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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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Indulge me with a repetition of the last item in the preceding page, to open the new page, if only to underscore that it is the feastday of St, Benedict and therefore a name day for our beloved Pope. See preceding page for earlier entries today, 7/11/12.





HAPPY NAME DAY ONCE AGAIN

TO OUR BELOVED HOLY FATHER!


Wednesday, July 11, 14th Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF ST. BENEDICT, Abbot



ST. BENEDICT (BENEDETTO DA NURSIA) (Italy, 480-547), Father of Western Monasticism, Co-Patron of Europe
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on April 9, 2008, to St. Benedict.
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080409...
For more of Benedict XVI and St. Benedict, read the accounts and commentaries on the Pope's visit to Cassino and the abbey of Monte Cassino on Ascension Sunday, May 24, 2009, on one of the earliest pages of this thread:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=852...

Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071112.cfm



WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

He will be honored with a concert in Castel Gandolfo tonight by the West Divan Youth Orchestra led by
the Argentine-Israeli maestro Daniel Barenboim, in a performance of Beethoven's symphonies #5 and #6
in the inner courtyard of the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo. The added news is that Italian President
Giorgio Napolitano will be a special guest and will dine with the Pope afterwards.


The Vatican released a communique today on the extraordinary meeting held in Rome yesterday, July 10, of
the Islamic-Catholic Liaison Committee, which agreed this time next year for their regular meeting on
the topic of a common front by believers in the face of magterialism and secularism.


One year ago today...

- The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain announced the theft of the Codex Calixtinus, a priceless 12th century illuminated manuscript, has vanished from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. As well as a major source of historical information, the codex is considered one of the first guidebooks to the age-old pilgrimage along the Way of St James (Camino de Santiago) to his tomb in Compostela.

From left, title pages from the Codex; an image of St. James in the book; and a facsimile of the Cedex on permanent display in the Cathedral museum.

The good news is that the Codex was recovered last July 3 - 8 days short of the anniversary of its loss. And the bad news it that it was found hidden in the garage of a former employee of the cathedral. The presumed thief had worked as a caretaker and odd-job man at the Cathedral for more than 25 years but was dismissed early last year. He had been suing cathedral authorities for unfair dismissal at the time of the theft on July, 5, 2011.

The 225-page book, thought to date from around 1150, was only brought out on special occasions such as Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in November 2010.

- Also this time last year, the State of New York became the first US state to legislate same-sex marriage as the full equivalent of conventional marriage between a man and a woman.

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MSM - and the world at large - have under-estimated the ways in which Joseph Ratzinger - as cardinal and now as Pope - has advanced relations with the Jews, for the simple reason that reporting has tended to focus on controversies such as the Good Friday prayer or the cause for Pius XII's beatification. So it is refreshing when a prominent Jew cites the significance of a personal gesture by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI that was universally appreciated, and not just by Jews... With his knowledge of Hebrew and as a lifelong student of Scriptures, he has probably been the most 'informed' Pope in modern times about Judalsm.

Outgoing Israeli envoy says
Israel is very grateful to
Benedict XVI for clarifying
'deicide' issue in JON-2




Ambassador Lewy with Benedict XVI.

ROME, July 10 (Translated from TMNews) - The outgoing Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, Mordechai Lewy, underscored the great importance attached by his country to Pope Benedict XVI's concern to dispel the myth that Jews were guilty of deicide by killing Jesus of Nazareth - a belief that has been part of Catholic tradition among many communities through the centuries.

[The second volume of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI's JESUS OF NAZARETH generated much worldwide news because of the pages in which the Pope rejects the very idea of deicide by the Jews, as did the Council of Trent in the catechism that was published at the height of the Counter-Reformation, and as the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church also does. It's a commentary on the dynamics of communication that not even Catholic media cited the official catechetical precedents to the Pope's assertions - obviously out of sheer ignorance of what the Church has said before on this very sensitive issue.]*

Ambassador Lewy, whose successor as envoy to the Holy See is expected to arrive next week, spoke at a news conference about the four years he spent in Rome.

"From a professional standpoint," he said, "my work turned out to be far more interesting than I had expected". Among the events in which he played a key role were Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land in May 2009, his visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome in January 2010, and what he called 'the great progress' made in the legal-economic bilateral negotiations that Israel and the Holy See have been carrying on for almost two decades since they first established diplomatic relations. [These negotiations involve, among other things, taxes that Israel would impose retroactively on Church properties in the Holy Land, the lack of juridical status for the Church in Israel, as well as control of holy sites such as the Cenacle on the spot where tradition says the Last Supper and the Pentecost both occurred, or shrines in Caesarea associated with the Risen Christ.]

Then he called attention to "a point that has not been recalled enough - Pope Benedict's words absolving the Jews from responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus, in the second volume of his biography of Jesus of Nazareth".

It was an idea, he said, that was prevalent during the Second Vatican Council, but which has been "reiterated effectively by Papa Ratzinger".

In the book, the Pope says that the term 'Jews' used in the Gospel for those who accused Jesus had no 'racist overtones' if only because Jesus and all his followers were Jews themselves", and that the term certainly did not refer to all Jews.

Lewy recalled that after the book was published, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a formal message thanking the Pope for his words, and soon thereafter, sent a giant olive tree that has been planted in the Vatican Gardens.

Lewy also cited two 'questions of an ecclesial nature' affecting Israeli-Vatican relations. The first is that, with the increase in Christian emigration to Israel (mostly from Russia and the Philippines) in recent years - which implies that in the near future, the majority of Christians in Israel will be non-Arab - the person named by the Church to be in charge of the 'Jewish Christians' is the Jesuit priest David Neuhaus, who is the Vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and could very well be the next Patriarch.

The second fact he pointed out was that in 1293, when the Mameluke Turks conquered the Holy Land, the Christian see of Nazareth was not a diocese but merely the titular See of the Bishop of Trani-Barletta in Puglia (southeastern Italy). [I don't follow his point here, because the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is a true and proper diocese within the territory of Israel, and the Church has multiple active interests in Israel. That is why she is seeking a juridical personality there, as she enjoys in other countries.]

Questioned about various other current events, Lewy said he was not involved at all in the decision of Yad Vashem officials to modify a negatively one-sided caption denouncing Pius XII for 'silence and inaction' about Nazi persecution of the Jews during World War II.

He also disputed the rumor widely reported in the Western media last month that the Vatican was ready to 'indirectly recognize' Israel's jurisdiction over East Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians as their capital, though Israel has held the entire City of Jerusalem since it defeated attacking Arab armies in the 1967 War.

When he was asked how he thought the Vatileaks episode has affected the Pope, Lewy said: "He is a strong man. I don't think he gets rattled easily". He paid his farewell visit to the Pope last June 29.

*The worldwide reaction - of surprise and pleasure - at the Pope's words 'exculpating' the Jews of deicide in JON-2, would seem to underscore that what the Pope says or writes makes news in a way that formal catechisms and other texts of the Church do not. Which, in turn, underscores the capital importance of a Pope's Magisterium, in which the content that a Pope chooses to emphasize and the communicative power with which this is transmitted to the faithful are very much a function of the individual Pope.

While the Magisterium of the Popes may all be identical in adhering to the deposit of the faith as it has accrued over the centuries, the effects of their teaching vary according to the Pope. Benedict XVI's papacy happens to be distinguished - a fact that is univerally acknowledged, even by his critics - by his emphasis on the essentials of the faith (and the outstanding Christians, known and unknown, who exemplified this faith best), presenting them as the Fathers of the Church did in the early centuries of Christianity. As truths rooted in Scriptures and the Jewish culture in the time of Jesus, and illumined by the reflections of the Church's greatest thinkers and mystics, erudite as well as unlettered men and women, to whom and through whom God spoke. It is to the Pope's advantage that even the MSM are much more likely to pay attention to what he says than they have been with other Popes. including Blessed John Paul II, whose mediatic presence became the focus of reporting to the virtual neglect of what he said.]


Apropos Ambassador Lewy's record as ambassador to the Vatican, he has not been shy to express views that get off the beaten path of Israeli and Jewish political correctness. As Christopher Blosser highlighted from an interview Lewy gave to the Boston Glo be in 2009: On the administrative powers of the Pope ("From the books you can see that it is an absolute monarchy, but it is not. Far, far from that"); on Israel's interest in preserving its Christian population ("It's not a question. We are obliged to"); on the matter of visas and the Pope's remarks on the Holocaust ("What he contributed at Yad Vashem was a completely different approach which was an enrichment to the culture of memory, ... a wake-up from an unexpected corner for people to think a little bit differently"); and the controversy involving Pope Pius XI ("It is wrong to look for any affinity between him and the Nazis. It is also wrong to say that he didn’t save Jews").


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CONCERT IN CASTEL GANDOLFO -
Italian President Napolitano
is the Pope's special guest

July 11, 2012










'Symphony of peace
among peoples'


July 11, 2012



“We must strive to achieve peace, leaving aside violence and weapons, engaging ourselves in personal and communal conversions, through dialogue, in a patient search for an understanding that is possible”, Pope Benedict XVI said, after the concert given by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in Castel Gandolfo Wednesday evening, playing Beethoven's Fifth ('Eroica') and Sixth ('Pastorale') symphonies for the Holy Father and his special guests, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and his wife Clio. Emer McCarthy reports:

The concert by this unique orchestra of musicians from Israel, Palestine and other Arab nations, began as the sun set over the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo. It was a special treat for Pope Benedict, on the feast of St. Benedict, organized by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of the Pontifical Council for Culture with the patronage of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano who was present Wednesday evening, seated alongside the Pope.

As the last notes of the symphony died on the evening air, and Maestro Daniel Barenboim bowed before a standing ovation, Pope Benedict addressed those gathered, praising the foresight of the Argentine-born Israeli Maestro, who, together with the late Edward Said – a Palestinian intellectual and accomplished pianist – founded the orchestra to give the children of Israeli and Arab communities a vehicle to look beyond their differences.

Pope Benedict spoke of “the great symphony of peace between peoples, which is never completely accomplished”, remembering how his generation and that of Maestro Barenboim's parents, “experienced the tragedies of World War II and the Holocaust”. The Pope concluded by thanking the young men and women of the Orchestra and Maestro Barenboim, for being living witnesses to the fact that peace and understanding – beyond differences and divisions – are possible and must by everyone’s common goal.



Here is a translation of the Pope's remakrs after the concert:

Mr.President,
Venerated Brothers,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have just lived through an experience of listening that was intense and enriching for our spirit, and for this, let us give thanks to the Lord.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Maestro Daniel Barenboim and all the musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra which, during their summer tour, generously offered me this concert on the feastday of St. Benedict.

Thus they have not only allowed me to enjoy their optimal performance 'live', but also to participate more directly in their story, which began around 13 years ago, with you, Maestro, and with the late Edward Said.

I greet most cordially the President of the Italian Republic, the Honorable Giorgio Napolitano, whom I thank for his presence and for having encouraged this initiative.

And my thanks also to Cardinal Ravasi, who introduced this concert with three beautiful and significant citations.

To the other authorities, and to all of you, dear friends, I extend my greeting.

You can imagine how glad I was to welcome an orchestra like this, which was born from the conviction - or the experience - that music unites persons beyond any division, because music is the harmony of differences, which happens whenever a concert beings, with the ritual of 'tuning together'.

From the multiple timbres of different instruments, a symphony can emerge. But this does not occur magically nor automatically! It happens only thanks to the engagement of the conductor and of every single musician. An engagement that is patient, effortful, that requires time and sacrifice, in the work of listening to each other reciprocally, avoiding excessive protagonism in favor of the greater success of the ensemble.

While I express these thoughts, the mind turns to the great symphony of peace among peoples, which is never ever complete. My generation, and that of Maestro Berenboim's parents, lived through the tragedies of the Second World War and the Shoah.

It is very significant that you, Maestro, after having reached the highest goals for a musician, wished to give life to a project like the West-Eastern Divan Orhestra - a group in which Israelis, Palestinians and other Arabs perform together - persons of Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions.

The numerous acknowledgments with which you and this orchestra have been honored demonstrate, at the same time, professional excellence as well as ethical and spiritual commitment. And we heard that tonight, listening to the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Even in this program choice, this pairing of the two symphonies, we can see a most interesting significance. This two highly celebrated symphonies express two aspects of life: tragedy and peace, man's struggle against adverse destiny and the reassuring immersion in a bucolic atmopshere.

Beethoven worked on these two compositions, particularly on their completion, almost contemporaneously. Such that they were performed for the first time together - as they were tonight - in a memorable concert on December 22, 1808 in Vienna.

The message that I wish to draw today is this: To achieve peace, it is necessary to be committed, putting aside violence and weapons, to be committed to personal and communitarian conversion, with dialog and a patient search for posswible agreements.

Let us therefore thank from the heart Maestro Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra for having given us a testimony of this way. To each of them, our wish and prayert that they may continue to dissiminate in the world the hope for peace through the universal language of music.

Thank you and a good evening to all.




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When the Vatican goes to court
to protect the Pope's human rights...

Translated from

July 11, 2012

It is a new strategy but not completely. The Holy See has now decided to react blow for blow every time the Holy Father is the object of undue exploitation and violation of his personal right.

Thus on Tuesday afternoon, the Vatican obtained from a Hamburg court an injunction against further distribution of the current issue of a satirical German magazine called Titanic which features the Pope on the front and back covers [in what one can only call grossly offensive and maliciously vulgar photo-shopped images showing him 'soiling' his white robes front and back]. The injunction applies both to the paper issues of the magazine which were ordered withdrawn from the newsstands, and to the reproduction of the images online. [Nonetheless, at least one site still has it online.]

The front cover shows the Pope with a huge yellow stain on the front of his cassock, with the title, 'Alleluia at the Vatican: The leak has been found"; and on the back, a photo of the Pope taken from behind, this time showing an icky brown stain on the cassock, with the heading "Another leak found!".

It was Deputy Secretary of State Angelo Becciu who asked a German lawyer to act in behalf of the Pope. I must say I found the justification made by the magazine editor laughable, who said the photo merely intended to show that the Pope, while celebrating the solution of Vatileaks [What solution? It hasn't been solved yet!] spilled some Fanta on his cassock.

Yes, the Pope is known to favor orange juice as beverage [but Fanta orange is an orange-colored drink, not yellow!]. But the placement of the stain - not to mention that of the messy brown stain in the back photo - are clearly not meant to suggest anything edible.

Reading that man's lame excuse reminded me of the words of Benetton officials who tried to minimize the photomontage they used in November 2011 showing the Pope and the Imam of Al-Azhar kissing each other on the mouth. And they had the effrontery to hang it as a giant poster on the bridge in front of Castel Sant'Angelo.

Benetton said at the time that it did not intend to provoke or offend believers. I think that in both cases the provocative intention was paramount, not to mention the absolute absence of taste.

I said that the Vatican's current strategy is new but not that new, because in the case of Benetton, the Secretariat of State immediately said that it would take legal action. And last May 17, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi announced that Benetton [which had promptly withdrawn the offensive photo from its ad campaign - did they really think the Vatican would let that pass? I still don't know how the Imam of Al-Azhar reacted, but it should have been just as definitive!] had agreed "instead of financial compensation for the offense, to contribute an amount for the charities of the Pope".

This time, in the case of the German magazine, nothing was pre-announced but immediate legal action was taken - which I think is the best option. b It must be noted that these 'provocatory' acts had nothing to do with diplomatic privileges or acts of governance by the Holy See, but of a direct violation of the Pope's individual human rights, which can and must be addressed to ordinary courts whenever this is necessary, as the Vatican did with Titanic.
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Thursday, July 12, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

I have been unable to find individual images online. hence these generic pictures.
SAINTS JOHN JONES (1530-1598) and JOHN WALL (1620-1679), Franciscans and Martyrs
Jones, who was Welsh, and Wall, who was English, both became Franciscans after years as being diocesan priests. They lived a century apart, but their biographies
were similar. Both went abroad for some time and returned to England to serve in secret during times of great anti-Catholic persecution. Both were eventually arrested,
imprisoned and executed - hanged, drawn and quartered according to the practice of those days. They are among the 40 men and women of England and Wales who
were martyred between 1535 and 1679, and were canonized together in October 1970. The Feast of the 40 Martyrs is celebrated on Oct. 25.
Readings for today's Mass:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071212.cfm



WITH THE POPE TODAY

No bulletins from the Vatican today except a brief communique on the meeting between the Holy Father
and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano yesterday and the concert that followed the meeting.



I won't be posting until much later today as I have appointments to keep.
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Update on the Vatileaks investigations:
Cardinals will report to the Pope next week,
and magistrate will wind up questioning of
Gabriele and other witnesses in two weeks

Translated from the Italian service of

July 12, 2012

The Vatileaks episode was once again the focus of the news briefing held this afternoon by Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, as the initial 50-day detention period ended for ex-papal valet Paolo Gabriele, accused of aggravated theft for making unauthorized copies of private documents from the Pope's desk.

[Vatican law allows the Vatican police to hold him another 50 days if necessary, and Fr. Lombardi said today he will probably be held for 2 more weeks.] Roberta Gisotti reports:

Benedict XVI will be meeting next week in Castel Gandolfo with the three cardinals he named to investigate Vatileaks - Cardinals Julian Herranz, Josef Tomko and Salvatore Di Giorgi.

"The commission presided by Cardinal Herranz expects to conclude its work of listening to 'witnesses' and preparing to present its first report this week, and it is expected they will meet with the Holy Father next week", Fr. Lombardi said. The Pope will draw his conclusions from the report.

Regarding the status of the proceedings in the Vatican tribunal, he said the investigating magistrate hopes to acquire more testimony in the next 10 days, after which the investigative phase will end, with the magistrate's decision on whether to proceed with trying Gabriele or. For this reason, his 'precautionary detention' has been extended beyond 50 days.

"Formal interrogation of Paolo Gabriele will be the last step and it is anticipated this will come in about 10 days," Lombardi said.

Fr. Lombardi anticipated the magistrate to present his decision at the beginning of August, and if he decided to proceed to trial, the earliest this could start is October.

He reassured newsmen that Gabriele is in good physical and psychological condition, according to information from his lawyer Carlo Fusco, who said that he is 'serene and finds comfort in prayer'.

He also said Gabriele remains the only person accused, even if other persons have been interrogated by the magistrate. He added that it has not been necessary to make any formal requests to the Italian government for permission to question any of the witnesses heard so far.

Fr. Lombardi also spoke about the meeting at Castel Gandolfo last night between the Holy Father and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. He said it once again demonstrated the 'harmony and friendship' between the two leaders.

He said the Pope hopes to complete work on Volume 3 of JESUS OF NAZARETH, but he is also finalizing his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Middle East, as well as working on the papal texts to be delivered during his visit to Lebanon in September.

He was asked about the most recent development affecting the Church in China, in which the newly-consecrated auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, Thaddeus Ma Daqin appears to be held under virtual house arrest in a seminary outside Shanghai by Chinese authorities, after Mons. Ma announced at his episcopal ordination on Saturday that he would give up his position in the Chinese Patriotic Association to devote his time fully to pastoral work.

"It is regrettable", Fr. Lombardi said, "that a legitimate ordination, proposed by the Pope and accepted by the Chinese authorities has resulted in the anomalous situation, in which the bishop is detained in the seminary, and no one has been able to contact him directly".

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'My friend Benedict XVI'
Interview with President Napolitano
by Mario Ponzi
Translated from the 7/13/12 issue of


Benedict XVI welcomes and greets him with the warmth that one has for a longtime dear friend. Maestro Daniel Barenboim called him "the architect of the event Wednesday evening, a historic night, at Castel Gandolfo.

He, the President of the Italian Republic, expresses his great satisfaction at bringing closer together two men who are spreading the same message of non-violence and peace.

One, the Pope, with his words that resound in every corner of the earth. The other, Maestro Barenboim, who has been doing the same to the rhythm of a symphony of peace interpreted by young musicians who are Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, American, German, Spanish and Argentine.

With his innate sincerity, his exceptional openness to dialog about the great as well as small things of life, President Napolitano gladly accepted to speak to us.

Cardinal Ravasi first and then Maestro Barenboim revealed a small secret last night: that you were the inspiration and architect of the evening that goes far beyond their exceptional artistic and cultural value. Could you explain why you so wanted this occasion?
For many years, I have known and have had a relationship of admiration and friendship with Maestro Barenboim. I also got to know his youth orchestra quite well. That is why I was very happy to give to them the Dan David Prize which was given to me on May 15, 2011 [a one-million-dollar prize] to this orchestra to help them consolidate and develop their activity in the world.

I have watched marvelous images of their concerts around the world. I was very struck by a concert they held in Ramallah [provisional Palestinian 'capital' on the West Bank]: it is incredible how these young people have succeeded to bring together so many diverse young people, how music is able to give what governments and politics have not succeeded to give, namely a sense of peace, of participation, of sharing common values that foster solidarity and spirituality. Values that can truly facilitate the solution to a long-standing and tragic problem such as the relations between Israelis and Palestinians. So I wanted the Pope to be aware of them.

When did you have the idea to bring them together?
Some time ago, I had the chance to speak to him personally about this youth orchestra, of the message they were bringing to the world. The Pontiff immediately grasped this significance and wanted to know more. Then, the great gift - the gift he has given this young people to welcome them to his own home. Even for Maestro Barenboim, this is a great gift. I am profoundly touched by the Pope's highly sensitive gesture.

Where does your obvious harmony with Papa Ratzinger come from?
It has been six years since my mandate [as Italian President]. The seventh and last year began in May. I do not hesitate to say that one of the most beautiful components that chas haracterized my experience as President has been, precisely, the relationship with Benedict XVI.

Together we discovered our great affinity, we have lived together a feeling of great and reciprocal respect. But there is more, something that has touched our hearts. And I am very grateful to him for this.

Today, for instance, our get-together was characterized by simple humanity. We walked together, spoke to each other face to face with a relationship of frank friendship, with all the deference that I have for him and for his most elevated mission.

Of course, the Pope, besides being a head of State, is also and above all, the leader of the universal Church. We feel close to each other if only because we are both called on to govern complex realities. ( find myself leading the institutions of the Italian Republic at a moment that is very, very difficult, It is necessary in this context, to see to it that strong motivations for serenity, peace and moderation must prevail. And I feel very deeply this mission as a moderator. Imagine, therefore, the analogous mission that the Pope has!

And of course, you are united in the ideal of peace...
I believe that the continuous appeals of the Pope for peace are welcomed and shared by so many men around the world. Of course, exhortations to peace, especially in areas like the Middle East, are opposed by a certain 'incanceration' of conflicts and differences. And this always happens when decades and decades pass without finding a solution - something becomes transformed into an incrustation that is very hard to break. Each of us does what we can, and the Pope can do a lot through his inspiration, the constancy of his actions. This, at least, is my hope.

How do you see Benedict XVI's relationship with Italy?
I will never forget the message that he sent us on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italian unity. I carry it and will always carry it with me as a legacy of my presidency. It was to be expected that we would get a cordial and formal message, but not as committed and engaged as his words in the letter which we did get, which including a historical analysis. This truly demonstrates that in Italy, the State and the Church, the people of the Republic and the people of the Church, are so profoundly and intimately united.

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Friday, July 13, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

Two of the prayer cards show the saint and his wife St. Kunegunde; second from right, the lid on their tomb in Bamberg, Germany; and the center icon shows Henry as Holy Roman Emperor.
ST. HEINRICH (Henry II) (Germany, 972-1024), Duke of Bavaria, King of Germany and Italy, Holy Roman Emperor (1014-1024)
Educated by the bishops of Freising first then Regensburg, Heinrich had thought of becoming a priest, but he became duke in 995 upon his father's death, then King of Germany in 1002. Two years later, he was also crowned King of Italy, and in 1014, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Benedict VIII. In 998, he had married Kunegunde of Luxembourg, a descendant of Charlemagne. As they never had children, many stories claim that they made a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. Heinrich fought many battles to consolidate his power and secure his borders, but he and his wife always had a reputation for helping the poor, giving away much of their own wealth. As a ruler, he founded schools and monasteries, quelled rebellions, worked to establish a stable peace in Europe and to reform the Church while respecting its independence. He supported bishops against the monastic clergy, and enforced priestly celibacy to prevent the clergy from passing on any of the public lands and goods he bestowed on the Church to personal heirs. In 1007, he established the Diocese of Bamberg which immediately became a center for scholarship and art. In 1020, Benedict VIII visited him in Bamberg to consecrate the new cathedral. He started construction of the cathedral of Basel, Switzerland, which later took him for its patron saint. When Heinrich died, Kunegunde entered a Benedictine nunnery and died in 1040. Heinrich was canonized in 1146, Kunegunde in 1200.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071312.cfm



No bulletin from the Vatican so far, other than an episcopal nomination in Honduras.


I shall be gone again for most of the day.

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The icon in Sinai is the oldest known icon of Christ; the Pantocrator in Hagia Sophia, six centuries later, is almost miraculously preserved from the ancient church's great mosaic dome. 'Pantocrator' is a Greek term that meens the Almighty.

The 'Mind' of Christ
by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

July 12, 2012

“The hymn to Christ, or, more commonly, the ‘Christological hymn’ (Philippians 2:4-9) is a hymn in which all attention is focused on the ‘mind’ of Christ, that is, on his way of thinking and on his practical approach to life.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, June 27, 2012.

“Human logic often seeks self-fulfillment in power, in domination, in forceful means. Man still wants to build the Tower of Babel with his own efforts, to reach God’s height by himself, to be like God.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, June 27, 2012.


I.

The fact that a quarter of the General Catechism is devoted to prayer has always impressed me. Likewise, this year’s papal audiences are devoted to prayer.

Surely, some will insist, this is too much. Like the money spent on oils to anoint Christ’s feet, could they not have found better use, say, in helping the poor? The basic Christian response to this oft-heard remark is this: It is highly unlikely that anyone will help someone else, or even his best self, if he does not pray. Why is this so?

The basic answer at the heart of all human issues is how we stand to God. If we put God first, and not ourselves, we will love others, make their lives ours. If we put ourselves first, we will repeat the history of humanity, which fashions our relations to others in terms of power and struggle, intent on protecting oneself, not in giving oneself.

According to St. Paul, joy is the basic effect of our faith. Our faith is in the example of Christ, including His cross. When Paul thought of these things, he was in prison, probably in Rome. There, he expected no alternative but death. It is in this context that the “Christological hymn” of Philippians revealed “the ‘mind’ of Christ.” This mind teaches us how to think and a “practical approach to life.”

If we look at this mind of Christ in Philippians, Benedict tells us, it reveals “love, generosity, humility, obedience to God, the gift of self.” It involves a whole way of life and thinking about reality. In this sense, “prayers must lead Christians to knowledge and union in ever deeper love with the Lord, if they are to be able to think, act and love like him…. Putting this into practice, learning the sentiments of Jesus, is the way of Christian life.”

The “way” of the Christian life is summarized in this Pauline hymn. It shows “the entire divine and human itinerary of the Son of God and englobes the whole of human history from being in the form of God to the Incarnation, to death on the Cross and to exaltation in the Father’s glory; the behavior of Adam, of man, is also implicit from the start.” This is a remarkable passage.

The understanding of the Son of God — his being and presence within creation — is what explains human history. Over against this history of God’s presence in the world is man’s effort to reject it. This negative relation to God follows from the use of our free will to find reasons why God’s order is not accepted as human order.

Christ was in the “form” of God. He was true God and man. This “being God” did not, however, prevent Him from going out of Himself. God’s “being God” is not seen as a “triumph” or a “supremacy.” Right away, we distinguish God’s being and nature from our own.

Christ “stripped” Himself and took on the form of a “slave.” Why did He do this? “To behave as a servant totally dedicated to serving others.” Thus the purpose of God’s coming out of Himself in the Incarnation was to teach us how God acts and expects us to act.

Jesus “humbled” Himself. He was "obedient to His Father’s will.” Benedicts cites Cicero as saying that crucifixion is the “most degrading kind of death.” Here Christ attained the “greatest degree of humiliation.” This is not simply humiliation for humiliation’s sake. Rather it is to show the way that God teaches us about His own love, both of Christ and of us. “Through the Cross of Christ, man is redeemed and Adam’s experience is reversed.”

II.

What was Adam’s experience? And why was this reversal needed? “Adam, created in the image and likeness of God, claimed to be like God through his own effort, to put himself in God’s place and in this way lost the original dignity that had been given to him.”

Adam’s sin became the paradigm of all sin, great and small. All human sin still follows the same model. It implicitly rejects the love that God gives us and invites us to imitate, a sacrificial love for others. It replaces this love by our own definition of what we want to do and love, now disguised as what “ought” to be done by everyone. Man thus lost “the original dignity” that had been given to him.

Christ, though in the “form” of God, humbled Himself. He did this to show that Adam’s example was not correct for us. We still have some of this “Adam in us.” His “disobedience” needs to be replaced by Christ’s obedience. We are to copy His humbling of Himself. Prayer means precisely “to open our mind, our heart and our will to the action of the Holy Spirit to enter into this dynamic of life.”

“Human logic often seeks self-fulfillment in power, in domination, in forceful means. Man still wants to build the Tower of Babel with his own efforts, to reach God’s heights by himself, to be like God.” This passage is not a critique of “logic” as such. Logic is itself a good thing.

But we are aware of the rational steps that press on from our first operative principle, that we want to rule ourselves for our own ends. We conclude that we build our own ethic and politics. They depend on nothing but our chosen end. There is “logic” of disorder and rejection of the good.

In the plan of God, however, that is implicit in this Pauline hymn, “the Incarnation and the Cross remind us that complete fulfillment is found by conforming our human will to the will of the Father. We are to empty ourselves of our selfishness, to fill ourselves with God’s love, with his charity, and thereby become capable of truly loving others.”

Thus, the whole point of the human drama is that we be able to receive and live the love that is manifest in the Godhead, in the Trinitarian life, as it is manifest in the life of Christ.

“Man does not find himself by remaining closed in on himself, by affirming himself. Man finds himself only by coming out of himself….” Logically, to “come out of ourselves” means that we see and love what is not ourselves. This is the great divine gift. The inner love of the Godhead by being itself also is creative and, if necessary, redemptive. It is good for man to be, but it is not good for him to be alone.

“And if Adam wanted to imitate God, this was not a bad thing in itself but he had the wrong idea of God.” This is why having the right idea of God is so significant, why idolatry in any form—of statues, laws, polities, or other beings is so contrary of what we are given to be.

“God is not someone who only wants greatness. God is love which was already given in the Trinity and was then given to the Creation. And imitating God means coming out of oneself, giving oneself in love.”

When I read passages like these in Benedict, I sometimes think that his great legacy will be to teach us nothing less than that Deus Caritas Est, as he entitled his first encyclical.


III.

The second part of Paul’s hymn reminds us of two things. The first is that Christ is the “Lord,” the word used for God in the Old Testament. We speak now of the Father who bestows this title on Christ, true man, because of His obedience. The Jesus who is exalted and the Jesus of the Last Supper are the same.

There, Christ washed the feet of the Apostles. When He finished, He quizzed them. “Do you know what I have done?” He also identified Himself as their “Teacher.” They are to follow His teaching and example. “Loving is God’s essence.” This is the power that purifies man.

We need a “scale of values” that is the Lord’s, not ours. Prayer is designed to make us aware of this priority. We also show our understanding of God by kneeling and genuflecting. “Every knee shall bow.”

The Pope is not impressed by churches in which no one kneels or those in which we never see genuflections, or in which we have to look all over to find the Blessed Sacrament.

“Genuflection or kneeling in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament exactly expresses the attitude of adoration in God’s presence and also with the body. Hence the importance of not doing this action out of habit or hastily but rather with profound awareness. When we kneel before the Lord, we profess our faith in him; we recognize that he is the one Lord of our life.”

In the end, the “mind” of Christ does not follow “human logic” to find power and rule to be its end. Rather it follows Christ who though in the form of God, took on that of a slave in order that He might teach and restore the original love in which we were created. It is a love that goes out of itself in the way the love of God within the Trinity went out of itself.

We do not find ourselves by finding ourselves. We find ourselves by finding Him who first loved us and gave us to ourselves. We pray for ourselves, not to ourselves. We are born and saved because of others have first loved us. This is both a plan of life and the subject of our constant prayer.
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Williamson excluded from FSSPX
General Chapter by great majority
during midterm meeting in Econe


July 12, 2012

Now that the matter has unfortunately been leaked and made public in the usual forums in which leaked documents magically appear, Rorate is independently able to confirm that the exclusion of Bishop Richard Williamson as a member of the General Chapter of the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) was upheld by an overwhelming majority of the capitularies currently assembled in midterm General Chapter taking place in the International Seminary of Saint Pius X, in Écône (Valais), Switzerland.

The news of the exclusion of Bishop Williamson by the SSPX Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay, "due to his stand calling to rebellion and for continually repeated disobedience," was first confirmed by another leaked letter sent by the General Secretary of the SSPX, Father Thouvenot, on June 25, 2012, which was leaked in the same usual forums on the very same day it was received.

The ruling was questioned by Williamson himself, who appealed to the Chapter, whose members subsequently voted, in a secret ballot, to uphold the measure adopted by the Superior General.

The decision seems to show that the Superior General has kept his authority within the SSPX in these decisive months of discussions and decisions regarding the Society and the Holy See.
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A problem with this story is that, in a forced analogy with the US Supreme Court's work calendar, it makes it appear that the Pope - and the Vatican with him - only function from October to June, which is an obvious fallacy. The justices of the Supreme Court actually do take off in July for the entire summer to reconvene and carry out their annual work calendar in October. On the other hand, the Holy Father takes his annual vacation in the month of July, which means he has no official or public events other than leading the Sunday Angelus. But like the President of the United States, he is never really off duty. Nothing significant can happen anywhere, including the Vatican, without the Pope expressing himself to the world about it. And, of course, although most of the Vatican staff, like most Italians, usually take off in the month of August, the Vatican offices are never without a key skeleton staff. In August, the Pope resumes his weekly general audiences, so with the Sunday Angelus, the world gets to see and hear him at least twice a week as they do for 11 months of the year. Also, important foreign visits usually are scheduled in September - Lebanon this, year, Germany last year, the United Kingdom year before last, etc.

As Pope's vacation begins,
taking stock of his work year

By Francis X. Rocca


VATICAN CITY, July 13 (CNS) -- Every year about this time, American legal journalists review the recently ended Supreme Court term, trying to identify trends and themes that cut across the court's most important rulings.

As it happens, the court's October-through-June term coincides almost exactly with what we might call the papal year, which starts when the Pope returns to the Vatican each fall and ends when he leaves for the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo (where he relocated this year July 3).

Almost all of the Vatican's important business gets done in this span, making it the most relevant unit of time to use when analyzing the papacy's activity and its implications for the church as a whole.

So what can the 2011-12 papal "term" tell us about where Pope Benedict XVI is leading the Church?

If there was one message that the Vatican's agenda and statements this year seemed designed to convey, it was that the world needs the Catholic Church's help to solve its most urgent social and economic problems. [Once again, Rocca seems to be forcing a point. I don't think that message was specific to this particular 'year', nor that it is meant in the sense of providing solutions to social and economic problems! It has been part of the perennial Church message about the central function played by the Church instituted by Christ in the affairs of mankind, but in the sense of offering the ethical and moral standards by which mankind should conduct its affairs, because this would lead to justice and equitable use of resources by all, peace instead of conflict and violence, fraternal love in place of homicidal hatred,a sensed of the transcendent (God) to balance off material concerns.]

In five speeches over the course of six months to U.S. bishops on their "ad limina" visits to Rome, Pope Benedict said that the health and prosperity of American society as a whole require the engagement of its Catholic citizens, in fidelity to the Church's teaching on contentious matters, including marriage, abortion, euthanasia, immigration and education.

On a November visit to the West African country of Benin, the Pope said that "a church [correctly with a small-c because the reference is to 'a church' not 'the Church' reconciled within itself can become a prophetic sign of reconciliation in society," on a continent divided by often violent ethnic and religious conflicts.

Conceding no realm of human activity as beyond the Church's scope, the Vatican delved into the highly technical field of international finance with a controversial October document blaming the world's economic crisis on a "liberalism that spurns rules and controls" and proposing global regulation of the financial industry and international money supply. [This is a very vague, unsatisfactory and ultimately misleading representation of the document published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which was not speaking for the Vatican, much less for the Church, but merely presenting the position paper of its leadership. Not to mention that it was a literal interpretation of a passage in the Pope's encyclical Caritas in veritate.]]

Pope Benedict [has] made it clear that the Church's appeals to secular society should be made not in terms of faith but in terms of the "natural moral law" accessible to all through the use of reason. He notably included prominent agnostic "seekers of the truth" alongside religious leaders at an October meeting to promote peace and justice in Assisi, Italy.

Yet the Pope also insisted that the Church's commitment to social justice must never be separated from a faith that transcends this world. During a trip to Mexico and Cuba in March, the Pope said that "the Church is not a political power, it is not a party," and told a crowd of more than 600,000 at an outdoor Mass that "human strategies will not suffice to save us" from war and injustice.

The following month, the Vatican published a "doctrinal assessment" of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The document, which had been expressly approved by Pope Benedict, recognized the LCWR's adherence to Catholic teaching in its promotion of social justice, but concluded that the group's neglect of the Church's doctrine on a number of important moral issues, including abortion and euthanasia, reflected a crisis "characterized by a diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration."

Pope Benedict also emphasized a link between the Church's contributions to society and its right to freedom of religion, which he championed against varying degrees of restriction in communist Cuba, Mexico with its legacy of anti-clericalism, and the U.S., where the Obama administration seeks to make private Catholic institutions provide insurance covering sterilizations and contraception, in violation of the Church's moral teaching.

As always, of course, the Vatican made some of its biggest news this year in ways that it had not planned at all.

The biggest such story was undoubtedly the so-called "VatiLeaks" affair, the publication of dozens of confidential correspondence and reports, including letters to Pope Benedict himself, and the subsequent arrest of the Pope's butler on charges of "aggravated theft."

While the documents themselves fuel an image of the Vatican as plagued by infighting, Pope Benedict has said that he expects his collaborators to work together as a family.

In October, the Pope removed Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, author of several [not several - TWO!] leaked letters accusing specific Vatican officials of corruption and incompetence, from his job as secretary-general of the governor's office of Vatican City. In an apparent sign of esteem for the archbishop's ability and integrity, however, the Pope appointed him to the key post of nuncio to the U.S. [Sorry, Your Holiness, but I continue to think that the 'compromise solution' was a sorry compromise, precisely because it seemed to 'reward' someone whose character, as revealed by those two letters, seems appallingly dubious in a layman, let alone a man of the Church who seemed to believe he was entitled, by virtue of his ambition alone, to be named cardinal.]

After months of furor over the leaks, in July, Pope Benedict defended Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, against "unjust criticism" in the Italian media, thus showing his appreciation for his longtime lieutenant, who had served under the future Pope as secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the congregation's prefect.

The papal "term" marked another chapter in the ongoing narrative of the Vatican's relationship with the breakaway traditionalists of the Society of St. Pius X, who reject some teachings of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council and subsequent modernizing changes to the church.

In September, the Vatican presented the traditionalists with a "doctrinal preamble" outlining certain teachings, presumably including those of Vatican II, which the breakaway group would have to accept as a condition for reconciliation.

In June, the Vatican presented them with a draft document proposing that a reintegrated society would hold the canonical status of a personal prelature, in effect an international diocese under the direct authority of the Pope.

[The prelature offer is distinct from the preamble and is entirely dependent on whether the preamble would be accepted. It is meaningless without that condition. Besides, general accounts about the preamble in the past year, confirmed by the supposed actual text (leaked by parties on the side of the FSSPX) show that the so-called preamble is a version of the 1968 Profession of Faith drawn up by the CDF for new converts or disciplined heretics or near-heretics to profess upon admission (or re-admission) to the Church.

The difference seems to be that the part about adherence to the Magisterium inexplicably goes out of the way to specify Vatican-II, when there is no specific Magisterium singled out in the simple profession of faith. If this is the case, then it is unfair to demand this of the FSSPX. Other smaller traditionalist groups who came back to full communion with Rome were not asked to swear specifically to uphold Vatican II. Because now we get into the Everglades swamp of all those Catholics supposedly in full communion with Rome who oppose everything that the Church preaches and advocate everything that is anathema to the Church while professing to be represent the spirit of Vatican II! It troubles me greatly that abortion, contraception, euthanasia, all kinds of unnatural marriage, contempt and defiance of the Pope, and similar liberal causes are considered, in effect, far more OK than the FSSPX's reservations about the concepts of religious freedom, ecumenism, inter-religious dialog and collegiality! You don't have to be a theologian to see the abysmally great double standard here.]


As the Vatican awaited the traditionalists' final response to these overtures, in late June, Pope Benedict named U.S. Archbishop Augustine Di Noia to focus personally on the SSPX negotiations. The appointment of Archbishop Di Noia, a distinguished theologian and longtime collaborator of the pope, underscores Pope Benedict's extraordinary determination to bring a group of separated brethren back into the Catholic family.



When will news agencies learn that 'church' spelled with a small 'c' refers to an edifice built as a place of worship, or a generic reference to a community of believers, but that Church when it refers to the Catholic Church (or the Orthodox Church) must always be capitalized because it then becomes a proper noun, not a generic or common noun! The secular agencies might be cut some slack when it comes to this (although it follows from the rules of grammar about proper and common nouns] but for CNS to do it as - it seems - part of their newswriting 'style' [the word used in journalism to describe the conventions of word usage and spelling that each news outlet follows] - is almost unforgivable for a Catholic media outlet.

The same observation follows with the use of 'pope' when referring to the head of the Catholic Church without his name. I hew to the old-fashioned rule I grew up with in which generic titles when applied to a specific person even without mentioning his/her name ought to be capitalized. There is a small-p 'pope' in the English lexicon which refers to minor prelates of the Orthodox Churches, so to write about the Supreme Pontiff and refer to him as a small-p 'pope' is wrong. In the same way that when writing about Queen Elizabeth, for example, one writes 'the Queen' and not 'the queen' as if she were a chessboard piece.

I do have a selfish motive, as well for griping about this - since I have to go in and change every miswritten 'church' and 'pope' in every item that I post on this thread. (I realize quite a few still get past, as I am a very poor proofreader of my own posts, and sometimes I even forget to turn on spell check, and get a really sloppy post.}

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Ratzinger Schuelerkreis to discuss
ecumenism in annual seminar this summer

Adapted and translated from the Italian edition of

July 13, 2012

Faithful to an annual tradition that now marks its 42nd year, Benedict XVI will be reunited with his former doctoral students in the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis summer seminar to be held in Castel Gandolfo on the first week of September.

The French agency I-media reports that this year the topic for discussion will be ecumenism.

Begun in 1970 when Joseph Ratzinger was a professor of theology at the University of Regensburg, around 40 theologians, including some lay men and women, wll consider the results in the ecumenical movement in the Church since Vatican II, especially with the evangelical Christians and Anglicans.

A reference point will be the 2009 book entitled Raccogliere i frutti (Reaping the fruits) by Cardinal Waltger Kasper, as he ended his decade-long presidency of the CPontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Last year, the seminar tackled the subject of the New Evangelization.

Pictures of the 2011 Schuelerkreis seminar from their website:


Resource persons on the topic of the New Evangelization were Prof. Hanna Gerl-Falkowitz of Dresden and Otto Neubauer of the Ammanuel Institute of Vienna.


Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna and Mons. Adoukonou of Benin, now secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, are the ranking prelates in the Schuelerkreis.


Co-editor Clemens Sedmak presents a copy of the book DAS SEELE EUROPAS (complete title in English: 'The soul of Europe: Pope Benedict and the Ruropean Identity'), containing the papers and discussions at the first Benediktakademie held in Salzburg in Sept 2010, sponsored by the Schuelerkreis Foundation and the Salburg-based International Research Center for Social and Ethical Problems. The annual seminar brings together students from various European universities to discuss the issues confronting the Old Continent today. Co-editor of the book is Fr. Stephan Horn, executive director of the Schuelerkreis.
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Saturday, July 14, 14th Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin


Extreme left: Earliest portrait of Kateri, by a French Jesuit to whom she appeared in a vision shortly after her death.
BLESSED KATERI TEKAKWITHA (b upstate New York 1656, d near Montreal, 1680), Virgin, 'Lily of the Mohawk', first Native American 'Blessed'
Kateri was born nine years after the Jesuit saints Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were killed by the Iroquois near their place of martyrdom. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who was captured and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawks, the strongest of the Iroquois. At age 4, Kateri's parents and brother died in a smallpox epidemic which also left her near-blind and disfigured with scars. Adopted by her uncle who succeeded her father as chief, Kateri had contact with Jesuit fathers who, under a French peace treaty with the native Americans, were allowed to be present in villages with Christian natives. At 19 she was baptized. But it meant she was thereafter treated by her tribe like a slave. As she grew in holiness, so did their persecution. On the advice of a priest, she escaped one night and walked 200 miles to a Christian village near Montreal. There, she lived the few remaining years of her life dedicated to prayer, penance, and care for the sick and aged. She also took a vow of virginity. She died in 1680 at age 24. Her first biographer, a Jesuit priest, wrote in 1696 that Kateri's scars vanished at the time of her death revealing a woman of immense beauty; that many sick persons who attended her funeral were healed on that day; and that she appeared to two different individuals in the weeks following her death. A move towards her canonization began in 1884. She was declared Venerable in 1943 and beatified in 1980. In 2011, a miracle was reported which was 'certified' earlier this year, which leads to her canonization in October as the first native American saint.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071412.cfm



No Vatican bulletins today other than the appointment of an auxiliary bishop for Edmonton, Canada.


This item belongs to yesterday's posts, but it was a most irregul;ar 'work day' for me on the Forum:

One year ago...
On July 13, the Irish government released the full text of what came to be known as 'the Cloyne report'
which triggered a summer furor of renewed but far more vicious and relentless attacks in the media
against the Pope and the Church, over results that had long been known (publication of the full text was
delayed until a court case involving one of the accused priests was out of the way) but the way Ireland
= and most of MSM - reacted, one would have thought it was the first time the world had ever heard of
sexual abuses committed by priests against minors. One week later, the Irish Prime Minister would
deliver a thoroughly scurrilous attack against the Pope and the Church, including a few flat-out false
statements about the Pope. It gave MSM something to run with during the summer news doldrums, and
indeed, they ran with it full steam ahead for about three weeks though it seemed like an eternity then.
It wasn't that MSM had found something new to occupy itself with - they just ran out of things
to say that had not already been said again and again. And three weeks later, there was WYD Madrid
and suddenly, Benedict XVI was once again 'Benedict, superstar' in the eyes of the media, for a few
days, at least.

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The Pope's pastoral visit
to Frascati tomorrow

by Giacomo Galeazzi
Adapted and translated from the Italian service of

July 14, 2012

Benedict XVI will be making a pastoral visit to Frascati tomorrow, to one of the best-known cities making up the Castelli Romani (castles of Rome) in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome [places where Roman nobles built their summer homes since imperial times and now must-see tourist destinations for visitors to Rome].

Famous frequent visitors and part-time residents in the past included Pauline Bonaparte, Goethe and Stendhal. [Frascati was long best-known for its white wine, but in recent years, it has also become Italy's science center - site of the country's first accelerator, headquarters of the Italian agency for nuclear development and new technologies, and headquarters of the European space agency.]

Frascati is also the suburbicarian diocese of which Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone is the current titular bishop. [However, the invitation to Frascati did not come from Bertone but from its bishop, Mons. Raffaello Martinelli, who announced the visit last May 3, on the feast of the Apostles Phillip and James the Less, patrons of Frascati.]

Moreover, one of Frascati's twin cities is Bad Godesberg [significantly, the suburb of Bonn where Fr. Joseph Ratzinger lived when he was a professor at the University of Bonn].

Benedict XVI will be the third Pope to visit Frascati in the past half century - after Paul VI on Sept. 1, 1963, and Blessed John Paul on Sept. 9, 1990.

"Frascati is significant to Benedict XVI for two reasons," said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L'Osservatore Romano. "Mons. Martinelli was one of his co-workers at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Frascati is now the titular see of Cardinal Bertone, his #2 man".

[Frascati is one of the seven suburbicarian dioceses of Rome, whose titular bishops are the highest-ranking order of Cardinals, the Cardinal Bishops. These dioceses are Albano, Ostia (since 1150, titular See of the Dean of Cardinals), Frascati, Palestrina, Porto-Santa Rufina, Sabina-Poggio Mirato, and Velletri-Segni, whose titular bishops are, respectively, Cardinal Sodano (both Ostia and Albano), Bertone, Jose Saraiva-Martins, Roger Etchegaray, Giovanni Battista Re, and Francis Arinze. In his time, Joseph Ratzinger was titular Bishop of Velletri-Segni, to which Ostia was added when he became Dean of Cardinals.]

Vian points out that in previous years, during his official summer vacation in July, Benedict XVI has not had any public events other than the Sunday Angelus. But last week, he made a semi-public visit to the Ad Gentes center of the SVD missionaries in Nemi, where had been part of a Vatican II working group that drafted the Council's decree on mission in the modern world.

Vian said that the Nemi visit was part of Benedict's "discreet build-up to the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II
", noting that after the "the great Montini-Luciani-Wojtyla triad, Benedict XVI will be the last Pope to have taken part in the most important religious event of the 20th century". [Is it not shocking that Vian, a scholar and professor of Christian history, omits the name of the Council's originator, John XXIII, who also presided over the first of its four annual ssessions, from his listing?}

The Pope is expected to arrive in Frascati by car around 9:10 at Frascati's Piazza Roma, the city square that overlooks Rome like a great belvedere. He will switch to the Popemobile to cross over to Piazza San Pietro in front of Frascati cathedral where he will pass among the faithful gathered for Mass.

He will be formally welcomed in remarks by Mayor Stefano Di Tomasso and by Bishop Martinelli. He will the enter the Cathedral for a brief Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and then don his vestments for the Mass which will start at 9:30.

After a brief chat with organizers of the visit, he will return to Castel Gandolfo in time to lead the Sunday Angelus.


Frascati does need the Pope's visit. It's a shocking fact - and difficult to believe - but the bishop says so:

Frascati diocese has not had
a single priestly vocation in 20 years!


July 14, 2012

“We are a people of faith but we still need to grow a lot in this regard” says Mons. Raffaello Martinelli, Bishop of Frascati. “Our diocese has not had a single priestly vocation in over 20 years”, he reveals, “so you can imagine the desire and the need of our families for saints, above all saints, and priests... Our hope is that this coming of the Pope among us will lead to a strengthening of faith in each of us”. Emer McCarthy reports:

Sunday July 15th, Pope Benedict XVI will arrive among the people of one of the oldest and best-loved towns of the Castelli Romani, which populate the Alban Hills.

Synonymous with wine, song and grand summer villas, Frascati is perched on Tuscolo hill, with a view that sweeps from the Apennines, across Rome, and to the Tyrrhenian sea. Down through the centuries it has enchanted Popes, princes and great artists. Goethe once declared it a “paradise on earth”.

At the very heart of the old town, stands the Cathedral dedicated to St Peter the Apostle, completed on the orders of Pope Innocent XII in 1700, just in time to celebrate the Holy Year. Sunday morning Pope Benedict will celebrate an open air mass in the square beneath its imposing bell towers.

In fact, the baroque façade was the only part of the church that escaped the Allied bombing of September 1943 which devastated the town. That summer, General Albert Kesselring, commander of the German troops in Italy, had established his headquarters at the nearby Villa Falconieri.

The interior of the Cathedral is relatively bare, but its simplicity belies the historical treasures found within. Such as the plaque of the original tomb of Charles Edward Stuart, more familiarly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He was entombed in the Frascati Cathedral at the express request of his brother Henry Benedict Stuart. Henry was created a cardinal by Pope Benedict XIV in 1747 and went on to become the Dean of College of Cardinals, Bishop of Frascati [where he subsequently spent most of his life] and one of the longest serving cardinals in the history of the Church. Today, the tomb contains only the heart of the historic Stuart prince.

He and his brother were later re-interred in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, in a tomb designed by Antonio Canova.

Frascati’s history is deeply intertwined with the Papacy and Roman Curia, as one of the seven suburbicarian Sees of Rome, the primary See.
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Poland invites Benedict XVI
to make another visit and
to choose Cracow for WYD 2015

by Marek Lehnert
Translated from the Italian service of


The official letter from President Bronislaw Komorowski, sent from Warsaw on June 11, and inviting Benedict XVI to visit Poland s second time, has arrived at the Vatican through the Polish embassy to the Holy See.

Vatican press director Fr. Federico Lombardi has limited himself to saying it's too early to speak about it.Especially since the Vatican right now is busy preparing for Benedict XVI's visit to Lebanon in September.

The Polish President, recalling Benedict XVI's first visit to Poland as Pope in May 2006, said he would be honored if the Pontiff would once more agree "to come and share our joys and our concerns".

But even before the invitation from the state, the bishops of Poland had extended an invitation to the Pope while recommending the choice of Cracow as the site of World Youth Day in 2015.

If the Vatican should respond positively, the bishops would advance the start of festivities celebrating 1050 years of the so-called 'Baptism of Poland' which took place in 966. Paul VI had been invited to preside at the millenary celebration in 1966, but the Communist regime at the time would not allow the trip.

The Secretary of the President's office said "we do not expect an immediate response" and that "any date (The Pope chooses) will be good for us".

Archbishop Josef Michalik, president of the Polish bishops' conference, said "The President's invitation expresses well the bond of the Polish people with the Holy See", as well as "an acknowledgment of the mission and role that Benedict XVI plays in the contemporary world".

"He is a Pope," said Michalik, "who has taken on a particularly difficult global mission and who has great affection for the homeland of John Paul II."

On his first visit to Poland in May 2006, Benedict XVI visited Warsaw, Czestochowa, Cracow, Karol Wojtyla's birthplace Wadowice, and the shrines of Kalwarii Zebrzydowska and Lagiewniki. But the greatest public interest was in his visit to the former Nazi death camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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The following story sounds 'encouraging', but it really is not, because the possible reversal of the jury verdict rests entirely on a technicality. The law used to get the conviction was applied retroactively to an offense committed more than ten years earlier... But more woe to those who indulged their perversions even after the Church began to wage its all-out war against sex abuses by members of the clergy!

So a Philadelphia jury found a monsignor guilty
on one out of four charges of child endangerment

Will this highly appealable verdict lead
to similar lawsuits against Catholic clergy?

by David F. Pierre, Jr.

July 13, 2012

The single guilty verdict last month in the high-profile criminal abuse trial in Philadelphia was historic. Msgr. William J. Lynn became the first Catholic official in the United States to be convicted for the crime of allowing a priest suspected of abuse to continue in ministry with access to children.

“I thought I was helping people,” Msgr. Lynn testified during the trial. “I thought I was helping priests, and in those circumstances, I thought I was helping victims, as much as I could.”

But Lynn’s efforts were not enough. His failure with regard to one abusive priest convinced a jury that he was guilty of one of the charges of endangering the welfare of a child.

The verdict surely gave a sense of consolation and satisfaction to those who were so grievously harmed by criminal abusive clergy. Of this we must be mindful.

Many observers have declared that the guilty verdict will encourage other prosecutors across the country to pursue actions against Catholic officials for crimes committed years ago.

“This is the first time that someone responsible for the supervision has been held to that civil accountability,” Boston College’s Rev. Raymond Helmick, a Jesuit priest, told the Wall Street Journalafter the verdict. “That is a precedent that may go very far. I’m sure all kinds of people are itching to bring criminal cases against many, many authorities, and we’ll have to see how far it goes.”

The notorious Church-suing attorney Jeff Anderson, based in Minnesota, similarly opined, “This trial is unprecedented; it has set a pathway and a standard for prosecutors across the United States.”

But are such observations correct? Looking at what transpired with the Philadelphia cases, the outlook for future prosecutions in other areas of the country is not as clear as some might think.

In truth, after reviewing the original claims of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office at the start of the case and then looking at the actual results of the trial, one can see that the prosecution’s cases against the two defendants — Msgr. Lynn and Father James Brennan — were largely disproven. Though the media would have you believe otherwise, the overall case presented by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was mostly a failure.

When the first witness took the stand in the monumental trial during the last week in March, there were two men facing seven serious criminal charges. Msgr. William Lynn faced two charges of conspiracy and two charges of endangering the welfare of a child. Father James Brennan faced one charge each of conspiracy, attempted rape, and endangering the welfare of a child.

By the time the jury returned to the courtroom with their verdicts three months later, however, only one of those seven original charges actually returned a guilty verdict.

What happened?

Much of the prosecution’s case centered on the bold claim that Msgr. Lynn and other Philadelphia clergy actually committed conspiracy—that clerics acted deliberately with the intention that children be abused.

It was a wild accusation, indeed. At the start of the trial, one could not help but wonder what kind of evidence the District Attorney’s Office planned on presenting to demonstrate that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was willfully operating some kind of child-sex campaign.

As it turned out, there was no such evidence. After nearly two months of testimony and nearly 50 witnesses called to the stand, while the trial was still in session in the middle of May, Judge M. Teresa Sarmina dismissed most of the counts of conspiracy against Msgr. Lynn and Father Brennan.

The prosecution’s conspiracy charges were so baseless and unwarranted that the judge concluded that the charges should not even be deliberated by the jury. (One conspiracy charge remained against Msgr. Lynn, and the jury later acquitted him of it.)

It was a significant victory for the two defendants, but one would have hardly known it from the media coverage. In most news reports, the dismissals merited only a passing mention.

Following the completion of the trial, the jury foreman, 35-year-old Isa Logan, appeared on a local television morning program to talk about the trial and the conspiracy charges that had been levied against Msgr. Lynn.

“None of us understood or believed that [Msgr. Lynn] had the understanding that here’s a predator priest, I’ll help him get to another parish so he can continue to enjoy what he likes to do,” Logan stated. “None of us believed that.”

In the end, Msgr. Lynn was found guilty of only one of the four charges he faced. The cleric acknowledged that he knew that Edward Avery was ministering at a parish in the vicinity of children even though Avery had received a credible complaint years earlier of sex abuse. Avery was then accused of abuse in his new assignment, and it is because of this episode that Lynn was found guilty of a third-degree felony of “endangering the welfare of a child.”

Did the Philadelphia DA misapply the law?

One aspect of the Philadelphia trial that has not been widely reported is that the verdict appears ripe for an appeal. For an appeal to be successful, an attorney must show that a significant error in law or judgment was made during the trial, and this certainly appears to be the case with Msgr. Lynn.

Again, the crime for which Lynn was convicted was endangering the welfare of a child (EWOC). On the surface, it would appear that Lynn did indeed endanger children by allowing an abusive priest to remain in an assignment in which the cleric had access to children. But this Pennsylvania statute had historically only been applied to those who had direct supervision of children (e.g., parents, coaches, teachers, etc.), not to those who simply managed employees.

Indeed, Msgr. Lynn did not directly care for children. He merely acted as a liaison for priests with his diocesan office.

Most surprisingly, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office actually admitted in its 2005 grand jury report that Pennsylvania’s endangerment statute did not apply to Msgr. Lynn. In the 2005 report, Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen and attorney Marci Hamilton, representing the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, wrote:

"The [EWOC] statute confines its coverage to parents, guardians, or other persons “supervising the welfare of a child.” High-level archdiocese officials [like Msgr. Lynn], however, were far removed from any direct contact with children."

In other words, Philly prosecutors publicly admitted in 2005 that they were unable to prosecute Msgr. Lynn under the EWOC statute. The law simply did not apply to him.

Therefore, an obvious question remains: Why did the District Attorney’s Office prosecute Msgr. Lynn under the EWOC statute in 2011 when it already acknowledged in 2005 that it could not charge him with it?

It’s a very reasonable question, and it is surely one that Lynn’s lawyers will be asking during his appeal. One of Lynn’s attorneys, Alan J. Tauber, reviewed 280 cases in Pennsylvania involving the EWOC statute and found that none of the cases were applied to supervisors of employees.

“[Msgr. Lynn’s case is] one of the clearest cases for reversal that I’ve ever seen based on the application of the law,” Tauber concluded.

In the 2005 report, the attorneys recommended that the EWOC statute be amended to include not just those who directly supervise children, but also those who supervise employees. And this recommendation was followed. In 2007, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the law to include managers of employees. But because of the prohibition of ex post facto prosecutions, Lynn could not be charged under the amended 2007 statute. He exited his diocesan position in 2004.

Not an impressive precedent

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office invested 10 years, three grand jury reports, a small army of government lawyers, and countless investigative hours that climaxed with a 13-week trial of two men facing seven criminal charges.

The prosecution also had the advantage of a trial judge who, by all indications, granted it extraordinary favoritism by deciding nearly every evidentiary ruling, motion, and request in its favor. During the trial, Judge Sarmina was described as “often mistaken for a member of the prosecution team.”

So when other prosecutors around the country take a closer look at Philadelphia and the extensive time, money, and resources that were expended only to return a single third-degree felony conviction and see that this one successful verdict could very well be overturned, it is hard to imagine them being encouraged to seek convictions against Church officials for actions committed decades ago.

However, prosecutions of current-day criminal wrongdoing are an entirely different matter. For the safety of children and the good of the Church, prosecutors are rightfully aggressive in searching out criminal failures to report child abuse happening today.


Fortunately, with the exception of a questionable case in Kansas City against Bishop Robert Finn, such prosecutions against Church officials have been nonexistent.


David Pierre does yeoman work running a site that tries to keep track of how the 'Catholic sex abuse story' is being reported and to try and present facts as against fiction.

He has written books about the general misrepresentation of the story in the media. But sometimes you can be so close to the story that you fail to notice even glaringly basix errors in the way you report. In the above story, nowhere does he say when the offenses took place that the priests were being tried for. One only infers it took place before 2005 because he brings up a law that prosecutors applied to Mons. Lynn even if it was passed after his alleged offenses were committed.

The same disregard of fixing events in time - deliberate for the most part, to give the impression that bad things continued to happen even after all the scandal in 2001-2002 and all the measures the Church has tried to take - is evident in most of the news reports about the Philadelphia trials, and it wasn't until opening the eighth story I could find that reported the verdict on Lynn that I learned the offenses were committed some time in 1993-1994. Not that the time frame minimizes the offenses in any way, but that it defines a time when the prevailing culture in the US Church (and probably in all other local Churches at the time) of wishing to keep all the dirty linen well-hidden, while, at the same time, the very idea of a crime of 'child endangerment' was at least a decade away from the thinking of civilian authorities.

The sordid story of priests abusing minors might have remained stashed safely out of sight if it had not risen to the relatively widespread incidence that it did in the 1960s through the 1990s, for all the reasons that sociologists and psychologists have concluded. Reasons that have to do with the overall degenerative effects of the counterculture born in the 1960s, which also coincided with the full force of the initial misinterpretation and mis-implementation of Vatican II as a general license for every Catholic, including priests and bishops, to do as he pleases. But perversion will continue to surface among those who are unfortunate enough to have such a character flaw and will never be extirpated, not among priests and not among laymen, whatever their religion or occupation.



High-profile Italian priest
arrested for alleged abuse
of a 13-year-old


Today, the Italian media reported on a high-profile diocesan spokesman in central eastern Italy who has been arrested on charges of sexual abuses committed against a 13-year-old boy.

In accordance with the CDF guidelines, his bishop has suspended him from pastoral ministry and from any sacramental activity, including the right to hear confessions.

A professor of theology, who has often contributed to Avvenire, he was once considered the top 'youth ministry pastor' in Italy, and in 2011, he led a substantial Italian delegation to WYD Madrid. Most people who know him claim he could not possibly be guilty.

I don't know how the Italian justice system works, but it seems to work on the principle 'guilty until proven otherwise'.

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July 15, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Two great 17th century Spanish artists, Francisco Herrera the Older, and Francisco Zurbaran, painted scenes from the life of St. Bonaventure. From left, his parents bring the child Bonaventure to be healed by
St. Francis of Assisi; Bonaventure joins the Franciscan order; an angel communicates to the saint; the saint in prayer; Bonaventure at the Council
of Lyons; death of the saint. The first 3 canvases by Herrera were painted in 1628; the next 3 panels by Zurbaran were painted in 1629.

ST. BONAVENTURA DA BAGNOREGIO
This great saint was, of course, the subject of Joseph Ratzinger's dissertation to obtain his Habilitation as a German university professor in 1954. He spoke about Bonaventure during
his pilgrimage in September 6, 2009, to his hometown of Bagnoregio
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090906_bagnoregio...
and in three catecheses on March 3, 10 and 17, 2011
www.vatican.va/holy_fath

er/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/index_en.htm
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071512.cfm



WITH THE POPE TODAY

Pastoral visit to Frascati [ In his homily at Sunday Mass, the Holy Father reminded the faithful that
the Church's mission of evangelization is never-ending, and stressed the need to 'form the formators' well.

Sunday Angelus in Castel Gandolfo - The Pope recalled the saint of the day, Bonaventure, whose life
and theology were throughly Christ-centered, as was his view of history.
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THE POPE IN FRASCATI

Arriving at Cathedral Square for an official welcome ceremony.




A brief moment of Adoration in the Cathedral before vesting for Mass.


The Mass



]

'God calls, we need to listen'

July 15, 2012

On the eve of the Year of Faith and the Synod on New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI launched a call to mission Sunday as he told the faithful of Frascati that they share responsibility for the formation of new generations of Christians - that God is calling, and Christians must listen.

Rediscovering the beauty of faith, of 'being Church', means carrying on Christ’s work of “forming the formators”, clergy, religious and above all laymen. He said that being missionaries - like the Apostles - can mean rejection and persecution,\; it means preaching "truth and justice" even if goes against applause and human power. Emer McCarthy reports:

Eight thousand people were packed into the tiny square in front of the Cathedral of St Peter the Apostle for Sunday morning Mass presided by Pope Benedict. Loud speakers relayed the liturgy throughout the winding cobbled streets of the hill top town, festooned with white and yellow flags and banners bearing Pope Benedict’s coat of arms.

The Pope was greeted on behalf of the suburbicarian diocese by Bishop Raffaele Martinelli, who spoke of Frascati’s deep bonds with the Successor of St Peter, and his personal witness, during a period of service at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of then Cardinal Ratzinger’s tireless work on behalf of the Church.

Bishop Martinelli presented Pope Benedict with a donation for his personal charities on behalf of his community, and asked the Pope to confirm his people in their faith.

Later, at Mass, the Pope dedicated his homily to the history of mission and evangelization in the Church, which he noted is never-ending : “It is a beautiful and exciting thing to see that after two thousand years, we are still carrying on Christ’s commitment to formation!”




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

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am very glad to be among you today to celebrate this Eucharist and to share the joys and hopes, efforts and commitments, ideals and aspirations, of this diocesan community.

I greet Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, my Secretary of State and the titular bishop of this diocese. I greet your Pastor, Mons. Raffaele Martinelli, and the Mayor of Frascati, for the kind words with which they welcomed me in the name of you all.

I gladly greet the Minister representing the Italian government, the presidents of the region and the province, the mayor of Rome, the other mayors present and all the various authorities.

I am indeed very happy to celebrate the Mass today with your Bishop. As he said, he was for more than 20 years a most faithful and competent co-worker at the Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith, where he worked mostly in the section on the Catechism and catechetical instruction, silently and discreetly. He contributed to the Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992 and to the subsequent Compendium of the Catechism. His voice is very much present in this great symphony of faith.

In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus takes the initiative to send the twelve Apostles on mission
(cfr Mk 6,7-13). In fact, the word 'apostle' means 'messenger, envoy'. Their vocation was fully realized after the resurrection of Christ, with the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Nonetheless, it is very important that from the very beginning, Jesus wanted to involve the Twelve in his activities: It was a kind of apprenticeship for the great responsibility that awaited them. The fact that Jesus called some disciples to collaborate directly in his mission manifests an aspect of his love: namely, that he did not disdain the help that other men could bring to his work. He knew their limitations, their weaknesses. yet he did not appreciate them any less, but conferred on them the honor of being his messengers.

Jesus sent them out in pairs and gave them instructions, which the evangelist Mark summarizes in a few sentences. The first has to do with the spirit of detachment: the apostles must not be attached to money and to comforts. Jesus then warned his disciples that they would not always receive a favorable welcome - that sometimes, they would be rejected - in fact, they could be persecuted. But that this should not deter them, that they must speak in the name of Jesus and preach the Kingdom of God, without being concerned about 'succeeding". They should leave that to God.

The first Reading today presents us with the same perspective, chowing us that God's messengers are not always welcome. This was the case with the prophet Amos, who was sent by God to prophecy at the shrine of Bethel, in the Kingdom of Israel
(cfr Am 7,17-18).

Amos preached with great energy against injustices, denouncing above all the abuses of the king and his notables - abuses that offended the Lord such that their acts of worship were in vain. And so, Amasiah, priest of Barthel, ordered Amos to leave. He answered that he had not chosen this mission, but that the Lord had made him his prophet and had specifically sent him there, to the Kingdom of Israel. And therefore, whether he was accepted or rejected, he would continue to prophesy, preaching what God says and not what men want to hear.

This remains the mandate of the Church, which does not preach what the powerful want to hear. The criterion is truth and justice even if this does not earn applause and opposes human power.

Likewise, in the Gospel, Jesus warns the Twelve that it could happen they would be rejected in some places. In which case they ought to go elsewhere after having made the gesture to the people of shaking the dust from under their feet, as a sign of detachment in two senses - a moral detachment to say, "The announcement has been made - it is you who reject it"; and a material distance, "We did not want nor do we want anything from you"
(cfr Mk 6,11).

The other very important indication from the Gospel passage today is that the Twelve could not just be content with preaching conversion: Following the example of Jesus, preaching should be accompanied by healing the sick - a physical and spiritual healing.

He speaks of concretely healing ailments, but he also speaks of chasing out demons, that is, to purify the human mind, to cleanse it, to clear the eyes of the soul that have been darkened by ideologies and therefore, can no longer see God, and cannot see truth and justice.

This double healing, corporal and spiritual, is always the mandate for Christ's disciples. Therefore, the apostolic mission should always encompass the two aspects of preaching the Word of God and manifest his goodness in acts of charity, service and dedication.

Dear brothers and sisters, I give thanks to God who has sent me today to re-announce to you the Word of salvation. A word which is the basis of the Church's life and action. as it is of the Church in Frascati.

Your bishop has informed me of the pastoral commitment that is closest to your heart, which is substantially a formative commitment principally addressed to the formators, that is, to 'form the formators'.

It is precisely what Jesus did with his disciples: He instructed them, prepared them, formed them through missionary apprenticeship, so that they would be able to assume apostolic responsibility in the Church.

In the Christian community, this is always the first service offered by the responsible authorities: Starting with parents, who fulfill the educational mission for their children in the family; the parish priests, who are responsible for formation in the community; to all the priests in their various fields of work - in which they all must carry out an educational responsibility as priority; and the lay faithful, who, besides their role as parents, are also involved in formative services with young people and adults, as officials in Catholic Action or other ecclesial movements, or employed in civic and social activities, always with great attention to the formation of persons.

The Lord calls us all, distributing different gifts for different tasks in the Church. He calls to priesthood and the consecrated life, he calls to matrimony and to engagement as laymen in the Church herself and in society.

It is important that the riches in these gifts find full acceptance, especially on the part of young people; that they may feel the joy of responding to God with all of themselves, through priesthood or the consecrated life, or through matrimony - two ways that are complementary and that enlighten each other. They enrich each other, and together they enrich the community.

Virginity for the Kingdom of God, and matrimony, are both vocations, a calling from God which must be answered with and for all one's life. God calls - we must listen, accept and respond. Like Mary - "Here I am - be it done to me according to your will"
(cfr Lk 1,38).

Even here, in the diocesan community of Frascati, the Lord sows his gifts with largesse, calling you to follow him and to prolong his mission into our day.

Even here, there is need for the new evangelization, and for this, I ask you to live intensely the Year of Faith which begins in October, 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

The documents of the Council contain an enormous wealth for the formation of the new Christian generations, for the formation of our conscience. Therefore, read them. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and thus you will rediscover the beauty of being Christian, of being Church, of living the great 'we' that Jesus has assembled around him, in order to evangelize the world: the 'we' of the Church is never closed, it is always open and oriented towards announcing the Gospel.

Dear brothers and sisters of Frascati: Be united among yourselves, and at the same time, be open and missionary. Remain firm in your faith, rooted in Christ through the Word and the Eucharist. Be persons who pray, in order to remain always bound to Christ, like tendrils on a vine.

But at the same time, go forth, bring his message to everyone, especially to the little ones, the poor and the suffering. In every community, love each other, do not be divided but live as brothers, so that the world may believe that Jesus lives in his Church and that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

The patrons of Frascati diocese are the Apostles Phillip and Jmaes, two of the Twelve. To their intereesison, I entrust the journey of your community, so that it may be renewed in faith and give clear witness of it through works of charity. Amen.




'Vatican-II has so much to say
even to the new generations'

by GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Translated from the Italian service of

July 15, 2012

"The documents of Vatican-II contain an enormous wealth for the formation of new Christian generations," Benedict XVI said today in his homily at the Mass he celebrated on a brief pastoral visit to Frascati.

"Even among them, there is need for new evangelization, and that is why I ask yo to live intensely the Year of Faith which begins in October, 50 years since the opening the Second Vatican Council".

When his Pontificate started, a certain 'vulgate' in the mass media reiterated the claim [often made in the more than two decades when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] that Benedict XVI was a 'cold' Pope, one who was incapable of warming the hearts of the masses.

And yet to demolish this stereotype once and for all, one only had to be on Frascati's Tusoolo hill at dawn this morning to climb up to the summit amid a constant stream of cars and buses, to get to the top. Many more than expected had come to see the Pope, choosing to come to his Mass instead of going to the seaside on a summer Sunday.

In the city that has given more Popes to the Church than any other city but Rome, Papa Ratzinger was welcomed like a friend, but above all, as a leader from whom one was sure to receive words of truth and comfort, which are even more necessary at a time of grave economic crisis for a place which once flourished with entrepreneurial activity. But recession has made erosive effects even here, and one can almost see it visibly.

The Pope called on the faithful to announce Christ "without being concerned about succeeding" but rather with the awareness that "the messengers of God are often not welcome".

Christians, he said, "should reacquaint themselves with Vatican II" in order to rediscover "the beauty of being Church".

"It is beautiful and very encouraging," he said, "that6 after 2000 years, we can still go ahead with the commitment to be 'formed .in Christ. We are all responsible. We are all co-responsible. The Lord calls us all, distributing different gifts for the different tasks in the Church".

He calls to the priesthood and the consecrated life, as he calls to marriage and to lay commitment in the Church and in society. What is important is that "this richness of gifts finds full acceptance, especially among young people".

Thus, he appealed: "Be united among yourselves, even as you remain open to the missionary spirit. Remain firm in your faith, rooted in Christ through his Word and the Eucharist. Be persons of prayer, in order to be always bound to Christ like tendrils to the vine".

These were strong words which did not fall into the void, to judge by the general enthusiasm of his listeners.

"We organized ourselves to let Benedict XVI fell the warmth of our affection i9n return for the spiritual support that he gives us daily with his preaching", said Mara Cancellieri, who along with many friends from the various cities of the Castelli Romani region, arrived all together at the square in front of Frascati's St. Peter's Cathedral.

But many faithful also came in from other regions. "We travelled overnight to be here," said Silvia Rimoncini, 36, president of a lay association in Osimo, Ancona province. "Personally, I took the opportunity because I also have relatives in Frascati, but our members have come because during a historic and very critical phase in our history, we feel that as young Catholics, we can show our support for the Primate of Italy, who speaks for those who have no voice. We have members who have lost their jobs and have been unable to find new employment. To pray with the Pope is an injection of confidence, and our will to lift ourselves out of current difficulties. The Pope helps us not to lose heart and to proceed again from where we were halted".

The rebirth of Frascati after the Second World War is like a tangible symbol for the possibilities of rebuilding from ruin. The Supreme German Command for the Mediterranean front was located here, and so, after the armistice of September 8, 1943, 130 American tanks razed the city to the ground.* The city had to be reconstructed stone by stone. And today the Pope of purification chose it as a symbolic place for his message of regeneration and hope.

Leading his welcomers was Mons. Raffaello Martinelli, who had worked with Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The altar boys today took part yesterday in the first football championships among ministrants, whose huge white-and-yellow banner festooned the gates of Villa Aldobrandini [the 17th-century noble home built for Cardinal Aldobrandini on a hilltop that has the most beautiful panoramic view in Frascati - from the Apennines in the east, to the urban sprawl of Rome and the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west].

Gianluca Franco, 40, an engineer, came with his wife and children to the Mass. "At a very sensitive phase in my life, I benefited in a special way from the 'orientation' of Benedict XVI," he said. "I was at a stage when I no longer found sense in daily living, when almost by chance, I read his JESUS OF NAZARETH, and since then, I have been captivated by the clarity and pervasiveness of his words. He almost seems a member of my family, and to be here today is the least I can do. We also went to Milan for the World Meeting of Families last month. Every time that I can, I attend his Wednesday catecheses - it has become a way for me to 'recharge my batteries'".

"It is as if to see and hear him directly is a direct reinforcement of the faith and an incentive to overcome weaknesses and the occasions when we stumble and fall. To understand the greatness of his Magisterium, the best way is to just listen and allow oneself to be pervaded by his teaching".

The most recurrent word among the faithful for what they felt in the presence of the Pope was 'emozione'.

Mons. Martinelli told his flock that Benedict XVI has come to Frascati "top confirm and strengthen us in our faith, to pray for all the faithful, for all our families, especially our children, our young people, all those who suffer in the body and in the spirit; to invoke the gift of religious and priestly vocations coming from our families".

In the past, the suburbicarian bishops of Rome were part of the college of cardinals and enjoyed privileges such as walking directly behind the Pope in papal processions. and represented him in functions at the Cathedral of Rome, St. John Lateran. In fact, they even had a cathedral in Rome, Santa Maria in Monasterio. Today, the seven suburbicarian sees are headed titularly by the cardinal-bishops, the highest-ranking among the College of Cardinals.

The present titular bishop of Frascati is Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone [who, strangely, did not appear in any of the newsphotos I've seen so far!]

This pastoral visit (announced only last May) lasted barely two hours (from 9:30 to 11:30) and yet, it is very significant as the first papal visit to Frascati in 32 years. Like John Paul II before him, Benedict XVI( said Mass in the Cathedral square. Then he returned to Castel Gandolfo for the Sunday Angelus.

An erroneous news item published by the nominally Catholic Italian news agency Adista said that the diocese had solicited contributions from the faithful to 'defray' the costs of the Pope's visit. In fact, the diocese had taken up a special collection in previous Sundays to present to the Pope as a gift for his charities.



*[I can understand the bitterness of these inexplicable acts of war, because something similar happened to Manila, which had been declared an 'open city' during World War II, and therefore not subject to bombardment. But in the final days of the war, after US troops recaptured Manila, in order to make sure that all Japanese forces were rooted out, US bombs fell over Intramuros, the 17th-century walled city that had been the heart of Spanish Manila, destroying everything, including the mother churches and convents built by the Spanish missionaries (Augustinians, Dominicans, Recollects, etc) who had come in with the conquistadores. To this day, I cannot get over my bitterness against the United States for having destroyed three centuries of our history and depriving all succeeding generations of Filipinos that historical legacy. In the past 50 years, some reconstruction has been done to give us an idea of what Intramuros was like, but since we are a Third World country, this is nowhere like the Russians did to totally reconstruct St. Petersburg or the Germans did for Dresden after World War II - or as Frascati did to restore its pre-war glory. ]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/07/2012 03:18]
15/07/2012 20:18
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ANGELUS TODAY





In praise of Bonaventure's
Christ-centeredness


July 15, 2012

Pilgrims sang and clapped as they waited patiently in the enclosed courtyard of the Apostolic palace in Castel Gandolfo for their midday appointment with Pope Benedict XVI Sunday for the recitation of the midday Angelus.

The Pope, who had celebrated Mass in the nearby town of Frascati, arrived slightly later than usual and was greeted by resounding applause. Emer McCarthy h
reports:

Pope Benedict’s reflections before the Angelus today began with a tribute to the saint of the day, Doctor of the Church, Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, whose life and theology was totally Christ centered.

He said this this Christ-centeredness is also found in the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians read at Sunday’s Mass. A hymn which “contains the Pauline view of history that St. Bonaventure has helped to spread in the Church: all of history is centered on Christ, who guarantees novelty and renewal in every age. In Jesus, God has spoken and given everything, but because He is an inexhaustible treasure, the Holy Spirit never ceases to reveal and actualize His mystery. Therefore, the work of Christ and the Church never regresses, but always progresses”.



Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words at the Angelus today, which he preceded with a few words to explain why he was some minutes late for the noontime appointment:

Dear brothers and sisters:

I see that you have forgiven me for being late. I celebrated Holy Mass in Frascati, and perhaps we stayed in prayer a bit too long.

In the liturgical calendar, July 15 is the liturgical memorial of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Franciscan, Doctor of the Church, and successor of St. Francis in the leadership of the Order of Friars Minor.

He wrote the first official biography of the Poverello, and towards the end of his life, was also the Bishop of this Diocese, Albano. In one of his letters, Bonaventure wrote: "I confess before God that the reason that made me love more the life of the Blessed Francis is that it resembles the Church in its beginings and in its growth"
(Epistula de tribus quaestionibus, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Introduzione generale, Roma 1990, p. 29).

These words bring us directly to the Gospel today, of this Sunday, which presents the first mission of the Twelve Apostles when Jesus first sent them forth. "Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two", St. Mark writes. "He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick - no food, no sack, no money in their belts... to wear sandals but not a second tunic" (Mk 6,7-9).

Francis of Assisi, after his conversion, practised this Gospel to the letter, becoming a most faithful witness of Christ. Associated singularly with the mystery of the Cross, he was transformed into 'another Christ', as St Bonaventure presents him.

St. Bonaventure's whole life as well as his theology was centrally inspired by Christ. We find such Christ-centeredness in the second reading of the Mass today
(Eph 1,3-14), the celebrated hymn in St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, which begins: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens."

The apostle then shows how this plan of blessing was realized, in four passages all beginning with the same words, "In him...", referring to Jesus Christ.

In him, the Father chose us before the creation of the world. In him, we have redemption through is blood. In him, we have become heirs, predestined to be 'in praise of his glory'. In him, everyone who believes in the Gospel will receive the seal of the Holy Spirit.

This Pauline hymn contains the view of history that St. Bonaventure contributed to disseminate within the Church: All history has Christ in the center, who guarantees novelty and renewal in every age.

In Jesus, God has given and said everything, but because he is an inexhaustible treasure, the Holy Spirit will never finish revealing and actualizing his mystery. That is why the work of Christ and his Church never regresses but always progresses.

Dear friends, let us invoke the Most Blessed Mary, whom we celebrate tomorrow as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, so she may help us, as St. Francis and St. Bonaventure, to respond generously to the call of the Lord to annoucne his Gospel of salvation with words but above all, with our life.


After the prayers, he had a special message in Polish:
Tomorrow, we will celebrate the liturgical feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, the Mother of God of the scapular. Blessed John Paul II carried and honored the scapular, sign of special entrustment to her. To all his co-nationals in Poland, in the world, and you who are here in Castel Gandolfo today, I pray that Mary, the best of all mothers, will wrap you in her mantle in the struggle ahainst evil, intercede in your requests for graces, and show you the way that leads to God. Praise be to Jesus Christ!


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/07/2012 12:45]
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