BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, March 27, Fifth Week of Lent

BLESSED FRANCESCO FAA DI BRUNO (Italy, 1825-1888), Soldier, Mathematician, Priest
He was one of the many sainted figures like Don Bosco who emerged in late 19th century
Turin. Son of a marquis, he was well educated and a trained officer in the Sardinian Army
around the time of Italian reunification. He caught the attention of King Vittorio Emanuele
who wanted him to tutor his two young sons. However, the King withdrew the offer because
of strong anti-Catholic feeling at that time. Francesco went to Paris to study astronomy and
mathematics, which was to be his lifelong passion. He studied with the two French scientists
who discovered the planet Neptune. Returning to Italy, he taught math at the University of
Turin but did significant charitable work on the side. Notably, he founded the Society of
St. Zita, originally to assist domestic servants and later, unwed ,others as well. He set up
a hostel for the aged and raised funds for a church to honor soldiers who died in the wars
of reunification. He obtained an age dispensation from Pius IX to study for the priesthood
and was ordained at age 51. He continued to teach but he also shared his inheritance with
the poor and set up a hostel for prostitutes. He published numerous articles on mathematical
theory for leading scientific journals and developed the Faa di Bruno mathematical formula
for the derivative of composite functions in calculus. He was beatified in 1988.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/032712.cfm


THE POPE'S DAY

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DAY 2 - APOSTOLIC VISIT TO CUBA


Tuesday, March 27

SANTIAGO DE CUBA

09.30 VISIT TO THE SHRINE OF THE VIRGEN DE LA CARIDAD

10.30 Departure from Antonio Maceo International Airport for Havana.


LA HABANA

12.00 Arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport.

17.30 COURTESY VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE
and to the Council of Ministers
Palacio de la Revolucion

19.15 Meeting and dinner with Cuban bishops and the papal delegation
Apostolic Nunciature

---

MEXICO POST-SCRIPT:
3.4 million turned out for the Pope


From El Universal on March 26:

The governor of Guanajuato state, Juan Manuel Oliva, has reported that the total number of persons who took part in the events of Pope Benedict XVI's visit reached 3.4 milluion, and that the state came off the visit with a 'clearn balance'.

"The event has given us indisputable recognition. It was an organizational success that met its goals, with satisfactory results, and a clear operational balance", Oliva said at a news conference....

The sidebar captioning the photo reads:
The gates opened, and Pope Benedict XVI came out with an enormous smile to thank the mariachi who had been singing for him outside the Colegio Miraflores.


One year ago today....

Benedict XVI paid tribute to more than 300 Italian civilians of Rome who were massacred by the Germans
at the Fosse Ardeatine in 1943 to retaliate for a partisan attack on Nazi troops.


And two years ago....

The New York Times launched its scurrilous story accusing Cardinal Ratzinger of having failed to discipline a Milwaukee priest, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, accused of committing hundreds of sex abuses against deaf children in his care in the 1960s and 1970s, and whom the diocese forced into retirement in 1972. When the diocese decided to place him on canonical trial in 1996, more than 20 years later - for supposed violations of the sacrament of confession in some of the abuses he was accused of - the CDF through its then-secretary, Mons Tarcisio Bertone, approved the canonical trial but also mentioned the priest's request to be spared the trial because the charges had been previously investigated by the police before his retirement and were found not to be sustainable, and also because he was dying. In fact he died two months after Bertone's letter to the diocese.

The hue and cry falsely raised by the Times was particularly and deliberately malicious because all this happened long before the CDF was given specific jurisdiction over sex abuses, and because the diocese never informed the CDF about the case until 24 years after the priest's retirement, and only because it wanted to try Murphy for violating the sacrament of confession. It was made even more outrageous because the facts themselves from the documents that the Times posted online clearly contradicted the narrative put forward by their news report. (The Times actually believed no one would bother to check out the documents they posted so ostentatiously to 'prove' their good faith - in a shameless act of bad faith!)

The day after they broke the Milwaukee story, the Times followed with a report from Munich alleging that Cardinal Ratzinger, as Archbishop of Munich-Freising, had known - though no proof was offered for this - that a priest from another diocese who was undergoing therapy in Munich for sexual misconduct was given a pastoral assignment not long after he got to Munich in 1991. The cardinal's Munich vicar at the time had previously stated that he alone had been responsible for making the assignment.

Despite the hue and cry over both stories, they proved to be fleeting media sensations, collapsing into dust from the weight of truth against the media attempt to slander the Holy Father.

The New York Times used documents from Vatican-baiting lawyer Jeffrey Anderson who had filed a suit on behalf of one alleged victim of Fr. Murphy, naming the Holy Father, along with Cardinals Sodano and Bertone, as responsible for Fr. Murphy's actions. Anderson withdrew the suit earlier this year, after being unable to reply to the Vatican brief disclaiming any responsibility by Vatican officials for the individual actions of diocesan priests.

Day 2 in Cuba:
Pilgrimage to the Basilica Shrine
Nuestra Senora de la Caridad del Cobre


The Pope began the day by concelebrating Mass at the Seminary of San Basilio in Santiago - where a Missionary Sister of Charity Teresa Kereketa presented him with a garland. (It turns out this sister has had a very special assignment since she professed 20 years ago, when the priest she was assigned to pray for daily was Joseph Ratzinger. See story at the bottom of this post.]

He then proceeded to the Basilica Shrine of Nuestra Senora de la Caridad in nearby El Cobre, a prosperous mining town at the time the image of the Virgin was discovered in the adjoining bay by three fishermen in the early 17th century.







In Cobre, Benedict XVI entrusts
Cuba's future to the Virgin of Charity







Santiago de Cuba, March 27, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News)- Pope Benedict XVI committed Cuba's future to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, as he prayed for the suffering and oppressed during his visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Cobre on March 27.

“Let all those you meet know, whether near or far, that I have entrusted to the Mother of God the future of your country, advancing along the ways of renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans,” he announced, after spending time in prayer before the statue of the Virgin of Charity.

Pope Benedict's visit to Cuba comes during a Jubilee Year commemorating the 400th anniversary of the finding of the statue, discovered floating off the island's coast. Found by two native Cubans and a young slave boy, the image of Our Lady of Cobre remains a beloved symbol of the Cuban Catholic Church.

After a private Mass at Santiago de Cuba's St. Basil the Great Seminary, the Pope traveled to El Cobre on Tuesday morning, where he was welcomed by Archbishop Dionisio G. Ibáñez. Pope Benedict knelt before the statue, lit a candle and recited a traditional prayer.

As he blessed the Cuban faithful gathered outside the shrine, the Pope told them he had “prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty.”

Mary's presence in El Cobre is “a gift from heaven for all Cubans,” Pope Benedict said.

“I have placed in her Immaculate Heart your young people, that they may be authentic friends of Christ and not succumb to things which bring sadness in their wake.”

During his time in prayer with the Virgin of Charity, the Pope prayed particularly for the descendents of Africans in Cuba, as well as the inhabitants of nearby Haiti.

He also expressed his care for many rural Cubans “who wish to live the Gospel deeply in their homes and who offer their homes as mission centers for the celebration of Mass.”

“Receive the affection of the Pope and carry it with you from this place,” he told the assembled crowd, “so that everyone can experience consolation and strength in faith.”

“Following the example of the Most Holy Virgin, I encourage all the sons and daughters of this dear country to continue to build their lives on the firm rock which is Jesus Christ,” he declared, calling Cubans “to work for justice, to be servants of charity and to persevere in the midst of trials.

“May nothing or no one take from you your inner joy which is so characteristic of the Cuban soul. May God bless you. Thank you very much.”

After his visit to the shrine, Pope Benedict departed for the airport in Santiago de Cuba, from which he will fly to Havana.


At the Basilica, the Holy Father led the bishops and the faithful in reciting the Jubilee Prayer to the Our Lady of Cobre. Afterwards, he delivered his brief remarks.




Here is the official English translation of the Holy Father's remarks:

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I have come as a pilgrim to the house of the blessed statue of Our Lady of Charity, La Mambisa* as you call her with affection. Her presence in this town of El Cobre is a gift from heaven for all Cubans.

I am pleased to offer cordial greetings to everyone here present. Receive the affection of the Pope and carry it with you from this place, so that everyone can experience consolation and strength in faith.

Let all those you meet know, whether near or far, that I have entrusted to the Mother of God the future of your country, advancing along the ways of renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans.

I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty.

I have placed in her Immaculate Heart your young people, that they may be authentic friends of Christ and not succumb to things which bring sadness in their wake.

Before Mary of Charity, I remember in a particular way Cubans who are the descendents of those who arrived here from Africa, and the nearby people of Haiti, who still suffer the consequences of the earthquake of two years ago.

And I cannot forget the many country people and their families who wish to live the Gospel deeply in their homes and who offer their homes as mission centres for the celebration of Mass.

Following the example of the Most Holy Virgin, I encourage all the sons and daughters of this dear country to continue to build their lives on the firm rock which is Jesus Christ, to work for justice, to be servants of charity and to persevere in the midst of trials.

May nothing or no one take from you your inner joy which is so characteristic of the Cuban soul. May God bless you. Thank you very much.

---

*'La Mambisa' or 'La Virgen Mambisa' - the revolutionary Virgin - is an affectionate term recalling the Virgin's participation in Cuba's wars for independence. 'Mambisa' comes from the name of a Negro freedom-fighter, Eugenio Mamby, from Santo Domingo, which revolutionaries in the Dominican Republic and Cuba adopted in the 19th century.



Outside the church, the Pope posed for pictures with the members of the choir who sang at the brief rites.




AP's Day-2 situationer before the Pope flew to Havana also recapped the Cuiban visit thus far:

Pope Benedict off to Havana today
and a possible meeting with Fidel
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ and PETER ORSI


SANTIAGO, Cuba, March 27 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI spent the night in a brand-new home built just for him near the sanctuary of Cuba's Virgin of Charity icon, where he will kneel in quiet prayer early Tuesday before heading to the capital for political meetings.

The Pope's brief homage to the diminutive statue that many consider the symbolic mother of all Cubans - Catholics and non-Catholics alike - will take place in the morning in the small mining town of El Cobre.

Benedict planned to fly to Havana later to meet with President Raul Castro and possibly Fidel Castro, though that had not been confirmed. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is in Havana undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, did not ask for an audience but would be welcome to attend Mass in the capital's Revolution Square on Wednesday, a Vatican spokesman said.

Under a light rain late Monday, Benedict emphasized family and faith during a Mass celebrated before Raul Castro and tens of thousands of people including Cuban-Americans on a pilgrimage to the communist-run island.

"I appeal to you to reinvigorate your faith ... that you may strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity," he said in a country where Roman Catholics now account for 10 percent of the population.

Aides held a white umbrella over the pontiff as worshippers approached to take communion, and Castro climbed the stairs to congratulate the Pope when the Mass ended.

The 84-year-old pontiff's voice sounded tired and he seemed exhausted by the end of the day after a vigorous four days of travel. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, acknowledged Benedict's fatigue but said his health was fine.

Just before the ceremony began, a man tried to enter an area reserved for foreign journalists shouting anti-government slogans such as "Down with the Revolution! Down with the dictatorship!" He was led away by security agents. It was not clear who he was or what happened to him. The government did not comment.

Benedict's trip to Cuba comes 14 years after Pope John Paul II's historic tour, when the Polish pontiff who helped bring down communism in his homeland admonished Fidel Castro to free prisoners of conscience, end abortion and let the Roman Catholic Church take its place in society.

The Pope arrived in the afternoon in Santiago to an airport reception that included a military band, an honor guard, a gaggle of robed clergy, Raul Castro and Cabinet ministers.

Benedict gently pressed the longtime Communist leaders to push through the reforms desired by their people, while also criticizing the excesses of capitalism. His words were subtle and appeared to take into account the liberalizing reforms that Raul Castro has enacted since taking over from his older brother in 2006 and the greater role the Catholic Church has played in Cuban affairs, most recently in negotiating the release of dozens of political prisoners.

The Pontiff, who before starting his trip in Mexico said Marxism "no longer responds to reality," said he hoped his visit would inspire and encourage Cubans on the island and beyond.

"I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be," he said. "Those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need."

Castro told Benedict his country is committed to freedom of faith and has good relations with religious institutions. He also criticized the 50-year U.S. economic embargo and defended the socialist ideal of providing for those less fortunate.

"We have confronted scarcity but have never failed in our duty to share with those who have less," Castro said, adding that Cuba remains determined to chart its own path and resist efforts by "the most forceful power that history has ever known" - a reference to the United States - to thwart the island's socialist model.

Benedict then traveled by Popemobile into Santiago, Cuba's second city, barely waving through the glass to onlookers who lined the streets and waved flags.

"I thought this was amazing. This was such a labor of love and faith," said Rita Freixas, a Miami Beach resident who hadn't visited Cuba since her family left when she was 1 year old. She traveled back to the island with her sons and a friend as part of a delegation organized by the Archdiocese of Miami. "I am so happy to be back here. I am so happy to have come."

Tuesday was scheduled to be a day relatively light on public appearances by Benedict.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski planned to celebrate a Mass in the afternoon in the Havana cathedral in the picturesque historic colonial quarter.

Late Monday, Benedict bedded down in a humble but air-conditioned house constructed in recent weeks with $86,000 in church funds, made of reinforced concrete designed to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake. (It is intended to be a home for retired aged priests.)



It is located just 200 yards (meters) from the El Cobre basilica, where he planned a private, spiritual moment Tuesday morning paying homage to the statue of the Virgin of Charity. Its 400th anniversary was cited as a main reason why Benedict chose to visit Cuba this year.

Just over a foot (35 centimeters) tall, the wooden statue is one of the most powerful Catholic icons in the world, and an object of pride and reverence for hundreds of thousands in Cuba. It was taken to Monday's Mass on the top of a truck to the joy of the faithful present.

"She is a beauty, the most extraordinary thing," Mercy Serra said as the statue made its way through the crowd. "She is the mother of all Cubans."


P.S. C]And now, in a belated post, the story of Indian Sister Teresa Kereketa of the missionaries of Charity and her daily assignment since 20 years ago to pray for the priest Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal... I can think of no other episode of such singular spiritual serendipity during the Pope's travels so far...

Indian nun in Santiago de Cuba
has been Joseph Ratzinger's
;spiritual godmother' for 20 years

Santiago de Cuba, Mar 27, 2012 (CNA).- After beginning his day on Tuesday with a private Mass in Santiago de Cuba, Pope Benedict XVI met a religious sister from India who has been his “spiritual Godmother” for 20 years.

The Pope celebrated the private Mass at the Seminary of St, Basil the Great in Santiago before departing for the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre. The service was attended by 10 religious sisters from the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity, which was founded by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

When the Mass ended, Cuban Archbishop Dionisio García presented Sister Teresa Kereketa to the Pope for a very special reason. Following the practice of her order, 20 years ago she received the task of praying daily for a specific priest, thus becoming his “spiritual godmother.” The priest whom she was assigned was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. [What an exceptionally beautiful practice! I wonder if other orders also do it. It's beautiful that in addition to the contemplatives orders' daily prayers for all bishops and priests, each one also prays for their own 'spiritual godchild'.]

During the emotional encounter, and following an Indian tradition, the sister presented a garland of flowers to the Pope.

“The Pope was quite moved meeting her,” said Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, describing the incident during a press conference later.

As Benedict arrives in Havana,
Fidel Castro confirms
he will meet with the Pope
By PETER ORSI and ANDREA RODRIGUEZ


HAVANA, March 27 (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed for freedom and renewal "for the greater good of all Cubans" before the nation's patron saint Tuesday, but the island's communist leaders quickly rejected the Roman Catholic leader's appeal for political change after five decades of one-party rule.

[So one government minister gave the expected NO when asked whether political reforms would be forthcoming. What did AP expect? That these totalitarian leaders would suddenly say 'Yes, the Pope is right', betray their 'revolution' and throw out 54 years of defying common sense just because the Pope asked? The Cubans didn't do it for the great John Paul II. Why should MSM now unrealistically expect this kind of 'miracle' to be motivated by Benedict XVI, whom they so openly consider to be a far less worthy man than his predecessor????]

The exchange came hours before Fidel Castro confirmed that he would happily meet with Benedict before he leaves for Rome on Wednesday. [What exchange? The Pope had a private meeting with Raul Castro - no one is privy to what they said to each other. The denial of reforms was made by a minister who was asked for comment. That is not an exchange in any sense.]

Castro made the much-awaited announcement at the end of a short opinion piece posted on a government website late Tuesday, saying he had decided to ask for "a few minutes of his busy time."

Expectations of a meeting have dominated Benedict's three-day visit to Cuba, which culminates with a morning Mass in Havana's Revolution Plaza.

On Tuesday, Benedict had a 55-minute closed-door meeting with Fidel's brother, President Raul Castro, in which the Pontiff proposed that Good Friday, when Catholics commemorate the death of Christ, be made a holiday.






There was no immediate response. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was natural for the government to take time to consider such a request, which followed on the Cuban government's decision to declare Christmas a national holiday after Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit.

"It's not that it changes reality in a revolutionary way, but it can be a sign of a positive step - as was the case of Christmas after John Paul's visit," Lombardi said. [In short, you MSM guys, Benedict XVI is a supreme realist and is not asking anyone for anything that would be considered 'spectacular news' for MSM and the world - just something important to Catholics, and which the government could well concede without appearing to be 'weak' by doing so.]




Raul Castro presented the Pope with a modern sculpture of the Virgen del Cobre, while the Pope gave him a facsimile of a historical atlas showing the discovery and early European explorations of Cuba.

Asked if the Pope raised the matter of political prisoners or Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor sentenced to 15 years in prison in Cuba on spy charges, Lombardi said "requests of a humanitarian nature" came up, but he had no information about whether individual cases were discussed.

Benedict spent nearly twice as long with Castro as he normally does with heads of state, which Lombardi attributed to the Pontiff's desire to get to know the man.

Days after dismissing the Marxist ideology on which the Cuban system is based, Benedict continued to gently press themes highly sensitive to Cuban government in his prayer and short speech at the sanctuary of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre near the eastern city of Santiago.

"I have entrusted to the Mother of God the future of your country, advancing along the ways of renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans," the Pope said. "I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty."

It wasn't long before a top official back in Havana responded.

"In Cuba, there will not be political reform," said Marino Murillo, Cuba's economic czar and a vice president. [Of course, he had to say that, regardless of what they intend to do. The Cuban leadership has to show they're in control within Cuba, and they obviously won't say anything that would tend to be seen as a sign of weakness! Get real, AP! Journalists shouldn't get away with stating improbable premises as a matter of fact. Most gullible readers don't recognize the statement as premise and simply swallow it as fact.]

The Pope has kept his language lofty, his criticism vague and open to interpretation, but Murillo's comments left no room for doubt, and they were quickly picked up by pro-government blogs and on Twitter accounts.

Raul Castro has said that opening up Cuba's political system would inevitably spell doom for its socialist project since any alternative party would be dominated by enemies across the Florida Straits and beyond.

Alfredo Mesa, a Cuban-American National Foundation board member whose trip to Cuba was organized by the Miami Archdiocese, said the government's strong reaction would reinforce the Pope's message and the need for change. [

"I'd rather have them say this now than tomorrow," Mesa said.

During a quiet moment at the shrine of the Virgin of Charity, Benedict also prayed for more Cubans to embrace the faith in a country that is the least Catholic in Latin America. While most Cubans are nominally Catholic, fewer than 10 percent practice the faith.

The Pontiff knelt before the crowned, wooden statue, which stood on a covered table shrouded in blue and white cloth. Helped by two bishops, the 84-year-old pontiff rose and approached the icon, lit a candle and stood in prayer as a choir sang hymns.

He called on all Cubans "to work for justice, to be servants of charity and to persevere in the midst of trials."

The Pope pointedly referred to the Virgin by her popular name, La Mambisa, in a gesture to the many non-Catholics on the island who nonetheless venerate the statue as an Afro-Cuban deity. 'Mambi' is the word for the Cuban fighters who won independence from Spain at the turn of the last century.

In subtle ways, the Pope has acknowledged a lack of faith in the island nation, and tried to make his trip appealing to potential believers. The visit is timed to the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the statue of the Virgin to two fishermen and an African slave in Cuba's Bay of Hipe.

Dunia Felipillo, 45, said she was proud to see the Pope praying before the Virgin of Charity, even though she herself was not Catholic.

"We all ask favors of la Cachita," she said, using the Cuban slang for the Virgin, as she watched the ceremony on TV from the lobby of a Santiago hotel.

Benedict's frequent references to the Virgin also highlighted what the Church shares with Cuba's nonreligious population, in contrast to his views that would spark more opposition, such as the Church's position on divorce and abortion and his strong comments against Marxism. [Is the AP suggesting, improbably, that Cuba's non-believers are all advocates of Marxism? ]

Benedict has emphasized devotion to Mary throughout his Latin America trip, also making frequent reference to Our Lady of Guadalupe earlier in Mexico. But he has also warned the faithful in the past not to overdo it and forget that Christianity is about Christ.

Meanwhile, dissidents on the island say they still don't know the man who yelled "Down with the Revolution! Down with the dictatorship!" before the Pope's Mass on Monday in Santiago.

Security agents hustled him away. Video of the incident showed him being slapped by another man wearing the uniform of a first-aid worker before security agents separated them.

"We do not know his name or his whereabouts, only that it was somewhat violent," said Elizardo Sanchez, head of a group that monitors detentions of government opponents.

He urged Cuban authorities, who have not commented on the incident, to identify the man.

Benedict seemed to walk with renewed vigor Tuesday as he greeted officials and clergy when his plane arrived in Havana. The previous evening, his spokesman acknowledged that the Pope was fatigued from days of traveling in Mexico.

He was greeted on the tarmac by clergy, government officials and children who played music, danced and offered him flowers.

Ana Blanco, a 47-year-old Havana resident, complained about people being told to attend a papal Mass on Wednesday in Havana, saying the pressure seemed odd in a country that in her early years taught her religion was wrong.

"Now there's this visit by the Pope, and I don't agree with giving it so much importance or making anyone go to the Mass or other activities," the office worker said. "Before it was bad, now it's good. That creates confusion."

[As usual, AP is slanting this negatively for the Church and the Cuban government. As I understand it, Havana's working people have been given the day off tomorrow, so they can attend the Pope's Mass - that's not the same as compelling them! What, the Cuban CP will have their labor commissars taking a roil call at the Mass to find out which of their workers attended and then send off those who fail to attend Mass to re-education camp??]

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who led a pilgrimage of about 300 mostly Cuban-Americans to the island for Benedict's visit, got a sustained standing ovation Tuesday when he gave a homily in a Havana cathedral packed mostly with Floridians.

Wenski called for increased respect for human rights and political change on the island, while also warning against unbridled capitalism.

"The Pope and the Cuban Church want a transition that is dignified for the human being, dignified for Cubans," he said in Spanish, repeating a theme he has spoken on in recent weeks. "The Church wants a soft landing ... and a future of hope."

A Cuban exile group launched a flotilla of boats to park in international waters a little over 12 miles (20 kilometers) off Havana and set off fireworks to welcome the Pope.

Havana has bristled at similar demonstrations in the past, calling them provocative acts that seek to violate its sovereignty.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in Havana receiving radiation treatment for cancer, sent his greetings to Benedict, but said there was no plan to meet with the Pope: "They have their agenda. I'm not going to be interfering at all." [He had an audience with the Pope when he visited Rome in 2009.]

How Fidel announced
his meeting with the Pope

An official Cuban government website called CUBADEBATE carries a regular column by Fidel entitled REFLEXIONES DE FIDEL.



At the end of his column for March 27, entitled "Difficult times for mankind", he writes:

---

With much pleasure, I shall greet tomorrow Wednesday His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI, as I did with John Paul II, a man whose contact with children and humble citizens invariably inspired sentiments of affection.

That is why I decided to request a few minutes of his busy schedule when I learned from our Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez that he [the Pope] would welcome this modest and simple contact.

---

[I suppose someone must remind Fidel that the proper title for the Pope is His Holiness, not His Excellency! I will translate the rest of the column later, in which he comments on the security summit attended by Barack Obama in Seoul, Cuba's problems because of the US trade embargo, and his conviction since the October 1962 missile crisis that "marxists and sincere Christians many of whom I have known - independent of their political and religious beliefs, should and can fight together for justice and peace among human beings". Obviously, he remains a determined Marxist! So much for speculation about a return to his Catholic roots!!]



I wasn't sure I'd find it but I did, so, TA-DA! here's a story I posted in the PRF back in December 2005... Maybe someone should also remind Fidel what he said back in October 2005...

---

Fidel tells Cardinal Bertone
that Pope Benedict has
'the face of an angel'
by Francesco Gambero
Translated from

October 13, 2005

During his recent pastoral visit to Cuba to mark the 70th anniversary of relations between the Holy See and Havana, Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, archbishop of Genoa, says he brought Fidel Castro a special blessing from Pope Benedict.

Bertone was in Cuba October 3-11 also to offer as "fidei donum" (gift to the faithful) the services of two Genoese priests, Marino Poggi and Federico Tavella, who will fulfill pastoral duties in the diocese of Santa Clara for three years.

Bertone was received for almost two hours by Castro at Havana's Conventions Palace, along with the Papal nuncio to Havana, the bishop of Santa Clara, and Bertone's secretary.

The number one topic on the agenda was not human rights but the problem of "sexual tourism."

"We also spoke about a possible future collaboration between Genoa and Cuba in the field of energy consumption and in medicine....It is possible that in the coming years, some Cuban doctors will receive scholarships to specialize at Genoa's Gaslini Hospital."

But Bertone says Fidel Castro's interest the other day was all centered on Pope Benedict, telling Bertone that he likes the Pope very much "because he has the face of an angel...and looking at him, I can tell he is a brilliant person." [The Italian phrase used was "una persona brava"]

Castro was enthused that he asked Bertone to tell the Pope he would like to invite him officially to visit Cuba. Bertone says he reminded Castro of the Pope's own words, "Remember that I was elected at age 78, not at 58."

Bertone gave Castro a silver image of John Paul II. In return, he recdeived an oil painting (he did not describe it), a box of 100 Havana cigars, and a bottle of rum. "Castro told me to offer the cigars to my enemies, not to my friends. He himself has quit smoking altogether."

---

The Papal Mass in Mexico:
'Revolutionary' for the locals
by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

March 27, 2012

When Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass last Sunday at Guanajuato Bicentennial Park in Silao with hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in attendance, and millions more watching on television, he did so not only as a shepherd communicating with his flock, but as an evangelist for a liturgical reform that is slowly transforming the way Catholics worship.

In sharp contrast with the Masses that Mexicans typically experience in their parishes, the pontiff's liturgy — including the Scripture readings — was sung in Gregorian chant and other solemn forms of choral music. Moreover, the central and holiest part of the Mass, the canon, was said entirely in Latin. [This has been SOP - a truly beautiful way to emphasize the liturgy of the Eucharist - for the Pope's liturgies, wherever he celebrates them, since Mons. Guido Marini replaced Mons. Piero Marini as master of papal liturgical ceremonies!]

The Pope celebrated before a large solid-block altar adorned on its front with an elaborate silver facade containing a traditional image of Jesus as the Lamb of God in the center. On each side were three large candles, and in the center a crucifix stood, facing the Pope, with a small candle next to it. Although many bishops were present in the presbyterum, only two concelebrated with Benedict at the altar.

The solemnity and traditional style of the pontiff's Mass has become familiar to visitors to St. Peter's Basilica, but it is revolutionary in a land that has long succumbed to modern fashions in liturgical worship.

In contemporary Mexico, guitars and entertainment-style musical forms have become common, and choral singing is confined largely to weddings and funerals. [The music for the Mass in Silao was obviously carefully chosen and prepared, complete with chamber orchestra and organ.]

Latin has all but disappeared, embraced only by the country's small but growing traditionalist movement. Mass attendance is in sharp decline.

[One of the 'most memorable moments' of this apostolic voyage for me was listening to the Credo - in Spanish, of course, - prayed aloud in unison by that thousandfold Biblical multitude (the cadences in Spanish are particularly beautiful). So loud that, at least on the Telemundo coverage, it could be heard unmistakably over and beyond the rather perfunctory recital by the priests gathered around the Pope. I'd never experienced that before on a CTV coverage (which obviously does not have microphones planted in the crowd. Neither did Telemundo, but the sheer mass effect of 650,000 praying aloud simultaneously obviously did not require artificial amplification.]

The venue in which the papal Mass was celebrated was also likely to send a message to Mexicans. Bicentennial Park is situated within eyeshot of the Christ the King monument, built by Catholics following the Mexican government's persecution of the Church during the 1930s and 40s.

Benedict was brought to the site in a helicopter, which flew over the statue before landing close to the park itself. Following the Mass, he presented local Church officials with a mosaic depiction of Christ the King, to be displayed in the sanctuary of Cubilete Hill, where the statue is situated.

To the crowd of an estimated 650,000 faithful present at the park, the Holy Father gave a sermon recalling the importance of hope in times of distress, and invoking the kingship of Christ as foremost a spiritual phenomenon.

"In this monument, Christ the King is represented. But the crowns that accompany him, one of sovereignty and the other of thorns, indicate that his reality is not as many understood it and understand it. His kingdom does not consist in the power of his armies to subdue others by force or violence. It is founded in a greater power that wins hearts: the love of God that he has brought to the world with his sacrifice and the truth to which he has given testimony," said Benedict.

"This is his authority, which no one can take away nor which anyone should forget. It is therefore just that, above all, this sanctuary should be a place of pilgrimage, of fervent prayer, of conversion, of reconciliation, of the search for the truth and the reception of grace. To him, to Christ, we ask that he reigns in our hearts, making us pure, docile, hopeful, and valiant in humility."

The Pope also recalled the document Disciples and Missionaries of Christ, issued in Aparacedia, Brazil, during his 2007 trip there, which offers an approach to restoring a faith in decline and retreat in the face of modern culture and the rise of Protestant sects, and the Continental Mission, which seeks to implement the document.

"In Aparecida, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean have felt with clearness the necessity of confirming, renovating, and revitalizing the newness of the Gospel, rooted in the history of these lands 'from the personal and communitarian encounter with Jesus Christ, which raises up disciples and missionaries' (final document 11)," said Benedict.

"The Continental Mission, which is now being carried out diocese by diocese on this continent, has precisely the task of bringing this conviction to all Christians and ecclesial communions, so that they might resist the temptation of a faith that is superficial and routine, sometimes fragmentary and incoherent," he added.

The Pope followed the Mass with the Angelus, prayed completely in Latin [as he always does], and then a brief discourse on devotion to the Virgin Mary, and in particular the veneration of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, reminding the crowd that "to love her is to be committed to listening to her Son, to venerate Guadalupe is to live according to the words of the blessed fruit of her womb."

However, the Pope also reminded the faithful of the danger of excess and superstition in the cult of the Virgin Mary and other saints, a problem often encountered in Mexico, quoting the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, that such devotion "does not consist in a sterile and transitory sentimentalism, nor in a vain credulity, but rather proceeds from a true faith, that brings us to recognize the excellence of the Mother of God and inclines us to a filial love towards our Mother and the imitation of her virtues."

The faithful endured high temperatures that required medical attention for an estimated 2, 285 people who fainted, and 35 others who suffered from hypoglycemia or hypertension, but the difficulties of climate did not dampen their enthusiasm, expressed in loud cheers and chants as the "popemobile" wound its way through the crowd, including "We will see Benedict soon!" "Benedict has arrived!" and "We are addicted to Benedict!" all of which rhyme in Spanish.

As the Pope ended the day’s events, the faithful also chanted "Long live Christ the King," a popular watchword that hearkens back to the Cristero war and church-state struggle of the 1920s and 30s, in which the region's people played a principal role.

The Mass was attended by President Felipe Calderon, as well as all three major presidential candidates for the elections later this year. Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will represent the socialist Party of the Democratic Revolution, and who has previously expressed his support for the legalization of abortion, was heckled by some attendees, who chanted "No to abortion!" and "Yes to life!" as he silently passed.

However, the Pope himself defied predictions that he would address bioethical issues such as abortion and the homosexual agenda, to which he made only the most oblique references during his addresses. [The media never learn that their agenda isn't necessarily what the Pope will decide to emphasize, and that he has always said the Church ought to start by emphasizing the positives, not lead off with prohibitions. His approach on these apostolic visits must be homogenizing not divisive.]

The decision of the pontiff to avoid such topics may have been due to sensitivity to hot button political issues during the presidential election season, which follows recent conflicts over such matters in which the Pope was accused of personally intervening in Mexico's governance, an accusation denied by the Holy See. [NO! Popes generally avoid injecting themselves into any controversy, particularly on something about which Catholic teaching is clear, unequivocal and consistent. But Benedict XVI always knows how and when to address a topic without further inflaming sensitivities, at least not those of decent reasonable people (because the biased detractors will always find soemthing to quarrel with).]

Fr. Padre Gonzalo, a priest who had come to attend the papal Mass from his parish in San Antonio, Texas, told Catholic World Report that the Mass was impressive "for the number of people present, and because of the message of the Pope, a message of hope for Mexicans, a comforting message during a time in which Mexicans suffer from problems of criminality and violence."

An attendee from the state of Veracruz said that it was "a very emotional Mass, in which the principal message is that we have peace, that we always act in peace, and to take the message of peace to where we are," and another from the state of Guanajuato called the Pope's message "motivating for people, touching somewhat on [the problem of] crime and living more in the love of God."

The day closed with a very traditional celebration of Vespers in the splendor of the Cathedral of Leon. Vespers was, of course, solemnly intoned in Gregorian chant, even if the language was mostly Spanish. The Holy Father again addressed those assembled, repeating the importance of a re-evangelization of Latin America.

The Pope encouraged the assembled bishops and clergy to "to look together to Christ who has entrusted the beautiful task of announcing the Gospel among these peoples of robust Catholic roots."

"The current situation in your dioceses certainly involves challenges and difficulties of diverse kinds. But, knowing that the Lord has risen, we can move ahead with confidence, with the conviction that evil does not have the final word in history, and that God is able to open new spaces for a hope that does not deceive," he added.

He also recalled the deeply Catholic history of Latin America, noting that "the Catholic faith has significantly influenced the life, customs, and history of this continent, in which many of its nations are commemorating the bicentennial of their independence."

"It is a historic moment in which the name of Christ continued to shine, having arrived here by the work of distinguished and self-sacrificing missionaries, who proclaimed him with audacity and wisdom. The gave everything for Christ, showing that man encounters in him his consistency and the necessary strength to live in abundance, and build a society worthy of the human person, as his Creator has wished."

After returning from vespers to his lodgings in Leon's Colegio de Miraflores, the Pontiff was again greeted by large crowds of cheering faithful, moving him to spontaneous remarks in Italian that were translated by an accompanying cleric: "Thank you so much for this enthusiasm. I feel so joyful being with you. I have been on many journeys, but I have never been welcomed with this much enthusiasm." [It's not exactly as Hoffman reports it. It's clear from the available video and accounts in the Mexican newspapers that the Pope made a special effort to come out to the street outside the gates of the campus, after dinner.]

Stating that "I can now understand why Pope John Paul II said, 'I feel I am a Mexican Pope,'" Benedict donned a Mexican sombrero, to the delight of the crowd. The next day he would depart to the music of traditional Mexican songs, such as "Las Mañanitas" and "Cielito Lindo."

"I wish to reiterate, with energy and clarity, a call to the Mexican people to be faithful to itself and to not allow itself to be terrified by the forces of evil, to be brave and to work so that the vitality of its own Christian roots may cause its present and future to flourish," he said before boarding the plane to Cuba, the second and last leg of his trip.


One aspect Hoffmann does not mention is the now customary prayerful silences observed in the Pope's liturgies after the homily and after
Communion.... And something that surprised me both in the Silao and Santiago Mases - the faithful seem to find receiving Communion on the tongue the most natural thing...

The Mass attendance in Santiago de Cuba may have been only a third of the multitude in Silao but it was as beautiful in its own way. (My only regret was that the Holy Father's fatigue was evident in the almost listless, sometimes slurred, way in which he delivered the homily (in great contrast to his clear and careful enunciation of the homily in Silao), but surprisingly, not his prayers. I see now that it's the voice that betrays his fatigue, more than how he looks or moves.)..

And it was surprising to see Raul Castro in attendance. The Castro brothers obviously do not have a Zapatero problem. Raul also attended Cardinal Bertone's Mass in Havana in 2009, and the beatification Mass for Cuban Friar Olalio Valdez (1820-1889) in November 2008.

I loved the use of the harp - that's a very Hispanic element; and I had 'forgotten' - despite three memorable visits to Cuba in the 1980s - that Cuban music (even the 'pop' kind) has a special quality to it that is distinctive from the rest of Hispano-America, a melodiousness that is almost 'classical' and always surprising.

But then, one of the unheralded virtues of Castro's Cuba is the vitality of its art and culture, in every field (as of their sciences, especially biomedical). Also the fact, little appreciated by the outside world, that the population is a successful coexistence of Hispanics, blacks, mulattoes, and even Cuban Chinese (descendants of tens of thousands of laborers brought to Cuba in the 19th century to work in the cane fields and railroad construction).

Monday, March 28, Third Week in Lent

ST. HESYCHIUS OF JERUSALEM (d ca. 450), Presbyter, Theologian and Exegete
Not much is known about him, not even his birth year, but it is known that he was a prolific writer through accounts
handed down after his death. He was known to have written a history of the Church, as well as the issues it faced
in this era, including the Nestorian and Arian heresies. Some of his commentaries on the books of the Bible as well,
along with meditations on the prophets and homilies on the Blessed Virgin Mary, still survive. It is believed he
delivered Easter homilies in the basilica built on the site of the crucifixion. His words on the Eucharist speak to us
today: "Keep yourselves free from sin so that every day you may share in the mystic meal; by doing so our bodies
become the body of Christ." He is particularly venerated in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Readings for today's Mass:http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/032811.shtml



THE POPE'S DAY

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FINAL DAY - APOSTOLIC VISIT TO CUBA

Wednesday, March 28

09.00 HOLY MASS
Plaza de la Revolucion
- Homily by the Holy Father.

[Some time between the end of the Mass and the departure for the airport, the Holy Father is expected to meet with Fidel Castro. It is not known if he will also see some dissident representatives.]/DIM]

16.30 DEPARTURE CEREMONY
Jose Marti International Airport
- Address by the Holy Father

17.00 Departure from Jose Marti International Airport for Rome

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The Mass in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion ended about half an hour ago. Early crowd estimate was 700,000. Except for a brief cough and an initially hoarse voice, the Holy Father sounded very well, with a homily that was perfectly calibrated and pitched. I am grateful to Telemundo for their intelligent and appropriately deferential commentary that never interfered with the Mass itself. I wish I could say I have heard English commentators sound as spontaneous, simple and right (without embellishing on the Pope's words) when paraphrasing the Pope's words as the priest and two TV anchormen did on Telemundo today. Particularly impressive was the priest who recalls meeting then Cardinal Ratzinger on quite a few occasions while traversing St. Peter's Square and referred to statements made by the Cardinal in the 1994 INTERVIEW-book THE RATZINGER REPORT to show how consistent Joseph Ratzinger has been about his perceptions on the problems of the faith. All three commentators emphasized Benedict XVI's references to Truth in today's homily and the ways it applies to the Cuban situation.

Final day in Cuba:
Mass in Havana


Plaza de la Revolucion covers 5 square miles and is a municipality in itself; it can hold up to a million people.


An estimated 700,000 Cuban faithful filled Havana’s Revolution Square for an open-air Mass presided over by Pope Benedict XVI on the final day of his visit to Latin America. Philippa Hitchen was among them and sends us this report:

On a trip to the Cuban capital a few years back, the granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway was heard to remark that Cuba has three icons: Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and her grandfather. Certainly the American author and journalist is still revered around here with hotels, bars and restaurants named after him; his medal for the 1954 Nobel prize for literature is even kept safely inside the shrine of Our Lady of El Cobre, where he left it as a sign of his love for the Cuban people.

Images of the country’s two revolutionary leaders are also to be found everywhere around Havana, including the famous black portraits silhouetted on the front of the Interior Ministry in Revolution Square where Pope Benedict celebrated Mass on at the end of his visit to Cuba.

The square, made famous by Fidel’s political rallies, was filled with hundreds of thousands of faithful who had come from all over Cuba, as well as some pilgrims from the United States, to join the Pope in praying for a new kind of revolution here – one that will change hearts, promote peace and set people free.

In his homily Pope Benedict spoke of faith and reason as the two keys for those who pursue the truth – anyone who acts irrationally, he said, cannot become a disciple of Christ.

Returning to a central theme of this short visit to Cuba, the Pope stressed that in order to carry out her mission in pursuit of that truth, the Church here must be able to enjoy more freedom to proclaim and celebrate the faith in public and to promote reconciliation, through education and other social services.

Recalling in particular the legacy of Fr Felix Varela, a 19th century Cuban writer, teacher and human rights defender, Pope Benedict said Cuba and the world must change for the benefit of all people here.

Many of those gathered in Revolution square will remember similar words spoken by Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to the island 14 years ago – a visit that has been immortalized in statues and pictures of the previous Pope in Churches and shrines around the country.

On his visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity yesterday, patron of the Cuban people, Pope Benedict stood outside between twin statues of his predecessor and Fr. Varela, who will soon be on the road to sainthood. Three new icons perhaps for a Church and a nation longing for a brighter future of peace, prosperity and freedom.



Here is the official translation of the Pope's homily:

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“Blessed are you, Lord God…, and blessed is your holy and glorious name” (Dan 3:52).

This hymn of blessing from the Book of Daniel resounds today in our liturgy, inviting us repeatedly to bless and thank God. We are a part of that great chorus which praises the Lord without ceasing. We join in this concert of thanksgiving, and we offer our joyful and confident voice, which seeks to consolidate the journey of faith in love and truth.

“Blessed be God” who gathers us in this historic square so that we may more profoundly enter into his life. I feel great joy in being here with you today to celebrate Holy Mass during this Jubilee Year devoted to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

I greet with cordial affection Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana, and I thank him for the kind words which he has addressed to me on your behalf. I extend warm greetings to the Cardinals and to my brother Bishops of Cuba and other countries who wished to take part in this solemn celebration.

I also greet the priests, seminarians, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful gathered here, as well as the civil authorities who join us.

In today’s first reading, the three young men persecuted by the Babylonian king preferred to face death by fire rather than betray their conscience and their faith. They experienced the strength to “give thanks, glorify and praise God” in the conviction that the Lord of the universe and of history would not abandon them to death and annihilation.

Truly, God never abandons his children, he never forgets them. He is above us and is able to save us by his power. At the same time, he is near to his people, and through his Son Jesus Christ he has wished to make his dwelling place among us in.

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31). In this text from today’s Gospel, Jesus reveals himself as the Son of God the Father, the Saviour, the one who alone can show us the truth and give genuine freedom.

His teaching provokes resistance and disquiet among his hearers, and he accuses them of seeking to kill him, alluding to the supreme sacrifice of the Cross, already imminent. Even so, he exhorts them to believe, to keep his word, so as to know the truth which redeems and dignifies.

The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom. Many, however, prefer shortcuts, trying to avoid this task.

Some, like Pontius Pilate, ironically question the possibility of even knowing what truth is (cf. Jn 18:38), proclaiming that man is incapable of knowing it or denying that there exists a truth valid for all.

This attitude, as in the case of scepticism and relativism, changes hearts, making them cold, wavering, distant from others and closed. They, like the Roman governor, wash their hands and let the water of history drain away without taking a stand.

On the other hand, there are those who wrongly interpret this search for the truth, leading them to irrationality and fanaticism; they close themselves up in “their truth”, and try to impose it on others. These are like the blind scribes who, upon seeing Jesus beaten and bloody, cry out furiously, “Crucify him!” (cf. Jn 19:6).

Anyone who acts irrationally cannot become a disciple of Jesus. Faith and reason are necessary and complementary in the pursuit of truth. God created man with an innate vocation to the truth and he gave him reason for this purpose.

Certainly, it is not irrationality but rather the yearning for truth which the Christian faith promotes. Each human being has to seek the truth and to choose it when he or she finds it, even at the risk of embracing sacrifices.

Furthermore, the truth which stands above humanity is an unavoidable condition for attaining freedom, since in it we discover the foundation of an ethics on which all can converge and which contains clear and precise indications concerning life and death, duties and rights, marriage, family and society, in short, regarding the inviolable dignity of the human person.

This ethical patrimony can bring together different cultures, peoples and religions, authorities and citizens, citizens among themselves, and believers in Christ and non-believers.

Christianity, in highlighting those values which sustain ethics, does not impose, but rather proposes Christ’s invitation to know the truth which sets us free.

The believer is called to offer that truth to his contemporaries, as did the Lord, even before the dark omen of rejection and the Cross. The personal encounter with the one who is Truth in person compels us to share this treasure with others, especially by our witness.

Dear friends, do not hesitate to follow Jesus Christ. In him we find the truth about God and about mankind. He helps us to overcome our selfishness, to rise above our ambitions and to conquer all that oppresses us.

The one who does evil, who sins, becomes a slave of sin and will never attain freedom (cf. Jn 8:34). Only by renouncing hatred and our hard and blind hearts will we be free and a new life will well up in us.

Convinced that it is Christ who is the true measure of man, and knowing that in him we find the strength needed to face every trial, I wish to proclaim openly Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life.

In him everyone will find complete freedom, the light to understand reality more deeply and to transform it by the renewing power of love.
The Church lives to make others sharers in the one thing she possesses, which is none other than Christ, our hope of glory (cf. Col 1:27).

To carry out this duty, she must count on basic religious freedom, which consists in her being able to proclaim and to celebrate her faith also in public, bringing to others the message of love, reconciliation and peace which Jesus brought to the world.

It must be said with joy that in Cuba steps have been taken to enable the Church to carry out her essential mission of expressing her faith openly and publicly.

Nonetheless, this must continue forwards, and I wish to encourage the country’s Government authorities to strengthen what has already been achieved and advance along this path of genuine service to the true good of Cuban society as a whole.

The right to freedom of religion, both in its private and in its public dimension, manifests the unity of the human person, who is at once a citizen and a believer. It also legitimizes the fact that believers have a contribution to make to the building up of society.

Strengthening religious freedom consolidates social bonds, nourishes the hope of a better world, creates favourable conditions for peace and harmonious development, while at the same time establishing solid foundations for securing the rights of future generations.

When the Church upholds this human right, she is not claiming any special privileges for herself. She wishes only to be faithful to the command of her divine founder, conscious that, where Christ is present, mankind becomes more human and founds its consistency.

This is why the Church seeks to give witness by her preaching and teaching, both in catechesis and in schools and universities. It is greatly to be hoped that the moment will soon arrive when, here too, the Church can bring to the arenas of knowledge the benefits of the mission which the Lord entrusted to her and which she can never neglect.

A shining example of this commitment was the outstanding priest Félix Varela, educator and teacher, an illustrious son of this city of Havana, who has taken his place in Cuban history as the first one who taught his people how to think.

Father Varela offers us a path to a true social transformation: to form virtuous men and women in order to forge a worthy and free nation, for this transformation depends on man’s spiritual life, inasmuch as “there is no authentic fatherland without virtue” (Letters to Elpidio, Letter 6, Madrid 1836, 220).

Cuba and the world need change, but this will occur only if each one is in a position to seek the truth and chooses the way of love, sowing reconciliation and fraternity.

Invoking the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, let us ask that each time we participate in the Eucharist we will also become witnesses to that charity which responds to evil with good (cf. Rom 12:51), offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to the one who lovingly gave himself up for our sake.

Let us walk in the light of Christ who alone can destroy the darkness of error. And let us beg him that, with the courage and strength of the saints, we may be able, without fear or rancour but freely, generously and consistently, to respond to God. Amen

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Pope, at Mass, calls for
full religious freedom in Cuba
By Cindy Wooden


HAVANA, March 28 (CNS)- Preaching at Mass in Havana's Revolution Square, location of the headquarters of Cuba's Communist Party, Pope Benedict XVI called for full religious freedom and greater respect for human rights on the island.

"In Cuba steps have been taken to enable the church to carry out her essential mission of expressing the faith openly and publicly," the pope said during his homily Wednesday. "Nonetheless, this must continue forward."

With President Raul Castro seated near the altar platform, the Pope said, "I wish to encourage the country's government authorities to strengthen what has already been achieved and advance along this path of genuine service to the true good of Cuban society as a whole."

People started gathering for the Mass before 6 a.m. They prepared for the liturgy with songs and by listening to priests and a catechist explaining basic church teaching on baptism and the Eucharist, the role of the Pope in the church and Pope Benedict's biography.

The Mass began at 9 a.m. under a clear blue sky with a light breeze blowing. As at Monday's papal Mass in Santiago de Cuba, thousands in the crowd were dressed in white T-shirts and baseball caps.

A priest led chants once the Pope arrived and made his way in the popemobile through the crowd. One of the priest's louder inventions was "Benedicto, Benedicto, confirmanos en Cristo," ("Benedict, Benedict, confirm us in Christ").

In his homily, Pope Benedict said faith in God and Jesus Christ is the key to salvation, true happiness and authentic freedom, and that the daily lives and work of committed Catholics can benefit the whole society.

The truth about the human person created in God's image and saved from sin by Jesus is the foundation of an ethical code that all reasonable people of good will can share, he said.

The ethical code "contains clear and precise indications concerning life and death, duties and rights, marriage, family and society, in short, regarding the inviolable dignity of the human person," he said.

"Cuba and the world need change," he said, but that will happen only if each and every person "is in a position to seek the truth and chooses the way of love, sowing reconciliation and fraternity."

The Catholic Church is not asking for special privileges in Cuba, but for the recognition of the basic right to religious freedom and freedom of expression, which includes expressing one's faith in concrete acts of charity and service to society, the Pope said.

To carry out its obligations to proclaim and live the Gospel, he said, the church "must count on basic religious freedom, which consists in her being able to proclaim and to celebrate her faith also in public, bringing to others the message of love, reconciliation and peace."

Pope Benedict said the Church's witness is usually expressed through "preaching and teaching," which is one of the reasons why the Church hopes that "the moment will soon arrive" when it can operate schools and universities in Cuba.

Catholics want to be witnesses of love and respond to evil with good, he said. "Let us walk in the light of Christ, who alone can destroy the darkness of error. And let us beg him that, with the courage and strength of the saints, we may be able -- without fear of rancor, but freely, generously and consistently -- to respond to God."

Msgr. Jose Felix Perez Riera, assistant secretary of the Cuban bishops' conference and pastor of St. Rita of Cascia Church, told Catholic News Service on Tuesday that many of the people who were to be at the Mass were being brought by the Communist Party and other government-related organizations, while many Catholics in towns outside Havana were unable to get tickets or transportation to the event.

One of the men in the crowd, 65-year-old Orlando Perez, said he was pleased to be at the papal Mass. Wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Cuba's patroness, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, he said, "I am very happy because he is the vicar of God."

Asked how the crowd size compared with the number present in 1998 when Blessed John Paul II celebrated Mass in the same plaza, he said, "there are many more people here now."

Interviewed before the Pope arrived, the man said he did not expect the Pope to make demands of the government during the liturgy. "He speaks for the Lord; he's not a politician."

Asked what he wanted for the future, Perez responded, "I just want peace."

A placeholder using th Daylife photogrids - just to give the visual tone - until I can sort and format the photos that can tell the story of the Mass in Havana.

Photos later - I will post the photos of the Benedict XVI-Fidel Castro meeting first....

Pope Benedict XVI offers Mass
at Havana's Revolution Square
Live Blog by

March 28, 2012
(Times are GMT)

16.30 Almost exactly an hour and a half since Mass started, it is ending. Raul Castro coming over to greet the Pontiff.

16.28 The Pope praised Cuban authoritites for the recent thaw in Church/state relations but said it must go further:

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It must be said with joy that in Cuba steps have been taken to enable the Church to carry out her essential mission of expressing her faith openly and publicly. Nonetheless, this must continue forwards, and I wish to encourage the country’s Government authorities to strengthen what has already been achieved and advance along this path of genuine service to the true good of Cuban society as a whole.

---

16.26 Vatican sources estimated crowd to be around 700,000

16.20 Benedict said people find freedom when they seek the truth that Christianity offers. He added, "On the other hand there are those who wrongly interpret this search for the truth, leading them to irrationality and fanaticism; they close themselves up in 'their truth' and try to impose it on others."

15.42 Carlos Herrera, a tourism worker who came to mass in Havana with his wife, said: "The pope is something big for Cubans. I come to hear his words, wise words for the Cuban people. That helps us. It gives us peace, it gives us unity. We do not want war".

15.10 The pope has now taken his seat. The throne that he is sitting in is the same that was occupied by Pope John Paul II when he visited Cuba in 1998. Fidel Castro is not in attendance but Cuban TV said a private audience would take place after the mass.

15.07 The Pope has dressed in purple cloak and white and gold mitre and is approaching altar. Raul Castro is in front row dressed in white shirt.

15.01 Many people are standing under umbrellas to shade themselves from an already blistering sun as they listen to prayers broadcast to the crowd. Benedict made his way to the plaza in his white popemobile. A massive Cuban flag was draped next to the plaza's iconic image of revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

14.48 Crowds flocking around Popemobile as Benedict XVI is transported through square to giant altar.

14.39 Popemobile is now entering the square

14.10 @yoanisanchez, a blogger famed for her outspoken critiques of the communist regime, has been tweeting from Havana:
Translations as follows:

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There are many activists prevented from leaving their homes. Surrounded by political police # PapaCuba

#Cuba The arrests are intended to prevent activists and dissidents from entering the mass # PapaCuba

#Cuba While the people are coming into the Square for Mass # PapaCuba arrests increased night and early morning

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14.03 As many as a million people are expected to throng the square for the mass in Havana in two hours time. Thousands of Cubans have already started to gather.

13.52 Fidel Castro met John Paul II during a historic from the late pope to Cuba in 1998:

13.50 There are unconfirmed reports that dissidents have been rounded up overnight ahead of today's papal mass.

13.48 During the nearly hour-long meeting on Tuesday with Cuban President Raul Castro - twice the normal length of papal audiences with heads of state - Benedict asked that the government declare a holiday for Good Friday, when Catholics commemorate the death of Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI waves from the popemobile as he arrives for a Mass at the Revolution Square in Santiago de Cuba on Monday

13.41 A huge poster of Cuba's patron saint, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, covered the facade of one of the buildings in Havana facing the plaza. The icon has been the spiritual focus of Benedict's three-day visit, timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the diminutive statue.

Benedict visited the statue in a sanctuary near the eastern city of Santiago on Tuesday morning and prayed to her for greater freedom and renewal for all Cubans - another gentle nudge to the government to continue opening itself up to greater reforms. He said:

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I have entrusted to the Mother of God the future of your country, advancing along the ways of renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans.

I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty.

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13.28 Piers Scholfield, from the BBC World Service, tweets:

"Benedict's Mass in Revolution Plaza comes 14 years after John Paul II preached on the same spot before hundreds of thousands of people, Fidel Castro among them.

"Then, an image of Jesus Christ was displayed opposite the plaza's iconic image of revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a remarkable development for a country that had been officially atheist until 1992.

13.05 In an article published on an official website, Fidel Castro confirmed he would meet the Pope on Wednesday morning, saying he had "requested a few minutes of (Benedict's) busy time" after hearing that the pontiff wanted to meet him: "I will happily greet His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI as I did John Paul II, a man for whom contact with children and the humble raised feelings of affection".

12.52 Cuban vice president Marino Murillo has ruled out any sweeping political reforms, following the Pope's call to "build a renewed and open society": "In Cuba, there will be no political reforms. What we are talking about is an updating of our Cuban economic model, which makes our own form of socialism more sustainable, for the wellbeing of our people"

12.42 The Pope met Fidel Castro's brother, President Raul Castro, on Tuesday. They exchanged gifts, with Mr Castro offering the pope a statue of Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, and the pontiff giving the Cuban leader a copy of Ptolemy's "Geography".

12.35 There had been talk that the Pope could meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is in Cuba for a new round of cancer treatment, but Chavez said Tuesday that he would not "interfere" with the papal agenda: "They have their agenda. I'm not going to be interfering at all".

FIDEL MEETS THE POPE




Pope Benedict meets with Fidel Castro


HAVANA, March 28, 2012 - Pope Benedict XVI met with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro Wednesday afternoon at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana.

The encounter follows the Pontiff's unusually political speech before throngs at the capital's iconic Revolution Plaza and just before Benedict is to board a plane for Rome.

Vatican spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi gave details of the Pope's meeting with Fidel Castro, saying it was "very cordial" and lasted a half an hour, the spokesperson said.

Castro said he has been carefully watching the trip since the Pope landed in Santiago and asked for the Pope's book recommendations to help him guide his revolution. [WHAT????} Benedict said he would have to think about it.

The meeting began with some jokes about their ages. Castro is 85, Benedict reaches that milestone next month. "Yes, I'm old, but I can still do my job," Lombardi quoted the pope as saying.

Castro also talked with the pope about the beatification of Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II and wanted to know about the recent changes in the liturgy.

The Pope met with Fidel Castro's brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, on Tuesday in Havana, the last stop of Benedict's Latin American tour.

NB: As at the Pope's courtesy call on Preaident Raul at the Palacio de la Revolucion yesterday, the unidentified lady in the pictures is an official interpreter.




I don't know why the McClatchy newspapers just came up on my radar during this apostolic visit by the Pope, but with 30 newspapers in major cities, it is the third-largest newspaper publishing company. On the Fidel Castro meeting, it has even more details than the most detailed account I've seen so far in the Italian newspapers. First, the Western world knows little about the private life of Cuba's leaders, Fidel and Raul included, so the 'public' appearance of Castro's wife (and two sons) on this occasion qualifies as some sort of a scoop in the Western world, though it pales, given the occasion on which it was revealed More about the private lvies of Fidel and Raul Castro later...

At least Fidel didn't do a Kim Jong-il and thrust one of his sons to be his successor when he retired in 2006 but chose brother Raul who shared both his revolutionary past and was his longtime undesignated #2 man in the Cuban government (for a long time, Armed Forces Minister)... Personally, I find it very significant that Fidel brought his family to meet the Pope. It's somehow a very Catholic thing... This story also blends into a good wrap-up story on the last day of the visit...

Fidel brought his wife
and two sons to meet the Pope

March 27, 2012

Pope Benedict met with Fidel Castro Wednesday for a 30 minute meeting. These photos were taken by Castro's son, Alex Castro.

HAVANA — Pope Benedict XVI sat down Wednesday with Fidel Castro and his wife, Dalia, for a 30-minute private talk before ending his three-day trip to Cuba and returning to Rome.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, described the meeting between the Holy Father and the father of Cuba's communist revolution as “animated” and “colloquial.”

He said the Pope told Castro how much he enjoyed visiting the island, and that Castro responded that he’d been following the Oope’s trip on television.

The two men also spoke about world problems, the environment, and cultural and religious difficulties.

“Fidel asked questions,” Lombardi said. “He’s not responsible for the leadership of the government any more. His life is more focused on reflection, study and writing.”

Castro asked the Pope why the Mass has changed since he was a child and what specifically a Pope does. They discussed economic problems, and the Pope talked about the challenges of religion being marginalized in society.

Castro brought up their similar ages. Benedict responded: “I’m old, but I’m still able to do my duties.”

Castro introduced the Pope to two of his sons, Alex and Antonio, before saying goodbye. Antonio Castro is a doctor for the national baseball team. Alex Castro is a freelance photographer who took photos of his father's meeting with the Pope.

William LeoGrande, a Latin America expert and the dean of the American University School of Public Affairs in Washington, said the meeting served multiple purposes for both men, allowing the Pope to recognize Castro's role in improving state-church relations after his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, visited the island in 199,8 while letting Castro endorse his brother Raul's collaboration with the Church in the future.

“It sends a message to ordinary Cubans that Fidel is comfortable and supports the new relationship between the church and state,” LeoGrande said.

Just before meeting with Castro, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass before hundreds of thousands of Cuban faithful in central Havana, where he said clearly that “Cuba and the world need change.”

The crowd, which Vatican officials estimated at 300,000, remained quiet in order to hear the 84-year-old Pope’s softly spoken words.

It was the last public act of the Pope's three-day pilgrimage across this communist island. He said Mass in Santiago, prayed at the sanctuary in El Cobre that houses Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, and met with Fidel's brother Raul, who's now the country's President.

Benedict's Mass was filled with symbolic criticism of Cuba's authoritarian regime, but he also offered cautious praise.

He picked a Gospel reading about “three young men persecuted by the Babylonian king” who preferred to face death rather than betray their consciences. He applauded steps the country has taken to provide the Roman Catholic Church more space for its work and the Cuban people more opportunities to practice religion freely.

“This must continue forward,” he said. “And I wish to encourage the country’s government authorities to strengthen what has already been achieved and advance along this path of genuine service to the true good of Cuban society as a whole.”

Cubans from across the country flocked to Havana’s Revolution Square to see the Pontiff, who was visiting Cuba to honor the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the 15-inch-tall Our Lady of Charity statue adrift in the waters of the Bay of Nipe.

One group took an overnight boat from the Isle of Youth, Cuba’s second largest island, gathering at its port at 10 p.m. Tuesday to make the three-hour ride across the Gulf of Batabano. The boat left at 1 a.m., reaching the Cuban mainland at 4 a.m., after which the 140 pilgrims still faced a three-hour bus ride to Havana.

Eliaser Matos, 50, said he didn’t sleep, but sang and danced throughout the night. The group continued to sing as it marched into the plaza under a large banner: “Isla de la Juventud, Presente” (Island of Youth, Present).”

“Charity will unite us. Give your brother a hand,” they sang in Spanish. ['La caridad nos une' - charity unites us - is the slogan of this Marian Jubilee Year in Cuba.]

Security was tight throughout the city. Entry into the plaza was limited as roads around the square were closed by 2 a.m.

"It was a heartfelt reception, although less expansive or enthusiastic than the one he received in Mexico,'' Lombardi said. ``This doesn't mean there was less sincerity - it perhaps underlines the fact that this is an event that's even more rare for the Cuban people than it is for Mexicans.”

The event appeared to finish without incident, unlike the papal Mass in Santiago on Monday, where a man was arrested after rushing toward the pope screaming, “Down with communism.” But members of the Cuban dissident group known as the Ladies in White reported that several members had been arrested on their way to the Havana Mass.

Two members of the group, Becky Felicia, 50, and her daughter, Jessica Casternau, 22, were arrested outside their home at 7:30 a.m., according to Jose Casternau, Felicia’s husband and Jessica’s father.

Jose Casternau said his wife and daughter were driven in away in police car No. 964.

“They didn’t want them at the Mass,” he said. “I’m very nervous. This is the second time my wife has been taken this week.”

Those who attended the Mass echoed the words of the Catholic leadership that the visit wasn't about politics.

Raul Diaz, 61, who said he'd also attended a Mass said by Pope John Paul II during John Paul's 1998 visit to Cuba, said the people were concentrating on following the Pope’s message of faith. He said the enthusiasm he felt Wednesday was similar to the energy that people felt in 1998.

“This Pope doesn’t travel as much as John Paul,” Diaz said. “So it’s very special for him to come to Cuba.”

Outside Havana, the expectations were that the Pope's visit would have tangible results, said the Rev. Alberto Reyes, a 44-year-old Catholic priest in the central Cuba town of Guaimaro, which is 250 miles from Havana.

“There were a lot of expectations for the Pope’s visit. I think there was a religious expectation. There was also an expectation of what can change in Cuba because of this visit,” Reyes said.

“The papal visit isn’t a political visit, but people ask what might change in Cuba as a country after this visit,” he added. [And that's a more practical and realistic expectation than MSM have been peddling.]



published some of the photos taken by Alex Castro, as well as a YouTube video from which the first (washed-out) photo showing the Pope with Castro, his wife and two of their five sons, was captured:



Photos by Alex Castro:



And a newsphoto release which is inexplicably washed out:


And now, a word about the Cuban leaders and their wives. The Cuban revolutionary government has held to an ironclad rule against publicizing the private lives of their leaders, so their family members are hardly ever photographed, much less written about.

Back in 1948, Fidel married his first wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart, one of whose brothers later became a leading Republican congressman in Florida, and divorced her in 1955, one year before the success of the Revolution he led. They had one son, Fidelito, who headed Cuba's atomic energy commission for several years and now lives abroad. During that marriage, he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Alina, who left Cuba in the 1980s and has since become of her father's most outspoken critics. In his guerrilla days, Fidel is believed to have had a more than platonic relationship with Celia Sanchez, one of the great female figures of his revolution, who was an important member of his government until she died in 1980. Meanwhile, during Cuba's massive campaign against illiteracy in the early 1960s, he met a blond, green-eyed schoolteacher named Dalia Soto, who came to be considered his second wife since they started living together in 1961. They had five sons (Alexander, Alex, Alexis, Angel and Antonio - Fidel apparently hero-worships Alexander the Great, hence the use of a variant of his name for three of the sons). Fidel and Dalia did not get married until 1980, after the death of Celia Sanchez. Dalia was never photographed, and so a Spanish newspaper made a big deal of it when it finally obtained a snapshot of her in 2001 at an auction she attended with Fidel for a children's hospital benefit. Fidel is known to have two other illegitimate children - one son and one daughter - born after he came to power.

Raul, Fidel's younger brother, has a simple and straightforward marital history, having married Vilma Espin, the Cuban Revolution's most renowned woman fighter and later peacetime feminist. She was an MIT-trained chemical engineer whose father was the lawyer for the Bacardi rum family, but she was one of the earliest recruits to Fidel's guerrilla movement against the corrupt Batista regime before the movement was forced to move to Mexico for tactical survival. In the guerrilla movement, she was a more important figure than Raul. They married in 1959 and they had three daughters and a son. She died of a lingering illness in 2007, one year after Raul succeeded Fidel as President, and she was given a hero's funeral.

OK, simple explanation for why McClatchy has turned up prominently on my online radar in the past few days - the group publishes the Miami Herald, that has been covering the Pope's visit with understandably special interest... and its emphasis on Cuban dissidents. It expanded the wrap-up posted above to include some details about the Pope's departure from Havana, so I will just post the new material.

Pope Benedict XVI ends Cuba visit with
prayer that island be a 'house for all’
By FRANCO ORDONEZ AND DAN CHANG





HAVANA - -- Bidding farewell to Cuba after a three-day visit that included a pilgrimage to the national shrine of Our Lady of Charity, two open-air masses before hundreds of thousand of people, and private meetings with Fidel and Raúl Castro, Pope Benedict XVI said he would pray for the nation’s future and that “Cuba will become the house of all and for all Cubans, where liberty and justice can coexist in a climate of serene brotherhood.’’

Benedict’s valediction also called for greater religious freedoms in Cuba that would not be impeded by “limitations on fundamental liberties, nor exempted ... by lack of material resources,’’ a situation, he said, that is “aggravated when restrictive economic measures imposed from outside the country weigh negatively on the population’’ — an obvious reference to the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Joining Benedict at Havana’s José Martí International Airport, where the farewell ceremony was moved indoors due to inclement weather, was Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who struck a more conciliatory tone than he did when welcoming the Pope on Monday with an anti-American diatribe without mentioning the country'sname.

He invoked the names of the Rev. Félix Varela, a revered 19th-century Cuban priest [whose cause for beatification has been initiated), and the island’s most prominent patriot, José Martí, saying “Being cultured is the only way to be free.’’

He also lauded the contributions of Cuban emigrants, citing their successes in places such as Tampa and Key West. And he bashed those who criticize Cuba, calling the island nation “a just society.’’

As even Vatican Radios English service did not see fit to file a departure story last night, I must itnerpose here the full text of the Pope's departure remarks from teh official Vaticna translation. It was an unusually forceful reiteration of Christian faith and the humanistic principles it stands for that must guide every human society, and therefore a continuing admonition to the totalitarian regime in Cuba:

---

Mr President,
Your Eminences, my Brother Bishops,
Distinguished Authorities,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends:

I thank God for allowing me to visit this beautiful Isle which left so deep a mark on the heart of my beloved predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, when he came to these lands as a herald of truth and hope.

I too greatly wished to come among you as a pilgrim of charity, in order to thank the Virgin Mary for the presence of her venerable statue in the Sanctuary of El Cobre, whence for four centuries she has accompanied the journey of the Church in this nation and given encouragement to all Cubans so that, from the hand of Christ, they might discover the true meaning of the desires and aspirations found in the human heart and gain the strength needed to build a fraternal society in which no one feels excluded.

“Christ, risen from the dead, shines in this world, and he does so most brightly in those places where, in human terms, everything is somber and hopeless. He has conquered death – he is alive – and faith in him, like a small light, cuts through all that is dark and threatening” (Prayer Vigil with Young People, Freiburg, 24 September 2011).

I thank the President and the other national authorities for the interest and generous cooperation which they have shown in the the preparation of this Journey.

I am also deeply grateful to the members of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba, who spared no effort or sacrifice in this regard, and to all those who have helped in various ways, especially by their prayers.

I hold deep in my heart all the Cuban people, each and every one. You have surrounded me with prayer and affection, offered me cordial hospitality and shared with me your profound and rightful aspirations.

I came here as a witness to Jesus Christ, convinced that, wherever he is present, discouragement yields to hope, goodness dispels uncertainties and a powerful force opens up the horizon to beneficial and unexpected possibilities.

In Christ’s name, and as the Successor of the Apostle Peter, I wished to proclaim his message of salvation and to strengthen the zeal and pastoral concern of the Cuban Bishops, the priests, the religious and all those preparing with enthusiasm for priestly ministry and the consecrated life.

May this journey also serve as a new impulse to all those who cooperate with perseverance and self-sacrifice in the work of evangelization, particularly the lay faithful.

By intensifying their commitment to God at home and in the workplace, may they never tire of offering their responsible contribution for the good and the integral progress of their homeland.

The path which Christ points out to humanity, and to each particular individual and people, is not a source of constraint, but rather the primary and principal premise for their authentic development.

The light of the Lord, has shone brightly during these days; may that light never fade in those who have welcomed it; may it help all people to foster social harmony and to allow the blossoming of all that is finest in the Cuban soul, its most noble values, which can be the basis for building a society of broad vision, renewed and reconciled.

May no one feel excluded from taking up this exciting task because of limitations of his or her basic freedoms, or excused by indolence or lack of material resources, a situation which is worsened when restrictive economic measures, imposed from outside the country, unfairly burden its people.

I now conclude my pilgrimage, but I will continue praying fervently that you will go forward and that Cuba will be the home of all and for all Cubans, where justice and freedom coexist in a climate of serene fraternity.

Respect and promotion of freedom which is present in the heart of each person are essential in order to respond adequately to the fundamental demands of his or her dignity and, in this way, to build up a society in which all are indispensable actors in the future of their life, their family and their country.

The present hour urgently demands that in personal, national and international co-existence, we reject immovable positions and unilateral viewpoints which tend to make understanding more difficult and efforts at cooperation ineffective.

Possible discrepancies and difficulties will be resolved by tirelessly seeking what unites everyone, with patient and sincere dialogue, and a willingness to listen and accept goals which will bring new hope.

Cuba, look again to the faith of your elders, draw from that faith the strength to build a better future, trust in the Lord’s promises, and open your heart to his Gospel so as to renew authentically your personal and social life.

As I bid you a heartfelt Adios, I ask our Lady of Charity of El Cobre to protect all Cubans under her mantle, to sustain them in the midst of their trials and to obtain from Almighty God the grace that they most desire. Hasta siempre, Cuba, a land made beautiful by the maternal presence of Mary. May God bless your future.

---

Resuming the McClatchy story:

Behind the scenes of the Pope’s visit, the Cuban government used a strong hand to control public perception of events by restricting the access of the international press corps and stepping up arrests and detentions of dissidents.

More than 60 people were detained or placed under house arrest on Tuesday to keep them away from Wednesday’s Local human rights organizations, including the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, had their phone lines cut off since Monday, reported Amnesty International. The mobile phones of prominent activists and government critics also were unreachable.

In a telephone interview from Havana following Wednesday’s Mass, Miami’s Archbishop Thomas Wenski - who led Miami pilgrims who came to Cuba for the Pope's visit and celebrated Mass in the Cathedral of Havana on Tuesday - said the Pope is “well aware of the situation” that Cuban dissidents face.

The Vatican’s ambassador to Cuba, known as a nuncio, met recently in Havana with representatives for the so-called Ladies in White, a movement of women who wear white and gather at Masses at Catholic churches in Cuba to protest the treatment of the island’s prisoners of conscience.



Curiously, I haven't been able to find any planeside photos of the departure rites so far, but newsphotos of the roadside turnout for the Pope as he headed to the airport, such as the two above, more than make up for it. I had to doublecheck all the attached online captions to make sure they were dated March 28, not March 26...AGI's Salvatore Izzo does report briefly on the crowds that saw the Pope off..

Crowds line Pope's 18-km
route to the airport


HAVANA, March 28 (Translated from AGI) - Benedict XVI has left the Apostolic Nunciature here for the Jose Marti International Airport.

His motorcade passed through large crowds along both sides of the 18-mile route between the city center and the airport.

A spillover from the crowd at Mass earlier in the day, variably estimated at 500,000-700,000.

Too bad other reporters do not think a send-off like this deserves mention at all! MSM's attention span for reporting news on these papal trips seems to end with the last official event before the departure ceremony!]

A belated post - one of several that I am sure I missed during my recent days of erratic posting - but a welcome one from a Miami-based Hispanic (with Jewish ancestry, obviously), who for a change, focuses on the faith that survives in many Cubans - and which they appear to have transmitted successfully to their children and grandchildren, judging from the enthusiastic participation of Cuban youth during this visit. Miami commentators sent by the US-based Hispanic channels to cover the visit in Cuba reported on the surprising activity of Cuban Catholic youth in their parishes. Also, it is most unusual to find a North American journalist writing so unabashedly about his faith in a major secular newspaper.


In Cuba, the miracle is faith
By Daniel Shoer Roth

March 26, 2012

“You have won, Galilean!” cried Julian the Apostate Emperor with his final, dying breath, recognizing his failure to de-Christianize the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century.

On Monday night, at a multitudinous Mass at the Plaza Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba, presided over by Pope Benedict XVI, Cuba’s head of state Raúl Castro sat attentively in the front row.

Thousands of young people around him sang worshiping hymns to that same Galilean that they once attempted to tear out of the hearts of the Cuban people: Jesus Christ.

The emblematic scene confirms that the new man Che Guevara dreamed of was not a man deprived of God. The new Cuban man is the one who today, amid the widespread hopelessness in the impoverished island, prays to Our Lady of Charity for a dignified future.

God is not a fact that can be erased or a tradition that can be abolished. It is a contagious experience that transmits from one person to another.

For decades, the Cuban government, officially atheist until 1992, persecuted, excluded and attempted to obliterate any vestige of Catholicism. It expelled priests, shut down religious schools, banned Christmas. Even after the Berlin Wall crumbled over Marx and Lenin, Fidel Castro limited religious freedom.

It was a titanic effort to monopolize thinking. Yet, the only equality among men makes reference to equal dignity as a divine image of God.

In the case of the Cubans, many grandparents kept their faith against Communist paganism. And, as in any other era or place where there were attempts to eliminate the notion of a Creator, man did not succeed in putting out the flame of spirituality.

In Moscow, the Soviet government in 1931 gave orders to dynamite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, built in the 19th century close to the Kremlin, on the northern bank of the Moskva River, to make way for a proposed monument to socialism known as the Palace of the Soviets, which would have a gigantic statue of Lenin on the top of a dome.

Yet economic problems, wars and floods in the river did not allow the work to be done. In the 60s, Nikita Khrushchev’s government had to be content to building an open-air public swimming pool.

[That dynamited Cathedral has since been rebuilt and is considered the tallest Orthodox Church in the world. The Soviets have a mixed record in this respect. In 1921, one of Lenin's first official acts was to decree a reconstruction of the historic and massive 12th century mosque in Samarkand and other significant historical buildings in Muslim Soviet Asia. And after World War II, with the near-total destruction of all of St. Petersburg's monuments during the long siege, one of the first things the Soviets did was to reconstruct the major buildings that were demolished including such wonders as the Cathedral of St. Isaac, the city's major landmark, down to its unique spectacular interior distinguished by columns and panels of malachite and lapis lazuli. I learned this visiting those reconstructed sites on my first visit to the Soviet Union back in 1974, and in later trips saw more of their wonderful historic churches, including medieval ones made entirely of wood... Obviously, the Soviets had an awareness of preserving their country's cultural patrimony, including the treasures resulting from their Christian heritage. ]

Castro declared Monday that his government shares the values of the Catholic Church. But the Pope contradicted that statement when he said upon leaving Rome that “the Marxist ideology, in the way it was conceived, no longer matches reality.”

In that reality, freedoms of expression and of the press are consecrated as the pillars of democracy. Such values do not exist in Cuba, as it is evidenced by the beating some thugs — one of them wearing a Red Cross uniform — gave a courageous man who shouted: Down with Communism!

The irony of this papal visit is that the regime that tried to put faith to sleep is now forced to take part in its renewal. It must be humiliating for the Communist elite to have to impotently accept the God they fought against. [I don't believe they think their changing position is all that humiliating - they have seen how, since the Soviet regime fell, the leaders of Russia openly embrace and support the Orthodox faith; and more importantly, how can they be humiliated in the eyes of a people who have genuine faith and could only welcome their accommodation? That is why Fidel Castro in 1998 and Raul Castro today had absolutely no problem attending the Pope's liturgies. In their heart, they must still have vestiges of the cradle Catholicism in which they were raised.]

Many people said that they expected a great miracle from the Holy Father’s visit. The miracle is already happening. It is the fervent confirmation by the Cuban people that Marxism could not take away the Christian faith or its sense of transcendence.

Whatever we call Him, that Higher Power is infinite and unswerving.

WELCOME BACK, YOUR HOLINESS -

CONGRATULATIONS AND DEO GRATIAS!


The Holy Father's Alitalia flight from Havana touched down in Rome's
Ciampino airport at 10:41 a.m. today.





In VATICAN INSIDER today, Andrea Tornielli seizes the perfect news peg to inveigh once more against any suggestions that Benedict XVI should or could retire any time soon - indeed, that he could ever put his own personal sentiments over and above the will of God as to the earthly time span he intends for his Vicar on earth...

Passing the test of a two-nation trip
two weeks away from his 85th birthday,
Benedict XVI makes its clear again
he does not intend to resign
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from

March 29, 2012

"Yes, I'm old, but I can still carry out my duties".

In his meeting with Fidel Castro yesterday, Benedict XVI spoke this response, in the presence of TV cameras, to his retired contemporary who remarked that without any more formal responsibilities, he has been reduced to reading and writing.

That ought to put an end to those who have been speculating for months about his possible resignation as Pope when he turns 85 on April 16, or after the conclusion of the Year of Faith in 2013.

He is making it clear he will go ahead, even with advancing age.

Teo years ago, in his book-length interview with Peter Seewald, he had spoken clearly about the possibility of a papal resignation in accordance with canon law, and the conditions that would make it an option.

But last September, the speculation was floated that Benedict XVI would resign on his 85th birthday, even without any of those possible disabilities.

The hypothesis was relaunched in recent weeks by Giuliano Ferrara editor of Il Foglio and a longtime admirer of Joseph Ratzinger, but citing other reasons [both of them improbable and unthinkable for Joseph Ratzinger, who is not the least bit selfish, and who insists that each of us must obey the will of God instead of imposing his own.]

"A Pope who resigns because he considers it his spiritual duty to promote a renewal that will not nullify his own Magisterium, but will re-launch it, will also have the possibility of better influencing the choice of his successor".

In short, Ferrara advocates resignation as an expression of papal protagonism, supposedly as a 'strong' response that would revive a Pontificate considered 'weak' and 'too penitential' by some of Benedict XVI's own supporters, including Ferrara [and Antonio Socci, the journalist who pitched the resignation story last September]

So although Benedict XVI has openly spoken about the conditions that might lead to a papal resignation, to speculate in any way that he would resign as Pope in order to preserve his own Magisterium and influence the choice of the next Pope is a prospect that is most remote both from the sensibility of Joseph Ratzinger himself and from the Tradition of the Church. [More simply put, he would never be so selfish as to have such motivations!]

A Pope who, on the eve of his 85th birthday, had the strength toundertake a weeklong two-nation apostolic visit to Mexico and Cuba, can indeed "still carry out my duties".

And he has other admirers who believe that it is precisely in its perceived 'weakness' and in his constant call for humility that Benedict XVI's 'penitential Papacy' manifests its prophetic power for our time.

First, Anyone who truly admires Benedict XVI could never ever consider his Pontificate 'weak' or 'weakened by scandal' at all. It's not as if the attempts to buffet the 'Rock' during this Pontificate were any worse than those that have arisen from time to time against other Popes in the modern era.

The venom is certainly worse, but the accusations against him for any personal responsibility at all in the sex abuse scandal, which is the worst of the allegations made, not only have all been shown to be unfounded, but have also served to highlight that he has been the only ranking prelate in the Church hierarchy to have been consistently unequivocal against such 'filth' in the Church.

I advise the doubters and the weak of heart to read the chapters of George Weigel's Witness of Hope about the first seven years of John Paul II's Pontificate to get the correct perspective on what Benedict XVI has achieved so far. They would be most agreeably surprised!

Second, what constitutes a 'weak Pontificate' anyway? During the Pontificate itself, it's an impression that often has no objective correlative. Every Pope in the modern era had his strong points and his vulnerabilities, as every leader has, and therefore, every Pontificate has its high points and its low points.

Did anyone call John Paul II's Pontificate 'weak' because he failed to act against priestly sex abuses until much too late, or because he failed to 'reform' the Curia in the way that would have satisfied the Vaticanistas, or to institute meaningful reforms in the Vatican's financial affairs?

Then why is Benedict XVI now being called 'weak' when he has categorically acted to remedy all that? Even if, one must point out, Vaticanistas still fail to see the effect in the Curia - which is more multiform than just the Secretariat of State - of the fact that for the first time in seven years, all but one of the Roman dicasteries is now led by Benedict XVI's own men, for whom he is directly and personally responsible.

Third, what is wrong with being penitential? Isn't penitence our constant calling as human beings and therefore sinners? Isn't the Church supposed to be perennially penitential? When John Paul II made all those apologies to anything and anyone the Catholic Church may have offended or harmed in her 2000-year history, was he criticized for being penitential? No, he was universally praised, except by the Catholic rad-trads!

The opposite of a 'penitential' Papacy would be a 'triumphalistic' one that brandishes its perceived power over all earthly adversaries. Even at the height of the temporal power of the Popes, triumphalism was always seen as a tendency to be avoided at all costs because in Christian theology, the Church on earth is the 'Church militant' whose members must continually fight sin and evil, and the 'Church triumphant' is only found in heaven, among those who have already earned their place with God. (The 'Church suffering' are the souls in Purgatory.)]

P.S. On March 16, Sandro Magister wrote an overview of the entire papal resignation issue, which has many significant references:[/DIM}
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350197?eng=y

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/03/2012 04:07]

Teresa, warm thanks for your covering of the Pope's visit to Mexico and Cuba. You have posted some unique material here, which you managed even while you were ill with a bug! I hope you are feeling much better now.

The posts above about the Cuban situation, with your info - unknown to me - about the personal lives of the Cuban-Marxist leaders are very enlightening. Thanks for the extra trouble you took.

I have watched on TV - Anglophone and Euronews plus Aljazeera - the coverage of this papal visit. Especially the Cuban leg of the visit naturally (from a secular and political view point) received special attention from the television media. I was quite surprised that BBC World alotted to the Cuban part its no. 1 breaking news slot for the past two days. And, for a change, no subtle knifing of Benedict XVI and Catholicism. The reportage seemed objective and they even cited parts of his homily that refered to God/Christ without a cinical quip worked into the report.

The article in the Miami newspaper above summed up very succinctly what TV-viewers experienced regarding the Holy Father's visit to Cuba. I am thankful, and proud of him. He managed to speak the truth without alienating and insulting anyone from whatever side of their world views. But this he did without compromising the Gospel truth and expectations of the followers of Jesus Christ. That these expectations intersect and underly true humanism and freedom must have become obvious even to the most diehard Communist-Marxist or secular humanist/atheist.

Quite a feat, this visit to Cuba, and the Pope at nearly 85 did a marvelous "job", in my opinion.

Let's hope he gets some well-deserved rest before the hectic schedule of Easter coming up.



Hi, Mags! I envy you the luxury of being able to watch a variety of TV coverage on the Pope's pastoral trips. Your note gives me a chance to 'unload' about some of my problems with media coverage of the Pope's travels.

I didn't even realize Al-Jazeera would provide special coverage for it. I am curious how a Muslim channel reports on a Catholic event. I hope their correspondents prepare themselves better to do this than the correspondents of the major MSM news agencies and outlets! AP editors, for instance, continue to let their newscaptions and reports say the Pope 'performs' or 'delivers' Mass. It's insulting of them to not respect Catholicism enough to use the proper terms that any non-Catholic who reads the news regularly would quickly assimilate by habituation!...

Me, I feel really frustrated that after seven years, I still have to establish an efficient and satisfactory routine for following a papal trip abroad, as I find myself having to shuttle at random between 1) Vatican Radio which does come out earliest with the papal texts in English - and I happen to think that the prompt posting of a papal text is much more important than any number of news reports or commentaries about that particular text, especially since this Pope's words do not require interpreting at all, and is much better read directly, without intermediaries - and 2) whatever live TV coverage is on, 3) whatever stories have been filed lately in a) the Anglophone media, 2b) the Italian media, and c) the local media of the country the Pope is visiting. I try to trawl the Anglophone media first only because I can generally post the reports more promptly, compared to when I have to translate, and 3) the latest photos from the news agencies and any other outlet that happens to post pictures. (Th photos - which are indispensable and constitute the most effective documentation - are probably the most time-consuming part of preparing any of my posts, especially since I started using Corel Photo-Pro to improve the image quality of the pictures and try to present all the pictures from a similar event with a uniform visual tone. The original images I am copying necessarily vary in lighting and color characteristics, depending on whether they are shot indoors or outdoors and what the available lighting is. It takes time to try and make them uniform, even if I have limited my intervention to a quick four-step routine on each picture - one-time fix gives me an idea of how close the original picture is to the 'ideal', followed by adjustments in sharpness, brightness and contrast, and color vibrancy to get as close as possible to the 'ideal'.)

Even in a visit like this last one, where the Pope had at most two major events during the day, there never seems to be enough time between events to do all that systematically, and I end up posting catch-as-catch-can. [Imagine the resulting personal chaos when I fall ill in the middle of all this - or something happens in my job or private life that does require immediate attention and necessarily keeps me away from being abreast of the developments! And I have been more disrupted during this visit than in previous visits.]

I am grateful for the alternative - and superior - TV coverage that was provided by US-based Hispanophone channels who were not tied to the CTV feed, as EWTN is, and which really went out of their way to field camera crews and reporters as widely as they could to show us peripheral events we never see on CTV/EWTN (which necessarily limit their coverage only to the main event - generally omitting prime human-interest preliminaries like the Popemobile arriving and touring the sectors, and his equally prime-interest post-event actions and interactions).

More importantly, the Hispanophone channels did lots of interviews with the 'common folk', so one was not limited only to the 'talking heads' views. One advantage for the Hispanic hosts was that, even if many of them are perhaps not now observant Catholics, the basics about the faith and its practices that they imbibed as cradle Catholics survive, and it shows in their commentary - better informed about Catholic essentials than the run-of-the-mill Anglophone commentator - and the excitement, enthusiasm and pride they express so openly about the sheer fact of a Pope visiting a Hispanic country, let alone about the reception he got from their fellow Hispanics.

Nor did they dwell unduly on the Maciel case in Mexico and the dissidents' case in Cuba, as if they instinctively realized the difference between the spiritual objectives of a papal visit and any tangential political issues. I think perhaps they also realized that their viewers were not tuning in to their coverage to hear about these political issues (which the Anglophone MSM and even the Mexican media, in general, sought to put front and center in their coverage of the Pope's visit) but to follow the events of the Pope's visit.

Not the least of my pleasures at following the Papal Masses this time on the Hispanic channels rather than EWTN was that I did not have to deal with the constant annoyance of the vapid, sophomoric voice-over translations and commentary of the relatively amateur commentators assigned by Vatican Radio's English service to papal events. I am sure they are all earnest, well-meaning and pious, but they are just not up to the magnitude and level of the event they are covering. Does Fr. Lombardi not realize that assigning immature and raw reporters to cover papal events is an insult to the listeners and to the Pope himself?

Furthermore, it makes me apoplectic to hear some female voice reading a prepared translation in English overriding the Pope's voice during a homily. Thirty years ago when I worked in radio, it was always possible for the audio techs to strike a balance during these simultaneous translations so that the subject's voice could be heard equally well as the translator's voice-over, but somehow CTV/RV choose to dial down the Pope's voice to barely audible so that the sophomoric, annoyingly bookish translator's voice-over dominates. That is so wrong and offensive. I found it equally so even when the late Cardinal Foley himself was doing the commentary at the Christmas Masses.

If only all host bishops' conferences could afford the English/Welsh bishops' 24/7 streaming coverage of the Popoe's visit to the UK in 2010! That was hugely thrilling and immediate, as well as easily referred back to whatever section you missed - and is still available online to this day, the last time I looked two months ago.

For all that, this was one of the most gratifying of the papal travels, IMHO, along with the three WYD events and the visits to the US, France, Portugal and the UK.

Meanwhile, as I never did in my life for any Pope before April 19, 2005, I begin and end my day offering a prayer and thanking the Lord for Benedict XVI. He makes us all proud to be Catholics and compels us to live our faith in everything we do.

TERESA

Having failed to post anything more yesterday after the translation of Tornielli's post shoving aside all the unwarranted and unfoudned speculation about a papal resignation, I will post a double 'almanac' entry today for both March 29 and March 30.

Thursday, March 29, Fifth Week of Lent

BLESSED LODOVICO DA CASORIA (Italy, 1814-1885)
Franciscan, Founder of Gray Brothers and Gray Sisters
Born Arcangelo Palmentieri near Naples, he was a cabinet-maker before
he joined the Franciscan Friars Minor in 1832. His first assignment was
to teach chemistry, physics and math in Franciscan schools. In 1847,
he underwent a mystical experience which he called 'a cleansing', after
which he dedicated himself to charitable work with such energy that one
biography calls him 'a cyclone of charity'. Specifically he set up schools
and institutions to serve the poor, children and the elderly. In 1859, he
set up the Gray Brothers (Frati Bigi) from members of the Franciscan Third
Order to carry out this work, and a few years later, the Gray Sisters (Suore
Bigie). He was beatified in 1993.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/032912.cfm


AT THE VATICAN, March 29
The Holy Father arrived at mid-morning Thursday from his apostolic trip to Mexico and Cuba, and will now
take a much-deserved rest and readjustment to his customary time zone.

The Vatican Press Office released a statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denouncing
four priests of the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church who had been expelled from the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat
and who then proclaimed themselves to be 'bishops' of the Greek Catholic Ukrainian Church, and then sought
unsuccessfully to be registered civilly as the 'Orthodox Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church - thus causing
moral and spiritual damage and confusion not only to the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat but also to the
Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church, to the Holy See and the universal church. The statement makes it clear
that the four priests are excommunicated latae sententiae.

OR for March 29:

On the day he met with Cuban Oresident Raul Castro,
Benedict XVU entrusted the Cuban nation to Mary:
'For a new future of hope'

Because of the time difference (Cuban time six hour behind Rome), events of the visit had a delayed reportage in OR, which has a 3 pm daily press run. The March 29 issue carried the March 27 events - the private Mass and visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Cobre in Santiago; arrivla in Havana, and call on President Castro,=.

Friday, March 30, Fifth Week of Lent

ST. PEDRO REGALADO (Spain, 1390-1456), Franciscan, Reformer, Mystic
He lived at a time of great historical transitions: In 1418, the Council of Constance settled the Great Western
Schism and ended the Avignon papacy; France and England were fighting the Hundred Years' War; the Muslim
Turks finally ended the Byzantine Empire in 1453, Gutenberg had just invented the printing press, and
the century would end with Columbus reaching America. In Villadolid, Spain, young Pedro entered the Order
of the Franciscans, went on to became superior of a convent, actively engaged in reform of the Franciscan
order, and by 1442, was head of the Reformed Franciscans in Spain. His charism was in service to the poor,
and tradition says that when he fed them, he never ran out of food to share. He was immediately the object
of a cult after his death, and 36 years later, when Spain's 'Catholic Queen' Isabella ordered his body
exhumed to be transferred to a better tomb, the body was found to be incorrupt. He was canonized in 1746.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/033012.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY, March 30

At 9:30 this morning, the Holy Father attended the fourth Lenten sermon by the Preacher of the Pontifical
Household, fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, at the Redemptoris Mater chapel of the Apostolic Palace.


The Press Office released a statement on the Bilateral Commission meeting held in Rome March 27-29 between
a delegation from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Holy See's Commission for Relations with the Jews.

OR today, March 30:

After the Mass in Revolution Square, Benedict XVI's wish as he bade farewell to Cuba:
'Let Cuba be home for all Cubans'

The issue contains the reportage and texts for the final events of the Pope's visit to Cuba on March 28 - the papal Mass, the meeting with Fidel Castro, and the departure ceremony at Havana's international airport.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/03/2013 17:11]

I haven't had the time to check out what the Latin American press has said about THE VISIT and to post what I find interesting, informative and significant, but here are two views by Spanish Catholic commentators who have the spiritual engagement, the cultural identity and the geographical detachment to address the issue...


The true revolution
that has a future

March 29, 2012

At three o'clock in the morning of Wednesday, March 28, two large bus convoys left Matanzas, Cuba, for Havana. Thousands of Cubans from the countryside were not sleeping this night in order to go and meet tje Successor of Peter. So we are told at Radio COPE by the conventual Franciscan Jose Garcia, a native of Toledo who has been serving in Matanzas for the past ten years.

His is only one among thousands of accounts, one note in a beautiful pentagram that the Catholics of Mexico and Cuba put together in song, joy and devotion during the visit of Benedict XVI.

Meanwhile, an important part of the Western press continues to play blind and deaf to what had really happened. One notes the uncertainty, the hitting out blindly, the huge gaps in information, the armchair analyses.

Some speak of 'lost opportunities' (but since when has Benedict XVI signified 'opportunity' for such analysts?) and have been mired in petty polemics over trivial matters, but fail to discern (or else do not wish to confront) the revival of a nation.

The great Alberto Methol (1929-2009, Uruguayan historian, philosopher and theologian, who was considered one of Latin America's leading contemporary intellectuals for the originality of his thinking and his prolific writings) once said that Benedict XVI is able to understand better than anyone the Catholic soul of the Americas, and because of this, would be able to help heal the wounds of the New World and relaunch its nations on a new constructive course.

Since his flight left Rome for Mexico, the Pope lost no time in demonstrating the nature of Christianity and its historical incidence, particularly in Latin America. It is a subject which has bedeviled Latin American theologians and social leaders since the mid-20th century - with a passion that has frequently run aground on ideological reefs and withered on the shores of dualism and superficiality.

How does faith change our world?

This has been a question posed as a challenge from the very start of the Pope's apostolic trip. And the Holy Father, with great patience, has been responding serially. For instance, by describing the idolatry of drugs and its false promises, which could well sweep away a whole generation of Mexicans.

Man has a thirst for the infinite, the Pope points out, and when he does not find it, he creates his own Edens which are nothing but lies and delusions. In the face of which the Church must make present God's truth and goodness - the true Infinite for which man thirsts.

God is a presence distinct from whatever attracts the wayward heart - only God in our midst can change consciences and liberate man from the weight of evil and lies. This is what gives rise to educational mission, the service of purifying reason - to forge a community that can change the face - including the physical one - of their town or city.

He wanted to say this especially at the foot of the giant monument to Christ the King in Cubilete, Mexico, explaining that the Kingdom of Christ does not lie in the force of arms, but is based on the love of God which he brought to the world with his sacrifice, and on the truth of which his earthly life was a testimonial.

One can appreciate the awesomeness of the moment, almost like a whiplash on the very skin of Mexico and all of Latin America.

And then, as a father, he spoke to the faithful of that 'fatigue of faith' that finds its own form in Latin America despite its wealth of shrines and popular religiosity.

It is such faith fatigue that leads to dualism in life, which reduces the reach of faith and keeps it from being transformed to operational charity as a cultural trait, which robs faith of its potential to transform because it has stopped generating thinking, conscientious and free individuals amid a tide of relativism.

And that is why, to a nation that is a hundred percent 'Guadalupan', the Pope urges them to heed Mary's invitation at Cana: "Do as he tells you".

Benedict XVI arrived in Cuba, having said on the flight to Mexico that it was clear Marxism no longer responds to realjty, and is incapable of constructing a society. And for those who raised doubts about the Church's 'collaboration' with the Cuban regime, he underscored that the Church is always on the side of freedom.

On Cuban soil, he addressed himself to all Cubans, wherever they are. He spoke of prisoners and their families, the poor of the land and the descendants of slaves, reiterating the call for a new and open society constructed with the tools of peace, forgiveness and understanding.

In Santiago de Cuba, the Pope affirmed that the obedience of faith is true freedom, whereas excluding God from our life alienates us from our own self, and hurls us into the void.

Perhaps we who live outside Cuba have lost the capacity for awe that can enable us to imagine how these words could erupt into the consciousness of a people living in a regime that for decades promoted atheism and openly marginalized believers.

Doubtless thinking of the penalties and police nuisances against known dissenters in the days leading up to his arrival, Benedict XVI called on the faithful to "accept with patience and faith whatever opposition or affliction may come, with the conviction that, in his Resurrection, he has crushed the power of evil... and will not fail to bless with abundant fruits the generosity of your commitment".

In Havana's emblematic Revolution Square, the Pope raised a hymn to religious freedom before the hierarchs of the Cuban Communist Party in the shadow of Che Guevara's towering portrait. Poetic justice.

That freedom "consists in being able to proclaim and to celebrate faith also in public, bringing to others the message of love, reconciliation and peace which Jesus brought to the world... both in its private and in its public dimension, (to) manifest the unity of the human person, who is at once a citizen and a believer... (and) legitimizes the fact that believers have a contribution to make to the building up of society."

We must remember that in Cuba today, despite advances in religious freedom, there continue to be many imprisoned for dissenting against the regime, some of them Catholics.

The Pope has indicated the path of patience, cooperation, forgiveness and reconciliation, but he also recalled the path of martyrdom, evoking those who had preferred to face death instead of betraying their conscience and their faith. [Restan is being disingenuous. I don't believe there has been any instance of that in the past 52 years of the Communist regime in Cuba, especially since few of the political dissenters thrown into jail earned disfavor by proclaiming their faith but simply by actively protesting the regime in general, not its religious restrictions in particular!]

Che Christian community in Cuba has been effectively strengthened by the presence of their universal Pastor. It would be stupid to try to measure the historical impact of this event in political terms.

And yet there is nothing as revolutionary as faith that is accepted and lived, a faith that creates communion and community, opens up reason, and sustains commitment to freedom.

Benedict XVI had a firm hold on the compass of this apostolic trip.

An earlier editorial for Paginas Digital was written by another commentator after Benedict XVI ended his trip to Mexico:

Benedict XVI re-establishes
Mexican Catholicism
by Guadalupe Puertas

March 27, 2012

Against fatique of faith. Against a Christianity which has traditionally been taken for granted. That could well be the synthesis of the first part of the apostolic trip begun by Benedict XVI on Friday, May 23, in Mexico, and which will end Wednesday, March 28, in Cuba.

Much importance has been given to the second part of the trip, of the Pope's presence on the island where first Fidel and now his brother Raul have maintained one of the few surviving Communist regimes in the world since they overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

And, of course, Cuba has great relevance. Since John Paul II visited there in 1998, the life of the Church in Cuba has undergone a revitalization, and today the Christian experience is growing which will certainly be reinforced by the presence of the Holy Father.

Then there is always the possibility that the Pope's visit could help accelerate the collapse of a regime that keeps hundreds of political prisoners in jail, restricts many freedoms, and whose population is suffering food shortage because of wrong economic policies. There are those who harbor this illusion.

Catholic dissident Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, one of the most influential in Cuba, is right to warn that it is absurd to imagine that the hours Benedict XVI would spend in Cuba would precipitate the collapse of the Communist dictatorship.

Cuba is important, but for the task that the Church faces in this historical moment in that part of the world, Mexico carries much more weight.

That central American nation and Argentina are the two most active cultural centers in the Spanish-speaking world. Mexico is also the great bridge between the United States and Latin America. Indeed, the US is already very mediatized about Mexico - since 60 percent of Hispanics in the US are Mexicans. And Time magazine recently said that Hispanics will be deciding the future of the United States.

Víctor René, secretary of the Mexican bishops' conference, acknowledged in an interview last Saturday, that the Church in Mexico has forgotten the importance of those immigrants. Most of them remain in the United States. And it is easy to see that in two or three generations, the faith that shaped their cultural identity will disappear in the context of Anglo-Saxon culture which views Hispanics with distrust.

The transmission of the Christian experience and overcoming superficial adherence to the dominant culture constitute a problem not just for immigrants.

The Pope, as he did in Aparecida, Brazil, in May 2007, admonished Mexicans about what he has called 'fatigue of faith' at the Mass that he celebrated in Leon's Bicentennial park. His appeal to renew the content of the faith and his insistence on reclaiming full religious freedom, which is still deficient in Mexico, were the two axes of the Pope's presence in Mexico.

Our colleagues in certain sectors of the European press have magnified the unwarranted criticisms that the Pope did not meet with any of the victims of Fr. Marcial Maciel's sexual abuse.

[The one glaring aspect these critics have appeared not to take into consideration is that of all the victims of sexual abuse, Maciel's victims ought to be thankful that Benedict XVI himself carried out the necessary justice against Maciel for all his misdeeds, going so far as to decree papal oversight of the institutions he founded until such time as they could be purified and renewed. What else can he do for them? And what can he say to them that's more eloquent than what he has already done for them?

It is not his fault if they were unable to pursue Maciel in criminal courts when he was still alive. Many of the victims he met with in other countries are likely still awaiting their abusers to be brought to justice by the courts and by the Church herself. This is the only perspective by which to judge the fact that a meeting with Maciel's victims did not take place, even granting that the Mexican bishops themselves did not deem it necessary to bring up the question at all in proposing the Pope's program in Mexico.

On the other hand, the Maciel victim who wrote a book about his sins and crimes did use the occasion of the Pope's visit to launch their tell-all book, so what did they really lose except hurt vanity by not being able to meet the Pope? They got more than their share of publicity without it.]

These same critics also unduly underscored the 'political consequences' of a papal visit made a few months before the July presidential elections in Mexico during which the PRI - the traditionally strongly anti-clerical party - may come back to power.

These are not minor objections. [Yes, they are - they are, in fact, petty. That about the Maciel victims is totally unwarranted. That about the elections does not consider that Benedict XVI visited the United States in April 2008 before the presidential elections that year, yet no one said he was thereby influencing the US elections! Yet, it was a similar situation - the USA's traditionally anti-clerical party was about to regain power.]

But what is most decisive for the future of Latin American Catholicism is the 'new beginning' proposed by Benedict XVI. The Mexicans showed him overwhelming affection, multitudes acclaimed him, and the Pope, with the subtlety that characterizes him, took them by the hand to invite them to go beyond their current state of Catholicism, not to be content with Catholicism in form, and not to remain anchored to past glories.

Equally decisive was that he celebrated Mass at Bicentennial Park in a place which is emblematic for Mexican Catholics, the Cubilete mountain range. There, in the geographical center of Mexico, they had erected a monument to Christ the King which was bombed by government forces in the Cristeros war of the 1920s. The present monument was a 1940 reconstruction paid for by the Mexican government in retribution. [I have still not checked out why a strongly anti-clerical government did so!}

Christ the King and the Virgin of Guadalupe are the two reference points of Mexican Catholicism. And Benedict XVI has reinforced those two devotions. After warning Mexicans that it is necessary to resist "the temptation of a routine and superficial faith which is sometimes fragmentary and inconsistent", he also reminded them that Christ the King has nothing to do with power as the world understands it.

In the afternoon, celebrating Vespers with the bishops of Latin America, and speaking to them of the new evangelization, he reminded them that the missionaries who shaped the continent "gave everything for Christ, demonstrating that in him men and women encounter the truth of their being and the strength needed both to live fully and to build a truly humane society in accordance with the will of their Creator".

The Kingdom of Christ today consists in being able to offer an existential, man-centered response corresponding to what man really is. The strength of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Benedict XVI said, is that "she showed her divine Son to Saint Juan Diego, not as a powerful legendary hero but as the very God of the living, by whom all live".

Benedict XVI has shown the Church of Latin America the path that must be taken by man.

Catching up on a couple of Vatican news that I passed over during the week the Holy Father was in Mexico and Cuba.... First, his message for World Youth Day which is celebrated worldwide on a diocesan level on Palm Sunday on years when there is no international WYD... It's a very beautiful essay on Christian joy...

---

MESSAGE FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY

Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012

"Rejoice in the Lord always." (Phil 4:4)

Dear young friends,

I am happy to address you once more on the occasion of the 27th World Youth Day. The memory of our meeting in Madrid last August remains close to my heart. It was a time of extraordinary grace when God showered his blessings on the young people gathered from all over the world.

I give thanks to God for all the fruits which that event bore, fruits which will surely multiply for young people and their communities in the future.

Now we are looking forward to our next meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, whose theme will be: "Go and make disciples of all nations!" (cf. Mt 28:19).

This year’s World Youth Day theme comes from Saint Paul’s exhortation in his Letter to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (4:4).

Joy is at the heart of Christian experience. At each World Youth Day we experience immense joy, the joy of communion, the joy of being Christian, the joy of faith. This is one of the marks of these gatherings. We can see the great attraction that joy exercises. In a world of sorrow and anxiety, joy is an important witness to the beauty and reliability of the Christian faith.

The Church’s vocation is to bring joy to the world, a joy that is authentic and enduring, the joy proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born (cf. Lk 2:10).

Not only did God speak, not only did he accomplish great signs throughout the history of humankind, but he drew so near to us that he became one of us and lived our life completely.

In these difficult times, so many young people all around you need to hear that the Christian message is a message of joy and hope! I would like to reflect with you on this joy and on how to find it, so that you can experience it more deeply and bring it to everyone you meet.

1. Our hearts are made for joy

A yearning for joy lurks within the heart of every man and woman. Far more than immediate and fleeting feelings of satisfaction, our hearts seek a perfect, full and lasting joy capable of giving "flavour" to our existence.

This is particularly true for you, because youth is a time of continuous discovery of life, of the world, of others and of ourselves. It is a time of openness to the future and of great longing for happiness, friendship, sharing and truth, a time when we are moved by high ideals and make great plans.

Each day is filled with countless simple joys which are the Lord’s gift: the joy of living, the joy of seeing nature’s beauty, the joy of a job well done, the joy of helping others, the joy of sincere and pure love.

If we look carefully, we can see many other reasons to rejoice. There are the happy times in family life, shared friendship, the discovery of our talents, our successes, the compliments we receive from others, the ability to express ourselves and to know that we are understood, and the feeling of being of help to others.

There is also the excitement of learning new things, seeing new and broader horizons open up through our travels and encounters, and realizing the possibilities we have for charting our future.

We might also mention the experience of reading a great work of literature, of admiring a masterpiece of art, of listening to or playing music, or of watching a film. All these things can bring us real joy.

Yet each day we also face any number of difficulties. Deep down we also worry about the future; we begin to wonder if the full and lasting joy for which we long might be an illusion and an escape from reality.

Many young people ask themselves: is perfect joy really possible? The quest for joy can follow various paths, and some of these turn out to be mistaken, if not dangerous. How can we distinguish things that give real and lasting joy from immediate and illusory pleasures? How can we find true joy in life, a joy that endures and does not forsake us at moments of difficulty?

2. God is the source of true joy

Whatever brings us true joy, whether the small joys of each day or the greatest joys in life, has its source in God, even if this does not seem immediately obvious.

This is because God is a communion of eternal love, he is infinite joy that does not remain closed in on itself, but expands to embrace all whom God loves and who love him. God created us in his image out of love, in order to shower his love upon us and to fill us with his presence and grace.

God wants us to share in his own divine and eternal joy, and he helps us to see that the deepest meaning and value of our lives lie in being accepted, welcomed and loved by him.

Whereas we sometimes find it hard to accept others, God offers us an unconditional acceptance which enables us to say: "I am loved; I have a place in the world and in history; I am personally loved by God. If God accepts me and loves me and I am sure of this, then I know clearly and with certainty that it is a good thing that I am alive".

God’s infinite love for each of us is fully seen in Jesus Christ. The joy we are searching for is to be found in him. We see in the Gospel how the events at the beginning of Jesus’s life are marked by joy.

When the Archangel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary that she is to be the mother of the Saviour, his first word is "Rejoice!" (Lk 1:28).

When Jesus is born, the angel of the Lord says to the shepherds: "Behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a Saviour has been born for you, who is Messiah and Lord" (Lk 2:10-11).

When the Magi came in search of the child, "they were overjoyed at seeing the star" (Mt 2:10). The cause of all this joy is the closeness of God who became one of us. This is what Saint Paul means when he writes to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near" (Phil 4:4-5).

Our first reason for joy is the closeness of the Lord, who welcomes me and loves me.

An encounter with Jesus always gives rise to immense inner joy. We can see this in many of the Gospel stories. We recall when Jesus visited Zacchaeus, a dishonest tax collector and public sinner, he said to him: "Today I must stay at your house". Then, Saint Luke tells us, Zacchaeus "received him with joy" (Lk 19:5-6).

This is the joy of meeting the Lord. It is the joy of feeling God’s love, a love that can transform our whole life and bring salvation. Zacchaeus decides to change his life and to give half of his possessions to the poor.

At the hour of Jesus’s passion, this love can be seen in all its power. At the end of his earthly life, while at supper with his friends, Jesus said: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love... I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete" (Jn 15:9,11).

Jesus wants to lead his disciples and each one of us into the fullness of joy that he shares with the Father, so that the Father’s love for him might abide in us (cf. Jn 17:26). Christian joy consists in being open to God’s love and belonging to him.

The Gospels recount that Mary Magdalene and other women went to visit the tomb where Jesus had been laid after his death. An angel told them the astonishing news of Jesus’ resurrection. Then, the Evangelist tells us, they ran from the sepulchre, "fearful yet overjoyed" to share the good news with the disciples.

Jesus met them on the way and said: "Peace!" (Mt 28:8-9). They were being offered the joy of salvation. Christ is the One who lives and who overcame evil, sin and death. He is present among us as the Risen One and he will remain with us until the end of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). Evil does not have the last word in our lives; rather, faith in Christ the Saviour tells us that God’s love is victorious.

This deep joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit who makes us God’s sons and daughters, capable of experiencing and savouring his goodness, and calling him "Abba", Father (cf. Rm 8:15). Joy is the sign of God’s presence and action within us.

3. Preserving Christian joy in our hearts

At this point we wonder: "How do we receive and maintain this gift of deep, spiritual joy?"

One of the Psalms tells us: "Find your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart's desire" (Ps 37:4). Jesus told us that "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mt 13:44).

The discovery and preservation of spiritual joy is the fruit of an encounter with the Lord. Jesus asks us to follow him and to stake our whole life on him.

Dear young people, do not be afraid to risk your lives by making space for Jesus Christ and his Gospel. This is the way to find inner peace and true happiness. It is the way to live fully as children of God, created in his image and likeness.

Seek joy in the Lord: for joy is the fruit of faith. It is being aware of his presence and friendship every day: "the Lord is near!" (Phil 4:5). It is putting our trust in God, and growing in his knowledge and love. Shortly we shall begin the "Year of Faith", and this will help and encourage us.

Dear friends, learn to see how God is working in your lives and discover him hidden within the events of daily life. Believe that he is always faithful to the covenant which he made with you on the day of your Baptism. Know that God will never abandon you. Turn your eyes to him often.

He gave his life for you on the cross because he loves you. Contemplation of this great love brings a hope and joy to our hearts that nothing can destroy. Christians can never be sad, for they have met Christ, who gave his life for them.

To seek the Lord and find him in our lives also means accepting his word, which is joy for our hearts. The Prophet Jeremiah wrote: "When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart" (Jer 15:16).

Learn to read and meditate on the sacred Scriptures. There you will find an answer to your deepest questions about truth. God’s word reveals the wonders that he has accomplished throughout human history, it fills us with joy, and it leads us to praise and adoration: "Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us kneel before the Lord who made us" (Ps 95:1,6).

The liturgy is a special place where the Church expresses the joy which she receives from the Lord and transmits it to the world. Each Sunday at Mass the Christian community celebrates the central mystery of salvation, which is the death and resurrection of Christ. This is a very important moment for all the Lord’s disciples because his sacrifice of love is made present.

Sunday is the day when we meet the risen Christ, listen to his word, and are nourished by his body and blood. As we hear in one of the Psalms: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad" (Ps 118:24).

At the Easter Vigil, the Church sings the Exultet, a hymn of joy for the victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death: "Sing, choirs of angels! ... Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendour ... Let this place resound with joy, echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!"

Christian joy is born of this awareness of being loved by God who became man, gave his life for us and overcame evil and death. It means living a life of love for him. As Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, a young Carmelite, wrote: "Jesus, my joy is loving you" (P 45, 21 January 1897).

4. The joy of love

Dear friends, joy is intimately linked to love. They are inseparable gifts of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:23). Love gives rise to joy, and joy is a form of love.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta drew on Jesus’s words: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35) when she said: "Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls; God loves a cheerful giver. Whoever gives with joy gives more". As the Servant of God Paul VI wrote: "In God himself, all is joy because all is giving" (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete in Domino, 9 May 1975).

In every area of your life, you should know that to love means to be steadfast, reliable and faithful to commitments. This applies most of all to friendship. Our friends expect us to be sincere, loyal and faithful because true love perseveres even in times of difficulty. The same thing can be said about your work and studies and the services you carry out. Fidelity and perseverance in doing good brings joy, even if not always immediately.

If we are to experience the joy of love, we must also be generous. We cannot be content to give the minimum. We need to be fully committed in life and to pay particular attention to those in need. The world needs men and women who are competent and generous, willing to be at the service of the common good.

Make every effort to study conscientiously, to develop your talents and to put them at the service of others even now. Find ways to help make society more just and humane wherever you happen to be. May your entire life be guided by a spirit of service and not by the pursuit of power, material success and money.

Speaking of generosity, I would like to mention one particular joy. It is the joy we feel when we respond to the vocation to give our whole life to the Lord.

Dear young people, do not be afraid if Christ is calling you to the religious, monastic or missionary life or to the priesthood. Be assured that he fills with joy all those who respond to his invitation to leave everything to be with him and to devote themselves with undivided heart to the service of others.

In the same way, God gives great joy to men and women who give themselves totally to one another in marriage in order to build a family and to be signs of Christ’s love for the Church.

Let me remind you of a third element that will lead you to the joy of love. It is allowing fraternal love to grow in your lives and in those of your communities.

There is a close bond between communion and joy. It is not by chance that Saint Paul’s exhortation: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4) is written in the plural, addressing the community as a whole, rather than its individual members.

Only when we are together in the communion of fellowship do we experience this joy. In the Acts of the Apostles, the first Christian community is described in these words: "Breaking bread in their homes, they ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart" (Acts 2:46).

I ask you to make every effort to help our Christian communities to be special places of sharing, attention and concern for one another.

5. The joy of conversion

Dear friends, experiencing real joy also means recognizing the temptations that lead us away from it. Our present-day culture often pressures us to seek immediate goals, achievements and pleasures. It fosters fickleness more than perseverance, hard work and fidelity to commitments. The messages it sends push a consumerist mentality and promise false happiness.

Experience teaches us that possessions do not ensure happiness. How many people are surrounded by material possessions yet their lives are filled with despair, sadness and emptiness! To have lasting joy we need to live in love and truth. We need to live in God.

God wants us to be happy. That is why he gave us specific directions for the journey of life: the commandments. If we observe them, we will find the path to life and happiness.

At first glance, they might seem to be a list of prohibitions and an obstacle to our freedom. But if we study them more closely, we see in the light of Christ’s message that the commandments are a set of essential and valuable rules leading to a happy life in accordance with God’s plan.

How often, on the other hand, do we see that choosing to build our lives apart from God and his will brings disappointment, sadness and a sense of failure. The experience of sin, which is the refusal to follow God and an affront to his friendship, brings gloom into our hearts.

At times the path of the Christian life is not easy, and being faithful to the Lord’s love presents obstacles; occasionally we fall. Yet God in his mercy never abandons us; he always offers us the possibility of returning to him, being reconciled with him and experiencing the joy of his love which forgives and welcomes us back.

Dear young people, have frequent recourse to the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation! It is the sacrament of joy rediscovered. Ask the Holy Spirit for the light needed to acknowledge your sinfulness and to ask for God’s forgiveness. Celebrate this sacrament regularly, with serenity and trust. The Lord will always open his arms to you. He will purify you and bring you into his joy: for there is joy in heaven even for one sinner who repents (cf. Lk 15:7).

6. Joy at times of trial

In the end, though, we might still wonder in our hearts whether it is really possible to live joyfully amid all life’s trials, especially those which are most tragic and mysterious. We wonder whether following the Lord and putting our trust in him will always bring happiness.

We can find an answer in some of the experiences of young people like yourselves who have found in Christ the light that can give strength and hope even in difficult situations.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) experienced many trials during his short life, including a romantic experience that left him deeply hurt. In the midst of this situation he wrote to his sister: "You ask me if I am happy. How could I not be? As long as faith gives me strength, I am happy. A Catholic could not be other than happy... The goal for which we were created involves a path which has its thorns, but it is not a sad path. It is joy, even when it involves pain" (Letter to his sister Luciana, Turin, 14 February 1925).

When Blessed John Paul II presented Blessed Pier Giorgio as a model for young people, he described him as "a young person with infectious joy, the joy that overcame many difficulties in his life" (Address to Young People, Turin, 13 April 1980).

Closer to us in time is Chiara Badano (1971-1990), who was recently beatified. She experienced how pain could be transfigured by love and mysteriously steeped in joy. At the age of eighteen, while suffering greatly from cancer, Chiara prayed to the Holy Spirit and interceded for the young people of the movement to which she belonged.

As well as praying for her own cure, she asked God to enlighten all those young people by his Spirit and to give them wisdom and light. "It was really a moment of God’s presence. I was suffering physically, but my soul was singing" (Letter to Chiara Lubich, Sassello, 20 December 1989).

The key to her peace and joy was her complete trust in the Lord and the acceptance of her illness as a mysterious expression of his will for her sake and that of everyone. She often said: "Jesus, if you desire it, then I desire it too".

These are just two testimonies taken from any number of others which show that authentic Christians are never despairing or sad, not even when faced with difficult trials. They show that Christian joy is not a flight from reality, but a supernatural power that helps us to deal with the challenges of daily life.

We know that the crucified and risen Christ is here with us and that he is a faithful friend always. When we share in his sufferings, we also share in his glory. With him and in him, suffering is transformed into love. And there we find joy (cf. Col 1:24).

7. Witnesses of joy

Dear friends, to conclude I would encourage you to be missionaries of joy. We cannot be happy if others are not. Joy has to be shared. Go and tell other young people about your joy at finding the precious treasure which is Jesus himself.

We cannot keep the joy of faith to ourselves. If we are to keep it, we must give it away. Saint John said: "What we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; we are writing this so that our joy may be complete" (1 Jn 1:3-4).

Christianity is sometimes depicted as a way of life that stifles our freedom and goes against our desires for happiness and joy. But this is far from the truth.

Christians are men and women who are truly happy because they know that they are not alone. They know that God is always holding them in his hands. It is up to you, young followers of Christ, to show the world that faith brings happiness and a joy which is true, full and enduring.

If the way Christians live at times appears dull and boring, you should be the first to show the joyful and happy side of faith. The Gospel is the "good news" that God loves us and that each of us is important to him. Show the world that this is true!

Be enthusiastic witnesses of the new evangelization! Go to those who are suffering and those who are searching, and give them the joy that Jesus wants to bestow. Bring it to your families, your schools and universities, and your workplaces and your friends, wherever you live.

You will see how it is contagious. You will receive a hundredfold: the joy of salvation for yourselves, and the joy of seeing God’s mercy at work in the hearts of others.

And when you go to meet the Lord on that last day, you will hear him say: "Well done, my good and faithful servant... Come, share your master’s joy" (Mt 25:21).

May the Blessed Virgin Mary accompany you on this journey. She welcomed the Lord within herself and proclaimed this in a song of praise and joy, the Magnificat: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour" (Lk 1:46-47).

Mary responded fully to God’s love by devoting her life to him in humble and complete service. She is invoked as "Cause of our Joy" because she gave us Jesus. May she lead you to that joy which no one will ever be able to take away from you!

From the Vatican
15 March 2012

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A reminder of the Holy Week liturgies coming up...

CALENDAR OF THE HOLY FATHER'S LITURGIES

HOLY WEEK 2012

NB: I added the Holy Father's birthday and anniversary of his election as Pope, even if there are no public liturgies scheduled on those days.

John Allen did not cover this papal trip but in his weekly column, he offers a plausible analysis of an underlying objective in the Holy Father's apostolic visit - which is really the natural expression and extension of Benedict XVI's constant admonitions to bishops and the clergy against careerism and the use of their ministry for anything other than service to Christ and his Church...It's admirable that Allen emphasizes this aspect of the Pope's message but it seems strange that he presents it as though it were this Pope's first public manifestation of it...

Benedict gently
debunks clericalism

March 30, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI's diplomatic high-wire act in Havana, pressing the case for religious freedom but avoiding direct clash with the Castro regime, was the main news flash out of his March 23-28 trip to Mexico and Cuba.

Yet there was another leitmotif to the outing, more subtle but arguably more decisive for the church across Latin America.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Pope offered a gentle, yet unmistakable, debunking of clericalism. His focus seemed to be the gradual reshaping of ecclesial culture, not sexy short-term headlines, which puts it squarely into Benedict's wheelhouse.

Catholicism in Latin America is wildly diverse, from the emotional popular Catholicism of various Marian devotions to the "base communities" that were the backbone of liberation theology. One important current, however, has long been a remarkably strong form of clericalism, perhaps the inevitable result of the faith being effectively a monopoly until quite recently.

Typical expressions of this clericalism include:
o Clergy see themselves as political power-brokers, playing a direct role in affairs of state.
o The Church projects an image of power and privilege, with its preferred spiritual imagery emphasizing God as a cosmic monarch.
o The role of the laity is conceived in largely passive terms -- "pay, pray and obey."
o Little premium is placed on evangelization or faith formation, with pastoral care understood largely in terms of administering the sacraments.

The negative pastoral consequences of this kind of clericalism are now stunningly clear. Facing the twin onslaughts of secularism in some circles and Pentecostalism pretty much everywhere, the Catholic church across Latin America sustained massive losses in percentage terms during the late 20th century. (Raw numbers of Catholics rose as a result of the overall population boom, but the Catholic share of the continent declined, partly because of the astronomic growth of Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity.)

It may seem ironic that a papal trip, with all of its attendant clerical imagery, would be the vehicle for a critique of clericalism. It might also seem ironic, at least to some, that Benedict would be the Pope to do it, given that critics through the years have accused him of defending a sort of "high church" ecclesiology against a popular Catholicism "from below." [Typical biased comment from those who choose to ignore the strongly folk-religious Bavarian Catholicism in which Joseph Ratzinger was raised.]

The fabric of history, however, is often stitched with irony, and this trip seems a compelling case in point.

First, Benedict insisted that the Catholic Church is not a political party, and that its most important contribution to political life is the formation of individual consciences -- putting the premium on the role of clergy as pastors, not pundits or activists.

Benedict struck that note even before arriving in Latin America, on the papal plane shortly after takeoff from Rome. In response to a question about the Church's political role, he stressed that one has to be clear about "what the Church can and should do, and what it can't and shouldn't do" -- a reference to the danger of directly partisan stands.

In León's Bicentennial Park, Benedict offered a meditation on "Cristo Rey" (Christ the King), which was the rallying cry of the Cristeros during the Mexican Revolution and is still invoked today by elements of the Mexican Church as a sort of political banner.

"His kingdom does not stand on the power of his armies subduing others through force or violence," the Pope said. "It rests on a higher power that wins over hearts -- the love of God."

In that spirit, Benedict called on Catholics to be "courageous in humility."

Benedict walked his own talk, avoiding anything that might be construed as direct political commentary in the run-up to Mexico's July elections. Mexico's Catholic leadership is often perceived as aligned in favor of the conservative National Action Party, and some feared the papal trip would amount to a campaign rally.

Yet Benedict never said anything about the looming elections, even something anodyne like a generic call to electoral responsibility. Strikingly, he largely avoided the hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage, both of which are in play in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. (During his Angelus remarks Sunday, Benedict did refer to the importance of "defense and respect for human life.")

As far as the political loyalties of the Catholic Church, Benedict insisted that the Church should "stand beside those who are marginalized as the result of force, power or a prosperity which is blind to the poorest of the poor."

The Pope did say that the faith must have consequences for public life, at one point rejecting a "schizophrenia" that tries to separate private ethics and public morality. Yet even here, the Pope stressed that the role of the Church is "education of consciences" rather than offering direct legislative solutions [much less mobilizing its communities for direct political action, as the liberation theologians have sought to do!]

In general, Benedict XVI seemed determined to offer Latin America an example of how a senior Catholic cleric could spend several days in an intense media spotlight without coming off as a politician in a cassock. [Didn't he do that when he visited Brazil?]

During his remarks aboard the papal plane, Benedict delivered a meditation on what he called in Italian an "essentialized Christianity," meaning a Christianity focused on "the fundamental basis for living today amid all the problems of our time."

At the heart of that Christianity of the essentials, the Pope argued, is the idea of a God who is close to each human person - not just the "great and majestic" God in the spiritual imagery long associated with a clericalist church.

"We see the rationality of the cosmos, we see that there's something behind it, but we don't see how close this God is, how God concerns me, too," the Pope said.

"This synthesis of the great and majestic God, as well as the God who's close to me and who shows me the values of my life, is the nucleus of evangelization," Benedict said.

In his speech to the Latin American bishops, Benedict argued that this notion of God-with-us flows naturally into a spirit of service.

"The Church cannot separate the praise of God from service to others," he said.

"The one God, our father and creator, has made us brothers and sisters: to be human is to be a brother and guardian to our neighbor," the Pope said. "Along this path, in union with the whole human family, the Church must relive and make present what Jesus was: the Good Samaritan who came from afar, entered our human history, lifted us up and sought to heal us."

Benedict's most direct swipe at clericalism came in discussion of the lay role in the Church.

Not coincidentally, the pope chose an address to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean in León's cathedral to make the point, emphasizing that he was speaking not just to Mexico but to the entire continent.

"Greater attention is due to the members of the lay faithful most engaged in the fields of catechesis, liturgical animation, charitable activity and social commitment," the Pope said. "Their faith formation is critical if the Gospel is to become present and fruitful in contemporary society."

That alone would be enough to pull the rug out from under an über-clericalist psychology, in which applying the faith to contemporary society is treated as the exclusive province of the clerical caste and "faith formation" for laity has sometimes been an afterthought more honored in the breach than the observance. [On the contrary, the post-Vatican II progressivist thinking seems to have been to give laymen as many 'powers' as they can hold in running the parish, and even in the liturgy, without ever worrying whether their 'faith formation' was adequate at all. But then the progressivist priests and bishops themselves do not think much of the cathechism of the Church, and therefore have no interest in promoting knowledge of it, because they do not agree with many points in the Church's orthodox teaching. And so the faith formation of their 'empowered laymen' is often not just very deficient but also defective and therefore counter-productive, almost based exclusively on the progrssivists' bastardized and oversimplified (mis)interpretation of Vatican II]

To be sure that no one missed the point, however, Benedict added an even more direct injunction about the laity.

"It is not right for them to feel treated like second-class citizens in the Church," he said, "despite the committed work which they carry out in accordance with their proper vocation, and the great sacrifice which this dedication at times demands of them."

The Pope also called for "a spirit of communion" to prevail among priests, religious and the lay faithful, insisting that "sterile divisions, criticism and unhealthy mistrust" should be avoided.

Finally, Benedict repeatedly endorsed the call for a great "Continental Mission," which came out of the last general assembly of the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007, which the Pope attended.

The twin pillars of this "Continental Mission", as it was conceived five years ago, are:
o A strong role for the laity as the front-line evangelists
o A solid formation in the faith for all of Latin America's Catholic population, not just clerical (or even lay) elites

Time and again, Benedict XVI returned to this idea, stressing that evangelization and faith formation are everybody's concern.

"The Continental Mission now taking place in the various dioceses of this continent has the specific task of transmitting this conviction to all Christians and ecclesial communities," the Pope said, "so that they may resist the temptation of a faith that is superficial and routine, at times fragmentary and incoherent."

That bit about a "superficial" faith is, indirectly at least, a swipe at one of the most notorious pathologies of clericalism, in which most laity are baptized, confirmed and married in the Church, but otherwise left to fend for themselves.

The obvious fallout from that laissez-faire pastoral approach has been captured in a bit of Spanish argot: Católico ignorante, seguro Protestante, which, loosely translated, means, "An ignorant Catholic will, for sure, become a Protestant." The idea is that somebody who doesn't know why they're Catholic in the first place is a good candidate to take their religious business elsewhere when an attractive offer comes along.

Benedict called for this Continental Mission to be at the heart of the "Year of Faith" he recently proclaimed.

In remarks on Saturday during a vespers service, before a gathering of Latin American bishops that one Italian writer referred to as a "Latin conclave," Benedict XVI referred to "our weakness and needs" and the reality of "human evil and ignorance," even within the church.

The comments were interpreted as an indirect reference to two chapters of recent Mexican history that have badly stained the image of Catholic clergy: the cozy relationship some clergy appear to have with the drug cartels and their overlords -- who sometimes attend Mass and even give money to the Church to demonstrate their Catholic bona fides; and the case of the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who committed various forms of sexual abuse and misconduct.

Benedict never directly mentioned the Maciel case, and declined a request to meet with Maciel's victims. [First, why would he waste his brief visit by bringing up a notorious and shameful example as the Maciel case, which, from all appearances - and the lack of denunciations from the Mexican media and the Maciel victims - is not a typical nor customary aberration in Mexico. Also, despite the Maciel victims' vigorous PR campaign, they apparently did nothing before the Pope arrived to press for such a meeting and to do it through the proper channels, namely, their bishops, who unlike bishops in other countries where Benedict XVI did meet some victims, did nothing to arrange for such a meeting and therefore would not have been able to plan it carefully carefully beforehand to avoid making it into nothing more than a PR gesture. In any case, as I have argued elsewhere, the Maciel victims truly had no need to meet the Pope - who already punished Maciel and his organization on their behalf - other than to exploit the occasion for publicity.]

In a session with young people, however, the Pope invited "everyone to protect and to care for children, so that nothing may extinguish their smile, but that they may live in peace and look to the future with confidence."

Will it work?

Changing the ecclesial culture of an entire continent isn't easy, and most observers will tell you that the deconstruction of clericalism in Latin America is still a work in progress. Moreover, it's not clear if the new embrace by the bishops of a robust missionary spirit featuring lay leadership [Surely, not 'lay leadership' - but greater and more effective lay participation' is meant by the Pope and the Aparecida document!] is truly a matter of metanoia, of a lasting change of heart and mind, or simply a pragmatic response to getting their teeth kicked in by the Pentecostals.

Yet there are signs that Catholicism in Latin America, in fits and starts, is navigating the transition from clericalism to a more dynamic (and, of course, therefore more fissiparous and frenetic) spirit of entrepreneurial hustle. [I had to look it up, but 'fissiparous' is more clearly expressed as 'tending to break into pieces'.]

In his 2008 book Conversion of a Continent, Dominican Fr. Edward Cleary argues that Latin America is in the grip of a religious upheaval, with Pentecostalism as its leading edge. Yet Catholicism too, Cleary argues, is also becoming more dynamic, generating higher levels of commitment among those who remain.

Cleary believes that this Catholic awakening had its roots in lay movements that go back to the 1930s and '40s, but it's been jump-started by healthy competition from the Pentecostals.

If the transition away from unhealthy clericalism is brought to a successful conclusion, Benedict's March 2012 trip may be remembered as a turning point -- not so much in terms of triggering the shift, perhaps, but at least lending it papal support.

It all goes back to formation - how Catholic children are raised in the family, at school and in the church; how and what Catholic teaching is imparted to them; how seminarians are chosen and formed - because if all these stages of formation are left to the direction of bishops and priests who grew up in a culture of clericalism, change will be very slow!

The national hero of the Philippines, Jose Rizal, who was a Jesuit-educated and multi-talented Renaissance man, as a student in Spain in the 1880s, wrote two classic novels in Spanish, which are still the best writing produced in Filipino literature. The novels deliver the anti-colonial message its political message effectively through great storytelling, compelling characters, masterful satire and passionate conviction). Entitled Noli me tangere and El filibusterismo (one is a sequel to the other), they capture perfectly the culture of clericalism that made the local Spanish parish priest in 19th-century Philippines a virtual local cacique who had more power of life and death over the individual citizen than his civilian counterparts. One imagines the same circumstances in Latin America during the Spanish colonial era. [Jose Rizal and Jose Marti, the Cuban national hero and another multi-talented writer-patriot, were contemporaries, and the histories of Cuba and the Philippines before the US conquest of both colonies were parallel and similar in many ways.]

Spain lost the Philippines to the United States shortly thereafter (1896), and the subsequent changeover to local Filipino diocesan priests made such clericalism a thing of the past. Any vestiges it left behind were light and quickly neutralized... Something similar may have happened to any colonial clericalism that still persisted in Cuba at the time of the Castro Revolution. The subsequent decades of religious suppression and the consequent shrinking of the clergy would have extirpated any clericalism among the few workers left to work the stony scrabbly vineyard of Communist Cuba!