BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries on 2/14/12, particularly the post from Sandro Magister's www.chiesa, which provides some useful context for the FSSPX case, which, if all goes well, may yet provide the biggest Church news this year... Let us pray...





Rome and Econe on the verge
of reaching agreement
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

April 13, 2012

The signing of a document defining the relations between the Holy See and the disciples of the late Mons. Marcel Lefebvre is now expected to come in just a matter of days.

Officially, the Vatican is awaiting a response from Mons. Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the FSSPX. As soon as it is received in Rome - "within days, not weeks"*, Vatican sources have indicated - that response will be analyzed "as soon as possible". And if it conforms to expectations, the Holy See will announce quickly what would be a historic agreement with this 'integriste' sector of the faithful ['integriste' is the French word for fundamentalist or traditionalist].

*[Strange that Guenois does not seem to be aware that the FSSPX itself has said their answer was being delivered to the Vatican by this weekend.]

But unofficially, and most discreetly, representatives from both sides have been working 'to reach an accord'. In the past few weeks, the final 'settlements' have been finalized between Rome and Econe to formulate a response that would best comply with the 'clarifications' sought by the Vatican last March 15 to the previous FSSPX reply.

Thus, the final response of Mons. Fellay - weighed with extreme consideration and well prepared - ought to bring to a conclusion, for good this time, a very delicate negotiation which Benedict XVI himself launched shortly after he was elected Pope in 2005.

The Ecclesia Dei commission, now part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's most important ministry, has been in charge of this case. But it has also been followed personally by Benedict XVI, who wants an agreement to be reached.

Which is why persons well-informed about developments believe that a positive outcome is about to see the light. Even at the cost of leaving in place profound differences about Vatican II. [The 'profound differences' would remain anyway, whether the FSSPX comes back to the fold or not. I've always considered that the best answer to the FSSPX's objections to Vatican-II is Benedict XVI's insistence on a hermeneutic of continuity - interpreting the innovations proposed by Vatican-II, such as ecumenism, religious freedom, and collegiality, as a renewal of the Church in continuity with Tradition. Doubtless, the Vatican-II 'spiritists', who advocate the hermeneutic of rupture will howl and yelp about this desired agreement, and find new motivation to accuse Benedict XVI of turning against Vatican II, but what else is new? Joseph Ratzinger can say to all of them, "I was there and I took part. You did not".]

But the Pope has assumed all such divergences to himself. He placed his Pontificate clearly on the side of re-interpreting Vatican-II. ['Re-interpreting' is not the right word. Rather, Benedict XVI finally laid down the proper interpretation of Vatican II (hermeneutic of continuity and reform) against the prevailing but erroneous interpretation (hermeneutic of rupture, i.e, Vatican-II gave birth to a 'new Church') in the first four post-Conciliar decades when the 'spiritists' held sway.]

Benedict XVI has done so along two lines: by 'evacuating' the spirit of rupture that had prevailed from the 1960s, and avoid having the highest traditions of the Church compromised by its adaptation to the modern world.

Benedict XVI turns 85 on Monday. He is tired, and those around him do not deny it. He had to rest this week in Castel Gandolfo after his exhausting trip to Mexico and Cuba and the liturgies of Holy Week. [Guenois has had a running theme in his recent articles that the Pope is in poor physical status because of his age, and he seems to get an inexplicable sadistic pleasure from rubbing it in every chance he gets! He makes it appear as though the rest in Castel Gandolfo was something that only took place this year, when in fact, the Pope has always done so after Holy Week, precisely to recharge, because the Holy Week liturgies are demanding for him.]

When he gets back to the Vatican Friday evening, he will have the Lefebvre case waiting on his desk. And it could well be one of the weightiest decisions of his Pontificate.

For 50 years [Surely not! Mons. Lefebvre signed the Vatican II documents in 1965; the FSSPX was not founded until 1970, after the Novus Ordo came into effect; and Lefebvre and his community were not declared by the Vatican to be schismatic until July 1, 1988, the day after Lefebvre consecrated four bishops 'to carry on his work after he died' despite specific instructions from John Paul II not to do so], the Lefebvrians have been in conflict with the Holy See over Vatican-II, and in formal juridical rupture since June 1988.

Joseph Ratzinger was assigned by John Paul II at the time to negotiate with Lefebvre. He has never accepted his failure. {Guenois is misrepresenting facts by omitting to state what happened, specifically. Cardinal Ratzinger negotiated with Lefebvre before the illegal ordinations. He did in fact get Lefebvre to sign an agreement on May 5, 1988, that the Vatican would regularize the canonical status of the FSSPX and agree to the consecration of one bishop. For some reason, Lefebvre changed his mind and proceeded to disregard the agreement and ordained four bishops on June 30. Cardinal Ratzinger cannot be blamed for Lefebvre changing his mind after signing an agreement, nor would it seem that "he never accepted this failure", as Guenois claims, since the failure was not his at all. And this action of reneging by Lefebvre is something that the FSSPX has glossed over.] Nor, once he became Pope, could he accept the idea of a lasting schism in the Church.

One after the other, Benedict XVI used all the authority he has as Pope to bring down the obstacles in the way of full reconciliation with the Lefebvrians.

And if a final agreement is announced shortly, the Pope will have furnished all the essential groundwork:
- In 2007, the restoration of the traditional Mass according to the latest revision by John XXIII which was in use before the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform.
- In 2009, lifting the excommunications of the four bishops ordained by Mons. Lefebvre.
- In the same year, launching the doctrinal discussions with the FSSPX about their specific objections to the teachings of Vatican II.

The apparent checkmate of these talks a year ago had given the impression of a total checkmate in the negotiations. [What? The last discussions took place in October 2011, after which both sides announced that the Vatican would present the FSSPX with what one might call a formula for reconciliation. Which it did, and which the FSSPX leadership presented to all their district leaders in a meeting last December. There was never any talk of 'checkmate' at all!]

The doctrinal disagreement between the Vatican and the FSSPX over Vatican II is, in effect, abysmal. It has simply been forgotten that the object of the discussions was not to find an agreement but to establish the list of differences and the reasons thereof. [I give up! Where does Guenois get these notions? Of course, the idea was to come to some agreement, but in the process of getting to that agreement, the differences would necessarily be fully ventilated and argued. The FSSPX could not have been fully intransigent with their earlier replies because the Vatican qualified them as 'insufficient' and requiring 'further clarification' - i.e., it did not slam the door shut on the FSSPX - even if, for obvious propaganda purposes, the FSSPX described the Vatican formulation as 'unacceptable' in some respects.]

It is therefore with perfect knowledge of the FSSPX position and without any ambiguity that Rome is prepared to seal a reconciliation with Econe, the FSPPX headquarters in Switzerland.

The FSSPX will probably be given the special status of a 'personal prelature', as the Opus Dei have, which gives them veritable autonomy in their own governance provided they observe the Catholic faith in communion with Rome. Their superior would be directly accountable to the Pope and not to the diocesan bishops wherever the community is located.

But the true 'revolution' that Benedict XVI seeks to leave in Catholic history lies elsewhere - and not at the periphery of the Church.

Already, two groups are poised to react furiously to regularization of the FSSPX within the Church. The so-called 'progressives' who see this as a challenge to the 'gains' achieved by Vatican-II. And the so-called 'ultras' among the Lefebvrians who see this as a betrayal and an unacceptable compromise with a 'modernist' Church.

The 'revolution' that Benedict XVI has in mind has a broader view of the Catholic Church. As a theologian, he has never accepted the progressivist view that with Vatican-II, the bimillenary Catholic Church had cut herself off from the culture and strength of her past.

Therefore, more than just a reconciliation with the FSSPX, this Pope intends this to be an internal reconciliation of the Church with herself.


Let us all pray that a positive agreement will indeed be reached with the FSSPX, that all the rosaries Mons. Fellay has asked his people to offer for the intentions of these talks have brought the graces of the Holy Spirit to work for a happy conclusion, and that our beloved Benedict may get this as a most unusual birthday/anniversary gift this year.

Fr. Lombardi answers claims made
in Italian media about a 1983 cold case
Translated from

April 14, 2012

The following is a translation of a statement from Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office, in response to various allegations in the Italian media accusing the Vatican of failing to provide Italian investigators with information regarding the abduction and disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, daughter of a Vatican functionary, back in 19083.

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The tragic abduction of the girl Emanuela Orlandi has been brought back to public attention in recent months by some initiatives and interventions that have been echoed in the press, where doubts have been raised again whether the relevant institutions or personalities in the Vatican had really done everything possible to seek the truth about what really happened.

Since a considerable time has passed since the facts in question (the abduction occurred on June 22, 1983, almost 30 years ago), and a good part of the persons then in positions of responsibility at the Vatican have died, it is not possible to carry out a detailed re-examination of the events.

Nonetheless, it is possible - thanks to some testimony that is especially reliable and a re-reading of available documentation - to substantially verify the criteria and attitudes with which Vatican authorities at the time proceeded to face the situation.

The principal questions to be answered are the following:

- Did the Vatican authorities at the time commit themselves genuinely to face the situation and did they collaborate with Italian authorities in this sense?

- Are there any new elements, not previously disclosed but known by anyone in the Vatican that could be useful in order to lead to the truth?

It is only right to recall first of all that Pope John Paul II personally showed himself to be specially concerned about the tragic event, and that he intervened publicly many times (at least eight in one year) with appeals for the liberation of Emanuela to whoever had taken her; paid a visit to the family; and saw to it that her brother Pietro would be guaranteed employment at the Vatican. This personal commitment by the Pope was matched by that of his co-workers.

Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Secretary of State, and therefore, the Pope's primary collaborator, personally followed the investigation, to the point that, as it was known at the time, he had a special telephone line installed for the abductors to use if they wished to.

As he has attested in the past and again recently, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who was at the time, principal counselor at the Secretariat of State, and who is today the principal and most authoritative witness as to what took place then, not just the Secretariat of State but even the Governatorate was committed to doing everything possible to confront the sad situation by providing the necessary collaboration to the Italian authorities who obviously had the competence and the responsibility for the investigations, since the crime happened in Rome. [The girl was believed abducted from a city street in Rome as she was waiting for a bus to go home after school.]

The full availability for collaboration on the part of the Vatican personages who occupied positions of authority at the time was the outcome of facts and circumstances. Just to cite one example, the investigators (particularly the SISDE [Italy's security information service]), had access to the Vatican switchboard in order to monitor any possible calls from the abductors, and on other subsequent occasions, Vatican authorities called on the Italian authorities to help unmask various tricks attempted by persons claiming to have information about the crime.

The truth was affirmed in the Note Verbale of the Secretariat o State No. 187,168, dated March 4, 1987, in response to the first formal request for information presented by the Italian investigating magistrate dated November 13, 1986, which stated that "all the information related to the case... was transmitted at the time to the prosecuting magistrate Dott. Sica".

Since all the letters and information coming from the Vatican were promptly turned over to Dott. Domenico Sica and to the Inspectorate of Public Security assigned to the Vatican, it was assumed that such documentation was given to the custody of the competent Italian judicial authorities.

In the second phase of the investigation, years later, the three formal requests for information and questionnaires addressed to Vatican authorities by the Italian investigators (one in 1994 and two in 1995) were answered accordingly (Notes Verbale from the Secretariat of State No. 346,491, dated May 3, 1994; No. 369,354, dated April 27, 1995; and No. 372,117, dated June 21, 1995).

As demanded by the investigators, Mr. Ercole Orlandi (Emanuela's father), Commandant Camilo Cibin (then commandant of Vaticna security), Cardinal Agostino Casaroli (then Secretary of State), Mons. Eduardo Martinez Somalo (then Deputy Secretary of State), Mons. Giovanni Battista Re( then principal counselor at State), Mons. Dino Monduzzi (then prefect of the Pontifical Household), and Mons. Claudio Maria Celli (then Under-Secretary for Relations with States) presented depositions to the judges of the Vatican Tribunal on the questions asked by the investigators, and the documentation was sent through the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, to the Italian authorities who requested them. Copies of the files are still available and continue to be at the disposition of investigators.

It must also be pointed out that at the time of Emanuela's disappearance, Vatican authorities, in a spirit of true collaboration, conceded to the Italian investigators and to SISDE the authorization to monitor the Orlandis' family telephone, and free access to visit the Orlandi family home when they needed to without requiring any Vatican intermediary.

Therefore it is unfounded to accuse the Vatican of having refused to cooperate with the Italian authorities assigned to investigate the case.

This provides an opportunity to reiterate that it has always been the practice of the Holy See to respond to international inquiries, and it is unfair to affirm the contrary (as the media did recently regarding a questionnaire about the IOR, which was never transmitted to the Secretariat of State, to begin with, as confirmed by competent Italian diplomatic authorities).

The fact that an Italian magistrate was not present at the depositions in question, for which Italian authorities were requested to provide the questions to be asked the persons making the depositions, is also in accordance with ordinary international practice in judicial cooperation, and should not be a matter for surprise, much less for suspicion (See Art. 4 of the European Convention on Judicial Assistance in Penal Matters, April 20. 1959).

The substance of the question is that, unfortunately, the Vatican was not in possession of any concrete element that might be useful to solving the case, and therefore could not provide any such help to the investigators.

At that time, Vatican authorities - on the basis of messages received that referred to Ali Agca (the abduction came during the preliminary investigation into his assassination attempt on the Pope) - shared the prevailing opinion that the abduction had been the work of an obscure criminal organization to exert pressures against the possible conviction and imprisonment of Agca.

There was no ground to think of other possible motivations for the abduction. Attributing knowledge of secret information regarding the abduction itself to Vatican institutions without naming names, does not therefore correspond to any reliable or reasonably based information. Sometimes, it almost seems like an alibi in the face of the discouragement and frustration of failing to find the truth.

In conclusion, in the light of the testimonies and elements that are known, I wish to affirm decisively the following points:

- All the Vatican authorities collaborated with commitment and transparency with Italian authorities to face the situation in the first phase of investigation, and in all subsequent inquiries.

- Nothing has been hidden, nor are there any 'secrets' in the Vatican to be disclosed about this case. To continue to affirm this is completely unjustified, if only because - and this must be said once more - all the information that was available to the Vatican at the time was turned over promptly to the investigating magistrate and to police authorities. Moreover, the SISDE, the Police Questura of Rome, and the Carabinieri (Italian State Police) had direct access to the Orlandi family and to all documentation that could be useful to the investigation.

- If the Italian investigators believe that it is useful or necessary to present new questionnaires to be answered by Vatican authorities, they can do so at any time, following customary practice, and they will find, as always, the appropriate cooperation.

Finally, since the burial of Enrico De Pedis in a tomb in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare continues to be a matter of curiosity and discussion - even apart from its possible relationship to the Orlandi abduction - it must be reiterated that the Church will not place any obstacle to any inspection of the tomb, or that the remains be reburied elsewhere. in order to restore the serenity appropriate to such a sacred environment.

In conclusion, we wish to draw inspiration from the intense personal participation of John Paul II in the tragic fate of the young girl and the suffering of her family, who continue to be in the dark about what happened to her. The more so because this suffering is revived, unfortunately, by every new line of speculation that has so far been unsuccessful.

Persons who disappear every year in Italy, about whom nothing more is known despite all investigations and inquiries, are unfortunately numerous. But the story of this young and innocent girl who was a Vatican citizen continues to return to the spotlight.

Let this not be a reason to discharge the fault wrongly on the Vatican, but rather an occasion to bear in mind of the terrible and often neglected reality constituted by the disappearance of persons - especially the younger ones - and for everyone, with everything possible, to oppose every criminal activity that could be the cause of such disappearances.

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* Enrico De Pedis was the leader of a Mafia-life criminal gang operating in Rome who was slain in a gang battle and then inexplicably buried in the crypt of the Roman Basilica. It is thought that De Pedis's gang was involved in the Banco Ambrosiano collapse of 1982 in which the Vatican IOR was the majority stockholder, and that his gang may have abducted Emanuela because her father, who worked in the Pontifical Household, had come across some incriminating documents about the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, so it was an attempt to silence him. By coincidence, the bus stop where Emanuela was last seen is not far from Sant'Apollinare, but that does not explain why conspiracy theorists think that her body may be in the same tomb where De Pedis was buried!


Here's how AP reported on Fr. Lombardi's statement, providing another angle from which to consider the statement:

Vatican says it has 'no secrets'
about teenage girl's 1983 disappearance
By Frances D'Emilio


VATICAN CITY, April 14 (AP) — The Vatican insisted Saturday it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee's teenage daughter and has no objections to allowing inspection of the basilica tomb of a reputed mobster from a gang purportedly linked to her presumed kidnapping.

Its chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, made the assertion following media speculation that the Vatican knows something it has not revealed about the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in Rome.

Sparking the speculation was a Good Friday homily on April 6 in St. Peter's Basilica by the papal preacher, who decried that many "atrocious" crimes go unsolved.

With Pope Benedict XVI among those listening, the preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, included this ringing appeal in his homily: "Don't carry your secret to the grave with you!"

The priest didn't name any names or specify any crimes, but his unusual choice for Good Friday reflection immediately sparked speculation that the appeal must have been meant for some Vatican official with knowledge about the Orlandi case, which the Vatican has viewed as a kidnapping. [D'Emilio makes it appear that this was the only content of Fr. Cantalamessa's homily. He worked it into his sermon the same that in 2010 he worked in a far more controversial statement - in which he referred to a Jewish friend who had written him that the media assault on the Church regarding the sex-abuse scandal reminded him of the pre-Holocaust anti-Semitic campaign by the Nazis. Perhaps Fr. Cantalamessa should consider the propriety of working in these topical references into his Good Friday homilies because they tends to backfire against the Vatican and always tend to overshadow his main homily theme. In the Orlandi case reference, he seems to assume the MSM viewpoint that the Vatican must be keeping something back, and IMHO, it was inappropriate to do this at the Good Friday homily. Unfortunately, this provides him the only occasion for public coverage, because his four Lenten sermons to the Curia are made in private, although the texts are eventually published in some Catholic media outlets.]

Emanuela Orlandi was 15 when she disappeared after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. [No, she disappeared after the music lesson, when she was waiting for a bus to go back home.] Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See [specifically, of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household].

[D'Emilio continues by quoting various parts of Fr. Lombardi's statement.]

Apparently in hopes of putting to rest speculation, the Vatican is willing to allow a reputed mobster's tomb in the Vatican Basilica dell'Apollinare, a Rome church, to be inspected, and the remains moved elsewhere, Lombardi added.

Four years ago, Italian news reports quoted the dead man's former lover as telling Rome prosecutors that mobsters from the city's crime syndicate, known as the Magliana gang, had kidnapped the girl and had her body dumped in a cement mixer near a beach outside the capital.

Italian prosecutors cannot publicly discuss a case while it is under investigation, so it is unclear if these claims have shed any light on Orlandi's disappearance.

The Vatican at the time described the woman's claims as having "extremely doubtful value." The woman's lover, Enrico De Pedis, was gunned down in 1990 as he rode his motorscooter in Rome.

The 2008 media reports also claimed the woman told prosecutors that the girl had been kidnapped on orders from Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the late U.S. prelate who had headed the Vatican bank and was linked to a huge Italian banking scandal in the 1980s. Marcinkus had always asserted his innocence in the scandal.

Earlier this week, the UK Guardian ran this story on the Orlandi case, with a misleading headline about which the story says nothing more than what is stated in the headline.

Rome prosecutors link Vatican cleric
to 29-year mystery of missing girl
Investigators say senior Catholic has evidence about
1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi
by John Hooper in Rome

April 12, 2012

The Vatican is under pressure to help resolve one of the strangest of many enigmas lingering in Italy from the cold war years.

For four years, prosecutors in Rome have been making a renewed attempt to get at the truth behind the disappearance in 1983 of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee.

They are seeking to ascertain whether she was seized by a notorious band of Rome criminals, and whether this has any bearing on the fact that the leader of the gang was buried in a Vatican basilica normally reserved for cardinals and other illustrious prelates.

Last month, Walter Veltroni, a former deputy prime minister [NO! Former Mayor of Rome], asked the interior minister in Mario Monti's government to confirm that the basilica of Sant'Apollinare, a few yards from the Piazza Navona in central Rome, did not enjoy extra-territorial status and was thus subject to Italian law.

His question was interpreted as an attempt to clear the way for the prosecutors to order the reopening of the tomb in which gangster Enrico de Pedis has been interred since 1990.

Emanuela's body has never been found and, according to one of the many theories about her disappearance, it was laid to rest alongside that of De Pedis. But at the beginning of the month, prosecutors unexpectedly withdrew support for the exhumation while briefing Italian reporters that they believed at least one high-ranking Roman Catholic cleric had information about her disappearance.

A source close to the prosecution service was quoted as saying "behind the sacred walls, someone is still alive [and] in possession of evidential fragments of the truth". [Then, name that someone!]

But in an interview with the daily Corriere della Sera, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said: "If anyone on the inside had known anything, he would have said it. We were all interested in clearing [the case] up."

Her brother, Pietro Orlandi, expressed astonishment at the prosecutors' decision not to open De Pedis's tomb. "I don't understand what could have made them change their minds," he said.

According to a report in the Rome daily La Repubblica, the prosecutor leading the inquiry has visited the crypt where the gangster is buried under a marble structure copied from the tomb of a pope.

Conspiracy theorists have linked Emanuela's disappearance at a bus stop to any number of other events. She vanished as investigators were looking into the still obscure reasons for the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, and the murky affairs of the Vatican bank after the mysterious death in London of the financier Roberto Calvi.

In 2005, attempts to solve the case were given new life when an anonymous caller rang an Italian television programme to allege that Emanuela had been kidnapped as a favour to the man who was in 1983 the vicar general of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, and that whoever sought to solve the riddle should see who was buried in the basilica of Sant'Apollinare. [What possible interest could Cardinal Poletti have in having the girl abducted?]

Subsequently De Pedis's former lover gave prosecutors another explanation: that Emanuela had been kidnapped and murdered by the gang on the orders of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, at that time the president of the Vatican Bank. Marcinkus died in 2006.

Last year, a former gang member offered a third version, saying the teenager had been seized and held hostage in an effort to get back money invested by its members through the Vatican bank.

Antonio Mancini said that De Pedis decided to write off the money and stop pressuring the Vatican, and claimed this was how the gangster earned his interment in one of Rome's most august places of worship.

De Pedis – nicknamed Renatino – was shot dead in an ambush in a cobbled street near the Campo de' Fiori in 1990. The moving of his body from a cemetery to the basilica of Sant'Apollinare only came to light seven years later because of investigations by a journalist.

It subsequently emerged that the move was authorised – in apparent violation of canon law – by Cardinal Poletti. [Poletti (1914-1997) was Vicar general of Rome from 1973-1991, therefore under Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II. As Vicar of Rome, he would have had the competence to authorize burial in one of the Roman basilicas. In the second Conclave of 1978 which elected John Paul II, he was said to have received as many as 30 votes in the early ballotings. He was President of the Italian bishops' conference from 1985-1991.]

The rector of the basilica at the time, Piero Vergari, later wrote: "I never knew anything about [De Pedis's] relations with other people … He helped me a lot to prepare the soup kitchens I organised for the poor."

Pope's message on 5th centenary
of the 'Holy Robe' in Trier
Translated from

April 14, 2012

From April 13 to May 13 this year, the Cathedral of Trier in southwestern Germany is holding an exposition of the Holy Robe (Heilig Rock) ['Rock' is the German word for robe] to mark the fifth centenary of its first public exposition.


Photos are from the opening day rites of the pilgrimage, led by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Pope's special envoy to the celebration; the stamp was issued by the German Post Office in 1959.

[According to tradition, the Empress Dowager Helena brought the seamless robe of Christ to Trier, where her son Constantine the Greta had lived for some time. The Holy Robe is mentioned for the first time in the 11th century, but its history is documented with certainty only from the 12th century, when it was removed from the west choir of the Trier cathedral to the new altar in the east choir on May 1, 1196. Trier, established in 16 BC, is considered the oldest city in Germany, and Trier cathedral, built 1700 years ago, is considered the oldest in Europe (it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986).]

Here is the message (translated from German) sent by the Holy Fahter Benedict XVI to the Bishop of Trier, Mons. Stephan Ackermann, on the opening of the pilgrimage month yesterday:

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My Venerated Brother
Stephan Ackermann
Bishop of Trier

In these days the Holy Robe will be on public exposition at the great Cathedral of Trier exactly 500 years since its first public exposition, when, at the wish of Kaiser Maximilian, Archbishop Richard von Greffenklau presented it at the opening of the main altar.

On this special occasion, I come in spirit as a pilgrim to the ancient and venerable episcopal city of Trier, and count myself among the ranks of the faithful who will be making this pilgrimage in the coming weeks.

To you, Excellency, to our confreres in episcopal service, the priests and deacons, members of religious orders, and al who have gathered for the opening of the pilgrimage to Trier, I assure you of the unity and spiritual closeness of the Successor of Peter.

Since that first exposition in 1512, the Holy Robe has drawn the faithful because this relic renders present one of the most dramatic moments in Jesus's earthly life, his death on the Cross.

The division among the soldiers of the garments stripped from the Crucified One may seem to be just a sidelight to which the synoptic Gospels make a fleeting reference.

But the evangelist John develops this episode with a certain solemnity. He is the only one who calls attention to the tunic which "was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down" (19,23). He makes the event clear to us and helps us, thanks to this relic, to look with faith at the mystery of salvation.

This undergarment, John tells us, is of one piece. The soldiers, who, according to Roman practice, could share the possessions of the crucified victims like bounty, did not want to tear up the robe. They drew lots for it, and thus it remained intact.

The Fathers of the Church see in this a symbol of the unity of the Church, which is founded by Christ's love as one indivisible community. The Holy Robe makes all this visible to us. The Lord's love brings together all that is divided. The Church is one in many. Christ did not dissolve the plurality of mankind, but unites them to be for one another and with each other as Christians should be, so that they may become themselves, in various ways, mediators for each other with God.

The tunic of Christ was "woven in one piece from the top down" (Jn 19,23). This is another image for the Church, which lives not of herself but from God. As a community that is one and indivisible, she is the work of God, not the product of men and their abilities.

The Holy Robe is also a reminder to the Church to remain true to her origin, to be aware that her unity, her consensus, her effectiveness, her witness, can only be created from on high - they can be given only by God. And only after Peter professed, "You are the Christ" (cfr Mt 16,16), did he receive the authority "to bind and unloose", and with it, the mission to serve the unity of the Church.

Finally, the Holy Robe is not a toga, nor an elegant garment that expresses social status. It is an undergarment which serves to cover and protect the wearer, preserving his privacy. This garment is the undivided gift of the Crucified one to the Church which he sanctified through his Blood. And so, the Holy Robe reminds us of the Church's intrinsic worth.

But how often do we see on what fragile vessels (cfr 2Cor 4,7) we carry this treasure that the Lord entrusted to the Church, and how, because of our selfishness, weaknesses and errors, the integrity of the Body of Christ is wounded.

Thus we need a constant disposition to conversion and to humility, in order to follow our Lord in love and truth. At the same time, the dignity and integrity of the Church cannot and must not be surrendered to the summary judgment of public opinion.

The Jubilee Pilgrimage has the motto - and yes, an invocation to the Lord - "to join together what is separated". So we must not remain in isolation. We ask the Lord to lead us on a common journey of faith and to make the contents of the faith live anew in us.

Thus, as Christians grow together in faith, in prayer, and in witness, we may also know, amidst the trials of our time, the magnificence and goodness of the Lord.

And so I impart the Apostolic Blessing from the heart to you and to everyone who will be visiting Trier in these celebratory days of pilgrimage.

From the Vatican
Good Friday
April 6, 2012

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Anniversaries: For seven years,
the Church has been led by
a wise pastor and a courageous man


Translated from the Italian service of

April 14, 2012

On Monday and Thursday, Benedict XVI will be celebrating two important milestones, whose proximity in time serves to make them more extraordinary - his 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his Pontificate. Two dates that always call for a new appreciation of his person and his work, as our director Fr. Federico Lombardi does, in his editorial for 'Octavo Dies', the weekly newsmagazine of the Vatican's CTV:

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85 years of age and seven years of a Pontificate.

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope at age 78, many wondered whether, after the final years of his predecessor that were marked by infirmity, the Pontificate that just begun could be as intense and lasting as one might desire, and if a theologian who for a long time had led a dicastery that was specifically doctrinal could undertake the very different task of pastoral governance of the universal Church.

In these seven years, we have seen Benedict XVI undertake 23 international trips to 23 countries [twice he visited two countries at a time, and he also visited Germany and Spain three times each], as well as 26 pastoral visits in Italy.

We have witnessed four Assemblies of the Bishops' Synod and three quadrennial World Youth Days.

We have received three encyclicals as well as countless other discourses and Magisterial texts.

We have taken part in a Pauline Year and a Year for Priests.

And we have seen the Pope face with courage, humility and determination - that is, with clear evangelical spirit - difficult situations such as the crisis attendant to the sexual abuses committed by priests.

We have read his work on JESUS OF NAZARETH, a story he has presented in a new and original way, as well as his book-length interview LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

Above all, we have learned from the consistency and constancy of his teaching that the priority of his service to the Church and to mankind is to orient human life towards God, the God that Jesus Christ made known to us; that faith and reason help us reciprocally in seeking the truth and in responding to the expectations and questions that each man has and that all mankind have in common; and that forgetting God and relativism are the the most serious dangers of our time.

For all this, we are immensely grateful. And we continue to make the journey with him: towards the next World Encounter of Families [the second with his attendance], towards the Middle East [his third trip to the region, after the Holy Land and Cyprus], towards the Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization, and towards the Year of Faith - in the hands of God, in the service of God and his Church.

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The following text is the introduction to a book, Joseph Ratzinger; Teologo e Pontefice, that the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and L'Osservatore Romano will be publishing jointly on April 24. The book will include a dialog between Armando Massarenti and Giuliano Ferrara on secularity, an essay by Lucetta Scaraffia, and a chronology of Benedict XVI's first seven years as Pope, by OR editor Giovanni Maria Vian.

Happy birthday, Joseph!
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from

April 15, 2012


When, on April 19, 2005, 78-year-old Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope - after less than 24 hours of the most numerous Conclave so far in history - many were surprised.

For one reason primarily: He had been labelled a hardline conservative, and moreover German, a label attached to someone who had authoritatively led the former Holy Office for 23 years, and who had seemed destined to play the kingmaker in the difficult choice of a successor to John Paul II, who had called him to Rome where he became his closest collaborator.

The predictions and expectations turned out to be far from fact, just as the stereotyped image disseminated by many although totalyl unfounded.

What is certain was that the cardinal who emerged Pope from the Conclave, who had wanted for years to retire to his native Bavaria to devote himself fully to his theological studies, did nothing to get elected.

This was a development he had not sought nor expected. Just as the position that came to him in 1977 that changed the direction of the brilliant 50-year-old theologian's career, when he was named Archbishop of Munich and Freising by Paul VI, and one month later, made a cardinal

Fifteen years earlier, he came to Rome for the first time to take part in the sessions of the Second Vatican Council as the theological consultant to one of the outstanding figures of the German Church at the time, Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne.

For the 85th birthdya of Benedict XVI and the start of the eighth year of his Pontificate, the idea was born to gather together and update in this little book some little-known texts: a dialog, light-hearted but not superficial, between a mouse (Armando Massarenti) and an elephant (Giuliano Ferrara); an essay on how to read the works of Joseph Ratzinvger - not a specialized or systematic guide but an intelligent and comprehensive one from historian Lucetta Scaraffia; and a chronological synthesis of the life of the theologian who became Pope.

This joint initiative by two newspapers - Il Sole 24 Ore and L'Osservatore Romano - is meant to contribute to a 'first appreciation' of the person and the work of an intellectual who has dedicated and continues to dedicate his live to the inexhaustible search for truth, in a continuous dialog between faith and reason, in a language that speaks to everyone.

On the occasion of an important occasion for which one may use the greeting from Byzantine liturgy, èis ète pollà, more familair in Latin: ad multos annos - May you have many more years! - to wish the Pope a happy birthday.

The Second Sunday of Easter, eighth day of the Octave, was earlier observed as the Sunday of St. Thomas the Apostle, commemorating his contact with the Risen Christ, but it is now Divine Mercy Sunday.

April 15, Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday

Divine Mercy Sunday is based on the Catholic devotion that Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) advocated from her mystic conversations with Jesus. He asked her to paint the vision of his Merciful Divinity being poured from his sacred heart and specifically asked for a feast of Divine Mercy to be established on the first Sunday after Easter so mankind would take refuge in Him. The Divine Mercy devotion was actively promoted by Pope John Paul II who, on April 30, 2000, canonized Sr. Faustina and officially designated the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of Divine Mercy in the General Roman Calendar. A year after establishing Divine Mercy Sunday, John Paul II re-emphasized its message in the resurrection context of Easter: "Divine Mercy is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity". Providentially, he died on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005, and was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday last year.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/041512.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Regina caeli - The Holy Father reflected on how Jesus appeared again to the disciples the Sunday after Easter,
convincing the Apostle Thomas that he had indeed resurrected, and how, after the Resurrection, the disciples honored
Sunday as the day for Christian religious assembly and worship in place of the Sabbath. He also pointed out
the significance of the designation of this Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday by Blessed John Paul II.


OR today.

Best wishes to Benedict XVI who turns 85 tomorrow
'In the simplicity of prayer'
Since the next issue of the OR won't come out till Tuesday, the Sunday paper has features to mark the occasion, starting with a front-page editorial illustrated with photos taken yesterday of the Holy Father and his older brother as they pray the Office of the Hours in the Pope's private chapel. The issue also includes excerpts from the essays contributed by German Finance Minister Walter Schaeuble and football icon Franz Beckenbauer to the book Benedikt XVI: Prominente ueber den Papst, along with a tribute essay by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Page 1 international news: A difficult Summit of the Americas in Colombia, in which President Obama seeks to reassure the Latin American nations; Iran resumes talks with six-nation group in Istanbul over its progrma of nuclear development; and more than 180,000 Pakistanis have fled northwest Pakistan where the terrorist guerrillas have been relentless in their activities.

REGINA CAELI TODAY





More Easter reflections
on Divine Mercy Sunday

April 15, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI prayed the Regina caeli with the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square this Sunday – the Octave of Easter (Sunday after Easter) and Divine Mercy Sunday.

In remarks ahead of the prayer, the Holy Father focused on the continuing celebrations of the season, saying, “Each year, celebrating Easter, we relive the experience of the first disciples of Jesus, the experience of meeting him Risen.”

The Pope went on to say, “Christian worship is not just a commemoration of past events, or even a particular mystical, interior experience, but essentially an encounter with the Risen Lord,” adding that Christ is at once with God the Father, beyond time and space, and yet, really present to us all. “He speaks to us in Scripture,” he said, “and breaks for us the bread of eternal life.”

Pope Benedict said that through these signs we live what the disciples experienced, that is, seeing Jesus and at the same time not to recognize him – touching his body, a real body, yet free from earthly ties.

Christ’s greeting to the disciples in the upper room, as recorded in the Gospel according to St John: “Peace be with you,” was a special focus of the Holy Father’s remarks.

“This traditional greeting,” he said, is in that scene transformed into something new. “It becomes the gift of peace that only Jesus can give,” said Pope Benedict, “because it is the fruit of his radical victory over evil. The peace that Jesus offers to his friends is the fruit of the love of God that led him to die on the cross, to pour out all of his blood in payment, as the meek and humble Lamb, “full of grace and truth.”

The Holy Father said that in proclaiming the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, Blessed John Paul II had the an icon in mind: that of the pierced side of Christ, from which flow blood and water. But now Christ is risen, and from the Living Christ spring the Easter Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist: those who approach them with faith receive the gift of eternal life.

My addendum:

In his greeting to French-speaking and Slovakian pilgrims, he said something about the coming anniversary of his Pontificate. In French, he said:

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On Thursday, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of my election to the See of Peter, I ask you to pray for me so that the Lord may give me the strength to accomplish the mission that he has entrusted to me".

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In Slovakian, he said:

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Brothers and sisters, I thank you for the prayers with which you have accompanied by service as the Successor of Peter and I bless you and your families from the heart.

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He then addressed the faithful gathered in Lagiewniki, Poland, and the Polish pilgrims present:

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I cordially greet all Poles, especially those who are taking part in the liturgical celebrations of Divine Mercy Sunday in the Shrine at Łagiewniki, where, ten years ago, blessed John Paul II said, "We must transmit to the world the fire of divine mercy. In the mercy of God, the world will find peace, and man will find happiness." Faithful to this exhortation, let is announce to the word the message of the merciful Jesus, of which we are witnesses.

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Here is a translation of the Holy Father's main message today:

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Every year, in celebrating Easter, we relive the experience of the first disciples of Jesus, the experience of meeting with him resurrected. John's Gospel recounts that they saw him appear among them in the Cenacle on the evening of the Resurrection itself, "the first day of the week" and then "eight days later" (cfr Jn 20,19-26).

That day, which they then called 'dominica" - the Lord's Day - is the day of assembly for the Christian community which gathers for its own worship, namely, the Eucharist, which was, from the beginning, a new and distinct worship from the Jewish Sabbath.

Indeed, the celebration of the Lord's Day is one very strong proof of the Resurrection of Christ, because only an extraordinary and overwhelming event would have led the first Christians to begin a new worship that was different from the Jewish Sabbath.

Then as now, Christian worship is not just a commemoration of past events, nor is it a particular mystical and interior experience, but it is essentially a meeting with the Risen Lord, who lives in the dimension of God, beyond time and space, but nonetheless makes himself truly present amidst the community, who speaks to us in Sacred Scriptures and breaks for us the Bread of eternal life.

Through these signs, we relive what the disciples experienced, namely, the fact if seeing Jesus and at the same time, not recognizing him; of touching his body, a real body, but which was free of earthly bonds.

What the Gospel tells us is very important, namely, that Jesus in his two apparitions to the Apostles gathered in the Cenacle, repeats the greeting "Peace be with you" many times (Jn 20, 19.21.26).

The traditional greeting, with which they wished each other shalom, peace, has become a new thing: It becomes the gift of that peace that only Jesus can give, because it is the fruit of his radical victory ever evil.

The peace that Jesus offers to his friends is the fruit of God's love which brought him to die on the Cross, to shed all his blood as the gentle and humble Lamb, "full of grace and of truth" (Jn 1,14).

That is why Blessed John Paul II named this Sunday after Easter after Divine Mercy, with a specific icon in mind: that of the pierced side of Christ, from which blood and water came forth, according to the eyewitness account of the apostle John (cfr Jn 19,34-37).

Now Jesus has risen, and from the living Jesus flow the Paschal Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Whoever comes to the Sacraments with faith receives the gift of eternal life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us welcome the gift of peace that the Risen Jesus offers us. Let us allow our hearts to be filled with his mercy. In this way, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead, we too can bring to others these Paschal gifts. May the Most Holy Mary, Mother of Mercy, obtain this for us.

After the prayers, he said:

I wish first of all to greet the pilgrims who took part in the Holy Mass presided by Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini in the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, a special place for the worship of Divine Mercy, where St. Faustina Kowalska and Blessed John Paul II are also specially venerated. I wish you all to be witnesses to the merciful love of Christ. Thank you for your presence.

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In the simplicity of prayer:
A birthday greeting
to the Holy Father
Translated from the 4/15/12 issue of





Benedict XVI returned to the Vatican Friday evening, April 13, after beign in Castel Gandolfo since the afternoon of Easter Sunday.

The Pope advanced his return to Rome by 48 hours to welcome his brother, Mons. Georg Ratzinger, who arrived from Regensburg to celebrate two significant milestones with him: his 85th birthday on Monday, April 16; the seventh anniversary of his election to be the Successor of Peter on Thursday. April 19; and the anniversary of the inauguration of his Petrine ministry on April 24.

The pictures shown here were taken as the brothers prayed Lauds together Saturday morning in the Pontiff's private chapel, after morning Mass.

It is in the simplicity of prayer that L'Osservatore Romano joins its readers and many other persons throughout the world - men and women, beyond religious distinctions - who wish Benedict XVI a happy birthday.

He who believes is never alone, the Pope likes to repeat,expressing with this statement the mysterious and invisible reality - but not less real for this - of the communion of saints.

Benedict XVI is never alone because he is surrounded by the affection of perspons near and far, and by the friendship of the saints.

Ad multos annos, beatissimi pater! Ad multos et felicissimos annos!




Italian bishops' conference (CEI):
Telegram of greeting and support

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MOST HOLY FATHER,

In the Paschal light of the Resurrected Lord, the Church in Italy embrace you on the occasion of the happy observance of your 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of your Pontifical election.

Our best wishes come with our prayers, with which we ask the Lord, who called you to life and who chose you to the episcopal order, to conserve you for the entire Church as the leader and pastor of the people of God.

Sustained by your enlightened Magisterium and your irreproachable witness, we wish to face with renewed conviction our pilgrimage in the footsteps of Christ, welcoming with special disposition and unanimous commitment the year of Faith.

Your decision to honor in this way the 50th anniversary of the opening the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church finds us vigilant to intensify our reflection on the faith, on adherence to the Gospel, and on the social responsibility of announcing it with courage and directness.

Holiness, may everyone know the esteem and gratitude with which we are one with you, as we involve your paternal blessing on our ecclesial communities and on the entire Italian people.

For the Italian bishops' conference:

CARDINAL ANGELO BAGNASCO
President

MONS. MARIANO CROCIATA
Secretary

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Cardinal Bagnasco wrote a separate tribute for Avvenire, teh newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference.

The Pope's 85 years:
A family celebration
by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco
President, Italian bishops' conference
Translated from


The splendid colonnade in St. Peter's Square expresses the grand embrace that the Catholic Church has for Benedict XVI on his 85th birthday.

That ideal and strong embrace also includes the world that recognizes in him a light for all of mankind: a gentle and clear light which shows us, with the words of Jesus and of universal reason, the true and the good.

It is therefore a family celebration, with gratitude to the Lord who chose him as his Vicar on earth; to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who accepted the will of Christ, knowing that one is close to Jesus only in the obedience of love; to the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, who, with prayer and thought, by word and by governance, leads the People of God.

From the beginning of his supreme ministry, Benedict XVI began his humble and joyous 'reform' of the Church, knowing full well that the urgent problem for the Church today is that of faith.

The joy of faith is the golden thread that inspires and unifies each of his discourses. And this is the most imporatnt response that the world needs in general: not organizational changes, as much as a reform of hearts, because it is hearts that animate and make fruitful all programs and structures.

Holiness - center of Pope Benedict's joyful reform - is not an abstraction nor a retreat from modernity, but on the contrary, it aims at the core of contemporary man's problems.

It means to live the faith with that joyous awareness that changes the life of individuals and generates a new humanity, new relationships, vital organisms. If faith irradiates the way we think and act, then the Lord is rendered present, and societies, cultures and States will benefit. Then, wherever there is a lump of humanity, hope will sprout.

It is along this road of renewal that the Pope is leading the Church, knowing that the world expects somehow to see the Invisible through the joy of redeemed souls. He does this very gently, almost on tiptoes, even knowing that he must serve, as he does, with the tenacity of the helmsman beset by winds that are often contrary.

By virtue of his original 'Yes' to Christ, he does not promote himself nor seek 'success'. A shy man, he hesitates from demonstrating anything personal to the Church or to the world. His only desire is to proclaim Jesus, light of the world. Herein lies his disarming freedom, and therefore, his personal peace.

His Magisterium reminds us of the beauty of faith, a beauty to be rediscovered as fresh and functional, embracing the lively and generous world of young people as well as the witness of Christians marked with misery and persecution, sometimes to a bloody end.

He reminds us that freedom rests on truth. He does not fear to tackle the most sensitive issues, not entering them with violence, and always recognizing the least bit of light. But without failing to make the truth shine forth - the truth about Christ and about man who finds in Christ his own true face.

I think that it is here where Benedict XVI's gift of 'prophecy' lies - in consistently showing the way of truth and of life. In his apostolic travels, he often reminds the faithful that mankind is in danger of losing the 'human' way, by going against himself. The Gospel is God's revelation, the offering of his life, freedom from illusions, true happiness.

His coat of arms reveals something of this man, whom Christ chose unexpectedly as his obedient instrument, and who, with the pilgrim's scallop, shows the way of the universal Church towards God's high pastures.

Thank you, Holy Father. The Church in Italy, along with all her bishops, surrounds you in her embrace, wishing to be the first and the nearest to say to you: Ad multos annos, Santita!

I have been dreading the inevitable analysis-commentary pieces from the major news agencies on the Pope's milestones this week because one could only be certain of encountering a string of platitudes rehashing and recycling all the prejudices and idee-fixe criticisms they have of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. And sure enough, the first one to come along is Reuters's 'trouble-making' chief Vatican correspondent. With a headline that cues us to what MSM's drumbeat will be this week - they all agree on their herd approach but making it appear that the ideas are not theirs.

Name me an 85-year-old man or woman who does not show signs of frailty, and what succession talk? I suspect MSM are using 'resignation' as a euphemism for 'death', because they're really not watching out for his resignation, are they? They have the indecency to show that they can't wait to get on and think about the next Pope. And note that not once in the entire lengthy piece does Pullella even pay lip service to wishing Benedict more years!... And of course, no reference, no matter how fleeting, to anything he has achieved in seven years, just everything his critics think he did wrong!

Pope marks milestones amid signs
of frailty and succession talk
By Philip Pullella


VATICAN CITY, April 15 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict marks two milestones this week and while his health appears stable, signs of frailty have again prompted speculation over whether he will be the first Pontiff in seven centuries to resign.

Benedict, one of the oldest Popes in history, turns 85 on Monday, and on Thursday he marks the seventh anniversary of his election as successor to the immensely popular John Paul II. [Actually, he is the Successor to Peter, Mr. Puelella, and what does his predecessor's 'immense' popularity have to do with him, who is immensely popular himself! I am still awaiting the first truthful journalist who will not fear to say that "Benedict XVI is at least as popular as John Paul II was", because after all, he proved in the first few months of his Pontificate, that he was drawing greater crowds to the Vatican. Let's not even mention Mexico, where all the MSM expected the Mexicans to turn away in droves!]

Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square on Sunday, he noted Thursday's anniversary and asked for prayers "so that the Lord may give me the strength to carry out the mission he has entrusted to me".

Benedict is already older than John Paul was when he died in 2005 and is now the oldest reigning pope since Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903 after reigning for 25 years.

"His health at 85 is better than John Paul's was at 75," said one high-ranking Vatican official who reports to the Pope regularly. "He is a very methodical man. He looks after himself and feels that he still has much to do," the official said.

The Vatican has announced that he will visit Lebanon in September and he may go to Brazil in 2013.

"I'm old but I can still carry out my duties," the pope told Fidel Castro during his trip to Cuba last month.

Still, Benedict is increasingly showing signs of frailty and fatigue, signs that are being watched carefully for their possible effect on the future of the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church.

When he left for Mexico and Cuba, he used a cane at the airport for the first time in public, though sources say he has been using it in private for some time.

Last year, to conserve his strength, he began using a mobile platform instead of walking up the aisle of St Peter's Basilica.

The Vatican says it is to spare him fatigue and there is no concern about his overall health. His brother has said Benedict suffered two mild strokes before his election in 2005 and he reportedly suffers from high blood pressure and arthritis. [So do at least 70% of men his age!]

Where Benedict differs from his predecessors is that he is the only Pope in living memory to discuss publicly the possibility of resignation, though others have done so privately.

In a book in 2010, Benedict said he would not hesitate to become the first Pontiff to resign willingly in more than 700 years if he felt no longer able, "physically, psychologically and spiritually" to run the Catholic Church.

"Those of us who are over 75 are not allowed to run even a small diocese, and cardinals over 80 are not allowed to elect a Pope. I can understand why one day the Pope might say 'even I can't do my job any more,'" said retired Archbishop Luigi Bettazzi of the north Italian city of Ivrea.

"I wish him a long life and lasting lucidity but I think that if the moment arrives when he sees that things are changing, I think he has the courage to resign," Bettazzi told Italian television on Saturday.

The last Pope to resign willingly was Celestine V in 1294 after reigning for only five months. Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the papacy.

Every papal birthday or anniversary sparks talk of succession but there is no clear front runner to succeed Benedict, who has now appointed more than half the cardinals who will choose a new Pope from among their ranks. Most are Europeans.

Since his election on April 19, 2005, succeeding one of history's most popular pontiffs, Benedict has been hailed as a hero by conservative Catholics and viewed with suspicion by liberals.

Elected when he was 78 - 20 years older than John Paul was when he was elected - he has ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

While conservatives have cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accuse him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians. [If Pullela mentions criticisms, he should at least substantiate them - but he can't because they are false. Hurting dialog with other religions? No one has been more effective in dialog with them - Muslims, Jews, Anglicans, Lutherans - because he is not content with ritual pleasantries but with substantive talk and action on what people of faith can do together to help solve humanity's pressing problems.]

He also has made a series of missteps that angered Jews and Muslims and lowered his popularity among Catholics themselves. [Again, taking the easy way out and not citing what these supposed 'missteps' - which, from a seven-year familiarity now with the ways of MSM, would be identical to the 'hurting dialog' earlier referred to!]

Before he was elected Pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was known by such critical epithets as "God's rottweiler" because of his stern stand on theological issues. [It was never his personal positions he was defending, but the positions of the Church through its 2000-year history, which as an obedient Catholic, are also his positions. Upholding and defending these positions was also his primary duty as head of the CDF!]

A quiet, professorial type who relaxes by playing the piano, the first German Pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row has managed to show the world the gentle side of the man who was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

But two weeks ago he showed his resolve again, warning rebellious priests that he would not tolerate disobedience on fundamental teachings such as compulsory celibacy and a ban on female priests. [Pullella obviously thinks that gentleness is an absence of resolve!]

His papacy has been hounded most by the child sex abuse scandals. [And who has been leading the pack of hounds but the media, setting off firecrackers in the tails of assorted mongrels like faux victims' advocate groups and Vatican-baiting lawyers??] He has apologized to victims several times for the criminal behavior of priests years before his election but victims' groups say he has still not done enough to make bishops accountable. [Once again, a sweeping statement to which Pullella does not bother to even cite any facts to substantiate the charge.]


The AP version is benign in comparison. While its themes are still the Pope's physical status at 85 and the possibility of resignation, it is surprisingly even-handed, and although it does not bother to say anything of his achievements thus far as Pope, neither does it indulge in the usual fault-finding and miraculously does not contain the words 'sex abuse scandal' or 'pedophilia' at all!

Pope seeks prayers for strength
ahead of 7th anniversary
By NICOLE WINFIELD


VATICAN CITY, April 15 (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed Sunday for the strength to carry on as he marks two major milestones this week: his 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his election to the papacy.

The comments, while innocuous, were the clearest sign yet that Benedict has no intention of resigning anytime soon despite his age and increasing frailty.

"Next Thursday, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of my election to the See of Peter, I ask for your prayers, so that the Lord gives me the strength to fulfill the mission he entrusted to me," he said in French to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.

Benedict has slowed down recently - he was seen in public for the first time using a cane when he boarded his plane for Mexico last month. During the long, six-day trip to Mexico and Cuba, he at times looked exhausted. He looked similarly tired during the busy Holy Week services that greeted him upon his return to Rome.

But Benedict's health is remarkably strong for someone his age. He has never canceled a planned event due to illness and suffers from no known chronic illnesses. Few men his age go to work every day, run a 1-billion strong church, write books, deliver speeches and meet with visiting heads of state.

And Benedict has some very pressing issues on his agenda. The Vatican is expected to receive word soon from a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics on whether they will accept the Holy See's terms for reconciliation.

The group, the Society of St. Pius X, opposes some of the core teachings of the Second Vatican Council, particularly its outreach to Jews. Benedict, who is not unsympathetic to some of their concerns, has worked since the start of his pontificate to try to bring them back under Rome's wing out of fear that they are essentially creating a parallel church.

On the other side of the spectrum are hundreds of dissident priests who are making their voices heard in Europe: Priest movements in Austria and Ireland are calling for a relaxation of the celibacy requirement for priests and for the church to ordain women - two things the Vatican has ruled out.

Benedict appeared so concerned by the Austrian initiative in particular that he dedicated much of his Holy Thursday homily to reminding its members that he had no authority whatsoever to allow women priests since an all-male priesthood was an "irrevocable" Church teaching.

Other big events on the Pope's agenda include a trip to Lebanon in September, a meeting of the world's bishops in Rome the following month, and farther ahead, World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2013.

While he was in Cuba last month meeting with Fidel Castro, Benedict was asked by the 85-year-old retired Cuban president how he can manage to keep doing his job. Castro noted that at his age, he spends his time reading and reflecting.

"I am old but I still manage to carry out my duty," Benedict told him, according to a Vatican spokesman.

That said, Benedict has greatly cut back his schedule. And his birthday Monday will be a rather small-scale affair: His older
brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger flew in from Germany over the weekend, and Benedict will meet with the governor of his native Bavaria and some Bavarian bishops in town who want to wish him well.

Benedict himself asked to keep the birthday celebrations low-key, his secretary Monsignor Georg Gaenswein told Italian weekly Gente. "Just a family party. As he requested: 'Please I don't want any big celebrations,'" Gaenswein quoted the Pope as telling his aides.

Popes are allowed to resign; Church law specifies only that the resignation be "freely made and properly manifested." Only a handful have done so, however. The last one was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

Benedict himself raised the possibility of resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue when he was interviewed for the book Light of the World, which was released in November 2010.

"If a Pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign," Benedict said.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger also had an intimate view of Pope John Paul II's suffering through the debilitating end of his papacy.

Benedict is now older than John Paul when he died. He was also the oldest Pope in 300 years when he was elected at age 78 in 2005, and will soon be one of only a handful of popes over the past half-millennia to reign past age 85.

But if his requests for prayers to carry on his mission are any indication, a resignation is unlikely any time soon. [Because the resignation hypothesis was always a media-manufactured issue, to begin with! In any case - see, Nicole? It is possible to write about Benedict XVI withput tacking on the AP codicil on sex abuses by priests!]

Thankfully, the media outlets appeared to have picked up the AP story overwhelmingly compared to Reuters, if one goes by the Daylife headline summaries so far, the following being one of three such pages...Actually, AP does have many more subscriber outlets than Reuters.


I hope no one other than me was stupid enough to look into what DeutscheWelle - Germany's state radio-TV broadcasting network - would say about the German Pope on this occasion. I have rarely ever cited DW. because from the start, its reporting and commentary on Benedict XVI was obviously and markedly from a liberal bias that has no scruples about misrepresenting facts to advance the liberal cause.

In many ways, DW is worse than America's NPR or the BBC in this respect. Not the least because you would expect from the Germans "that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding", as the Holy Father writes in his Foreword to Jesus of Nazareth. Sorry to inflict this piece, but this is the kind of asymmetric warfare masquerading as news that is habitually waged against Benedict XVI, day in and day out, in the liberal secular MSM, regardless of nationality....

At 85, Pope Benedict XVI
stays his course
by Antje Dechert
from the English service of

April 15, 2012

As the world celebrates his 85th birthday, Pope Benedict XVI holds fast to his principles. He continues to stand for tradition over reform - whether you like it or not.

"A bit of peace and quiet, God's blessing and health:" according to Georg Ratzinger, that's all his brother, Pope Benedict XVI, wants for his 85th birthday.

It's unlikely, however, that he'll get peace and quiet, as visitors from all over the world will be flocking to the Vatican.

A tiring birthday schedule [What birthday schedule? he will be meeting various groups from Bavaria - that's all on his public calendar tomorrow!] - though the Pope is in good health, as his press spokesman Federico Lombardi never tires of emphasizing.

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger - the given name of Pope Benedict XVI - was born into a religious family on April 16, 1927 in southern Germany. He grew up in the town of Marktl am Inn in Upper Bavaria. [He was only born there and stayed until he was 3. How can the German national broadcast network get such a basic thing wrong?]

After being ordained into the priesthood and earning his doctorate in Theology, he began teaching at the universities in Bonn, Münster, Tübingen and Regensburg. He quickly rose through the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. [NO! He was a simple priest until he was 50 and then, his rise in the hierarchy began!]

In 1977, he became the archbishop of Munich and Freising. Pope John Paul II appointed him prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, a position laden with responsibility. His task was to safeguard the official teachings of the Church.

Many were surprised when, of all people, the seemingly demure Joseph Ratzinger succeeded [he was elected!] the more charismatic Karol Wojtzyla as Pope. The election took place quickly and he was initially named a "transitional Pope."

Ratzinger nevertheless managed to win over his own die-hard critics. The headline of the biggest German tabloid, Bild, read: "We Are Pope." But how much of the initial euphoria is left after the Pope's seven years in office? [Even in Germany, that euphoria lasted a few weeks at most!]

Benedict XVI entered with a vision that encompassed many ideas. He intended to promote dialogue between Christian denominations - commonly referred to as ecumenical dialogue -and between the Catholic Church and other world religions.

The newly elected Pope didn't want to leave ecumenism at "sincere feelings." Instead, he aimed to make "concrete gestures," as he said in Latin in his first papal address.

As a Pope from the homeland of the German Reformation theologian Martin Luther, Benedict XVI wanted to end the ice age of ecumenism. This awakened hopes of possibly even celebrating Mass together and sharing communion, but this notion repeatedly ended in disappointment, the most recent example occurring during Benedict's trip to Germany in 2011.

In Erfurt, Germany, where Luther lived for many years, the Pope made clear that he was not willing to make any quick changes in the name of ecumenism. [A clear example of how liberal reporters project their own wishes to their reporting of events, with the result that they distort the news. Benedict XVI never ever proposed that celebrating Mass and the Eucharist together was a foreseeable prospect, and he said very clearly befor going to Germany, "Don't expect anything sensational". But this obstinately liberal reporter will persist in her own bullheaded perspective and blame the Pope for not acting according to her expectations! Nor does she take into account that year after year, the heads of the most important Protestant federations, including the World Council of Churches and the World Lutheran Federation make it a point to call on the Pope. And of course, she ignores the relations with the Anglican Church - and Anglicanorum coetibus - altogether!]]

In contrast, he has made progress in talks with Orthodox churches. He resumed the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue in the fall of 2006 and held a historic meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul. [That meeting was not the significant point about relations with the Orthodox - they have met on several other occasions in Rome. But the reporter seems unaware of the most important development in this area - that the theological dialog between the Roman and Orthodox Churches has reached the point of discussing the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in a reunified Christianity!]

But despite the good will Pope Benedict XVI encountered, one controversy followed another. After finally smoothing over the waves caused by his contentious speech in Regensburg, in which he linked Islam with violence, a new scandal followed.

The Pontiff attempted to build bridges with the ultraconservative Society of Pius X. Meanwhile, his ties to Judaism and the Catholic base threatened to crumble behind him. [Good Lord! Such ado about nothing! This reporter has absolutely no sense of proportion whatsoever!]

The cause stemmed from the introduction of a new version of a Good Friday prayer, in which Christians can pray for the conversion of the Jews, a crucial test for the Pope. [And she compounds her appalling and unabashed bias with abysmal ignorance - does she even understand exactly what the Good Friday prayer is?]

As if that weren't enough, in 2009 Benedict lifted the ban on four bishops of the Society of Pius X who had been illegally ordained outside of the Church, including the Holocaust denier Richard Williamson. The storm of protest, most especially coming from Germany, revealed the chasm that had grown between himself and his base. [Have you ever heard such unfounded hyperbole? Not even John Allen goes that far!]

The most challenging scandal followed in 2010, as a wave of newly discovered abuse cases gripped Catholic organizations in Germany, then in Ireland and the US. While child abuse by Catholic priests outraged all of Germany, Benedict XVI did not rush to issue a public admission of guilt on behalf of the Church. [Will someone please stifle this moron now?]

The irony of a slow response from a Pope that had always preached zero-tolerance only further worsened the crisis. Through meeting with abuse victims and asking for their forgiveness, the Pope tried to restore honor to his Church. [This commentary gets more embarassingly crude, amateur and sophomoric by the line!]

To many, the old man behind the Vatican walls is just an out-of-touch conservative, yet Benedict has still been able to enthuse people again and again on his trips around the world, even if big crowds aren't exactly his thing.

He's a star despite himself. During most of his international visits, he is a noteworthy political presence, even in anti-papist England. He conquered the people's hearts in much the same way during his last visit to Latin America. [Gee, thanks! I am shocked you could concede that at all! But you couldn't concede the same thing about him in Germany, could you?]

Fidel Castro and his brother Raul even seemed to have been won over, too, as they agreed to recognize Good Friday as a national holiday in communist Cuba.

Joseph Ratzinger entered onto the scene as a Pope who strove to make the Church ready for the future and attractive and to steer it in a pluralistic world - no easy task for someone who insists on responding to "every possible contemporary movement" with a "clear set of beliefs." With this approach, he risks getting stuck in outdated structures. [Party line! Same-old, same-old yada-yada... You'd think he had not specifically criticized this obsession with structures rather than individual faith and true individual conversion, when he was in Germany last!]

His goal is to safeguard tradition rather than reform institutions. [A complete mis-statement that mixes up the apples of tradition with the oranges of institution! This reporter has absolutely no clue about the spiritual message of Christianity!]

This is why many Christians in Germany have left the Church. In response to issues that affect local churches, such as what should happen to the vow of celibacy or whether divorcees should be allowed to marry a second time in the Church, Rome hasn't given any answers[/ [None are so deaf as those who do not want to listen! Of course, Rome has answered again and again - NO! It's just not the answer that you liberals want to hear. Misrepresenting facts about the Church won't make her change her doctrine to suit the pick-and-choose Catholics. Just-get-up-and-go would be the best advice to them.]

But this is clear: Joseph Ratzinger is no "transitional pope." The shepherd of Rome strives to impart his own values onto the Catholic Church, whether it suits his sheep or not. [That is hands-down the dumbest statement in this litany of dumbness! The Pope trying "to impart his own values on to the Church"???? The Pope's values and teachings are the Church's, never his own. And for that, I am writing DeutscheWelle to prohibit this person from ever reporting again on the Church, and to get some editors who know something about the Church to process dumb copy like this one!]

Here's one sobering diversion from the happy talk of anniversaries...Some of it is understandably anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian propaganda, but it calls attention to a shameful incident that regrettably involved Christian militia among the culprits. Dr. Lamb is director of the Sabra Shatilah Foundation which has been working with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign in Lebanon to draft legislation which would grant Lebanon's Palestinian refugees the right to work and to own a home.

'Mama, will Baba Roumieh
(the Pope from Rome)
visit us in Shatila camp?'
by Dr. Franklin Lamb

April 14, 2012

BEIRUT Al-Manar - It’s official according to the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon from the 14th to the 16th September, in just five months’ time.

By coincidence or design, the Pontiff's visit will coincide with the International commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre during which Christian militia, facilitated by nearby Israeli troops who had sealed the Palestinian refugee camp, slaughtered more than 3000 unarmed civilians on site — approximately 25% of whom were fellow Lebanese.



If the Pontiff accepts the invitation of Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai and stays during his visit in Bkerki, the seat of the Patriarchate, he may or may not be informed that he will be sleeping close to one of the burial pits where bodies from the 1982 massacre were trucked from Shatila camp. [Unless there is a security problem, the Pope will stay at the Apostolic Nunciature in Beirut.]

According to British journalist Robert Fisk, and the late American journalist Janet Lee Stevens, more than 1000 bodies were dumped by Christian militia on Saturday and Sunday September 18 -19, 1982 at various sites in south and east Beirut (including the golf course on airport road) and Bkerki.

These Christian militia killings, overseen by their Israeli handlers, amounted to a second massacre inside the Cite Sportiff “interrogation center”.

The sports stadium is located on the western edge of Shatila Camp bordering the Drouk neighborhood, which is also known as Sabra, across from the former Gaza Palestine Red Crescent Society Hospital.

Understandably, the Pope’s schedule is going to be tight with many pressures on the Pontiff's limited time.

Some complaints are already being heard including one from the office of Israel’s interior minister Eli Yishai. Yishai has condemned the timing of the Pope’s visit to Lebanon, questioning and arguing that if Benedict XVI visits the Shatila Palestinian camp, Israel would view it as an attempt to fan the flames of hatred against the state of Israel and the Jewish people.

Yishai had earlier sent a memorandum to the US reminding the Israel lobby not to forget that following his 14th birthday in 1941, Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope, joined the Hitler Youth. [And that's an ignorant bigoted cabinet minister, one must say! Shame on him, and shame on the Israeli government that it harbors such men!]

Yishai omitted the information that Hitler Youth membership was required by law for all 14-year-old German boys after December 1939, and that young Ratzinger was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his the Pope’s brother Georg.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon hope that the Pope will find time to meet with them, and some of the kids in Shatila told this observer that “We can tidy up the camp and make it nice for his visit.”

Yet it is a bit awkward to envisage the Pope trudging along Shatila’s sometimes barely five feet wide sewer-wet winding alleys where the sun has not shone since the original camp tents became cinder block hovels back in 1950-51.

President Jimmy Carter considered such a visit and route a couple of years ago but his Shatila camp trek was vetoed by the US Embassy and the US Secret Service. Then as now, the worry was that at the juncture of some of the alleys are security forces from a variety of PLO factions, and making sure all went well would be an enormous task.

Still, the kids hope the Pope will come and he could indeed attend the Sabra-Shatila Massacre commemoration at Shatila’s Martyr’s burial site where more than 1,100 bodies were buried in haste as the world discovered the scope of the carnage on September 19, 1982.

The Vicar General of the Maronite Patriarchate, Archbishop Paul Sayah, shared some thoughts on the Pope’s visit saying that “The Holy Father will expect Lebanon to lead in the implementation of the Post-synodal Exhortation which carriers the main ideas of the Synod, namely communion and witness and to revive the Christian identity in Lebanon and by example, demonstrate the teachings of Jesus. He will bring a special message not only to Lebanon but also specifically to the countries of the region so we expect this visit to inject a new dynamism, not only in the Lebanese society and Christians in Lebanon but I would say in the region.”


From left, a memorial event in Shatila; a book on Jesus that non-Christians are studying; and the tomb of St. Maron.

Many in Lebanon, including in the refugee camps, in anticipation of the Pope’s visit, are discussing Jesus from Palestine and his missionary work as well as the human rights teachings of the 5th century Syrian Christian monk, St. Maron from Kefar-Nabo, who devoted his life to his quest for nurturing and healing the “lost souls” of both non-Christians and Christians of his time.

One Christian supporter of Palestinian civil rights explained: “We remember what St. Maroun taught us all as he preached the Gospel, Christ came to his special people, but at first they didn’t understand him or accept him. But in spite of rejection, Jesus spoke, and he advocated for justice for refugees, the downtrodden and those facing discrimination, and he spoke Jesus’S Sermon on the Mount. And what Jesus said, nobody had ever said, and nobody must ever ignore and nobody must rest or be silent from trying to achieve.”

Hadi, a teenager from Shatila camp explained, “We have studied that in 1997, Pope John Paul II visited Lebanon to give hope to Lebanese who are downtrodden and discriminated against and who said, “Lebanon is more than a country, it is a message from Calvary to love thy neighbor as thyself.” John Paul II reminded us of the divine Sheppard’s plea, “Care for my lambs... Care for my sheep” (John 21:16-17).

Christian-Muslim relations in Lebanon today can benefit from the letter and the spirit of the civil rights enactment guaranteed to Christians in 628 C.E. when Prophet Muhammad granted the Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai.

The Charter consists of several clauses enacting civil rights for Christian refugees including freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary arrest and confinement, freedom to work and to own a home.”

Alaa, from Shatila camp, whose little brother Omar asked their mother if “Baba Roumieh” (the Pope from Rome) would visit Shatila, said she hopes that “the Pope will urge and advocate that all Christians in Lebanon support meaningful civil rights legislation for Palestinian refugees in compliance with international law and Christian morality. We urge Pope Benedict to condemn the racist and anti-Palestinian language and graffiti that has polluted public discussion for the past half century in Lebanon and has undermined dialogue.”

Civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees have been denied for too long.

These days are pregnant with potential new tragedies that nobody wishes upon anybody else. Hopefully Pope Benedict XVI will urge the faithful to support the earliest possible enactment of Civil Rights legislation for the Palestinian refugees.

I'll try to translate a few individual tributes. I was particularly struck by this unusual reflection from Marco Tosatti...

Benedict XVI and the prophetic
notes of Kipling's 'Recessional'
Translated from


“The tumult and the shouting dies — 
The Captains and the Kings depart”…

Seven years have passed, and the tumult and the shouting that accompanied the death and the funeral of John Paul II are long gone. The captains and the kings who gathered around a bare cypress coffin returned shortly to their thrones.

And a few days later, a 78-year-old cardinal was elected to the Chair of Peter. To confront a legacy from a Pontificate that had been dramatic and resplendent, which swept through the Church like a cyclone, restoring to the faithful their pride in being Catholic, pride in the faith, and bearing along a people made up of saints and sinners, heroes and brigands, as men ever have been.

I was reading 'Recessional", the hymn that Rudyard Kipling wrote for the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign in 1897, when the wings of Empire were spread wide across the world. And suddenly, the image of Papa Ratzinger came to mind. Not because pf any resemblance to Victoria. But because 'Recessional', far from being a cry of triumph, though it mentions great enterprises and power, speaks of the danger of arrogance and forgetting God.

I thought of the words of Joseph Ratzinger on Good Friday 2005, and later: about 'the filth in the Church", that boat tossed about by waves and springing leaks; and later the appeal, "Do not leave me alone - pray for me that I may not flee in fear from the wolves".

How great is the solitude of a Pope, of this one in particular, we often see - even when he has the comfort of the affection of all the humble faithful around the world. But how tough, dark and difficult is the mission he must carry out, to sustain, to correct and to restore order in a magma-like Catholic world - this is less evident to many.

The final message in Recessional must be Benedict's too, asking God's mercy “For heathen heart that puts her trust
 in reeking tube and iron shard — 
All valiant dust that builds on dust”, which is true for his Church and the rest of mankind.

In his great poem, Kipling sensed - with the foresight of poets - a world about to shatter, engulfed in pride and the will to power among the leaders of the world - that would lead to the folly of the Great War and the worse madnesses that followed it.

Benedict XVI's voice often resounds with the same prophetic accents. Ad multos annos, Santita! The world has need of your voice.



From Jose Manuel Vidal, on a day when all's right with his world and therefore, what he says about Benedict XVI...

Best wishes to the Pope
whom one can no longer call 'transitional'
Translated from


The Pope turns 85 this Monday. A round figure and an advanced age, with which he now counts among the seven longest-lived Popes in history: After Clement XII (1730-1740), 97; Leo XIII (1878-1903), 93; Píus IV (1775-1799), 91; Celestine II (1191-1198), 91; John XXII (1316-1334), 90; and Gregory XII (1406-1415), 89.

A long-lived Pope who will also soon complete seven years at the helm of Peter's barque, whom no one can any longer call a transitional Pope.

Seven years of seeing in action the theologian Pope, the wise Pope, the Pope of the essential, and above all, the Pope as God's great broom-wielder, who imposed on the Church zero tolerance for the pederasty of the rotten apples in the clergy.

The Pope who, for all his conservative preferences (it is part of his biography and he cannot fully renounce it) has been re-centering the pendulum of the Church. A pendulum which, with John Paul II and his favorite battle-hardened 'new movements', had swung totally to the right.

But the present Pope's intellectual ability has led him during the past seven years to correct the course. At least, somewhat.
The pendulum swing towards the center (the middle way of spiritual health, so that we can all be part of the Church, without excluding anyone) can be noted, above all, in the greater presence and influence of the classic religious orders and congregations.

In Rome today, it is not the Opus Dei, the Legionaries, the Kikos (Neocatechumenals) or the Focolari who prevail, as they did under Papa Wojtyla. Today, we see Jesuits, Salesians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Redemptorists - and other classic religious families. Represented most notably by Bertone and Lombardi passing through Ouellet.

A Spanish Jesuit recently cited to me the prestigious Jesuit theologian Joaquin Losada, who compared John Paul II to Napoleon - the latter came to restore order to post-revolutionary France, the former to the post-Conciliar Church. Which he did with firmness and decision. [Not with as much firmness and decision as his successor! The intention was always there, but few effects were visible.]

But it would have been impossible to effect a Restoration. [Nor was it ever intended! John Paul II was very much a creature of Vatican II, especially of Gaudium et spes, about which his successor is far less enthusiastic.] Something must remain (in this case, a lot) of the journey that has been taken forward and of the fundamental contributions from that springtime of the Church. Vatican-II remains a milestone in the life of the Church.

And Benedict XVI, a man of that Council, knows it. That is why he has become centrist [I think he was always centrist, in the sense of always taking the via media, the middle way which is the way of moderation] and he will continue to do so if God gives him more years on earth.

In order that he may leave the next Pope a clean Church that is ready to embrace all her children and all currents of ecclesial thought [provided they do not contradict or dispute Catholic teaching!] in the bosom of the one People of God, intent on building his Kingdom on earth.

A Church that is more plural, more open and more capable of dialog. A Church that offers a spiritual significance to Christian living and Samaritan charity, proposing without imposing, as Papa Ratzinger often says.

We wish you all good fortune in your task, Holiness. And felicitations.

A book homage to Benedict XVI

Comunione e Liberazione in Rome has joined hands with Lindau publishing house for an event Monday afternoon to mark the 85th birthday of Benedict XVI.



It is the presentation of a new book on Joseph Ratzinger's theology written by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The book was commissioned by the Regensburg-based Institut Papst Benedikt XVI, publishers of the Collected Writings of Joseph Ratzinger.

It is strange there was not much publicity about this in Italy - it is remarkable enough that an Italian edition appears so soon after the original in German which, I learn from the Institut site, came out in February...Even L'Osservatore Romano which published an excerpt from the Introduction in today's issue does not identify its provenance nor otherwise publicize the book. I thought it was an article written especially for the OR - until I saw small item under the article about the Lindau event, and Mons. Koch's book title was mentioned...

Cardinal Koch is, of course, a theologian of repute in his own right, and he says in the introductory essay, he wrote the book over a period of five years when he was the Bishop of Basel, because he thought it was important to help the faithful not just to understand Benedict XVI's thinking but to counteract misinformation and disinformation that has been peddled about him, especially the charge that he has been trying to undo Vatican-II.


The mystery of the mustard seed:
Foundations of Benedict XVI's theological thought
400 pp, 32 euro

The mystery of the mustard seed
From the Introduction to the book
by Cardinal Kurt Koch
Translated from the 4/15/12 issue of


"Great things always start as a mustard seed, and mass movements always have a short duration".

This sentence written by Benedict XVI when he was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to describe the demands of new evangelization, best bring to light what Joseph Ratzinger has at heart as theologian, bishop and Pope.

It is therefore not surprising that he cites and meditates continually on the parable of the mustard seed (Mk 4,30-32): The mustard seed is the smallest seed of all, but it becomes the largest of plants such that even the birds from the skies can make their nests in its shade.

The comparison with the mustard seed illustrates not only that big realities begin from little things, according to that elementary principle that Pierrre Teilhard de Chardin, in his writings on evolution, called the law of invisible origins.

Such a comparison offers proof of the basic principle at work in all of God's history with mankind, his creatures - what Pope Benedict XVI has called God's "predilection for the little".

In the unmeasurable vastness of the cosmos and among the infinite number of planets and galaxies, God chose earth - this little speck of dust - for his salvific action. And on this tiny earth, God chose among all the peoples Israel, a people who were practically impotent on the political level, as the load-bearing pillar of his history with mankind.

In Israel, God chose the modest site of Bethlehem to come to us men as man himself. In Bethlehem, he chose an unknown girl who had little importance, Mary, in order to enter our world.

In the course of history, God has always called on simple men who, in immersing themselves personally in the Gospel, are capable of renewing the Church from within.

The mustard seed is not just a metaphor for Christian hope, but also shows that the great can be born from little things not by means of revolutionary upheavals nor even because we men are in charge of such growth, but precisely because growth takes place slowly and gradually, following its own dynamic. In view of this, the Christian attitude can only be one of love and patience, which is the long breath of love.

The comparison with the mustard seed also leads us to the heart of Pope Benedict XVI's theological thinking, which is love: God's love for us men, which is unimaginable, but nonetheless corresponds to the logos, and the human response to divine love which can be realized only in love of God and other men.

In the light of God, in Jesus's parable of the mustard seed, the emphasis is placed not only on the plant that becomes large, but on the seed, and therefore, on hope and its quiet growth in patience, precisely because God himself judges and appreciates patience as a particularly sensible sister of love, and because of this, continually makes the big grow from the small.

The parable is therefore meant to awaken in us men the joy over the beauty that is intimately linked to hope and leads us to the mystery of God and the story of salvation, as Benedict XVI underscored during his meeting with artists: "The way of beauty therefore leads us to grasp the All in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, and God in the history of man".

On the contrary, we men are always tempted to take the particular to be everything, to confuse the finite with the infinite, and consequently, to place the accent, in Jesus's parable, on growth.

We would want, with nervous impatience, to have a robust tree rapidly, and if necessary, to contribute to this with our own hands, our effort to be able to see right away some result, and in pastoral work, we risk neglecting the care of souls in our preoccupation with numbers.

This temptation could also come when the theological thinking and the pastoral work of Pope Benedict XVI are continually exposed to serious misunderstanding, of which we can briefly recall those that are most often expressed.

A widespread criticism is that the Pope does not have at heart the greater 'church of the people' - the masses - and that he primarily addresses himself to small flocks and is content with that.

In this criticism, the only true thing is that the Pope is truly convinced that the true renewal of the Church cannot begin from the masses, but only from small movements, as the history of the Church has shown in diverse cases, and as it is visible today, for example, in the new ecclesial movements which were not the outcome of any official plans by the Church, and because of this, they may be considered a gift of the Holy Spirit in the situation of the post-Conciliar Church.

But in the eyes of the Pope, they fulfill their ecclesial mission only if they act as leaven within the Church, making it visible that "there is one Church for all, that there are no churches for the elite nor churches by election".

"The Church is not a market in which each one seeks out his own grouplet, but a family in which I do not seek brothers but I receive them as a gift from God".

With the parable of the mustard seed, the Pope underscores that activity in the Church should have as its reference point her mystery, and not the exigency of having a great tree result from it right away.

The Church is at the same time a mustard seed and a tree, and the Pope underscores that "Perhaps the Church should find herself faced with great trials (1Ts 1,6) in order to learn anew what it lives from even today - that it lives from the hope in the mustard seed, and not from the power of its plans and structures".

Another criticism which is more profound and often reiterated is that the Pope has moved backwards and really wants to return the Church to what it was before Vatican II.

Those who do not just blindly rely on the communications media - which do not usually offer serious information but entertainment - and who do pay attention autonomously to what the Pope says and does, would know right away that the Pope absolutely does not want to go 'backwards', as he is often reproached publicly (whether out of ignorance or because they represent those theologians who, even if they know better, often make 'populist' statements and intentionally affirm the opposite to the public, confusing scientific 'honesty' for political agitation within the Church).

Pope Benedict absolutely is not going backwards. What he does is to go in more deeply, like the mustard seed which can only grow when it is deep in the soil. Therefore, for him, single reforms do not mean anything unless the foundations and the heart of Christian faith shine forth again.

He wants a simplification of Christian faith as he has announced exemplarily in his three encyclicals. It is an urgent task today to present the true face of Pope Benedict XVI's theological thinking and Magisterium.

In the last five years, I have tried to do so as best as I can, and to the degree that my daily and detailed work as a bishop allowed me time - convinced that it is also part of my responsibility as a bishop to help the faithful orient themselves in the confusion of so many points of view and in the chaos of mediatic information, of targeted disinformation and of deliberate manipulation of facts.

With the publication of this book, I hope to provide to a wider circle some spiritual orientation and discernment. I took on this task not least because there are situations in the life of the Church in which the mission that Jesus entrusted to Peter at the Last supper, which is valid for his Successor, namely to confirm your brothers in the faith (Lk 22,32), must also be applied inversely, and that a local bishop must feel it is his duty to sustain the Successor of Peter in his important ministry.

What binds me to him especially is the irreducible hope that there is no Easter without Good Friday, but that every Good Friday is followed by Easter, and that this is the most profound basis of Christian joy.

In this joyous hope, we would be well advised if on the actual Good Friday, we turn our attention not just to the sounds of destruction, but to the silent coming of new life on the eve of Easter, which carries in itself the organic development that is hidden in the mystery of the mustard seed.

ALL OUR LOVE AND PRAYERS

FOR OUR BELOVED HOLY FATHER,

ROCK OF THE CHURCH,

ON HIS 85th BIRTHDAY.

AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER!

Monday, April 16, Second Week of Easter

ST. MARIE BERNARDE (BERNADETTE) SOUBIROUS (France, 1844-1879), Visionary and Virgin
One of the most popular of modern saints, Bernadette was a virtuous and sickly peasant girl of 14 who had not even made her first Communion when 'a lady appeared to her on February 11, 1848, in a rocky grotto beside the river Gave in the Pyrenean village of Lourdes. She saw her 17 times more. The Lady identified herself on one of the earlier apparitions, 'I am the Immaculate Conception', a term which meant nothing to the unlettered girl. [Pope Pius IX would not declare the dogma of the Immaculate Conception until 1858). The Marian apparitions at Lourdes attracted worldwide attention. After initial skepticism, the Church gave credence to her story, and she soon was hounded for her fame. She entered a convent in Nevers where she worked humbly despite her chronic sickliness and professed her vows before she died at age 35. Meanwhile, Lourdes had grown into the most visited shrine on earth. Bernadette was canonized in 1935. When her body was exhumed before her beatification, it was found to be incorrupt and is venerated at the convent in Nevers.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/041612.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- The Bishops of Bavaria

- H.E. Horst Seehofer, Minister President of Bavaria

- A delegation from Bavaria who came to greet him on his birthday.


No OR today.

Benedict XVI celebrates
a 'very Bavarian' birthday
by DANIELA PETROFF and NICOLE WINFIELD




VATICAN CITY, April 16 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a very Bavarian birthday Monday, marking his 85 years with his brother, German bishops and a musical band from his native land.

Benedict began the day with a Mass in which he alluded to his own mortality, saying he would carry on his final years knowing that God was watching over him.

"I am facing the final leg of the path of my life and I don't know what's ahead," Benedict said in his homily. "I know though that God's light is there ... and that his light is stronger than every darkness."

Benedict was later joined in the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall by about 150 Bavarians, including bishops, political leaders and representatives of the region's Protestant and Jewish communities.




He was serenaded by 10 children dressed in traditional Bavarian garb who danced for him and recited a poem, and by Bavarian musicians who performed a song he and his siblings sang as children while their father accompanied them on a zither.

A very emotional Pope said those gathered "represent for me the stations of my life." Speaking off-the-cuff, he singled out the role played by the Jewish community in Bavaria for "bringing me closer emotionally to the Jewish people."

Sitting nearby was Benedict's older brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, who was ordained on the same day as the Pope in 1951 and flew to Rome for this week's celebrations, which also include the seventh anniversary of Benedict's election as Pope, on Thursday.

Despite his age and increasing frailty — he has begun using a cane on occasion — Benedict has quashed speculation of a possible resignation. On Sunday, he asked for prayers and strength "to fulfill the mission (the Lord) entrusted to me."

Cardinal Angelo Sodano issued birthday greetings on behalf of the College of Cardinals that elected Benedict, and welcomed the Bavarian bishops to the "family party" inside the Apostolic Palace.

Speaking in Latin, Sodano wished Benedict "many happy years" ahead — sentiments that were echoed in birthday greetings that arrived from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Queen Elizabeth II and Italy's president.


Right photo: Marktl townspeople at the font where Joseph Ratzinger was baptized four hours after he was born.

In Benedict's hometown of Marktl Am Inn, the faithful marked his birthday by rising at 4:15 a.m. — the time he was born — and walking from his house to the local church for prayers.

He received several gifts, including a large crucifix, a Maypole, a traditional Bavarian Easter basket and a bunch of white flowers.

One birthday gift arrived ahead of time: a book of 20 essays by prominent Germans reflecting on the papacy, including German football great Franz Beckenbauer, who recalled meeting the Pope a few months before Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup.

Beckenbauer said the two differed over what kind of shape Germany's squad was in, with the Pope suggesting it was "pretty good."

"I didn't have the same idea; and so I told him that at the very least they were on the right path to becoming good," Beckenbauer wrote. "He smiled kindly."

The book was curated by Benedict's longtime secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein. In an interview Monday with Italy's La Repubblica daily, Gaenswein said the Pope is often misconstrued and should be known as a man of great courage.

"The German Pope doesn't fear delicate questions or confrontations for the good of the Church and faithful," he said.


CNS has additional color in its report...

‘I don’t know what awaits me',
says Pope on 85th birthday
By Carol Glatz


VATICAN CITY, April 16 (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his 85th birthday today with guests who treated him to Bavarian “oompah” music and folk dancing in the apostolic palace.

Earlier in the day, in an impromptu homily, the Pope had said: “I find myself on the last stretch of my journey in life, and I don’t know what is awaiting me.”

“I know, however, that the light of God exists, that he is risen, that his light is stronger than any darkness and that God’s goodness is stronger than any evil in this world, and this helps me go forward with certainty,” he said.

Later Bavarian bishops, minister-president of Bavaria Horst Seehofer and a 150-person regional government delegation visited the Pope in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall.

They were accompanied by a small Bavarian band, three female singers and 10 children who danced the skirt-swirling, shoe-stomping, thigh-slapping “Schuhplattler” before the Pope.

The Pope’s 88-year-old brother, Msgr Georg Ratzinger, also attended the festivities as well as representatives from the Lutheran Church and the Jewish community in Bavaria.

The children, dressed in traditional costume, presented the Pope with white flowers and a maypole covered with colourful ribbons. They also recited a German birthday poem.

The delegation presented the Pope with gifts of a wooden crucifix sculpted by a well-known 18th-century Bavarian woodcarver, Ignaz Gunther, and a large Easter basket filled with traditional cakes, dark bread, ham and painted eggs.

In his address to the Pope, Mr Seehofer said Bavaria was still the most Catholic region in Germany and that it was still common to find the crucifix hung in public schools and small roadside shrines maintained throughout the area.

“You’ve always stayed Bavarian and we’re very grateful for that,” he told the Pope.

Among the guests were all seven of Bavaria’s Catholic bishops, including Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising and his predecessor, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter.

In his address, Cardinal Marx thanked the Pope for his fidelity to the faith, saying he was an important example to all bishops of loyalty and obedience.

The Pope, who smiled and clapped during the 40-minute event, thanked everyone present and noted how the different cities, people and ages represented there were “a reflection of all the stages in my life”.

He said the music and instruments reminded him of his childhood. His father used to play the stringed zither, he said, and, as children, he and his siblings would sing “God Greets You”, which was sung at the Vatican event.

“This is the sound of my youth, present and future,” the Pope told his guests.

At the end of the celebration, everyone, including the Pope, sang the Bavarian state anthem...

[Glatz goes on to report about the Mass as described earlier in the AP report.]


Pope marks birthday
with private Mass

April 16, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI marked his 85th birthday today, with a series of events both sacred and civil.

Born 85 years ago Monday in the tiny Bavarian town of Marktl by the river Inn, near the border with Austria, on what was in that year – 1927 – Holy Saturday, and baptized that same day: Joseph Alois Ratzinger would go on to an illustrious career as a university professor, pastor, and Prince of the Church before being elected to succeed Blessed John Paul II – choosing for himself the name Benedict XVI.

Both anniversaries occur this week, and well wishes have been coming in from all around the world – some of which he received in person and privately on Monday morning in the Vatican, before an official noonday birthday greeting offered by a delegation from his native Bavaria.

Earlier Monday morning, in the Pauline chapel of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass with guests from Bavaria and several German bishops.

In his homily, the Holy Father noted that for him, this anniversary day of his birth and his baptism is always immersed in the Paschal Mystery, the mystery of the Cross and resurrection.

“In a special way,” he said, “on Holy Saturday, the day of God's silence, the apparent absence of God and yet the day that the resurrection is announced.”

The Pope went on to say that he knows now – though he cannot say what the future has in store for him - that because God is the light and Christ is risen, that His light is stronger than all darkness, and that God's good is stronger than all the evil in this world.

Here at Vatican Radio we'd like to wish the Holy Father a very 'Happy Birthday'!

To celebrate this special day, the 16th of April 2012, we bring him the greetings of the Archbishop of Liverpool, Patrick Kelly:

---

We're celebrating his birthday massively grateful to God for giving us somebody whom I believe embodies the words of Cardinal Newman 'loving wisdom ' and 'wisest love'.

And that is healing - it's encouraging and it is a source of joy which shines through. It is an Easter message which doesn't say there is no such thing as sin and evil but accepts as in the words of the new translation : 'we are overcome with Paschal joy'.

We pray that will be the joy of the Holy Father on his birthday.

---

From Cardinal Francis Arinze, emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship:

---

We wish the Holy Father a happy birthday. Our wishes for him are of joy, peace, and his seeing the faith in Christ make great progress, that faith for which the Pope sacrifices himself totally.

The whole Church is united with the Holy Father on this day. We wish him joy, we wish him good health, and we wish him also that peace that will come from knowing he is doing God’s will, and that the bishops, priests, and the whole Church are united with him.

---

Other birthday messages

The President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, has sent Pope Benedict XVI the following message:

---

Your Holiness, on the happy occasion of your birthday, and as we approach the seventh anniversary of your election to the Papacy, I would like to offer, on behalf of the Italian people and myself, the warmest and most sincere good wishes for you and for the fruitful continuation of the high moral and spiritual teachings for which the Italian nation and the wider Catholic community look to you with hope.

With continuing feelings of friendship and esteem.

GIORGIO NAPOLITANO
Rome, April 16, 2012

---

Nothing could be more heartwarming and touching than the messages sent by the faithful who have used Avvenire's special link to send their birthday wishes to the Holy Father. The least I checked there were 384 posted online...
www.avvenire.it/Chiesa/Pagine/compleanno-papa.aspx


I am sorry I have been unable to access the Avvenire special that came out yesterday, because they now have a paywall, but their method of payment is not the usual credit card or Paypal accommodation, but something called Onebip that tells me 'it does not support your cell phone number' - apparently it only works if you live in Italy.

Vatican Radio's Italian and German services have published a few more excerpts from Benedict XVI's homily at Mass this morning, celebrated in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. He spoke in German.

On his 85th birthday: Pope says
'I entrust myself to God -
his goodness and light are my certainty'
Translated from the Italian service of

April 16, 2012



Benedict XVI's 85th birthday began with a private Mass celebrated in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, in the presence of Bavarian bishops, other prominent Bavarians and friends who came to Rome from Germany to mark this important anniversary, and members of the Roman Curia.

In his homily, the Pope reflected on the 'signs' that mark April 16, the day of his birth and baptism (within four hours of being born).

St. Bernadette Soubirous, to whom the Virgin Mary appeared in Lourdes, and St. Benedict Joseph Labre [whose feast day was April 16 at the time of the Pope's birth, moved to April 17 after it became the feast day of St. Bernadette], an 18th century saint who was known as the 'mendicant pilgrim', were the two figures who, from childhood, Joseph Ratzinger considered signs sent to him by Providence about the course of his life.

They, and Holy Saturday, which fell on April 16 the day he was born - and which he calls "the day of God's silence, of his apparent absence, which was, instead, a prelude to the announcement of the Resurrection".

This has been his 'reading' of his life up to and beyond his election to the Chair of Peter, he said.

Of Bernadette Soubirous, he said he was always struck by "her heart which was able to see the Mother of God, and in her, the reflection of the beauty and goodness of God". With her "pure and uncontaminated heart", he said, "Mary could show herself to her, and through her, speak to her century and centuries beyond".

"That is why, this day, this young saint was always a sign for me of what we ought to be. Of the fact that with all our knowing and doing, though they are necessary, we must not lose a simple heart, a heart that can look with simplicity and is able to see the essential".

Thus, Bernadette could see what Mary pointed to her - "a spring of pure and living water... the image of truth which comes to us from faith, of truth which is not dissimulated and remains uncontaminated".

"To be able to live truly, to be able to become pure, a nostalgia must awaken in us for the pure life, for truth, for what is unspoiled by corruption, for the human being who is sinless...

In our time, when we see the world in such distress, and in which the need for water literally confronts us, this sign is even more significant. From Mary, from the Mother of the Lord, from her pure heart, comes pure and uncontaminated water which gives life, the water that in this century and in the centuries to come can purify and heal us".

Of Benedict Joseph Labre, the Pope recalled his wanderings throughout Europe and the shrines he established on the continent. A 'European' saint who is special because "he wanted nothing else but to pray and bear witness to what truly counts in life - God".

He called him "a finger that pointed to the essential - namely, that God alone suffices... and that he who is open to God does not alienate himself from the world and other men".

"Because in other men, he found brothers. God all barriers fall down, and only God can do this, because for him, we are all brothers, we are part of each other. God wants brotherhood and reconciliation among all men, bringing down barriers to unite and to heal us".

Reflecting on the day he was born, the Pope said he was thankful to his parents not just for the gift of life but for having 'given him rebirth' on that very day through the water of Baptism.

But he asked, "In what way is the gift of life truly a gift? It is right to simply pass on life? Is it always responsible to do so?"

Biological life in itself, he said, is a true gift but it comes with many demands. "Life becomes a true gift when it also comes with a promise that is stronger that any mishap that may threaten it, if it is immersed in a power that guarantees it is good to be human... And so, birth must be associated with rebirth [in Baptism] and the certainty that it is good to exist, because the promise is stronger than any threat".

And that, he says, is the meaning of Baptism, belonging to "the great family of God and therefore being stronger than all the negative forces that threaten us".

He ended with words entrusting himself to God:

---

I find myself facing the last stretch in the course of my life, and I do not know what awaits me. But I know that there is the light of God, that he is Risen, that his light is more powerful than any darkness, that the goodness of God is stronger than every evil in the world. And this helps me to proceed with certainty. This helps us all to go forward, and at this time, I thank all those who continuously make me perceive the Yes of God through their faith.

---

Before the Mass began, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, extended to him the affectionate good wishes of all the cardinals.

---

I find myself facing the last stretch in the course of my life, and I do not know what awaits me. But I know that there is the light of God, that he is Risen, that his light is more powerful than any darkness, that the goodness of God is stronger than every evil in the world. And this helps me to proceed with certainty. This helps us all to go forward, and at this time, I thank all those who continuously make me perceive the Yes of God through their faith.

- Benedict XVI, Homily
on his 85th Birthday Mass
April 16, 2012

---

We might say that Benedict XVI's birthday homily earlier today was a continuation of his great Holy Week homilies this year. And what he says about the light of God that gives him certainty is the personal consequence to him of the Easter light he so eloquently spoke about in his Easter vigil homily. Which makes Fr. Schall's reflection on that homily particularly synchronic, to use my favorite Carl Jung term (from 'synchronicity' that is much more precise than 'coincidence').

The Pope's Easter Vigil homily:
A profound reflection on creation,
light, and divine life
by JAMES SCHALL, SJ.

April 15, 2012

---

"To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love".
— Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Saturday, 2012

---

I.

Benedict XVI began his Sermon at this year’s Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica with these brief propositions:

1) Easter is the “feast of the new creation.”
2) “Jesus is risen and dies no more.”
3) Jesus opens us to a “new life, one that no longer knows illness and death.”
4) God “has taken mankind up into God himself.”

We have a “new” creation contiguous to an “old” creation. Jesus, at a definite time and place, is risen. He will undergo no other death. This new life is beyond this earthly life; it arises out of it, but only with God’s grace.

The purpose of God is to associate men within the inner life of the Godhead. This “taking up” of man into the Trinitarian life is the original purpose of creation itself.

What has newly opened up for mankind is its possibility to live this inner life of God. It is made possible by the Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

“Creation has become greater and broader.” Reflecting this new creation, the Easter Liturgy begins with light. “Creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time.”

The first six days of creation are ordered to the Seventh Day, when God rested. Time begins not with itself but with creation. Before creation only God’s time, eternity, exists.

Creation is ordered to the coming together of the creatures God has brought forth from nothing.

---

The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom.

---

That is a remarkable passage. Creation has a direction. It is not created for itself alone. Something is to “unfold in time.”

What is this? All are ordered to the day of freedom both of God and creatures. God’s creation is not a necessity of His being. It is a gift of His inner life, His Love that is the essence of that inner life.

The adventure of God, as it were, is freely given to be freely received. By whom? By us men. The cosmos provides a “space” wherein we can “respond” to God’s great glory. We must do this freely, in love.

II.

The Easter Vigil is suffused with light. Genesis begins with the creation of light. Benedict notes that the sun and moon are created not on the first day but the fourth. Why is this? To prevent us from making them gods and goddesses, as the ancients were tempted to do.

The light of God is the light of intelligence suffusing the universe. The sun and the moon are creatures. “They are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created thing.” The essence of a created thing is that it exists; it exists as this kind of a thing. It did not cause itself to be.

Benedict next asks: “What is the creation account saying here?” It says that light “makes encounter possible.” If we cannot see, we cannot meet except by chance. It makes “communication possible. It makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible.”

Light and intelligence illuminate each other. Unless things are luminous, we cannot see them. If we cannot see them, we cannot know them. To see is directed to know.

Light, as Plato also saw, is an “expression of the good that both is and creates brightness.” “Evil hides.”

“To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom.” The world is a place where knowledge and truth can be mutually known. When we know the truth, when we see things, we want to meet others, to tell them of what we saw and know. We are to make truth known to one another.

Matter is not evil. We are not Manicheans with a god of good and a god of evil.

Evil does not come “from God-made things.” Where does it come from then? “It comes into existence only through denial. It is a ‘no.’” Evil arises from a free act that denies what should be there. This is what happens in the space of the cosmos, this drama of affirming or denying what is.

III.

Easter bathes us in pure light. This light comes to us in baptism. “Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us.” Benedict combines the notion of the waters of baptism and a bridge from God to us. The early Church even called baptism “illumination.”

Why would baptism be called “illumination?” To use another image, “darkness poses a real threat to mankind.” Man can ‘see and investigate tangible material things.” What he cannot do, however, is to “see where the world is going or whence it comes.” Nor can we see “where our own life is going. We often cannot or will not see “what is good and what is evil.”

This darkness is “the real threat to our existence and to the world in general.” “If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other ‘lights’, that put incredible technical feats within our own reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk.”

We can light up our cities in such a way that the stars disappear from view. “With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. The light of faith is offered to us to see the order of things that most concern us.

“God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth.” “God has taken mankind up into God Himself.” “Creation exists to open a space for response to God’s great glory.’

Benedict has a genius that takes him to the heart of what we would know. To put our lives and world in order, we need to know what we are, why we exist. Our end transcends even our nature. We are taken up into God Himself.

We can say “no” to this gift in the space where the drama of our existence is worked out. This is the other side of our freedom. Its positive side is that we can also say “yes.”

What is not possible is that God Himself says our “yes” or “no” for us. All that is possible is for God to show us the light and to give us, in the Passion, an example of what our “no” means.

This was written three weeks ago, but because I was all tied up trying to keep abreast of the Mexico-Cuba visit then, I never saw it. However, the writer's arguments are very apropos for dealing with all the resignation speculation that still colored much of the pre-birthday situationers about Benedict XVI, but about which I have not seen any mention today - as though the Cassandras decided they could afford to be charitable to the birthday boy at least for today.... On second thought, those who want to keep the resignation hypothesis alive are not really Cassandras - they're not just 'prophesying doom', as it were, but actually pushing their wishful thinking pro-actively, in the superstitious conviction that if they push the idea hard enough, their wish will come true. When I was a child, my grandparents always warned me about having unrealistic expectations, otherwise I would experience what in Spanish is called 'mi gozo en un pozo' - literally, "my wishes are going down a well" - or having one's hopes dashed. That's the fall they're riding - all this resignation conspirators.

The Pope is seen using a cane
and the retirement talk is on again -
But Popes don't retire. As JPII said,
there’s no place for a Pope emeritus
By William Oddie

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

The Holy Father, it has been reported, walked with a black stick (well, he could hardly have used a white one, that really would have hit the headlines) for about 100 yards to an Alitalia plane from the helicopter which flew him from the Vatican to Leonardo da Vinci airport on his way to Mexico. But he coped with the steps of the aircraft unaided and then flew across the Atlantic on a 13 hour and 30 minutes flight.


The first photographs I saw of the Pope with a walking stick was from August 11, 2011, when he and his brother visited an old church in Magliano de' Marsi, in L'Aquila (this was during their summer in Castel Gandolfo). The photos were from a regional newspaper, Il Centro, and they were posted with the story on page 235 of this thread.

This isn’t the first unavoidable sign that he seems to be getting older (he is 85, after all); a few months ago, he started using a wheeled platform rather than walk down the vast length of St Peter’s Basilica to the altar.

So of course, we now have the beginnings of the chatter, usual at about this stage in a modern pontificate (in Italy at least), of the possibility of his retirement. It will all, of course, come to nothing. Popes don’t retire.

But why not? It’s worthwhile to ask why the notion of Benedict XVI’s retirement is just as unthinkable as that of John Paul II was, even though the more infirm the late Pope became, and the more obvious it was that he just wasn’t going to retire, the more the question was canvassed.

In one way he gave the answer himself: for, the more he suffered, the clearer it became that his very suffering was a powerful offering to God and his Church. I hope I will be forgiven if I quote from something I wrote myself at the time (for memories are short) as we all approached the 25th anniversary of his enthronement in 2003:

---

He is in constant pain; his hands shake with Parkinson’s disease; and still he does not spare himself. The older and more frail he becomes, the more his courage shines out, and the nearer his papal service comes to being a kind of living martyrdom.

The word “indomitable” springs to mind; and for an Englishman of my generation that will tend to be followed by the word “Churchillian”: for surely in the spiritual warfare of our age this is one of the great heroes of the faith, not merely a great warrior himself, but an inspirer in others of the great knightly virtues of honour and courage and constancy and persistence to the end.

In due course, it will be for the Church to declare if this has been the life of one of her saints: but certainly, by any human measure, his qualities have amounted to greatness of the highest order: it is surely very hard to believe that that will not be the verdict of history, too.

---

If he had been an Archbishop of Canterbury (if you can get your head around that particular impossibility), he would, of course, have retired 20 years before, in time for a final career, maybe as an academic, perhaps back at the Jagiellonian University — just as Rowan Williams is to end up at Cambridge.

It does, in a way, explain why no Anglican archbishop can ever have the kind of spiritual authority for Anglicans that a Pope has for Catholics: the fact is that in accepting the crown of thorns that is papal office, the Successor of Peter gives himself absolutely and irreversibly: there is no escape, no possibility of a peaceful retirement; it is — or would be without the strength that only God can give — a truly fearsome prospect.

You simply can’t have retired popes around. For how, during the lifetime of an ex-Pope, would his successor ever gain the kind of authority a Pope needs to have? Look at the way dear old George Carey (of whom, I have to admit, I have become rather fond in his retirement) sounds off whenever he thinks that his successor isn’t coming up to scratch. But such a model is unthinkable in the Catholic Church. As Pope John Paul II once put it, “in the Church there is no place for a pope emeritus”.

In a very interesting piece on his indispensable website, the Vaticanologist Sandro Magister quotes Cardinal Franz Koenig saying in 1996 that “The Pope knows, and he has said, that the election of a new Pope while the old one is still alive would represent a problem. One Pope in retirement, another in the Vatican: the people would wonder which one counts.”

There is, of course, provision for a papal retirement in canon law. And it has happened: The best known example is the resignation of Pope Celestine V in 1294. After only five months of his pontificate, he issued a solemn decree declaring it permissible for a Pope to resign, and then did so himself. He lived two more years as a hermit and was later canonised [My addendum: A process started paradoxically by the very successor, Boniface VIII, whose maneuvering had constrained him to resign. It must be noted,however, that Celestine V's history made his extraordinary resignation easily explainable. In 1294, he was elected Pope without his knowledge when he was at least 80 (or 85 - his date of birth is given as any time between 1209-1216) and had been living for years as a Benedictine hermit. It was a time of active intrigue in the papal court, and a conclave of just 12 cardinals had been unable to elect a Pope for two years. His name was suggested to break the deadlock because of his saintly reputation, and he was unanimously elected. Temperamentally unsuited to deal with the papal politics of the time, he resigned, knowing he could simply go back to being a hermit. Instead he was eventually arrested and imprisoned by his successor, dying in prison about two years after he resigned. He was canonized in 1313 on the basis of his personal holiness and monastic achievement, having founded a reformed arm of the Benedictine order and set up about 160 convents before he became a hermit.]

The papal decree that he issued ended any doubt among canonists about the possibility of a valid papal resignation. And his was not the only retirement. There was the remarkable resignation of Pope Gregory XII (1406–1415), who stood down in order to end the situation in which there were no fewer than three claimants to the papal throne — the real one, Gregory XII himself, the Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII, and the Pisan Antipope John XXIII, who convened the Council of Constance to sort the matter out, a Council which to his chagrin then demanded his resignation and that of all the other popes, real or pretended.

But all that’s a long time ago. It now seems inconceivable that a Pope should just retire. All the same, there has been at least one Pope in modern times who wanted to do it: apparently Pope Paul seriously considered it (and who can blame him, poor man). According to Cardinal Paolo Dezza, his confessor, “He would have resigned, but he told me, ‘It would be a trauma for the Church,’ so he didn’t have the courage to do it”.

The fact is that it is really only conceivable in the case of a total physical or mental collapse, a serious stroke perhaps, which could leave a Pope speechless and paralysed. As the then Cardinal Ratzinger put it, “If the Pope saw that he absolutely couldn’t do it anymore, then of course he would resign.” [At the time, he was excoriated by the media for having said that.]

And in the book-interview Light of the World (2010) he said it again: “If a Pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of carrying out the duties of his office, then he has the right, and in some circumstances the obligation, to resign.”

But who is to say whether or not he is indeed “no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of carrying out the duties of his office”? He himself? You would have thought so, but maybe not: according to canon 332 paragraph 2: “If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.”

But what happens if nobody actually wants to accept it? Would he really just walk away? If he still can walk away, I doubt it somehow.

There is one last possibility: what happens if a Pope is so stricken that he can’t resign? Maybe he’s in a permanent coma. What happens then?

“There are,” according to Sandro Magister, “no public norms (but there could be confidential protocols) that would regulate this case and therefore establish, among other things, what authority would have the faculty of declaring the Pope to be under impediment.” So the answer is, that we just don’t know.

The fact is that the very notion of a Pope becoming unwilling to continue or incapable of continuing in office is so aberrant, in Pope Paul’s word so traumatic, that we just don’t want to think about it.

So let us all pray fervently, as we always do publicly at Mass, for the Holy Father, that he will have the continuing strength and courage to continue to inspire and nurture us, as he so wonderfully has thus far. This has been already a momentous pontificate: long may it continue. And please; no more journalistic babble about retirement.

One of only two articles I've seen so far in the Anglophone online media (outside of the news agencies) that takes appropriate notice that this week is extra-special for the Pope... And thank God it's the reliable Samuel Gregg who always manages to thnk outside the box.

Benedict XVI: God’s Revolutionary
by Samuel Gregg

April 16, 2012

“Revolution” – it’s a word that conjures up images of winter palaces being stormed and the leveling of Bastilles. But if a true revolutionary is someone who regularly turns conventional thinking upside-down, then one of the world’s most prominent status-quo challengers may well be a quietly-spoken Catholic theologian who turns 85 today.

While regularly derided by his critics as “decrepit” and “out-of-touch,” Benedict XVI continues to do what he’s done since his election as Pope seven years ago: which is to shake up not just the Catholic Church but also the world it’s called upon to evangelize.

His means of doing so doesn’t involve “occupying” anything. Instead, it is Benedict’s calm, consistent, and, above all, coherent engagement with the world of ideas that marks him out as very different from most other contemporary world leaders – religious or otherwise.

Benedict has long understood a truth that escapes many contemporary political activists: that the world’s most significant changes don’t normally begin in the arena of politics. Invariably, they start with people who labor – for better or worse – in the realm of ideas.

The scribblings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped make possible the French Revolution, Robespierre, and the Terror. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine Lenin and the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia without the indispensible backdrop of Karl Marx. Outside of academic legal circles, the name of the Oxford don, H.L.A. Hart, is virtually unknown. Yet few individuals more decisively enabled the West’s twentieth-century embrace of the permissive society.

Benedict’s most status quo-disrupting forays occur when he identifies the intellectual paradoxes underlying some of the dysfunctional forces operating in our time.

To those who kill in the name of religion, he points out that they scorn God’s very nature as Logos, the eternal reason which our own natural reason allows us to know.

To those who mock faith in the name of reason, Benedict observes that in doing so, they reduce reason to the merely-measurable, thereby closing the human mind to the fullness of truth accessible through the very same reason they claim to exult.

A similar method is at work in Benedict’s approach to internal Church issues. Take, for instance, Benedict’s recent polite but pointed critique of a group of 300 Austrian priests who issued a call for disobedience concerning the now drearily-familiar shopping-list of subjects that irk dissenting Catholics.

Simply by posing questions, the Pope demonstrated the obvious. Do they, he asked, seek authentic renewal? Or do we “merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the Church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?”

Beyond the specifics of the Austrian case, Benedict was making a point that all Catholics, not simply dissenters, sometimes forget. The Church is not in fact “ours.” Rather, it is Christ’s Church. It is not therefore just another human institution to be changed according to human whim.

That in turn reminds us that Christianity is not actually about me, myself, and I. Rather, it is centered on Christ and our need to grow closer to Him. Certainly the Church always needs reform – but reform in the direction of holiness, not mere accommodation to secularism’s bar-lowering expectations.

So has all this attention by Benedict to the world of ideas come at a cost? Even among his admirers, one occasionally hears the criticism that Benedict focuses too much on writing and not enough on governing.

But perhaps Benedict writes and writes because he knows that for the Pope to write is to participate in the arena of universal public conversation, thereby putting the truths of the Catholic faith precisely where they should be.

For this, he’s widely admired not just by Catholics but also countless Orthodox and Evangelical Christians, and even the occasional “smiling secularist.”

The Pope isn’t, however, doing this because he’s trying to please certain audiences. Like all true revolutionaries, Benedict is remarkably single-minded. Throughout his pontificate, he’s relentlessly endeavored to do what many of the immediate post-Vatican II generation of bishops, priests, religious, and theologians manifestly failed to do – which is to place us before the person of Jesus the Nazarene and the minds and lives of the doctors and saints of His Church, in order to help us recall the Christian’s true vocation in this world.

As the never-named whiskey priest in Graham Greene’s 1940 novel, The Power and the Glory, realizes the night before his execution, the goal of Christian life isn’t ultimately earthly justice, human rights, or this or that cause.

Instead the seedy alcoholic who’s broken all his vows discovers that Christianity is about something else: “He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted – to be a saint.”

Sanctity isn’t a word you hear very much from dissenters. After all, if you spend much of your time trying to read out of Scripture all those things that make Jesus the Christ, or seeking to collapse Christian ethics into consequentialist incoherence, you’re unlikely to be encouraging people to pursue lives of heroic virtue.

Yet even among faithful Catholics, there’s often the sense that sanctity is for other people: that our everyday failures to follow Christ mean that holiness is somehow beyond us.

That, however, is most decidedly not Benedict’s view. For him, sanctity is what it’s all about, no matter how many times we fall on the way. Moreover, it’s only sanctity, Benedict believes, which produces that breath of fearless and indestructible goodness that truly changes the world.

Never did Benedict make this point so directly than when he spoke these words during an all-night prayer-vigil for thousands of young people at World Youth Day in Cologne, 2005:

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The saints are . . . the true reformers. . . . Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come . . . It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?

---

Yes, God is Love. The Logos is Caritas – there is no more revolutionary message than that.


The other article is on Mercator.net, where Mr. Gregg's articles usually appear. But it's the editor himself who has taken the floor:

Benedict XVI still soldiering on:
His analysis of the crisis of Western culture
is outstanding in its depth and clarity.
by Michael Cook

April 16, 2012

Benedict XVI celebrates his 85th birthday today. This makes the sovereign of the Vatican City State the eighth oldest world leader. (Eighty-five sounds very senior indeed but he is a full five years behind the Governor-General of St Kitts and Nevis, Cuthbert Sebastian.)

Although insiders say that Benedict is slowing down, he lives at a pace which would kill younger men: a relentless succession of trips in Italy, trips overseas, daily speeches, a multitude of official visitors and the constant pressure of global attention.

And Joseph Ratzinger is still a one-man ideas factory. Since he was elected in 2005, he has written two books of his own as the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, has collaborated in a book-length interview, has written three encyclicals (more or less book-length theological position papers) and his collected addresses have been compiled into several books.

Google, which is supposed to be the premier company for fostering creativity, ought to engage him as a consultant.

You don’t have to be a Catholic, or even a Christian, to appreciate the subtlety and creativity of Ratzinger’s contribution to modern thought. Although he is not a man with a flair for spin, it seems beyond doubt his brilliant syntheses of thorny issues have given renewed clarity to the countless disputes.

It is surely his influence which accounts for a flurry of new books acknowledging the contribution of Christianity to key elements of Western thought -- from democracy to to science to human rights – written by admitted atheists! “We should call ourselves Christians if we want to maintain our liberties and preserve our civilisation,” writes Marcello Pera, an unbeliever and a former president of the Italian senate, in his most recent publication, Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians. [But Pera, a self-described 'devout atheist'. is not your typical atheist.He has co-authored two books with Cardinal Ratzinger, and Benedict XVI wrote the Preface to this new book!]

There is no denying that Western humanism is tottering. It was born in the cradle of religious belief and is grounded on the twin cornerstones of respect for reason and awe at the dignity of mankind. But – to telescope 200 years of cultural history into a few sentences – it is quavering in a crisis of self-confidence. Religion is shut up in a closet. The ambit of reason is restricted to only those things which can be touched and measured. And human dignity is being suffocated by technology.

Furthermore, the Catholic Church has still not emerged from its own crisis of self-confidence, even though Benedict’s predecessor, Karol Wojtyla, gave it a new dynamism. It is still mired in ghastly sex abuse scandals which have badly tarnished its prestige.

What is remarkable about Benedict is that without shirking the burden of purifying the Church of this “filth”, he has taken upon himself the task of exposing the cultural contradictions of rejecting Christianity.

Books have been and will be written about Benedict’s achievement. But I’m not risking anything by highlighting out the following themes.

If the ideal society is thoroughly secular, why is depression one of the leading causes of disability? Even before he became Pope, Benedict has stressed that Christianity offers a coherent answer to our search for happiness.

Joy as the secret weapon of Christianity is a theme to which he returns again and again. "Faith gives joy. When God is not there, the world becomes desolate, and everything becomes boring, and everything is completely unsatisfactory,” he said in a 1985 interview. “To that extent it can be said that the basic element of Christianity is joy. Joy not in the sense of cheap fun, which can conceal desperation in the background."

If atheism is a sign of progress, why have we trashed the environment? Few people have noticed, but ecology is a recurrent theme in Benedict’s writing. This stems not from a vague pantheism or nostalgic conservatism, but from the Biblical conviction that man is the steward of creation. A desolate environment mirrors interior desolation. As he wrote in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate:

---

The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.

---

If science is so convincing, why is it so difficult to agree on fundamental issues? Militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens have depicted Benedict as a superstitious dolt. This is travesty of the truth. Opening up all of reality to reason instead of keeping it locked in a cellar is a theme to which he seems to return almost every week. He told his countrymen in an address to the German Bundestag:

---

Anything that is not verifiable or falsifiable, according to this understanding, does not belong to the realm of reason strictly understood. Hence ethics and religion must be assigned to the subjective field, and they remain extraneous to the realm of reason in the strict sense of the word.

Where positivist reason dominates the field to the exclusion of all else – and that is broadly the case in our public mindset – then the classical sources of knowledge for ethics and law are excluded. This is a dramatic situation which affects everyone, and on which a public debate is necessary.

---

Questioning moral relativism is fundamental to his program. He keeps reminding his listeners that if reason cannot deal with intangible issues like what is good and what is just, they will be defined by whoever is most powerful.

Do we understand democracy properly if it is used as an excuse to crush human dignity? In Benedict’s mind, democracy is a tool for defending human dignity, not for defining it. If it undermines human life, it loses its authority and becomes a tool for unscrupulous politicians.

“For the fundamental issues of law, in which the dignity of man and of humanity is at stake, the majority principle is not enough: everyone in a position of responsibility must personally seek out the criteria to be followed when framing laws,” he told the Bundestag.

If our society offers young people unprecedented opportunities for freedom, why are so many slaves to drugs, sex and consumerism? Benedict is an unlikely rock star, but he has been received rapturously by millions of young people at World Youth Days in Cologne, Sydney and Madrid. They are responding to his vision of a freedom based on truth and commitment. What Christianity offers is infinitely more attractive than gadgets and eroticism:

---

“A new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished – not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed.

A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty.

A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships.”

---

Benedict’s crystal-clear diagnoses of our cultural ailments are beginning to make more and more sense to people who are looking for answers.

He will die without seeing a seismic shift in the culture. But he has laid the foundations for a critique of our feverish materialism which will be decisive in the decades to come. It’s hard to imagine that his successor will do a better job. What is it they say in the Vatican? Ad multos annos! More power to your elbow!

Earlier, I posted a brief blog entry by Marco Tosatti about Benedict XVI and the words of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Recessional. Here now is his article for La Stampa and Vatican Insider assessing the seven years of Benedict XVI's Pontificate.

Seven years as Pope:
Not a transitional Papacy
by Marco Tosatti
Translated from

April 16, 2012

I am curious in a somewhat malicious way, wondering how many of those who in April 2005 had voted for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to become Pope thought then that seven years later, the Bavarian Pope would still be around - with his brisk walk now affected at times by problems with his right hip and knee, but still with us and evidently wanting to be.

Unfortunately, that's a question one cannot survey and for which it would be difficult to get a sincere answer. In any case, that which for many cardinals - and much of the media - was supposed to be merely a transitional papacy, as they were quick to say at the time, has been showing itself to be something else altogether.

It is a 'founding' Papacy, the work of someone who works silently but persistently - and in depth. [Tosatti does not bother to explain why this is a 'founding Papacy', as he felicitously calls it, but those of us who follow Benedict XVI know that it is so because of his return to the essentials of the faith - since the institution of the Papacy, or anything else about the Church, cannot be effective unless these essentials are made the foundation of what is done by the Church and in the name of the Church.]

How? Few know that a great part of Benedict XVI places much time and commitment into a thankless task that does not and could not attract the interest of the media but one that is fundamental for the life of the Church - and precisely so that years from now, the media will not have base and negative reasons to make much ado about its consequences.

Benedict XVI is convinced that the strength - and the weakness - of the Church lies primarily in the dioceses, the local Churches. In John Paul II's Pontificate, very often the choice of bishops was delegated to the presidents of the episcopal conferences, the nuncios and other elements of the central and local Churches.

Most of the time, the Pope, especially in the final years of his life, was limited to signing his approval for their choices, if we are to believe what has been recounted since (and which we have no reason to doubt). John Paul II delegated - he trusted his collaborators, not always successfully as history has shown us.

Benedict XVI has a different style. He studies every dossier that is submitted for the short list of three final candidates proposed to fill any diocesan vacancy. He studies their records of study, preparation and work before he decides. [And asks questions. The Pope meets once a week with the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops for this reason - to discuss the candidates for bishop and to arrive at final decisions.]

Not infrequently he has asked to be presented with other candidates because he finds not one in the proposed list satisfactory. This is tedious work, far from attention-getting, but one for which the Church in subsequent decades must be grateful. [A bishop's appointment is lifelong, and even if they must usually retire at age 75, most bishops have at least 15-20 years of service ahead of them.]

That just happens to be the way Benedict XVI works. As it was when he was a cardinal. A 'lonely' way, certainly. But he has never been known to be a socializing person. Other than occasional visits to older German prelates and priests living in Rome, he was never known to frequent the homes of colleagues and friends, nor invite them to his.

One notes the same solitude by preference now that he is Pope. The progressive weakening of the figure of his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, underscores this trait.

In the autumn of his life, Pius XII had Cardinals Tardini and Ottaviani, two guardian 'mastiffs' of the first order, who had his back, to help him hold up. Paul VI had Cardinal Benelli who kept the Curia and the Secretariat of State in place with an iron hand. [And John Paul II had his faithful Mons. Dsiwisz, who was more than just his private secretary, and from all accounts, Cardinals Sodano and Sandri, as well as the Polish cardinals in the Curia, to look after the routine of governance. But in addition, he had Cardinal Ratzinger not just as an adviser on important Church affairs, but as the lightning rod used by the media to deflect from the Pope all serious criticisms of the Pontificate. And that is why he was the most prominent cardinal at the time..]

But today, outside observers would be hard put to say who exactly are 'the Pope's men' other than Bertone - who unfortunately seems incapable even of reacting effectively to the many traitors within his own department who have damaged him in recent months. (And, by the way, we still have not heard any results of the supposed internal investigations into determining the leaks in the system, nor do we even know which prelates are in charge of the investigation, so it is even doubted that there is one.) [One must add to Tosatti's parenthetical that we have not heard either any results of Vatican police investigation into these leaks, yet it will soon be three months since the first 'Vatileaked' report. I find that outrageously inexplicable - this is not the Orlandi case they are supposed to solve, just an evident abuse of privileged access to information.]

In these seven years, Benedict XVI has worked steadily to carry his work forward - seeking to honor a legacy, often weighty and ambiguous, which was left to him by his prophetic predecessor, while defending himself and the Church from a number of attacks whose malevolence against the Vatican has not been seen since the Cold War, and he has tried to do this with inadequate tools and collaborators. [The inadequate tools are, presumably, the flawed Vatican media mechanisms, not the Pope's own simple, direct and transparent responses, in word and deed, to the unfair and unjustified attacks.]

Above all, to get back to the start of this reflection, he has done so with a capacity for resistance, even physical, that cannot but amaze the observer. Which brings some to think that perhaps it is because he is never alone, and in fact, works with the best of all Friends. Ad multos annos.

[A demurral to Tosatti's implication about 'the Pope's men': I would argue that all the Curial heads and secretaries he has appointed are Benedict XVI's men - not that they form part of any privileged 'inner circle', because this Pope does not seem to have a kitchen cabinet other than his literal household members, who cannot possibly create any palace intrigue. The Italian media have suggested with some plausibility that his only close associate is really Mons. Georg Gaenswein who necessarily is in on all the details of what the Pope does.

But the fact that Benedict XVI now has his own appointees heading the various organisms of the Curia means that he is confident each of them are capable and responsible for doing the specific tasks devolving upon each of them, and that none of them is likely to act autonomously or deliberately in ways that would harm the Pontificate. much less betray the Pope by an act of commission or omission.

So he may not have a Cardinal Ratzinger to fall back on as Papa Wojtyla did, but he does have 44 men (Curial heads and secretaries) to count on with some degree of confidence. It is distressing that his #1 Curial aide, Cardinal Bertone, has proven to be such a disappointment, but he should not be used as a standard to measure his senior colleagues in the Curia.]


Tosatti's fellow Vaticanista on La Stampa, Giacomo Galeazzi, assesses this Pontificate from a very significant, less obvious viewpoint. He also goes on to discuss the challenges of Vatican-II today for a Pope who took part in it as a young consultant:

A Pontificate of purification
by Giacomo Galeazzi
Translated from

April 16, 2012

Benedict XVI was elected Supreme Pontiff on April 19, 2005, and it is time to make a first evaluation of the man who succeeded John Paul II.

"The worst persecution of the Church is the sin that afflicts it from within". Enroute to Portugal in May 2010, that single statement by Benedict XVI was enough to sweep away all conspiratorial and self-absolving theories about ecclesiastical scandals and scourges.

It is a statement that could well be the manifesto of this Pontificate of purification. Three dates frame the boundaries for an evaluation of this Pontificate: his 85th birthday today, the seventh anniversary of his election to be the Successor of Peter on Thursday, April 19; and that of the solemn inauguration of his Petrine ministry, on Tuesday, April 24.

No one has done as much as Joseph Ratzinger against the sexual offenses committed by the clergy and the financial dealings of the Roman Curia.

He handed down a canonical punishment for Fr. Marcial Maciel reducing him to silence in 2005, and placed his flagship institution, the Legionaries of Christ, under pontifical receivership.

He has set up a Financial Information Authority to watch over 'sacred business' and he has retired many bishops around the world who had helped cover up thesexual absues committed by their priests.

This was a theologian who, once he was Pope, took on with determination the role of reformer. But in whose daily governance of the Church has never lost sight of his fundamental objective: to bring back Christ/God to the center of the life of the Church and of secularized man.

Having strengthened the Church with his battle against priestly pederasty and financial reforms whose first results we are starting to see, Jospeh Ratzinger is now focused on a new venture: a refelction on the Second Vatican Council 50 years after it opened to animate a Year of Faith and open a new season for Christianity and the Catholic Church.

The Ratzingerian line is increasingly that of transparency, ready if need be, to undertake an internal investigation, as it did to look at the charges made against the Vatican Governatorate by the present Apostolic Nuncio to Washington.

As a cardinal in the Roman Curia, Joseph Ratzinger was never concerned either with intramural intrigue nor with building a power base, and was not concerned about influencing opinion in the Church or outside it.

Once Pope, he was obliged to deal with the countermoves by people who never shared his attitudes, but this has not made him swerve his fundamental aim to live Christianity himself and to communicate this commitment to others. Starting with the younger generations.

In his relationship with young people, he has certainly benefited from his early intense experiences with the young people he guided in his first year as a priest assigned to be a chaplain in various suburban parishes of Munich, and from 1952 to 1977, as a professor of theology at the Freising seminary and four German universities.

Those who were his students at the time recall that he would often eat out with them, and in Tuebingen, some of them bought him a second-hand bike so that he could more easily go to and from the university.

In his first homily as Pope seven years ago [Address to the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on April 20, 2005], he said: "I will continue our dialogue, dear young people, the future and hope of the Church and of humanity, listening to your expectations in the desire to help you encounter in ever greater depth the living Christ, eternally young".

Of course, he has not lacked for obstacles. The theological thinking and pastoral ministry of Benedict XVI "have been continually exposed to serious misunderstandings.. to criticisms and prejudices" against which It is 'an urgent task' to present the 'true face' of his Magisterium, says Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in the Preface to his book 'Il mistero del granello di senape' which was to be presented today at Rome's Centro Internazionale.

Cardinal Koch points particularly to 'the profound criticism, often reiterated" that "the Pope has moved backwards and really wants to return the Church to what it was before Vatican II".

On Joseph Ratzinger's experience at Vatican-II, his brother, Mons. Georg Ratzinger sheds more light in his book My brother, the Pope, written with Michael Hesemann.

In his account of meetings held by the German-speaking bishops during the council at the Roman seminary of Santa Maria dell'Anima, one better understands the role Ratzinger played as an expert consultant to the Germanophone bishops. One relives the atmosphere of that extraordinary season for the Church, as well as the clear contrast between the forward-looking Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Frings, and Cardinal Ottaviani, who as the prefect then of what was still called the Holy Office, did all he could to block any reforms.

Joseph Ratzinger, as a theologian in his early 30s, was in effect the ghost writer for Cardinal Frings, who played a leading role among the reformers in Vatican II. Most notably, he wrote for the Cardinal a lecture about the Council delivered by Cardinal Frings in Genoa months before it opened, an address which was widely considered as a virtual theological program for the coming Council. [In fact, as affirmed in another article I must translate for these anniversary days, John XXIII himself was so impressed by how Frings's lecture captured the objectives he had in mind for Vatican II that he congratulated Frings for it, and the latter disclosed to him that it had been prepared by his young theological consultant.]

Now, half a century later, it is that former consultant who must now preside over the interpretation and deal with the results and the challenges of that Council.


VATICAN INSIDER also found it useful today to resurrect some words of praise for Benedict XVI from Joaquin Navarro-Valls...

What Navarro-Valls wrote about
Benedict XVI in his memoir
by Michelangelo Nasca
Translated from

April 16, 2012

"The English writer G. K. Chesterton said that the miracle of language was that it allowed a man not just to express his own ideas, but also to leave a trace of himself, of his own irrepetible individuality. Obviously, this does not have to do only with writing but with the 'style' of a person, which is revealed by his gestures, his behavior, his life".

This is what Joaquin Navarro-Valls - who was the Vatican spokesman for more than 20 years under John Paul II and for another year under Benedict XVI - wrote in his book 'A passo d'uomo" published in 2009.

Twenty-two years of service (1984-2006) is quite a lot. Then, he decided to step aside. "I am very grateful to the Holy Father (Benedict XVI) who accepted my request. that I have manifested many times, to leave the position of Director of the Vatican Press Office, after so many long years. I am aware that during these years, I received much more than I could give and more than I can even now fully appreciate".

Although Joaquín Navarro-Valls spent less than a year (April 2005-July 2006) serving under Benedict XVI, he immediately appreciated the outstanding human caliber and excellent communicational gifts of the ex-Prefect of the the Doctrine of the Faith.

In his book, Navarro-Valls writes: "For Ratzinger, ideas do not give a face to persons, but rather, persons reveal themselves through their ideas... His actions are elegant and effective because that is the way he thinks."

Without a doubt, he continues, "Ratzinger has that strange and admirable strength of someone who loves to be amazed more than he wants to amaze. And so his attitude is one of a peaceful kindness and, one might say, graciousness. His outlook comes from the detachment and elevation of someone who seeks to look deep into the human heart".

Benedict XVI is also a man of dialog, he adds. "One who can dialog is fearless. He is not affected by the clamor or the silence of the crowd or of contrary opinions. But one who dialogs must know how to dialog, he must know the mechanisms that move opinions and must believe that it is worth pursuing dialog. And that is what Ratzinger resolutely believes".

As Navarro-Vall's own account shows, dialog becomes most effective if it is supported by an information service that is adequate and able to keep up with the rhythms of the Pope, and it is in this sense that the role and support of the Vatican press office is fundamental.

Think of the great events that mark the history of any Pontificate and the mastodon-like work that the Vatican Press Office must face in terms of getting out news bulletins, official statements, diplomatic reports, and dealing with media outlets - and it is evident that even the smallest error or delay in communications can compromise its task.

In all this, one must also consider the friendship and esteem that comes to be established between the Pope and his press director.

"The memories I keep of Joseph Ratzinger," says Navarro-Valls, "end on the day he entered the Sistine Chapel at the start of the Conclave. Our eyes crossed at one point, and that was the last time I saw Joseph Ratzinger. The person I saw just two days later was no longer Cardinal Ratzinger, but a Pope, in his sacred robes. who appeared for the first time was Benedict XVI on the central loggia of St. Peter's."

"At that moment, I understood subconsciously that everything had changed for him. That all his previous life was over - even without disappearing - for always. And I can now understand one of his subsequent statements, 'I, but no longer I'. With his habitually delicate and brilliant discretion, his personal life from that day on receded, to give way to the sacred identity and institutional responsibility of the Papacy. For Benedict XVI, the mystery commenced that every Pope carries in him - or that every Pope is".

I have always admired Navarro-Valls and George Weigel for their ability from Day One not to show the slightest prejudice in public against Benedict XVI by virtue of their intimate association with his predecessor. Their assessment and admiration of Benedict XVI's personal attributes and of the work he is doing has been generally unstinted and kept distinct from their understandable prior loyalties to John Paul II.

That also means that they have never been tempted, at least not in their public statements, to indulge in the usual cheap game of comparing the two Popes as if they were competing poodles in a pet show, as most of their colleagues happily do at the slightest pretext. Of course, Weigel has been critical of some aspects of Caritas in veritate, and of the Pope's failure to meet with dissidents in Cuba. but that's honest and legitimate dissent (though eminently arguable!) on peripheral issues, which is not fundamental dissent nor a personal attack.


Let me add a fourth brief tribute to the Pope, one of the best and most unequivocal that I have read, from another Italian commentator, Angelo Scelzo, who was once undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications under John Paul II...

Seven years of the prophet-Pope
by Angelo Scelzo
Translated from

April 16, 2012

We open a week of major anniversaries for Papa Ratzinger. Today, he turns 85 and becomes the oldest serving Pope in the past 100 years. Three days later, on Thursday the 19th, the seventh anniversary of his election to the Chair of Peter.

The Easter rites are barely behind him, but this sequence of events that inevitably have the figure of Benedict XVI in the center seem almost like a prolongation of the high point in the Church's liturgical year.

The atmosphere of Holy Week particularly made evident an aspect of this Pontificate that has emerged with more and more clarity.

Papa Ratzinger has brought on an unexpected era for the Church - something unprecedented and not easily labelled, which is expressed and manifested through a Pontificate that has been unlike any other in living memory, which nonetheless has not swerved from a natural continuity with what has gone before, especially not with the Pontificate of his predecessor, Blessed John Paul II.

There has been no contradiction, but the fact is that Benedict XVI's Magisterium has offered unusual viewpoints deriving not from contemporary events but from the Gospel, which are almost explosive whenever he deals with the narrative of Jesus's Paschal mystery, from the drama of his passion and death to the exultation of his Resurrection.

In such a scenario of presenting the strongest themes possible that do not admit of half measures, Pope Benedict has embodied - especially in these days of his double jubilee as a person and as Pope - the essence of the Petrine ministry itself, which can be read in the words he said at the recent Mass of the Lord's Supper in the Lateran Basilica: "We do not announce our private theories and opinions but the faith of the Church of which we are the servants".

A statement that recalls the image he used when he first addressed the world as Pope - 'a simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord' - but which also underscores his total anchorage to a mission that he lives in a very Augustinian sense: "What else is so much mine than I myself, and what else is less mine than I myself?"

Seven years of a Pontificate understood in that sense give a new and more profound sense of that selfless and humble dimension, because it is evident that it is the 'true form of government' of Benedict XVI's Church.

The radicalness itself of Eastertide has projected the words of the Pope to such a vast terrain that renders not just an overview of his Pontificate possible, but the most evident datum of these seven years: how he looks to the future, looking ahead to draw hope, even when one sees "the filthy flood of all the lies and all the disgrace" advancing against the Church.

Even when the Church must do something about "the often tragic situation which the Church finds itself today", which is beset by betrayals even within herself - struck at the heart by her own ministers who have betrayed innocent children, and undermined by the disobedience of those who claim to be blazing new but improbable paths of reform.

The Easter liturgies are not merely evocative in these days of double jubilation for the Pope. Their powerful and mystic sacredness have helped to disclose more of the personality of this Pope who, in the difficult bench test posed by the Paschal Triduum of the passion, death and Resurrection of Christ, urges this search for truth that is much more than just his passion as a theologian, but the main road along which to lead the Church in its encounter with the world.

The Triduum days and Easter were a time in which we might say that Benedict XVI recapitulated his entire Pontificate - not as a compilation of acts, however great and of major importance, but in images of unexpected scenarios - and of amazement that gradually gives way to acceptance; of the gentleness and kindness with which he sets aside false and exhausted stereotypes; of the warm affection of the faithful; of moral rigor and firmness that is always tempered by mercy.

And above all, by his way of speaking about God to a world which needs to know him, but that even with the urging of a Pastor who does not hesitate to invoke his name, is nonetheless uneasy about seeking Him.

And in these jubilee days, how can we not think of Vatican-II as among the strong points of this Pontificate? These days, it is more on our minds not just because it will be 50 years since it opened, but also because with the Year of Faith that Benedict XVI has decreed to mark that anniversary, it will shine forth once again as a springtime for the Church.

And the travels of a Pope who despite his age has just completed his 23rd apostolic visit abroad, and who will be going to Lebanon later this year.

Much has been written and talked about the 'surprises' from Benedict XVI. After seven years, it is time to elevate the discourse. It is time to speak about a prophet for our time, who has become that authentic sign of contradiction that the Gospels speak about.

In truly unexpected ways, through a path that has been often difficult and rough, he has managed to shake the Church into new life with his gentleness and to challenge the world with the truth which makes us humble and free.

This is perhaps the most heartwarming picture to come out these days. It's the cover of the April 2012 issue of German-language VATICAN-Magazin, and the montage is explained in the editorial below.

There are quite a few German articles that I need to translate - including a long interview yesterday, April 16, with Peter Seewald by KATHNET; a shorter interview with Georg Gaenswein; an article written by Gaenswein for BILD; a fresh 'appreciation' by Paul Badde of Die Welt; a longer article about the Pope in this issue of VATICAN-Magazin; an excellent one from Die Tagespost, etc. In addition, there are still quite a few in Italian that need to be translated... I particularly like the subtitle of this editorial as it appears on the cover - 'Der Karsamstags-Bub' (The Holy Saturday child).

With the heart of a child
Editorial
by Guido Horst
Translated from

April 2012

How did he say it then? "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 that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. In him everyone will find complete freedom, the light to understand reality most deeply and to transform it by the renewing power of love."

That was in Havana, in the Plaza de la Revolucion, in which far different voices and speeches of a completely different nature have often resounded. But Benedict XVI had the duty to speak this way, even in Cuba.

Fidel Castro himself seemed to have problem with it. Or he would not have gone on to pay a visit on the Pope before the latter left Havana for Rome. [And asking the Pope to recommend books for his spiritual reading!]

Whether in Mexico or Cuba, in Germany or in Africa, in his General Audiences or in his conversations with Roman priests and seminarians - Pope Benedict is not there to moderate a dialog nor to further elaborate on the many issues facing the Church. He is very good at listening, this German Pope.

But there is always that instant, when he professes his witness. "I wish to openly announce to you the Lord Jesus". And we will do that to his last breath.

"I am old, but I can still carry out my duties", he told Fidel Castro in Havana as TV cameras recorded their meeting. Which has caused a general retreat in the Italian media from all the discussion of his impending resignation that had developed as a background for the Vatileaks episode.

"Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures", says Psalm 90. But with the progress of modern medicine, a man can look forward to living a good stretch beyond that.

But we also note that strenuous trips abroad demand much from Pope Benedict. For instance, even more than 24 hours after he took the 14-hour flight from Rome to Mexico, when he met the children of Guajanato in the late afternoon, it was still 2:30 in the morning by his body clock. That's quite a strain for a man his age.

But then he became radiant and seemed to bloom upon seeing all the many children, young people and the whole crowd, saying what was perhaps the most beautiful words of his just-begun trip: "Today we are full of jubilation, and this is important. God wants us to be happy always. He knows us and he loves us. If we allow the love of Christ to change our heart, then we can change the world. This is the secret of true happiness".

To change the world. That, Benedict XVI thinks, is the mission of the Church. Not through grand projects and humanitarian campaigns. But in that every one should purify his heart, having found in Christ the Way, the Truth and the Life. "I want to publicly announce the Lord Jesus to you".

What could have been in Joseph Ratzinger's heart as he accepted that he had been chosen by the cardinals?

No quiet retirement now with his beloved books at his own desk at home. No relaxing hours with his brother Georg. No peace after the strenuous years in the Roman Curia. All such plans and wishes gone in one fell swoop.

Rather, once more he was being led where he did not really wish or expect to be. Even through the dark valleys to come. Such as the assault of the international media after the 'Williamson case' and one year later, with the resurgence of outrage over sexual abuse by priests. These were dark days for the Pope.

But did he not first see the Light of the world beyond Holy Saturday when he was born? In the darkest times, he must have invoked God to grant him the purity of a child's heart.

And that is why our cover picture shows a collage of the five-year-old Joseph, and behind him, the Easter fire on Holy Saturday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

In his hand he holds the world, that which he believes is worth changing. It is a little birthday greeting from us to him in the Apostolic Palace. And also a reminder that Easter always follows the darkest of nights.

When he was hailed and cheered by the children in Mexico, Pope Benedict became one of them. 85 years is still 85 years, but that does not keep him from remaining ever young at heart.

An Italian online news-clipping service has posted four articles from Avvenire's April 15th special on the Pope's birthday and papal anniversary. This is one of them, written by someone who has firsthand recollection of the episode he recounts and containing his summary of four main arguments for the Church to confront the reality of the postwar secular and ideologized world in a 1961 paper prepared by the then 24-year-old Prof. Joseph Ratzinger...


Joseph Ratzinger and his prophetic words
about Vatican-II back in 1961
by Mons. Loris Capovilla
Private Secretary to John XXIII
Translated from

April 15, 2012


Left, Mons. Capovilla, now 96, in a photo from 2005; and right, with John XXIII.

Months before the second Vatican Council was scheduled to open, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, invited Cardinal Josef Frings, Archbishop of Cologne, to give a lecture on "Vatican II in the face of modern thought".

Thus the elderly Bishop of Cologne came to Genoa and gave the lecture on November 20, 1961. But with all his work load as bishop, he had asked the help of Prof. Joseph Ratzinger, a young theologian in whom he had confidence, who practically wrote the entire text which was later published under the cardinal's name.

A text which came to the attention of Pope John XXIII who read it, and in a subsequent audience with Cardinal Frings, embraced him and said about the lecture,"These were exactly my intentions in convoking the Council". Cardinal Frings then had to tell him who was the real author of that lecture.

In brief, the text reviewed the profound changes that had taken place in the Church and the world since the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), which showed the need for a new Council that would be shaped by four factors:

1. The experience of unity among men, as influenced by the shrinking of distances by travel, and a standard of living that was now widespread around the world, giving mankind a new physiognomy, that bore the stamp of the technological progress achieved by the Europeans and Americans.

This facilitates the universal 'catholic' mission of the Church, but imposed on her the duty to speak to this new technological civilization with its language in order to be understood.

The negative experience of the two world wars introduced to the non-Christian countries a distrust of Western - and therefore, Christian - civilization. But this would also be anopportunity for the Church to show greater respect for the indigenous spiritual culture of missionary countries, and to manifest its universality.

Not being tied to any particular country or people, the Church could carry out her message of peace more effectively, in that she sees all men as one big family, while still being aware of the particular needs of each people.

This could give rise to interesting applications, as in the liturgy to be better understood by everyone, as well as in episcopal authority, which universalizes the specifics of each diocese into the reality of the universal Church under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome.

2. A second element is the power of technology, which had profoundly changed man's relationship to Nature, the work of God, had had given the world a secular character that was being manifested as a new paganism. It would be the task of the Church to remind the world anew of man's fundamental rights and to explain this in new and understandable way.

3. A third related element is the new faith in science, in which it is sought to explain everything scientifically, even the most intimate of human relations (e.g., the Kinsey Report), and brings a 'modern' attitude towards the very concept of sin (psychoanalysis to explain it away).

Despite all this, man remains the great abyss that no scientific probe can truly plumb, with all his pain and his love and his infinite longing for God. Man continues to feel alone, and needs more than ever those who can teach him anew to understand the reasons for his loneliness.

In this formidable task, the Church must lead men to that rediscovery by updating many of its practices to be more moderate in substance and in form.

4. The last characteristic of the modern world are the ideologies - systems of thought, such as liberalism and Marxism, which seem to have taken the place of faith and religion among the peoples of the West because they offer an explanation of the world that does not
demand any adherence to transcendent realities.

Yet, with all their errors, the apparent triumph of ideologies has also led men to aspire to something concrete and valid. It is the task of the Church to uncover the eternal values stifled by all these ideologies and to place them in the right context so that men can once more acknowledge these values and, at the same time, regain trust in the Church.

And because Marxism is an ideology of hope and of social justice on earth,ch must be able to present in new ways the salvation that Christ represents and offers mankind, not just for eternal life, but even on the order of earthly concerns.

On the other hand, liberalism zealously respects and defends freedom, and has sensitized man today to an awareness of freedom, including individual freedom. The Church must therefore find ways to convince men day to adhere to the Christian faith, which does not mean losing his autonomy, and that in the Church, his search for truth can be guided and potentiated.