BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Saturday, December 25
THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD



OR today.

The only papal story in this issue is Benedict XVI's history-making Christmas Eve radio message on BBC's Thought for the Day. The front page photo shows the Nativity scene in the Pope's apartment - the same he has had for a few years set up by the Vatican's own florist service - the setting is a Roman neighborhood in the Renaissance era, adn we are told that two figures were added this year - two cats, one of them lying near the manger (too small to be seen in the photo). Page 1 international news: The European Union and the African Union agree on a plan for the EU to help finance infrastructure development in Africa; Germany and France, the two main financial stabilizers in the euro zone, disagree on long-term plan to protect the euro; top military commanders of Afghanistan and Pakistan meet with leaders of the NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan to coordinate strategy. In the inside pages, Moscow Patriarch Kirill's Christmas message to the faithful; an essay by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi on the Christ child in apocryphal literature; and an essay on surrealist Salvador Dali, as Milan prepares to open a major exhibit to mark 50 years since the Spanish artist's death.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father delivered his Christmas 2010 Urbi et Orbi message in more than 60 languages from the central loggia
of St. Peter's Basilica to more than 100,000 pilgrims who crowded St. Peter's Square despite the bad weather.

---

HAVE A BLESSED AND JOYFUL CHRISTMAS SEASON!

PRAY FOR THE HOLY FATHER AND HIS INTENTIONS.

---

DID YOU KNOW that on Dec. 25, 1990, the World Wide Web, the system providing quick access to websites over the Internet, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, as computer scientists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau created the world's first hyperlinked webpage.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/12/2010 21:32]

URBI ET ORBI:
Pope beams Christmas message
of love across the world





25 Dec 2010 (RV) - Pope Benedict XVI prays for dialogue and reconciliation in the world; in the Holy Land, in Somalia, Ivory Coast and Sudan, in North and South Korea.

He prays for an end to the suffering of the people of Haiti, and respect for human rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And he had a special thought for Iraqi Catholics that their ”suffering be eased” and that they may "not lose heart” and for the people of China "for restrictions on their freedom of religion and conscience”.

These are just some of Pope Benedict XVI’s wishes this Christmas, expressed in his Urbi et Orbi message, to the city of Rome and to the world.

About 100,000 crowded St Peter's Square for teh Pope's message and blessing, transforming it into a tapestry of brightly coloured umbrellas, under a steely grey sky, They sung Christmas carols and held aloft their flags, from Mexico and Poland, from Spain, Australia, the Philippines and the United States of America.

Then at noon, the red velvet drapes of St Peter’s central balcony parted and to tremendous applause, the pontifical gendarme band struck up the anthem of Vatican City State as Pope Benedict appeared.

He began as is tradition: “The Word became flesh”. To this unfathomable mystery he said “there is only one answer: Love.

Children seek it with their questions, so disarming and stimulating; young people seek it in their eagerness to discover the deepest meaning of their life; adults seek it in order to guide and sustain their commitments in the family and the workplace; the elderly seek it in order to grant completion to their earthly existence”.

Christmas, embodied in an infant, continued the Pope, “is a source of hope for everyone whose dignity is offended and violated, since the one born in Bethlehem came to set every man and woman free from the source of all enslavement”.

At the end of the message, the Holy Father sent Christmas greetings across the world via television and radio, in over 60 languages, including Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, Hindi, Tamil, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Irish and of course English: “May the birth of the Prince of Peace remind the world where its true happiness lies; and may your hearts be filled with hope and joy, for the Saviour has been born for us”.

The prayer for peace was at the heart of celebration’s Christmas Eve. During Midnight Mass, the Kalenda or Christmas proclamation was sung, and prayers were said for respect of human dignity from conception to natural death, and for political leaders so they may operate in favour of a peaceful coexistence between peoples.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Pope appeared at the window of his study to bless the Nativity Scene in St. Peter's Square and light the candle, "light of peace", placed on his windowsill, according to Polish tradition dear to John Paul II.

Later that night, in a basilica packed to overflowing with more than ten thousand people gathered for the Christmas Mass, the Pope spoke of that night in Bethlehem, when " the infinite distance between God and man is overcome”.

“Part of this night is simply joy at God’s closeness”, he said, “but this joy is also a prayer: Lord, make your promise come fully true”. “Break the rods of the oppressors. Burn the tramping boots. Let the time of the garments rolled in blood come to an end. Fulfil the prophecy that “of peace there will be no end”.




Here is the Vatican translation of the Pope's message:

---

'Verbum caro factus est' - The Word became flesh".

Before this revelation we once more wonder: how can this be? The Word and the flesh are mutually opposed realities; how can the eternal and almighty Word become a frail and mortal man?

There is only one answer: Love. Those who love desire to share with the beloved, they want to be one with the beloved, and Sacred Scripture shows us the great love story of God for his people which culminated in Jesus Christ.

God in fact does not change: he is faithful to himself. He who created the world is the same one who called Abraham and revealed his name to Moses: "I am who I am … the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … a God merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 3:14-15; 34:6).

God does not change; he is Love, ever and always. In himself he is communion, unity in Trinity, and all his words and works are directed to communion.

The Incarnation is the culmination of creation. When Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, was formed in the womb of Mary by the will of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit, creation reached its high point. The ordering principle of the universe, the Logos, began to exist in the world, in a certain time and space.

"The Word became flesh". The light of this truth is revealed to those who receive it in faith, for it is a mystery of love. Only those who are open to love are enveloped in the light of Christmas.

So it was on that night in Bethlehem, and so it is today. The Incarnation of the Son of God is an event which occurred within history, while at the same time transcending history.

In the night of the world, a new light was kindled, one which lets itself be seen by the simple eyes of faith, by the meek and humble hearts of those who await the Saviour. If the truth were a mere mathematical formula, in some sense it would impose itself by its own power. But if Truth is Love, it calls for faith, for the "yes" of our hearts.

And what do our hearts, in effect, seek, if not a Truth which is also Love? Children seek it with their questions, so disarming and stimulating; young people seek it in their eagerness to discover the deepest meaning of their life; adults seek it in order to guide and sustain their commitments in the family and the workplace; the elderly seek it in order to grant completion to their earthly existence.

"The Word became flesh". The proclamation of Christmas is also a light for all peoples, for the collective journey of humanity.

"Emmanuel", God-with-us, has come as King of justice and peace. We know that his Kingdom is not of this world, and yet it is more important than all the kingdoms of this world.

It is like the leaven of humanity: were it lacking, the energy to work for true development would flag: the impulse to work together for the common good, in the disinterested service of our neighbour, in the peaceful struggle for justice.

Belief in the God who desired to share in our history constantly encourages us in our own commitment to that history, for all its contradictions. It is a source of hope for everyone whose dignity is offended and violated, since the one born in Bethlehem came to set every man and woman free from the source of all enslavement.

May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful coexistence.

May the comforting message of the coming of Emmanuel ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East; may it bring them comfort and hope for the future and bring the leaders of nations to show them effective solidarity.

May it also be so for those in Haiti who still suffer in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic.

May the same hold true not only for those in Colombia and Venezuela, but also in Guatemala and Costa Rica, who recently suffered natural disasters.

May the birth of the Saviour open horizons of lasting peace and authentic progress for the peoples of Somalia, Darfur and Côte d’Ivoire; may it promote political and social stability in Madagascar; may it bring security and respect for human rights in Afghanistan and in Pakistan; may it encourage dialogue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica; and may it advance reconciliation on the Korean peninsula.

May the birth of the Saviour strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, persevering in fidelity to Christ and his Church, may keep alive the flame of hope.

May the love of "God-with-us" grant perseverance to all those Christian communities enduring discrimination and persecution, and inspire political and religious leaders to be committed to full respect for the religious freedom of all.

Dear brothers and sisters, "the Word became flesh"; he came to dwell among us; he is Emmanuel, the God who became close to us. Together let us contemplate this great mystery of love; let our hearts be filled with the light which shines in the stable of Bethlehem! To everyone, a Merry Christmas!

---

AP weaves the Pope's message into what is happening in the trouble spots mentioned by the Holy Father:

Pope offers support
to China's Catholics


VATICAN CITY, Dec. 26 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI urged loyal Catholics in China to have courage in the face of Communist limits on religious freedom and conscience, a Christmas Day message highlighting the tensions between Beijing and the Vatican.

In Bethlehem, the largest number of pilgrims in a decade gathered to celebrate Christmas, with tens of thousands flocking to the Church of the Nativity for prayers. Violence in Nigeria and the Philippines and fear in Iraq, however, marred Christmas Day festivities.

Thousands of tourists, pilgrims and clergy converged on Bethlehem Friday as the town of Jesus' birth prepared to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Pope Benedict used his traditional holiday speech, delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to tourists and pilgrims in the rain-soaked square, to encourage people living in the world's trouble spots to take hope from the "comforting message" of Christmas.

Those spots range from strife-torn Afghanistan to the volatile Korean peninsula to the Holy Land where Jesus was born — and even to China.

In recent weeks, tensions have flared anew between the Vatican and Beijing over the Chinese government's defiance of the Pope's authority to name bishops and its insistence that prelates loyal to Rome attend a gathering to promote China's state-backed church against their will.

"May the birth of the savior strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, preserving in fidelity to Christ and his church, may keep alive the flame of hope," the Pope prayed aloud.

The Pope also expressed hope that Christmas might inspire respect for human rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan and "advance reconciliation on the Korean peninsula."

The Pope has repeatedly spoken out about the plight of Christians in Iraq, many of whom have fled their country to escape persecution and violence, including an attack on a Baghad basilica during Mass. He prayed that Christmas would "ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and in the Middle East."

"May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful coexistence," the pope said in his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" address—Latin for "to the city and to the world."

In Bethlehem, it was the merriest Christmas in years.

Over 100,000 pilgrims poured into Bethlehem since Christmas Eve, compared to about 50,000 last year, Israeli military officials said, calling that the highest number of holiday visitors in a decade. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

In contrast, Christians were marking a somber Christmas in Baghdad in the face of repeated violence by militants intent on driving their beleaguered community from Iraq. Archbishop Matti Shaba Matouka said he hoped Iraqi Christians would not flee the country.

Hundreds gathered at a Baghdad church where Muslim extremists in October took more than 120 people hostage in a standoff that ended with 68 dead. Church walls were pockmarked with bullet holes, plastic sheeting hung instead of glass windows and flecks of dried flesh and blood still speckled the ceiling.

After the siege, about 1,000 Christian families fled to the relative safety of northern Iraq, according to U.N. estimates.

"No matter how hard the storms blows, love will save us," Bishop Matouka told the gathered faithful.

The BBC has an efficient report on the Holy Father's Urbi et Orbi Christmas message.

Pope urges end to conflicts
in Christmas message

Dec. 25, 2010


Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his hope for an end to conflicts around the world, in his traditional Christmas Day message from the Vatican.

In his address from St Peter's Basilica, he called on Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist in peace.

He urged China's Christians to remain hopeful in spite of limitations, and prayed for those hit by natural disasters in Latin America.

He also appealed for peace in Somalia, Darfur and Ivory Coast.

An estimated 100,000 people had gathered in the square outside St Peter's - wet from rain - to hear the Urbi et Orbi - meaning to the city (Rome) and to the world - sermon.

"May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful co-existence," Benedict told the crowd.

He urged Roman Catholics in China to face with courage the limits on their freedom.

He also called for political leaders to show solidarity with Christians throughout the Middle East, saying that those living in Iraq faced persecution.

"May the comforting message of the coming of Emmanuel ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East," he said.

The Pope called for "lasting peace and authentic progress" for Somalia, Darfur and Ivory Coast as well as political and social stability in Madagascar.

He also urged greater respect for human rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan and called for reconciliation between North and South Korea.

The Pope offered consolation to those in Haiti suffering in the aftermath of January's earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic.

He also mentioned the victims of natural disasters in Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

In keeping with tradition, the Pope then delivered Christmas greetings in 65 languages.

After the sermon, Benedict was to host a Christmas lunch in the Vatican's audience hall for 350 homeless people.

Earlier, there was tight security at Mass on Christmas Eve, as the Pope walked in procession up the central nave of the basilica, followed by plain-clothed security men.

The 83-year-old Pontiff stopped twice to bless babies held up by worshippers among the 10,000-strong crowd.

The Vatican had reviewed its security procedures after a woman lunged at him at the previous year's event, causing him to stumble.

Security fears have also been heightened by parcel bomb attacks on Thursday at two embassies in Rome which injured two people.


David Willey, the BBC correspondent at the Vatican, offers his analysis:

A concern for the global South
by David Willey


ROME, Dec. 25 - Pope Benedict said the Christmas message of peace and hope was always new, surprising and daring. It should spur everyone towards a peaceful struggle for justice.

He dived straight into a list of the world's main trouble spots, singling out the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East and China. In the Middle East, the Vatican fears further attacks like the one on a Catholic cathedral in Baghdad in October that killed 52 people.

In China, Communist authorities have been forcing Catholic Bishops to attend events organised by the state-backed "patriotic church" which does not recognise the Pope's authority.

Relations between the Vatican and China - they broke formal diplomatic ties half a century ago - have recently reached their lowest point in years.

Pope Benedict's message this Christmas is a good illustration of how the formerly Eurocentric Church is focussing increasingly on the problems of the global South. [I think the postwar Popes - and consequently the Church they have led - have never ignored the problems of the global South, and in that sense, they have never been Eurocentric, as Benedict XVI certainly is not, for all his leadership of the contemporary cursade for Europe.]

Earlier, Willey posted his analysis of the Holy Father's Thought for the Day broadcast yesterday:



Pope thanks UK with Radio 4
Thought for the Day address
By David Willey


ROME, DEc. 24 - Pope Benedict's Thought for the Day provided him with a unique occasion to address the people of Britain and the English-speaking world directly from the Vatican.

His Christmas meditation was short and to the point: that God is always faithful to his promises but often surprises us in the way he fulfils them.

At this time of the year, the Pope delivers his main Christmas religious homily during midnight mass in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and later a more general message "Urbi et Orbi" - addressed to the City of Rome and to the world - to the crowds gathered outside the Basilica on Christmas morning.

The fact that he chose first to thank Britain for the welcome he received during his September trip is a mark of just how successful this visit was seen in retrospect by the Pope and his advisers inside the Vatican.

This was not the occasion for the Pope to address some the controversies and problems that have afflicted his Church during 2010, which he might well have termed an "annus horribilis" for the opprobrium which has been heaped upon the Vatican because of the misdeeds of paedophile priests.

The Pope visited England and Scotland in September Nor did he choose to mention the fact that five dissident Anglican bishops and several dozen Anglican priests are expected in Rome in the new year to begin their studies to be ordained into the Catholic Church.

The bishops are all married with children and, under new rules established by the Pope, will be allowed to retain their married status among the traditionally celibate Catholic clergy.

There was no mention either of his much-publicised reference to the Church's acceptance of the use of condoms under certain restricted circumstances during a recent book interview, nor to the current spat between the Vatican and the communist authorities in Beijing over who has the final say over bishops' appointments in China.

[He only had three minutes for his message, for heaven's sake! He kept to the essentials, as he should.]

Negotiations between the BBC and the Vatican for the planned broadcast went on for many months.

It was at first proposed that Pope Benedict should give three Thought for the Day broadcasts during his stay in Britain, but the Vatican's view was that his 11 public speeches should provide adequate broadcast material during that time.

The clincher was the manner in which the British public gradually seemed to warm to the Pope during his stay, and the Christmas Eve broadcast was simply the Pope's way of saying thank you.

The BBC spent months negotiating for the unprecedented access As Father Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, put it while waiting for the Pope to arrive for the recording, the broadcast has been "a way of keeping alive this new-found friendship between Pope Benedict and the British people".

Vatican Radio, which recorded the Pope's BBC broadcast for both radio and TV, now broadcasts around the clock in some 40 different languages.

The first ever papal broadcast took place as long ago as 1931 when Pope Pius XI invited the inventor of radio telegraphy Guglielmo Marconi, to set up a transmitter in the Vatican Gardens.

Vatican TV, which records all papal events but has no dedicated channel of its own, has just taken delivery of a brand new mobile TV truck, equipped by Sony and costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, enabling it to transmit papal events in HD for the first time this Christmas.

Gradually the Vatican is become more high-tech than ever before in its long history.

The Vatican website is being expanded and developed and there is even a Vatican section now on YouTube.

And a fully secure mobile telephone network has been set up inside the Vatican for the Pope and his cardinals and top advisers.


Willey, second from left, and a BBC producer are presented to the Pope by Fr. Lombardi before the Wendesday recording of the BBC radio message.


NB: In the Guardian (of course!), the UK's leading 'God-basher' Richard Dawkins, has written another one of his unbelievably nasty, ctude and totally uncivilized (as in savage) attacks against the Pope because of the BBC broadcast.

A reminder to Dawkins and all who openly and vscerally intolerant of the Catholic Curch and everything it stands for:

1. There is no other person in the world whose messages to the world twice a year at Christmas and Easter - Christendom's greatest feasts - are awaited around the world and are assured of worldwide coverage. No ceremony of, say, the President of the United States, is regularly broadcast/telecast to dozens of countries around the world as the Pope's Christmas and Easter Masses. Does that say anything to you at all? Namely, that you are trying to oblitarate a belief system - in the transcendent and a Supreme Being - that appears to be inscribed in the human heart throughout all of known human history?

2. Why do the atheists concentrate all their fire on Catholics - and Christians in general? Jews and Muslims also believe in God, but they seem to be never in the crosshairs of the fanatics who appear to be more concerned with political correctness (and other considerations, such as personal safety, perhaps?) than with the principle of their so-called 'atheism'.

If you do not believe there is a God, then why bother to expend so much energy and corrosive bile attacking him, or even the very idea of him, and those who believe in him (Oh, except the Jews and Muslims, that is)?


Bonus from the BBC photos:


Cropped from the larger photo above, taken Dec. 22, 2010. What 83-year-old has a profile as gorgeous as this? (I can't enlarge it further without all the pixels showing up, because it was cropped from that large picture).

There's a Christmas Day article in the Washington Post's On Faith section that gave me migraine as soon as I read it. It reads absurdly in many places for the simple reason that the writer obviously does not really know what he is writing about - he's probably not a Catholic, or a lapsed and rather ignorant one. When did supposedly prestigious newspapers stop requiring their reporters to have a basic fund of kknowledge, at least, about the beat they are reporting? This man can't even tell the differnece between Mass and Vespers. Or between red and purple, for that matter!

Even worse, as his title indicates, he makes the erroneous underlying assumption that the modifications introduced into the papal liturgies are the result of a subordinate's preferences rather than an execution of Benedict XVI's well-considered preferences for celebrating the liturgy, even though they obviously happen to share these preferences.


Pope's master of liturgy
helps Benedict restore traditions
By Jason Horowitz

Saturday, December 25, 2010

In Rome, on a rainy Christmas Eve, Pope Benedict XVI followed a procession of Swiss guards [the Swiss Guards are never part of the procession!], bishops and priests down the central nave of St. Peter's Basilica to celebrate midnight Mass before dignitaries and a global television audience.

And Monsignor Guido Marini, as always, followed the Pope. A tall, reed-thin cleric with a receding hairline and wire-framed glasses, Marini, 45, perched behind the Pope's left shoulder, bowed with him at the altar and adjusted the Pontiff's lush [The garments are not vegetation!] robes.

As Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, he shadows the Pope's every move and makes sure that every candle, Gregorian chant and gilded vestment is exactly as he, the Pope and God intended it to be.

"The criterion is that it is beautiful," Marini said.

But beauty, especially when it comes to the rituals of Roman Catholic liturgy, is a topic of great debate between conservative and liberal Catholics, who share differing views on everything from the music and language of the Mass to where a priest should stand and how he should give Communion.

[That is because the so-called progressives have ignored - or never bothered to read - Sacrosanctum concilium, the Vatican-II dogmatic constitution on the liturgy. Consequently, those who became the arbiters of the post-Conciliar liturgical reform have not only ignored what it specifically says about the language and music of the liturgy, but imposed and 'codified' their own progressivist and Protestantizing preferences into the many questionable liturgical uses/abuses of the past 40 years.
- SC never abolished nor abrogated the traditional Mass, but that is what the reformers did, in effect, till Benedict XVI intervened in 2007 with Summorum Pontificum.
- It never abolished the use of Latin.
- It never said that Masses should stop being said 'ad orientem'.
- It never said that altars were to be turned around and stripped bare, without candles or any images.
- It never said that churches should do away with the tabernacle, or relegate it to some side chapel.
- It never said that any kind of music was appropriate for liturgy - in fact, it specifies what is appropriate music and encourages the use and propagation of Gregorian chant.
- It never said that communion on the hands was to be the norm - this practice started out to be an indult for certain bishops, but how did it get to be the 'norm' today? And so on, ad nauseam.
- And SC certainly did not prescribe the voluminous caftan-like chasubles with all kinds of idiosyncratic designs that the reformists adopted.

In fact, Horowitz, who wrote this article, should at least have read SC and reviewed how the reformists imposed their arbitrary reforms overnight in a way that no reforms had ever before been imposed in the church. Instead, he takes the reformers' fundamental attitude that the reforms they instituted were necessaarily correct, right or appropriate.]

Some of the key trappings of the Mass - the vestments and vernacular, the "smells and bells" - have taken on a more ancient air since Benedict succeeded John Paul II, and since Guido Marini succeeded Piero Marini. [Horowitz's terminology shows he has no idea that liturgy is the visible expression of the faith as an act of worship to God!]

Piero, 68, is a gruff Vatican veteran, a progressive who advocates a more modern ritual that reflects the great church reforms of the 1960s. [What was so 'great' about them? Of course, I speak as a hardcore supporter of the traditional Mass, who has to live with the new Mass out of obedience (which is what Benedict XVI does and always has].

The younger and more punctilious Guido, who is not related to Piero, has argued for more traditional liturgical symbols and gestures - like the Pope's preference that the faithful kneel to accept Communion - that some church liberals interpret as the harbinger of a counter-reformation.[There speaks ignorance - read SC!]

The coincidence of their shared last names has resulted in YouTube links like "Battle of the Marinis." ("These things on the YouTube are fun but not important," said Marini the Second.) But within Vatican and wider liturgical circles, the Marini schism is actually a profound one about the direction of the Church.

The liturgical changes enacted under Guido Marini are "a great microcosm for broader shifts in the Church," said John Allen, a veteran Vatican watcher with the National Catholic Reporter.

Since the Marini II era began in October 2007, the papal Masses clearly have a stronger traditional element. Guido Marini, who has degrees in canon and civil law and a doctorate in the psychology of communication, caused considerable consternation among some progressive Catholics in January when he talked to English-speaking priests about a "reform of the reform."

In an interview Thursday, he argued that the changes should not be seen as a liturgical backlash to modernity but as a "harmonious development" in a "continuum" that takes full advantage of the Church's rich history and is not subject to what he has called "sporadic modifications." [Apparently, Horowitz does not even recognize Marini's statements here as being the liturgical expression of Benedict XVI's 'hermeneutic of continuity'!]

Liturgical progressives, like Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., are concerned that Marini considers the reforms of the 1960s ecumenical council known as Vatican II as being among those sporadic modifications. [Trautman is, as usual, being blindly ideological. Benedict XVI been so punctilious about continuing to perform the Novus Ordo exclusively despite the fact that he liberalized the traditional Mass, obviously because he wants to set the example of how to follow Vatican II properly as opposed to the progressivists' arbitrary imposition of their ideological prefernees and calling it the 'spirit' of Vatican II in order to justify their arrogant presumption! If Benedict XVI had any intention of reversing Vatican II in the liturgy, he could have exhibited the same arrogant presumption as Trautman and his ilk, and simply started celebrating all papal Masses according to the traditional liturgy!]

At most papal Masses, a large crucifix [Even for the Pope's liturgies, an altar crucifix has never been obtrusive - and by the way, even if it were, why not?] flanked by tall candles is now displayed on the altar, even though many progressives say the ornaments block the view of the priest and the bread and wine. They argue that this obstructs the accessibility urged by liturgical reforms associated with the Second Vatican Council. [This is probably the most ridiculous objection I have yet seen to the placement of the crucifix and the candles. What accessibility do they obstruct, exactly? - Candles, candelabra and altar crucifix are generally slender and hardly massive, and certainly keep the celebrant's face fully in view, if that is what the progressives mean by accessibility! And where does it say that one must see the 'bread and wine' at all times? The important time for this is the Conecration, and at those moments, the priest elevates both the Host and the chalice!] ]

Marini responds by saying that the crucifix reminds the faithful of who is really front and center in the Mass. He also says that the Pope cannot sit in front of the altar when it bears the crucifix because "the Pope can't give his back" to sacraments on the altar. [Horowitz must have misquoted Marini here. The Pope certainly sits in front of the altar at St. Peter's as he did at the Christmas Eve Mass! In most other churches, the cathedra occupied by the Pope when he has to be seated during the Mass is behind the altar or off to the side.

For Marini, Gregorian chants must be the music of the Church because they best interpret the liturgy. [I doubt that was the way he said it, exactly!] And in September, ahead of the Pope's visit to Britain, Marini told the Scottish paper the Herald that the Pope would celebrate all the Prefaces and Canons of his Masses in Latin. [Because since Marini-I left, B16 has been doing so in all his Masses - it wasn't as if he was innovating anything for the UK visit!... Also, SC says, specifically: "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" - and the Novus Ordo is a Latin rite. i.e., Roman Catholic rather than Eastern Catholic. In fact, the so-called 'typical edition' of the Roman Missal, including teh Novus Ordo - meaning the official version prepared and recogtnized by the Church - is in Latin, which must be and is the basis for all the translations to any other language!]

Piero Marini, who stepped down in 2007 after serving as the master of celebrations for 20 years, has championed the Vatican II reforms, including the simplification of rites that he believes facilitates active participation. [He has not only 'championed' the dubious reforms - he trained and worked under the even more dubious Mons. Bugnini who masterminded the Protestantization of the liturgy.]

In the name of "inculturation," or integrating Church rites with local customs, the silver-haired Marini in 1998 accepted the request of local bishops to allow a troupe of scantily clad Pacific islanders in St. Peter's Basilica to honor the Pope with a dance during the opening liturgy of the Synod for Oceania.

During John Paul II's visit to Mexico City in 2002, Marini likewise granted a local bishop's wish to let an indigenous Mexican shaman exorcise the Pope during a Mass there.

He said the changes that have been made since he left are obvious. "You don't have to ask me," said Marini, who has expressed wariness about the rollback of liturgical reforms. "Everyone can see it for themselves." [Not a rollback, Mons. Piero - rather, a proper interpretation of what Vatican II ordered and intended in Sacrosanctum concilium. ]

His successor said that the two clerics had a good relationship and that it was only natural that things change under a new regime.

"It's true that there were celebrations that gave more space to different expressions, but that was one style and now there is a different style, one that is more sober and more attentive to the essential things," said Guido Marini, who, like his predecessor, hails from northern Italy but who, like the Pope, expresses admiration for the old Latin Mass.

He added that Benedict considered the Mass a heavenly space that shouldn't be modified with "things that don't belong."

Marini has said there are no plans to force the changes on parishes around the world, but he hopes that they slowly spread and seep in.

Under Benedict, the faithful at papal Masses take Communion on their knees and receive the wafer on the tongue. Guido Marini said the change "recalls the importance of the moment" and keeps the act from becoming "banal."

A recent picture of Queen Sofia in Spain receiving Communion from the Pope in her hand - and while standing and not wearing a veil - brought rebukes from conservative Catholics. ("Reform of the reform apparently put on hold," read the Catholic blog Rorate Caeli.) [Personally, I think that Sofia should have known better and should have knelt. It would have cost her nothing to do that.]

Perhaps the most apparent and luxurious sign of the new era is the Pope's vestments. Benedict has worn an ancient form of the pallium, or cloak, preferred by first-millennium pontiffs. [How many errors of fact in this one sentence! 1) The pallium is not a cloak; 2) the older-style long pallium B16 wore at the start of the Pontificate was proposed by Piero Marini who claimed it was more 'authentic'; and 3) B16 reverted to the style as worn by John Paul II and the metropolitan bishops after Marino II came in.]

He also brought back the ermine-trimmed red satin mozzetta, a short cape. [1) The satin mozzetta which is used in spring, summer and fall, is not ermine-trimmed at all; the winter mozzetta, which is red velvet, is ermine trimmed; as is the white brocade Easater mozzetta. 2) B16 did not exactly 'bring back' the mozzettas - it's just that John Paul II only used the untrimmed satin mozzettas; previous Popes up to Paul VI used the mozettas as prescribed by papal dress protocol. Just because JP2 chose not to adhere too closely to papal dress protocol is no reason for his successor to follow him!]

He has sported a red saturno, a sort of papal cowboy hat {Even JP2 used the saturno often, especially on trips abroad!], and an ermine-trimmed camauro, a crimson cap that resembles a Santa hat and is worn on nonliturgical occasions [that B16 wore once and has said he will not wear again.]

According to one senior Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Marini sent him a page-long list of vestments he had to wear during a special ordination in St. Peter's. "I didn't recognize half of the things on it," the official said. [Shows you what they have apparently stopped teaching at seminaries! And yet, every item that a priest wears has a long history and specific symbology, and each one ia associated with a prayer that is said as the priest dons each article of clothing!] "Then I had trouble getting it all on."

[By the way, anyone who cares to follow the liturgical notifications posted by Mons. Marini online days or even weeks before every papal liturgy will see how he specifies what each kind of prelate is supposed to wear for each ceremony - which is as it should be.]

"The Pope likes new things and antique things," explained Marini, who compared the Pope's attire to someone in a family who likes modern fashions like, say, Gucci shades, but also "the treasures of the family." [Again, somehow, I think Mons. Marini has been misquoted here, even if the general sense is right.]

At a Dec. 16 evening Mass [It wasn't Mass - it was Vespers!], the Pope opted for a paisley patterned crimson and gold chasuble [1) It wasnn't crimson - it was a shade of purple, the liturgical color for Advent; and 2) it was not a chasuble, since this was not a Mass - it was a cope!] while Marini, his fingers tented in front of him, wore a white cotta with breezy lace sleeves over a purple cassock. [Marini's attire, Mr. Horowitz, if you had bothered to do some basic research, is not worn out of his personal preference. It is standard choir dress, which consists of a simple surplice worn over his cassock, since he is not a celebrant in the liturgies at which he assists. Choir dress is worn by the Pope himself - a rochet (bishop's surplice) over his cassock, but with the mozzetta that goes with his rank, and the ecclesiastical stole - when he takes part in simple prayers that are not the Mass or Adoration and Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament, or when he receives a Catholic head of state or ambassador.]

As the frail Pope sat in his throne [I don't think papal chairs are properly referred to as thrones!], Marini adjusted Benedict's robes and at the appropriate moments removed the gold miter in order to place a white skullcap atop the Pontiff's white hair. He adjusted the pages of prayer books that altar boys propped up before the Pope. [All of it, standard duties for the papal liturgical MC or any of his staff when they are assisting the Pope. Since B16 is 83, Marini et al are openly and rightly solicitous about helping him along so he does not trip or stumble when he is going up and down steps.]

After the chorus sang about the divine promise made to David, Marini helped the Pope up to read a prayer. At the end of the Mass, the Pope followed the candles and large crucifix back up the nave. Marini, as always, trailed immediately behind.

"It's hard work," Marini said. "But it's beautiful."

Sunday, December 26
FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY
December 26 is the Feast day of St. Stephen, the first martyr, but it is superseded today by the Feast of the Holy Family which is celebrated on the first Sunday after Christmas. As Benedict XVI said in his Angelus homily today, it is the Holy Family at the Nativity that we remember today primarily.
Nativity images, from left: Giotto, 1304; Van Der Weyden, 1448, Cranach the Elder, 1515; Lotto, 1523; Fasolo, 1526; Saraceni, 1610.
Above, from left, the first three by Raphael, from 1504-1518, when he produced several Holy Family paintings; Michelangelo's round painting, 1504; El Greco, 1595 (he, too, did a number of HF paintings), and Rembrandt, 1630.
Readings for the Mass of the Holy Family:
www.usccb.org/nab/122610.shtml

ST. STEPHEN (d. 36 AD), Archdeacon and First Christian Martyr (Proto-Martyr)

The Acts of the Apostles tell us all that is known of this young Hellenized Jew who was chosen by the Twelve as someone 'filled with grace and the Holy Spirit' to administer charity to widows and the needy. He was also a powerful preacher for early Christianity, and ended up being condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrin for blasphemy against Moses and God, and speaking against the Temple and the Law. He was stoned to death by a mob as the future St. Paul looked 0n ('Saul entirely approved of putting him to death'). Before he died, Stephen spoke out to accuse the Jews of persecuting those who spoke out against their sins, further angering the crowd. He experienced a theophany, saying ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God....’. His dying words were: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit....Lord, do not hold this sin against them”. Tradition says his body was rescued by Gamaliel, who had been Paul's Jewish mentor, and buried where Gamaliel himself would later be buried. This fact was long forgotten until in 415, a monk was told in a dream where to find Stephen's body. The relics were exhumed and brought to Constantinople. Later Pope Pelagius I (579-590) had the relics brought to Rome where Stephen was buried with Rome's most famous deacon-martyr, St. Lawrence, in the basilica of St. Lawrence outside the Walls. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis to him on January 10, 2007. www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070110...



No OR today. The next issue will be for 12/27-28.


THE POPE'S DAY

Sunday Angelus - The Holy Father speaks on the significance of the Holy Family as a model for all families, and
entrusts all the families of the world to their protection. He also deplored new anti-Christian violence in Nigeria
and the Philippines.


Lunch at Aula Paolo VI with 300 homeless wards of the Missionary Sisters of Charity in Rome, to mark
the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa of Calcutta during her centenary year.

2010: A Papal Year in Review
By Kevin M. Clarke


SAN MARCOS, California, Dec. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org).- With the calendar year coming to a close, the time has come to remember the voyage of 2010 for the Church.

Benedict XVI has faced his share of troubles, but has endured daunting challenges with remarkable resiliency. He enters the new year perhaps all the stronger for his battles. Here's a look back at 2010.

The Pope did not slow down in his journeys, traveling to Malta, an island upon which the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked; Portugal, where the Holy Father celebrated Mass on the anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady, praying for the "triumph of the Immaculate Heart" and inviting the suffering to become "redeemers in the Redeemer"; Cyprus, where the Pope presented a special document ahead of the special synod of bishops on the Middle East; the United Kingdom, where the Pope beatified John Henry Cardinal Newman; and Spain, where the Holy Father himself made pilgrimage in to the "House of St. James" ahead of the nation's 2011 World Youth Day.

In the elevation of Blessed Newman to the ranks of the beatified, Benedict XVI raised the example of a man particularly relevant for our time. Cardinal Newman's importance for the Church is underscored in his teaching on the development of doctrine, the nature of Catholic education, and in that the man himself is a "bridge" to unity between Anglicans and Catholic.

The Church received six new saints in October. Australia received her first saint in Mary MacKillop, a nun who gave her life to the education of the nation's poor. Canada also received St. André Bessette of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, a simple brother known for his miraculous cures and deep mysticism.

With the creation of a Council for the New Evangelization in the Roman Curia in September, Benedict XVI has prioritized the revitalization of the faith throughout the entire world, but especially in cultures suffering under the influence of secularization.

The Pope expressed a greater desire for the Church to live out its "missionary mandate" -- the impetus to proclaim the Gospel. Among other tasks, the council will have to explore the theology and pastoral application of the new evangelization.

That same month, the release of the apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini marked a significant moment in the Church's teaching on sacred Scripture and its role in the Church. Based on the propositions of the Oct. 2008 General synodal Assembly on the Word of God, Verbum Domini will become standard reading alongside Vatican II's Dei Verbum in classes of sacred Scripture in colleges and seminaries around the world for years to come.

Particularly noteworthy were the Pontiff's reflections on the role of lectio divina in the life of the Church. The four basic steps -- lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio -- culminate in the action (actio) that "moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity." In Mary the Mother of God we find the "supreme synthesis" of this activity of the Church, for she always pondered the richness of the Word of God in her heart ("Verbum Domini," No. 87).

Significantly, he also accentuated a "great need" in for theologians to embark upon "a deeper investigation of the relationship between word and sacrament in the Church's pastoral activity and in theological reflection" ("Verbum Domini," No. 53). The Pope also added the production on a Directory of Homiletics on the Church's to-do list ("Verbum Domini," No. 60).

In an age of relativism, he returned to the theme of the Church's missionary mandate, to proclaim Him whom she cannot in conscience suppress: "We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God's grace, we ourselves have received" ("Verbum Domini," No. 91).

2010 was not without its share of controversial stories. The sex abuse scandals continued to plague the Church, particularly in Ireland, leading to a type of "persecution" from within and giving the enemies of the Church plenty of room to attack.

Nonetheless, the Pope met the sorrowful revelations with words of comfort for victims and multiple apologies on the one hand and forthright words of accountability on behalf of the Church on the other.

Media attacks upon the Pope reached their pinnacle in March, when the New York Times -- in bringing forward the case of Father Lawrence Murphy of Milwaukee -- thought they had unveiled the smoking gun that would finally link Cardinal Ratzinger with the sexual abuse scandals.

Yet, despite the lengths the Times took to smear the Pope's name and disgrace the Church, no direct link to Cardinal Ratzinger could be established. Rather, Catholic commentators thoroughly exposed the errors and sloppiness of the Times' coverage.

[Clarke overlooks the earlier AP-Der Spiegel attempt to do the same by blaming Cardinal Ratzinger for the recidivist actions in 1996 of a priest he had allowed as a guest in the Archidocese of Munich in 1980 while he underwent therapy for his sexual aberration. Cardinal Ratzinger left Munich in February 1981 to become Prefect of the CDF and had nothing to do with the priest's subsequent pastoral assignments in Munich.]

The sad irony in the media attacks were noted by Archbishop Timothy Dolan during Holy Week at St. Patrick's Cathedral: "No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Benedict XVI."

In November, the Pope sparred with the leadership of communist China over the illegal ordination of a bishop. The Vatican and China had advanced in their relations in recent years, despite the lack of religious and civil rights for the country's inhabitants. But the new developments strained relations.

Finally, several public relations failures close to the Pope led many to question whether changes in Vatican communications are needed. For instance, ahead of the release of Light of the World (published by Ignatius Press), an interview book with journalist Peter Seewald, L'Osservatore Romano elected to publish without context abridged comments from the Pope of the morality of condom use by male prostitutes.

In the ensuing confusion and controversy over what the Pope's remarks meant for Catholic teaching against condom use for contraception, many Catholics in the public sphere pointed out, in effect, that "It's one thing if the secular press snags a quote like this for the sake of a sensationalist attack, but it's quite another when the official Vatican newspaper brings the attack upon the Church because of lack of discretion."

Following the regrettable episode, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith this Wednesday clarified that "the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contraception," but rather about "the completely different case of prostitution."

2011 Preview

Those Catholics with an eye toward Rome may look forward to many significant moments of the coming year. Here are some of the highlights:

In March, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection is scheduled to be released by Ignatius Press. This will be one that the secular press will not be as likely to subject to controversy.

On the eve of Palm Sunday, Benedict XVI will turn 84; three days later, he will mark the sixth anniversary of the start of his papacy.

Next year and beyond, the Pope will continue to unpack the depths of his teachings on sacred Scripture from Verbum Domini. Additionally, the leadership, role, and work of the Council for the New Evangelization will likely come into sharper focus.

And regarding the New Evangelization, that is certainly a topic which will present itself in August. Benedict XVI will head to Madrid for the 26th World Youth Day, a day he anticipates "with great joy."

Likely the biggest "event" on the Catholic Church's 2011 agenda, Spain will then receive the Pontiff for the second time in 10 months.

In addition to Spain and the usual papal travels throughout Italy, he will return to Africa with a visit to Benin. He will visit Croatia and his homeland of Germany as well.

In light of the controversies of 2010, Catholics may see some changes in the ways in which the Vatican handles the media and those hot-button issues.

While sweeping staff changes are rarely the actions taken by the Vatican, the Pope's advisers have much to improve upon to prevent confusion and scandal. They must learn the savvy needed to prevent the type of media manipulations that have occurred during Benedict XVI's pontificate.

The biggest headline-maker for secular news coverage of the Church in 2011 may again be the sex abuse scandals. As the Church in Europe begins its process of healing, the coming tide of litigation may exact a heavy toll.

However, Catholics in Europe have strong reason to hope as their bishops have the advantage of looking to the successful example of the U.S. Church in how to respond to this very crisis to ensure the safety of children.

Data showing virtual eradication of clerical abuse in the United States substantiate this comment from Father Thomas Brundage, JLC, former canonical judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee: "The Catholic Church is probably the safest place for children at this point in history."

But other more positive headlines may include developments in the Vatican visitation of American religious communities, the build-up to the new translation of the Roman Missal, and perhaps another encyclical.

Also, news has been being reported with greater frequency of Anglican bishops and faithful coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. Especially with the increasing ecclesiastical implementation of 2009's Anglicanorum Coetibus, such headlines should be a common thread for the coming year.

A word could be added about further development of relations with the Orthodox Churches, as the theological discussions on the role of teh Papacy in a unified Church are pursued.]

Regardless of the headlines, the message of the Pontiff to the youth of the Church will echo in the hearts of all Catholics this year. "Do not be discouraged," he proclaimed in August to those he hopes to see in Spain.

Benedict XVI our shepherd will carry the same enduring and calm confidence as he carries the Church into the New Year. We have much reason for hope.


Kevin M. Clarke has a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, and teaches religion at St. Joseph Academy in San Marcos, California. He is the author of a chapter on Benedict XVI's Mariology in "De Maria Numquam Satis: The Significance of the Catholic Doctrines on the Blessed Virgin Mary for All People" (University Press of America, 2009), and is a recent contributor to the New Catholic Encyclopedia.





I like the thematic approach taken by this Maltese priest in the following year-ender - and love his title! Not that our Ratzi was ever a Rottweiler. But it does capture the irony of the image that the media has promoted about him.


2010: Cuddling the ‘Rottweiler’
by Fr Joe Borg

Dec. 26, 2010

It was not an easy year for Benedict XVI; it is probably never an easy year for a Pope, anyway. The Church’s role in society, problems being faced by Christian minorities in several countries, the threat of secularism, and the scourge of child abuse by clergymen were among the biggest challenges Pope Benedict faced.



During the year, the 83-year-old Pontiff made five foreign trips (including one to Malta), issued documents on the Bible and new evangelisation, convened a two-week Synod of Bishops of the Middle East, and discussed a wide range of topics in a book-length interview.

The place of religion in society is, undoubtedly, one of the main themes of the Pope’s speeches. His visit to the UK was characterised by the content of his address to the representatives of British society including the diplomatic corps, politicians, academics and business leaders.

He spoke about religion’s corrective role, that is, to help purify and shed light on the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.

In a recent speech to Italy’s ambassador to the Vatican, the Pope emphasised the responsibility governments bear in safeguarding religious expression. He said the contribution of Christians to society in general is so significant that civil authorities should realise that social progress cannot go forward if religion or its expression is sidelined.

This was the year when the Pope had to carry the cross of child abuse by clerics as no Pope before him has had to carry it. Though no one more than he has aggressively combated this scandal, no one more than he was continuously accused of doing too little, too late about it.

He did so with dignity and Christian witness. In a letter to the Irish faithful in March, he personally apologised to victims of such abuse. He promulgated stronger Vatican measures to deal with abusive priests, some of which he had instigated years earlier as a cardinal.

When he recently addressed officials of the Roman Curia he said that in response to the “unimaginable” scandal of clerical sex abuse against minors, the Church must reflect, repent, and do everything possible to rectify the injustices suffered by victims as it works to prevent such abuse from ever happening again.

The suffering of Christians, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, was always high in the Pope’s agenda. The two-week Synod of the Bishops of the Middle East is an example. Last week I wrote about the Catholic community in Iraq, which the Pope defended several times during 2010.

He and his aides also spoke frequently on the need to defend Christian minorities from discrimination and physical attacks in places such as India, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Pope Benedict is also critical of secularised societies that have pushed religion out of the public eye, following a false ideal of secularism or individual freedom. “A freedom which is hostile or indifferent to God becomes self-negating and does not guarantee full respect for others,” the Pope writes.

“It should be clear that religious fundamentalism and secularism are alike, in that both represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity,” Pope Benedict argues. Some of the toughest language of the papal message is directed at Western democracies.

He expresses the hope that “in the West, and especially in Europe, there will be an end to hostility and prejudice against Christians”.

However, despite the Rottweiler image he had been framed in, the sexual abuse scandal that he had to face, and the frequent (sometimes completely avoidable) controversies, more and more people are warming to Pope Benedict. The Times of London wrote about him: “We all want to cuddle up to him and get him to bless our babies.” [That has got to be one of the best compliments ever from a habitually hostile newspaper!]

ANGELUS TODAY






Pope: 'Earth again stained
with blood at Christmas '


Vatican City, Dec. 26 (AsiaNews) - Even at Christmas, "the earth was again stained with blood", especially in the Philippines, Nigeria and Pakistan, said the Pope today at the end of the Angelus with pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.

"In this Christmas season," said the Pontiff, "the desire and invocation for the gift of peace becomes even more intense. But our world continues to be marked by violence, especially against the disciples of Christ. I learned with great sadness of the attack in a Catholic church in the Philippines, while the Christmas Day rites were being celebrated, as well as the attack on Christian churches in Nigeria ".

Yesterday morning during Christmas Mass for the police in Jolo (Mindanao), a bomb exploded near the altar wounding the priest and five other people. In Jos (Nigeria), long plagued by social and religious tensions, seven bombs exploded in the center of the city, leaving 32 dead and 74 wounded. A bomb that was set to explode during midnight Mass was defused by police.

[It must be explained that Muslim guerrillas have been active in the Philippines' southernmost large island, Mindanao, just north of Indonesia, since the mid-1960s. Initially, they sought secession (even if Muslims only constitute no more than 10% of the island's population itself, and 5% of the total Philippine population) but eventual compromises gave them autonomous government in some Mindanao provinces. But in the past decade, Muslim guerrillas have been carrying out terrorist attacks and kidnapping for ransom in the name of Al-Qaeda and its local offshoot, Abu Sayyaf.]

Referring to today’s feast recalling the Holy Family in his words before the Angelus prayers, the Holy Father recalled that they "lived through the dramatic experience of having to flee to Egypt from the murderous rampage of Herod".

"Let us remember," he added, "all those families who are forced to flee their homes because of war, violence and intolerance. I invite you therefore to join me in prayer asking the Lord to forcefully move the hearts of men and bring hope, reconciliation and peace. "

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

The Gospel of St. Luke narrates that the shepherds of Bethlehem, after having received from the angel the announcement of the birth of the Messiah, "went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger" (Lk 2,16).

Thus, the first eyewitnesses of the birth of Jesus found a family scene: mother, father and newborn son. And that is why the liturgy prompts us to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family on the first Sunday after Christmas.

This year, it comes the day after Christmas, taking precedence over the Feast of St. Stephen (which is Dec. 26). We are invited to contemplate this 'icon' in which the baby Jesus is the center of his parents' affection and attention.

In that poor cave in Bethlehem, the Fathers of the Church wrote, a very vivid light shone which reflected the mystery enclosing that Baby, and which Mary and Joseph guarded in their hearts and reflected themselves in their eyes, in their actions, and above all, in their silences. Indeed, they kept within their own intimate selves the annunciation of the angel to Mary: "The child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1,35).

And yet, the birth of every baby carries in itself something of this mystery! Parents who welcome a child as a gift know this all too well and indeed, often describe it as such. We have all found ourselves telling a parent: "Your child is a gift, a miracle!"

Indeed, human beings experience procreation not as a mere reproductive act, but they see its richness, they sense that every human creature who comes into being is the 'sign' par excellence of the Creator, our Father who is in heaven.

How important it is, then, that every baby, coming into the world, be welcomed by the warmth of a family! Exterior comforts do not matter: Jesus was born in an animal stall and his first crib was a manger, but the love of Mary and Joseph made him feel all the tenderness and beauty of being loved.

And this is what children need: the love of a mother and a father. It is what gives them security and, as they grow, it allows them to discover the sense of life.

The Holy Family of Nazareth lived through so many trials, such as the massacre of the innocents [by Herod], as Matthew narrates in his Gospel, which forced Joseph and Mary to emigrate to Egypt (cfr 2,13-23).

However, trusting in Divine Providence, the family found stability and assured Jesus of a tranquil childhood and solid education.

Dear friends, the Holy Family is certainly singular and unrepeatable, but at the same time, it is a model of living for every family, because Jesus, true man, wished to be born into a human family, and in doing so, he blessed and consecrated it.

Therefore, let us entrust to Our Lady and St. Joseph all families, so that they may not be discouraged by trials and difficulties but will always cultivate conjugal love and dedicate themselves trustfully in the service of their children's life and education.

After the Angelus prayers, he said this:

During this season of the Holy Nativity, the desire and invocation for the gift of peace have become even more intense. Our world continues to be marked by violence, especially against the disciples of Christ.

I learned with great sadness of the attack against a Catholic church in the Philippines during the celebration of Christmas Day Mass, as well as the attacks against Christian churches in Nigeria. Earth has once again been stained with blood in other parts of the world like Pakistan.

I wish to express my heartfelt condolence for the victims of this absurd violences, and I repeat once more the appeal to abandon the way of hatred in order to find peaceful solutions to conflicts and restore security and calm to these beloved peoples.

On this day when we celebrate the Holy Family, who experienced the dramatic urgency of fleeing to Egypt to escape the homicidal fury of Herod, let us remember all those - especially families - who are forced to leave their homes because of war, violence and intolerance.

I ask you then to join me in prayer to ask the Lord to touch the hearts of men and bring hope, reconciliation and peace.

In English, he said:

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus prayer on the Feast of the Holy Family.

Reflecting on the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for one another, we see that Nazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover the life of Christ and to understand his Gospel.

May the peace of the Holy Family always be in your homes and fill you with gladness. Upon you and your loved ones, I invoke God’s abundant blessings!

---

Pope condemns Christmas
attacks on churches


VATICAN CITY, Dec. 26 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Sunday condemned Christmas Day attacks on churches in Nigeria and the Philippines as absurd violence.

The Pope, speaking from his window to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square, said he was saddened by the attacks in the two countries as well as by as a suicide attack in Pakistan.

"I want to express my heartfelt sorrow for the victims of these absurd acts of violence and once more repeat an appeal to abandon the path of hate and seek instead peaceful solutions to conflicts ..., " he said.

Six people died in attacks on two Christian churches in the northeast of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, and six people were injured by a bomb in a Roman Catholic Church on the island of Jolo in the Philippines.

In a peace message issued on Dec. 16, the Pope said Christians were the most persecuted religious group in the world today and that it was unacceptable that in some places they had to risk their lives to practise their faith.

At least 40 people waiting to receive aid were killed by a suicide bomber in Peshawar, Pakistan, also on Christmas Day.


Pope denounces latest
anti-Christian violence


VATICAN CITY, Dec. 26 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI has denounced Christmas attacks on the faithful in the Philippines and Nigeria and called for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Benedict also cited Saturday's suicide bombing in Pakistan, which killed some 45 people at an aid centre.

'Once again, the earth is stained by blood,' he lamented on Sunday.

A bomb exploded during Christmas Day Mass at a chapel inside a police camp in the southern Philippines, wounding a priest and 10 churchgoers.

Also on Saturday, six people died in attacks by Muslim sect members on two churches in northern Nigeria.

Benedict appealed for people 'to abandon ways of hatred to find peaceful solutions to conflicts and give security and serenity' to innocents.


Earlier, AP framed its Christmas Day wrap-up report in terms of the Holy Father's Urbi et Orbi message:


Christmas 2010 around the world


VATICAN CITY, Dec. 26 (AP) - Iraqi Christians celebrated a somber Christmas in a Baghdad cathedral stained with dried blood, while Pope Benedict XVI exhorted Chinese Catholics to stay loyal despite restrictions on them in a holiday address laced with worry for the world's Christian minorities.

Saturday's grim news seemed to highlight the Pope's concern for his flock's welfare.

In northern Nigeria, attacks on two churches by Muslim sect members claimed six lives, while bombings in central Nigeria, a region plagued by Christian-Muslim violence, killed 32 people, officials said.

Eleven people including a priest were injured by a bombing during Christmas Mass in a police chapel in the Philippines, which has the largest Catholic population in Asia. The attack took place on Jolo island, a stronghold of al-Qaida linked militants.

But joy seemed to prevail in Bethlehem, the West Bank town where Jesus was born, which bustled with its biggest crowd of Christian pilgrims in years.

The suffering of Christians around the world framed much of the Pontiff's traditional Christmas Day "Urbi et Orbi" message (Latin for "to the city and to the world"). Bundled up in an ermine-trimmed crimson cape against a chilly rain, he delivered his assessment of world suffering from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica.

Benedict's exhortation to Catholics who have risked persecution in China highlighted a spike in tensions between Beijing and the Vatican over the Chinese government's defiance of the Pope's authority to name bishops.

The Pope has also been distressed by Chinese harassment of Rome-loyal bishops who didn't want to promote the state-backed 'official' Catholic church.

"May the birth of the savior strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience," Benedict said, praying aloud.

Chinese church officials did not immediately comment late Saturday. A day earlier, one said the Vatican bears responsibility for restoring dialogue after it had criticized leadership changes in China's official church.

Persecution of Christians has been a pressing concern at the Vatican of late, especially over its dwindling flock in the Middle East. Christians only make up about 2 percent of the population in the Holy Land today, compared to about 15 percent in 1950.

Earlier this month Benedict denounced lack of freedom of worship as a threat to world peace.

In Iraq, Christians have faced repeated violence by militants intent on driving them out of the country.

At Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad, bits of dried flesh and blood remained stuck on the ceiling, grim reminders of the Oct. 31 attack during Mass that killed 68 people.

Black cassocks representing the two priests who perished in the al-Qaida assault hung from a wall. Bullet holes pocked the walls of the church, now surrounded by concrete blast barriers.

Reflecting the Pope's hope that Christian minorities can survive in their homelands, Archbishop Matti Shaba Matouka told the 300 worshippers: "No matter how hard the storm blows, love will save us."

After the October siege, about 1,000 Christian families fled to the relative safety of northern Iraq, according to U.N. estimates.

More than 100,000 pilgrims poured into Bethlehem since Christmas Eve, twice as many as last year, Israeli military officials said, calling it the highest number of holiday visitors in a decade.

"[It's] a really inspiring thing to be in the birthplace of Jesus at Christmas," said Greg Reihardt, 49, from Loveland, Colorado.

Still, visitors entering Bethlehem had to cross through a massive metal gate in the separation barrier that Israel built between Jerusalem and the town during a wave of Palestinian attacks in last decade.

Benedict said he hoped Israelis and Palestinians would be inspired to "strive for a just and peaceful coexistence."

The Pope also prayed that Christmas might promote reconciliation in the tense Korean peninsula.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan crisscrossed the country, making a Christmas visit to coalition troops at some of the main battle fronts in a show of appreciation and support in the 10th year of the war against the Taliban.

Gen. David Petraeus started his visit by traveling in a C-130 cargo plane from the capital, Kabul, to the northern province of Kunduz, telling troops with the U.S. Army's 1-87, 10th Mountain Division that on this day, there was "no place that [he] would rather be than here" where the "focus of our effort" was.

Snow in Europe and the United States kept many from reaching their loved ones in time for the holidays. At airports in Paris and Brussels, hundreds of travelers received their own special Christmas present - a flight out after spending Christmas Eve curled up on hard terminal floors.

"I've never had such a Christmas before," said Ron Van Kooe, who slept overnight at the Brussels terminal. "It's one not to forget."

A rare white Christmas in the southern U.S. was complicating life for travelers as airlines canceled some 500 flights Saturday, including 300 of the 800 scheduled departures from Atlanta's international airport.

"They canceled hundreds of flights and there hasn't even been a drop of rain," said Stephanie Palmer. "This doesn't make sense."

Brian Korty of the National Weather Service said travelers in the northern Mid-Atlantic region and northeastern New England states may want to rethink Sunday travel plans due to a storm that could dump 5 inches or more of snow on the Washington area.

"They may see nearly impossible conditions to travel in," Korty said.

The Pope's lunch with Mother Teresa's
Rome missionaries and their wards






VATICAN CITY, Dec. 26 (AP) — Lasagna, veal and cake were on the menu Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI invited about 250 poor people to join him for a post-Christmas lunch and denounced as "absurd" new attacks on the faithful around the globe.

Also joining the Pope and his guests were 250 nuns, seminarians and priests of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity order, which runs soup kitchens around Rome.

Last year, Benedict traveled to a Rome soup kitchen to join the poor for lunch after Christmas. This year he wanted to invite them to his home and to pay homage to Mother Teresa, whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year.

During the lunch, held inside Aula Paolo VI, the Vatican's main audience hall, Benedict told his guests about the virtues of Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to serving the sick and poor.

"To those who ask why Mother Teresa was famous, the answer is easy: she lived her life in a humble and hidden way, for the love of God and in love with God," Benedict said.

The feast included lasagna with homemade Bolognese sauce, veal chunks with roasted potatoes, traditional yellow Christmas cake with chocolate bits and Chantilly cream, and coffee.





The report from the Vatican Press Office:

Lunch with the Holy Father
Translated from

Dec. 26, 2010

At 1 p.m. today, Feast of the Holy Family, the Holy Father had lunch at the atrium of the Aula Polo VI with persons assisted by the various hospitality centers for the needy run by the Missionaries of Charity in Rome, to mark the centenary year of the birth of Mother Teresa, founder of the missionary order.

Along with 350 wards of the centers, the guests also included 140 sisters, contemplative brothers, priests and smeinarians of the Order, led by Sr. Mary Prema Pierick, Superior-General of the Missionary Sisters; Fr. Sebastian Vazhakala, co-founder of the order, and Superior-General of the Contemplative Brothers; and Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, Superior-General of the Missionary Priests of Charity and Postulator for Mother Teresa's canonization.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's remarks after the lunch:

---

Dear Friends,

I am very happy to be with you today and I address my cordial greetings to the Reverend Mother-General of the Missionaries of Charity, to the priests, sisters and contemplative brothers, and to all of you who are here to share this fraternal occasion.

The light from the Nativity of the Lord fills our hearts with joy and with the peace announced by the angels to the shepherds of Bethelehem: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favors rest" (Lk 2,14).

The Baby we see in the cave of bethlehem is God himself who became man, to show us how much he loves us. God became one of us to be near to each of us, to defeat evil, to free us from sin, to give us hope, to tell us that we are never alone.

We can always turn to him, without fear, calling him Father, sure that at every moment, in every situation of life, even the most difficult, he does not forget us. We should always tell ourselves often: Yes, God really takes care of me, he loves me, Jesus was born for me, I should always trust him.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow the light of the Baby Jesus, the Son of God made man, to illuminate our life and transform it to light, as we see specially in the lives of the saints.

I think of the witness of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, a reflection of the light of God's love. Celebrating the 100th year of her birth is an occasion for gratitude and reflection, for a renewed and joyous commitment to serving the Lord and our brothers, especially the neediest. The Lord himself wanted to be among those in need, as we know.

Dear sisters, dear priests and brothers, dear friends among the staff, charity is the power that changes the world because God is love (cfr Jn 4,7-9). Blessed Teresa of Calcutta lived in charity towards everyone without distinction, but with a preference for the ppoorest and the abandoned: a luminous sign of God's fatherhood and goodness.

She recognized in everyone the face of Christ, whom she loved with her entire being - the Christ whom she adored and received in the Eucharist, and continued to meet along the streets of the city, becoming herself a living image of Jesus who pours the grace of his merciful love on the wounds of man.

To those who ask why Mother Teresa became so famous, the snswer is simple: because she lived a humble and hidden life, for love of God and in the love of God. She herself affirmed that he greatest reward was to love Christ and serve him in the poor.

Her tiny figure, with folded hands, or caressing a sick person, a leper, a dying man, a child, was the visible sign of a life transformed by God. In the night of human pain, she made the light of divine love shine and helped so many hearts to find that peace that only God can give.

Let us thank the Lord, because in Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, we all saw how our life can change when we meet Jesus, how it can become for others a reflection of the light of God.

To so many men and women, in situations of poverty and suffering, she gave comfort and the certainty that God does not abandon anyone! Her mission continues through all those, here as in other parts of the world, who live her charism as missionaries of charity.

Our gratitude is great, dear sisters and dear brothers, for your humble and discreet work, hidden from the eyes of most, but extraordinary and precious in God's heart. To men who are often in search of illusory happiness, your way of life tells them where true joy is found: in sharing, in giving, in loving with the same generous gratuitousness of God which is so different from the logic of human selfishness.

Dear friends, please know that the Pope loves you, he carries you in his heart, he gathers you all together in a paternal embrace and prays for you. I wish you all the best.

Thank you for having shared with me the joy of these days of celebration. I invoke the maternal protection of the Holy Family of Nazareth - Jesus, Mary and Joseph - whom we celebrate today, and I bless you all and those who are dear to you.

---

Here's some sort of a sidebar to the above story:

Pope writes letter of thanks
to gypsy children in Spain
Translated from

News agency of the Archdicoese of Valencia



Last July, the Colegio Madre Petra inaugurated a little shrine for the Gypsy Madonna, thanks to the efforts of Mother Gertrudis Sol (extreme right), who has led the college since she started
teaching gypsy children under some trees 40 years ago. Since then, more than 3,000 gypsy children have been educated at Madre Petra, which now has classes up to high school, as well as vocational training.

VALENCIA, Spain, Dec. 21 (AVAN) - Pope Benedict XVI sent a letter of thanks to the Medre Petra school for gipsy children in Torrent for their "amiable greeting on the occasion of these festivities for the Nativity and the coming New Year".

In his letter, the Pope expressed the wish that "an encounter with Jesus Christ may inspire in them the desire to listen to the Word of God and reflect on it, so that this Word may continue dwelling in us and speaking to us all the days of our life".

At the end of the letter, the Pope imparts his Apostolic Blessing "to all the students, professors and parents" of the school community.

The Madre Petra College for gypsy children in El Vedat de Torrent is run by Sor Gertrudis Sol of the Congregacion San José de la Montaña Madres Desamparados, and has more than 250 pupils, mostly from gipsy families who live in the city of Valencia. It also offers vocational courses where young gipsies aged 16 to 30 can learn to be tailors, dressmakers, hairdressers, gardeners and mechanics.

[The Google search for Madre Petra also shows that the December letter was Benedict XVI's second letter to the college. Last March, he wrote the association of the students' families a pastoral note of encouragement for providing their children with a Catholic education. In 1998, John Paul II contributed some money for a school expansion program.]

Here's an item 10 days late in posting but other than an incidental mention in Ignatius Insight that LOTW sold 40,000 copies in the USA during its first three weeks, I have not seen a similar report anywhere... This report says book sales for LIGHT OF THE WORLD in the German, Italian, English, French and Spanish editions as of December 14 totalled about 500,000.


LOTW sold about 500,000
in its first three weeks
Translated from

December 16, 2010


Benedict XVI's interview-book with Peter Seewald, Light of the World, sold 75,000 copies in Spain in less than three weeks since it went on sale on November 24.

Herder, its original German publisher, said that it was about to launch the seventh printing in Spanish and the third in Catalan. The book has now been translated into 16 languages, and other translations are on deck.

In Germany, it sold 200,000 in 3 weeks, 150,000 in Italian; and 75,000 in English and French.

"For many religious bookstores, it is the book of the season, and will most likely be the book of the year in the category of religion," a Herder statement said.

"The success of the Pope's books demonstrates that books are an excellent medium of communications for the Pope with the Christians of the world".

Journalist Peter Seewald carried on six hours of interviews with the Pope last July in German (or more properly, the Bavarian dialect that they share). The manuscript was then farmed out in mid-October to publishers who won the bids in other countries, for translation and publication within just four weeks.

Roberto Bernet, a licensed theologian teaching at the University of Muenster, undertook the Spanish translation which was then reviewed by three editors.

Seewald says in his preface that "If you are listening to the Pope and sitting beside him, then you not only sense the precision of his thinking and the hope that comes from faith, but also in a special way, a radiance from the Light of the world becomes visible, from the face of Jesus Christ, who wants to encounter each of us and excludes no one".

"In this crisis of the Church", he notes earlier, "there is a tremendous opportunity to rediscover what is authentically Catholic. (For Benedict XVI), the task is to show God to the people and to tell them the truth."

For his part, Raimund Herder, who edited the Spanish edition, expressed satisfaction that "our efforts to publish the Spanish and Catalan editions along with the original, has already borne fruit, with the success of book sale".

The Portuguese edition was launched on November 30 with an initial print order of 10,000, which is twice the usual first edition for religious books in that country.

I suppose the Herald newspapers of Scotland considered the Pope's visit important enough to merit a separate story as the year ends, but they assigned it to a reporter who is negative about Benedict XVI for the most part, and in the worst ways, and only sounds positive, almost grudgingly, in the last few sentences....


The Pope in Scotland
by Jasper Hamill

26 Dec 2010

When, in 1982, John Paul II became the first Pope ever to visit Scotland he was, at the comparatively youthful age of 62, one of the most popular and populist popes in modern history.

A Pole who had stood up to Soviet communism and whose father died during the Nazi occupation, he exuded charisma. An assassination attempt a year earlier had served only to confirm the affection of his worldwide flock.

Here was a man of the people, a former footballer and skier as well as a poet, who knew instinctively how best to connect with the man on the street. In Edinburgh he embraced the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in front of John Knox’s statue, and at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park he basked in the adulation of a multitude that numbered 250,000. Of such stuff are legends made.

Against this competition his successor Pope Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was John Paul’s foremost academic theologian, always faced a tough job to endear himself to the masses.

Not only was he German and a former member of the Hitler Youth, he was an octogenarian who was happier poring over books than watching Match Of The Day. Moreover, while John Paul had enjoyed a relatively stress-free papacy, Pope Benedict found himself facing one controversy after another.

Chief among these, of course, was the international scandal of abusive priests which rocked the Roman Catholic church to its foundations and cost it untold millions in reparations. The publicity was bad enough but the collateral damage was incalculable.

Indeed, the Pope himself stood accused of abetting a cover-up. Thus, for perhaps the first time in its history, the Ghurch found that it was more reviled than revered and that the bond of trust between those whose vocation it is to deliver the sacraments and those who receive them was in real danger of being severed. [This is the same facile and way-overblown conclusion by the MSM all these months - a conclusion reached rashly by those who spout such notions off the top of their head without bothering to acquaint themslvees with a basic overview of the Church's 2000-year history. Being the world's most enduring institution, she has seen and survived everything, including waves of lethal persecutions during her early centuries, the Great Schism, the Western Schism, and the Reformation. How can the scandal involving a few hundred priests cmpare to any of those catastrophes?]

On top of this, Pope Benedict was often portrayed as aloof, an intellectual who was out of touch with life as it is lived today. While many Catholics find their Church’s unwillingness to change a blessing, one of the few institutions that refuses to bend with the wind, still more are inclined to find it wilfully obstinate. [On what basis does the writer make this generalization? Has there ever been a survey taken representative of all the Catholics in the world and not just the Western Catholics in name only who profess the liberal ideology rather than the Catholic faith?] Why, they wonder, can they not use contraceptives? What’s so wrong about distributing condoms in Africa if it will prevent the spread of AIDS? And is it truly sinful for women to be priests or for gays to marry?

Meanwhile the chorus of atheism, led by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, has reached a crescendo. While religious fundamentalism is on the rise, mainstream middle-of-the-road religions are beleaguered. It’s not, of course, only the Roman Catholic Church that has disenchantment among its rank and file.

The Church of Scotland, as observers at its annual General Assembly will attest, is dying on its feet and obsessed with falling congregations and financial black holes. Fewer people, it seems, want to become priests or ministers – which, in the case of the latter, may be just as well because there are fewer and fewer parishes that are able to afford them.

This, then, was the backdrop against which Pope Benedict arrived to spend a day in Scotland in September. Invited originally by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a fact conveniently forgotten by the visit’s critics, who wanted the church rather than the state to foot the bill, he brought with him an entourage of mediaeval proportions. [Again, a sweeping and unfounded statement. Including his personal staff (two secretaries, valet and physician), his official delegation has never numbered more than 20 - and that includes Cardinal Bertone, Mons. Marini and two assistants, Fr. Lombardi, the editor and one reporter of OR, the CTV cameraman, the OR photographer, and the papal trip coordinator Alberto Gasbarri which leaves about six slots for other prelates necessary to be on hand for a particular country, For the UK, one of those was Cardinal Kurt Koch, as president of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and therefore the primary Vatican liaison now with the Agnlican Church.]

However Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of his closest advisers [He was never that, even if were still president of PCPCU, from which he retired last June!] , remained at home, having told a German magazine: "When you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a third world country. When you wear a cross on British Airways you are discriminated against."

On the eve of the visit it seemed that everything that could go wrong was going wrong. But in the event, while not engendering the same feel-good sentiments as John Paul’s [It did not????], it was a triumph.

It began in Edinburgh at the Palace of Holyrood, where a spartan crowd of wellwishers and tourists gathered and from where the Pope travelled by Popemobile along a thronged Princes Street. After lunch with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, he took the M8 to Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, which accommodated around 100,000 people eager to participate in an outdoor mass.

They came from all over Scotland, by bus and train, plane and Caledonian MacBrayne, walking the final mile or so from the nearest subway station, which on Saturday afternoons is normally heaving with Rangers supporters.

It was like a gatecrashed picnic. Or T in the Park without drink or drugs. Various celebrities appeared, none more warmly received than Susan Boyle, who sang How Great Thou Art; everyone who had lungs joined in.

The Pope was late – caught up, it was surmised, in rush-hour traffic. It was after 5pm when finally he could be seen entering the park in the Popemobile. Suddenly, all the waiting was worthwhile. People surged towards where the Pope would pass, waving almost bashfully and smiling benignly. There were screams and whistles and cheers. Tens of thousands of cameras flashed. Flags fluttered in the evening breeze.

Faith had been rewarded and for a sublime moment the lurid headlines, and the beastly behaviour that prompted them, were forgotten.



A similar exercise in Malta, looking back to the Pope's visit to the island nation as one of the highlights of 2010:


2010 review:
Pope Benedict in Malta

Dec. 27. 2010

As Pope Benedict XVI looks back on 2010 – his ‘annus horribilis’ – he can draw some comfort from the outstanding success of his pastoral visit to Malta in April.

Officially, His Holiness came to Malta to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary since the visit of St Paul in AD60. But the actual invitation had been extended a year earlier by President Dr George Abela, in what was among the latter’s first initiatives as Head of State.

In his welcome address at the airport on Saturday, 17 April, Abela hit out at what he described as a “wave of secularism which has as its starting point the strict separation of Church and State” – which some took to be a reference to the onset of secularist causes such as divorce, fuelling speculation that the Papal visit was intended to serve a subliminal political purpose.

ButPope Benedict himself steered clear of political controversy for the duration of visit: enjoying instead the festive and jubilant atmosphere that alighted upon the island.

From the moment of his arrival to his departure 48 hours later, Pope Benedict was feted by the enthusiastic crowds which gathered on practically every street corner of the Papal route: sometimes waiting for hours just to get a fleeting glimpse as the Popemobile whizzed by.

And yet, the preceding weeks had been fraught with controversy. The Papal visit took place against the backdrop of a mounting international child abuse scandal, and this was evidenced locally by the vandalism of a number of papal billboards, as well as an openly anti-papal internet message board.

Matters were also exacerbated by an ill-judged message, sent out by the Maltese Curia ahead of the Sunday Pontifical Mass, reminding separated guests not to come with their unmarried partners, and not to receive Holy Communion.

Some guests took offence at the suggestion, and while thousands eventually turned up for the event, a few seats in the VIP section remained conspicuously vacant.

There were some comical moments, too… especially when Luqa’s mayor tried unsuccessfully to remove a ‘phallic monument’ from its roundabout outside the airport: an incident which received unexpected worldwide publicity.

But for the vast majority of Maltese Catholics, these were but minor side issues that did nothing to upstage the real significance of the visit: a popular reaffirmation of faith.

In his homily on the Fosos, Pope Benedict XVI praised Malta for its attitudes towards the family and the sanctity of life at all stages, and in a letter thanking Maltese people for their hospitality after the event, he urged us to deal more humanely with the immigration phenomenon.

For all this, the most memorable aspect of the entire event was arguably also the least expected: an unscheduled audience with Lawrence Grech and nine other alleged victims of serial child abuse at the Church-run St Joseph Home for Boys.

This surprise gesture silenced many among Pope Benedict’s international critics, and was widely reported by the world press as a turning point in the Vatican’s approach to the global child abuse scandal.

To this day, the (unseen) image of a tearful Pope Benedict, described by the victims to have cried with them, will remain the most enduring memory of his Malta visit.

Monday, December 27, Octave of Christmas
FEAST OF ST. JOHN, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST

Many historians and Biblical scholars will continue to insist that John the Beloved Disciple was not John the Evangelist, but in the popular mind and in Christian tradition, he is one and the same. Depictions of John through the ages alternate between showing him as a young man, as Guido Reni, Pedro Berruguete, an unknown contemporary painter, and El Greco do in the panel above; or as venerable sage, as in the Giotto (extreme left) and traditional image (extreme right)...The vocation of John and his brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22). For the three former fishermen —Peter, James and John — that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person. John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son....Behold, your mother”. John and Peter were the first to enter the empty tomb after Mary Magdalene on that first Easter. And John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place — the cure of the man crippled from birth — which led to their spending the night in jail together. The effect of the Resurrection on the Apostles and the first Christians is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus”. John is traditionally considered the author of the Fourth Gospel, three New Testament letters, and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’s glory.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/122710.shtml


No OR today. The next issue will come out tomorrow, for 12/27-12/28/10.


No events announced for the Holy Father today.

One may not agree with the rankings, but it looks like ROME REPORTS has included all the top Vatican-papal stories of 2010 in its Top ten list. I haven't had a chance to review the Poepe's year day by day for its highlights, both in terms of short- and long-term significance, as well as of purely human interest.


The top 10 Vatican stories
of the year according to

Video on
www.romereports.com/palio/Top-10-Vatican-news-stories-from-2010-english-3...

December 27, 2010 - ROME REPORTS' list of the ten most important ews stories from the Vatican in 2010, with its short and long term impacts.

#10: Establishment of a Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. It is the Pope's reply to the decline in numbers of Christians in Europe and North America. He has also called a synod on the theme for the year 2012.

#9: The Pope formed a Vatican commission to investigate the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, under Cardinal Camillo Ruini. Their work is being developed under the strictest of secrecy and their findings will only be given to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

#8: Appointment of Mons. Velasio De Paolis, now a cardinal, as the Pope's delegate to bring order to the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ after the scandals committed by its founder.

#7: Exposition of the Holy Shroud of Turin. Two million people visited what is arguably the most important relic of the Catholic Church during the 44 days it was on display.

#6: Pope Benedict's third consistory in five years, creating 24 new cardinals. With them, the number of cardinals rises to 203, of which 121 are eligible as of now to participate in an eventual conclave. A caridnal becomes non-eligible after he turns 80.

#5: the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, during which religious leaders from the Holy Land, and other bishops and experts from the rest of the world, met with the Pope to study the crisis for Christians in the Middle East, and specifically, to stop the exodus of Christians from the landof Christ's birth.

#4, the book length interview with the Pope, Light of the World, and the document Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict's post-synodal apostolic exhortation formally presenting the propositions of the Synodal Assembly on the Word of God held in October 2008.

#3, the closing of the Year for Priests. Alongside around 15,000 priests, Benedict XVI concelebrated the biggest Mass in the history of St. Peter's Square. There he asked for forgiveness from God and the victims of sexual abuse by priests. He promised that the Church will do everything possible to make sure “this never happens again.”

#2, the Church effort to address sexual abuses by priests wherever these happen. Following the publication of two investigations in Ireland which reported hundreds of cases of child abuse - physical, psychological as well as sexual - committed by dozens of priests and religious since the 1920s, the Pope called on the Church in Ireland to address these issues with honesty and courage. [Up to 2000, most of these cases were generally covered up at the parish and diocesan levels, and little attentionw as given to the victims of abuse. [NB: Despite the long time period covered, total cases were less than 1,000, and majority were physical abuses committed since the 1920s by religious orders in the schools that they run.]

[I also think that the major effort by some MSM pacesetters to discredit Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally in their coverage and reporting of the sex abuse 'scandal' deserves a separate 'number' of its own. The scale and viciousness were totally unprecedented in the history of the modern papacy and of modern communications. And the grace and humility with which Benedict XVI lived through the opprobrium have been exemplary in every way.]

The Pope wrote a historic pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland in which he personally asked for forgiveness from the victims. He said in these cases it's wrong to use silence when trying to protect the good name of the Church.

The biggest news of the year, for ROME REPORTS, was the Pope's state visit to the United Kingdom, which synthesized his main spiritual and pastoral themes.

On the plane to Edinburgh, the Pope recognized that the Church has not been vigilant or determined to take swift and appropriate action against sex abuse. In the ecumenical field, while the Church was preparing the first Catholic Ordinariates to welcome disenchanted Anglicans, the Pope visited the Anglican Primate Rowan Williams at Lambeth Palace, becoming the first Pope to do so, and later to enter Westminster Abbey, where he presided at ecumenical Vespers with Archbishop Williams.

In Westminster Hall he spoke to 1,800 politicians, businessmen and British intellectuals on the relationship between politics and religion.

Also during this trip, Benedict XVI beatified one of his most admired intellectuals, Cardinal John Henry Newman, a great defender of conscience informed by the doctrine of the Church, and the msot famous Anglican convert to Catholicism.

[Not a small element of the Pope's triumph in the UK was the fact that - once again, as in the sex abuse issue, and facilitated by it - the hostility against the Pope in the MSM was massive and unprecedented in its viciousness, but Benedict XVI managed to overcome most of it from the moment he stepped on to UK soil/ He changed almost an entire mentality overnight, a change that persists three months later and appears to have worked at a deeper and more extensive level both among UK Catholics and those non- Catholics who have a basic sense of fairness.




In fact, completion of the first five years of Benedict XVI's Pontificate deserved mention on the list, and one could well extend the observations in the preceding paragraph to a general summation of the first five years of Benedict XVI's Pontificate: It has been a great success not just in terms of accomplishments, which were considerable, but also in terms of how he has managed to imprint on public awareness his agenda for God in general, Christ in particular, and the Church in specific ways that promote God, Christianity and the mission of the Church - no less than how, in the first five years of his Pontificate, John Paul II projected his crusade against Communism as his primary objective. And all this while inseparably projecting his own extraordinary personal charisma compounded of integrity, leadership, holiness, humility and true Christian joy. ]



Apparently, Americans automatically think of the Pope - whoever he happens to be - whenever they are asked about the men they most admire, the same way they usually cite their current President as #1 on this most-admired list. And, as they have since the 1950s, have always included evangelist Billy Graham, now 92, in the top 10. This year, BenedictXVi adn Billy Graham tie at #6, where last year, BenedicT XVI was #5 and Graham #6. In his time, John Paul II was always in the top 10.


In the USA, the Pope remains among
Gallup's 10 most admired men

Dec. 27, 2010

Three religious leaders made it onto the 2010 Top 10 Most Admired Man list, marking an increase over last year.

The Rev. Billy Graham (ranked sixth, tied), Pope Benedict XVI (ranked sixth, tied), and the Dalai Lama (ranked tenth) were named by Americans as the men they most admired in the annual open-ended poll conducted by USA Today/Gallup.

Last year, Graham and Benedict were the only two religious figures on the list. Graham, who has been in the top 10 list every year since 1955, was ranked sixth while Benedict was fifth in 2009.

President Barack Obama again topped the list this year as the most admired man, taking 22 percent of the votes. He has held that title since 2008, the year he was elected.

It is common for sitting presidents to top Gallup’s Most Admired Man poll; they have ranked first 52 out of the 64 times Gallup has asked the question.

While Obama maintained the No. 1 spot this year, fewer Americans named him as the man they most admired in the world compared to the previous year. Twenty-two percent of Americans named him in 2010, down from 30 percent in 2009 and 32 percent in 2008.

Trailing in second this year is former President George W. Bush, who garnered five percent of the votes. Other former U.S. presidents who made it on the list include Bill Clinton (ranked third), and Jimmy Carter (ranked eighth, tied with Glenn Beck).

Former South African president Nelson Mandela and billionaire Bill Gates also made it onto the Most Admired Man List.

Among women, Hillary Clinton continued to dominate the Most Admired Woman list. This is her ninth consecutive year at No. 1 and her fifteenth year at the top since her first appearance on the list in 1992 as first lady.

It is typical for first ladies to make it on the list, but not many have continued to be popular after their husband’s presidency. For Clinton, her dominance on the list is most likely due to her own political career.

The order of the top six women in the Top 10 list this year is identical to that of 2009: Clinton, Sarah Palin, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Condoleezza Rice, and Queen Elizabeth.

Results for the USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 10-12, 2010, with a random sample of 1,019 adults, living in the continental U.S.

Sandro Magister has a winning franchise in his decision since 2008 to collect Benedict XVI's homilies delivered during the liturgical year - from Advent to the Feast of Christ the King. We owe him a significant initiative and a great service, even to those who follow the Pope's texts day by day - and publishers outside Italy should do something similar. (All they have to do is get the rights from the Vatican, since all the translations are already available online in the Vatican's official languages... And, by Magister's criterion, B16 has been Man of the Year every year since he became Pope for his homilies alone!


Benedict XVI is the Man of the Year
for his homilies covering the liturgical cycle
Narrating the adventure of God in the history of the world,
they lift the veil from the "things that are above"
and form the cornerstone of his ordinary Magisterium.
A guide to the Pope's liturgical preaching.




Benedict XVI's collected homilies, edited by Magister: from left, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

ROME, December 27, 2010 – What follows is the preface to the volume – published in Italy by Libri Scheiwiller and on sale as of a few weeks ago – that collects the homilies of Benedict XVI during the liturgical year that just ended, year C of the Roman lectionary.

The third of the series, the volume accompanies each of the homilies by Pope Joseph Ratzinger with the biblical readings of the day's Mass, and also with the psalms and antiphons of the vespers that he celebrates.

In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini on the Word of God in the life of the Church, published last September 30, one paragraph, number 59, is dedicated precisely to paying appropriate attention and care to the homily, which is in effect, the main, if not the only, act of communication of the Christian Good News heard by hundreds of millions of the baptized every Sunday in the world.

Without a doubt, Benedict XVI is an extraordinary model in the art of the homily. These books prove it.


Like Leo the Great, Benedict XVI will
be remembered in history for his homilies
by Sandro Magister
Preface to
Omelie di Joseph Ratzinger, Papa. Anno liturgico 2010
Edited by Sandro Magister, Libri Scheiwiller, Milan, 2010
pp. 420, euro 18.00

The Roman missal for Sundays and feast days is divided into three annual cycles, each centered on the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, or Luke. In publishing the homilies of Benedict XVI year after year, Libri Scheiwiller has kept to this sequence. This third volume concludes the three-year cycle. It collects the papal homilies of the Lucan liturgical year, which began with the first Sunday of Advent of 2009 and spanned the year 2010.

The homilies for Mass and vespers are a cornerstone of this pontificate, not yet understood by all. Joseph Ratzinger writes them put himself by hand, and improvises some of them with the immediacy of the spoken word.

But he always thinks them through and prepares them with extreme care, because for him they have unique value, distinct from all his other written or spoken words.

The homilies, in fact, are part of the liturgical action, or rather they are themselves liturgy, that "cosmic liturgy" which he has called the "ultimate goal" of his apostolic mission, "when the world in its entirety will have become liturgy of God, adoration, and so will be safe and sound."

There is a great deal of Augustine in this view of Papa Ratzinger's - the city of God in heaven and the city of man on earth, time and the eternal.

In the Mass, the Pope sees "the image and the shadow of the heavenly realities" (Hebrews 8:5). His homilies are intended to lift the veil.

And in effect, in rereading them, they disclose a vision of the world and of history full of new meanings, which are the heart of the Christian good news, because "if Jesus is present, there no longer exists any time devoid of meaning and empty."

Advent is "presence," "arrival," "coming," the Pope said in the inaugural homily of this liturgical year. "God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world, he has not left us alone," and so time becomes "kairós," the unique, favorable occasion of eternal salvation, and all creation changes its appearance "if behind it is him and not the mist of an uncertain origin and an uncertain future."

But the time of the "civitas Dei" is not formless. It has a rhythm that is given to it by the Christian mystery that fills it. Every Mass, every homily, falls at a precise time, the fundamental cadence of which proceeds from Sunday to Sunday.

The "Lord's day" has as its protagonist the one who rose on the first day after the Sabbath, the figure of the "octava dies" of eternal life. The presence of the Risen One in the consecrated bread and and wine is real, most real, the Pope preaches incessantly.

All it takes to see him and encounter him is that the eyes of faith be opened, as for the disciples at Emmaus, who recognized Jesus precisely in the sacrament of the Eucharist, "in the breaking of the bread."

"The liturgical year is a great journey of faith," the Pope recalled before one Angelus, in one of those brief Sunday meditations constructed like little homilies on the Gospel of the day.

It is like walking on the road to Emmaus, in the company of the Risen One who inflames hearts by explaining the Scriptures. From Moses to the prophets to Jesus, the Scriptures are history, and with them the walking becomes history and the liturgical year retraces all of it, around Easter which acts as its hub. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost. Until the second coming of Christ, at the end of time.

What makes the Christian liturgy a "unicum," and the Pope does not cease to preach it, is that its narration is not only memory. It is living and present reality. At every Mass, there occurs what Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue of Nazareth after rolling up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21).

In the homilies, Pope Benedict is also unveiling what the Church is. He does so in obedience to the most ancient profession of faith: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins."

The "communion of saints" is primarily a communion in the holy gifts, the one great holy salvific gift given by God in the Eucharist. In welcoming the Eucharist at every sacrfice fo teh Mass, the Church is continually regenerated and grows, in unity over all the earth, and with the saints and angels of heaven.

The "remission of sins" takes place through baptism and the other sacrament of forgiveness, penance. As the Cathoic "Credo" professes, the Church is not made up by its hierarchy, nor by its organization, nor even a spontaneous association of like-minded men. Rather, it is a pure gift of God, a creation of his Holy Spirit, which generates the People of God throughout history with the liturgy and the sacraments.

There is an image that recurs frequently in the Pope's homilies: "One soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19:34). Here again are the blood and water, the Eucharist and baptism, the Church that is born from the pierced side of the Crucified One, the new Eve from the new Adam.

Recourse to images is one of the other distinctive features of the homilies of Benedict XVI. In the cathedral of Westminster, on September 18, 2010, he drew everyone's attention to the great Crucifix that dominates the nave, to the Christ "crushed by suffering, overwhelmed by sorrow, the innocent victim whose death has reconciled us with the Father and given us a share in the very life of God."

From his precious blood, from the Eucharist, the Church draws life. But the Pope also added, citing Pascal: "In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues to be in agony until the end of the world."

In the liturgical preaching of Benedict XVI, the biblical and artistic images have a constant mystagogical function - a guide to the Christian mysteries.

The wonder of the invisible glimpsed in visible art points to the even greater marvel of the Risen One present in the bread and wine, the principle of the transformation of the world, so that the city of men also "may become a world of resurrection," a city of God.

Most of the homilies collected in this volume were pronounced by the Pope at Mass, after the proclamation of the Gospel. But there are also others given at vespers, before the singing of the "Magnificat." The locations are highly varied, in Italy and abroad, in villages and cities: Rome, naturally, but also Castel Gandolfo, Malta, Turin, Fatima, Porto, Nicosia, Sulmona, Carpineto, Glasgow, London, Birmingham, Palermo.

One special case is the homily for the fourth Sunday of Lent, pronounced by the Pope during an ecumenical liturgical service in the Lutheran church of Rome.

In an appendix, as in the two previous collections, are presented some of those little gems of minor homiletics, on the readings of the Mass of the day, that Benedict XVI offers to the faithful and to the world at noon on Sundays before the Angelus, or, during the Easter season, before the Regina Caeli.

Between the major and the minor, the homilies collected here come to about eighty, covering almost the entire span of the liturgical year: another proof of the care that Benedict XVI dedicates to this ministry of his.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco recognized their greatness and proposed them as a model for all the pastors of the Church, when to the bishops of the permanent council of the Italian episcopal conference, on January 21, 2010, he said: "Let us not be afraid to declare our admiration for this art of his, and let us not tire of pointing it out to ourselves and to our priests as a lofty and extraordinary school of preaching."

Like Pope Leo the Great, Pope Benedict will also go down in history for his homilies.

Pushback from China:
'Pope behaving like a Western politician'


Beijing, Dec. 27 (PTI) - Resenting Pope Benedict XVI’s accusations that China has imposed restrictions on freedom of religion, the official media on Monday said the Pontiff sounded more like a "Western politician" than a religious leader and asked the Vatican to alter its China policy.

"The Pontiff sounded more like a Western politician than a religious leader," said Global Times, the sister publication of People's Daily, the official organ of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

In his Christmas message "peace and hope", Pope Benedict XVI had criticised China for "the limitations imposed on freedom of religion”.

"May the birth of the Saviour strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, persevering in fidelity to Christ and his church, may keep alive the flame of hope," the Pope said.

Benedict's comments came as Beijing and Vatican were locked in a war of words over appointment of leaders of Church associations in China, which Beijing argued need no approval from Vatican.

In its editorial titled 'Vatican must stop interfering in China', the newspaper said, "The Vatican is the only country in Europe that has not established official diplomatic relations with China.”

"Even though relations between the two countries have been improving in recent years, so long the Vatican refuses to cut its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and insists on taking back the right to appoint Catholic priests [Not priests, bishops!] in China, it will be difficult for permanent improvements to be made."

"Benedict's remarks are nothing new," it said.

"Chinese Catholic priests held a conference lately and elected their own leaders without the Pope's recognition, as they have always done. This irritated the Pope, who wants to lord over all Catholic believers in the world," the paper said.

It said that before the Pope attacks China's internal affairs, he should rethink the Vatican's role as a protector of religious freedom.

"The world is changing, as are the social and political surrounds for religious belief. The Vatican has no power to control the direction and speed of the world's changes, and it should not attempt to do so."

In recent years, the Vatican has tried several times to interfere with the Catholic conferences held in China, and even threatened to punish participating priests, it said, adding that "its stubborn entanglements with politics do not seem to fade away with time”.

Stating that Catholic churches are part of the religious life of Chinese people, the paper said, "The Vatican has to face the fact that all religious beliefs are free in China, as long as they do not run counter to the country's laws."

"Religious belief is a personal freedom. However, every person also has an identity bound by law and their citizenship."

It said that the Vatican's claim that religious identity goes beyond everything else is "unrealistic, and even harmful for a country composed of various ethnicities and religions”.

"What the Vatican demands from China is power, it is not about the true core of Catholic belief."

"So far, its act is not winning much support across the world. Sooner or later, Vatican will have to adjust its China policy,"it added.

I don't know if it means anything that 1) the reaction came two days late to the Pope's Christmas Day message and that 2) the editorial came out in the 'less official' Global Times rather than the Communist Party organ, People's Daily, itself. But even though the editorial may sound like a 'pro forma' retort, it is nonetheless belligerent, and maybe China watchers will see something in the call for the Vatican to 'adjust its China Policy'...

Let's see if the Vatican will react, and how soon. After all, it didn't come out with a statement regarding the Dec. 7-9 'patriotic assembly' of Chinese Catholics until more than week later. But I assumed the time lapse was to enable them to gather as many reports as they could from inside China itself before framing the statement, and I suppose this would be SOP for any Vatican reaction to anything that takes place in China.

P.S. Massimo Introvigne recently wrote a commentary in La Bussola Quotidiana recalling an article by Mons. Hon Tai-Fai, newly-named secretary for the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples , written for the OR some time in 2008, which indicates that he favors Benedict XVI's line of patient dialog behind the scenes towards a rapprochement and acceptable modus vivendi with the Beijing government. I hope to post a translation soon....

Meanwhile, Vittorio Messori offers a historical perspective on China's continued attempts to defy the Vatican.


China's defiance of the Church
and the lessons of history:
Emperors and dictators have ultimately failed
to prevail against the Pope in Rome
by Vittorio Messori
Translated from

Dec. 27, 2010

Benedict XVI's Christmas messages this year seem to be focused - through denunciations, regret and prayers - on the persecution of Christian believers taking place around the world

Indeed, as tragic statistics show, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, has increasingly become the most persecuted religious faith today: ideologically, in some countries of the West, and bloodily, in parts of Asia, Africa and even Latin America.

Martyrdom, which we thought to be a thing of the past, is on the rise and has become a reality or a threat hanging over the heads of those who venerate the Cross.

Apart from the periodic explosions of anti-Christian fanaticism in the Muslim world, one must not overlook the many ferocities resulting from a religion that many in the West see through rose-colored lenses - a 'kind and gentle' Hinduism, which nonetheless has a dark side which Mahatma Gandhi himself sought to mitigate by generous injections of the Christian Gospel into his teachings.

Of course, Hindu fanatics found this an intolerable provocation, and it was one such fanatic who assassinated him as someone who had brought about 'Christian contamination' of Hinduism.

And even Buddhism, considered by New Agers in the West to be the 'kind and gentle' religion par excellence, has menacing elements in some areas and in certain Buddhist 'schools' of belief.

In his Urbi et Orbi message on Christmas Day, Papa Ratzinger devoted a good part of his concern to the situation in China, where the persecution of Catholics has been primarily political.

After the widespread killings of Christians in the early years of the Maoist era, Beijing decided it would 'tolerate' Catholics provided they pledged allegiance to a so-called 'patriotic' Church which declared itself independent of the Vatican.

Thus, the Chinese revived an old story which is useful to recall, in order that we may reflect on some points. Even starting only with the modern era, among the reasons for the immediate spread and consolidation of the Protestant Reformation was the support of local princes and monarchs who often cared nothing about the theological disputes that underlay the Reformation.

Their interests lay in two other consequences of the Reformation: the chance to confiscate the wealth of the monasteries and the Catholic Church in general, without having to indemnify anyone; and the chance to set themselves up as the head of their own local Christian community - to be their own 'Pope', in effect, without having to answer to Rome or fear any interference from the real Pope.

The most notorious example was England's King Henry VIII, who actually did not care to change anything about doctrine and liturgy, because what interested him most - other than getting control of the wealth of the Church - was to be the head of the Church of England, out of the reach of inconvenient Popes [who anathemized his divorce of his Catholic queen to marry Anne Boleyn]

Then, among the first measures taken by the victorious leaders of the French Revolution was to create a 'national' Church to which priests and bishops were required to pledge allegiance and by which they were going to be paid salaries provided they cut off all ties to Rome.

Germany, in the 19th and 20th centuries, defied the Church twice: first with Bismarck and his Kulturkampf, with the battle cry "Away from Rome!"; and then, with Hitler, who intended to do with Catholics what he succeeded quickly in doing to the Lutherans - organize them into the Church of the Third Reich.

Indeed, every totalitarian regime has always done all it can to cut off any relationship between its subjects and the Pope in Rome. In the genocide of believers by Lenin and Stalin, the first victims persecuted pitilessly were the so-called Uniates - Orthodox Christians who, while maintaining their own liturgies and ecclesiastical traditions, had 'reunited' with Rome, pledging their loyalty to the Pope.

Unable to liberate itself from Catholicism, 19th-century Poland expended great sums and energies to create a national church - the Pax movement - whose first characteristic was that it did not follow the Pope.

This, too, was the dream of the 'cappellani' - excommunicated priests and brothers who were followers of Garibaldi. But even less intransigent leaders of the Italian Risorgimento [the movement that led to Italian reunification in the 1860s] planned for an 'Italian Church' that the new State would control.

And the Mussolini of the Salo period, which saw the re-emergence of his anti-clerical disposition as the socialist that he was and basically remained, inveighed against the 'trahison des clercs' [betrayal by the clergy] and boasted that once the war was ended, he would take away the 'Italian Church' from the Pope.

At the height of his success, he had banned pilgrimages to Lourdes, directing Italian pilgrims instead to Loreto, designating it a 'national shrine' for a Church that he envisioned to become increasingly a 'national Church'.

These are just some examples which confirm a historical constant that cannot have escaped the regime in China. Once again, the battle and the persecution are directed against the only Church that has a universal structure and whose local communities are led by pastors nominated by the Vatican and in communion with the Pope.

To enemies of the Church, the Gospel can be 'annoying', but a Pope is insupportable - how could a stranger in Rome have anything to do with the internal affairs of an empire?

And these Catholic bishops, who represent a very tiny minority of Chinese - how can they be allowed to be the only ones not to join the worldwide obsequies to a formidable market of a billion and a half people governed by a monolithic regime protected by a forest of intercontinental nuclear missiles?

And yet, through the centuries, the same script has played itself out again and again: wherever Caesar arrogates unto himself even that which must be rendered to God, he comes up against an obstacle in the form of the Roman Pontiff.

In every totalitarianism, there has always been one worldwide power that has been able to pragmatically arrive at bilateral agreements or concordats [that govern the situation of the local Church in the signatory state], as a lesser evil, as a compromise to better protect the interests of local Catholics.

But the same power, when the faith itself is in play, has never bent the knee, and in the midst of the inevitable persecution that results, it already plans for its rebirth after the storm has passed.

History shows that even Beijing will not succeed in what emperors and dictators in every time and place were unable to do after all was said and done. [Let us pray that this is so!]


Here's a third and rather surprising perspective on the China problem:

China takes on the Vatican
By GORDON G. CHANG

Dec. 27, 2010


“May the birth of the Savior strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience,” Pope Benedict said at the end of his traditional Urbi et Orbi — to the city and to the world — message on Christmas.

After years of accommodation, Beijing in recent months decided to attack the Roman Catholic Church, and the Pontiff, who had the world stage to himself on Saturday, used the opportunity to strike back.

Beijing forced a confrontation with Benedict last month by first ordaining a bishop in the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association without the Pope’s approval.

Then, this month Chinese authorities, without sanction from the Holy See, both engineered the election of an illegally ordained bishop to head the bishops’ conference and selected a bishop recognized by the Vatican to lead the patriotic association.

Rome was livid, maintaining that these actions had “unilaterally damaged the dialogue and the climate of trust.” It praised those faithful who refused to participate in the “illicit ceremonies,” as the Catholic News Agency termed them, and asked China’s Catholics to support those who had to take part against their will.

The Vatican condemned the forced participation as a “grave violation of their human rights, particularly their freedom of religion and of conscience.”

There is, as a practical matter, no freedom of religion or conscience in China. There is, however, an officially recognized Catholic patriotic association, which does not recognize the authority of the Pope, but most Chinese Catholics choose to pray in illegal “house churches.”

That’s also true for Protestants, who largely shun the Communist Party’s organization for them. Beijing claims that 23 million Chinese worship in the official Christian organizations, but they are vastly outnumbered by as many as 107 million house-church participants.

However many Christians there may be, the atheistic Party is playing a losing hand. Unsanctioned, illegal churches have spread across the Chinese heartland, some of which even operate openly under the eyes of nervous officials. The world’s largest security services, surprisingly, seem unable to deal with this affront to authority.

“It’s no problem if the government doesn’t like Christians or house churches,” said Zhang Fei to London’s Telegraph. “God is in charge of us, not the government.”

Miss Zhang’s government, however, thinks that is precisely the problem. And indeed she and the 1,000 other members of her congregation in Beijing pose a challenge to Chinese officials.

The fact that the 25-year-old manager can continue to pray in the center of Communist power —i nstead of toiling away in some labor camp in a remote province — highlights the inability of officialdom to deal with religion.

The Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau can close down the Association on Music in Korean Dialect and the Beijing Association on Roast Duck Technology, but it is having trouble coercing Miss Zhang and her co-religionists.

That inability would seem anomalous for what has been called the world’s most successful authoritarian regime. But the reason is simple: by now, religion has spread far too widely across China.

These days, it is no longer confined to poor backwaters; it has taken hold in the country’s great cities. Beijing simply cannot incarcerate 100 million fervent Christians — as well as untold numbers of devout Buddhists, Muslims, Daoists, and others. China’s people do not believe in communism any more, and in its place they are taking up religion.

I know that as a fact. Two years ago my neighbor went to China, but not exactly for a sightseeing vacation. He and a dozen members of his northern New Jersey congregation went to an inland Chinese province — so that they could smuggle in Bibles and pray with house-church Protestants in five-hour Sunday services.

One of my mother-in-law’s students, who became a priest in Hong Kong, devoted his life to going to neighboring Guangdong Province to surreptitiously tend to the Catholic faithful there.

China’s Christians, whether they go to official services or the unsanctioned ones, do not see themselves as enemies of the state. Yet deeply insecure Chinese officials view them as such.

The cadres, therefore, are creating enemies for the Communist Party, just as they did with, among others, Falun Gong practitioners, Buddhist Tibetans, and Muslim Uighurs.

And that gets us back to the Pope. China’s Communists devoted years of effort to understanding why the Soviet party failed. Among other reasons, they focused on the role of the charismatic Pope John II. Now, Beijing’s rulers think they can antagonize his steely successor with impunity.

Historical trends, many believe, point to the Chinese owning this century. I think that’s a gross misreading of events, but, in any case, Beijing rulers will certainly fail if, while enjoying their moment of hubris, they create more adversaries than they can deal with.

Dec. 27, 2010

To end the feast Day of St. John, this reflection from Cardinal Ratzinger:

The farewell discourses of Jesus, as the Gospel of John presents them to us, hover in a singular way between time and eternity, between the present hour of the Passion and the new presence of Jesus that is already dawning, because the Passion itself is at the same time his "glorification" as well.

On the one hand, the darkness of the betrayal, of the denial, of the abandonment of Jesus to the ultimate ignominy of the Cross weighs upon these discourses; in them, on the other hand, it seems that all of this has already been overcome and resolved into the glory that is to come.

Thus Jesus describes his Passion as a going away that leads to a new and fuller coming – as a state of being-on-the-way with which the disciples are already acquainted.[1]

Thereupon Thomas, surprised, asks the question, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus answers with a statement that has become one of the central texts of Christology: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."

This revelation of the Lord, however, elicits a new question now - or rather, a request, which this time is made by Philip: "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied."

Again Jesus replies with a revelatory word, which leads from another perspective into the very depths of his self-consciousness, into the very depths of the Church's faith in Christ: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:2-9).

The primordial human longing to see God had taken, in the Old Testament, the form of "seeking the face of God". The disciples of Jesus are men who are seeking God's face. That is why they joined up with Jesus and followed after him.

Now Philip lays this longing before the Lord and receives a surprising answer, in which the novelty of the New Testament, the new thing that is coming through Christ, shines as though in crystallized form: Yes, you can see God. Whoever sees Christ sees him.

This answer, which characterizes Christianity as a religion of fulfillment, as a religion of the divine presence, nevertheless immediately evokes a new question. "Already and not yet" has been called the fundamental attitude of Christian living; what this means becomes evident precisely in this passage.

For the next question is now (for all of post-apostolic Christianity, at least): How can you see Christ and see him in such a way that you see the Father at the same time?

This abiding question is placed in the Gospel of John, not in the discourses in the Cenacle, but rather in the Palm Sunday account. There it is related that some Greeks, who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship, came to Philip – that is, to the disciple who in the Cenacle would voice the request to see the Father.

These Greeks present their request to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, an extensively Hellenized part of the Holy Land: "Sir, we wish to see Jesus"' (Jn 12:20-21). It is the request of the pagan world, but it is also the request of the Christian faithful of all times, our request: We want to see Jesus. How can that happen?

Jesus' response to this request, which was conveyed to the Lord by Philip together with Andrew, is mysterious, like most of the answers that Jesus gives in the fourth Gospel to the great questions of mankind that are posed to him.

It is not recorded whether there was an actual encounter between Jesus and those Greeks. Jesus's answer, instead, opens up a horizon that is completely unexpected at this point. For Jesus sees in this request an indication that the moment of his glorification has come.

He suggests in greater detail in the following words how this glorification will come about: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24).

The glorification occurs in the Passion. This is what will produce "much fruit" – which is, we might add, the Church of the Gentiles, the encounter between Christ and the Greeks, who stand for the peoples of the world in general.

Jesus's answer transcends the moment and reaches far into the future: Indeed, the Greeks shall see me, and not only these men who have come now to Philip, but the entire world of the Greeks. They shall see me, yes, but not in my earthly, historical life, "according to the flesh" (cf. 2 Cor 5:16 [Douay Rheims]); they will see me by and through the Passion. By and through it I am coming, and I will no longer come merely in one single geographic locality, but I will come over all geographical boundaries into the farthest reaches of the world, which wants to see the Father.

Jesus announces his coming from the perspective of his Resurrection, his coming in the power of the Holy Spirit, and so he proclaims a new way of seeing that occurs in faith. The Passion is not thereby left behind as something in the past. It is, rather, the place from which and in which alone he can be seen.

Jesus expands the parable of the dying grain of wheat that is fruitful only in death into the proper and fundamental pattern for human existence: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also" (Jn 12:25-26).

The seeing occurs in following after, Following Christ as his disciple is a life lived at the place where Jesus stands, and this place is the Passion. In it, and nowhere else, is his glory present.

What does this demonstrate? The concept of seeing has acquired an unexpected dynamic. Seeing happens through a manner of living that we call 'following after'. Seeing occurs by entering into the Passion of Jesus. There we see, and in him we see the Father also.

From this perspective the words of the prophet quoted at the end of the Passion narrative of John attain their full greatness: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced" (Jn 19:37; cf. Zech 12:10).[2]

Seeing Jesus, in whom we see the Father at the same time, is a thoroughly existential act. From the verbal perspective we must add that the concept of the "face of Christ" is not found in these Johannine texts.

Yet they are implicitly connected with a central theme of the Old Testament, concerning an essential attitude of piety that is described in a series of texts as "seeking the face of God". Despite the difference in terminology; there is a profound continuity between the Johannine "looking on Christ" and the Old Testament "being on the way" toward looking upon the face of God.

In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians the verbal connection is also to be found, when he writes about the glory of God that appears in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). We will have to return to this later.

Both John and Paul refer us to the Old Testament. The New Testament texts about seeing God in Christ are deeply rooted in the piety of Israel; by and through it they extend through the entire breadth of the history of religion or, perhaps to put it better: They draw the obscure longing of religious history upward to Christ and thereby guide it toward his response.

If we want to understand the New Testament theology of the face of Christ, we must look back into the Old Testament. Only in this way can it be understood in all its depth.

Enddnotes:
[1] Romano Guardini has described this interpretation of the farewell discourses very beautifully in: The Lord: Reflections on the Person and the Life of Jesus Christ, trans. Elinor Castendyk Briefs (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1954), pp. 374-80.

[2] For the interpretation of John 19:37, see also Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangeluin 3 (Herder, 1975), pp. 343-45 [English trans., The Gospel according to St. John (New York: Crossroad, 1982)].

Tuesday, December 28, Octave of Christmas

FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS
The massacre of the innocents on the orders of Herod is one of those Biblical scenes that inspired the best painters. The sampling shown here are, from left, by Giotto, Ghirlandaio, and Rubens. In Hispanic countries, the Dia del Ninos Inocentes is the precursor of the American April Fools' Day, when everyone is expected to pull a joke on unsuspecting 'innocents'.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/122810.shtml


OR for 12/27-12/28:

Photo: Iraqis in front of a Baghdad mural depicting the faces of those who were killed in the massacre at the Our Lady of Salvation cathedral last month.
Benedict's urgent appeal on a Christmas saddened by violence against Christians:
'Hope and reconciliation'
The Pope calls for respect of religious freedom
and to abandon hatred in favor of peaceful solutions to conflicts

Besides the Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi mesage, other papal stories in this double issue include his Christmas Eve homily, the Sunday Angelus, and his lunch with the Missionaries of Charity and their wards in Rome (no photo). Surprising that only the 3 photos above were posted of the Christmas weekend, and once again, a dubious choice in the U&O photo! Other Page 1 stories: A summary of the Christmas Day attacks in Nigeria, the Philippines and Pakistan; and the UN, the European Union and the African Union call on defeated President Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast to leave the country, as his Proops battle opponents on the streets of the capital Abidjan while the election winner Ouattara is holed up in a hotel protected by UN troops.


No events announced for the Holy Father today.




- A blogger on the site get-religion.org, who says he is Orthodox Christian, proves he himself doesn't 'get' much right about Catholicism at all!
www.getreligion.org/2010/12/big-bens-new-counter-reformation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+getreligion%2FDmXm+%28GetRel...
He mounts an entirely unfounded screed over the dreadfully uninformed and highly dubious assertions in the recent Washington Post article on Mons. Guido Marini (posted and thoroughly earlier on this thread), in which the blogger sees Marini as the surrogate 'villain' for the Holy Father (whom he calls 'BIG BEN' in the headline) in pushing through his supposed 'counter-Reformation' of Vatican II.... Father Z has inveighed against the WaPo article, rather mildly, I thought; and most surprisingly, someone at the usually staunchly traditionalist Rorate caeli blog thought the WaPo writer did a good job and found no objections at all! (I suspect mainly because he was giddy that somewhere in the article, the writer mentions the name of the blog!)

- The rest of the Anglophone media have just caught on to the editorial in a semi-official Chinese newspaper first reported in English yesterday by the Indian news agency PTI (posted on this page two posts above) which amounts to a reply by the Beijing government to the Pope's Urbi et Orbi denunciation of Chinese efforts to control the Catholic Church in China. [/SIM]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/12/2010 19:43]

Here's one Christmas Eve article I was unable to translate till now, but it has been mentioned in a few Catholic blogs...


The Pope's 'minister of liturgy' says:
Put an end to 'creative' Masses -
cultivate more prayer and silence
Interview with Cardinal Canizares
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from

December 24, 2010


Catholic liturgy is going through 'a certain crisis' and Benedict XVI wishes to bring about a new liturgical movement that would return more sacredness and silence to the Mass, and pay more attention to the beauty of sacred song, music and art.

Cardinal Anto­nio Cañizares Llovera, 65, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine worship - who was called 'little Ratzinger' when he was Primate of Spain and Archbishop of Toledo - is the man whom the Pope has entrusted to lead the task.

In this interview with Il Giornale, the Pope's 'minister of liturgy' reveals and explains plans and programs in this respect.

As a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger lamented the haste in the post-Vatican II liturgical reform. What did you think?
Liturgical reform was carried out with great haste, in fact. The intentions were all for the best - to apply the liturgical reform decreed by Vatican II.

But it was all done rather precipitately. Not enough time and space was given for the teachings of the Council to be received and internalized - overnight, the way of celebrating Mass was changed.

I remember well the mentality that was widespread then: that there had to be change, something new had to be created. And what we had received - Tradition - was considered an obstacle. The reform was seen to be a purely human task, in that many considered the Church to be the work of human hands rather than one instituted by God.

And liturgical reform was seen as a sort of laboratory experiment, the fruit if imagination and especially 'creativity', which was the magic word at the time.

Cardinal Ratzinger wished for a 'reform of the reform' but these words are now avoided even at the Vatican. It is apparent however, that Benedict XVI wants such a reform. Can you talk to us about this?
I do not know if I can speak of a 'reform of the reform' or whether it would be right to do so. What I do see as absolutely necessary and urgent, according to the Pope's wishes, is to give life to a new, clear and vigorous liturgical movement in the entire Church.

As Benedict XVI explains in the volume on liturgy in Joseph Ratzinger's Opera omnia, the destiny of the faith and the Church depends on our relationship with liturgy.: Christ is present in the Church through the sacraments. God is the subject of liturgy, not us. Liturgy is not human action but God's.

The Pope, more than issuing decrees, has spoken through example. How do you interpret the modifications he has introduced in papal liturgies?
First of all, there must be no doubt about what is good in Vatican II's liturgical reform which has brought great benefits to the life of the Church, such as the more conscious participation of the faithful in the Mass and the enrichment of the Mass in terms of Sacred Scripture.

But alongside these benefits, there have been shadows that emerged after the reforms came into effect: Liturgy has been 'wounded' - and this is a fact - by arbitrary deformations, brought about by secularization which has unfortunately struck even within the Church.

Consequently, in many celebrations, God is no longer the center, but it is man who takes the leading role, with his so-called creative activity, and the principal role assigned to the assembly. The post-Conciliar reform was understood as a rupture with tradition, rather than an organic development from it.

But we must revive the spirit of liturgy, and that is why the changes introduced into Benedict XVI's own celebrations are significant: the Christ-centered orientation of the liturgical action, the Crucifix in the center of the altar, Communion received while kneeling, Gregorian chant, a space for silence, the beauty of sacred art.

Likewise, it is necessary and urgent to promote Eucharistic Adoration - in the real presence of the Lord, one cannot avoid being in adoration.

When one speaks of recovering the sacred, there are always those who consider it as a simple return to the past, the result of nostalgia. How do you answer them?
Loss of the sense of the sacred, of mystery, of God himself, is one of the most serious consequences for a true humanism. Those who think that to revive, recover and reinforce the spirit of liturgy - and the truth of liturgical celebration - is a simple 'return to the past' ignore reality.

To place the liturgy at the center of Church life is not nostalgia at all - on the contrary, it is the guarantee of staying on course towards the future.

How do you evaluate the overall state of Catholic liturgy today?
In the face of the risk that it has become routine, in view of a lot of confusion, and the poverty and banality of church music, one can say it is in some crisis. That is why a new liturgical movement is urgent.

Benedict XVI has pointed to the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who was greatly devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, in explaining that the true reformer is someone who obeys the faith - he does not move in arbitrary ways and does not arrogate any arbitrariness to the rite. He is not the master but the custodian of the treasure instituted by the Lord and handed down to us.

Thus the Pope has asked our Congregation to promote a renewal that conforms to Vatican II but in tune with the liturgical tradition of the Church. We must not overlook the Conciliar norms which prescribe against introducing any innovations that are not ascertained to be of true use for the Church, with the precaution that new forms, in any case, must develop organically out of what already exists.

How does the Congregation propose to do that?
By considering any liturgical renewal through the hermeneutic of continuity indicated by Benedict XVI for interpreting Vatican II.

Therefore, it is necessary to overcome the tendency to 'freeze' post-Conciliar liturgical reform in its current state, insofar as it does not do justice to the organic development of the liturgy.

We are trying to promote a major commitment in terms of the formation of priests, seminarians, consecrated persons and the lay faithful that will promote a true understanding of the liturgies celebrated by the Church.

This requires adequate and ample instruction, vigilance and faithfulness in the rites, and an authentic education for experiencing them in full. This will be accompanied by a review and updating of the texts (prenotanda) that introduce various liturgical rites.

We are also aware that impelling the movement will not be possible without a pastoral renewal of the process of Christian initiation itself.

And this perspective shall also be applied to sacred art and music?
The new liturgical movement should uncover the beauty of liturgy. So we shall be opening a new section in our Congregation dedicated to sacred art and music, specifically in the service of liturgy. This means that, to begin with, we shall offer criteria and orientations for sacred art, music and song. The same way as we shall be offering criteria and orientations for preaching.

In most churches, kneelers have disappeared, Mass continues to be open to 'creativity', and sometimes, the priests even do away with the most sacred parts of the Canon - how do you reverse this tendencies?
Vigilance by pastors is fundamental and must not be considered as something inquisitorial or repressive, but as a service. In any case, we should make everyone aware not just of the 'rights of the faithful' but also of 'God's right' [since, after all, liturgy is an expression of worship of God, not for the gratification of the faithful nor of the celebrant!]

Then there is the other extreme risk - for the faithful to think that the sacredness of liturgy depends on the 'richness' of the priest's vestments and Mass accessories - which arises from mere aestheticism which ignores the heart of liturgy...
Beauty is fundamental in liturgy, but it is something entirely different from aestheticism which is empty, formalist and sterile - and it may be a temptation for some to think that the beauty of liturgy depends on the richness or antiquity of its trappings.

So it requires good formation and good catechesis based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church - this will also guard against the other extreme, that of banalization. The Church must act decisively and vigorously against a return to customs which may have had meaning in the past but no longer do today, and do not help in any way to foster the truth of the liturgical celebration.

Can you give us a concrete illustration of what may change in the liturgy?
More than thinking of specific changes, we must first commit ourselves to renewing and promoting this new liturgical movement following Benedict XVI's teaching - to revive the sense of the sacred, the sense of mystery, placing God at the center of all liturgical rites.

We must promote Eucharistic Adoration, renew and improve liturgical music, cultivate silences in the Mass and allow more room for meditation. Then more specific changes can arise.

Fr. Lombardi looks back
at Pope Benedict's 2010


28 DEC 2010 (RV) - Five overseas trips, four pastoral visits in Italy, an Apostolic Exhortation, a consistory, 45 general audiences, a book-interview. These are just some of the event’s that marked 2010 for Pope Benedict XVI.

Twelve intense months, not without difficult times. A year, acknowledged the Pope in his address to the Roman Curia, marked by the scandal [almost all of it in the past, before 2000] of abuse by clergy.

Focusing on four main events in 2010, the Director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, begins his reflection with the painful tragedy of the sex abuse scandal:

FR. LOMBARDI: The problem is not an entirely new one. Countries like the United States had already intensely experienced the problem a dozen years ago. In Ireland the problem dates back to the past and, in 2009, it was addressed by the Pope, together with some Irish bishops: the Pope announced a letter to the Catholics of Ireland on this issue.

It 's true, however, that during the year the problem gathered strength in other European countries and this has generated a considerable response and dismay. The Pope has drawn up many acts and made many interventions on how, and with what spirit, to intervene on the issue, which have been exemplary.

He demonstrated by listening to the victims on several occasions, an attitude of readiness to listen, to understand, to participate in their suffering.

On various occasions he invited the Church to a profound renewal; let us not forget his closing address for the Year of the Priest, which touched us all very deeply.

He has also concretely encouraged all those who are committed to prevention, and healing these wounds. So we are in the right direction to overcome the tragedy of this scandal, which has deeply hurt many people, but one which must be seen as an occasion for a renewal, for a capacity to listen, to reflect in depth on all issues at stake.

Not only the issue of priestly holiness, but also issues of sexuality and respect for the person in the world today, where so often this respect is missing from the dimension of sexuality and realm of affections.

I hope that this great tragedy will serve as an impulse for renewal and deeper commitment within the Church on the frontiers of service to human dignity and the sanctity of life.

The Pope has dedicated the message for World Day of Peace to religious freedom,, an issue of relevance today, given also the resurgence of anti-Christian persecution ...
When we think of the persecutions, the difficulties of Christians, we primarily tend to look to the Middle East, but unfortunately it is true that problems are also present in many other regions of the world; we think of events in India, the Philippines and in other parts of Asia.

What has been particularly painful for us, especially in recent months, are the problems posed to freedom of religion, the freedom of conscience for Christians in China. Vatican authorities made some very explicit and important interventions in this regard.

The document for the World Day of Peace this year, however, also invites the West, secularized societies, to broaden our vision. The theme of "Christianophobia" was raised for the first time in [the Pope’s] address to the Roman Curia, and it is something that also affects our countries and our cultures - this attempt to exclude Christian signs and expressions of Christian life from public life in particular.

One of the Holy Father’s most significant messages during his trip to the United Kingdom, in particular in his speech in Westminster Hall, was his insistence on the right to practice the Christian faith freely and explicitly in all areas of the world, even in secular countries, as contribution to a healthy society.

One of the highlights in the life of the Church in 2010 was the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East. Also on this occasion, the Pope reminded us as Christians, and not only in the Holy Land, to be promoters of reconciliation, peace-builders ...
Yes, even if there were, unfortunately, even after the Synod, signs of violence and difficulties for Christians - we remember the bombing of the church in Baghdad - the Synod gave us an impression of the vitality, commitment, desire to actively witness, of Christians of the various rites, the various communities in the region. So, it was also a sign of hope, despite the difficulties that persist.

Pope Benedict made many trips during the year: four in Italy and five overseas. The journey to the UK, in his own words, was memorable, especially the beatification of John Henry Newman ...
The figure of Newman was important on this trip. Newman is a figure of crucial significance for this Pope, brvsuse of the relationship between faith, reason and spirituality.

In his speech to the Roman Curia, the Pope spoke of one aspect of Newman's thought in more depth than he had while travelling in the United Kingdom, that of conscience: what conscience meant, for Cardinal Newman, as a criterion in the search for truth.

Newman, especially in the Anglophone world, but also for the universal Church, is held up by the Pope as a luminous figure at a time when we must find even amid difficulties, the right path in the context of a very challenging cultural, religious, spiritual debate.

Among the many decisions taken by the Pope this year is the establishment of a dicastery for the New Evangelization. Also the idea of a "Courtyard of the Gentiles", proposed by Benedict XVI for the people of our time ...
The creation of a new Congregation was perhaps a surprise, because nobody thought that we needed a new institution as part of the Roman Curia. However it sends a very clear message: that of the priority of proclaiming the Gospel, which has always been the mission of the Church, through the centuries, even in difficult situations.

The Council for New Evangelization is a specific message, but it must work within the context of the broader mission of the Church, contextualising the proclamation of the Gospel in today's world.

You described the interview-book Light of the World as an “act of true communicative courage". In your opinion, what is Benedict XVI’s challenge to the world of communications, a phenomenon that distinguishes - almost defines - the era in which we live?
We are still discovering Pope Benedict's communicative abilities. There was the idea that the Pope was not communicative, compared to his great predecessor.

In fact, he is finding the formulas that are his own to communicate his message - some even new for a Pope. We only have to think of the book Jesus of Nazareth, of which we are awaiting the second volume, and hope to have a third volume. It is a theological and spiritual book, written personally by a theologian Pope but not as Pope [i.e., not as part of his Magisterium], that is a great novelty introduced by this Pope, as is the book-length direct interview [not conducted in writing, with written responses to submitted questions, as ot had been done with Paul VI and John Paul II.]

These novelties certainly shows the Pope’s considered search to find suitable, appropriate and personal ways to communicate. I would add the other classical forms of his communication, which are the homilies, catecheses and major addresses.

The homilies, in particular, distinguish the service of the Pope as a great contribution to the synthesis between theology and spirituality for the Church today, as a teacher of homiletics for the whole Church.

Beijing counter-attacks
and denounces the Pope
by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera
Translated from

December 28, 2010

Fr. Cervellera is the editor of AsiaNews and before that, served many years as a missionary in China.

With the courage that distinguishes him, Benedict XVI has once again made a public appeal in behalf of the Catholics in China and gainst the violations of religious freedom that they are experiencing.

Beijing has replied by twisting the Pope's Christmas message on BBC Radio and calumniating the Pope in its official newspapers.

In his Christmas Day message urbi et orbi - which is certainly one of the messages that receives the most attention every year around the world - the Pope prayed for "the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, persevering in fidelity to Christ and his Church, may keep alive the flame of hope".

In contrast to the fence-sitting and resignation, if not outright complicity, about the Chinese government which have become widespread in the West - despite much lip service to an improvement in the respect for human rights, including religious freedom, in the world's second economic power - the Pope described all the difficulties that Chinese Catholics have been subjected to, afteer all the 'openings and modernization' vaunted by the Chinese regime.

In order to spare itself of being thus exposed to its own people, the Chinese government's propaganda arm blocked transmission of the Pope's message in China. Thanks to the fact that satellite transmissions have a lag time of several seconds, the Chinese censors were able to prevent tranmission of the part of the Pope's message that referred to the situation in China.

The Pope did not specify the 'limitations' to religious freedom in his Christmas Day mesasge, but a few days earlier, the Vatican published a note on the eighth Assembly of Catholic Chinese representatives held in early December, to which 40 bishops were forcibly brought to Beijing in order to take part in an act that is contrary to Catholic doctrine.

The assembly elected new presidents for the govenrment-controlled Patriotic Association and Council of Chinese Bishops - organizations intended to affirm a Chinese national church that is independent of any ties to the Vatican.

Earlier, in November, the government sponsored the ordination of a bishop in Chengde, Hebei province, without a mandate from the Pope. [The Vatican had, in fact, specifically opposed that particular nomination.]

Benedict XVI's words were addressed not just to the 'official' Church recognized and supervised by the government, but also to the underground Church which has dozens of its priests in prison or in work camps, and two bishops who have 'disappeared' after being arrested by Chinese police. The Holy Father asks all of them not lose hope and to strenghten their courage.

Masses celebrated on Christmas Day showed such courage: thousands of young people, including non-Christians, attended Masses in the official churches. Many underground priests, despite the risk of arrest, celebrated Christmas Mass in the most unlikely places.

Even the relationship between the 'two churches', always difficult, has resisted the violations of the regime.

The eighth assembly in Beining was clearly aimed at further splitting the official and the underground branches, treating the official bishops like puppets. Instead, the two communities used Christmas as an occasion for reconciliation. [How, exactly?]

This has not pleased the government which has started a new campaign in the media. Yeterday, the Global Times, a newspaper of the Communist Party of China, accused Benedict XVI of wanting "to lord over all Catholic believers in the world", of suffocating the freedom of Chinese Catholics, and of playing politics.

Just like in the era of Mao Ze-dong, the persecuted are now accused of being the persecutors.

In today's Il Giornale, Andrea Tornielli anticipates a few more Curial nominations in the next few days:

More curial nominations
before year's end
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from


Barring last minute changes, Pope Benedict XVI is expected to announce in the next few days the new number-2 men in the Curial Congregations for the Causes of Sainthood and for the Clergy.

In both cases, they are internal promotions from being undersecretary to secretary of their respective congregations: Italian Marcello Bartolucci, at Saints; and Spaniard Celso Morga Uruzubieta, at Clergy, will be named secretary and consecrated as archbishops, to become the principal collaborators to Cardinals Angelo Amato and Mauro Piacenza, respectively.

Bartolucci, 66, is an Umbrian who has been a long-standing 'fixture' at Saints. Morga, who has close ties to the Opus Dei, was named undersecretary at Clergy just a year ago, but earned his promotion after the elevation of Cardinal Piacenza from secretary to prefect.

Also expected shortly is the nomination of a new Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Apostolic Life, to succeed the retiring Cardinal Franc Rode.