BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Friday, Sept. 28, 25th Week in Ordinary Time

ST. WENCESLAS (VACLAV) (Bohemia [now part of the Czech Republic], 903-935), Prince, Martyr, Patron of the Czech Republic
The 'good King Wenceslas' of song and legend, Vaclav was born to Duke Bratislav, a Christian [said to have been converted by Saints Cyril and Methodius], and Dragomir, a heathen. He received a good Christian education from his grandmother (St. Ludmilla). When Bratislav died, his widow Dragomir, acting as regent, opposed Christianity, and Vaclav urged by the people, took the reins of government. He placed his duchy under the protection of Germany, and the German Emperor Otto I conferred him with the regal title. Vaclav introduced German priests to the duchy and favoured the Latin rite instead of the old Slavic, which had gone into disuse in many places for want of priests. Vaclav had taken a vow of virginity and was known for his virtues. For religious and national motives, and at the instigation of his mother, Vaclav was murdered by his brother Boleslav, as follows: "In September of 935 (in older sources, 929) a group of nobles allied with Vaclav's younger brother Boleslav in a plot to kill the prince. Boleslav invited Vaclav to the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Stará Boleslav. Three of Boleslav's companions ambushed Vaclav on his way to the church and murdered him. Boleslav thus succeeded him as the Duke of Bohemia." Vaclav's body, hacked to pieces, was buried where he was murdered, but three years later Boleslav, having repented, ordered its translation to the Church of St. Vitus in Prague. On this day in 2009, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in Stara Boleslav on the Feast of St. Vaclav, for a gathering of at least 40,000 Czechs.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092812.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

At the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI met with

- H.E. Zion Evrony, Ambassador of Israel to the Holy See, who presented his credentials

- Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Workers

- Mons. Zygmunt Zimowski, President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Ministry of Health Care Workers.


Papal Mass to open Synodal Assembly
and to proclaim 2 new Doctors of the Church


On October 7, 2012, 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, at 9:30 a.m., the Holy Father Benedict XVI will proclaim two Doctors of the Church:

ST. JUAN OF AVILA, diocesan priest, and
ST. HILDEGARDE OF BINGEN, Benedictine nun

during a Eucharistic Celebration in St. Peter's Squasre to open the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod on the theme "The New Evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith".

Concelebrating with the Holy Father will be the Synodal Fathers and the bishops of Spain and Germany.



- A reminder that I must translate the OR piece:

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Much ado about
the "Jesus wife" report

VATICAN CITY. Sept. 28 (AP) — The Vatican newspaper has added to the doubts surrounding Harvard University's [the claim is by a Harvard professor, and the university itself has not agreed to publish the professor's paper in any university publication] that a 4th century Coptic papyrus fragment showed that some early Christians believed that Jesus was married.

L'Osservatore Romano published an article Thursday by leading Coptic expert Alberto Camplani. While praising Harvard scholar Karen King's academic paper on the subject, Camplani cited concerns by colleagues about the scrap's authenticity and the fact that it was purchased on the market without a known archaeological provenance.

He also challenged King's interpretation of what the fragment's script means, if it was real.

King sparked high interest last week when she delivered a paper at an international Coptic conference in Rome. She said the fragment doesn't prove that Jesus was married, just that some early Christians thought he was.

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IN MEMORIAM JOHN PAUL I


Photos at right show Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger paying homage to John Paul I on his installation as Pope, and Cardinal Albino Luciani as Patriarch of Venice welcoming Pope Paul VI at St. Mark's's Square.

34 years ago today, Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani) was found dead in his bedroom at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, after only 33 days as Pope. He was 65. The cause for his beatification awaits certification of the miracle that cured a southern Italian man afflicted with terminal cancer.

Papa Luciani's beautiful prayer above translates as follows:
"Lord take me as I am,
with all my defects and shortcomings.
But make me become
what you want me to be".




It's really bad timing after being gone all week, but it's Friday today and I will be gone until the evening. I apologize...

I have not touched this story till now though it has been out there for about a week now. But this item sort of wraps up what it's all about.

German bishops defend exclusion
of Catholics who stop paying tax
By Jonathan Luxmoore


WARSAW, Poland, Sept. 27 (CNS) -- The German bishops' conference defended a controversial decree that said Catholics who stop paying a Church membership tax cannot receive sacraments.

"There must be consequences for people who distance themselves from the church by a public act," said Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, conference president, in defending the Sept. 20 decree.

"Clearly, someone withdrawing from the Church can no longer take advantage of the system like someone who remains a member," he said at a Sept. 24 news conference as the bishops began a four-day meeting in Fulda. "We are grateful Rome has given completely clear approval to our stance."

The archbishop said each departure was "painful for the Church," adding that bishops feared many Catholics were unaware of the consequences and would be "open to other solutions."

"The Catholic Church is committed to seeking out every lost person," said Archbishop Zollitsch, whose remarks were reported by Germany's Die Welt daily.

"At issue, however, is the credibility of the Church's sacramental nature. One cannot be half a member or only partly a member. Either one belongs and commits, or one renounces this," Archbishop Zollitsch said.

Catholics make up 30 percent of Germany's population of 82.3 million, about the same proportion as Protestants, with 2 percent belonging to Orthodox denominations, according to government figures.

Interest in the Catholic Church revived after German-born Pope Benedict XVI's April 2005 election, but church baptisms and weddings continue to decline. Church statistics show that about 13 percent of Catholics attend Mass weekly, compared with 22 percent in 1989.

Germany's Catholic priesthood and religious orders also are declining in number, according to a bishops' statement in June, despite three homecoming visits by Pope Benedict since his election.

A total of 126,488 Catholics asked to stop paying the membership tax and be removed from registers in the 27 German dioceses during 2011, according to the bishops' conference. In 2010, some 180,000 Catholics took the same step.

German newspapers said the Pope's native Bavaria region had suffered the worst losses. The dioceses of Augsburg, Bamberg, Eichstatt, Passau and Wurzburg reported a 70 percent increase in departures in 2010, the height of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

Introduced in the 19th century, the membership tax earns the German Church about $6 billion annually, making it one of the world's wealthiest.

In its decree, the bishops' conference said the tax was designed to compensate for state seizures of Church property. The decree said the right to a "civil law withdrawal" ensured "no one is led to Church membership against their will."

"Conscious dissociation from the Church by public act is a grave offense against the Church community," the decree said.

"Whoever declares their withdrawal for whatever reason before the responsible civil authority always violates their duty to preserve a link with the church, as well as their duty to make a financial contribution so the church can fulfill its tasks."

The document added that departing Catholics could no longer receive the sacraments of penance, holy Communion, confirmation or anointing of the sick, other than when facing death, or exercise any hurch function, including belonging to parish councils or acting as godparents.

Marriages would be granted only by a bishop's consent and unrepentant Catholics would be denied Church funerals, the decree said.

A press release Sept. 20 said the decree had been approved in August by the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops. It added that parish priests would be asked to write to departing Catholics, inviting them to meet and explain their decision and have the consequences explained.

The Associated Press reported that the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, Germany, ruled Sept. 26 that Catholics who opt out of paying religious taxes must automatically leave the Church as well.

The bishops' decree was criticized by Germany's dissenting We are Church movement, which said in a statement Sept. 24 that a "pay to pray" policy sent "the totally wrong signal at the wrong time" when the German bishops were "laboriously trying to regain credibility" after a "decades-long cover-up of abuse scandals."

[Excuse me! If someone publicly renounces his Church by deciding to stop paying a Church membership tax, he ought to mean it. There is no halfway house to apostasy:

1. if you give up membership in the Church, one must presume you have thoroughly considered the decision and its consequences.

2. But if the apostate's intention Is simply to avoid paying any church membership tax by declaring himself unaffiliated, while being free to avail himself of the Church's sacramental and pastoral services, then that is most dishonest and unfair to regular Catholics.

3. If there were no sacramental and pastoral consequences to a 'show' of apostasy, what is to stop other Catholics from deciding to opt out of Church membership to avoid having to pay a church tax at all?

4. In the real world, failing or refusing to pay your membership dues in any organization means you are no longer considered part of the organization and cannot continue to avail of any of the privileges of membership. Why should it be any different with the Church?

5. If the apostate or would-be apostate is really leaving the Church out of a deep-seated rejection of the Church and what she stands for, then I don't see why the apostate would even want to continue to take part in the sacraments of a Church one has rejected so categorically.

6. If the a;ostate or would-be apostate actually feels there are some aspects of the Catholic faith - other than taking part in the sacframental life - that he would like to keep observing, no one would stop him from going to Mass (much less, praying in private) if he were so minded.

As Benedict XVI has reminded remarried divorcees who are technically living in adultery, there is always spiritual communion when one is unable to receive the Eucharist.]

"Instead of considering the reasons why large numbers are leaving the Church on the ground, this bishops' decree sends a threatening message," the statement said.

"This threatened exclusion from community life is a de facto excommunication. It contradicts the sacramental understanding of indelible Church membership through baptism." [It's not the Church that has renounced the apostates, nitwits! It's the other way around. The latter obviously do not feel anything 'indelible' about their membership in the Church. It has become to them like just another club membership.]

In his Sept. 24 opening address to the bishops' meeting, Archbishop Zollitsch said the Church needed "a long perspective, deep breath and patience" to cope with current challenges, as well as a capacity for dialogue with "social groups and circles alienated from the Church."

[Pardon me for being cynical, but dialog all you want - I don't think the alienated will feel any closer. They believe, as the We are Churcn types do, that they alone are in the right, and that the Church - the entire institution, hierarchy and structure - is deeply and hopelessly wrong. The Church certainly won't stoop to compromise, not that compromise would ever satisfy the dissenters. Call me a spineless lemming, but I was raised to think that the Catholic faith imposes a discipline dictated by Christ, in which obedience - Mary-like - is fundamental, and sanctimonious pride has no place.

And BTW, of course, the hierarchy of the German Church is loath that continually declining sums are going into the coffers as the Church loses taxpaying members. But from all accounts, they have been the spoiled child of the Church getting all that revenue from the Church tax. Even if the German Church may also lead the world in its charitable undertakings in needy countries, perhaps it will be salutary for the bishops to tighten their belts at home, since they obviously do not have a bottomless well to draw from.

I have no idea how much more affluent the German Church is (or was) compared to the Church in Italy, which also benefits from the Italian government's tax revenues (though probably in a more rational way, since the Lateran agreement arrived at the famous 0.008% fixed share of Italy's annual tax revenue going to the Italian bishops' conference) for exactly the same rationale that the Church in Germany is getting the Church membership tax. In both cases, the formula represents compensation from the state to the Church for all the Church property that may have been confiscated and destroyed during a determined historical period.

Ratzinger Prize winners
for 2012 formally announced

Sept. 28, 2012

The winners of the second edition of the Ratzinger Prize (Premio Ratzinger) in Theology were officially announced Friday: - French philosopher Rémi Brague and American patrologist Fr. Brian E. Daley S.J. The award will be conferred on the winners on Oct. 20, 2012, during the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.

Rémi Brague, born 1947, married and father of four, is professor emeritus of medieval and Arabic philosophy at the University of Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) and professor of philosophy of the European religions (Romano Guardini Chair) at the Ludwig- Maximilian University in Munich.

Brian E. Daley, S.J., is the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). He is a contributor to the English edition of Communio magazine, founded by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri De Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger.

The Ratzinger Prize has been called the “Nobel of Theology” and is handed out by the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. Pope Benedict XVI himself approved the launch of the Foundation in 2010, following keen requests from academics, philosophers and theologians worldwide.

The aim of the foundation is to “promote the publication, distribution and study of the writings of former university professor Joseph Ratzinger”. It finances its activities through the publication and sale of Ratzinger’s works.

At the same time, the Holy Father decided to establish a Prize in Theology, in recognition of the work undertaken by scholars in three specific areas: Sacred Scripture study, Patristics and Fundamental Theology.

The first recipients of the award, in 2011, were: Italian Professor Dr. Manlio Simonetti, an expert in Ancient Christian Studies and Patristic Biblical Interpretation (relating to the Church Fathers), who used to teach at Rome's La Sapienza University; the Reverend Father Professor Dr. Olegario González de Cardedal, a Spanish priest and Professor specializing in Dogmatic and Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca in Spain; and the Rev. Fr. Professor Dr. Maximilian Heim, a German, and Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) near Vienna, where he teaches dogmatic and fundamental theology at the University of Heiligenkreuz.

As in 2011, the Pope himself will present the awards.

Biography of the 2012
Ratzinger Prize winners

Rémi Brague, born 1947, married and father of four, is professor emeritus of medieval and Arabic philosophy at the University Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) and professor of philosophy of the European religions (Romano Guardini Chair) at the Ludwig- Maximilian University in Munich.

He studied philosophy and the classical languages at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and later Hebrew and Arabic. He taught philosophy for two years at the University of Burgundy (Dijon), then twenty years at the Sorbonne. He has taught at Munich since 2002. He was a visiting professor in Penn State, Boston (B.U. and B.C.), Lausanne, Milan, Pamplona.

He is the author of Eccentric Culture (South Bend, 2002), The Wisdom of the World (Chicago, 2003), The Law of God (Chicago, 2007), The Legend of the Middle Ages (Chicago, 2009), On the God of the Christians (South Bend, 2012).

Rémi Brague is a member of the Institut de France (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques) [The same academy to which Joseph Ratzinger was elected in 1992, taking over the seat vacated by Russian physicist and peace activist Andrei Sakharov.]

Brian E. Daley, S.J., is the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). A 1961 graduate of Fordham University (New York), he studied ancient history and philosophy at Merton College, Oxford, from 1961 to 1964, then entered the Society of Jesus.

After theological studies in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was ordained priest on 25 July 1970, he returned to Oxford to do a D. Phil. in the Faculty of Theology, from 1972 until 1978. He then taught historical theology for eighteen years at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before moving to Notre Dame in 1996.

He is the author of The Hope of the Early Church (Cambridge, 1991; Hendrickson, 2002); On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies (St. Vladimir’s, 1998), and Gregory of Nazianzus (Routledge, 2006), as well as many articles. He is also the translator of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy. The Universe according to Maximus the Confessor (Ignatius, 2003). Fr. Daley is the executive secretary of the Catholic-Orthodox Consultation for North America.


CONFERRAL OF THE FIRST "RATZINGER PRIZES"
Clementine Hall
Thursday, 30 June 2011


Top photo: Prof. Simonetti receives his prize. Nottom panel, left: Fr. Gonzalez, and right, Abbot Heim, receiving theirs.

Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's words:

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Eminences,
Venerated Brothers.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all, i wish to express my joy and gratitude for the fact that by awarding these prizes in theology, the Foundation which carries my name is publicly acknowledging the work of a lifetime by two great theologians and is giving a sign of encouragement to a theologian from a younger generation to proceed along the path he has taken.

A common bond over many decades links me to Prof. Gonzalez de Cardedal. Both of us started with St. Bonaventure and allowed him to show us the direction we would take.

In his long life as a scholar, Prof. Gonzalez has dealt with all the great themes of theology, not simply reflecting on them or discussing them around a table, but always confronting the drama of our time, living and even suffering in a very personal way all the great questions about the faith, and therefore, the questions of men today.
Thus, the words of faith are not a thing of the past: in his works, they truly become contemporaneous with us.

Professor Simonetti has opened to us the world of the [Church] Fathers in a new way. By showing us, from the historical point of view, and with precision and care, what the Fathers tell us, they become persons who are contemporaneous with us, who speak to us.

Fr. Maximilian Heim was recently elected abbot of the Manastery of Heiligenkreuz near Vienna - a monastery that is rich in tradition - taking on the task of actualizing the abbey's great history and leading it towards the future.

In this, I hope that the work he has done on my theology, which he has given us [the book Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology], may be useful to him, and that Heiligenkreuz may, in our time, further develop monastic theology, which has always accompanied the theology taught in universities, constituting with it the entirety of Western theology.

It is not, however, my task to present a laudatio of the prize winners, which has already been done competently by Cardinal Ruini. But perhaps this is an occasion to dedicate ourselves for a moment to the fundamental question of what theology really is.

Theology is the science of faith, tradition tells us. But immediately the question arises: Is this really possible? Or is this not a contradiction in itself? Is not science the opposite of faith? Does not faith cease to be faith when it becomes science? And does not science cease to be science when it is ordered or even subordinated to faith?

Such questions, which were already serious issues in medieval theology, have become even more compelling with the modern concept of science, and at first glance, would seem to be unsolvable.

It is therefore understandable why, in the modern age, theology in vast areas has retreated primarily to the historical, for the purpose of showing its scientific seriousness. And it is necessary to acknowledge with gratitude that many great works have been realized this way that have given the Christian message new light, and capable of making visible its intimate richness. Nonetheless, if theology retreats completely to the past, it would leave faith in darkness.

In a second phase, there was a focus on praxis, to show how theology, combined with psychology and sociology, could be a useful science that can give concrete directions for life. This, too, is important, but if the basis of theology - faith - is not at the same time the object of thought, if praxis becomes self-referential only, or lives only on what it borrows from human sciences, then praxis becomes empty and without a foundation.

These ways, therefore, are not sufficient. As much as they are useful and important, they become subterfuges if they do not provide answers to the true question. Which is: What we believe in - is it true or not?

In theology, the question of truth is in play: it is its ultimate and essential foundation. A statement by Tertullian can take us a step farther: he wrote that Christ did not say "I am custom" but "I am the Truth". Non consuetudo sed veritas (Virg. 1,1).

Christian Gnilka has shown that the concept of 'consuetudo' could refer to the pagan religions which, by their nature, were not faiths, but 'custom': they did what was always done, they observed traditional forms of worship and expected to continue doing so as their proper relationship with the mysterious world of the divine.

The revolutionary aspect of Christianity in the world of antiquity was precisely its rupture with 'custom' for the love of truth. Tertullian speaks here above all on the basis of the Gospel of St. John, in which we find the other fundamental interpretation of the Christian faith which is expressed in the designation of Christ as Logos.

If Christ is Logos, truth, man should respond to him with his own logos, his reason. In order to get to Christ, he must do so along the way of truth. He must open himself up to the Logos, to Creative Reason, from which his own reason comes, and to which reason sends him back.

From here, one can understand that Christian faith, by its very nature, must inspire theology - it must question itself on the reasonableness of faith, but because the concepts of reason and of science encompass many dimensions, the concrete nature of the link between faith and reason had to be and must always be freshly examined in depth.

However clear the fundamental link among Logos, truth and faith is presented in Christianity, the concrete form of that link has provoked and will always provoke new questions. Clearly, on this occasion, this question, which has occupied and will occupy all generations, cannot be treated in detail, not even in its major lines.

I only wish to make a very small remark. St. Bonaventure, in the prologue to his Comments on the Sentenze, wrote about the double use of reason - one which is irreconcilable with the nature of faith, the other which belongs to the very nature of faith.

There exists, he said, a violentia rationis, the despotism of reason which makes itself the supreme and ultimate judge of everything. This kind of use for reason is certainly impossible where faith is concerned. What did Bonaventure mean with this?

A passage from Psalm 95 (v 9) can show us what he meant. God tells his people: "In the desert your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works".

Here, there is a reference to a double encounter with God. They had 'seen', but this was not enough for them - they would put God to the test. They would subject him to experiment. He would be placed, we might say, under interrogation, he would have to submit himself to an experimental procedure.

In the modern age, this way of using reason has reached its peak in the field of natural sciences. Today, experimental reason widely appears to be the only form of rationality that is considered scientific. What cannot be scientifically verified or proven false is excluded from the field of science. Under such a condition, great works have been achieved, as we know. And no one can seriously doubt that such progress is right and necessary in terms of knowledge of nature and her laws.

Nonetheless there is a limit to this type of using reason: God is not an object of human experimentation. He is the Subject and manifests himself only in a person-to-person relationship - this is part of the essence of his nature.

In this perspective, Bonaventure indicates a second use of reason which is valid in the 'personal' area, for the great questions of human beings themselves. Love wishes to know the beloved better. Love, true love, does not make one blind but seeing. And part of this is the thirst for knowledge, for a true knowledge of the other.

For this, the Fathers of the Church found precursors and forerunners of Christianity - outside the world of revelation of Israel - not in the area of traditional religions, but in men who were seeking God, who were in search of truth, in the 'philosophers' - persons who thirsted for truth and were therefore on the way towards God.

When this use of reason is not present, then the great questions of mankind will fall outside the field of reason and will be consigned to irrationality. That is why an authentic theology is so important.

Correct faith orients reason and opens it to the divine, so that, guided by love for the truth, reason can know God from much nearer. The initiative for this way is with God, who has placed in the human heart a yearning for his face.

Therefore part of theology is, on the one hand, the humility that lets one be 'touched' by God, and on the other, the discipline which is linked to the order of reason, which keeps love from being blind, and which helps develop its visual power.

I am well aware that all this has not answered the question on the possibilities and the task of correct theology, but has only highlighted the greatness of the challenge inherent in the nature of theology.

Nonetheless, it is such a challenge that man needs because it spurs us to open up our reason by asking ourselves about truth itself, about the face of God.

And that is why we are grateful to the prize-winners who have shown in their work that reason, walking along the path blazed by faith, is not an alienated reason, but reason that corresponds to their elevated vocation. Thank you..

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Pope's message to the Plenary Assembly
of European bishops' conferences
Translated from


The following is the message (translated from Italian) sent by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone in the name of the Holy Father to the participants of the Plenary Assembly of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe taking place in St. Gallen, Switzerland, from Sept. 29-30. The letter is addressed to Cardinal Peter Erdo Archbishop of Budapest and President of the CCEE Council. The message was read at the opening of the Assembly.

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Your Eminence,
On the occasion of the annual Plenary Assembly of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe which takes place in St. Gallen on the 1400th anniversary of the saint's arrival in Switzerland, the Supreme Pontiff extends to all the participants his heartfelt good wishes with the assurance that he remembers you in prayer.

He is pleased about the happy convergence between the place of the meeting, which is also the seat of the CEEE Secretariat, and the aforesaid anniversary which invites reflection on the perennial task of evangelization and its present renewed urgency.

St. Gallen, disciple of the great abbot St. Columban, came with him and other disciples from Ireland to the Continent. After illness forced him to remain at a place near Arbon, he decided to dedicate himself to a hermit's life. But soon, his fame for sanctity attracted many towards him, and a monastic community was born which became, in its turn, a center from which missions to numerous European peoples were launched.

The experience of St. Gallen, like those of other protagonists in the evangelization of European lands and the whole world, teaches us that the Christian message is sown and takes root effectively wherever it is lived in an authentic and eloquent way by a community whose preaching is supported by the testimony of their own fraternal charity and animated by communal prayer.

Thus, the memory of St. Gallen and his work, on the eve of the
Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization, shall be a stimulus to the Plenary of the Council to look with faith and hope, through the eyes of Christ the Lord, on the great 'harvests' represented by the peoples of Europe in the wake of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the teachings of the Supreme Pontiffs who have actualized the work of the Council.

In particular, it will be opportune to review the magisterial lesson by the Servant of God Paul VI in Evangelii nuntiandi, the admonition of Blessed John Paul II in Nove millennio ineunte, and naturally, in the light of the Magisterium fo the Holy Father Benedict XVI and in the perspective of the coming Year of Faith.

In invoking over the CCEE Assembly the protection of the Mother of God and of the Church, His Holiness imparts the Apostolic Blessing to Your Eminence and his other brothers in the Episcopate, as well as all your co-workers.

I join my personal wish for a serene and fruitful session, and take the occasion to renew my deference.

Of your most Reverend Eminence,
devotedly in the Lord,

TARCISIO CARDINAL BERTONE
Secretary of State

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Thursday, Sept. 29, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
FEAST OF THE ARCHANGELS

Illustrations from left: Michael, Raphael and Gabriel in usual representations (2 each). Third and fifth are Greek icons showing all three.
THE ARCHANGELS MICHAEL, GABRIEL & RAPHAEL
The only angels named in Scripture, the archangels are the highest-ranking angels acting as God's messengers to men . Michael is generally considered the protector archangel; Gabriel the messenger archangel, having announced the Incarnation to Mary; and Raphael, the healing archangel.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092912.cfm


WITH THE HOLY FATHER TODAY

The Holy Father met with delegations from the Commune of Castel Gandolfo, civilian and military authorities,
religious communities and the service staff of the Apolstolic Residence to express his thanks at the end
of his summer stay which began July 7. He returns to the Vatican on Monday afternoon, Oct. 3. Yesterday
afternoon, he bade farewell to the families of the staff and personnel of the Pontifical villas.

At the Vatican, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has announced the theme chosen by
Benedict XVI for World Communications Day in 2012: 'Social Networks: portals of truth and faith;
new spaces for evangelization".


NB: The trial of Paolo Gabriele and Claudio Sciarpelletti for their part in Vatileaks opened today at the Vatican. I shall post any wrap-up report and ignore the all-out, almost nauseating rehash of Vatileaks indulged in these days by the Italian media. Gabriele is a confessed criminal who blatantly and mindlessly betrayed the personal trust of the Holy Father. The court will judge him for aggravated theft, for now, but his personal treason of the Holy Father is not 'prosecutable' and a gross offense that is pardonable only by the victim himself.

Vatican II teachings not optional,
ex-CDF Prefect tells US conference
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien


WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (CNS) -- The teachings of the Second Vatican Council are neither optional nor second-class, but must be seen in the proper context, the former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said Sept. 26 as he opened a conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

The talk by Cardinal William J. Levada focused on three events that share an Oct. 11 date -- the opening of Vatican II 50 years ago, the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 20 years ago, and the upcoming opening of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.

The cardinal, who retired in July after serving as prefect for seven years, was the first speaker at a Sept. 26-29 conference on "Reform and Renewal: Vatican II After Fifty Years."

He began his talk by recounting a conversation in which a colleague recalled asking high school students if they knew what Vatican II was. "The Pope's summer residence?" one student suggested.

Cardinal Levada credited his audience at Catholic University with a much greater understanding of the 1962-65 council but said some confusion and misunderstandings remain, such as whether the council was doctrinal or pastoral in nature, and whether its legacy should be seen in the letter of the council -- the documents it produced -- or in its 'spirit'.

"Vatican II was by intention a pastoral council -- it did not develop new dogmas to correct errors of the faith," he said, describing the council as "doctrinal in principle, but pastoral in its presentation."

On the letter-versus-spirit question, Cardinal Levada said it is "not legitimate to separate the spirit and letter of the council."

He talked about two responses to the council -- one that reflected a flawed understanding of the continuity of Church teaching and another that reflected a correct understanding.

In the former case, a Dominican provincial in the Netherland wrote to his colleagues urging the ordination of women and married men and lay-led eucharistic celebrations as a response to the priest shortage. That proposal, the cardinal said, was "contrary to Church teaching and even heretical."

On the other hand, Pope Benedict's establishment of ordinariates that allow Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while retaining some of their Anglican heritage and traditions, including liturgical traditions, is a logical follow-up to the Council, he said.

The cardinal said the ordinariates, made up of former Anglicans who "fully accept the Catholic faith," serve as a "concrete witness to help overcome fears that diverse expressions of faith are not allowed" in the Catholic Church. He said the new structure marks "a new relationship between the Church and the modern era."

He said the situation remains murky for another group that may or may not unite with the Catholic Church in the near future -- the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, which rejects most of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Benedict launched a new series of doctrinal discussions with the society in 2009, lifting excommunications imposed on its four bishops and expressing his hopes they would return to full communion with the Church. The talks are taking place under the guidance of the Vatican doctrinal congregation.

Asked during the question-and-answer period to disclose the contents of a "doctrinal preamble" that society leaders have been asked to sign, Cardinal Levada said he could not discuss "an ongoing dialogue that is private."

"But I can say this, there is division in that house about whether the Council should be rejected or not," he said.

The Vatican has said the preamble, which has not been published, outlines principles and criteria necessary to guarantee fidelity to the Church and its teaching.

"I pray for the successful conclusion of that dialogue," the cardinal said. "But it is not my responsibility anymore. I leave it to my successor".

Vatican court rejects some evidence
in Paolo Gabriele's trial, and
announces Mons. Gaenswein will testify
By Nicole Winfield



Left, the non=descript building that houses the Vatican City State's courts; right, the courtoom where Gabriele is being tried (photo taken during some other trial; no photography allowed during Gabriele's trial].

VATICAN CITY, Sept. 29 (AP) - The Pope's once-trusted butler [VALET!]went on trial Saturday for allegedly stealing papal documents and passing them off to a journalist in the worst security breach of the Vatican's recent history — a case that embarrassed the Vatican and may shed some light on the discreet, internal workings of the papal household.

In its first hearing in the case, the three-judge tribunal threw out some evidence gathered during the investigation of butler Paolo Gabriele, who is charged with aggravated theft. It also decided to separate Gabriele's trial from that of his co-defendant, a computer expert charged with aiding and abetting the crime.

Gabriele is accused of taking the Pope's correspondences, photocopying the documents and handing them off to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book "His Holiness: The secret papers of Pope Benedict XVI," was published to great fanfare in May.

Nuzzi has said his source, code-named "Maria" in the book, wanted to shed light on the secrets of the church that were damaging it. Taken as a whole, the documents seem aimed primarily at discrediting Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state and Benedict's longtime trusted deputy. Bertone, 77, a canon lawyer and soccer enthusiast, has frequently been criticized for perceived shortcomings in running the Vatican.

On Saturday, the court also announced that the Pope's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, had been called as a witness, testimony that is sure to attract attention given that Gaenswein rarely speaks in public, much less about details of the intimate, papal family of which Gabriele formed part.

Other witnesses include one of the four consecrated women who take care of the Pope's apartment, a monsignor in the Vatican Secretariat of state, the No. 2 Swiss Guard commander and the head of the Vatican police force.

Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre set the next hearing for Tuesday, when Gabriele will be questioned. He said he thought the whole trial could be wrapped up in four more hearings.

Gabriele faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted. He has already confessed, saying he leaked the documents to shed light on what he called the "evil and corruption" in the Church, and asked to be pardoned by the Pope.

Gabriele, a 46-year-old father of three, appeared calm but tense during the 2 hour, 15 minute hearing, frequently crossing his hands or clasping them in his lap. He wore a light grey suit and tie.

He sat alone on a bench on one side of the intimate, austere courtroom following the proceedings impassively. During a break in the hearing, he chatted with his attorney, Cristiana Arru, and greeted journalists with a nod and a smile as he entered and exited.

Arru raised a series of objections at the start of the hearing, only some of which were accepted by the court. One concerned two jailhouse conversations Gabriele had with the head of the Vatican police force without his lawyers present. The judges declared the conversations were inadmissible. The content of the conversations isn't public.

Arru also sought access to the report of a commission of cardinals appointed by the Pope to investigate the leaks alongside Vatican magistrates. The court denied the request. [The cardinals' work was canonical in nature and is not under the competence of the Vatican city-state tribunal that is trying Gabriele.]

Neither Gabriele's wife nor any of his three children attended the hearing. Space for the public was limited; eight of the 18 seats were taken up by the journalists who followed the proceedings and then briefed the rest of the Vatican press corps afterwards.

Security was relaxed, with the guards at the tribunal entrance mostly concerned that none of the press or public brought in any recording devices: They even checked pens to make sure they couldn't record, and sequestered cellphones into safe boxes. No television or still cameras were allowed, except for Vatican media which filmed the first moments at the start of the hearing.

Eight members of the Vatican gendarmerie who were called as witnesses were in the courtroom as well, but left during the break after the judges made clear they wouldn't be called to testify Saturday. Domenico Giani, the Pope's personal bodyguard [head of the Pope's security, actually]] and the head of the Vatican police force, remained for the duration of the hearing.

Given the content of the leaks and the Vatican's penchant for secrecy [It is not a 'penchant' - it is centuries-old practice, since much of what the Vatican does really does not concern the general public!], the fact that the trial was open to the public and media may have struck some as unusual.

In fact, such trials in the Vatican's civil and penal tribunal are routinely public. They just don't happen very often or attract much attention. The Vatican's ecclesial courts on the other hand, which handle marriage annulments, clerical sex abuse cases and other matters of Church law, remain firmly off-limits to outsiders. [And rightly so!]

In some ways, the willingness of the Vatican to proceed with the trial at all is an indication of its efforts to show new transparency in its inner workings. Benedict could have pardoned Gabriele as soon as he was arrested or charged, precluding any trial from getting off the ground. Instead he allowed the trial to go ahead, evidence of the "courage" the Vatican is showing to be more transparent, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi has said.

He called such transparency unprecedented for the Vatican and likened it to the Holy See's recent decision to submit its financial institutions to outside scrutiny by the Council of Europe's Moneyval committee.

The Vatican Insider report by Giacomo Galeazzi has a few more details, but there is no English translation provided
vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/homepage/vaticano/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/vatileak...
The AP story is much more systematically presented and comprehensive.

Here is the Vatican Radio report:

Gabriele trial begins - the court tules
on various defense objections,
and hearing will resume Tueday

Sept. 29, 2012

The trial against the Pope's ex-valet Paolo Gabriele and Secretariat of State employee Claudio Sciarpelletti opened on Saturday, during which the Vatican Court ruled that the two accused will be tried separately on charges of aggravated theft of private documents and aiding and abetting a crime, respectively.

The trial is linked to the leaking of personal and private documents from the Pope's desk to the Italian media which first came to light last January.

The opening session was preceded by a consultation in Council Chambers among the three presiding judges that lasted over an hour, during which they discussed pre-trial requests presented by the defense.

46 year-old Gabriele was present at the session. Sciarpelletti was represented by his attorney. Nine of the thirteen witnesses called to testify were present. The Pope’s personal secretary Msgr. Georg Gänswein was among those absent because of prior official commitments. Eight journalists were also present to serve as pool reporters for the rest of the media.

The trial itself got underway in the small Vatican Courtroom, when President of the Vatican Tribunal, Giuseppe dalla Torre, read the list of charges. Attorneys for the defence then presented their clients' respective pleas.

Sciarpelletti attorney’s Gianluca Benedetti began by filing a “not guilty” plea for his client who was absent for unspecified "unexpected reasons”. Benedetti noted the lesser gravity of the charge against his client and presented a motion for a separate trial, which was granted by the Court. This will take place at a later unspecified date.

The judges then proceeded to throw out requests presented by Paolo Gabriele’s defense attorney Cristiana Arru. She had asked the Court to allow as evidence the results of a separate investigation by the Commission of Cardinals, convoked earlier this year by Pope Benedict XVI, to investigate the broader implications of the leaks.

The Court ruled that the results of the cardinals' investigation were reserved to Pope Benedict [and not connected to the judicial investigation in any way] and cannot be counted as evidence. Judge dalla Torre emphasized that trial evidence will be solely based on the results of the investigation carried out in Vatican City State by Vatican City State police and prosecutors.

The Court also rejected the pre-trial plea for a ruling on "Sub secreto pontificio" - in short evidence that is subject to Pontifical secret. The Court observed that this is not part of the criminal code of Vatican City State. [I must check this out because it is stated so murkily, and it does not correspond to what I have read about this particular point in other Italian media reports today.]

At the same time, the Court confirmed the legality of the installation of cameras near Gabriele’s house by Vatican police starting uJne 6 (he was arrested May 23) as having been duly authorized by the tribunal.

However, the Court upheld Arru’s request for the removal from the body of evidence of two interrogations of Paolo Gabriele which had been conducted by the head of the Vatican Police Domenico Giani, without the presence of a lawyer.

Other objections raised by Arru are pending, such as that over the 82 boxes of documents of different sizes that were seized in Gabriele’s house before his arrest, as well as objections relating to the way the search was carried out.

The trial has been adjourned until Tuesday, when Gabriele is due to take the stand. Should he be found guilty he could face up to a maximum four years in prison.

Salvatore Izzo of AGI adds the following relevant information:

Paolo Gabriele's trial is expected to end by Saturday, October 6. The Vatican tribunal that is trying him has called for four hearings next week starting Tusday, Presiding judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre said that should give enough time for all evidence to be presented and legal arguments to be heard, after which a sentence can be given.

About the issue reported imprecisely above by Vatican Radio, this is what Giazomo Galeazzi reported for La Stampa/Vatican Insider:

Gabriele's lawyer started the day by questioning the competence of the college of cardinals in investigating Gabriele's case, saying that violation of 'pontifical secrecy' was a canonical offense which does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Vatican City-State courts.

But Judge Dalla Torre pointed out that his court was only trying Gabriele for aggravated theft, which is covered by the law of Vatican City State, not by canonical law. [Gabriele is liable for violation of pontifical secrecy because as a Vatican employee, he swore an oath of loyalty to the Pope.]

Pope makes his farewells after
three months in Castel Gandolfo
Adapted from

Sept. 29, 2012


Left, the Pope greets CG authorities; right, he addresses the staff of the Pontifical Villas and their families. (Enlarged from Vatican Radio thumbnails).

Pope Benedict XVI expressed his thanks and bade farewell Saturday morning to the civilian and military authorities of Castel Gandolfo, along with the city's religious communities, as he prepares to return to the Vatican after spending almost three months in the papal summer residence here. He returns to the Vatican on Monday afternoon, Oct. 3.

He praised the efforts of all those who assisted and gave hospitality to him, his colleagues, and all the guests and Pilgrims who travel to the resort town to meet him.

He asked them to continue their spiritual closeness to him in prayer. Mayor Maurizio Colacchi promised to pray for him and for his intentions, especially for families in need and for the sick.

The Pope had special thanks for the police and military forces that provide security and transportation during his stay at the Papal summer retreat. These include the Papal Gendarmerie, Italian State Police, the Swiss Guard and the 31st Squadron of the Italian Air Force.

Here is a translation of the Pope's remarks:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am happy to welcomed you at the end of my summer stay in Castel Gandolfo. It has allowed me to live a time of study, prayer, and rest, during which I have noted with admiration the solicitude and attention of all the persons involved in guaranteeing assistance and hospitality to me and my co-workers, as well as the guests and pilgrims who have come here to meet the Successor of Peter.

I express my great appreciation to each and everyone for your profuse dedication in the course of the past three months. In the summertime, Castel Gandolfo is confirmed as a 'second seat' for the Bishop of Rome, that views with Rome in the capacity to welcome visitors and pilgrims who come to pray the Angelus on Sundays and for the General Audiences on Wednesday.

I greet with affection and gratitude, first of all, the Bishop of Albano, Mons. Marcello Semeraro. I greet the parish priest of Castel Gandolfo and his co-workers, along with the religious and lay communities, male and female, in the territory.

I ask you all to continue making me feel your spiritual closeness even after my departure, just as you have during the time I have been here. I am thankful for this, and I encourage you to continue with trust and joy your service to Christ and his Gospel.

I also greet the civilian authorities of Castel Gandolfo in the person of the Mayor. As I thank you for the readiness and concern you have shown, I assure you of remembrance in prayer for all of your community, especially for families in difficulty and for the sick.

I am also pleased to greet the officials of the various offices of the Vatican Governatorate - the Gendarmerie Corps, the florists, the technical and health services - as well as the forces of Italian law and order and the officials and airmen of the 31st Squadron of the Military Aeronautic forces.

May the Lord reqard you all with abundant heavenly duties and watch over you and your families.

Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for your presence today at this meeting. The best way to remember each other is in prayer: I will never fail to pray for you and your intentions, and I trust that you will do the same for me.

To the Virgin Mary whom we venerate in the month of October as the Queen of the Holy Rosary, I entrust each of you, your families and friends. May she with her loving regard always accompany and sustain us in our journey along the road of justice and truth.

With these sentiments, I impart the Apostolic Blessing on each of you present and to all your dear ones.

---

On Friday afternoon, the Pope made his farewells to the the staff of the Pontifical Villas at Castel Gandolfo, along with their families.
In what has become a traditional greeting and leave-taking at the end of the Pope’s sojourn in the ancient hill town outside Rome, Pope Benedict XVI thanked all those who work to make the Papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo safe, pleasant and relaxing.

“Everything passes in this world!” he said. “So it is also with serene and peaceful times,” as he described the months from July through the end of the present month of September, in “the beautiful setting of Castel Gandolfo... (where) he could “breathe a family atmosphere and great cordiality.”

The Holy Father also looked ahead to his upcoming visit to Loreto next Tuesday, to mark the 50th anniversary of the pilgrimage of Blessed John XXIII to the Marian shrine a week before the Second Vatican Council opened, to entrust the Council to the Mother of God, Mary.

In which connection, he referred to the coming General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod to discuss the tasks of New Evangelization, and the opening of the Year of Faith starting with the 50th anniversary of the Vatican-II opening on Oct. 11.

Here is a full translation of his remarks:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

Everything passes away in this world! Everything that begins, even the most positive and the most beautiful, inevitably carries with it its own conclusion. So it is too for the serene and tranquil time that I have spent here with you, in the beautiful setting of Castel Gandolfo, where once more, I have breathed a climate of familiarity and of genuine cordiality.

Our meeting today, which has become a gratifying custom, gives me the opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for the generous service you carry out in this Pontifical Residence.

My special and affectionate greeting goes to Dott. Saverio Petrillo, general director of the Pontifical Villas, with gratitude for his kind words which he addressed to me in your name. And a dear greeting to all the personnel and their families. May the Lord, rich with goodness, bless you all and keep you in his love.

The month of September which is coming to an end is always the time for a positive new launch after the summer vacation. For your children, school begins again, and for all of you, it means more intense and assiduous work.

Even in the Church, for many Christian communities throughout the world, God the Father gives us the beginning of a new pastoral year.
But we also have some events that are very significant.

I think of my coming visit to Loreto, with which I wish to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the pilgrimage by Blessed John XXIII to that Marian shrine in order to entrust the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council to Mary.

There is the General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod which will reflect on the New Evangelization in today's Church and in the world.

And finally, on the 50th anniversary of the Council opening - the start of the Year of Faith. which I decreed to help every man open up his heart and his life to Jesus our Lord and to his Word of salvation.

Thus I entrust to your prayers, dear friends, these important ecclesial events that we are called upon to live. May the Lord assist you and help each one to grow in the faith, to rediscover Jesus as the precious and genuine pearl, the treasure of our life.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and ours, whom we invoke confidently in the coming month of October with the daily recitation of the Holy Rosary, always protect and sustain you to realize all the good intentions in your heart.

Let my blessing also accompany you, which I impart on each and everyone, to your families and all who are dear to you, especially those who are sick and suffering. (He gives the Blessing)

Arrivederci!

---

The Pilgrim Church is Marian

Sept. 29, 2012



Benedict XVI goes to Loreto on the 4th of October, on the 50th anniversary of the famous pilgrimage of Pope John XXIII a week before the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Council. He wishes to commend to the Mother of God the great prayer intentions of the Church at this time — in particular the upcoming Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.

This is not the first time that Pope Benedict has gone on pilgrimage to Loreto. He visited the Marian shrine at least seven times as a Cardinal, and already once before as Pope.

Christians believe, according to a centuries-old tradition, that the Holy House enshrined in Loreto wass the humble home of Mary and the Holy Family in Nazareth - therefore a living memorial of the Annunciation and the mystery of the Incarnation. Spiritually and symbolically it is a very appropriate place to prepare oneself for a time of renewal in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the world today.

The Second Vatican Council – which was opened and closed on the two Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Motherhood – devotes the final chapter of the great document on the Church, Lumen gentium, to Mary, “a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth.” The Church, the Pilgrim People of God, is Marian.

Beginning our journey with Pope Benedict, we, like Blessed John XXIII, humbly strive to relive the mystery and the joy of the Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God, so that we can live the month of the Synod and a Year of grace accompanied and encouraged by Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother.

Left, the business-card size papyrus fragment presented as 'The Gospel of Jesus's wife'; right, Harvard Prof. Karen King, who presented the 'finding' without trying to authenticate it first.

One must suspect a motivation for instant fame - or notoriety - in a Harvard professor's decision to announce to the world the 'discovery' of a papyrus fragment purported to quote Jesus referring to 'my wife', etc., before she even tried to get the fragment authenticated. And it sure has made for quite a nine-day media meme, a piece of faux-info that self-generates itself virally over the Internet. Even if she says now that all she wanted was to throw it out there for discussion. Which is mighty irresponsible for a scholar. You don't throw out something for discussion until you have first established reasonably that your 'source' can stand up to scrutiny. Hers does not seem to be... Moreover she herself insists she is not claiming the writing on the fragment is true, only that in the 4th century, the question of Jesus's marital status was already being raised. So what's new about that?.. .I'm using a HuffPost article because one would never suspect them of carrying any water for Christianity!

'Jesus wife' research raises suspicion
that the reputed source is a fake
by Jaweed Kaleem

Sept. 29, 2012

Scholars of Coptology and papyrology have loudly expressed doubt about the authenticity a Harvard professor's discovery of a 4th century papyrus fragment in which Jesus is quoted speaking of "my wife."

Facing mounting doubts over the legitimacy of a business card-sized Coptic papyrus fragment that appears to quote Jesus Christ discussing his wife, the Harvard professor who acquired the artifact said Wednesday that she stands behind her findings, but is "open to questions about authenticity."

Karen L. King, the Harvard Divinity School professor whose announcement at a Coptic studies conference in Rome last week about a 1½-by-3-inch fragment inspired "Jesus's Wife" headlines worldwide, said the badly damaged artifact has been sent for testing.

She said the tests should determine if it is from the fourth century as originally proposed, or if parts of it are a modern forgery, as an increasing number of scholars of Coptology and papyrology have suggested.

The fragment, which has eight mostly legible dark lines on the front side and six barely legible faded lines on the back, was never meant to prove Jesus was married, King said, since its writing dates back to hundreds of years after his death. It was intended to highlight that some early Christians may have believed he was married. That would be significant because debates over sexuality and marriage have dominated contemporary discussions about Christianity; the Catholic Church cites Jesus's celibacy as one reason its priests must not have sex or marry. [I beg to disagree, but it would be significant only if the fragment appears to establish the putative 'fact' - and it clearly does not, as even King herself acknowledges. King's 'discovery' would be akin to someone discovering in the future, after a nuclear holocaust that wipes out most of civilization, a small scrap of paper on which is written "John Paul II had a lover...' without any other context for the scrap other than that it was written in the third millennium (most likely from Catholic hate literature!), it is meaningless as such! The Harvard Theological Review must equally be faulted for 'provisionally' accepting for publication any 'finding' whose source has not been authenticated! Scientific journals are traditionally rigorous about aourcing and authentication and would not even consider publishing any alleged historical finding whose source has not been authenticated in any way.]

The legible lines on the front of the artifact seem to be a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. The fourth line of the text says, "Jesus said to them, my wife." Line 5 says "... she will be able to be my disciple," while the line before the "wife" quote has Jesus saying "Mary is worthy of it" and line 7 says, “As for me, I dwell with her in order to ..."

King, who carefully guarded her discovery until the Rome conference, released photos of the fragment and a draft of a related paper, scheduled to be published in the Harvard Theological Review. But after the conference, scholars quickly began to doubt the findings.

Some said the handwriting, grammar, shape of the papyrus, and the ink's color and quality make it suspect. Others said the ink and papyrus should have been chemically dated before being publicly announced. The fact that the fragment's owner is unknown also has attracted suspicion. [All the reasons for which a responsible researcher ought to have sought some authentication of the fragment before going public with it! It turns out that apparently, she never tried to authenticate it until the flare-up of objections following her giga-hyped announcement!]

King said the owner acquired the piece in 1997 from a German owner and wants to remain anonymous. [And she left it at that! Dealers in antiques generally require a provenance that goes back as far as can be established. A scolar-researcher should be even more demanding.]

On Wednesday, bloggers began circulating a rumor that the Harvard Theological Review reneged on publishing King's 52-page paper titled, "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" because of doubts over whether the papyrus was genuine. [Even the title she chose for the paper was super-presumptuous - to call 14 partial lines a 'gospel' of anything is a contemptible contemporary trick to inflate the importance of any document that appears to be remotely about Jesus and his time on earth.]

Helmut Koester, a professor emeritus of Harvard Divinity School and a former 25-year editor of the journal, said in an interview that he heard "they did not want to publish because of doubts from two respected scholars."

Koester, who specializes in early Christianity and early Christian archaeology, added that after seeing an evaluation of King's work from a colleague in the field, he was "absolutely convinced that this is a modern forgery."

A call to the Harvard Theological Review was redirected to a Harvard spokesman, and Kevin Madigan, the journal's co-editor, did not reply to an email. But in an earlier Associated Press article, Madigan said King's paper had only been "provisionally" accepted for a January publication. He said that there would be ongoing studies about the "scientific dating and further reports from Coptic papyrologists and grammarians."

King, however, said on Wednesday that her work is on track to be published in January.

Craig Evans, a New Testament professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, is one of the scholars who still has questions. Evans blogged Wednesday on Near Emmaus, a biblical history website, that he thought "the papyrus itself is probably quite old, perhaps fourth or fifth century, but the oddly written letters are probably modern and probably reflect recent interest in Jesus and Mary Magdalene."

"It's usually the science that precedes the big announcements. These things aren't usually left untested, especially where a papyrologist has not uncovered it in Egypt," said Evans in an interview.

King said Wednesday that she is "very anxious" to see what testing determines and that she is working on additions to her paper in response to criticisms. [Now she says this! Well, she was flat out unscientific and intellectually dishonest in not bothering about authentication first, before raising such a ruckus!] She also plans to report on the ink and papyrus analysis. It's unclear when testing will be complete.

"The idea was precisely to put it in the hands of scholars so we can began the discussion, to get opinions about authenticity, what they see in the fragment and what they think it is, what the conversations are," King said. "That's what we are seeing ... This is the academic process." [Yeah, now she says - humbug after the fact!]


Here now is my translation of the article in OR, which is accompanied by a brief commentary by the editor...

Right panel: Considered typical Coptic scripture of the early Christian, the so-called 'Schoyen fragment' from an Oslo collection looks very different from the sloppy letterwork of King's fragment (top right on the OE page. The second fragment illustrated in the OR, not very clearly, is a page from a manuscript found in the German National Library.)


In any case, it is fake
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the 9/27/12 issue of


The story over the presumed 'wife' of Jesus, attributed to a very problematic and controversial papyrus fragment, is recounted with prudence and rigor by Coptologist Alberto Campiani, who teaches History of Christianity at Rome's La Sapienza University, and was among the organizers of the international Coptologists' congress in Rome which was the theater for the headline-grabbing 'news'.

It was an announcement carefully prepared, leaving nothing to chance: all the major American media had been forewarned and invited to a preemptive news conference by Prof. Karen King to unveil a global 'scoop'.

One however that was immediately questioned by many specialists in the field, who have presented consistent objections that would lead to the conclusion that the papyrus fragment is a poorly made counterfeit (like so many others that crop up now and them from the Near East) aimed for sale on the world market by some private entity to a prestigious institution of this fragment and other 'manuscripts.

All this, in the very implausible context of reading the tendentious and biased Gnostic phenomenon of the early Christian centuries in the light of contemporary ideology which has nothing to do with the historical facts about Christianity and the figure of Jesus.

In short, the papyrus fragment is a fake.

A papyrus adrift
Harvard scholar presents antique papyrus fragment
purporting to contain references to 'Jesus's wife'
by ALBERTO CAMPLANI
Translated from the 9/27/12 issue of


"The finding of a Harvard scholar would appear to show Jesus had a wife". This is how Fox News reported its version of the reports that had already appeared elsewhere in the media about a news conference held on Sept. 18 in Rome by Harvard Prof. Karen King, of the Harvard Schoo of Divinity, during the 10th international congress on Coptic studies, hosted by the Augustinianum Patristic Institute, located less than a hundred meters away from the Vatican.

News reporting in many European and Italian media in the days that followed King's announcement was in a similar vein, but with variations of tone and of critical awareness, as well as mostly irrelevant references to the book "The Da Vinci Code".

The facts can be stated quickly: During her news conference, King presented a papyrus fragment containing, in a Coptic translation, phrases from a presumed dialog by Jesus with his disciples about a female figure, Mary, whom he refers to as 'my wife' (in Coptic, ta-hime, a rare form for ta-ahime, which in Coptic means 'woman' generically or 'wife').

Nothing strange for a scientific congress. But in this case, the very immediate link between 'research' and journalism - which has little use for the long periods of time during which serious scientific debates must be pursued - was already apparent even before the congress, since the news published in American newspapers on the same day was based largely on an interview King had given before leaving for Rome.

And while the media, with more or less sensationalistic tones. concentrated on the overall outline of the 'discovery' (stirring up a sudden interest in the congress on Coptic studies), King and Harvard's website posted the multi-page draft of the article she wrote, with the collaboration of younger student colleagues, about this business-card sized papyrus fragment and its contents.

King's paper will not be part of the Congress acts (to be published by January 2015), but she had submitted it to the Harvard Theological Review, which planned to publish it in January 2013, without undergoing mandatory peer review.

Thus the article was presented in Rome anointed with all the chrisms of 'scientificity and objectivity'. But that would have been expected of King, who is a renowned researcher of Gnosticism and related questions about early Christianity. [No matter how 'momentous' the conclusion might be to any study - and this one was not, by King's own admission - it cannot be exempt from following minimal standards including authentication of the source material(s) and a review by the scholar's scientific peers who can spot problem areas and raise pertinent questions that must be addressed before the study can be published!]

Her fundamental conclusions are as follows:
1. The papyrus scrap is an ancient fragment dating back to the 4th century AD.
2. The Greek text that was the basis for the Coptic translation is even older, perhaps written around the second century.
3. It testifies to the existence of circles in which the marital status of Jesus was disputed.

"Affirmations about the marital status of Jesus were born for the first time a century after his death, in the context of intra-Christian controversies on sexuality, matrimony, and discipleship," King writes.

I must say beforehand that I have reservations about this point in King's arguments. More than that, I also think that her conjecture played into and fed the journalistic treatment of her 'finding', in that they transformed expressions of intimacy and spiritual consubstantiality that are habitual in Gostic writings when describing the relationship between the Lord and his disciples, into the affirmation that Jesus was presumably married.

This presumed marital status, according to King - even if on the basis of this fragment, she grants it cannot certainly be accepted as historical fact - was part of the Christian debate in the second century over Jesus and sexuality.

In the face of a question like this one, which, unlike most of the papers presented during the Coptic studies congress, was not a document discovered during an archeological dig but something that turned up in the antiquarian circuit, numerous precautions need to be taken to establish the reliability of the fragment to exclude any possibility of counterfeit.

First of all, it must be studied in its physicality. From what kind of manuscript could it be attributed by paleographic criteria?
Second, what kind of a text is it, and in what literary context should one consider the purported statement made by Jesus about 'my wife'? What significance would the statement have in the specific context of when and how it was said?

It must be pointed out that both levels of research (into the papyrus itself, and into the text it contains) present numeroud problems. King admits that some of her colleagues have questioned the authenticity of the papyrus fragment, even if some papyrologists tend to be more favorable.

Many of the Coptologists present in Rome for the congress expressed doubts about the authenticity of the fragment after examining online photographs of it. But they did not rule out making a more detailed judgment once tbey had the conditions to study the question and to learn more about the fragment,

They have expressed initial reservations about the character of the fragment, from which they do not have enough to reconstruct the kind of manuscript it came from [Was it a literary codex? Or perhaps an amulet?], nor the characteristics of the writing itself, which is far different from most of the famous models from the fourth century and a vast number of later models. Some have said that the Coptic characters in the fragment were actually an inept reproduction of printed Copt [which would have been invented long after the 4th century].

If, on the one hand, no one has said outright that the peculiarities of the fragment necessarily prove it is counterfeit (often, new reference points can emerge even from well-known typologies), on the other hand, it then becomes the task of the scientific community to determine whether any 'original features' noted are of ancient or modern provenance.
]
In other words, one must note the specific nature of this fragment, which seems remote from known models, as for inatance, the Nag Hammadi codes. But the fragment also differs considerably from the codices indicated by King as terms of comparison.

This could channel further investigation into two different directions which will obviously influence the judgment one will make about the text. In other words, the fragment could be a modern counterfeit, in which case any further investigation would be meaningless.

Or the document it comes from could have been written by circles who did not intend to leave a literary text but were merely producing an internal document as various schools of 'magic' used to do in late antiquity. They could have used well-known texts, predominantly of a Gnostic character, to create new texts which they felt to be more effective, in the same way that some of their colleagues constructed new texts by re-assembling various Gospel texts. If that was the case, the meaning of the fragment itself would change drastically.

But let us consider the text, which is presented as a dialog between Jesus, his disciples and a woman. The context is known to those who are familiar with apocryphal literature or the so-called dialogs of Resurrection.

We can find the most pertinent parallelisms in the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Phillip, as King herself points out.

Women are presented as the disciples who were mostready to recognize a spiritual kinship with the Savior, and one of them, Mary Magdalene, a favorite Gnostic figure, is called the 'consort' of Jesus. In the Gospel of Philip, the Greek word koinonos and the Coptic word hôtre are used, which cover the entire semantic spectrum from 'companion' to 'spouse'.]

This 'new' fragment appears to be in consonance with those texts - and would even seem to presuppose them when Jesus is quoted as saying [at least, in the partial lines that survive], "My wife...she will be capable of being my disciple".

But one must be clear about the broad significance of these expressions. King sees them not as proof that the historical Jesus was married, but as part of an attempt to establish a positive view of Christian/Gnostic marriage on the 'argument' of a marital link between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. And she claims that this fragment "allows us to see that, probably as early as the second century, some Christians already believed Jesus was married."

But that is not so. In both cases, the expressions are altogether metaphorical, symbolizing the spiritual consubstantiality between Jesus and his women disciples, which finds ample evidence in Biblical literature and in early Christian tradition.

The true problem, however, is that of verifying whether the celibacy of Jesus was ever in doubt or had ever been an object of debate in primitive Christian tradition, including the Gnostic.

The first eyewitness accounts of Jesus say nothing about his being married, even when they speak of Mary Magdalene. And even if in the second century, the pagan philosopher Celsus, in his radical critique of Christianity (as reported fragmentarily by Origen), records the infamous gossip about the mother of Jesus and her supposed extramarital relationships, nothing is even hinted about the supposed marital status of Jesus.

I believe that such a 'silence', within and outside Christian tradition, is much more significant than a literal interpretation of the phrases found in the fragment, which I think must be understood only in a totally symbolic way.

The most authoritative and persuasive - as well as scrupulously scholarly but easy to follow - rejection of King's 'fragment' that I have seen so far calls it a fake 'Gospel fragment' composed by a modern writer who is not a native speaker of Copt. The critique was written by Francis Watson, professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Durham (UK)
markgoodacre.org/Watson.pdf
who first posted the rejoinder on Sept. 20 and updated it on Sept. 26. His main argument is that "The text has been constructed out of
small pieces – words or phrases – culled from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (GTh), especially Sayings 30, 45, 101 and 114, and set in new contexts. This is most probably the compositional procedure of a modern author who is not a native speaker of Coptic."

He then proceeds to "a line-by-line comparison of GJW [Gospel of Jesus's Wife] with GTh [Gospel of Thomas]" to prove his point. Fortunately, there are only 8 lines to compare, but his demonstration in 8 short pages is unequivocal.

In the end, he concludes:

---

The eight lines of GJW recto [front side of the fragment] are derived from the Coptic GTh, virtually in their entirety, making dependence certain – a highly unusual form of dependence on words more than sense. The compiler has used a “collage” or “patchwork” compositional technique, and this level of dependence on extant pieces of Coptic text is more plausibly attributed to a modern author, with limited facility in Coptic, than to an ancient one.

Indeed, the GJW fragment may be designedly incomplete, its lacunae built into it from the outset. It does not seem possible to fill these lacunae with GTh material contiguous to the fragments cited. The impression of modernity is reinforced by the case in line 1 of dependence on the line-division of the one surviving Coptic manuscript, easily accessible in modern printed editions.

Unless this impression of modernity is countered by further investigations and fresh considerations, it seems unlikely that GJW will establish itself as a “genuine” product of early gospel writing.

Even if GJW were to be accepted as a 4th century Coptic text, Dr King’s claim that it derives from a Greek original from the 2nd century would be impossible to sustain, along with her attempt to reconstruct an original historical context for it.

Where a text is so manifestly dependent on another text in translation, it makes no sense to postulate dependence on an earlier original. In my view, however, a 4th century Coptic origin is equally unlikely.

---

In a post-script, Watson compares the GJW with the 'Secret Gospel of Mark', on which he did an earlier study, definitively showing it was fabricated from pieces of apocryphal text by its alleged discoverer, who, interestingly, describes a Jesus cavorting with young men at night, in contrast to the heterosexual Jesus purported to be disclosed in King's GJW.

Journalist names Vigano nephew
who controls Vatican media
from the Secretariat of State
as one of Gabriele's accomplices

How do you think the Secretariat of State will handle this in public? It could not have been a secret to anyone there! And if Vigano's nephew was involved in Vatileaks at all, as the incriminating envelop for Gabriele seems to show , how could they have kept on a viper in the nest all these months? Or will they downplay his involvement? But why should they?

However, a separate trial for Claudio Sciarpelletti is not necessarily a 'whitewash' as newsman Peloso claims in the following article, since he will still be tried, and the same witnesses who were supposed to be called for his part of the crime will still be called.

Peloso has named a monsignor-nephew of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the USA, as the person called 'W' in the prosecutor's indictment of Paolo Gabriele, named by Claudio Sciarpelletti, the Secretariat of State information technologist accused of aiding and abetting Gabriele, as having given him the envelop addressed to Gabriele that was found in his desk containing a document that eventually appeared in Gianluigi Nuzzi's book presenting more than 200 documents pilfered from the Pope's desk and from the secretariat of State.

First court hearing on Vatileaks -
the first whitewash, too?
by Francesco Peloso
Translated from

Sept. 30, 2012



[The writer begins his report by wrapping up the facts that took place on the first day of the Vatileaks-connected trial of Paolo Gabriele and the court's decision to try Sciarpelletti separately].

... The trial of Sciarpelletti has been deferred to a later date still to be specified while the trial for the Pope's ex-valet continues. And would seem to proceed like a train so much that, unless there are surprises, it will be over by week's end.

The hearings begin again on Tuesday during which Gabriele himself will take the stand. Among the particulars revealed yesterday was the fact that 82 boxes of documents were retrieved from Gabriele's family home in the Vatican and from the room he occupied in Castel Gandolfo. That seems like an enormous quantity. And also that one of the witnesses to be called will be Mons. Georg Gaenswein, the Pope's private secretary.

Sciarpelletti was indicted for aiding and abetting a crime because he was found in possession of an envelop containing a document which makes up one chapter of Gianluigi Nuzzi's book - and some mail addressed to Gabriele which he said was given to him by Mons. Carlo Maria Polvani, his immediate superior at the Secretariat of State.

But Polvani, who would have been a witness in Sciarpelletti's part of the joint trial will not now be heard in Gabriele's trial. However, Sciarpelletti's attorney has said that, at the very least, the charges against his client concerns Polvani more than Sciarpelletti.

Polvani is the chief of the department in the secretariat of State that oversees L'Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, CTV and the Vatican Press Office. He is also the nephew of Mons. Carlo Maria Vigano who was Secretary of the Vatican Governatorate and appears to have indirectly triggered the Vatileaks avalance through the publication of letters he had written to the Pope and to Caridnal Secretary of State Tarciso Bertone, alleging recent episodes of mismanagement if not outright corruption in the Governatorate which he claimed to have straightened out during his service as the secretary, the basis for protesting his reassignment to Washington [instead of being promoted to become President of the Governatorate, and therefore in line for a cardinal's hat, as he claimed to have been promised by Cardinal Bertone. Vigano's letters turned out to be the first leaked to the media in what came to be known as Vatileaks.]

Thus, there starts to emerge a first 'network' of links between Gabriele and other Vatican figures more or less directly involved in Vatileaks. Gabriele had a treasure trove of documents at his disposition: those that pass endlessly through the Pope's study even if only for signature, and those from some person or persons in the Secretariat of State with their own contributions, as the proof found in Sciarpelletti's desk of correspondence from Polvani to Gabriele seems to show.

Looming large behind this is the figure of Mons. Vigano who paved the way for the public dispute over the Secretariat of State and its management by Cardinal Bertone.

A still uncertain role is that of the person called 'B' in the indictment, referring to Gabriele's confessor to whom he had delivered a large part of the pilfered documents which, the priest says, he then decided to burn.

Gabriele is linked to religious figures from the Wojtyla era through the Church of the Holy Spirit near the Vatican, which is under the Polish Mons. Jozef Bart [who, shortly after Gabriele was arrested, vouched for his integrity in no uncertain words, in an interview with Andrea Tornielli].

It is known that in the Curia, the anti-Ratzinger fringe - beyond the judicial aspects raised by Vatileaks - originates among men from John Paul II's Curia and in the underground battle among ecclesial movements such as Comunione e Liberazione, Focolari and Opus Dei. [Since all three movements are known to be pro-Ratzinger, I do not see how their rivalry plays into the anti-Ratzinger strategies!]

The chapter in Nuzzi's book called 'Napoleon in the Vatican' based on the document found in Polvani's envelop for Gabriele, casts a shadow over some officials of the Vatican Gendarmerie, especially Inspector-General Domenico Giani and his deputy, Gianluca Gauzzi Brocoletti (who is involved in security liaison between the Vatican and the Italian government). Both would be called as witnesses in Sciarpelletti's trial. They will not now be heard in this connection at Gabriele's trial.

I always felt from the start that Mons. Vigano himself had something to do, to say the least, with making his accusatory letters public, and I said so in my comments at the time!

9/30/12
P.S. A couple of other Italian MSM journalists have now dared to name Polvani as well [Gee, what took them so long, really? I can't believe it is only now we are told by the Italian media that Sciarpelletti was working directly under Polvani. Why did every Vaticanista adopt a 'hands-off' policy about Polvani even after the prosecutor's indictment had virtually named him when Sciarpelletti admitted that Mons. 'W' had consigned material for Gabriele through him?...

I will translate one which cites a 2009 article by the French Abbe Barthe naming Mons. Vigano and his nephew, Mons. Polvani, as being the 'ringleaders' of the anti-Ratzinger/anti-Bertone Old Guard in the Curia. I now regret I more or less passed over that information at the time, probably because Vigano and Polvani were not 'household names' in terms of the Curia and seemed relatively small potatoes to me. I was forgetting that it is precisely the middle-level bureaucrats who are usually able to move levers because they know the machinery well enough to be able to manipulate and undermine the system as they please... Ignoring the power of the mid-level bureaucrats [think of what such people have been able to wreak upon the world at the UN and in the European Union] has led to all the MSM speculation - I'd even call it 'active expectation' - that some cardinal had to be behind Vatileaks, or somehow involved in it, in their obsession to hoist an Eminence or two on the gallows.

Sept. 30, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ST. JEROME (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) (b Dalmatia 345, d Bethlehem 420), Priest, Writer, Mystic, Doctor of the Church
St. Augustine said of him, "What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known." And Jerome's own most famous saying is "To be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ". He is best-known for translating the Scriptures into Latin, the earliest standard edition of the Bible which came to be known as the Vulgate. More than a millennium later, the Council of Trent ordered a new and corrected edition as the authentic text to be used in the Church. A modern scholar has said, "No man before Jerome or among his contemporaries and very few men for many centuries afterwards were so well qualified to do the work." Nor better prepared in his time. After early schooling in Dalmatia, he went to Rome, the center of learning at that time, and thence to Trier, Germany, spending several years in each place, with the very best teachers. He then traveled extensively in Palestine, marking each spot of Christ's life with an outpouring of devotion. He was a master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldaic. Mystic that he was, he spent five years in the desert of Chalcis so that he might give himself up to prayer, penance and study. Finally he settled in Bethlehem, where he lived in the cave believed to have been the birthplace of Christ. He was above all a Scripture scholar. He also wrote commentaries which are still a great source of scriptural inspiration. He was an avid student, a thorough scholar, a prodigious letter-writer and a consultant to monks, bishops and Popes.
On September 30 in the year 420, Jerome died in Bethlehem. His remains are buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/093012.cfm


AT THE APOSTOLIC PALACE TODAY


Sunday Angelus - In the Holy Father's last Angelus for the summer at Castel Gandolfo, he commented on today's
Gospel in which Jesus allows a man to cast out demons in his name, saying Christians should always welcome it
when someone not in the Church does something good; and commenting on a passage from the Letter of James, he said
Jesus taught there was nothing wrong in having wealth if such wealth is used to help others. He then made an appeal
for an end to violence in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where in the past 2 weeks,
a flare-up of intermittent fighting between a rebel group and irregular militia forces has forced thousands
to flee their homes.

cowgirl2, 24/09/2012 19.29:

---

Tx for the info! I was beginning to be concerned!!
She's such a relyable person! Hope the problem will be fixed without too much trouble.



9/27/12
Dear Heike and Gloria:

I'm back. Thank you for your concern. The 'PC problem' was because I was confined to a hospital bed ror a few days with a 24-hour I-V line to treat a freak inflammation in my left leg (for which my physician decided I should be admitted for more drastic treatment after it persisted despite two weeks of high-dose antibiotics). Since the inflammation had not really bothered me other than the worrisome awelling, I had the illusion that I might have time off in between I-V drips to go to the doctors' lounge and have Internet access, but hospital rules don't work that way. Once you are admitted and given a bed, you stay there until you are discharged. So I asked Aqua on the forum (whom I owe a lot for her friendship and moral support), since she lives in the Greater New York area, to let Gloria know I would be 'off duty' for a few days. And now I am back, and have loads to make up for. It will take me a little time to get updated myself and then to post...

TERESA

---

Eheheheheheh!!!! Dear Teresita, well I hope you will be "fixed", now! Thanks God!

SUNDAY ANGELUS
Sept. 30, 2012





In the Holy Father's last Angelus for the summer at Castel Gandolfo, he commented on today's Gospel in which Jesus allows a man to cast out demons in his name, saying Christians should always welcome it
when someone not in the Church does something goo ad.

Commenting on a passage from the Letter of James, he said Jesus taught there was nothing wrong in having wealth if such wealth is used to help others.

In English, he said:

---

I welcome the English-speaking pilgrims here at Castel Gandolfo and in Rome! Dear friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus calls us to be not only open-hearted, but also firm in our opposition to what is dishonest or evil. May God grant us to be both generous to others and steadfast in living a life of purity and integrity. Upon you and your loved ones, I invoke the strength and peace of Christ our Lord!

---

After the prayers, the Pope made an appeal for an end to violence in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where in the past 2 weeks, a flare-up of intermittent fighting between a rebel group and irregular militia forces has forced thousands to flee their homes.



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

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Gospel this Sunday presents one of those episodes in the life of Christ which, although caught, so to speak, in passing, contain a profound significance (cfr Mk 9,38-41).

It has to do with someone, who was not among Jesus's followers, who had chased out demons in his name. The apostle John, young and zealous as he was, had wanted to prevent the man from doing so, but Jesus did not allow him.

Rather, he took the occasion to teach his disciples that God can perform good and even miraculous things outside their own circle, that one can collaborate with the Kingdom of God in diverse ways, even by offering a glass of water to a missionary (v. 41).

St. Augustine wrote in this regard: "Just as in the Catholic Church, one can find those who are not catholic, outside the Church, there can be something that is Catholic" (Augustine, On baptism, against the Donatists: PL 43, VII, 39, 77).

That is why members of the Church should not feel jealous but rejoice when someone outside the community does good in the name of Christ, if he does it with the right intention and with respect.

Even within the Church itself, it can happen at times that it costs effort to value and appreciate, in a spirit of profound communion, the good things done by various ecclesial entities. Rather, we should all be always capable of appreciating and esteeming each other, praising the Lord for the infinite 'imagination' in which he operates in the Church and the world.

Today's liturgy also resounds with the invective of the apostle James against dishonest rich men who place their security in the wealth they have accumulated through abuses (cfr Jm 5,1-6).

In this respect, Cesarius of Arles said in a discourse: "Wealth cannot do harm to a good man because he gives of his riches with mercy, in the same way that wealth cannot help a bad man for as long as he keeps it greedily or wastes it in dissipation" (Sermons 35, 4).

The words of the apostle James, while they warn against vain greed for material things, also constitute a strong call to use these things in the perspective of solidarity and the common good. always working with equity and morality at all levels.

Dear friends, through the intercession of the Most Blessed Mary, let us pray so that we may know how to avail of every gesture and initiative for good, without envy or jealousy, and to use earthly goods in the continuous search for eternal good.

After the prayers, he said this:

I have been following with affection and concern what has been happening to the people of the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been the object of attention these days at high-level meetings in the United Nations.

I am particularly close to the refugees, the women and children, who have been suffering from violence and profound distress because of persistent armed encounters in the region.

I call on God that peaceful ways of dialog, as we[[ as protection of so many innocent people, may be found; that peace based on justice may soon return; and that fraternal coexistence may be renewed among a population that has been so sorely tested, and in the entire region.

---

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/10/2012 19:44]

The Church under Benedict XVI:
A lesson in transparency
by Iacopo Scaramuzzi
Translated from

Sept. 30, 2012

Between initiatives for transparency and an inertia towards 'secrecy', public opinion and worldwide media can now look into one of the most private places in the world - the personal apartment of the Roman Pontiff, Christ's Vicar on earth and absolute sovereign of a pluri-secular State.

As the Pope's valet, Paolo Gabriele had been serving Benedict XVI more intimately than anybody, but he betrayed the Pope's trust. He claims he wished only to help him by denouncing to the world the 'corruption' he claimed to have seen in the Vatican [It is outrageous and highly objectionable that the MSM simply parrot Gabriele's self-serving words, without challenging his allegation about 'evil and corruption everywhere in the Church' - What 'evil and corruption' exactly has he shown (much less proven) to the world through the assortment of documents he pilfered, other than the petty rivalries and machinations that are common in any human institution? Just as when MSM endlessly cite Mons. Vigano's equally self-serving allegations of 'corruption' in the Vatican Governatorate. when the one example he cites is an apparent overpricing in some construction work that cost 500,000 euro instead of 360,000 - an example hardly rising to 'corruption', especially as the Governatorate department concerned has explained reasonably why the Christmas manger project cost that much during the year they decided to make the basic framework of the annual construction permanent rather than one that had to be rebuilt every year! There has been absolutely no sense of proportion in the reporting of all this, because MSM is too obsessed with having something to slam the Vatican with, the worse the better! But really, where's the beef in the sanctimonious allegations of Vigano and Gabriele? And believe me, if there was really something truly bad to be discovered, the MSM would already have been climbing over each other to be the first out with it. And yet, it's been nine months now since Vigano's letters first surfaced - but has any reporter even tried to investigate and see how much of Vigano's claims are founded? Not one!]

But Gabriele has provoked one of the most serious scandals in recent years for the Vatican. [What exactly was the scandal? That documents can be leaked from the Pope's study? Not the first time it has happened, though not in such an organized way and not by a person who had served the Pope so closely on a daily basis. And isn't it a blessing in disguise that the scandal consists in the fact that the leaks happened at all, and not in anything contained in those leaks???]

Now the Holy See is challenged. The Pope proclaims the Gospel message urbi et orbi, but the Sacri Palazzi (Sacred Palaces) are not used to having their internal conflicts exposed to the public. It's different now.

A reserved person of the greatest integrity, and profoundly German, Joseph Ratzinger has decided to face the 'scandals' investing the Catholic Church during his Pontificate with utmost transparency. From priestly pedophilia to the IOR, from the controversy over the Lefebvrians to relationships with Jews and Muslims, Benedict XVI has chosen frank and direct language to astute diplomatic evasions. Even at the cost of controversy both within the Roman Curia and outside it.

Now, with his former valet, the Pope ordered a full investigation in the Vatican and has obviously wanted the process of justice to take its course. Knowing that this may scandalize those in the Vatican who would have preferred to keep the profile low. [When Vatileaks has become as loaded a word as Watergate - in a world where nothing is more titillating to public opinion than having the words 'Church' and 'scandal' coupled together inseparably - are there really any deluded souls in the Vatican who think they could ever keep the profile low?] The same ones who hope that with an early conclusion to Gabriele's trial, the Vatileaks episode can come to an end. [First, the writer is assuming there are people living in cuckoo-land who do think that way in the Vatican; and two, Gabriele's trial for aggravated theft is the least important step in bringing justice and clarity to this episode - the Vatican court has said there are other far more serious offenses to be dealt with but not as easily as a simple crime like aggravated theft, because they have to do with violations of constitutional rights, both of the Pope as a person and as head of state, and of the Holy See itsewlf.]

Apart from Gabriele's personal story, the unauthorized publication of private documents from the Pope's desk and the Secretariat of State has brought to light divisions and poisonous rancor between the Old Guard from the Wojtyla era and Joseph Ratzinger's people - revealing a government that appears to be badly served by both the Secretariat of State as well as by a merciless anti-Benedict fringe. [What rot! All that was previously known, if not obvious - it's just that Vatileaks provided some documentation that had not previously been available though the substance of such documents had been reported.]

It will be difficult to turn back the pages, as though the ex-valet had acted on his own [But he did, apparently - or, at least, he volunteered himself to be the major agent and enabler of what he perceived (or was told) to be a supposedly well-intentioned operation that fell into his own misguided perceptions] or as if the last few months have not demonstrated that the Vatican mechanism is jammed somehow.

Which is not likely to happen when the Pope is Joseph Ratzinger.


Andrea Tornielli goes about the business of naming Mons. 'W' in a roundabout way, while providing a proper context for the case against Sciarpelletti. Which, however, would seem like the Vatican police were getting back at him because of the 'dishonorable libel' purveyed about Inspector Giani. But Sciarpelletti apparently had nothing to do with the article - he was being used as a maildrop. So, was filing a case against Sciarpelletti merely a ploy to nail down Mons. Polvani once he is called as a trial witness?


Questions raised about SecState infotech's
trial for 'aiding and abetting' Gabriele
by ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from the Italian service of

October 1, 2012

Claudio Sciarpelletti, the IT specialist working at the Vatican Secretariat of State, was found in possession, not of any of the private documents leaked from the Pope's study or the Secretariat but of libellous material against the chief of the Vatican Gendarmerie.

With the ongoing trial of the Pope's former valet Paolo Gabriele - who has confessed to having copied an enormous amount of documents from the Pope's desk and having turned them over to newsman Gianluigi Nuzzi - the Vatican has proven it wishes to proceed with transparency, despite the sensitiveness of a trial which is already predicted to be short but which will also have among its witnesses the Pope's private secretary, Mons. Georg Gaenwein. Which means he will be asked about the daily routine and relationships within the 'pontifical family'.

Meanwhile, the Vatican tribunal decided Saturday to hold a separate trial for Sciarpelletti, accused of 'aiding and abetting' Gabriele in the crime of aggravated theft. Sciarpelletti's lawyer questioned the fact that his client was even being sued, denying that he had 'aided and abetted' Gabriele in any way.

As a computer specialist, Sciarpelletti had occasional access to the papal apartment to work on computer malfunctions, and has admitted to being a friend of Gabriele, with their families visiting each other. He was arrested on the evening of May 25 and subsequently released, after Vatican police found at his desk in the Secretariat of State an envelop containing some documents which his lawyer described as 'non-confidential'.

The material reportedly comprises some e-mail correspondence [What was that correspondence and between which parties were they? To and from Gabriele and perhaps Mons. W?] and a document that the Vaitcan prosecutor, in indicting Sciarpelletti, had called 'undignified libel' against Vatican police cheif Domenico Giani.

This refers to an account entitled 'Napoleon in the Vatican' that was used by Gianluigi Nuzzi in his book containing the leaked documents, and refers to allegedly questionable activities of the Vatican police which is also in charge of the Pope's security.

It does appear that the documents found in Sciarpelletti's possession were neither confidential nor anything that came from the Pope's desk. Which is the reason why the charge against him had been reduced to simple 'aiding and abetting'.

But according to the Vatican prosecutor's indictment, Sciarpelletti had made conflicting statements about the dicuments. First, he said that the envelop containing the documents, stamped on the back with the seal of the Secretariat of State's Office of Information and Documentation, was given to him by Gabriele.

Then he changed his story to say that the envelop was given to him by Mons. 'W' to be transmitted to Gabriele. This monsignor, who will be a witness in Sciarpelletti's trial, is Carlo Polvani, who oversees the liaison between the various Vatican communications media and the Secretariat of State. [It must be remembered that before Vigano was named Secretary of the Governatorate, he had been in charge for 10 years of SecState's personnel department, in which he owuld have had a great say in the appointment of all but the highest-level officials of the Secretariat. A lot of power held between him and his nephew who is, in effect, the supervisor of the Vatican media aervices! Nonetheless, Vigano obviously saw his appointment to the Governatorate as his quickest route to becoming a cardinal, especially as he claims Cardinal Bertone had promised him he would be made President of the Governatorate - and therefore, in line for cardinal - when Cardinal Lajolo retired, as he did last year. If Bertone had made that promise at all, he had absolutely no right or power to do so, but let us give him the benefit of the doubt.]

Polvani is also the nephew of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, formerly Secretary of the Vatican Governatorate and now Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, named to that post before letters he wrote to the Pope and to Cardinal Bertone protesting his transfer were made public last January [when he had already taken the post].. His letters denounced alleged episodes of shady dealings in the Governatorate. [Once again, unspecified alleged episodes, other than the one 'overpricing' charge. And I acknowledge Tornielli's prudence in not calling the episodes 'corruption'. He uses the Italian word 'malaffare'.]

Sciarpelletti's lawyer also called the court's attention to the fact that his client's second version (he received the envelop from the monsignor to be given to Gabriele) does not, in fact, abet Gabriele because, to begin with, Sciarpelletti never passed it on to Gabriele.

In Nuzzi's book, the chapter dedicated to the Vatican Gendarmerie, "Vatican 007s, mission in Italy", takes up pp. 131-154, and alleges that the men under the command of Inspector-General Giani have carried out police and surveillance operations in Italian territory that are not allowed under existing agreements between the Vatican and Italy, unless specifically authorized.

The section entitled 'Napoleon in the Vatican' describes Giani's career, as well as environmental protection and security agencies in which Vatican police are reportedly stockholders. [Shows you the kind of trivia that populates Buzzi's book, and was not a minor part of the documents dumped by Gariele onto Nuzzi, even if the document on Giani apparently came from someone else, not Gabriele. Probably Polvani himself? Who might well have been the original leak who handed the Vigano letters to Nuzzi for his TV expose last January!]

On February 5, 2011, a non-bylined article appeared in Il Giornale reporting that as Secretary of the Vatican Governatorate, Mons. Vigano had proposed that the internal Vatican intelligence service be replaced by an external service.

The report does not explain why Vigano wanted this, but says, "It was feared that for reasons of security and privacy, such an initiative to change a system that has functioned well for years and that has faithfully served those to whom alone they should be responsible, would be blocked". [So why did Vigano want to change a system that was working? If it ain't broke, leave it alone!]

"Vatican intelligence," the writer continued, "is the responsibility of a respectable person who knows very well who his superiors are [i.e., he answers directly to the Pope alone, not to any wannabe panjandrum in the Governatorate!]. But still the pressure exercised by an archbishop to replace internal security with the services of an external agency, had become insupportable. Who is this archbishop anyway with the grim outlook who is causing ferment in the Vatican?"

The writer concludes by anticipating that Vigano's initiatives would soon be halted. As they were, in effect.

Now we come to the question of why anyone in the Secretariat of State would have wanted to send Gabriele the 'libel' against Giani. Sciarpelletti told the investigating magistrate on May 28 that "the envelope was given to me about two years ago, and it remained sealed and lying in my desk since then. Frankly, I had forgotten all about it since no one asked me about it afterwards".

Sciarpelletti's timeline would indicate early 2010 - months before the first of the leaked documents (Vigano's letters) were made public in January 2012, and before Gabriele's alleged first meeting with Nuzzi in November 2011.

One might speculate that the document - which did appear in Nuzzi's book published in May 2012 - addressed to Gabriele, was intended for him to call the attention of the Pope's secretary to the 'disrespectful libel' against Giani. [Yeah, right!] In any case, since the envelop addressed to Gabriele was never delivered to him, it is clear that the document came into Nuzzi's hands by other means.

The separate trial against Sciarpelletti should clear up the circumstances better. The entrance into the arena of Mons. Polvani - even if only as a witness in the Sciarpelletti trial - brings back attention to the Vigano case which was the episode that started the Vatileaks mess.


Here is the story I referred to earlier, which zeroes in on the Vigano connection to Vatileaks and earlier 'indiscretions' - to use the Italian term for gossip, speculation and rumor - about the anti-Benedict fringe in the Secretariat of State.

Vigano nephew will be called
to testify in the Sciarpelletti case
Background to Vatileaks - which all started
when Vigano was assigned to the US
by Maria Antonietta Calabrò
Translated from

September 30, 2012

As reported, IT specialist Claudio Sciarpelletti who was?/is? employed at the Secretariat of State will now be tried separately from Paolo Gabriele for presumed involvement in Vatileaks.

At the samew time, however, the list of witnesses to be called during his trial has been made public. What stands out is the name of Mons. Carlo Maria Polvani, who is in charge of the department of information and documentation at the Secretariat of State, therefore also in charge of department liaison with the various Vatican media, and, even more relevant, the immediate supervisor of Sciarpelletti, in which capacity he has been called as a witness.

Now, his position may not be among the highest ranks in the Vatican bureaucracy, and is surely unknown to the public, but it is strategic. And he is prominently known to reporters covering the Vatican if only because he is the nephew of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, now the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States,

Vigano who was the #2 man at the Vatican Governatorate was the fuse that triggered Vatileaks in January, with the publication of two letters he sent in 2011 to the Pope and to Cardinal Bertone protesting that he wa being moved out of the Vatican. In the process, he alleged in general terms the existence of corruption and other questionable financial transactions he claimed he had occasion to observe at the Governatorate.

But uncle and nephew first made the news - though known only to limited circles at the time - in 2009 with a 'murderous' attack against them that was published in the highly serious and reputable French Catholic newspaper L'Homme Nouveau', which also publishes the French weekly edition of L'Osseervatore Romano.

The paper published a two-part investigation by Abbe Claude Barthe, a man known and esteemed by Benedict XVI, who named Vigano and his nephew in a list of reputed 'frondisti' in the Roman Curia who were believed to be working against the Pope and his Secretary of State.

«Y a-t-il une opposition romaine au Pape?» [Is there a Roman opposition to the Pope?) was the title of the article - the question being merely rhetorical.

Barthe referred to a 'couronne sacree' ('holy circle') - "a kind of shadow Secretariat of State functioning within the Secretariat of State" which was acting "with an outlook different from that of the Pope and Cardinal Bertone".

Among them, Barthe named Vigano - who at the time headed the highly strategic personnel department at State - and Polvani whom Barthe described as 'a retro admirer of Che Guevara'. A few months after the article came out, Vigano was promoted to be Secretary of the Governatorate (July 2009), and so became the #2 man in the organism that administers Vatican City State.

[So was the 'promotion' a way to remove him from the Secretariat of State? The problem is Vigano harbored the illusion that he was being put in line to succeed Cardinal Lajolo as President of the Governatorate, and therefore, on a fast track to being named cardinal. Apparently, this goal was highest on his list, and as prestigious as it may be to the Pope's ambassador to the United States, Nuncios just are not on the fast track to becoming cardinal. Assuming these premises are true, how you can hope to be named a cardinal by the Pope you have been working against would seem to be yet another unflattering facet of Vigano's personality!]

In 2010, an e-mail blitz sent to cardinals, apostolic nuncios and the media accused Vigano of promoting his nephew's career at the Vatican.

And In February 2011, an article was published in an Italian newspaper in which, even without naming him, Vigano was accused of wishing to interfere in sensitive matters of security, especially in surveillance and intelligence activities. [Which, according to Tornielli's background story, Vigano apparently wanted transferred from the Vatican police to an external security agency.]

In May, after the arrest of Paolo Gabriele, Vatican police confiscated from Sciarpelletti's desk in the Secretariat of State an envelop addressed to Paolo Gabriele and containing a document that was the basis for a chapter in Gianluigi Nuzzi's Vatileaks compendium that was very critical of Inspector-General Demonico Giani, who was tagged 'Napoleon of the Vatican'. Was this the riposte to the accusations made earlier against Vigano and his nephew?

Eventually, Vigano was moved out of the Governatorate, even if it was for the very prestigious position of Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. Two letters he wrote in 2011 - one on April 7 to Cardinal Bertone, and another one directly to the Pope on July 7 - to protest his transfer from the Vatican were disclosed ion January 26, 2012, on the TV program 'The Untouchables' hosted by Gianluigi Nuzzi, who would go on to publish his Vatileaks book in May.

That marked the public start of Vatileaks and the investigations that have so far led to the arrest and trial of the Pope's former valet, Paolo Gabriele, who confessed to surreptitiously copying documents he found in the papal study and providing them to Nuzzi.

Monday, Oct. 1, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX




Since Therese was born in the latter part of the 19th century, many photographs exist showing the saint from her childhood to her death.
ST. THERESE DE LISIEUX (France, 1873-1897), Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church, 'Little Flower of Jesus'
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on April 6, 2011 to St Therese
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110406...
One of the most popular saints around the world, Therese Martin is by far the youngest Doctor of the Church, only the third woman to earn this title after Teresa of Avila and Caterina of Siena, and the only one of the 34 Doctors of the Church to have written only a single work, her History of a Soul, published one year after her death, and which became one of the most influential Christian books as the world entered the 20th century. A hundred years after her death, John Paul II proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, for the impact of her teaching on spirituality on the life of the Church. Her story was quite simple - she was the last of nine children born to middle-class parents (Zelie Guerin and Louis Martin, who were beatified in 2009). Always sickly, she entered the Carmelite convent at age 15, where she decided that doing simple ordinary things well, along with prayer and knowing how to endure pain and suffering (including 'dark nights of the soul'), were the way to God. In the last three years of her life, at the request of her sisters (two of them became Carmelite nuns too) and her superior, she wrote the story of her life and called it the "Little Way'. A bad case of tuberculosis caught in 1895 flared up in 1897 and led to her death. Because of her posthumous autobiography, her cult became worldwide almost immediately. She was beatified in 1922, canonized in 1925, and because she had wanted to be a missionary, she was declared co-patron of the missions along with St. Francis Xavier. On her deathbed she said, "I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth".
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100112.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father returned to the Apostolic Palace before noon today after a three-month residence for
the summer in Castel Gandolfo.

The Press Office announced a news conference tomorrow, Oct. 2, to present the International Conference
be held Oct, 5-6 in Rome, on "Studies of the Second Vatican Council in the light of the Conciliar Fathers'
archives, on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Council", organized by the Pontifical Committee
on Historical Sciences, in cooperation with the Pontifical Lateran University's Center of Studies and
Research on Vatican II.

On Friday, Mons. Nikola Eterovic, Secretary-General of the Bishops' Synod, will brief newsmen on the coming
XIII General Assembly on Oct. 7-28 on the subject of the New Evangelization.


POPE'S PRAYER INTENTIONS
October 2012

---

General intention:
That the New Evangelization may progress in the oldest Christian countries.

Missionary Intention:
That the celebration of World Mission Day may result in a renewed commitment to evangelization.

---

Pope's bid to win over FSSPX
seems to have reached a dead end
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor


PARIS. Sept. 30 (Reuters)- Pope Benedict's bid to draw rebel Catholic traditionalists back to the Roman fold, a major effort that has divided Catholics and sometimes embarrassed him, seems to have hit a dead end with little apparent hope of a solution. [Since one can be positive that the overwhelmingly majority of the planet's 1.2 billion Catholics are not exactly holding their breath on this issue - or even aware of it, to begin with - how can Heneghan claim this has 'divided Catholics' or even 'sometimes embarassed' the Pope? Nothing can embarrass a good person and an exemplary Christian when he is trying to do good, with certainly not the slightest of bad intentions in this effort!]

Two leaders of the Fraternal Society of St Pius X (FSSPX), which broke away over reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, have recently rejected his conditions for their rehabilitation after a series of contacts following his 2005 election as Pope.

SSPX head Bishop Bernard Fellay, who Church officials expect will send a formal reply to Rome soon, has not yet indicated the group's final position but it is not expected to be positive.

A formal or de facto SSPX rejection would be a setback for Benedict, whose decision to lift excommunications on its four bishops in 2009 backfired when it emerged one was a notorious Holocaust denier and the Vatican did not even know it.

"The SSPX has set conditions that are simply unacceptable to the Pope," Nicolas Seneze, a French expert on the Society, told Reuters. "Their discussions are now back at square one." [Aye, and there's the tragic rub! The FSSPX have been moving their goalpost arbitrarily, going far beyond what their own founder, Mons. Lefebvre, had agreed to in writing, after negotiations with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1988. Even if they prefer to forget that Lefebvre signed all the 16 Vatican documents freely, as a Council Father!]

The Swiss-based SSPX broke away from Rome in 1988 in protest against the 1960s reforms that replaced Latin with local languages at Mass, forged reconciliation with Jews and admitted other religions may also offer a path to salvation.

Benedict, who at the time was the Vatican's top doctrinal official, failed to convince SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre not to ordain four bishops. Appointing them meant the SSPX could continue its work outside of Vatican control. [That's a deliberately reductive misrepresentation of the 1988 effort. Lefebvre agreed, in the agreement he signed but reneged, to ordain one bishop with John Paul's approval, among one of its concrete specifics. [The doctrinal agreement he signed was more significant, as a model of due obedience to the Church that his present-day community is far from having.) He then decided that he preferred to continue outside the Roman fold and proceeded to ordain four bishops instead of one, ostensibly to assure he would have successors to carry on.]

Since becoming Pope, Benedict has met Fellay, promoted the old Latin Mass the SSPX champions and lifted excommunications imposed on Lefebvre and the four bishops when they defied Pope John Paul and went ahead with the unauthorised ordinations. [Memo to Heneghan: Benedict XVI did not 'promote' the Latin Mass, as in elevating something that had been demoted. What he did was to retrieve and revalidate a Mass that had been in use for five centuries as one that is fully equal and not any less than the post-Conciliar form of the Mass, but a Mass nonetheless that was unceremoniously 'discarded' after the 1970 liturgical reform even if nothing in the Conciliar document on the liturgy had abrogated its use!]

Benedict's 2007 decision to allow wider use of the old Latin Mass met with a mixed reaction among Catholics. A minority welcomed it but many thought that reviving the 16th century ritual was turning back the clock to before the 1960s Council. [The 'many' being the media-savvy and militant progressivists who have thrown out the faith of Tradition to leave only the dregs of their misguided interpretation of Vatican II!]

Two years later, he set off a firestorm of criticism from Catholics, Jews and German politicians when his decision to lift the bishops' excommunications brought Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson back into the Church. [Denying the Holocaust may be a historical and even moral outrage but it is not a basis for excommunication. The lifting of Williamson's excommunication does not in any way have to do with his personal opinions, as horribly wrong as he may be. Unfortunately, his negationism was conveniently seized as a pretext to manufacture an artificial but mediatically hyper-exploited outcry against Benedict XVI and the Church by those who are always waiting to pounce on any twiglet they can seize to wield like a battering ram against the Church, and by all the media who promote Church-bashing.]

Lifting the excommunications meant the four bishops were once again full members of the 1.2-billion member Church, but they and the SSPX - which claims to have 500 priests and a million followers - had no official position or role within it. [How can the religion editor of one of the world's leading three agencies so mis-state the situation! The FSSPX are still outside the Church, for as long as they refuse to make the requisite profession of faith. Lifting the bishops' excommunication only means that they are no longer under the canonical sanction they incurred by taking part in an illegal ordination.]

In 2010, the Vatican launched closed-door theological discussions with the rebels aimed at an agreement that would make the SSPX a "personal prelature" or autonomous institution in the Church similar to the conservative group Opus Dei.

Benedict insisted they must declare the Vatican Council and Church doctrine since then as valid Catholic teaching. Denying this has been a core principle of SSPX beliefs from the start. [Again, Heneghan simply ignores the public positions taken by Mons. Lefebvre which were much less intransigent than his successors claim toay.]

The Vatican issued an ultimatum in March to the SSPX, saying it must accept this condition within a month or face grave consequences, but the exchanges dragged on until Benedict wrote a final letter to Fellay on June 30.

Rev. Franz Schmidberger, head of the SSPX German branch, mentioned the letter in a video recently posted on a Society website and said that the Council included "inconsistencies" that could not be denied.

"We cannot recognise this hermeneutic of continuity," he said, using a theological term for Benedict's view that the Council's reforms were consistent with Catholic tradition.

The Society insisted on its right to continue to denounce some Council reforms as grave errors and always have at least one bishop chosen from its own ranks, he said.

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four SSPX prelates, told a traditionalist meeting in mid-September about the letter and called its conditions a "breaking point."

"I would never sign anything like that," he said, according to notes published on a traditionalist website.

Asked by Reuters about the letter, a Vatican spokesman declined to confirm it or comment on relations with the SSPX.

Seneze, author of the book "The Integrist Crisis" about the SSPX, said the group might not officially cut off contacts with the Vatican because it believes its mission is to lead Rome back to traditional Catholicism. [Yeah right! The tiny tail wagging a gigantic dog!]

For his part, the Pope values the FSSPX's commitment to Church traditions and wants to avoid a permanent schism claiming to be Catholic but outside Vatican control.

"Nobody wants to be the first to slam the door and be responsible for a failure of the talks," Seneze said. "Some kind of contacts could continue, but without coming to a conclusion."

The author said allowing the SSPX to reject the Council would be a concession too far for Benedict, who has long defended some reforms - especially the recognition of Judaism - even while reversing some liberal changes the Council made. [Name one, Heneghan! That statement is so typically dishonest of the way the secular media choose to report on Church affairs - twisted to their biases, rather than simply stating facts. Restoring full citizenship to the traditional Mass certainly was not a 'reversal', because the Council never abrogated it. Besides, Heneghan's use of the generic phrase 'some liberal changes the Council made' deliberately implies - as many progressivist priests' associations have been doing - that Vatican II ordered 'liberal reforms' dear to them such as married clergy, women priests and all other relaxations they would apply to the discipline of the faith!]

"Benedict could not give up on the Council, especially now, just weeks before he celebrates its 50th anniversary," he said. The historic Council opened in Rome on October 11, 1962.


As optimistic as I was until a few months back, I must admit I no longer see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Memo to the FSSPX: Pride goeth before the fall. And I am sure the Bible must be replete with citations that apply to your overweening arrogance.

Did you really expect Benedict XVI to repudiate - or allow Catholics to publicly repudiate - the Magisterium of an ecumenical council, which has all the binding authority of the Magisterial power of its two presiding Popes and all the bishops of the world who took part in it? Even flawed as that Magisterium may be in certain instances (which are by no means irretrievable)?

Where does it say in Church tradition that a sliver of dissenters may impose its beliefs on the Magisterium of an Ecumenical Council? And you claim to be standing up for Tradition!

May all your Rosary campaigns not delude you into thinking you were chosen by God to 'save' his Church when you are in fact subverting it so actively. In exactly the same self-righteous way that the dissenters on the left are. Please, wake up, smell the coffee and eat humble pie!

As for you, Mr. Heneghan, who may be privately gloating over this 'setback' for Benedict XVI, just you watch! When it looks as if God has closed one window, he opens others. The intransigence of the FSSPX will not subtract from the Year of Faith in any way. Nor dampen Benedict XVI's Petrine zeal!

I don't know why I even took the time to translate this interview, which I wanted to post with the least possible commentary because the entire interview in itself with the late Cardinal Martini's longtime private secretary is its own best commentary. I must say that I am struck by all the pious expressions found here that are not at all consistent with the relentless negativity of the last interview with the Cardinal...Though I'd like to think that in his final moments of life, he would have repented for what I continue to see as an openly and totally uncharitable act towards the Church, the Popes and the faithful who try their best to live as Christians should.

Milan archdiocese establishes
a Cardinal Martini Prize to
encourage Biblical studies,
lectio divina and reflections
relating the Gospel to the world today
Translated from the Italian service of

October 1, 2012

Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, asked all the communities in the diocese today to celebrate a Mass of suffrage for Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini on the 30th day after his death.

He also announced that he has instituted the Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini Prize to encourage the study of Biblical disciplines, a deeper involvement in lectio divina, and reflection on the relation between the Gospel and the world today. Details about the Prize will be announced on February 11, birthday of the late cardinal.

To mark today's anniversary, Antonella Palermo interviewed Fr. Damaso Modena, who had been the late cardinal's private secretary for a long time.

FR. MODENA: More than just remembering him, I wish to express my thanks to the cardinal. The most difficult part of human relationships is to enter into the sufferings of another person, which is certainly the most intimate part of us. It's not easy to enter from outside, because the other always tends to protect himself, and because not everyone is capable to share suffering without devastating the victim in some way.

The cardinal allowed me and his caregivers to enter this most intimate part of his life - his suffering, his ailment. We did not enter his private rooms, but for the most part, he allowed us to come close enough to help him live through the experience better, to accompany him in his solitude, his physical pain, his disappointments, and especially, his inability to communicate in the final stages of his illness. I think this was for him his deepest suffering. He always said that physical pain was not that bad, remarking that "It is an illness that hinders me much more than it causes pain". The impossibility of communicating hurt him at the heart of his being, as someone who always was a great communicator.

Has everything been said about the final moments of his life?
Much of it is false... or even all of it. He died a natural death, and he was assisted and accompanied in everything to the end. It had been clear that one could intervene up to a certain point, after which all that remains is to be with the patient. When it is clear that nothing else can be done, then nothing else can be done. We accompanied him with affection, with prayer, reading from the Bible, even singing hymns around his dead, holding his hands.

Do you think that Cardinal Martini was instrumentalized by the media?
I cannot judge that because since he died I have read almost nothing. You can imagine, nothing interested me at that point. It was like losing my father, and I suffered the pain of his absence, so I was not interested in what was being written... But I think, yes...

What are your best memories of the life that you were able to share with him?
His very elevated sense of justice for all - the poor, the sick, the suffering people whom he encountered. He would have wanted to help everyone, know them all, liberate them all from injustice. And his acceptance of everyone. I never heard him once express any negative judgment about anyone. Never! [Only about the Church and the men he thinks are not running the Church well!]

What did you learn from him about life and death?
Perhaps it is still to early for me to understand, to give the proper weight to the things I learned from him. About living, never to judge anything, leave it to God to judge and to love us.

About dying, I must say that I thought dying would be easier. But I saw that it is complicated. I understood that one must be able to conquer even death, in a certain sense. I saw the effort that it took, that death does not always come instantly. It is a journey, a course during which one must let oneself go. But that is not always easy to do because, the cardinal often said, death is perhaps the only act of faith that a nan can make in life, as it is the only act in which you can absolutely no longer count on yourself. I think it cost him much to yield, to allow death to take over, because he loved life too much.

Four months ago, in June, there was a meeting between Benedict XVI and Cardinal Martini in Milan. It is said that it was the cardinal who wanted the meeting in order to demonstrate his solidarity during a difficult moment for the Pope and for the Church...
I remember it well. I thought it was a meeting between two men who had suffered much. One did not know that he would die within two months, and the other probably did not imagine that once he became Pope, he would have so many crosses to bear. [It comes with being Vicar of Christ, and surely every Pope knows to expect it! And perhaps those who think of Benedict XVI as 'suffering' are projecting themselves. Not by word, gesture or the way he looks has Benedict XVI ever shown he is 'suffering'. And whatever he 'suffers' in private, I am sure he has learned over the decades to live with it and offer it joyfully as his share of the Cross that Christ has to bear.]

It was a meeting in which the looks and the few words they exchanged seemed intended to comfort each other, especially the cardinal for the Pope. We found the Pope very tired and suffering, and the cardinal did all he can, as far as it was possible for him, to tell him he was close to him, that it was a time of testing, and that he should not be too concerned. [We're talking here about Vatileaks, with Gabriele having been arrested just a few days earlier. Let us not go overboard! Whatever the Pope may have felt about his valet's betrayal, I am sure his concern was never for himself - that would be selfish - but for the consequences to the Church of the entire Vatileaks mess. At the same time, he must have kept a sense of proportion - that this was a minor 'tragedy' compared to the genuine tragedy of pedophile priests and their abuse of children, or the progressivist dissent in the Church.]

What would you consider Cardinal Martini's spiritual legacy?
It is immense. I believe above all it is mercy. That we must be announcers of mercy. Jesus was always on the side of sinners, in all the passages of the Gospel. From beginning to end. From his birth to his death.

And so, I think that the cardinal's legacy is this: That an authentic Church is one which takes the side of sinners and comforts them - even if that is all that can be done. [But you just don't comfort a sinner - first, you make him realize and acknowledge that he has sinned and will amend his life accordingly, in which the act of contrition itself becomes the greatest comfort, even before absolution at confession!]

Archbishop urges Catholics to follow
Pope Benedict's 'road map' of faith renewal
By R.W. Dellinger


LOS ANGELES, Oct. 1 (CNS) -- In a wide-ranging address at the eighth annual Los Angeles Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia spoke of the "debris of failure" that must be dealt with if the Catholic Church in America is to be truly renewed.

The archbishop said the obvious problems include the clergy sex abuse crisis, a decline in priestly vocations, struggling Catholic schools and parishes, years of deficit spending and unrealistic financial management, and drastic demographic changes.

"The fact remains that roughly 10 percent of Americans describe themselves as ex-Catholics," he reported. "If they all joined together in a new 'Church of the Formerly Catholic,' they'd be the second-largest denomination in the country.

"That's our reality as disciples. That's the debris of failure we need to deal with if we want to repair God's house," he told the crowd of 1,550 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels' Plaza.

In his Sept. 18 address, Archbishop Chaput stressed that Pope Benedict XVI had given the church a "road map" of renewal in his Oct. 17, 2011, apostolic letter "Porta Fidei" ("The Door of Faith").

In it, the Pope announced the upcoming Year of Faith, which begins Oct. 11, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and ends Nov. 24, 2013, the solemnity of Christ the King. The special year will be highlighted with a worldwide program of worship, catechesis and evangelization.

"Morally, we live in chaotic times," Archbishop Chaput said. "In such a climate, it's very easy for people to develop habits that undermine virtue, character and moral judgment. It's hard to reach a moral consensus when a culture can't agree on even the most basic standards of right and wrong. As a result, for individuals, today's conditions of daily life are often isolating and even frightening."

Basically, during this period of new evangelization, the Pope is asking Catholics to receive a blessing, he said. He's asking members of his flock to examine their hearts and life habits without excuses or alibis.

"If you think that sounds easy or pious," he said, "try it for a week."

Then he warned, "If our hearts are cold, if our minds are closed, if our spirits are fat and acquisitive, curled up on a pile of our possessions -- possessions that can kill us -- then the church in this country will die.

"It's happened before in our times and places, and it can happen here. We can't change the world by ourselves. And we can't reinvent the church. But we can help God change us. We can live our faith with zeal and conviction -- and then God will take care of the rest."

The archbishop said Pope Benedict has some "concrete suggestions" for parishes and church groups in the Year of Faith. First: to study in detail the Apostles' Creed and the catechism. Second: to intensify their witness of charity. And third: to study the history of their faith and, in particular, see how "holiness and sin" are so often woven together.

"The clergy scandal of the past decade has wounded victims and their families, damaged the faith of our laypeople, hurt many good priests and found too many American bishops guilty of failures in leadership that resulted in bitter suffering for innocent persons," he pointed out. "As a bishop, I repent and apologize for that failure -- and I commit myself as zealously as I can to do the work a good bishop must do, which is shepherding and protecting his people."

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
Feast of the Guardian Angels



AT THE VATICAN TODAY

No events announced for the Holy Father.

A news conference was held to present the International Conference to be held in Rome Oct. 3-5
on "Studies of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in the light of the Conciliar Fathers' archives"
to mark the 50th anniversary of the Council opening.