BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

This was one of Pope Francis's few non-routine events in recent days, and I ought to have posted this story earlier (I took note of it in the May 21 almanac posting). It took place the afternoon of May 21, so even Vatican Radio's report of it did not appear until the following day. Besides the nature of the event, my attention was particularly caught by the fact that the Pope had a prepared text for the occasion, one at which I had expected he would speak off the cuff to an audience of sisters, volunteers, soup kitchen guests and overnight wards of the facility.

Pope Francis visits Vatican
soup kitchen and shelter

May 22, 2013


Pope Francis visited the Dono di Maria (Gift of Mary) soup kitchen and women’s shelter run by the Missionaries of Charity on Tuesday evening, May 21, to mark the 25th anniversary of the facility's opening in the Vatican.

In remarks to staff and guests, the Holy Father praised the work of the sisters, noting the many mouths they have fed, and the wounds both spiritual and bodily, that they have helped to heal. “In these years,” said Pope Francis, “like the good Samaritan, you have so many times bent down to [serve] those in need."

The facility is inside the walls of Vatican city, situated in the vicinity of the building that houses the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Aula Paolo VI. The house feeds roughly 60 people every day, and offers overnight accommodation to 25 women...

Here is a translation of his brief address (which, for some reason, Vatican Radio's English service chose not to translate). It is structured according to his now familiar 'three points' format:

---

Dear brothers and sisters, good evening.

I extend an affectionate greeting to all of you, most especially to you, dear guests of this home, which is yours above all, because it was conceived and instituted for you.

I thank those who, in various ways, have been sustaining this beautiful reality in the Vatican. My presence this evening is above all in sincere gratitude to the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who have been working here for 25 years, with numerous volunteers, in behalf of so many persons who need help. I thank you from the heart.

You, dear sisters of Charity, along with your co-workers, made visible the love of the Church for the poor. With your daily service, you are, as a Psalm says, the hand of God that sates the fame of every living person (cfr Ps 145,16).

In these years, how many times have you bent down to help the needy, like the good Samaritan, you have looked them in the eye, you have given them a hand to lift them up. How many wounds, especially spiritual ones, you have bound up!

Today, I wish to dwell on three words that are familiar to you: home, gift and Mary.

1. This structure, conceived and inaugurated by Blessed John Paul II, and it is something that involves saints, between two Blesseds - John Paul II and Teresa of Calcutta. Holiness is bound to this place - and that is beautiful.

This is a 'home'. And when we say 'home', we mean a place of welcome, a dwelling, a human environment where one feels well, where one can find himself, feel himself part of a territory, a community.

Even more profoundly, 'home' is a word that is typically familial, that connotes warmth and affection, the love that one can experience in a family. Thus, 'home' represents the most precious human richness, that of encounter, of relations among persons who are of different ages, cultures and backgrounds, but who live together to help each other grow.

Because of this, home is a decisive place for life, where life grows and can be realized, because it is a place in which every person learns and receives love and to give love. This is what home is. And this is what this home has sought to be for 25 years.

On the boundary between the Vatican and Italy, it is a strong reminder to all of us, to the Church, to the city of Rome, to be ever more a family, a home where everyone is open to hospitality, to attention, to brotherhood.

2. Then there is a second very important word: the word 'gift' which describes this home and defines its characteristic identity. It is a home, in fact, that is characterized by giving, by reciprocal giving.

What does that mean? It means it provides hospitality, material and spiritual support for you, dear guests, who come from various parts of the world. But you yourselves are a gift to this home and to the Church. You tell us that to love God and one's neighbor is not something abstract but is profoundly concrete: It mans seeing in every person the face of the Lord to be served, and served concretely.

And you are, dear brothers and sisters, the face of Jesus. Thank you. You are giving the possibility to all who work in this place to serve Jesus in those who are in difficulty, who are in need of help.

This home then is a luminous transparency of the love of God, who is a good and merciful Father to all. Here, one experiences an open hospitality, without distinction of nationality and religion, according to the teaching of Jesus: "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give" (Mt 10,8).

We must recover the entire meaning of giving, of gratuitous giving, of solidarity. Savage capitalism has taught us the logic of profit at any cost, of giving in order to obtain, of exploitation without considering persons - and we see the results in the crisis we are experiencing.

This home is a place that educates us to charity a 'school' of charity, which teaches us to go forth and meet every person, not for profit, but for love. And this is something beautiful.

I am happy that seminarians from around the world come here to have a direct experience of serving others. These future priests can therefore live concretely an essential aspect of the mission of the Church and treasure the experience for their own pastoral ministry.

3. Finally, this home has a third characteristic - it is called a gift of Mary. The Blessed Virgin made of her existence an incessant and precious gift to God because she loved the Lord. Mary is an example and stimulus for all of us, to live in charity towards our neighbor, not out of social obligation, but prompted by love of God, by God's own charity.

And as we afrom Mother Mary Prema [the German-born Superior of the Missionaries of Charity], Mary is she who brings us to Jesus and teaches us how to go to him. The Mother of Jesus is our mother, and is part of the family we have in Jesus.

For us, Christians, love for neighbor comes from love of God and is its most limpid expression. Here, one seeks to love one's neighbor, but also to be loved by him. These two attitudes go together, there cannot be one without the other.

The letterhead of the Missionaries of Charity carry these words of Jesus: "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25,40). To love God in our brothers is to love our brothers in God.

Dear friends, thanks once again to each of you. I pray that this home may continue to be a place of hospitality, of giving, of charity, in the heart of our city of Rome. May the Virgin watch over you always, and let my blessing be with you. Thank you.

---

Pope Benedict XVI made a similar but more extensive visit to the home on January 4, 2008, on the 20th anniversary year of the Dono di Maria. Here is an account of that visit.

Benedict XVI visits Vatican 'home'
run by the Missionaries of Charity




VATICAN CITY, January 4, 2008 (Translated from Apcom) - At 11 a.m. today, the Holy Father visited the Casa 'Dono di Maria' of the Missionaries of Charity at the Vatican. He was welcomed by the novices with an Indian dance, and by the Regional Superior Sister Maria Pia; the outgoing Mother Superior, Sr. Mark; and the new superior, Sr. Agnes-Marie.

The Pope proceeded to the women's dining hall, where, after welcome words by Sr. Mark. he gave the following address, translated here:

---

Dear friends,

I have come to visit you at the start of the new year while we still breathe the familiar atmosphere of Christmas, and I take this occasion to express to all my most fervent and heartfelt wishes.

I greet everyone present with affection, including those who are able to follow us by television linkage and are thus united with us in this house called "Gift of Mary'.

For so many years, when I was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was able to spend several hours on many occasions at your praiseworthy institution which was realized by my venerated predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II, and entrusted by him to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

I was therefore able to appreciate the generous service of evangelical charity which the Missionaries of Charity have rendered for almost 20 years now with the aid and collaboration of so many people of goodwill.

Today, I am here among you to renew my gratitude to the sisters, the volunteers and their various co-workers.

I am here above all to show my spiritual closeness to you, dear friends, who find in this home a loving welcome, listening ears, understanding, and daily sustenance, material as well as spiritual. I am here to tell you that the Pope loves you and feels close to you.

I thank the Superior of the Missionaries of Charity who is ending her service here and who expressed kind words towards me in your behalf . And I greet the new Superior who is taking on responsibility for this home with that obedient willingness which is typical of the spiritual children of Mother Teresa.

When this house was born, the Blessed Teresa wanted it called 'Gift of Mary' almost as a wish that here, the love of the Blessed Virgin may always be felt. For anyone who knocks at your door, it is, in fact, a gift of Mary, to feel the welcome from the loving arms of the sisters and volunteers.

Also a gift of Mary is the presence of persons who stay and listen to those who are in difficulty and serve them with the same attitude that led the Mother of the Lord to hurry promptly to St. Elizabeth.

May this style of evangelical love seal and distinguish your vocation always, so that besides material aid, you may also communicate to those whom you encounter daily the same passion for Christ and that luminous 'smile of God' that inspired the existence of Mother Teresa.

She liked to say that it is Christmas everytime we allow Jesus to love others through us. Christmas is the mystery of love, the mystery of his love. The Christmas season, which presents the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem for our contemplation, shows us the infinite goodness of God who, by making himself a Baby, comes to respond to the need and loneliness of men. He did not hesitate to carry with us the burden of existence, with its difficulties and concerns.

He was born for us, to offer - to whoever opens the door of his heart - the gift of his joy, his peace, his love. Born in a cave because there was no room for him anywhere else, Jesus knew the discomforts that many of you have experienced.

Christmas helps us to understand that God never abandons us and always comes to us, protects us and cares about each of us, because every person, especially the least and the most helpless, is precious to the eyes of a Father rich with kindness and mercy. For us and for our salvation, he sent to the world His son whom we contemplate in the mystery of Christmas as Emmanuel, God-with-us.

With these thoughts, I renew to all my most fervent wishes for the new year that has just begun, assuring you of daily remembrance in my prayers.

As I invoke the maternal protection of Mary, Mother of Christ and ours, I grant my blessing to all with affection.

---

The Pope then personally greeted each of the vagrants and homeless who are beneficiaries of the House, and at the homeless shelter which currently has 70 women, most of them immigrants.

"I am here to tell you the Pope loves you all and is close to you, he told them."

Sister Agnes-Marie, who recently took over as Mother Superior of the House, said, "Some of our homeless have mental problems, and others are alcoholics, and we try our best to deal with their specific problems. We share the entire day with them, and they have moments of prayer," she informed the Pope.

Specifically, the nuns and the volunteers have prayers three times a day in the House Chapel, where next to the Crucifix is Blessed
Teresa's signature motto "I thirst".



After visiting the sick at the House, the Pope went to the adjacent Church of San Salvatore-in-Ossibus, to meet with the entire community of the Missionaries of Charity in Rome, led by Fr. Robert Conroy, their Superior General, and Fr. Sebastian Vazhakala, Superior-General of the contemplative brothers of the order, along with their lay co-workers. Sr. Maria Pia, regional superior, read a greeting from Sister Nirmala, who succeeded Mother Teresa at the head of the order, after which the Pope gave this address:

---

Dear brothers and dear sisters,

I greet you with affection and I thank you for your warm welcome. I ask you to extend to Sr. Nirmala my most heartfelt greeting, assuring her and the Congregation of my prayers.

I am glad to meet the Superiors General of both branches of the family founded by the Blessed Teresa - the Missionaries of Charity and the Contemplative Brothers.

I also greet your lay co-workers and others invited here today, extending my appreciation to those who lend your services here so that every person who comes here may feel at home.

Together, you form a chain of Christian charity without which this House, like any other volunteer mission, could not exist and continue to alleviate so many forms of discomfort and need. Thus, my acknowledgment and encouragement go to each of you, because I know that whatever you do here for every brother and sister, you are doing for Christ himself.

The visit which I wished to make today links to those numerous visits made by my beloved predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II. He wanted very much the presence of this House of welcome for the poorest, here at the center of the Church itself, next to Peter who served, followed and loved Jesus, our Lord.

Our meeting today comes almost 20 years after the construction and inauguration of this house within the Leonine walls. John Paul II inaugurated the "gift of Mary' House on May 21, 1988. Since then, how many gestures of sharing and concrete charity have been performed within these walls! They are a sign and an example for Christian communities so that they may always be welcoming and open.

The beautiful name of this House, 'Gift of Mary', invites us at the start of the new year, to tirelessly make a gift of our life. May the Virgin Mary, who offered all of herself to the Almighty and was filled with every grace and blessing with the coming of the Son of God, teach us to make of our existence a daily offering to God the Father, in the service of our brothers and in listening to his word and his will.

Like the Holy Magi who came from afar to adore the Messiah-King, go forth yourselves, dear brothers and sisters, through the roads of the world, following the example of Mother Teresa, always testifying with joy to the love of Jesus, specially towards the least and the poorest, and from heaven, may your blessed founder accompany and protect you.

To you who are present here, to the guests of the House and all those who work with you, I renew my Apostolic Blessing from the heart.

---

Thursday, May 23, 2013, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Paintings are by Rubens, 1607, and by Murillo, 1678.
ST. FELIX DA CANTALICE (Italy, 1515-1587), Capuchin, Mystic
Felix was a farmhand and shepherd until he was 28 when he finally was accepted into the Franciscan order after several failed attempts.
Three years after joining the order, he was assigned to the convent in Rome as the official beggar, a post he would carry out for 42
years until his death. He would become the first Capuchin to be canonized, the first of many Franciscans who would achieve sainthood
from the lowly position of official beggar. During his begging rounds, he shared what he had with the poor, had the gift of converting
sinners, catechized street children by teaching them simple hymns that he made up spontaneously, and came to be known as the
'apostle of Rome', and 'Brother Deo gratias' because he thanked God all the time. He became a friend of Phillip Neri, who had set up
his Rome Oratory as an agency for priests to help the poor. When Charles Borromeo sought Neri's help to revise the charter of the
Oblates, Neri referred him to Felix. He gave spiritual counsel to a fellow Franciscan who would become Pope Sixtus V. It is said
that while praying before a statue of the Madonna, she came down to let him hold the Baby Jesus in his arms, whence the most common
depiction of him. When Felix died, so many people packed the church for his funeral that they had to cut open a door to allow an
orderly exit. Attesting to have knowledge of 18 miracles attributed to Felix while he lived, Sixtus V would have wished him canonized
by acclamation but he died before this could happen. Felix was eventually canonized in 1712. He is buried in the Capuchin church
on the Via Veneto best known for its underground ossuary, in which the skulls and bones of some 4,000 Capuchins who died between
1500-1870 have been fashioned into baroque and rococo-style adornments in five crypt chapels.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052313.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- H.E. Mauricio Funes Cartagena, President of the Republic of El Salvador, and his delegation

- Members of the Executive Board of the Commission of Bishops in the European Community (COMECE) led by
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich-Freising, as President.

- Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan.

In the evening, Pope Francis addressed the Italian Bishops' Conference at the opening of their 65th
Plenary Assembly in St. Peter's Basilica, where he led them in a Profession of Faith for the Year of Faith.
Here is Vatican Radio's English translation of his remarks:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/23/pope_leads_italian_bishops_in_profession_of_faith/en1-695043

The Vatican also released the text of a letter from Pope Francis to Cardinal Agostino Vallini, naming him
to a second five-year term as Vicar of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome, at the expiration of Vallini's
first term. He was named Vicar of Rome by Benedict XVI in 2008. He is the first Benedict appointee to be
formally reconfirmed by Francis.


One year ago...

Continuing his catecheses on prayer in the Letters of St. Paul at his weekly general audience, Benedict XVI said the Apostle teaches us that Christian prayer is not simply our own work, but primarily that of the Spirit, who cries out in us and with us to the Father...Later in the day, he watched a 2007 film from India entitled 'Dharma'
which espouses the teachings of Hinduism in the story of a rigidly Hindu man adopting an orphaned Muslim child as his own.



GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY
'Holy Spirit enables us to address
God as Father the way Jesus did'
May 23, 2012




Here is a translation of the catechesis:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last Wednesday I spoke about how St. Paul says the Holy Spirit is the great teacher of prayer, who teaches us to address God with the affectionate term that children use, calling him 'Abba', Father.

That is what Jsaus did even at the most tragic moment of his earthly life. He never lost trust in the Father whom he always addressed with the intimacy of a beloved son.

At Gethsemane, when he felt the anguish of imminent death, his prayer was: "Abba! Father! all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will" (Mk 14,36).

From the very first steps of her journey, the Church has accepted this invocation and made it her own, especially in the Lord's Prayer, in which we say daily, "Our Father... they will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6,9-10).

In the letters of St. Paul we find it twice. The Apostle as we heard just now [The Gospel readings relevant to the catechesis are read aloud before the Pope begins the catechesis], addresses the Galatians with these words: "As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'" (Gal 4,6).

And in the center of that hymn to the Holy Spirit that is Chapter 8 of the Letter to the Romans, St, Paul says: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father!'" (Rm 8,15).

Christianity is not a religion of fear, but of trust and love for the Father who loves us. These two dense affirmations speak to us of the sending of the Holy Spirit and his acceptance by us.

The Holy Spirit is the gift of the Risen Lord, making us God's children in Christ, the only begotten Son, and placing us in a filial relation with God, a relationship of profound trust, like that of children. A filial relationship analogous to that of Jesus, though the origin is different as is the weight.

Jesus is the eternal son of God who became flesh - whereas we become children in him, in time, through faith and the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Thanks to these two sacraments, we are immersed in the Paschal mystery of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the precious and necessary gift that makes us children of God, which makes real that filial adoption to which all human beings are called, because, as the divine blessing in the Letter to the Ephesians specifies, God, in Christ, "chose us before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ" (Eph 1,4-5).

Perhaps man today cannot perceive the beauty, the grandeur and the profound comfort found in the word 'Father' with which we can turn to God in prayer, because especially today, the father figure is often not present enough, and often, too, not sufficiently positive in daily life.

The absence of the father, the problem of a father who is not present in the life of a child, is a great problem of our time. So it becomes difficult to understand in its profundity what it means to say that God is a father for us.

From Jesus himself, from his filial relationship with God, we can learn what 'father' really means, the true nature of our Father who is in heaven.

Critics of religion have said that to speak of the Father, of God, would simply be a projection of our fathers to heaven. But it is the contrary which is true: In the Gospel, Christ shows us who is the Father and how a true father is, so that we can grasp what true fatherhood is, learn what it is.

Let us think of Jesus's words in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father" (Mt 5,44-45).

And it is really the love of Jesus, the only-begotten Son - who gives himself on the Cross - that reveals to us the true nature of the Father: He is Love, and even we, in our prayer as children, enter into this circuit of love, love of God who purifies our desires, our attitudes, that are otherwise marked by being closed off, by self-sufficiency, by forms of selfishness that are typical of the old man [before salvation].

I wish to linger a bit on the fatherhood of God, so that we may warm our heart with this profound reality that Jesus has made us know fully, and so that our prayer may be nourished with it.

We can therefore say that in God, being father has two dimensions. First of all, God is our Father, because he is our Creator. Each of us, each man and woman, is a miracle of God, wanted by him and personally known to him.

When, in the Book of Genesis, it is said that the human being is created in the image of God (cfr 1,27), it expresses this very reality: God is our Father. For him, we are not anonymous beings, impersonal, but we each have a name.

There is a sentence from the PSalms that always touches me when I pray it, "Your hands made me and fashioned me", the psalmist says (Ps 119,73). Each of us can say, using this beautiful image, about our personal relationship with God: Your hands have shaped me. You conceived, created and wanted me.

But even this is not enough. The Spirit of Christ opens us to another dimension of the fatherhood of God, beyond creation, because Jesus is the 'Son' in the full sense, "of the same substance [consubstantial with] as the Father", as we profess in in the Credo.

He became a human being like us, with his Incarnation, death and resurrection. And in his turn, Jesus accepts us into his humanity and his being the Son of God, so that even we can enter into his special belonging to God.

Of course our being children of God does not have the fullness of Jesus: we must become children of God increasingly, along the journey of our entire Christian existence, growing in our following of Christ, in communion with him, in order to enter ever more intimately into a relationship of love with God the Father who sustains our life.

It is this fundamental reality which is disclosed to us when we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and he makes us turn to God calling him "Abba! Father!', entering truly [a new relationship with God] beyond creation, in our adoption with Jesus: we are truly united with God and children in a new way, in a new dimension.

I wish now to return to the two passages from St. Paul that we are considering in relation with this action of the Holy Spirit on our prayer. Even in these, there are two corresponding steps which each contains a different nuance.

In the Letter to the Galatians, in fact, the Apostle says that the Spirit cries in us "Abba! Father!". In the Letter to the Romans, he says that it is we who cry out "Abba! Father!".

St. Paul wants us to understand that Christian prayer is never - and never happens - in a unilateral sense from us to God: it is not merely our 'own action', but an expression of a reciprocal relationship in which it is God who acts first.

It is the Holy Spirit who cries out in us, and we can cry out because the impulse comes from the Holy Spirit. We cannot pray if the desire of God, our being children of God, were not inscribed in the depth of our heart.

For as long as he has existed, Homo sapiens has always been seeking God, seeking to speak to God, because God has inscribed himself in our hearts. Therefore the first initiative comes from God, and with Baptism, God acts in us again, the Holy Spirit acts in us - he is the initiator of prayer so that we can really speak to God and say Abba to him. And so, his presence opens our prayer and our life to the horizons of the Trinity and the Church.

Moreover, we understand - and this is the second point - that the prayer of the Spirit of Christ in us and ours in him, is not just an individual act, but an act of the entire Church. In praying, our heart opens up, we enter into communion not just with God but with all the children of God, because we are all one.

When we call on the Father in our interior room, in silence and in recollection, we are never alone. Whoever speaks to God is not alone. We are in the great prayer of the Church, we are part of a great symphony that the Christian community, spread throughout every part of the earth and in every time, raises to God.

Yes, the musicians and the instruments are diverse - and this is an element of richness - but the melody of praise is only one and in harmony.

Every time then that we cry out and say, "Abba! Father!" it is the Church, the entire communion of men in prayer, that sustains our invocation, and our invocation is the invocation of the Church.

This is reflected as well in the wealth of charisms, of ministries, of missions, that we carry out in the community. St. Paul writes to the Christians of Corinth: "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone" (1Cor 12,4-6).

Prayer guided by the Holy Spirit, which makes us say "Abba! Father!" with Christ and in Christ, places us into the one great mosaic of the family of God in which everyone has a place and an important role, in profound unity with all.

One last observation. We also learn to cry out "Abba1 Father!" with Mary, Mother of the Son of God. The fullness of time that St. Paul speaks about in his Letter to the Galatians (cfr 4,4), occurred when Mary said Yes, in full adherence to the will of God - "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" (Lk 1,38).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn to enjoy in our prayer the beauty of being not just friends but children of God, of being able to invoke him with the confidence and trust that a child has in the parents who love him.

Let us open our prayer to the action of the Holy Spirit so that he may cry out "Abba! Father!" in us, and so that our prayer may constantly change and convert our thinking, our action, to conform them ever more to that of the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you.

---

Yet another example of the tendency in media, even Catholic media, to report Pope Francis's words as if he were saying something marvelous and totally unheard of before from a Pope is provided by John Thavis, former CNS bureau chief in Rome, who has retired and now writes a blog for CNA, certainly one who should know better.

Pope Francis: 'The Lord has redeemed
all of us - even the atheists'
by John Thavis
from his blog for

May 22, 2013

One of the hallmarks of Pope Francis’s still-young pontificate is its emphasis on non-exclusivity. He seems convinced that the Church, in what it says and does to promote the Gospel, must broaden its appeal and expand its dialogue with others. [Excuse me, Mr. Thavis - has that reality not been obvious since Vatican II which explicitly called for it? And has inter-religious dialog not been an important concern for all Popes since then?]


Poor photo, as it is blown up from a thumbnail on the RV site.

At this morning’s Mass in the Vatican guest house, the Pope elaborated on that theme, saying that “doing good” is a principle that provides a meeting ground between Christians and non-Christians – even atheists. [Throughout the history of the Church, it has been actively debated whether good deeds alone, or faith alone, suffice to be 'saved', and some traditionalist theologian may well question Pope Francis's formulation in the next paragraph that "The Blood of Christ has redeemed us all", but not to put too fine a rhetorical point of it, we all get what he means.]

Thavis goes on to quote from Vatican Radio's partial translation of the Homily:

---

The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

---

The full Vatican Radio report on the Pope's homily yesterday can be found here:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/22/pope_at_mass:_culture_of_encounter_is_the_foundation_of_peace/en1-694445

Just to remind Mr. Thavis, here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

---

1260 Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery. Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

---

In the 1991 English edition of Cardinal Ratzinger's book Co-Workers of the Truth, he says:

---

We must always look upon other men as persons with whom we shall one day share God’s joy. We must see them as persons with whom we are called to be members of the body of Christ, with whom we shall one day sit at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at the table of Jesus Christ, as persons called to be our brothers and sisters, and to be, with us, the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, children of God.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Co-Workers of the Truth, 1991

---

And in a 1964 sermon included in the book, Joseph Ratzinger, then a university who was also involved in the then-ongoing Vatican-II, said this about salvation outside the Church, but he went further, to point out why Christians must nonetheless follow the faith Jesus taught:

---

...Everything we believe about God, and everything we know about man, prevents us from accepting that beyond the limits of the Church there is no more salvation, that up to the time of Christ all men were subject to the fate of eternal damnation.

We are no longer ready and able to think that our neighbor, who is a decent and respectable man and in many ways better than we are, should be eternally damned simply because he is not a Catholic. We are no longer ready, no longer willing, to think that eternal corruption should be inflicted on people in Asia, in Africa, or wherever it may be, merely on account of their not having "Catholic" marked in their passport.

Actually, a great deal of thought had been devoted in theology, both before and after Ignatius, to the question of how people, without even knowing it, in some way belonged to the Church and to Christ and could thus be saved nevertheless. And still today, a great deal of perspicacity is used in such reflections.

Yet if we are honest, we will have to admit that this is not our problem at all. The question we have to face is not that of whether other people can be saved and how. We are convinced that God is able to do this with or without our theories, with or without our perspicacity, and that we do not need to help him do it with our cogitations.

The question that really troubles us is not in the least concerned with whether and how God manages to save others.

The question that torments us is, much rather, that of why it is still actually necessary for us to carry out the whole ministry of the Christian faith—why, if there are so many other ways to heaven and to salvation, should it still be demanded of us that we bear, day by day, the whole burden of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical ethics?

And with that, we are once more confronted, though from a different approach, with the same question we raised yesterday in conversation with God and with which we parted: What actually is the Christian reality, the real substance of Christianity that goes beyond mere moralism? What is that special thing in Christianity that not only justifies but compels us to be and live as Christians?

...There is no answer to this that will resolve every contradiction into incontrovertible, unambivalent truth with scientific clarity. Assent to the hiddenness of God is an essential part of the movement of the spirit that we call "faith."

And one more preliminary consideration is requisite. If we are raising the question of the basis and meaning of our life as Christians, as it emerged for us just now, then this can easily conceal a sidelong glance at what we suppose to be the easier and more comfortable life of other people, who will "also" get to heaven.

We are too much like the workers taken on in the first hour whom the Lord talks about in his parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-6). When they realized that the day's wage of one denarius could be much more easily earned, they could no longer see why they had sweated all day.

Yet how could they really have been certain that it was so much more comfortable to be out of work than to work? And why was it that they were happy with their wages only on the condition that other people were worse off than they were? But the parable is not there on account of those workers at that time; it is there for our sake.

For in our raising questions about the "why" of Christianity, we are doing just what those workers did. We are assuming that spiritual "unemployment" — a life without faith or prayer—is more pleasant than spiritual service. Yet how do we know that?

We are staring at the trials of everyday Christianity and forgetting on that account that faith is not just a burden that weighs us down; it is at the same time a light that brings us counsel, gives us a path to follow, and gives us meaning.

We are seeing in the Church only the exterior order that limits our freedom and thereby overlooking the fact that she is our spiritual home, which shields us, keeps us safe in life and in death. We are seeing only our own burden and forgetting that other people also have burdens, even if we know nothing of them.

And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour.

That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because that kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.

---

And much more recently, at the Day of Dialog that, as Benedict XVI, he sponsored in Assisi in 2011, he goes beyond what unites all men of goodwill - people who do good regardless of religion - but said this about what non-believers also serve to do for Christians:

---

The absence of God leads to the decline of man and of humanity...There is a way of understanding and using religion so that it becomes a source of violence, while the rightly lived relationship of man to God is a force for peace. The denial of God corrupts man, robs him of his criteria and leads him to violence.

In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the lookout for truth, searching for God.

Such people do not simply assert: “There is no God”. They suffer from his absence and yet are inwardly making their way towards him, inasmuch as they seek truth and goodness. They are “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”.

They ask questions of both sides. They take away from militant atheists the false certainty by which these claim to know that there is no God and they invite them to leave polemics aside and to become seekers who do not give up hope in the existence of truth and in the possibility and necessity of living by it.

But they also challenge the followers of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others. These people are seeking the truth, they are seeking the true God, whose image is frequently concealed in the religions because of the ways in which they are often practised.

Their inability to find God is partly the responsibility of believers with a limited or even falsified image of God. So all their struggling and questioning is in part an appeal to believers to purify their faith, so that God, the true God, becomes accessible.

Therefore I have consciously invited delegates of this third group to our meeting in Assisi, which does not simply bring together representatives of religious institutions. Rather it is a case of being together on a journey towards truth, a case of taking a decisive stand for human dignity and a case of common engagement for peace against every form of destructive force.

---

Online searches will surely uncover similar statements of inclusion made by other Popes. With apologies to Pope Francis who is the unwitting object of much questionable commentary these days, reporters and commentators like Mr. Thavis cannot simply ignore facts to promote their current enthusiasm about a Pope they clearly consider to be original in every way, including what he says about Catholic teaching.

In the light of the above, consider the grossly uniformed (and probably maliciously biased) headline with which a secular site presented Pope Francis's homily yesterday:


P.S. Father Z comments on the homily in his blog today, and brings up the problem of the nature of these daily homilies by Pope Francis - he calls them fervorini (singular, fervorino) or sermonettes.

Pope Francis on the possibility
of salvation for atheists
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
[
23 May 2013

People are sending me notes about Pope Francis’s fervorino from Mass yesterday. News outlets (and panicky emails I am getting) are suggesting that the Pope said that atheists go to heaven.

Alas, we never get what the Pope actually said in its entirety. We are only getting bits and pieces as determined by someone working for either Vatican Radio or L’Osservatore Romano or… well… it’s hard to know!

This is a problem. Did the newsie doing the reporting make the right selection of quotes? Is the newsie doing the reporting a theologian? We should either get everything Francis says or nothing. Moreover, the Italian accounts and the English accounts of what Francis said differ somewhat.

And who knows how what Francis says in these sermonettes will ultimately be related to the Ordinary Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff? We are told that it is doesn’t form part of his magisterial teaching, but… really? They sure are being played up by the Holy See’s news agencies, aren’t they!

Back to the Pope’s sermon from 22 May. If you go through his comments as reported, and I did, there is nothing in Pope Francis’s remarks about the possibility of atheists being saved that is not in keeping with the document Dominus Iesus. [I knew someone would bring that up. But Dominus Iesus which reaffirms that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Christ had to do with and was addressed to Christians only.]

In a nutshell, Francis was not talking about non-Catholics or non-Christians. He was not talking about those who profess another religion with their own mediators. He was not talking about those who pray to other gods. He was talking about atheists.

Moreover, Francis was clear that whatever graces are offered to atheists (such that they may be saved) are from Christ. He was clear that salvation is only through Christ’s Sacrifice. In other words, he is not suggesting – and I think some are taking it this way – that you can be saved, get to heaven, without Christ. [But I like Joseph Ratzinger's caveat that this does not mean we Christians can think they can go 'lite', as it were, with our obligation to live as Christ wants us to do, that the possibility of grace for good non-Christians and atheists excuses us from that obligation.]

So, have a care with these sermons. It is great to get pithy lines from the Holy Father about something that is crystal clear such as, say, the Devil. It is another when the pithy quip veers into something that is more difficult to untangle. It is best not to jump to negative conclusions based on the incomplete reports about fervorini of ambiguous magisterial authority.

See, this is the problem with these daily off-the-cuff homilettes. Even assuming the Holy Father never slips up - and IMHO, I thought he did in the unwarranted aside on IOR recently - the statements he makes off the cuff can create confusion, and papal statements should never do that. And this thing about the daily fervorini not being really part of this Pope's Magisterium, we the faithful do not know that. For us, if the Pope says anything, it is inevitably part of his teaching. Does this mean then that these fervorini will never get published in the official Acts of the Apostolic See, nor in the official compendium of Francis's Magisterium (the volumes entitled INSEGNAMENTI [Teachings]? We shall see.

Also, despite Mons. Becciu's statement in his interview with OR last month that Pope Francis does not intend these daily homilies to be reported at all, RV and OR report daily on them conscientiously and prominently - though partially and in different ways, citing different parts! The Pope obviously wants the contents of his fervorini disseminated. Then let us have the entire text, not just arbitrary excerpts made by reporters who are immature and/or have not always been reliable or professional in their work.

It is immaterial whether Pope Francis performed a 'true' exorcism or not on a Mexican man who was among the sick and handicapped presented to him after the Mass on Pentecost Sunday. Whenever, in the name of God, the devil is cast out of anyone who is possessed, then it is a grace and a blessing, whether formal ritual was followed or not. In the days of Christ and the Apostles, casting out the devil was part of the task of announcing the Word of God, even if the Bible accounts do not describe any particular ritual accompanying the deed.

It does add to the confusion, however, when the world's most publicized (and self-publicized) exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, steps in to say that what took place was definitely an exorcism, only to add that he himself the following day, had performed the full exorcism ritual on the possessed man.

But it is known that sometimes it takes more than one 'session' to cast out the devil. Pope Francis may well have started the process simply by praying over the man, and Fr. Amorth went on to perform the prescribed ritual. We will not know right away if the possessed man has been fully liberated of the possession. Satan is very wily and can pretend to have slunk away, while still very much 'in possession'.

Now, Beatrice on her website has provided the link to a Spanish website in which the priest who was with the Mexican person in question recounts what happened.

Priest with 'possessed' man:
'The Pope prayed over him, that's all'
Translated from

May 21, 2013


Fr. Rivas, right, says the Pope simply prayed over the possessed man he brought to him for his blessing.

"OK, now it has been reported on all the newspapers and on the Internet: 'The Pope performed an exorcism'. I would like to clarify, first, that the person was not a boy but an adult, and second, that what the Pope did was simply to pray over a possessed person," writes Fr. Juan Rivas, a Mexican priest belonging to the Legionaries of Christ, who presented the man Angel to the Pope for his blessing after the Pentecost Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square last Sunday. An incident which has captured worldwide media attention [because it was labeled 'an exorcism' by a commentator on the TV network of the Italian bishops' conference, quickly seconded by some Italian bishops, even if a TV executive issued a statement saying it was a mistake to have called the event an exorcism.]

"Since no one heard what the Pope prayed - not me, not any others around him - I can affirm that he probably offered a prayer of liberation. Nothing more", says Fr. Rivas. He adds that it is 'inappropriate' to refer to that prayer as an exorcism, since it was not the official ritual prescribed by the Church with explicit orders to expel the devil.

He confirms that Angel is a possessed person, and that "today,
Fr. Amorth will undertake a 'discernment' for us. [To determine whether it is a genuine case of possession by the devil?] Let those who are reading this pray the coronilla [prayer recommended by St. Faustina Kowalska to be said every day at 3:00 p.m. in daily devotion to Divine Mercy: "For the sake of your sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."]

On his Facebook page (www.facebook.com/padrejuanrivas), Rivas writes:

---

Greetings from Rome. At this time, everyone has heard of the news about "the exorcism performed by Pope Francis". This prayer of liberation that the Pope offered is related with what I have said here before.

Abortion in Mexico has spilled over the abysmal well that Mary of Guadalupe had once closed. Through the legalization of abortion in Mexico, we have returned to the paganism of the Aztecs and their human sacrifices to the demons.

In order that violence ends in Mexico, first of all, we have to confess that sin in public, and all the bishops - all together and with one voice - must condemn the crime of abortion, make reparation with all the clergy and the faithful in a religious act for this grave offense to Mary of Guadalupe, and work tirelessly so that the law may once again prohibit violence against the weakest and most defenseless of human beings.

---

[Fr. Amorth was quoted on Monday as saying that the man Angel was possessed by four devils on account of the abortion law in Mexico.]

Now, allow me to be skeptical here, but how do the good fathers Rivas and Amorth know the 'reason' for the possession? They make it seem like it was a punishment of God for Mexico's legalization of abortion. Why would God pick on poor Angel, and why would he use the devil to inflict his 'punishment'? It is all muddled 'theology'!

Do we even have to have a reason for demonic possession? Is it not just another form of evil in the world, which has always been around since Lucifer and his followers defied God.

I have always believed in the devil, and in my early teens, I saw one of my best friends 'possessed' for several weeks until a series of interventions by various priests freed her of the succubus. She, of course, did not remember anything of what happened while she was possessed, but those around her remember with anguish and horror how a normal, happy and highly intelligent girl turned overnight into a growling malefic monster with a frightening face and even more frightening eyes, who only 'calmed down' when she fell asleep, which was rare and never for very long. I was not curious enough at the time to question the events and her curing - I know she was brought to the best psychiatrists and neurologists during her 'possession', and no medication or shock therapy had any effect.

I simply accepted the episode for what we all thought it was, the work of the devil, who had then been cast out by prayers. I don't even know if any of the priests who came to her aid were qualified exorcists = the idea that a priest had to be a qualified exorcist never even entered my mind at the time. My friend went on to medical school and has been a highly successful physician for the past almost four dcades, with absolutely no recollection of that horrific episode in her life.

In this book review, Massimo Introvigne, who heads CESNUR (Center for the Study of New Religions), sociologist, Church historian and journalist, would seem to give a definitive answer to the long-festering rumors that many important Church prelates are Masons, and towards the end of the review, proposes a simple test to gauge whether any ecclesiastic or Catholic politician rumored to be a Mason is likely to be, or not...


A 'Masonic' Vatican?
Truth and urban legend
by Massimo Introvigne
Translated from

May 21, 2013

Some years ago, an important Italian cardinal whom I met at a conference, told me: "Do you know, Professor, that I just got an anonymous letter containing a list of [supposed] Catholic Masons - and your name was in it?"

And I replied, because it was true: "But what a strange coincidence! I also got an anonymous letter with a list of cardinal Masons. And your name was on it".

The anecdote comes to mind after reading Vaticano massone. Logge, denaro e poteri occulti: il lato segreto della Chiesa di Papa Francesco» (A Masonic Vatican: Lodges, money and hidden powers: The secret side of the Church of Pope Francis), just published by Piemme publishing house, and written by Giacomo Galeazzi, a Vaticanista for La Stampa who is familiar with many, perhaps even too many, Roman circles, and Ferruccio Pinotti, a journalist known for his militant aversion to Opus Dei and Comunione e Liberazione, which is evident in the book.

Beyond the intentions of the authors, the book is likely - with its overdose of information - to cause damage and create confusion. Indeed, the book throws together newspaper clippings, documents, and interviews, in which the reader is unable to discern a hierarchy of sources in order to understand which of them are authoritative, which are less, and which are simply buffoonery.

Important leaders of Freemasonry are given voice, but there's excessive space given to the leader of the Great Democratic Oriental Lodge (a small 'leftist' dissident movement against the leadership of the largest Italian Masonic association, the Great Oriental Lodge of Italy) - which, in response to questions from the authors on the most sensitive matters, cites clippings from his favorite newspapers, Il Fatto Quotidiano and La Repubblica.

And the authors also take seriously - along with the old and long discredited calumnies that sought to involve Pope Francis in the crimes of the Argentine military dictatorship = Leo Zagami, an ex-Mason also known outside Italy for his inexhaustible capacity to invent conspiracy fantasies.

Among Catholics, they authors talked to persons who may certainly be qualified but also sometimes rather imprudent in what they say to journalists, such as Mons. Domenico Mogavero, Bishop of Mazara del Vallo, who avails of the interview to criticize Benedict XVI for liberalizing the traditional Mass.

But they also use problematic and marginal resource persons, like the ex-Franciscan of the Immaculate, Giulio Maria Scozzaro, who was expelled from his order.

And what about all the 'anonymous' sources? There's a long interview with a supposed 'High-ranking' representative of the Society of Jesus, a Father R.T., who offers on the subject of Freemasonry, "the classification made by Prof. Introvigne, considered one of the best Italian experts on Freemasonry". who must like it very much since he includes a cut-and=paste sequence of my writings that goes on for pages. But then, like so many others, he cites a 'Luciferian' phrase attributed to the American Masonic leader Albert Pike (1809-1891): "Lucifer is God, but unfortunately, even YHWH, the God of the Christians [for Yahweh, which, actually, is one of the Jewish names for God] is also God".

He does not know - and yet he claims he reads my work - that the statement attributed to Pike is false, one that was provided to the French Catholic journalist Abel Clarin de la Rive (1855-1914), who first published it, by that great provocateur and fabricator of false documents on Masonry, Leo Taxil (1854-1907).

And so the non-specialist reader is in danger of taking this whole book seriously without discriminating between serious testimony and those that tend to be hoaxes. In trying to impose some order, we may say that the book tells two interweaving stories.

The first is about the role of Freemasonry in Italy, about which for years there have been two conflicting narratives which the authors try - which is not easy - to hold together.

The first narrative comes from the old Communist Party of Italy and it continues to be espoused by newsmen and magistrates of the left. They recount that the United States, after the end of World War II, identified and financed three powers to prevent the Communists from gaining power in Italy: the Church, through the Christian Democratic Party; Freemasonry; and organized crime - a situation that facilitated collaboration among the three.

The second narrative, more widespread among Catholics, presents Freemasonry as geing intent, above all, on imposing relativism and its consequences - from divorce to abortion - collaborating in this with all 'progressive' forces, including the Communists.

This second narrative is certainly true. The first one, usually presented with exaggerations, includes some partial truth, and the book offers reconstructions that are sometimes but not always reliable, regarding the collaboration of obedient Masons who are however remote from the 'big' organizations, the Mafia and the 'ndrangheta, and in which sometimes, individual Catholic politicians and even some priests are involved in so-called 'business affairs', but who certainly do not represent 'the Church'.

The book underscores known facts about the IOR which in the past had collaborated with reckless financiers some of whom were Masons.

The Holy See has since become very conscious of the need for order within its financial affairs. But in a last interview which is outstanding, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, ex-president of IOR, and who was directly involved in these questions, rightly asks that there must be a distinction between any financial abuses committed, and the obvious fact that the Catholic Church, with its 1.2 billion members around the world, must necessarily manage the funds that allows half of the dioceses, missions and churches around the world to function [all those located in missionary lands] through an organization that can interact with international financial institutions, in which Masons are certainly to be found.

The second narrative in the book is that of the relationship of the Church to Freemasonry. It has the merit of holding firm - compared to the ambiguity with which so many Masons, and sometimes, some ecclesiastics, often speak of these things - to the fact that the law in force within the Church is that contained in the 1983 Declaraiton on Masonic Associations from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which reiterates that Catholics who belong to any Masonic association, in which membership is absolutely prohibited, "are in a state of serious sin and cannot have access to Holy Communion".

In the face of this most clear disposition, the nook describes two 'alternative' courses. The first is that of those ecclesoiastics who have asked - without obtaining it - a change in that standard. Out of ingenuousness, such as in the case of Cardinal Silvio Oddi (1910-2001), who from retirement, co-signed with the then Grand Master of the Great Oriental Lodge in Italy. a letter to John Paul II (reproduced in the book) asking him to reconsider the Church's traditional opposition to Freemasonry. Or out of genuinely sharing some ideological ideas of Freemasonry as the case was with the Pauline priest Rosario Esposito (1921-2009).

The second course is that taken by ecclesiastics who, without publicly calling for a change in the Church's position, but in violation of canon law, are secretly enrolled in Freemasonry. This has been rumored not just for years but for centuries, in which cardinals and bishops are often named.

The book puts together all voices, from the rather ridiculous claim of the ex-Franciscan Scozzaro, who says that "the College of Cardinals consists of no less than 80 Masonic cardinals out of 120", to the Grand Master of the Great Regular Lodge of Italy, a minority faction that is, however, the only Italian association recognized by the Masonic 'mother house' in England, who claims that any talk about Masonic cardinals is noting more than 'urban legend'.

The hoary issue of lists of bishops and cardinals who are said to be Masons that keep surfacing periodically here and there basically reflects the central defect of a book in which too many anecdotes - true, possible or false - results in failing to see the essential core of the problem.

There are software programs today in which any competent IT person could with little effort produce ID cards and lists on official Masonic letterheads which truly appear genuine, by means of which it is easy to accuse anyone of being a Mason - bishops, cardinals, even Popes. This robs credibility - and perhaps even any interest - from the enterprise of seeking out such lists.

The problem is something else. The essence of Masonic ideology is relativism, with its political consequences in which Masonic elements promote laws on abortion, euthanasia, homosexual unions.

When you hear it said that an ecclesiastic or a politician is a Mason, one must ask: Does he have relativistic ideas? Is he pro-abortion, does he favor euthanasia, or the legal recognition of homosexual unions?

If the answer is Yes, then the person in question - using the expression in the book by the current Grand Master of the Great Oriental Lodge of Italy - is at least 'a Mason without a membership card', a travelling companion of Freemasonry. And the question of formal membership becomes secondary.

If the answer is No, if the ecclesiastic or Catholic politician accused of being a Mason openly opposes relativism and its consequences, then there is every reason to conclude that the accusations against him are sheer calumny.

The true problem is not about lists and membership cards. It is, to use an expression of Benedict XVI that Pope Francis promptly used in his address to the diplomatic corps on March 22, 'the dictatorship of relativism'. Which is, regardless of lists, the dictatorship of the Masonic mentality in our time.

50 years of 'Sacrosanctum concilium':
What we have done,
what we have failed to do
by Mons. Andrew Wadsworth
Address to a study session of priests of Westminster Diocese.
Posted by Jeffrey Tucker on

May 22, 2013

As we keep the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and progress through the Year of Faith, it would seem to be a good moment for an examination of conscience based on the teachings of the Council and their implementation.

As you well know, the first utterance of the Council in the form of a major document was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium. Taking some of its major themes and observations, I would like to briefly offer something of a liturgical ‘state of the nation’. You will appreciate, I hope, that this is necessarily a highly personal view and that other commentators may quite legitimately see things very differently.

In its introduction, the Constitution links the primary motives of the Council to the function and significance of the Liturgy: it states that the goal of the Council is to intensify the Christian growth of Catholics, to foster unity and to draw all people into the Church. It notes that the liturgy should contribute to this.

This is a very auspicious and important beginning, for it makes the essential link between the mission of the Church as a community of salvation and the liturgy which both proclaims that salvation and brings us into an experience of it even in this life.

For this reason, it is always something of a surprise to me that the liturgy is not immediately identified as a primary instrument of the New Evangelization and that programmes do not tend to recognize the fundamental importance of the liturgy in the endeavour of evangelization.

The Constitution makes it clear at its outset that the liturgy, and especially the Eucharist, is the chief manifestation of the Church and it is both the cause and sign of unity.

So often the Council is presented solely as innovation, as development and as renewal, and yet it occurs to me that it principally needs to make sense to us as organic progression and continuity before we are able to grasp and digest the challenge of changing what needs to be changed.

For me personally, the hermeneutical key of the whole document is to be found in paragraph 2. Here is the Council's definition of the nature and purpose of the Liturgy – it is our participation in the Mystery of Christ, which is the Church. Reading through this single paragraph, we see that three tremendously important themes emerge:

Firstly: … the liturgy, "through which the work of our redemption is accomplished," most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.

Here Sacrosanctum concilium reminds us of the truth that the Liturgy is ultimately about redemption and is in fact the manner in which redemption is applied to us, and it is the supreme way in which the true nature of the Church is made manifest.

I think in the minds of many of our people, the true salvific mission of the Church and the uniqueness of her supernatural aims are not yet comprehended as a result of a way that we celebrate the Liturgy. Put more simply, perhaps we might wish to say that the Liturgy is the most obvious way in which we as Catholics answer the question: what is the Church? We would want to answer with Sacrosanctum concilium that the liturgy of the Eucharist, more than anything else, expresses the nature and mystery of the Church.

Secondly:

---

It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek.

---

Here we find contrasting characteristics which are carefully held in balance: human/divine; visible/invisible; active/contemplative... It is my impression that too often, rather than experiencing both of these characteristics simultaneously (which is the true genius of the liturgy), we only seem to experience one of them.

The overwhelming character of many Masses is still hopelessly horizontal and assembly-oriented – somewhere along the journey from the Council, we seem to have accepted a protestant model in our worship, and the true ecclesial dynamic of what happens in the Liturgy is still obscured to many of our people.

This is particularly the case when we consider the character of the liturgy in its function of making accessible to us the life of heaven. In the earthly liturgy we share in the heavenly liturgy by way of foretaste, as we await its accomplishment. [I must say that in my experience, the Novus Ordo - except as celebrated by Benedict XVI - can hardly be thought of at all as a foretaste of heavenly liturgy!

The manner of the celebration of the liturgy must always carefully take into consideration these important qualities which consequently determine the appropriateness of certain modes of celebration, not least of all in the manner the priest celebrates and preaches, the preparation of the readings and those who exercise liturgical ministries, and the judicious selection and use of appropriate liturgical music which is integral to the liturgy and the most powerful conveyor of liturgical culture.

The considerable challenge which all of this presents is not to be underestimated and requires the offering of the very best that we have in each of these important areas. Too often, the liturgy can seem to be hopelessly earth-bound and pedestrian rather than stimulating in us a thirst for God and all that he longs to give us and do in us and through us.

Keeping the challenge before us is an essential part of responding positively to it: Sacrosanctum concilium outlines an immense vision for the liturgy - it is always easier to settle for less.

Thirdly:

---

While the liturgy daily builds up those who are within into a holy temple of the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ, at the same time it marvelously strengthens their power to preach Christ, and thus shows forth the Church to those who are outside as a sign lifted up among the nations under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together, until there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.

---

The Constitution is marvelously unambiguous in proclaiming that the liturgy should strengthen us for mission, so that the Gospel can be preached (and believed) in a more powerful way among the people of our time.

The Church is missionary by nature and this essential character of the Church is displayed in her liturgy, not least in the fact that the liturgy is potentially a powerful proclamation of the truth that the message of salvation is for all people - this is the real sense of the universality which lies at the heart of the meaning of Catholicism.

We are reminded that the task of the Church is also to call people to conversion and faith, to prepare them for the sacraments and to win them to the works of love and to the apostolate.

These are truths which are often obscured. False ecumenism has had a catastrophic effect in this sense – many Catholics now tend to see themselves (both individually and collectively) as just one subjective response to the human dilemma, whereas Sacrosanctum Concilium is telling us quite emphatically that the Church is God's most effective response to the highly human dilemma. of our continual need of his mercy and grace, while reliably pointing us continually towards our truest home in him.

Approaches in the liturgy which obfuscate this fundamental truth have a highly detrimental effect on the ecclesial sense of our people. It is for this reason that the Church most frequently places the words of Sacred Scripture on our lips in the liturgy. Scripture is, after all, the largest single source of the liturgy.

I cannot help but think that singing more scripturally based texts at Mass would certainly be an improvement from some of the music which currently fills many collections of liturgical songs which are distinguished only by their notable lack of a true liturgical voice.

Any discussion of the liturgy since Vatican II must certainly contend with the important injunction relating to participatio actuosa. If we can allow ourselves the luxury of a generalization, I think that it is in this area that the most considerable progress has been made.

It is now a well established expectation on the part of our people that they will participate actively in the celebration of the liturgy. At times this can lead to the danger of activism which is counter-productive,but in general, the passivity of the greater number of those present at the celebration of the liturgy is now thankfully a thing of the past.

The Constitution underlines, however, that for the liturgy to achieve its fullest effect, the faithful must take part with knowledge, actively and so fruitfully. I think it is fair to say that the requirement of knowledge implies a catechesis that in many ways is yet to be undertaken.

It also highlights the fact that the rightful full, conscious and active participation of the Christian people in the liturgy can only be achieved by adequate instruction, above all, of the clergy. This, we would also want to admit is a work in progress and some of the strangest notions concerning the liturgy are the province not of the laity but the clergy.

In moving on to a consideration of the reforms which followed the Council and find their mandate in this Constitution, one of the principal considerations must be the realization of the desire that the paramount importance of Scripture be evident in our liturgy.

The revision of the lectionary to facilitate the reading of a far greater part of the Scriptures has been widely recognized as one of the great fruits of the liturgical reform, and our lectionary has been adopted or adapted for use by many Christian communities beyond the full communion of the Catholic Church.

The benefits of this are evident, and our people have a far greater awareness of the central importance of the Word of God in our lives and the privileged place it occupies in the liturgy as there is now no element of the celebration of the liturgy, however brief or private, which does not envisage the reading of the Scriptures. I think we can confidently say that a warm and living love of Scripture has been fostered. [Not too sure about this!]

We cannot be equally sanguine, however, about the Council’s injunction that Latin must be preserved, whilst the use of vernacular languages in the celebration of the Mass and sacraments is encouraged and regulated by competent authority.

Clearly the question of language loomed large at the Council and it seems that the adoption of the vernacular was considered inevitable and desirable. but it seems equally clear that the total exclusion of Latin was neither desired nor envisaged. Certainly there is nothing to account for the visceral hatred of Latin that has characterized the liturgical approach of some who claim authority from the mandate of the Council.

Whilst Latin has made something of a modest return evidenced by Latin chants which now can be heard more frequently at Mass, the truth is that most parishes have had fifty years of studiously avoiding anything Latin, lest there be a sense of the continuation of anything of past liturgy. The hermeneutic of rupture is most dramatic in this exclusion of Latin.

Not only do we now have several generations of Catholics who cannot sing Credo III or the Salve Regina, more seriously, we have several generations of priests who are unable to cope with any element of Latin in the liturgy, let alone the celebration of the Mass in Latin in either form of the Roman Rite.

The place and importance of Latin is not determined by the choice of liturgical language. It is vitally important that we grasp this. Even in the case of an entirely vernacular liturgy, we still need Latin to be able to interpret so many of the sources of the liturgy,to say nothing of fundamental sources for both theology and philosophy.

We shall have to recover a greater enthusiasm and competence in the teaching and learning of Latin if future generations of Catholics are going to be equipped with the necessary skills to explore the treasures of the Church’s ancient patrimony.

In seminaries, the mandatory one year of Latin provides little more than the briefest introduction to the language. [That's absurd! It's little more than the freshman course in Latin for medicine and pharmacy students I had to take in my time! My brother, who attended a Jesuit school, had four years of Latin in high school.] In places where there is a greater requirement for the study of Latin, the students benefit across the board in their studies and the Church has a future generation of priests who will be more skilled in this respect.

It is worth noting that Sacrosanctum concilium envisaged that every community of Catholics would know the basic chants in Latin. The new English translation of the Missal, which contains more music than any of its predecessors, provides many of these chants which may be sung in either Latin or English, thereby reinforcing the notion of a common musical repertoire among Catholics of the Roman Rite, and for the first time a shared body of chants common to all Catholics who worship in English.

It is certainly true to say that the Liturgy of the Hours, previously largely limited to the clergy, has become more genuinely the Prayer of the Church in the experience of not only priests and religious but also lay people.

The injunction that pastors should ensure that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and solemn feasts seems to be observed rather more in the breach. In fact in parishes, Sundays and Solemnities are the days when one is least likely to encounter celebrations of the Liturgy of Hours.

More widespread attempts at the solemn celebration of the office with appropriate music and liturgical action are still beyond the liturgical experience of most Catholics and something of a rarity outside religious communities.

In relation to the celebration of the sacraments, I think it is generally the case that the reintroduction of the catechumenate for adults through RCIA has revolutionized our understanding of the process whereby we welcome new members into the Church as well as restoring the Sacraments of Initiation to our celebration of the Easter Vigil.

In this way, we also have a deeper understanding of baptism as the fundamental fact of our Christian identity, and the true nature of the seasons of Lent and Easter in relation to the celebration of the Paschal mystery. It goes without saying that the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum, largely unknown to a previous generation, have happily now become the liturgical heart of the year for most Catholics. [I don't know how old Fr. Wadsworth is, o or where he grew up, but my generation (and our families before us) of Catholics in the Philippines habitually practised the most intense religious liturgies from Maundy Thursday (even if we only had one Mass for that day then) to Easter, during which Good Friday included three hours of meditation and sermons on the Seven last Words before 3 p.m., and then the evening procession of the ;Santo Entierro' (holy interment) featuring the image of the dead Christ, as Pope Francis recently described he experienced as a child in Argentina.]

The true significance of the Anointing of the sick and its place in our pastoral care of those who suffer or who are frail is certainly more widely understood. Similar progress is evident in relation to Marriage as a consequence of the revision of the marriage rite in a way which expresses more clearly the grace of the sacrament and the duties of the spouses. This is particularly important as society at large moves away from any understanding of the objective meaning of marriage.

The theological consequences of the revision of the Rite of Christian Burial do not seem to be so universally positive. Whilst it is true that the revision of the rite shows rather more clearly the paschal character of Christian death, the general character of many funeral liturgies has tended away from the notion of praying for the dead and those who mourn, towards rather more secular notions of the celebration of the life of the deceased and the multiplication of tributes expressed in a liturgy that might seem more appropriate for a canonization. This is perhaps a clear indication that the liturgical text is not the sole purveyor of liturgical culture.

If we are to consider the more negative impact of some aspects of our liturgical experience since Vatican II, we obviously need to think about our celebration of the Eucharist. The Constitution offers us a definition of the significance of the Eucharist and its relationship to our celebration and experience of the saving mysteries.

The text stresses that at the Last Supper Christ instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice as a memorial of his death and resurrection, in which Christ is consumed - the mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given to us. I continually wonder whether this understanding of the meaning of the Mass is as present to our people as the Church would seem to be suggesting it should be?

Perhaps the clue to thinking about this is to be found in the eminently practical injunction which follows this theological definition in the document? It is the suggestion that Christ’s faithful should not be strangers or silent spectators at this mystery, but with the priest should offer Christ and so learn to offer themselves.

Whilst progress has been made avoiding attitudes and behaviour demonstrative of passivity, I would suggest that the idea that everyone present at the celebration of the Eucharist is in fact making the offering of their lives which is in turn taken up into the unique offering of Christ which is his sacrifice, is a notion that is not particularly present to many of our people.

This true expression of the offering made by the priesthood of the baptized and its intrinsic link to the offering made by the ministerial priest celebrating the Mass is essential not only for an understanding of what is happening at Mass but also for the living of a truly Eucharistic life which beyond the bounds of our liturgical celebration expresses itself in the consecration of the material world by our living as witnesses to God’s love and truth.

And so my whistle-stop consideration of the breadth of liturgical experience since Vatican II must necessarily draw to a close. Having travelled the English-speaking world very widely in preparation for the implementation of the English translation of the third typical edition of the Missale Romanum, and having experienced the liturgy in a wide variety of circumstances and styles, I would conclude that I have generally encountered a very great desire for change [meaning, I hope, change from the mindless liturgical practices that have been perpetrated in the name of Vaticna-ii], although not always among those who are directly responsible for the liturgy.

I think we are currently well placed to respond to this desire and this is evidenced by the fact that many things which were indicated fifty years ago, such as the singing of the Mass, and more particularly the singing of the proper texts rather than the endless substitution of songs and hymns, are only now being seriously considered and implemented.

It is earnestly to be desired that such developments continue to flourish and that an improved liturgical culture is accessible to everyone in the Church. Time will tell whether the musical resources necessary to the success of such a development flourish in our midst. If they do not, then I fear that many of the less desirable features of post-conciliar liturgical music may be here to stay.

For all of us who use the Roman Missal in English, our liturgy has changed over the past eighteen months. The change of text is indicative of the possibility of doing things differently which will hopefully bring us nearer to a more faithful realization of the liturgy willed by the Church as expressed in Sacrosanctum concilium.

It is true to say that considerable improvements in the liturgy have been in evidence in most recent years. Crucial to this peaceful revolution has been the leadership and example of Pope Benedict who consistently studied and wrote about the liturgy in a long life of scholarship which also informed his governance of the Church’s liturgical life.

Much that he commends was already evident in aspects of liturgical scholarship from the early twentieth century onwards. In our own time, however, perhaps it is finally starting to be received with the joy and enthusiasm that it merits.

A new generation of Catholics eagerly awaits a greater experience of the basic truth that the liturgy is always a gift which we receive from the Church rather than make for ourselves. As those most intimately concerned with the liturgy, you all have a highly significant contribution to make to this leitourgia, this great work in which there are only participants and beneficiaries and no spectators. May God bless us all as we share in his work.

FEAST OF MARY, HELP OF CHRISTIANS
World Day of Prayer for China

Mary, Help of Christians,
in various depictions as Our Lady of China

Benedict XVI wrote this prayerin 2008 when he first decreed May 24 as the annual World Day of Prayer for China.

Today's saint:

ST. MARIA MADDALENA DE' PAZZI (Italy, 1566-1607), Carmelite nun, Mystic and Author
Caterina de' Pazzi was born in Florence to a noble family whose members were among the first to scale the walls of Jerusalem in the First Crusade. She knew as a child that her calling was for Jesus, experienced her fist mystic vision when she was 12, and entered the Carmelite convent in Florence at age 16 against her family's objections. A year into her novitiate, she fell critically ill so preparations were made for her to to make her final vows from her sickbed. After receiving Communion, she fell into an ecstasy that lasted two hours. This happened for 40 consecutive days, but she survived the illness. To make sure that she was rooted in reality, her superiors ordered her to dictate all her spiritual experiences to her fellow nuns, which later became the basis for six books published under her name. In her lifetime, many miracle cures were attributed to her, as well as the gift of teleportation and of being able to read the thoughts of her nuns. She would become the superior of the convent, setting an example of holiness for her nuns, and praying for the renewal of the Church. However, before she died, she also underwent five years of a 'dark night of the soul' familiar to many saints. A quotation from her might apply to many bishops and priests today: "A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase of the choicest contemplation". She was canonized in 1668. her incorrupt body is venerated at the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052413.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- H.E. Marin Raykov, Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria, with his spouse
and delegation.

- H.E. Trajko Valjanoski, President of the Parliament of Macedonia, with his wife and delegation.
Both leaders were making the customary annual visit to Rome of the political leaders of Bulgaria and Macedonia to observe the liturgical feast of Saints Cyril and Metodius, brothers who evangelized the Slavic peoples.

- Mons. Orani João Tempesta, Archbishop of Rio di Janeiro (Brazil)
[probably to update the Pope on preparations for WYD 2011 which he will attend on July]

- Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants
and Itinerant Workers. Address in Italian.

The Vatican announced yesterday that
- This Sunday, May 26, Pope Francis will make his first pastoral visit
to a Roman parish, that named for Saints
Elizabeth and Zachary, parents of John the Baptist
- On Oct. 4, Feast of St. Francis, co-patron of Italy, he will visit Assisi. His program will be announced later.



One year ago...

The Holy Father met separately with two official delegations to commemorate the annual observance of the liturgical feast
of Saints Cyril and Metodius by the Orthodox world - with H.E. Rosen Plevneliev, president of the Republic of Bulgaria, and with H.E. Nikola Gruevski, President of the Republic of Macedonia. At noon, he addressed the 64th annual plenary session of the Italian bishops' conference in the Hall of Synods at the Vatican. The theme of the plenary meeting, from May 21-25, was "Adults in the community: Mature in their faith and witnesses for humanity".



Bulgarian and Macedonian presidents
call on Pope Benedict XVI as
Orthodox Churches celebrate
the Feast of Saints Cyril and Metodius

The Orthodox world celebrates the brother-saints' feast on May 24, while the Latin Church observes it on February 14 (the day of Cyril's death). Slavic pilgrims come to Rome for the brothers' feast day because St. Cyril, who died in Rome, is buried in the Basilica of San Clemente.



SAINTS CYRIL AND METODIUS (9th century), Apostles to the Slavs, Co-Patrons of Europe


The two brothers were born (Cyril in 826, Metodius in 815) to an influential Greek family in Thessaloniki but soon moved to Constantinople. Metodius became a monk, eventually becoming abbot of a monastery while carrying out important administrative functions for the Byzantine Empire. His younger brother concentrated on his studies, even learning Aramaic, Jewish and Arabic, later becoming a university professor. Because of his language skills, the emperor sent him on a peace mission to the reigning Caliph, and later to a Byzantine dependency to prevent the spread of Judaism.

The brothers first worked together when they were sent to evangelize at the request of the Prince of Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). For this purpose, they decided to translate the Bible to Slavonic; they they devised an alphabet that would best represent Slavonic sounds - this eventually developed into the Cyrillic used by Russia and other Eastern European Slavic languages.

In 867, the brothers were invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas III, at which time they brought with them the relics of Pope St. Clement, that Cyril had recovered in the Crimea on one of his expeditions. (Clement was persecuted under Trajan, exiled to a quarry and then thrown into the Black Sea weighed down with an anchor. Cyril apparently found bones that had been buried with an anchor.)

On this visit, Cyril was ailing, and sensing his end was near, he decided to become a monk. He died 50 days later. At his funeral procession in Rome in 869, the people are said to have expressed their own version of 'Santo subito'. He was buried in what would become, appropriately the present-day Basilica of San Clemente in Rome which is built over two former basilicas. St. Cyril's tomb was discovered in 1863 during archeological excavations on the underlying churches.

Metodius returned to Moravia to carry on their work for another 16 years, most of which he spent fighting off challenges from the German bishops of Salzburg and Regensburg who resented that part of their jurisdictions were assigned to his new archdiocese. Pope Adrian II supported him in these disputes and also approved the Slavic liturgy.

Three years after he died (884), widespread political changes resulted in the exile of all his missionaries from Moravia - it is thought that their dispersal throughout the rest of Eastern Europe was responsible for spreading Christianity throughout the Slavic world.

The two brothers were immediately venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church as 'Equal to the Apostles', but they were not introduced into the Roman Catholic liturgy until 1880. One hundred years later, John Paul II would declare them Co-Patrons of Europe together with St. Benedict of Norcia. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis to them on June 17, 2009.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/05/2013 16:41]

Pope leads Italian Bishops
in Profession of Faith

May 24, 2013




On Thursday evening, May 23, Pope Francis joined the Bishops of Italy as they gathered in Saint Peter’s Basilica for their 65th General Assembly, and specifically, to renew their Profession of Faith at the Tomb of St. Peter.

The gathering began with opening remarks by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, followed by a Liturgy of the Word.

Pope Francis then offered a brief meditation on the readings. Here is a translation of Pope Francis’ remarks:

---

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,

The readings we have heard make us think. They have made me think a great deal. I have made something like a meditation. For us bishops, and first of all for me, a bishop like you, I share it with you.

It is significant - and I am particularly happy - that our first meeting should be held right here in the place that preserves not only the tomb of Peter, but also the living memory of his witness of faith, of his service to the truth, and of the gift he gave of himself – to the point of martyrdom – for the Gospel and for the Church.

This evening this altar of the Confession becomes our Lake of Tiberias, on the shores of which we listen to the wonderful dialogue between Jesus and Peter, with the question addressed to the Apostle, but which should resound in our own hearts, the hearts of bishops.

“Do you love me?”; “Are you my friend?” (Cf. Jn 21:15 ff) The question is addressed to a man who, despite his solemn declaration, was overcome by fear and went back on his word.

“Do you love me?”; “Are you my friend?” The question is addressed to me and to each one of you, to all of us: if we avoid reacting too hastily and superficially, it encourages us to look within, to enter into ourselves.

“Do you love me?”; “Are you my friend?” He who searches hearts (cf. Rom 8:27) makes himself a beggar of love, and questions us on the only really essential question, the premise and condition for pastoring his sheep, his lambs, his Church.

Every ministry is based on this intimacy with the Lord; to live in him is the measure of our ecclesial service, which is expressed in an openness to obedience, to emptying of self, as we heard in the Letter to the Philippians, to total giving (cf. Phil 2:6-11).

Moreover, the consequence of loving the Lord is giving everything - absolutely everything, even one’s very life - for Him: this is what must distinguish our pastoral ministry; it is the litmus test that shows how profoundly we have embraced the gift received in response to the call of Jesus, and how we are joined to the people and the communities that have been entrusted to us.

We are not expressions of a structure or an organizational need: even with the service of our authority we are called to be a sign of the presence and action of the Risen Lord, and so, to build up the community in fraternal charity.

Not that this is taken for granted: even the greatest love, in fact, when it is not continuously fed, fades and goes out. Not without reason the Apostle Paul warns: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son”(Acts 20:28).

The lack of vigilance - we know – makes the Pastor lukewarm; he becomes distracted, forgetful and even impatient; it seduces him with the prospect of a career, the lure of money, and the compromises with the spirit of the world; it makes him lazy, turning him into a functionary, a cleric worried more about himself, about organisations and structures, than about the true good of the People of God.

He runs the risk, then, like the Apostle Peter, of denying the Lord, even if he is present to us and speaks in His name; the holiness of the hierarchy of Mother Church is obscured, making it less fertile.

Who are we, Brothers, before God? What are our challenges? We all have so many, each one of us knows his own. What is God saying to us through them? What are we relying on to overcome them?

As it was for Peter, the insistent and heartfelt question of Jesus can leave us saddened and may leave us more aware of the weakness of our freedom, beset as it is by a thousand internal and external constraints, which often cause confusion, frustration, even disbelief.

These are certainly not the feelings and attitudes that the Lord intends to arouse; rather, the Enemy, the Devil, takes advantage of them to isolate us in bitterness, in complaints, and in discouragement.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, does not humiliate us or abandon us to remorse: in Him, the tenderness of the Father speaks, He who comforts and raises up; He who makes us pass from the disintegration of shame – because shame surely causes us to disintegrate – to the fabric of trust; who restores courage, recommits responsibility, and consigns us to the mission.

Peter, purified by the fire of forgiveness, can humbly say, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you” (Jn 21:17). I am sure we can all say this from the heart. In this Peter, purified, in his first letter exhorts us to feed “the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock”(1 Peter 5,2-3).

Yes, to be pastors means to believe every day in the grace and strength that comes to us from the Lord, despite our weakness, and to fully assume the responsibility of walking in front of the flock, freed from the burdens that hinder a healthy apostolic swiftness, and without hesitation in leading, to make our voice recognizable both to those who have embraced the faith, but also to those who are “not of this fold” (John 10:16): we are called to make our own the dream of God, whose house knows no exclusion of persons or nations, as Isaiah prophetically announced in the First Reading (cf. Is 2:2-5).

Therefore, being pastors also means to be ready to walk in the midst of and behind the flock: capable of listening to the silent story of the suffering and bearing up the steps of those who are afraid of not succeeding; careful to raise up, to reassure, and inspire hope.

By sharing with the humble our faith always comes out strengthened: let us put aside, therefore, any form of arrogance, to incline ourselves toward those the Lord has entrusted to our care.

Among these, a special place is reserved for our priests: especially for them, our hearts, our hands, and our doors remain open at all times. They are the first faithful we bishops have, our priests. Let us love them! Let us love them from the heart! They are our sons and our brothers.

Dear brothers, the profession of faith that we now renew together is not a formal act, but is a renewal of our response to the “Follow Me” with which the Gospel of John concludes (21:19): allow your own life to unfold according to the project of God, committing your whole self to the Lord Jesus. From here springs that discernment that recognises and takes on the thoughts, the expectations, and the needs of the men of our time.

With this in mind, I sincerely thank each of you for your service, for your love for the Church and the Mother, and here, I place you, and I place myself, too, under the mantle of Mary, Our Mother.

He then led them in this prayer before the Profession of Faith:

Mother of the silence that preserves the mystery of God, deliver us from the idolatry of the present, to which those who forget are condemned. Purify the eyes of pastors with the balm of memory:
that we might return to the freshness of the beginning, for a praying and penitent Church.

Mother of the beauty that blossoms from fidelity to daily work, remove us from the torpor of laziness, of pettiness, and defeatism. Cloak Pastors with that compassion that unifies and integrates: that we might discover the joy of a humble and fraternal servant Church.

Mother of the tenderness which enfolds in patience and mercy, help us burn away the sadness, impatience, and rigidity of those who have not known what it means to belong.
Intercede with your Son that our hands, our feet and our hearts may be swift: that we may build the Church with the truth in charity.

Mother, we will be the People of God, on pilgrimage towards the Kingdom.
Amen.

---

On this day (May 24) last year, Benedict XVI addressed the opening of the 64th General Assembly of the CEI.

Pope tells Italian bishops
New Evangelization must begin with
their own personal conversion
by David Kerr



Sorry for the poor photos - best I could do with what's available from the OR.

VATICAN CITY, May 24, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI told the bishops of Italy today that personal holiness is an indispensable first step to reconverting their country and the Western world to Christianity.

"The fundamental condition in order to be able to speak about God is to speak with God, increasingly to become men of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and molded by his grace,” the Pope said on May 24.

He encouraged his fellow bishops to allow themselves “to be found and seized by God so as to help the people we meet be touched by the Truth.”

Pope Benedict made his remarks to the participants of the 64th General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, which is being held at the Vatican May 21-25...

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address:

---

Venerated and beloved brothers:

Your annual gathering in plenary assembly is a moment of grace when you live a profound experience of confrontation, sharing and discernment for a common journey, inspired by the Spirit of the Risen Lord. It is a moment of grace that manifests the nature of the Church.

I thank Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco for the kind words with which he welcomed me, in your behalf. To you, Eminence, my best wishes for your continued leadership of the Italian bishops' conference. May the collegial affection that animates you increasingly nourish your collaboration in the service of ecclesial communion and for the common good of the Italian nation, in a fruitful dialog with her civilian institutions.

In your new five-year term, you will pursue together the ecclesial renewal indicated by the Second Vatican Council. May the 50th anniversary of its opening, which we will celebrate in the fall, be reason for a deeper study of its texts, which is the condition for a dynamic and faithful reception of these teachings.

"What most interests the Council is that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be safeguarded and taught in the most effective way", said Blessed Pope John XXIII in his opening address to the Council. It is well worth reading and meditating on these words.

The Pope called upon the Council Fathers to study in depth and to present this perennial doctrine in continuity with the millenary tradition of the Church - "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without attenuation or misrepresentation", but in a new way, "as required by our time". (Address at the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Oct. 11, 1962).

With this key to reading and applying [the teachings of Vatican II] - certainly not in the perspective of an unacceptable hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture, but in a hermeneutic of continuity and reform - to heed the Council and adopt its authoritative instructions constitutes the way to identify the ways in which the Church can offer a significant response to the great social and cultural transformations of our time, which have visible consequences even on the religious dimension.

Scientific rationality and technological culture, indeed, do not only tend to homogenize the world, but often go beyond their respective spheres, claiming to delineate the perimeter of the certainties of reason solely with the empirical criteria of their own conquests.

Thus the human capacity ends up being the measure of action, detached from every moral norm. It is precisely in such a context that a singular and growing demand for spirituality and the supernatural cannot fail to emerge, the sign of the uneasiness lodged in the heart of man when it is not open to the transcendent horizon of God.

This situation of secularism characterizes above all the societies of ancient Christian tradition and erodes the cultural fabric which, until the recent past, was a unifying reference that could embrace the entire human existence and mark its most significant moments, from birth to the passage to eternal life.

The spiritual and moral patrimony in which the West is rooted and which constitutes its lifeblood is no longer understood today for its profound value, to the point that increasingly, the occasions of truth are no longer grasped. Even fertile earth risks becoming an inhospitable desert, and good seed can be stifled, trampled on and lost.

A sign of this is the diminution of religious practice, visible in [lack of] participation at the Eucharistic liturgy, and even more, in the Sacrament of Penance. So many baptized persons have misplaced their identity and sense of belonging. They do not know the essential contents of the faith, or they think they can cultivate it without need of ecclesial mediation.

While many look doubtfully on the truths taught by the Church, others have reduced the Kingdom of God to a few major values which certainly have to do with the Gospel but which nonetheless have nothing to do with the central nucleus of the Christian faith.

The Kingdom of God is a gift which transcends us. As Blessed John Payul II affirmed, "The Kingdom is not a concept, a doctrine, a program subject to free elaboration, but is first of all a person who has the face and the name of Jesus of Nazareth, image of the invisible God" (John Paul II, Enc. Redemptoris missio, Dec. 7, 1990, 18).

Unfortunately, God remains excluded from the horizon of so many persons. And when it does not encounter indifference, closedness or rejection, any discourse about God would nevertheless be relegated to the sphere of the subjective, reduced to an intimate private fact, marginalized in the public consciousness.

The heart of the crisis that is wounding Europe - a spiritual and moral crisis - passes through that abandonment, that lack of openness to the Transcendent: Man claims to have an identity that is completed simply by himself.

In this context, how can we live up to the responsibility that has been entrusted to us by the Lord? How can we sow the Word of God with confidence so that everyone can find truth about himself, his own authenticity and hope?

We all know that new methods of evangelical proclamation or pastoral action cannot suffice for the Christian message to receive maximum acceptance and sharing.

In preparing for Vatican II, the prevailing question which the Council intended to answer, was: "Church, what do you have to say about yourself?" In examining this question deeply, the Council Fathers were led back, so to speak, to the heart of the question: To start again from God - celebrated, professed, and witnessed.

Externally by chance, but fundamentally not by chance, the first Constitution approved by Vatican II was that on Sacred Liturgy: Divine worship orients man towards the City of the future and restores the primacy of God, shapes the Church, is incessantly called forth by the Word of God, and shows the world the fruitfulness of the encounter with God.

In turn, while we ought to cultivate an appreciative regard for the growth of good seed even in terrain which is often arid, we must also note than our own situation requires a renewed impulse which aims at what is essential in the faith and in Christian life.

At a time when God has become for many the great Unknown, and Jesus simply a great personage from the past, missionary action cannot be relaunched without a renewal of the quality of our own faith and our prayer. We shall not be capable of offering adequate responses without a new acceptance of the gift of grace. We shall not be able to conquer men for the Gospel if we don't first turn ourselves towards a profound experience of God.

Dear Brothers, our first, true and only task is to commit our life to that which is truly worthwhile and which endures, that which is truly reliable, necessary and ultimate. Men live from God - He whom they often unconsciously or only blindly seek in order to give full meaning to existence. We have the task of announcing him, showing him, leading others to encounter him.

But it is important always to remember that the first condition for speaking about God is to speak to God, to become more and more men of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and shaped by his grace.

St. Augustine, after a troubled journey in his sincere search for the truth, finally arrived at finding truth in God. And then he became aware of a singular aspect that filled his heart with wonder and joy. He understood that throughout his journey, ti was Truth that was seeking him out and which had found him.

I wish to say to everyone: let us allow ourselves to be found and gripped by God so that we may help every person we meet to be reached by Truth. It is from our relationship with him that our communion is born, and that the ecclesial community is generated that embraces all times and all places to constitute the one People of God.

That is why I decreed a Year of Faith, which will begin on October 11, in order to rediscover and accept once more this precious gift that is the faith, to know much more profoundly the truths which constitute our vital lifeblood, to lead man today, who is often distracted, to a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ - the Way, the Truth and the Life.

In the midst of transformations which affected many strata of mankind, the Servant of God Paul VI clearly indicated that the task of the Church was to "affect, and as it were, to upset, through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are opposed to the Word of God and the plan of salvation" (Ap. Exhort. Evangelii nuntiandi, Dec. 8, 1975, 19).

I wish to recall that, on the occasion of his first visit as Pope to his native land, Blessed John Paul II visited the industrial district of Cracow which had been conceived a a kind of 'Godless city'. Only the obstinacy of the workers had resulted in the erection first, of a Cross, and then a church.

In those signs, the Pope recognized the beginning of what he called, for the first time, 'new evangelization', going on to say that evangelization in the new millennium must refer itself to the Second Vatican Council. It must be, he said, as the Council teaches, the common work of bishops, priests, religious and laymen, of parents and their children". He concluded: "You have built a church; now edify your life with the Gospel" (Homily, Shrine of the Holy Cross, Mogila, June 9, 1979).

Dear brother bishops, the old and new mission that is before us is to introduce men and women of our time to a relationship with God, help them to open their mind and heart to that God who seeks them and wants to be close to them - we must lead them to understand that following his will is not a restriction of freedom but it is to be truly free to realize true good in life.

God is the guarantor, not the competitor, of our happiness, and wherever the Gospel - thus, the friendship of Christ - comes in, man experiences being the object of a love that purifies, warms up and renews us, that makes us capable of loving and serving men with divine love.

As the principal theme of your assembly proves very opportunely, the new evangelization needs adults who are 'mature in the faith and witnesses to humanity'. Attention to the world of adults shows your awareness of the decisive role of those who are called upon, in the various spheres of life, to assume an educational responsibility towards the new generations.

Be watchful and work in such a way that the Christian community may be able to form persons who are mature in their faith because they have encountered Jesus Christ, who has become the fundamental reference for their life. Persons who know him because they love him and who love him because they have come to know him. Persons capable of offering solid and credible reasons for life.

In this formative journey, twenty years since its first publication, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is particularly important, as a valuable aid towards an organic and complete knowledge of the contents of the faith, and as a guide to encountering Christ. With the help of this instrument, may assent to faith become a criterion of intelligence and action that involves man's whole life.

Since we are in the nine-day period before Pentecost, I wish to conclude this reflection with a prayer to the Holy Spirit:

Spirit of Life, who, in the beginning, hovered over the abyss,
help man in our time to understand
that the exclusion of God will lead him
to get lost in the desert of the world,
and that only where faith enters,
there will dignity and freedom flourish
and all of society can be built on justice.

Spirit of Pentecost, who makes of the Church one Body,
restore to us who were baptized
an authentic experience of communion;
make us a living sign of the presence
of the Risen Lord in the world,
a community of saints who live
in the service of charity.

Holy Spirit, who makes mission possible,
make us recognize that, even in our time,
so many persons are in search of the truth
about their existence and about the world.
Make us collaborators of their joy
by announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
seed for God's field which makes the soil of life good
and assures the abundance of the harvest.
Amen.

---

Thanks to Aqua and Amy Welborn, indirectly, for providing the link to this article. As I do not subscribe to the paper issue of the UK's Catholic Herald, I do not have access to the printed articles which are not posted online, so thanks a lot.

The atheist orthodoxy
that drove me to faith
by Megan Hodder

May 23, 2013

Last Easter, when I was just beginning to explore the possibility that, despite what I had previously believed and been brought up to believe, there might be something to the Catholic faith, I read Letters to a Young Catholic by George Weigel. One passage in particular struck me.


Talking of the New Testament miracles and the meaning of faith, Weigel writes: “In the Catholic view of things, walking on water is an entirely sensible thing to do. It’s staying in the boat, hanging tightly to our own sad little securities, that’s rather mad.”

In the following months, that life outside the boat – the life of faith – would come to make increasing sense to me, until eventually I could no longer justify staying put. Last weekend I was baptised and confirmed into the Catholic Church.

Of course, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Faith is something my generation is meant to be casting aside, not taking up. I was raised without any religion and was eight when 9/11 took place. Religion was irrelevant in my personal life and had provided my formative years with a rolling-news backdrop of violence and extremism. I avidly read Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens, whose ideas were sufficiently similar to mine that I could push any uncertainties I had to the back of my mind. After all, what alternative was there to atheism?

As a teenager, I realised that I needed to read beyond my staple polemicists, as well as start researching the ideas of the most egregious enemies of reason, such as Catholics, to properly defend my world view. It was here, ironically, that the problems began.

I started by reading Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address, aware that it had generated controversy at the time and was some sort of attempt –futile, of course – to reconcile faith and reason. I also read the shortest book of his I could find, On Conscience.

I expected – and wanted – to find bigotry and illogicality that would vindicate my atheism. Instead, I was presented with a God who was the Logos: not a supernatural dictator crushing human reason, but the self-expressing standard of goodness and objective truth towards which our reason is oriented, and in which it is fulfilled, an entity that does not robotically control our morality, but is rather the source of our capacity for moral perception, a perception that requires development and formation through the conscientious exercise of free will.

It was a far more subtle, humane and, yes, credible perception of faith than I had expected. It didn’t lead to any dramatic spiritual epiphany, but did spur me to look further into Catholicism, and to re-examine some of the problems I had with atheism with a more
critical eye.

First, morality. Non-theistic morality, to my mind, tended towards two equally problematic camps: either it was subjective to the point of meaninglessness or, when followed logically, entailed intuitively repulsive outcomes, such as Sam Harris’s stance on torture.

But the most appealing theories which could circumvent these problems, like virtue ethics, often did so by presupposing the existence of God. Before, with my caricatured understanding of theism, I’d considered that nonsensical. Now, with the more detailed understanding I was starting to develop, I wasn’t so sure.

Next, metaphysics. I soon realised that relying on the New Atheists for my counter-arguments to the existence of God had been a mistake: Dawkins, for instance, gives a disingenuously cursory treatment of St Thomas Aquinas in The God Delusion, engaging only with the summary of Aquinas’s proofs in the Five Ways – and misunderstanding those summarised proofs to boot.

Acquainting myself fully with Thomistic-Aristotelian ideas, I found them to be a valid explanation of the natural world, and one on which atheist philosophers had failed to make a coherent assault.

What I still did not understand was how a theology that operated in harmony with human reason could simultaneously be, in Benedict XVI’s words, “a theology grounded in biblical faith”. I’d always assumed that sola scriptura (“scripture alone”), with its evident shortcomings and fallacies, was how all consistent, believing Christians read the Bible.

So I was surprised to discover that this view could be refuted just as robustly from a Catholic standpoint – reading the Bible through the Church and its history, in light of Tradition – as from an atheist one.

I looked for absurdities and inconsistencies in the Catholic faith that would derail my thoughts from the unnerving conclusion I was heading towards, but the infuriating thing about Catholicism is its coherency: once you accept the basic conceptual structure, things fall into place with terrifying speed.

“The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole,” wrote Edith Stein in The Science of the Cross: “If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others.”

The beauty and authenticity of even the most ostensibly difficult parts of Catholicism, such as the sexual ethics, became clear once they were viewed not as a decontextualised list of prohibitions, but as essential components in the intricate body of the Church’s teaching.

There was one remaining problem, however: my lack of familiarity with faith as something lived. To me, the whole practice and vernacular of religion – prayer, hymns, Mass – was something wholly alien, which I was reluctant to step into.

My friendships with practising Catholics finally convinced me that I had to make a decision. Faith, after all, isn’t merely an intellectual exercise, an assent to certain propositions; it’s a radical act of the will, one that engenders a change of the whole person.

Books had taken me to Catholicism as a plausible conjecture, but Catholicism as a living truth I came to understand only through observing those already serving the Church within that life of grace.

I grew up in a culture that has largely turned its back on faith. It’s why I was able to drift through life with my ill-conceived atheism going unchallenged, and at least partially explains the sheer extent of the popular support for the New Atheists: For every considerate and well-informed atheist, there will be others with no personal experience of religion and no interest in the arguments who are simply drifting with the cultural tide.

As the popularity of belligerent, all-the-answers atheism wanes, however, thoughtful Christians able to explain and defend their faith will become an increasingly vital presence in the public square. I hope I, in a small way, am an example of the appeal that Catholicism can still hold in an age that at times appears intractably opposed to it.

This article I did take note of yesterday in the online CH, but the title piqued me simply because it is inaccurate to say John Paul II started Deus caritas est. By all accounts, the second part of the encyclical - which discusses the application of the third theological virtue to the social activities of the Church and of Christians - was indeed based on a draft that had been prepared for the late Pope by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum for an encyclical about the social work of the Church, specifically. Benedict XVI, having perhaps decided early in his Pontificate that he would dedicate his initial encyclicals to the three theological virtues, began with love, and it was appropriate to rework the Cor Unum draft and use it as Part 2 of the encyclical, after he had laid down all the philosophical, historical and theological considerations having to do with love in all its forms - which was the truly groundbreaking character of the encyclical...

Also, IMHO, I do not think Pope Francis should necessarily continue an encyclical begun by Benedict XVI. He should (and I think he would much rather) write his first encyclical on whatever subject he thinks most important to the Church at this moment in history. Perhaps he will elaborate on his idea of "a poor Church for the poor' or the other concepts he sketched out in his pre-Conclave manifesto... In fact, I even think that he will want his encyclicals to be unlike that of his predecessors - he will choose to be more informal and less 'academic' in his approach, and his language will be more colloquial. If only for that, I doubt that he would want to rewrite in his own way anything Benedict XVI began - might as well start from scratch.

I also have a selfish reason, of course, for not wanting the faith encyclical to be completed and published by anyone else other than Benedict XVI, in any form that is appropriate for an emeritus Pope. However, I can also imagine that his personal modesty would keep him from publishing anything new at this time, lest it be construed as an attempt to 'promote a rival Magisterium' of which his detractors could easily and promptly accuse him. I really hope this 'protocol' problem can be resolved satisfactorily - for example, if it was made clear that any new publication by Benedict XVI had Pope Francis's formal imprimatur. Not that it is necessary, but it would preempt the criticism one would expect from Benedict's detractors...

Pope Benedict didn’t finish his final encyclical.
His first, 'Deus Caritas Est', was started by Pope John Paul.
Couldn’t Pope Francis complete his last?
Even better - we now have two popes: why not the first joint papal document?
by William Oddie

May 23, 2013

Come now, Mr. Oddie, we only have one Pope at a time. How could you say 'we now have two Popes'?

Yesterday morning, just as I was wondering what to write about next, there was a ring at the front doorbell; it was Parcelforce, with a large package, which turned out to be from the Catholic Truth Society, who had kindly sent me a bundle of their latest pamphlets (which I hope to take a look at next week), including an indispensable one, look out for it at the back of the church, about Pope Francis. It also included a handsomely-produced hardback volume, which filled me with a mixture of pleasure and of sadness: it was Pope Benedict’s complete encyclicals.

Or rather, his incomplete encyclicals: hence, in part, the sadness. Last December, when the idea of Pope Benedict’s resignation was the furthest thing from anybody’s mind, Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, announced that Pope Benedict’s fourth encyclical would be released in the first half of 2013.

It would complete a trilogy, or rather a series of four, on the theological virtues: a series of four, because the virtue of charity [The more direct and all-encompassing word, 'love', is really the appropriate word to use here, rather than 'charity'. No oever says 'God is charity', to begin with] had been given two encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est (2005) and Caritas in Veritate (2009); the virtue of hope was treated in Spe Salvi (2007): the series was to be completed with an encyclical exploring the subject of faith: this would fittingly appear during the Year of Faith itself.

So, why didn’t it appear when it was supposed to, if it was so near completion? Couldn’t Pope Benedict have finished it first and THEN resigned? Almost certainly, he didn’t because there was some major hitch in the process of its completion, which made him realise that there would be a considerable delay.

The point is that a papal encyclical isn’t just written by the Pope: it’s not like writing a book, over which the author has complete control. These documents are normally the product of a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing involving senior officials of the Roman curia, especially the CDF; there had been, I would surmise, some kind of obstruction, or perhaps I should say more charitably, complication, of the kind that caused Pope Benedict’s last encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (2009) to appear more than a year after its expected date.

[No, the delay in the publication of CIV was primarily occasioned by the eruption of the global economic crisis in October 2008 preceding its original target publication date. The technical perspective - not the theological - that had to be factored into the encyclical with this development was significant and obviously required much 'to-ing and fro-ing' between the Pope and his technical consultants on the encyclical... And, for all the necessary consultation (for fact-checking and doctrinal precision) that Benedict XVI must have had about the unconsummated faith encyclical, I really doubt that anyone at the CDF or elsewhere in the Roman Curia could have contributed substantially to Benedict's own overall conception of the encyclical and its actual content. His entire lifetime as a priest and man of the Church, along with his body of writing, were more than enough preparation.]

2005 seems such a long time ago now: but who could forget the excitement—and for many, especially in the secular media, the extreme surprise, caused by the appearance of the first encyclical of this extraordinary series of magisterial texts?

The Guardian’s report on Deus Caritas Est was headlined “Pope surprises Catholics with warm words on power of love”. It was written by Stephen Bates, the Guardian’s religious affairs correspondent, who is himself a Catholic, and its tone of gratified amazement, as I noted at the time, “reflected the general reaction among Catholics hostile to the overall direction of the last pontificate, and particularly to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its supposedly cold-hearted former prefect”.

“Pope Benedict XVI thawed his previously chilly image yesterday” wrote Bates, “by producing as his first message to his world-wide flock a notably warm rumination on the nature of love. Deus Caritas Est … was greeted last night with some astonishment and relief among senior Catholics”.

The encyclical’s message, opined Bates, “was far from the finger-wagging ‘thou shalt not’ tone that characterised some of his predecessor’s pronouncements and contrasted with Benedict’s stern reputation….”

True enough: the tone of the encyclical did indeed belie the Pope’s “stern reputation”: but where, it had to be asked, did that come from? The answer was that the cold-hearted “Panzer-Cardinal” Ratzinger of former times was from beginning to end a media construct.

But what the press constructs, the press can deconstruct: and there followed a media makeover, “unequalled”, as I wrote in Faith magazine the following year, “since Dickens published the final instalment of The Christmas Carol, and mean old Ebenezer Scrooge, transformed by the Spirit of Christmas, astonished and slightly terrified the Cratchit family by turning up on Christmas day with a huge turkey (the encyclical was signed on Christmas Day).”

“There never was such a turkey,” wrote Dickens: “there never was such an encyclical”, Ruth Gledhill very nearly wrote, in The Times (which gave Deus Caritas Est a double page spread).

The tender-hearted Ms Gledhill had been expecting another chilling dose of “Bah! Humbug!”: “I started reading Deus Caritas Est expecting to be disappointed, chastised and generally laid low” she wrote. “An encyclical on love from a right-wing Pope could only contain more damning condemnations of our materialistic, westernised society, more evocations of the ‘intrinsic evil’ of contraception, married priests, homosexuality. It would surely continue the Church’s grand tradition of contempt for the erotic, a tradition that ensures a guilty hangover in any Roman Catholic who dares to indulge in love-making for any reason other than the primary one of reproduction."

"How wonderful it is to be proven wrong. This encyclical”, she continued, “is not the work of an inquisitor. It is the work of a lover — a true lover of God”.

Even The Tablet was enthusiastic. “Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical”, its leader [editorial] began, “confirms him as a man of humour, warmth, humility and compassion, eager to share the love that God ‘lavishes’ on humanity and display it as the answer to the world’s deepest needs. This is a remarkable, enjoyable and even endearing product of Pope Benedict’s first few months. If first encyclicals set the tone for a new papacy, then this one has begun quite brilliantly.”

Well, The Tablet soon recovered its old anti-Ratzingerian balance (phew!) but it is now trying to be enthusiastic about Pope Francis in the same sort of way as it was at first about Pope Benedict, hoping that he will turn out to be a jolly liberal: but the paper won’t, I predict, keep this up for long, once the new Holy Father has established, as he already is beginning to, that despite his endearing personal ways, he inevitably believes exactly the same things as his predecessor did, the basic function of the papal office being to guarantee continuity in the magisterium of the Church: there will never BE a Pope to The Tablet’s taste, unless and until that organ becomes once more what it was in its halcyon days under Douglas Woodruffe.

Which brings me back to Pope Benedict’s “lost” encyclical on the theological virtue of Faith. Father Lombardi says that Pope Benedict might eventually publish the document under his own name: but that wouldn’t be at all the same thing. It wouldn’t then be part of the papal magisterium. [So? Neither are the JESUS OF NAZARETH books - that didn't make them any less compelling nor detract in any way from the intrinsic value of the writings.]

But why couldn’t Pope Francis himself finish and then promulgate this encyclical on faith? It is not generally realised that Pope Benedict’s own first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, was actually started by his predecessor (so much for the general reaction that it made a wonderful change from the censorious John Paul).

Francis, after all, is now the Pope who will preside (is presiding) over the final phase of this year of faith. The teachings of the papal encyclicals are part of a continuing body of papal teaching. We have for the first time, two popes, living in close proximity in Vatican City.

Why not another first: a joint encyclical? Pope Francis’s first encyclical could then be Pope Benedict’s last. [I think Pope Francis is too much his own man to even consider this proposition! Benedict's Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei to decree the Year of Faith was a mini-encyclical in itself. And Francis himself, as Cardinal Bergoglio, wrote a 40-page pastoral letter about the Year of Faith to his diocese.]

If Pope Francis, together with all those already involved in the composition of Pope Benedict’s encyclical on faith, were now to complete it, and possibly to issue it in the joint names of both Popes (though that isn’t essential) his predecessor will surely die happy to have left it incomplete. It would then have served as the perfect illustration of his most famous coinage and his most fundamental doctrinal principle: “the hermeneutic of continuity”.

I also owe Aqua and Amy that they called my attention to this rejoinder in Oddie's combox, from someone whose comment to an Oddie piece I already posted once before. He obviously is not a Francis fan, but he has a point about the daily 'thought for the day' we get from the Pope via the Santa Marta homilettes, which, nonetheless, are just as useful to John Q. Public as the Pontifex messages on Twitter and should not be dismissed. The important thing is to keep to sound doctrine, even if some of the slogans need to be fleshed out.

---

His Holiness [Pope Francis] daily provides us with worthwhile 'fortune-cookie' reminders/conscience-prickers [like a real Catholic version of 'Thought for the Day']

...but there is [so far] no coherent schema or vision which forms an integrated holism akin to anything from his predecessors as far back as Pius VII - but frankly if that's the style or charism of His Holiness, then long may he continue - a preacher with worthwhile asides which can be collated into a 'spiritual nosegay' [I was brought up on such works by Merton, Van Zeller, Fulton Sheen, Mother Theresa etc][Other than Van Zeller, about whom I know nothing, what's wrong with Merton. Sheen and Blessed Teresa?]...Let him teach in the way he can teach with the full power, resources and insight of Holy Mother Church to back him up.

Despite his insightful nuances he remains a 2-dimensional preacher with near-perfect aphorisms, sound allusions and quick-witted understanding - like an inspirational parish priest...he dances around the complexity with simple explanations and a generic [but effective] collection of traditional pietistic socially 'relevant' soundbites [His recently reported 'off-the-cuff-isms' are no such thing - he's repeated them throughout his entire ministry] - but he doesn't transcend the complexity to the simplicity beyond it...

---

P.S. Actually, there is significant news today in the Italian media about the faith encyclical that seems to have overtaken all our speculation...

Italian bishop quotes Pope Francis:
He will sign and publish Benedict XVI's faith encyclical
but plans his own first encyclical on evangelical poverty
Fr, Lombardi confirms the faith encyclical will be published
but denies that the emeritus Pope is completing it himself
by ANDREA TORNIELLI

May 24, 2013

Pope Francis is apparently thinking about writing an encyclical on poverty. But first he plans to publish the encyclical on faith which his predecessor, Benedict XVI, the Supreme Pontiff Emeritus (the title given to him in the Pontifical Yearbook), is apparently working on.

The Bishop of Molfetta (Italy), Luigi Martella, broke the news in the latest issue of the diocesan weekly Luce & Vita. Martella was recently received by the Pope on the occasion of his ad limina visit to Rome.

But although Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that Francis will be publishing the encyclical on faith, he denied the bishop's claim about Benedict XVI’s involvement. “The news about Benedict XVI finishing off the text is completely unfounded.”

Mgr. Martella said in an article that Pope Francis “wanted to let me in on a secret, almost like a revelation.”

“Benedict XVI is finishing off his encyclical on faith and Francis will be signing it,” the bishop wrote. “He intends to write his own – first - encyclical on poverty soon. It will be titled “Beati pauperes!” (Blessed are the poor), poverty intended in an evangelical not in an ideological or political sense,” he pointed out.

Mons. Martella is under the impression that Papa Ratzinger is apparently working on completing the faith encyclical himself. Work on the text began months ago and the aim was to have the text published by 2013, the year Benedict XVI chose as the Year of Faith...

But from what Mgr. Martella says, it seems Francis has decided to make the project his own. Something similar happened the day after Benedict XVI’s election. In his first encyclical, “Deus caritas est” he used some of the material which John Paul II had gathered for a draft encyclical...

I really have serious reservations about bishops and other prelates 'disclosing' something the Pope may have told them in private unless it had to do with the ecclesiastic's own work that he needs to let his flock know. If only because in random 'small talk' exchanged during an ad-limina visit when the Pope also has to greet other bishops one on one, some things may not be very clear or bound to be misunderstood - as. in this case, that Benedict is completing the encyclical - and the occasion does not allow the Pope's interlocutor to follow up with questions! I think the bishop was on an ego trip to show his flock that he enjoyed this special 'confidence' from the Pope!

And if a faith encyclical does get published, we will know right away, regardless of the signature on it, if it is substantially Benedict XVI's work or simply a journeyman reworking of a draft that may have come from the Curia.



P.P.S. I have looked up Mons. Martella's diocesan paper, and will translate his full article entitled "The Pope close up"...

First, my most abject apologies to Mons. Luigi Martella and to the reader. It was rash and wrong of me to have characterized his reported disclosure of a private conversation with Pope Francis as an ego trip before I had seen the article itself. The article he wrote for his diocesan newspaper, which I have translated below, is a simple straightforward account by someone who wishes to share a precious experience with his flock. Besides, it appears it was not to him alone that the Pope made his statements about the encyclicals, but to the whole group of 12 bishops who were present at that particular visit. And the Pope may well have said what he did as Mons. Martella recounts it, even if Fr. Lombardi later denied that Benedict XVI still had anything to do with the faith encyclical. Did Fr. Lombardi think to check with Pope Francis first about this? It says a lot about the Pope's character if he did not hesitate to tell the bishops something he did not have to tell anyone - namely, that Benedict XVI is completing the faith encyclical for him to sign. We just have to wait, won't we, until the encyclical does come out to see if it reads substantially like Benedict XVI, or reads like a committee product.

Pope Francis seen up close
by Mons. Luigi Martella
Bishop of Molfetta
Translated from

Issue of May 26, 2013


May 13. 11:00 a.m. Meeting with Pope Francis.

It was a most beautiful experience, unforgettable, one of those occasions that leaves your heart appeased, gratified, satisfied, and enthusiastic.

Pope Francis is truly an extraordinary man if only for his disarming simplicity (for one who is called to guide the bark of Peter at a particularly complex and problematic time in history.

Providentially, it fell to us bishops of Puglia to meet with him on our ad limina visit at the start of his Pontificate. This is a visit that bishops carry out every five years [every seven years now] to the tomb of the Prince of Apostles, not just in homage to him but also to underscore the apostolic succession and our collegiality with the Successor of Peter.

We saw him, he met him, we shook his hand, and looked into his expressive eyes - in which one could read wonder and surprise, gentleness and amiability, humility and paternal sentiment.

We said Thank you to him. For everything. We showed him our joy that he had said Yes to a difficult call and for having accepted to bear such a weight despite the fact that he is no longer all that young.

We also brought him the affection of so many of the faithful who, knowing we were to meet him, said, "Greet the Pope for us, and tell him we wish him well".

Nor was the surprise less at finding ourselves his fellow 'guests' at Casa Santa Marta, where he has remained since the Conclave, in a two-room suite with auxiliary services.

One might say that he has chosen to live 'in community' - here he eats, sleeps, studies, prays, meets people who are passing through, chats with the groups who come to hear his daily Masses.

Around 10 a.m., he goes to the Apostolic Palace to receive official visitors and to attend to the business of governing the universal Church. He is back at Santa Marta for lunch around 1-1:30, then after a brief rest, he goes back to work.

At 7 p.m., he goes to the chapel where he remains in prayer till 8:00, dinner time. he retires to his rooms at 9 p.m., and it is said he goes to bed at 10:30 p.m. to wake up at 4:30 the next day.

To have met him one on one as well as in a group (there were 12 of us) has been a great satisfaction. In our brief chat after the initial greetings, I spoke to him of our Church in Molfetta-Ruvo-Giovinazzo-Terlizzi, without neglecting to note that ours is a territory from which people migrate, many to Argentina, especially Buenos Aires. In fact, the district of La Boca in that city has been inhabited by generatiosn of Molfettesi.

I told him that in 2002, I travelled to Buenos Aires, along with other prelates, with a delegation led by the then mayor of Molfetta, and that among our many meetings had been one with him as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He said he first heard of Molfetta from the very immigrants I had spoken of.

At that point, I spontaneously said, "Holiness, please come to Molfetta. we would be so happy..." I received a smile in reply, and I realized that I had spoken out of turn. Perhaps he was thinking of so many events that have already been programmed for him.

After the ritual photographs, together and individually with him, we sat around him and began to talk about our work. It lasted an hour and a half. Each bishop presented an aspect of the social and pastoral situation in Puglia.

When it was my turn, I spoke of two things: the goodness of the people of Puglia, and the characteristic of our region - it is a land of hospitality but is also a land which people leave for better opportunities. I also recalled that Puglia is like a bridge towards the Orient, and therefore also has an ecumenical openness, especially towards Orthodox Christians.

I saw this man of God, so courageous and amiable, who is conscious of his frailties and therefore entrusts himself to our prayers. Twice he said to me, "Pray for me".

He seemed very happy when we told him that our people wish him well, that he is surrounded with affection. and that his person is very much admired. He said it had nothing to do with him, that it was all a gift of God.

But he answered with some humor when we asked him the usual, "Holiness, how are you? How do you feel about your new life?" Smiling, he said, "When I saw that the votes were increasing for me during the Conclave, I did not lose my composure. So I sleep well, even here", adding immediately, "But there is so much to do." We said he must continue what he plans to do and we would be with him.

Then he spoke to us with such tenderness about Benedict XVI: "When I met him for the first time in Castel Gandolfo, I noticed how he had a most lucid memory*, even if he seemed physically weak. But now, he is definitely much better".

Finally, he wished to say something in confidence, almost like a revelation: That Benedict XVI was finishing the writing of the encyclical on faith ['sta terminando di scrivere l’ enciclica sulla fede'[ which he, Pope Francis, would sign; and that afterwards, he intended to write his own first encyclical, about the poor, to be entitled Beati pauperes "It will be about poverty not in the ideological or political sense," he said, "but in the evangelical sense".

The time allotted to us had elapsed, very quickly, but I assure you that both the Pope and we bishops could have gladly gone on in pleasant conversation. Even we felt the temptation of Peter to stay on Mt. Tabor.

*It seems Pope Francis wasn't too sure Benedict XVI would be in full possession of his mental faculties before he went to see him on March 23, but nobody had any reason to doubt this at all, given the cogency of his last public pronouncements as Pope, from the 45-minute off-the-cuff but very systematic lecture on Vatican II to the priests of Rome three days before he stepped down as Pope to his last farewell to the faithful in Castel Gandolfo. As for his memory, some of his closest associates have referred to it as some sort of comprehensive hard drive from which he is able to extract data at will. Someone who exercises his mind as constantly and as actively as he does is bound to keep it razor sharp and less susceptible to the normal ravages of senility and even, God forbid, Alzheimer's.

I did not see the February 15, 2013, item I am posting here, but I am using it for three reasons. First, because a few days after Benedict XVI announced he was renouncing the Papacy, a TV special about his Pontificate was shown in Italy entitled "Joseph Ratzinger and the Devil - the history of a Pontificate and the battle against evil", four weeks before his successor was going to mention the devil for the first time in a homily, to the great wonder of the world's media and the hosannahs of the Catholic media, as if no Pope had ever mentioned the devil before!

Second, because it recounts the 2009 episode involving B16 and two 'possessed' young men in St. Peter's Square, in the words of famed exorcist Fr. Amorth himself. And third, because the story from two days ago, posted next to the Telegraph story from February 2013, shows Father Amorth's ability to take equal opportunity of any occasion that calls attention to his craft of exorcism - and himself.

World's leading exorcist
praises Pope Benedict
By Nick Squires, Rome

15 Feb 2013

Pope Benedict XVI, whose resignation announcement stunned the world this week, has received high praise from an unusual quarter – the world's best=known exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, the founder and head of the International Association of Exorcists, said the German pontiff had "done many things for exorcists" during his eight-year papacy, which will come to an end on Feb 28.

He said Benedict, regarded as a staunch conservative during his time in office, had "allowed exorcists to administer the sacrament of exorcism not only to people who are suffering from demonic possession, but also those who suffer other evil disorders, such as diabolical infestations." [What, exactly, is a diabolical infestation? Is it some visible physical disease?]

Fr Amorth, the Catholic Church's best known exorcist, will be a special guest on Friday on a television programme to commemorate Benedict's papacy.

The programme, to be broadcast on a religious satellite channel, will be called: "Joseph Ratzinger and the Devil - the history of a Pontificate and the battle against evil".

FrAmorth, the exorcist for the diocese of Rome, is a controversial figure whose outspoken views have embarrassed the Vatican in the past.

In the past he has branded yoga as "evil", claiming that it leads to a worship of Hinduism and other Eastern religions based on "a false belief in reincarnation".

He has also railed against Harry Potter, saying the children's books seem innocuous but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry.

He claimed in a book last year that Pope Benedict unwittingly performed an exorcism of two men possessed by the Devil in the very heart of the Vatican, describing how he and two assistants brought a pair of "possessed" Italian men to one of the Pope's weekly audiences in St Peter's Square in May 2009.

In the book, 'The Last Exorcist – My Fight Against Satan', he said the mere presence of the Pontiff cured the men of their demonic afflictions. As the Pope approached them, the men, identified only as Marco and Giovanni, began to act strangely – they trembled and their teeth chattered.

When Benedict stepped down from his "Popemobile" the two men flung themselves to the floor.

"They banged their heads on the ground. The Swiss Guards watched them but did nothing," he wrote. "Giovanni and Marco started to wail at the same time, they were lying on the floor, howling. They were trembling, slobbering, working themselves into a frenzy.

"The Pope watched from a distance. He raised an arm and blessed the four of them. For the possessed it was like a furious jolt - a blow to their whole bodies - to the extent that they were thrown three metres backwards. They stopped howling but they cried uncontrollably."

[My immediate reaction when this anecdote first came to light last year when the Amorth's book ( co-written with Vaticanista Paolo Rodari) came out was - "The episode happened in 2009, the book is being published in early 2012. Shouldn't Fr. Amorth have a follow-up to the story? What happened to those two young men afterwards Are they now completely rid of their demons? One expects the same follow-up of Angel, the man over whom Pope Francis prayed on Pentecost Sunday. especially since Fr. Amorth now says he performed a full exorcism ritual on Angel the day after.]

Fr Amorth, who claims to have conducted thousands of exorcisms, wrote: "It is no mystery that the Pope's acts and words can enrage Satan...that simply the presence of the Pope can sooth and in some way help the possessed in their fight against the one who possesses them." [Why not? In some way, many of us somehow believe that if we ever came upon the coffin of Dracula, making the sign of the Cross over it or sprinkling it with holy water would reduce it to dust. Imagine what a Pope's blessing can do!]

The Vatican disputed the account, saying Benedict was not aware of the men's afflictions and had not intended to carry out an exorcism.
[Since Benedict never had any contact with the two men, it was easy for the media to accept that denial and forget all about the story. Imagine how they would have played it up, however, if the story had happened with Francis instead of Benedict. The headlines would have been along the lines of "A miracle: Pope casts out demons from two men simply by blessing them from afar".]

Perhaps because I had an early eyewitness experience of a demonic possession, I have never been 'into' exorcism literature. I have read just one fiction work about it, the first 'Exorcist' novel by William Blatty, and I was not curious enough to watch the movie based on it. But there's this case story online of a famous exorcism that happened in the USA in 1949, which might make good reading
www.ksdk.com/assetpool/documents/121026010134_SLU-exorcism-case-s...

I was trawling around for material I could translate to give a fair overview about Padre Pino Puglisi (Pino is a nickname for Hiuseppe, from Giuseppino) (1937-1993) in whose cause for canonization, like that of the 800 martyrs of Otranto, I have had great personal interest. The Otranto martyrs because they were martyred by Muslims, and their deaths in the 15th century are as resonant as ever today (when a young British soldier can simply be hacked to death with a machete by two Nigerian jihadists on a London street in broad daylight, and when Christians in Africa, the Middle East, India and Pakistan are being martyred almost daily and are all potential martyrs). And Don Pino because he was killed by the Mafia, and is the first acknowledged and official martyr at their hands - someone who was killed not because of his faith (his Mafia killers were most likely 'devout' Catholics) but because he was militantly opposed to organized crime and its consequences ... Anyway, I am very grateful to John Allen, who wrote this piece earlier this month about Don Pino, and provides the basic information and necessary context for this signal event, sparing me from having to cobble together something from Italian sources that I would then have to translate. And for the reasons he gives, I will not dispute the conclusion he expresses in his title for the piece.


Don Pino Puglisi, martyr to the Mafia:
the most important beatification
of the early 21st century

May 10, 2013

On May 25, the Catholic church will celebrate what is quite possibly the most important beatification of the early 21st century. Italian Fr. Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi will be recognized as a martyr in a Mass celebrated in Palermo on the island of Sicily, where he was assassinated in 1993 for challenging the Mafia's hold.

The event probably won't get a lot of media play outside Italy, especially since the Pope isn't going to be on hand. Yet make no mistake: Puglisi is not only a terrific story, but his beatification marks a profound evolution in the Catholic understanding of martyrdom and "anti-Christian" persecution generally.

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, approximately 100,000 Christians around the world have been killed "in a situation of witness" each year in the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed every hour. Other experts question that number, but even the low-end estimate puts the tally of Christians killed every day in circumstances somehow related to their faith at 20, meaning almost one per hour.

The rise of this new generation of martyrs is the most important Christian story of our time, and Puglisi is an ideal patron saint for making the defense of believers at risk a transcendent Christian cause.

First, a brief recap of Puglisi's life and death.

By all accounts a funny, spitfire pastor, Puglisi dedicated his life to convincing youth in his crime-infested neighborhood that there are ways forward other than the mob and to shaping a civil society in Sicily that challenges the Mafia's political influence.

His journey started as a young pastor in the 1960s in Godrano, in the hills 25 miles outside Palermo. When Puglisi arrived, there had been 15 recent murders in this village of scarcely more than 100 people, all related to a feud between two rival Mafia clans. Puglisi started going door-to-door, reading the Gospel with people and talking about forgiveness. He encouraged small groups to pray and to read the Bible, at first once a month, then every 15 days.

Eventually, one of the women hosting a group said she couldn't carry on until she had forgiven the mother of her son's assassin. Puglisi arranged reconciliation between the two women, which endured despite strong disapproval from many in the village. By itself, this outcome did not cancel the feud, but it was a start.

"Peace," Puglisi said, "is like bread -- it must be shared or it loses its flavor."

Puglisi later took over as pastor of San Gaetano Parish in the rough-and-tumble Palermo neighborhood of Brancaccio. He became famous for his strong anti-Mafia stance, refusing to take their money for feast day celebrations and not allowing dons to march at the head of processions. He strove to keep youth out of their reach, discouraging them from dropping out of school, robbing, drug-dealing and selling contraband cigarettes. He also declined to award a contract to a construction firm backed by the Mafia for the restoration of his church.

He understood he was playing with fire. Members of a social improvement group in his parish found the doors of their houses torched and got menacing phone calls. Puglisi himself received multiple death threats and, according to the testimony of one of his hit men (who later confessed), Puglisi's last words were: "I've been expecting you."

As it happened, Puglisi was gunned down on his 56th birthday. Visitors to Brancaccio today can find his favorite saying scrawled all over its walls: "And what if somebody did something?"

Entirely on his own, Puglisi is deserving of the honor. However, his beatification also represents a powerful impulse to reframe how Catholics perceive a wide variety of contemporary situations in which Christians are at risk.

Take the case of two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria on April 23 whose whereabouts remain unknown.

So far, nobody has publicly claimed responsibility, though some eyewitness accounts have suggested the involvement of foreign Chechen extremists who've shown up in Syria to join the fighting. Given that kidnapping Christian clergy has become a cottage industry in Syria, it could be that the prelates were grabbed as part of a shakedown.

In February, the website Ora Pro Siria, operated by Catholic missionaries, reported that the going price to ransom a priest was $200,000. Most of the kidnapping is being carried out by a bewildering variety of militias and criminal gangs, all seeking revenue streams.

I've done several radio and TV bits on the story of the Syrian bishops, and when I suggest the motive may be extortion, the response is usually something like, "So it might not have anything to do with religion?"

Although understandable, that reaction betrays a serious confusion. Whenever someone is threatened or harmed, there are actually two questions to ask: First, what are the motives of the attackers? Second, did the victims make choices that placed themselves at risk, and if so, why?

In the case of the bishops, one has to consider what they were doing on the road that runs between the Turkish border and Aleppo in the first place. As it happens, it's a grand irony -- they were returning from an effort to negotiate the release of two priests, one Orthodox and the other Armenian Catholic, who were kidnapped in early February.

The bishops clearly understood they were placing themselves at risk, but chose to do so anyway on the basis of pastoral concern for fellow clergy. Thus the answer to the question "So this might not have anything to do with religion?" is no. Religion has a lot to do with it, as long as we're bringing all parties into view.

Therein lies the significance of the Puglisi precedent.

Historically, the Church has recognized martyrs only if they were killed in odium fidei, meaning hatred of the faith. In effect, the test has been the motivation of the assailant, not the victim. Puglisi, however, is being recognized as a martyr who died in odium virtutis et veritatis, meaning hatred of virtue and truth. His assassins' motives had nothing to do with opposition to Christianity -- indeed, they understood themselves to be good Catholics. Yet Puglisi's reasons for standing in the firing line had everything to do with his faith.

The category of "hatred of virtue and truth" has always existed in classical theology. Over the centuries, writers have sometimes invoked it, for instance, to explain why the Church regards St. John the Baptist as a martyr, who died not for refusing to renounce Christ but for criticizing Herod's immoral conduct.

The Puglisi beatification means it's being revived and potentially could accommodate many other similar situations. [Since I do not recall coming across the phrase brought up by Allen in the announcements of martyrdom from the Congregation for Saints since I've been following them, I just checked back on the Vatican announcement of the decree on Fr. Puglisi's martyrdom in June 2012, and it states clearly: "Servant of God Giuseppe Puglisi, Italian diocesan priest (1937-1993), killed in hatred of the faith in Palermo, Italy in 1993". So it appears the Congregation still has to catch up with itself?]

To take just one example, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the Vatican official handling the sainthood cause of Archbishop Oscar Romero* of El Salvador, suggested in a February interview with NCR that the Puglisi beatification sets a precedent for Romero, too.

To be sure, there are legitimate cautions about an overly elastic concept of anti-Christian persecution.

For one thing, styling something as a religious conflict when other forces may be equally decisive can be inflammatory. One can get an exaggerated impression of Muslim/Christian animosity, for instance, by focusing only on the religious identity of jihadists in the Middle East without considering the political, economic and cultural factors that also foment violence.

Accurate diagnosis is also key to any cure. If Christians are being targeted in Sri Lanka not just because of their religious affiliation but because of lingering ethnic and political tensions related to that nation's civil war, protecting them may require solutions that have as much to do with statecraft as confessional rivalry.

(The point about Sri Lanka is hardly idle. At the moment, a group of more than 200 Tamil Catholic families are still living in an internally displaced persons camp after having been driven from their native village in 2007 by incensed mobs, who blamed them both for supporting the Tamil rebels and for undercutting the town's Buddhist identity.

"If we could go home, we wouldn't have to wait for other people to bring us food and clothing," one of the refugees told a reporter. "We want to earn our living, feed our children and get back to a normal life. Instead, we are stuck here to suffer.")

At the same time, it cheapens the witness of legions of victims to suggest their suffering isn't "religious" simply because their oppressors aren't motivated by explicitly religious concerns.

Among other things, grasping that point is crucial to waking up both the rank and file and the leadership of the churches about the true scope and scale of the threats facing Christians in the early 21st century. Most Christians today aren't being menaced because of their doctrinal convictions but because of moral choices rooted in their faith. That distinction doesn't make their suffering any less spiritually significant or any less deserving of concern.

Driving that point home, in short, is the promise of the beatification of Don Pino.



*I wish to interpose a comment about the cause for Mons. Romero.

A few weeks ago, the media reported that the cause for his beatification had been 'unblocked' by Pope Francis, implying that somehow Benedict XVI had 'blocked' the process in any way. And it was most unfortunate that the person who used the term 'unblocked' was the postulator for Romero's cause, Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, whom Benedict XVI named last year to head the Pontifical Council for the Family. (Postulators are supposed to take the lead in pushing the cause of their candidate. Did Paglia push enough? I read elsewhere that until he died in 2008, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo had been the most active in the Curia at pushing Romero's cause. Did Paglia fail to take up the slack afterwards?) And yet, in the reports I read earlier this year, including an interview he gave to John Allen, Paglia never specified how the cause had been 'blocked'.

[I have two other outstanding issues with recent statements by Paglia, one of them being what he said about gay unions, but the other one, something that was most calumnious of Benedict XVI that I could not even bring myself to mention at the time, shortly after Benedict's announcement he would resign, but I will get into that later. If Paglia was named to the Curia because he has been the longtime spiritual adviser to the Sant'Egidio Community, the latter did Benedict XVI a really bad turn!)]

The 'technical' question about Romero's cause, as articulated in Allen's piece above, was whether his death - at the hands of killers sent by those whose politics and policies he opposed - qualifies as martyrdom since the motivation was political, not hatred of the faith.
Romero was gunned down in El Salvador while saying Mass on March 24, 1980, a day after calling on the Salvadoran military to halt its repressive tactics.

If his death is accepted as a martyrdom, he will not require a miracle to be beatified. Don Pino Puglisi's case thus sets a precedent. But there was an earlier precedent, that of Solidarity activist-priest Jerzy Popieluszko of Poland, who was killed by Communist commandos for his anti-Soviet activism, and was beatified in 2010. [It was suggested that his cause moved because it was pushed by the secretary of the Congregation for Saints till 2009, who was a Pole appointed years before by John Paul II.]

It was also suggested in recent news reports that the real delay was because of Romero's links or sympathies with liberation theology in El Salvador, but the CDF scrutiny of all his writings and recorded statements has apparently shown no questionable doctrine.

Enroute to Brazil in 2007, Benedict XVI was asked about Romero's cause. He said he believed the process was moving ahead. "I have no doubt he will be beatified. I know that the cause is proceeding well at the Congregation for the Cause of Saints," but said he did not have precise information.

"He was certainly a great witness for the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who was committed to peace and against dictatorship." Recalling that Romero was assassinated during the Consecration of the Host, he said it was 'an incredible death.'

is a new site conceived as 'a central place for dialog between Christians and atheists'. and I came across this recent post which I traced to its original source, from which I gather it was written some time in 2008. Which does not make its content any less valid or interesting.

Einstein and God


It was recently revealed that, toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein wrote a letter in which he dismissed belief in God as superstitious and characterized the stories in the Bible as childish.

During a time when atheists have emerged rather aggressively in the popular culture, it was, to say the least, discouraging to hear that the most brilliant scientist of the twentieth century seemed to be antipathetic to religion. It appeared as though Einstein would have agreed with the Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harrises and Richard Dawkins of the world in holding that religious belief belongs to the childhood of the human race.

It just so happens that the revelation of this letter coincided with my reading of Walter Isaacson’s wonderful biography of Einstein, a book that presents a far more complex picture of the great scientist’s attitude toward religion than his late career musing would suggest.

In 1930, Einstein composed a kind of creed entitled “What I Believe,” at the conclusion of which he wrote: “To sense that behind everything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense...I am a devoutly religious man.”

In response to a young girl who had asked him whether he believed in God, he wrote: “everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a Spirit vastly superior to that of man.”

And during a talk at Union Theological Seminary on the relationship between religion and science, Einstein declared: “the situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

These reflections of Einstein—and he made many more like them throughout his career—bring the German physicist close to the position of a rather influential German theologian.

In his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, offered this simple but penetrating argument for God’s existence: the universal intelligibility of nature, which is the presupposition of all science, can only be explained through recourse to an infinite and creative mind which has thought the world into being.

No scientist, Ratzinger said, could even begin to work unless and until he assumed that the aspect of nature he was investigating was knowable, intelligible, marked by form. But this fundamentally mystical assumption rests upon the conviction that whatever he comes to know through his scientific work is simply an act of re-thinking or re-cognizing what a far greater mind has already conceived.

Ratzinger’s elegant proof demonstrates that, at bottom, religion and science ought never to be enemies, since both involve an intuition of God’s existence and intelligence.

In fact, many have argued that it is no accident that the modern physical sciences emerged precisely out of the universities of the Christian West, where the idea of creation through the divine word was clearly taught.

Unhappily, in far too many tellings of the history of ideas, modernity is seen as emerging out of, and in stark opposition to, repressive, obscurantist, and superstitious Christianity. (How many authors, up to the present day, rehearse the struggles of Galileo to make just this point).

As a result, Christianity — especially in its Catholic expression — is often presented as a kind of foil to science, when in fact there is a deep congruity between the disciplines that search for objective truth and the religion that says, “in the beginning was the Word.”

What sense, then, can we make of Einstein’s recently discovered letter? Given the many other things he said about belief, perhaps it’s best to say that he was reacting against primitive and superstitious forms of religion, just as St. Paul was when he said that we must put away childish things when we’ve come of age spiritually.

And what of his dismissal of the Bible? Here I think we have to make a distinction. A person can be a genius in one field of endeavor and remain naïve, even inept, in another.

Few would dispute that Einstein was the greatest theoretical physicist of the last century, but this is no guarantee that he had even an adequate appreciation for Sacred Scripture.

The “infantile” stories of the Bible have been the object of sophisticated interpretation for two and half millenia. Masters such as Origen, Philo, Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Henry Newman have uncovered the complexity and multivalence of the Bible’s symbolism and have delighted in showing the literary artistry that lies below its sometimes deceptively simple surface.

So I think we can say in conclusion that religious people can, to a large extent, claim Einstein as an ally, though in regard to Scripture interpretation, we can find far better guides than he.

Saturday, May 25, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

ST. BEDE THE VENERABLE (England, ca 672-735), Monk, Historian, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI gave an illuminating catechesis on St. Bede, the only Anglo-Saxon Doctor of the Church, on 2/18/2009.
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20090218...
In describing Bede's extraordinary example of holiness and scholarship, the Holy Father pointed out the saint's emphasis on the Church as catholic, apostolic and based on Roman
tradition; his work in liturgical theology; and his catecheses 'in the tradition of Cyril, Ambrose and Augustine. From the time he entered the monastery of St. Paul and
St. Peter in Jarrow, he never left till his death - despite his renown and invitations from kings and popes - except for a brief visit to teach at the school of the Archbishop
of York. His scholarly interests from philosophy and theology to mathematics and astronomy. In his lifetime, he was already called Venerable, and Church Councils urged his
teachings to be read in church. He wrote at least 45 books, including his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People, for which he is considered the father
of English historiography. Benedict XVI quoted this from Bede: "Every time a soul accepts and keeps the Word of God, in imitation of Mary, he conceives and generates Christ
anew... (and the Church 'reproduces' herself", words that seemed to echo in Benedict's homily on Pentecost Sunday 2010. Bede was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1899.
St. Bede is buried in Durham Cathedral.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/052513.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture

- His Beatitude Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, Archbishop Major of Trivandrum of the Siro-Malankar Church (India)

- Members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontefice Foundation. Address in Italian.





One year ago...
Benedict XVI met with H.E. Petr Nečas, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, and his delegation; Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies
of Apostolic Life, and the secretary of the Congregation, Mons. Joseph William Tobin; and in the afternoon, with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting).

But May 25 was also significant because it was the day the world learned first, that the IOR board of directors had dismissed their chairman and president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, with a 'no-confidence' vote, and second, that the Vatican police had arrested the Pope's valet, Paolo Gabriele, as the suspected thief of the papal documents leaked to the media through Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, and that a massive amount of documents had been confiscated from Gabriele's apartment.

As we note the first anniversary of the arrest of treacherous valet Paolo Gabriele for stealing private documents from the Pope's desk, this mini-compendium that I put together last year will help to put a perspective on Vatileaks in terms of the betrayal of the Pope's trust - even if none of the worse instances cited ended up blanketing a Pontificate with as much deceptively misleading implications - far beyond its actual substance, which was objectively minor - as did Vatileaks.

True stories of treason and
espionage at the Vatican give
needed perspective to Vatileaks
May 25, 2012

No one so far - not one of the Italian Vaticanistas or John Allen, who continues to be touted as 'the most authoritative US journalist on the Vatican" - has anything to say about the arrest of Paolo Gabriele but that if he did steal those documents, he did not do it on his own; someone put him up to it, and that someone must be discovered. One would think that the easiest way to find this out would be to break Gabriele's alleged silence and non-cooperation with his interrogators, and make him say who.

If there was any financial consideration at all, the police should be able to trace any bank accounts in his name or that of any member of his family to check that out. If he is indeed guilty of stealing those documents in behalf of someone, I can only think of one reason why he will not freely disclose the identity of his puppet-master - a credible threat of to kill his family if he does so. It sounds like yet another plotline out of pulp fiction but what else is there? That he is delusional and truly believes he was serving a noble purpose by stealing documents from a man who has literally left himself to his ministrations every day for the past six years and whom he could have killed at anytime if he wanted to? That's too monstrous to think. [P.S. 2013 - Alas, that is what it was! And no one has so far presented any plausible hypothesis, let alone evidence, that someone was pulling his strings. Megalomaniacs - and that is what he appeared to be, from his own statements and from expert psychiatric diagnosis - pull their own strings.

As terrible as this case is, it helps to learn that it is by no means the worse that could happen. The one constant about all the stories so far is that there is nothing in the leaked documents that raises any question at all of Pope Benedict's integrity. In fact, Vito Mancuso, the lay theologian who prides himself in his near-heretical positions, used that as a pretext for claiming that the book had only the best of intentions, was quoted by TMNews to have said at the book presentation last week: "The book is not an attack on Benedict XVI - in fact, it expresses confidence in his rectitude and spiritual purity". Rather, he said, "it is a formal and substantial attack against the Pope's principal collaborator, Cardinal Bertone". [That's a different issue.]

The revolting tale of
Pius XII's personal physician

So in the meantime, some Italian reporters have spoken to Church historians of comparable acts of treason in the Apostolic Palace - and one of the first I read was this one, from a speculative article by Paolo Rodari in Il Foglio, dated May 22, about how the three-man investigating commission of cardinals were now having to look into the papal household itself since treason right under the Pope's nose is not unusual. He goes on to cite something I had not even heard about before:

---

One fact is certain: the 'viper' is not an unknown figure in the Sacri Palazzi. Every Pontificate has its own. One of the most veteran of Vaticanistas, Benny Lai, has written often that the viper is a figure which recurs often in the history of the papacy - usually a person who enjoys 'important protection' within the Vatican itself such that sometimes, even when discovered, is left in place.

Lai had often admitted that he himself took part in various 'expedients' to get information from Vatican sources, especially behind-the-scenes accounts. The most famous of this: "We contributed to a fund so that every month we would pass on 10,000 lire to Riccardo Galeazzi Lisi, Pius XII's personal physician, so that he would keep us informed about the Pope's health".

But when the Pope found about about this betrayal, he did not dismiss him, but reportedly said: "If he wants to stay, let him stay, but keep him out of my sight". [It seems, however, that the Pope did not pick out another personal physician because the traitor was present at his deathbed and did something even more revolting!] When Pius XII died while in Castel Gandolfo, Galeazzi Lisi took Polaroid photos of the Pope in agony.

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Rodari does not say more about that horrible man, but I looked him up - getting only Italian links on my search, and the Wikipedia account of what he did to the Pope is so horrifying as to sound unbelievable. But the same account is repeated in various ways in the other sources I could find. If you read Italian, you can read the Wikipedia account here:
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Galeazzi_Lisi

In short, this despicable doctor first took pictures of the dying Pope which he immediately sold to some Italian and French newspapers, and then took more pictures when he asked to be left alone in order to embalm the Pope. The results of his embalming method had horrific consequences for the mortal remains of the Pope before he could even be brought to St. Peter's to lie in state. Other doctors had to do the best they could to clean up and repair Lisi's mess so Pius XII could be presentable to lie in state. It's excruciating to think of that saintly man subjected to the diabolic inhumanity of his own personal physician!

The man was expelled by the Italian medical association and John XXIII banned him from ever stepping foot in the Vatican again. But he lived to write a book - for a French publisher - about his macabre feat which was a pretext to use all his photographs again. [It is a tribute to some residual decency in the mass media that they apparently never sought to exploit or even to transmit these photos, and I have been unable to find out if the newspapers to whom he sold the photos ever used them at all.]

Church historian Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant'Egidio Community and now Minister for International Cooperation in Mario Monti's government, gives other recent but less bizarre examples of treason in the Vatican.

'From infiltration by fascist agents
to the present-day crows, the Vatican
has always been fertile ground for spies'
by Marco Ansaldo
Translated from

May 27, 2012

VATICAN CITY - "At the Vatican, there have often been cases in which money, espionage and the media are intertwined. During the Fascist era, there was someone who organized a network of espionage and information dealing. Today, one must understand what motivates these traitors - whether it is for financial reasons, intramural politics, or an operation against the Church".

Andrea Riccardi, historian and professor of Church history, is not surprised at the internal confrontations in the Vatican laid bare in recent months. As a historian of the Church, he shares his reflections with us:

Minister Riccardi, what is happening at the Vatican?
Everyone seems to profess surprise at this episode of so-called moles and crows, and the public is naturally struck by the very fact that all this inside information is being leaked.

But the historian knows that the Vatican, at various times, if we just start with the 19th century, the most diverse forms of attention and pressures have been exerted. And that is because the Vatican, has always been a frail entity despite all the stereotypes about its supposed power. Nonetheless, it also remains a reality that is of continuing interest to the powers of the world.

What happened during the Fascist years?
Mussolini's secret police spied constantly on the Apostolic Palace.
Today we have all the documents about their informers, who were ecclesiastics as well as Catholic laymen.

For instance, a Monsignor Puzzi, who had the run of the Vatican in terms of access, who continually passed on information to the Fascist police.

Another example, in the mid-1930s, was a Mons. Benigni who worked in the foreign relations section of the Secretariat of State. who organized a network for information trading and espionage.

In short, they were double-faced...
They worked for the Church, but served other customers. When Montini [future Paul VI] was the Sostituto at the Secretariat of State, he was denounced to the Fascists as not just being anti-Fascist but of organizing a Catholic resistance against Fascism.

And during the war?
The scenario was terrible, The Nazis had many contacts within the Vatican and they infiltrated freely. The Nazi commandant in Rome kept the Holy See under constant surveillance by a great number of inside informers, and the Italian military had technical control of Vatican communications.

How did the Vatican react?
Both Pius XII and Montini, who was his trusted lieutenant, suffered the fact that they were constantly under siege. That had to be a great part of their suffering at the time. The walls of the Vatican did not protect them. But there were all these unfaithful ecclesiastics then, and they will always be around.

And after the war?
It was very curious that clandestine bishops in the Soviet Union were being systematically found by the Soviets. That led to the discovery of one Edward Prettner Cippico, an archivist for the Russian section of the Secretariat of State. He was informing the Soviets. But he was pardoned by John XXIII in 1983.

And under Papa Roncalli himself?
It was discovered that the attacks in the media against his line were the work of what was called at the time 'the Roman party' within the Vatican.

Then with Papa Wojtyla, the chapter is rather broad...
The first ten years of his Pontificate was rife with Communist infiltrators...

But was the Vatican that easy to penetrate?
If only for political and media pressures, the condition of this tiny 'island' in the middle of Italy is that it is at the same time vulnerable as well as decisive for the unity of the Catholic world. It is an institution that has no protective barriers at all.

But what do you think is the aim of Vatileaks?
One must ask whether it is for financial reasons, intramural politics, or an operation against the Church. But in any case, the aim is to weaken the Pope. So that the Borgia stereotype is projected to this Pontificate, namely, that the Vatican has become a wellspring of poison. In fact, the Vatican is and always has been a place of both grandeur and weakness.

His enemies and other malevolents under-estimate Benedict XVI if they think that all the various stratagems tried so far against him will 'weaken' him - and they have tried everything in the past seven years. Since his enemies in the media can't find a 'smoking gun' to crucify him with some made-up offense, they are now exploiting Vatileaks like a shotgun shooting at him from all directions and hoping that somehow, some bullets will find their mark.

But I can't get over my gut feeling that Cardinal Bertone [if he has not been completely body-snatched by Beelzebub] would help the Pope best by resigning now, for serious - not some token resignation he talks about to everyone but to which he knows that the Pope, being kind to his friends, would say "No, please stay!" For once, say "Thank you for your confidence all these years, but for the good of the Church and for your own good, this has to end. I will still be your Camerlengo, but I can do no more at the Secretariat of State, where things have only gone from bad to worse." Nor will it get any better, even if the real traitors are identified and caught, because Bertone will remain the primary divisive and counter-productive factor in the Roman Curia. P.S. 2013 Obviously, I was too harsh against Bertone if one considers that since March 13, 2013, we have not heard one criticism or sniping against him or against anyone in the Curia for that matter - as if all it took was for Benedict XVI to step down, for the Vatican and the Church to suddenly become the best of all possible worlds, and those once denounced to high heavens as villains of the highest order had turned virtuous and unreproachable overnight. Nonetheless, my reservations remain against Bertone and what I consider his grave disservice to the Pope he claimed to love.

Resuming the unusual 40-day tribute last Lent by the UK Generation Benedict, featuring a first-person account by a GenBen member of how Benedict XVI made an impact on their individual lives....

Day 2: Service by name,
service by nature:
Holy Father, thank you!
by Ryan Service

Ryan is a 25=year=old first-year seminarian from the Archdiocese of Birmingham, who is studying for the priesthood at the Venerable English College in Rome.

Sitting on cold and hard pavement stones outside Westminster Cathedral on a crisp September morning in 2010, something within me changed. There was no sudden conversion or flashes of revelation, but the dawning of recognition.




True to the motto of his visit to the UK, Cor ad cor loquitur -Heart speaks unto heart - Pope Benedict spoke to my heart, and through his words echoing around the piazza I heard the same Christ that had been gently calling me to His priesthood for the last six years.

The visit of Pope Benedict to our shores caused me to climb off that fence I had been sitting on and “think of all the love that your [my] heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give” in the service of His Church.


Ryan (left) with fellow seminarians and the Archbishop of Birmingham,

One year on from the Pope’s visit to the UK I was packing my suitcase leaving to start seminary training at the Royal English College in Valladolid, Spain. I attribute my decision to apply to seminary to this visit.

His Holiness reminded us that “giving love, pure and generous love, is the fruit of a daily decision” and I had reached a point where I was now open to make the decision to apply to seminary.

A few weeks before his journey to Britain I listed my options for the year, including various employment opportunities and further study. ‘Following up the priesthood idea’ was last on the list, literally.

During the Pope’s speech outside Westminster I realised that deciding to pursue a vocation to the priesthood is an act of “pure and generous love…for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.”

In essence, it is reasonable to say Yes to Christ and this Yes is liberating, allowing us to “discover our true self.” A vocation to the priesthood is how I make sense of my true self.

The life, language and holiness of Blessed John Henry Newman surrounded the entire Papal visit: Newman set the mood. My understanding of the priesthood developed in this context, most especially at the prayer vigil in Hyde Park.



In preparing for Newman’s beatification, the vigil invited us to “examine our lives, to see them against the vast horizon of God’s plan.”

In this way, the Pope called us to a personal beatification in reminding us that “we were created to know the truth, to find in that truth our ultimate freedom and the fulfilment of our deepest human aspirations.”

Asking the bigger questions in life is part of the parcel of Christianity and having “accepted the truth of Christ” our lives must change, for we cannot “go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has overtaken our society…”.

For me, this call to change materialised itself in giving serious consideration to my sense of calling to the priesthood. From this experience I became aware that vocation can never be an entirely private affair.

A personal conviction alone is insufficient. Recognition by the Church is vital because vocation is a two-way process. You discern through the Church, through the liturgical spaces and themes of the years, through her people and her structures.

A vocation must be recognised and authenticated in communion with the Church. Like holding a mirror up to nature, my sense of vocation should now be held up and reflected in the face of the Church.



Before turning to the Eucharist in adoration the Pope turned to the hearts of the many youth present at the vigil:

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Dear young friends: only Jesus knows what ‘definite service’ he has in mind for you. Be open to his voice resounding in the depths of your heart, even now his heart is speaking to your heart…Ask the lord what he has in mind for you! Ask him for the generosity to say ‘Yes’!

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Re-calling Newman’s well known meditation of “some definite service,” I really felt called by name! Service in name, service by nature. In these quiet moments on the eve of Newman’s beatification, I realised, for the first time, that we can “ask the Lord what he has in mind” for us. Our personal vocation need not be a mystery any longer.

We can know, through prayer and discernment, the purpose of our God creator in our lives.

I share the view of Prime Minister David Cameron that in September 2010 the Pope “really challenged the country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing.”

Whether he knew it or not, Cameron was touching upon a new found confidence in the uncovering of our personal vocation in the life of the British Church.

The Pope called us to “sit up and think” of the ways in which we are asked by the Lord to serve His Church. Sometimes this task, albeit noble, is simply daunting. We become overwhelmed by this call to serve and are unable to act.

This is where we rely on the prayers of others and we ask for the grace needed to realise our ‘definite service’.

Two more parts of Benjamin Wiker's tribute to Benedict XVI...

Pope Benedict XVI vs. secularism
by Benjamin Wiker

March 9, 2013

I think it will be some years before we understand how great a legacy Pope Benedict XVI will be leaving us.

Part of that legacy to be especially treasured will be the Pope’s reflections on the dangers of the increasingly aggressive secular state.

His warning: In the West, and now especially in the United States, the state is increasingly pushing a secular agenda. Pushing that agenda through means driving the Church, not just out of the public square, but out of the culture. The threat to religious liberty is very, very real.

In January 2012, Pope Benedict addressed U.S. bishops from Baltimore, Washington and the Archdiocese for the Military Services during their ad limina pilgrimage to Rome, telling them,

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It is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States comes to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms: the freedom of religion.

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At about the same time that the Pope was warning the U.S. bishops (and, indirectly, all Americans) about the threat to religious liberty by radical secularists, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services was busily illustrating it.

That very January, the secretary of the HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, delivered a mandate informing all religious institutions — especially Catholic universities and hospitals — that they would have to provide contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization in their insurance plans.

The HHS mandate is not an isolated incident, but part of a larger, longer campaign by the secular-minded in Europe and America to shrink the presence and influence of Christianity in the world until it finally disappears from history, thereby reversing the effects of the Church’s 2,000-year evangelization.

The Pope’s call for a New Evangelization — a redoubling of Pope John Paul II’s efforts — is made in the face of this very real threat. The fate of the Church in the third millennium depends in large part on our response to the active secularization that has done so much to erase Christianity during the final two centuries of the second millennium.

In order to respond prayerfully, we need to comprehend the real scope of the secular threat.

Benedict is a man deeply read in history, and so he understands very clearly that aggressive secularization has been gaining political ground since the horrors of brutal de-Christianization during the French Revolution. It happened in France; it happened in Russia and the Soviet satellites; it happened in other ways, with the imposition of the pseudo-religion of Nazism that took over his homeland, Bavaria; it continues today in all of Europe’s liberal democracies.

And, as the Pope warned, secularization has come to the United States of America.

Take down the Ten Commandments. No Bible reading in schools. No public prayer. Clear away the crèche. No "Merry Christmas." Affirm "gay marriage." And, as we’ve seen with the HHS mandate, "Thou shalt participate in the sexual revolution."

The message of all such radical secularism is clear: "You will bend the knee before the state."

The secular state often puts the message in more inviting terms, terms which should sound like a very familiar temptation: "If you will bend the knee before me, then I will give you all the splendor and pleasures of the world."

Secularism is, by definition, the affirmation of this world and the rejection of the next. It is historically rooted in a materialism that denies the existence of God, the angels, the soul and the afterlife. Its fundamental "this-worldliness" is the source of secularism’s antagonism to the Church.

As Pope Benedict has warned, this antagonism is often disguised as a beneficent affirmation of plurality. But when contemporary secularists preach tolerance, they practice what the Pope has called a "negative tolerance," a "new intolerance," complete with "standards of thinking that are supposed to be imposed on everyone" — what we in America call "political correctness."

The result, the Pope has noted, is actually the "abolition of tolerance, for it means, after all, that religion, that the Christian faith, is no longer allowed to express itself visibly."

That result is, of course, the real aim of secularism: the removal of Christianity from culture.

The seemingly beneficent affirmation of plurality has, as Pope Benedict noted, a deeper manifestation — the promotion of relativism. Relativism says with a kindly smile, "Let us affirm all views as equally good; all ways of living as equally admirable; all thoughts as equally true."

But again, hidden beneath the extended velvet glove of affirmation is often an iron hand ready to impose what the Pope has rightly called "a dictatorship of relativism."

As he warned the Conclave that would end up electing him to the papacy, "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."

That "egoism" is inherent in the secular denial of God and the materialist reduction of good and evil to personal physical pleasure and pain.

With no God to define good and evil, people become their own little gods, creating their own moral rules that maximize this-worldly satisfactions.

In response, Pope Benedict has issued a call "for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity, endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society."

That call was given directly to the visiting U.S. bishops in January 2012 as an essential task of the New Evangelization, one that also includes "a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society" as the true alternative to radical secularism.


Totalitarian Irrationality
by BENJAMIN WIKER

March 12, 2013

In the previous blog post, we explored Pope Benedict’s account of the roots of relativism — roots which ultimately blossomed into full-scale secularism in the West. Again, Benedict sees the problem in reason itself, or what has been done to reason.

To review, while secularists claim to champion reason, they actually put forth a constricted form of reason — so constricted that it mutilates both our reason and our humanity. Reason, secularism asserts, must be restricted only to what is material and measurable. The mutilation occurs because secularism then assumes that what is not material and measurable is not real, or at best, merely a subjective fancy.

Secularism thereby embraces materialism. Materialism not only denies the existence of God and the human soul but also reduces human beings to mere physical, pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding animals, whose reason is solely an instrument of their passions. Thus, secularized rationality breeds an ultimate embrace of irrationality. The heady ambitions of the 18th-century Enlightenment end in the elevation of irrationality and the will to power in Nietzsche at the end of the 19th century — an “end” that the secular West has not really been able to move beyond.

It is no historical accident, then, that the end of the 19th century signaled what came to be called “the decline of the West” (a theme, Benedict notes in his Without Roots, explored by Oswald Spengler), and that the 20th century was marked by the greatest and most destructive totalitarian regimes in human history. Irrationality in philosophy led to irrationality in politics.

“The totalitarian model … was associated with a rigidly materialist, atheistic philosophy of history,” Benedict explains in Without Roots. “It saw history deterministically, as a road of progress that passes first through a religious and then through a liberal phase to arrive at an absolute, ultimate society in which religion is surpassed as a relic of the past and collective happiness is guaranteed by the workings of material conditions.”

But it was precisely in embracing materialism as rational, and hence as scientific, that totalitarianism brushed aside all moral restrictions as naïve and historically passé, relics of our infantile religious phase.

That “scientific” brushing aside can be quite blunt and brutal.

“This scientific façade hides a dogmatic intolerance,” notes Benedict, “that views the spirit as produced by matter, and morals as produced by circumstances.”

mIn other words — and quite ironically — to be scientific means to embrace the notion that there is no truth, that our ideas are merely reflections of material causes and circumstances. And that means to reject the notion that there is moral truth as well. Morality, too, is purely relative, an artifact of circumstances.

This “scientific” view will not tolerate anyone who believes that human beings have a soul capable of knowing the truth. It will not therefore tolerate anyone who believes that we can know and follow the moral truth. But these are precisely the claims that Christianity makes with the greatest vigor, and so the secular “scientific” view is dogmatically intolerant of Christianity in particular.

In declaring truth, especially moral truth, to be relative, the secular scientific view demands that we abandon the historical moral formation given to us through Christianity, and replace it by a purely utilitarian view.

As Benedict makes clear in Without Roots, “According to its dictates, morals should be defined and practiced on the basis of society’s purposes, and everything is deemed moral that helps to usher in the final state of happiness.”

Totalitarianism is the result, because no truths, no moral “Thou shall nots” stand in the way of what those in power might find useful.

“Depending on circumstance, anything can become legitimate and even necessary; anything can become moral in the new sense of the term,” Benedict says. “Even humankind itself can be treated as an instrument, since the individual does not matter, only the future, the cruel deity adjudicating over one and all.”

The cruel deity of “progress,” as we found out in the 20th century, is a Saturn devouring its children by the tens of millions. That is the price of the secular demand that we live in a world without God, without the soul, without truth, and without a moral order written into our nature. As the spread of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia in 21st century liberal democracies attests, the secular Saturn is still hard at work.

Christians find themselves in the rather interesting position of having to evangelize reason, to come to the aid of truth. Secularized reason cannot lift us out of our difficulties. Benedict, indulging in a bit of understatement in Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, states:“A reason that has its origin in the irrational and is itself ultimately irrational does not offer a solution to our problem.”

In contrast to the Enlightenment barbs against the faith, Christianity did not reject reason. Because of its doctrine of Christ as logos, and of human beings made in the image of God, it embraced and transformed reason by faith. That is why, Benedict argues in Truth and Tolerance, Christianity in its first centuries took what was best in Greek philosophy and transformed it, and left behind Greek skepticism, materialism, hedonism and relativism.

How ironic that once again, Christianity must come to the rescue of reason at the beginning of the third millennium. But that is one of the great tasks of the New Evangelization.

“The person of faith … must work in favor of reason and of that which is rational: this, in the face of dormant or diseased reason [reigning today], is a duty he or she must perform toward the entire human community” (Without Roots).

Among the flood of worthwhile tributes to Benedict XVI after February 11 but before March 13 (after which I wonder now how many were genuinely sincere, or simply expedient at the time, considering the mass exodus of sympathy from the emeritus Pope as soon as a far more mediatic Pope had been chosen) that I have yet to fully tap, not even in English, here is one brought to my attention by Beatrice on her website. Which I find very touching insofar as it is the public expression of affection and admiration from a Catholic who happens to be at least 60 years old (strange I cannot find any biography of him online, not even in French), a veteran reporter of religious affairs, and the editor of the biweekly Catholic magazine La Vie...This, despite my vehement objections (which I raise in my fisks below) to his harsh denunciations of what he considers to be Benedict XVI's worst failings - communications fiascos and the incompetence of Cardinal Bertone - none of which have anything to do substantially with the Petrine ministry, but about which Mercier is no more objective than the run-of-the-mill, poorly-informed journalist or commentator...

My letter of farewell
to Benedict XVI
Dear Pope, as you disappear from our sight, a few words, in all frankness,
to express my immense gratitude. And a few reproaches, too.

February 28, 2013

Dear Benedict XVI,

I feel impelled to write you in order to open my heart and to say Thank you. I would perhaps be doing this if you had died. That you are very much alive however impels me even more.

I shall not dwell on your decision - which I find impressive, magnificent, historic. I cannot understand those Catholics who think they have been abandoned or who see it as weakness or cowardice. On the contrary, what courage and what humility not to feel that you are indispensable!

In Rome, the week that followed your announcement, I had a foretaste of the strangeness of what would be your coming symbolic death. It had nothing to do with the adrenaline rush that we had at the death of John Paul II.

When, on April 8, 2005, his coffin disappeared into the depths of St. Peter's Basilica, a page of my life turned, after that funeral rite so charged with emotion.

In the days that followed the announcement of your departure, we had to make do with your step-by-step farewell: a general audience, a lecture to the Roman clergy, an Angelus, the Mass of Ash Wednesday. Small white stones marking a road of mourning. How difficult it is to be separated from you!

At your last appearance for the universe of Catholicism, on Wednesday, February 27 in Rome, you summed up the heart of your life. You put it all together, especially the question of trust and joy, one of the leitmotifs of your Pontificate.

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I feel great confidence because I know that the word of Truth in the Gospel is the strength of the Church, her very life... I would like to ask each of you to renew your trust in the Lord, like children in the arms of God. He sustains us, and allows us to walk on, day after day, even in difficult times. I would like each one to feel loved by God who offered his Son for us and who has shown us his love without bounds. I would like each one to feel the joy of being Christian.

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The day you were elected Pope, I was not thrilled, as so many were not. But I loved you spontaneously just a few days later at your inaugural Mass on April 24. I loved you because your words pierced my heart.

You had repeated John Paul II's "Do not be afraid" - which was Jesus's, really - but you gave it new colors. This is what you told us, something I wrote down like a teenager in my most intimate diary: "He who lets Christ in does not lose anything, absolutely nothing, of what makes life free, beautiful and great. Do not be afraid of Christ. He takes away nothing and gives everything. He who gives gets back a hundredfold. So yes, open the doors, open wide the doors to Christ, and you will find true life".

How, except through the extraordinary spiritual refinement which characterizes you, one that is also psychological, could you have understood the root of our problem in the West?

That radical fear of abandoning oneself. The fear of trusting God that has been in us since the Original Sin, which explains far better the lack of vocations, priestly or marital, than any expert report. The fear that God may simply use us and then dispose of us like used Kleenex. Fear of the Cross. And also, and above all, fear of ourselves.

And I have loved almost all your texts, addresses, homilies, your first two books on Jesus which I have read and re=read with passion and wonder in the face of such profundity.

I remember my contentment when I heard you say at the World Youth Day in Cologne: "In the vicissitudes of history, it is the saints who have been the true reformers. It is only from the saints, only from God, that true revolution comes, the decisive change the world needs".

The other day, a French bishop recalled that extraordinary homily you gave in Cologne, when you spoke of the Eucharistic transformation as like the contagion that follows a nuclear chain reaction. That was brilliant.

I have loved the images you use - yes, all those that enliven your texts and addresses. You are such a teacher. I loved it that you spoke to us of the Church as a place where we should each support one another, with the image you have used several times of a net in which one finds both good and bad fish.

This idea of a Church where sin exists is one you have deployed since Cologne - five years before the new tsunami regarding pedophile priests, when the rot and stench of some fish were once again vented. It is an image to meditate upon when we dream of purifying the Roman Church, when the media are relentless in keeping the spotlight on the 'filth' in the Church that you have spoken about so courageously.

And I have loved your 'Augustinism', your true 'false pessimism' which consists of being happy, like St. Paul and the splinter in his flesh, about sin because it is the point of insertion of God's love.

"Ultimately, that there is chaff in the Church is comforting. Because with all our failings, we can nonetheless hope to be followers of Jesus who has precisely called on sinners". A statement that is rather scandalous, to tell the truth.

I loved it that you were the bard of grace, a Bernanos back among us. I think back to your address to the young people in Freiburg-im-Breisgau:

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We often think that a saint is only he who does ascetic and moral actions at a very elevated level, and that for this, one should certainly venerate saints, but never have to imitate them in our personal life. How wrong and discouraging this is.

There is no saint, other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, who has not known sin and who has never fallen. Dear friends, Christ is not interested in how many times we stumble in life but in how many times you have picked up yourself.

He does not ask extraordinary deeds of you, but he wants his light to shine in you. He does not call you because you are good and perfect, but because he is good and wants you to be his friends. And you are the light of the world because Jesus is your light.

You are Christians, not because you do special and extraordinary things, but because he, Christ, is your life. You are saints because his grace works on you.

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And therefore, I have loved everything you have said about human weakness, yours and ours, which is transfigured when it is inhabited by Christ. In your interview book with Peter Seewald, Light of the World, you said:

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I know that I am not capable of doing everything I am supposed to do. If only for this, I can only place myself in the hands of the Lord, to say to him, 'Do what you will'.

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Coming full circle at your last General Audience:

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As I have often said, the words which echoed in my heart were: 'Lord, why are you asking this of me, and what is it that you are asking of me? It is a heavy burden which you are laying on my shoulders, but if you ask it of me, at your word I will cast the net, sure that you will lead me even with all my weaknesses'. And eight years later I can say that the Lord has truly led me, he has been close to me, I have been able to perceive his presence daily.

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Such a message will live in us always.

I have also loved, in your Pontificate, your ability to interpellate our Protestant brothers and sisters about our differences in those ethical matters which have become very problematic for unity and witness.

I have loved your ability to challenge a merely intellectual and scientific reading of the Bible that is not born out of contemplation.

I have loved your insistence on an equilibrium between faith and reason, each protecting the other from any possible excess.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, George Carey, told me one day that he admired your ability to keep together the liveliest intellectual excellence with the most humble and childlike piety. This has spared you from intellectual arrogance or any kind of hardness.

I have loved above all your intellectual courage, your ability to make your way alone. In the years from 1966 to 1976, everything seemed to have been shaken up for you. You were a young and brilliant theologian. But with what came in the wake of 1968, you suddenly found yourself among those considered reactionary, who were marginalized.

Later, you were detested and labelled the Panzerkardinal. And I, too, detested you - I even left the Church because of you. And then I came back. Also because of you.

But during the seven years of your Pontificate, I also suffered for you. In the Williamson case which was so catastrophic. I recall myself saying, when sharing my concern with a friend, "It is at such times that it is interesting to be a Catholic". A quip, yes, but still...

Because I was thinking, above all, of all the Lustigers among the faithful, like my friend Bernard Doblecki, a Jew who had converted to Christianity after the Second World War. [The reference is to Cardinal Lustiger, the late Archbishop of Paris, whose Jewish parents who were killed in a Nazi concentration camp].

If your parents had died in Auschwitz, and you heard on the radio that the Pope had lifted the excommunIcation of someone who denies that there were gas chambers at all, you too would scream out, especially if you are now Catholic...

Happily, you did acknowledge later, most humbly, the error of such total lack of preparation [the Vatican failed to lay down beforehand the entire premise of why the four bishops had been excommunicated - for their participation in an action punishable in canon law by excommunication, but not having to do in any way with their individual qualities and idiosyncrasies - and why the excommunications was being lifted]

This was an undertaking that ought to have been thought out with the detail and rigor of the landings in Normandy. Instead, if was as if Eisenhower had decided to land on Omaha Beach in a surfboard. It was rank amateurism. [That was obviously a major communications fiasco, and though, in the universe of all those who might have paid attention to an internal Church decision, it really directly offended only the Lustigers, as Mercier calls them, all the critics of Benedict - starting with the media and including those who well understood that he, least of all, was not condoning Holocaust negationism - seized on it as a club with which to bash him, in a deliberate hyper-reaction (which Mercier's is, as well, if it has lingered, as it seems it has, well beyond his outrage in behalf of 'the Lustigers'.)]

Just as it was amateur hour when you spoke about condoms on the flight to Cameroon. One cannot speak of such a thorny, explosive and controversial subject in an in-flight Q&A unless you are a master of communications. One cannot reproach the substance of what you said. But those around you ought to have anticipated what would happen - the hysterical indignation over a partial reporting of what you said. {No, they could not have. Unless Fr. Lombardi had chosen not to use the question about AIDS at all - which was relevant in the context of Benedict XVI's first trip to Africa. But just as in the Regensburg lecture, B16 was not interested in being politically correct but in stating the blunt truth. In this case, that condoms are not the answer to AIDS prevention, but can even help promote it by providing a false sense of failsafe protection, especially since the experience of several countries in Africa has shown that the abstinence and sexual monogamy advocated by the Church among infected populations are far more effective strategies.]

You yourself were too old, too intellectual, to grasp this problem of communications. But those around you? {Again, Mercier is over-reacting to a case of miscommunication that is of a different nature from that in the Williamson case and more like Regensburg - in which the media (and all the sanctimonious hordes who freaked out that the Pope had called out the fallacy of the condom solution to AIDS) chose to ridicule a fact that the best studies have borne out, simply because the fact happens to contradict their absolute faith in their latex god! This was an ideological challenge that the Church's opponents could not afford to ignore. The fault on the part of Benedict XVI was the natural naivete of someone who simply states the truth without anticipating that it will provoke a firestorm. Yet it did occasion new attention to all the studies that show condoms should not be the primary strategy for preventing the spread of AIDS. Just as, in a larger way, Regensburg opened the way to a more 'meaningful' dialog with intellectual leaders of the Muslim world who have more enlightened views than the absolutely closed mindset of the Islamic world in general.]

I am touching here - and you will pardon my frankness - on what I considered your weakest point. Your difficulty in governing, which the media has emphasized for years, rested on your lack of discernment with respect to those around you. You who are so intelligent chose some mediocre aides. [Who, other than Bertone???]

But taking into account your limitation (quite understandable, after all, since you are a theologian [i.e., not an administrator]) in governance - and therefore, in communication, since more than ever, communications has become part of governance - you ought to have been able to count on better people.

Of course, you had to use persons who were at your disposition. But to choose Tarcisio Bertone as your Secretary of State was as if the Queen of England had chosen her best chambermaid to be her Prime Minister. It was a guarantee of chaos, as we have seen. This is not the place to list down all the blunders and ill-advised schemes of your right-hand man, the amplitude of which Vatileaks showed us.

But I have always thought that the excellence of a manager is to be able to surround himself with men who are more skilled, more gifted, stronger than he is, as long as they don't endanger him, or that they do not steal the show. You could not do this. [EXCUSE ME! Yes, I, too, think that the appointment of Bertone - and keeping him on - was Benedict's most serious, if not the only, misstep. But who in the Vatican was 'more skilled, more gifted, and stronger' than the Pope himself, and who could have applied such virtues to administering the Vatican? Was Sodano that man for John Paul II, for instance? Obviously not. And yet Sodano led the narrow circle that governed the Church so capriciously and ineptly in the final years of that Pontificate. The problem was not so much that Benedict chose Bertone, but that Bertone, who has his virtues - and whose previous career record had been apparently nothing but excellent - proved so incompetent, and worse, seemingly clueless of how his actions were counter-productive and a disservice to Benedict XVI.]

I was told that it was because you were 'too old' and could not place your trust in someone you did not know... Not a convincing excuse. You had all the time, as Prefect of the CDF, to know which persons were potentially valuable. [There were few of them, obviously, because most of those he named to be Curial heads came from outside the Vatican. Who could he have named instead of Bertone? Can Mercier himself name someone who was not part of the clique that governed in the name of John Paul II? At the time, I was thinking of Cardinal Ruini, but he was head of the CEI then and due to retire soon. But even Ruini, as successful as he was in running the Church in Italy for 15 years, may have been undone by the machinations of the SecState bureaucrats who resent an 'outsider' taking the reins.]

Instead of professional competence, you preferred the emotional comfort of choosing Bertone, who had served as your #2 man at the CDF. I could understand your choice from the psychological standpoint, but it was a political error whose consequences we still have to fully measure.

One of your friends remarked, "One sees here the limitations of Joseph Ratzinger, the side of him which is that of a German bureaucrat, with his need for order and the desire not to be subject to tension". [I see it more as his misplaced confidence that if he appointed someone like Bertone - who had had no black marks against him before this - to take care of the mundane but necessary tasks of administration, he could then concentrate on his spiritual and pastoral tasks as head of the universal Church.]

What a pity! But since God can change things for the better, one can also say that all this controversy, all the hue and cry [about the 'inefficient Curia', to say the least], has shaken the coconut tree, so to speak. If there was some annoyance [about Vatican governance] during the final years of John Paul II, this turned into a blood sport in your time.

But I firmly think that God will utilize the least good about your Pontificate to make things better. And I think this is what we all expect when we next see the white smoke from the Sistine. [That's a particularly cruel way of putting it. But as it turns out, that is the point of view that the media have uniformly adopted since then. And I reproach Mercier for focusing too much on the perceived maladministration of the Vatican as the overriding flaw of Benedict's Pontificate - as if administering the Vatican were the primary task of the Petrine ministry. I say 'perceived' because apart from the short list of communications failures - failures because as mistakes that were reflected most in the media, they hurt the image of the Pope and the Vatican. without affecting the merit of the underlying action itself - no one has died as a result of this supposed bureaucratic mess, there were no major scandals and no instances of corruption that could be cited, and much of the outrage against 'the Curia' is obviously manufactured and uninformed.

But then all the cardinal electors also saw it as the media did - which shows you how pervasive and insidious media influence is, to be able to shape the opinions of those supposed to be 'the best and the brightest' in the Church. As if nothing Benedict XVI had done as spiritual head and Pastor of the Church mattered at all - and amounted to less than nothing as far as they were concerned - because his Secretary of State was so inept!

And none of them, Mercier included, in denouncing 'the Curia' indiscriminately, has given a second thought 1) to the revolutionary administrative reforms undertaken by Benedict XVI, without going through Bertone, in terms of strengthening the laws on dealing with the abuse of minors by priests, and in decreeing financial transparency, to name the most obvious, along with his choice of bishops - all these have far more import and impact on the life of the Church than the transient headlines of permanently changing news cycles! and 2) to the generally unexceptionable functioning of the other Curial dicasteries besides the Secretariat of State. And that is one of the major disservices Bertone has done - that his ineptitude not only obscured the good work of the rest of the Curia but covered them undeservedly with the same contempt that the critics of Benedict reserved for him.] And suddenly, all the criticism has evaporated in the general good will about a new Pope. Didn't Benedict XVI deserve a modicum of good will, too - the modicum that is required by common decency?

On the eve of your announcement, I was a bit concerned about the consistory on February 11 because of its purpose - I did not at all imagine you would be announcing your resignation - especially because the occasion was to announce the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto, namely, the 800 Christians who were massacred by Turkish troops in 1480 for refusing to convert to Islam. I thought to myself, "Ooh-lala, he is convoking the cardinals for this? It will once again be instrumentalized in a hyper-ideological way. It will provoke a new media tempest!" [Mercier ought to know better - the announcement of canonizations is always done at a consistory, a liturgical occasion, for which the cardinals and the Pope are dressed in choir robes. This was not an extraordinary consistory called just because some of the future saints were martyred by Muslims. But Benedict did avail of the occasion to make his signal announcement, and why not, since those present represented a sizable part of the College of Cardinals which had elected him Pope.]

In my most intimate being, I also thought, "The end of this Pontificate will be very harsh, with a Pope who is growing ever weaker, and the various 'clans' within the Vatican going every which way", while hoping, I must say, that this end would be as far away as possible... Even if I had raised the possibility of your resignation a month ago with a colleague, I did not think it would come so soon.

All of us journalists covering the Vatican had said to each other at the start of 2013; The end for Benedict XVI will come this year. But we thought it would be because of death - excuse my directness - that you would simply expire like a candle. [How strange! I must have been blind to reality, or playing blind, or so insensitive, as not to feel in any way whatsoever that B16 was on the verge of death!]

But you came up with something better: to go on, alive, but to continue to serve in prayer, at the foot of the Cross, without ever abandoning us, but on the contrary, watching over us with your paternal heart.

---

I am not abandoning the Cross, but I shall remain in a new way close to the crucified Lord. I will no longer have the power to govern the Church, but in the service of prayer, I shall remain, so to speak, within the enclosure of St. Peter.

St. Benedict, whose name I carry as Pope, will be a good example for me, He showed us the way for a life which, whether active or passive, is entirely dedicated to serving God, I thank each and everyone for the respect and understanding with which you have accepted this decision which was so important. I will continue to accompany the Church along the way in prayer and reflection, consecrated to the Lord and his Spouse, that I have sought to live everyday and which I will continue to live.

---

And so I shall imagine you from hereon in silence. Tonight at 8 p.m., you will probably be eating dinner, alone or almost, as usual, perhaps eating an apple or a biscuit, when the sede vacante comes into effect. And this will not cause any ripples in your soup.

I admire your humility and your simplicity. I would like to imagine your reunion with your brother Georg. With that togetherness you always had, the humor you share. When you were young, some of your friends have told me, you usually vied with each other to come up with the shortest blessing. A kind of competition in spiritual prankery, one might say. And you came up with “Für Feucht und Nass, Deo Gratias!” (For dampness and wetness, thank you, Lord).

In my turn, I thank God - for the very good and the less good in your eight years on Peter's Chair, and above all, for your spiritual fatherhood that has been so luminous and inspiring and truly unforgettable. Deo gratias!


And has Mercier succumbed since then to the obligatory Francismania in the media? Not unconditionally, if one judges by a couple of his later blogs, which also deserve to be translated, because he stands up for the good things that others have stopped acknowledging about Benedict XVI. He thinks that if this Pontificate will last at least another five years, Francis has to do more than depend on his dozen or so theme slogans, and his ability to 'shock' with these statements, to truly make a change within the Church.