on farther" (v 28), but he stayed because they urged him, “Stay with us".

"While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them" (v 30). The reference to the gestures by Jesus at the Last Supper is evident. "With that, their eyes were opened and they recognized him" (v 31)

The presence of Jesus, first with his words, and then in the act of breaking bread, made it possible for the disciples to recognize him, and they could feel anew what they had already felt when they were walking with him: “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (v 32).

This episode shows us two 'privileged' places where we can meet the Risen One who transforms our life: listening to the Word, in communion with Christ, and breaking the Bread. Two 'places' profoundly united to each other because "Word and Eucharist belong to each other so intimately that one cannot be understood without the other: the Word of God sacramentally becomes flesh in the Eucharistic event" (Post-Synodal Apost. Exhort, Verbum Domini, 54-55).

After the meeting in Emmaus, the two disciples "set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, 'The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!'" (vv 33-34).

In Jerusalem, they listened to the news of Jesus's resurrection, and in turn, they recounted their own experience, inflamed with love for the Risen One, who had opened their hearts to an uncontainable joy.

They were, as St. Peter would say, given "a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (cfr 1Pt 1,3). In fact, the enthusiasm for the faith is reborn in them, their love for the community, the need to communicate the Good News.

The Master has risen and with him, all of life is resurrected. To testify to this event becomes for them an irrepressible need.

Dear friends, may Eastertime be for all of us the right occasion to rediscover with joy and enthusiasm the springs of faith, the presence of the Risen One among us.

It means fulfilling the same itinerary as Jesus caused the two disciples at Emmaus to follow - through the rediscovery of the Word of God and of the Eucharist. That is, to go with the Lord and allow our eyes to be opened to the true meaning of Scripture and of his presence in breaking the bread.

Thus, the culmination of the journey, then as now, is Eucharistic Communion. In Communion, Jesus nourishes us with his Body and Blood, to be present in our lives, to make us new, inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In conclusion, the experience of the disciples invites us to reflect on the meaning of Easter for us. Let us allow ourselves to meet the risen Jesus. Alive and real, he is always present among us, he walks with us to guide our lives, to open our eyes.

Let us trust the Risen One who has the power to give life, to make us be reborn as children of God, able to believe and to love. Faith in him transforms our life, liberates it of fear, gives firm hope, inspires it with that which gives full meaning to existence - the love of God. Thank you.

---

Benedict XVI on April 11, 2012 - two weeks away from his 85th birthday and three days later, the 7th anniversary of his election as Pope.

In the countdown to Benedict XVI's 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his Pontificate last year, one of the most useful and timely resources was his brother Georg's memoir about the Pope which was immediately published in English, French and Spanish after it was first released in German. This review of the book by a UK blogger includes a few excerpts with information that was not previously available. Worth re-posting as we count down now to our beloved Benedict's 86th birthday and the eighth anniversary of his election as Pope..

Brother Georg says reform of the liturgy
is a focal point for Benedict XVI

April 10, 2012

No one knows Pope Benedict XVI better than his own brother, Mgr Georg Ratzinger. In fact, this man is the only person living who has known and loved the present Pope since the very moment of his birth, on 16 April 1927. They have shared a life together – even to the point of being ordained priests at the same liturgy.

Benedict XVI himself has said of Georg: “[from] the beginning of my life, my brother has always been for me not only a companion, but a trustworthy guide … he has been a point of orientation and reference … [h]e has always shown me the path to take, even in difficult situations.”

For this reason, Georg Ratzinger’s recently published book, My Brother, the Pope, is a must for all those who wish to know more about those early “experiences that shaped some of the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI” (as George Weigel put it in his review of the work).

Not only does it paint an intimate portrait of the Ratzinger family, and of Joseph Ratzinger’s childhood and early life, My Brother, the Pope also reveals, in quite a candid way, Georg Ratzinger's unique view as to what Pope Benedict XVI’s most pressing goals are as the successor of St Peter.



I bought a copy of My Brother, the Pope on Holy Saturday, and dipped into it over Easter Sunday – it is absolutely fascinating! The book consists of a series of reflections by Georg Ratzinger, who himself has had a successful clerical and musical career.

His reminiscences and musings are mainly given as answers - sometimes very long ones - to questions posed by the Church historian, Michael Hesemann. Published in German late last year, My Brother, the Pope has been available to English readers since March 2012. (For those who can get to London, it is currently on sale at St Pauls bookshop.)

Georg Ratzinger’s words paint a vivid picture of the childhood he shared with his brother and the rest of the Ratzinger family – a childhood that the Pope himself has already touched upon his own autobiography (written as Cardinal Ratzinger), Milestones: Memoirs 1927 – 1977.

Georg, though, goes into much more detail concerning the simple day-to-day Bavarian life that he and his family enjoyed in the years prior to the Second World War. He also provides a glimpse into a Catholic world that was unashamedly joyful and liturgically awe-inspiring.

These were the days before the Modernist devotees of the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” had managed to purge the Church’s liturgy of its joy, colour, excitement and tradition. It was a time when Catholicism was proud of its God-given heritage.

The Pope’s father, also called Joseph, was a policeman – a job that often meant transfers from one town or village to another. The older Joseph Ratzinger was a particularly devout man, who also sang in church choirs, and who detested the Nazis when they appeared on the scene in 1930s Germany.

Georg mentions in his book that he, his mother, and siblings were often worried about his father’s safety – it seems that being a rural policeman was a hazardous occupation at that time. Everyday, the Ratzinger children and their mother, Maria, would pray for Joseph Ratzinger senior’s safe return home, especially if he was out working a night shift.

Here is part of what the Pope’s brother recalls about those times of family prayer:

---

From our parents we learned what it means to have a firm grasp of faith in God. Every day we prayed together, and in fact before and after each meal (we ate our breakfast, dinner, and supper together).

The main prayer time was after the midday dinner, when the particular concerns of the family were expressed. Part of it was a prayer to Saint Dismas, the “good thief”, a former criminal who was crucified together with Jesus on Mount Calvary, repented on the cross, and begged the Lord for mercy. We prayed to him, the patron of repentant thieves, to protect Father from professional troubles.

…Father often worked at night, and then it could happen that he was held up, for whatever reasons, and came home later. Then, naturally, we children and Mother were anxious and prayed that nothing had happened to him …

When we were children, our parents also put us to bed and prayed our evening prayers with us. They used a special form of blessing and repeated it three times [one for each child] … This was followed by a rather expansive blessing. Once I asked my father what it meant, but all he used to say to me was, "I do not know exactly either. My father and mother used to pray this prayer at my bedside."

---

The Ratzingers would also pray the Rosary most days at home, though went to church to pray it during October, the month of the Holy Rosary. The two boys, Georg and Joseph, also attended – and served at – the 6.00am daily Mass in their local church.

There is a beautiful passage in My Brother, the Pope, which describes the thrill both boys felt when attending the early morning Rorate Masses during Advent:

---

After we started school, we used to attend these Masses in the early morning, before classes began. Outside it was still night, everything was dark, and the people often shivered in the cold. Yet the warm glow of the sanctuary compensated for the early rising and the walk through the snow and ice. The dark church illuminated by candles and tapers, which were often brought by the faithful and provided not only light but a little warmth … These Rorate Masses were wonderful signposts leading us to Christmas.

---

In his book, Georg Ratzinger describes the wonderful liturgies and devotions that meant so much to the faithful before many were swept away by the post-Conciliar changes, or “reforms”.

In describing the piety that surrounded the Ratzinger family’s celebration of Christmas, he revealed that the Pope “still has the little family manger scene with the tuff stones from Tittmoning; it is set up at Christmastime in the dining room of his apartment in the Apostolic Palace.”

My Brother, the Pope also contains several passages that describe those ancient Catholic traditions of Bavaria that helped the people to celebrate Easter, Candlemas and the May devotions, as well as other festivals and saints days.

Reflecting on the post-Easter Vigil (held on Holy Saturday morning in those days) “celebration of the Resurrection”, Georg Ratzinger paints a wonderful portrait of the sheer joy that seemed more present in pre-Vatican II liturgies:

---

…[T]he church was darkened; all the church windows were draped with black cloth. Then the pastor, in festive vestments and cope, sang “Christ is risen” three times, to which the choir responded, the third time, “Alleluia!” Actually the priests are supposed to sing each time in a higher key, but most pastors could not distinguish the keys, since they were not that musical, either. Someone stood at each window to let the drapes fall as soon as the pastor intoned the third “Christ is risen.”

In Aschau, my brother and I did that, too, for a time. Then spring sunshine poured into the church and created a Paschal mood. Finally, another procession took place, during which the church choir sang an Easter motet … This procession with the Most Blessed Sacrament under the “heaven”, as we called the baldachin, with lots of incense, was always a very festive occasion, which contributed to bringing the good news of the Resurrection deep into the hearts of believers.

---

Another tradition that Georg Ratzinger mentions in his book is the "Mount of Olives devotion" that was usually held on Thursdays throughout Lent. This act of worship involved a long sermon, silence, prayer and music. As Mgr Ratzinger recounts, “In the midst of that silence, the large church bell then rang, which lent an impressive tone to the whole thing.”

He goes on to describe how these devotions could be rather humorous a times:

---

In Dorfen, where I served for four years as an assistant pastor (from 1953 to 1957), there was a Baroque Mount of Olives. Christ was depicted as praying on it. During the devotion, the sacristan then used a crank to lower from the ceiling an angel that was hanging on a rope, with chalice in his hand, so as to strengthen Jesus for his future suffering and death.

Back then, in the Baroque period, as we know, they liked to stage things graphically like that. But it sometimes happened that the crank did not work, and the angel literally plummeted from heaven. But in spite of that, these Mount of Olives devotions were always a beautiful and moving way to celebrate Lent.

---

Needless to say, there are many fascinating and important insights into Pope Benedict XVI’s early life in My Brother, the Pope – so why dwell in this post only on these liturgical memories from Georg and Joseph Ratzinger’s childhood and young adulthood?

The answer is simply that, as Mgr Georg Ratzinger himself reveals - in answer to a question by Hesemann - towards the end of his book, the “focal point” of his brother’s pontificate is his desire to see “the liturgy ... celebrated worthily and that it be celebrated correctly.”

If we consider Joseph Ratzinger’s seminal work on worship in the Roman Rite, The Spirit of the Liturgy, then it won't surprise many to know that, according to his brother at least, liturgical reform is at the heart of this present Pope’s mission.

He truly wishes to lead a reform of the so-called reforms initiated by those who claimed to speak for Vatican II. As Georg Ratzinger says: “There are so many priests who think they have to add something [to the liturgy] here and change something there. So my brother wants an orderly, good liturgy that moves people interiorly and is understood as a call from God.”

Pope Benedict XVI has already liberated the ancient liturgy of the Roman Rite from its unjust imprisonment with the publication of his Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum.

Liturgically speaking, he has also led by example in many ways – always celebrating his Masses facing a large crucifix, introducing a better English translation of the Mass, insisting on Gregorian chants and beautiful sacred music, and reviving some of the papal ceremonial's older traditions.

But will this type of gradual reform be effective, especially as far too many Church leaders just seem to be ignoring the Pope's efforts? Isn’t it time now for the Holy Father to start using the office that God has given to him as a means of imposing liturgical reform on the Church? Isn’t it time for him to use that unique authority that Our Lord gave to Peter?

The Pope knows that the people of God desire to worship the Lord through beautiful liturgy - those traditions which sustained our ancestors remain popular amongst the faithful. In that sense, I am sure that he will do more to help us rediscover our liturgical heritage.

Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate will - in one way or another - help Latin-rite Catholics worship God in that ageless spirit which is both splendid and truly worthy of the faith of our fathers.

Not expecting to find anything about Benedict XVI in current issues of the OR - unless there was an event that involved him directly, as his March 23 meeting with Pope Francis - I missed this article published in its earlier this week, which was not missed by either Lella or by Beatrice, who also provides the appropriate photograph for the occasion... The excerpt is from a previously unpublished homily given by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his birthplace of Marktl am Inn in 1997...

From Vatican-I to Vatican-II:
The window of faith
by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Translated from

April 10, 2013

Editor's Note: There are 164 excerpts chosen to present the theological thought of Joseph Ratzinger in the Italian edition from the Vatican publishing house LEV of a book first published by the German publishing house Herder in 2012, edited by Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Fribourg, who is also president of the German bishops' conference, in collaboration with the Regensburg-based Institut Papst Benedict. [The German original is entitled THEOLOGISCHES ABC: Ein Lesebuch von Abba bis Zweifel (Theological ABC: A Reader from Abba to Zweifel) [Zweifel means doubt]. The Italian edition is entitled L'abc di Joseph Ratzinger (208 pp, LEV, 2013).


Surely, the Italian edition has the ugliest, most unappetizing book cover one could imagine! What LEV bigwig approved it???

The book, citing what Joseph Ratzinger has said about topics ranging from 'Abba' (Father0 to 'Vocation', includes some unusual and even unexpected headings such as Aggiornamento, Antico Testamento e cristianesimo (The Old Testament and Christianity), Ateismo: la sua funzione positive (Atheism: Its positive function), Chiesa peccatrice (the sinner Church], Demitizzazione della Bibbia (Demythifying the Bible), Domenica giorno della speranza (Sunday as the day of hope), Dottrina della reincarnazione e vita eterna (the doctrine of reincarnation and eternal life), Dubbio (Doubt), Essere come bambini (To be like children), Evoluzione e continuità nella Chiesa (Evolution and continuity in the Church), Festa (Celebration), Gioco (Play), Infallibilità della Chiesa (the infallibility of the Church), Inri: l’iscrizione della croce (INRI: The inscription on the cross), Lutto (mourning), Morire e lasciarsi morire, (Dying and allowing death), Sabato santo: disceso nel regno degli inferi (Holy Saturday: the descent into the kingdom of hell), Senso della vita (the meaning of life), Teoria dell’evoluzione e fede nella creazione (Theory of evolution and faith in creation), Umiltà (humility), Unità e integrità della Sacra Scrittura (The unity and integrity of Sacred Scripture), Verità e storicità (Truth and historicity).

This singular dictionary is striking in its choice of brief texts from the works of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, resulting in a small but precious anthology that also draws from less-known texts written by the young Ratzinger, and including one previously unpublished - a homily delivered by Cardinal Ratzinger on July 13, 1977, on a visit to his birthplace in Marktl am Inn, which we are publishing herewith.


The First Vatican Council took place at a time when, after the Franco-Prussian War, two great nation states emerged – Germany and Italy.

At the same time, the State of the Church, that is, the temporal power of the Papacy, definitively disappeared from the geographical maps and from history. At that time, therefore, Vatican I donned purely spiritual vestments, free of any temporal ballast from the papacy, and defined it in a new way, as a discipleship of Christ that was devoid of any earthly power from hereon, just as Peter, the fisherman, had followed Christ, without any powers at all, to his ultimnate crucifixion in Rome.

From all this, we can experience great relief as well as some regret. A relief because the change came much more easily than it was thought, and perhaps some regret for some hings that might have been conserved.

But it is important that at the time when the principle of the nation state was celebrating it triumph, when the nation even came to be an object of adoration, Vatican I opposed to it the principle of unity. Yes, the nation is a value, that was not being contested. But when it becomes absolutized, then it becomes dangerous.

In the history of the past 145 years, we have seen how uch blood and tears have been shed because of the inebriation with nationalism, not just in Europe but in the whole world. Everyone (including us Christians, and Catholics) had become first of all Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Englishmen, etc, and only secondarily Christian and Catholic.

We have forgotten much of what we have learned from Scripture, that we all, in our diversity, which should be a richness of being together, are destined to be children of God together, brothers of Jesus Christ, a great family – and that the world, as Scripture tells us, will not be united by the power of an especially important nation that sees herself as dominant or chosen, but through him who brings together heaven and earth – Jesus Christ.

Thus, applying the principle of unity over and above national boundaries - although unfortunately elusive in our history - became greatly relevant then, as it is today. That principle of unity is urgent today because we have become involved in so many political and economic entanglements and dependencies from which no one can escape. Most especially not if we would retreat to the spiritual and religious dimension, to our own world, into our shell.

So even if our current sympathies are not necessarily for a specific group, we cite ‘conscience’, which is often only a cover name for our personal desires and opinions, as the court of last resort.

All of which may have intrinsic value but one must understand it - and it becomes true and right – if it is framed within the great truth of our being, which comes from God the Father, from Jesus.

For this reason, we must continue to be grateful for the fact that the Pope exists as a reference point for unity, as the visible symbol of unity. And we must recognize that unity is not just a gift, but it also makes demands on us, and can only enrich us afterwards. We must seek to share in this great unity whatever is ‘ours’, in order that we, too, can be able to receive from others...

What then is the message for us from the Second Vatican Council? From its many documents, it is not easy to extrapolate a central message. Yet we must remember that Vatican I was unfinished because of war, and so it could not reach a conclusive message.

Vatican II continued what had been interrupted, and shaped the definitive word about the Church today – a definitive word that was once again proclaimed – Christ. The first sentence of the Vatican II Constitution on the Church reads: “Christ is the light of the world” (Lumen gentium I).

And the Church exists to disseminate this light. The Church does not exist for herself, but as the window that allows the light of Christ to penetrate into our world.


Cardinal Ratzinger signing a guest book in Marktl at the time of the visit referred to above. Beatrice shot this from the museum in Marktl when she visited in 2006.

I had been wondering when Mr. Restan would come out with a moderating view on the unbridled enthusiasms of the past month, and here it is..,

The continuity running through
the Successors of Peter
Translated from

April 11, 2013

After a vertiginous month, Pope Francis has ended the first stage of his journey. Its coincidence with the celebration of Holy Week and Easter allowed him to focus his initial Magisterium on the heart of the Christian faith – on Jesus who died and rose again to save every human being.

[One can thus better appreciate the exquisite timing Benedict XVI chose for stepping down from the Papacy - precisely to give the cardinals enough time to choose his successor so that the Church would have a new Pope for Holy Week of 2013, the peak of the liturgical year. He could have waited until he had completed eight years as Pope, which no one would have contested, but to have done so would have been to miss the opportunity of presenting a new Pope to the world in the full panoply of the Holy Week liturgies and the Magisterium inevitably associated with it.]

He has also carried out many gestures that reveal his missionary temperament and his pastoral style of being close to his flock. He has effectively communicated a message woven with the threads of mercy, the Cross and apostolic vigor.

But he has not yet really begun governing, and the great expectations he has aroused only serve to magnify the logical questions one must ask.

One of these refers to the way in which he intends to exercise his ministry as Successor of Peter. The question of modality is not inconsequential: John Paul II, in his ecumenical encyclical Ut unum snit(That they may be one) posed the challenge of finding a form of exercising the primacy of Peter which – without renouncing what is essential in his mission - could be acknowledged and accepted by all Christians.

Recent Popes have been quite conscious of the paradox that as much as the Petrine ministry is an essential service for the faith and for the unity of the Church that the Lord explicitly wanted, it has also been a stumbling block for many non-Catholic Christians [with respect to an eventual Christian unity].

From his first greeting to the world, Pope Francis has forcefully underscored his position as Bishop of Rome, citing the famous words of St. Ignatius of Antioch who said that “Rome presides with charity over all the churches”.

He has also underscored that the power received by Peter from the Lord can only be exercised as service. A fact that Benedict XVI always upheld, from the time he took possession of St John Lateran as Bishop of Rome, and that John Paul II made clear in the aforementioned encyclical.

But what is the exact meaning of this function of the Bishop of Rome that has been recognized since the first Christian century? For over a century now, recent Popes have sought to analyze this question deeply, even as they have sought to strip the Petrine ministry of its temporal adherences, unhealthy incrustations, and historical inertias.

Significant for this is the previously unpublished 1997 text by Joseph Ratzinger which was released in L’Osservatore Romano earlier this week, in which he points out that the First Vatican Council had highlighted the spiritual dimension of a papacy free of any temporal ballast, and “defined it in a new way, as a discipleship of Christ that was devoid of any earthly power from hereon, just as Peter, the fisherman, had followed Christ, without any powers at all, to his ultimate crucifixion in Rome”.

One must keep this perspective in mind when considering the ardor of many who describe Pope Francis’s first steps as a rupture with previous Pontificates.

In the mass media as well as in specialized circles, some have made it appear that the primacy of faith and charity can only be expressed as service and not as any kind of ‘jurisdiction’. I do not mean to advocate a hypothesis but simply to refer to this transcendental question for every Christian and for the whole Church.

John Paul II already warned that the function of assuring the communion of the faithful would be illusory if the Bishop of Rome were deprived of the ecclesiastical power and authority that are rightly his.

For his part, Benedict XVI underlined with particular effect that “Presiding in doctrine and presiding in love must be one and the same – all the doctrines of the Church ultimately lead to love”.

In his memorable book The anti-Roman complex, Hans Urs von Balthasar destroys without hesitation the eternal pretext of emptying the Petrine ministry of substance by reducing it to mere ‘service’ artificially conceived as an opposition to ‘jurisdiction’.

In the dynamism that is inherent in the work of renewal in continuity, Pope Francis will find his own style, and it is possible that his Pontificate will take new steps towards Christian unity as John Paul II hoped in Ut unum sint.

Certainly, the Pontificate of Benedict VXI, with his profoundly evangelical approach and his innovative actions, has paved the way. For nearly eight years, he explained and demonstrated ceaselessly that the Pope is not an absolute sovereign whose thought and will must be law. On the contrary, he conceived of the Petrine ministry as the guarantee of the Church’s obedience to Christ and his Word.

And here, the continuity between Benedict and Francis becomes evident far beyond their differing styles and temperaments. No Pope imposes his ideas on the Church, but knows he is one with the great community of faith through the centuries, that his power is not above the Word of God but in its service, and that he has the responsibility to make this Word continue to resonate in all its purity in the face of frivolity, shifting fashions and falsehoods.

It is a ministry that the new Pope has made clear by reminding us that “faith is not for sale, nor does one acquire it by installment” because like Peter, “we cannot keep silent about what we have seen and heard”. In the history of the Peeple of God, he said, there has always been the temptation to eliminate some part of the faith, “but the faith remains what it is, as we profess it in the Credo”.

Finally, it is understandable that Orthodox Christians and evangelicals look with hope [???? Did they ever?] on the long history of the papacy, but it would be good if they too moved towards the undivided Church of the first millennium. [As I understand it, the ongoing theological dialog between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches have now reached the stage where they are examining the elements of the Papacy in the undivided Church, as a basis for coming to a common position about the primacy of the Pope in a reunited Church.]

Regarding the climate that is being created by some Catholic intellectuals, it is to be hoped that we do not require a new Vladimir Soloviev, perhaps someone from the East, to remind us that for every Christian, Rome is the condition for freedom.

How brave of William Oddie to state his private thoughts so publicly, giving voice to the unspoken and perhaps even unacknowledged sentiments of many...

I knew I was going to have trouble with two Popes
When we pray for the ‘Holy Father’, it’s still Benedict I think of.
Fathers don’t resign: they just get old
by William Oddie

April 11, 2013

...[The scare raised about Benedict XVI's health] made me ruminate once again on the whole business of the Pope’s resignation, which at the time I found very distressing.

One comment was “Why not leave the poor man alone and stop speculating?” to which came the replies “so that people will pray for him”, and “This is concern for one we Love, It pains me to think of our beloved Pope Emeritus sick or suffering” and “because we love him”.

Other responses were “My family continues to pray for the ‘Old Pope’,” and “Will someone outside The Vatican please check in on our Holy Father who should be in a hospital, not in seclusion?”

All I can say to that last suggestion is, God forbid: Castel Gandolfo is a beautiful place with wonderful views over the lake, just the place for someone in fragile health: hospitals, even the best of them, are ugly and dispiriting and colourless: God protect him from dying in one of these places.

I am sure that he has proper medical supervision; maybe that crack about “somebody outside the Vatican” was prompted by memories of the gross neglect by Vatican insiders of the health of John Paul I, which led to his scandalous premature death. But that mistake won’t be made again, I am quite sure.

What we see in such comments is that there is a real love for Pope Benedict, which lingers for many of us; and I still, I have to say, find this a source of some confusion.

When he resigned, I wrote that when his resignation came into effect, “for me he will still be the Pope whatever the juridical procedure says. This isn’t a matter simply of procedures in canon law; the feelings are engaged here, and at the deepest level. Catholics love their Pope; and for the Pope simply to disappear, for this beloved person to say, in effect, that after the end of this month we will never see him or hear from him again is like a kind of bereavement without a death and the final closure that a good death brings. We are being told by the Vatican authorities that we will have a new Pope in place in time for Easter. But I rebelliously find myself saying that I don’t want a new Pope: I’ve got a Pope, I’d like to keep him, please.”

In a later post, under the headline “How, during the lifetime of a pope, can his successor gain the authority he needs?….”, I recalled an article I had written about a year before, explaining why Popes, unlike Archbishops of Canterbury, never resigned: “It does, in a way, explain why no Anglican archbishop can ever have the kind of spiritual authority for Anglicans that a Pope has for Catholics: the fact is that in accepting the crown of thorns that is papal office, the Successor of Peter gives himself absolutely and irreversibly: there is no escape, no possibility of a peaceful retirement; it is — or would be without the strength that only God can give — a truly fearsome prospect.”

My headline did conclude with the words “We are in a time of uncertainty: but we are also in God’s hands”: and this pious sentiment does seem to have been borne out by events, with the election of Pope Francis, who really does look as though he is exactly what we all need at this juncture in the history of the Church.

I am sure that in the end, he will fully engage all the love and loyalty we – I — ought to be feeling for him already as our Pope: but I have to admit that when I come to my prayers for the Pope, it is still Benedict who comes first, unbidden, to the forefront of my mind; deep within me he is still ineradicably Pope Benedict: I really can’t be doing with all this “emeritus” stuff.

Then, I shake myself, and change gear, and click my mental computer mouse on to the image of Pope Francis. It’s not hard to do: he is himself a strong and lovable person who has for very solid reasons already inspired an affectionate response from most Catholics.

But a father is a father: he goes on being one no matter how infirm he becomes: and the words “Holy Father” still mean Pope Benedict for me. I have to admit it: when it comes to the papacy, I’m still in a state of some affective confusion. It’s not a serious matter, I don’t think; I’ll get over it. The Church is still the Church; and no actual long-term damage has been done.

But I still can’t get over the persistent (and of course totally indefensible) notion that rather than Benedict being Pope Emeritus, it is actually Francis who is Pope coadjutor….

In this, I differ from Mr. Oddie. As difficult, gut-wrenching and mind-boggling as it was, the first consequence I personally confronted - and had to accept - about Benedict XVI's renunciation was the infinite difference between being Pope and not being Pope. Regardless of anything, once he was no longer Pope, he would lose, as he has, any and all prerogatives of the Pope - other than still being called 'Your Holiness' (yet how many Christian prelates are called that already). And we do not need the utterly callous amnesia of the cardinals to tell us that.

In terms of practical and actual consequence, the Pope emeritus counts far less now than a curial cardinal, in the same way that Cardinal Ratzinger counted infinitely far less than he did as Benedict XVI. The gulf between Pope and not-Pope is absolute, inexorable and very real. And we must live with that.

Friday, April 12, Second Week of Easter

ST. TERESA DE LOS ANDES (Chile, 1900-1920), Virgin, Carmelite nun
Chile's first saint was born Juanita Fernandez Solar to a wealthy and very Catholic family in Santiago the capital. After her First Communion
at 6, she received Communion daily. After reading the biography of St. Therese of Lisieux, she decided she wanted to be like her and devote
herself to prayer and sacrifice. She entered the Carmelite convent at age 19, then contracted typhus. She died shortly after she took her
vows. During her brief time in the convent, she wrote letters expressing her thoughts. In one of them, she wrote "Christ, so foolish in his
love, has driven me madly in love". John Paul II beatified her when he visited Chile in 1987 and canonized her in Rome six years later.
[Cardinal Bertone, who was in Chile after the 2010 earthquake, visited her shrine in the Andes on her feast day.]
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041213.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- Eight more Italian bishops from the Tuscany region on ad-limina visit

- Members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission who are holding their annual meeting. Address.

One year ago today...
Benedict XVI was winding up his post-Easter rest in Castel Gandolfo and planning to return to the Vatican
one day earlier for the arrival of his brother Georg from Regensburg to join him on his impending 85th birthday.

Brother Georg has arrived
for Benedict XVI's 86th birthday
The emeritus Pope is recovering from 'retirement shock'
by Gian Guido Vecchi
Translated from

April 12, 2013

In complete privacy, Benedict XVI's older brother, Mons. Georg Ratzinger, arrived in Castel Gandolfo to join the emeritus Pope in celebrating his 86th birthday on Tuesday, April 16.

Notwithstanding the rumors on Twitter that Benedict XVI has died or is dying, or the presumptuous conclusion of a Spanish journalist that he is afflicted with a serious disease which could be terminal,
the unofficial news from Castel Gandolfo is that the emeritus Pope is recovering from classic 'retirement shock' which is more likely with someone his age and considering the office he held.

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi bluntly reiterated that Benedict is suffering from any 'specific ailment', saying that his health concerns are 'those related to his age'.

Many certainly observed that the retired Pope looked weaker and frailer in the images of his meeting with Pope Francis at Castel Gandolfo last March 23, giving rise to the speculation about his state of health.

Yet he himself, when announcing his decision to renounce the Papacy last February 11, and again at his last general audience on February 27, that the reason for the decision was that "in recent months, I have felt that my strength has diminished".

Prof. Attilio Maseri, who was a cardiologist for John Paul II and now for Queen Elizabeth II, said that 'retirement shock' was a usual reaction, "especially when someone has held great responsibility - just imagine what it would be after you have been Pope! It becomes even more pronounced under the circumstances of his voluntary resignation".

He says that the condition is not easy = to suddenly stop being Pope after eight years - but that the person eventually rebounds and he gets back to normal.

"The emeritus Pope's heart problems are well-known," he continues, "but in this case the shock is psychological, to the brain, not to the heart. So it is good if the person remains intellectually active, as Benedict XVI is".

Yesterday, Fr. Lombardi also said that Pope Francis is kept abreast of how his predecessor is doing if only because he gets to talk daily to Mons Georg Gaenswein, who serves as Prefect of the Pontifical Household.

It is known that the former Pope brought a great number of books with him to Castel Gandolfo after he left the Vatican on February 28.

And he continues to share his daily life with those who constituted his pontifical family at the Vatican - starting with Mons. Gaenswein, who commutes between Castel Gandolfo and the Vatican, and the four Memores Domini housekeepers.

Perhaps an important sign is that they have been joined by Birgit Wansing, Joseph Ratzinger's longtime secretary who is said to be the only person who can decipher and transcribe his minute handwriting. Wansing is a lay nun of the Schoenstatt community, and when Benedict was Pope, she did not live at the Vatican but at the community's house in Rome. So obviously, the emeritus Pope continues to read and write as he did.

With the arrival of his brother, also back in the household is Sister Christine, who acts as his nurse when he is visiting Joseph.

Papa Ratzinger's 'family' will celebrate together not just his 86th birthday and the eight anniversary of his election as Pope, but also the name day of both brother Georg and Mons. Gaenswein on April 23.

In Castel Gandolfo, Benedict's concession to himself is to wake up a little later. Then he says his daily Mass, recites his breviary and Lauds before breakfast, reads the newspapers, then devotes his time io prayer and reflection till lunch. This is followed by his usual post-prandial siesta, and then a walk in the gardens to say the Rosary. More prayers, then it is dinnertime, after which he watches the news on TV, reads and prays some more before going to bed.

So he has been gradually recovering from 'retirement shock', and is looking forward to returning to the Vatican either at the end of April or the first week of May.

Work on the former Mater Ecclesiae monastery where he will spend the rest of his retirement days is almost complete, and awaiting him there are boxes of his personal files as Pope as well as his beloved private library. [And the piano, too!]

Here is an article in praise of Benedict XVI that is rare to find these days... It is far from comprehensive, of course, but it does bring up some quotations from the emeritus Pope that have been key to what he did as Pope but which the collective memory appears to have forgotten, in particular his concept about the role of bishops and the need for them to be decisive, and his lifelong advocacy of the cause of the poor and the little people....

Benedict XVI's legacy
He insisted that all efforts to build up a civilisation
in the absence of a spiritual dimension are doomed to fail
by Klaus Vella Bardon

April 7, 2013

VALLETTA, MALTA - When interviewed by Peter Seewald on August 15, 1996, Joseph Ratzinger said: “The words of the Bible and of the Church Fathers rang in my ears, those sharp condemnations of shepherds who are like mute dogs; in order to avoid conflicts, they let the poison spread.
The Church needs an informed, articulate and well-formed laity.

“Peace is not the first civic duty, and a bishop whose only concern is not to have problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible, is an image I find repulsive. I didn’t dodge conflicts because letting things drift is... the worst kind of administration I can imagine.”

On becoming Pope in 2005, as Pope Benedict XVI, always living up to his dictum, Ratzinger did his best to address the scourge of sex-abuse within the ranks of the Catholic clergy and to force the Vatican Bank to subject itself to good banking practice.

His profound sense of self-awareness and soul-searching, coupled with courage and humility, led him to make the dramatic and unexpected decision to resign. Thanks to this unbelievable move, the papacy has captivated worldwide public opinion as never before with the subsequent highly remarkable course of events.

The unforeseen choice of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has thrilled many of us and confirms for believers their faith in the Holy Spirit.

Before his ascendancy to the papacy, Ratzinger incurred the vilification of the secular media who labelled him ‘God’s Rottweiler’ and the ‘Panzer Cardinal’ due to his role as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the Office of the Holy Inquisition.

John Paul II had assigned him this unenviable task in 1982. This post obliged Ratzinger to defend the orthodoxy of the faith and, as can be expected, he did not shirk his responsibilities.

I first came across his writings when I read Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, published in March 1986, that had followed his controversial Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation two years earlier.

Liberation Theology originated in Latin America where crass social injustice traps so many of its people in abject poverty. The Catholic Church there is in the forefront in championing the cause of the downtrodden.

This is reflected in the numerous Catholic martyrs, most notably represented by Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador.

However, there was a grave risk that Liberation Theology would be corrupted by Marxist ideology that pretends that human redemption can only be achieved by an inevitable violent class struggle.

Ratzinger’s ‘instructions’ have been falsely depicted as inimical to Liberation Theology and interpreted as a restraint on those who wanted to respond generously to the ‘preferential option for the poor’.

On the contrary, these instructions disapproved of an attitude of neutrality and indifference in the face of human misery and injustice. They also insisted that those who take their faith seriously have a duty to become involved in the struggle for justice, freedom, and human dignity out of love for the disinherited, oppressed, and persecuted.

Such documents deserve being revisited and re-read, especially by those who are active in the political and social arenas, as they are a lucid and passionate exposition of our authentic advancement in the face of avoidable inequalities that scar humanity.

On Ratzinger’s ascendancy to the papacy, the world had to reassess the false and derogatory image it had unfairly and dishonestly portrayed. His majestic encyclical Caritas in Veritate took even his cynical critics by surprise. Pope Benedict, like his predecessors, in the true tradition of our Catholic faith, insisted that all efforts to build up a civilisation in the absence of a spiritual dimension are doomed to fail.

He repeatedly stressed that the Church needs an informed, articulate and well-formed laity that must engage with modern culture and avoid a defeatist and escapist attitude.

This is the legacy of Benedict XVI as expressed in one of his final addresses: “The Catholic Church is convinced that the light for an adequate solution can only come from an encounter with the living Christ, which gives rise to attitudes and ways of acting based on love and truth.”


A post from this time last year...



This is the first tribute I have seen so far in the media for the Pope's double anniversary coming up within the next week. It is complimentary but unfortunately, quite cursory. It reads like something the writer had to to 'whip up' for a deadline much as she would any other news story and it shows because it is quite thin and scant for the vastness of the subject matter, and she has recourse to his most recent statements to fill it up.

Nonetheless, she obviously appreciates the man and his work, and - a rarity in MSM - correctly minimizes the relevance of the daily reporting on the Vatican in the overall context of this Pope's mission and objectives. And for that, I thank and commend her most sincerely. And ANSA, the premier Italian news agency, for running the story. I just hope they will eventually run something substantial to match the subject.

Benedict XVI at 85:
Theologian and reformer, he is resolute in governing the Church
with transparency and vigilant over the legacy of Vatican-II
by Giovanna Chirri


VATICAN CITY, April 12 (Translated from ANSA) - A theologian who, upon becoming Pope, assumed with determination the task of being a reformer.

But who, in his daily governance of the Church, never loses sight of the objective: to return faith in Christ to the center of Church life and to the life of secularized man.

The 85th birthday of Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, quite near the seventh anniversary of his election as Pope on April 19, comes at a time when the German Pope, having reinforced the Church with his firm fight against priestly pedophilia and financial reforms which are starting to bear fruit, is focused on a new and great adventure: a reflection on the Second Vatican Council which will animate the Year of Faith he has decreed from October 2012 to November 2013, in order to usher in a new season for Christianity and the Catholic Church in the world.

That Council which the Lefebvrian traditionalists - to whom Benedict XVI had extended a hand shortly after becoming Pope in an attempt to heal the rupture they caused in 1988 - persist in rejecting. Such that last March, the the Vatican sent them a letter that seemed to be an ultimatum for a definitive answer [to the formula for reconciliation proposed by the Vatican].

For the 85-year-old Pope - who in recent weeks has been described in some media as frail and perhaps even ready to resign - this is the direction to keep, independent of the often negative reporting about the Church, like Vatileaks and other 'scandals', financial or otherwise, suggested now and again by the media.

Even as the reporting on the Vatican reaches new lows, the Ratzingerian line remains that of transparency - ready, if need be, to order an internal investigation as the Vatican did to investigate charges of corruptiona nd financial wrongdoing made by the former Secretary of the Governatorate, now the apostolic nuncio to the United States. [Indeed, as we would learn in June 2012, that internal investigation was entrusted by Benedict XVI to a commission of three cardinals to uncover not so much the culprits of Vatileaks, as much as the culture within the Roman Curia - or is it just the Secretariat of State - that allowed Vatileaks to happen at all.]

The intentions and determination of Benedict XVI emerge clearly in his most recent consistory and most recent public discourses. especially during his trip to Latin America and his various homilies during Holy Week.

The 'crisis of the faith',along with the need for a 'joyous' witness to Christianity, animated the cardinals' pre-consistory meeting with the Pope for reflection and prayer last February.

On his apostolic visit to Mexico and Cuba last month, he underscored the theme of religious freedom and the public role of the Church.

Then there were the great discourses during Holy Week, especially on Maundy Thursday, when the Pope called on all priests to be fulltime priests, renouncing so-called 'self-realization' goals in order to fully serve the Church and the faithful by bearing witness to the faith with their own lives. Significantly, he condemned acts of disobedience for the sake of reform, saying that "obedience is the premise for every true renewal".

"Anyone who considers the history of the post-conciliar era," the Pope said at the Chrismal Mass, "can recognize the process of true renewal, which often took unexpected forms in living movements and made almost tangible the inexhaustible vitality of holy Church, the presence and effectiveness of the Holy Spirit" and from which "fresh currents of life burst forth".

During the Easter Vigil, he reflected on modern man who is tempted by the great potential of his own abilities to remain within his own small personal horizon, inviting him to illuminate his life with the light of God.

The Pope's Holy Week reflections summarize the perspectives for the eighth year of his Pontificate beyond the narrow context of petty reporting on the Vatican.

They explain the strength of this 85-year-old who, as a cardinal, was never concerned with participating in palace intrigue nor building a power base, nor even of influencing any groups within the Church and outside it.

As Pope, he has had to deal with counter-offensives from those whose attitudes he never shared, but they have not made him change course - to live Christianity as it is meant to be and to communicate it to others.

Who knows what surprises are forthcoming from the ex-theological consultant to Vatican-II in his revisitation of the Council's legacy in the context of the Year of Faith?

Saturday, April 13, Second Week of Easter

ST. MARTIN I (b Italy ?, d Crimea, 655), Pope and Martyr
The last of the martyr Popes, he had been the papal legate to Constantinople before he was elected Pope in 649 at a time when the Patriarch of Constantinople was more powerful than the Bishop of Rome. However, he was elected without the approval of the Byzantine court. He immediately called a Council at the Lateran to affirm orthodox Catholic teaching against the heretical Monothelites who claimed Christ only had a divine will. This angered the Byzantine emperor who had ordered that the subject not be discussed at all. He sent his soldiers to Rome to bring Martin to Constantinople, where he was jailed and subjected to all sorts of indignities. He was condemned for treason without being allowed to defend himself, then exiled to the Crimea where he spent at least two years of extreme deprivation and isolation until he died. He is remembered for having asserted the right of the Church to proclaim its doctrine in the face of imperial opposition.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041313.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met today with

- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)

- Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity

- H.E. Néstor Osorio, President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.


Pope names a council of cardinals
to assist him in governing the Church

April 13, 2013

The Secretariat of State released this communique today:

---

The Holy Father Francis, taking up a suggestion that emerged during the General Congregations preceding the Conclave, has established a group of cardinals to advise him in the government of the universal Church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, 'Pastor Bonus'.

The group consists of:

- Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State;

- Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, archbishop emeritus of Santiago de Chile, Chile;

- Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, India;

- Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany;

- Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo;

- Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Boston, USA;

- Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, Australia;

- Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in the role of coordinator; and

- Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, Italy, in the role of secretary.

The group's first meeting has been scheduled for 1-3 October 2013. His Holiness is, however, currently in contact with the aforementioned cardinals.

---

So, the 'reform of the Curia' begins with downgrading the Secretariat of State, because under such a set-up, the Secretary of State can no longer be seen as the #2 man at the Vatican, having been replaced by a governing council. About time, perhaps, to cut that behemoth to size! Two related problems: The new Council will need SecState to provide a bureaucratic infrastructure for carrying out its work, or is it going to have to create its own bureaucracy, not just in Rome, but presumably in the continental centers where each of the Council cardinals works?.. Conspicuously absent from the Council is Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan. Perhaps there could not be two Italians on the Council, and I suppose Cardinal Bertello is there ex-officio, being president of Vatican City State, but why should the president of Vatican City State be involved in governing the universal
Church? The other apparent snub is to Cardinal Odilo Scherer of Sao Paolo, but then perhaps, the reasoning is that he already runs the largest diocese in the world - why burden him more? (A reasoning that could also apply to Cardinal Scola, who runs the largest diocese in Europe. Why then Cardinal Marx, who runs the second-largest European diocese, instead of, say, Cardinal Erdo of Hungary, who was also papabile in the last Conclave?

Re 'Pastor bonus'

Wikipedia provides an efficient and brief overview:

---

Pastor Bonus is an Apostolic Constitution promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 28 June 1988. It instituted a number of reforms in the process of running the central government of the Roman Catholic Church, as article 1 states "The Roman Curia is the complex of dicasteries and institutes which help the Roman Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the good and service of the whole Church and of the particular Churches. It thus strengthens the unity of the faith and the communion of the people of God and promotes the mission proper to the Church in the world".

Among the changes formulated in the constitution was the re-integration of the Council for Public Affairs of the Church into the Secretariat of State as the Section for Relations with States (the Second Section). The Council for Public Affairs of the Church had previously been a section of the Secretariat of State, but was made an independent dicastery by Pope Paul VI in 1967.

The constitution also opened membership in dicasteries to priests, deacons, religious, and lay persons. For centuries, only cardinals were eligible for membership in the organs of the Holy See, but Pope Paul VI allowed diocesan bishops to be members following calls for collegiality at the Second Vatican Council.

Pastor Bonus continued the opening of the central government of the church by allowing representatives of all the faithful to have a role in the Roman Curia.
Roles

Pastor Bonus set out the roles of the Secretariat of State, Congregations, Tribunals, Pontifical Councils, Administrative Services and Pontifical Commissions of the Roman Curia. It also established the norms for the Ad limina visits of bishops to Rome and the relationship between the Holy See and the particular Churches and episcopal conferences.

---

Sorry for the late postings... I am dealing with a family emergency that for now involves staying with a very sick 90-year-old woman in her hospital room the whole day, and I don't know how long I may have to do this...

Pope Francis and Rome:
Is this true love?
by Angela Ambrogetti
Translated from

April 13, 2012

Being Pope is no easy job, obviously. Not just because it is not a job but a ministry - the Petrine ministry, in fact - but also because a Pope must learn from the past, which in the Church is called Tradition, while delineating the future, which in ecclesial terms means being prophetic.

That is why the first month of the exercise of the Petrine ministry is usually the most analyzed in the history of a Pontificate.

To mark his first 30 days as Pope, Papa Bergoglio has decided to name a group of 'wise men' who will give him a hand in governing the Church and determine how to reform the Roman Curia.

The names do not come from the Curia at all, but from local Churches around the world and Vatican City State [which is, however, considered 'Curial' insofar as it is one of the major offices in the Vatican whose president is traditionally a cardinal.] [She proceeds to name the eight cardinals of Pope Francisc's 'governing council', which some Italian newspapers are already calling the 'Council of the Throne'.]

The names raise some questions demanding answers:

1. The College of Cardinals by definition has the task of assisting the Roman Pontiff "either acting collegially when they are convoked together to deal with questions of major importance, or as individuals, namely in the various offices they occupy, by lending him [the Pope[ a hand in the daily care of the universal Church" (i.e., the cardinals who are Curial heads). Therefore for a smaller group to advise and assist the Pope on the governance of the universal Church seems to be a redundancy.

2. Then there the other task of this Council which is to review Pastor bonus, the Apostolic Constitution by John Paul II from 1986 that has spelled out the role and functions of the various curial offices at the Vatican. To this end, there is not a single canon law expert in the Council.

Most notably missing is Cardinal Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, who had presented to the General Congregations last month an outline for Curial reform.

It would therefore be interesting to find out more about the reasons behind the Pope's choices. [In general, apart from Cardinal Bertello, they seem to be cardinals who have been considered outstanding, though not necessarily 'the most outstanding' in the continents they represent.]

For now we can only conclude that this decision clearly reflects Pope Francis's personal style. Which is decidedly different from his post-Vatican II predecessors. A style that seems pervaded with spontaneity and which consciously 'breaks' with the Roman tradition of the Papacy that was maintained even by the last two non-Italian Popes.

In the first month, for example, starting with Paul VI to Benedict XVI, the new Bishop of Rome made it a point to meet with 'his' priests, the clergy of Rome. Pope Francis has not done that so far. ][In fairness to him, maybe it's because the Bishop of Rome, then Benedict XVI, just held his annual meeting with the Roman clergy in February, the month it traditionally takes place.]

He spoke about priesthood in general at the Chrismal Mass of Maundy Thursday, but he has never spoken about the ecclesial life in the Diocese of Rome. Which is quite strange when one thinks that his first words to the public after he was elected referred to the relationship between a Bishop - in his case, Bishop of Rome - and his people. Words that he repeated when he took possession of the Cathedral of Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano, but only as a greeting, a sentiment that he has yet to flesh out.

Paul VI told the Roman clergy on his first meeting with them: "No historical period has perhaps been historically so alienated and opposed - by temperament or by a well-considered stand - to priesthood and its religious mission, as the present is. At the same time, no other era has shown itself to be so much in need of priests, and therefore we might say - almost as if we see a great hope opening before us - susceptible to pastoral assistance from good and zealous priests".

Twenty-two years later, Benedict XVI would pick up the theme with extreme concreteness in addressing the Roman priests gathered at the Lateran: "Dear priests, the quality of your lives and your pastoral service seem to indicate that in this diocese as in many other dioceses of the world, we have left behind us that crisis of identity which overcame so many priests in recent decades. But still very much present are the causes of the spiritual desert that afflict the men of our time, and consequently undermine the Church which lives in mankind. How can we not fear that it can also be insidious to the life of priests? It is therefore indispensable to always return anew to the root of our priesthood. And this root, we all know, is just one: Our Lord Jesus Christ".

John Paul II first met with the Roman clergy, as well as seminarians and lay pastoral workers, at the Lateran in November 1978. He said: "In the framework of this wonderful encounter of the old with the new, I wish today, as the new Bishop of Rome, to begin my ministry towards the People of God in this city and this diocese, which became, through peter's mission, the first in the great family of the Church, in the family of sister dioceses. The essential content of this ministry is the commandment of charity: that commandment which makes us, men, friends of Christ. 'You are my friends if you do what I command you to do' (Jn 15,14).

When he took possession of the Lateran Basilica months after he became Pope, Papa Montini expressed his affection for his diocese on November 11, 1963: "Everyone seems to understand our spiritual and affectionate interest, if we think of the People of this great, good and dear community, which we consider ours more than anything else: non enim quaero quae vestra sunt, sed vos - I wish for nothing, except for you"(2Cor,12,14). You who are Romans - Romans of yesterday and for always. Romans by origin and by birth. Know that we have great esteem and trust in you. You who come from the ancient streets of Rome, from her old houses, from the traditional institutions of the city, you from Trastevere and other neighborhoods. We know the goodness that is in your soul and your customs. We know that you are fundamentally faithful to your religion and to the Church. We hope that you will always love the Pope. Indeed, we hope that you will heed and obey when we tell you that today, we must revive your religious and moral patrimony, and instill new enthusiasms and new virtues into your lives".

Even John Paul I, who was Pope for only 33 days, met the Roman clergy shortly after his installation as Pope. On Sept 7, 1978, he spoke to them of the discipline of priesthood and what it means to love one's job: "I know. I tis not easy to love one's job and stick to it when things are not going well, when inevitable confrontations come in the course of asking others to do their part. But aren't we working for the Lord?"

Even the Bishop of Rome, like every priest, must love his job, which is certainly not an easy one. [Pope Francis obviously does - and is enjoying it immensely! Even as he has seemed to be re-inventing it to be custom-made to his personal preferences and to his measure.]

Pope Francis has greeted his diocese of Rome just once so far, from the central loggia of the Lateran, with spontaneous words, starting with his characteristic "Brothers and sisters, good evening!"

"I thank you so much for your presence at the Mass today. Thank you so much! I ask you to pray for me - I need it. Do not forget this. Thanks to you all. Let us go forward together, the people and the bishop, all together. Ever onward with the joy of Jesus's resurrection. He is always at our side."

But the people of Rome are still waiting to truly meet him, to feel that Francis loves Rome as Peter did.

And there are also those who still hope that the lights on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace will once again be on at night. From there, the Popes have looked upon the Eternal City, and as John Paul II recalled, blessed the city every night.

P.S. It just occurred to me that, apart from his general wishes for peace around the world, with emphasis on some trouble spots in his Easter Urbi et Orbi message, Pope Francis has so far not directed any specific messages either to the people of Larin America nor to the rest of the Third World (Africa and Asia) where the world's most deprived people live.

Shortly after Benedict XVI's apostolic and state visit to Scotland and England in September 2010, Vaticanista Paolo Rodari wrote this commentary on the five years of the Pontificate that had elapsed at that time. Rodari was writing for Il Foglio then, and he is now writing for the arch anti-Benedict, anti-Church media institution in Italy, La Repubblica. He has also just published the second Italian insta-book about Pope Francis, after that of Andrea Tornielli, with whom he co-wrote the book ATTACCO A RATZINGER which presented the major attack lines against Benedict XVI and an analysis of these. Apropos, Tornielli has been one of the great disappointments for me with the dawn of the new Pontificate because he has turned into one of the leading cheerleaders for Pope Francis, a choice to which he is completely and rightfully entitled, of course. But one cannot help thinking it also has to do with the fact that he came out with the first instabook on Pope Francis which has been translated into several languages by now. It explains but does not excuse his partisanship and his participation in the media's collective amnesia about Benedict XVI. Especially since years before, he also wrote an instabook on Benedict XVI... Nonetheless, here is Rodari's encomium of Benedict XVI back in 2010. Even if it concentrates only on Benedict XVI's 'style' rather than on the achievements of the Pontificate, it shows how the Italian Vaticanistas generally regarded the emeritus Pope before he became totally eclipsed by his predecessor in their consciousness... All the more striking because the style they once praised so much as a sign of Benedict XVI's personal humility is very different from the necessarily attention-getting because precedent-setting style of the new Pope whom they now celebrate as the singular example and epitome of personal humility and simplicity in the Papacy. I do not mean to deny Pope Francis all the admiration and adulation he is getting for any reason, right or wrong, but simply wish to invoke fairness from those who are reporting his Pontificate.

The triumph of the ‘shy’ Pope
Five years of public success that has perplexed his critics,
from a man who deliberately withdraws himself in order
to focus attention only on Christ and his message
by PAOLO RODARI
Translated from

September 26, 2010

After the charismatic triumphalism of Karol Wojtyla, the monastic modesty of Joseph Ratzinger. Two different styles that reflect different personalities. But two styles that have produced the same result: the enthusiasm of the faithful.

The crowds applauded John Paul II’s gestures, his effective catch phrases, his theatrical impulses, at times giving the impression that they ignored what he really said. But with Benedict XVI, they follow his homilies, they listen to his discourses, they seem to hang on every word with an attention that has amazed the experts and the analysts.

Thus it happened in England and Scotland on his recent trip. “Ratzinger impressed the public as a gentle and humble man who speaks kindly ,” wrote Richard Owens in the Times of London. “with profound messages that he conveys without having to raise his voice.” Owen, who was set to retire after decades of covering the Vatican, delayed his retirement for a few weeks after the surprise announcement of Benedict XVI’s renunciation. But his coverage of Benedict XVI – as it probably was of Cardinal Ratzinger – was always adversary, He hardly ever had a good word for him, and was one of the first to perpetrate the UK media’s claim that the Pope’s red shoes were custom-made by Prada, that his sunglasses were trendy Serengetis, and other such petty and false trivia designed to portray Benedict XVI as frivolous and addicted to luxury accessories.]

More than elsewhere, Benedict XVI’s style found its fulfillment in the United Kingdom – difficult as it is to imagine before the trip that many had already branded ‘the most difficult trip’ to be undertaken by the Pope [and for which they freely dispensed their usual predictions of embarrassing failure, given the poison and vitriol in the anti-Church and anti-Benedict propaganda that had dominated the UK media in the months since his visit had been announced. Remember that this took place immediately following a spring and summer during which the most powerful of the MSM institutions – AP, the New York Times, the Spiegel publications of Germany, the BBC and all of Irish media – did all they could, not just to lay the blame on Joseph Rtaiznger for the sex abuse scandals perpetrated by a tiny fraction of the world’s 400,000 priests and the negligence of their bishops, but even to link him directly to some such scandal in the past, in an effort to get him to resign!] , 100,000 persons in Hyde Park, the heart of London, took part in near-total silence in an hour of liturgy focused on the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

[Rodari fails to point out that this ‘miracle’ of silence in Eucharistic Adoration first took place among the million youth who attended the Prayer Vigil before the concluding Mass of the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, where Benedict XVI introduced the Adoration as the main feature of the Prayer Vigil, which in previous WYDs, had mostly centered around pep talks and testimonials, interspersed with music (often pop). That this had since been repeated in WYD Sydney with an assembly of 800,000, and in other occasions such as Palermo, Malta and Prague wherever Benedict XVI held an event for young people and with young people. Of course, in 2010, no one had expected or predicted the crowd of at least 1.5 million that attended a most dramatic Prayer Vigil in Madrid for WYD 2011, where the silent Adoration took place after a freak thunderstorm that drenched everyone, including the Pope himself, and the crowd of young people knelt in the mud for the liturgy. The first instance of media amnesia about Benedict XVI was the commentary that when the crowd in St. Peter's Square the night Pope Francis was presented to the world fell silent when he asked them to join him in praying for Benedict XVI, it was 'the first time a crowd that size had ever fallen silent in prayer'. Forget the WYD Adorations even - what about all the Masses celebrated there by Benedict XVI in which, following his example, silence was observed after the homily and after Communion?

What is the secret of Joseph Ratzinger? What is his communications strategy? Just one. Which is not having any. He said so himself during the flight that took him from Rome to Edinburgh ten days ago. He was asked by Fr. Lombardi, on behalf of one of the newsmen on the flight, what Catholics could do to make the Church ‘more attractive”?

Benedict XVI’s reply: “A Church that seeks above all to be attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for herself, she does not work to increase her numbers and in doing so, to increase her power. The Church is in the service of Another, not for herself in order to make herself ‘stronger’, but to make accessible the announcement of Jesus Christ, the great truth and great power of love and of reconciliation that always come with the presence of Jesus Christ”.

This is the secret of Joseph Ratzinger, for many the ‘Panzerkardinal’, for others, ‘God’s Rottweiler’, now PoHe does not wish to ‘attract’ anyone to himself. Rather. He always steps back in order to keep the Other in center stage. This is a style that is distinctly his. Notwithstanding the thousand and one communications strategies often churned out and adopted by various ecclesiastical organisms, from the Roman Curia to the national bishops’ conferences and to particular dioceses, Benedict XVI has managed to impose his style with overwhelming authoritativeness.

His style is moderate, especially with crowds. Because every public event seems to become liturgy, for him. Indeed, outside of his Masses, his catecheses and his benedictions, Benedict XVI is a minimalist.

“The Pope should notproclaim his own ideas, but must constantly link himself and the Church to obeying the Word of God,” he said when he took possession of the Cathedral of Rome, the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, on May 7, 2005.

That is a criterion that is also his program of governance. He does all he can not to call attention to himself - center stage is never him, but ‘the essential’, namely, Jesus Christ and his living presence in the sacraments of the Church.

The first months of his Pontificate left analysts of all things Vatican at a loss for words. The crowds wuo came to his Wednesday General Audienfes and Sunday Angelus were twice as large compared to the those for John Paul II in the latter years of his Pontificate, according to statistics released by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household. .. [In fact, they were larger than the peak numbers registered during the Wojtyla years in 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee (marking the start ofr the third millennium of Christianity. One must also note that these figures are based mostly on the number of tickets that the Prefecture gives out for ticketed events, and of arbitrary estimates for the Angelus. The actual numbers are always much bigger.)].

Benedict XVI never makes gestures for effect, nor does his hammer home phrases in the manner of slogans, much less does he eoncourage applause nor acclamation. He comes to public events for the primary purpose of celebrating a liturgy and/or teaching. Even his program on apostolic trips is reduced to the minimum, almost as if avoiding anything superfluous, anything beyond the absolutely essential.

St. Peter’s Square, October 16, 2005. Benedicyt XVI has an audience for Roman children who have just received or are about to receive their First Communion. It was an unusual program, in that he would answer some questions from the children first, and then, lead them in Eucharistic Adoration. [Although the event was certainly one of the most memorable of his Pontificate because Benedict XVI showed once and for all his unique ability to express the essentials of the faith even to children without ‘dumbing down’ the message one it, it has escaped my attention till now that it was the second massive Eucharistic Adoration he had led, after Cologne in August 2005. Introducing children under 10 to a liturgy that had pretty much been abandoned by the Church since Vatican II. Surely, its re-introduction to active Church use is one of the most significant of Benedict XVI’s liturgical reforms.]

At the Vatican, some were skeptical about the program. “Quite a risk after years of youth assemblies that resembled pop music festivals more than a church event”.

The Pope arrived at Piazza San Pietro onschedule, entering in the Popemobile through the Arch of Bells. The children applauded and changed his name. The Pope acknowledged their greeting. Then he got off the Popemobile and onstage/ And he began to speak. Little by little, the crowd fell silent. The Pope was teaching them theology.
A boy asked him: “My catechist told me that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. How? I do not see him”.

The answer: “Yes, we do not seehim, but there are so many things we do not see but which exist and which are essential. For example, we do not see our own mind. But we all have a mind…”

After that Q&A, the silence became total as the Pope proceeded to the Eucharistic Adoration. He knelt in front of the Eucharist – and everyone seemed to look beyond him – in the direction he was looking. In less than half an hour, he had captured the complete attention of an assembly sui generis – 100,000 children. An occurrence that recalled WYD 2005 in Cologne. Once the Holy Father knelt before the Eucharist, the entire assembly of young people fell silent and fell to their knees themselves. A surreal silence followed that was uneasy only for the commentators on tadio and TV who did not know what to do about their ‘dead air’ – and it was to last for almost an hour.

Twenty months since Benedict XVI was elected Pope, he had become an international ‘case study’ for the mass media. White Star, a publishing house affiliated with the Ntional Geographic Society, published Benedetto XVI, l’alba di un nuovo papato Benedict XVI: The dawn of a new Papacy), by the great Italian photographer Gisnni Giansanti [who died two years ago] and Jeff Israely, Rome bureau chief for Time magazine. The book had a single purpose: to study the ‘Ratzinger case’, the reason for the success of the ‘Panzerkardinal’ who became the Successor of Peter.

Israely wrote: “The gestures of his predecessor had impressed the world. But Benedict XVI makes news with the power of his language. His words do not represent a mere intellectual exercise but are a manifestation of his own faith and humanity. The message becomes visible in the messenger”.

Around the same time, the Vaticanista of L’Espresso, Sandro Magister, wrote: “John Paul II dominated the scene. Benedict XVI offers the faithful his bare words, but is always careful to callattention only to that Someone who is beyond him.”

Perhaps it is a singular case. But one must note that in the accounts of the UK newspapers for days after the departure of the Pope, two words were most often used – success and nostalgia. The Pope’s success with the crowds: 250,000 who lined up along the Mall and the streets leading to Hyde Park for the Prayer Vigil and that Adoration with at least 100,000 faithful, was no small thing in highly secular London.

Nostalgia for his presence, as expressed by Anna Arco, then an editor at Catholic Herald, who said she was suffering from PPD – post-papal depression. Perhaps in the gigantic accumulation of articles written about Benedict XVI’s four days in the United Kingdom, there was no better way to measure the pastoral, ecclesial, spiritual and human success of the Pope’s visit.

A popular success that surprised the Pope himself, who described the visit in his report to his General Audience afterwards, that it was ‘a historic event’.

Antonio Socci wrote in Libero: “Ratzinger is not a person who uses words casually. .He explained it was historic because it had upset all predictions.” And Damian Thompson wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “The British have seen things as they are” - they saw the Pope, they heard him, and they were conquered.

There is an enigma about the crowds that Benedict XVI attracts during his trips outside Italy. An enigma in which the British are the latest protagonists. The latest to do what? To be converted ro Benedict’s side. Always predicted by the media to fail when he undertakes a trip abroad, he immediately proves them wrong the minute he arrives at his destination.

He simply wins the people over. People whom, if we were to believe the advance notices, would seem to be most hostile to him. And yet this is an enigma that keeps being replayed. A mystery that is promptly reenacted. [Rodari chooses to see ‘enigma’ and ‘mystery’ where there is none. It seems like a defense mechanism to gloss over the iron obstinacy of the media in refusing to acknowledge – despite all evidence to the contrary – that Benedict XVI has a way with crowds (nothing obvious because he is not by nature a ‘crowd pleaser’) just by being himself. It is as if he had to prove all over to them, the media, each time he made a trip abroad, that yes, the crowds are there for him, not so much for Benedict XVI but for the Pope, whoever he is, but those who come also ‘discover’ Benedict XVI for who he is and for the message he brings.]

His trips abroad have always upset the direct predictions made beforehand, even in the most unlikely places – Turkey in 2006, the United States asnd France in 2008, Israel and Jordan in 2009. But always, it is his daring that has been most striking.

In Germany in 2006, in his now celebrated Regensburg lecture, he showed that the ultimate root of religious violence was the idea of God totally detached from reason. Controversy arose. [but not because of his analysis, which the mass media completely ignored, but because he quoted a Byzantine emperor telling a Muslim scholar that the history of Islam was, in effect, linked to violence as a means of imposing the religion.] Winds of fanaticism and protests swept across the Muslim world.

Benedict XVI seemed defeated. [HOW??? The wave of protests lasted no more than two weeks – because it had been, to a large extent, artificially created, to begin with. He promptly offered an apology for any offense caused by his citation of a medieval emperor, and the ambassadors of all the Muslim states who had relations with the Holy See were summoned to Castel Gandolfo where the Vatican sought to straighten out the misdirected protests. Besides, less than a month later, he visited Turkey where his unprogrammed visit to the Blue Mosque in the company of Istanbul’s Grand Imam, with whom he stood silently in prayer, became an iconic moment for inter-religious relations that won over even the most hostile elements of the Turkish press.]

But it was thanks to that lectio magistralis that today, among leading Muslim moderates, there are voices calling for the equivalent of an Enlightenment in Islam, such as there had been in Christianity in the past few centuries. It was thanks to that lectio magistralis that there are the beginnings of a Muslim-Catholic dialog based on what the two religions have in common.

Benedict ‘s words tend to wound initially. His thinking strikes at the heart of contemporary society. By wounding, he also staunches that which he considers false. That is why his words linger – they don’t just pass away. [No one seems to think so, now, in a wave of collective willful amnesia that would have the past eight years either completely eradicated from memory or remembered only – and falsely – for being everything that is the unfavorable opposite of the new dispensation.]

Just last spring, at the General Audience, he compared the present situation of the Church to the period it underwent after the time of St, Francis. Even then, he recalled, there was a current in Christianity that invoked the era of the Spirit’ by which they meant a new Church with no hierarchy, no precepts, no dogmas. Something similar to what is invoked by Vatican II progressivists and even thoser who want a Vatican III as a ‘new beginning and rupture’. But a new beginning towards what? [SPEAKING OF BEING PROPHETIC...]

The outcome of all such movements, in the end, has simply been to create schools of mediocre thought, with few new converts to their cause, since after all, what they advocate already exists in many of the Protestant churches: abolition oF celibacy for the clergy, ordination of women priests, liberalization of sExual morals, a Church governance without the Petrine primacy.

To all of which Papa Ratzinger opposes a new way of governing the Church, illuminated by prayer [as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bovanenture advocated] . He speaks of faith. Of God. Of Jesus Christ. Of the Church in the world, in society, in the public square. Of faith in the everyday life of everyone, with its private and personal significance but also its public relevance.

He does not seek the consensus of society. He does not bow to the fashions and caprices of the world. He accepts the challenge of bringing the world the sword of the Gospel. And that is why he conquers ultimately. What he says remains.

Of course, there are those who react badly to his words, as so many media tempests during his Pontificate have demonstrated. There are those who blame him personally for all the sex abuses committed by priests and wish to arrest him for ‘crimes against humanity’. But there are those who allow themselves to be wounded by his words and begin to follow his message. And there are intellectuals who wish he would cease to speak at all, as we saw when the physics professors of La Sapienza University protested his scheduled address to open the academic year in 2009 .

But there are others – such as his audiences at Regensburg University, at the College des Bernardins in Paris, at Westminster Hall in London - who are able to overcome any initial skepticism or indifference to rise to their feet and applaud him after they have heard what he has to say.

These are Benedict XVI’s most sophisticated audiences. An audience that is specifically his. Different from the crowds of the faithful. Persons drawn from the secular worlds of culture and science – who all end up applauding the well-considered reflections of this theologian who became Pope.

“From God’s Rottweiler to the best and most-loved Pontiff” was the ttitle of an Op-Ed column by the conservative Ross Douthat in the New York Times at the peak of the media campaign seeking to force Benedict XVI to resign over the issue of sex-offender priests. It is a positive opinion shared by not a few Anglophone intellectuals during the worst days of the Pontificate [when the one person in the Church who was responsible for finally doing something about a problem that had arisen in the decades following Vatican II was being inexplicably and perversely blamed for it!]

Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker, after recalling Martin Luther amd the current crisis of culture in the Church, had words of praise for Benedict XVI [I missed that, and I must look it up!]

Also in those days, sixty French intellectuals =- philosophers, authors. university professors, artists, newamen and assorted personages – circulated and published an open statement in support of Benedict XVI. Names like Jean Luc Marion and and Remi Brague of the Institut de France [to which Joseph Ratzinger belongs, having been elected in 1992 to take the seat vacated by the death of Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, this prestigious honor destined to be one of those that will remain unique to him in the history of Popes] to less obvious ones like mathematician Laurent Lafforgue and actor Michel Lonsdale.

Ratzinger speaks to the masses of regular folk as well as to intellectuals. He has no communications strategy. Yet he says something to each ot them . He addresses their most intimate existential concerns. He has no communications strategy. He is only concerned with the truth, the truth of what Jesus Christ came to earth to achieve.

A few years ago, a book entitled Ratzinger professore was published by journalist Gianni Valente, who recounts the years of study and teaching by Ratzinger from 1946-1977 as remembered by his students and colleagues. It reiterates the fact that ffrom the very beginning, Joseph Ratzinger easily captured the attention of his students – and quite a few outsiders attracted regularly to his lectures.

How? One ex-student says, “He would recite the lecture he intended to give over the dinner table with his sister Maria, an intelligent woman who had never studied theology, and if she liked it, he considered it a sign that it would be effective”.

Another one said: “The lecture halls he used were always packed to capacity, and his students adored. him. His language was beautiful and simple. It was the language of a man of faith”.

Professor Ratzinger never flaunted academic erudition nor did he use the oratorical tones favored by professors in his time. He presented his lectures plainly, with language of limpid cimplicity even for the most complex of questions. Many years later, he would say of his work: “I never sought to create my own system, my own particular theology. Specifically, it was simply because all I wanted to do was to think with the Church, and this meant, above all, with the great thinkers of the faith”.

His students perceived through his lectures not just that they were receiving academic knowledge but that they were entering something great – the heart of the Christian faith itself. And that was the secret ‘formula’ of the young professor of theology who proved to be such a magnet to students.

It has remained the secret to his auccess as Pope: never to make himself the center of attention but always and only the living heart of the Christian faith – Jesus, Son of God.

Which leads to his most important ‘secret formula’: the lack of any communications strategy. Because Benedict XVI is not seeking consensus.

The following is obviously written by someone who is not enamoured of Pope Francis, so we must consider his bias, even as we consider the valid points he makes.

The liturgical novelties
of Pope Francis are not Franciscan
by Mattia Rossi
Translated from

April 12, 2013

Among the most recent novelties of the newborn Bergoglian Pontificate, besides the recent appointment of the Franciscan superior-general Franccisco Carballo as secretary of the Vatican congregation in charge of religious orders, we noted during the enthronement of the new Bishop of Rome at the Lateran Basilica last Sunday, the return of the silver papal staff originally designed for Paul XVI by the sculptor Lello Scorzelli and used by John Paul II during his long Pontificate, as well as by Benedict XVI before he replaced it with a replica of Blessed Pius IX's 19th-century staff. [It was a gift to Benedict XVI by the Circolo San Pietro, one of the traditional Roman societies dedicated to the service of the Pope and St. Peter's Basilica.]

In Monday's issue of Corriere della Sera, an enthusiastic Alberto Melloni greeted the decision, observing that "the psychosis of traditionalists had erupted against the Scorzelli staff who see in everything the obsessions that inhabit their souls". Hurray, hurray???

Well, let us consider some facts, above all, the uninterrupted wish of Pope Francis to give demagogic signs of discontinuity manifested precisely in the renunciation or substitution of habits and symbols. No ceremonial mozzetta (symbol of the authority of the Vicar of Christ), his own steel pectoral cross, no red shoes (symbol of Peter's martyrdom), no homilies delivered from Peter's Chair (even if Christ himself always preached, seated), no chasubles resurrected from previous Popes, and now, not Benedict XVI's staff either [perhaps because it is gold-plated, and gold must be abjured?]

In fact, the emeritus Pope was quite the 'inconvenient' Pope - this is the message we keep getting. The 'terrible' German Pope who respected his predecessor enough not to immediately cast off his liturgical practices and took years to introduce his liturgical changes.

So in the early years we saw him with some rather bizarre chasubles, the 'kilometric' version of the pallium [introduced for Benedict's installation Mass by Papa Wojtyla's master of liturgical ceremonies Mons. Piero Marini], and the Scorzelli staff.

Gradually, Papa Ratzinger moved into the use of liturgical vestments used by past Popes not for mere aestheticism, as maintained today by those who praise the desirability of exterminating any traditional liturgical accessory. He did it to make visible the continuity of the lex orandi, the Church's practice of liturgy.

He did it to underscore that there ought not to be a 'before' and 'after' in liturgy: the vestments, the language. Gregorian chant, and even the Pope's staff, remaining as the same as they have been just as the Church remains the same. [Not really that the Church remains the same - it must be renewed in continuity with Tradition, which means keeping those traditional elements that express the faith and do no harm!]

But what has been happening in the past month is precisely the desire of the new Bishop of Rome to underscore his discontinuity from his predecessor of whom the Pius IX papal staff was the last accessory that must be jettisoned.

Finally, let it not be said that all this 'simplification' is in the name of Franciscanism. The Poverello of Assisi knew well to remind his followers of the distinction between personal poverty and the luxury of worship.

In his first letter to the custodians of the order, Francis admonished: "The chalices, the ornaments of the altar and everything that serves during the Sacrifice of the Mass must be of precious materials. And if in any place, the Most Holy Body of the Lord should be found in a manner that is unworthy, the Church commands us that it must be kept in a precious place and carried with great veneration while being administered with great discretion".

Francis's first biographer, Tommaso da Celano, narrates that Francis had wanted his friars to go out to the world with the Eucharist in precious ciboria "in a manner most worthy of the cost of redemption, wherever they found the Sacrament kept indecorously".

A Franciscan concept of liturgy which seems to be disappearing in a wave of para-Franciscan practices.


P.S. Thanks to Beatrice for pointg this out:
Mons. Marini's office says
Pope Francis will alternate
using the 2 papal staffs

The Office of p[a[al Liturgical Celebrations has clarified that Pope Francis will be alternating the use of the Scorzelli pastoral staff with that of the Pius IX-Benedict XVI staff. The clarification ends an article on the papal staff - ferula - on the webpage of the office led by Mons. Guido Marini. [Since the entry ends with a picture of Pope Francis with the Scorzelli ferula on April 7, it must have been posted after the ensuing brouhaha]

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20091117_ferula_it.html

It explains, among other things, that the original staff from Blessed Pius IX was given to him by the Circolo San Pieto as a gift on the 50th anniversary of his episcopal ordination in 1877. Benedict XVI first used it on Palm Sunday in 2008, and then, at the First Vespers of Advent in 2009, started using a new staff modelled after Pius IX's staff and presented to him as a gift by the same Circolo San Pietro.

April 14, Third Sunday of Easter

BLESSED PEDRO GONZALEZ (popularly, SAN TELMO) (Spain, born ca 1190, died 1246), Dominican, Preacher, Patron saint of sailors
One day in the early 13th century, Pedro Gonzalez rode his horse into the Spanish city of Astorga in the 13th century to take up an important post secured him by a bishop-uncle at the cathedral. The animal stumbled and fell, leaving him in the mud and onlookers amused. Humbled, he re-examined his life and started down a new path. He became a Dominican priest and proved to be a most effective preacher. He spent much of his time as court chaplain and confessor to the King of Leon, attempting to exert positive influence on the behavior of members of the court. After King Ferdinand III and his troops defeated the Moors at Cordoba, Peter was successful in restraining the soldiers from pillaging and persuaded the king to treat the defeated Moors with compassion. After leaving the court, Peter devoted the remainder of his life to preaching in Galicia and the coastal areas of northwest Spain and northern Portugal, where he developed a special mission for Spanish and Portuguese seamen. He died in 1246 and was beatified in 1741, He is buried in the cathedral of Tui, Galicia. While he was never formally canonized, he has been venerated in the Hispanic world as San Telmo (a contraction of of Santo Elmo, Spanish for Erasmus), after a 3rd-century martyr-bishop who was known as the patron saint of sailors). Today, ‘San Telmo’ is commonly associated with the district of Buenos Aires named after him, where the tango was born.
Readings for today’s Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041413.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Regina caeli - Pope Francis today reflected on the Gospel reading today from the ACts of the Apostles
regarding the first preaching of the Apostles, saying their personal experience with the crucified and risen
Christ made them fearless, to the point of welcoming persecution as a badge of honor. He called on the faithful
to pray for all Christians who are persecuted today.

Mass at St. Paul outside the Walls - In the afternoon, the Pope visited the basilica for the first time
as Pope, prayed at the tomb of St. Paul, and concelebrated Mass with the Arch-Priest of the Basilica, Cardinal
James Harvey, and the two emeritus Arch-Priests, Cardinals Lanza di Montezemolo and Monterisi, and the abbot
of the Benedictine Abbey in the Basilica. Afterwards, he visited the Chapel of the Crucified One with its
13th-century icon of the Madonna before which St. Ignatius of Loyola and his first Jesuit members professed
their priestly vows in 1541.


Onr year ago today...
Tribute to a little-known Christian relic

The Vatican released the text of a letter written by Pope Benedict XVI to theshop of Trier, Germany, for the 500th anniversary of the initial exposition in Trier of a relic believed to have been the Sacred Tunic of Christ that the Roman centurions had tossed coins for.



Pope's message on 5th centenary
of the 'Holy Robe' in Trier
Translated from

April 14, 2012

From April 13 to May 13 this year, the Cathedral of Trier in southwestern Germany is holding an exposition of the Holy Robe (Heilig Rock) ['Rock' is the German word for robe] to mark the fifth centenary of its first public exposition.


Photos are from the opening day rites of the pilgrimage, led by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Pope's special envoy to the celebration; the stamp was issued by the German Post Office in 1959.

[According to tradition, the Empress Dowager Helena brought the seamless robe of Christ to Trier, where her son Constantine the Greta had lived for some time. The Holy Robe is mentioned for the first time in the 11th century, but its history is documented with certainty only from the 12th century, when it was removed from the west choir of the Trier cathedral to the new altar in the east choir on May 1, 1196. Trier, established in 16 BC, is considered the oldest city in Germany, and Trier cathedral, built 1700 years ago, is considered the oldest in Europe (it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986).]

Here is the message (translated from German) sent by the Holy Fahter Benedict XVI to the Bishop of Trier, Mons. Stephan Ackermann, on the opening of the pilgrimage month yesterday:

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My Venerated Brother
Stephan Ackermann
Bishop of Trier

In these days the Holy Robe will be on public exposition at the great Cathedral of Trier exactly 500 years since its first public exposition, when, at the wish of Kaiser Maximilian, Archbishop Richard von Greffenklau presented it at the opening of the main altar.

On this special occasion, I come in spirit as a pilgrim to the ancient and venerable episcopal city of Trier, and count myself among the ranks of the faithful who will be making this pilgrimage in the coming weeks.

To you, Excellency, to our confreres in episcopal service, the priests and deacons, members of religious orders, and al who have gathered for the opening of the pilgrimage to Trier, I assure you of the unity and spiritual closeness of the Successor of Peter.

Since that first exposition in 1512, the Holy Robe has drawn the faithful because this relic renders present one of the most dramatic moments in Jesus's earthly life, his death on the Cross.

The division among the soldiers of the garments stripped from the Crucified One may seem to be just a sidelight to which the synoptic Gospels make a fleeting reference.

But the evangelist John develops this episode with a certain solemnity. He is the only one who calls attention to the tunic which "was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down" (19,23). He makes the event clear to us and helps us, thanks to this relic, to look with faith at the mystery of salvation.

This undergarment, John tells us, is of one piece. The soldiers, who, according to Roman practice, could share the possessions of the crucified victims like bounty, did not want to tear up the robe. They drew lots for it, and thus it remained intact.

The Fathers of the Church see in this a symbol of the unity of the Church, which is founded by Christ's love as one indivisible community. The Holy Robe makes all this visible to us. The Lord's love brings together all that is divided. The Church is one in many. Christ did not dissolve the plurality of mankind, but unites them to be for one another and with each other as Christians should be, so that they may become themselves, in various ways, mediators for each other with God.

The tunic of Christ was "woven in one piece from the top down" (Jn 19,23). This is another image for the Church, which lives not of herself but from God. As a community that is one and indivisible, she is the work of God, not the product of men and their abilities.

The Holy Robe is also a reminder to the Church to remain true to her origin, to be aware that her unity, her consensus, her effectiveness, her witness, can only be created from on high - they can be given only by God. And only after Peter professed, "You are the Christ" (cfr Mt 16,16), did he receive the authority "to bind and unloose", and with it, the mission to serve the unity of the Church.

Finally, the Holy Robe is not a toga, nor an elegant garment that expresses social status. It is an undergarment which serves to cover and protect the wearer, preserving his privacy. This garment is the undivided gift of the Crucified one to the Church which he sanctified through his Blood. And so, the Holy Robe reminds us of the Church's intrinsic worth.

But how often do we see on what fragile vessels (cfr 2Cor 4,7) we carry this treasure that the Lord entrusted to the Church, and how, because of our selfishness, weaknesses and errors, the integrity of the Body of Christ is wounded.

Thus we need a constant disposition to conversion and to humility, in order to follow our Lord in love and truth. At the same time, the dignity and integrity of the Church cannot and must not be surrendered to the summary judgment of public opinion.

The Jubilee Pilgrimage has the motto - and yes, an invocation to the Lord - "to join together what is separated". So we must not remain in isolation. We ask the Lord to lead us on a common journey of faith and to make the contents of the faith live anew in us.

Thus, as Christians grow together in faith, in prayer, and in witness, we may also know, amidst the trials of our time, the magnificence and goodness of the Lord.

And so I impart the Apostolic Blessing from the heart to you and to everyone who will be visiting Trier in these celebratory days of pilgrimage.

From the Vatican
Good Friday
April 6, 2012

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