BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI

I have often thought in the past few years that the small brotherhood/sisterhood of committed orthodox Catholic writers in Spain constitute a 'creative minority' such as that which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had thought would be the catalysts and centers for a genuine renewal of Catholicism after the attritions worked by secularization. I have not had the same feeling about the Italian, Anglophone and Francophone Catholic commentariat, for the simple reason that they range all over the spectrum of ideology and heterodoxy, unlike much of what I have read of the Spanish writers (intellectuals, if you will) who are more forthright - they're either orthodox or not at all, in which case I know whom to avoid and not bother seeking out at all.

I regret that I have never found the time to just seek out all the Spanish sites and writers whose work and thought deserve to be better known outside the Hispanic world. (God knows I have not even begun scratching the potential of similar Catholic 'creative minorities' in the vast Hispanic-speaking world.) But the ferment among the Spanish creative minority is evident in this new book in which 50 prominent Spaniards speak about the legacy of Benedict XVI and various ways in which they personally 'experienced' the phenomenon of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The fact alone that they thought of doing this is most indicative. The only similar initiative was Mons. Georg Gaenswein's book for the 85th birthday of Benedict XVI, Prominente ueber den Papst, in which he got 20 prominent Germans to write something about the Pope. No one has thought of doing it in Italy and the English-speaking world so far.

Spanish Euro-deputy presents
presents the book 'Speaking with the Pope'
Translated from the Spanish service of


Madrid, April 29, 2013 (Zenit.org) - To show the relevance and appeal of the Magisterium of Benedict XVI in the reflections of 50 Spanish personalities is the purpose of the book Hablando con el Papa, published by Edutorial Planeta in Madrid.

The idea came from a Spanish deputy in the European Parliament, Jamie Mayor Oreja, a former Interior Minister of Spain, who also wrote the Preface to the book. The work was coordinated by Francisco Jose Contreras and Ignacio Sanchez Camara, both professors of the philosophy of the law, at the universities of La Coruna and Sevilla, respectively.

The Valores y Sociedad (Values and Society) Foundation, of which Mayor Oreja is president, pushed the project through. In a statement, the Foundation says, "The book is a compendium of analysis - and a tribute - to the doctrinal legacy of an intellectual Pope who has left a profound doctrinal and pastoral legacy, and who succeeded to promote a fruitful dialog with the culture of unbelievers on the great questions of our time".

The book is structured by thematic sections on topics like the dialog between faith and reason, secularity, human rights, the relation between Church and State, the compatibility of various economic systems with Christianity, the meaning of suffering, hope and prayer, beauty as a path to transcendence, the family and its present crisis, and the bioethical debates over abortion and euthanasia.

Among the 50 personalities - who include believers as well as agnostics - who took part of the project are philosophers, politicians, scientists, artists, economists, sports figures.

Among them, Jose Maria Aznar (former Prime Minister of Spain), Emilio Butragueno, Alvaro Domecq, Xavi Hernandez, Jose Maria Marco, Pio Moa, Enrique Mugica, Jon Juaristi, Alejandro Llano, Cristina López Schlichting, Rafael Nadal, Alejandro Llano, José Antonio Ortega Lara, Manuel Pizarro, Enrique Rojas, Juan Rosell, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, María San Gil, Isabel San Sebastián, Hermann Tertsch, Jesús Trillo Figueroa, Francisco Vázquez, Alejo Vidal-Quadras and María de Villota. Each of them contributed a commentary on a fragment from a discourse, homily or encyclical of Benedict XVI.

In the Preface, Mayor Oreja says that the renunciation of the Papacy by the emeritus Pope could be interpreted as "a call to the Church to unite and strengthen herself, and to the faithful to dedicate special attention to what our faith demands of us".

In a synopsis about the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, the books says that "In his eight years as Pope, Benedict XVI offered a formulation of Christian hope appropriate to our time. He has shown that one can be Catholic without rejecting rationality, modernity or freedom. He sustained that Christianity has the answer to that yearning for the meaning of life that defines the human being".

Francisco José Contreras recounts the first time he got together with Jaime Mayor Oreja and Ignacio Sánchez Cámara to decide which 50 personalities they would ask to take part.

"We were thinking that perhaps many would decline to participate, because these days, not everyone is willing to be publicly involved in any book about a Pope. But we were surprised that when we began reaching out to make our proposal, the percentage of positive responses was very high... It means, I think, that the thought of Benedict XVI and the magisterium of the Catholic Church possess relevance - they say something to man today, they are relevant to the present cultural context".

At the presentation of the book on April 25, along with Jaime Mayor Oreja and the two coordinators, there were also journalist Isabel San Sebastian, the Socialist ex-Senator Mercedes Aroz, author Jon Juaristi, and the ex-mayor of La Coruna and former Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, Francisco Vazquez.

In his presentation, Mayor Oreja called relativism 'the principal adversary' of society today, which, by "constructing a doctrine of false rights", replacing the right to life with the right to abortion, and the right to die with dignity by the right to die as one pleases".

He said relativism "succeeded in eliminating from the European Constitution any reference to Europe's Christian roots", that one of the reasons it has advanced in the West is that it has met no competition, and that Europe has shown its society no longer has any vigor because it remained oblivious to the consequences of the crisis until it began affect the creature comforts of its citizens.

Which is why, he said, he felt it was important to underscore the legacy of Benedict XVI since he was "the only leader capable of diagnosing that the principal adversary is relativism and its unseen tyranny".


For her part, journalist San Sebastian, who moderated the presentation that, although she was agnostic, she shared the Catholic battle to "defend life from its very beginning at conception to its natural end". She said it was important "to reflect much upon and to embrace the right values" without which Europe would not emerge from its ongoing crisis.

She lamented :the dehumanization of individuals in order to eliminate them more easily, and agreed with Benedict XVI that, beyond religious beliefs, there exist "some universal values like life, truth and dignity, for which it is always worth fighting".


Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, one of the book editors, said he was convinced that "at this time of crisis, the Magisterium of Benedict VXI is fundamental, for Catholics as well as non-Catholics".

He, too, railed against relativism as carrying part of the blame for the moral crisis, because it opens the way for an even greater evil - "the inversion of values, seeking to depict what is crooked as straight, what is evil to be good, what is false to be true", saying that Benedict XVI has been "the most authoritative voice to speak out against the problem".

The other project coordinator, Francisco Javier Contreras, said that "Benedict XVI's teaching interpellates everyone", and that is why the book includes contributors who are agnostic, and that for the same reason, the book will reach a much wider public.

In his intervnetion, former Ambassador Francisco Vazquez said he had been "a professed admirer of Benedict XVI and his thought even long before he became Pope".

"No one," he said, "has done as much as he to overcome the historical divergence between the Catholic Church and the dominant ideas of the modern world, especially in Europe, since the Enlightenment and the French Revolution".

He said that the emeritus Pope was a firm defender of the truth and that "he always sought to demonstrate how Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, is the source and determinative origin of all of Western thought".

Ex-Senator Aroz wished to highlight Benedict XVI's "clarity in expressing the Christian message", underscoring how he had promoted dialog with the secular world. She recalled how the Pope had said that "even if there are divisions that may seem irreconcilable, there is a common ground - that of human rights - on which we can all meet, and that above and beyond partisan viewpoints, we must create a single common ethic".

The last intervention was by novelist Jon Juaristi who began by saying he was Jewish. He, too, stressed the importance of Benedict's focus on the dictatorship of relativism - the 'i do as I please' mentality, which, he said, "is the fundamental credo of the good relativist... (and) the most totalitarian of all standards, which its proponents find impossible to disobey". 


Isn't it ironic that we have a bunch of secular Spaniards, not all Catholics or believers, who got together in a relatively short time to come up with a book of appreciation and homage like this, whereas if we could anthologize what the cardinals of the Church have said implicitly about Benedict XVI since March 13, 2005, we would have what amounts to a blanket condemnation of his supposed mis-governance which, in their view, totally cancels out anything positive he may have said or done... And yet look, Pope Francis - and the Church - obviously find the situation he left behind 'tolerable' enough to go on as before, and it turns out, lo and behold, as Mons. Becciu has said, that "the reform of the Curia is not an emergency", after all that crying "Fire!" that preceded the 2013 Conclave.

Here is yet another execrable example of how the sycophant media keep presenting whatever Pope Francis says as if he had just invented Catholic doctrine or said things about the teaching of the Church that none of his predecessors had ever said or even thought to say! How many times did Benedict XVI explicitly say the same things quoted here with 'awe and shock' about remarried Catholic divorcees that neither the reporter or the persons he quotes even seem to be aware of or choose to ignore!

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Pope Francis desires to draw
remarried divorcees to Christ
The Holy Father explains in his new book that although
remarried Catholic divorcees whose first marriages have not been annulled
cannot receive Communion, they can still integrate into the life of the Church. [DUH!]
by CARL BUNDERSON


DENVER, May 2, 2013 (CNA/EWTN News) — A recently translated book by Pope Francis exhibits a call for Catholics who have been divorced and are remarried to be made welcome in parishes, in the hope that they can remedy their situations.

“Catholic doctrine reminds its divorced members who have remarried that they are not excommunicated — even though they live in a situation on the margin of what indissolubility of marriage and the sacrament of marriage require of them — and they are asked to integrate into the parish life,” he says in his newly translated book On Heaven and Earth.

The book is a conversation between Pope Francis and Abraham Skorka, a rabbi and scholar from Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was originally published in Spanish in 2010, when Francis was still Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires.

The Pope's belief that remarried persons should “integrate into the parish life” is unsurprising to Alejandro Bermudez, who recently translated the book into English.

“The most important thing to understand is that he is a very close follower of Pope John Paul,” Bermudez told Catholic News Agency.

“He was a friend of John Paul II, and he is an intellectual and pastoral follower of John Paul II in his teachings, in a very particular and personal manner,” he explained.

“So what he means by encouraging divorced Catholics in a new union to ‘participate in the parish’ is exactly what John Paul II said in Familiaris Consortio, that Catholics in this situation are not formally excommunicated.”

Bermudez, who is executive director of Catholic News Agency and Latin-America correspondent for the Register, explained that such individuals are “just in a condition that does not allow them to approach to receive holy Communion.”

“But the way to move towards a remedy to that situation is by participating in the charitable life of parishes,” he added.

He said that the Buenos Aires Archdiocese “actually has a ministry and has a group of Catholics in this condition, who do not question the teaching of the Church about receiving Communion; they accept the irregular conditions in which they are living.”

“But at the same time, they want to make sure that by participating in Sunday Mass and by participating in the charitable activities of the Church they grow in charity and open ways in which God will finally help them move away from that condition, whatever that means for each one in their particular situation.”

In this way, Bermudez explained, Pope Francis’s nuanced position on divorce is one that is always informed both by Catholic doctrine and by charity. [AND DUH AGAIN! to this whole tiresome exercise in re-inventing the wheel!]

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A few days ago, I posted the last of a seven-part guest blog in the National Catholic Register which is a tribute to Benedict XVI by author Benjamin Wiker, that I had been unaware of earlier. Here are the first three parts of the series:

The tale of two Benedicts
by BENJAMIN WIKER

February 19, 2013

It is certainly sad that Pope Benedict will be leaving us, but we should not forget all that he has left us — a great legacy of the deepest theological and philosophical reflection that can guide and inspire the New Evangelization he’s demanded of us. A little history puts that legacy in its proper context.

The first Benedict, St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547), left us a rule that established monastic order in the West and, in doing so, grounded the evangelization of Europe. Benedictine monasticism was the deepest root of the Church’s infusion of order into a pagan society, creating a fountain of spiritual, intellectual and moral discipline that saturated the fragile seeds of the Gospel planted in the Church’s first centuries so that they could grow into Christendom, a unified civilization built out of the woefully disparate elements of a decaying empire and brutal, warring local tribes.

It is this precise sense of integration through the faith that Hilaire Belloc’s famous epigram so admirably captured: “Europe is the faith, and the faith is Europe.”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who has lived through much of Europe’s disintegration, chose an appropriate name upon becoming Ppe in 2005. When I heard that he took the name Benedictus XVI, the chilling ending of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue immediately came to mind.

Drawing a parallel between the fall of Rome and consequent Dark Ages of barbarism and societal disorder in the fifth century, and the radical moral and social disintegration of our own time that is ushering in a new barbarism, MacIntyre wrote that “We are not entirely without hope. This time, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another — doubtless very different — St. Benedict.”

While it is premature to speak of canonization, Pope Benedict has seen all too clearly the forces of disintegration in Europe caused by drying up the faith that was the original source of its integration. For Benedict, the horrors of the 20th century were a kind of return to pagan barbarism, a barbarism much darker than the one from which the Christian faith saved the West a millennium and a half before.

Benedict sees at the heart of this return to darkness and disorder the West’s embrace of radical secularism, a creed that explicitly denies the truths of the faith and reduces human beings to soulless material creatures. It is the creed that, in attacking the faith, purposely unwinds Christendom and returns us to a worse kind of paganism and barbarism than that from which the faith had once delivered us.

“When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth,” Pope Benedict warned, “it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.”

If anything, Pope Benedict has been more insistent than Pope John Paul II on this point.

But the danger doesn’t just threaten Europe. The just-quoted words come from Pope Benedict’s ad limina address to the American bishops in early 2012. We, too, face the same forces of disintegration, for we are cultural offspring of the Christendom that defined Europe. And so the Pope issued a call to all of us:

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Here, once more, we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity, endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.

The preparation of committed lay leaders and the presentation of a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society remain a primary task of the Church in your country; as essential components of the New Evangelization, these concerns must shape the vision and goals of catechetical programs at every level.

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Benedict vs. the dictatorship of relativism
by BENJAMIN WIKER

February 25, 2013

In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned those attending, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

This is a warning that Pope Benedict has not tired of repeating during his pontificate.

Relativism is a poison. It attacks our most human capacity, the capacity to seek and know the truth, including the moral truth. A dictatorship of relativism imposes by real cultural force (and even by political force) a no-standard standard, a command that all must imbibe this poison.

At first blush, it would seem contradictory to have relativism united to dictatorship. Isn’t relativism just a healthy dose of humility, a way to cool the intellectual or religious hot-head who insists, “I, only I, have the truth”?

The proof of the pudding of relativism is in the eating. How has it fared?

In Without Roots, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:

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In recent years I find myself noting how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends toward intolerance.

Political correctness … seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It presents itself as the only way to think and speak — if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. …

I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo-enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion.

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That last point is key. While appearing to be the very essence of neutrality and equity — “all views are equal and equally valid” — it actually undermines both the freedom of thought and the freedom of religion.

As to the latter, it does so (ironically) as a new religion itself, “a new ‘denomination’ that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super-dogma of relativism.”

As Cardinal Ratzinger noted in his Truth and Tolerance, “relativism … in certain respects has become the real religion of modern man.” It has become, especially in Europe, but now increasingly in America, the religion that stands at the heart of modern secular civilization in the way that Christianity defined the heart of Christendom.

It is the religion, Pope Benedict insists, which the Church must combat in the third millennium for the sake of civilization itself. A civilization built upon dogmatic relativism is one that ensures its own destruction. It is also a civilization in which Christianity — challenging dogmatic relativism with the proclamation that Jesus Christ himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life — must be persecuted.

What is the ultimate source of this dogmatic relativism? I’ll explore Pope Benedict’s thoughts in my next blog post.

A gem of a Pope
by BENJAMIN WIKER
March 01, 2013

Benedict XVI is a gem of a Pope, a diamond who has been treated roughly by the liberal press as if he were a mere growling guard dog of benighted and ossified orthodoxy.

But he is a man deeply read in history, philosophy and theology, and the Church has not had nearly enough time, in his short pontificate, to explore the many facets of his profound learning.

In great part, his courageous defense of orthodoxy comes from his profound grasp of the roots of relativism, his defense of the truth from a deep understanding of the worldview that would destroy it (along with our humanity).

In the last blog post, I discussed Pope Benedict’s warning that we are, more and more, the unhappy subjects of a dictatorship — a “dictatorship of relativism” that seeks to impose the poisonous notion that human beings cannot know the truth.

This poison attacks the very core of our humanity. Made in the image of God, we are rational animals whose greatest perfection is to know and love the truth. And the greatest truth is Jesus Christ himself, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

But dictatorial relativism commands us to submit to the malignant mantra, “But this is only my truth, a mere subjective description of my prejudices, my historical situation, my subjective needs and desires.” The faith is thereby bent down to become my faith, my own personal swirl of irrational predilections that happen to give me comfort.

The dictatorship of relativism demands the same humbling of all claims of moral truth as well. “Abortion is wrong” must become “I don’t happen to like abortion.” “Heterosexual monogamous marriage is right” must become “I prefer traditional marriage.”

Such are the dictates of the dictatorship of relativism. But what are its historical and philosophical roots?

As Benedict maintains, the roots of our relativism lie in the modern attempt to constrict reason, to reduce its domain, while at the same time making it absolute ruler in that dwarfed domain. The dream — it began, largely, as the dream of the philosopher Rene Descartes — was to make human reason infallible, absolutely certain, by restricting reason to the material aspects of reality that could be measured by mathematics. Anything beyond what was physical and precisely measurable was not real or at least not rationally knowable — or, as it came to be called, merely “subjective.”

Faith? Can it be weighed and measured? No. Then it’s merely subjective.

God? Put on the scale? Sorry. He’s not real — he’s just a subjective projection of our desire for a father.

Morality? Can we weigh different arguments about good and evil? No. Then they’re merely subjective descriptions of our particular desires, our “values.”

The soul? Can’t put it under the microscope; can’t see it — must be a subjective fiction.

This reductionist view of rationality came to define science, and, as a result of its successes, reductionist science came to define all of reality.

As Pope Benedict noted, this view is an “anti-metaphysical” philosophy that has “no place for God.” It is, Benedict rightly sees, “a self-limitation of … reason that is adequate in the technological sphere but entails a mutilation of man if it is generalized. … This philosophy expresses, not the complete reason of man, but only one part of it. And this mutilation of reason means that we cannot consider it to be rational at all” (Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures).

This mutilated view of reason, resulting in a mutilated view of man, became the foundation of modern secularism. Secularism is both dictatorial and relativist. It claims to define reason and reality and desires to impose its secular view upon everyone else. What it imposes is relativism: the belief that all truth claims are merely projections of each individual’s desires, which are themselves reducible to measurable, material and ultimately irrational causes.

This is especially true — so asserts secular reason — in regard to morality. Moral disagreements cannot be reconciled because there is no moral standard against which they can be measured. We must, therefore, accept relativism. We can count up the number of people who think abortion is wrong and the number who think it is right (in the same way we can count up the number of people who really like chocolate ice cream best vs. those who love vanilla). But that is the limit of reason.

In merely counting up different views, but not deciding between them, it would seem that secular reason is being quite humble and tolerant and welcoming to anyone and everyone. Such is not the case, however. Instead, as Benedict rightly points out, secularism wants to impose secularism. Its alleged tolerance is actually the greatest intolerance.

As Benedict argues in Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures,

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Secularism is the expression of a consciousness that would like to see God eradicated once and for all from the public life of humanity and shut up in the subjective sphere of cultural residues from the past.

In this way, relativism, which is the starting point of the whole process, becomes a dogmatism that believes itself in possession of the definitive knowledge of human reason, with the right to consider everything else merely as a stage in human history that is basically obsolete and deserves to be relativized.

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The dictatorial aspirations of secular relativism arise from hubris not humility, from the desire to eliminate God and our spiritual nature, so that we can live a comfortable this-worldly life, unburdened from Divine commands or even the call to greatness of soul.

The mutilation of man — the reduction of him to a mere material animal with no goal other than comfortable self-preservation and the satisfaction of his physical desires — is the price secularism asks us to pay.



Among other 'old material' that I have neglected to post so far is this excerpt from an interview John Allen did in Argentina with Maria Elena Bergoglio, 64, Pope Francis's only surviving sibling. The interview and published in the Fishwrap on April 4. One must congratulate Mr. Allen for his enterprise, and thank Senora Bergoglio for her sense and sentiments. It's a tired refrain by now, from me, but if only the cardinals of the Church had her sense and sentiments!
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/popes-sister-francis-plenty-tough-enough-lead

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There’s only one other person on earth who can really understand what your brother’s going through, and that’s Benedict XVI. They’ve already spoken several times. In the same way, there’s probably only one other person who can appreciate what you’re going through, and that’s Benedict’s brother Georg. Have you thought about calling him for advice?
You know, no one’s asked me that before. It’s true, probably no one knows what my brother is feeling as much as Benedict. I’ve never thought about calling his brother, but I’m sure it would be a very interesting phone call.

If you did have that phone call, what would you want to ask him?
It’s not so much that I have anything I’d want to ask, but I would like to congratulate him for the brother he has. Benedict XVI is an extremely humble man and an extremely honest man, and it takes a lot of guts to renounce power like he did. Also, I’d like to express how grateful I am to Benedict XVI, because he did all the hard work.

First of all, he had to follow John Paul II, which was almost impossible, especially because Benedict was more introverted and shy, more intellectual. I also feel sorry for Benedict because in many ways he had to do the dirty work in the Church, such as starting to talk about the bad things in the Church, the rotten tomatoes, such as the abuse cases.

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Well, well, well... What do we have this morning but a prompt statement from the Vatican Press Office about the remarks made by the Prefect of the Congregation in charge of religious orders, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz of Brazil, who told an international conference of women religious in Rome Monday that he was never consulted about the decisions made by the CDF and Benedict XVI regarding the renegade LCRW sisters of the USA. However, the note does not address the complaint itself and claims that Braz de Aviz's remarks were misinterpreted - there is nothing to interpret. His complaint was plainly and unequivocally said.

Vatican note regarding
Cardinal Braz de Aviz statement

May 7, 2013

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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life have for some time been collaborating on a renewed theological vision of Religious Life in the Church.

The concern of the Holy See, expressed partially in the Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States, is motivated by a desire to support the noble and beautiful vocation of Religious so that the eloquent witness of Religious Life may prosper in the Church to the benefit of future generations.

The initiatives of the Holy See in this area are concerned primarily with the faith of the Church and its expression in Religious Life. The Church’s faith—in the loving plan of the Father who sent his Son to be our Savior, in the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, in the gift of grace through the Sacraments, in the nature of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit—this faith is at the heart of the Evangelical Counsels. It motivates the passion for justice shared by so many Religious women and men, and it seeks ever to be expressed in active charity towards those most in need.

Recent media commentary on remarks made on Sunday May the 5th during the General Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, has suggested a divergence between the CDF and the Congregation for Religious in their approach to the renewal of Religious Life. Such an interpretation of the Cardinal’s remarks is not justified. [This comment begs the question. Braz de Aviz complained specifically he was never consulted by the CDF about the LCRW question. That is what this note ought to have answered. However, even as we may safely infer Braz de Aviz's divergence from the CDF. Benedict XVI and Pope Francis about the findings and recommendations about the LCRW = which this note denies - but that does not mean that his views will prevail.]

The Prefects of these two Congregations work closely together according to their specific responsibilities and have collaborated throughout the process of the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR.

Archbishop Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Braz de Aviz met yesterday and reaffirmed their common commitment to the renewal of Religious Life, and particularly to the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR and the program of reform it requires, in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Father.

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I think Braz de Aviz should apologize for his willful indiscretion and grandstanding before the assembly of sisters

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/05/2013 14:48]

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, Sixth Week of Easter

Second from right: Canonization rites for St. Rosa and four others in October 2006.
ST. ROSA VENERINI (b Viterbo 1656, d Rome 1728), Virgin, Founder of the Maestre Pie Venerini
Viterbo's second Santa Rosa was born more than four centuries after the first one, the mystic who died at age 17. Rosa Venerini always wanted to be a nun and did enter
a Dominican convent at age 20, but the death of her well-to-do physician father forced her to go back home to take care of her ailing mother and two siblings.
With a sodality of friends who gathered in her house daily to pray the rosary, she was inspired to start a free school for poor girls in 1685. It was so successful that
the Bishop of nearby Montefalcone asked her to start one in his diocese. From there on, she went to other places in Italy to start other schools. In Rome, it took
her a few years to get going, but Pope Clement XI had heard of her good works, and one day, visited while she was giving a class. She eventually died in the Rome house
of what would be recognized after her death as the order of the Maestre Pie Venerini (Pious Teachers of Venerini). At the time of her death, there were 40 Venerini schools
in Italy. The order was very active in the United States during the great waves of Italian immigration in the 19th century, and today, it has missions in Africa and Asia.
Mother Rosa was beatified in 1952 and canonized by Benedict XVI in October 2006.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050713.cfm

AT THE VATICAN TODAY

No events announced for Pope Francis today.

The Vatican released the program of the Pope's visit to Rio de Janeiro on July 22-29 for WYD 2013.
He will also make a trip the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida on the first full day of activities on July 24,
the day before he formally joins the WYD activities. He will have a full day's rest on July 23 at the residence
where he will be staying in Rio before the trip to Aparecida.
commencing his activities.

The Vatican released the statement (posted earlier on this page)seeking to straighten out a complaint
made Sunday before an international conference of women religious in Rome by the Prefect of the congregation
supervising religious orders.



One year ago...
Benedict XVI continued his series of meetings with US bishops on ad-limina visit, meeting with eight bishops from southeastern USA (Region XVI). He later met with newly-inducted Pontifical Swiss Guards, with their family members.

On this day in 2011, Benedict XVI began a two-day pastoral visit to Aquileia and Venice in northeast Italy.


Hthe Holy Father's address to the faithful at Aquileia's Piazza Capitolo upon his arrival underscores the historical and religious importance of the Church of Aquileia:

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Dear brothers and sisters,

It is with great joy that I come to you, children and heirs of the illustrious Church of Aquileia, from where I start my visit to the Churches of these lands.

To all of you - pastors, civilian authorities, faithful of the dioceses of the Triveneto region, as well as those from Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and Bavaria - I address my heartfelt greeting.

The archeological remains and the wondrous artistic vestiges for which Aquileia is well-known invite me now to gP back to the origins of this city which first arose in 181 and prospered in succeeding centuries, as the poet-bishop Paulinus sang: "..beautiful, illustrious, splendid, with its palaces, famous for its walls, and even more, for the countless crowds of your citizens,.. All the cities of Venetia were subject to you and made you their capital and metropolis, flourishing with your clergy, splendid for your churches dedicated to Christ" (Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, in M.H.H., 1881, p. 142).

Aquileia was born and developed at the peak of the Roman Empire, the doorway between East and West, a place of presidium and of economic and cultural interchanges.

But Aquileia had a different glory. In fact, as St. Paul tells us, God did not choose the noble and the powerful but that which was, for the world, was 'week and foolish' (cfr 1 Cor 1,27-28).

In the far-off province of Syria-Palestine, at the time of Augustus Caesar, there emerged he who came to bring light back to men with the Truth - Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, eternal Son consubstantial with the Father, who revealed the never-ending imperium of God over men, his design of communion with all peoples - he who with his death on the Cross at the hands of the Empire, would establish the true kingdom of justice, love and peace, giving men who welcomed him 'the power to become children of God' (Jn 1,12).

From Jerusalem, through the Church of Alexandria, the Good News of salvation by Christ reached here. To this Roman region came the seed of the great hope. The Church of Aquileia soon became, in the tenth kingdom of the Empire, a community of martyrs, of heroic witnesses to the faith in the Risen One, seed for other disciples and other communities.

The greatness of Aquileia was not just that it was the ninth most important city of the Empire and the fourth in Italy, but that it was a living Church, exemplary, capable of authentic evangelical proclamation that was courageously spread to surrounding regions, and for centuries, conserved and nourished.

That is why I pay homage to this blessed land, irrigated by the blood and sacrifice of so many witnesses for Christ, and I pray to its holy Aquileian martyrs to continue inspiring today disciples of Christ who are courageous and faithful, devoted to him only and therefore, convinced and convincing.

The freedom of worship which was granted in the fourth century to Christianity further extended the radius of activity for the Church in Aquileia, widening beyond the natural confines of the Veneto and Bistria towards Retia, Norico, the broad regions of the Danube, to Pannonia and Savia.

Thus was formed the ecclesiastical metropolitan province of Aquileia, to whom bishops of churches that were distant rendered their obedience, accepted her profession of faith, bound themselves with the indissoluble ties of communion that was ecclesial, liturgical, disciplinary and even architectonic.

Aquileia was the beating heart of the region, under the wise and intrepid leadership of holy Pastors who defended her against the spread of Arianism. Among them all, I remember best Cromatius, about whom I spoke in my catechesis on December 5, 2007 - a bishop who was just as solicitous and hard-working as Augustine was in Hippo, and Ambrose in Milan, "the holiest and most educated of bishops", as St, Jerome described him.

The Church that Cromatius loved and served was great because of its profession of faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Commenting on the story of the woman who first anointed the feet and then the head of Jesus with precious perfume, he said: "The feet of Christ indicate teh mystery of his incarnation through which he deigned to be born of a woman. His head, on the other hand, indicates the glory of his divinity proceeding from the Father before all time... This means that we must believe two things about Christ: that he is God and that he is man. God generated from the Father, man born of a virgin. We cannot otherwise be saved if we do not believe these two things about Christ" (CROMAZIO DI AQUILEIA, Catechesi al popolo, Città Nuova, 1989, p. 93).

Dear brothers, children and heirs of the glorious Church of Aquileia, I am among you today to admire this rich and ancient tradition, but above all, to confirm you in the profound faith of your Fathers: At this time in history, rediscover, defend and profess with spiritual ardor this fundamental truth - Only from Christ can mankind receive hope and a future; only from him can we draw the meaning and the strength of forgiveness, of justice, of peace. Keep always alive, with courage, the faith and the work of your origins.

Be, in your churches and in the womb of society, "almost like a blessed chorus'. as St. Jerome said of the clergy of Aquileia, through your unity in faith, your study of the Word, brotherly love, and your joyous and pluriform harmony of ecclesial witness.

I invite you to make yourselves ever anew disciples of the Gospel in order to translate it to spiritual fervor, clarity of faith, sincere charity, and ready sensitivity to the poor. You should shape your lives according to the sermo rusticus that St. Jerome spoke of in referring to the evangelical quality of the Aquileian community.

Be assiduous at the 'manger', as Cromatius called it, namely, the altar, where the nourishment is Christ himself, Bread of life, strength against persecutions, nourishment that revives in any weakness or uncertainty, food for courage and Christian ardor.

May the memory of the Holy Mother Church of Aquileia sustain and urge you on to new missionary goals during this troubled historical time, and make you artisans of unity and understanding among the peoples of your lands.

May the Virgin Mary always protect you on your journey, as I accompany you with my blessing.

---

Later, In the historic basilica of Aquileia, Benedict XVI addressed the bishops of the region:

---

Cardinal Patriarch Scola,
Venerated brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear brothers and sinners:

In the magnificent setting of this historic basilica which solemnly welcomes us, I address my most heartfelt greeting to all of you who represent the 15 dioceses of the Triveneto region.

I am very happy to meet with you as you prepare to celebrate next year the second ecclesial conference of Aquileia.

I affectionately greet the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice and our brothers in the Episcopate, especially the Archbishop of Gorizia whom I thank for his words of welcome, and the Archbishop of Padua, who gave us an overview of the preparations for the conference. I greet with the same affection the priests, religious and lay faithful present.

With the Apostle John, I wish to say to you: "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come" (Rev 1,4).

In 'synodal assembly', the Holy Spirit speaks to your beloved churches and to all of you individually, sustaining you for more mature growth in communion and reciprocal collaboration.

This 'ecclesial coexistence' allows all the Christian communities whom you represent to share, above, all the original experience of Christianity - the personal encounter with Jesus, which fully reveals to each man and woman the significance and direction of our journey in life and in history.

You have opportunely wanted your ecclesial assembly to take place in the Mother Church of Aquileia, which germinated the Churches of the Italian Norhteast, but also the Churches of Slovenia and Austria, and some Churches in Croatia, Bavaria, and even Hungary.

To reunite in Aquileia therefore constitutes a significant return to the 'roots' in order to rediscover the 'living stones' of the spiritual edifice which has its foundation in Christ and its prolongation in the most eloquent witnesses of the Church of Aquileia: the saints Ermagora and Fortunatus, Hilarius and Tacianus, Chrysogonus, Valerian and Cromatius.

Returning to Aquileia means, above all, to learn from the glorious Church that generated your Churches, how to ckmmit yourselves today, in a world that has changed radically, to a new evangelization of your territory and to hand on to future generations the precious legacy of the Christian faith.

"Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev 2,7). Your pastors have repeated this invitation to all your local Churches and to various ecclesial realities. You have asked them to discover and 'narrate' that which the Holy Spirit has worked and continues to work on your communities; to reaD with tHe eyes of faith the profoumd transformations under way, the new challenges, the emerging questions.

How to announce Jesus Christ, how to communicate the Gospel, and how to educate our people in the faith today! You have chosen to prepare yourselves, in a detailed manner, diocese by diocese, for the conference of 2012 in order to enable you to face challenges that go beyond the confines of your individual dioceses, for a new evangelization rooted in the faith of centuries and renewed with vigor.

The presence today in this splendid basilica of the dioceses that were born from Aquileia seems to indicate the mission of the Northeast in the future, which also includes surrounding territories and those who, for various reasons, are in contact with them.

Northeast Italy is witness and heir to a proud story of faith, culture and art, whose signs are still very visible even in today's secularized society. The Christian experience has forged a people who are affable, hardworking, tenacious, and fraternally solid. They are marked profoundly by the Gospel of Christ, even in the plurality of their cultural identities.

This is demonstrated by the vitality of your parochial communities, the activity of the various associations, and the responsible commitment of your pastoral workers. The horizon of faith and Christian motivations which have given and continue to offer a new impetus to social life inspire good intentions and guide your practices.

Evident signs of this are the openness to the transcendent dimension of life, despite widespread materialism; a basic sense of religion which is shared by almost the entire population; attachment to the religious tradition; the renewal of courses of Christian instruction; multiple expressions of faith, charity and culture; manifestations of popular religiosity; the sense of solidarity and of volunteerism. Guard, strengthen and live this precious heritage. Hold on jealously to what has made these lands great and continue to make them great.

The priority mission that the Lord entrusts to you today, renewed by personal encounter with him, is to bear witness to God's love for man. You are called to do this, first of all, with works of love and decisions made in favor of the weak, the frail, the defenseless, those who are not self-sufficient, like the poor, the aged, the sick and the disabled - those whom St. Paul calls the weakest parts of the ecclesial body} [C}(1 Cor 15-27).

The ideas and realizations in the approach to longevity - a precious resource for human relations - are a beautiful and innovative testimonial of evangelical charity projected onto the social dimension.

Be careful to place the family in the center of your attention - as the cradle of love and life, the fundamental cell of society and the ecclesial community. This pastoral commitment is more urgent today in the increasingly more widespread crisis of conjugal life and the decline in the birth rate.

In all your pastoral actions, be sure to reserve special care for young people, who today face the future with great uncertainty. They often live in a condition of unease, insecurity and fragility, but in their hearts, they carry a great hunger and thirst for God that requires constant attention and response.

In your own context, the Christian faith today faces new challenges: the often exacerbated search for economic wellbeing during a time of grave economic and financial crisis; the practice of materialism; the dominant subjectivity.

In the complexity of such situations, you are called to promote the Christian sense of life, through the explicit announcement of the Gospel, that must be carried with pride and with profound joy
into the various aspects of daily life.

Faith lived with courage brings forth, today as in the past, a fruitful culture made up of love for life from conception to its natural end; promoting human dignity; exalting the importance of family, based on faithful matrimony and open to life; and a commitment to justice and solidarity.

The cultural changes underway call on you to be staunch Christians, "ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope" (1Pt 3,15), able to face the new cultural challenges, in respectful confrontation that is constructive and aware with all those who live in this society.

The geographical location of the Northeast, which is no longer just a crossroads for East and West in Europe, but also between the North and South of the Adriatic, brings the Mediterranean to the heart of Europe, with the massive phenomena of tourism and of immigration, territorial mobility, a homologizing process brought on by the pervasive action of the mass media - all of which have accentuated cultural and religious pluralism.

In this context, which is what Providence gives us, it is necessary that Christians, sustained by 'reliable hope', propose the beauty of the coming of Jesus Christ - Way, Truth and Life - to every man and woman, in a frank and sincere relationship with non-practising Christians, with non-believers, and with believers in other religions.

You are called to live with an attitude full of faith as described in the letter to Diognetus: Do not reject anything in the Gospel in which you believe, but conduct yourselves among other men with sympathy, communicating through your own lifestyle that humanism rooted in Christianity, aimed at constructing together with all men of good will a 'city' that is more human, more just and more mutually supportive.

As attested by the long tradition of Catholicism in these regions, continue to bear vigorous witness to God's love, through the promotion of the 'common good' - the good of everyone and of each one. Your ecclesial communities have a positive relationship in general with civilian society and its various institutions. Continue to offer your contribution to humanize the spaces of civilian coexistence.

Lastly, I recommend to you, as to other Churches in Italy, a commitment to inspire a new generation of men and women capable of taking direct responsibilities in the various sectors of society, particularly in politics.

The field of politics more than ever needs persons, especially younger ones, who are able to build a 'good life' in behalf of and in service to everyone. Indeed, this responsibility cannot be avoided by Christians, who are pilgrims towards heaven but already live down here an anticipation of eternity.

Dear brothers and sisters, I thank God that he has allowed me to share this very significant moment with you. I entrust you to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, and to your patron saints,

With great affection, I impart the Apostolic Blessing to all of you those who are dear to you. Thank you for your attention.

---

In the afternoon, the Holy Father proceeded to Venice where he stayed overnight and was welcomed by the faithful at St. Mark's Square.

Iconic picture of Benedict XVI in front of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice (taken at dusk so adjusted to appear brighter).

From the official site of WYD 2013:

Pope's program in Brazil for WYD
will include visit to Aparecida

The Vatican has freleased the program for Pope Francis's first trip abroad as Pope in July this year. It will be his only foreign trip in 2013.

The schedule of his trip to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Rio 2013, includes Protocol Events, such as the meeting with the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, along with visits to a poor community, a hospital, and a visit with young inmates.

July 22
The Pope will arrive in Brazil on Monday 22 July. The official reception will be at Rio de Janeiro/Galeão–Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, at 4pm. Soon after, there will be a Papal Welcoming Ceremony at the garden of the Palácio Guanabara, where the Pope will give his first speech.

At the event, there will be a ceremonial reception of the three branches of government. The reception protocol will be made by President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, as well as the Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral, and the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.

The Holy Father will stay at the Residência do Sumaré (Sumaré Residence) during his trip to Brazil. The residence was where Blessed John Paul II stayed during his two visits to Brazil in 1980 and 1997. It’s a quiet place, away from the rush of the city. Besides Pope Francis, the residence will also host the whole papal entourage, which will include about 40 people.

July 23
[The news release does not say so but no events are scheduled for Tuesday, July 23, Pope Francis's first full day in Brazil. The 36-hour rest is similar to the 24-hour period between Benedict XVI's arrival in Mexico last March and his first official event after the airport welcome. The interval provides not just a rest period after a transcontinental flight but also allows the Pope's biorhythm to adjust itself to a different time zone. When Benedict XVI travelled to Sydney in 2008, he required a three-day adjustment period.]

July 24
The Holy Father will visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida on Wednesday, 24 July. It is the largest Marian shrine in the world. A visit to the National Shrine of Aparecida was a personal request of Pope Francis because of his devotion to Mary. The Pope will venerate the miraculous image of the 'Aprecida' in the basilica and, afterwards, will celebrate Mass with Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno (president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil), as well as the Archbishop of Aparecida).

Back in Rio, on Wednesday afternoon, Pope Francis will also attend the opening of the “Pólo de Atenção Integrada da Saúde Mental (PAI),” which will provide services for those recovering from drug addiction. With 350 physicians, 500 health professionals, 648 hospital beds, 323 ward beds, 12 emergency beds, 75 ICU beds and 11 operating rooms, the São Francisco da Tijuca Hospital (formerly the Third Order of Penance) is a general hospital, which provides care in 22 specialties. The institution pays particular attention to customer health plans and public patients, routed via the State Health Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro.

July 25
'On Thursday 25 July, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes will hand over the keys of the city to the Holy Father, in a symbolic and traditional ceremony. This reflects the respect for the Pope and the authority he represents. In addition, there will be a short meeting with representatives of the sporting world, with the Blessing of the Olympic flags.

In the morning, Pope Francis will visit a slum in Rio de Janeiro, 33 years after Blessed John Paul II visited a slum in another area of the city. This time, instead of Vidigal in Rio's South Zone, which John Paul II visited in 1980, Pope Francis visit will visit a slum in the North Zone. The community chosen was Varginha, within the Manguinhos Complex, recently pacified by the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The Pope will speak to residents and give his blessing.

At 6pm the Pope will participate in the Welcoming Ceremony at Copacabana, which is one of the Main Events of WYD Rio2013. There the Pope will greet WYD pilgrims for the first time and will give a speech.

July 26
One of the most visited tourist attractions of the city, a former retirement home of Emperor Dom Pedro, called Quinta da Boa Vista, will host one of the largest catechesis events and the Vocations Fair. The Holy Father will hear the confessions of four young people here, during the morning of 26 July.

Afterwards, some young inmates will meet with Pope Francis at the Archbishop's Palace St. Joachim. At noon, the Pope will pray the Angelus from the central balcony of the palace. Before the traditional “lunch with young people from all continents,” which happens at all WYDs, the Pope will greet the WYD Rio2013 Local Organizing Committee and the WYD sponsors.

The Via Crucis with the youth, which is the third WYD Main Event, will take place at 6pm at Copacabana Beach, with and the Pope will give a speech.

July 27
The official activities will begin with a Mass, presided over by the Holy Father, at the Catedral São Sebastião, with bishops, priests, religious and seminarians present in Rio.

Soon after, the Pope will meet with representatives of the society of Rio de Janiero and Brazil at the 19th-century Teatro Municipal (Municipal Theater).

In the afternoon, the Pope will have lunch with Brazilian cardinals, the president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, the bishops from Regional Leste 1 (dioceses of the State of Rio de Janeiro), and the papal entourage in dining hall of the “Centro de Estudos do Sumaré.”

At 7:30pm, the Pope will be in Guaratiba, at Campus Fidei, for the Prayer Vigil with the young people, which is the fourth WYD Main Event. There, he will deliver a speech to pilgrims and take a moment for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with the youth present.

July 28
At 10am, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass at Campus Fidei with the youth who spent the previous night there. He will announce the next city to host World Youth Day. At noon, he will pray the Angelus with pilgrims.

Lunch will be with the papal entourage in the cafeteria of the Centro de Estudos do Sumaré. He will meet with the Comitê de Coordenação do Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano (CELAM before his departure from the Sumaré residence.

To personally thank the 60,000 volunteers involved in WYD, Pope Francis will meet with them at 5:30pm at the Pavilhão 5 do Rio Centro (Pavilion 5 of the Rio Center), and he give a speech to them.

There will be also a farewell ceremony at the Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, where the Holy Father will make a speech. His departure back to Rome is scheduled for 7pm.2pt]Pope's program in Brazil
includes a visit to Aparecida

The Vatican has released the official program for Pope Francis's first nternational trip as Pope in July this year.

The schedule of his trip to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Rio 2013, includes Protocol Events, such as the meeting with the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, along with visits to a poor community, a hospital, and a visit with young inmates.

July 22
The Pope will arrive in Brazil on Monday 22 July. The official reception will be at Rio de Janeiro/Galeão–Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, at 4pm. Soon after, there will be a Papal Welcoming Ceremony at the garden of the Palácio Guanabara, where the Pope will give his first speech.

At the event, there will be a ceremonial reception of the three branches of government. The reception protocol will be made by President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, as well as the Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral, and the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.

The Holy Father will stay at the Residência do Sumaré (Sumaré Residence) during his trip to Brazil. The residence was where Blessed John Paul II stayed during his two visits to Brazil in 1980 and 1997. It’s a quiet place, away from the rush of the city. Besides Pope Francis, the residence will also host the whole papal entourage, which will include about 40 people.

July 23
[The news release does not say so but no events are scheduled for Tuesday, July 23, Pope Francis;s first full day in Brazil. The 36-hour rest is similar to the 24-hour period between Benedict XVI's arrival in Mexico last March and his first official event after the airport welcome. The interval provides not just a rest period after a transcontinental flight but also allows the Pope's biorhythm to adjust itself to a different time zone. When Benedict XVI travelled to Sydney in 2008, he required a three-day adjustment period.]

July 24
The Holy Father will visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida on Wednesday, 24 July. It is the largest Marian shrine in the world. A visit to the National Shrine of Aparecida was a personal request of Pope Francis because of his devotion to Mary. The Pope will venerate the miraculous image of the 'Aprecida' in the basilica and, afterwards, will celebrate Mass with Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno (president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil), as well as the Archbishop of Aparecida).

Back in Rio, on Wednesday afternoon, Pope Francis will also attend the opening of the “Pólo de Atenção Integrada da Saúde Mental (PAI),” which will provide services for those recovering from drug addiction. With 350 physicians, 500 health professionals, 648 hospital beds, 323 ward beds, 12 emergency beds, 75 ICU beds and 11 operating rooms, the São Francisco da Tijuca Hospital (formerly the Third Order of Penance) is a general hospital, which provides care in 22 specialties. The institution pays particular attention to customer health plans and public patients, routed via the State Health Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro.

July 25
'On Thursday 25 July, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes will hand over the keys of the city to the Holy Father, in a symbolic and traditional ceremony. This reflects the respect for the Pope and the authority he represents. In addition, there will be a short meeting with representatives of the sporting world, with the Blessing of the Olympic flags.

In the morning, Pope Francis will visit a slum in Rio de Janeiro, 33 years after Blessed John Paul II visited a slum in another area of the city. This time, instead of Vidigal in Rio's South Zone, which John Paul II visited in 1980, Pope Francis visit will visit a slum in the North Zone. The community chosen was Varginha, within the Manguinhos Complex, recently pacified by the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The Pope will speak to residents and give his blessing.

At 6pm the Pope will participate in the Welcoming Ceremony at Copacabana, which is one of the Main Events of WYD Rio2013. There the Pope will greet WYD pilgrims for the first time and will give a speech.

July 26
One of the most visited tourist attractions of the city, a former retirement home of Emperor Dom Pedro, called Quinta da Boa Vista, will host one of the largest catechesis events and the Vocations Fair. The Holy Father will hear the confessions of four young people here, during the morning of 26 July.

Afterwards, some young inmates will meet with Pope Francis at the Archbishop's Palace St. Joachim. At noon, the Pope will pray the Angelus from the central balcony of the palace. Before the traditional “lunch with young people from all continents,” which happens at all WYDs, the Pope will greet the WYD Rio2013 Local Organizing Committee and the WYD sponsors.

The Via Crucis with the youth, which is the third WYD Main Event, will take place at 6pm at Copacabana Beach, with and the Pope will give a speech.

July 27
The official activities will begin with a Mass, presided over by the Holy Father, at the Catedral São Sebastião, with bishops, priests, religious and seminarians present in Rio.

Soon after, the Pope will meet with representatives of the society of Rio de Janiero and Brazil at the 19th-century Teatro Municipal (Municipal Theater).

In the afternoon, the Pope will have lunch with Brazilian cardinals, the president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, the bishops from Regional Leste 1 (dioceses of the State of Rio de Janeiro), and the papal entourage in dining hall of the “Centro de Estudos do Sumaré.”

At 7:30pm, the Pope will be in Guaratiba, at Campus Fidei, for the Prayer Vigil with the young people, which is the fourth WYD Main Event. There, he will deliver a speech to pilgrims and take a moment for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with the youth present.

July 28
At 10am, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass at Campus Fidei with the youth who spent the previous night there. He will announce the next city to host World Youth Day. At noon, he will pray the Angelus with pilgrims.

Lunch will be with the papal entourage in the cafeteria of the Centro de Estudos do Sumaré. He will meet with the Comitê de Coordenação do Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano (CELAM before his departure from the Sumaré residence.

To personally thank the 60,000 volunteers involved in WYD, Pope Francis will meet with them at 5:30pm at the Pavilhão 5 do Rio Centro (Pavilion 5 of the Rio Center), and he give a speech to them.

There will be also a farewell ceremony at the Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, where the Holy Father will make a speech. His departure back to Rome is scheduled for 7pm.

---

A special greeting goes today to the “METER” Association on the day for children who are victims of violence. And this gives me the opportunity to turn my thoughts to those who have suffered and are suffering because of abuse. I would like to assure them that they are present in my prayers, but I would also say emphatically that we must all commit ourselves with clarity and courage to every human person, especially children, who are among the most vulnerable, that they might always be defended and protected.
- Pope Francis
Remarks after the Regina caeli prayers
Sunday, May 5, 2013

---

Pope Francis and pedophile priests:
The same bluntness as Benedict XVI
by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from

May 6, 2013

The blunt words said Sunday by Pope Francis on the problem of priestly sex abuses against children and minors were not surprising but even expected by those familiar with his biography.

But it was the first time he spoke about it as Pope, although one month ago, he instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to continue pursuing the 'zero tolerance' line set down by Benedict XVI.

The chronicle of what Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio did in this respect does not say much, but his public position is well known, influenced by the experience of priest abuses in the USA and Ireland.

We know this because it is described in detail in the book Heaven and earth which is a record of conversations between Cardinal Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorska of Buenos Aires, originally published in 2010 (and now available in various languages).

In the book chapter entitled "His disciples", Bergoglio states that he admired "the courage and rectitude" shown by Benedict XVI in fighting against sexual offenses by the clergy.

Pope Francis's intention to follow his predecessor in this matter is evident in his Sunday statement using the words 'clarity and courage'.

In the book, Bergoglio rejected the idea that "the problem was linked to priestly celibacy" and says categorically: "If a priest is a pedophile, he already was before he became a priest".

He was critical of the 'corporate reaction' by many bishops who wished to keep the 'scandal' entirely as an internal problem and drew down a curtain of secrecy "in order not to damage the image of the Church as an institution".

Two sentences from the chapter clarify and strengthen what he said on Sunday: "When a scandal occurs, one must never pretend not to see it... One cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of others".

Perhaps there is no one now in the Church who questions the policy of purification and penitence undertaken by Benedict XVI, but if any opponents are left, Pope Francis's statements on Sunday should rid them of the illusion that under the new Pope, it may be possible to return to the old practice of secrecy in these matters.

[Gee, anyone who still thinks that has to be demented! But, of course, there will always be inexplicable holdouts here and there. We have the regrettable examples of Cardinal Mahony in Los Angeles and some of the Irish bishops who persisted in covering up for offending priests even after the 2001-2002 reforms decreed by John Paul II and implemented by the CDF.]

15th-century martyrs:
800 Italian victims of Islam
will become saints this month

May 3, 2013



The cathedral of Otranto in southeastern Italy is decorated with the skulls of 800 Christian townsfolk beheaded by Ottoman soldiers in 1480. On Sunday May 12, they will become the skulls of saints, as Pope Francis canonises all of them. In doing so, he will instantly break the record for the Pope who has created the most saints.

I wonder how he feels about that. Benedict XVI announced the planned canonisations just minutes before dropping the bombshell of his own resignation. You could view it as a parting gift to his successor. Or a booby trap. [That's cheap shot, under any circumstances. In any case, it's a matter of great pride for the Church in Italy.]

The 800 men of Otranto – whose names are lost, except for that of Antonio Primaldo, an old tailor – were rounded up and killed because they refused to convert to Islam. In 2007, Pope Benedict recognised them as martyrs “killed out of hatred for the faith”. That is no exaggeration. Earlier, the Archbishop of Otranto had been cut to pieces with a scimitar.

Some accounts of the martyrdoms will raise a sceptical eyebrow: Primaldo reportedly remained standing after he was decapitated, a Pythonesque miracle that stretches credulity.



But the murders really happened, and their significance is immense. The Turks had been sent by Mohammed II, who captured the “second Rome” of Constantinople and planned to do the same to the first. His fleet landed in Otranto, Italy’s easternmost city, and laid siege. The citizens held out for two weeks, allowing the King of Naples to muster his forces. Rome did not fall.

“All of this took place because of the indifference of the political leaders of Europe to the Ottoman menace,” wrote the conservative Italian senator Alfredo Mantovano in an article about the martyrdoms in 2007. You can guess where his argument was heading.

“In Otranto, no one displayed rainbow pacifist flags, nor invoked international resolutions… Today Europe is under attack, not by an institutionally organised Muslim phalanx but by a patchwork of non-governmental organisations of fundamentalist Muslims.”

Pope Francis desires warm relations with Islam – so, as I say, I wonder how pleased he was to discover this event in his diary. Already the interfaith lobby is squirming, always a fun sight. But, equally, the Church can’t allow the ceremony to be hijacked by rabble-rousers.

There are, however, good secular reasons for welcoming this canonisation. Our history is distorted by a nagging emphasis on Christian atrocities during the Crusades combined with airbrushing of Muslim Andalusia, whose massacre of Jews in 1066 and exodus of Christians in 1126 are rarely mentioned. Otranto reminds us that Islam had its equivalent of crusaders – mighty forces who nearly captured Rome and Vienna.

The Muslim Brotherhood is still committed to a restored Caliphate; this week its supporters prophesied the return of a Muslim paradise to Andalusia. These are pipe dreams, it goes without saying. But they matter because they inspire freelance Islamists whose fascination with southern Europe has nothing to do with welfare payments. They think of it as theirs because they know bits of history that we’ve forgotten.

Our amnesia comes in handy in dialogue with Muslims: we grovel a few apologies for the Crusades, sing the praises of the Alhambra, and that’s it. But what does this self-laceration achieve? Arguably it’s counterproductive, because it shows Muslims that we’re ashamed of our heroes as well as our villains.

Which is why the mass canonisation of 800 anonymous men is so welcome: it ensures that, even though the West has forgotten their names, it won’t be allowed to forget their deaths.

I wonder how Italy's very well-organized Muslim community will react to the canonization....

generationbenedict.wordpress.com/

Another belated follow-through of a beautiful post-renouncement tribute to B16 that I discovered too late in the turmoil of the days following February 11 for me. The tributes and the sentiments and affection that inspired them can, of course, never be 'belated', but this tribute series by Gen-Ben UK was built around the 40 days of Lent that began two days after the B16's bombshell announcement, so it is belated in this sense. Gen-Ben UK explains the premise for the series:

---

WELCOME TO GenerationBENEDICT!

Pope Benedict has been responsible for the conversion, reversion, vocation and the deepening of faith of many young Catholics.

At the time of his visit to the UK, many Catholics were luke-warm, even living their lives completely at odds to the Church. During this visit, and also World Youth Days in Sydney and Madrid, he has connected with them through his eloquence, his love and genuine concern. Who is God calling you to be?

Pope Benedict will be truly missed by our generation. Those who have met him look upon him fondly as a gentle grandfatherly figure, as he has pointed us towards Christ, at a point in time when many of us were at a crossroads, telling us not to settle for second best, but to strive for sainthood.

Over the next 40 days of Lent, 40 young people from Generation Benedict will each be sharing how he has touched their hearts and changed their lives.

---

Here is the first tribute:

Day 1: A Journey to Love
by Lisette Carr

February 13, 2013

Lisette Carr is a French teacher, youth worker living in Dublin. She is currently studying for an MA in Marriage and Family at Maryvale Institute. She writes a blog about good things happening in the Catholic world at www.catholicismrocks.wordpress.com. With Collette, she is co-editrix of the GenerationBenedict blog.

Shock and sadness swept through the worldwide Catholic community on Monday 11th February, World Day of the Sick, when Pope Benedict announced his resignation. That sadness was particularly poignant among a certain demographic, Generation Benedict. These are young adults who, like myself, have come to the Faith during the Pontificate of Pope Benedict, and hold him close to our hearts.

Pope Benedict, through his travel and writing, has touched the lives of young people, who were at crossroads in their faith journeys, and has inspired and challenged them to find the Truth in the Catholic Church, leading to conversion, re-version, vocation and deepening of Faith among young people.


The Pope arriving at Hyde Park [What a great photo! Even his shadow is beautiful!]

I was privileged to be part of a group of young adults who “spent the weekend with the Pope” in September 2010, when he visited the U.K.. Sleeping on the floor of a parish centre on the outskirts of London, we were up at 5 a.m. on Saturday 18th September to greet the Pope for his address to the 2500 young people outside Westminster Cathedral.

“We were made to receive love,” he told us. “Look into your heart, each day, to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there”.

We then walked to Hyde Park, and waited to share a special evening of Adoration with the Holy Father and 80,000 other pilgrims. Before exposition began, Pope Benedict gently reminded us; “Only Jesus knows what 'definite service' he has in mind for you. Be open to his voice resounding in the depths of your heart: even now his heart is speaking to your heart.”

Kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament in the silence, I forgot the tens of thousands of papal pilgrims surrounding me, and looked upon the Vicar of Christ, leading me to Christ himself. For that moment, it felt like it was just Jesus, the Pope, and me.

The theme of the Papal visit was inspired by Blessed John Henry Newman’s coat of arms; Cor ad cor loquitur - “Heart speaks unto heart”.

The Pope’s visit was a transformative experience for many young people as his words touched their hearts. They were stirred, moved, and led deeper into Faith, as Pope Benedict inspired them to discern what God’s plan was for them. He urged young people to “lead lives worthy of our Lord (cf. Eph 4:1) and yourselves… Search for him, know him and love him and he will set you free from slavery to the glittering but superficial existence frequently proposed by today’s society”.

The Pope has inspired Generation Benedict to know their faith, to become part of the New Evangelisation, to discern their vocation and to strive for holiness.

After the Pope’s visit, I began to pray about my own vocation. I went to Maryvale Institute, a Catholic distance learning college founded by Blessed John Henry Newman, one of Benedict’s heroes, to learn more about the faith. I have recently completed the Maryvale Certificate of Catechesis, and am now embarking on a Masters degree in Marriage and Family. I began attending Mass on weekdays when possible and going to Confession more frequently. My prayer for my vocation led me to my husband, Jim, who, incidentally, I met exactly two years ago today!

Left, waiting for the Pope at Cofton Park, for John Henry Newman's beatification Mass; right, finding her vocation.

Before Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.K., I knew little about him- apart from the crude caricatures and snide simplifications. During those few days in September, I realised he wasn’t God’s Rottweiler, but rather our beloved German shepherd - a kind and wise grandfatherly figure, whose gentleness and humility disarmed enemies, won over sceptics, touched my heart and inspired me, and an entire generation of young Catholics, to embark on the exhilarating and life-affirming “adventure of orthodoxy”.

Imagine If Benedict XVI had the same freedom to write from retirement as Fr. Schall has...

Report on things current and otherwise
On moving across the country, teaching, universities, and popes.
by James V. Schall, S.J.

Issue of May 2013

Basically, I packed up my worldly goods at the Jesuit Community in Georgetown, gave many things away, and shipped other books here to Los Gatos. I flew via San Jose here on the first day of spring. It is a beautiful place. About seventy retired or infirm Jesuits live here, many old friends and classmates whom I have but rarely seen over the years.

What have I been doing? Once I was set up with the normal household things, the staff and my nephews set me up with a computer. I can still use my Georgetown e-mail. So the world is suddenly as close or as far away as it was in Washington.

So far, I have checked the galleys of two books which are hopefully to be out in the fall. One is entitled, Rational Pleasures, to be published by Ignatius Press. I wrote this book while recovering from my jaw cancer operation during the Spring Semester 2010 when I was not teaching. The second is called, Political Philosophy and Revelation: A Catholic Reading, to be published in the fall by the Catholic University of America Press. In many ways, this book is the summation of my thinking about the nature, extent, and purpose of political philosophy, where it fits into the “order of things”.

Also, I put together for Jameson Books a manuscript entitled Schall at Georgetown: On Being Liberally Educated. This collection contains essays that I wrote in The Hoya, Utraque Unum, and other Georgetown journals over the years. It includes the “Last Lecture,” that was delivered last December 7 in Gaston Hall.

The book is a reflective summation of what I was doing, or at least thought I was doing, during my many years at Georgetown. It reflects the memorable influence that students, colleagues, and friends have had on my thinking about what makes sense in the world.

Someone asked if I would return for Georgetown graduation in May. My answer was: “Alas, I shan’t be able to return for graduation. Missing it will break my heart, but not half as much as being there.”

Having left a place for a time, what does one miss? I definitely miss the constant exhilaration and delight that I encountered each semester in meeting and getting to know new classes of students. I also miss the comfort of students who had taken two or three or more classes, who got to know what I was about.

Likewise, I had many good and dear friends in Washington who were not part of the University. They cannot be replaced, even though I have friends and relatives out here. It is all in Aristotle.

One can get a distorted view of the country from living too long in Washington (or probably California)! Washington has its charms, no doubt. I loved to walk the streets of Georgetown and, occasionally, of the rest of the city, or across the bridge to Arlington. Much of what is wrong with the world begins or ends in Washington, though not only there. It was founded for a noble purpose, a purpose that still makes it worth living there.

I certainly miss the spring days of the City and the fall days when the leaves turn. I won’t miss the Hoyas’ basketball team being bounced out in the early rounds of the NCAA, but I will miss it if they finally prevail.

In general, my health is livable. I have coughing problems. I cannot see well or hear well. I cannot seem to gain any weight. Outside of that, I am perfect. I manage to take a good daily walk in the hills or walk down to Los Gatos. Though I “feel” like teaching all the time, I realized that teaching at Georgetown was a special experience. If I went someplace else to teach, no one would know who I was or what I was about.

At Georgetown, this issue was solved by tradition and word of mouth. This familiar “circle of student friends” meant that I always had good students who wanted to be in class and read with me what I wanted to read with them. The department of Government, with its many good men and women, always let me teach what I thought was important.

And I continually seemed to find students who were ready to listen to my ramblings and often blunt way of telling them what to read and what was important. But I only told them these things so they would finally see them for themselves. There was a kind of hidden bond with ongoing numbers of students that took years to build. Without it, teaching would not be the same.

The primary purpose of a university that does not lose its soul will always be in classrooms, or at least truth in the classroom. Specialized institutes that are more or less aside from the university may be helpful. Washington is full of them. But the main interest should be what goes on in class.

I do not look kindly on pursuing “research” before one has a liberal education to put things in place. In general “research” is overdone and “what it is all about,” I think, “under-done.” My books, Another Sort of Learning and The Life of the Mind, were about this issue. I still think it a central concern. We will never solve our human problems by “research,” only create more of them. We first have to know what we are and why we are as we are; we have to know of what is.

When one looks beyond the university, even beyond California, what does he see? Any human city will constantly reveal unjust acts, random ones, and willful ones. They reveal the relative level of virtue and vice existent in the society. But there is an ideological root to many things we see today that are not simply chance or haphazard events. There is ideological disorder in our society on a wide basis that we often do not or will not recognize.

We cannot avoid knowing, however reluctantly, of a systematic attack on the Church as such. This ever more precise attack happens in many parts of the world. We Catholics are very slow to admit and react to it, especially at home when we have voted for its cause.

Pope Francis said on April 6: “To find martyrs we don’t need to go to the catacombs or to the Coliseum: today martyrs are alive in a great many countries. Christians are persecuted in a great many countries. Christians are persecuted for their faith. In some countries, they cannot carry the cross; they are penalized for doing so. Today in the 21sst Century, our Church is a church of martyrs.” Such are sober words indeed.

We have had a change of papal regime. Benedict is the greatest mind in the public order today. He is also probably the greatest mind ever to be Pope, and there have been some great ones, including his predecessor John Paul II.

The measure to which students and faculty do or do not read Benedict is the measure of the universality of any institution. I have argued some of this in my book, The Modern Age. I think the reasons that Benedict gave for resigning were valid, though I wished he would stay on for another decade. But he did not think that he was able to do that. Several folks have noted that my reasons for resigning were pretty much the same ones that Benedict gave—no connection implied!

It is good that we have a Latin American Pope. Something like forty percent of the world’s Catholics is in Latin America. My impression of the Latino students that I had at Georgetown over the years is that they were some of the most dynamic and culturally adjusted people to faith and reason that I had ever met.

It is nice to have a pope who is also a Jesuit; provided that we remember that he is first Pope, and only incidentally a Jesuit or anything else. Jesuits are not supposed to want to be Popes or bishops or anything else elevated. This tradition does not mean there is anything is wrong with such offices. Rather it means other things need to be done that such offices would impede.

But such hierarchical offices are of the very structure of the Church that Christ established. Jesuit vows were not designed as a critique of some mistake in Christ’s founding. Moreover, I suspect that Pope Francis, if he is tough on anybody, will be most tough on the Jesuits, as we would expect if we are men worthy of the tradition of St. Ignatius.

As many have pointed out, since Pope Francis has left no real paper trail, as previous popes have done, it difficult to read him. His interest in the poor and the humble ought not to lead us to think that he wants everyone to be poor so he can care for them, or that he wants everyone to be proud so he can be humble by comparison. He seems to be a very likable and honest man. He does not have a lot of other baggage. His desire is to serve the Lord.

The Pope faces many huge problems, most of which are just below the surface. They are not only within the Church itself. In fact, I would say, for what it’s worth, that the main concern of Pope Francis’s tenure will be concerned with what can only be called persecution and legal discrimination against the Church. We are little prepared for this. In divine providence, it may take a man like Francis to deal with it.

Thanks to Lella and her new supplementary blog (in which she posts items not just about B16, but about "the Popes, the Vatican and the Church"),

for the link to an ANSA article reproducing these two pages from the current issue of the Italian People-like magazine CHI.

Last February, CHI published two photos of Benedict XVI as he walked through the gardens in Castel Gandolfo with his little 'family'. The snapshots were taken with a telephoto lens from the balcony of a private residence overlooking part of the gardens.

As happy as one could be to see any additional new photos of B16, one has to question that these photographs were taken in obvious violation of his desire to be hidden from the eyes of the world as much as possible (he is practical enough to know that any occasion when he is with Pope Francis inevitably and almost obligatorily becomes news, and therefore a 'public' event. But stolen photos are an intrusion on his privacy (even if he acknowledged realistically before stepping down that a Pope, even an ex-Pope, no longer really has 'a private life').




ANSA's caption for the first spread reads: "The first photos of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI after his return to the Vatican: they are published by the weekly magazine CHI with an exclusive photographic service which documents various moments in the day of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Joseph Ratzinger. The latter is seen close to the Popemobile that Pope Francis uses in St. Peter's Square. The drivers are the same. Pope Francis is photographed as he walks by himself, holding his papalina(zucchetto)".

Unfortunately, I cannot read whatever is visible of the 'story' itself. But one must note several things:

1. The spread is entitled: "The new life of Benedict XVI: IS HE ONLY EMERITUS POPE?" - an obviously gratuitous and malicious question, as there can be no question of him being anything else but that. A title descriptive of his current status is all he has now - can't the malicious minds not just leave him in peace?

2 The caption by ANSA does not make clesr when the photos were taken. Other than the official photograph of 'the welcome' released by OR and the old photograph showing that the driver of the Popemobile seen in St. Peter's Square is the same person kneeling to kiss the hand of Benedict XVI, there is no way to know, without reading the text, when the other pictures were taken.

3. The second 'spread' is headlined "A Popemobile for two" - I cannot read the text, but the implication is that Benedict XVI is also allowed to use the Popemobile, presumably to go around the Vatican gardens. (They could provide him one of the electric golf carts in the Vatican garage for that, and it would be more convenient, and something that GG or his Flemish deacon could drive. Or perhaps, a golf cart is not safe given the steep road that leads to Mater Ecclesiae, which is located on a hill that is the highest point within the Vatican.)

4. The tagline for one of the photos with the Popemobile drivers says "A fulltime driver", implying B16 has been assigned a fulltime driver - a ridiculous assumption that does not even require arguing against!

How long before someone writes an article a la the US media on "How much does it cost to have Benedict XVI live in the Vatican", into which they will factor in, among other things, the pay for his driver(s) and the gasoline used by the vehicles he is driven in (Don't forget the cost to the Vatican of the helicopter ride from Castel Gandolfo, as one assumes the Vatican pays the Italian armed forces some fee for the use of their airplanes for papal transport within Italy.)

5. The large photo on the spread shows Benedict approaching the back entrance of his retirement home, with Mons. Gaenswein, who was shown with him in the photo with the drivers on the preceding page. The photos with the Popemobile are obviously shot on the street behind the Mater Ecclesiae residence. Perhaps Benedict XVI has no problem walking down that road, but might have, going back up.

6. The photo of Pope Francis with the papalina could have been taken anywhere in the Vatican and not necessarily at the time he came to welcome Benedict XVI on May 2.

7. Obviously, for all that MSM would prefer to simply write off B16 with the discards of history - unless they can exploit any angle to add to their habitual vilification of him = some media are willing to continue treating him as a 'celebrity'. not necessarily because they think he is worth 'celebrating' but for the great curiosity that attracts readers to 'celebrity'.

Anyway, regardless of the ethical propriety of these stolen photos, it is very reassuring to see B16 in apparent good health. God bless him, and God bless Pope Francis and the Church.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, Sixth Week of Easter

Center photos: the saint's reliquary in Bellvaux, and a view of the monastery grounds today.
ST. PIERRE DE TARANTAISE (France, 1102-1174), Cistercian, Abbot and Bishop
As a shepherd boy in the Isere region of France, Pierre could recite all the Psalms by heart, then joined the Cistercian order where he rose quickly to become prior and then abbot of Tamie, the monastery he founded in the Savoy (southeast France). Against his will, he was eventually named Bishop of Tarantaise, earning a reputation for his political skills. Nonetheless, he continued to draw strength from the monastic life, often visiting the Grande Chartreuse monastery for spiritual breaks. When Frederick Barbarossa named an anti-Pope against the legitimate Pope, Alexander III, Pierre became involved in seeking to defend the latter's legitimacy. Later, he would be asked to facilitate negotiations between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. However, he fell ill during the course of the mission and eventually died in the abbey of Bellvaux. His renown was such that less than 20 years after his death, he was canonized. His remains were eventually distributed among the Cistercian monasteries in France. His major shrine is in Bellvaux.
Readings from today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050813.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Before his General Audience at St. Peter's Square today, Pope Francis held a special audience at the Aula Paolo VI
for 800 sisters of the International Union of Superiors-General who attended a four-day conference in Rome.
[For days, the LCRW and their supporters in the media had been trumpeting that the Pope was to meet these sisters in a 'private audience'. It was, in fact, a special audience which is what the Pope gives to groups too large for him to meet in private. This may be quibbling, but the deliberate insistence on the term 'private audience' seemed like an attempt to make more of the occasion than it is, i.e., an event at which, somehow, the sisters would be able to speak to the Pope one on one. and, in so doing, convince him that Benedict XVI and the CDF were completely wrong about the LCRW, so he would then reconsider that position, which he had already confirmed last month after meeting with CDF Prefect Gerhard Mueller. No one-on-one was possible at Aula Paolo VI, if only because, to begin with, such private talks are not part of any special audience, and also because the Pope had to proceed to his General Audience in St. Peter's Square.]

At the General Audience, the Pope resumed his catecheses on the Creed by reflecting on the article that says
"I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life", saying "the Holy spirit dwells in our hearts,.. and
invites us to see all things with the eyes of Christ, to recognize God’s immense love for us, and to share
that love with all our brothers and sisters:.
Link to Vatican Radio's translation of the full catechesis:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/08/pope_francis:_god_loves_us_and_always_forgives_us/en1-690184



One year ago today...
Benedict XVI had no public event, as it was a Tuesday.

But in 2011, it was the second and concluding day of the Holy Father's pastoral visit to Aquileia and Venice, with yet another iconic photograph - Peter on the water, in a gondola - of someone who is still the best-looking octogenarian on earth:

This morning, Pope Francis met with 800 sisters attending a conference of leaders of women's religious orders in Rome. I read through his address to them right away, curious to see how he would treat the continuing persistence of the American LCRW - abetted by the overwhelming weight of international media - in picturing the Vatican criticism of their doctrinal dissent and practices as somehow persecution for their political positions. They have worse offenses than such misrepresentation, of course, but that's another story.

I was struck right away by how forthright Pope Francis was in speaking about the need and rationale for obedience to the Church, for 'feeling with the Church', and that it was not possible to follow Jesus outside the Church. Of course, he was being tactful, but that did not make his message any less clear.

Behold my surprise upon reading the Vatican Radio account of the event, in which that message was relegated in generic terms to the last paragraph of the report, as follows:

Pope meets with the leaders
of women's relisious communities

May 8, 2013

A vocation to religious life must always been seen as a call from God to serve the poor, the sick, the lonely and those who find themselves on the margins of society. That was Pope Francis’ message on Wednesday to 800 women who head religious communities in countries around the world. The sisters met with the Pope at the conclusion of their plenary assembly of the International Union of Superior Generals (UISG, from its French acronym) which has been focused on the theme of leadership in light of Gospel values.

In his speech to them, Pope Francis spoke of their vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, saying the sisters are not spinsters, but rather spiritual mothers and icons of the Mother Church. Echoing the theme of their five day meeting, the Pope said true power is always service to others. While the world may see power in terms of possession, dominion and success, the authority of God is always synonymous with service, humility and love.

As he has done in the past, the Pope warned of the damage caused to the Church by men and women who seek to further their own careers and personal ambitions.

Instead Pope Francis urged the sisters to always “feel with the Church” in faithfulness to the Magisterium, the Pastors and the Bishop of Rome as a visible sign of the unity of the Church. Finally the Pope thanked the sisters for their work and for the maternal intuition which they bring to the life of the Church.

Fortunately, the next link that I got about the address was Father Z;s blog, who, as one might expect, did not miss or underplay the main point of the address, as the Vatican Radio reporter assigned to the story did (one suspects, deliberately, because anyone who can read or hear could not have missed the point:


Pope Francis’s outstanding address to
international leaders of women religious

by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
May 8, 2013

Today Pope Francis met with some 800 leaders of women’s religious institutes from around the world in an organization called the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). Think of an international version of the LCWR.

This meeting of women religious in Rome has been injected with controversy by American nuns of the LCWR who went there, and who have openly tried to draw attention to their own difficulties with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The LCWR is under doctrinal scrutiny.

More controversy was introduced by the strange remarks made to the international group by the Prefect of the Congregation for Religious (the title is longer than that, but I am not going to write it out all the time), His Eminence João Card. Braz de Aviz, who claimed – perhaps through a momentary memory lapse – that the CDF had not kept Religious in the loop in the doctrinal investigation.

Those remarks got the liberal sisters and their camp-followers all worked up yesterday as they sensed a rift which they could exploit, if only they cold pour some noise and energy into it.

Today, however, I think their hopes are greatly diminished. As you read my quick translation (I haven’t seen anything official), keep a few things in mind.

- A couple of weeks back Pope Francis approved of what the CDF was doing in regard to the LCWR, thus prompting the LCWR types and their pets in the Catholic media to wonder whether the Prefect of the CDF hadn’t maybe lied to Francis, or had not shared enough information with him.

- The sisters of the LCWR, as well as all the expounders of the “Magisterium of Nuns” (the gals who seek to place their own pronouncements over and against that of the Magisterium of the bishops), have been droning mantra-style that focus on being obedient to God rather than to the Church. That’s fine as it goes, in an ultimate sense, but the sisters wind up pushing the Church out of the picture completely. [In fact one LCRW sister has famously said they were 'beyond the Church and beyond Jesus' - can anything be more obscenely arrogant?]

- The other day Card. Braz de Aviz said some incomprehensible things about “obedience” in his address to this UISG group. In effect, from what I read, obedience became so vague that it could mean almost anything. [Typical relativism! Braz de Aziz has been so mindlessly crass that I almost think one of the 'sins' Benedict XVI must be atoning for is his appointment of this Brazilian bishop to his particular position.]

- It is my bold bet that the CDF contributed in a major way to Pope Francis address to the UISG.

That said, here are two excerpts from Francis address to this international group of leaders of women’s religious institutes, the UISG. From the first part of Francis’ talk:

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Obedience as listening to the will of God, in the interior movement of the Holy Spirit authenticated by the Church, accepting that obedience passes also through human mediation.

Remember that the relationship of authority-obedience is contextualized in the much larger context of the ministry of the Church and it constitutes a special fulfillment of its mediating function (cf Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life… The service of authority and obedience, 12)

---

To my mind, this runs over what Card. Braz de Aviz said the other day. Francis reminds the sisters that, yes, you do have to obey your human superiors, and the Church – not individuals – gets to authenticate the motions of the Spirit. Note that Francis quoted a curial document.

And now this, which will make this a pretty bad day for the LCWR types (once someone tells them what Francis said). Note that the phrase in Italian “sentire con la Chiesa” is very tricky to translate. ”Sentire” means a whole range of things, but it points to “sensing your way, trying to discern, feel, apprehend with the Church”. It has to do aligning your mind, heart and will with what the Church thinks and wills. I chose “think with the Church”, to underscore that we must keep the rational dimension of the “sensing” front and center. That said:

---

Finally, the ecclesial aspect (ecclesialità) as one of the constitutive dimensions of the consecrated life, a dimension which must be constantly recovered and deepened in life.

Your vocation is a fundamental charism in the journey of the Church, and it is not possible that a consecrated woman or man does not “think” with the Church, which gave birth to us in Baptism; a “thinking” with the Church which finds its filial expression in fidelity to the Magisterium, in communion with the Shepherds and the Successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome, visible sign of unity.

The announcement of and the witness to the Gospel, for every Christian, is never an isolated act. This is important, the announcing of and the witnessing to the Gospel for every Christian is never an isolated act or that of a group, and no evangelizer whosoever acts, as Paul VI recalled so well, “under the force of his own inspiration, but in union with the mission of the Church and in her name” (Ap. Ex. Evangelii nuntiandi, 80).

Paul VI continued: “It is an absurd dichotomy to think to live outside the Church, to love Jesus without living the Church (cf ibid., 16). Feel strongly the responsibility that you have to care for the formation of your Institutes in the sound doctrine of the Church, in the love of the Church and in the ecclesial spirit.

In sum, the centrality of Christ and of the Gospel, authority as a service of love, to “think” in and with Mother Church: these are the three main points I desire to leave with you, to which I join once again my gratitude for your work, which is not always easy.

---

It is never easy to be a Christian, whether one is a consecrated person or not - perhaps harder for ordinary folk because we have not chosen freely to consecrate ourselves entirely to God as consecrated persons do.

So:
1) Christ and the Gospel are central
2) authority as a service of love (which is charity)
3) aligning one’s heart, mind and will with the Church

That is what I had time to render for you this morning. I think these are the more important sections of Francis’ address. No doubt the whole thing will be available soon in English.

Bottom line: In this address, Francis gently but effectively said “No” to what the LCWR has been doing and saying and he again, publicly, gave support to what the CDF has undertaken.

Cindy Wooden of CNS did not miss the point either, although she very obviously does not link the Pope's words at all to the LCRW issue, nor does she even mention that elephant in the room!:

Pope tells sisters:
'You can’t follow Jesus
without the Church'
By Cindy Wooden

8 May 2013

Pope Francis told 800 superiors of women’s orders from around the world that the Catholic Church needs religious women and that religious women need to be in harmony with the faith and teachings of the Church.

“What would the Church be without you?” the Pope told the women today. “It would be missing maternity, affection, tenderness and a mother’s intuition.”

Religious superiors, Pope Francis said, need to ensure their members are educated in the doctrine of the Church, “in love for the Church and in an ecclesial spirit.”

Quoting Pope Paul VI, he said: “It’s an absurd dichotomy to think one can live with Jesus, but without the Church, to follow Jesus outside the Church, to love Jesus and not the Church.”

The sisters, who came from 76 countries, were in Rome for the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General. The group welcomed the pope with loud applause and with the ululations of the African sisters among them.

US Sister Mary Lou Wirtz, superior of the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and president of the International Union of Superiors General, said the sisters “are very pleased with the Pope, and it gives them hope of maybe some change happening in the Church”.

They appreciate the Pope’s emphasis on serving the poor and going out to the margins of society, “because that’s what our service as religious women is about”. [If only her LCRW colleagues and her ilk kept it to that! But no, they want to be women who claim the right to enounce their own Magisterium against that of the Church and her Popes!]

In his talk to the women, Pope Francis said their vow of chastity expands their ability to give themselves to God and to others “with the tenderness, mercy and closeness of Christ”.

However, “please, let it be a fruitful chastity, a chastity that generates sons and daughters in the Church. The consecrated woman is a mother, must be a mother and not a spinster,” he said. While the sisters were laughing at his use of a very colloquial Italian word for “spinster” or “old maid”, he added: “Forgive me for speaking this way, but the motherhood of consecrated life, its fertility, is important.”

Pope Francis said that just as Mary could not be understood without recognising her role as being Jesus’s mother, the Church cannot be understood without recognising its role as being the mother of all believers. “And you are an icon of Mary and the Church,” he said.

The Pope said every vocation – and not just a call to the priesthood – begins with a call from God and is a call to continually center one’s life and actions on Christ, “adoring the Lord and serving others without holding anything back for oneself”.

But particularly for priests and religious, responding to that vocation means feeling, thinking and acting in communion with the Church “that generated us through baptism,” he said.

“The proclamation and witness of the Gospel – for every Christian – are never isolated acts. This is important,” the Pope said, repeating the phrase and adding that Christians do not do good because of a “personal inspiration, but in union with mission of the Church and in its name”.

For members of religious orders, the whole process of growing in love and dedication to Christ and in service of others is aided by poverty, chastity and obedience, Pope Francis said.

Embracing poverty, he said, means overcoming all temptations of selfishness and instead relying totally on God’s providence. It is expressed in simplicity and learned from living with “the humble, the poor, the sick and all those on the existential margins of life.”

“Theoretical poverty is of no use to us,” he said.

Pope Francis also praised the sisters for their focus on the meaning and exercise of authority within their communities: “We must never forget that true power, at any level, is service, which reached its highest point on the Cross.”

“Think of how much damage to the people of God has been caused by men and women of the Church who are careerists, climbers, who use the people, the Church, their brothers and sisters – those they should be serving – as trampolines for their personal interests and ambitions,” he said. “This does great harm to the Church.” [Hmmm... Does this careerism [and ultimate ego trip, i.e., utter selfishness in the deepest sense of the word] not apply precisely to the LCRW types and ordain-women advocates who know that by their words and gestures they are calling attention to themselves and their cause, not necessarily to ascend a career ladder, perhaps, but certainly as a way to media prominence. And in this case, they do use the Church, her magisterium and the Popes as trampolines for their personal and ideological agendas.]

Illustrations, from left: Sculpture of St Dominic and the Virgin of the Rosary; Battle of Lepanto, by Veronese, 1572; prayer card to the Virgin of the Rosary;
image of Our Lady of Pompeii with Sts. Dominic and Catherine; Mysteries of the Rosary, Lorenzo Lotto, 1539; stained glass window of St. Dominic and the rosary.
Although the rosary had been prayed in some form as early as the second century, St. Dominic is credited with institutionalizing it as a devotion after a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1208. In 1541, the victory of the Holy Fleet against the Ottoman Turks in the naval battle of Lepanto off western Greece was attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary, and the October feast was instituted 30 years later. The rosary reached its present form in the 16th century — with 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious) for meditation. In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light to this devotion.

Honoring Our Lady of the Rosary
in the Marian month of May

At the end of the GA today, in his concluding words to Italian-speaking pilgrims, Pope Francis recalled that on May 8, the Church in Italy offers up the so-called 'Supplica' or Prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii on her feast day. (It is one of two occasions during the year when this is done, the other being the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary observed on the first Sunday of October to commemorate as well the 16th-century victory of Christian forces over a Turkish armada in Lepanto, Greece.) But it is rather surprising for our Marian-devotee Pope to omit to say that the Supplica day takes place in the Marian month of May. For the record, here is the English translation of the Supplica:

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Prayer to Our Lady of Pompeii
(to be recited on the 8th of May
and the First Sunday in October)

I.
O august Queen of victories, Virgin who reigns in Paradise, whose mighty name causes Heaven to rejoice and hell to tremble, O glorious Queen of the most holy Rosary, we, your happy children chosen by your goodness in this century to build thee a temple at Pompeii, kneeling at your feet on this solemn day to commemorate your latest triumphs on the spot where idols and demons were formerly worshipped, we pour out with tears the feelings of our hearts and with a filial confidence lay before you our miseries.

From that throne of mercy where you sit as Queen, o Mary, turn down your pitiful eyes on us, on our families, on Italy, on Europe, and the whole Church; take into pity the afflictions which overwhelm us and the cares which embitter our life. You see, o Mother, how many dangers of soul and body, how many calamities and afflictions press upon us.

O Mother, keep back the arm of justice of your indignant Son, and conquer by your mercy the hearts of sinners, since they are our brethren and your children, redeemed through the blood of our sweet Jesus and through the wounds of your most tender heart pierced with the sword. Show yourself to all in this day, as you are, the Queen of peace and mercy.

Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy, vouchsafe that I may praise you, o sacred Virgin. Give me strength against your enemies. Pray for us, Queen of the most holy Rosary, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

II.
It is but too true that we, although your children, are the first who crucify Jesus in our hearts and wound anew your heart by our sins. We confess it, we deserve the severest chastisements; yet remember how you did receive, on the top of Golgotha, the last drops of that Divine blood, and the testament of our dying Redeemer.

And this testament of a God, sealed with the blood of a Man-God, appointed you our Mother, the Mother of sinners. Thus, as our Mother, you are our Advocate and our Hope. To you, amidst sighs, do we lift up our hands, crying for mercy!

Have pity, good mother, have pity on us, on our souls, on our families, on our relations, on our friends, on our departed brethren, above all, on our enemies, and on so many who claim the name of Christians, yet wound the loving heart of your Son.

Pity, o Mother, we now implore you for pity on the erring nations, on all Europe, on the whole world, that they may repair their sins, repentant to the heart. Be merciful to all, o Mother of mercy.

Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy, vouchsafe that I may praise you, o sacred Virgin. Give me strength against your enemies. Pray for us, Queen of the most holy Rosary, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

III.
What does it cost you, o Mary, to hear us? What does it cost you to save us? Did not Jesus entrust to your hands all the treasures of His graces and mercies? You sit as Queen at the right hand of yout Son, crowned with immortal glory, above all the choirs of angels.

You dominion extends as far as the heavens expand - the earth and all the creatures that people it are subject to you. Your power even reaches hell; and you alone, O Mary, can rescue us from the devil's grasp.

You are almighty by grace, and therefore you can save us. Now if you say, you will not help us because we are ungrateful children and unworthy of your protection, tell us at least to whom shall we have recourse in order to be released from so many evils? No, your maternal heart will never bear to see the ruin of your children.

The Divine Child we behold on your knees, the mystical crown we admire in your hand, both inspire us with hope that we will be heard. And full of confidence in you, we throw ourselves at your feet, we trust ourselves as feeble children into the arms of the tenderest amongst mothers and today, this very day, we expect from you the graces we are longing for.

Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy, vouchsafe that I may praise you, o sacred Virgin. Give me strength against your enemies. Pray for us, Queen of the most holy Rosary, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

We now ask of thee, O Queen, a last favour which you cannot refuse on this solemn day. Grant to all of us your constant love and in a special manner, your maternal blessing. We will not leave your feet today nor cease clasping thy knees till you have blessed us.

Bless now, o Mary, the sovereign Pontiff: to the first laurels of thy crown, to the ancient trophies of the Rosary, whence thou art called Queen of victories, add also this one, o Mother: grant triumph to religion and peace to mankind.

Bless our bishop, the priests and particularly those who promote the honour of thy Sanctuary; bless finally all those who are associated eith your temple in Pompeii and who practice and spread devotion to thy most holy rosary .

O blessed rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, bond of love, which connects us with the angels, tower of safety against the assaults of hell, sure harbour in the universal shipwreck, never more shall we part with you - be our comfort in the hour of agony: to you, last kiss of our life.

And the last word on our dying lips shall be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary of the Valle di Pompei. Mother dear, only refuge of sinners, supreme comforter of the afflicted, blessed be your name, now and forever, on earth and in heaven. Amen.

Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy, vouchsafe that I may praise you, o sacred Virgin. Give me strength against thy enemies. Pray for us, Queen of the most holy Rosary, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

[This prayer was approved by the Congregation of rites, and Leo XIII granted an indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines (40-day periods) to those who devoutly recite it on the 8th of May or on the first Sunday in October.)]

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On October 19, 2008, Benedict XVI made a pilgrimage to the shrine in Pompeii, where he said Mass, led the Angelus, and in the afternoon, led the faithful in the Supplica and recitation of the rosary at the Basilica. Here is a translation of his meditation on the rosary. (On the feast itself of Our Lady of the Rosary, he had celebrated a Mass in St. Peter's Square to canonize four new saints and to open the Special Synodal Assembly on the Word of God.)

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As he has done at all the Marian shrines he visited as Pope, Benedict XVI offered the papal pGolden Rose in homage to Out lady.

Before entering the Basilica to recite the Holy Rosary with you, I stopped briefly in front of the urn of Blessed Bartolo Longo, and while praying, I asked myself: "This great apostle of Mary - where did he get his energy and the constancy to bring to completion a work so imposing and now known throughout the world? Is it not precisely from the Rosary, which he welcomed as a true gift from the heart of Our Lady!"

It was just so! The experience of saints bears testimony to it. This popular Marian prayer is a precious spiritual means to grow in intimacy with Jesus, and to learn, at the school of the Blessed Virgin, always to comply with divine will,
G]
It is a contemplation of the mysteries of Christ in spiritual union with Mary, as the Servant of God Paul VI underscored in the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis cultus (No. 46), and as amply illustrated by my venerated predecessor John Paul II in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, that today I ideally reconsign to the Pompeian community and to each of you.

You who work and live in Pompeii, especially you, dear priests, religious and laymen committed to this singular portion of the Church, you are all called to make yours what was Blessed Bartolo Longo's charism and to become, to the degree and in the ways that God grants to each one, authentic apostles of the Rosary.

But to be apostles of the Rosary, one must experience first hand the beauty and the profundity of this prayer, which is simple and accessible to all. It is necessary above all to allow oneself to be led by the hand by the Virgin Mary to contemplate the face of Christ: a face that is joyous, luminous, sorrowful and glorious.

Whoever - like Mary and together with her - assiduously guards and meditates the mysteries of Jesus will always assimilate his feelings more and more and conform to him.

In this regard, I would like to cite a beautiful consideration by Blessed Bartolo Longo: "Just as two friends", he wrote, "who practice frequently together usually end up conforming to each other even in habits, so also we, conversing familiarly with Jesus and the Virgin in meditating the mysteries of the Rosary, and forming the same life together in Communion, can become - as much as our baseness is able - similar to them, and learn from these supreme examples how to live humbly, poor, hidden, patiently and perfectly" (The Fifteen Saturdays of the Most Holy Rosary, 27th ed., Pompeii, 1916, p. 27: cit. in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 15).

The Rosary is a school of contemplation and silence, At first glance, it may seem like a prayer that accumulates words, thus difficult to reconcile with the silence which is rightly recommends for meditation and contemplation.

In truth, this cadenced repetition of the Ave Maria does not disturb the interior silence; rather, it requires and nourishes it. In the same way as the Psalms that one prays in the Liturgy of the Hours, the silence flourishes through the words and sentences, nor as a void, but as a presence of that ultimate sense that transcends words themselves and together with them speaks to the heart.

Thus, in reciting the Ave Maria, we must take care that our voices do not 'cover' that of God, who always speaks through silence, like the 'murmur of a gentle breeze' (1 Kings 19,12). How important it is, then, to guard this silence full of God in personal and in community prayer!

Even when it is prayed by large gatherings, as we do today in this Basilica, one must perceive the Rosary as a contemplative prayer, which cannot happen without a climate of interior silence.

I wish to add another reflection relative to the Word of God in the Rosary, particularly timely now while the Bishops Synod is taking place at the Vatican on the theme 'The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church'.

If Christian contemplation cannot do without the Word of God, even the Rosary, to be a contemplative prayer, must always emerge from the silence of the heart as a response to the Word, on the model of Mary's prayer.

Looking at it, the Rosary is all woven with elements taken from Scriptures. First, there is the announcement of the mystery, preferably made, as we do today, with words taken from the Bible. This followed by the Our Father: imprinting a 'vertical' orientation to the prayer, it opens the soul of he who prays the Rosary the right filial attitude according to the invitation of the Lord: "When you pray say, Father..." (Lk 11,2).

The first part of the Ave Maria, also taken from the Gospel, makes us listen again every time to the words with which God addressed the Virgin through the Angel, and the blessing of her cousin Elizabeth.

The second part of the Ave Maria resounds like the answer of children who, addressing the Mother as supplicants, do nothing other than to express their own adherence to the plan of salvation revealed by God. Thus, the thought of the one who prays is always anchored to Scripture and the mysteries it presents.

Recalling finally that today we celebrate World Missionary Day, I wish to point out the apostolic dimension of the Rosary, a dimension which the Blessed Bartolo Longo lived intensely, drawing inspiration from it in order to undertake in this land so many works of charity and of social and human promotion.

Beyond that, he wanted his Shrine to be open to the world, as a center to irradiate the praying of the Rosary and a place of intercession for peace among peoples.

Dear friends, both these ends - the apostolate of charity and prayer for peace - I wish to consign and to entrust anew to your spiritual and pastoral commitment. On the example of the venerated Founder, and with his support, never tire of working with passion in this part of the vineyard of the Lord which has found favor with Our Lady.

Dear brothers and sisters, the time has come for me to bid farewell to you and this beautiful Shrine. I thank you for your warm welcome and above all, for your prayers. I must leave you, but my heart remains close to this land and this community.

I entrust you all to the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary, and to each of you I impart the Apostolic Blessing from the heart.

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Benedict XVI after the open-air Mass in Pompeii.

And here is background information about the image in Pompeii, the shrine where it is venerated, and the Blessed man who was responsible for establishing the shrine. I originally posted this in the 'SAINTS' thread of the Papa Ratzinger Forum, at which time I failed to indicate the source, for which I apologize.

Our Lady of Pompeii
by M. Jean Frisk

Five minutes from the ruins of Pompeii, Italy, the great Roman city destroyed by the volcano of Mt. Vesuvius, there is a an area called Valle di Pompeii where the town of Campania is located. In the shadow of the ancient volcano, a Marian Shrine was erected in the latter half of the 1800's. The shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, named for the Marian image elevated on its high altar.



The image represents Our Lady of the Rosary. It is a variation of the Marian icons representing Mary enthroned. She is the reigning Madonna. She reigns but she is herself the throne of the King of kings, Jesus Christ, her son. He extends his blessing hand and at the same time bestows the blessing of the rosary on the saint at his feet.

The Pompeii image is a derivation of the Eastern icon type traced back to the 6th century. Both in the East and West, the image represents Mary as Queen of Heaven. The throne is usually situated in a church, as is this one in the image of Our Lady of Pompeii.

Pompeii was destroyed in 79 AD. In the fourth century, Christians settled in the area. Early records indicate that a large church dedicated to the Most Holy Savior was erected there, and by the 11th century entrusted to the care of the Benedictines.

In time, the church was destroyed and a small chapel built on the site. The lands were eventually ceded to a Neapolitan noble who allowed the property to deteriorate. Local inhabitants acquired the right of patronage, and Valle di Pompeii became one of eighteen parishes in Italy where the priest was elected by the people.

An article written in 1891 discovered in the files of The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute states: "The church twenty years ago was small and dilapidated; the poverty of the place made a school an impossibility; the inhabitants were superstitious and criminal, many of them being thieves." It was a layman and his wife who would change the face of Valle di Pompeii.

Bartolo Longo, founder of the Shrine of Our Lady Queen of the Rosary, was born in 1841, the son of a doctor. Longo studied to be a lawyer. During his studies, he joined a sect and was ordained as a priest of Satan. He publicly ridiculed Christianity and did all in his power to subvert Catholic influence.

A good friend, Vincent Pede, eventually showed Bartolo the gentleness of Christ and arranged for him to meet a saintly Dominican priest, Alberto Radente. The Dominican had a deep, personal devotion to Mary and fostered the devotion of the rosary.

When Bartolo Longo was baptized, he chose the second name, Maria, to be his baptismal name. He saw Mary as a "Refuge of Sinners," and attributed his miraculous conversion to her. She was the "Refuge" who would lead him to Christ.

After his conversion, Bartolo Maria Longo wanted to do penance for his past life and serve the Church he had so viciously slandered. He made a promise to work for the poor and destitute. He also published a pamphlet entitled, "The Rosary of New Pompeii" and did all in his power to spread the devotion.

One evening, as he walked near the ruined rat-and-lizard-infested chapel at Pompeii, he had a profound mystical experience. He wrote:

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As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Friar Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: "If you seek salvation, promulgate the Rosary. This is Mary's own promise." These words illumined my soul. I went on my knees: "If it is true ... I will not leave this valley until I have propagated your Rosary.

---

Bartolo Maria persuaded people of the area to help him clean out the dilapidated church. Then he invited the people to join him one evening to pray the rosary. Only a few curious children came.

Despite the fact that the intrepid disciple of the rosary visited every hut and farm house to distribute rosaries, medals, and encouragement, his apostolate met with meager success. The people loved and respected Don Bartolo, but they neither understood nor cared to learn about the rosary.

Bartolo then sponsored a festival on the Feast of the Holy Rosary in 1873. His first effort failed. It rained, and the preacher spoke in classical Italian instead of the local dialect which the people understood. He tried the next year; he wasn't much more successful, but he had taught some of the people to pray the rosary.

The third year, he invited the Redemptorist Fathers to hold a two-week mission. In preparation, he fully restored the little church. The mission was a successful revival and blessed by the bishop. It was, in fact, the bishop who envisioned a large church and pilgrimage place in the future.

Bartolo began the project by first hunting for a picture of Our Lady of the Rosary. The only one he could afford was an oleograph on paper. At the time, church law required sacred images to be painted in oils on canvas or wood. He was told about a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary being kept in a convent that had been purchased in a junk shop for 3.40 Lire. Longo described it himself:

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Not only was it worm-eaten, but the face of the Madonna was that of a coarse, rough country-woman ... a piece of canvas was missing just above her head ... her mantle was cracked. Nothing need be said of the hideousness of the other figures. St. Dominic looked like a street idiot. To Our Lady's left was a St. Rose. This I had changed later into a St. Catherine of Siena ... I hesitated whether to refuse the gift or to accept ... I took it.

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The image was too large to carry from Naples to Pompeii, but Bartolo finally found someone who would take it to the chapel for him. When it arrived it was lying on a wagon of manure.

An attempt was made by an amateur to restore it, and it was placed in the church on February 13, 1876, the foundation day for the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary there. In 1880 the famous Italian painter, Federico Madlarelli, offered to restore the image. It was again finally restored by Vatican artists in 1965.

The image was first placed in the small, restored chapel in 1875, but plans were made to build a large church worthy of Our Lady of the Rosary. 300 people of the area pledged a penny a month for Our Lady's work. The cornerstone laying was held on May 8, 1876.

Within the month, miraculous events began to take place at the shrine. Four healings were recorded. From that time on, especially between 1891 and 1894, hundreds of miracles have been officially recorded at the sanctuary. When the construction was completed in 1883, Bartolo appealed to the people:

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In this place selected for its prodigies, we wish to leave to present and future generations a monument to the Queen of Victories that will be less unworthy of her greatness but more worthy of our faith and love.

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In 1894, Bartolo and his wife, Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco, gave the new church to the papacy, in whose care the shrine has remained since. The image was crowned immediately after its enthronement on the inauguration day of the opening of the new shrine.


A painting of Bartolo Longo presenting the shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii to Pope Leo XIII, 19 February 1894.

In 1965, after the third restoration of the image, Pope Paul VI said the following during a homily: "Just as the image of the Virgin has been repaired and decorated ..., so may the image of Mary that all Christians must have within themselves be restored, renovated, and enriched." At the end of this solemn celebration, Pope Paul VI placed two new precious diadems on the heads of Jesus and Mary, crowns that had been offered by the people.

During the time when the pilgrimage church was being built, Bartolo Maria Longo began to undertake many works of charity. He and his wife established an orphanage for little girls. The first children he took in were 15 small orphans, one for each decade of the rosary. He also established a hospice for boys, sons of prisoners, and a corresponding hospice for girls.

He founded the Daughters of the Holy Rosary of Pompeii, a religious women's institute to care for the shrine and the educational houses attached to it. He also established the Dominican Tertiaries near the shrine.

A special devotion known as the "Supplication to the Queen of Victories" was begun on October 1883 and is recited all over the world, especially on May 8 and on the first Sunday in October. The devotion includes a request thought to have been given by Our Lady to one of the children healed at Pompeii, "Whoever desires favors of me should make three novenas of petition and three of thanksgiving."

On October 21, 1979, Pope John Paul II visited Pompeii, leading a national pilgrimage to Our Lady of Pompeii. On October 26, 1980, Bartolo Longo was beatified by John Paul II and called "the man of the Madonna" and the "Apostle of the Rosary."


The Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary, Pompeii, Italy.
The present structure was begun in 1934 at the instance of Pope Pius XI.

The people of Pompeii wished to honor the Son and his mother by erecting a magnificent shrine of stone. The shrine of beauty, golden decorations, and sacrificed jewels was the way the culture of the time expressed their love and devotion. Bartolo Longo, however, knew that shrines of stones must be built by the living stones of charity and peace. It was his first intention to teach the people to pray, then to care for their needs.

The rosaries in the painting each have six decades. This, too, was the custom of the time. Many times, this sixth decade was prayed for the intentions of those caring for the Church and the apostolic works of the Church.

Whatever form the rosary devotion takes, it remains a prayer of Sacred Scripture. The unknown artist of the image has not forgotten this truth. A book is painted at the base of the throne. Our eye moves to this point, away from the pearls and gold, to the book containing the wisdom of God among us, the reality of the Virgin and the Word Made Flesh who dwells among us.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, 79, Archbishop of Cologne, is known to be one of Joseph Ratzinger's closest friends. It is believed he is the one who urged him in 2005, as the Conclave seemed on the verge of electing Ratzinger as Pope, not to turn down the election, reminding him of his funeral eulogy for John Paul II in which the theme he used was Jesus's words "Follow me". The cardinal gave a long interview to the German agency KNA in connection with a coming Eucharistic Congress in Cologne, during which he was asked about Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Meisner on Benedict XVI:
'He has lost weight but his spirits
are high just like always'
Excerpted and translated from

May 8, 2013

How is it going, healthwise, with Benedict XVI?
On March 18, the evening before the installation Mass of Pope Francis, I visited him [in Castel Gandolfo]. I was shocked how thin he had become. Like he had lost half his weight. [An exaggeration, obviously - we all saw him on the videoclip five days later when Pope Francis visited him.[

You know I had not been in favor of his resignation at the start. But as I saw him now, all my reservations melted away. However, his spirits remain high, just like always.

Has his resignation changed the office of the Papacy?
Not at all. One would get the contrary impression from the motivation behind it. I've always thought about the office of the Papacy as something valid 'until death', like marriage. But medicine today now allows man to live much longer despite illness and the physical disabilities of age. For instance, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is still alive although he has been in coma for more than a decade now. Certainly, such a situation would not be permissible for a Pope.

What initiatives do you hope for from Pope Francis?
He will make clear to us Europeans that we cannot continue to look at our navels, but that we must truly be concerned about evangelization. In France, Christians, Muslims and Jews have been touched to the core because of the government's law on homosexual 'marriage', whereas we in Germany, what are we concerned with? Ordination of women and such topics which have long been settled, while shying away from confronting social issues.

Earlier, he was asked these questions:
The world has had a new Pope for several weeks now. What do you think of Pope Francis's style as Pope?
It is certainly very different from that of his predecessor. For example, he continues to live in Domus Sancta Marthae, and that's tied up with a whole new security set-up...

But will it help him keep a distance from the Curia?
{I don't know why some media persist in citing this as an 'advantage' of not living in the Apostolic Palace - - as if it made a substantial difference in terms of limiting Curial 'access' to the Pope. On the contrary, whereas no one can just drop in as they please at the Apostolic Palace, they could do that in the informal atmosphere at Santa Marta, where they can attend the Pope's daily Mass and then walk up to him afterwards if they want to talk to him (or even have breakfast with him), without having to make an appointment through Mons. Gaenswein. And why should the Pope want 'to keep a distance' from the Curia, anyway? He has to work through them and with them. It is not as if contact with them would contaminate him with whatever it is they are accused of.]
It has nothing to do with the Curia. He is Latin American and he enjoys being among people. But although in externals, the new Pope is different from Benedict XVI, they stand for the same things, obviously. For example, what Francis has said about a 'poor Church' is exactly what Benedict XVI meant by 'Entweltlichung' - the Church ridding itself of all worldliness.

Does the Apostolic Palace perhaps contradict his ideal of poverty or simplicity?
But the papal apartment is quite an ordinary residence. Only the reception room is large. All the other rooms are small. I have a larger bedroom than the papal bedroom.

Benedict XVI has also been criticized for his choice of liturgical vestments - that he likes the baroque.
It has nothing to do with liking the baroque or pomp. One of his great themes was the unity of the Church before and after the Second Vatican Council, and the latter brought many good and new initiatives to the Church. And that is true with liturgy, even if in the implementation, the impression was that we now had a new Mass and that the old was taboo.

Now, it is clear that we have one Roman rite with two forms. Benedict XVI wanted the traditional Mass to be just as valid as the new one, because the Church cannot just prohibit a liturgy that was used for 500 years. So in this, too, his concern was continuity - which can also be made visible in the liturgical vestments.

On the subject of liturgical vestments, quite serendipitously, one year ago around this time, I posted the following:



Blogger Mark Shea writes about a Protestant friend who claims he is close to converting to Catholicism except for two stumbling blocks... The objections about Mary have been well answered, I believe, in the joint Anglican-Catholic declaration on Mary a few years back, and countless volumes in Catholic literature about the essential role God gave her in the history of salvation and of the significance of being the Theotokos, God-bearer and therefore, Mother of God... so I have excerpted only the discussion about the Pope's 'style' (not that prescribed liturgical vestments ought to be considered any Pope's personal style)...

Why the Pope wears what he does
(and Orthodox and Anglican prelates, too)


May 8, 2012

...I am becoming more and more convinced of the one Apostolic Church of Christ with two exceptions that keep hanging me up. And I have heard they are usually the biggest hindrances to most protestants. Mary and the Pope... Concerning the Pope, it does not have to do with his position necessarily, but with his style. It really bothers me: the lavish dress, gold, kissing of his ring, Pope-Mobile, inter-religious dialogue etc. If Peter gave himself up to be crucified upside down and Jesus rebuked him for trying to defend him with the sword, why does the Pope have body-guards, a bullet proof car, a lavish cathedral that is well guarded???

Shea replies:

...As far as the Pope goes, the style thing actually comes out of Jewish liturgical practice. Note the (typically neglected) prescriptions for liturgical dress in Exodus. The priest’s garment are “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2).

Liturgical garb performs a revelatory function, as all liturgy does. It’s not for the comfort of priest (and when you think about it, it’s quite cumbersome). It’s for the benefit of the worshipper. Chesterton remarks on this wisely:

---

For instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp.

The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. But then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes.

The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy. The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entrees. The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was in the trousers, not in the simply falling robe.

If there was any insanity at all, it was in the extravagant entrees, not in the bread and wine.

---

“Clothe yourself in Christ” is precisely what is happening in the vestments a Pope or any priest wears, because he stands in the place of Christ.

Likewise, with the ring and such like, it’s very much like when you go to receive communion and bow: you aren’t bowing to the priest, but to the Host. Likewise, to kiss the ring is to honor the office established by Jesus.

And the Popemobile? Even St. Peter didn’t *try* to get himself killed. When he escaped from prison, he skipped town and didn’t wait to be re-arrested and killed. The Pope is under no obligation to make himself a target for assassins. Nor, to be honest, is the Swiss Guard a particularly formidable force should somebody really decide to lay siege to St. Peters.

Regarding papal vestments, Shea fails to point out that the prescribed liturgical vestments for ordinary Orthodox prelates are even far more ornate than those used by the Pope, nor that Anglican liturgical vestments are equally lavish.

As for the prospective convert, he obviously needs to work out many more fundamental things than the Pope's 'style'...

2013 P.S. If his conversion was contingent on his personal tastes, perhaps the hesitant catechumen who wrote Shea last year finally converted when Francis became Pope.

Yesterday, I remarked on how Vatican Radio's English service slanted its report on Pope Francis's address to a conference of women religious to underplay his message to them that they must be obedient to the Church Magisterium. I had hoped to add the coverage of the major news agencies, but I could not find any. No! Was it possible they would decide not to report on It when all MSM had been hanging on a thread waiting for what they all openly hoped would be Pope Francis relenting about doctrinal discipline? Well, Reuters and the New York Times appear to have ignored the event completely - how could they possibly ruin their narrative of this best of all possible Catholic worlds (at least in their view) under Pope Francis? AP did have this brief report - it is almost comical:

Pope tells sisters:
'Do not be old maids'


VATICAN CITY, May 8, 2013 (AP) - Pope Francis has told nuns from around the world that they must be spiritual mothers and not "old maids."

Francis also warned the sisters against using their vocations for personal ambition, saying priests and sisters who do so "do more harm to the church."

Francis has complained frequently about such "careerism" in the Church — a buzzword that is frequently used to describe Holy See bureaucrats. [Benedict often preached against it, always to bishops and priests, remember, AP????]

The Pope made the comments during an audience Wednesday with about 800 sisters attending an assembly of the International Union of Superiors General, which gathers the leaders of women's religious orders from some 75 countries.

Not a line about obedience to the Magisterium! But the ff is news:

The meeting came before Francis' general audience in St. Peter's Square, where in a break with tradition, he walked around a quadrant of the square greeting pilgrims. [And John Paul II and Benedict XVI never did that at all???]



Googling about for a Reuters story on yesterday's address to the women religious, I found this instead - something I had not seen from a month ago, and yet another story about, in effect, Pope Francis discovering for all of us that the world is round....



From the New York Times, with respect to the search specification "New York Times story - Pope Francis address to women religious May 8, 2013" - ZIP, ZILCH, NADA!

P.S. Here, on the other hand, is the featured reaction story from the Fishwrap which has been the most militant advocate for the LCRW and Catholic dissidents, in general, and among the most sanguine in predicting that Pope Francis would be lenient with the sisters on their doctrinal indiscipline. Sure, there is disappointment, but there is not an iota of the vitriol and bitterness that has marked the Fishwrap writers' treatment of Benedict XVI on anything, but especially, his insistence on doctrinal discipline... The headline is inept, but I am keeping it as is.

For the LCWR,
the more the papacy changes,
the more it stays the same
by Jamie Manson

May. 9, 2013

The more something changes, the more it stays the same. It's a cliché, yes, but it seems to be an increasingly apt one to apply to the situation between women religious and the Vatican.

For those watching the situation unfold since April 2012, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith mandated that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) be reformed by three U.S. bishops, this week promised to offer some explanations about where the new Pope stands on the issue.

Pope Francis even met with members of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), a group of nearly 2,000 leaders of women religious throughout the world who have been meeting in Rome all week. [The Vatican figure was 800, not 2,000.]

There have been high hopes for Pope Francis among those left spiritually bruised by the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Francis paid his own hotel bill after the conclave, took the bus with the rest of the bishops, refused to move into the papal apartment, claimed to want a "poor church," and celebrated Holy Thursday at a juvenile detention facility where he washed the feet of 10 men and two women. [Serves you right, all you who mistake external signs as necessarily indicative of a Pope's serious intentions, and who forget that the primary duty of a Pope, any Pope, is to promote, uphold and defend the deposit of faith as it has been transmitted to him from the time of the Apostles through the centuries.]

But a month after his election, a fly got caught in the balm Francis was pouring over the church's body. LCWR lepders were informed in a meeting with the doctrinal congregation's lead cleric, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, that the new Pope had reaffirmed the mandated reform of the their organization.

Many Catholics who support both the LCWR and the new pope were at a loss to understand the news. Some imagined Francis simply wasn't up to speed about the injustices behind the mandate. Speculation ran high that Müller hadn't even spoken to Francis about the issue in any depth and that, somehow, Müller was speaking on behalf of Francis without the new Pope's approval. [Trying to rationalize a Papal decision you cannot accept by blaming everyone else for it!]

There was hope this week that all this conjecture was accurate when Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Religious, told the sisters at the UISG meeting that the doctrinal congregation made its fateful decision without his knowledge and that it caused him "much pain". [Yeah, the self-serving, grandstanding cardinal! BTW, how come Pope Francis has not yet met with him separately as he already has with other Curial congregation heads? One would think such a meeting might have been scheduled before the UISG conference this week - what better occasion? Obviously, the Pope did not think it was necessary. Or, why did Braz de Aviz not take the initiative and request a meeting before the UISG conference?]

Less than a day later after his stunning admission, Cardinal Braz de Aviz was apparently taken to the doctrinal congregation's woodshed. The Vatican quickly released a statement claiming that the media (namely, the report in NCR) had misinterpreted Braz de Aviz's words and that Braz de Aviz and Müller "reaffirmed their common commitment to the renewal of Religious Life, and particularly to the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR and the program of reform it requires, in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Father." [Too bad the Vatican statement was quite inept and failed to answer Braz de Aviz's complaint directly, even if it did say that doctrinal discipline is the competence alone of the CDF. Which, of course, these militant 'we-men' will never acknowledge.]

The statement made two realities clear. First, as has typically been the case throughout the church's history, the doctrinal congregation wields more power than any other congregation in the Curia. [Lady, it has nothing to do with who has 'more power' - in this particular case, only the CDF (with the approval of the Pope) has the competence to decide on doctrinal questions.]

Second, Francis is more familiar with the saga between the doctrinal congregation and LCWR than some had hoped. [So, does that not undercut the argument that he agreed with the CDF only because he had not been given all the facts? Which, to begin with, was an insulting assumption to make about him.]

In a press conference the following day, Braz de Aviz claimed not to have seen this statement from the Vatican [REALLY!] and affirmed NCR's report as "precise." He said the only idea that got lost in translation was his explanation of authority.

Braz de Aviz went on to reassert what Pope Francis had said earlier in the day about authority and obedience during his speech to the UISG.

"Christ and the Church. The two have to be together. For some people, Christ is fine, but the Church isn't. You can't separate the two," the cardinal told the press. [The clueless cardinal! Now chiming in "Me-too!" after the Pope had spoken. Isn't he aware an LCRW leader infamously said that they - the dissenting sisters - are 'beyond the Church and beyond Jesus'????]

Braz de Aviz was echoing Francis's statement to women religious: "It is an absurd dichotomy to think of living with Jesus but without the church, of following Jesus outside of the church, of loving Jesus without loving the church."

Francis has offered this idea more than once over the last few weeks, but when directed at women religious, as it was on Wednesday, it takes on a particular weight. [And what made them think before yesterday that the statements might not apply to the LCRW at all??? They really do think they are a privileged class who must be exempt from the rules by which all other Catholics live! Please, if you can't agree to doctrinal discipline, leave the Church and set up your own 'church' or whatever, where you can say and do as you please, a 'we-menarchy' in which the only role for males will be to serve as errand boys and doormats.]

At the UISG meeting the previous day, Congregation of Jesus Sr. Martha Zechmeister, an Austrian professor of systematic theology, told the gathering of 800 women superiors, "Religious obedience ultimately can only respond to God's authority. In the traditional language, fulfilling the will of God is the only legitimate reason for religious obedience." [And isn't the Church Magisterium supposed to interpret the 'will of God' for the faithful??? Without a guiding Magisterium, everyone would be free to do as he pleases, as these dissenting sisters have been doing for the past three decades or so!]

It is a sentiment we've heard often since the doctrinal congregation's crackdown on LCWR, and one for which the new Pope apparently has little sympathy. Francis makes it clear that it is impossible to follow Jesus and not follow the Church. In Francis' eyes, it seems, to love and obey God is to love and obey the Church. [Because, as the second sentence of Lumen gentium says - if you people ever bothered to read the Vatican-II documents - "the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and ]instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race". She is not just any aggrupation that claims to be "we are Church"!]

Though Francis was the first pope to meet with the UISG [Was he? I must check that out!], those who expected a dialogue with the new pontiff were likely disappointed. Francis offered a 15-minute reflection on religious life, then shook hands and exchanged brief pleasantries with the UISG's executive board and staff.

As NCR's Joshua J. McElwee reported from Rome, Francis's speech "focused on three themes, telling the sister leaders to keep their lives centered on Christ, to think of authority in terms of service, and that they must hold a 'feeling with the Church that finds its filial expression in fidelity to the Magisterium.'"

In other words, the way to be a true daughter of the Church is to be faithful and obedient to the teachings of the Pope and bishops.

With ideas that are no different from those of Pope John Paul II and Benedict, Francis told the sisters they should accept a "fertile chastity" because women religious are "mothers" who "generate spiritual children in the church."

The new pope maintained his and his predecessors' belief in the "special" (but not equal) role of women in the church, telling the sisters that without them, the church "would be missing maternity, affection, tenderness." He went on to tell them to put themselves "in an attitude of adoration and service."

If there is a point on which both Francis and the sisters agree, it is the importance of "touching the flesh of the poor Christ in the humble, the poor, the sick, and in children."

But Francis does not seem to understand that it is precisely because women religious regularly touch that wounded body of Christ that they have such rich theological imaginations and a longing to delve into the spiritual questions of our time. Their intensely sacramental lives of service help clarify their priorities in their pursuits of justice and mercy. [Oh please! John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis never touched that wounded body in many ways??? One of the gravest wounds they have had to endure for Christ is precisely this holier-than-thou and quintessentially selfish attitude that dissidents like the LCRW and their advocates are perpetrating! It's almost as if they are using their charitable activities as an excuse for justifying their doctrinal indiscipline. That's really crass.]

All that women religious have done -- the work they have committed to, the leadership style they have developed and the theologians they invite to their meetings -- has been inspired by their ministry to the broken body of Christ. What Francis and the doctrinal congregation may interpret as a "deviation from doctrine" or a "failure to obey" are really just the fruits of women religious fulfilling their vocation as a prophetic life form.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the Vatican is punishing women religious for failing to strictly adhere to doctrines that they have had no voice in developing and no role in shaping -- precisely because they are women.

The look and feel of the papacy may be changing under Francis, but the fundamental understanding magisterium's authority and the requirement that the women obey the men, I'm afraid, will continue to stay the same.

UGH and DOUBLE UGH, and let me RETCH!!! So all their huffing and puffing is really in the service of militant 'we-menism'. These are the people who give women a bad name. May the Holy Spirit work his graces on them.

Thursday, May 9, Sixth Week of Easter
SOLEMNITY OF THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

From left: The Ascension - by Andrei Rublev, 1408; Dosso Dossi, 1490; Perugino, 1496; Garofalo, 1520; and a modern Macedonian icon; the structure is the Ascension edicule - a Church/Mosque on Mt. Olivet in Jerusalem where the Ascension was believed to take place, with what pilgrims believe to be a footprint of Christ. Strangely, the Ascension has not been a popular subject of art in the Western world. nor does the feast itself receive the same importance in the Roman Catholic Church as it has in the Orthodox Churches.
The Feast of the Ascension of Christ, which the Acts tell us took place 40 days after Easter, was always celebrated by the Church on a Thursday in keeping with Tradition, until the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform gave local Churches the option to celebrate it on the Sunday following Ascension Thursday.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050913-ascension.cfm

The saint of the day (May 9):

Fourth from left, the saint's incorrupt body seated on a golden throne, and extreme right, a Madonna painted by the saint.
ST. CATERINA DI BOLOGNA (Italy, 1413-1463), Poor Clare, Mystic, Painter and Writer
Daughter of a diplomat, Caterina Vigri was raised and educated in the Este ducal court of Ferrara, but at 17, she joined the Franciscan Third Order along with a group of friends
who wished to perform an active apostolate. At 21, she joined the Poor Clares, where she made her way from baker and portress to mistress of novices. In 1456, she was sent to
establish a convent in Bologna, where she became the abbess and remained for the rest of her life. She is known to have had mystic visions and she wrote about her spiritual life
in a couple of instructive books and her 'sermons' to her congregation. She also wrote poems, played the violin and was an accomplished painter, illustrating manuscripts with
miniatures and even painting frescoes. When she died, her body was exhumed after 17 days because her grave emanated perfume. She was incorrupt, and her remains were kept
seated upright on a throne, in the Poor Clares convent. Many miracles were attributed to her. Some 12 years after her death, the Poor Clares published her book Le Sette Armi
Spirituali (Seven Spiritual Weapons) which became a medieval bestseller. Her remains are venerated at the Chiesa della Santa in Bologna, where she is still seated on a golden
throne, but the face is mummified and blackened from centuries of candle soot. On December 29, 2010, Benedict XVI dedicated his Wednesday catechesis to her.
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20101229...


AT THE VATICAN TODAY
No public events for the Holy Father - it is a religious holiday at the Vatican.

Those who post the items on Vatican Radio's English service must be taking the day off because there is no report, as of 9AM New York time (3PM in Rome), of Pope Francis's daily Mass - nor does the Italian service, which reports instead on what the Pope has been saying about the Holy Spirit in some of his daily homilies. I had to quickly double-check the USCCB Readings for the Day to make sure I had not made a mistake about the date for Ascension this year. It is the Solemnity of the Ascension, even if most of the US dioceses do not celebrate it until next Sunday (the reason for the change was that the US bishops felt not enough Catholics went to Mass on Ascension Thursday. I just checked the liturgical calendar for the Church in Italy, and it appears that they, too, have shifted the observance of Ascnesion to the Sunday following the traditional Thursday. Still, it would be strange if Pope Francis did not refer to it at all today. He had a new tweet today, but the Ascension is not mentioned either. He has obviously opted to celebrate the Ascension on Sunday instead, as many local churches do. On Sunday, he canonizes 803 new saints (800 of them are the Italian martyrs of Otranto, massacred by Muslim invaders in the 15th century,



One year ago...
At his General Audience, Benedict XVI continued his catecheses on prayer in the Acts of the Apostles, reflecting on the imprisonment of Peter by Herod and his miraculous release from prison, saying that the Church and each of us “goes through a night of trial... (but) the unceasing vigilance of prayer sustains us". He added a personal note: "I, too, from the first moment of my election as the Successor of St. Peter, I have always felt supported by the prayers of you all, by the prayer of the Church, especially by your prayers, especially during difficult times. Thank you from my heart”.

As far as I can check, Benedict XVI delivered two homilies as Pope for an Ascension Mass. This one is from his pastoral visit to Cassino and Montecassino on May 24, 2009. It fell on the Sunday after Ascension Thursday, so his homily was on the Ascension, although the libretto for the Mass does not say 'Solemnity of the Ascension' on its cover.

---

Dear brothers and sisters!

"You will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1,8).

With these words, Jesus bid farewell to the Apostles, as we heard in the first Reading. Shortly afterwards, the sacred author adds, "as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight" (Acts 1,9).

This is the mystery of the Ascension, which we solemnly celebrate today. But what do the Bible and the liturgy intend to communicate to us by saying that Jesus 'was lifted up'?

The sense of this expression can be understood not on the basis of a single text, nor even a single book of the New Testament, but in attentive listening to all of Sacred Scripture.

The word 'lift' is used in the Old Testament sense, which means installation into kingship. Thus the Ascension of Christ means, in the first place, the installation or seating of the Som of man, crucified and resurrected, in the kingship of God over the world.

There is, however, a more profound sense that is not immediately perceptible. In the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, it is said first that Jesus 'was lifted up" (v. 9), and then it is added that he was 'taken into heaven' (v. 11).

The event is described not as a voyage upward, but rather an action of God's power, which introduces Jesus into the space of proximity to the divine.

The presence of the cloud that 'took him from their sight' (v. 9) recalls a very old image of Old Testament theology, and inserts the story of the Ascension in the story of God with Israel, from the cloud on Sinai and over the tent of the Covenant in the desert, to the luminous cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration.

To present the Lord enwrapped in the clouds conclusively evokes the same mystery expressed in the symbolism of 'to sit at the right hand of God'. In the Christ who has ascended to heaven, the human being entered in an unprecedented and new way into intimacy with God - from then on, man always finds space with God.

'Heaven' does not indicate a place beyond the stars, but something much more daring and sublime - it means Christ himself, the divine Person who accompanies mankind totally and for always, him in whom God and man are forever inseparably united.

And we approach heaven, or rather, we enter heaven, to the degree that we get close to Jesus and enter into communion with him. That is why the solemnity of the Ascension invites us to a profound communion with Jesus who died and resurrected, and is invisibly present in the life of each of us.

In this perspective, we can understand why the evangelist Luke affirms that after the Ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem 'full of joy" (24,52). The cause of their joy was the fact that what had happened was not at all a separation. Rather, they now had the certainty that the Crucified and Risen Lord was alive, and that in him, the doors to eternal life were opened for always to mankind.

In other words, his Ascension did not mean his temporary absence from the world, but rather, it inaugurated the new, definitive and insuppressible form of his presence, by virtue of his participation in the kingly power of God.

It would fall on them, the apostles, made daring by the power of the Holy Spirit, to make this presence perceptible by their witness, by preaching and by missionary commitment.

The solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord should fill us, too, with serenity and enthusiasm, just as it did for the Apostles who left the Mount of Olives "full of joy".

Like them, we too, accepting the invitation of 'the two men dressed in white', should not remain gazing at the heavens, but rather, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we should go out and proclaim the salvific message of Christ's death and resurrection.

His own words, which close the Gospel according to Matthew, remain with us to comfort us: "And behold, I am with you always, until the end of time" (Mt 28, 19).

Dear brothers and sisters, the historical character of the mystery of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension helps us to recognize and understand the transcendental and eschatological condition of the Church, which was not born and does not live as a substitute for the absence of its 'departed' Lord. Rather, it finds its reason for being and its mission in the invisible presence of Jesus operating through the power of his Spirit.

In other words, we can say that the Church does not have the function of preparing for the return of an 'absent' Jesus, but on the contrary, it lives and operates in order to proclaim the 'glorious presence' in a historic and existential manner.

From the day of the Ascension, every Christian community advances its earthly itinerary towards the fulfillment of the Messianic promises, fed by the Word of God and nourished by the Body and Blood of the Lord.

This is the condition of the Church - the second Vatican Council reminds us - as it 'pursues its pilgrimage between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, announcing the passion and death of the Lord until he comes again" (Lumen gentium, 8).

Brothers and sisters of this beloved diocesan community, today's solemnity exhorts us to firm up anew our faith in the real presence of Jesus: without him, we cannot achieve anything effective in our life and in our apostolate.

It is he, as the Apostle Paul reminds us in the second Reading, who "gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ", namely, the Church.

And this, in order "to attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God", since it is the common calling of all to form "one body and one spirit, just as there is only one hope to which we are called".

It is in this light that my visit today must be seen, which, as your bishop recalled, has the purpose of encouraging you to constantly 'construct, found and rebuild' your diocesan community on Christ.

How? It is shown to us by St, Benedict himself who recommends in his Rule not to place anything ahead of Christ - "Christo nihil omnino praeponere" (LXII,11).

Thus I give thanks to God for the good that your community is realizing under the leadership of your Pastor, Father Abbot Dom Pietro Vittorelli, whom I greet with affection and whom I thank for the kind words that he addressed to me in the name of everyone.

With him I greet the monastic community, the bishops, priests, and religious present. I greet the civilian and military authorities, beginning with the Mayor whom I thank for his words of welcome upon my arrival in this Piazza Miranda - which will now carry my name, unworthy as I am of the honor.

I greet the catechists, the pastoral workers, the youth and those who in various ways attend to spreading the Gospel in this land that is so laden with history, which underwent great suffering during the Second World War.

Silent testimony to this are the many cemeteries that surround your resurrected city, among which are the Polish, the German and the Commonwealth cemeteries.

Finally, I greet all the residents of Cassino and nearby centers. To each one, especially to the sick and to the suffering, I extend assurances of my affection and prayer.

Dear brothers and sisters, we can hear resounding in our celebration the appeal of St. Benedict to keep our hearts fixed on Christ, not to put anything ahead of him. This does not distract us, but on the contrary, it impels us even more to commit ourselves to building a society in which solidarity is expressed in concrete signs.

How? Benedictine spirituality, which is well known to you, offers an evangelical program synthesized in the motto, 'Ora, labora et lege' - prayer, work, culture.

But above all prayer, which is the most beautiful legacy left by St. Benedict to his monks, and also to your local Church: to your clergy, largely formed in the diocesan seminary which for centuries was seated in the Abbey of Montecassino itself; to the seminarians; to all those who were educated in Benedictine schools and 'recreatories' and in your parishes; to all of you who live in this land.

Lifting up your eyes from every town and district in the diocese, you can all admire that constant reminder of heaven that is the monastery of Montecassino, to which you climb in procession every year on the vigil of Pentecost.

Prayer, to which every morning the bell of St. Benedict with its solemn peal calls the monks, is the silent path which leads us directly to the heart of God. It is the breath of the soul which gives us back peace in the tempest of life.

Moreover, in the school of St. Benedict, the monks have always cultivated a special love for the Word of God in lectio divina, which has now become a common patrimony for many.

I know that your diocesan Church, adapting the guidelines of the Italian bishops' conference, dedicates great attention to developing a deeper acquaintance with the Bible, and has even inaugurated an itinerary to study Sacred Scriptures, which is dedicated this year to the evangelist Mark, and which will continue over the next four years, and God willing, conclude with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

May careful attention to the divine Word nourish your prayers and make you prophets of truth and love in a concerted commitment to evangelization and human promotion.

Another hinge of Benedictine spirituality is work. To humanize the world of labor is typical of the spirit of monasticism, and this, too, is the effort of your Community in seeking to be at the side of the numerous workers of the major industry present in Cassino and the businesses linked to it.

I know how critical the situation is for so many workers. I express my solidarity to all who are experiencing job precariousness, to those workers who are in 'cassa integrazione' [a form of unemployment insurance that tides the worker over until he can be rehired in his old job]] or who have been dismissed outright.

May the consequences of unemployment that afflict this region lead the responsible people in public authority, the entrepreneurs and others who are in a position to do so, to find valid solutions, with the contribution of everyone, to this job crisis, creating new jobs that can help safeguard families.

In this regard, how can we not recall that the family today has an urgent need to be better protected since it is being undermined strongly in the very roots of the institution?

I think likewise of the young people who find it difficult to get worthy employment that can allow them to start a family. To them, I wish to say: Do not be discouraged, dear friends - the Church will not abandon you.

I know that at least 25 young people from your diocese took part in the last World Youth Day in Sydney. Drawing on that extraordinary spiritual experience, be the evangelical leaven among your friends and contemporaries. With the power of the Holy Spirit, be the new missionaries in this, the land of St. Benedict.

Finally, your tradition also encompasses attention to the world of culture and education. The famous Archive and Library of Montecassino
hold innumerable testimonies of the efforts of so many men and women who have meditated and studied how to improve the spiritual and material life of mankind.

In your Abbey, one can touch with the hand that 'quaerere Deum', the search for God - that is, the fact that European culture has been a search for God and a willingness to listen to him. This is valid even in our time.

I know that you have been working in this spirit in the University and in your schools so that they may be laboratories of knowledge, of research, of passion for the future of the new generations.

I also know that in preparation for my visit, you had a recent convocation on education in order to arouse in all concerned an active determination to transmit to the young those irrenunciable values of our human and Christian patrimony.

In the cultural efforts today to create a new humanism, you rightly intend, faithful to the Benedictine tradition, to emphasize attention to those who are fragile and weak, to disabled persons and to new immigrants.

And I am grateful that you are giving me the occasion to inaugurate today the Casa della Carita, where a culture solicitous of life is being built with solid reality.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is not difficult to perceive that your community, this part of the Church which lives around Montecassino, is the heir and repository of the mission, impregnated with the spirit of St. Benedict, to proclaim that in this life, no one and nothing should be in first place ahead of Christ - and that is, the mission of constructing, in the name of Christ, a new humanity concerned with harboring and helping its weakest members.

May your patriarch and patron saint, with his sister St. Scholastica, help and accompany you. And may your patron saints protect you, especially Mary, Mother of the Church and Star of our hope. Amen.

---

P.S. Not exactly edifying to read on Ascension Thursday, but I have posted the Fishwrap's riposte to Pope Francis's call yesterday on women religious for obedience to the Church in the post above about the MSM treatment (if they did at all) of his address to a conference of sisters yesterday.

Why Pope Francis does not
give Communion to the faithful
Because, he says, unrepentant public sinners could slip in among them
and he does not want to be a party to their hypocrisy.
by Sandro Magister
in the English translation of Matthew Sherry


NB: Since the new Pontificate, I have been using the English translations provided on the www.chiesa site itself, rather than translating the original Italian as I did in the past. The post therefore retains all the stylistic idiosyncrasies of Magister and his English translator, including never capitalizing the title 'Pope' or 'Church' or the names of the Curial dicasteries and treating them as common nouns.

ROME, May 9, 2013 – There is one particular in the Masses celebrated by Pope Francis that raises questions that have so far gone unanswered.

At the moment of communion, pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not administer it himself, but allows others to give the consecrated host to the faithful. He sits down and waits for the distribution of the sacrament to be completed.

The exceptions are very few. At solemn Masses the pope, before sitting down, gives communion to those assisting him at the altar. And at the Mass last Holy Thursday, at the juvenile detention facility of Casal del Marmo, he wanted to give communion himself to the young detainees who approached to receive it.

Bergoglio has given no explicit explanation of this behavior since becoming pope.

But there is one page in a book he published in 2010 that allows one to infer the motives at the origin of this practice.

The book is a collection of conversations with the rabbi of Buenos Aires, Abraham Skorka.

At the end of the chapter dedicated prayer, the then-archbishop Bergoglio says:

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David had been an adulterer and had ordered a murder, and nonetheless we venerate him as a saint because he had the courage to say: 'I have sinned.' He humbled himself before God. One can commit enormous mistakes, but one can also acknowledge them, change one's life and make reparation for what one has done.

It is true that among parishioners there are persons who have killed not only intellectually or physically but indirectly, with improper management of capital, paying unjust wages. There are members of charitable organizations who do not pay their employees what they deserve, or make them work off the books. [. . .]

With some of them we know their whole résumé, we know that they pass themselves off as Catholics but practice indecent behaviors of which they do not repent. For this reason, on some occasions I do not give communion, I stay back and let the assistants do it, because I do not want these persons to approach me for a photo. One may also deny communion to a known sinner who has not repented, but it is very difficult to prove these things.

Receiving communion means receiving the body of the Lord, with the awareness of forming a community. But if a man, rather than uniting the people of God, has devastated the lives of many persons, he cannot receive communion, it would be a total contradiction. Such cases of spiritual hypocrisy present themselves in many who take refuge in the Church and do not live according to the justice that God preaches. And they do not demonstrate repentance. This is what we commonly call leading a double life

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. As can be noted, Bergoglio explained in 2010 his abstaining from giving communion personally with a very practical reason: "I do not want these persons to approach me for a photo."

As an experienced pastor and a good Jesuit, he knew that among those who receive communion there could be unrepentant public sinners who nonetheless professed themselves to be Catholics. He knew that at that point it would be difficult to deny them the sacrament. And he knew the public effects that that communion could have, if received from the hands of the archbishop of the Argentine capital.

One could infer that Bergoglio may sense the same danger as pope, indeed even more so. And for this reason he would be adopting the same prudential conduct: “I do not give communion, I stay back and let the assistants do it.”

The public sins that Bergoglio gave as examples in his conversation with the rabbi are the oppression of the poor and the withholding of just wages from the worker. Two sins traditionally listed among the four that “cry out to heaven for vengeance.”

But the reasoning is the same that in recent years has been applied by other bishops to another sin: public support for pro-abortion laws on the part of politicians who profess themselves to be Catholic.

This latter controversy has had its epicenter in the United States.

In 2004, then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, sent to the episcopal conference of the United States a note with the “general principles” on the question.

The episcopal conference decided to “apply” on a case-by-case basis the principles recalled by Ratzinger, leaving it up to the "individual bishops to make prudent pastoral judgments in [their] own circumstance.”

From Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger accepted this solution and called it “in harmony” with the general principles of his note.

In reality, the bishops of the United States are not unanimous. Some of them, including among the conservatives, like cardinals Francis George and Patrick O'Malley, are reluctant to “make the Eucharist a political battleground.” Others are more intransigent.

When the Catholic Joe Biden was chosen as vice-presidential running mate by Barack Obama, the archbishop of Denver at the time, Charles J. Chaput, now in Philadelphia, said that Biden's support for the so-called “right” to abortion was a grave public fault and “I presume that his integrity will lead him to refrain from presenting himself for communion."

The fact remains that last March 19, at the Mass for the inauguration of the pontificate of Francis, vice-president Biden and the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, she too a pro-abortion Catholic, were part of the official delegation of the United States.

And both received communion. But not from the hands of pope Bergoglio, who was seated behind the altar.

I must confess that not having watched any Papal Mass since Francis's first Mass as Pope at the Sistine Chapel, I was not aware that he does not give Communion to the public as the Popes before him have done. While one can admire the principle behind his position that he does not want to be seen as backing hypocrisy, does that mean that the priests he allows to give Communion must be seen as backing hypocrisy if there are persistent sinners among those they to whom they give the Eucharist?

Obviously, Communion is given every day to countless Catholics who may not be appropriately prepared to receive Communion, but the priest does not know that, and gives the Eucharist in good faith. How many Catholics habitually receive Communion even if they have not gone to confession for months or even years and have in the meantime committed one or more mortal sin(s)?

As I understand it, the persons who get the privilege to receive Communion from the Pope are approved by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, which in turn, receives requests from the embassies to the Holy See, various organizations, and individual cardinals, bishops and priests, in behalf of persons they know and presumably, for whose Catholicism and uprightness they vouch. I doubt that for Pope Francis's inaugural Mass, any US bishop or cardinal requested the privilege for Biden and Pelosi - that would have been shameless on the part of the bishop or cardinal. In the same way, I doubt that in the past, the persons responsible for getting some friend on the list of persons to receive Communion from the Pope would have included prominences known to hold positions 'scandalous' to the obedient faithfui, or anyone else known in his community to be 'unworthy' for lack of a better word. Of course, I realize that the fact of receiving Communion from the Pope, any Pope, is primarily a vanity thing - the Eucharist is the Eucharist whoever is the ordained minister who gives it - but it also symbolizes that if he could, the Pope would give Communion to every faithful who comes before him in good faith.

The 'CHI' photos

My thanks once again to Beatrice who, on her website and its special section, APRES LE PONTIFICAT, benoit-et-moi.fr/2013-II/
has posted photos from the CHI 'exclusive' that are clearer and larger than we could make out from the ANSA photos of the spread that I posted earlier, as well as a screen-cap of the article that accompanies the photos. I will translate the article later. For now, here are the photos and the captions given to them where there are captions:


This caption applies to the entire Page 1 of the spread, seen on the banner: "The emeritus Pope, 86, received the 'baciamano' (kiss on the hand) from one of the two drivers of the Popemobile, under the smiling gaze of Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, 58, Benedict XVi's personal secretary. Left, Pope Francis, 77, leaves Casa Santa Marta, holding his white zucchetto in his hand, Farther left, the historic meeting with the emeritus Pope after the latter returned to the Vatican [on May 2]. The profound esteem that the Argentine Pontiff has for the emeritus Pope is now well-known".


Title caption: "In the Vatican, the emeritus Pope enjoys the closeness and affection of his co-workers".
If I am not mistaken, the Memores are, from left, Loredana, Rosella, Cristina and Carmela.


"FULL-TIME DRIVER: The emeritus Pope greets the two drivers of the Popemobile, One of them in this case is the same one who drove the Popemobile with Pope Francis on April 28 (see inset)".


This one is not captioned, but obviously shows B16 with GG about to re-enter the Mater Ecclesiae residence, presumably after a walk.


The map provided by CHI shows that the photos could well have been taken by someone from the adjoining building which overlooks both the front and back of Mater Ecclesiae. Similarly, someone well-positioned on the top floor of the Governatorate building (to the left of Mater Ecclesiae on the map) could take photographs of the front of the convent complex and its roof terrace. And conceivably, even tourists who happen to be in the right spot at the top floor of the Vatican Museums could snap photographs of Mater Ecclesiae with an efficient telephoto lens. It was said earlier that anyone with a telephoto lens could photograph Mater Ecclesiae (and presumably, B16 if he happened to be within sight) from the visitors' platform on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

About the article, contrary to what may be suggested by its headlines and taglines, it does say that Benedict XVI would be unlikely to claim any papal prerogatives or exercise any influence at the Vatican, and concludes that although he and Francis have very different styles (the article describes both these styles rather tendentiously), "both are showing the world the right path, which is, stripping themselves of any personal interests, ambitions or power in order to dedicate themselves totally to others and to the common good".