BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries today, 7/12/10.




Shawn Tribe at New Liturgical Movement keeps us updated on what is becoming a signal event for those who share the Holy Father's views on the liturgy. The first international liturgical conference took place in 2008 on Fota island, just off Cork, Ireland, and the conferences are now referred to as Fota-I, Fota-II, Fota-III...


3rd annual international conference
on the liturgy according to Joseph Ratzinger

July 12, 2010

The topic this year is 'Benedict XVI on sacred music'. Mr. Tribe quotes from the diary entry of opening day for Fota-III, held July 10-12, by a conference participant, Dom Alban Nunn from Ealing Abbey.


Photos show Archbishop Raymond Burke (top photo), who opened the conference this year, and Mons. Vincent Twomey,
from the Maynooth Seminary, was conference moderator.

The opening session of FOTA III started shortly after 11 am. Fr Vincent Twomey SVD, formerly professor of moral theology at Maynooth, commenced with an overview of the issues concerning Church Music in the writings of the current Holy Father.

He observed a fundamental distinction between Joseph Ratzinger's initial approach to music as integral to the liturgy in comparison to the Rahnerian 'ornamental' approach. After tracing some of the philosophical reasoning behind the Pope's thinking. Twomey concluded with five principles which would find resonance in the later speakers.
(1) Liturgy is for all - truly catholic but not always uniform.
(2) It may be simple but never cheap.
(3) Participation goes beyond mere external manifestations of activity.
(4) If liturgical music is purely utilitarian it's actually useless. (5) A 'purification process' needs to be applied to musical material drawn from other cultures....

Fr Sven Leo Conrad, FSSP, then spoke on the intellectual connection between the Pope and Johannes Overath (1915-2002) whose work and person strongly influenced the music paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium (1964) and its consequent expansion/explanation Musicam Sacram (1967).

The theological content of Fr Overath's paper was severely curtailed by time limits. but Fr Conrad managed to emphasise Overath's concern about the tendency to overplay the 'spirit' rather than the 'letter' of the conciliar documents. Overath laid great value on the original relationes of the conciliar debates in interpreting the final texts.

This seems to have been an attitude shared by Oberath with the current Holy Father through close professional and personal contact which included a shared residence in the early 1980s.

Fr [Uwe] Michael Lang CO... gave an overview of papal pronouncements on music, from Benedict XIV's Annus Qui (1749) to the current day, via the writings of John XXII and material from the 22nd and 23rd sessions of the Council of Trent.

Summarising across the centuries, between the two Benedicts, Fr Lang outlined five consistent concerns:
(1) The actual use of the textual material proper to the Mass.
(2) The problem of the theatrical pushing the text away from God- centeredness (including the appropriate use of instruments in worship).
(3) The continuing concern for intelligibility.
(4) The length of individual pieces in relation to he liturgical action.
(5) The revival of the chant repertoire.

The first session paused with a series of questions from the floor including an interesting comment from Stanford's Professor William Mahrt on the introduction of the organ into Western liturgy. Apparently a Byzantine imperial ornament the first instrument was sent as a present to the emperor of the West, at that time Charlemagne, from the Emperor of the East, and originally used to play Gregorian melodies.

Finally Archbishop Burke closed the morning session with some general comments of the renewal of sacred music.

Fr Stephane Quessard spoke on the renewal of Sacred Music commencing with a potted history of the origin and use of the term itself, from its apparent coining by Michael Praetorius around 1614.

Quessard observed three challenges to Sacred Music in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger:
(1) That sacred music must go beyond the limits of current European thinking avoiding triteness and commercialism.
(2) That the Church has to restore the Logos at the centre of sacred music.
(3) That the chant repertoire must be emphasised as normative to the Rite.

The Irish composer Philip Carty spoke with considerable conviction about how his growing religious convictions have influenced his musical language. Carty has an academic background in both theology and music and a continuing career as a composer including several film music credits.

There were several wonderful thought-provoking moments in this talk, illustrated with some of his own music, including the question 'Is no music better than bad music?' aimed directly at much of the pastoral repertoire. Carty's answer was a simple 'Yes- because of the silence.' ...

The afternoon session then moved into the launch of the FOTA-I proceedings [in book form]. Archbishop Burke gave a summary of the contents in some detail then the publishers responded briefly giving tribute to the work of the editors. At 7.30 pm Archbishop Burke celebrated Pontifical Vespers in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Cork City.

A note about the conference sponsors



St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy encourages and promotes among its members full active and conscious participation in Catholic Liturgy in accordance with the authentic tradition of the Church especially as expressed in Sacrosanctum Concilium and subsequent liturgical legislation.

St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy promotes its objectives primarily through its annual International Liturgical Conference which takes place during the month of July. It brings together some of the most important contemporary research scholars in area of Catholic Liturgy.

While conference topics range over a wide area of liturgical interest, their focal point is the liturgical writing of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI which the Society explicitly seeks to promote among its members and among the general public.


FOTA-I in 2008 was on 'Benedict XVI and Sacred Liturgy' in general; and FOTA-II last year was on 'Benedict XVI and Beauty: The Tradition of Christian Aesthetics'.

Tuesday, July 13, 15h Week in Ordinary Time

Two of the prayer cards show the saint and his wife St. Kunegunde; second from right, the lid on their tomb in Bamberg, Germany; and the center icon shows Henry as Holy Roman Emperor.
ST. HEINRICH (Henry II) (Germany, 972-1024), Duke of Bavaria, King of Germany and Italy, Holy Roman Emperor (1014-1024)
Educated by the bishops of Freising first then Regensburg, Heinrich had thought of becoming a priest, but he became duke in 995 upon his father's death, then King of Germany in 1002. Two years later, he was also crowned King of Italy, and in 1014, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Benedict VIII. In 998, he had married Kunegunde of Luxembourg, a descendant of Charlemagne. As they never had children, many stories claim that they made a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. Heinrich fought many battles to consolidate his power and secure his borders, but he and his wife always had a reputation for helping the poor, giving away much of their own wealth. As a ruler, he founded schools and monasteries, quelled rebellions, worked to establish a stable peace in Europe and to reform the Church while respecting its independence. He supported bishops against the monastic clergy, and enforced priestly celibacy to prevent the clergy from passing on any of the public lands and goods he bestowed on the Church to personal heirs. In 1007, he established the Diocese of Bamberg which immediately became a center for scholarship and art. In 1020, Benedict VIII visited him in Bamberg to consecrate the new cathedral. He started construction of the cathedral of Basel, Switzerland, which later took him for its patron saint. When Heinrich died, Kunegunde entered a Benedictine nunnery and died in 1040. Heinrich was canonized in 1146, Kunegunde in 1200.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/071310.shtml


OR for July 12-13:

At Sunday's Angelus, the Pope remembers St. Benedict, patron of his Pontificate:
'The logic of charity is the logic of Christ'
The other papal story is a belated report on the announcement last week by the Archbishop of Compostela regarding the Pope's visit on November 7. Page 1 international news: Pakistan and China agree to build a railway line to link their countries; new reports on ongoing civil conflicts in Darfur and Somalia; at least 64 killed among soccer fans in bomb attacks in the Ugandan capital; new Japanese premier in danger of losing his coalition support; and five stories no less about the recent World Cup in South Africa and Spain's first world championship. In the inside pages, the superintendent of Rome's department of cultural properties answers the alarmism of a New York Times architecture critic who claims that Rome's imperial ruins are in danger of being lost because of the city's modernization, and cites the work and planning placed by the city and national governments in the constant restoration and maintenance of a patrimony that belongs to the world.


THEME FOR 2011
WORLD DAY FOR PEACE

The Holy Father has chosen 'Religious freedom, way to peace' as the theme for the next World Day for Peace.

RAI's Vatican news bureau
chief dies at 58

Giuseppe De Carli, the longtime director of the Vatican news bureau of RAI-TV, the Italian state broadcasting agency, died today in Rome at Gemelli hospital where he had been confined since June 9. No cause of death was given but it was known he was undergoing radiation therapy.

De Carli, 58, will perhaps be best remembered for his initiative of a live continuous telecast of the entire Bible, La Bibbia Giorno e Notte, in October 2008. Representative Christians, led by Pope Benedict XVI, and some Jews, read the Bible over a period of seven days telecast from the Rome's Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.


De Carli also wrote a number of books related to his experience in covering the Vatican. Most notably, two books on Benedict XVI - Fare la verita nella carita: Da Joseph Ratzinger a Benedetto XVI, a biogrpahy published shortly after the Conclave of 2005, in which his title, taken from one of Joseph Ratzinger's constant themes, anticipates the encyclical of 2009; and in 2008, an account of the Ratzinger Pontificate entitled Benedictus: Servus servorum Dei.

He also worked with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on L'ultima veggente di Fatima, an interview book based on Bertone's meetings with Sor Lucia, and a new edition in 2010, with a foreword from Benedict XVI, L'ultimo segreto di Fatima.



The Pope's admirers perhaps are most grateful to De Carli for his two-part documentary to mark Benedict XVI's 80th birthday in 2008, Benedetto XVI: Il Papa dell'amicizia con Dio (The Pope of friendship with God).

De Carli was an obvious admirer of Benedict XVI, even if RAI itself and its othrr news anchors have not always been fair in their reporting about the Pope, nor even in the time given to him compared to air time they have given John Paul II after his death.

Lella provides a videolink to the last televised interview given by Joseph Ratzinger before he was elected Pope - to Giuseppe De Carli and apparently only broadcast by RAI on 1/13/10.
www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-976c1fdd-6029-4bdd-8e77-0430f69b7088....
I haven't been able to find a date for it but it was apparently in early 2005. It includes video of the 'Habemus Papam' event on 4/19/05, at the start. And even if you do not understand Italian, the interview is a delight, for his ease, naturalness, obvious joy and the fluidity of his answers. I don't believe he has ever said Uh... in all his life!

Benedict XVI's theme
for World Peace Day 2011

July 13, 2010


«Religious freedom, the path to peace».

This is the theme chosen by Pope Benedict XVI for the celebration of the 2011 World Day of Peace.

The World Day of Peace – celebrated since 1968 on the first day of every year – will therefore be dedicated to the theme of religious freedom. As is well known, in many parts of the world there exist various forms of restrictions or denials of religious freedom, from discrimination and marginalization based on religion, to acts of violence against religious minorities.

Religious freedom is rooted in the equal and inherent dignity of man, it is oriented toward the search for «unchangeable truth», and thus can rightly be presented as the «freedom of freedoms». As such, religious freedom is authentically realized when it is experienced as the coherent search for the Truth and the truth of man.

This notion of religious freedom offers us a fundamental criterion for discerning the phenomenon of religion and its manifestations. It necessarily rejects the «religiosity» of fundamentalism, and the manipulation and the instrumentalization of the truth and of the truth of man. Since such distortions are opposed to the dignity of man and to the search for truth, they cannot be considered as religious freedom.

Rather, an authentic notion of religious freedom offers a profound vision of this fundamental human right, one which broadens the horizons of «humanity» and «freedom» of man, allowing for the establishment of a deep relationship with oneself, with the other and with the world. Religious freedom is a freedom in this respect for human dignity and life.

As the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council emphasized: «Man has been made by God to participate in this law, with the result that, under the gentle disposition of divine providence, he can come to perceive ever more fully the truth that is unchanging. Wherefore every man has the duty , and therefore the right, to seek the truth in matters religious in order that he may with prudence form for himself right and true judgments of conscience, under use of all suitable means» (Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, 3).

The vocation to believe in God, recognized as a fundamental human right, is a pre-requisite integral human development (Caritas in Veritate, 29), and a condition for the realization of the common good and the promotion of peace in the world.

As Pope Benedict XVI affirmed during his visit to the General Assembly of the United Nations: «Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian – a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer» (Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, 18 April 2008).

The theme chosen for the 2011 World Day of Peace represents an accomplishment of a «path to peace» which Benedict XVI has invited the human family to consider in depth on several occasions.

Since 2006, his Message for the World Day of Peace has focused on important dimensions of the truth (In Truth, Peace, 2006), the dignity of the human person (The Human Person, the Heart of Peace, 2007), the unity of the human family (The Human Family, a Community of Peace, 2008), the fight against poverty (Fighting Poverty to Build Peace, 2009), and finally care for creation (If you Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation, 2010).

This journey has its roots in the vocation of man to truth (capax Dei) and, having as a «polestar» human dignity, leads to the freedom to seek the truth.

Today there are many areas of the world in which forms of restrictions and limitations to religious freedom persist, both where communities of believers are a minority, and where communities of believers are not a minority, and where more sophisticated forms of discrimination and marginalization exist, on the cultural level and in the spheres of public civil and political participation.

«It is inconceivable» – remarked Benedict XVI – «that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves – their faith – in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature» (Address to the United Nations, cit.).

Man cannot be «fragmented», and separated from what he believes, because that in which he believes has an impact on his life and on his person.

«Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute – by its nature, expressing communion between persons – would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person» (Address to the United Nations, cit.). It is for this reason that: «Religious Freedom is the Path to Peace».

From what I have read of her so far, blogger Cristina Odone, who was once editor of Catholic Herald, is generally acutely incisive, but this entry does not go far enough. Sure, it's easy to denounce the 'artists' and 'intellectuals' who have been near-unanimous in exulting that Roman Polanski is escaping justice once again, but what about the silent assent to Polanski's untouchable status by all the prominent news agencies and names - who have been relentless in denouncing the Pope and all the Catholic clergy as if they had personally committed the sex offenses of a few priests and have given Polanski a pass since this case was first revived last September?

Polanski and the Pope:
The lefties' odious and
obvious double standard
By Cristina Odone

July 12th, 2010

Here’s a maxim for Left-wing luvvies: let’s treat the Pope like a rapist, and treat a rapist like the Pope.

By the Pope, of course, I mean Benedict XVI, who has been at the helm of the Church during its darkest hour, when scandal upon scandal involving priests sexually abusing children has come to light.

By the rapist I mean Roman Polanski, the Polish film director who was convicted of raping an underage girl in America back in 1977.

Ah, but there is a difference between the two men, I hear you say: one has been convicted of a crime, while the other is in charge of a global Church at the moment when some of its members are being exposed as criminals.

That may be the difference in your eyes. But in the eyes of Lefty luvvies from Hollywood to Hampstead, the only real difference between the Pope and Polanski is that the latter is an artist. That, you see, erases a multitude of sins – yes, even the rape of a 13-year-old girl.

The same people who are viciously denouncing Benedict even though he has not been convicted of any crime defend Polanski despite his conviction because he’s “one of us”. In their eyes, directing The Pianist and Rosemary’s Baby has somehow cleansed the stain of shame from this repulsive little man.

Here is the bad news: the luvvies have won. Their man has been let off – to cries of relief from the arty set, the Swiss authorities have refused the United States request for extradition.

The Pope, meanwhile, continues to be publicly reviled by bohemians who think he should be arrested for crimes he neither committed nor concealed. And they dare attack the Church for hypocrisy!


Let me re-post here from the ISSUES thread an overview of the Polanski case and a comparison with the Catholix sex abuse 'scandal' through the very selective - and morally revolting and indefensible - prism of the MSM:


Would Polanski get a pass
if he were a pedophile priest?
Posted by Tom Heneghan



PARIS, Sept. 28 - It’s hard to watch France’s political and cultural elite rush to support filmmaker Roman Polanski against extradition to the United States on a decades-old sex charge and not wonder exactly how they interpret the national motto “liberté, égalité, fraternité.”

It’s tempting to ask whether they’re defending the liberty to break the law and skip town, respecting the equality of all before the law and championing a brotherhood of artists who can do no wrong.

Here in Paris, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner declared the arrest was “a bit sinister … frankly, (arresting) a man of such talent recognised around the world, recognised in the country where he was arrested — that’s not very nice.” He and his Polish counterpart have written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the issue.

Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand said “just as there is a generous America that we like, there’s also an America that scares us, and that’s the America that has just shown us its face.”

Directors, actors and intellectuals have been signing a petition demanding Polanski’s immediate release.

Almost all the focus is on the argument that Polanski is a brilliant director, the charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year old dates back to 1977, and the victim herself says she wants the whole issue to be forgotten.

Almost completely ignored is the fact that he fled the U.S. to escape sentencing, which added a crime to the original crime.

There is such a widespread assumption that all artists and intellectuals would automatically support Polanski that Paris papers today — both the left-of-centre Libération and the conservative Le Figaro — wrote with an air of surprise that Hollywood was not storming the barricades to back him.

The French Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit made headlines by bucking the trend and saying he was “ill at ease” with the rush to absolve Polanski of raping a minor and the culture minister should have been more cautious in his comments. [Belated P.S. to this: After the sex-abuse scandal' hit Germany earlier this year, it turns out that in the 1970s, Cohn-Bendit, recalling his experiences as a kindergarten teacher in a book, said that, on occasion, he had allowed small children to open his fly and caress him. He says now it was 'a foolish young man's provocation' - and the MSM lets him get away easy. And yet, in whipping up the Sexual Revolution in 1968 Paris, he advocated boys and girls sleeping together in school dormitories.]

Across the Atlantic, by contrast, Hollywood’s hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times, reviewed the objections by Polanski’s supporters and concluded: “Plausible or preposterous, these arguments are eclipsed by a simple fact: Polanski fled the country … the Justice Department and L.A.’s district attorney are right to seek extradition.”

And almost nobody in the media here in France asks the tough questions that Fr. Tom Reese, S.J. did in his Washington Post blog post entitled “Father Polanski would go to jail”:

“Polanski’s defenders … argue that he should not be punished. They say that the girl was willing and sexually experienced and she has forgiven him (after receiving a settlement). They even cite his tragic childhood and life as an excuse. And besides, it is ancient history. Such arguments from paedophile priests would be laughed out of court and lambasted by everyone, and rightly so…

“The Catholic Church has rightly been put under a microscope when 4 percent of its priests were involved in abuse, but what about the film industry? The world has truly changed. Entertainment is the new religion with sex, violence and money the new Trinity. The directors and stars are worshipped and quickly forgiven for any infraction as long as the PR agent is as skilled as a saintly confessor. Entertainment, not religion, is the new opiate of the people and we don’t want our supply disturbed.

“Is there a double standard here? You bet.”

There’s a lot to say about the different ways Americans and French approach the law. But let’s go right to Tom Reese’s question. Do you think Polanski’s supporters cut him slack they wouldn’t think of permitting for a paedophile priest? Is the entertainment industry setting our values?

[That Heneghan would even pose those questions the way he does - rather than stating them as outright fact is just as worrisome as the shameless double standard!]

And an unexpected 'God bless...' to Fr. Reese for seeing the utter fallacy and moral unacceptability of the double standard.

Angela Ambrogetti, in her blog today on the unexpected death of her colleague, Giuseppe De Carli, shares an anecdote that he had shared with her about Cardinal Ratzinger.

Ciao, Giuseppe!
And a parting anecdote
he shared about the cardinal's cat
Translated from

July 13, 2010


It was 2004. For some time, there had been talk of an imminent conclave because John Paul II's health appeared to be worsening alarmingly. Each of us Vaticanisti started compiling biographies of the papabili.

Giuseppe De Carli made his own list of 'eminences' and started to interview each of them - both the influential cardinals of John Paul's Pontificate as well as the 'provocateurs'. [I suppose Cardinal Ratzinger would have fit both categories!]

"I no longer make distinctions between 'conservatives' and 'progressives'", he said then. "Such categories do not make sense anymore".

We were to speak at length about the book that he eventually wrote [Eminenza, mi permette?: La Chiesa e il mondo raccontati dai cardinali di Papa Wojtyla (Eminence, allow me!: The Church and the world according to Papa Wojtyla's cardinals)], especially his interview with the very reserved Cardinal Ratzinger.

For the interview, Giuseppe was invited to the home of then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Marked, he said, by simple hospitality that also had to do with a tiny and sympathetic... cat!

Giuseppe, who is allergic to cat's hair, had requested beforehand that the cat not be present in the room where the interview would take place. The cardinal agreed.

With Bavarian courtesy, he dispensed for the time being with a cat having the run of the house and hopping on to his lap.

Giuseppe was telling me this at a time when no one among us imagined that Joseph Ratzinger would ever become Pope. It had been a small incursion into the intimacy of the man who was to become Benedict XVI.

And who, later as Pope, would also allow Giuseppe to 'violate' the intimacy of the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace for his TV special on the occasion of the Pope's 80th birthday. With images of the Pope's day from his morning Mass to watching the evening news on TV.

But there was no sign of a cat this time. And Giuseppe never did solve the continuing mystery of whether there is a feline presence in Benedict's papal apartment.

I cannot possibly review all the many things Giuseppe did and the many conversations we had over many yearts of friendship. I will greet him now with the same embrace that we used to exchange whenever we met each other in the Borgo Pio while shopping and stopping for a little chat.

Last week, I had a rather substantial post containing 1) the Archbishop of Compostela's announcement of the program for the Holy Father's one-day visit on November 5, as a pilgrim during the current Ano Jacobeo, a Holy Year honoring the Apostle St. James (Santiago), patron of Compostela and Spain, and 2) a ZENIT article reporting what else the Archbishop said in a news conference on July 6.

OR, in its 7/12-7/13 issue, is reporting the same items with the news peg that the feast day of St. James this year is imminent... For lack of other news items, I am translating the OR article anyway. Besides, I have found new visuals for the Ano Jacobeo.


Before visiting Barcelona,
Benedict XVI will visit
Compostela for the
Holy Year of St. James
Translated from
the 7/12-7/13 of



Benedict XVI's visit to Santiago de Compostela is four months away. But the fervor of anticipation is clear in the capital of Galicia - the centuries-long destination of Europe's most famous pilgrimage route, the 'camino de Santiago' or St. James's road.

The historic medieval center of Santiago de Compostela itself, around the Cathedral housing the tomb of the Apostle, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The fervor is also due to the impending Feast of St. James on July 25. The fact that it falls on a Sunday this year is the reason for the current Holy Year. (The next Holy Year will be in 2021).

The Archbishop of Santiago, Mons. Julian Barrio Barrio, said at a news conference to present the Pope's program last week that "this will be the first time that a Pope will come to Compostela expressly to honor St. James - and in a jubilee year".

John Paul II's first visit to Compostela in 1982 also took place during an Ano Jacobeo, but it was made during his first apostolic visit to Spain that covered a lot of cities. (He returned to Compostela for World Youth Day in 1989.)

Bishop Barrio pointed out that this time, Benedict XVI expressed his personal desire to pray at the tomb of St. James.

[The Pope's visit to Spain this year - literally 'flying visits' to Compostela and Barcelona on Nov. 6 and 7, respectively - was announced simultaneously by the Bishops of Compostela and Barcelona, and by the Vatican, last March 3.]



Shortly thereafter, Mons. Barrios issued a pastoral letter to his flock, saying, "Through this pastoral letter in which I share your joy over the Pope's visit, I wish to reiterate to the Holy Father our gratitude for his kindness in accepting our invitation to be among us, joining the pilgrims who have visited and will continue to visit us during this Holy Year".

"The presence of the Pope among us will give new life to our spiritual commitment. The bond of unity, charity and peace embodied by the Vicar of Christ on earth is a source of spiritual richness for all the local Churches."

He concluded the letter exhorting the faithful "to keep in your prayers the intentions of the Pope in his governance of the Church as the Successor of Peter, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and the Apostle James, and to ask for abundant spiritual fruits for the diocese and for all the Church in Spain".

The archbishop described the three main events on the Pope's short visit:

First, his arrival at Lavacolla airport around mid-morning, where there will be a brief welcoming ceremony by the Spanish royal family, Church, civilian and military authorities.

Then the Pope will travel to the city in the Popemobile. "We would like the Pope, from his first experience of going through our streets, to feel the sense of our best hospitality, and so I expect that there will be many people who will welcome him along this initial route."

The cathedral will be his first destination. "He will enter through the Puerta del Azabacheria (on the north facade of the Cathedral). He will spend a few minutes in prayer at the Chapel of Communion and then at the spot where tradition says the bones of the Apostle repose. He will then address some 700 persons inside the Church - children, aged and sick persons."

He will also participate in the always spectacular incensing rite using the giant censer (the Botafumeiro) hanging from the ceiling of the cathedral and swung to and fro by an intricate mechanism.

After lunch and a brief rest in the Archbishop's Palace, the Pope will say afternoon Mass at the vast Plaza Obradoiro facing the front entrance to the Cathedral. After the Mass, he will leave for Barcelona.



[In the Catalan capital, Spain's second largest city, the Pope will inaugurate and consecrate the Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia, Antonio Gaudi's masterpiece begun in 1936 but left unfinished. Completion was resumed in the 1960s entirely through private contributions.]

Wednesday, July 14, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

Left: Earliest portrait of Kateri, by a French Jesuit to whom she appeared in a vision shortly after her death.
BLESSED KATERI TEKAKWITHA (b upstate New York 1656, d near Montreal, 1680), Virgin, 'Lily of the Mohawk', first Native American saint
Kateri was born nine years after the Jesuit saints Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were killed by the Iroquois near their place of martyrdom. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who was captured and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawks, the strongest of the Iroquois. At age 4, Kateri's parents and brother died in a smallpox epidemic which also left her near-blind and disfigured with scars. Adopted by her uncle who succeeded her father as chief, Kateri had contact with Jesuit fathers who, under a French peace treaty with the native Americans, were allowed to be present in villages with Christian natives. At 19 she was baptized. But it meant she was thereafter treated by her tribe like a slave. As she grew in holiness, so did their persecution. On the advice of a priest, she escaped one night and walked 200 miles to a Christian village near Montreal. There, she lived the few remaining years of her life dedicated to prayer, penance, and care for the sick and aged. She also took a vow of virginity. She died in 1680 at age 24. Her first biographer, a Jesuit priest, wrote in 1696 that Kateri's scars vanished at the time of her death revealing a woman of immense beauty; that many sick persons who attended her funeral were healed on that day; and that she appeared to two different individuals in the weeks following her death. A move towards her canonization began in 1884. She was declared Venerable in 1943 and beatified in 1980.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/071410.shtml



OR today.
No papal stories other than the Vatican communique yesterday on the theme chosen for the Holy Father's message for the next World Day of peace on January 1, 2011. 'Religious freedom, a way to peace'. Page 1 international news: Russian President Medvedev says Iran is close to being able to produce nuclear arms and defends validity of recent UN sanctions; Japan dumps 13 billion euros worth of holdings in the credit-afflicted PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain); an update on the life of Haitian homeless six months after the earthquake; the Vatican is sending Raphael tapestries and his original designs for them to London's Victoria and Albert Museum for an exhibit timed for the Pope's visit. In the inside pages, a wide-ranging interview with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops' conference, and an obituary for Giuseppe De Carli, RAI's Vatican bureau chief who died yesterday.


Pope creates Syro-Malankar
Exarchate for North America
Translated from

July 14, 2010



The Holy Father has created an Apostolic Exarchate for the Syro-Malankarese faithful in the USA. He named Rev. Thomas Naickamparampil as the first Exarch and concurrently Apostolic Delegate (Visitator) for the Syro-Malankar Catholics in Canada and Europe.

Born in India in 1961, he obtained his doctorate in philosophy in
Rome and was ordained a priest in 1986. He has been secretary general of the Major Archepiscopate of the Syro-Malankar Church.

In North America, Syro-Malankar Catholics are concentrated in Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Florida, New York, District of Columbia (DC), Ontario (Canada). The Board of Missions has 5000 members and 800 families listed, but it is believed there are another 4000 members and 200 families not registered.

They have 16 churches and 15 priests. They have 35 nuns - the Sisters of the Imitation of Christ in New York and Illinois; and the Daughters of Mary in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Michigan. They plan to open new convents in Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington.

The seat of the new Exarchate will be the Mar Baselios Pastoral Center in New York, and the Exarch will reside at the Mar Ivanios Malankara Catholic Centre, also in New Hyde Park, New York. The Exarchate's Pro-Cathedral will be St. John Chrysostom Malankar Catholic Church.

Additional background info from Vatican Radio:

An apostolic exarchate is the Eastern Catholic Church equivalent of an apostolic vicariate. It is not a full-fledged eparchy (diocese), but is established by the Holy See for the pastoral care of Eastern Catholics in an area outside the territory of the Eastern Catholic Church to which they belong. It is headed by a bishop or a priest with the title of Exarch.

An apostolic visitator is a papal representative who has been asked to familiarize himself with the situation of a given community and to report on its status to the Holy See.

The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is centered in southern India where it has eight eparchies (dioceses) and about 500,000 faithful. It is headed by His Beatitude Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, who resides in the city of Trivandrum. It has been estimated that there are approximately 10,000 Syro-Malankara Catholics in the United States and Canada.

Rabbi Neusner has used the opening joke in a previous article about the Pope, but otherwise, this piece is completely new - and appears under the rabbi's rubric in the Huffington Post.

Lessons from Pope Benedict


July 14, 2010

The best joke I ever made up was when I told someone at the gym where I work out, who had challenged my opinion about the New York Yankees versus the New York Mets, "Don't try to argue with me. I'm a professor -- I'm always right!" Unfortunately, he didn't laugh; he snapped a towel at me.

When you elect a highly accomplished scholar and intellectual to a position that bestows the status of infallibility, you are buying trouble. A scholar doesn't need to be told he is infallible. He knows. That is what he is paid to be. A scholar's calling values integrity, rationality, and forthrightness.

The first five years of the papacy of Cardinal Ratzinger have revealed these traits along with abundant humility and kindness and love. But the world will take some time to get used to its scholar-Pope, who speaks forthrightly about fundamental issues and lets the chips fall where they may.

The Muslims learned that fact in Regensburg, when the Pope in a profound lecture called into question the contribution of Islam to civilization.

The Anglicans learned that fact when the Pope in a gesture of honesty invited the [traditional] Anglican priesthood[and faithful] to join the Church.

The Jews learned that fact when the Pope reverted to a liturgy that called into question the faith of Judaism.

In all three cases the breach was restored, cooler heads prevailed. So Islam was pacified, the Anglicans and the Jews conciliated.

But the scholar-Pope had told the truth as Catholic Christianity at heart sees it: Islam cannot compete with Christianity for moral insight, the Anglicans will be welcome home, and the Jews would be better off in the Church.

Pope Benedict spoke like a scholar and pronounced Christian truth as the infallible Bishop of Rome. A scholar could do no less.

The current issue that troubles the peace is [exemplified by] Cardinal Ratzinger's prior disposition of the case of a priest guilty of sexually abusing children [the late Fr. Murphy in Wisconsin].

Christian charity called for forgiveness of the priest, a broken dying penitent. Justice demanded excommunication. Cardinal Ratzinger withheld the rites of humiliation that formed the just penalty. The man died in the bosom of the Church. Benedict VI showed the meaning of repentance and Christian love.

When I met the Pope in Rome last January, I asked him what he planned to do when the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth was done, in about half a year. With a sad smile he said, "Nothing more, this is my last book. I have other things to do."*

A scholar who ceases to write books does not long outlive his last title. He did not have to add, "After all, I'm the Pope." But the scholar in me whispered, "At what cost!"

What the world has learned in five years about a scholar-Pope is the price that academia pays for truth-telling and integrity.

Infallibility exacts costs. People prefer conciliatory politicians over contentious critics. Those are the lessons taught by the generic scholar-popes.

The Holy Father, as the Catholics call him, is a lovely, loving man; the world benefits from his truth-telling.

What I learn from this particular scholar-Pope is something more. The world has a heavy stake in the proven integrity of this man and in his power to speak truth to all humanity.

So the Muslims, the Anglicans, and we Jews too have to prepare for scholarly debates about reason and shared rationality and meet head-on the conflicts that await over who is right and who is wrong, and what Scripture and tradition demand of us all.


*In his blog today, Paolo Rodari says that the previously speculated 'third book' in the JON series will come as an appendix to the first two volumes and not really as a separate book. I will translate Rodari's entry later.

I did not see the following article by Neusner before, but then maybe I was not looking at the time because both the OR and Il Foglio published an account of Neusner's meeting with the Pope last January based on inerviews given by Neusner. This accoutn is in his own words, and has a few more details.

Meeting Benedict:
A rabbi talks with the Pope
By Jacob Neusner

January 27, 2010


The walk through the papal apartments led through several long rooms, each richly decorated in antiques and hangings and paved with marble.

My journey to the heart of Catholic Christianity might have been expected to have precipitated long thoughts on history and family: What would the first Jacob Neusner, my grandfather from the town of Koretz in the Pale of Settlement and Beverly, Mass., who died 77 years ago, a few months before I was born, have thought?

How many Jewish scholars have had occasion to walk through those palatial rooms, and what brought them to call on the Pope? As guard after guard saluted me and my wife, I might have wondered how often kippah-wearing visitors had received the Swiss Guards’ salute.

If you assumed that it was these thoughts of who and where I was that raced through my mind, you’d be mistaken. Midway through the walk from room to room, I had the awful thought that my fly was open. I checked.

My wife and I had been invited to visit to Pope Benedict XVI for a private audience in his Vatican office on January 18, the day after his high-profile visit to Rome’s main synagogue.

He and I had had an occasional scholarly correspondence before he had been Pope, as we shared an interest in the historical study of first-century Judaism and Christianity.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he generously wrote an endorsement of my 1993 book A Rabbi Talks With Jesus. Then, much to my surprise, a decade-and-a-half later, when Benedict’s book Jesus of Nazareth was published, a good portion of one of its chapters was spent discussing my book - a sincere and, I believe, unprecedented theological engagement with a rabbi’s work on the part of a sitting Pope.

Yet until my most recent visit to Rome, the Pope and I had only met once, and then only very briefly at a 2008 inter-religious gathering in Washington, so I was particularly excited to get to spend a bit of time with him.

Waiting outside the papal office, my wife and I wondered what the Pope would want to discuss. We need not have worried. The Pope and I have in common and talked about what professors always discuss: What are you working on, and what will you do next?

So when my wife and I spent our 25 minutes with Benedict, I asked him how he was progressing with volume two of Jesus of Nazareth, and he asked me whether I’m still publishing a book a month.

He told me that the second volume would come out soon and that it would be the last book he would write. But, he explained, he has other work that will keep him busy. That’s the price exacted from a major scholar who is elected Pope.

And that was before we even sat down. The news that he was writing his last book struck me as sad. I said so, and he reminded me that he is older than me — as it happens, by five years. That his book-writing days are coming to an end precluded any discussion of the book I had hoped to someday convince him to write with me — a dialogue on the apostle Paul’s theology of Israel in Romans — and I didn’t bring it up.

He asked me what I’m working on, and I started to explain: “Form analysis of the rabbinic canon…” His eyes seemed to glaze over, so I broke off that line of discussion and took the occasion to give him a copy of my new book introducing the Talmud, published just now in Italian, and the German translation of A Rabbi Talks With Jesus.

He appreciated receiving the book in his native German and said he was thankful that the Talmud book was not too long for the time he had for reading. He told my wife that reading A Rabbi Talks With Jesus gave him comfort after his sister died.

I left with a vivid picture of a humble and good-natured man wholly devoted to the service of God. He is generous in his appreciation of others and does not take for granted others’ appreciation.

I leave it to others to speak for the Jewish people in discussions that will engage us over issues of common concern — and contention — between Judaism and Catholicism.

Myself, I will cherish the memory of the fellow scholar I had the pleasure of getting to know in Rome.

I was quite surprised to find this level of attention to 'working details' of the Pope's visit on BBC News, but perhaps it's because this is posted on their Birmingham site. Still...

A guide to Pope Benedict XVI'S
visit to Birmingham


Pope Benedict XVI will visit Birmingham as part of a four-day visit to the UK in September 2010.

The Pope will lead a public open-air Mass in Birmingham's Cofton Park on Sunday 19th September 2010.

Public guidelines have been put in place by organisers of the papal visit to ensure as many people as possible can see the Pope.

Safety and security will be the main priority during the high profile Birmingham visit.


COFTON PARK PUBLIC MASS
EVENT INFORMATION

How to attend
Over 65,000 people are expected at the open-air mass at Cofton Park.
To attend the public Mass by Pope Benedict XVI at Cofton Park on Sunday, 19 September you will need to speak to your local parish priest as soon as possible. The priest will then get in touch with their local diocesan papal visit co-ordinator and arrange for you to join a parish group.

Each diocese in England and Wales has appointed a local co-ordinator as the key channel for passing on information on how people can attend the public Mass events that will take place during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK.


Group attendance ONLY*
Individuals cannot attend the Crofton Park public mass without being part of a pilgrim group from a local Catholic parish. Each group will be assigned a pilgrim leader, the leader will be present at the security points and will be able to vouch for the members of the group.

*[I do not know if this is an advisable policy at all. It makes the Pope's Mass an exclusively English/Welsh parishioners' event, and that is not right. If I were a Catholic travelling in Birmingham at the time of the Pope's visit and wished to attend the Mass - and were prepared to trudge miles to get to Cofton Park - how are they going to stop me?]


Mass entrance
Each person will receive a pilgrim pack containing a pilgrim pass that will allow them entrance into Cofton Park.


Travelling to Cofton Park
Travel to Cofton Park is by coach ONLY. This is to ensure pilgrims can be accounted for easily and will also help people pass through security quickly and comfortably.

Contact your local parish priest to register your interest. They will liaise with your local diocesan papal visit co-ordinator who will then arrange a coach through the central papal visit office.


Other itinerary dates
In addition to the Cofton Park event, Pope Benedict XVI will be holding a public open-air Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on 16th September and an open air prayer vigil in London's Hyde Park on Saturday 18th September.

He will also travel the streets of Edinburgh and London in the Popemobile during his UK visit - finalised routes will be released in due course.

For more information about the Pope Benedict XVI UK visit visit the Papal visit website .

Stay tuned into BBC WM 95.6FM and DAB for all the local news and information on Pope Benedict XVI visit to Birmingham.


The official papal visit site contains the ff general information on...

How can I see
the Pope in the UK?


This simple question and answer article should help you make your interest known if you wish to attend one of the public events of Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Journey to the UK.

What public events can I attend during the Papal Visit?

There are three public celebrations taking place between 16-19 September:

Bellahouston Park, Glasgow
16 September
Mass - Afternoon

Hyde Park, London
18 September
Prayer Vigil - Evening

Cofton Park, Birmingham
19 September
Beatification of Cardinal Newman - Morning

Will there be any other opportunities to see the Holy Father?

In addition to the public events, there will be opportunities to see the Holy Father in Edinburgh and London travelling the streets in the Popemobile. The finalised routes will be released in due course.

How do I register my interest?

Speak to your local parish priest as soon as possible. He should be in touch with his Diocesan Papal Visit Co-ordinator and can explain how you can join a parish group.

Can I travel to an event on my own?

No, unfortunately not. You must be attached to a group from a Catholic parish to attend one of the public celebrations. Each group will be assigned a PILGRIM LEADER. The Pilgrim Leader will be present at the security points and will be able to vouch for the members of their group.

How will I gain access to the venue?

Each pilgrim will receive a PILGRIM PACK. This will contain a PILGRIM PASS. This pass will allow you to enter the park for the public celebration.

How do I travel to Birmingham for the Beatification of Cardinal Newman?

Travel to Cofton Park in Birmingham is by coach only. This is to ensure pilgrims can be accounted for easily and it will help you pass through security quickly and comfortably. Again, contact your local parish priest to register your interest. He will liaise with your Diocesan Papal Visit Co-ordinator who will then arrange a coach through the central Papal Visit office.

How do I travel to London for the Hyde Park Prayer Vigil?

Pilgrims will need to use public transport to attend the Hyde Park Prayer Vigil on 18 September. Again, you will need to be attached to a parish group with a Pilgrim Leader.

I can't believe the Vatican Press Office was too busy last Sunday to fail to post the Holy Father's message to the Archbishop of Kampala about the Sunday bombing massacres in Uganda! But the Press Office did fail, and Vatican Radio reports it today, after getting the information from Kampala!... Sure, the message is not earth-shaking 'news' in itself, but how can the Press Office fail to report a ststement made by the Pope on a significant and tragically senseless event?


Pope prays for
Uganda bomb victims


14 July 10 (RV) - Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of victims of last Sunday’s bomb attacks in Kampala Uganda.

A statement released today by the Archbishop of Kampala, Cyprian Kizto Lwanga, reads that the Holy Father was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of lives and that his prayers are with the victims and their families.

74 people were killed in two separate bomb attacks on the capital. The attacks were claimed by a Somali terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda.

On behalf of the Church in Uganda the Archbishop appeals to all aggrieved parties in society to renounce violence as a means of solving conflicts and embrace dialogue. Archbishop Lwanga concludes that these “barbaric acts reveal the evil and ugly nature of the perpetrators who do not value the sanctity of human life”.

Full text of the statement:

---

In the wake of this tragic loss of innocent lives, I wish, on behalf of the Catholic Church in Uganda, to convey my sincere condolences to all the people of Uganda and most especially to the families of the victims that lost their livesin the deadly explosions at the Ethiopian Village in Kabalagala and Kyadondo Rugby Club in Lugogo on Sunday.

We are all deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence and we strongly condemn the act that indiscriminately killed and injured innocent people . This barbaric act reveals the evil and ugly nature of the perpetrators who do not value the sanctity of human life.

We appeal to all aggrieved parties in our society to renounce violence as means of solving conflicts and whenever there are misunderstandings, let people embrace dialogue in the resolution of conflicts.

As we pray for the victims, we implore God’s gifts of courage and strength for the injured and those who mourn. On Sunday 18th July 2010, in all our Parishes and Sub-Parish Churches, we request the Parish Priests to organize special prayers for the victims of this tragic event.

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has also received the sad news and is deeply saddened to learn of the loss of lives caused by bombings in Kampala.

The Pope conveys his heartfelt condolences to the civil authorities and to those afflicted by the attacks. He prays for the victims, the injured and the bereaved families.

Cyprian Kizto Lwanga
Archbishop of Kampala

---

Thanks to one of Lella's followers who alerted her to this editorial, I have been led to the website of Ecclesia, the weekly magazine of the Spanish bishops' conference that inexplicably is not mentioned anywhere on the conference site, nor does the magazine explicitly identify itself as the bishops' magazine.


The Church is in the good hands
of the wise helmsman Benedict XVI
Editorial

Print issue of 7/17/10
Posted online 7/13/10


As it has happened previously, Pope Benedict XVI has availed of recent events to reaffirm the course of the ship of the Church amidst present storms and challenges, and thus, to reaffirm as well the ministry of the Successor to Peter.

He has done so in the style that characterizes him: without haste but without hesitation, with humility and simplicity, with freedom and authority, with truth and with charity.

Let us look at some examples.

On June 30 and July 1, he made two important nominations to the Roman Curia. For having reached [and surpassed] the canonical retirement age of 75, Cardinals Re and Kasper left the leadership of the Congregation for Bishops and for Promoting Christian Unity, respectively.

Two prestigious prelates who are clearly in line with the Pope's thinking were named to succeed them: Canada's Marc Ouellet, and the Bishop of Basel, Kurt Koch.

Benedict XVI is also creating a new and necessary dicastery intended to spur re-evangelization of traditionally Catholic countries that have since slid towards secularism.

A few days earlier, amid much media hue and cry over the past acttivities of another dicastery, the Holy See issued a note to clarify the identity, mission, resources and means of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Since April 2005 when Benedict XVI came to Peter's Chair, he has completed a complete renovation of the Secretariat of State, seven of the nine Congregations, nine of the 11 Pontifical Councils, and a great majority of many other important offices in the Vatican.

In all the changes, the criteria have been to respect the time period of the original appointments [never before their expiration, but in a few cases, as with Cardinals Re and Kasper, well after their specified term limit (5 years for each nomination period)]; to reinforce internal coordination with and from the Secretariat of State; to seek harmony between the new officials and the style and the ecclesial and pastoral priorities indicated by Benedict XVI; and to aim for maximum efficiency.

The so-called zero tolerance in matters regarding pederasty by priests and other unpleasant realities incompatible with the mission and character of the Church have been and are very much present in the Pope's actions and decisions in recent months.

Thus, he has been following through on the situation of the Church in Ireland, where some dioceses and congregations will be the subject of apostolic visitations in the fall, naming prestigious prelates to carry out these visitations; in Belgium [where one bishop has resigned, and the previous Primate of Belgium is under a cloud for his possible previous knowledge of the bishop's long-standing sexual abuse of his nephew]; in Germany, where he showed both firmness and sensitivity in dealing with the case of Mons. Mixa, whose successor he also promptly named; and in Austria.

In connection with the latter, the Pope's paradigmatic audience on June 29, first with Vienna's Cardinal Schoenborn alone, and then with Cardinals Sodano and Bertone asked to join in.

The solution to these lamentable problems - Benedict XVI has managed to indicate through his gestures and decisions - is not through any unilataral one-upmanship or internal recriminations, but by acting with transparency, justice, truth and charity. Through the Pope's own exclusive authority when necessary.

On July 9, the Pope's measured, prudent, but at the same time implacable and wise way of action was once again confirmed in his choice of his delegate to overhaul the Legionaries of Christ.

The personality and profile of the man he chose - Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, who is also a religious (Scalabrinian), a prestigious cnaonist as well as expert in financial affairs, a Curial head himself, with direct links to the Secretary of State - clearly show the firm intentions of the Pope to overhaul the LC, indicated previously in the Vatican text on May 1 after he met with the apostolic visitators who had investiagted the affairs of the LC.

He decided, after establishing the facts of the lamentable scandals in the life of LC founder Fr. Marcial Maciel, to purge all the complicit officials, and to purify, heal and strengthen the LC which has been the primary victim of its unworthy founder.

All this is clear and unequivocal proof that the ship of the Church is in the good and wise hands of Benedict XVI - the prudent, firm, peace-making and serene Pope whom God has given us in these turbulent times.





I see that AP today filed a story on the Legionaries of Christ that is substantially what was in a Mexican news account on 7/12 that I translated and posted yesterday on the preceding page of this thread.

I have just posted another Mexican news report, from today, in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread, about a tape recording in 2008, shortly after Maciel died, in which one of Maciel's top two lieutenants - the all-powerful Vicar General Luis Garza Medina - says three of the top leaders, incudling himself obviously, and current Superior-General Alvaro Corcuera, knew all about Maciel's double life all along - not only since the CDF disciplined Maciel in 2006, as they have claimed in formal statements - and goes on to describe how Maciel lived his 'unstructured sexuality' [that's a new euphemism for 'unbridled and unpriestly lust'!

An OR tribute to the late Giuseppe De Carli is misleadingly titled. Because although De Carli set a record by doing some 4,000 TV programs and video reports on John Paul II, the item that OR features here not only says very little about John Paul II but from being about the 'third secret' of Fatima, it ends up as a tribute to Benedict XVI.




Two Popes before Mary
by Giuseppe De Carli
Introduction to the Interview-book
'L'ultimo segreto di Fatima'
Translated from
the 7/15/10 issue of


In order to commemorate RAI's chief Vatican correspondent - who died Tuesday morning in Rome 0 we are publishing the Introduction to this last book, L'ultimo segreto di Fatima (Milano, Rai Eri - Rizzoli, 2010, pagine 266, euro 18,50) with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.




There is no doubt that in Fatima, we have had the most spectacular apparitions of the Virgin Mary (also 'the most prophetic and political'): a place that has attracted three Popes - Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II three times; and now Benedict XVI.

Also, in 1956, Angelo Roncalli, later John XXIII, visited Fatima as the Patriarch of Venice. So did another Patriarch of Venice who became Pope, Albino Luciani, later John Paul I, who visited Suor Lucia in Coimbra in 1977; as did Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1996.

Yes, the message of Fatima strikes us with its language of blood and suffering, and has seemed to 'coagulate' around the figure of John Paul II.

It cannot be denied that the Wojtylian Pontificate was profoundly marked by Our Lady of Fatima. One gets shivers watching the images on October 2000 - that silent and lengthy act of veneration by John Paul II of the image from Cova da Iria in the Pope's private chapel.

The account of the circumstances that led to the publication of the third part of the Fatima 'secret' entrusted to Suor Lucia by 'Our Lady' is offered once more in this book by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and leads us to reflect anew on the greatness of John Paul II, of a Pope that the Church has decided to glorify.

Now, the pilgrimage of Pope Benedict XVI to Fatima comes almost like a seal on the first five years of his Pontificate.

There will always be discussion about the Fatima apparitions and the 'secrets' bound to it. But there are firm facts and credible testimonials. Perhaps we do not even need more than the clear words of Suor Lucia in her meetings with Cardinal Bertone.

We must remember that the process for Suor Lucia's canonization has begun. The Pope's special dispensation of the statutory post-mortem five years waiting period was made known in Coimbra on February 13, 2008, third anniversary of her death. This has happened in recent years to Mother Teresa of Calcutta and to John Paul II.

Nonetheless, for those who have been following the news accounts of a supposed 'unrevealed secret', one must recall that the 'Capovilla envelop' - that which some claim contains a different text - is the same envelop that Cardinal Bertone had in hand - namely, the third part of the 'secret of Fatima' - in 2000, when John Paul II ordered the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to publish the so-called Third Secret.

Mons. Loris Capovilla, who was private secretary to Pope John XXIII, has not ceased to contradict those who continue to claim that the Vatican has not revealed the entire text.

The various passages in the text contained in that envelop, the concordance among various sources (the 'Secretariat' of the Fatima Shepherds, the Vatican Secretariat of State, the archive of the CDF), the dates, the words said by Lucia [about the 'third secret], the context in which she said those words at different times, indicate that there are not two versions nor two distinct 'secrets'. Nor even, as some claim, an unrevealed part in addition to that which has been published, but a part left undisclosed for who knows what unconfessable motives.

This conviction about dark and devious plots can sometimes be more granitic than facts in their simple obviousness. That is why this new edition of the book includes precious testimony: that of Mons. Capovilla, previously published by Rizzoli in its book series on the 'Third Secret'.

There is also TV documentation of Capovilla's testimonial - that the text of Suor Lucia's sealed message on the third secret which was read by John XXIII in August 1959 is the identical text that was shown on TV on June 24, 2000, presented by then Mons. Bertone, with the theological commentary of Cardinal Ratzinger.

This book is a re-reading of the previous one, L'ultima veggente di Fatima (from 2008), with some clarifications. Mainly lexical, the terms used. Nuances, one might say. But with such incandescent material - and its spiritual iridescence - even muances are significant.

This book is constructed in two distinct parts, which are in intimate dialog with each other. In the first, Suor Lucia's 'celestial grammar' prevails, during which she dwells on the vast and complex matter of the apparitions themselves.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, in his presentation of the earlier edition, which continues to be relevant, the events of Fatima "have marked the Church in the second half of the 20th century", and therefore, it is good that "they should be consigned to the collective memory as historical traces not devoid of significance".

The second part of this new book dwells on conversations with Cardinal Bertone, who has lived an unrepeatable experience through the message of Fatima. As chance or Providence would have it, he found himself involved in the aura of an event with luminous as well as dark features, and this second part of the book is rife with personal accents which reveal his temperament, his stature and his spirituality.

The cardinal has a genuine Marian devotion, inherited from his family and matured as a disciple of Don Bosco. Cardinal Bertone also makes us taste 'the fascination of the open sea' in his pastoral activity as well as in the acts of governance he now carries out as Secretary of State.

He deals with the great themes of reconciliation and peace, of inter-religious dialog, of the faith's 'right of citizenship' in a society that lives 'as if God does not exist'.

There are references both to his personal memories as well as those that have to do with the institutional roles he has carried out, both public and private memories, that shuttle from one Marian Pope to the other, from John Paul II to Benedict XVI.

Even though it is too early for an 'accounting' of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, we spoke about the present Pope to get a better overview in terms of identifying the basic themes of a Petrine ministry which is our temporis stupor et miraculum - the wonder and miracle of our time - to use the expression that Ulrich of Strasbourg used for his master Albertus Magnus.

The corpus Ratzingerianum has taken the form of books, essays, encyclicals, pamphlets, homilies, catecheses, exhortations, appeals - which reveal true wisdom and an intellect open to faith.

Benedict XVI has shown that the problem is not the ecclesial 'machinery' but the fuel for it; not the building itself, but its foundations. The crisis that exists has to do with the truth of the Gospel, not with the institution.

The seduction worked by Benedict XVI is that of recovering for the faith its character as a 'counter-culture'. That explains the growing attention from a new public, that of the Facebook generation, towards a Pope who can adapt his intellectual fit to that of a pastor who can teach.

What's more, the theologian-Pope, against all predictions, also travels. In five years [as of May 2010), he had made 30 visits between pastoral trips in Italy and apostolic visits abroad. Even if he is only one-third through the length of Paul VI's papacy so far, he has already travelled far more than his predecessor did.

And to be more specific, Benedict XVI has always been in 'the radius of Mary'. In Cologne, In Poland, in Altoetting, in Aparecida, in Lordes, in Valencia, in Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Ephesus in Turkey, and even in the United States, in Cameroon and Angola, in prague adn Brno, in Malta, in Fatima, and later, in Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Spain.

His visits in Italy have taken him to Bari, Manoppello, Assisi, Naples, Brescia, Genoa and Savona, Vigevano and Pavia, Leuca and Brindisi, Loreto, Cagliari, Pompeii, Montecassino, Turin. He even went to San Giovanni Rotondo to venerate the remains of San Pio da Pietrelcina. He has visited soup kitchens in Rome, the Sant'Egidio community's Christmas lunch for the poor, and the CAritas hostel in Rome's Stazione Termini. And Rome's Synagogue.

'Let this Simon also called Peter come!' say the Acts of the Apostles. And Peter came.

So, Benedict XVI shows up where he is called, despite controversies, despite radical socio-political contexts. Yet he comes. And apeaks to his audiences of life unto death, of Christian identity in the midst of alienation and estrangement, of hope and the future in the face of the dark portents of modernity.

These are the pilgrimages - often Marian - of 'an intellectual with heart'. Who better than Cardinal Bertone can offer a key to read the Pontificate of Benedict XVI?

The cardinal's view is that of someone who daily sees up close a Pope that the world is learning to love. To catch this viewpoint, if only in these interviews, is 'good news' both for current events and for history.

Thursday, July 15, 15th Week in Ordinary Time


Two great 17th century Spanish artists, Francisco Herrera the Older, and Francisco Zurbaran, painted scenes from the life of St. Bonaventure. From left, his parents bring the child Bonaventure to be healed by St. Francis of Assisi; Bonaventure joins the Franciscan order; an angel communicates to the saint; the saint in prayer; Bonaventure at the Council of Lyons; death of the saint. The first 3 canvases by Herrera were painted in 1628; the next 3 panels by Zurbaran were painted in 1629.
ST. BONAVENTURA DA BAGNOREGIO
This great saint was, of course, the subject of Joseph Ratzinger's dissertation to obtain his Habilitation as a German university professor IN 1954. Recently, he spoke about Bonaventure during his pilgrimage last September 6 to his hometown of Bagnoregio
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090906_bagnoregio...
and in three catecheses on March 3, 10 and 17 this year
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/inde...
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/071510.shtml

OR today.
The only papal story in today's issue is the late Giuseppe De Carli's Introduction to his last book, L'ultimo segreto di Fatima, translated in the post above this. Page 1 international news: Israel demolishes three Palestinian buildings in East Jerusalem built without permits; a report says India's poor number more than the poor in Africa's 26 poorest countries; the UN says 70,000 more civilians have fled their homes in the Democratic Congo's North Kivu province because of continued civil war; and in Yemen, Al Qaeda terrorists attack two police outposts, killing two and wounding nine others.

In the inside pages, hundreds of thousands of Argentinians demonstrate in Buenos Aires and other cities against a proposed law to legalize gay marriage; and an essay on the concept of 'caritas in veritate' in St. Bonaventure and the 20th century theologian Blessed Antonio Rosmini, from the annual Bonaventure lectures in Bagnoregio.





Pope approves amendments
to 2001 Motu Proprio and
its implementing norms


In four statements released today, the Vatican has made public the amendments henceforth codified into the canon law regarding the handing of crimes against the sacraments:

From the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -
1. A letter to all Catholic Bishops and the hierarchy on modifications to the Apostolic Letter motu proprio Sacramentorum Santitatis Tutela

2. A summary of the modifications introduced to the norms De gravioribus delictis issued in 2001 to implement the Motu Proprio

3. The entire text of the revised De gravioribus delictis

4. A historical background to the 2001 documents

And from the Vatican Press Office itself -

A note from Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican Press Office director, explaining the significance of the publication of these changes

Vatican publishes revised norms
for CDF to deal with
'the most serious crimes'
against the sacraments



15 July 10 (RV)- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) made public today the new text of modifications to the Normae de gravioribus delictis, revised by Pope Benedict XVI. The text contains changes to the substantial and procedural norms found in the original text of Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela [Safeguarding the sanctity of the sacraments].

In a letter introducing the new norms to bishops worldwide, Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of CDF notes that nine years after the promulgation of the Apostolic Letter Motu proprio the Vatican Dicastery “held it necessary to proceed with a reform of the above mentioned text, emending it not in its entirety, but only in certain areas, in order to render the text more useful”.

For the CDF norms in full and a historical overview of the Apostolic Letter in English, as well as a glossary of terms go to: www.vatican.va/resources/index_en.htm


SUMMARY OF THE MODIFICATIONS

---

The new text of the Normae de gravioribus delictis, as revised by Pope Benedict XVI on 21 May 2010, contains modifications to both the substantial and the procedural norms found in the original text of Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela.

The following is a summary of the changes introduced into the text:

A) The following faculties, originally granted by Pope John Paul II to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later confirmed by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, on 6 May 2005, have been introduced into the text:

1. The right, as mandated by the Roman Pontiff, to judge Cardinals, Patriarchs, Legates of the Apostolic See, Bishops and other physical persons found in CIC can. 1405 §3 and CCEO can. 1061 (art. 1 § 2);

2. The extension of the term of prescription of a criminal action to twenty years, maintaining the right of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to derogate from prescription on a case by case basis (art. 7);

3. The faculty to dispense from the requirement of priesthood and the requirement of a doctorate in canon law for the personnel of the Tribunal, advocates and procurators (art. 15);

4. The faculty to sanate acts in cases where only procedural laws have been violated by an inferior Tribunal, guaranteeing, always, the right to a proper defense (art. 18);

5. The faculty to dispense from a judicial trial and, therefore, to proceed per decretum extra iudicium. In these cases the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after a careful examination of the facts, decides on a case by case basis when to authorize an extra-judicial (administrative) process, at the request of the Ordinary or local Hierarch or ex officio(in any of these cases, the imposition of a perpetual, expiatory penalty requires the mandate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) (art. 21 § 2 n. 1);

6. The faculty to present cases directly to the Holy Father for dimissio e statu clericali or depositio, una cum dispensatione a lege caelibatus; to proceed in this manner, in addition to the extreme gravity of the particular case, the commission of the delict in question must be manifest and the right to a proper defense of the accused must be guaranteed (art. 21 § 2 n. 2);

7. The faculty to make recourse to the Ordinary Session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith against administrative acts issued or approved by the same Congregation in a lower grade of judgment, in cases of reserved delicts (art. 27).


B) The following modifications have also been introduced into the text:

8. The delicta contra fidem (heresy, apostasy and schism) have been included; for these delicts, the norms indicate a particular competence for the local Ordinary to proceed ad normam iuris, either in a judicial manner or extra iudicium in the first instance, maintaining the right of appeal or recourse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (art. 1 § 1 and art. 2);

9. Regarding the Eucharist, the two delicts of attentatio liturgicae eucharistici Sacrificii actionis (CIC can. 1378 § 2 n.1) and the simulation of the same (CIC can. 1379; CCEO can. 1443) are now considered under separate numbers (art 3 § 1 nn. 2 and 3);

10. Also concerning delicts against the Eucharist, with respect to the previous version of the text, the phrase “alterius materiae sine altera” has been replaced with the expression “unius materiae vel utriusque” and the phrase “aut etiam utriusque extra eucharisticam celebrationem” has been replaced with “aut extra eam” (art. 3 § 2);

11. Regarding the Sacrament of Penance, the crimes specified in CIC can. 1378 § 2 (attempting to impart sacramental absolution or hearing a sacramental confession, when one cannot do so validly) and CIC 1379 and CCEO can. 1443 (simulation of sacramental absolution) have been included in the text (art. 4 § 1 nn. 2 and 3);

12. Also included among the delicts are the indirect violation of the seal (art. 4 § 1 n. 5), the recording and divulgation of a sacramental confession done with malice (decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 23 September 1988) (art. 4 § 2);

13. The attempted ordination of a woman has also been introduced as a delict in the new text, as established by the decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 19 December 2007 (art. 5);

14. Among the delicta contra mores [cimes against morals]: a person over 18 years of age who is developmentally disabled is equated to a minor exclusively in regards to art. 6 § 1 n. 1;

15. Also added as delicts are the acquisition, possession or distribution of pornographic images of minors under the age of 14, a clerico turpe patrata, in any way and by any means (art. 6 § 1 n. 2);

16. It is clarified that the munera processui praeliminaria may be, but need not necessarily be, undertaken directly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (art. 17);

17. The possibility of taking the cautionary measures foreseen in CIC can. 1722 and CCEO can. 1473 during the preliminary investigation is allowed (art. 19).


Given at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

William Cardinal LEVADA
Prefect

Luis F. LADARIA, S.J.
Titular Archbishop of Thibica
Secretary

---

Most significant changes
found in the revised Norms
by Fr. Federioo. Lombardi. S.J.



In 2001 the Holy Father John Paul II promulgated a very important document, the Motu Proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, which gave the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responsibility to deal with and judge a series of particularly serious crimes within the ambit of canon law. This responsibility had previously been attributed also to other dicasteries, or was not completely clear.

The Motu Proprio (the "law" in the strict sense) was accompanied by a series of practical and procedural Norms, known as Normae de gravioribus delictis. Over the nine years since then, experience has naturally suggested that these Norms be integrated and updated, so as to streamline and simplify the procedures and make them more effective, and to take account of new problems.

This has been achieved principally by the Pope attributing new "faculties" to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; faculties which, however, were not organically integrated into the initial Norms. This has now come about, within the context of a systematic revision of those Norms.

The serious crimes to which the regulations referred concerned vital aspects of Church life: the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Penance, but also sexual abuse committed by a priest against a minor under the age of eighteen.

The vast public echo this latter kind of crime has had over recent years has attracted great attention and generated intense debate on the norms and procedures applied by the Church to judge and punish such acts.

It is right, then, that there should be complete clarity concerning the regulations currently in force in this field, and that these regulations be presented organically so as to facilitate the work of the people who deal with these matters.

An initial clarification - especially for use by the media - was provided recently with the publication on the Holy See website of a brief "Guide to Understanding Basic CDF Procedures concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations".

The publication of the new Norms is, however, quite a different thing, providing us with an official and updated legal text which is valid for the whole Church.

In order to facilitate the reading of the Norms by a non-specialist public, particularly interested in the problems of sexual abuse, we will seek to highlight a number of important aspects:

Among the novelties introduced with respect to the earlier Norms, mention must be made, above all, of measures intended to accelerate procedures, such as the possibility of not following the "judicial process" but proceeding by "extrajudicial decree", or that of presenting (in particular circumstances) the most serious cases to the Holy Father with a view to dismissing the offender from the clerical state.

Another Norm intended to simplify earlier problems and to take account of the evolution of the situation in the Church concerns the possibility of having not only priests but also lay persons as members of the tribunal staff, or as lawyers or prosecutors.

Likewise, in order to undertake these functions it is no longer strictly necessary to have a doctorate in canon law, but the required competency can also be proved in another way; for example, with a licentiate.

Another aspect worthy of note is the increase of the statute of limitations from ten years to twenty years, with the possibility of extension even beyond that period.

Another significant aspect is establishing parity between the abuse of mentally disabled people and that of minors, and the introduction of a new category: paedophile pornography. This is defined as: "the acquisition, possession or disclosure" by a member of the clergy, "in any way and by any means, of pornographic images of minors under the age of fourteen".

Regulations concerning the secrecy of trials are maintained, in order to safeguard the dignity of all the people involved.

One point that remains untouched, though it has often been the subject of discussion in recent times, concerns collaboration with the civil authorities. It must be borne in mind that the Norms being published today are part of the penal code of canon law, which is complete in itself and entirely distinct from the law of States.

On this subject, however, it is important to take note of the "Guide to Understanding Basic CDF Procedures concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations", as published on the Holy See website.

In that Guide, the phrase "Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed" is contained in the section dedicated to "Preliminary Procedures".

This means that in the practice suggested by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith it is necessary to comply with the requirements of law in the various countries, and to do so in good time, not during or subsequent to the canonical trial.

Today's publication of the Norms makes a great contribution to the clarity and certainty of law in this field; a field in which the Church is today strongly committed to proceeding with rigour and transparency so as to respond fully to the just expectations of moral coherence and evangelical sanctity nourished by the faithful and by public opinion, and which the Holy Father has constantly reiterated.

Of course, many other measures and initiatives are required from the various ecclesiastical bodies.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is currently examining how to help the bishops of the world formulate and develop, coherently and effectively, the indications and guidelines necessary to face the problems of the sexual abuse of minors, either by members of the clergy or within the environment of activities and institutions connected with the Church, bearing in mind the situation and the problems of the societies in which they operate.

This will be another crucial step on the Church's journey as she translates into permanent practice and continuous awareness the fruits of the teachings and ideas that have matured over the course of the painful events of the "crisis" engendered by sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

In order to complete this brief overview of the principal novelties contained in the "Norms", mention must also be made of those that refer to crimes of a different nature.

In this case too it is not so much a case of introducing new substance as of integrating rules that are already in force so as to obtain a better ordered and more organic set of regulations on the "most serious crimes" reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

These include crimes against the faith (heresy, apostasy and schism) for which competency normally falls to ordinaries, although the Congregation becomes competent in the case of an appeal; the malicious recording and disclosure of sacramental Confession about which a decree of condemnation was published in 1988; and the attempted ordination of women, about which a decree was published in 2007.


Almost as important as the revised text of
De gravioribus delictis is the historical background prepared by the CDF which describes, for the first time - and hopefully, once and for all - the various official documents that have been promulgated by the Popes having to do with serious canonical crimes committed by members of the clergy. The fairly brief text can be found in English here
www.vatican.va/resources/resources_introd-storica_en.html
but for convenient reference, I have posted it in the REFERENCES thread, along with the full text of the Revised Norms. The thread also has the 2001 version of the Norms, posted much earlier. The 2001 version has been taken off the Vatican site.

As expected, the MSM - typified by AP - are presenting these revised norms as 'new', despite the clear statements made in the revised texts themselves and Fr. Lombardi's accompanying statements that these represent faculties introduced by special decree and followed over the past nine years that are now formally incorporated as modifications into the original documents of 2001 that made the CDF the lead Vatican agency for the 'most serious crimes' in canon law.



Vatican issues new sex abuse norms
By NICOLE WINFIELD


VATICAN CITY, July 15 (AP) — The Vatican issued a new set of norms Thursday to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal, cracking down on priests who rape and molest minors and the mentally disabled.

[The MSM intention, of course, is to make it appear that the Vatican framed these 'new' norms in response to media pressure in the past few months! In fact, if the Vatican correspondents had been doing their job properly all these years - after the US scandals erupted and peaked in 2002- they should have been able to keep track of these changes as they were made, since all they had to do was ask, or check regularly into with officials of the CDF.

It is obvious they failed to follow up at all after the hue and cry over the US 'scandals' had faded - and only revived their interest again when the similar revelations about decades-old abuses surgfaced in January last January. Not even the two official Irish government reports in 1009 on even older abuse cases in Ireland prompted a single reporter to check with the CDF how it had dealt with sex abuse cases since the US 'long Lent' passed into history.]

The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.

But the document made no mention of the need for bishops to report abuse to police and doesn't include any "one-strike and you're out" policy as demanded by some victims' groups.

[On the first point, Fr. Lombardi makes it clear that reporting to civil authorities is part of the practice recommended by teh CDF to all bishops as part of preliminary procedures to canon law proceedings - the CDF texts published today are all about canon law, not about civil law. And on the second, 'one strike and you're out' is not even followed in the criminal law of civilized countries because it is a summary principle incompatible with due process.]

The document also listed the attempted ordination of a woman as a "grave crime" to be handled by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, just as sex abuse is. Critics have complained that including both in the same document implied equating them. [Which is stupid to repeat simply as is, without pointing out that all the 'grave crimes' encompassed by these documents are "the more grave delicts ommitted against morals and in the celebration of the sacraments" over which the CDF is given jurisdiction equal to what it has over 'delicts against the faith', its primary concern. Ordination of women is clearly a crime against 'celebration of the sacraments' - of Holy Orders, in this case. By thet facile illogic of victims' advocates that Winfield cites in her report, any criminal code covering the whole spectrum of crimes equates every crime to each other!]

The congregation's norms marked the first major document to be issued by the Vatican since the clerical abuse scandal erupted earlier this year with hundreds of new cases coming to light of priests who molested children, bishops who covered up for them and Vatican officials who turned a blind eye for decades.

The Church's internal justice system for dealing with abuse allegations came under attack because of claims by victims that their accusations were long ignored by bishops more concerned about protecting the church and by the congregation, which was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 until he was elected pope in 2005. [YADA, YADA, YADA... Anything to repeat same old, same old...]

The bulk of the new document merely codified the ad hoc norms for dealing canonically with pedophile priests that have been in use since the first major overhaul of norms came in 2001 and subsequent updates in 2002 and 2003, making them permanent and legally binding. [Ah, so, finally! But why call them 'new' in the headline and lead paragraph????]

"That is a step forward because the norm of law is binding and is certain," said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor.

But Barbara Dorris of the Survivors' Network for Those Abused by Priests, a leading group representing victims of clerical sex abuse, said the new guidelines "can be summed up in three words: missing the boat.

"They deal with one small procedure at the very tail end of the problem: defrocking pedophile priests," she said.

"Relatively few kids have actually been sexually assaulted because predator priests weren't defrocked quickly enough," she said. "Hundreds of thousands of kids, however, have been sexually violated (by) many other more damaging and reckless moves by bishops and other church staff." [More YADA, YADA... from people for whom nothing the Church says and does will ever be enough in sempiternum!]

The 10-year statute of limitations, for example, has routinely been extended on a case by case basis and will continue to be even beyond the new 20-year limit set forth in the document, the text said.

Acquiring, selling or possessing child pornography has also been considered a grave canonical crime for several years, Scicluna has said.

New elements in the text, as first reported last week by The Associated Press, include treating priests who sexually abuse an adult who "habitually lacks the use of reason" with the same set of sanctions as those who abuse minors. Punishments can include being dismissed from the clerical state.

The Vatican in 2007 issued a decree saying the attempted ordination of women would result in automatic excommunication for the woman and the priest who tries to ordain her. That is repeated in the new document, adding that the priest can also be punished by being dismissed from the clerical state.

At a briefing Thursday, Scicluna said that including the two canonical crimes, sex abuse and ordination of women, in the same document was not equating them but was done to codify the most serious canonical crimes against sacraments and morals that the congregation deals with.

For example, in addition to sex abuse, the document also includes crimes against the sacraments including desecrating the Eucharist, violating the seal of the confessional and for the first time, apostasy, heresy and schism. Attempting to ordain a woman violates the sacrament of holy orders and was therefore included, Scicluna said.

"They are grave, but on different levels," he said.


From the other MSM reports I have seen online, apart from perpetrating the lie that the revised norms are 'new' (i.e., recent and therefore a response to 'pressure' in recent months), the other 'herd line' is that 'the norms do not go far enough', which the AP story also carries in its report of victim advocacy reaction.


Damian Thompson's instant - and yes, I will use the word this time, 'hysterical' - reaction to the Vatican statements today is one I do not share at all.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100047421/vatican-issues-new-penalties-for-sex-abuse-and-ordaining-women-im-sick-of-these-ow...
His main preoccupation is the supposed PR fallout from bringing up the question of women's ordinations along with sex abuses by priests. As we have seen, there is a perfectly logical reason for that - they both have to do with crimes against a sacrament, that of Holy Orders, which pederast priests clearly violate, in addition to the direct carnal sin they commit.

AP reported the inclusion of women's ordination prominently in its anticipatory report last week, and it drew little flak. And so what if it draws more flak now that the formal document is out? How does the ire of liberals and misguided feminists weaken the position of the Church in any way?

Besides, you have to report a news item integrally. How does reporting the sex abuse part of the document separately from the provision on women's ordination make it more 'palatable' or advisable, PR-wise? On the contrary, you would be giving the negative fallout an extended shelf life!

As much as one knows the Vatican has made serious errors of omission and commission in its communications strategy in the recent past, it would be very sad, indeed, if PR considerations were allowed to prevail over a straightforward declaration of principles or facts, as today's documents are. It would be sheer conformism to the whole incorrect 'politically correct' mode - and doing so to a ridiculous extreme!

It is most disappointing that the first reaction of someone like Thompson to the Vatican texts today is to try to preempt an anti-Catholic barrage by elements offended that the Church does not allow women to be priests. They will attack the Church whenever they wish, anyway - they do not need an occasion to be used as a pretext, and they never have.


The following, on the other hand, is the kind of reception properly deserved by the Pope's amendments to canon law:


The METER slogan reads, "If you are offending a child, shame on you!'


'Thank you, Pope Benedict!
Now no one in the Church
can have any more excuses'



Avola, Italy, July 15 (Translated from ASCA) - "Now, no one can say they 'do not know' or pretend they do not know. In the Church or outside it! Thank you, Pope Benedict!"

This was the first reaction of Fr. Fortunato Di Noto, the priest who founded the non-profit Italian child protection group called Meter, after the publication today of the Vatican's revised norms regarding serious crimes against the sacraments.

The revised text codifies and spells out the faculties and procedures extended by special decree to the CDF since 2001 to strengthen its vigilance and adjudication of such crimes, which include child pornography.

"Now, all who have insulted and defamed the Pope, accusing him of having covered up the most for erring priests and bishops, should apologize. Canon law, its authority and centuries-long experience formally reinforced, can now better confront and combat abuses against children," Don Di Noto said.

[Di Noto, born in 1963, was educated at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and taught church history at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce before choosing to take on parish duties. As parish priest in Avola in Sicily, the deaths of two children in 1996 due to sexual abuses committed against them led him to set up METER (from the Greek word for womb, that also means protection andrefuge) in order to combat abuses of all forms against children. Meter's multifaceted campaigns include a partnership with the Italian postal system to monitor and prevent the dissemination of child pornography through the mails, and actively reporting on child pornography sites on the Internet. He has written three books on the subject of child abuse. I have to look for an English article that does justice to Don Di Noto and the work that Meter does.]


It took the NYT correspondent in Rome quite some time to try and hone her hatchet before filing her oh-so-predictable and rather toothless report, of which I will simply post the first few paragraphs, as we know the drill well enough. The article quotes much more from the instant detractors of the revised rules than from the revisions themselves. And, BTW, Damian Thompson can say, "See?' for all I care...


Vatican issues new rules
on responding to sex abuse
By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: July 15, 2010


VATICAN CITY — In its most significant revision to church law since a sex abuse crisis hit the United States a decade ago and roared back from remission in Europe this spring, the Vatican on Thursday issued new internal rules making it easier to discipline priests who have sexually abused minors.

But in a move that infuriated victims’ groups and put United States bishops on the defensive, it also codified “the attempted ordination of women” to the priesthood as one of the church’s most grave crimes, along with heresy, schism and pedophilia...

The revision fell short of the hopes of many advocates for victims of priestly abuse: It does not contain measures to hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their watch, nor does it require mandatory reporting of sex abuse to civil authorities even in countries where it is not required by civil law...

www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/europe/16vatican.html


In his commentary on the revised norms published today, Father Z underscores this fact, easy enough to ignore when a reporter is obsessed with sex crimes and overlooks the primary mission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

---

Keep in mind that the norms deal with crimes against morals, but also of faith.

In addition to the sexual abuse of minors crimes – which will probably be the sole focus of much of the press – the norms also cover heresy, apostasy, schism, not just direct but also indirect violation of the seal of Confession, recordings of a sacramental confession done with malice, the attempted ordination of a woman to Holy Orders, and the acquisition, possession or distribution of pornographic images of minors under the age of 14, a clerico turpe patrata [shamefully accomplished by a cleric], in any way and by any means.”

The following graviora delicta – more serious crimes – are reserved to the CDF:
•throwing away, taking or retaining the consecrated species for a sacrilegious purpose, or profaning the consecrated species (Tell that to priests and others who know better when they pout the Precious Blood down sacristy sinks and sacraria!)
•attempting the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice or the simulation thereof [citing Canon 1378, this norm applies to persons who have not been ordained priests] (Read: pretending to say Mass)
•concelebrating the Eucharistic Sacrifice together with ministers of ecclesial communities which do not have Apostolic succession nor recognize the Sacramental dignity of priestly ordination (what has been called communicatio in sacris)
•consecrating one matter without the other in a Eucharistic celebration or both outside of a Eucharistic celebration
•absolution of an accomplice in the sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue
•solicitation to sin with the confessor against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, in the act of, context of or pretext of the Sacrament of Penance
•direct violation of the Sacramental seal
•the violation of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, committed by a cleric with a minor under the age of 18.

All of these things are sins again faith and/or morals. Sometimes one, sometimes both.

---

John Allen has his say...and NCReporter has a correct headline:

Vatican revises Church law on sex abuse
By John L Allen Jr

July 15, 2010

Rome -- In the latest chapter of the Vatican's attempt to come to grips with the sexual abuse crisis, Pope Benedict XVI has approved a set of revisions to Church law which are touted by the Vatican as a major contribution to "rigor and transparency," while derided by critics as "mere tweaking."

The Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, stressed July 15 that these revisions affect only the Church's internal discipline, and are not intended to supplant reporting sex abuse by priests to the police and other civil authorities – a step the Vatican endorsed in a procedural guide published last April.

Unrelated to the sexual abuse crisis, the revisions also add several other offenses to the list of "grave crimes" subject to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (and thus to the expedited penalties the congregation can hand out).

They include crimes against the faith, such as heresy, apostasy and schism; recording or broadcast of the sacrament of confession; and the attempted ordination of women.

The last point ratifies a December 2007 decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which stipulated that anyone attempting to ordain a woman, as well as women who claim ordination, are subject to excommunication.

That decree appeared in the wake of several events around the world in which organizers claimed to ordain women priests in defiance of church authorities.

[Allen then summarizes the major changes as he sees it.]

At a Vatican briefing this morning, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, an official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, denied that the Vatican equates women's ordination with the sexual abuse of children. An illicit ordination, Scicluna said, is a "sacramental" crime, while abuse is a "moral" crime.

The church's current law in sex abuse cases was laid out in a 2001 document from Pope John Paul II, known as a motu proprio [???? It is a motu proprio] and titled Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela.

Most of the revisions presented today 15 were originally approved by John Paul in 2002 and 2003 as "special faculties," or exceptions to his own motu proprio, at the urging of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Vatican insiders have long pointed to the special faculties as an example of Ratzinger's commitment to resolving the sexual abuse crisis.

When the motu proprio was first released, it generated concern among some bishops and canon lawyers, especially in the United States, who read it to mean that virtually every charge of sexual abuse had to be handled through a canonical trial, which many regarded as cumbersome, expensive, and uncertain. [A surprising 'concern' since basically what the motu proprio did was to transfer the competence for adjudicating sex abuse crimes by priests to the CDF rather than to the local bishops!]

The norms also required that the key personnel in those trials be priests, even though many canonists in America are laity. The statue of limitations in canon law also seemed to bar action in many cases.

That criticism came to a head in early 2003, when the promoter of justice in the doctrinal congregation, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, was set to travel to the United States to brief American canonists on how the norms laid out in Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela were to be followed. Just ahead of Scicluna's departure, Ratzinger secured the special faculties from John Paul II to address the most serious concerns...

In addition to permission to waive the statute of limitations, the special faculties include:

•Allowing one judge on a church tribunal to be a lay person, and eliminates the requirement of a doctorate in canon law;
•By-passing trials in grave cases, removing abuser priests on the basis of a decree;
•Giving the doctrinal congregation power to "sanate" the acts of lower courts, meaning to clean up procedural irregularities;
•Establishing that an appeal in abuse cases goes to the doctrinal congregation rather than the Signatura, the Vatican's highest court.
All those faculties have now been formally written into church law.

Lombardi called the revisions "a contribution to clarity and certainty … in a field in which the church is strongly committed today to proceeding with rigor and transparency."

However, a spokesperson for the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests, the most prominent advocacy group for sex abuse victims said the Church's approach needs "massive overhaul, not mere tweaking." [Once and for all, the Church does what it has to do because it is right, not because she wants to please these victim advocates - who really advocate 'victimism' (a sort of masaochism that revels in the condition of being a victim), rather than the legitimate concrete causes of actual victims.]

Vatican sources also told NCR in early July that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is preparing "guidance," as opposed to binding rules, for bishops' conferences around the world as to how to coordinate their directives on abuse cases. The lack of a coherent global policy has long been a bone of contention for critics of the Church. [Who completely ignore the great autonomy that bishops enjoy, by tradition and by right, within their own diocese! That autonomy is why many bishops - ignoring Vatican-II's repeated admonition of being 'in communion with the Bishop of Rome' - have thumbed their noses at implementing Summorum Pontificum, and why certain specific rules such as the CDF contemplates can only be 'guidelines' rather than 'binding' on the bishops.]

That guidance is not expected to appear soon. [Which shouldn't stop any bishop from following the one commonsense rule no one needs to spell out: 'When in doubt about what to do, e-mail the CDF!" I should imagine that by now, Mons. Scicluna will have provided some sort of hotline e-mail address for bishops to use in such contingencies. They can't rely on snail mail even when (and probably especially not when) sent through their Apostolic Nuncio's diplomatic pouch. There's many a slip twixt the do-gooding eager-beavers or alternatively too laidback mail openers at the Secretariat of State and the CDF.]

A welcome change of topic, and an item I failed to notice ye4sterday...

The reality of Pope Benedict, 2010
by Elizabeth Scalia

July 14, 2010

The other day I was chatting with a friend about how the reality of Pope Benedict the XVI been nothing like the “petrifying” whip-cracking reactionary that so many talking heads had predicted back in 2005. Yes, E.J. Dionne had actually said he was “petrified” over what the dreaded Joseph Ratzinger–the caricature of the media’s own creation–would do to the Church.

That made me go look up and dust off a link-heavy piece where I’d looked back at some of those paranoid predictions of 2005. Since it wasn’t much seen, I’ve dusted it off, updated it a little bit and racked it up over at Patheos.com. [The following is the full article.]

---

"I have known this man for a very long time, and what I am seeing, frankly, is the man I have always known."
- George Weigel to the New York Times, on Pope Benedict XVI

In 2005, while awaiting the peal of bells and the white smoke signifying the election of the successor to Pope John Paul II, chattering gasbags of the pundit class killed time by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the "papabile frontrunners."

The news media and their analysts seemed to agree on one point: the election of Joseph Ratzinger -- who as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had been characterized for years in the press as the "ruthless enforcer" of Catholic orthodoxy -- would be a catastrophe.

Ratzinger's "ruthlessness" consisted mostly of discouraging the "liberation theology" that too-often runs hand-in-hand with socialist enterprises, and insisting that Catholic theologians -- particularly those teaching at Vatican-sponsored Catholic colleges and universities -- either present the faith as something more than a relativistic intellectual playground, or (as in the case of Hans Küng) give up the title of "professor." Or teach somewhere else.

To some it might seem reasonable that a man of the church would expect those teaching it to do so with a measure of fidelity.

For the chatty media, however, the idea of "God's Rottweiler" as pope meant the continuation of the seemingly objectionable notion (insisted upon by his stubborn predecessor) that a pope might uphold actual Church teachings on abortion, euthanasia, divorce, etc.

Presumably none of the cardinals entering the papal conclave would have -- upon ascending the Chair of Peter -- simply declared that "everything we taught before is canceled" and signed on with the progressives, but for sure, Ratzinger would not be the man to do it.

What was needed and desired, the talking heads informed us in ceaseless litany, was a Pope who would "bring the church into the 21st century" and reconcile it to abortion, divorce, gay marriage, women priests, celibacy, and condoms.

The press seemed willing to pretend that Joseph Ratzinger was the sole stumbling block to progressive ambitions. Then, preaching to his fellow cardinals just before the conclave, Ratzinger further annoyed many of the chatterers by warning against "building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

Not much liking that, Notre Dame's Fr. Richard McBrien sniffed: "If Cardinal Ratzinger were really campaigning for pope, he would have given a far more conciliatory homily. . . . He's too much of a polarizing figure."

In fact, Benedict is less "polarizing" than simply consistent in his faith and his philosophy; having experienced a life with which few of his critics could ever identify, he dares to stand for more than "whatever . . . ":

Günter Grass, in his memoirs, recalls an encounter with the young Joseph Ratzinger while both were held in an American prisoner-of-war camp in 1945.

The young Grass, a Nazi who had been proud to serve in the Waffen-SS, was taken aback by this soft-spoken, gentle young Catholic. Unlike God, the future pope played dice, quoting St. Augustine in the original while he did so; he even dreamt in Latin. His only desire was to return to the seminary from which he had been drafted.

"I said, there are many truths," wrote Grass. "He said, there is only one." (Daniel Johnson, New York Sun, September 18, 2006) [NB: It turns out that Grass had imagined this episode, but even if it was fiction, it is entirely plausible and not improbable.]

When the bells pealed for Ratzinger, there did commence some howling and not a little drama-queening. As Archbishop Chaput of Denver noted, Benedict was given no honeymoon.

Live-blogging her coverage at National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote: "Moments into his papacy, a seemingly annoyed Cokie Roberts [daughter, by the way, of a Democratic former US ambassador to teh Vatican Lindy Boggs], calls him an ‘extremely controversial' Pope."

Writer Andrew Sullivan said, "The culture wars in America are already aflame, his elevation as Benedict XVI amounts to a barrel-full of petrol on the fire."

E.J. Dionne described himself as "petrified" of what a Pope Ratzinger might bring.

Sr. Joan Chittister suggested that Benedict was so retrograde he represented the theology of the 13th century, and predicted, "[if women are not allowed ordination] . . . we're going to lose an entire generation of young women and we're going to lose them quickly."

Tina Brown got insulting: "Oh no! Cardinal Ratzinger!" wrote Brown, "His very name was ominous," while Maureen Dowd went into a predictable meltdown: "The white smoke yesterday signaled that the Vatican thinks what it needs to bring it into modernity is the oldest pope since the 18th century . . . a 78-year-old hidebound archconservative who ran the office that used to be called the Inquisition and who once belonged to Hitler Youth."

As Benedict XVI's papacy has unfolded quite differently than was predicted, we can look back upon these and other dire predictions and report that -- thus far, anyway -- Benedict has not thrown his head back to bare his fangs. No iron maidens have been commissioned for the new inquisition. He has poured no kerosene on the teeming bonfires of American culture.

The soft-spoken, multilingual, piano-playing, book-loving octogenarian has proved himself to be a peaceable and pastoral shepherd, one who likes to talk and to listen, but to do both while resolutely teaching the faith throughout the ages, rather than spreading the age throughout the faith.

Pope Benedict's encyclicals have been Christ-centered exhortations to love, to hope, and to truth. There has been no bull whip cracking down, only a gentle issuing of an invitation to ponder the Eternal and to fit ourselves into the plan God has for each of us in our spheres.

Because the current age prefers God to fit into its plans rather than the reverse, Benedict is preaching a radical message that he knows many -- blessed with free will and beholden to the age -- will reject.

Far from displaying an "enforcer" mentality, the Pope accepts that rejection with pragmatism and ultimately with trust.

"The Church," he said as Joseph Ratzinger, "will become small, and will to a great extent have to start over again. But after a time of testing, an internalized and simplified Church will radiate great power and influence; for the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely . . . and they will then discover the little community of believers as something quite new. As a hope that is there for them, as the answer they have secretly always been asking for."

Papa Ratzi must find it heartening that, contrary to Sr. Chittister's doomsaying, vocations to the priesthood and religious life are on the increase, worldwide, as a new generation looks for the radical turn away from "whatever . . ."

During his brief stay in the United States in 2008, Benedict's schedule was full. He met the President and the press; he conferred with Catholic educators and met with representatives from other religions - and with injured members of his own. He celebrated Masses, prayed at Ground Zero, and spoke to the United Nations.

Aside from reaching out to his own flock, one constant of Benedict's papacy has been his willingness to engage Islam and to challenge it, too. He will likely do that again.

Nothing in his pontificate thus far suggests that Benedict will be doing any of that while banging a shoe on a desk, burning witches, or wrapping a woman in a burqa against her will.

The press has mostly has softened its tone [???? We wish!] on this "interim Pope" who, presumably, will not reign for decades. [Do not forget Leo XIII!]

Still, for the remainder of his pontificate we will undoubtedly continue to hear the continuing narrative and tired clichés about "hard-liner" Benedict's failure to unite his "divided flock," and stale laments about "what the Church needs to do if it is to survive" from the usual corners.

As Benedict, who is all right with sustained narratives, might say, "whatever . . ."

---

Mons. Marini has completed
site visits for the UK trip



LONDON, Jul 14, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Holy Father's trip to Great Britain approaches, the details of his itinerary are still being hashed out.

But the Pope's master of liturgical celebrations, Msgr. Guido Marini, was in the United Kingdom last week to finalize certain liturgical aspects of the itinerary and finalize the content of the missal that will be used.

With just over two months to go before Pope Benedict's arrival on British soil, Msgr. Marini has visited all of the locations where the Pope will be leading worship in September, according to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW).

In an interview with CBCEW staff, Msgr. Andrew Summersgill, co-coordinator of the papal visit said that Msgr. Marini and two assistants were in Britain last week for four days to personally visit sites on the Pope's schedule and to review and finalize texts to be included in the missal for the trip.

The following story providing further detail and the photo are from the official visit site:



Mons. Marini in Cofton Park reviews Mass arrangements with Mons. Summersgill and others.

Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass and Beatify Cardinal Newman at Cofton Park on Sunday 19 September - the culmination of his historic four-day State Visit.

Cofton Park is situated near the Oratory Retreat, Rednal, where Cardinal Newman was buried following his death in his room at the Oratory House in Edgbaston on Monday, 11 August 1890.

Mgr Marini was accompanied by Mgr Andrew Summersgill, the Papal Visit Co-ordinator, Mgr Philip Moger from the Diocese of Leeds, Organiser of Liturgy, and Fr Paul Conroy from Scotland.

The Vatican party was welcomed to Cofton Park by Canon Patrick Browne, Local Organiser for the the Papal Visit to the Archdiocese of Birmingham. He was accompanied by Fr Jan Nowotnik, Parish Priest of Our Lady and St Brigit, Northfield, who is the Deputy Local Liturgy Organiser, and Mr Peter Jennings, Press Secretary to Archbishop Bernard Longley.

The Vatican party also met and discussed the arrangements of the Papal Mass with representatives of events management company WRG and Pamela Hossick, the BBC Producer/Director of the 'live' broadcast of the Papal Mass and Cardinal Newman Beatification, scheduled to be shown on BBC2.

After the visit to Cofton Park the Vatican party were driven the nine miles to Cathedral House, situated next to the Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of St Chad, in central Birmingham.

In the Chapter Room Mgr Marini discussed detailed arrangements about the Liturgy and Music for the Papal Mass with Fr Timothy Menezes, Parish Priest of St Thomas More, Coventry, Local Organiser for Liturgy, and Fr Peter Jones, Local Organiser for Music.

At the end of the meeting the Vatican party left for a visit to Glasgow.

From left: The New York Post front page and tribute issue yesterday to honor 'The Boss' (one of the few prominent octogenarians who looked very well for his age); the commemorative plaque for Benedict XVI's Mass at Yankee Stadium on April 20, 2008, was promptly mounted in the Yankees' Monument Park off the old Yankee Stadium which has since been demolished, but the Park remains to honor the great Yankee baseball heroes as well as the papal Masses held in Yankee stadium, the other 2 seen in the next 2 plaques: John Paul II in 1979 and Paul VI in 1965. The Knights of Columbus commissioned the plaques.


New York archbishops remember
Yankees owner’s generosity and
help during papal visits



New York City, N.Y., Jul 14, 2010 (CNA) - The present and former Archbishops of New York have commented on the death of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, remembering his “generosity” and his help in securing Yankee Stadium for three papal Masses.

Steinbrenner died of a heart attack on July 13 at the age of 80.

“I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mr. George Steinbrenner today. My sincere condolences go to Mrs. Steinbrenner and the entire Steinbrenner family,” commented Archbishop Timothy Dolan. “When I was a young boy and budding baseball fan growing up in Saint Louis, everybody knew of the great New York Yankees. Even when they were your opponent, they were a team to be admired and respected.”

In a Tuesday statement, he recalled his “joy” at being invited to Steinbrenner’s box for the April 2009 grand opening of the new Yankees Stadium and also for a World Series game in October.

“They were experiences I’ll never forget. Mr. Steinbrenner and his family were very warm and welcoming to me, the new kid in town,” commented Archbishop Dolan, who was installed in New York in April 2009.

“I’ve since learned that such acts of kindness were very much in keeping with the Steinbrenner tradition,” he continued, noting that Catholic agencies in New York and Florida were often “the beneficiary of his and the Steinbrenner family’s generosity.”

He noted that the Steinbrenners and the New York Yankees responded to the January earthquake in Haiti with a $225,000 donation to Catholic Relief Services. He then praised Steinbrenner’s “tremendous goodness” in arranging Yankee Stadium as a papal Mass venue for Pope John Paul II in 1979 and for Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop Dolan’s predecessor, in a Tuesday statement noted that he had recently written Steinbrenner to wish him a happy 80th birthday.

“I thanked him once again for his extraordinary kindness and generosity to the Archdiocese of New York on the occasion of the Pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to our City two years ago,” the cardinal wrote. “Thus it is with the deepest sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of this great New Yorker.”

He praised the Yankees owner as a “marvelous leader” and “an exemplary citizen.”

“His many acts of charity in favor of Catholic institutions, his kindness to Terence Cardinal Cooke when Pope John Paul II came to New York in 1979, and his deeply appreciated goodness to me and so many of our clergy and religious will never be forgotten,” the cardinal wrote.

Cardinal Egan said Steinbrenner will “always have a very special place in my prayers,” while Archbishop Dolan said the recently deceased will have “a special remembrance” in his Masses and prayers.

“May the Lord bless and console his beloved family in their loss and grant him, ‘The Boss,’ eternal rest,” the cardinal concluded.

ZENIT and CNS took more trouble than the MSM to report on the explanatory remarks made by Mons. Charles Scicluna on the revised CDF norms De gravioribus delictis, to underscore the significance of the canon law revision beyond the substantive procedural changes it codifies.


Pope's resolve reflected in revised Norms:
Special faculties previously allowed to CDF
now codified into Church law
unless modified by a future Pope
By Jesús Colina



VATICAN CITY, JULY 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A revised set of norms released today regarding the 'serious crimes' under Church law is another clear sign from Benedict XVI on how seriously he takes these matters, including the sexual abuse of minors, an official from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said today.



Monsignor Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice [in effect, chief prosecutor] at the doctrinal congregation, joined Vatican press director Fr. Federico Lombardi today to present updated documents regarding canonical crimes reserved to the jurisdiction of that dicastery.

Before being elected Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The norms presented today, in fact, organize into one document some faculties granted the congregation under his tenure.

In fact, much of the content of the new document, which was approved by Benedict XVI on May 21, was already in force.

The revisions are an update to the 2001 apostolic letter "Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela," which outlined the norms for addressing cases of "gravioribus delictis" (grave crimes).

In addition to norms regarding priests who sexually abuse minors, the revision clarifies crimes against the Eucharist, the sacraments of confession and holy orders, and crimes against the faith.

Monsignor Scicluna, who coordinates a team of eight ecclesiastical magistrates, explained that this document is significant, if one keeps in mind that the previous norms were promulgated less than 10 years ago, in 2001, and then, in 2003, Pope John Paul II granted the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith specific "faculties" to judge particularly grave crimes.

These "faculties," he clarified, were not integrated into the 2010 Norms, now revised and updated. The monsignor said that organizing the faculties into one clear document which updates the apostolic letter gives them more weight.

He explained that "the faculties have a rather ephemeral life: they depend a lot on the will of the Supreme Pontiffs."

But Benedict XVI, the monsignor noted, "no sooner than he was elected, expressed the desire that the faculties held by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should be stabilized as norms, which unlike special faculties, "remain in force until a Pope authorizes their modification."

Among the norms dealing with sexual abuse of minors, the new document doubles the statute of limitations, extending it from 10 years from the victim's 18th birthday to 20 years -- a period longer than that generally stipulated in civil legislation. Exceptions even for the 20-year limitation can be made on a case-by-case basis. Exceptions to the 10-year limit had already been the practice.

Another novelty makes it possible for laypeople to serve on ecclesiastical courts as lawyers or attorneys.

Monsignor Scicluna explained the reason for this change: "At the diocesan level, the contribution of the laity is essential - as when the bishop needs expert opinion in evaluating a case, when he needs the competence of psychologists, sociologists, experts in child psychology, and on the influence of abuse on the victim."

"Wee cannot find all these competencies in the clergy," he added. "We know that there are bishops who have made use of the competence of former policemen to carry out their investigations, as they wanted to arrive at the truth. And, for us, this is very important."

One of the novelties that sparked most interest among journalists is the "right, with the previous mandate of the Roman Pontiff," to judge cardinals, patriarchs, legates of the Apostolic See and bishops. [This, too, is a [provision surprisingly overlooked by the Anglophone MSM, but quickly underscored by the Italian media. In fact, it is Article 1, Par 2, of the revised Norms, namely:

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§2. With regard to the delicts mentioned above in § 1, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, by mandate of the Roman Pontiff, may judge Cardinals, Patriarchs, Legates of the Apostolic See, Bishops as well as other physical persons mentioned in can. 1405 § 3 of the Code of Canon Law, and in can. 1061 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches

---

"This is an important sign, as it means that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be able to investigate and submit its findings to the Pope," explained Monsignor Scicluna.

The revision to the norms does not stipulate anything about reporting sexual abuse of minors to civil authorities because the norms deal with canon law, not civil law, Mons. Scicluna explained.

He made it clear that "this is not a step backward regarding the obligatory character of turning in allegations to civil courts... (but) "it is not the task of the canonical legislator to enter into the field of civil law."

He said that any Christian must obey civil law when civil law is just, and "there is no doubt that in this case the civil law is just."

"For this reason, if the allegation requires it, there is no way to escape reporting it to the civilian justice system," the monsignor added. "If the law gives the victim the option to decide whether he wants to file charges in civilian court, his will must also be respected".


Revised norms send clear signal
on sex abuse, Vatican official says
By John Thavis


VATICAN CITY, July 15 (CNS) -- A leading Vatican official said Pope Benedict XVI's approval of revised norms on clerical sex abuse sent a clear signal that the Church is serious about protecting children and punishing abusive priests.

At the same time, the official said, the Vatican norms alone cannot resolve the problem of sexual abuse, which will require a continued and coordinated effort at every level of the Church.



Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made the comments July 15 at a briefing for reporters on the revised norms, which simplified and streamlined many of the Church's procedures in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.

Msgr. Scicluna said the doctrinal congregation was grateful to the Pope for transforming into universal church law a number of practices already in force that are aimed at dealing more quickly and efficiently with priest abusers.

"I think it gives a signal that we are very, very serious about our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse," he said. "This is a very important step from the technical viewpoint of canon law". [The significance, made clear in the ZENIT article, is that the provisions are no longer ad hoc, at the pleasure of the Pope, but part of canon law which will not 'expire' until and unless modified by a future Pope. This aspect has not been stressed at all ]

But a document is always a document -- it does not solve all the problems. It's a very important instrument, but it's the way you use the instrument that's going to have the real effect on the life of the Church," he said.

[Thavis makes up for the curtailed treatment of the 'non-expiration' aspect of these revised norms by reporting Scicluna's explanation for another issue.]

Msgr. Scicluna was asked why the revised norms, like the previous edition, impose "pontifical secret" on the church's judicial handling of priestly sex abuse.

He said a better term was "confidentiality," and that it was designed above all to protect the dignity of everyone involved, including the victim, the accused, their families and their communities.

He also noted that in some cases -- for example, a priest's dismissal from the priesthood -- bishops are authorized to divulge the decision and the reasons behind it if this is seen as necessary for the common good of the church.

"So the value of confidentiality is important, but it is not absolute. The good of the Church sometimes requires not confidentiality but publicity of a process that has been completed, either with a sentence of condemnation or a finding of innocence," he said.

Likewise, Msgr. Scicluna said, the Church's insistence on confidentiality has limits in the relationship with civil authorities. Bishops are required to comply with civil law that requires reporting of abuse accusations, he said.

"Confidentiality of canonical proceedings is never an impediment to the duty to denounce (crimes), and is never to the detriment of obedience to civil law," he said.

Msgr. Scicluna made it clear that Pope Benedict had made the changes in the norms, according to his area of competence.

"It is not the task of the Pope to give indications about civil law. The indication to obey the law of the state is already in St. Paul", he said, and a question of civil law need not be affirmed in a canonical law.

The revised norms extended the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, included child pornography in the definition of sex abuse against minors and said sexual abuse of mentally disabled adults will be considered equivalent to abuse of minors.

Msgr. Scicluna was asked if he expected the revisions to prompt a new wave of sex abuse allegations or revelations.

"No, we're not expecting the floodgates to open. That happened in 2003, with the historical cases from the United States," he said. "This is an important extension of the law, but it's not a question about numbers, it's a question of assuring safeguards and respect for the dignity of those concerned."



My good intention was to set down for the record how the Vatican newspaper reported the big news from yesterday, as I always do about major Vatican events.

But I must confess I don't understand why the OR did not simply publish Fr. Lombardi's explanatory note as is, instead of 'writing' an account that simply quotes blocks of what he wrote! Surely an article signed by Fr. Lombardi is far more authoritative than a perfunctory rehash of his article by an anonymous deskman at OR. After all, it's not as if any of the regular media outlets - Catholic or secular - had used Fr. Lombardi's article in full. If the OR itself does not publish it in full, who will? So with much waste of time, here is a translation of how the OR lead article today starts out, I did not continue translating for obvious reasons. One can just go straight to the earlier post on ths page to read Fr. Lombardi's note.


Revised norms «de gravioribus delictis»:
Codified procedures clarify Church law
on crimes against faith, morals
and the sacraments
Translated from
the 7/16/10 issue of



The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published Thursday, July 15, the modifications to the Norms De gravioribus delictis on how the Church deals with crimes that she considers exceptionally grave, and therefore subject to the canonical jurisdiction of the CDF.

Such crimes include offenses against the faith, against the sacraments (of the Eucharist, Penance and Holy Orders), and against morals. including sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy.

In a note published with the revised Norms, Vatican press director Fr. Federico Lomardi, S.J., recalls that in 2001, John Paul II promulgated the motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, giving the CDF the competence for dealing with and adjudicating under canon law a list of particularly grave offenses, a competence previously under other dicasteries or was not clearly defined.

The Pope's motu proprio was accompanied by a document of implementing and procedural norms - Normae de gravioribus delictus.

"Over the nine years since then", Fr. Lombardi explained, "experience has naturally suggested that these Norms be integrated and updated, so as to streamline and simplify the procedures and make them more effective, and to take account of new problems".

This has been achieved principally, he said, "by the Pope attributing new "faculties" to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; faculties which, however, were not organically integrated into the initial Norms. This has now come about, within the context of a systematic revision of those Norms"...

[From here on, the article simply swings in like manner between direct and indirect quotations from Fr. Lombardi's note without adding anything new, so I won't bother translating the rest!]

Contrary to Damian Thompson's PR concerns regarding the publication of the revised norms for the CDF in dealing with 'serious crimes' against faith, morals and the sacraments - which therefore includes explicit provisions against ordaining women as priests - the 'blowback' so far has been same-old-same-old from the usual suspects, i.e., Pavlov-dog responses they would have made even if you had simply poked them awake from a nap.

Here's a defense of the provisions against 'woman priests' from a priest who also starts out echoing Thompson's bashing of the Vatican's 'PR acumen', which, I must reiterate, is completely inappropriate in this case, because the Revised Norms are what they are, and fairly brief at that - it would have been completely senseless to report the greater part of it while holding back a less politically correct part (two sentences in the entire document) - at a different time!...

We all have our Pavlov-dog reflexes - I, with my snap reactions (which I believed to be informed) to anything I consider false, senseless or questionable in media reporting and commentary (a reflex honed in 20 years as a news editor); and some Catholic critics, including some of the most reputable, finding everything wrong with the Vatican's 'PR acumen' even when, by any logic, it is not in question, as with yesterday's events!

And why should any Catholic be defensive at all about the Church's objection to women priests? All of Christian tradition supports the Church position. I never read The Da Vinci Code so I don't know if even Dan Brown claims that Mary Magdalene had priestly status, because then, why aren't all the Chittistiers proclaiming her every second as their patron saint and incontrovertible icon! (Or maybe they are?]


The Vatican statement
is not anti-woman
by Fr. Robert Barron

July 15, 2010

Fr. Barron is a theology professor at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein and author of Word on Fire.

How could the Vatican possibly construe the ordination of a woman as an offense as serious as the sexual abuse of a child? Isn’t this, at the very least, disproportionate, and doesn’t it prove that the c=Church continues to be clueless in regard to issues of concern to women?

Without defending for a moment the Vatican’s public relations acumen (which seems sorely lacking much of the time), I would like to offer perhaps a context for understanding this juxtaposition.

This morning, the Vatican issued new directives concerning the manner in which “grave crimes” in the life of the Church are addressed. The bulk of the statement has to do with the issue of sex abuse by priests. [Not really! All the norms described apply in general to all 'grave delicts' (serious canonical crimes) against faith, morals and the sacraments. To say it had to do mostly with the crime of sexual abuse is to read it in, sorry to use the term again, an unthinking Pavlovian way.]

The Pope now has the ability to deal personally, directly, and rapidly with particularly egregious offenses [against faith, morals and the sacraments, not just sex abuses] bypassing the somewhat cumbersome process of an ecclesiastical trial.

Furthermore, the Vatican clarified that the possession of any kind of child pornography by a priest will lead immediately to that priest’s dismissal from the clerical state.

Finally, the statute of limitation for clergy sex crimes has been extended from ten years to twenty—and even further if the case is sufficiently serious. With all of this, I’m quite sure, people of good will are in agreement.

[Even the good Fr. Barron overlooks - as did John Allen, to name an egregious example - Article 1, Par. 2, stating that the norms apply even to cardinals and other members of the Church hierarchy who are not necessarily diocesan bishops. Even in a news climate so ideologically charged that opposing sides tend to have tunnel vision, it is remarkable how the MSM failed to note this most significant provision about how the CDF can deal with the upper ranks of the hierarchy. One must assume this is a Benedict XVI provision because when he was at CDF, from all accounts, he obviously did not have that faculty to proceed with investigating the late Cardinal Groer of Vienna in 1995-1996. ]

But the statement addressed other matters that it characterized as “grave delicts” (Vaticanese for “serious crimes”), and these include the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament, the violation of the seal of confession and the attempted ordination of a woman. This last specification has set off a firestorm of protest.

The statement deals with a series of offenses against the integrity of the mystical body of Christ, that is to say, against that network of relationships that makes up the organism of the Church.

The sexual abuse of children by those who are ordained to guide and shepherd them is a massively serious violation of that integrity. But so, in the eyes of the Vatican, is the breaking of the seal of confession, which undermines the trust that must obtain between a sinner and his confessor, and so is an attack on the Blessed Sacrament, which amounts to an attack on Christ himself.

By the same token, the attempt by a bishop to ordain a woman to the priesthood (a move that has been ruled out of court by the Vatican) [Not that it ever was 'in court' throughut the Church's 2000 years of history!] would sever that bishop’s relationship with the Pope and hence with his brother bishops. It would place him outside the communion of the Church, and since he is the sign and instrument of his people’s unity, it would compromise their relationship with the universal Church as well.

If you have any doubt as to the division that can be caused in a Church through the unilateral action of a group of bishops, take a good, hard look at the Anglican Communion today. [It was only a few days ago that the Anglican Synod virtually approved women bishops in the Church of England by 2014 at the latest - a slippery slope that has progressively alienated traditional Anglicans in the past several years to the point of potential mass conversions to Roman Catholicsm.]

Therefore, today’s statement isn’t anti-woman in any sense; it is an expression of concern over the number of ways that the Church’s organic unity can be unravelled. [Even more basic, a concern to preserve the deposit of the faith as well as its sensum fidei.]