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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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December 5, Second Sunday of Advent

Panel shows an aerial view of Mar Saba, and the high altar where the saint's remains repose.
ST. SABAS (b Cappadocia [present Turkey] 439, d Jerusalem 532)
Venerable Father, Hermit, Abbot
Considered one of the founders of Eastern monasticism, Sabas came to Jerusalem at age 18, where he started his exemplary
monastic life in a monastery under the mentorship of St. Euthymius. At age 30, he was allowed to spend five days a week
in a cave, praying and weaving baskets. When his mentor died, he moved to a cave in the Kidron valley east of Bethlehem,
where he was eventually joined by other monks. This became the nucleus for the Great Lavra, now known as Mar Saba,
the first monastery founded by Sabas. St. John Damascene was the most famous pupil of the monastery. Subsequently, Sabas
travelled throughout Palestine establishing more monasteries, preaching and gaining Christian converts. He was appointed
Archimandrite of all Palestinian monasteries in 491. At age 91, he undertook a mission to Constantinople for the Patriarch
of Jerusalem. He died of an illness shortly after his return. In the 12th century, Crusaders took his body for safekeeping
to Rome, but Paul VI returned the remains to Mar Saba in 1965.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/120510.shtml



OR today.
The only papal story in this issue is the Holy Father's meeting with the secretary-general of the World Council of Churches, in the inside pages. On Page 1: President Obama, on surprise trip to Afghanistan, vows that Taliban and Al-Qaeda will be defeated; in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, daily violence continues between clashes among rival political groups and terrorist attacks; US unemployment rate rises to 9.8%; and a front-page commentary by the director of the Vatican Observatory on the astrophysical implications of NASA's discovery that a bacterium on earth has an arsenic-based biochemical structure, opening up new possibilities for extra-terrestrial life forms having a different chemistry altogether for what until now had been considered 'essential' for life. In the inside pages, Cardinal Bertone ends Kazakhstan trip with a call for respect for human rights and social coexistence.


THE POPE'S DAY

Sunday Angelus - The Holy Father reflected on John the Baptist in today's Gospel, as an appropriate Advent figure
who prepared the way for the Lord. After the Angelus prayers, the Pope asked the faithful to pray for comfort,
reconciliation and peace for all the many situations of violence, injustice and suffering in the world today.

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ANGELUS TODAY
Second Sunday of Advent





Pope asks for prayers
against situations of violence,
intolerance and suffering



In this Advent season, in which we are called to nurture our awaiting the coming of the Lord and to welcome him among us, I invite you to pray for all situations of violence, intolerance, suffering in the world, that the coming of Jesus may bring consolation, reconciliation and peace.

I think of the many difficult situations, such as the continuous attacks that occur in Iraq against Christians and Muslims, the clashes in Egypt where there were deaths and injuries, the victims of traffickers and criminals, such as the drama of the hostages, Eritreans and of other nationalities, in the Sinai desert*.

Respect for the rights of all is the prerequisite for peace. Our prayer to the Lord and our solidarity can bring hope to those who are suffering.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke these words after the Angelus prayers today. Thousands of families had flocked to St Peter’s square, despite the rigid winter chill, to see the towering Christmas tree, still bare of decorations, which had been lifted into position earlier this week, beside the Nativity scene under construction.

Small children crowded around the barriers that conceal the work in progress, hoping to catch a glimpse of this year's re-creation of Bethlehem in the heart of the Vatican.

Speaking to them before the Marian prayer, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on Advent as a time of preparation for the coming of Our Savior, inspired by the Gospel of the day.

He said “it presents the figure of St. John the Baptist, who, according to a famous prophecy of Isaiah (cf. 40.3), withdrew into the wilderness of Judea and through his preaching, called the people to repent in order to be ready for the imminent coming of the Messiah".



Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's words before the Angelus prayers:

Dear brothers and sisters:

The Gospel of this second Sunday of Advent (Mt 3,1-12) presents us with the figure of St. John the Baptist who, according to a well-known prophesy of Isaiah (cfr 40,3), withdrew to the desert of Judea, and then with his preaching, called on the people to convert themselves in order to be ready for the imminent coming of the Messiah.

St. Gregory the Great commented that the Baptist "preaches correct faith and good works - so that the power of grace may penetrate, the light of truth may shine, the ways to God be set straight, and that honest thoughts may arise in the spirit after listening to the Word which leads to goodness"
(Hom. in Evangelia, XX, 3, CCL 141, 155).

The Precursor of Jesus, placed between the Old and New Covenants, is like a star that precedes the rising of the Sun: Christ, he upon whom, according to a second prophesy of Isaiah, "The spirit of the Lord shall rest - a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord" (Is 11,2).

In the period of Advent, we too are called on to listen to the voice of God, which resounds in the desert of the world through Sacred Scriptures, especially when they are preached with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Faith in fact is strengthened as it allows itself to be illuminated by the Divine Word, by all that, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, "was written previously... for our instruction, that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope"
(Rom 15,4).

The model of listening is the Virgin Mary: "Contemplating in the Mother of God an existence totally shaped by the Word, we discover that we too are called to enter into the mystery of faith, through which Christ comes and dwells in our life. Every Christian who believes, St. Ambrose reminds us, conceives and generates, in a certain sense, the Word of God" (Post-Synodal Apost. Ehort Verbum Domini, 28).

Dear friends, "our salvation rests on a coming", Romano Guardini wrote (La santa notte. Dall’Avvento all’Epifania, Brescia 1994, p. 13). "The Savior came out of God's freedom. Thus the decision of faith consists... in welcoming Him who comes" (ivi, p. 14).

"The Redeemer", he adds, "comes to each man: in his joy and anguish, in his clear consciousness, in his perplexities and temptation, in everything that constitutes his nature and his life" (ivi, p. 15).

Let us ask the Virgin Mary, in whose womb the Son of the Most High dwelt, and whom on Wednesday, December 8, we celebrate in the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, to sustain us in this spiritual journey to welcome with faith and love the coming of the Lord.








World ignores horror
of Sinai hostages



5 DEC 2010 (RV) - An estimated 600 men and women are being held in chains, tortured, beaten and threatened with being traded to organ traffickers. Pope Benedict XVI TODAY called for urgent intervention in the horrific plight of these refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan.

They have been held by Bedouin people traffickers in the Sinai desert on the border between Egypt and Israel for over a month in purpose-built containers and their captors are demanding payment of up to 8 thousand dollars per person for their release.

Dr Khataza Gondwe is advocacy officer for Sub-Saharan Africa for Christian solidarity worldwide. She has been working on their case since it was first reported, and tells Emer McCarthy that these people “are being threatened, restrained with chains around their ankles, beaten and tortured. At one stage they were denied water to clean themselves for 20 days as well as food. There are even pregnant women among them, who are particularly vulnerable”.

Dr. Gondwe adds that since last weekend three Eritrean hostages were shot dead after revealing they could not pay the ransom, while others risk being sold to organ traffickers if they fail to produce the money.

She described the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment these men, women and teenagers are been subjected to and the incredible fact that they have been held slaves for over a month and no-one has tried to save them.


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For leading me to this item, thanks to Lella's blog

- and we must congratulate her because the blog is now on its fourth 'bloglife' (apparently each blogspot can only accommodate a certain number of posts) and, for those who read Italian, it remains the most comprehensive one-stop shop for all things Benedict, thanks to her incomparable diligence and devotion, since she started it in 2007.



'The Pope is defined by his simplicity,
intelligence and good humor':

An interview with a papal biographer

by Santiago Mata
Translated from



MADRID - A philologist with doctorates in philosophy and theology from the University of Navarra, Pablo Blanco Sarto (Zaragoza, 1964) recently published the first major biography of Benedict XVI in Spanish {El Papa aleman, Planeta, 550 pp, 21 euro).


Blanco previously published three books on Joseph Ratzinger: a biography in 2004; His 300-page doctoral dissertation in theology published in 2005 as Joseph Ratzinger: Razon y Cristianismo; and in 2006, Joseph Ratzinger: Vida y Teologia.

The new biography is an 'interior portrait' of Joseph Ratzinger, which completes the image that we have from books like Light of the World.

What are the traits that define that interior portrait?
In the first place, his straightforward and good-natured simplicity. When he first arrived at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the first thing he did was to go around greeting each person on the staff and asking each one to say something about himself.

After that?
His intellectual stature and his capacity to listen, to take everything positive that he can even from positions adverse to Christianity.

His dialog with Juergen Habermas in 2004 is emblematic, because they ended up agreeing that reason and religion should support and purify each other reciprocally.

The third is his sense of humor, his inner tranquility, the hope and joy that he draws from the knowledge that the Church belongs to Christ, not to us.

Was Nazism a trauma for him?
He wad to help man anti-aircraft batteries and was later assigned to a work camp. One night, they were awakened by an SS recruiting officer. And when he was asked what he wished to be, he said simply, "I want to be a priest". One of those present said, "Thanks to his example, the others were able to remain firm [against joining the SS]".

In terms of the pedophile scandals, how would you describe his actions?
That he confronted the issue directly, taking the bull by the horns, so that the guilty are punished both under canonical law as under civilian law. He was able to have the CDF given jurisdiction over such offenses, and at the CDF, he reserved Fridays to deal with the cases brought to them - he did it before praying the Way of the Cross. It is a painful subject that has to be faced and cleared up. There is nothing in Joseph Ratzinger's mentality that would allow deception.

Was he a progressive who later changed sides?
In his thinking, there has been absolutely no rupture. Whatever he wrote during the Council is perfectly consistent with what he wrote about it 10 or 20 years later.

What did he contribute to Vatican-II?
At age 35, he already had a great reputation as a theologian, He collaborated most in the document on Scripture and Tradition, which makes clear that there is only one source of Revelation; as well as in elaborating the idea of collegiality to bridge the primacy of the Pope and his relationship to bishops.

What are we left with after his recent trip to Spain?
The polemics that arose because of what he said on the plane coming in shows that most critics did not understand what he said. He was speaking of the necessary dialog between faith and secularism, but that because of prejudices carried over from the past [from the Spanish Civil war, in this case], the tendency has been towards antagonism. We cannot dismiss what he really said by leaving it behind a haze. We have to think about it without getting hampered by tribal wars.

When the Pope says that he is concerned about Spain, does he mean because of secular intolerance or the incapacity of Christians to deal with it?
To both. In the absence of rational thought, it is impossible for some in this country to even imagine Ratzinger in dialog with Habermas [who is Germany's leading contemporary philosopher and an atheist]. Instead of talking to each other rationally, we quarrel. For instance, defense of life and of the family are not just Catholic issues to be dismissed with ideological improvisations.... And now, we still have to reflect on the Pope's recent visit. So far, all we've had is sound and fury in the media.

And here is a review of Blanco's book by a diocesan priest in Santiago de Compostela, one of several bloggers in the stable of a very active online presence called infocatolica.com. His blog name means 'Damascus Gate' ....

'El Papa alemán':
A book review

by Guillermo Juan Morado
Translated from his blog

10/27/10



...The book is a just published biography of the Pope written by Pablo Blanco Sarto, Benedicto XVI. El Papa alemán (Planeta Testimonio, Barcelona 2010, 606 pp, 21 euros).

He is an Opus Dei priest, who teaches theology at the University of Navarra, with doctorates in philosophy and theology. His doctoral dissertation in theology, Joseph Ratzinger: Razón y Cristianismo (Rialp, Madrid 2005, 300 pp), is a most engrossing appreciation of the man who besides being Pope is also the best living theologian of the Catholic Church.

Pablo Blanco should be grateful to Providence: How often is it that the author to whom you devote your thesis studies becomes Pope just shortly after you have defended that thesis?

His biography relates events in the history of the Church to the biographical trajectory of the present Pope, but above all, presents us with a map of the theological evolution of Joseph Ratzinger's thought.

This is not just a book for historiographers or for those who are interested in current Church affairs, but above all, it is a book of significant theological interest.

In ten chapters the author brings us closer to the roots as well as the intellectual and existential keys to Benedict XVI's development. His chapters are clearly divided: Germany, Roots, Studies, Vatican-II, Professor, Archbishop, Prefect, Pope, Servant of Servants, and The primacy of love.

Reading it, I became aware for the first time, for instance, of a homily given by the deacon Ratzinger in the Cathedral of Freising in 1950; and similar early homilies on Advent, on the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and even one on St. George.

The ministry of preaching is one for which the present Pope was always well gifted. As Archbishop of Munich, he captivated the faithful every time he gave a homily in the Cathedral. At the time, one of his secretaries recalled, "First, he wrote them out, then he committed them to memory before delivering them".

When he was teaching in Regensburg, he wrote, "Theology cannot content itself with simply reflecting on the faith in a scientific paradise, while abandoning those whom one must preach to, to their own resources... An idea is only valid when it is communicable".

Reading this book, one realizes that the Pope is essentially what he has always been. One harvests what one sows. And his harvest is splendid: His passion for the truth, for beauty, for love, for the Good news of Christ. A passion that is firm, full of simplicity and patience, of the capacity to listen, and of humbly proclaiming the continuing newness of the faith.

It is not hard to succumb to the discreet enchantment of Pope Benedict XVI. This book helps us to find reasons that will convert that enchantment into virtue.


I linked to this book review by Googling 'El Papa aleman', which has also led me to Morado's review of LOTW, which deserves translation because it is a very orderly and lucid presentation of the book, which is never sidelined by single topics from its awareness of the message that runs through the entire book.... I will post as soon as I can translate it.

BTW, I wish I had an elf who would do nothing but search the Web for all the books that have been written about Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. I believe no personality in history has ever been written so much about in his lifetime as our beloved Pope. The fact that individual authors in various countries, like Blanco in Spain, and Stefan Kempis in Germany (about whom I posted an interview recently], are able to write multiple books about the same person, almost every year, says something about the worldwide market for books on Benedict XVI as well as by him.... I think it is a major distinction of Benedict XVI, rarely remarked upon perhaps because it is under-estimated, that sets him apart and way above other Popes [or even currently conceivable 'papabile'] and other world leaders and major figures on the world stage.... LOTW itself, in its simultaneous publication in the major languages, is a milestone in more ways than one.



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An informal book review by an English blogger...

LOTW: A Fantastic and fascinating read

Nov. 29, 2010

I popped into the St Paul's bookshop yesterday, to buy a copy of Pope Benedict XVI's interview with Peter Seewald, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times. It is both a fantastic and a fascinating read! In fact, I haven't been able to put it down since I bought it!

It's so refreshing to read the words of a world leader who does not shirk away from reality. The Holy Father's answers to the questions posed by Seewald are honest, humble, erudite and rational. He is the antithesis of a modern political or global leader - he has his feet firmly in the Shoes of the Fisherman, and his mind in the scholarly works and books which he calls his "advisers"! His heart, of course, if firmLy fixed on Christ, with whom he is "united simply by old acquaintance."

The Holy Father is open about the mistakes that have happened during his pontificate, such as the furore that surrounded the lifting of the excommunication that had been imposed on Bishop Williamson of the Society of St Pius X. He seems frustrated that the world's media, and most of those who live on the planet, didn't understand why the excommunication was lifted.

But, he also admits that these things should have been explained better by the Vatican's press machine. He specifically said that had he known Williamson held such repulsive ideas concerning the Holocaust, he would have separated "the Williamson case from the others".

Of course, Pope Benedict XVI knows there have been media gaffes during his pontificate, and he speaks openly about them. He is also very frank in discussing the child abuse scandals that have resulted in what he admits is one of the greatest crises the Church has ever faced. He describes this chapter in the Catholic Church's history as "a crater of a volcano, out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything."

By now, we all know about the Holy Father's controversial remarks concerning the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS - remarks that need to be read in the context of the book as a whole. I think the Pope intended to say what he said about condoms - and his words have begun an important discussion.

He has also wrong-footed (yet again) those who always seem to be the enemies of reason and faith. He has also managed to show that popes are not infallible in all that they say, and that they can have misguided personal opinions [which is not to imply, I hope, that what he said on condoms, which was very pastoral in nature, was 'misguided personal opinion'!] - in fact, he says as much in answer to one of Seewald's questions on papal infallibility.

The Pope is also quite open about his prayer life and the strains of office, though he seems to be coping well, even if he cannot return home to Germany as often as he was able to when he was a mere cardinal. He agrees with Churchill, who famously said that he had no time for sports - the Pope, too, it seems is no sportsman, unlike his predecessor. Speaking of which, Benedict XVI makes many nuanced remarks about Pope John Paul II, which show that he has his own style of doing things, and his own agenda.

The Holy Father spends a large portion of the book discussing our responsibilities towards creation. He also mentions how both "real socialism" and "turbo-capitalism" have failed - neither one putting the human (created in God's image) at the core of their philosophies. According to these two socio-economic philosophies, the human being is merely there to serve the ideal, and not be served by it.

I must say that with the current banking crisis and the ensuing financial madness (where "turbo-capitalists" want both a completely deregulated market, yet the banks have to be shored-up by the state!), it does seem that some are more than willing to sacrifice the basic needs of the poor and vulnerable to the great god, Mammon. [What an understatement! And want about the ecofreaks who would much rather 'save the earth' even if doing so endangers human beings, and who would legislate rights for animal life that they would deny to human embryos and unborn babies!]

Many people should make the time to stop and read Pope Benedict XVI's teachings on the economy - which were recently praised by Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach (vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs) as being the best answer we have to the global economic crisis. [I posted that commentary in the CARITAS ET VERITATE thread last year.]

The Holy Father also deals at some length with the "dictatorship of relativism", and the ways secularists are now trying to oppress the Church - trying to force Christians to follow their "new religion."

He also seems very positive about the possible reconciliation of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He is realistic about some Protestant ecclesial communities, which seem to have been swallowed up by the spirit of the age.

Other faiths are covered, too - especially Judaism, which the Holy Father is particularly fond of (even asking Catholics to refer to the Jews as "our fathers in the faith", as opposed to the more offensive "elder brothers", cf. the story of Esau).

Relations with Islam are seen to be a bit more problematic - although opportunities for dialogue with some Islamic schools of thought exist, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Having said that, there remain vast swathes of the Islamic world which have narrowed the sense of truth "down to the point of becoming intolerance, thus making co-existence with Christians very difficult."

This is intended to be a brief book review. I have only just finished reading Light of the World, and a just review would require some time to properly digest its contents.

I would like to mention one other subject that's raised in the book, though: namely homosexuality in the priesthood. The Holy Father is quite clear in his answer to Seewald, who asked him about the perceived number of homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood. In answer to an earlier question, the Holy Father used the language of evolutionary biology to clarify Catholic teaching on homosexuality:

"We could say, if we wanted to put it like this, that evolution has brought forth sexuality for the reproduction of the species. The same thing is true from a theological point of view as well. The meaning and direction of sexuality is to bring about the union of a man and a woman and, in this way, to give humanity posterity...Everything else is against sexuality's intrinsic meaning and direction. This is a point we need to hold firm, even if it not pleasing to our age."

He then went on, in answer to questions specifically relating to homosexual priests: "Homosexuality is incompatible with the priestly vocation...The greatest attention is needed here in order to prevent the intrusion of this kind of ambiguity and to head off a situation where the celibacy of priests would practically end up being identified with the tendency to homosexuality."

Pressed on the fact that homosexuality does exist to a high degree in the priesthood and religious life, the Pope says: "...that is one of the disturbing problems of the Church. And the persons affected must at least try not to express this inclination actively, in order to remain true to the intrinsic mission of their office."

I totally agree with the Holy Father. I believe that the greatest threat to the priesthood is not paedophilia and other grave scandals of the sort, but the over-identification of the priestly vocation with the effeminate and the homosexually inclined..[????Does he mean that public perception of the priesthood comes down to this?]

The priesthood is in danger of resembling some pagan order, such as those in India which seem to be reserved for transvestites. The priest must reflect the people he serves as well as man as God intended him to be, and a clericalism that is overly burdened with one type of person (one that suffers from a dysfunctional tendency) is surely doomed.

No wonder so many potential seminarians feel unable to pursue their vocations, especially when they realise that God seems to be calling them into a "gay ghetto." Now that many homosexually active seminarians and those considering the priesthood can read for themselves why they should not become priests, the question should be asked of them: what say your consciences?

Light of the World is particularly attractive for me, in that it's not too pious or overly sentimental - which statements by religious leaders often seem to be. Pope Benedict XVI speaks plainly and simply - which is why his words seem imbued with a natural grace and beauty.

Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times by Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, CTS and Ignatius (2010).

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Grasping the drama of the Age
Review by Lewis Ayres

Dec. 2, 2010

This short book is an extended interview with Benedict XVI, conducted in hour-long sessions over the course of a week. Even in advance of publication, the Pope’s comments on the use of condoms by the HIV-positive have received much newspaper coverage. Whether or not this was the result of an organised publicity drive, it will surely push this book up the best-seller lists for a while, and that cannot be a bad thing.

Benedict also comments extensively and powerfully on the child-abuse crisis, although I leave discussion of this question to commentators more knowledgeable than me. But if we are taken up only by the Pope’s comments on the “hot button” questions of the day, we run the danger of missing the many ways in which this text fascinates.

His interviewer Peter Seewald is a German journalist, and one whose life and career has been intertwined with that of Benedict. Brought up (like Benedict) in firmly Catholic Bavaria, Seewald left the Church and became a radical Marxist journalist. He was slowly drawn back to the Church, in part through interaction with the then Cardinal Ratzinger. His earlier interviews with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1996 and 2000, Salt of the Earth and God and the World, revealed a man fascinated with his subject and determined to (at the least) show up his subject’s decisive place in the Church under the previous papacy.

Seewald questions one whom he not only respects but also sees as one of the more pivotal successors of Peter. While his story is a touching tribute to the Pope’s spiritual authority and pastoral presence, it also results in a certain tension in the interview and, at times, a sense of opportunity lost.

Most importantly, Seewald’s own concerns dominate a number of the questions. For example, when he discusses Benedict’s views on scriptural interpretation, the journalist asks questions that allow Benedict to offer views rehearsed in a number of his previous scholarly works.

But Seewald does not press far down this path: he really wants to know Benedict’s views on a reading of Revelation that sees hidden therein a prophecy of the seven ages of the world.

At one point Seewald asks a leading question, revealing his own belief that the accuracy of the New Testament’s reporting of Jesus is such that we can discount any transformation of Jesus’s message by his followers before the text was composed.

Benedict rather subtly resists Seewald’s line of argument – as we should expect from one who has argued so forcefully that the guidance of the Spirit makes the Church the source of both the New Testament and its faithful interpreter.

Seewald expects clarity, knowledge and prophecy; from his end of the tennis court, Benedict delivers a healthy mix of clarity, faith and humility before the divine mystery.

Benedict expresses particularly clearly the importance he places on our recognising “the internal continuity of Church history” and “the intrinsic continuity of faith and prayer in the Church” (both page 106).

We see also Benedict’s concern for the foundational role of Christianity in the development of Western European nations and the pivotal moment that comes when Christians become only a misunderstood body within the nation.

Here – as in his previous writings on the subject – Benedict chooses not to stress the Church’s complicity with some of the darker aspects of the life of any and all of the supposedly “Christian” nations of Europe. [He has amply commented on these darker aspects in the past. Why would he bring it up in detail this time when the Church has crises within the institution itself? His answers are meant to be timeless and timely on current issues, not a lookback at the two millennia of Church history.]

His concern that the Church be a force for good and his concern for the role of the Jewish people is palpable, but he is unshakeable in his faith in the possibility of the Catholic nation – no hint of any anti-Constantinianism here.

At the same time, Benedict’s emphasis on the presence of God in and through all things as a distinctive mark of Christian faith is elegantly expressed.

Similarly his focus on the liturgical and the sacramental as our mode of attention to this presence states in direct and simple forms many of the themes of his The Spirit of the Liturgy.

Everyone will find in Benedict’s responses something that fascin­ates; for me it was his confession that the saints to whom he regularly prays are Augustine, Bonaventure and Thomas. Benedict is a theo­logian with the most notable connection with the great figures of the Western tradition.

It is difficult, however, to avoid some comment on this book’s confirmation of what seemed to be the case in a number of the missteps of the past five years.

For example, Benedict admits he composed his famous Regensburg address without realising “that people don’t read papal lectures as academic presentations, but as political statements” (page 97).

His professorial mode expresses itself not in a lack of clarity, but in not grasping the character of the media’s modes of [badly mis-]interpreting and interrogating all that appears in the public square.

More disturbingly, when he discusses the case of the Lefebvrist bishop Richard Williamson, he says: “Unfortunately, though, none of us went on the Internet to find out what sort of person we were dealing with” (page 121). [Why is it disturbing to make a statement of fact? Williamson's opinions of Holocaust, after all, had nothing to do with why he was excommunicated. The Pope said in LOTW that if he had been aware of the Holocaust issue, he would have considered Williamson 'a case apart'. I don't think he meant he would not have lifted his excommunication, but that he would have had the Vatican issue a statement along with the decree of revocation to the effect that Bishop Williamson is known to have expressed unfortunate opinions about the Holocaust, but as reprehensible as the statements are, they have nothing to do with why he was excommunicated and do not disqualify from the revocation given to the other 3 bishops.]

Through the book shines a clear sense of Benedict as the highly intelligent and pastoral professor, a man of great spiritual vision and depth. His concern, though, is that the Pope be able to discern the signs of the times. And it is here that readers of the book must make their own judgement.

Has Benedict grasped the drama through which we live? [Excuse me??? Has that not been obvious not just in this book but in everything Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has said adn written all these decades?]

His challenge is that, while we must attend to the crises and failures of the Church in our day, the true drama is a spiritual one, a drama in which the Word has appeared in flesh and offers to us immediate communion in the divine life. Surely a good message for Advent? [Ayres make no sense. Surely, Benedict XVI has not - and has never - relegated the spiritual challenge in his priorities. How many times has he said, in various ways, that pastoral and practical challenges, individual and collective, can only be met after God is given priority over everything else, because from that starting point, then everything will follow!]


With this week's issue, the Tablet also inaugurates a new section called 'The Bigger Picture' "devoted to notable speeches, lectures and documents", with key excerpts from LOTW. It's never repetitious to present excerpts from the book, and the choice of excerpts is often indicative of who is doing the excerpting.

Intimate reflections of a Pope

Dec. 4, 2010

In the first entry in our new section devoted to notable speeches, lectures and documents, we publish excerpts from the book-length interview Pope Benedict XVI gave German journalist Peter Seewald, called Light of the World, which was published this week.

On the place of condoms in preventing HIV
The sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalisation of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanisation of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

Editor’s note: Holy See spokesman Federico Lombardi clarified on Tuesday: "I asked the Pope personally if there was a serious distinction in the choice of male instead of female and he said 'no'," Lombardi said. "That is, the point is it [the use of a condom] should be a first step towards responsibility in being aware of the risk of the life of the other person one has relations with. If it is a man, a woman or a transsexual who does it, we are always at the same point, which is the first step in responsibly in avoiding passing on a grave risk to the other." Seewald added: "The Pope indicates that, beyond the single case, there are further cases where one can imagine that condom use is a step towards a responsible approach to sexuality in this area to avoid further infection," he said.

On barring gay men from the priesthood
Homosexuality is incompatible with the priestly vocation. Otherwise, celibacy itself would lose its meaning as a renunciation. It would be extremely dangerous if celibacy became a sort of pretext for bringing people into the priesthood who don’t want to get married anyway. For, in the end, their attitude toward man and woman is somehow distorted, off centre, and, in any case, is not within the direction of creation of which we have spoken.

The Congregation for Education issued a decision a few years ago to the effect that homosexual candidates cannot become priests because their sexual orientation estranges them from the proper sense of paternity, from the intrinsic nature of priestly being…

The greatest attention is needed here in order to prevent the intrusion of this kind of ambiguity and to head off a situation where the celibacy of priests would practically end up being identified with the tendency to homosexuality.

On divorce and when a marriage is ‘valid’
One thing we can do is inquire more precisely into the question of the validity of marriages. Up to now, canon law has taken it for granted that someone who contracts a marriage knows what marriage is. Assuming the existence of this knowledge, the marriage is then valid and indissoluble.

But in the present confusion of opinions, in today’s completely new situation, what people “know” is rather that divorce is supposedly normal. So we have to deal with the question of how to recognise validity and where healing is possible.

On the abuse crisis
It is a great crisis, we have to say that. It was upsetting for all of us. Suddenly so much filth. It was really almost like the crater of a volcano, out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything, so that above all the priesthood suddenly seemed to be a place of shame and every priest was under the suspicion of being one like that too. Many priests declared that they no longer dared to extend a hand to a child, much less go to a summer camp with children.

For me the affair was not entirely unexpected. In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith I had already dealt with the American cases; I had also seen the situation emerge in Ireland. But on this scale it was nevertheless an unprecedented shock...

Right now, in the midst of the scandals, we have experienced what it means to be very stunned by how wretched the Church is, by how much her members fail to follow Christ.

On what led to the abuse crisis
The Archbishop of Dublin told me … that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950s; admittedly it was not perfect—there is much to criticize about it — but nevertheless it was applied. After the mid-sixties, however, it was simply not applied any more.

The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people…

Of course the intellectual climate of the 1970s, for which the 1950s had already paved the way, contributed to this … The thesis was advocated—and this even infiltrated Catholic moral theology — that there was no such thing as something that is bad in itself. There were only things that were “relatively” bad. What was good or bad depended on the consequences.

In such a context, where everything is relative and nothing intrinsically evil exists, but only relative good and relative evil, people who have an inclination to such behaviour are left with no solid footing. Of course paedophilia is first rather a sickness of individuals.

On the Vatican’s handling of the abuse crisis
We responded to the matter in America immediately with revised, stricter norms. In addition, collaboration between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities was improved. Would it have been Rome’s duty, then, to say to all the countries expressly: Find out whether you are in the same situation? Maybe we should have done that.

On care for abuse victims
It is important that we first take care of the victims and do everything that we can to help, support, and heal them; secondly that such acts be prevented by the proper selection of candidates for the priesthood, as much as possible; and thirdly that the perpetrators be punished and be barred from any opportunity to repeat such acts. To what extent the cases must then be made public is, I think, a separate question, which will be answered differently in different stages of public awareness.

On the disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ
Unfortunately we addressed these things very slowly and late. Somehow they were concealed very well, and only around the year 2000 did we have any concrete clues. Ultimately unequivocal evidence was needed in order to be sure that the accusations were grounded.

To me, Marcial Maciel remains a mysterious figure. There is, on the one hand, a life that, as we now know, was out of moral bounds – an adventurous, wasted, twisted life … Naturally corrections must be made, but by and large the congregation is sound.

On papal infallibility
Under certain circumstances and under certain conditions the Pope can make final decisions that are binding, decisions that clarify what is and what is not the faith of the Church.

This does not mean that the Pope can constantly issue “infallible” pronouncements … It goes without saying that the Pope can have private opinions that are wrong.

On a resurgence of faith
We on the continent of Europe are [not experiencing] the great dynamic of a new beginning that is really present elsewhere and which I encounter again and again on my journeys and through the visits of the bishops …

Less clearly but nevertheless unmistakably, we find here in the West, too, a revival of new Catholic initiatives that are not ordered by a structure or a bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy is spent and tired. These initiatives come from within, from the joy of young people. Christianity is perhaps acquiring another face and, also, another cultural form … I am quite optimistic that Christianity is on the verge of a new dynamic.

On the Ordinaritate for disaffected Anglicans
It remains to be seen how much use is made of it, how much fruit it will really bear, and what kinds of developments and variations might be involved in it. But it is at any rate a sign, you might say, of the flexibility of the Catholic Church.

On the Regensburg address (where Benedict quoted a Byzantine emperor linking Islam to violence, prompting attacks on Christians in some Muslim-majority countries)
I had conceived and delivered the lecture as a strictly academic address, without realizing that people don’t read papal lectures as academic presentations, but as political statements. The political reading ignored the fine web of the argument, ripping the passage out of its context and turning it into a political statement, which it wasn’t ... [Then] all the awful things … happened, about which I can only feel sadness.

On the old Good Friday prayer for the ‘perfidious’ Jews
The old formulation really was offensive to Jews and failed to express positively the overall intrinsic unity between the Old and New Testament…

I altered the text in such a way as to express our faith that Christ is the Savior for all, that there are not two channels of salvation, so that Christ is also the redeemer of the Jews, and not just of the Gentiles.

But the new formulation also shifts the focus from a direct petition for the conversion of the Jews in a missionary sense to a plea that the Lord might bring about the hour of history when we may all be united. So the polemical arguments with which a whole series of theologians assailed me are ill-considered.

On the reporting of the lifting of the SSPX excommunications
An incredible amount of nonsense was circulated, even by trained theologians. They were excommunicated because they had received episcopal ordination without a papal mandate … for the sole reason that they now pronounced an acknowledgment of the Pope — albeit not yet following him on all points — their excommunication was revoked …

I must say that in this matter our public relations work was a failure. It was not explained adequately why these bishops had been excommunicated and why they now, for purely canonical reasons, had to be absolved from the excommunication.

On the Holocaust-denying Richard Williamson
There was the total meltdown with Williamson, which we had unfortunately not foreseen, and that is a particularly distressing circumstance.

Would you have signed the decree lifting the excommunication if you had known that among the four bishops there was a person who denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers?
If I had known, the first step would have been to separate the Williamson case from the others. Unfortunately, though, none of us went on the Internet to find out what sort of person we were dealing with.

Williamson is an atypical case in that he was, when you think about, never Catholic in the proper sense. He was an Anglican and then went over directly to Lefebvre. This means that he has never lived in the great Church, that he has never lived with the Pope … Of course one is always more intelligent in hindsight.

On false friends
Decisions regarding personnel, however, especially appointments to the circle of your closest collaborators, are occasionally seen as posing problems for you. Is this your weak point?
Personnel decisions are difficult, because no one can look into another person’s heart and no one can be certain of not being deceived. For this reason, I am more cautious, more anxious in this area, and it is only after having consulted with a variety of people that I make these kinds of decisions. And I think that, in spite of everything, in the last few years there has been success in making a whole series of really good personnel decisions.

On resigning
Is it possible then to imagine a situation in which you would consider a resignation by the Pope appropriate?
Yes. If a Pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.

On claiming to have the truth
It is obvious that the concept of truth has become suspect. Of course it is correct that it has been much abused. Intolerance and cruelty have occurred in the name of truth. To that extent people are afraid when someone says, “This is the truth”, or even “I have the truth.”

We never have it; at best it has us. No one will dispute that one must be careful and cautious in claiming the truth. But simply to dismiss it as unattainable is really destructive.

On the wearing of the burqa
As for the burqa, I see no reason for a general ban. Some say that many women would not wear the burqa voluntarily at all and that it is actually a violation of women. One can, of course, not agree to that. But if they want to wear it voluntarily, I do not know why it must be prohibited.

On following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II
I really am a debtor, a modest figure who is trying to continue what John Paul II accomplished as a giant. I [have] simply told myself that I am who I am. I don’t try to be someone else. What I can give I give, and what I can’t give I don’t try to give, either.

I don’t try to make myself into something I am not. I am the person who happens to have been chosen – the cardinals are also to blame for that – and I do what I can.

On disappointments
I am also disappointed – by the continued existence of this lack of interest in the Church, especially in the Western world. By the fact that secularity continues to assert its independence and to develop in forms that increasingly lead people away from the faith. By the fact that the overall trend of our time continues to go against the Church.

On being human
But there does need to be a new realisation that being human is something great, a great challenge, to which the banality of just drifting along doesn’t do justice... There needs to be a sense that being human is like a mountain climbing expedition that includes some arduous slopes. But it is by them that we reach the summit and are able to experience for the first time how beautiful it is to be. Emphasising this is of particular concern to me. [Great! This was one of the most beautiful passages I treasure in LOTW!}

On how the spends Pope his free time
Yes, what does he do? Of course even in his free time he must study and read documents. There is always a great deal of work left over. But with the papal family, with the four women from the Memores Domini community and the two secretaries, there are meals in common, too; those are moments of relaxation... I watch the news with the secretaries, but sometimes we watch a DVD together as a group ... We like to watch Don Camillo and Peppone.

On exercise
Do you actually use the exercise bicycle that your former physician Dr. Buzzonetti set up for you?
No, I don’t get to it at all — and don’t need it at the moment, thank God.

So the Pope thinks like Churchill: “No sports!”
Yes!

On wearing Pope John XXIII’s hat
It caused a stir when you chose the now famous camauro, a sort of peaked cap that had last been worn by John XXIII, as a head covering for the winter. Was that just a fashion accessory – or was it the expression of a return to tried and true forms in the Church?
I wore it only once. I was just cold, and I happen to have a sensitive head. And I said, since the camauro is there, then let’s put it on. But I was really just trying to fight off the cold. I haven’t put it on again since. In order to forestall over-interpretation.


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This week's issue of the Tablet has a number of articles commenting on the condom issue - most of them, including that of editor Catherine Pepinster, interpreting the Pope's words to mean he was liberalizing Catholic teaching on the use of condoms, so i won't bother posting them. However, this article from their correspondent in central Europe presents some constructive views from three bishops in Austria and Germany...

There may be an 'urgent need’
for an encyclical on sexual morality

by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

4 December 2010

Bishop Klaus KUng of Sankt Pölten, Austria, has called for a new encyclical on the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, following the publication last week of Light of the World, a book of interviews with Pope Benedict XVI.

In-depth clarification and interpretation of Catholic teaching on sexual morality in a new encyclical was urgently required as Catholic practice and present church teaching were drifting further apart, Bishop Küng said in an interview in the German daily Die Tagespost.

In the book of interviews with Peter Seewald, the Pope describes circumstances in which the use of condoms to protect against transmission of HIV might be “not a moral solution but … a first step towards a different, more human, way of living sexuality”.

“Action is urgently called for – not to change the Church’s teaching but to explain it in a new way so that everyone can easily understand it … and that would be possible in the form of an encyclical,” Bishop Küng said.

He could imagine first of all establishing a commission to review all the problems under discussion connected with sexual morality. “It would be particularly important to include married couples and their experiences.

It has become clearer and clearer that married couples are not only the recipients of the Church’s teaching but also in a sense important developers. We need young, mature people to show us how marriage can work and bring happiness,” Bishop Küng said.

A Vatican-appointed commission that included married couples came out in favour of artificial contraception two years before the publication of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, which ruled it out.

Bishop Küng insisted that the Pope’s comments on condoms had in no way changed the Church’s teaching. Some people were not prepared to be faithful or to abstain or to act responsibly, the bishop said, and if for instance, drug addicts or prostitutes had Aids and there was a danger that they would infect others, it was better for them to use condoms to avoid passing on the disease, he argued.

Asked what was new in what Pope Benedict had said about condoms in Light of the World, Bishop Küng replied, “What is new is that the Pope has said that using a condom in the above cases is a first step towards becoming aware of one’s responsibilities. The Pope’s comment is a contribution towards a necessary clarification. It is not a case of changing the Church’s teaching but of making important differentiations.”

Bishop Küng, a member of Opus Dei, who trained as a gynaecologist, recalled that shortly after the publication of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI had given a group of nuns in Africa who were continually in danger of being raped permission to use the contraceptive pill. This showed that differentiation in individual cases was important.

“I understand the Pope’s comments in the following sense: if, for instance, a husband who has AIDS refuses to be reasonable and if it looks as though he would use force if refused, then his wife would be justified in demanding that he use a condom as that would lessen the danger of infection. In my view, that would not contradict Humanae Vitae. The purpose of using a condom in such a case is not contraception but protection from disease.”

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the president of the German bishops’ conference, also expressed the hope that Pope Benedict would say more on the question of sexual morality.

His thoughts on the use of condoms being justified in individual cases, showed “the deep empathy of this Pope who can understand the difficult situation people are in”, Archbishop Zollitsch said last week. [This has always been the problem with the rush-to-interpretation of what the Pope said: I don't think 'justified' is the right adjective at all for what he meant, because the larger sin, prostitution, is still there. 'Understandable' is more appropriate., i.e., "It is understandable [not 'justified'] - and even commendable as a first step to moralization - that a prostitute would use a condom to prevent transmission of HIV".

“If it is conceivable that people may use a condom in certain situations, that is because it could be a first step towards moral and responsible behaviour. Such comments are not a sensation but at the same time something new, which we have not heard from a Pope up to now", Zollitsch said. [Perhaps the dispensation Paul VI gave to those nuns in Africa should have been better publicized!]

The archbishop added: “I am really curious as to whether the Pope will continue to develop these thoughts and whether one day they will have a formative influence on the Church’s Magisterium, but also what these comments mean for pastoral practice.”

The Archbishop of Bamberg, Ludwig Schick, responsible for world church affairs in the German bishops’ conference, said that Pope Benedict had once again confirmed that AIDS was best avoided by abstinence and marital fidelity.

This meant that the Pope agreed with the ABC – “abstinence, be faithful, condom” programme against AIDS, Archbishop Schick said. As the spread of AIDS was above all caused by “both material and spiritual poverty”, the ABC programme must be expanded into an ABCDE programme – abstinence, be faithful, condoms in exceptional circumstances, development and education.


[No one ever told me so, but since the time I could think for myself, I always thought it reasonable that in many issues of individual morality, pastors and confessors should be able to guide individuals on a case-by-case basis.

You can't call yourself Catholic if you don't believe in God. But if you have overriding reasons to deviate from a particular moral precept, you should be able to discuss your problem privately with your confessor before taking a decision for which you take full responsibility - then you are no less Catholic. But don't go around claiming that any Catholic can get away with violating what the Church teaches... Thankfully, I've not had the occasion to need this kind of counselling so far.

I do think the proposal for an encyclical on sexual morality is intriguing, but only the Pope would know whether it is necessary at this time, because whatever he writes will formalize considerations that perhaps should better remain as pastoral options rather than hard-and-fast rules... ]


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From left: Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Therese of Lisieux - Doctors of the Church; the Theotokos; modern saints Edith Stein, Josephine Bakhita and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.


The face of the female
Translated from

12/2/10

In the past two weeks, I have been struck by the death of two strong women, two women of the People of God, who have crossed my life in different ways. Both died too early and unexpectedly, filling the hearts of many with mystery and questions.

One was the German theologian Jutta Burgraff who had settled in Navarra, whom I had read and interviewed with pleasure on many occasions.

The other was Manuela Camagni, a Memor Domini, who with three colleagues, had been taking care of the Holy Father in the papal apartment. I was struck by the sight of Benedict XVI kneeling in front of her casket, praying silently, probably keeping back the tears.

For several weeks now, in his Wednesday catecheses, the Pope has been presenting the figures of women like them, women in the bosom of the Church. He has so far presented ten of them, whom he has masterfully profiled, but there will be more because these women were no mere accidents of history.

Virgins or wives and mothers, globetrotters or cloistered nuns, in the corridors of power or in the silence of monasteries, they have all been women of culture, of prayer, of governance and authority, mystics as well as reformers. And we are just beginning.

The subject of women in the Church has been recurrent lately. It hasn't lacked for a platform in the media, for a spot in reformist agendas, for a wiseguy parish priest or feminist association advocating the cause, all seeking to discredit the Church by accusing it of condemning women to secular prostration.

And even if this concern has been for the most part even more false than Judas, neither has the response been always appropriate. Sometimes, the response to the frivolous claims is nothing but platitudes, said too lightly.

But one must go deeper into the issue. It's no longer enough just to say that women are important and have always been so from the start, because they are usually the ones who render actual services, who are most responsible for transmitting the faith to their children, and of course for being mothers.

The other side answers that all that is fine but ultimately, in the Church, men govern and make the decisions. A facile description of the power structure... But once more, Benedict XVI has taken the bull by the horns.

In the first place, this idea of power is wrong which considers action to be the domain of men and contemplation that of women, governance (management) to be for men alone, while women are 'relegated' to works of charity and transmission of the faith.

History easily belies this, but moreover, governance in the Church is not just ministry, nor can it be separated from witness.

The Pope refers to this subject in the new interview-book Light of the World, distinguishing the question of priestly ordination from that of the essential protagonism of women in the life of the Church.

On the one hand, Benedict XVI explains, the Church - and the Pope - do not have the faculty to authorize ordination of women because the Lord himself set the constitutive model with the Twelve Apostles and their successors, the bishops and priests.

On the other hand, the Christian experience has been the most potent factor in history for women's 'liberation', and if one looks at the history of the Church, "the importance of women since Mary, through Monica, and down to Mother Teresa, is so eminent that in many ways, women have shaped the image of the Church much more than men".

This is the whole point. Who can say that Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Brigid of Sweden or Teresa of Calcutta had little real and concrete impact in shaping the face of the Church, pushing for its renewal and revitalization far beyond what the plans for reform by bishops in their time could accomplish?

Obviously, the Church cannot live and achieve her mission without the feminine genius, to which John Paul II had paid great tribute. As he explained, woman is especially endowed for hope, for welcome and acceptance, for patience, and to care for life. After all is said and done, that is what Christianity is - life that must be generated and protected, educated and transmitted.

I don't think either Julia or Manuela were concerned about the ordination of women. In thought and in service, in teaching and in charity, day by day they helped to build the hearth and home that the Church is. The Church was in their heart, as well as in their mind. Thank you, amigas!


I am very gratified that Restan has written about this, because it re-states some of what I expressed in a brief commentary on 11/25/10 - Excuse my self-indulgence that I re-post it here:

A brief comment on some synchronous events:
Surely when the Holy Father prepared his catechesis on St. Catherine of Siena for yesterday, he could not have known that one of his housekeepers would die an untimely death the same morning. And yet, when he spoke about how the Church continues to benefit from the spiritual maternity of so many women, he would have thought of Manuela and her three colleagues, of his sister Maria and his own mother, and so many shining examples of spiritual maternity, past and present.

Yet all the misguided women who insist that their 'mission' in the world is to become 'priests' have never stopped to consider the example of Catherine and of all the women saints, who did not aspire to the unlikely role of priest, but performed great and holy deeds, nonetheless, whatever station or occupation in life they found themselves in. Like Asia Bibi, condemned to death in an intolerant Muslim country for defending her Christian faith, providing a lesson in spiritual maternity to all persecuted Christians.

The second reflection is on the Holy Father's touching tribute to Manuela, expressing his grief and sorrow so publicly and in a precedent-setting way; and the beautiful example set by L'Osservatore Romano in today's issue (11/25/10), by giving equal play to the death and obituaries of Manuela as to the papal eulogy and funeral rites for Cardinal Navarrete; and of course, by the Secretariat of State, the Swiss Guard and Comunione e Liberazione, for their own tributes to Manuela.

Another reminder to would-be priestettes, if they could only take off their blinkers and shed their ego, that in the eyes of God, a consecrated laywoman's humble daily service is not any less than an eminent cardinal's lifetime of achievement, because both lived for the greater glory of God and in the service of their fellowmen.

I would like to add that obviously the unspoken thrust (or maybe they have expressed it elsewhere, except that I avoid reading feminist tracts of any kind like the plague!) of all these women priest-pretenders is that if there were women-priests, then a woman could be Pope! Not that to say "I want to be Pope" has any meaning at all, compared to the more normal ambitions such as "I want to be a doctor'!

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'Light of the World;:
The Pope's perspicacious and profound look
at the Church in today's world

Book review by Guillermo Luis Morado
Translated from

Nov. 27, 2010


This is a book which reproduces an 'interview' - a conversation between two people. The interviewer is German journalist Peter Seewald (born 1954), who knows Joseph Ratzinger rather well from two earlier interview books with him when he was a cardinal.

The interviewee is the same Joseph Ratzinger (1927) - the same person but with a different title. Since April 19, 2005, he has been Benedict XVI.

In this book, the Pope speaks, but not 'formally' as Pope, rather as Joseph Ratzinger. Popes, when they exercise their magisterial or teaching function, communicate in various ways. besides speaking literally ex cathedra when delivering a homily, they can write apostolic constitutions, encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, apostolic letters, papal decrees, speeches, messages and catecheses.

The kind of document used is important for analyzing, from the perspective of theological epistemology, the doctrinal value of each teaching. In this sense, not everything in the papal Magisterium has the same doctrinal weight.

In the Foreword to his first volume on JESUS OF NAZARETH, Benedict XVI explained, "It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the Magisterium". He makes a similar disclaimer in this new book about JON: "It is precisely not a book of the Magisterium... not a book that I wrote with my authority as Pope".
The warning applies as well to Light of the World.

To better appreciate LOTW, it is well to consider its subtitle: "The Pope, the Church, and Signs of the Times". Throughout the book, the Pope is interrogated on the present situation in the Church and some historical events that mark significant changes in man's historical trajectory.

To what extent are there positive signs in history "which give us hope for the destiny of the Church and of mankind", as John XXIII put it? This question, in a sense, pulsates throughout the book.

"It seems to me important not to see only the negative side. While we must be very keenly aware of it, we must also see all the opportunities for good that are there: the hopes, the new possibilities for being human that exist", the Pope replies.

The book is structured in three parts: I. Signs of the Times; II. The Pontificate; III. Where do we go from here? Each part consists of six chapters, A documentary appendix and a 'biography and brief chronicle of the Pontificate' complete the text.

Its character as an interview limits the content, for obvious reasons. The Pope can only answer what he is asked. "Within the framework of this discussion, only a few questions could be addressed, and many could not be answered in depth," Peter Seewald warns us in his Preface.

But this singular book allows us a triple appreciation - of the person of the Pope, of the reality of the Church at this historical moment, and of the world situation today.

These three coordinates are seen from a single perspective: that of Benedict XVI. The perspicacity and depth of this perspective confers on the whole book its profound unity and consistency. Everything is well framed, and every opinion is situated in the context of a perfectly articulated thought process.

How is the Pope up close? Above all, a man who is very conscious of his responsibility.

"The Pope is, on the one hand, a completely powerless man. On the other, he bears a great responsibility. He is to a certain extent the leader, and at the same time, the one responsible for making sure that the faith that keeps people together is believed, that it remains alive, and that its identity is inviolate. But only the Lord himself has the power to keep people in the faith".

Responsibility for the faith of the Church, namely, for the announcement of Jesus Christ, who came "so that we might touch God", as he says at the very end.

The Church does not refer to herself but to God: Ultimately, "the point of the Church is to turn us towards God and to enable God to enter into the world". It is something that the Pope does not tire of saying.

Simultaneously, that gives rise to her responsibility with respect to the world and to man, to whom the Church, and the Pope in the Church, should make the faith 'completely understandable": "Today it is still the major task of the Church to unite faith and reason with each other, to look beyond what is tangible and rational responsibility... For after all, reason was given to us by God. It is what distinguishes man".

It is in this context that the Pope conceives of his responsibility: "I think that God, if he was going to make a professor Pope in the first place, wanted this element of thoughtfulness and precisely this struggle for the unity of faith and reason to come to the fore".

How does the Pope see the Church at this historical moment?
He sees it immersed in a process of internal renewal whose objective is "to succeed better at doing what is essential so that we can really hear God's Word".

"Today it is a question of setting forth the major themes, and at the same time - as with the caritas encyclical, God is Love - making visible again the center of Christian life, and thus the simplicity of being a Christian".

Renewal is oriented therefore to evangelization, the 'new evangelization', "in which the one Gospel has to be proclaimed both in its great, enduring rationality, and in its power that transcends rationality, so that it can re-enter our thinking and understanding in a new way".

In this perspective, saints constitute the reference point: "The great figures who throughout history have really brought about revolutions for the good have been the saints", and "the Eucharist is the place where men can receive the kind of formation from which new things can come into being".

How does the Pope perceive the present situation of the world?
In my opinion, his perception of this is realistic, critical and hopeful.

Realistic, because nothing which is truly significant seems to escape his sight. He has a direct knowledge, based on his own observation - it is important to note. when he reflects upon his foreign travels, how he describes attentively the reality that he encounters in each country - and from his direct dealings with all kinds of people from all over the world. "There are, I believe, few people who have as many meetings as I do," he says.

His perception is critical, based on a continuing 'theological' analysis, a rigorous examination in depth into the sense of events and historical processes. As such, it is a perception that tends to discern what is valid from what is not, generally without all-out condemnation nor all-out praise, but always, with careful nuances.

As an example, one might cite his judgment on the possible compatibility between modernism and Christianity: "Christianity is itself something living, something modern, which thoroughly shapes and forms all of my modernity, and in this sense, actually embraces it".

And it is a hopeful perception, aware of what St. Bernard called the adventus medius, the "intermediate coming of Christ, thanks to which he periodically renews his intervention in history."

If one had to synthesize in a few words what is contained in Light of the World, we can do it with this line from the book itself: "We have to show - and also live this, accordingly - that the eternity man needs can come only from God. That God is the first thing necessary in order to be able to withstand the afflictions of this time".

That alone should inspire an attentive study and meditation on this important book. Through it, Benedict XVI speaks face to face with the reader, and helps him/her to interrogate himself about the decisive question, which is none other than the question of God - the relevance of God in the world, in history and in our lives.

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Monday, December 6
Second Week of Advent



Fourth photo from left: Fabrizio da Gentile's Pilgrims visiting Nicholas's tomb in Bari, 1415; and next to it, the tomb itself today.
ST. NICHOLAS OF MYRA [Nicholas of Bari] (Asia Minor [in present Turkey], 270-347)
Bishop, Defender of Orthodoxy, Wonderworker, Holy Hierarch
Arguably the most popular saint in the Orthodox world, legend surrounds the life of this 4th century Bishop of Myra, who was also said to be the most popular saint of the medieval world, next only to the Virgin Mary. In 1027, Italian sailors took his remains from his tomb in Myra to Bari, southeastern Italy, to prevent it from desecration by the Muslims who were slowly conquering the once-mighty Byzantine Empire. His legend as a giftgiver arose from his works of charity as a bishop, most of them done anonymously. This gave rise to the custom of gift-giving on his feast day, starting in the Middle Ages, and persisting today in Europe, and how he came to be conflated into the 19th-century figure of Santa Claus. His casket in Bari exudes a mysterious rose-scented oil much prized by pilgrims that has reputed miraculous powers; to this day, priests in charge of the shrine extract a flask of the 'manna' every year. Both Putin and Medvedev have been to Bari in recent years to venerate his remains. St. Nick's image as Santa Claus (from the Dutch 'Sinter Klaes') began with Dutch descendants in New York City who wished to renew Christmas celebrations in the early 19th century. It became fixed in the popular mind when Clement Moore wrote the poem "The Night before Christmas' in 1822.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/120610.shtml



No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- H.E. Viktor Orbán, Primoe Minister of teh Republic of Hungary, hiw wife and delegation

- Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Archbishop of Naples

- Mons. Hans-Josef Becker, Archbishop of Paderborn (Germany)

- Mons. Massimo Camisasca, Superior-General of the San Carlo Borromeo Priestly Fraternity of Missionaries




- A Belgian appellate court has upheld the right of a couple to sue doctors for 'wrongful life' and claim damages because their child was born handicapped. The parents claim the doctors failed to inform them that the child would be born handicapped, because if they had, they would have elected to abort. The court said that the doctors were liable not for the handicap but that they allowed a handicapped child to be born. What tragedy is enclosed in that horrible phrase 'wrongful life'! Belgium is one of the countries where euthanasia has been legal for some time now.

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Here's a secular review from Down Under by Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute, a privately-funded Australian think tank that encourages debate and discussion of current affairs. How very welcome that Henderson cites a number of inconvenient truths that MSM hardly ever take into account - because they are inconvenient for secularists! It's 12/7 in Australia now, hence the date....


Don't mock the frock:
Benedict speaks from the heart

by Gerard Henderson

December 7, 2010
.

The Vatican, apparently like God, works in strange ways.

A series of official meetings at the Holy See last week served as a reminder that, in its governance function, the Catholic Church is very bureaucratic.

Yet Pope Benedict has just done what few government or religious leaders would do. He gave six interviews of one hour's duration each to the German journalist and author Peter Seewald.

The product of this conversation is contained in Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times (Ignatius Press), which has just been published. In the Western world, which is increasingly subsumed with sex and celebrity, media attention has focused on the Pope's answers to two questions about HIV/AIDS in Africa and the church forbidding condoms.

Commentators have homed in on Benedict's comment that in the case of some individuals - he cited the case of a male prostitute - the use of condoms may amount to "a first step in the direction of a moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way towards recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants". That was about it.

But commentators tended to ignore a more significant papal refrain in Light of the World. Namely that "people can get condoms when they want them anyway".

And that's the essential point. The Pope recognises that not all Catholics follow the teachings of the Church.

Moreover, Africa is by no means a Catholic zone. The unfashionable fact is that HIV/AIDS is rife in large parts of Africa because many African men have multiple sex partners. Only some of them are baptised Catholic.

The Catholic Church has a good understanding of the devastation of HIV/AIDS. It is estimated about 15 per cent of the world's population is Catholic and that 25 per cent of all AIDS victims around the world are treated in Catholic institutions. That's an impressive statistic.

There is another inconvenient truth. The church's interaction with HIV/AIDS victims primarily focuses on caring for wounds and emptying bedpans - rather than writing opinion pieces in newspapers and attending international conferences.


The obsession with Catholicism in the Western media also impacts on discussion of world population growth. Last October, the presenter of Late Night Live, Phillip Adams, interviewed the former Catholic priest Paul Collins about his book Judgment Day - The Struggle for Life on Earth.

As the title suggests, Collins's work is primarily about the environment, climate change and all that. But Adams introduced the interview with predictable comments about condoms and the ridicule-laced claim that Catholics believe "it's naughty to have contraception because it might eliminate a couple of babies and every sperm is sacred".

Collins did not object to Adams's sneers. But he did point out that Catholic fertility in Australia since the late 19th century has been pretty much the same as Australia's national fertility. Collins did refer to the fact that, in Australia, Catholics suffer an enormous amount from caricature. He added that in parts of Catholic Italy the population is in decline.

This suggests that the Pope has a much better understanding of contemporary Catholics than do such secularists as Adams. [And yet sneering secularists would simply pigeohole him as an obscurantist marooned in a medieval ivory tower!]

As Francis Fukuyama pointed out in a lecture in Sydney in 2008, the huge increases in world population are taking place in sub-Saharan Africa where the Pope has little influence. If Adams was truly concerned about the need for condom advocacy as a form of birth control, he would take his cause to the Islamic nations - or, indeed, to Islamic settlements within Western societies. It's just that it is easier to ridicule Christians in the West than Muslims anywhere.

During his visit to Britain in September, Benedict was subjected to more low-level abuse. The author Richard Dawkins described the Pope as a "leering old villain in a frock", the philosopher A.C. Grayling compared him to "the head of a drug cartel" and the humanist Andrew Copson accused him of undermining human rights. Yet, as Bryan Appleyard reported in The Sunday Times, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, obtained a papal blessing in Rome a few months before joining the protests in London. [REALLY!!!!]

The evidence suggests the Pope is more considered than many of his critics. This is evident in Light of the World where the former theology professor acknowledges the Church handles some issues poorly, concedes that "the Pope can have private opinions that are wrong" and accepts that "no one is forced to be a Christian". The Pope also apologises for the "filth" involved in the sexual abuse of young children by male priests and brothers.

The reader does not have to agree with the views of Benedict to be impressed by the fact he gave lengthy interviews in the absence of minders and that Light of the World was released without "talking points" memos being issued to bishops and priests.






This is the first 'ecumenical' reaction to LOTW that I have come across so far. The blogger, Adam A. J. DeVille, is an assistant professor of theology at the University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and apparently a scholar of Orthodox-Catholic relations.


The Bishop of Rome
on being the Bishop of Rome

by Adam DeVille

Nov. 23, 2010

As I noted during the interregnum in 2005, coverage of the papacy by the so-called mainstream media - always a dim lot at the best of times - is invariably tendentious and unreliable. I cannot improve on Conrad Black's acerbic description of most journalists as

ignorant, lazy, opinionated, and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and...arrogant and abrasive youngsters who substitute 'commitment' for insight. The product of their impassioned intervention in public affairs is more often confusion than lucidity.

So it is completely unsurprising that the media has seized on excerpts from Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, and then propagated aggressively the myth that the Pope has launched a wholesale change in Catholic teaching on contraception. This stupidity is too tedious to refute, especially when it has been done in such a pitch-perfect polemic as you can read here.

I look forward to reading this book and then discussing it on here. To my great surprise, Benedict's papacy has done more to advance Orthodox-Catholic rapprochement, and more quickly, than I think even the most wild-eyed optimist expected.

We shall see what, if anything, he has to say about the East in this book-length interview - one of several he has done over the years with Seewald, who was prompted to a conversion (reversion?) based on how moved he was by Ratzinger's gracious life and absorbing faith.


As promised, Dr. DeVille came through with his review on Dec. 1, providing a most useful perspective... NB: He gives the page number of LOTW from which he cites, in each case.

The Pope of Rome
and the Christian East

by Adam DeVille

Dec. 1, 2010


Peter Seewald's new book-length interview with the Pope... on which I briefly commented earlier, has of course already generated enormous discussion on--predictably and tiresomely--sex.

Some have said that the Pope allowed himself to be played by the media and should have known how these comments would be received. I would say, based on the entire book, that the Pope did know the likely reception his comments would receive, and proceeded anyway.

His previous interviews - especially the 1985 Ratzinger Report - as well as his 1997 volume of memoirs, Milestones, set off firestorms so I'm sure he was not unaware that something similar would happen again - all the more so in an Internet age.

In any event, I've just finished reading the entire thing and have seen that the "condom comments" are so tiny that only the tendentious would be interested in repeating them.

Let me, instead, focus on those aspects of direct interest to Eastern Christians, of which there are about twenty or so passages in the book that are noteworthy. I would divide the comments into (i) the encouraging but not really surprising comments (not surprising, that is, to anyone who has read Ratzinger over the last 40 years); (ii) the truly surprising; and (iii) the disappointing. Of these, (i) is the largest category; (ii) the next largest; and (iii) has only one disappointment.

Let me take them in order. Not all treat Orthodoxy directly, but all of them, I believe, have clear and obvious bearing on issues about which Orthodoxy is concerned.

i) Encouraging Comments:
The Pope is not omnipotent: right at the outset (p.6), he underscores that notwithstanding the fact the Catholic Church is the largest such organization in the world, "the Pope does not have power because of these numbers." Indeed, he goes on to say that while the Pope bears "a great responsibility," he "is, on the one hand, a completely powerless man" (6). He cannot control or correct or confront everything, and it is not his job to keep the entire Church in being: "only the Lord himself has the power to keep people in the faith" (7).

The Pope is not exclusively the "vicar of Christ": this title, rather, belongs to "every priest" when he "speaks on behalf of Jesus Christ" (7). This is important, not only because history clearly bears him out in refusing to see the title as exclusively papal, but also because, in the furor in 2006 over papal titles (about which more presently), Orthodox commentators like Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) noted that other titles, including "vicar of Christ" needed critical examination.

Infallibility cannot be invoked arbitrarily: Vatican I has, of course, been seen (often incorrectly, in my judgment) as a huge impediment to Orthodox-Catholic unity. Much of that is based on misunderstanding, which the Pope is at pains here briefly to correct, insisting that the Pope can never act "arbitrarily" but only in concert with other bishops and only "when tradition has been clarified" so as to proclaim "the faith of the Church" (8).

A papacy of martyrdom: Seewald quotes back to the Pope a paper the latter gave in 1977, with which he still agrees today, saying the papacy must first and foremost be understood to have and to exercise "a primacy of martyrdom" (9). In other words, "standing there as a glorious ruler is not part of being pope" (10).

Papal bibliophilia: not a major point, but on a blog about books, I was heartened and amused to read that after he moved into the papal apartments in 2005, he gave pride of place to his bookshelves: "in them all are my advisors, the books" (14). Only after they were installed did he give any thought to furniture, decorations, etc.

Curial criticism: In several places he very briefly (and in one place obliquely) criticizes the curial bureaucracy, calling it "spent and tired" (59); noting that "certainly John Paul II sometimes put off making decisions"; and agreeing that, while his predecessor "did undertake reform of the Curia," he "subsequently left many decisions to his collaborators" (79), not always, he seems to suggest, to good effect.

Synodality: saying he sees no need for a "Vatican III," he expresses his view that "I believe that at the moment the bishops' synods are the right instrument, in which the entire episcopate is represented and is, so to speak, 'searching,' keeping the whole Church together and at the same time leading her forward" (65-66).

This is not really surprising, though a little disappointing because the limits of the Roman "synods of bishops," as I have noted elsewhere, are considerable and perhaps most memorably summed up in the words of the late Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk, who dismissed them as synods, archly calling them no more than "international study days of the Catholic bishops."

No Orthodox recognizes these synods as real synods in the sense in which that word is used in the East: i.e., as a legislative body, having real power exercised in conjunction with its (usually patriarchal) head.

Roman synods are purely consultative bodies. That being said, the Popes have so far not ignored the recommendations of all the synods held since Paul VI instituted them in 1965, but they are certainly free to do so, and that remains a point of concern to Eastern Christians.

On not being a busybody: Referring to a document written in the 12th century by Bernard of Clairvaux for Pope Eugene III, Benedict agrees with him that no Pope can allow himself to be consumed with files, meetings, decisions at the expense of "deeper examination, contemplation, time for interior pondering, vision...remaining with God and meditating about God" (71).

Remember, he says, the Pope is "not the successor of Emperor Constantine but...of a fisherman" (71). This is important because, as David Bentley Hart has memorably observed, many Orthodox fear the papacy as "the advance embassy of an omnivorous ecclesial empire."

It is good to have (as he notes below, and had done so previously) a "pared down" papacy, and thus good to have a Pope who is not forever trying to insert himself into the business of his brother bishops around the world - unless, of course, a truly genuine emergency, that admits of no other solution, requires his intervention.

On not being a star: Some time ago, as those who follow him know, Cardinal Ratzinger expressed considerable unease with the fact that John Paul II was considered a "superstar." (He appeared on the cover of Time more than a dozen times.). He reiterates that here, but more gently and circumspectly, asking "is it really right for someone to present himself again and again to the crowd in that way and allow oneself to be regarded as a star? On the other hand, people have an intense longing to see the pope" and not him personally so much as "this office...the representative of the Holy One" (73).

On dialogue with Orthodoxy: Noting that as a "professor in Bonn and Regensburg, I always had Orthodox among my students, and this gave me the opportunity to form many friendships in the Orthodox world," he goes on to note that it is with Orthodoxy "where there is...the most hope of reunion" in part because "Catholics and Orthodox both have the same basic structure inherited from the ancient Church" (86).

I confess I was slightly taken aback by this because Orthodox and Catholic structures - assuming the Pope means ecclesial structures - do vary considerably: the Roman is bipartite (the universal and local), while the East is usually tripartite (the local, the regional, and the "universal" in some sense, pace the denials of some ignorant Orthodox polemicists who like to sneer at "universal" structures as purely Western and having no place in Orthodoxy, a risible claim to anyone who really knows what he is talking about). [But when the Pope says 'the same basic structure inherited from the ancient Church', I certainly took it he meant the early Church, which surely did not have the 'regional' component of much later centuries, starting with the distinction betwen the Eastern and Western churches!]

But this is a very brief comment he does not develop so we should not read too much into it. His larger point is valid.

Cordial relations between Old and New Rome: he expresses delight in the "real friendship and sense of brotherhood between" him and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

Russian relations: he notes his gratitude for "the friendship and the great cordiality that Patriarch Kirill has shown me," noting the latter has "such a joy about him, such a simple faith....So we understood each other well" (87). The interviewer presses him a little later as to whether there will be a meeting between the two "in the not too distant future", and the Pope responds: "I would say that, yes" (91).

The nature of the unity we seek: he notes that unity between Orthodoxy and Catholicism needs to happen in order to spread the Gospel and help the world believe, but that we must "truly relearn to see and understand our inner spiritual kinship with each other."

He is not, he says, concerned firstly with "tactical, political progress, but rapprochement on the level of our interior affinity" (87). He expands on this later, rightly noting that "beyond the doctrinal issues, there are still many steps to be taken at the level of the heart. God still needs to do some work on us here. For the same reason, I would also be shy about making any predictions about when reunion will happen. The important thing is that we truly love each other, that we have an interior unity, that we draw as close together and collaborate as much as we can--while trying to work through the remaining areas of open questions" (89-90).

This, of course, clearly echos John Paul II's oft-stated call for the "healing of memories," on which I've commented previously with reference to Orthodoxy (“The Healing of Memories: a Suggestion for Liturgical Enactment,” Ecumenical Trends 34 [2005]: 9-12), including here.

No new Uniates: Discussing the prospect of Anglicans entering the Catholic Church, the Pope notes that structures being set up for them will be flexible. "We don't want to create new uniate churches, but we do want to offer ways for local church traditions, traditions that have evolved outside of the Roman Church, to be brought into communion with the Pope and thus into Catholic communion" (97).

ii) Surprising Comments:
No hand kissing?: The interviewer enumerates things that changed in 2005 when Benedict took office, saying "you abolished the custom of kissing the Pope's hand--though no one followed the new protocol" (82). Is this true? I never heard or saw this anywhere. [I don't remember seeing it in a formal dcument either, but it was one of those 'novelties' reported widely after Benedict XVI became Pope. And it is true that no one seems bound by the practice any more, even if many bishops, priests and laymen still do the 'baciamano' - which, of course, the Pope cannot very well refuse!]

Orthodoxy has objected to an over-exaltation of papal authority and some of its concrete expressions, but this would not be an objectionable practice given that Orthodox regularly kiss not only patriarchal and episcopal but also priestly hands.

The Pope does not respond to this comment, instead insisting that his removing the tiara from the papal coat of arms was not so original because already Paul VI had given it away (and none of his successors have worn one).

Frankly no Orthodox could object to the tiara (except, perhaps, the one Paul VI wore because it looked like some nasty cheap nursery-school project) unless we were prepared to renounce the use of imperial headgear on our bishops. [The Orthodox episcopal headgear - and their variety - are certainly magnificent. And I have always felt it was most sensible of them to retain the tradition, which moreover, the Orthodox faithful appear not to mind in the least. The headgear and the sumptuous episcopal robes are as much part of the Orthodox tradition as the iconostasis that is such a wonderful feature of their churches.]

Backtracking from Dominus Iesus?: Discussing the conciliar language of particular churches, the Pope notes that "the Eastern Churches are genuine particular churches, although they are not in communion with the pope. In this sense, unity with the Pope is not constitutive for the particular church" (89; my emphasis)!

When I have time I'll have to check this (especially the word "constitutive") against Dominus Iesus and also the 1992 declaration on the Church as communio, because it sounds like the Pope is introducing an important clarification or nuance here.... [I did not think it necessary to check out Dominus Iesus simply because I do not think Benedict XVI would alter an iota of that most carefully considered document. And certainly not informally, much less inadvertently!]

No nationalism or nationalist "autocephaly" in the Church: Noting that "there has always been a tendency toward national churches, and in fact some have actually been founded," he nonetheless notes that in today's world the need is "precisely" for "an interior unity": "the Church needs unity, that she needs something like a primacy. It was interesting for me that the Russian Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff, who lives [sic] in America, said that their autocephalies are their biggest problem; they could use like a first authority, a primate" (138-39).

Rhis is certainly true, as I have demonstrated at length in my book Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy, forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press early next year.

But I was a little taken aback here by two things: others have said this more recently--e.g., Nicholas Lossky--so this suggested to me the pope has not followed the recent literature. (I'm sure he's kept sleepless at nights waiting for my book on this score!) And surely he knows that Meyendorff is...dead? Meyendorff died in 1992--perhaps this is a translation issue--or even a typo--and the present tense ("lives") should, of course, have been in the past: lived.

iii) Disappointing Comments:

Papal reform: the interviewer presses him to say more about why the title "Patriarch of the West" was abandoned and about how the papacy might be reformed to take account of Orthodox concerns, but the Pope will not say, arguing that "these are contentious issues, which I would have to say more about than I can right now..." (89).

I examined this question in my “On the Patriarchate of the West," Ecumenical Trends 35 (June 2006): 1-7. There I said we very much needed to hear from the Pope because the decision created such turmoil in the Orthodox world and the statement put out by Cardinal Kasper at the time was unhelpfully ambiguous--a concern I expressed in greater detail here. I very much stand by those comments.

The 2006 deletion of the title was, and is, a puzzling decision. Many of us have tried to remain hopeful about its intended import, but further developments and clarifications here would be most useful.

This book covers much else besides. The overall impression, right from the beginning, is confirmed for those of us who know and have read and met Ratzinger (as I did very briefly in 1998), but may be new to others, including the media: he is a wonderfully gracious, humble, open man with a deeply affecting, inspiring simplicity of faith and trust in Providence.


It's worth looking at Dr. DeVille's forthcoming book, through its pre-sales blurb:



Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy
Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity

Adam A. J. DeVille
FORTHCOMING IN MARCH 2011

Among the issues that continue to divide the Catholic Church from the Orthodox Church — the two largest Christian bodies in the world, together comprising well over a billion faithful [the figure is closer to almost 2 billion, because Catholics alone make up 1.2 billion] — the question of the papacy is widely acknowledged to be the most significant stumbling block to their unification.

For nearly forty years, commentators, theologians, and hierarchs, from popes and patriarchs to ordinary believers of both churches, have acknowledged the problems posed by the papacy.

In Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, Adam A. J. DeVille offers the first comprehensive examination of the papacy from an Orthodox perspective that also seeks to find a way beyond this impasse, toward full Orthodox-Catholic unity.

He first surveys the major postwar Orthodox and Catholic theological perspectives on the Roman papacy and on patriarchates, enumerating Orthodox problems with the papacy and reviewing how Orthodox patriarchates function and are structured.

In response to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 request for a dialogue on Christian unity, set forth in the encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint, DeVille proposes a new model for the exercise of papal primacy.

DeVille suggests the establishment of a permanent ecumenical synod consisting of all the patriarchal heads of Churches under a papal presidency, and discusses how the Pope qua Pope would function in a reunited Church of both East and West, in full communion.

His analysis, involving the most detailed plan for Orthodox-Catholic unity yet offered by an Orthodox theologian, could not be more timely.

“In Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, not only does Adam A. J. DeVille give a historical and theological background to the thorny problem of the papacy in ecumenical dialogue; he also outlines what a reintegrated Church would look like by suggesting a way the papacy could function. Taking what both Orthodox and Catholic ecumenists have said, he paints a practical portrait of a unified Church. This is a novel and important contribution.”
—David Fagerberg, University of Notre Dame

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POPE'S MEETING WITH
THE PRIME MINISTER OF HUNGARY


Dec. 6, 2010



On the morning of Monday, 6 December, the Holy Father Benedict XVI received in audience His Excellency Mr. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary, who successively met with the Secretary of State, His Eminence Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, accompanied by His Excellency Msgr. Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States.

During the cordial discussion, the prime minister outlined the country's current social, economic, and political situation. The importance of the Christian tradition in the life of the nation and the role of the Catholic Church for its renewal was emphasized.

The next semester of Hungarian presidency of the European Union was then discussed, highlighting some convergences of vision between Hungary and the Holy See on major themes that concern the European continent. Finally, a few items regarding relations and cooperation in the region were covered.






The newsphotos of the event happen to highlight the season, with the focus on the Advent wreath, gift-giving, and a family happening.

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Why the Pope asks us to pray for Chinese Catholics:
Bishops imprisoned or hunted like criminals

by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, Editor



Rome, Dec. 6 (AsiaNews) - AsiaNews sources are reporting that the official bishop of Hengshui was forcibly removed from his residence by police and taken to an isolated location. The police had besieged the prelate’s house for hours, struggling against believers and priests who had formed a wall in an attempt to defend the freedom of their bishop.

Another bishop of Cangzhou, has disappeared and the police threatened the diocese: either he hands himself in to police custody or they will issue an arrest warrant throughout China identifying him as a "dangerous wanted criminal."

In a format reminiscent of the period of the Cultural Revolution, these events took place today.

Everything is due to the forthcoming meeting of the representatives of Chinese Catholics, which the Patriotic Association wants to force official Chinese bishops to attend to elect the presidents of the PA and the Council of Bishops, the Pope defines both bodies as against the Catholic faith, because they aim to create a Church independent of Rome.

To ensure even a meager participation, the PA has put under house arrest some of the bishops who participated in the illicit ordination of Chengde, on 20 November. On that occasion, eight bishops were kidnapped and forced to attend the ceremony, condemned by the Holy See as "a serious violation of religious freedom."

Since the illicit ordination, Mgr. Hengshui Feng Xinmao had been kept in isolation, banned from seeing any faithful, under constant police supervision. Days ago a very elderly priest of his diocese died, and the bishop asked to at least be allowed to celebrate the funeral. After much resistance from the police, and his threat to carry out a hunger strike, he was granted permission.

At the end of the funeral the faithful and the priests surrounded him and brought him to the episcopate, from where he had been missing for nearly a month and set up a watch to make sure he would not be placed in isolation again. The police besieged the bishop's house, and after several hours managed to take the bishop back to prison.

The other episode involves Mgr. Li Lianggui, bishop of Cangzhou. After the illicit ordination, the bishop disappeared, perhaps because he didn’t want to be forced to take part in the meeting of representatives of Chinese Catholics.

The police, after having searched throughout the diocese, threatened all the faithful either he hands himself into police custody or they will issue an arrest warrant throughout China identifying him as a "dangerous wanted criminal.


Two other disturbing news today reported by AsiaNews:

- A new order by the High Court of Lahore makes it harder to discuss the controversial legislation and prevents the government from issuing a pardon for convicted Christian woman Asia Bibi. The appeal date against her death sentence has not yet been decided.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-return-of-the-Cultural-Revolution:-Chinese-bishops-imprisoned-or-hunted-like-criminals-20189.html
- An Christian elderly couple was killed in their Baghdad home Sunday night. Gunmen reprtedly broke into their home in a Shiite neighborhood and stabbed them to death. They had moved to Erbil in the north and only came back to Baghdad to finalize the sale of their home.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Two-more-Christians-murdered-overnight-in-Baghdad-20178.html

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It's been two weeks... Is this issue still alive???.. It's high time the other topics in the book are discussed instead....


Papal comments on condoms reflected
pastoral concern, theologian says

By John Thavis



VATICAN CITY, Dec. 6 (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about condoms represented a "normal and traditional" pastoral application of moral theology, according to a theologian who advises the Vatican on doctrinal matters.

The Pope's comments reflect the principle that there can be "intermediary steps toward moral awareness" that allow for some flexibility in how church teachings are applied, Franciscan Father Maurizio Faggioni said Dec. 3.

Father Faggioni, a moral theologian and a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to Catholic News Service about the reaction to the Pope's statement on condoms in the book, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.

In the book, the Pope repeated his view that condom campaigns are not the way to stop the AIDS epidemic, but he allowed that in some specific cases -- for example, a prostitute who tries to diminish the risk of spreading infection -- use of a condom could be a first step toward taking moral responsibility for one's actions.

Father Faggioni said the Pope's comments should be seen in the light of traditional principles of moral theology, including gradualism, which understands moral decision-making as a path that involves a series of progressions.

"The Holy Father recognizes that there is a path of growth in responsibility," Father Faggioni said. By saying condom use may mark a step along that path, he said, the Pope is allowing for a "wise and prudent" application of Church teaching to individual cases. [Even for run-of-the-mill Catholics like me who've never read, much less, had any instruction in moral theology, one knows intuitively that this is what the right pastoral attitude ought to be.]

"This is nothing more than a normal and traditional application of some principles of pastoral teaching and of moral casuistry," Father Faggioni said. Moral casuistry refers to a method that tries to determine appropriate moral responses to particular cases and circumstances.

Father Faggioni said the Pope's comments do not place in question the Church's teaching against birth control, but recognize that there can be different ways of applying the general law to specific situations.

"One could ask to which other cases this would extend. This is something that will be seen. One should not force the words of the Holy Father, either," he said.

Father Faggioni noted that the Vatican's doctrinal congregation began studying the morality of condom use in disease prevention at a time when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict -- was the congregation's prefect.

He said the Pope had chosen an informal medium, that of a book-length interview, to discuss the issue. In the strict sense, then, his words do not have the weight of official Church teaching, he said.

But at the same time, Father Faggioni said, the Pope knows what he's talking about, having followed the theological discussion on this issue for many years. He said commentators should remember this when suggesting, as some have, that the Pope may have strayed outside his field of expertise.

"This is the Pope speaking, after all," Father Faggioni said. "He is the supreme teacher."




Prof. Steven Long, a professor at Ave Maria University in Florida, one of the Pontifical Academy for Life members singled out by Sandr Omagister for supposedly having aimed 'friendly fire' at the Pope for what he said about condoms, makes this valuable contribution to the general discussion of what the Church teaches about condom use.

What the Church teaches and how it teaches:
A 1988 letter from Cardinal Ratzinger

By Steven A. Long


NAPLES, Florida, DEC. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- In the current media-engendered vortex of illusion regarding the Church's teaching about disordered sexual acts and condoms, the principal constituent is of course a certain incomprehension regarding how the Church teaches, as distinct from journalistic interviews.

Also to blame, of course, is the current culture of the 24-hour news cycle that holds that nothing could be more defining or important than the story of the moment. Thus, the media swirl may too quickly become self-hypnotizing.

But in the Roman Catholic faith, the magisterium serenely propounds the doctrine of faith and morals, and when direction from the universal teaching authority is required, no one is left in doubt as to the provenance of the supplied doctrine.

Such an occasion occurred -- for those with memory to recall -- in 1988, when then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger addressed a memorable letter as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to Archbishop Pio Laghi, who was at the time nuncio to the United Sates, regarding the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' administrative board's document "The Many Faces of AIDS."

In that document, Cardinal Ratzinger, representing the CDF with the full knowledge and support of Pope John Paul II, formally expressed the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

One might have expected the media to make some reference to this formal teaching instrument, understanding the difference in Roman Catholic life between journalistic conversations and magisterial acts. Doing so would have placed discussions about Catholic teaching in their proper historical and doctrinal context.

Nonetheless, for those who wish to place the recent journalistic remarks of the Holy Father in their magisterial context, his own pellucid words from 1988, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are perhaps the best source.

These may be found below. They represent the formal teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, and anyone claiming the contrary should of course be able to point to some official magisterial pronouncement supporting such a claim.

The idea that Pope Benedict the XVI is unaware of the nature of the Church's teaching instruments, or that he intended to alter Church teaching with a few brief comments in a journalistic interview, is preposterous on its face. This is something the current media culture seems to fail to grasp.


Letter to Archbishop Pio Laghi
on "The Many Faces of AIDS'





May 29, 1988

The lively discussion, widened and sometimes distorted by the press worldwide, which followed the publication of the NCCB Administrative Board's well-known document, "The Many Faces of AIDS," and in which were involved distinguished representatives of the episcopate, has generated in many of the faithful, and not only in the United States, a good deal of confusion regarding the authentic Catholic position on the moral problems involved.

The Holy See wishes, therefore, to express its deep concern that the unity so necessary among the bishops in the teaching of Christian moral doctrine be clearly and publicly demonstrated.

In the first place, and on a more general level, one must keep in mind the problem posed by the worldwide reaction which accompanies certain documents issued by various episcopal conferences. This requires a particular sense of responsibility and prudence in the choice of themes to be treated and in the manner in which these statements are published, not to mention a careful composition of the texts themselves.

At least in some cases, when the subjects under discussion are of interest to the universal Church, it would seem advisable to consult in advance with the Holy See.

Secondly, regarding the precise moral issue in question here, I want to draw attention to the clarification which appeared in the March 10 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, in an unsigned article entitled "Prevention of AIDS: Christian Ethical Aspect," and I quote:

"To seek a solution to the problem of infection by promoting the use of prophylactics would be to embark on a way not only insufficiently reliable from the technical point of view, but also and above all, unacceptable from the moral aspect. Such a proposal for 'safe' or at least 'safer' sex -- as they say -- ignores the real cause of the problem, namely, the permissiveness which, in the area of sex as in that related to other abuses, corrodes the moral fiber of the people."

In the case here under discussion, it hardly seems pertinent to appeal to the classical principle of tolerance of the lesser evil on the part of those who exercise responsibility for the temporal good of society.

In fact, even when the issue has to do with educational programs promoted by the civil government, one would not be dealing simply with a form of passive toleration but rather with a kind of behavior which would result in at least the facilitation of evil.

The problem of educational programs in specifically Catholic schools and institutions requires particular attention. These facilities are called to provide their own contribution for the prevention of AIDS, in full fidelity to the moral doctrine of the Church, without at the same time engaging in compromises which may even give the impression of trying to condone practices which are immoral, for example, technical instructions in the use of prophylactic devices.

In a society which seems increasingly to downgrade the value of chastity, conjugal fidelity and temperance, and to be preoccupied sometimes almost exclusively with physical health and temporal well-being, the Church's responsibility is to give that kind of witness which is proper to her, namely an unequivocal witness of effective and unreserved solidarity with those who are suffering and, at the same time, a witness of defense of the dignity of human sexuality which can only be realized within the context of moral law.

It is likewise crucial to note, as the board statement does, that the only medically safe means of preventing AIDS are those very types of behavior which conform to God's law and to the truth about man which the Church has always taught and today is still called courageously to teach.

I am confident that these considerations, which are known to His Holiness and have his fullest support, will be welcomed by the cardinal and bishop members of the conference and I wish to express my sincerest hope for a successful conclusion of this important meeting of the entire episcopate of the United States.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith






Other than the two articles DICI published earlier, with two views on the Pope's condom remarks, the FSSPX has not belabored the issue. But today, the Lefebvrian information site takes a broadside at the OR :

The 'Inosservatore Romano'
by Fr. Alain lorans

12-6-2010

The Vatican’s daily newspaper bears the title of Osservatore Romano, which means that its readers have the right to demand that it prove to be not only observant but even vigilant when it prints in its pages a text by the Pope which cannot help but sow confusion in their minds.

Indeed, when one is semi-officially the official newspaper of the Holy See, one must foresee the inevitable effects of publishing statements that need commentary at least, if not an exegesis.

The excerpt from the book-length interview by Peter Seewald with Benedict XVI does not give a clear answer to the question: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?” but instead considers the subjective viewpoint of someone who uses them while on the way to a hypothetical conversion.

The major media and the movements that militantly promote condoms in the name of AIDS prevention immediately rushed into this breach. It was foreseeable by everybody, except by L’Osservatore Romano!

Unfortunately, for some time now this newspaper has not lived up to its title, which today gives the appearance of deceptive advertising. It would be more accurate to speak about L’Inosservatore Romano [“The Roman Non-observer”] and (to dot all the i’s) to denounce its incompetence, its insouciance and its intolerable levity.

***********************************************************************************************

What makes it even worse about OR is that it never followed up on its ill-advised 'excerpt of an excerpt' or made up for it in any way, and more than two weeks since its blunder, it has not addressed the issue of Church teaching about the condom at all, nor apologized for the worldwide commotion it unleashed. Nor, for that matter, has it mentioned LOTW again. To make believe that nothing untoward happened is a denial of reality that one would condemn if an MSM outlet behaved as OR has in this entire mess.


Why did the secular press
get the Pope so wrong about condoms?

They were not helped by the claims of some Catholics that
Catholic teaching on sexuality was collapsing

By William Oddie

Monday, 6 December 2010

Francis Philips got it dead right in her last blog; the Pope’s gripping, highly readable and indispensable book The Light of the World (and if you haven’t read it yet you really should) is about a great deal more than just sex.

The extraordinary distortion by the secular Press of his passing remarks about condoms is now generally seen for what it was: a sign of the fact that papers have to have splash headlines; that’s the way they’re designed: hence the Sunday Telegraph’s declaration of a “historic U-turn by [the] Catholic church”.

So the secular response is understandable: journalists need stories; it’s not so much that they don’t care about the truth, but that they really aren’t necessarily equipped, in a story about the Church, to recognise it when it’s staring them in the face.

But parallel to this kind of understandable secular distortion, there was a jumping on this particular bandwagon by some Catholics who really didn’t have that kind of excuse.

Perhaps the most informative example of the “historic U-turn by Catholic Church” syndrome among Catholic journalists was the Today programme’s “Thought for the Day” on the morning after the Sunday Telegraph splash headline, uttered from on high by Clifford Longley, the BBC’s token “authoritative” Catholic and the elder statesman of the Tabletistas.

What a difference a week or two makes. Longley may already be hoping that his remarks will have been forgotten: but they haven’t, not by me, nor should they be.

“The interview [the Pope] gave to a German journalist”, he glibly pronounced, “has transformed the terms of the internal Roman Catholic debate about the use of condoms in the fight against Aids HIV”. (Already, very evidently, just wrong).

“But”, he went on, astonishingly, “I think he has actually changed much more than that. From today the entire polar icecap of Catholic sexual morality has started to melt”.

We have now reached a level of implausibility which is more than simply jaw-dropping. We need some kind of provisional explanation before going any further, of why Longley should say such a thing, even in the slightly hysterical atmosphere then prevailing.

I can only suppose that this total dissolution of Catholic sexual morality is so much what he wants to happen that it clouded his judgement; it wouldn’t be the first time that wishful thinking has caused a radical distortion of Catholic teaching: “the Spirit of Vatican II” is riddled with it. [Thanks, Mr. Oddie. I used that very phrase 'wishful thinking' earlier in this Forum to characterize the lemming reaction of the liberal press raising hosannas about what they want to believe the Pope said!]

“Henceforth”, he went on, “the emphasis changes from natural law, which is where the ban on contraception comes from, to what the pope calls ‘the humanising of sexuality’.”

But how is that a change of emphasis away from the natural law? The natural law is a body of unchanging moral principles known not from revelation (though parallel to it) but by reason, principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct:

For the Pope to speak in this way of “the humanisation of sexuality” is simply the understanding of the natural law in particular human circumstances. There is no movement away from natural law — say, to revelation or ecclesial authority; we are still within its ambit. Longley’s “analysis”, in short, is utterly meaningless.

Longley’s explanation of his melting polar icecap is an excellent example of the kind of — to a layman — impressively intellectual sounding but actually totally bogus pronouncement that does nothing to elucidate an argument but which if you’re not attentive allows it to be accepted by default in the mental fog which has descended by the time it has been uttered.

There is a real refusal here to acknowledge the difference between juridical and pastoral discourse. The Pope is a teacher of doctrine and the moral law; he is also a pastor: a pastor above all, and perhaps overwhelmingly most importantly, when he speaks directly to his people, as he is clearly doing in this interview — that’s why it’s with a journalist, not a theologian.

What was Longley’s real agenda here? That is the question we need to ask. Why did he try to transmute pastoral remarks about particular human circumstances into quasi-juridical pronouncements universally applicable?

Could it be that, thus transformed, such remarks could then be lobbed into the complex web of objective moral teachings which the Church over the centuries has defended, in the hope of causing maximum damage? Who knows? But it looks suspiciously like it to me

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Theological commission deals with
how to do theology with the Church,
God in the monotheistic traditions,
and the Church's social doctrine

by John L Allen Jr

Dec. 06, 2010


Rome -- Since its creation by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the International Theological Commission, composed of 30 theologians from around the world who advise the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often has functioned as a sort of early warning system for the Vatican’s doctrinal concerns.

When the commission kicks around a topic, it can be a hint of things to come – an encyclical, a doctrinal instruction, or something else with real teeth. For just that reason, it’s always worth keeping the ITC on the radar screen.

Last week, the commission held its annual working meeting. (Members had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, Dec. 3.) At the moment, three sub-commissions are pondering the following themes:

•Method in theology, with the accent on theology’s relationship with the Church. (The sub-commission is led by Fr. Paul McPartlan, a British ecclesiologist and ecumenist who teaches at the Catholic University of America.)

•The question of the one God in relationship to the three monotheistic religions (led by Fr. Philippe Vallin of the University of Strasbourg, who served from 2003 to 2007 as secretary of the doctrinal commission of the French bishops’ conference.)

•Integration of the Church’s social teaching into the rest of Christian doctrine (led by Italian Fr. Marco Doldi of the Theology Faculty of Northern Italy, whose specialty is bioethics. Doldi is an advisor on bioethics to Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan.)

While members are invited to suggest topics, the themes for each five-year term of the commission (known as a “quinquennio”) are chosen by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and ratified by the pope, so they’re a fairly reliable guide to what church authorities are thinking about.

Depending on how things develop, the sub-commissions could generate draft documents to be submitted to the full commission. Though documents of the ITC in themselves don't carry weight as Church teaching, they could lay the ground work for an official act or document from the doctrinal congregation, or even the Pope himself, somewhere down the line.

Yet it’s one thing to say the commission matters, and quite another to read its stirrings accurately. Speaking on background, one theologian who took part in the meeting last week said afterwards that it’s not clear, even to members themselves, what these sub-commissions might produce.

For one thing, the ITC these days is not quite what it used to be. In the beginning, the commission was an all-star team of Catholic theology; its initial roster in 1969 included Karl Rahner, Louis Bouyer, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Bernard Lonergan, Joseph Ratzinger and Cipriano Vagaggini.

While it’s never again been quite that loaded, the ITC until recently included a number of figures with strong international reputations, such as Bruno Forte of Italy, Georges Cottier (a Swiss Dominican and the former theologian of the papal household under John Paul II), Roland Minnerath of France, and Herman Pottmeyer of Germany.

Those luminaries are now gone (Forte and Minnerath were both made archbishops in 2004), and as a result, some observers say the prospects for strong leadership or new vision have been reduced.

(As a footnote, the foregoing suggests a keen irony: Benedict XVI is a theologian-Pope, the first former member of the international theological commission to be elevated to the papacy. Yet a case can be made that the theological quality of the commission actually has declined on his watch.)

[Just because the current roster of the ITC does not have any 'stellar' names does not mean that the quality of their theology is necessarily inferior! We can be sure that the members Benedict XVI has named to the ITC would be theologians he respects for their scientific work as well as for thinking 'cum ecclesia', which is just as important for the Church...

And surely there must be a way for theologians who have significant questions to propose to do it in such a way that they don't end up being dissident theologians. From what I have read so far about American theologians, however, no one seems to be humble enough to say, "After much study, I have come to this conclusi0n(s) which is/are not compatible with the teaching of the Church and which, therefore, I will discuss it in public but will not claim it to be what the Church teaches [npr will I teach it to my students if I happen to be a teacher of Catholic theology."

That's not pie-in-the sky at all: The example of Joseph Ratzinger who as a theologian never 'proposed to have my own system' is eminent proof that one can earn great distinction as a theologian by thinking with the Church and not against it! For instance, what dissident theologian in the 1960s achieved as great a worldwide success with his theology as did Ratzinger with his very orthodox Introduction to Christianity, published right after Vatican II even? And it continues to sell today, which is a tribute to the timelessness of orthodox Christian teaching, as opposed to flash-in-the-pan dissident propositions! I daresay the runaway success of Introduction... paved the way for the marketability and popularity of all of Joseph Ratzinger's subsequent books and proves that the audience for orthodoxy is there and not to be slighted or ignored.

There's a reason why the first current task for the ITC specifies 'Method in theology, with the accent on theology’s relationship with the Church'.]


Two of the three topics also present their own difficulties.

In theory, a theme is supposed to be handled within a single “quinquennio,” but the project on theology and the church has been hanging around for seven years. At one stage a sub-commission under Forte produced a draft, which one source described as “mystical” and “lofty”, but it wasn’t completed.

Emphasizing that theology must be rooted in the life and faith of the Church, and is thus not a self-contained academic enterprise, has long been a core concern of Benedict XVI.

The Pope underscored the point in his Dec. 3 remarks to commission members [translated and posted on the preceding page of this thread], insisting that “to be scientific, theology must argue in a rational way, but it must also be faithful to the nature of the ecclesial faith.”

Observers say the subject is a political hot potato, anything the commission says on the relationship between theologians and Church authorities will be carefully read in the theological guild.

One member expressed concern that if there’s no acknowledgment of the creative role of theology – its responsibility to ask new questions, and pursue new answers – other theologians may react negatively.

Meanwhile, the sub-commission on social teaching faces a different sort of headache – not so much what to say, but rather what’s left to say?

Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate dealt at length with the relationship between social teaching and the rest of Christian doctrine, in particular the nexus between the church’s pro-life positions and its peace-and-justice message.

The introduction to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, published in 2005, also covers the same ground in fairly exhaustive detail.

Commission members say that if they’re going to put out a document, they have to push beyond what’s already been said – but it’s not clear what that “beyond” might look like.

[Perhaps Allen should have placed a call to Cardinal Levada to get his side and to answer questions like those he brings up here!]

One member said the sub-commission could be an opportunity to ponder an undeniably front-burner question these days, which is how to define and defend the Catholic identity of church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals, schools, and social service centers.

That, however, is arguably more a question of governance rather than a strictly theological matter, so it’s not clear what contribution the ITC might be able to make.

In sum, the International Theological Commission still merits being tracked on Catholic radar, but it’s a little early to identify exactly what’s in the air.

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Hallelujah! Another commentary on LOTW that focuses on something other than St. Latex, though I must say I came upon it one week late...


LOTW beyond condoms:
What the Pope said about
the priesthood is more interesting

By Francis Phillips

Monday, 29 November 2010

Given the amount of ink spilled recently over Pope Benedict’s reference to the use of condoms during his interview with journalist Peter Seewald, people might be forgiven for thinking that his book, Light of the World is all about sex – in particular, sex in sinful circumstances.

Thinking this would be a great pity. The conversation ranged over a large number of topics, to which the Holy Father responded with great frankness and originality. I am thinking especially of his reply to a question raised by Seewald on the need for married priests. This is part of what the Pope said:

“I believe that celibacy becomes a very meaningful sign, and above all possible to live, when priests begin to form communities. It is important for priests not to live off on their own somewhere, in isolation, but to accompany one another in small communities, to support one another, and so to experience, and constantly realise afresh, their communion in service to Christ and in renunciation for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.”

The only other place I have seen this idea stated is in a scholarly treatise by Fr Jerome Bertram CO, entitled “Vita Communis” and published by Gracewing. In it the author describes the life of a typical parish priest in Britain today: overworked, isolated, struggling with the paperwork, often juggling a hospital chaplaincy as well as trying to run several Mass centres.

Fr Bertram writes, “It would be impossible to think of any model of diocesan priestly life that could be worse than the one we have at present.” He thinks that in this country most parishes are too small to be viable, given the amount of administration required – and that priests are not called to be hermits.

Fr Bertram’s suggestion, which the Pope seems to gesture towards in his reply above, is that seven or eight priests of a particular area might live together in “association” – not a “college” but more than a deanery – and thus parishes could support them more easily.

He cites Vatican II for encouragement of this form of a common life, “to deliver priests from the dangers that often arise from loneliness.” [It is also a message that Benedict XVI has not failed to encourage every time he speaks to priests and seminarians!]

There is no need to cite the obvious dangers arising from isolation; this and its consequent loneliness are quite bad enough in themselves.

Even Pope Benedict – who might be described as a kind of ‘prisoner in the Vatican’ – fondly describes his own little “community” within its walls: he, his two secretaries and the four nuns who look after them, share meals, watch DVDs together and join in the celebration of Mass and each other’s birthdays. I am sure this small community helps to make the burdens of his office more endurable and less lonely.

Parish priests, no less than the Holy Father, need fellowship, mutual support, the company of their fellows – in short, communities. I have known several cases of priests cracking under the strain of their lives. These were good and conscientious men, struggling to live their vocation. They did not abandon it; they were simply crushed by all the demands made on them.

Fr Bertram, himself an Oratorian and thus living in fraternity with fellow members of the Oxford Oratory, believes that if a more satisfactory model of priestly life could be developed it would mean increased congregations and “the long steady decline [in vocations] since 1964 could at last be reversed.”

Could we move on from the condom issue and talk about this instead?

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Another positive sign for Benedict XVI's 'Crusade for Europe' to stand firm on its Christian roots... Recently, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany echoed the Pope's call. This time, it's a prominent Jewish leader - and the background for his statement is fascinating...


Leading rabbi urges Europe
to rediscover its Christian roots
or risk being 'overrun' by Islam

by ANDREW RETTMAN




Rosen with the Pope when he addressed the recent Synodal Assembly on the Middle East at the Vatican.

JERUSALEM, Nov. 30 - One of the luminaries of the international Jewish community, Rabbi David Rosen, has warned that Europe risks being "overrun" by Islam unless it rediscovers its Christian roots.

Speaking to journalists at a meeting in Jerusalem on Friday (26 November), Rabbi Rosen, the director of inter-religious affairs at the Washington-based American Jewish Congress, said that a predominantly secular and liberal Western European society is under threat from the rapid growth of Islamic communities which do not want to integrate with their neighbours.

"I am against building walls. My humanity is my most important component. But Western society very clearly doesn't have a strong identity. I would like Christians in Europe to become more Christian ... those who do not have a strong identity are easily overrun by those who do," the rabbi warned.

"I think there is a pretty good chance that your grandchildren, if they are not Muslim, then they will be very strong Roman Catholics," he told one Italian reporter. "I don't think a tepid identity can stand up to the challenge."

Rabbi Rosen's views are shared by a number of Jewish commentators, who look at the demographic growth of Muslims in Europe with the same trepidation as the demographic growth of Arabs in Israel.

"You have a problem that you don't see: You are in love with the idea of multi-culti, but you don't speak Arabic. In an era of liberalism, how do you protect your way of being? What is the contract [with Islam]?" Moti Cristal, a professional Israeli negotiator in the private-sector conflict resolution firm Nest Consulting, said.

Nachman Shai, a member of parliament for the centrist Kadima party in Israel, noted that the alleged soft threat to Western European identity is matched by the hard security threat of radical Islamist groups.

"If you follow the current streams in the Arab world, and you all have Muslim communities in your own countries now and you read about these developments, and you can see them there too, then you see that the Muslims are moving to the extreme, not to the centre, not toward compromise. They keep their own traditions. They keep their own way of life and they are becoming more and more religious and more and more radical," he said.

The politician explained that Israel is surrounded by an arc of militant Islam stretching from Iran, through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel believes that EU neighbour and enlargement candidate Turkey is also moving further to the right in a deep strategic shift that goes beyond its disappointment with the slow pace of the accession process and may be based on Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan's ambition to become the new leader of the Muslim world.

"Syria is another link in the axis of evil, our axis of evil, which starts in Iran, goes through Lebanon and then unfortunately, one day, Turkey too," Mr Shai added.

The Israeli point of view is likely to resonate in some parts of Europe, which has seen an upsurge in anti-Islamic far-right parties in the past two years of economic crisis. And it fits with the recent outbreak of Islamist terror plots in EU states such as Belgium and Germany.

But the point of view is also rooted in the Jewish struggle to create a safe homeland for the Jewish people in a territory that sees competing claims from the native Arab population.

Mohammad Darawshe, the co-executive director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, a New-York-based NGO working to promote co-existence between Israel's Jewish and Arabic citizens, noted, in a potential lesson for Europe, that Israeli authorities' unwillingness to share wealth and power with the 1.4 million Arab Israelis who make up a fifth of the population is in itself a cause of tension.

"I live in a country where I am reminded every day that I do not belong ... We are seen as an extension of the Palestinian Arab enemy, a sort of fifth column in the state," he said.

Referring to growth in "racism" in the Jewish Israeli establishment, Mr Darawshe cited a recent survey by Tel Aviv University which showed that 65 percent of Jewish high school children do not like the sound of Arabic music, do not want to live next to Arabs and do not have any objections to the state imposing further limitations on Arab Israeli rights.

"They're not stupid kids and they're not racist kids. But they are hearing these things from someone older than them," he said.

The interesting thing about Rosen's remarks is that they were made a few days after LOTW had been released, in which Benedict XVI staunchly defends Pius XII's wartime record. Rosen apparently made no reference to it at all.

In general, the reaction from the Jews to the statements on Pius XII in LOTW has been rather limited and far less rabid than they have been before this over Pius XII (almost one year ago, on Dec. 19, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI had formally recognized the heroic virtues of the late Pope to advance the process for his beatification - and the resulting firestorm was heated and sustained over several weeks, bleeding into Benedict's historic visit to the Rome Synagogue on January 17.


07/12/2010 12:06
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The Pope's 'divisions':
Benedict XVi's power and powerlessness

by Hans Winkler
Translated from

Dec. 6, 2010

"How many divisions has the Pope?" Josef Stalin asked once, disparagingly, by which he meant that the man in the Vatican was really powerless. For him, power could only come from the barrel of a gun.

In the interview book Light of the World with Peter Seewald, the journalist tells Benedict XVI that he is now 'the most powerful Pope of all time'. Benedict XVI relativises Seewald's statement by citing Stalin.

"Stalin was right in saying that the Pope has no divisions and cannot issue commands. Nor does he have a big business in which all the faithful of the Church are his employees or subordinates. In that respect, the Pope is a completely powerless man". In any case, [the Pope is saying that] the large number of Catholics in the world gives him no power.

John Paul II and Benedict XVI represent two very different ways of understanding and exercising the Papacy. John Paul II embodied the charismatic type (in the political sense) who through his personality, his grand gestures that could be directly understood without reflection, helped to bring about a togetherness that went far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic world. And that was evident from the worldwide participation in his suffering and death. [Much of the first statement is unconsidered myth. Does not Benedict XVI - lacking his predecessor's theatrical presence and simply being who he is - communicate just as directly to the crowds even without 'grand gestures'? Has he not proven that abundantly in five and a half years of audiences, Angelus prayers and liturgies at the Vatican, topped by his successful trips abroad?]

In the case of Joseph Ratzinger, the markers of his effectiveness are not dramatic - no assassination attempt or spectacular meetings or revelations, but books and other writings: Introduction to Christianity, the Jesus book, the encyclical on love, for example.

But, as this new book shows, it would be wrong and unfair to describe him only as a man of the institution. [Why would anyone, to begin with, even think of circumscribing Joseph Ratzinger, after his long and eminent career even before he became Pope, to being a 'man of the institution'????] In the often providential succession of Popes, he could even have greater sustainability than his predecessor. [Considering that the predecessor is on the path to sainthood, the statement is rather rash!]

What then constitutes the power of a religious leader? Benedict observes that the Pope is "to a certain extent the leader, the representative, and the same time, the one responsible for making sure that the faith that keeps the faithful together is believed, that it remains alive, and is inviolate in its identity".

As for how much he can do, he obviously has no illusions. He cites St. Augustine, "There are many outside who seem to be inside, and there are many inside who seem to be outside".

Benedict sticks to his basic theme: that faith should not be considered as pious sentiment, no more and no less, but as concrete teaching that will not evaporate in the arbitrariness of post-modernity.

Already in the Foreword to his standard text Introduction to Christianity, from 1968, then Professor Ratzinger had this to say: "The question as to the content and sense of Christian faith is surrounded today by a fog of uncertainty as never before in history".

It is an embarrassment for those who had read the book initially as a maniffesto of the post-Conciliar upheaval and now accuse the Pope of pushing back Vatican II. [How anyone could ever have considered it 'a manifesto of post-Conciliar upheaval' at all is mystifying!]

The answers given by this author of many theological books are not new, but what is surprising is the tone: The Pope reins in the apologetics-like eagerness of his interviewer and formulates critical objections himself when Seewald postulates dogmatic certainties. It's scientific skepticism against rash certainties.

The Pope is very careful about the idea of 'truth': From scientific theoretical knowledge and historical experience, he points out, "We do not have truth, it has us".

Nonetheless, Seewald has done a service in getting to interview the Pope - the first time for a Pope, moreover - over a number of sessions.

Most intersting is the distinction that the Pope makes between himself as Benedict XVI and theology professor Joseph Ratzinger: namely, that when he says what Joseph Ratzinger thinks, he uses the pronoun 'I', but when he speaks 'in communion with the Church" then he says "we".

And, he points out that obviously, a Pope can have "mistaken private opinions". It is not just a semantic trick or a proffer of scientific correctness, but simply a catholic attitude. [The adjective, whether small c or capital C, does not seem appropriate. He is simply being real!]]

It is very touching how the Pope describes his private life. The leader of one of the world's major religions does not spend his evenings dining with powerful men from politics and the cultural world or in some celebration or other [Not that any Pope before him has ever done so!], but very simply.

Many times he refers to his 'papal family' - the four lay sisters of Memores Domini and his two secretaries, with whom he shares all his meals. With them, he also watches a film on DVD now and then, and he says he enjoys the Don Camillo films most. One can call it a petty-bourgeois lifestyle that he shares with tens of thousands of his priests around the world.

Afterwards, he goes back to his study to work some more, surrounded by furniture he began to acquire in the 1950s and that he took to the Vatican with him [because they contain all his books].

Benedict XVI does not mind talking about the the toll that age takes: "[The work of Pope] really taxes an 83-year-old man", but he also sees the other side: "The older you get, the less initiative you have" [to engage in physical activity, he means].

It speaks well for him that he did not strike out sentences like that from the transcript. [Why would he? He said these things freely!] All in all, one has the impression of simply meeting a man, in a way that does not usually come out when politicians are interviewed who usually craft even their supposedly personal remarks to make a specific point.

"I also note that my strength is waning," the Pope observes But he hopes that God will give him the strength "that I need so I can do what I need to do". But he "must organize his time correctly and make sure he gets enough rest, so that one is suitably alert at the time when one is needed".

In any case, he would not hesitate to resign when he no longer feels he has the strength to carry out his office.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/12/2010 12:10]
07/12/2010 15:15
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Tuesday, December 7, Second Week of Advent

Panel shows 2nd, 3rd and 4th from left, St. Ambrose, by Zurbaran; Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius, Van Dyck; and the saint's tomb in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan.
ST. AMBROSE (AMBROGIO) [b Trier, Germany 340, d Milan 397), Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church
One of the first four Doctors of the Church named by Boniface VIII in 1295 (along with Jerome, Augustine and Gregory the Great), this great influential figure of the 4th century was not even a priest. Born in Germany (his father had been Praetorian Prefect of Gaul), he was educated in Rome for the civil service, distinguishing himself in law. At age 32, he was named governor of Emilia-Liguria, with headquarters in Milan. Two years later, while trying to settle a dispute over who would succeed the Bishop of Milan who just died, he was chosen Bishop by popular acclaim, though he was not even baptized. He accepted only after the emperor said he should. He was baptized, ordained and installed as Bishop in short order. He gave away all his lands and goods to the poor, adopted an ascetic lifestyle, and set about to learn Scriptures and theology, using his knowledge of classic Greek and Hebrew to good use. He was soon plunged into defending the Church against Arianism, the great heresy of the day, and became a great preacher, arousing the admiration of a young Augustine of Hippo whom he mentored and eventually baptized. He successfully pitted his will against emperors of his time, who exalted either Arianism or paganism, telling one of them: "The emperor is in the Church, not against the Church" and refusing to give up two basilicas that the Emperor wished to hand over to Arians. Besides his writings, he also composed hymns (the 'Te Deum' is attributed to him). He championed liturgy as the locals practise it ["When in Rome, do as the Romans do"]. The Ambrosian Rite used to this day by the Archdiocese of Milan is named after him although it came to be established only in the 8th century.
Readings from today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/120710.shtml



OR for 12/6-12/7/10:

At the Sunday Angelus, the Pope denounces new incidents of violence in Iraq, Egypt and the Sinai:
'Respect for the rights implied in civil coexistence'
In the mini-homily, he speaks about listening to God in 'the desert of the world'
The other papal story in this issue is the audience for the Prime Minister of Hungary. other Page 1 stories: Italian foreign minister says that during his recent visit to Iraq, he received personal assurances from Prime Minister Al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders of greater commitment to protecting Iraqi Christians; in Geneva, a resumption of multilateral talks with Iran over its nuclear program even as Iran announces it can now produce its own uranium 'yellowcake', the form in which it can be used in nuclear plants; France and India announce they will cooperate in a nuclear development program for peaceful purposes; and Ecuador evacuates villages and towns around a threatening volcanic eruption not far form Quito, the capital. In the inside pages, an essay on Christian art as discussed in The Theology of Liturgy, the first volume from Joseph Ratzinger's Opera omnia translated into Italian, and which will be formally presented today in Genoa by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco; stories on Cardinal Bertone's homily at a memorial Mass in the Pauline Chapel yesterday for the late Henriette van Lynden-Leyten, Dutch ambassador to the Holy See, who died on November 6 after a long illness, and on Milan Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi's annual lecture on the vigil of the Feast of St. Ambrose. Also an interview with American Jewish lawyer Joseph Weiler who has been defending the right of European countries to display the Cross in public places, in an ongoing appeal by Italy, joined by seven other European nations, of a ruling last year by the European Court of Human Rights.


No events announced for the Holy Father today.

07/12/2010 17:00
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Chinese bishops open meeting
amid tense Vatican ties




BEIJING, Dec. 7 (AFP) - Chinese bishops opened a meeting on Tuesday to elect top leaders that could further inflame tensions with the Vatican following the controversial ordination of a bishop by the state-backed church.

Chinese authorities have forcibly brought a number of bishops to Beijing for the gathering, while others have gone into hiding to avoid taking part, the Vatican-linked news agency AsiaNews said.

The meeting, expected to run to the end of this week, comes after already rocky China-Vatican relations were shaken further last month by the ordination of Father Guo Jincai in the northern city of Chengde.

The Vatican, which did not approve the ordination, has lashed out at the move, calling it a "serious violation" of religious freedom that "offends the Holy Father."

The ordination was announced by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which controls the state-backed church, does not acknowledge the authority of Pope Benedict XVI, and fiercely opposes clergy who are loyal to the Vatican.

Liu Bainian, the association's vice-president, confirmed that the highly secretive meeting had opened in Beijing.

"There are no results yet. The meeting is still underway," he told AFP. "We will comment on all that after the meeting, on December 10," he said, giving no further details.

AsiaNews said the meeting was expected to elect a new national president of the patriotic association and president of the council of Chinese bishops.

It called the two bodies "unacceptable to the Catholic Church because they aim to build a separate Church, detached from the Pope."

The Vatican and China have not had formal diplomatic ties since 1951, when the Holy See angered Mao Zedong's Communist government by recognising the Nationalist Chinese regime as the legitimate government of China.

The Nationalists had fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war with the Communists in 1949.

Official tallies put the number of Catholics in China at 5.7 million, including members of both the unofficial and official churches.[The Vatican estimate is 12 million.]

Human rights groups say that those who remain loyal to the Vatican often suffer persecution, with detentions of bishops common.

AsiaNews said the assembly has been postponed for at least four years because some officially-approved bishops refused to participate, in solidarity with the Pope.

Quoting unnamed sources, it said one bishop, Monsignor Feng Xinmao of the city of Hengshui in northern Hebei province, was seized by about 100 police officers and officials who struggled for hours against supporters and priests who sought to shield Feng.

07/12/2010 18:55
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Those who read Italian will soon have another daily source to turn to... Obviously, I am posting this here because most of the names involved in this new venture are known to be supportive of Benedict XVI and his Pontificate ...


Messori, Tornielli et al launch
daily online opinion journal tomorrow




MILAN, Dec. 8 (Translated from ADNKronos) - Tomorrow, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, an online opinion journal, La Bussola Quotidiano (The Daily Compass], will be launched to offer "a Catholic perspective in judging events of the day,from the certainty that the Christian experience is capable of fully embracing and respecting the dignity of man".

The new daily at www.labussolaquotidiana.it [the actual site is not available as of today] arose from the friendship which developed among some Italian newsmen from their common experience contributing to the monthly journal Il Timone [The Tiller).

Its editorial director is Vittorio Messori, best-selling author of books like Hypothesis on Jesus and The Ratzinger Report - considered the leading Catholic writer living today.

Managing editor is Andrea Tornielli, Vatican correspondent for Il Giornale [himself the author of several religious books including a biography of Benedict XVI and what is so far considered teh definitive biography of Pius XII], who will be assisted by editors Riccardo Cascioli, Marco Respinti and Antonio Giuliano.

The roster of contributors includes Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican bank IOR; Mons. Luigi Negri, Bishop of Montefeltre-San Marino; Robi Ronza, Massimo Introvigne, Giorgio Torelli, Gianfranco Fabi, Rino Cammilleri, Paolo Rodari, Claudio Risè, Vincenzo Sansonetti, Saverio Gaeta, Francesco Agnoli, Carlo Bellieni, Bernardo Cervellera, Mario Palmaro, Giacomo Samek Lodovici, Piero Gheddo, Giorgio Carbone, Roberto Marchesini, Jacopo Guerriero and Gianni Valente.

"We do not have ideological positions to defend, not even Catholic," the Bussola group says in a statement. "In the daily flow of news, we wish to defend and promote an idea of man that is commensurate with his dignity. And therefore, no aspect of reality shall be extraneous for us: from social emergencies to the economy, cultural expressions and sports - all shall be treated by seeking to catch the human destiny that emerges from the particulars of each event".

BQ's motto is «In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas» (Unity in the essential, freedom about what is doubtful or dubious, charity in every thing) and propose news and analyses of facts or events ignored by the major communications media.

A weekend edition will contain analyses in depth and some special reports particularly those dedicated to the family.



I Googled Il Timone, and it turns out that Bussola is sort of an expansion of the monthly printed magazine, based in Milan and distributed in Italian parishes, to an online daily journal, 11 years after Il Timone first came into being in 1998 as a 'magazine of popular apologetics'. As its banner reads above, its purposes are:
- To 'give reason' for the Catholic faith
- To promote a culture that arises from the faith
- To defend the Church and the Pope from opposition and lies


The stable of writers for Bussola and Timone are obviously identical. An online introduction of Bussola in Timone says the organizing meeting took place in Milan last October 7, and in its sub-head, describes the event as "Catholics faithful to the Pope mobilize":


Right photo, Mons. Negri of Montefeltre-San Marino, celebrates Mass on Oct. 7; left photo, four of the Bussola team, from left, Massimo Introvigne, Vittorio Messori, Marco Invernizzi, and Franco Ciccarello. Nelow, the introductory press conference in October:, from left, Gianpaolo Barra, Andrea Tornielli, Messori, and Cesare Ponti, president of the 'Supporters of Bussola'.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/04/2011 04:00]
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