BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

It's still June 6 in New York, so this almanac entry for the day is still good. I'm trying to keep up laboriously to overcome the drivespace-eating virus post by post until I can take the PC to the repair shop...



Wednesday, June 6, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Woodcut shows Norbert receiving the Rule from St Augustine; statue is in the Founders' Gallery at St. Peter's Basilica.
ST. NORBERT (Germany, ca 1080-1134)
Benedictine, Missionary, Founder of the Norbertine Order, Bishop, Patron of Bohemia
Born near Cologne, he rose to be almoner in the court of Emperor Henry V during which he lived an indulgent life. A near-death experience led him
to penance, and at age 30, he joined the Benedictines. Intent on reforming the clergy and fighting heresies, he obtained papal permission to be an
itinerant preacher, at which time, miracles were already attributed to him. At the Council of Reims in 1119, Pope Callixtus II asked him to start
an order, which he did in Piemontre, France, (thus called the Premonstratarians, now more commonly, Norbertines) adapting the Augustinian rules.
The order spread rapidly throughout Europe. He was named Bishop of Magdeburg, where he went to work with a will at reforming the clergy. In this,
he worked with Saints Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of Grenoble. He died shortly after he was elevated to archbishop. He was buried in a Magdeburg
abbey but when the city became a center of Lutheranism during the Reformation, his remains were transferred to a church outside Prague where he is
venerated as a patron of Bohemia.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/060612.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

General Audience - The Holy Father gave an account of his three-day pastoral visit to Milan where
he also presided over the concluding events of the VII World Meeting of Families.

The Vatican released the text of Benedict VXI's letter dated May 23, 2012, congratulating Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the Diamond Jubilee of her coronation.


TWO YEARS AGO TODAY....

Benedict XVI ended a three-day apostolic visit to Cyprus, which produced one of the most unusual events during the Pope's travels. The papal processional towards the Church where he was to celebrate Mass took place, overlooked by armed UN forces, on a street at the edge of the UN-designated buffer zone between the Turkish and Greek sectors of Nicosia, the capital. That, in itself, was unusual, even if the convent where he stayed during the visit was just around the corner from the Church. But something even more unusual happened at the start of that walk...

An 89-year-old imam, leader of a Sufi (mystic Muslims) sect, who lives on the Turkish side, waited a few hours to see the Pope as he walked out of the convent, so he could greet him and present him with a gift (a decorative plaque with an Arabic inscription). Their fraternal embrace was touching.


- Today is also the 68th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy that spelled the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe... Very notably, John Paul II sent German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to represent him at the 60th anniversary of D-Day in 2004.

GENERAL AUDIENCE
June 6, 2012



The Pope recalls the 'inspiring witness'
of World Meeting of Families in Milan
By David Kerr


Vatican City, Jun 6, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News) - Pope Benedict XVI says he saw an “inspiring witness” during his three-day apostolic visit to the June 1-3 World Meeting of Families in Milan.

“This joyful international gathering was an inspiring witness to the rich and varied identity of the family as a communion of love based on marriage, a sanctuary of life, a domestic church and the primary cell of society,” he told pilgrims at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 6.

The international gathering in Milan brought together families from over 150 countries to the northern Italian city to pray, celebrate and study marriage and family life. The theme for this year’s event was “The Family: Work and Celebration.”

“It is in the family that we discover our God-given vocation to love, to enter into relationship with others and to live together in harmony,” Pope Benedict reminded those at today’s audience.

It is customary for the Pope to use his first general audience following an apostolic journey to reflect on his visit.

He recalled how on his first evening in Milan’s historic cathedral square he challenged the people of the city “to live the faith as part of their individual and community experience,” and in doing so, “create a stable and authentic ‘well-being’ on the basis of the family, which must be rediscovered as mankind's most important heritage.”

Later that evening the Pope attended a concert in his honor at the famous La Scala Opera House, where “the notes of Beethoven’s Ninth ymphony expressed that aspiration to universality and fraternity which the Church tirelessly seeks by announcing the Gospel.”

The choral symphony, which concludes with the famous “Ode to Joy,” was performed by the theater’s orchestra and chorus under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.

At the end of the concert, the Pope said he told theatergoers that the family is where “we first experience how human beings are not created to live closed in themselves, but in relation with others.”

The following day Pope Benedict met with priests, religious and seminarians at Milan’s cathedral and reaffirmed “the importance of celibacy and consecrated virginity, which was to dear to the great St. Ambrose,” the 4th-century bishop of the city.

“These are a luminous sign of love for God and for our brothers and sisters, founded on an increasingly intimate relationship with Christ in prayer and expressed in the total gift of self,” he said.

Afterwards, at Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, the Pope challenged thousands of young people “to say their free and responsible ‘yes’ to the Gospel of Jesus.”

The youthful group consisted of those from the archdiocese who had just received the sacrament of Confirmation as well as those about to receive it.

Pope Benedict urged them to “welcome the gifts of the Holy Spirit which mold them as Christians and enable them to live the gospel and to be active members of the community.”

At a subsequent meeting with representatives of civil society, the Pope explained that he called on lawmakers to ensure that “the legislation and activities of state institutions” are always at the service of individuals.

This begins, he said, with the right to life, but should also include upholding the “specific identity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman.”

Later on Saturday evening Pope Benedict led a Feast of Testimonials at Bresso-Parco Nord, where he responded to various questions put to him by families.

“I wanted to provide a sign of the open dialogue that exists between families and the Church, between the world and the Church,” he said as he reviewed the event.

The Pope said he was “greatly struck by the moving testimonies of couples and children from different continents on the important issues of our day.”

The following morning he returned to Bresso to preside over Sunday Mass with 1 million pilgrims, thus transforming the area “into a kind of open-air cathedral” for the day.

At the Mass, he called on those present “to build ecclesial communities increasingly similar to families” and so capable of “reflecting the beauty of the Blessed Trinity,” since “love is the only power that can transform the world.”

Before imparting his apostolic blessing upon the crowds in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict prayed that “the experience of Milan (will) bring abundant fruits to the Church and favor increased attention to the cause of the family, which is the cause of man and of civilization.”

Here is a translation of the Pope's full catechesis:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

"Family, work and celebration" was the theme of the VII World Meeting of Families that took place recently in Milan.

I still carry in my mind's eye and in my heart the images and the emotions of that unforgettable and wonderful event which transformed Milan into a city of families: nuclear families who came from around the world, united in the joy of believing in Jesus Christ.

I am profoundly grateful to God who allowed me to experience this event 'with families and for the family'. In those who listened to me these days, I found a sincere readiness to accept and bear witness to the 'Gospel of the family".

Yes, because mankind has no future without the family: especially young people, who, in order to learn the values which give sense to existence, need to be born and to grow up in that communion of life and love that God himself intended for man and woman.

The meeting with families coming from the various continents offered me the happy occasion to visit the Archdiocese of Milan for the first time as the Successor of Peter. I was welcomed with great warmth - for which I am deeply grateful - by Cardinal Angelo Scola, the priests and the faithful, as well as by the Mayor and other authorities. Thus I was able to experience at first hand the faith of the Ambrosian population, who are rich in history and culture, in humanity and active charity.

The first event of this intense three-day pastoral visit took place at the Piazza del Duomo, symbol and heart of the city. I cannot forget the warm embrace of the Milanese crowds and the participants of the VII World Meeting of Families who accompanied me along the route during my entire visit, with streets full of people.

It was an expanse of families in celebration, who with sentiments of profound participation, also joined together in the affectionate and fraternally supportive attention that I asked them to direct to those who need help and comfort, or who are afflicted by various concerns, especially those families who have been most hard-hit by the economic crisis and the beloved populations who were the victims of the recent earthquakes.

In this first meeting with the citizens of Milan, I wished first of all to speak to the heart of the Ambrosian faithful, calling on them to live the faith in their own personal and communitarian experience, private as well as public, in order to favor authentic 'well being', starting with the family, which must be rediscovered as mankind's principal patrimony.

From the top of the Cathedral, the statue of the Madonna with her arms wide open seemed to welcome with maternal tenderness all the families of Milan and the entire world!

Milan then accorded me a singularly noble greeting in one of the city's most suggestive and significant places, the Teatro alla Scala, where important pages in the history of the city have been written under the impulse of great spiritual and ideal values.

In this temple of music, the notes of the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven gave voice to that plea for universality and brotherhood that the Church proposes tirelessly in announcing the Gospel.

I referred to that very contrast between this ideal and the tragedies of history, and the need for a God near to us who shares our sufferings, at the end of the concert, dedicating it to our so many brothers and sisters who recently tested by earthquakes.

I underscored that in Jesus of Nazareth, God made himself near and carries our suffering with us. At the end of this intense artistic and spiritual moment, I wished to cite the family of the third millennium, recalling that it is in the family where man experiences for the first time that the human being was not created to live closed in on himself, but to be in relationship with others; and that it is in the family where the light of peace is first kindled in the heart so that it may illuminate our world.

The following day, in a Cathedral packed with priests, religious and seminarians, in the presence of many cardinals and bishops who had come to Milan from many countries of the world, I celebrated Terce[the 9 a.m. prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours] according to the Ambrosian rite.

There, I reaffirmed the value of celibacy and consecrated virginity, so dear to the great St. Ambrose. Celibacy and virginity in the Church are a luminous sign of love for God and our brothers, which starts off from an increasingly intimate relationship with Christ in prayer and is expressed in a total giving of self.

The appointment at the Meazza stadium in San Siro was a moment of great enthusiasm, where I experienced the embrace of a joyous multitude of boys and girls who this year received or are about to received the sacrament of Confirmation.

The careful preparation of this event, with significant texts and prayers as well as choreographies, made the encounter even more stimulating. To the young Ambrosians, I addressed an appeal to say a free and conscious Yes to the Gospel of Jesus, accepting the gifts of the Holy Spirit which allows them to be formed as Christians, to live the Gospel, and to be active members of the community. I encouraged them to be committed, especially in their studies and in generous service to their neighbor.

The meeting with representatives of institutional authorities, entrepreneurs and workers, and the world of culture and education in Milanese and and Lombard society, allowed me to point out how important it is that legislation and the work of state institutions should be in the service and protection of the person in his multiple aspects, starting with the right to life, whose deliberate suppression can never be allowed, and by recognizing the special identity of the family that is founded on marriage between a man and a woman.

After this last event which was dedicated to diocesan and city institutions, I went to the vast area of Milan's Parco Nord in the territory of Bresso, where I took part in the engrossing Feast of Testimonials entitled "One world, family, love".

Here I had the joy of meeting with thousands of persons, a rainbow of families from Italy and around the world, who had been gathered since the early afternoon in an atmosphere of celebration and authentically familial warmth.

Responding to the questions of some families - questions arising from their life and experiences - I wished to underscore the open dialog that exists between families and the Church, between the world and the Church.

I was much struck by the touching testimonials of couples and children from different continents on the burning issues of our time: the economic crisis, the difficulty of reconciling work demands with time for the family; the spreading practice of separation and divorce - existential questions that have to do with adults, young people and children.

I wish to recall what I reaffirmed in defense of making time for the family, which is threatened by a kind of 'dominance' by work demands: Sunday is the day of the Lord and of men, as well, a day on which everyone should be able to be free - for the family and for God. In defending Sunday as the Lord's Day, we defend man's freedom.

The Holy Mass on Sunday, June 3, which concluded the VII World Meeting of Families, had the participation of an immense praying assembly, completely filling the area of the former airport of Bresso, which had become almost like a great open-air cathedral, with the reproduction of the stupendous polychrome stained-glass window of the Cathedral of Milan which dominated the altar stage.

Before the myriads of faithful, coming from various nations, who were profound participants in a very carefully prepared liturgy, I launched an appeal to build ecclesial communities which could be increasingly more like family, able to reflect the beauty of the Most Holy Trinity and to evangelize not just with the word, but radiating the power of lived love, because love is the only power that can transform the world.

Moreover, I underscored the importance of the triad 'family, work, celebration'. These are three gifts of God, three dimensions of our existence which should find a harmonious equilibrium in order to construct societies with a human face.

I have a profound gratitude for these magnificent days in Milan. Thanks to Cardinal Ennio Antonelli and the Pontifical Council for the Family; to all the authorities, for their presence and collaboration in the event; and to the President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic for his presence at the Mass on Sunday.

And I renew a heartfelt 'Thank you' to the various institutions who cooperated generously with the Holy See and the Archdiocese of Milan to organize the Meeting of Families, which was a great pastoral and ecclesial success that had great resonance around the world.

In fact, the World Meeting of Families drew to Milan more than a million visitors who for several days peacefully invaded its streets, bearing witness to the beauty of the family, the hope of mankind.

The World Meeting of Families in Milan was thus an eloquent 'epiphany of the family' which was shown in a variety of expressions, but also in the uniqueness of its substantial identity: a communion of love, founded on matrimony and called to be a shrine of life, a small church, the fundamental cell of society.

From Milan, a message of hope was launched into the world, a message substantiated by lived experiences: that it is possible and joyful, even if demanding, to live in faithful love, 'for always', open to life. It is possible to participate as families in the mission of the Church and in building society.

With God's help and the special protection of the Most Blessed Mary, Queen of the Family, may the experience of Milan bear abundant fruits for the journey of the Church, and be a sign of growing attention to the cause of the family, which is the cause of man himself and of civilization, Thank you.

After the plurilingual greetings to various groups of Pilgrims, the Holy Father ended with this reminder:
Finally, I wish to remind you that tomorrow, the feast of Corpus Domini, as we do every year, we will celebrate Holy Mass at 7 pm a St. John Lateran. This will be followed by the solemn procession along Via Merulana to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. I invite all the faithful in Rome and pilgrims to join this act of profound faith in the Eucharist, which constitutes the most precious treasure of the Church and of mankind.

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Perhaps it's following some international protocol among heads of state, but it's strange that the Vatican Press Office releases a message of the Holy Father after the official four-day Jubilee program had ended! It comes out in tomorrow's (June 7) issue of L'Osservatore Romano. Even if there was a Rome event that was the occasion for a public reading of the letter. I was wondering why the Vatican was not reporting any such greeting from the Pope which would have been absolutely de rigueur!

Pope Benedict's greeting
to Elizabeth II on
her Diamond Jubilee as Queen

June 6, 2012

A letter from Pope Benedict XVI to Queen Elizabeth II was read out at a Service of Thanksgiving here in Rome on Tuesday, June 5, the final day of celebrations for her Diamond Jubilee.

The Service at All Saints Anglican Church in Rome was attended by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals; Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia; religious leaders from many different Christian denominations, as well as ambassadors from countries around the world.

---

To Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II

I write to offer my warmest congratulations to Your Majesty on the happy occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of your reign. During the past sixty years you have offered to your subjects and to the whole world an inspiring example of dedication to duty and a commitment to maintaining the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, in keeping with a noble vision of the role of a Christian monarch.

I retain warm memories of the gracious welcome accorded to me by Your Majesty at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh at the beginning of my Apostolic Visit to the United Kingdom in September 2010, and I renew my thanks for the hospitality that I received throughout those four days.

Your personal commitment to cooperation and mutual respect between the followers of different religious traditions has contributed in no small measure to improving ecumenical and inter-religious relations throughout your realms.

Commending Your Majesty and all the Royal Family to the protection of Almighty God, I renew my heartfelt good wishes on this joyful occasion and I assure you of my prayers for your continuing health and prosperity.

From the Vatican
23 May 2012

---

The Pope and the Queen at Holyrood Palace outside Edinburgh on Sept. 16, 2010.

An unsigned interview with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, and former Vatican Secretary of State, is a Page 1 item above the fold in today's issue (June 7) of L'Osservatore Romano, just as last week, a similar interview (signed by editor Vian) with the #2 man at the Secretariat of State, Mons. Angelo Becciu, was featured as the Vatican newspaper's first acknowledgment of the scandal resulting from the arrest of the Pope's valet for having apparently been the principal source of the private documents leaked from the Vatican. Does it say something that Sodano is given this opportunity to speak out, considering that he has been generally considered, if not always named, as the supposed ringleader of the Vatican faction that has been working against his successor as Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone? Especially since the OR chose not to interview Bertone himself, to whom the Vatican newspaper directly answers, even if the Pope is the nominal publisher, though Bertone did give a rather anodyne interview to a RAI-TV program in which he pretty much used his defense and praise of Benedict XVI as a shield, and spoke as if he himself personally were not at all a central factor in Vatileaks.

Inside the Vatican walls
Interview with the Dean of Cardinals
Translated from the 6/7/12 issue of



Photo was taken at the Holy Father's birthday Mass in the Pauline Chapel last April 16.

When information becomes disinformation in the news media, this false view can obfuscate even the most positive truths.

The Roman Curia and the Governatorate are in general a community of people who work in the service of the Pope, even if some may fall short of their duties.

Differences in opinion does not signify divisions among the personnel, and prelates who have different nationalities, background cultures and sensibilities will obviously express different opinions.

The Curial Cardinals around the Roman Pontiff, encouraged daily by the great goodness of Benedict XVI and by his wise instructions, are happy to be able to work for him.

These are the principal points of an interview by L'Osservatore Romano with the Dean of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 85 years this December, who worked more than 50 years for the Holy See, the last 16 as Secretary of State, first to John Paul II and then to Benedict XVI.

What do you think of the media treatment regarding the most recent episodes they have reported about the Vatican?
The media, of course, have the mission to inform the public about the Holy See. For instance, I was very pleased that they really highlighted the visit of Benedict XVI to Milan for the VII World Meeting of Families; as well as the Pope's contribution to the earthquake victims of Emilia and to sustain the Christians of Nigeria who are being tested by tragic events.

But one must judge differently when they pass from reporting news to disinformation. In fact, confronted with negative events, they are tempted to frame them in a falsified context which can obfuscate the beauty that there is.

The Vatican is a small variegated world, in the various offices of the Roman Curia as well as in the Governatorate. What about that?
As everyone knows, the Curia is the ensemble of dicasteries and other organisms which help the Roman pontiff carry out his service to the universal Church. On the other hand, the Governatorate is there to administer Vatican City State.

Given the nature of the Curia, its personnel is predominantly ecclesiastical, while those of the Governatorate are mostly laymen. These are all men and women of diverse nationalities who know very well the importance of the work that they do for the Successor of Peter and Pastor of the universal Church.

At last count, 2.843 persons work in the Curia, and 2,001 in the Governatorate. From personal experience, I can give assurances that in general, these people are committed to be a true community of labor, in the service of the Pope.

Obviously, in such a large community, there are some who might well fall short of their duties. But only the saints and angels in paradise are impeccable.

Some media speak of the existence of divisions among the cardinals of the Curia.
In fact, I find such a statement amazing, but I ought not to be surprised. Our philosophy teacher, during my high school days at the seminary in Asti, told us, "Don't be surprised at anything, until the Po suddenly loses both its riverbanks!"

Nonetheless, the insinuations of various maneuvering has amazed me, because differences in opinion does not mean division. How many times have I voted during meetings of cardinals, but I never wondered why one cardinal votes Yes and the other No. No matter how we vote, we are friends and we remain friends.

Ultimately, in the light of various votes taken on various matters, the Holy Father can decide freely, having all the opinions on hand that have been offered. This also happens in the consistories which are attended by all the cardinals of the world, of which there are 209 today. The same thing goes for meetings held by the cardinals who are leaders of the Curia and those who reside in Rome - that's a total of 75.

It is therefore quite understandable that among such different personalities - different by nationality, by culture and by social sensibility - there will be differences in opinion and different work methods.

Who can forget that such differences existed in the infancy of the Church> For instance, that between Paul and Barnabas on how to announce the Gospel. "So sharp was their disagreement that they separated" (Acts 15,49).

So Barnabas went to Cyprus, and Paul went to Syria. Subsequently, the most diverse kinds of religious communities arose within the Church, and their apostolic methods can be completely different, but everyone comes together in the fundamental unity of their service to the Church of Christ.

Having been Secretary of State for 16 years, what can you say of this position and of those who have held it?
Each one has his own personality and each one has different problems depending on the times.

For a brief time, I came to know Cardinal Demonico Tardini before he died in 1961. Subsequently, I had frequent contacts with the late Secretaries of State Amleto Cicognani, Jean Villot and Agostino Casaroli.

And now I am happy to collaborate, in whatever way I still can, with my successor, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to whom I am bound by long familiarity and by the spirit of common service to the Roman Pontiff.

All of us cardinals in the Curia seek to be be an 'apostolic cenacle' around the Successor to Peter, without being taken aback by the difficulties of the moment. In this, we are encouraged daily by the great goodness of Benedict XVI and by his wise directives, glad to render service to him.

Monsignor Giuseppe Del Ton, who was a great Latinist, in a poem composed in the language of Virgil and Horace, described the dome of St. Peter's Basilica as a symbol of the stability of the Church. This was during the difficult days of the last world war, and to the prelate, it seemed as if the Dome was telling him: "I have seen other winds, I have seen other storms" (alios vidi ventos, aliasque tempestates). And that is the serenity that history, teacher of life, also teaches us.


From what I have read about both Sodano and Bertone, I have the impression that they are both rather vain, and that they enjoy the power that comes with being considered the #2 man at the Vatican. That does not mean they are evil men, even if they may have acted maliciously on occasion to serve their own personal ends rather than that of the Pope or the Church. In short, they have their share of human faults.

However, Sodano had some advantages during his long time as Secretary of State that Bertone does not have:

First, the pax mediatica that John Paul II enjoyed in general because of the marked distinction that his person and his singular achievements represented compared to the other Popes of the media age - a media hands-off in which except for occasional token and generic criticisms of 'failure to reform the Curia' or whenever he pushed the Church's teachings against abortion, married priests, and women priests, no one appeared interested in ventilating anything negative about his Pontificate. (Even after the US sex abuse scandal erupted, media heaped the ignominy on American bishops, not on him; and of course, everyone more or less tolerated Maciel and did not bother to investigate his life at all because he appeared to be in the good graces of John Paul II.)

Second, the services of now Cardinal Leonardi Sandri, who as his Sostituto (deputy for general affairs) for 10 years, is said to have administered the entire machinery of Vatican administration very efficiently - so efficiently that his name has been mentioned persistently as a possible successor to Bertone}.

Third, he worked exclusively for the Secretariat of State all his life as a priest and Nuncio, and he came to preside over a bureaucracy that saw him as one of their own. No question then of Old Guard and New - everyone was of the same vintage. No newcomers were brought into the picture.

Probably the only fly in the ointment for Sodano's tenure as Secretary of State is that it was always Cardinal Ratzinger who was identified in the media as the #2 man at the Vatican, because was, in fact, #2 in terms of the influence media ascribed to him, and by virtue of his friendship with John Paul II who, in more ways than one, considered him his right-hand man. (I don't think Sodano really minded because, in this sense, he was also overshadowed by the Pope's secretary, Mons. Dziwisz, but he knew that the real power - in terms of influencing what the bishops and dioceses around the world did, and which bishops were named, to begin with - was shared between the two of them.)

I have always been outraged that Vaticanistas like John Allen have referred to Bertone as 'vice-Pope' - of which there is no such thing and there can be no such thing - when they never thought of saying that about Sodano, or his dominating predecessor Cardinal Casaroli. Indeed, no previous secretary of state in modern times has been described that way, not even the legendary Rafael Merry del Val in the early 20th century, or for that matter, Eugenio Pacelli, future Pius XII, when he was Pius XI's very influential Secretary of State. I've always felt that referring to Bertone as 'vice-Pope' was really a slap at Benedict XVI, as if he were so deficient that he needs a 'vice-Pope' (who, it turns out, was not at all the person who could supplement Benedict XVI's admitted lack of administrative genius.]

Now, there's this Vatican effort to show that everything's really all hunky-dory behind the scenes, which I don't think will sell. The truth is probably at least halfway between the bitter factional struggle described by the media and the simple differences of opinion that Sodano, Bertone and Becciu have described. Besides, there's the very fact that no Vatican figure has been so apparently polarizing intra-Vatican than Bertone!

Pollen on Turin Shroud shows
it dates to Christ's time
by Marco Tosatti
Translated from the Italian service of

June 6, 2012

At a recent conference on the Shroud of Turin that was held in Valencia, Spain, the work of a scholar, Marzia Boi, from the University of the Balearic Islands, drew particular attention. She is a specialist in palynology [the study of pollen, spores, and similar microscopic life forms, both living and fossil].

Those who have followed studies about the Shroud know that the cloth is covered with pollen. Boi says her research shows that the pollen found on the Shroud proves that this was a funeral cloth prepared according to funerary practices in the Middle East more than 2000 years ago.

Boi did not say so in her report, but this would seem to refute the claim that the Shroud is a fraud devised in the Middle Ages. Indeed, it would seem incredible (and would constitute a scientific miracle in itself) that a medieval fraud would have gone to the trouble of reconstituting oils and ointments as they were prepared more than a thousand years earlier, in the expectation that they would be properly identified by their ingredients in the future by instruments they could never even have imagined at the time.

Boi said: "The pollen on the Shroud, which until now has been linked only to the geographical origin of the relic, also contain traces of the oils and ointments applied to the cadaver as well as to the shroud. This has an ethnico-cultural significance because they have to do with funerary practices at the time. These pollen particles, which are indestructible in time, are a snapshot of funeral practices 2000 years ago, and show the herbs and spices used to preserve the body. The oleaginous substances have allowed the pollen to be fixed, impregnated and hidden in the fabric itself, like invisible witnesses of an extraordinary historical event". Traditional Hebrew rites in use at the time required the application of oils and perfumed ointments on the body as well as the funerary shroud.

Boi also analyzed previous pollen studies conducted on the Shroud. For instance, Max Frei, a renowned Swiss palynologist, left valuable documentary accounts of his work. Examination of the pollen with instruments far more sophisticated than 30 years ago led Boi to correct some identifications made by Frei.

The most significant correction has to do with the pollen identified by Frei as coming from Gundelia tourneforti, one of 23,000 species in the world, and which grows in the mountain deserts of Asia Minor. In 1999, two Jewish scholars, Danin and Baruch, published a book called 'Flora of the Shroud' in which they confirmed that the Gundelia pollen was the most abundantly represented in the Shroud and even hypothesized that the Crown of Thorns was from a Gundelia plant.

Marzia Boi disagrees, and says that based on her electron-microscope examination of the pollen, it comes from Helichrysum, which she finds the most abundant pollen found on the Shroud (29.1%), followed by three other plant genera (Cistaceae, Apiaceae, and Pistacia) in the amount of 8.2%, 4.2%, and 0.6%, respectively.

"All these genera employ insect-borne pollenization, not airborne. This means that the shroud had to have a direct contact with the plants or with their products used in the funerary preparations. And the list shows those plants that were most used as the basis for the funerary rites of the time. The identified pollen species make it clear that oils and ointments were applied to the Shroud, and probably also to the body that it enclosed".

The leaves, fruit and bark of the Pistacia genus yielded a balsam that was used for ointments. But Helichrysum produced an oil of excellent quality which was used to anoint both the bodies and their burial shrouds. Boi says "The use of this oil in ancient funerary rites is documented in many countries from the Middle East to Greece".

She concludes: "The dominant pollen species found in the Shroud are the image of a funeral rite used 2000 years ago in Asia Minor. They come from plants which are the components of the most precious oils and ointments at the time and which have remained extraordinarily sealed into the fabric... The correct identification of the Helichrysum pollen, which was erroneously said to be Gundelia, confirms and authenticates the importance of the person for which the Shroud was used".

NB: In science, a study has to be reproducible and verifiable, or otherwise corroborated, by other researchers, so Boi's study must be considered preliminary and hypothetical until other researchers can check it out or come up with independent research with identical results.

And here's another significant archeological news item...


'The Bible is not fiction':
New find confirms pre-Christian
existence of Bethlehem
by Giacomo Galeazzi
Translated from the Italian service of

June 6, 2012

Israeli archeologists have found a fragment of a clay seal which constitutes the oldest mention found so far of Bethlehem, going back 2700 years ago.

"The Bible speaks of Bethlehem, but here is proof that the town did exist then", says Eli Shukron, archeologist with Israel's Authority on Antiquities.

The fragment, 1.5 cm long, was found in the so-called City of David, a major archeological site outside the walls of Jerusalem, where it is believed the Jewish king, ancestor of both Mary and Joseph, had built a palace.

[My addendum- Here is the actual announcement of the find last May 23:

---

2700-year-old shard offers
archeology's first mention of Bethlehem

May 23, 2012



A 2,700-year-old clay shard with an ancient Hebrew inscription mentioning the city of Bethlehem was found in an archaeological dig in Jerusalem, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. The shard, measuring less than one inch across, was found by crews sifting through debris removed from the excavation site known as the City of David, just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The shard was a bulla, or a seal imprint, of the kind used to seal shipments of silver or goods paid as tax to the Kingdom of Judah in the late 8th and 7th centuries BCE, according to lead archaeologist Eli Shukron.

The fragment also includes the Hebrew word “seventh” and what Shukron believes was the end of a word meaning “for the king,” suggesting it was connected to a tax paid by Bethlehem in the seventh year of the rule of one of the kings of Jerusalem.

Shukron said the inscriptions on the shard are significant because they are the first archaeological evidence that Bethlehem existed as a city during the period generally referred to by biblical archaeologists as the First Temple era.

“This is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible in an inscription from the First Temple period, which proves that Bethlehem was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods,” Shukron said in the statement.

Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible, where it appears as the burial place of the biblical matriarch Rachel, as the setting for the Book of Ruth, and as the hometown of King David. In the New Testament, Bethlehem appears as the birthplace of Jesus.

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Vatican Insider interviewed Simone Venturini, Biblicist and writer, who is a researcher with the Vatican Private Archives and professor of Biblical Sciences at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. Among his books is 'Il libro segreto di Gesu' [I have to find out what it is about].

Professor Venturini, what effect will this discovery have regarding the birthplace of Jesus?
It is easy for those who are used to 'detracting' from the historicity of the Bible to find every possible argument to say that this or that city mentioned in Scriptures never existed. Especially here in Italy, where the media seem to know everything about football cups, but little or nothing on the book which is the foundation of European civilization.

That was the case, for instance, with Nazareth. Until a few years ago, there had been no proof that it existed before the third century after Christ. But in 2009, the archeologist Yardenna Alexandre demonstrated irrefutably that the remains of a modest dwelling dated back to the time of Jesus was found in Nazareth.

This discovery at the archeological site of the Jerusalem National Park is equally important. The seal, which was probably used in forwarding taxes owed by the city of Bethlehem to the King of Judea, is dated to the 17th-18th century before Christ. It carries the Hebrew inscription “l’shvat – bat-lechem – [l’mele]ch”. It contains the essential information needed by the king who governed the Jewish kingdom of the south, namely Judea.

Is is the first time that the name of Bethlehem is found outside the Bible [the oldest known mention of it till now]. It is obvious that with this, there can be no doubt of the existence of Bethlehem at the time Jesus was born, around 6 BC, in scientific terms, and that it had existed at least 1800 years before his birth.

Meanwhile, archeology continues to confirm the historicity and reliability of the Gospels and the Old Testament. Another recent case is that from the team of archeologists led by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, professor of archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a place west of Jerusalem and adjacent to the valley of Elah, they found assemblages of ceramics, stone, metal utensils and objects of worship. They also found three large rooms which apparently served as a olace of worship. In what way does this discovery also going back to King David's time reinforce the historicity of the Bible?
It's a very recent discovery 30 kms southwest of Jerusalem at Khirbet Qeifaya (ruins of Qeifaya), Prof. Garfinkel's team unearthed archeological finds that could revolutionize Biblical study.

In recent decades, in fact, many Biblical experts have strongly doubted that there had been a true and proper kingdom of Israel that was organized and socially well-structured, prior to the eighth century before Christ.

The finds at Qeifaya, carbon-dated to the 11th-12th century BC, demonstrate instead beyond any reasonable doubt, that in the time of David and Solomon, there were well fortified and socially structured cities that were part of a solid and stable kingdom.

Not only that. The discovery of pig bones and sculptured images representing divinities would demonstrate that the origin of monotheistic worship in Israel is much more ancient than many scholars today are prepared to admit. [Unless the images are all of the same divinity, and the pig bones are taken to be proof of animal sacrifices to this divinity, the professor does not make clear how these could be considered proof of monotheism.]

Finally, even the laws imposing food rules (cfr. Lev 11,7) do not present belated developments affecting earlier less restrictive rules. In short, the Bible - including the Old Testament - is not just fiction.

How does the description of these places correspond to the Biblical sites of the same name in the time of King David?
The discoveries at Khirbet Qeifaya help us to understand better the sophisticated architectural details of the Temple of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. Before Prof. Garfinkel discovered scale models of Jewish shrines that date to 30 years before the Temple was built, the physical look of the Temple had to be hypothesized on the basis of the rather enigmatic description found in the first Book of Kings (Chapters 6-7). Now, however, we know what its columns looked like, and details about some of its friezes.

Likewise, on the basis of Yardenna Alexandre's studies, we can now reconstruct a middle-class home in Nazareth in the time of Jesus such as that where Jesus, Mary and Joseph probably lived.

Archeology is allied to faith in the sense that it gives material consistency to our relationship with God. It is not an idea - at least not for Catholics - that is simply elaborated according to present currents of thought or the exigencies of a specific time.

In fact, faith in one God who has revealed himself to man has extremely ancient roots and it reminds us that the Bible is indispensable to understand the mystery of man himself.

For more on the excavations at Qeifaya, see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khirbet_Qeiyafa

Thursday, June 7, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
SOLEMNITY OF CORPUS DOMINI
This is another traditionally Thursday holiday like Ascension that some countries, including the USA, since after Vatican-II, have been observing on the Sunday following the actual holiday.

At left: Two processions - Pius VII leading a Corpus Domini procession; and at Orvieto, site of a famous Eucharistic miracle. Third from right, the Eucharist portrayed in flowers on a street in Bolsena, another Eucharistic miracle site. Across Italy, Corpus Domini is generally the occasion for the so-called 'infiorata', when the townsfolk decorate the main streets with huge tapestries or mosaics made up of fresh flowers to depict a sacred subject.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/bible/readings/061012.cfm
Today is also the feast day of a martyr of the Mexican persecutions in the 1920s:
SERVANT OF GOD JOSE PEREZ (Meico, 1890-1928), Franciscan and Martyr
He joined the Franciscans at age 17 but studied in Mission Santa Barbara, California, because of the civil unrest in Mexico at the time.
After being ordained, he returned to Mexico in 1922 just as persecution of the Church was peaking, forcing him to travel around in
different disguises to serve Catholics. In 1928, the priest and several companions were captured when returning from a secret Mass.
Soldiers stabbed him dead.


WITH THE POPE TODAY

No regular appointments since it is a religious holiday, but he will preside at the traditional Papal Mass
of Corpus Domini at the Piazza in front of the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the subsequent Eucharistic
Procession to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, from where he will bestow a Eucharistic Benediction.




- For two days now, VATICAN INSIDER has been running stories about how Italian authorities held a surprise raid Tuesday morning on two residences of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and his office in Milan, and collected all documents they could find, although the search was supposedly in connection with irregular activities of an Italian firm called Finmeccanica, which had been using Banco de Santander, the Spanish bank headed by Gotti Tedeschi in Italy. Although he is said not to be under investigation himself, he was nonetheless interrogated by magistrates from Naples, subsequently joined by magistrates from Rome, because part of the documents seized included the banker's notes about his years at the IOR, and the Roman magistrates want to find out if the documents contain anything about the case for which the IOR was investigated last year. The reports today indicate that the documents seized also included Gotti Tedeschi's correspondence with Benedict XVI, as well as a supposed list and notes about persons at the Vatican and their dealings with him since he was named to the IOR presidency in Sept. 2009... It's a bizarre development, and these are bizarre times. If the search warrants were supposed to be about the Finmeccanica case, why were all the other documents seized? The UK's Daily Telegraph has a brief and sketchy account picked up from Italian media reports which focuses on the banker's notes about IOR and the Vatican.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9316219/

- Since it's a religious holiday today in the Vatican, it was announced yesterday that there will be no interrogation held with Paolo Gabriele, nor will there be tomorrow, because the investigating magistrate has other duties. One can only imagine what novelties the Italian media will make up in the next four days till Monday, the next interrogation day!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/06/2012 18:47]

I welcome this article - one of the few commentaries I've seen in the American media on the latest wrinkles on the Vatileaks scandal - except that I disagree with what I believe to be his rather cavalier way of virtually shrugging off how the secular media have been reporting the subject. Ignorance does not excuse them, because the element of deliberate malice is far stronger than their ignorance (or feigned ignorance, because there is no excuse for any jorunalist not researching instantly online almost any information he may want to have)...

Putting Vatileaks in perspective
The media’s furor over the leaks says more
about their ignorance than about the Church itself
by Alan L. Anderson

June 7, 2012

It is a bit fun — and maybe a little saddening — to watch our secularist press work itself up into a lather over the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal. ['Fun' and 'a little bit saddening'??? 'Outrageous' is the more appropriate word, IMHO. There can be no 'fun' about the Italian media's unscrupulous speculation and openly condoning a crime - newsman Nuzzi's acceptance and commercial exploitation of private documents stolen from a Head of State - nor is this state of affairs just 'maybe a bit saddening'! Especially when the anti-Catholic US media seize upon it as yet another pretext, no matter how flimsy or ludicrous - to portray the Catholic Church as nothing less than the most evil institution ever known to man!]

Just when the American bishops seem to be making headway with the faithful on the dangers posed by the HHS mandate, our elite journalists seem almost giddy to be handed what they believe is a story hinting at deep and dark intrigue in the Vatican.

Along with the response to the Vatican’s critical assessment of segments of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s notification concerning a book by Sister Margaret A. Farley, RSM, the Vatileaks affair helps establish for our secular press their preferred narrative of a Church drowning in its own medieval incompetence.

Alas for them, the Vatileaks story as developed thus far will come as no surprise to the faithful and serves only as a sharp reminder of just how little our faith is understood by so many of the major actors in the media, highlighting, yet again, just why they so often fail to get it right when reporting on the Church.

To set the background: at issue in this seeming scandal are a series of leaked Vatican documents which form the basis of a new book titled Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, by Italian investigative reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi.

In a June 3 New York Times article with the overwrought title, “As Vatican Manages Crisis, Book Details Infighting,” journalist Rachel Donadio breathlessly stated that “Vatileaks looks poised to become one of the most destructive, if one of the most hermetic, crises of Benedict’s troubled papacy.”

Really? Because if the entirety of the scandal is accurately described in her article — and this truly is “one of the most destructive” crises His Holiness has or will face in his pontificate — then our current Holy Father has and will enjoy one of the more serene papacies of the Church’s 2,000-year history.

According to Donadio, the scandal amounts to “three shadowy Vatican machinations…a campaign to undermine the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone; controversy over the management of the Vatican bank; and intense infighting between Italian cardinals vying for position in the Conclave that will one day elect Benedict’s successor.”

Seriously? That’s it? That’s the “scandal” which threatens to live as “the most destructive” episode in Pope Benedict’s pontificate? [Only Andrea Tornielli and a handful of other Italian journalists have had the courage to say about Nuzzi's book "There's no there there", or "Yikes! Ain't the emeperor stark naked", or "much ado about what amounts to virtually nothing:]

One suspects that while His Holiness undoubtedly may be personally irked by such actions, he feels compelled by duty to try to right the Church’s ship of state — feelings and compulsions undoubtedly also experienced by the faithful. One can be fairly certain His Holiness fully recognizes there’s nothing terribly new here. The whole thing has sort of a “dog bites man” feeling to it, hence the bemused chagrin when watching the media’s reaction to it.

Consider the “three shadowy machinations” in order.

First — a campaign to undermine the Vatican Secretary of State? Allow me to direct Ms. Donadio and similarly situated secularists to the Epistles of St. Paul in which the apostle regularly defends himself from the charge — meant to undermine his ministry — that he is not a true apostle (cf. 1 Corinthians 9).

Second — a controversy over the management of the Vatican bank? Allow me to direct Ms. Donadio to the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 12, where John tells us Judas was the keeper of the purse (the apostles’ bank, if you will) and used to steal from it regularly (Jn 12:1-8).

Finally — intense infighting among cardinals vying for advantage in the next conclave? Allow me to direct Ms. Donadio to the Gospel of St. Matthew, where even the mother of two saints — St. John and St. James—seeks to obtain a favored position for her sons from Jesus himself, maneuvering which the Gospel writer tells us infuriated the other apostles (Mt 20:20-28).

Put simply, there’s nothing really new to these “shadowy machinations”; they’ve been a part of the Church since its very inception. And they’ve been a part of the Church since its very inception because the Church is comprised of broken human beings — that is, sinners — and the fact is, sinners sin.

Every Catholic junior high student should know the Four Marks of the Church — that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

They should know that the Church is “one” in its worship, its leadership, and in its faith (the Magisterium) — hence the need for the correctives recently administered to the LCWR.

They should know that the Church is “holy” in its Founder (Jesus), its purpose (to get people to heaven) and in some of its members — but not all of its members, and not even in some of its members much of the time. Hence the Vatileaks affair.

Skipping “catholic” for just a moment, they should know the Church is “apostolic” in that the faith it teaches and the leadership it enjoys descend from the authority of the apostles, said authority granted by our Savior himself — hence the corrective for Sister Margaret’s “innovative” book on human sexuality.

The rub comes when we consider the “catholic” mark. The Church is “catholic”(universal) in that its Truth is available to all men and women at all times — not that it is open to all the “truths” of various men and women at various times, as some nominal Catholics — such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — might have it.

The Church is one, large conglomeration of imperfect individuals — some wheat, some weeds — brought together by the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the message of Christ’s redemption and the methods for sanctification to a world desperately in need of both. It can be kind of messy, but it works.

If every Catholic junior high student should know this — along with the past failings of men and women who then became saints by God’s grace — we can be confident the Holy Father does.

Would that our American journalists did. Perhaps then they would more accurately report on our faith, recognizing that we don’t claim to be a collection of perfected, sinless souls already residing in the Beatific Vision but, rather, a mass of fallen humans striving for and often achieving communion with the Risen Christ and, through that, with each other.

At the same time the New York Times was gleefully blasting the Church for the LCWR report, the notification regarding a sister’s book, and the rather tired Vatileaks scandal, an event of true import was occurring that was predictably missed by the press. [Deliberately so, one might say.]

More than one million people from all over the world gathered in Milan, Italy for the Church’s World Meeting of Families. La Stampa’s “Vatican Insider” reported in a June 5 article: “It was primarily a success because of the look on the faces of people who had come” just to see the Pope.

That article quotes several attendees expressing how positive, how thrilling, how loving was the atmosphere. Then it offers the following quote from a woman named Pia, who had come to the event with “thousands of questions” but “felt moved” — so moved she “even took communion.”

This, in a world rightly-ordered and rightly-understood, would be the big news — the “good news” (read: gospel) — of the day; that a “lost sheep,” maybe imperfectly or maybe only temporarily, has been found. This is what the mess that is the Church is all about.

In his closing remarks at the World Meeting of Families, His Holiness, as he usually does, captured the essence of this truth, saying, “If from time to time we may think that the Ship of Peter is at the mercy of ruthless adversaries, it is also true that we see that the Lord is present, he is alive, he truly rose again and holds the government of the world and the heart of mankind in his hand.”
[Correction: The Pope said these words when he addressed the representative families who lunched with him and the Church hierarchy at the Archbishop's residence on Sunday, June 3.]

Just so.

I don't think Mons. Fellay helps his cause among those whose thinking admits no shade of grey - which means militant Catholics from both ends of the spectrum who would regard the Vatican-II documents as equivalent to Sacred Scripture, and hardly sympathetic to the FSSPX - by pre-emptively stating that the Vatican has changed its all-or-nothing position on Vatican-II, especially when nothing has yet been signed. It's a signal for the FSSPX enemies at the Vatican to mobilize...

How things stand at the FSSPX:
Fellay says Vatican took off the pre-condition
to 'fully accept' Vatican-II teachings
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of

June 7, 2012

"God knows how to use everything, including delays, for the good of those he loves", says Mons. Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the FSSPX, in a long interview published by the society's official information outlet DICI, in which he talks about the ongoing dialog with the Vatican, for which a resolution had been expected in May.

"There is word," he says, "that the Pope will face this question in July when he goes to Castel Gandolfo for the summer".

He also says that insofar as the dialog with the Vatican, "Rome no longer requires full acceptance of Vatican-II before it proposes a canonical status for the order. Today, there are those who think that differences about interpreting the Council are not decisive for the future of the Church, because the Council alone is not the Church".
[That sounds like a fair statement, because most of the 'spirit of Vatican II' progressivists are, in fact, not simply interpreting the Council according to their own agenda and ideology, but also claiming in open dishonesty that the Council proposed or at least opened the way for changes in Catholic practice such as married priests, women priests and priestless Masses. That is why it seems unfair for the Vatican to single out the FSSPX for questioning Conciliar provisions on religious freedom, ecumenism, and collegiality - surely 'less substantial' and certainly far less relevant to the internal practice of the faith than the 'reforms' espoused by the progressivists all these past 50 years!

"It's the attitude of the official Church that has changed," he said, "not us. We did not ask for an agreement - it is the Pope who has wanted it".

And he claims that the Pope wishes to recognize the FSSPX canonically even without full agreement "on the doctrinal aspect" because "the Church today has problems of tremendous importance".

Regarding diverse opinions about Vatican-II teaching, Fellay claims: "Vatican officials will not openly say the Council made errors, and will never say so explicitly. But if we read between the lines, it can be seen that they want to remedy some of these errors". [By they, he can only mean Benedict XVI, who has been quietly but consistently implementing concretely what are the explicit intentions of the Council, as in the liturgy, and in the declaration Dominus Iesus of 2000, which sought to put an end to he relativistic interpretation of religious freedom as meaning that 'all religions are equal' in terms of the way to salvation. But it turns out Fellay has an equally striking example.]

The example he cites is 'the new concept of priesthood' since he believes that Vatican -II "had demolished the image of the priest".

"Now we see clearly that the Roman authorities are seeking to restore the true image of the priest. We saw that clearly during the Year for Priests in 2010-2011. Now, the Feast of the Sacred Heart is the day dedicated to the sanctification of priests. For this occasion, a letter was sent out to all priests, with [an aid to] examination of conscience. One would think this examination of conscience had come from Econe, since it is clearly in conformity with the pre-conciliar concept of priestly spirituality. This change offers the traditional image of the priest and his role in the Church".

But "this does not eliminate all the problems, and we still see serious difficulties in the Church - ecumenism, Assisi, religious freedom". [In this, of course, the FSSPX is making its own negative and false interpretation of these activities. It is difficult to rationalize their objections at all, considering the clear statements of Christian and Catholic doctrine so clearly and unequivocally reaffirmed in Dominus Iesus, precisely to counteract any misinterpretation of the concepts of religious freedom and ecumenism innovated by Vatican II - against any relativistic interpretation that would detract in any way from the fact that the Church symbolized by the Church of Rome is the 'one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church' founded by Christ.]

Fellay notes that the Conciliar innovations have not resulted in a development of the Church, nor of vocations and religious practice, but has rather encouraged what he called 'a silent apostasy'.

Therefore, he says, "If we want the treasure of Tradition to be fruitful for the good of souls, we [the FSSPX] should talk and act correctly. We need this freedom of expression and of action".

It's a way of saying that even if the FSSPX is given canonical status, "the doctrinal difficulties will continue to be pointed out by us, but with the aid of a reading that comes from concrete facts, from the tangible signs of the vitality of Tradition". [Although, the closest analogy is still to dissident priests who remain 'within' the Church but openly preach teachings and practices contrary to orthodox Catholicism, I can easily see the analogy to a movement like the Neo-Catechumenal Way which has dared to create its own practices, some of which have been formally allowed by the Vatican. If such 'liberties' can be allowed, why not a questioning of what I would call 'secondary doctrines' like religious freedom and ecumenism?]

As for the interpretation of Vatican-II in general, Fellay reiterates the guideline affirmed by the late Mons. Marcel Lefebvre, namely, to interpret it in the light of Tradition: "Whatever is in accordance with Tradition, we accept ; whatever is doubtful, we shall interpret as Tradition has always taught; and whatever is contrary to Tradition, we will reject". [Sounds reasonable, but it closes off the fact that Tradition is dynamic - it can change in time, as it has changed in time, or better said, as Benedict XVI expresses it, it can be 'renewed in continuity' as it has been continually renewed in continuity.

In the Church, Tradition has not been fixed forever, inert like a fly in amber. To take just one example, the Eucharistic rites of the first century were not the Eucharistic rites today, and the Council of Trent had to prescribe a uniform rite 500 years ago. So the Tradition that the FSSPX claims to uphold is only five centuries old. And whatever came out of the Council of Trent were changes dictated by the unprecedented challenge of the Protestant Reformation which required the Church to respond adequately if it was to survive the Protestant schism. Many of the Tridentine reforms - which constituted the Counter-Reformation, such as those governing priests and religious - were fought for as early as the 12th century by saints like Francis of Assisi, who never 'broke off' from Rome because the reforms he sought were not carried out throughout the Church. This whole FSSPX argument about Tradition is rather dishonest.]

About the internal opposition within the FSSPX, Fellay says, "One of the main dangers is to invent the notion of a Church that seems ideal, but which does not conform to the true history of the Church. The reforming saints did not abandon her to fight what they considered errors. Our Lord said that there will always be weeds among the wheat to the end of time". [The progressivists could very apply Fellay's reasoning to justify their open dissidence within the Church, which, to begin with, they do not recognize, claiming 'a new Church' was born with Vatican II. Besides, their open objective is not to 'correct errors' but to replace the Church as it has been for two millennia with what would amount to a third-rate third-millennium Lutheran church, which already exists without their having to reinvent the wheel - because what they want is exactly what the Episcopalians now have and the more progressive Anglican dioceses. I never understood why they don't go all the way as Luther did and prove concretely the courage of their convictions. The Church survived Luther's defection - it will survive their outright defection and departure far better than it can continue to tolerate this attempt to beat down the Church by attrition! They think perhaps 'non prevalebunt' does not apply to them.]

Therefore, Fellay said, the FSSPX should deal with its internal opposition "face to face within the body of the Church in the service of truth". [Good luck with that. When has truth ever triumphed over ego?]

Fellay rejects once more the position of the three other FSSPX bishops that the Vatican has set nothing less than a trap for the traditionalist group: "Personally, I don't see it that way... It's the Pope who really wants to give us canonical recognition, and he is not offering it as a trap".

He says he is certain of this, and that he has been in touch with Benedict XVI's 'closest associates'.

For the rest, in view of the letter sent to him by his three colleagues who are strongly critical of any agreement with Rome, he says, "I do not exclude the possibility of an evolution".

Finally, on the possible relationship between a Personal Prelature and diocesan bishops, he says: "If we are given a Personal Prelature, our situation would not be like the Opus Dei, but more like the military ordinariates, because we would have ordinary jurisdiction over the faithful. We would be like a special diocese whose jurisdiction extends to all our faithful, independent of where they are located. True autonomy in the exercise of our ministry would be recognized for all our churches, chapels, priories, seminaries, schools and works of the FSSPX as well as our associated religious congregations".

Fellay's words demonstrate clearly the position of the Lefebvrians who are intent on re-entering into full communion with Rome. He does not hide the continuing difficulties on disputed parts of Vatican-II teaching. But the final decision is in the hands of Benedict XVI. Until then, arguments pro and con will continue to be made.


Four decades after the Council, the situation of 'to each his own Council' could not possibly continue. the purpose of Benedict XVI's December 22, 2005 declaration of the hermeneutic of 'renewal in continuity' was to begin to put an end to that. At last, a Pope - who had taken part in the Council, albeit on the sidelines, unlike his two predecessors - was ready, willing and able to deal with the problem, and lay down the law. I don't think he is getting enough credit for that...

As much as Paul VI was heartbroken at the way the immediate post-Conciliar era soon descended into utter chaos for the Church, and as much as John Paul II was concerned about the 'proper reception' of the Council, neither of those great Popes really managed to even begin to deal with the chaos: Paul VI because he had unwittingly unleashed the hurricane with his two major post-Conciliar initiatives which were at the ideological ends of the spectrum - the progressivists demonized him and never forgave him for Humanae Vitae, and the traditionalists and objective Catholic faithful were consternated by the Protestantism and arbitrary desacralization of the Mass that the Novus Ordo represented. John Paul II because the post-Conciliar chaos was subsumed by first, his anti-Communist crusade in Europe; and second, by his focus on global evangelization to the detriment of fostering internal order within the Church.

Benedict XVI homed into it almost as soon as he was elected Pope. And we see concrete signs that his leadership by example is bearing fruit, especially as many of the Vatican-II progressivist leaders are literally dying off due to natural generational attrition.

CORPUS DOMINI
Mass, procession
and Eucharistic Adoration

At 7 pm on Thursday, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass in front of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, after which he led the Adoration of the Eucharist, before taking part in the traditional Eucharistic procession from the Lateran to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.


Libretto cover: Partial view right and left sides cropped), Disputation over the Holy Sacrament, Raphael, Fresco, 1510, Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace, Vatican.





Here is a translation of the Holy Father's homily:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

This evening, I wish to meditate with you on two linked aspects of the Eucharistic mystery: Worship of the Eucharist and its sacredness. It is important to take them into consideration in order to safeguard them from the incomplete view of the mystery itself as that which we have encountered in the recent past.

First of all, a reflection on the value of Eucharistic worship, especially the adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament - the experience that we shall have tonight after the Mass, before the procession, during the procession and at its end.

A unilateral interpretation of the Second Vatican Council has taken its toll on this dimension, restricting the Eucharist, in practice, to the moments of celebration.

In fact, it has been very important to recognize the centrality of the celebration, when the Lord convokes his people, gathers them together around the two-fold table of the Word and the Bread of Life, nourishes and unites them to himself in the offering of the Sacrifice.

This appreciation of the liturgical assembly, in which the Lord works and realizes his mystery of communion, obviously remains valid, but it must be seen in its right equilibrium. Indeed, as often happens, in order to underscore one aspect, we can end up sacrificing the other.

In this case, the accent placed on the celebration of the Eucharist has been at the expense of Adoration as an act of faith and prayer addressed to the Lord Jesus, who is really present in the Sacrament on the altar.

This disequilibrium has had repercussions even on the spiritual life of the faithful. Indeed, concentrating all our relationship with Jesus Eucharist only at Holy Mass, we risk being deprived of his presence the rest of the time and in existential space.

Thus, there is a less perceptible sense of the constant presence of Jesus among us and with us - a presence that is concrete and near, in our homes, as 'the pulsing heart' of the city, of the nation, of the territory with its various expressions and activities.

The Sacrament of the charity of Christ should permeate all of daily life. In reality, it is wrong to counterpose Eucharistic celebration and adoration, as if they were in competition. It is exactly the opposite: Worship of the Most Blessed Sacrament constitutes the spiritual environment in which the community can celebrate the Eucharist well and truly.

Only if it is preceded, accompanied and followed by this interior attitude of faith and adoration can the liturgical action express its full significance and value.

The encounter with Jesus in the Holy Mass takes place truly and fully when the community is able to recognize that in the sacrament, he is 'at home', he awaits us, he invites us to his table, and later, after the assembly has dispersed, he remains with us, with his discreet and silent presence, and accompanies us with his intercession, continuing to gather our spiritual sacrifices and offering them to the Father.

In this respect, I wish to underscore the experience that we shall experience together tonight. At the moment of adoration, we are all on the same level, on our knees before the Sacrament of love. The common and ministerial priesthoods are united in Eucharistic worship. It is an experience that is very beautiful and significant, which we have lived several times in St. {eter's Basilica, and in the unforgettable prayer vigils with young people - I recall, for instance, those in Cologne, Sydney, London, Zagreb, and Madrid.

It is evident to everyone that all these moments of Eucharistic vigil are a preparation for the celebration of Holy Mass, preparing hearts for the encounter, so that this may be even more fruitful.

To be together in prolonged silence before the Lord who is present in his Sacrament is one of the most authentic experiences of 'being Church', which is complemented by celebrating the Eucharist, listening to the Word of God, coming together at the table of the Bread of Life.

Communion and contemplation cannot be separated - they go together. In order to communicate with another person, we need to know him, to be able to be next to him in silence, to listen to him, to look at him with love.

True love and true friendship always live off this reciprocity of looks, of intense silences that are eloquent, full of respect and veneration, such that the encounter can be lived profoundly, in a personal way, not superficially.

Unfortunately, if this dimension is lacking, even sacramental communion can become, on our part, a superficial gesture. In true communion, prepared by a colloquium between prayer and living, we can tell the Lord words of confidence, such as those that we heard just now in the responsorial psalm: "LORD, I am your servant, the child of your maidservant; you have loosed my bonds. will offer a sacrifice of praise and call on the name of the LORD" (Ps 115[116],16-17).

Now I wish to pass briefly to the second aspect: the sacredness of the Eucharist. Even here, we have heard in the recent past of a certain misunderstanding of the authentic message of Sacred Scripture. The Christian novelty regarding worship has been influenced by a certain secularist mentality of the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet it is true, and this is always valid, that the center of the worship is no longer the ancient rites and sacrifices, but Christ himself, his person, his life, his Paschal mystery.

And from this fundamental novelty, one must not conclude that the sacred no longer exists, but that it has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of Divine Love.

The Letter to the Hebrews, that we heard in the second reading, speaks to us precisely of the novelty of the priesthood of Christ, 'high priest of good things' (Heb 9,11), but it does not say that priesthood is over. Christ is 'the mediator of a new covenant' (Heb 9,15), established in his blood, which "cleanses our consciences from dead works" (Heb 9,14).

He did not abolish the sacred, but he brought it to fulfillment, inaugurating a new worship that is fully spiritual. But nonetheless, as long as we are journeying through time, it still makes use of signs and rites, and will not do anything less until the end, in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there will no longer be any temples (cfr Ap 21,22).

Thanks to Christ, sacredness is truer, more intense, and as with the commandments, even more demanding. Ritual observance is not enough - true sacredness demands purification of the heart and the involvement of life itself.

I also wish to underscore that the sacred has an educational function, and its disappearance will inevitably impoverish culture, especially the formation of the new generations. If, for instance, in the name of a secularized faith that no longer needs sacred signs, this citizens' procession of Corpus Domini should be abolished, the spiritual profile of Rome would be 'flattened', and our personal and communitarian consciousness would be weakened.

Or let us think of a mother and father who, in the name of a desacralized faith, deprive their children of every religious rituality - in truth, they would end up leaving them free prey to to so many surrogates in the society of consumership, to other rites and other signs which can more easily become idols.

God, our Father, did not do that to man. He sent his Son to the world not to abolish but to achieve fulfillment of the sacred. At the climax of this mission, at the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, the memorial of his Paschal sacrifice.

Doing so, he himself took the place of the ancient sacrifices, but he did it within a rite, which he commanded his Apostles to perpetuate as a supreme sign of the truly Sacred, which is He himself.

With this feast, dear brothers and sisters, we celebrate the Eucharistic mystery today and every day, and we adore the Eucharist as the center of our life and heart of the world. Amen.

---

At Santa Maria Maggiore, the Holy Father once again led a Eucharistic Adoration, after which he imparted a Eucharistic Benediction.

Available newsphotos are, as usual, not representative of the events. I have used everything above that is usable, and it is very troubling, for instance, that there is not one photo that shows the entire altar, and that for a coverage of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, there is no picture at all of the consecration of the wine. And, of course, as usual, one has no idea of the congregation attending the Mass. Moreover, there are no photos of the Santa Maria Maggiore part of the event.

The Vatican publishing house LEV has now published a book entitled GESU DI NAZARET all'universita: Il libro di Joseph Ratzinger/Benedetto XVI letto e commentato negli atenei italiani (the book of Joseph Ratzinger. Benedict XVI read and commented on in Italian universities). The 300-page book, edited by Pierluca Azzaro, contains the interventions of various scholars during the presentation of the book in 10 Italian universities in 2010-2011, a project initiated by LEV director Fr. Giuseppe Costa. The introduction is written by Mons. Georg Gaenswein, the Holy Father's private secretary, and is published in part in today's issue of Avvenire.

The Pope's program -
Only the Gospel
by Georg Gaenswein
Translated from

June 8, 2012

It wasn't too long ago when here and there, some university professors derided the students of theology who cited the works of Joseph Ratzinger.

Many considered the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the Pope's policeman, if only because of his position. Indeed, the cardinal had become a thorn in the side of the post-modern world in which the question of truth was considered nonsense, of a society of opulence and greed which more and more turned its back to God.

He was an inconvenient man who without much ado, had taken upon himself a gigantic yoke. But who was this man really? How was it that within 24 hours of his election as Roman Pontiff, the image conveyed of him by the media was of someone completely different from who he is? Had he changed his entire nature along with his new robes? Or was it public opinion that had held a false idea of this scholar of God who is as firm as he is humble?

The time has come to undertake a profound review of the image that the media have produced of the ex-Prefect of the CDF. Not just to do justice to a great person, but also to be able to hear without prejudice what the man now on Peter's Chair has to say to us.

The ministry of being Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church has a dimension that enables the man Joseph Ratzinger to express his nature and the gifts he has been given in the fullest and most limpid way.

The Pope is not a politician and his Pontificate is not a project. it is not about exercising singular creativity nor putting himself into high relief. It is not by chance that Benedict XVI often uses the word Providence.

On April 24, 2005, at the Mass that inaugurated his Petrine ministry, Benedict XVI affirmed that he had 'no program of government'. Because, in truth, that program had been fixed for some time, over 2000 years ago, to be exact.

The Pope said clearly and forcefully: "My true program is not to do my will, not to follow my own ideas, but to listen, with the whole Church, to the words and the will of the Lord, and to allow myself to be guided by him so that it is He himself who leads the Church at this time in our history".

Seven years have passed since he said those words. It is certainly not long for a Pontificate, but nonetheless it is long enough to make a first assessment.

What is Benedict XVI fighting for? What message does he wish to bring all men? What moves him and what has he succeeded in moving?

As 'servant of the servants of God', he is an example with his goodness, he fosters collegiality among bishops, he focuses his ministry on the essential, and above all, on the renewal of faith, the gift of the Eucharist, and the unity of the Church.

Evidently, precisely because he has reinforced these foundations, and by virtue of the legacy from his great predecessor, he has succeeded in that which few had thought possible within such a relatively brief period: to revitalize the Church at a difficult time in history. In the Curia, he has infused new lifeblood and has pruned away withered branches...

The question of God does not belong to the past. On the contrary, it is a most active one, because man finds fulfillment in a life that drinks from the spring of Christian faith. This is the fundamental message of the homilies and discourses of Benedict XVI. Because only God can liberate man from sin and from the difficulties of this life.

In the same way, the ex-Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith has caused wonder at how, with his natural warmth and his spontaneous and authentic simplicity, he has succeeded to win hearts.

Equally remarkable is his courage. Benedict XVI does not fear confrontation and debate. He acknowledges by name the deficiencies and errors of the West and criticizes all violence committed in the name of religion. He never ceases to remind us that relativism and hedonism are ways of turning against God that are no less serious than the imposition of religion by threats and by violence.

In the center of the Pope's thinking is the relationship between faith and reason, between truth and freedom, between religion and human dignity.

The new evangelization of Europe and the rest of the world, he tells us, will be possible when men understand that faith and reason are not in opposition but related to each other.

A faith that does not measure up to reason is itself irrational and senseless. On the other hand, a concept of reason that recognizes only what is measurable does not suffice to comprehend all of reality.

Ultimately, the Pope's main concern is to reaffirm the nucleus of the Christian faith: God's love for man, which finds its unsurpassable expression in the death of Christ on the Cross and his resurrection.

This love is the immutable center that is the basis for Christian trust in the world, as well as Christian commitment to mercy and charity, to renouncing violence.

It was not by chance that Benedict XVI's first encyclical was Deus caritas est, God is love. It is a clear signal, as well as a programmatic word for his Pontificate.

Benedict XVI wants the full grandeur of Christian truth to emerge in all its splendor. Man finds fullness and fulfillment in a life which slakes its thirst at the spring of faith. This is a central point for the Holy Father. For him, this is the power of the faith as well as its possibility for the future.

The message of the Successor of Peter as as simple as it is profound: faith is not a problem to be resolved, but a gift that must be rediscovered every day. Faith brings joy and fulfilment. More than anything else, this is what characterizes the Pontificate of Benedict XVI.

But this faith is not at all averse to the world and history. It is a faith with a human face, that of Jesus Christ, God and man. In him, the hidden God becomes visible, tangible. God, in his incommensurable greatness, gives himself to us in his Son.

The Holy Father must announce this God made man, urbi et orbi, to everyone, big and small, to those in power and those who are powerless, those within the Church and outside it - whether they like it or not.

And even if all eyes and the world's TV cameras are often focused on the Pope, it is never about him. The Holy Father is not the focus, he does not announce himself - it is always and only Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the world.

Whoever lives at peace with God, whoever allows himself to be reconciled with him, also finds peace with himself, his neighbor and all creation around him.

Faith helps us to live, faith gives joy, faith is a great gift: this is the great conviction of Pope Benedict. For him it is a great gift to be able to lave the tracks that lead to this gift.

Of this gift, he wishes to bear witness "in all of Judea and Samaria to the extreme ends of the earth".

Europe as seen by Benedict XVI
by Mario Mauro
Italian Member of the European Parliament
Translated from

June 8, 2012

So many images and suggestions remain impressed in the heart and mind after the visit of the Holy Father to Milan for the VII World Meeting of Families.

In all the discourses that Pope Benedict XVI made in Milan, there was more than one reference to the situation in which Europe finds itself.

The great triennial gathering of families from around the world is in itself an event initiated by the Church years ago because of the crisis of the family within the European Union.

The Holy Father, in his remarks at La Scala after the concert in his honor, gifted the European Union with a wonderful interpretation of its official hymn. He did not just share comments reflecting his great culture and love for music, but he had a clear political message directed at those who govern Europe and the leadership of its member states.

Speaking of the Ode to Joy [the choral part of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that the EU has adopted as its official hymn], the Pope underscored the importance of the presence of God in one of the symbols chosen to represent the European peoples to the world.

The hymn is not the only one. There is also the EU flag - 12 stars in a circle on a blue background - which has a religious origin. The stars are those described in chapter 12 of the Apocalypse: "A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." (v 1).

Benedict XVI described the joy celebrated by Beethoven:

---

It is an ideal vision of mankind that Beethoven paints with his music: "active joy in brotherhood and mutual love, under the paternal regard of the Father", in the words of Luigi Della Croce. It is not a joy that is properly Christian which Beethoven sings, but it is the joy of fraternal living together among peoples, of the victory over selfishness, and it is the desire that the journey of mankind may be distinguished by love. It is almost an invitation that he addresses to everyone beyond every barrier and belief...

We do not need an unreal discourse about a remote God and a brotherhood without demands. We seek a God who is near us. We seek a brotherhood which, in the midst of suffering, sustains one another, and thus helps us to move ahead.

---

This brotherhood that sustains us in difficult times, like that which is the fate of the Italians who are victims of recent earthquakes, is also the hinge on which the project of a 'united Europe' was constructed.

Thus the Holy Father's reference to the situation towards which the European Union is headed - towards chaos and divisions caused by the crisis. The European question will be resolved only if that Ode to Joy will truly be a hymn to brotherhood and civilian coexistence.

And the joy will be that of sharing difficulties, joining together in the name of an ideal of brotherly solidarity and love for the destiny of those around us, with which we can be able to overcome obstacles of every kind.

Friday, June 8, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

ST WILLIAM OF YORK (England, born late 11th-cent, d 1174), Monk and Bishop
William Fitzherbert was born into a powerful family - an uncle was second in line for the English throne - and was first named Archbishop
of York in 1140, a nomination contested by some of the local clergy who accused him of simony, sins against chastity, and being an
instrument of the royal court. Pope Innocent II had these investigated and eventually confirmed him. William immediately undertook
reforms in the clergy, but when he went to Rome to get his pallium as Archbishop, new opposition arose, particularly from the Cistercians
in England, who had the support of their superior general at the time, Bernard of Clairvaux. A new Pope, Eugenius III, a Cistercian
himself and great friend of Bernard, upheld his fellow Cistercians and William retired to a monastery in Winchester where he lived a
life of piety and penance. The next Pope, Anastasius IV. restituted William as Archbishop of York. His return to York was triumphal.
During the procession, the bridge across the Ouse River collapsed but miraculously no one died. Unfortunately, two months after his
return, William died. It was thought poison had been placed in the wine he used at Mass. After his death, many miracles were attributed
to him, and a sweet smell emanated from his tomb. Pope Honorius II had the miracles investigated and canonized him in 1226.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/060812.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- H.E. Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of the Socialist Demcoratic Republic of Sri Lanka, and delegation

- 11 Bishops of Papua New Guinea on ad-limina visit

And in the afternoon with

- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)


The Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's message to Mons. Jozef Michalik, the president of
the Polish bishops conference for the opening of the 2012 European Soccer Championship which will take
place in cities of Poland and the Ukraine.

Very nice. Suggested by Paul Badde:

kath.net/detail.php?id=36871

Strong as he may be. The more we pray for him, and, as suggested here, with him, the better!





THANKS, HEIKE! ... I've translated and posted the piece below... I really should follow VATIKAN-Magazin more closely...

As for our beloved Pope, in some pictures, yes, he looks appreciably older than he looked in 2005, but in other photos, he looks as agelessly youthful as ever. I think that beyond the physical toll of aging when one is in his 80s, the toll on him is not the result of all these tiresome, tedious and ultimately trivial faux-scandals on his own spirit and state of mind - as he famously said, he never has nay problem sleeping at night because when he examines his conscience before he goes to bed, there is nothing for him to be ashamed of. Personally, he can take all that they can throw at him, we know that.

His overriding concern is surely the cumulative battering effect of this now-perpetual siege of the Church on those whose faith is weak to begin with, or the simple folk whose innate faith is firm but who could be led astray. The latter, if they follow the news at all, or listen to occasional reports, can easily get confused by all this endless criticism of the Church for matters that are 'normal' in any large worldwide organization and certainly a constant element in the history of the Church for the past two millennia. And yet current events at the Vatican - in all their banality - are presented with such malicious and salacious Schadenfreude as if they were unspeakable, unheard-of crimes of the highest order that could only happen within the Catholic Church.

And so we pray....

TERESA

Pope Benedict receives
the President of Sri Lanka

June 8, 2012

---

This morning 8 June 2012 the Holy Father Benedict XVI received in audience Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The President subsequently went on to meet with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.

During the cordial discussions the parties illustrated the steps taken to favour socio-economic development, and reconciliation among the communities hit by the long internal conflict which has affected the country. The hope was expressed that a global joint solution may soon be found corresponding to the legitimate expectations of all the parties involved.

Finally, emphasis was given to how the Catholic Church - which makes an important contribution to the life of the country with her religious witness and educational, healthcare and social assistance activities - will continue to commit herself to the common good, reciprocal understanding and the integral development of all citizens.

---

Here's the item indicated to us by Heike in her post above, which is attributed to Paul Badde in the KATHNET report she links to, so I went to the magazine site itself. Besides the call to take part in this prayer initiative, I also found an editorial in the May 2012 issue of the magazine which I will post as soon as I've translated it. The magazine, f course, had that memorable cover photo of the boy Joseph on its April 2012 cover to mark his 85th birthday and the 7th anniversary of his Pontificate..

Venus in front of the sun:
An initiative to pray the Rosary
daily with the Holy Father
Translated from

---

An initiative of VATIKAN-Magazin
in support of the Holy Father

Juliana von Lüttich's famous vision, which spurred her to promote the institution of the Feast of Corpus Domini, resembles the cosmic event when on the eve of this year's feast, Venus 'transited' through the sun like a tiny black speck on its fiery surface.

Juliana had described then as a 'speck on the moon' what she perceived as a lack in the Church's liturgical cycle of a feast to honor the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

VATIKAN-Magazin thus wishes to make a similar initiative but of a different nature.

For a long time the Church - especially the Church in the West - availed of the true icon of God's human face as the battle standard in her many struggles, and perhaps it is time to do so again on the eve of the Year of Faith.

Today these struggles have become even more constant as the Church finds herself besieged day and night.

Even today something is missing as in Juliana's day, even as the Church seems to have lost order in her ranks and even a persuasive strategy in these battles.

Thus we wish to call on the faithful from now on not just to pray for the Pope but most especially to pray with him.

Every evening at 6:45 p.m., he punctually begins to pray the rosary with his private secretary as they walk through the Vatican Gardens.

Therefore, we are calling on the faithful in all German-speaking lands to accompany them during this prayer. It is a time when for most people, the work of the day is done.

This prayer can be done individually, in the family, among groups, or in orders and congregations, or even among relationships through the social networks.

It can take place anywhere - at home, in a church, on the street, in the car, in the garden, anywhere if you take the time. Without control, without a central direction, without an organization, without need of membership - in the simplest possible way: At 6:46 p.m., begin with a sign of the Cross, and proceed to pray the Rosary with the Holy Father.

Whoever recalls the images of April 19, 2005, when for the first time, he stepped on to the Loggia of St. Peter's Basilica as Pope, and compares those with recent photos, knows how many burdens have since impressed themselves on him and will continue to mark him. We do not need to read the latest news to know that.

This initiative will hopefully help somehow in bringing these burdens in prayer with him to the Mother of God through all the days of his Pontificate.

And perhaps this could lead to an initiative that will spread blessedly from Germany to the entire universal Church, as Juliana's did in her day. Remember, every day at 6:45 pm.

From the Publisher and Editor in Chief
VATIKAN-MAGAZIN

Rome, June 7, 2012

---

Kueng's recent anti-B16 manifesto:
Yet another bucket of spit(e)

From the sublime to the profane now... Beatrice on her site has posted the French translation of an anti-Benedict screed that Hans Kueng circulated in Mannheim during the so-called Katholikentag held in that German city last month... I translated from the French translation, as I cannot find the German original, and I took the trouble only to be able to demonstrate the pathetic low to which Hans Kueng has sunk. Needless to say, I had to fisk...

Reading this, no one could possibly think, except that he signed it, that this wretchedly miserable, rather embarrassingly illogical statement was written by someone who was considered a major intellect in his time. But overweening pride and smug certainty of his infallibility have brought him to this... It should be a sign to him that none of his usual coterie of fans in the international media even bothered to report on this statement. He should take it as the cue to retire for the rest of his days and forever keep his peace!

---

In the face of the Church's problems
the Pope provokes more disobedience

In Mannheim, anger and frustration dominates among the 'alternative' voices as well as from the official Katholikentag regarding the immobility of the Church on internal reforms.

In a complete contrast to these aspirations, Pope Benedict XVI is preparing, from all evidence, for a definitive reconciliation of the official Catholic Church with the traditionalists of the FSSPX, their bishops and their priests. ['Official Church'? Are we all in China now? And if there is an 'official Catholic Church', surely Kueng and company are hardly the underground Church, since they are media darlings everywhere, much less the 'unofficial Church', because since when in the history of the Church has there been such a division?]


And this is supposed to happen - even if the FSSPX members continue to reject the decisive texts of the Council - through some shrewd twisting of canon law to allow them to be integrated into the Church.

The Pope should be warned against this, especially by the bishops because:

1. The Pope would allow the entry into the Church of bishops and priests whose ordination was not valid. [DUH! As in the Anglican bishops and priests who have turned Catholic, there will surely be a formula to override this defect of form.]

According to Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution « Pontificalis Romani recognitio » of July 18, 1968, ordination of bishops and priests by Mons. Lefebvre were not just illicit but also invalid. [Prof. Kueng helpfully lectures Benedict XVI in case he does not know this at all!] This point of view is sustained by, among others, by Karl Josef Becker, SJ, who is one of the principal members of the 'committee of reconciliation'[he was one of the CDF theologians who took part in the doctrinal discussions with their FSSPX counterparts] who is now a cardinal.

[Benedict XVI never has questioned that fact at all - after all, he was negotiating with Mons. Lefebvre on the very eve of the illegal ordinations - but it's not as if an illegitimate/invalid ordination could not be reversed instantly by order of the Pope. He has been doing that with Chinese bishops and priests who have been coerced into ordination by the Chinese government but who then profess their loyalty to Rome.]

2. Such a scandalous decision would further distance Pope Benedict from the People of God, in addition to his arrogant attitude that is deplored on all sides. [So it must seem in Kueng's delirious, self-deluding brain.]

The classic doctrine about schism should be a warning to him. According to this, a schism takes place in the Church when one separates himself from the Pope, but also when one separates himself from the rest of the body of the Church. [More lecturing. But is Kueng describing himself then as a one-man schism???]

"So the Pope himself can become a schismatic if he does not wish to maintain his union with and the attachment that he owes to the totality of the Body of the Church" (Francisco Suarez, eminent Spanish theologian of the 16th-17th centuries). [And pray, how does that apply to Pope Benedict at all? He's the one who is trying to bring unity to the Church. It's Hans Kueng and his fellow long-gone-astray CINOs (Catholics in name only) who are 'schismatic', fancying their minority to be 'the Body of the Church', casting aside the universal Church led by the Pope! Who are the most anti-Pope persons in the world but Kueng and company - worse than all the radical Muslims and rabid atheists and seculars could ever be! Even a high-school freshman taking Introduction to Logic would know better than to use an argument that strikes more at himself than it does against his target! Kueng's brain appears to be failing along with his following and influence.]

3. According to the same canon law, a schismatic Pope loses his ministry. At the very least, he cannot count on obedience. [Oh-ho! As if Kueng and company needed the pretext of 'schismatic' to defy and disobey Paul VI and John Paul II and now Benedict XVI!]

Pope Benedict would thus encourage an already growing movement of 'disobedience' towards a hierarchy that disobeys the Gospel! [Really? Who installed Kueng and company as the Magisterium for the Church, as the 'teaching authority' who determines what the Church should believe and not believe? The delusion of these arrogant dissenters is that by simply saying so - like the infamous 'magisterium of nuns' in the United States - they can claim to have replaced the entire 'official Church'. One must say again and again, not even Luther thought he had done that or even thought to do that. He set up a separate church, a new institution altogether, whereas Kueng and company do not have the courage to do so or they delude themselves that they can simply take over and remake the Church of Christ into whatever they want it to be, so they do not need to 'leave' the Church. Well, let's look at the score since Vatican-II ended: Popes 3, dissidents 0! Non praevalebunt...]

He would therefore have the exclusive responsibility for the immense abyss and for the discord which he himself would have provoked in the womb of the Church.

Instead of reconciling with the FSSPX - which is ultra-conservative, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic - the Pope would do better to reconcile with the reforming majority among Catholics [Really? Name a number, Kueng! Or a percentage of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, the simple majority of which would be 600,000,001. Are there 600,000,001 arrogant un-Christian blowhards like you in the world? That would be the real tragedy of the faith!] and to occupy himself about reconciling with the Churches of the Reformation and all oecumene. thus, he will practice unity and not division.

Prof. Dr. Hans Küng
May 22, 2012

---

The law of unintended consequences has caught up in a most unexpected and potentially devastating way with the Vatican instigators of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi's abrupt defenestration from IOR, and now they are biting their nails... Surely, that is an omen. What was that saying about sowing the whirlwind and reaping it?

Vatican concerned about papers
seized from Gotti Tedeschi
by Italian magistrates
Italian authorities asked to respect
the sovereign prerogatives of the Holy See
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of

June 8, 2012

The IOR mess and the seizure by Italian authorities of documents from the houses and Milan office of ex-IOR president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi risk raising new tensions between the Holy See and the Italian magistrature.

The Holy See Press office this evening released a note expressing 'surprise and concern' for recent events involving Gotti Tedeschi, , while expressing confidence that "the sovereign prerogatives' of the Vatican will be respected by Italian authorities and saying that it will examine 'with utmost care' the eventual 'injuriousness of the circumstances' to the Vatican.

The note also reiterates that the loss of confidence in Gotti Tedeschi was motivated by problems regarding his 'governance' of IOR and had nothing to do with 'supposed opposition' to financial transparency.

Here is the full note:

---

The Holy See has learned with surprise and concern about recent events involving Prof. Gotti Tedeschi. It has maximum confidence that Italian judicial authorities will adequately be vigilant about and respect the sovereign prerogatives of the Holy See under international law.

The Holy See also confirms its full confidence in the persons who dedicate their work with commitment and professionalism at the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, and is examining with maximum care the eventual injuriousness of the circumstances as to its own rights and than of its organisms.

The Holy See reiterates that the no-confidence move against Prof. Gotti Tedeschi ratified by the Cardinals' oversight committee was based on objective reasons arising from his governance of the IOR, and not by a supposed opposition to the line of transparency which is at the heart of concerns by the authorities of the Holy See as at the IOR itself.

---

The Vatican communique was issued after the seizure of private documents from the banker's residences and Milan office by Italian magistrates in connection with their investigation of an Italian firm called Finmeccnaica [which uses Banco Santander, the Spanish bank whose Italian subsidiary Gotti Tedeschi heads].

Among the approximately 50 folders seized were considerable documentation about his tenure at IOR which Gotti Tedeschi had put together with the apparent intention of sending them to the Pope through his private secretary Mons. Gaenswein. The documents reportedly present an account of his three years at IOR as well as the difficulties he encountered.

Gotti Tedeschi was dismissed on May 24 with a no-confidence vote by the four other members of the IOR administrative council of which he was president. The next day, a very harsh statement listing nine reasons for the no-confidence note was released to the media by Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and one of the four members who voted Gotti Tedeschi out.

That document, which amounted to a moral and professional demolition of Gotti Tedeschi, even insinuating that he was among those who had leaked confidential documents to the media, was unprecedented in the history of Vatican communications. [And what could Gotti Tedeschi have possibly leaked that was in any way as un-Christianly ad-hominem as the document that Anderson released, which was supposed to be the minutes of the Council meeting that dismissed Gotti Tedeschi, and therefore, by its very nature, ought to have been kept confidential??? Why is the Vatican employing two standards here? Even as I want to continue to believe that Mr. Anderson must be an honorable man to be what he is, I cannot understand why he stepped out on an ethical limb the way he did when it was so unnecessary. He could have simply summarized the minutes in a way that was not an ad-hominem attack against Gotti Tedeschi and released that summary instead of the actual minutes of the meeting.

I did not originally intend to give too much space to Gotti Tedeschi's involvement in an Italian case under investigation, even after Tornielli wrote two compelling articles about the way a police team came to his house early Tuesday morning as he was leaving to go to Milan and take the train to Rome to bring his documents presumably to Mons. Gaenswein; how they had taken all the documents they could from his house as well as the briefcase he carried with him; how they also searched his country home outside Piacenza and his office in Milan, and then took him to Milan headquarters for questioning. And how Gotti Tedeschi had been telling friends before this that he feared for his safety.

The second story was to report that, on the basis of the documents regarding IOR that were seized from the banker, the magistrates from Rome were called in the following day to examine the documents because they had been investigating the IOR for possible money-laundering activities involving some 33-million dollars in funds (which Italian authorities sequestered in November 2010 and subsequently released in June 2011 after the Vatican had shown that it was seeking to be in line with European norms against mo0ney laundering). I do not know what Italian law is, but there seems to be something inherently wrong in seizing the IOR papers that had nothing to do with the Finmeccanica case and then seeking to exploit them for other purposes. Common sense and elementary decency would say they could have gone through the 50 folders at leisure, separated those that had to do with Finmeccanica, and then returned everything else to Gotti Tedeschi...

One other observation: The final paragraph in the Vatican communique today was completely gratuitous, and once again most un-Christian, in seeming to want to add more insult to injury, turning the screws even more tightly, as if those who have it in for Gotti Tedeschi had taken lessons from Torquemada. As if Gotti Tedeschi had done nothing but harm the Vatican during the three years that he was at IOR!]

Also, FYI, here's the statement issued yesterday by Gotti Tedeschi's lawyer, Fabio Palazzo:

---

I wish to underscore the fact that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi did not voluntarily turn over any documents to the magistrates. The prosecuting magistrates of Naples and Rome acquired the documents by sequestering material seized during raids conducted [on Gotti Tedeschi's homes and office] at the behest of the Naples police.

The sequestered material includes notes about his work that contained elements useful to counteract accusations made against him when he was dismissed with a no-confidence vote from being president of the IOR.

Mr. Gotti Tedeschi was interrogated as a person who had knowledge of the facts about which the Naples police had questions. The Following day, June 6, he also answered questions from Rome police investigators regarding a case investigated in 2010 for possible money-laundering through IOR, in which Mr. Gotti Tedeschi was not personally the object of investigation.

Dott. Gotti Tedeschi was interrogated in my presence because the case against IOR for possible violation of norms against money-laundering is still ongoing, in which he was involved in his capacity as president of IOR at the time.

---

It was a surprise to learn that the Rome police are still keeping the IOR case open, since they released the $33 million they had sequestered about 8 months after they seized the funds, and statements made at the time appeared to indicate the case was closed.

P.S. Tornielli has a second INSIDER item today which is his analysis of how the Vatican mishandled the Gotti case at a most inopportune time, in effect shooting the ball into its own basket.

I was unable to translate this lengthy piece by Sandro Magister in a timely way, so let me insert here it here before it gets too old... As you know, I have this personal conceit of preferring to do my own translations as long as I am able to, instead of posting what I consider inadequate translations. And this article also had a major inaccuracy about the IOR-white list story that I point out, because it is inconsistent with the relevant facts known to everyone from the communiques of the Vatican itself...I disagree with a couple of sweeping and unwarranted generalizations Magister makes loosely, but exaggerations apart, he provides a contextual overview of the Vatileaks mess.

Hunting the thieves
at the Vatican
Documents leaked, poison letters, arrests. Seeming chaos in the Roman Curia.
The president of the Vatican bank is dismissed, maneuvers by Cardinal Bertone,
and anonymous persons claiming to be behind Vatileaks out of love for the Pope.



ROME May 31, 2012 - There is method in this madness. Since the Pope's valet was arrested and detained, the picture has suddenly changed. At center stage is no longer the dispute over the contents of the leaked documents, but the thieves who are determined to plot and scheme behind the back of an 85-year-old man in white.

"Without justice, what are kingdoms other than a big bunch of thieves?" The statement by St. Augustine is cited by Benedict XVI in his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, in 2005. How could he know that seven years later, this would be the public image of the Vatican? A small city state devastated by thievery, without, it seems, any corner left inviolate, not even the 'sanctum sanctorum' that Pope Benedict's private office ought to be.

{It's too bad that Magister makes these broad and clearly hyperbolic generalizations about the Vatican, no more discriminating than run-of-the-mill secular journalists. He, of all people, ought to know, that the Secretariat of State is not the Curia, much less 'the Vatican', and that, so far, Vatileaks has been limited to the Apostolic Palace, which houses the papal apartment, the offices of the Secretariat of State, and the residence of the Secretary of State. In other words, all the documents published so far could only have come from the Secretariat of State which archives all correspondence to itself as well as the Pope's correspondence. Until the valet was arrested, it was logically thought that the thief or thieves could only have been some person(s) with access to these archives. To smear the other Curial offices by using the sweeping denunciations made by Magister and others in the secular media is not just most unfair, but patently unfounded.]

Persons claiming to be responsible for the theft and release to the media of stolen papers have been telling the newspapers, under cover of anonymity, that they did what they did out of love for the Pope - to help him clean house.

While it is true that none of the negative things conveyed by the documents do not involve the Pope in any way, it is even truer that inexorably, the negative fallout is on him. [Again, Magister is reasoning like the run-of-the-mill journalist who wants to exploit this story for more than it is actually and objectively worth. The normal Church-going Catholic whose thought processes have not been corrupted by secularism would never think ill of the Pope - upon reading the tiresome details of human failings that even cardinals, bishops and priests have - and would react as the faithful did in Milan and at the Pope's public appearances since the event. They rally supportively and affectionately around him whom they see not only as their beloved Pope but as the undeserving victim of misconduct if not malfeasance by those around him. Failings that encumber him unnecessarily on top of everything else that he was to worry about for the Catholics of the world.

No, the fallout is not on him insofar as negative public opinion. The fallout on him is only that which is manufactured and promoted by secular media whose vested interest is to discredit the Church and the Pope because they represent everything that secular society abhors - faith, truth, discipline, responsibility, authentic love and Christian hope.]

The theologian Pope, he of the great homilies, of the books on Jesus, also governs a Curia that is adrift, a den of 'selfishness, violence, enmity, discord, jealousy', all the vices that he stigmatized in his homily on Pentecost Sunday and in so many other homilies that have been preached in vain. [There he goes again! Can Magister name a single dicastery or office of the Curia, outside of the Secretariat of State, that can be said to be 'adrift' in any way? Or that is a den of all the vices he mentions? That's a major insult to each of the hard-working cardinals who head the Curial offices and are Benedict XVI's most trusted co-workers. Which makes it more egregious that his Secretary of State, who should be overseeing all these other dicasteries, has turned out to be the least efficient of all. Inefficient perhaps, and with its share of rotten apples in its huge bureaucracy, but that does not make the Secretariat of State a den of vices, either.

The Governatorate is not part of the Curia, because its task is far more mundane - simply administering Vatican City-State as a hybrid version of City Hall. But the worse that malcontent Mons. Vigano could say of it with a specific charge, not a general shotgun blast, was a 500,000-euro Nativity scene he claimed to have been overcharged. Which, of course, did not stop all the media, including some Catholic newsmen, from blaring out 'CORRUPTION IN THE VATICAN' in every way they can, on the basis of that one goddamn 500,000-euro contract which had a perfectly reasonable rationale. As if the Vatican had just invented corruption.

How do we fight this terribly unfair and untrue picture of the Vatican when even people like Sandro Magister who are supposed to be friendly to the Vatican are singing the same badly offkey tune? The Vatican offices are human institutions - they are not part human, part divine like the Church is - and the men who work in them will have their human failings. Of course, they ought to be held to a higher standard because most of them are supposed to be consecrated men of God, but when has the priestly or episcopal ministry ever been a guarantee of holiness? Judas was present as a privileged Apostle when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, and look what he did just a few hours later!] ]

And this is the same Pope who chose Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone for his Secretary of State and continues to keep him in his post despite the fact that his inadequacies are being exposed increasingly every day! [I love Benedict XVI unconditionally, so it doesn't affect my love for him that I disagree with his keeping on Bertone after all this trauma - mostly provoked, it appears, by widespread hostility to Bertone regardless of the reason, and aggravated by his ill-conceived major misadventures that Benedict XVI himself had to reverse! Even if these factors may not have directly provoked the virulence of Vatileaks, they have been used as convenient pretexts by the still unnamed wolves masquerading as 'friends of the Pope'. Either way, we have a mess - and it's not going to be easy to clean up all the icky spatters.]

In the Vatican today, the line between illicit acts and those of sheer maladministration has become quite tenuous, or virtually none at all. [Again, the most unjust ploy of saying 'the Vatican' instead of 'the Secretariat of State', because there is just no comparing State's bureaucracy of hundreds compared with the relative handful of personnel working at each of the genuine dicasteries - perhaps the CDF with a staff of 50 being the largest of them. And even the Governatorate, with its 2000+ employees almost as numerous as the entire Curial personnel, was not denounced by Vigano wholesale - only a few unnamed officials whom he accused without specifics of negotiating sweetheart deals with Italian contractors. If he had any specifics at all, he could have cited them easily, as he did with the Nativity scene, but he did not!]

We saw the scandalous proof in recent days. The day after the Pope's valet was arrested for the presumed theft of documents from the Pope's study, an attack of unprecedented violence took place against the president of the so-called Vatican bank, IOR, carried out with such brutality, first in an official communique of the Holy See and then, in an internal document that was deliberately released to the media, to let the whole world know that Ettore Gotti Tedeshi had been dismissed by the four other lay members of the IOR's administrative Council on a vote of no-confidence.

He was thrown out, says the document, because of inability to carry out his role, frequent abandonment of the workplace, culpable ignorance of his duties, increasingly bizarre personal behavior, and even suspicion of leaking IOR documents! A total of nine charges that added insult to injury, all undersigned by the four other administrators (Gotti Tedeschi was president of the council) - Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz of Deutsche Bank, Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus, Manuel Soto Serrano of the Banco de Santander [whose Italian subsidiary Gotti Tedeschi has headed for years], and Italian lawyer Antonio Maria Marcocco, the newest member of the Council.

The first three had been solidly behind the nomination of Gotti Tedeschi in 2009 to head IOR. And they continued to support him until recently, when relations between Gotti Tedeschi and Paolo Cirpriani. director-general of the bank and a stalwart of the Old Guard, soured to the point of no longer talking to each other in the past six months. [I have to research Cipriani, because if he was from the discredited Old Guard of the IOR - known to be under the control of Cardinal Angelo Sodano - why did Cardinal Bertone keep him on in the revamp of 2009? If Gotti Tedeschi was such a lousy executive, why did it take these 4 all this time to denounce him? And why now in particular?]

The communique announcing the dismissal of Gotti Tedeschi ended by saying that the following day, May 25, the cardinals' oversight commission for IOR would be meeting in order to ratify the council's action.

The meeting did take place but without an announcement afterward. Foramlly, Gotti Tedeschi had not been dismissed yet and one can imagine he would be sharpening his weapons to give his side of the dispute.

Now, however, the conflict was among the cardinals of the oversight commission. Whose president is Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone [who had chosen and named Gotti Tedeschi president of IOR with great fanfare in September 2009].

Present were Cardinal Attilio Nicora, whom the Pope had named to be the financial oversight czar of all Vatican organisms and agencies in December 2010 (Bertone and Nicora have never seen eye to eye), and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog, and once Foreign Minister at State under John Paul II. Having been a veteran diplomat and therefore, a career official from the Secretariat of State, Tauran is thought not to have ever warmed to Bertone. The other two commission members were absent because Cardila Odilo Scherer lives in Sao Paolo, and Cardinal Telesfore Toppa lives in India.

Between Bertone and Nicora, the latest dispute was over the norms for financial regulation introduced by the unprecedented financial transparency law promulgated by Benedict XVI on December 31, 2010, as one of the premises for the Vatican being able to be included in the European Union's 'white list' of countries having laws fully compliant with international standards to counteract money laundering and illegal use of bank accounts to finance terrorism.

It is thus even more surprising that in the statements released about Gotti T4edeschi's dismissal, no mention was ever made of this.

To draft that 2010 law, Cardinal Nicora and Gotti Tedeschi called on the two leasding Italian experts on the subject, Marcello Condemi and Frnacesco De Pasquale, both from Bando d'Italia. The eventual law, Vaticna Law 127, came into force on April 1, 2011, thus instituting the Authority for Financial Information, headed by Cardinal Nicora, with powers of absolute supervision over all movements of funds in any organism of the Holy See or associated with it, including IOR and the Secretariat of State.

Nicora and Gotti Tedeschi both believed it was the most adequate measure to meet the transparency standards for the 'white list'. [Here Magister gets into a confused account of what happened next because he speaks of only one law, without the crucial amendment passed months later. And I will not translate his mistake. These are the facts: Law 127 was promulgated in December 2010, but before it could go into effect, in June 2011, Cardinal Bertone, with the support of his proteges Cardinal Bertelli at the Governatorate and and Cardinal Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, thought that Law 127 concentrated too much power in the AIF, so they drafted an amendment which would give the Secretary of State and the Governor of Vatican City State some say in the financial oversight of Vatican institutions. In other words, Cardinal Nicora's AIF was no longer 'the' Authority but just one of three. Somehow, they managed to get the Pope to sign on, and the Amendment went into effect. Over the objections of both Nicora and Gotti Tedeschi. In Magister's confused account, it is Law 127 itself that Nicora and Gotti Tedeschi opposed as a step backwards - No, it was the amendment that defanged the AIF that they considered a step backward.]

The first response of the EU authorities evaluating the Vatican's application to be included in the 'white list' will be known in July.
[But it was reported that at a preliminary visit in April by Moneyval, the regulatory group, some inspectors informally expressed their view that the amended law and the role it gives to the Secretary of State was 'too political'.]

It is said that the original Law 127 had received six votes for and four against when first reviewed by Moneyval, but that last April, when Moneyval inspectors examined the amended law, the vote was eight against and only two in favor.

Meanwhile, at the Vatican, there is war. [Again, an unfounded exaggeration. Given what Magistee writes next, perhaps a more appropriate introduction would have been: 'Meanwhile, Cardinal Bertone was meeting opposition on other fronts'.]

Also held against Bertone is the campaign he conducted in 2011 to acquire, with IOR funds, the San Raffaele hospital complex founded in Milan by a controversial priest [who was almost maniacally anti-Benedict] Luigi Verze which was in deep financial trouble even before Verze died last year.

Initially, Gotti Tedeschi supported the bid but changed his mind and joined the two other opponents, Cardinal Nicora and the new Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola. In this, they had the support of Benedict XVI who opposed the idea not just of a major involvement by the Holy See in a primarily business affair far removed from any spiritual ends, but because the avant-garde San Raffaele complex, with its attached university, were engaged in advanced biomedical practices contrary to Catholic teaching, and it would never be possible to replace medical personnel, teachers and researchers en masse.

Bertone had no choice but to back off, and San Raffaele was acquired by a leading Italian health entrepreneur.

But for the exuberant Bertone, the dream of creating a Catholic hospital pole under the control and guidance of the Vatican would not die easily. As we would see with his next failed enterprise: the attempted conquest of the Gemelli, the Roman hospital of the Catholic Univrsity of Sacro Cuore, which became known worldwide because of John Paul II's many hospitalizations there.

To do this, there was an obligatory passage: control of the founding Toniolo Institute of the Catholic University, which had always been under the Italian bishops' conference (CEI) and was traditionally presided by the Archbishop of Milan.

The Toniolo had been the object of a hostile takeover attempt in recent years, with the aim of ridding it of board members who were linked to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the CEI for 16 years till 2007.

The most ferocious attempt came with the attack in 2009 against Dino Boffo, a member of the Toniolo board and editor of the CEI newspaper Avvenire, who was accused in a national newspaper of homosexuality on the basis of a local lawsuit that had to do with telephone harassment [somebody was using an office cellphone assigned to Boffo to make the calls] - a story later retracted as false by the newspaper.

Bertone did not defend him. [But why would he? If Boffo was being chased out of the Toniolo because he was a Ruiniano, who might be the interested party? Besides, in 2007, when Benedict XVI named Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco to succeed Ruini as CEI president, Bertone infamously wrote him a congratulatory letter in which he also informed him that he, the Secretary of State, would henceforth deal with the Italian government on matters regarding the Church in Italy. Rather unheard of and improper, to say the least, since under the Lateran Pacts, the Italian government was to deal with the Church in Italy through the Italian bishops conference - which is the direct recipient of the famous 'otto per mille' (0.008%) share of annual Italian tax revenues meant to recompense the Church for all the properties seized by the Italian government when the Papal States were abolished back in 1861. Bagnasco wisely ignored Bertone's letter. After all, he does not answer to him. The Pope, as Primate of Italy, deals directly with the Italian bishops through the CEI, and he does not have to go through the Secretariat of State to do that!]

Worse, editor Giovanni Maria Vian of the Vatican newspaper, which is under the direct control of the Secretariat of State, gave an interview to a national newspaper mercilessly criticizing Boffo at the height of the anti-Boffo storm. [I could never understand Vian's completely gratuitous action at the time, in which he criticized how Avvenire had handled its reportage on Berlusconi. It made him look like an utter jerk, envious of the editorial and publishing success of Boffo's Avvenire. If he had nothing good to say of a fellow Catholic editor under attack, why even speak about him? Wasn't that the time for the Catholic world in Italy to close ranks behind Boffo? And what is it about this Secretariat of State that makes them so un-Christian towards people they do not like? Against Boffo then, against Gotti Tedeschi now.]

There was no need to have read the aggrieved letters - disclosed in Nuzzi's book based on stolen Vatican papers - written by Boffo months later to Mons. Gaenswein for the Pope's information. The substantial dynamic of the anti-Boffo operation was already quite evident to all back when.

San Raffaele, Boffo, Toniolo, the attempt to supplant the CEI in the leadership of the Church in Italy - it is all consistent.

In the unsuccessful bid to take over the Toniolo, Bertone, implying that he was under orders from Benedict XVI, wrote Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan, then president ex-officio of the Toniolo, to step down in favor of a layman of Bertone's choice. Tettamanzi was outraged, asked for an audience with the Pope to protest Bertone's move, and the Pope took his side. [He had apparently been told of alleged mismanagement by Tettamanzi at the Toniolo, but the cardinal brought documentary proof to show the contrary.]

Even this correspondence was among those published in Nuzzi's book, but the facts were known and reported at the time. When Cardinal Scola was named Archbishop of Milan, he took over the Toniolo ex-officio from Tettamanzi in the natural course of events.

In his open letter to the bishops of the world in March 2009, Benedict XVI admonished them as Paul did the Galatians in his time: "If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another".

And even among the first Apostles, there were those who vied to be the ones immediately next to him, and those who decried the waste of precious perfume poured on the Master's feet when it could have been sold to give money to the poor.

Benedict XVI is humble enough never to identify himself with Jesus (though he is Christ's Vicar on earth). Last May 21, when he offered a toast at a luncheon to thank the cardinals for their greetings on his 85th birthday and seventh anniversary as Pope, he told them, "We are on the Lord's team - the winning team".

And yet what a shame that so many seem to be playing against him, even masquerading as his friends who claim to be looking out only for his good.

In the same brief remarks, he also said earlier, citing St. Augustine, that "All history is a war between two loves: love of oneself to the point of scorning God; and love of God to the point of giving oneself".

Then: "We are in a struggle, in which it is very important to have friends. I feel I am surrounded by friends in this College of Cardinals, and I feel secure and at home in your company".

On May 29, Fr. Federico Lombardi told newsmen regarding the Various probes into Vatileaks: "No cardinal is under interrogation or suspicion". [Like, what else would he say? "Actually, we are looking at a couple of cardinals and some monsignor"??? Nice try to ask him, but surely no one could have expected him to say anything else but what he said!]

But with apologies to the Vatican police, not all these cardinal 'friends' of the Pope are the team players he expects them to be!

Assessing Benedict XVI's
Pontificate after 7 years

An analysis of the pontificate thus far of Pope Benedict XVI is the subject of a seminar today organized by the department of linguistics and comparative cultural studies at the University of Ca'Foscari in Venice.

It was to open with a lecture by Daniele Menozzi, scholar of Church history at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, on Benedict XVI's view of human rights as a fundamental element for civilian coexistence. Menozzi recently published a book on the Catholic Church and human rights.

He will be followed by presentations of the 'reception' of this Pontificate by various sectors of society by Claus Arnold of the Goethe University in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany; Philippe Portier of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, France; Jan de Maeyer of the KADOC Documentation and Research centre for Religion, Culture and Society for Belgium and Netherlands;, and Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L'Osservatore Romano, who is also a Professor of Church History at the University if Ca'Foscari.

The conference will offer a preliminary critical assessment - halfway between news and history - of Benedict XVI's first seven years as Pope.

Some fundamental elements will be highlighted. Besides a certain necessary continuity with John Paul II's Pontificate, Benedict XVI's is characterized by an emphasis on the interpretation of Vaticna-II according to the hermeneutic of continuity; a rigorous affirmation of Catholic doctrine; a return to the traditional dimension of the Papacy compared to the 'mediatic' high profile of his predecessor; the clear and insistent reproposition of Catholic principles as a basis for civilian society even in a situation of religious and cultural pluralism.

In recent months, partly due to the fact that Benedict XVI has turned 85, tensions and centrifugal forces have emerged that seem to hinge on the proper development model for the Church today, looking forward to the next conclave as an occasion to measure the strengths and weaknesses within the Church hierarchy today.

As someone who is fundamentally and deeply concerned about the way news about the Church, the Vatican and the Pope is being reported, I can only welcome and cheer this statement of journalistic principles by Famiglia cristiana, the enterprise that publishes Italy's most widely read weekly magazine...

Let's get the right perspective
on how media is reporting Vatican news
Translated from the online site of

June 8, 2012

Predictably, we have been getting - through e-mail, website posting, Facebook and even snail mail - observations from readers, both sympathetic and polemical, who think that we have been too timid in reporting about what has been summarily called 'the scandal at the Vatican'.

We should be more aggressive, we are told: Sing it out loud and clear, let the chips fly and fall where they may, say the truth, name the guilty, unmask the traitorous crows.

Easy to say, but we cannot do more than we are already doing. For three reasons:

First, Famiglia cristiana, in its different modalities, has written and continues to write a lot about the whole issue. Eleven articles alone in since May 25, when the Pope's valet, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested. Articles which were simultaneously posted on our Facebook and Twitter sites.

Not to speak of four-page spreads in two recent issues of the weekly magazine and commentqary by our editor, don Antonio Sciortino. That is hardly an index of our reticence or lack of interest in the issue. So those who criticize this have not really been paying attention.

Second reason: Approximative, speculative journalism is not part of our tradition nor editorial policy - we are not of the let's-publish-this-today-because-we-can-always-contradict-it-later school, we do not try to shoot at a fly in the hope of hitting something in any case.

Whoever has followed the media coverage of recent events at the Vatican ought to have realized a simple fact: No one yet knows what is really true! Nor the full truth. [At least, no one has yet said so, though every reporter claims to report 'new facts' citing only 'reliable sources' or 'anonymous sources'. Since such sources are not verifiable, and therefore anything attributed to them is unreliable, any reporter can well invent anything and attribute it to such 'sources'!]

So, one day, Cardinal Bertone is the victim, the next day, he is a mastermind. Gotti Tedeschi is a villain today, and a champion of rectitude the next. Gabriele acted alone, then suddenly, he was a double agent for the Vatican police all along. The Pope? He knows everything. No, he is being deceived on all sides.

It's easy to write up scandals - they have unlimited appeal to a certain readership. But objective facts - not to mention the truth - are what we need.

And this, therefore, is the third reason for the way we choose to cover this subject: That there are problems within the Vatican, everyone knows. [When was it ever problem-free anyway?] But allow us to disagree that it is useful - for the readers as well as for the Church - to face these problems by exposing them indiscriminately and unscrupulously.

We seek to stick to known facts. We are not interested in letters whose contents are blacked out nor in anonymous persons claiming to be responsible for the leaks nor in supposed tell-all memoranda that no one has read.

When we learn something that is objective fact, we write about it. Otherwise, we don't. Period.

Meanwhile, however, we continue to be concerned about the things that matter to the Church. Last week in Milan, a million or more persons rallied around Benedict XVI. To report on his visit to Milan and Family 2012 and its initiatives to change society in concrete ways, this publishing house (Edizione San Paolo) devoted hours and hours of live TV broadcasts on Telenova (the official broadcaster of the event), dozens of inquiries and background articles on the weekly magazine, 100 articles and 40 videos on the online site, a million and a half copies of Family News, distributed free in Milan during the three days of the Pope's visit.

All that about a Church that is more real and important than any tales of petty betrayal. We chose to cover it as extensively as possible, where most media only gave the event a few lines, if at all. Let the reader decide who is doing the service of information.