BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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".