BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI

Remember how the media not too long ago rationalized Pope Francis's last-minute decision not to attend a concert in his honor at the Vatican by saying he was too distraught over reports he had been told by some Apostolic Nuncios who came to Rome for the Year of Faith about the unseemly conduct while in Uruguay of the man he had chosen to be his 'personal representative' at IOR, Mons. Battista Ricca, who happened to also be the director of the three Vatican-owned hotels for visiting prelates in Rome, including Casa Santa Marta, now the papal 'residence'?

Not surprisingly in this Pope-indulgent media world today, few in the media picked up the story or even sought to check out the reports independently. An utter dereliction of journalistic duty which would never have occurred if Benedict XVI were still Pope: Every newsman and his grandmother would have rushed to Montevideo (directly across the River Plata from Buenos Aires) not just to check out the Nuncios' allegations but also to uncover what headline-making facts they could to substantiate a whopping nomination error with which to slap Benedict in the face, much as they did in the Wielgus and Williamson cases?

But no one did follow up except Sandro Magister for L'Espresso, and a detailed article in this week's issue about the results of his investigation has just been dismissed baldly by Vatican Press Director Fr. Federico Lombardi as 'not reliable'...

This development comes just when one was wondering, "Whatever happened, BTW, to the case of Mons. Ricca, and why has Pope Francis not revoked his nomination as 'IOR Prelate'?" - a function that MSM were quick to inflate as 'the ultimate overseer/reformer' of IOR in behalf of the Pope.

Magister's story, however, has too many details that are plausible and deserve a more considered reaction from the Vatican than just 'The story is not reliable'. And while the Italian media today seemed unwilling to pick up Magister's lead, that has not stopped foreign media from running with the story, as the UK Independent does, with a typically eye-grabbing headline...


Pope's bank clean-up man was once
'found stuck in lift with a rent boy'
by Michael Day

July 19, 2013

As the man charged with cleaning out the stables at the scandal-struck Vatican bank, Monsignor Battista Ricca will need Machiavellian cunning, good fortune and a whiter-than-white record to have even a fighting chance.

[The lead synthesizes the general perception about the IOR that MSM has been peddling for decades and has not been changed a whit by Moneyval's generally positive repoert about the IOR in the Council of Europe's fine-tooth-comb scrutiny of Vatican financial operations to determine whether the Holy See is compliant with international banking standards. At the same time, it inflates beyond objective fact the role of the 'IOR prelate', as I remarked earlier. In both instances, the lead is false and misleading where IOR is concerned.]

But Pope Francis’s new banker[More inflation - and the man in question is certainly no banker!] appears to possess none of these attributes after it was reported yesterday that he was found stuck in a lift with a rent boy.

Msgr Battista Ricca, as Francis’s new primate with responsibility for the troubled financial institution [NO AND NO AND NO!], known officially as the IOR (Institute for Religious Works), is supposed to usher in new transparency and badly needed reforms after years of financial scandal.

Earlier this month, a major report from finance police and magistrates warned that a lack of checks and controls by the IoR and the Italian financial institutions it had dealings with made the Vatican’s bank a money-laundering hot spot. [A deliberate mis=statement of the Italian report, which also omits the fact that the Italian banking authorities have been inexplicably hostile to IOR in recent years, engaging in flagrant acts against a sovereign state, the Vatican, like sequestering some $24 million in IOR funds for a few months, claiming that the IOR purchased bonds from a German bank in the institution's name although it was purportedly for a 'protected' client; and last Christmas season, shutting down cash machines and credit-card transactions at the Vatican on some equally outrageous pretext.]

It is claimed that Msgr Ricca, 57, impressed Francis with the way he ran three key residences used by cardinals, bishops and priests visiting Rome. {Other rumors claim that he thereby facilitated homosexual trysts and happenings for some of his Roman-collared hotel guests.]

But detailed claims have emerged detailing how in 1999, Ricca took a Vatican diplomatic posting in Uruguay and moved his lover, Patrick Haari, a Swiss army captain, in with him, to the outrage of church figures and locals in the conservative South American nation. Captain Haari was forced out by the hardline Polish nuncio Janusz Bolonek in 2001.

But there were more problems for Ricca when he was attacked in a cruising ground in Montevideo (the Uruguay capital) that year, and soon after firemen had to rescue him from a broken lift, in which he was trapped with a youth known by local police [to be a male prostitute].

The weekly news magazine L’Espresso claims that Msgr Ricca was able to get the position as IoR prelate because the supposedly powerful “gay lobby” in the Vatican airbrushed his colourful CV. [That is, of course, sheer speculation, but obviously, either nothing suspicious was in the Ricca dossier sent to Pope Francis before he made the nomination, or the Pope did not ask to see any dossier at all, but went by his gut feeling of 'trust' in Ricca from getting to know him in his function as manager of the Vatican hotels, including Casa Santa Marta.]

Gay sex scandals at the Vatican have made the headlines before. In 2010 it emerged that one of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers [The man was not 'Pope Benedict's' exclusively - he was named to his honorary and unpaid position in the previous Pontificate, part of a group called 'Gentlemen of His Holiness' who take turns serving as ushers to papal liturgies and perform other ceremonial functions {they were pallbearers at John Paul II's funeral, for example] and a member of the Vatican choir were involved in a gay prostitution ring.

Vatican spokesman Padre Federico Lombardi sought to dismiss the claims about Msgr Ricca’s private life. “What has been claimed about Msgr Ricca is not reliable,” he said.

Msgr Ricca himself has not yet responded to the allegations. ButLa Repubblica noted that the Vatican had emphasised that his appointment as prelate for the IoR was technically an interim one, thus raising the possibility that the job might not last long. [Interim or not, there ought to have been a Vatican statement earlier responding to the story that Pope Francis had been informed by other Nuncios of Ricca's questionable activities that had led to his recall from diplomatic assignment in 2001 to work at the Secretariat of State, from where, eventually, he was appointed to run the Vatican 'hotels'.

The lack of any Vatican reaction at the time gave credence to the story, while raising the question of why apparently, no action was being taken to investigate the reports, or to 'hold' Ricca's nomination pending such an investigation. The entire world media would have been howling with feigned outrage if this had happened to a Benedict nominee, but in yet another show of utter indulgence for any perceived fault or mis-step by Pope Francis, all the media, Catholic and secular, chose to shut down the issue, except Magister.]

Here's John Allen's take on Magister's story. When the story about Mons. Ricca's bad rep first came up, I wondered why Allen - or other news agency correspondents, for that matter - did not rush to Montevideo to check out the Nuncios' supposed report to the Pope about Ricca...Apparently, none in media felt it was necessary to check it out at all - which means they either believed 'the nuncios' story' or they thought it was best not to embarrass the Pope by paying any attention at all to what could be a potential huge nomination error on his part! Not an indulgence they ever conceded at all to anything Benedict did, in their manic obsession to notch yet another 'bad mark' for him.

Vatican denies scandal report
on Vatican bank prelate
by John L. Allen Jr.

July 19, 2013

ROME - A Vatican spokesman today called a report "not credible" charging that a cleric hand-picked by Pope Francis to reform the troubled Vatican bank [Even John Allen, who certainly knows better, now seems to lay the entire burden for 'reforming' IOR on the 'prelate' who is, at best, the Pope's eyes and ears to the deliberations of the IOR's lay excutive board and its cardinals' oversight commission, and while he has access to all IOR documentation, which he can then pass on to the Pope, he has no specific powers to do anything directly at the bank] led a double life while serving as a papal diplomat in Uruguay a little more than a decade ago, including having a live-in male companion and visiting gay bars.

The charges appeared in a report published today by veteran Italian journalist Sandro Magister for the magazine L'Espresso. They concern Msgr. Battista Ricca, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed June 15 to serve as the Pope's "prelate," or representative, at the Vatican bank.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, issued a statement to journalists calling the report "not reliable."

L'Espresso swiftly replied with an acerbic statement "confirming point by point" the details in Magister's story, which it said had been "confirmed by primary sources."

The magazine's statement also claimed the charges in Magister's piece were judged by the Vatican at the time to be sufficiently serious as to warrant Ricca's removal from Uruguay.

On background, a senior Vatican official told NCR this morning that "the Pope has listened to everyone and has confidence in Ricca." [Ah so, there's an answer as to why nothing has been done since the story first surfaced at the time of the Vatican concert that the Pope decided not to attend! In effect, he has dismissed whatever the Nuncios told him about Ricca. My, my! If Benedict XVI had done anything similar, we would never have heard the end of it - as it is, we never even heard anything officially about teeh Pope's decision on Ricca until Lombardi's flat-out rejection todsy of the charges against him.]

Ricca, 57, is a veteran Vatican diplomat who served in a variety of posts before returning to Rome and taking over as the director of Vatican residences, including the Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis now resides.

The Magister report focuses on Ricca's brief period in Uruguay in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to the report, when Ricca arrived, he arranged for a male friend and captain in the Swiss army to live with him in the embassy. The report says the "intimacy" of their relations created a scandal.

Magister also suggests Ricca visited "meeting places" for homosexuals in Montevideo, at one point getting beat up, and that on another occasion he brought a "young man" back to the embassy and ended up getting trapped in an elevator with him overnight. [This came to be known because firemen had to be called to come to their assistance! - and Montevideo police/firemen report is the source for this story.]

None of the accusations in Magister's report appear to constitute criminal conduct or sexual abuse, and there is no suggestion Ricca ever faced civil charges in Uruguay. {My goodness, John Allen! When a Vatican prelate is involved in such unseemly conduct, it is not about whether it is criminal - but about whether it is morally right at all! Suddenly, a Vatican diplomat living in with his male lover in a Vatican embassy abroad - and, according to Magister, a lover that Ricca lobbied to get a position in the embassy as a paid employee - is no big desl, just because none of it constitutes 'criminal activity'??? Compare that to FSSPX Mons. Williamson's Holocaust negationism - an erroneous personal opinion, not a lifestyle, that hurt no one except for offending some Jewish sensibilities - for which Benedict was pilloried merciless;y and relentlessly!

Magister asserts all this was well known in Uruguay but was deliberately omitted from Ricca's Vatican record, so Francis learned of the charges only after appointing Ricca to his position at the Vatican bank.

Magister also links the alleged scrubbing of Ricca's file to the purported existence of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican -- a phrase reportedly used by Francis himself in a June 6 private session with leaders in religious life from Latin America.

The L'Espresso statement this morning said that rather than issuing "improbable and improvident denials," the Vatican should consult its own documentation as well as materials from the civil authorities in Uruguay. The statement also said "numerous bishops, priests, religious and laity" in Uruguay were "direct witnesses" to Ricca's behavior and "are ready to give testimony."

If the charges against Ricca are confirmed, it could be an embarrassment for Francis' reform efforts. [In other words, Allen is hereby giving both the Pope and Ricca the benefit of the doubt! How will the stories about Ricca ever be 'confirmed' if the Vatican itself does not announce it has investigated the allegations made against him and found them all unsubstantiated? Failing that, would Andrea Tornielli, for example, call up his many contacts at the Secretariat of State and find out if and how Mons.Ricca's dossier had been 'scrubbed', and would Allen himself not get one of his contacts (or himself) to call the Montevideo fire department and check out the elevator story? Where are AP, the New York Times and Der Spiegel, who moved heaven and earth to dredge up any smoking gun they could possibly find against Joseph Ratzinger in 2010-2011? They would not even have to spend so much in this case because Magister has done the spadework and all they need to do is obtain independent confirmation - or lack thereof - of Magister's claims. Is the personal background of a man who represents the pluperfect Pope in 'policing' the IOR not important enough to warrant their investigation? And yet, they considered Benedict XVI's failure to be informed about Mons. Wulliamson's negationism as so monumentally 'wrong' it fueled a media campaign against Benedict for months???]

On background, some Vatican sources this morning suggested the leaks about Ricca's past may be coming from people opposed to reform, describing Ricca as "non-ambitious" and sincerely interested in implementing the pope's vision. [Really! Why didn't anyone say so right away at the time everyone in the media made it appear that Francis's decision to snub the Year of Faith concert was because he was so worked up about hearing negative things about Ricca from some Nuncios! And of the Pope's apparent decision consequently not to believe the Nuncios. But perhaps the Vatican media know-alls thought - rightly, it seems, given the general media indulgence towards this Pope - that the Vatican did not have to say anything since the media promptly 'forgot' about 'the Nuncios' story' anyway. But now, it
s back...]

So, the Pope did look into the charges
made against Mons. Ricca and
has decided to keep him as IOR prelate

Update: Apparently, it is official. Italian journalist journalist Matteo Matzuzzi twits that Fr. Lombardi said: "The Pope has had the chance to verify whether the accusations against Msgr. Ricca were consistent or not," and that "Pope Francis is aware of the accusations made against Msgr. Ricca but has decided to keep him in his position".

[My, my, again!!!... No one is reacting, because no one has reported this formally, to begin with, as the media circles its wagons to shield Pope Francis. But just imagine all the screaming headlines by now if it had been Benedict who so summarily and all by himself exculpated someone who has been accused of specific malfeasances by Nuncios in the know - 'Benedict stands by gay prelate he named to the IOR, dismisses tales told by Nuncios, succumbs to pressure by gay lobby', and worse things I am unable to imagine... To get to the truth about Ricca, and in fairness to him, I expect Andrea Tornielli, no less, to file a report that will rebut the claims made by Magister point by documented point.

One has to ask: What could have prompted Nuncios to tell tales on Ricca to the Pope no less, if the tales were false or less than credible? Envy that someone who had not even reached the position of Nuncio was suddenly a major figure in the brave new world and dreamtime spring of the Church under Pope Francis? Or a genuine desire to rectify what they perceive to be an erroneous, unwise and ultimately counter-productive nomination by the Pope?

A Rorate caeli reader had an interesting hypothesis: Suppose, he writes, Ricca had decided to come clean with Pope Francis about his past and anything else that the latter ought to know about him, and suppose that, in effect, the Pope's reaction was a magnanimous "Then go, and sin no more - and I will keep you in the IOR", thus demonstrating a variant of what he loves to preach: If God in his infinite mercy can forgive sinners again and again, then the Pope must follow his example. All very well, but even far more than Caesar's wife, should not the Vicar of Christ not be beyond reproach in this case? (Think of the universal outrage that would have ensued if Benedict XVI had persisted in naming Mons. Wielgus to be Archbishop of Warsaw after Wielgus openly admitted, which he did, to his collaboration with the Communists in spying against his fellow clerics!) The very appearance of impropriety ought not to be an issue at all with regard to the Pope's 'eyes and ears' in an institution already racked, fairly or not, by other scandals, real and presumed!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/07/2013 11:25]

Belated 'almanac post' for yesterday...

Saturday, July 20, 2013 15th Week in Ordinary Time

From left, the mosaic work in the apse of Sant'Apollinare in Classe; detail showing the saint; a Byzantine icon; a 16th century painting showing St. Apollinaris (left)
and St. Anthony Abbot with the Madonna.
ST. APOLLINARIS OF RAVENNA (first century AD), Bishop and Martyr
Tradition has it that he was a native of Antioch sent to Ravenna as bishop by St. Peter himself. Four times during his long service
(26 years), he was expelled from the city during various waves of anti-Christian persecution, returning each time except the last,
when he was captured by the Roman authorities and put to death. In Ravenna, there are two 6th-century basilicas named for him -
the first one, Sant'Apollinare in Classe built on the site of his martyrdom, the other one Sant'Apollinare Nuovo which housed his
relics for a few centuries to better preserve them from pirate desecration (Classe is near the sea). Both basilicas house some of
the best-preserved and finest works of Byzantine mosaic from late antiquity.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072013.cfm

AT THE VATICAN, June 20, 2013

No events announced for Pope Francis. But the Press Office did issue a number of texts:
1. The communique regarding the visit of Pope Francis with Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI on Friday afternoon.
2. The Pope's message to his Cardinal Vicar in Rome on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the bombardment of Rome by the Nazis in 1943, during which the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mure was severely damaged.
3. The Pope's telegram of condolence for the death of the emeritus Archbishop of Mumbai (Bombay, India), Cardinal Simon Ignatius Pimenta, at the age of 93.

P.S. Vatican Radio has this report today, June 21:

Pope visits Santa Maria Maggiore
to pray for WYD 2013 and his trip


Pope Francis paid a visit on Saturday afternoon to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome ask the Virgin for her protection for his upcoming apostolic journey to Brazil, for the young people who will gather at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro and for all young people worldwide.

The Pope came to the Basilica to the 16:45, where he was welcomed by the Archpriest Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló. He entered through the side door of the Sacristy and immediately went to the chapel where the image of the Madonna Salus Populi Romani is displayed and where the canons of the Basilica and the community of the Dominican fathers had gathered.

Before the icon of Mary, the Pope spent time in silent prayer, for over half an hour, then he offered a wreath and lit a candle which also carried the symbolic logo of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro.

Since the Basilica was open to the public and many faithful were present, the Pope before leaving stood in front of the central altar of the Basilica, where he listened to a brief address by the Cardinal Archpriest and addressed a few words to the faithful, asking them to also accompany, "with prayer, with faith and penance" his trip to Brazil and his meeting with young people all over the world.

The whole visit lasted a little over an hour. At 6 p.m., the Holy Father returned to the Vatican.



One year ago...

No official events for Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo. The Press Office issued an advisory to journalists who would be travelling on the papal plane for the visit to Lebanon in September...And some newz from the Vatican-based Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI:




Second edition of
Ratzinger Prizes for theology
to be given out in October
by Gianluca Biccini
Translated from the 7/20/12 issue of




Pope Benedict XVI will hand out the second edition of the Ratzinger Prize for theology in the context of the upcoming Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization.

Mons. Giuseppe Antonio Scotti, president of the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI, which gives out the prizes, said that "On October 10, Pope Benedict XVI wishes to express very simply his thanks to those who, in the darkness of the present time, are giving their everything in order that the splendor of the truth may shine forth, in a spirit of profound communion with the Holy Father".

The Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization will take place from October 7-28 next month.

Awarding the prizes named for the Pope to scholars who distinguish themselves by their publications and scientific research on theological topics is one of the activities of the Vatican-based Foundation, which is modelled after the Munich-based Joseph Ratzinger-Benedikt XVI Stiftung (Foundation) set up by the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis in December 2007.

My addendum, from the presentation of the Fondazione Vaticana in 2011:
[Fr. Stephan Horn, the Salvatorian father who is president of both associations, said at the news conference presenting the Vatican-based foundation in November 2010 that the ultimate objective is "to make known the theological thinking and spirituality of Pope Benedict XVI so it may live on".

Mons. Scotti said that the Foundation would be financed mainly by 50 percent of the Pope's royalties - which he assigned to the Vatican publishing house in a 2005 agreement (the other 50 percent will go to selected charities).]




Last year, on June 30, the Holy Father handed out the first three Ratzinger Prizes for theology to Patristics scholar Manlio Simonetti, Spanish theologian Olegario González de Cardedal and German theologian Fr. Maximilian Heim.

The choices are made by a scientific committee headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, with Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and Angelo Amato, and Archbishops Luis Ladaria Ferrer, secretary of the CDF, and Jean-Louis Brugues, formerly secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education and recently named Archivist-Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.

With the first Ratzinger Prizes last year, they called attention to the work of Simonetti, the 86-year-old lay Italian who is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on early Christian history; Spanish priest Fr. Gonzales Cardedal, now 78, who founded the Karl Rahner-Hans Urs von Balthasar School of Theology in Spain in 1998; and the Cistercian Maximilian Heim, 51, abbot of Heiligenkreuz monastery outside Vienna.

Cardinal Ruini said when the first awardees were announced in June last year that the Prizes are open even to non-Catholics or to theological scholars at the start of their career but who already 'demonstrate rigor and passion in their work'.

For this reason, at the presentation of the first awardees, it was Abbot Heim - who has been very active in the new generation of Joseph Ratzinger'ss Schuelerkreis - who gave the lectio magistralis on that occasion.

He cited the Pope's well-known personal dedication to scientific research on 'the real Jesus', from which alone, he believes, 'a Christology from below' is possible.

This year, Mons. Scotti said, the prizes will go to two personalities who "with their intense and generous life of study, research and ample publication, have grasped and given voice to a theology capable of expressing - (and he cites from the Holy Father's most recent Easter homily) - that 'light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes knowledge possible - which is access to reality, to truth. And by making knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible'".

The prize winners will be announced at a news conference soon.

Because in recent years, the publication of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's two volumes of JESUS OF NAZARETH has raised remarkable interest not just among ordinary readers, but even in scientific and university circles, the Vatican foundation is organizing, in cooperation with all the pontifical universities of Rome, a symposium on "The Gospels, historical research and Christology" planned for the autumn of 2012.

The event which will be held at the Lateran University, from October 24-26, is the third in such a series sponsored by the Foundation.

The first one, in which 32 universities took part, was held in Sydgoszcz, Poland, in conjunction with the October 2011 pilgrimage to Assisi organized by Benedict XVI, on the theme of the event itself: "Pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace".

The second convention will be held this year in Rio de Janeiro from November 8-9this November. The participating universities will discuss the anthropological question "What makes man human?" in the context of World Youth Day to be held in Rio in July 2013.

For those who may have missed this brief video by the Fondazione Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI assembled last year for the 60th anniversary of the Holy Father's priesthood, it's worth watching:
http://www.fondazioneratzinger.va/player_e_video/player/60anni_sacerdozio_benedettoxvi/flash_it.html

July 21, 2013, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Center photo: A painting of the Christian-Ottoman battle of Szekesfehervar led by the saint.
ST. LORENZO DA BRINDISI (b Italy 1559, d Lisbon 1619)
Capuchin, Biblical Scholar, Imperial Chaplain, Field General during a battle against the Ottoman Turks, Superior General of the Capuchins, Diplomat, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI dedicated his Wednesday catechesis on March 23, 2011, to St. Lorenzo
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110323...
Born Giulio Cesare Russo in Brindisi to a family of Venetian merchants, he took the name Lorenzo upon joining the Capuchins at age 16. Educated in Venice and Padua, he was a remarkable linguist whose mastery of Latin. Greek and Hebrew helped him to become an outstanding Biblical scholar. Assigned to Rome in 1596, he was asked by Pope Clement VII to preach to the Jews and impressed the rabbis so much they thought he was a Jew who had turned Christian. Starting in 1599, he set up Capuchin monasteries in Germany and Austria, bringing back many Protestants to the Catholic faith. In 1601, as imperial chaplain for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, he led an army during a battle to take back a key Hungarian city from the Ottoman Turks. He was elected superior general of the Capuchins in 1601 and instituted major reforms, but refused re-election 3 years later. He served as Nuncio to Bavaria and to Spain, retired to a monastery in 1618, then was recalled for a special mission to the King of Spain and died in Lisbon after completing his mission. In 1956, the Capuchins completed a 15-volume edition of his writings - 11 of the volumes contained his sermons, each based on a scriptural quotation to illustrate his teaching. He was beatified in 1783, canonized in 1881, and declared a Doctor of the Church by John XXIII in 1959.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072113.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis led the midday Angelus from the third-floor window at the Apostolic Palace and asked the faithful to pray for him and for the youth of the world on the eve of his departure for Rio de Janeiro to attend World Youth Day. It is his first trip abroad as Pope and his first to his home continent since becoming Pope.


One year ago...

No official events for Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo.
The Vatican released a statement formally withdrawing the titles 'Pontifical' and 'Catholic' from what used to be the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, after years of open disobedience to
Blessed John Paul II's Apostolic Decree Ex Corda Ecclesiae defining the criteria for Catholic universities. Recently, the university administration informed the Holy See that it could not accept the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Lima over it.
The Peruvian university is a private university established in 1917, which was designated a 'pontifical' university by Pope Pius XII in 1942. It has about 22,000 students in 10 campuses and has consistently ranked #1 academically among Peruvian universities.

Here's an isolated voice of sense completely drowned out in the cacophony of unconditional and unmitigated Francis-frenzy in the media, secular and Catholic. Fr. Longenecker, to those who follow the Catholic blogosphere, is a former Anglican who turned Catholic and may be more familiar from his blog entitled 'Standing on my head'. Here, he states a very obvious fact that 99.5% of those who write and comment on the Vatican choose to ignore or overlook. That he chooses to say it baldly constitutes a genuine heresy against the herd mentality that prevails and has virtually taken over public opinion.

Seeing Benedict behind
Francis's first moves as Pope
Many of Francis's first acts of governance as Pope
Have been simply finishing things begun by Benedict,
not radical breaks with him as the media portrays it
[nor to be credited largely to the new Pope's reform 'mission']
by Fr Dwight Longenecker

July 21, 2013

St. Francis was once told to rebuild Christ’s Church, and since the announcement of his name, it has been predicted that the new pope would be a reformer. This is certainly the slant the Associated Press has put on a recent legal update in the Vatican.

The AP headline screams, “Pope Criminalizes Leaks and Sex Abuse in First Laws,” while Drudge Report takes a more sensational approach: “The Pope Cracks Down.”

London’s Daily Telegraph also reported on the beefed up Vatican rules and focused on the rules concerning the sexual abuse of children. The Telegraph reports that David Clohessy, the director of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), criticized the laws against child abuse because they are no more than “administrative tinkering” that applies only to the Vatican City State.

The papers have sensationalized this story and portrayed it as part of a brisk crackdown on corruption in the Vatican by Pope Francis. The implication is that the Vatican was riddled with corruption under Pope Benedict, and that Francis is the new broom sweeping the room clean.

When one stops to think it through, however, could it be possible that in just three months the new pope has been able not only to write an encyclical but put sweeping legal reforms into place? The laws have an international dimension, linking the Vatican legal system to global treaties and global crime.

This sort of thing is complicated. Did he do all this himself in just three months without any help? Probably not. These things take time – and especially in Rome, which is not called the Eternal City for nothing.

In fact, the sensational stories manufactured by the papers are inaccurate and misleading. Like the encyclical, the updated laws are really the work of Pope Benedict.

The more reliable Catholic News Service explains that the legal reforms now being put in place were initiated by Pope Benedict three years ago. Rather than being the radical reforming Pope, cracking down on sex abuse and financial skullduggery, Francis is s domply implementing the reforms and teaching begun by his predecessor. [But all this was clearly explained when the amended laws were presented to the media by the deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Relations, Mons. Mamberti. Most of media simply chose to ignore it because it goes against their narrative of "BAD BAD NE'ER-DO-WELL BENEDICT compared to THE PLUPERFECT POPE FRANCIS". Not to mention that the same media had in fact reported on some of the reforms at the time Benedict initiated them!Only to be wiped out now by their willful Benedict-amnesia-cum-Benedict-bashing. amnesia about his achievements and bashing him for everything that is wrong with the Church and the Vatican.

Clohessy’s criticism that the changes are no more than legal tinkering in the tiny Vatican City State is simply wrong. Exactly the opposite is the truth – the new laws were put into effect not to narrow down the Vatican’s laws, but to widen them out. The reforms align the Vatican’s outdated laws with the laws of the Italian government, and more importantly, with international law.

CNA explains that the laws are a response to the globalization of crime. Recognizing increased mobility and the global nature of crime, the new laws allow the Vatican authorities to prosecute citizens who commit crimes while they are away from the Vatican. Furthermore, the new laws bring the Vatican into line with the laws of various international conventions.

Rather than merely tinkering with the legalities of the Vatican, the new laws have an important international dimension.

While the mainstream media were busy sensationalizing the report and focusing on the aspects of child sexual abuse and financial corruption, they ignored other important aspects of the new Vatican laws. In line with international conventions the laws also condemn apartheid, torture, unjust war, human trafficking, and genocide.

No doubt Pope Francis will continue to reform the Vatican, but those who believe he will sweep through the whole Church with reforming zeal will probably be disappointed. The signs are that Pope Francis will encourage reform at the local level in the Church by bouncing many matters back to the local bishops. [Let us hope not, lest we get into another bishops-autonomy disaster like when dealing with priest sex-offenders was exclusively their jurisdiction! However, Francis did tell the Italian bishops - and he is Primate of Italy and Bishop of Rome - that it is up to them to pursue the battle to uphold Catholic principles on the major social issues of the day, e.g., abortion, euthanasia, reproductive 'libertyies', same-sex unions.]

He will lead in a reform movement [of the Church's governance and perhaps, necessarily, of its central structures] and expect the local leadership to follow his example. He will probably not impose radical reform from the top down. [Obviously, when we speak of reform in the Church, we do not refer to changing her position on what Benedict XVI always called 'non-negotiable principles' - the very issues which the Pope wants to let the bishops fight out on the local level. But at some point, he will have to take the lead. I do not doubt he will have to do so, sooner or later. He has to do so, on the 'local' level, to begin with, as Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy, following his own directive to the other Italian bishops.]

The core problem with the mainstream media’s reporting is that their mindset is conditioned by the hermeneutic of revolution. A “hermeneutic” is a method of interpreting data; it is a paradigm for viewing the world, and the secular paradigm is the Hegelian concept of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. To put it simply, the secularist views human history as a series of revolutions. Change always entails a violent rupture with the past – a clash and a conflict out of which a new and better solution is born.

Rather than a hermeneutic of rupture, the Catholic understanding is one of continuity and constant reformation. The secular media will try to paint Pope Francis as a radical reformer – a revolutionary even. Instead they will find that he is a steady hand seeking to cleanse and reform the Church just as his two predecessors did: with a step by step process that brings the light of the Gospel to cleanse a Church which time and again falls back into human error, corruption, and sin.[It is much too kind to attribute a Hegelian hermeneutic to the media's motivation in glorifying Francis at the expense of Benedict. Their motivation is sheer nastiness - they don't like Benedict, so they are falling all over themselves trying to outdo the other in needlessly apotheosizing Francis, who has more than enough virtues not to require their dubious input!]

Francis’s reforms are really, therefore, nothing more than the Catholic Church doing her job: calling humanity to regular repentance, reform, and constant conversion. Rather than a radical revolution, this is a natural and ongoing part of Catholic life, and Pope Francis leads the whole Church in this practice of repentance and reform, just as his illustrious predecessors did before him. [But secular reporters and commentators would not even think of that at all - it's bad enough that most of the Catholic commentariat don't!.]

Monday, July 22, 2013. 16th Week in Ordinary Time

From left: The Crucifixion, Raphael; The burial of Jesus, Caracci; the penitent with the perfume jar; two Greek icons; Mary Magdalene, El Greco; a detail of the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross; Noli me tangere, Fra Angelico.
ST. MARY MAGDALENE, Penitent
Long before Dan Brown decided to exploit her figure, Mary of Magdala was a subject of great fascination in literature and art, much of it inspired by apocryphal gnostic gospels. The Bible unequivocally identifies her presence at the three great events in the final days of Christ on earth: the Crucifixion; the burial; and the Resurrection, of which she was the first human to learn the news. She is described as one of the women disciples who followed Jesus and the Twelve in their travels just before the Passion, "assisting them out of their means". Earlier, she is referred to as the woman from whom Jesus had cast out 'seven demons'. However, Bible readers have also identified her with the prostitute who, repenting her ways, threw herself at the feet of Jesus and anointed his feet with a jar of expensive perfume. She is also often confused with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. She is not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, but according to tradition, she ended up in Ephesus, where John the Beloved had gone with the Blessed Mother, and that she died there. A French legend has it that she, along with Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome, travelled with their uncle Joseph of Arimathea after the Resurrection to flee anti-Christian persecution and landed on the southern coast of France near Marseilles. More unlikely legends sprung out of that, including that purveyed by Dan Brown's book. The Orthodox have always venerated her as 'the myrrh-bearer' and 'equal to the Apostles'. though none of the myriad legends associate her with any apostolic work.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072213.cfm

WITH POPE FRANCIS TODAY

He left Rome this morning enroute to the 28th WYD in Brazil, making his first trip abroad as Pope to his home continent though not to his own country. He has now arrived in Brazil after a 12-hour trans-oceanic flight to an official airport welcome led by President Dilma Roussef.

He will have a 36-hour rest to normalize his biorhythm at a diocesan residence called Somare where John Paul II also stayed during two visits to Rio. His first event on July 24 will be a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, where he will say Mass for the faithful before returning to Rio in the early afternoon to officially take part in WYD.
NB: When the Pope boarded the plane this morning, he was conspicuously carrying a hefty briefcase (or maybe it was a toiletry case), but the media stories, starting with Vatican Radio, said "The Pope boarded the plane carrying his own bag..." as the latest breathless addition to the now voluminous trove of urban legends about the Pope. And if there had been no picture showing him carrying that 'bag', one might have imagined him lugging his suitcase up the plane steps, a gesture which surely, no one seriously expects the Vicar of Christ to do, nor would he gain points with anyone but his fawning sycophants by doing so, assuming one thinks he would be foolish enough to do it, which would be insulting him!

All our prayers for the Pope, the participants of World Youth Day,

the people of Brazil and the youth of the world for yet another edition

of a divinely inspired initiative by soon-to-be Saint John Paul II.

May it be as fruitful for the faith as those that preceded it.

Personally, I am hoping that Pope Francis will tell the young people in Rio something like "Emeritus Pope Benedict has asked me to convey to you his love, prayers and encouragement in practising your faith and helping the new evangelization".

Dear young people, between the Father of World Youth Day who will soon be a saint, and the all-conquering Pope Francis, please do not forget to say a prayer for the gentle Pope who led you lovingly through the exhilarating experiences of Cologne, Sydney and Madrid.


One year ago...

At the Sunday Angelus, Benedict XVI reflected on the day's Gospel depicting Jesus as the Shepherd for the lost sheep of Israel, and went on to reflect on Mary Magdalene, whose feast day it was, as one of those lost sheep who was saved by Jesus from total subordination to the devil. He expressed his condolences and prayers for the victims and families of the midnight movie massacre in Aurora, Colorado, early Saturday morning, in which at least 12 persons were killed, and a ferry accident in Zanzibar in which 68 died. He also expressed his best wishes for the Summer Olympics which open in London on July 27, saying he hoped the two-week Games would also mark a truce in current fighting in many places.



ANGELUS TODAY
July 22, 2012




Here is a translation of the Pope's words:

---

The Word of God this Sunday reproposes to us a fundamental and always fascinating theme in the Bible: It reminds us that God is the Shepherd of mankind.

This means that God wants us to have life, he wants to lead us to good pastures, where we can eat and rest. He does not want us to get lost and to die, but to reach the goal of our journey on earth, which is truly the fullness of life. It is waht every father and mother want for their own children: goodness, happiness, realization.

In today's Gospel, Jesus presents himself as the Shepherd of the kist sheep of Israel. He looks on his people with what we might call a pastoral eye. For example, we are told today that "When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things" (Mk 6,34).

Jesus incarnates God the Shepherd in the way he preached, and in his works, taking care of the sick and the sinners, those who are 'liost' (cfr Lk 19,10), in order to bring them to safety, to the mercy of the Father.

Among the 'lost sheep' that Jesus saved was a woman named Mary, from the village of Magdala, along the Lake of Galilee, and therefore called the Magdalene. Today we celebrate her liturgical feast in the calendar of the Church. The evangelist Luke says that Jesus chased seven demons out of her (cfr Lk, 8,2). that is, he saved her from total servitude to the Malignant One.

What is this profound healing that God works through Christ? It consists of a true and complete peace, the fruit of a person's reconciliation with himself, and in all his relationships: with God, with others, with the world.

Indeed, the devil always seeks to ruin the work of God, sowing division in the human heart, between body and soul, between man and God, in interpersonal, social, and international relations, and even between man and Creation.

The devil sows war - God creates peace. Or as St. Paul affirms, Christ "is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh" (Eph 2,14).

In order to fulfill this operation of radical reconciliation, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, had to become a lamb, "the Lamb of God... who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1,29). Only thus could he realize the stupendous promise of the Psalm, "Indeed, goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the LORD for endless days" (Ps 23,6).

Dear friends, these words make our hearts vibrate, because they express our most profound desire - they say what it is that we were made for: life, eternal life. They are the words of those who, like Mary Magdalene, have experienced God in their own life and know his peace.

Words which are even truer from the lips of the Virgin Mary, who already lives forever in the pastures of Heaven, to which she was led by the Shepherd Lamb. Mary, Nother of Christ our peace, pray for us!

After the prayers, and before his pluriligual greetings, he said this:
In a few days, the 30th Olympic Games will start in London. The Olympiad is the greatest sports event in the world, in which athletes from many nations take part, and therefore, the Games take on a great symbolic value.

That is why the Catholic Church looks at the Olympics with special sympathy and attention. Let us pray so that, God willing, the Games in London may be a true experience of brotherhood among the peoples of the earth

In English, he reiterated his prayers for the London Olympics and took note of two major civilian tragedies in recent days:
I was deeply shocked by the senseless violence which took place in Aurora, near Denver, and saddened by the loss of life in the recent ferry disaster near Zanzibar. I share the distress of the families and friends of the victims and the injured, especially the children. Assuring all of you of my closeness in prayer, I impart my blessing as a pledge of consolation and strength in the risen Lord.

In a few days from now, the Olympic Games are due to begin in Great Britain. I send greetings to the organizers, athletes and spectators alike, and I pray that, in the spirit of the Olympic Truce, the good will generated by this international sporting event may bear fruit, promoting peace and reconciliation throughout the world. Upon all those attending the London Olympic Games, I invoke the abundant blessings of Almighty God.

---

Ideally, I would post today a reconstruction of Benedict XVI's travel to Cologne for his first WYD, back in 2005, but I have no ready material to pick up since I had not yet begun 'working' in any Forum at the time of Cologne WYD... A substitute for that is this blurb about a book I did not even know existed, which compiles the highly inspired and infinitely inspiring discourses of Benedict XVI during WYD Cologne - they explain in no small measure the tremendous success of his first WYD, to which he came as the obligatory stand=in for the recently departed Father of WYD - and how much condescending verbiage there was about how the self-effacing 78-year-old professor-Pope would never be able to pull it off - only to emerge from it distinctly in his own light, reflecting the glory of the God 'we have come to worship' in Cologne.

---

God's Revolution:
World Youth Day and
Other Cologne Talks
by POPE BENEDICT XVI

Pope Benedict had a powerful encounter with over one million youth at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany in August 2005. He also had important separate meetings of significance with Jewish leaders, with Muslim leaders, and a third Ecumenical meeting with Protestant leaders.

This book includes all the texts of his talks to the youth over that five-day period, as well as to these other groups in Cologne.
The Pope's inspiring words and messages to the young people were enthusiastically received, and comprise an important collection of talks for young people everywhere, and indeed for all followers of Christ.

This 20th World Youth Day had a new point of reference: Pope Benedict XVI. It was the first that Pope John Paul II had not been at. But this collection fittingly begins with John Paul's closing talk at WYD in 2004.

Yet Benedict stamped this World Youth Day with his own personal style, with his gentleness and joy, and profound words about Christ's love that the youth responded to with great exuberance.

The theme of this great gathering was "We Have Come to Worship Him." Throughout these talks and encounters with the youth, Benedict reinforced the meaning of this theme by leading us to adore the Child who is God, whose love renews and transforms the whole world.

Radiating from this book, as from World Youth Day, is a sheer joy over the beauty of faith, the beauty of Christ and of our life in Christ.

Reading this book reinforces the conviction that, in the person of Pope Benedict XVI, God has given the Church a great Teacher of the faith, and also a great Pastor who knows the way that can lead us to intimacy with God.

His special charism seems to be his ability to combine universal openness with Catholic identity, clear and comprehensive witness to the truth of Christ with the gentleness of fraternal charity.

---

Pope Francis arrives in Rio
for world youth rally
By NICOLE WINFIELD and BRADLEY BROOKS


RIO DE JANEIRO, July 22, 2013 (AP) - A wrong turn sent a humble Fiat carrying Pope Francis into the thick of a frenzied Rio crowd Monday, in his first minutes back in South America since becoming pontiff. It was a nightmare for security officials, but for the clearly delighted pope just another opportunity to connect.

Ecstatic throngs forced his motorcade to repeatedly come to a standstill, weeks after violent protests against the government paralyzed parts of Brazil. Francis's driver had turned into the wrong side of a boulevard at one point, missing lanes that had been cleared. Other parts of the pope's route to the city center weren't lined with fencing, giving the throngs more chances to get close, with uniformed police nowhere in sight to act as crowd control.

The three dozen visible Vatican and Brazilian plainclothes security officials struggled to keep the crowds at bay. Francis, however, not only looked calm but got even closer to the people. He rolled down his back-seat window, waved to the crowd and touched those who reached inside. He kissed a baby a woman handed to him. [No photos online so far of these scenes before the Pope transferred from the car to the Popemobile.]

"His secretary was afraid," papal spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "But the pope was happy."

The pope is here on a seven-day visit meant to fan the fervor of the faithful around the globe. That task has grown more challenging as Roman Catholics stray, even in strongholds of the religion such as Brazil, yet it seemed to come easily to Francis even on the drive from the airport to an official opening ceremony.

After finally making it past crowds and blocked traffic, Francis switched to an open-air vehicle as he toured around the main streets in downtown Rio through mobs of people who screamed wildly as he waved and smiled.




He left his popemobile – the bulletproof one – in the Vatican garage so he could better connect with people during the church's World Youth Day.

The Vatican insisted they had no concern for the pope's safety as his vehicles eased through the masses, but Lombardi acknowledged that there might have been some "errors" that need correcting.

"This is something new, maybe also a lesson for the coming days," Lombardi said.

Many in the crowd looked stunned to see the pope, with some standing still and others sobbing loudly.

"I can't travel to Rome, but he came here to make my country better ... and to deepen our faith," Idaclea Rangel, a 73-year-old Catholic choked through her tears after the pope passed by.

As many as 1 million young people from around the world are expected in Rio for the Catholic youth fest, a seemingly tailor-made event for the Argentine-born pope, who has proven enormously popular in his four months on the job. But the fervor of the crowds that regularly greet Francis in St. Peter's Square was nothing compared with the raucous welcome in Rio.

Popes generally get a warm welcome in Latin America; even the more aloof Pope Benedict XVI received a hero's welcome when he visited Mexico and Cuba in 2012. [The trip before which AP led the MSM in predicting with undisguised Schadenfreude that Benedict XVI would not be received with anywhere near the numbers nor the fervor of the Mexicans who greeted John Paul II on each of his four visits to that country. After Benedict arrived in Leon - a medium-size provincial capital that does not have the 20 million residents of Mexico City - even the AP had to report that 'incredibly', almost a million people lined the long motorcade route into the city to welcome Benedict XVI. And the numbers during his four days in Mexico would continue to be phenomenal. Neither the AP - nor any of the other arrival stories I have seen - places a number for tho turnout in Rio yesterday.]

John Paul II frequently received rock star treatment, and during one 1996 visit to Venezuela, his motorcade was similarly mobbed when he stopped to greet well-wishers after greeting prisoners.

Outside the Guanabara government palace where the pope was officially welcomed, Alicia Velazquez, a 55-year-old arts teacher from Buenos Aires, waited to catch a glimpse of the man she knew well when he was archbishop of her hometown.

"It was so amazing when he was selected, we just couldn't believe it. We cried and hugged one another," Velazquez said. "I personally want to see if he's still the same man as simple and humble whom we all knew. I have faith that he's remained the same."

Francis displayed that humility in greeting President Dilma Rousseff, saying he understood that to really know Brazilians, one must pass through their heart.

"So let me knock gently at this door," Francis said in Portuguese at the official welcome ceremony. "I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ."

On the plane en route to Rio, he had lamented that an entire generation of young people risked not knowing what it's like to work thanks to an economic crisis that has seen youth unemployment skyrocket in many European countries while leaving the poor of the developing world behind.

"People get their dignity from work, they earn their bread," he told reporters aboard the plane. "Young people in this moment are in crisis."

Francis arrived at a tense time for Brazil, as the country reels from sometimes violent demonstrations that began last month as a protest against public transport price hikes and mushroomed into a wave of protests against government corruption, inefficiency and spending for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Those protests continued after Francis' arrival. Police and anti-government protesters clashed outside the government palace. About an hour after the pontiff concluded his short speech, police began cracking down on the protests, firing rubber bullets in an effort to disperse the crowd.

The government spent about $52 million for Francis' visit, but he does not appear to be a focus of protesters' rage.

"We've got nothing against the pope. Nobody here is against him," said Christopher Creindel, a 22-year-old art student and Rio native protesting outside the government palace. "This protest is against our politicians."

Lombardi confirmed that a homemade explosive device was found Sunday by Brazilian authorities in a public toilet near the basilica at Aparecida, a Marian shrine that Francis will visit Wednesday. Vatican security was informed of the device but didn't think it was aimed at the pope, Lombardi said.

"There are no concerns for security. The concerns are that the enthusiasm is so great that it's difficult to respond to so much enthusiasm for the pope. But there is no fear and no concern," he told reporters.

Francis's weeklong schedule underscores his commitment to make his pontificate focus on the poor. He will walk through one of Rio's shantytowns, or favelas, and meet with juvenile offenders, an extension of his call for a more missionary church that goes to the peripheries to preach.

He will also pray at Aparecida, an indication of his strong Marian devotion that is shared in much of Latin America. And, in a rather incongruous matchup, he will preside over a procession re-enacting Christ's crucifixion on the beach at Copacabana, ground zero of Rio's Sin City.

Alex Augusto, a 22-year-old seminarian dressed in the bright green official T-shirt for pilgrims, said Monday that he and five friends made the journey from Brazil's Sao Paulo state to "show that contrary to popular belief, the church isn't only made up of older people, it's full of young people. We want to show the real image of the church."

Yet pilgrims like Augusto are the exception in Brazil and much of Latin America, a region with more faithful than any other in the world but where millions have left the church for rival Pentecostal evangelical churches or secularism.

A poll from the respected Datafolha group published Sunday in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo said 57 percent of Brazilians age 16 and older call themselves Catholic, the lowest ever recorded. In 1980, when Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit Brazil, 89 percent listed themselves as Catholics, according to that year's census.

Datafolha interviewed 3,758 people across Brazil on June 6-7 and said the poll had a margin error of 2 percentage points.

The Pope arrives in Rio:
'Christ has confidence in young people'

July 23, 2013

Pope Francis arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, beginning a week-long Apostolic visit to mark the twenty-eighth World Youth Day. After a brief formal greeting at Rio’s Galeão airport, the Holy Father proceeded to Guanabara Palace for the official Welcoming Ceremony, where he was received by the President of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff Linhares, the Governor of Rio State, Sergio Cabral Filho, and the Mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.



In her formal remarks, the President expressed joy and gratitude at the Holy Father’s visit. The Holy Father returned those sentiments, and placed his visit in the context of World Youth Day. The Holy Father went on to offer particular encouragement to the young participants, to their families, and to those responsible for forming and empowering the new generation to take up their responsibilities as the future leaders of humanity.

After the exchange of speeches, the Pope and the President retired for a private meeting, during which Francis presented Mrs. Rousseff with a mosaic realized by the Vatican Mosaic Studio according to the centuries-old techniques used to apply the mosaics in St. Peter’s Basilica, and depicting a panoramic view of Rio from just behind and above the great Statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Here is the Vatican translation of Pope Francios's arrival address:

---

Madam President,
Distinguished Authorities,
Brethren and Friends!

In his loving providence, God wished that the first international trip of my pontificate should take me back to my beloved Latin America, specifically to Brazil, a country proud of its links to the Apostolic See and of its deep sentiments of faith and friendship that have always kept it united in a special way to the Successor of Peter. I am grateful for this divine benevolence.

I have learned that, to gain access to the Brazilian people, it is necessary to pass through its great heart; so let me knock gently at this door. I ask permission to come in and spend this week with you. I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ! I have come in his name, to feed the flame of fraternal love that burns in every heart; and I wish my greeting to reach one and all: The peace of Christ be with you!

I cordially greet the President and the distinguished members of her government. I thank her for her warm welcome and for the words by which she expressed the joy of all Brazilians at my presence in their country. I also greet the state governor who is hosting us in the government palace, and the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the government of Brazil, the other authorities present and all those who worked hard to make my visit here a reality.

I would like to greet affectionately my brother bishops, to whom falls the serious task of guiding God’s flock in this vast country, as well as their beloved local churches. With this visit, I wish to pursue the pastoral mission proper to the Bishop of Rome of confirming my brothers in their faith in Christ, of encouraging them to give an account of the reasons for the hope which comes from him, and of inspiring them to offer everyone the inexhaustible riches of his love.

As you know, the principal reason for my visit to Brazil goes beyond its borders. I have actually come for World Youth Day. I am here to meet young people coming from all over the world, drawn to the open arms of Christ the Redeemer. They want to find a refuge in his embrace, close to his heart, to listen again to his clear and powerful appeal: “Go and make disciples of all nations”.

These young people are from every continent, they speak many languages, they bring with them different cultures, and yet they also find in Christ the answer to their highest aspirations, held in common, and they can satisfy the hunger for a pure truth and an authentic love which binds them together in spite of differences.

Christ offers them space, knowing that there is no force more powerful than the one released from the hearts of young people when they have been conquered by the experience of friendship with him. Christ has confidence in young people and entrusts them with the very future of his mission, “Go and make disciples”. Go beyond the confines of what is humanly possible and create a world of brothers and sisters! And young people have confidence in Christ: they are not afraid to risk for him the only life they have, because they know they will not be disappointed.

As I begin my visit to Brazil, I am well aware that, in addressing young people, I am also speaking to their families, their local and national church communities, the societies they come from, and the men and women upon whom this new generation largely depends.

Here it is common for parents to say, “Our children are the apple of our eyes”. How beautiful is this expression of Brazilian wisdom, which applies to young people an image drawn from our eyes, which are the window through which light enters into us, granting us the miracle of sight! What would become of us if we didn’t look after our eyes? How could we move forward? I hope that, during this week, each one of us will ask ourselves this thought-provoking question.

Young people are the window through which the future enters the world, thus presenting us with great challenges. Our generation will show that it can realize the promise found in each young person when we know how to give them space; how to create the material and spiritual conditions for their full development; how to give them a solid basis on which to build their lives; how to guarantee their safety and their education to be everything they can be; how to pass on to them lasting values that make life worth living; how to give them a transcendent horizon for their thirst for authentic happiness and their creativity for the good; how to give them the legacy of a world worthy of human life; and how to awaken in them their greatest potential as builders of their own destiny, sharing responsibility for the future of everyone.

As I conclude, I ask everyone to show consideration towards each other and, if possible, the sympathy needed to establish friendly dialogue. The arms of the Pope now spread to embrace all of Brazil in its human, cultural and religious complexity and richness. From the Amazon Basin to the pampas, from the dry regions to the Pantanal, from the villages to the great cities, no one is excluded from the Pope’s affection. In two days’ time, God willing, I will remember all of you before Our Lady of Aparecida, invoking her maternal protection on your homes and families. But for now I give all of you my blessing. Thank you for your welcome!

---

Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 16th Week in Ordinary Time

ST. BIRGITTA (BRIDGET) OF SWEDEN (b Sweden 1303, d Rome 1373), Widow, Mystic, Franciscan Tertiary, Founder of the Bridgettines, Co-Patron of Europe
Born to descendants of the Swedish royal family, Birgitta's father was one of the wealthiest landowners in the country. The girl started having visions of the Lord, particularly
the Crucifixion, when she was 7. At age 13, she entered an arranged marriage to a local prince, with whom she had four sons and four daughters (the oldest, Catherine, would
become a saint herself). She was a friend and counselor to many priests and theologians of her day, as well as adviser to King Magnus II. Her husband died in 1344 shortly after
they came back from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. She joined the Franciscan lay order and lived as a penitent. In 1346, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior
(Bridgettines) which was confirmed by Pope Urban V in 1370 and survives today with a few houses. In 1360, she left for Rome on pilgrimage and never returned to Sweden.
She counseled Popes Clement Vi, Gregory XI and Urban VI, urging them all to return to Rome from Avignon. Meanwhile, she wrote down the revelations given to her in her continuing
visions and her spiritual reflections; the books became hugely popular in the Middle Ages. She encouraged everyone to meditate on the Passion of Christ and on the Crucified
Christ. She died in Rome after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land which was marked by shipwreck and the death of a son. She was canonized in 1391, and in 1436, the Council of Basel
confirmed the orthodoxy of her writings. In 1999, she was named by John Paul II as a co-patron of Europe, along with Benedict of Norcia, Cyril and Methodius, Catherine of Siena,
and Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein). Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis to her on Oct. 27, 2010
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20101027...
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072313.cfm


WITH THE POPE TODAY

It's a rest day for Pope Francis in the diocesan residence Somare in Rio de Janeiro, after his arrival in teh Brazilian capital yesterday to preside at the 28th World Youth Day(28th since John Paul II instituted it in 1984, and the 14th celebrated on an international level). WYD is celebrated on the diocesan level annually on Palm Sunday.

Tomorrow, the Pope flies to the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida where he will say Mass before returning to Rio in the afternoon.

Thanks to Aqua for passing on this article by Italian Vaticanista Andrea Gagliarducci who writes for both Italian and English media. It takes him a while to get to the point, but he too sees the obvious risk that was always evident when Pope Francis first named the Commission of Eight cardinals to assist him in governing the Church. Namely, the inevitable creation, as I remarked back then, of new bureaucracies parallel to and inevitably competing with the resident Vatican bureaucracy.

Because both in their home countries, which is home base for seven of the eight members representing distinct geographical regions of the world (the eighth member is the President of Vatican City State governatorate), and in the Vatican itself, this Commission will necessarily have to hire staff to coordinate their dealings and manage their communications with the thousands of bishops, priests and religious in their respective regions, not to mention the mini-Vaticans that the national episcopal conferences have become - in order to truly represent their interests, and not just the cardinal-commissioner's perception of what his region's problems are, however wise and experienced he may be.

Gagliarducci starts with the very trendy notion of 'outsourcing', but in-sourced or out-sourced, Pope Francis's creation of ad hoc study commissions will presumably lead to permanent structures within a new Vatican/Holy See administrative framework that would seem to be the ultimate goal of the 'mission of reforming the Curia' that the world expects of Pope Francis... As the refrain goes, the more things change, the more things remain the same. Fighting a bureaucracy, any bureaucracy, is much like Don Quixote trying to fight the windmills. And obviously, you don't fight windmills by putting up new windmills!


Outsourcing in the Vatican
By Andrea Gagliarducci

July 21, 2013 .

Pope Francis’s most recent administrative move is the appointment of a pontifical commission to look at the organization of the economic-administrative structure of the Holy See. In essence, it is an external team of auditors who will advise how to streamline the expenses and activities of the 37 semi-autonomous offices which make up Vatican City State. The commission is comprised of eight members. Interestingly, only one comes from the ranks of the Holy See. [Actually, he is the only cleric, even if two of the key members are already advisers to the Vatican's Prefecture of Economic Affairs.]

With a similar commission (although an internal one), Pope Francis sent the message that he wanted clarity in the activities of the so-called Vatican bank, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR).

For an eventual reform of the Curia, Pope Francis more pragmatically named a group of eight cardinals, including Cardinal Oscar Andrés Maradiaga as their coordinator. The terms of reference for this group have not yet been defined in an official document. It is expected that Pope Francis will soon do so, making the group an official entity of the Church.

It is typical of the Jesuits to form external commissions to confront and resolve problems. Pope Francis has embraced this approach, common in the management of Jesuit provinces, and he is applying it to his pontificate.

Bergoglio’s goals are enormous. He wants to change the way the entire Roman Curia thinks and behaves. A Curia rightly or wrongly perceived by many as out of touch with the people. Pope Francis’s way of proceeding reveals distrust for the Curia.

Pope Francis meets, reportedly quite often, with Benedict XVI. He also phones the dicasteries very frequently, speaking with employees at all levels and asking them about their work. Some of the employees have also been invited to pay him a visit in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Pope Francis has taken the reins of the situation, or he’s trying to. It is an exhausting approach, that which he is taking.

The most recent obstacle he has faced was the appointment of the prelate of the IOR, i.e. the Holy See representative who works as a link between the cardinals’ oversight commission and the IOR's lay executive board.

Pope Francis decided that Mons. Battista Ricca should take that job. Bergoglio knows Ricca very well, they often had lunch together.

Ricca was a career diplomat who – after having served in several nunciatures – was called back to Rome. There, he gained the reputation of “incorruptible” in his managing of the accounts of the nunciatures. He was also appointed director of three residences for prelates. One, the residence in Via della Scrofa in Rome, was where then-cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio usually stayed during his trips to Roma. Another residence managed by Ricca, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, is now the Papal residence.

So Ricca was very close to the Pope, and this is how he earned the Pope’s confidence. But when the Pope chose Ricca as prelate, no one brought up to him the dossier that explained why, earlier in Ricca’s career, it had been so important to bring him back to Rome. A dossier that the Italian vaticanista Sandro Magister made reference to, and which contained accusations of homosexual behavior.

«Who wants to boycott Pope Francis?» This was the question raised after the publication of Magister's story on Ricca. The Vatican’s problem is not whether specific reports and information are true or not. [WHICH IS VERY STRANGE INDEED - isn't the character of Ricca in question here? Not so much that he may be homosexual and (was) engaged in conduct highly unbecoming od a priest, much less, a diplomatic representative of the Vatican, but that unless he or the Vatican directly refute the allegations documented against Ricca by Magister, he will always be under a cloud of notoriety and a potential target for blackmail. Which is not at all desirable for the Pope's own 'personal' representative to presumably oversee the morality of the IOR's activities!]

It is more important to understand who “leaked” the dossier outside the Sacred Walls. [It need not have been leaked at all! Initial reports - never denied by the Vatican - claimed that the damaging information about Ricca was passed on directly to the Pope by some of the Nuncios who had come to Rome for their Year of Faith event. From what they said, it was easy for any journalist to follow the leads and ask persons in Uruguay who would have first-hand knowledge of this information. The problem is only Magister bothered to do so, - and everyone else simply ignored it, including the usually diligent John Allen who would not have missed any occasion for a real 'scoop'. Why no one other than Magister bothered is clearly an effort by the media to avoid acknowledging that Pope Francis may have made an egregious error in naming Ricca to IOR.

How, with everything they have invested into painting the Pope as the dream Pope no one had even imagined could exist, could they then say maybe he has feet of clay, after all, like us ordinary mortals? Now, if this had happened with Benedict XVI, they'd have already consigned him to the deepest reaches of hell for being 1) so uninformed and/or stupid as to have made such an appointment error (after Wielgus and Williamson, though it was not an appointment but lifting excommunication in the latter case); and 2) just so unworthy to be Pope, in general, at least in their opinion! I will never understand how petty minds can so dismiss with scorn such an obviously superior creature of God as Joseph Ratzinger! Perhaps because it makes them feel superior to be able to trash and dismiss someone so eminent. 'He may be Pope and all that, but to me, he's just scum to scrape off the sole of my shoes! So there!"]

With an outgoing, «lame duck» Secretary of State and the appointment of his successor on stand by, it seems as if attacks on anyone’s reputation are fair game. It is a chaotic situation inside the Vatican. {Really? Everyone is telling us that all is sweetness and light and pure fresh air in the Vatican these days, cleared of every sulphurous infernal fume exhaled by a Benedict who was actually Satan decked out in white robe and red shoes, who had led the Church down to hell in a handbasket!]

This proves that the Curia’s poisonous environments did not dissipate with Pope Francis’s arrival. [Careful, mR. Gagliarducci,withf those generalities. You are trotting out the herd stereotypes here. Whatever inefficiencies, petty corruptions and yes, malice and evil, that are present among the human beings who make up the Roman Curia, all of those defects together do not equal the poison created daily by the mindless stereotypes of media about the Curia without any substantiation. OK, so one surfaced recently - the case of the notorious Mons. Scarano, but should we take him as 'typical' of everyone who works in the Curia, or as one extremely misguided individual whose circumstances gave him the opportunity to play fast and loose with his finances and those of his friends?]

The appointment of the advisory commission for the IOR might have made some believe that Pope Francis realized that it is impossible to reform the Curia without the Curia. Not so. The appointment of this most recent commission shows that the Pope has taken the path of outsourcing.

Benedict XVI started a plan to bring order to the expenses and the activities of the pontifical administration. It was necessary to streamline the structures, as often there were unnecessary overlaps and redundancy of responsibilities.

First of all, Benedict XVI reformed the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, the Vatican «ministry of economy». Benedict’s reform made the Prefecture look like a modern ministry of finance, with the power to control and project expenses. This way, Benedict XVI worked towards making the Vatican a modern State, and at the same time to strengthen its structures. [But did the media ever ever report these developments to underline their significance, if they even got to report it at all? Obviously not. So having not reported that these things were happening under Benedict, they are now free to mak believe and make it appear that every initiative at cleaning house and streamlining the Vatican administration only began once a new Pope had replaced Benedict.]

In fact, external consultants are not new. Every Vatican dicastery appoints consultants, i.e. experts called to serve the Holy See in some specific field. However, not until now had consultants been so clearly a part of an outsourcing strategy.

Pope Francis does not favor appointing “ad hoc” consultants for specific issues. [But the three commissions he has named so far are all ad hoc! The Advisory Council still has to be defined formally, and the IOR and administrative-structure commissions are clearly ad hoc' to turn them evnetually into something permanent will result in new bureaucratic redundancies.]

Instead, he prefers to address some problems by presenting them to experts outside the Vatican. An approach that has been accepted in Vatican City State, to the detriment of the Holy See.

The Vatican administration must pay salaries and keep its finances in the black. In order to meet its obligations, Vatican City State has accepted donations. Including very large donations. Donations, however, invite outsiders’ intromission, since the donors may attempt to exert control over everything. They are ultimately buying the Vatican, one piece at a time.

The Knights of Columbus, for example, have been making generous donations to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA). These donations have served to pay the salary of one of the top consultants at the Vatican, for the past two years. Obviously, before hiring the job holder, the Knights of Columbus were consulted.

Even in the financial area, a lot has been traditionally outsourced. Since the Calvi and Marcinkus era, many things have changed. The IOR is now controlled by a “board of laymen,” the council of superintendency. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was once named president of this council. But Tedeschi was not a Vatican man. He treated the Vatican more like a multinational company than a sovereign state with funds at the Pope’s disposal. Tedeschi eventually received a no confidence vote from the board he presided. [Obviously, the full story behind the defenestration of Gotti Tedeschi still has to be told - he wasn't just thrown under a bus, he was thrown out the window! - so, in the interests of the truth and fairness, we must wait and see.]

How was his successor chosen? The IOR’s Superintendency Council decided to contract the services of a specialized agency, a “head hunter”. It was an external agency, which was well paid for its services. The agency identified Ernst von Freyberg for the position. Von Freyberg then hired his own, external, spokesperson, enabling him to manage relations with the press.

In a similar vein, Von Freyberg tasked an American company (the Promontory Financial Group) with auditing the IOR. Nothing wrong or unusual: auditors must be external. What is interesting is that later Antonio Montaresi was appointed the IOR’s chief risk officer. He comes from the ranks of the Promontory Financial group. No one questions Montaresi’s professional credentials. The issue is, is there a possible conflict of interest?

In the meantime, Grupo Santander – Gotti Tedeschi had been for years the president of its Italian branch – proudly and loudly announced its re-arrival to the Vatican in the role of consultant to the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See.

Pope Francis wants a poor Church, and always maintains that «structures are important, but up to a certain point.» The problem is that, up until now, Francis is increasing Vatican bodies, and thus expenses. Furthermore, the advisory commission for financial activities can also call on outside experts itself, and will have its needs well covered.

This is how outsourcing in the Vatican is growing. And while the Vatican hires outside experts, inside the Sacred Walls there continues to be potentially disloyal butlers, and priests under the influence of the gay lobby. Will Francis truly succeed in cleaning up the Church? Or will the way he is proceeding favor the formation of new interest groups? [DIM=8pt[][G[On the way to creating a many-headed mother of all bureaucratic monsters?]

Benedict XVI on the WYD banner for this post is not a mindless aberration on my part - it was my provisional banner for WYD 2013 back in October 2012 when the Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's message for WYD Rio - at a time no one even suspected he would not be the Pope who would preside over it... I've always been puzzled why the Vatican releases the papal messages for signal occasions way too early, so that by the time the occasion comes around, even the media do not remember to cite the message....

Benedict XVI's messages to young people, written or oral, prepared or extemporaneous, have always been remarkable for his pitch-perfect way of conveying the message to them as a distinct sector of society and the repository of the Church's future. At the same time, as with most of his messages and even in his books, one feels as if he is addressing me as an individual, and me alone... This is no exception, and it deserves to be posted today as the 2013 WYD festivities begin.

Just as the spirit of John Paul II was ever present in the World Youth Days under Benedict XVI, may the faithful who have gathered in Rio not forget to remember Benedict XVI along with him, and the extraordinary witness to Christ with which both Popes, as well as our current Pope, have enlightened and inspired the world while glorifying God and extending his message of love and salvation to all who have open hearts.

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MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS

BENEDICT XVI

FOR THE TWENTY-EIGHTH WORLD YOUTH DAY

2013

“Go and make disciples of all nations!” (cf. Mt 28:19)

Dear young friends, greet all of you with great joy and affection. I am sure that many of you returned from World Youth Day in Madrid all the more “planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith” (cf. Col 2:7).

This year in our Dioceses we celebrated the joy of being Christians, taking as our theme: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4). And now we are preparing for the next World Youth Day, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2013.

Before all else, I invite you once more to take part in this important event. The celebrated statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking that beautiful Brazilian city will be an eloquent symbol for us.

Christ’s open arms are a sign of his willingness to embrace all those who come to him, and his heart represents his immense love for everyone and for each of you.

Let yourselves be drawn to Christ! Experience this encounter along with all the other young people who will converge on Rio for the next World Youth Day! Accept Christ’s love and you will be the witnesses so needed by our world.

I invite you to prepare for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro by meditating even now on the theme of the meeting: “Go and make disciples of all nations!” (cf. Mt 28:19). This is the great missionary mandate that Christ gave the whole Church, and today, two thousand years later, it remains as urgent as ever.

This mandate should resound powerfully in your hearts. The year of preparation for the gathering in Rio coincides with the Year of Faith, which began with the Synod of Bishops devoted to “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”.

I am happy that you too, dear young people, are involved in this missionary outreach on the part of the whole Church. To make Christ known is the most precious gift that you can give to others.

1. A pressing call
History shows how many young people, by their generous gift of self, made a great contribution to the Kingdom of God and the development of this world by proclaiming the Gospel.

Filled with enthusiasm, they brought the Good News of God’s Love made manifest in Christ; they used the means and possibilities then available, which were far inferior to those we have today.

One example which comes to mind is Blessed José de Anchieta. He was a young Spanish Jesuit of the sixteenth century who went as a missionary to Brazil before he was twenty years old and became a great apostle of the New World.

But I also think of those among yourselves who are generously devoted to the Church’s mission. I saw a wonderful testimony of this at World Youth Day in Madrid, particularly at the meeting with volunteers.

Many young people today seriously question whether life is something good, and have a hard time finding their way. More generally, however, young people look at the difficulties of our world and ask themselves: is there anything I can do?

The light of faith illumines this darkness. It helps us to understand that every human life is priceless because each of us is the fruit of God’s love. God loves everyone, even those who have fallen away from him or disregard him. God waits patiently. Indeed, God gave his Son to die and rise again in order to free us radically from evil. Christ sent his disciples forth to bring this joyful message of salvation and new life to all people everywhere.

The Church, in continuing this mission of evangelization, is also counting on you. Dear young people, you are the first missionaries among your contemporaries! At the end of the Second Vatican Council – whose fiftieth anniversary we are celebrating this year – the Servant of God Paul VI consigned a message to the youth of the world.

It began: “It is to you, young men and women of the world, that the Council wishes to address its final message. For it is you who are to receive the torch from the hands of your elders and to live in the world at the period of the most massive transformations ever realized in its history. It is you who, taking up the best of the example and the teaching of your parents and your teachers, will shape the society of tomorrow. You will either be saved or perish with it”.

It concluded with the words: “Build with enthusiasm a better world than what we have today!” (Message to Young People, 8 December 1965).

Dear friends, this invitation remains timely. We are passing through a very particular period of history. Technical advances have given us unprecedented possibilities for interaction between people and nations. But the globalization of these relationships will be positive and help the world to grow in humanity only if it is founded on love rather than on materialism.

Love is the only thing that can fill hearts and bring people together. God is love. When we forget God, we lose hope and become unable to love others. That is why it is so necessary to testify to God’s presence so that others can experience it.

The salvation of humanity depends on this, as well as the salvation of each of us. Anyone who understands this can only exclaim with Saint Paul: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16).

2. Become Christ’s disciples
This missionary vocation comes to you for another reason as well, and that is because it is necessary for our personal journey in faith.

Blessed John Paul II wrote that “faith is strengthened when it is given to others!” (Redemptoris Missio, 2). When you proclaim the Gospel, you yourselves grow as you become more deeply rooted in Christ and mature as Christians.

Missionary commitment is an essential dimension of faith. We cannot be true believers if we do not evangelize. The proclamation of the Gospel can only be the result of the joy that comes from meeting Christ and finding in him the rock on which our lives can be built.

When you work to help others and proclaim the Gospel to them, then your own lives, so often fragmented because of your many activities, will find their unity in the Lord. You will also build up your own selves, and you will grow and mature in humanity.

What does it mean to be a missionary? Above all, it means being a disciple of Christ. It means listening ever anew to the invitation to follow him and look to him: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Mt 11:29).

A disciple is a person attentive to Jesus’s word (cf. Lk 10:39), someone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Teacher who has loved us so much that he gave his life for us. Each one of you, therefore, should let yourself be shaped by God’s word every day. This will make you friends of the Lord Jesus and enable you to lead other young people to friendship with him.

I encourage you to think of the gifts you have received from God so that you can pass them on to others in turn. Learn to reread your personal history. Be conscious of the wonderful legacy passed down to you from previous generations.

So many faith-filled people have been courageous in handing down the faith in the face of trials and incomprehension. Let us never forget that we are links in a great chain of men and women who have transmitted the truth of the faith and who depend on us to pass it on to others.

Being a missionary presupposes knowledge of this legacy, which is the faith of the Church. It is necessary to know what you believe in, so that you can proclaim it. As I wrote in the introduction to the YouCat, the catechism for young people that I gave you at World Youth Day in Madrid, “you need to know your faith with that same precision with which an IT specialist knows the inner workings of a computer. You need to understand it like a good musician knows the piece he is playing.

Yes, you need to be more deeply rooted in the faith than the generation of your parents so that you can engage the challenges and temptations of this time with strength and determination” (Foreward).

3. Go forth!
Jesus sent his disciples forth on mission with this command: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk 16:15-16).

To evangelize means to bring the Good News of salvation to others and to let them know that this Good News is a person: Jesus Christ. When I meet him, when I discover how much I am loved by God and saved by God, I begin to feel not only the desire, but also the need to make God known to others.

At the beginning of John’s Gospel we see how Andrew, immediately after he met Jesus, ran off to fetch his brother Simon (cf. 1:40-42). Evangelization always begins with an encounter with the Lord Jesus. Those who come to Jesus and have experienced his love, immediately want to share the beauty of the meeting and the joy born of his friendship.

The more we know Christ, the more we want to talk about him. The more we speak with Christ, the more we want to speak about him. The more we are won over by Christ, the more we want to draw others to him.

Through Baptism, which brings us to new life, the Holy Spirit abides in us and inflames our minds and hearts. The Spirit shows us how to know God and to enter into ever deeper friendship with Christ. It is the Spirit who encourages us to do good, to serve others and to give of ourselves.

Through Confirmation we are strengthened by the gifts of the Spirit so that we can bear witness to the Gospel in an increasingly mature way. It is the Spirit of love, therefore, who is the driving force behind our mission.

The Spirit impels us to go out from ourselves and to “go forth” to evangelize. Dear young people, allow yourselves to be led on by the power of God’s love.

Let that love overcome the tendency to remain enclosed in your own world with your own problems and your own habits. Have the courage to “go out” from yourselves in order to “go forth” towards others and to show them the way to an encounter with God.

4. Gather all nations
The risen Christ sent his disciples forth to bear witness to his saving presence before all the nations, because God in his superabundant love wants everyone to be saved and no one to be lost.

By his loving sacrifice on the cross, Jesus opened up the way for every man and woman to come to know God and enter into a communion of love with him. He formed a community of disciples to bring the saving message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth and to reach men and women in every time and place. Let us make God’s desire our own!

Dear friends, open your eyes and look around you. So many young people no longer see any meaning in their lives. Go forth! Christ needs you too. Let yourselves be caught up and drawn along by his love. Be at the service of this immense love, so it can reach out to everyone, especially to those “far away”.

Some people are far away geographically, but others are far away because their way of life has no place for God. Some people have not yet personally received the Gospel, while others have been given it, but live as if God did not exist.

Let us open our hearts to everyone. Let us enter into conversation in simplicity and respect. If this conversation is held in true friendship, it will bear fruit.

The “nations” that we are invited to reach out to are not only other countries in the world. They are also the different areas of our lives, such as our families, communities, places of study and work, groups of friends and places where we spend our free time.

The joyful proclamation of the Gospel is meant for all the areas of our lives, without exception.

I would like to emphasize two areas where your missionary commitment is all the more necessary. Dear young people, the first is the field of social communications, particularly the world of the internet.

As I mentioned to you on another occasion: “I ask you to introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives. [...] It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent’” (Message for the 43rd World Communications Day, 24 May 2009).

Learn how to use these media wisely. Be aware of the hidden dangers they contain, especially the risk of addiction, of confusing the real world with the virtual, and of replacing direct and personal encounters and dialogue with internet contacts.

The second area is that of travel and migration. Nowadays more and more young people travel, sometimes for their studies or work, and at other times for pleasure. I am also thinking of the movements of migration which involve millions of people, very often young, who go to other regions or countries for financial or social reasons.

Here too we can find providential opportunities for sharing the Gospel. Dear young people, do not be afraid to witness to your faith in these settings. It is a precious gift for those you meet when you communicate the joy of an encounter with Christ.

5. Make disciples!
I imagine that you have at times found it difficult to invite your contemporaries to an experience of faith. You have seen how many young people, especially at certain points in their life journey, desire to know Christ and to live the values of the Gospel, but also feel inadequate and incapable.

What can we do? First, your closeness and your witness will themselves be a way in which God can touch their hearts. Proclaiming Christ is not only a matter of words, but something which involves one’s whole life and translates into signs of love.

It is the love that Christ has poured into our hearts which makes us evangelizers. Consequently, our love must become more and more like Christ’s own love.

We should always be prepared, like the Good Samaritan, to be attentive to those we meet, to listen, to be understanding and to help. In this way we can lead those who are searching for the truth and for meaning in life to God’s house, the Church, where hope and salvation abide (cf. Lk 10:29-37).

Dear friends, never forget that the first act of love that you can do for others is to share the source of our hope. If we do not give them God, we give them too little!

Jesus commanded his Apostles: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19-20).

The main way that we have to “make disciples” is through Baptism and catechesis. This means leading the people we are evangelizing to encounter the living Christ above all in his word and in the sacraments. In this way they can believe in him, they can come to know God and to live in his grace.

I would like each of you to ask yourself: Have I ever had the courage to propose Baptism to young people who have not received it? Have I ever invited anyone to embark on a journey of discovery of the Christian faith?

Dear friends, do not be afraid to suggest an encounter with Christ to people of your own age. Ask the Holy Spirit for help. The Spirit will show you the way to know and love Christ even more fully, and to be creative in spreading the Gospel.

6. Firm in the faith
When faced with difficulties in the mission of evangelizing, perhaps you will be tempted to say, like the prophet Jeremiah: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth”. But God will say to you too: “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you you shall go” (Jer 1:6-7).

Whenever you feel inadequate, incapable and weak in proclaiming and witnessing to the faith, do not be afraid. Evangelization is not our initiative, and it does not depend on our talents.

is a faithful and obedient response to God’s call and so it is not based on our power but on God’s. Saint Paul knew this from experience: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7).

For this reason, I encourage you to make prayer and the sacraments your foundation. Authentic evangelization is born of prayer and sustained by prayer. We must first speak with God in order to be able to speak about God.

In prayer, we entrust to the Lord the people to whom we have been sent, asking him to touch their hearts. We ask the Holy Spirit to make us his instruments for their salvation. We ask Christ to put his words on our lips and to make us signs of his love.

In a more general way, we pray for the mission of the whole Church, as Jesus explicitly asked us: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38).

Find in the Eucharist the wellspring of your life of faith and Christian witness, regularly attending Mass each Sunday and whenever you can during the week.

Approach the sacrament of Reconciliation frequently. It is a very special encounter with God’s mercy in which he welcomes us, forgives us and renews our hearts in charity.

Make an effort to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation if you have not already done so, and prepare yourselves for it with care and commitment. Confirmation is, like the Eucharist, a sacrament of mission, for it gives us the strength and love of the Holy Spirit to profess fearlessly our faith.

I also encourage you to practise Eucharistic adoration. Time spent in listening and talking with Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament becomes a source of new missionary enthusiasm.

If you follow this path, Christ himself will give you the ability to be completely faithful to his word and to bear faithful and courageous witness to him.

At times you will be called to give proof of your perseverance, particularly when the word of God is met with rejection or opposition. In certain areas of the world, some of you suffer from the fact that you cannot bear public witness to your faith in Christ due to the lack of religious freedom. Some have already paid with their lives the price of belonging to the Church.

I ask you to remain firm in the faith, confident that Christ is at your side in every trial. To you too he says: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Mt 5:11-12).

7. With the whole Church
Dear young people, if you are to remain firm in professing the Christian faith wherever you are sent, you need the Church. No one can bear witness to the Gospel alone.

Jesus sent forth his disciples on mission together. He spoke to them in the plural when he said: “Make disciples”. Our witness is always given as members of the Christian community, and our mission is made fruitful by the communion lived in the Church. It is by our unity and love for one another that others will recognize us as Christ’s disciples (cf. Jn 13:35).

I thank God for the wonderful work of evangelization being carried out by our Christian communities, our parishes and our ecclesial movements. The fruits of this evangelization belong to the whole Church. As Jesus said: “One sows and another reaps” (Jn 4:37).

Here I cannot fail to express my gratitude for the great gift of missionaries, who devote themselves completely to proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

I also thank the Lord for priests and consecrated persons, who give themselves totally so that Jesus Christ will be proclaimed and loved. Here I would like to encourage young people who are called by God to commit themselves with enthusiasm to these vocations: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). To those who leave everything to follow him, Jesus promised a hundredfold as much and eternal life besides (cf. Mt 19:29).

I also give thanks for all those lay men and women who do their best to live their daily lives as mission wherever they find themselves, at home or at work, so that Christ will be loved and served and that the Kingdom of God will grow.

I think especially of all those who work in the fields of education, health care, business, politics and finance, and in the many other areas of the lay apostolate. Christ needs your commitment and your witness.

Let nothing – whether difficulties or lack of understanding – discourage you from bringing the Gospel of Christ wherever you find yourselves. Each of you is a precious piece in the great mosaic of evangelization!

8. “Here I am, Lord!”
Finally, dear young people, I would ask all of you to hear, in the depths of your heart, Jesus’s call to proclaim his Gospel. As the great statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro shows, his heart is open with love for each and every person, and his arms are open wide to reach out to everyone.

Be yourselves the heart and arms of Jesus! Go forth and bear witness to his love! Be a new generation of missionaries, impelled by love and openness to all! Follow the example of the Church’s great missionaries like Saint Francis Xavier and so many others.

At the conclusion of World Youth Day in Madrid, I blessed a number of young people from the different continents who were going forth on mission. They represented all those young people who, echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah, have said to the Lord: “Here I am. Send me!” (Is 6:8).

The Church has confidence in you and she thanks you for the joy and energy that you contribute. Generously put your talents to use in the service of the proclamation of the Gospel!

We know that the Holy Spirit is granted to those who open their hearts to this proclamation. And do not be afraid: Jesus, the Saviour of the world, is with us every day until the end of time (cf. Mt 28:20).

This call, which I make to the youth of the whole world, has a particular resonance for you, dear young people of Latin America!

During the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Bishops, in Aparecida in 2007, the Bishops launched a “continental mission”. Young people form a majority of the population in South America and they are an important and precious resource for the Church and society. Be in the first line of missionaries!

Now that World Youth Day is coming back to Latin America, I ask you, the young people on the continent, to transmit the enthusiasm of your faith to your contemporaries from all over the world!

May Our Lady, Star of the New Evangelization, whom we also invoke under the titles of Our Lady of Aparecida and Our Lady of Guadalupe, accompany each of you in your mission as a witness to God’s love. To all of you, with particular affection, I impart my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
18 October 2012

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In a www.chiesa article yesterday, Sandro Magister point out that less than half the population of Rio de Janeiro now identifies as Catholic, which is a shocking as well as sobering fact. It's not that Brazilians are losing their faith. Only 15 million in a population of about 190 million in 2010 said they had no religious affiliation. But in the world's largest Catholic nation (123 million Catholics), the Church continues to lose ground to the new Protestant denominations. Here is the latest report from the Pew Center using census data from 2010.


Brazil’s changing religious landscape:
Roman Catholics in decline, Protestants on the rise

July 18, 2013

Since the Portuguese colonized Brazil in the 16th century, it has been overwhelmingly Catholic. And today Brazil has more Roman Catholics than any other country in the world – an estimated 123 million.1

But the share of Brazil’s overall population that identifies as Catholic has been dropping steadily in recent decades, while the percentage of Brazilians who belong to Protestant churches has been rising.

Smaller but steadily increasing shares of Brazilians also identify with other religions or with no religion at all, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Brazilian census data.



Brazil’s total population more than doubled over the last four decades, increasing from approximately 95 million to more than 190 million. Between 1970 and 2000, the number of Catholics in the country rose, even though the share of the population that identifies as Catholic was falling.

But from 2000 to 2010, both the absolute number and the percentage of Catholics declined; Brazil’s Catholic population fell slightly from 125 million in 2000 to 123 million a decade later, dropping from 74% to 65% of the country’s total population.

The number of Brazilian Protestants, on the other hand, continued to grow in the most recent decade, rising from 26 million (15%) in 2000 to 42 million (22%) in 2010.

“Protestant” is broadly defined here to include Brazilians who identify with historically mainline and evangelical Protestant denominations as well as those who belong to Pentecostal denominations, such as the Assemblies of God and the Foursquare Church.

It also includes members of independent, neo-Pentecostal churches, such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the God is Love Pentecostal Church, both of which were founded in Brazil. But in keeping with categories in the Brazilian census, it does not include Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In addition, the number of Brazilians belonging to other religions – including Afro-Brazilian faiths such as Candomblé and Umbanda; spiritist movements like the one related to the late Chico Xavier; and global religions such as Buddhism and Islam – has been climbing.

About 2 million Brazilians belonged to these other religions in 1970. By 2000, adherents of religions other than Catholicism and Protestantism numbered about 6 million (4% of Brazil’s population), and as of 2010, the group had grown to 10 million (5%).

Finally, the number of Brazilians with no religious affiliation, including agnostics and atheists, also has been growing. In 1970, fewer than 1 million Brazilians had no religious affiliation. By 2000, that figure had jumped to 12 million (7%). In the most recent decade, the unaffiliated continued to expand, topping 15 million (8%) in Brazil’s 2010 census.

The growth of Pentecostalism in Brazil has been particularly pronounced. In Brazil’s 1991 census, about 6% of the population belonged to Pentecostal or neo-Pentecostal churches. By 2010, that share had grown to 13%.

Meanwhile, the percentage of Brazilians who identify with historical Protestant denominations, such as Baptists and Presbyterians, has remained fairly steady over the last two decades at about 3% to 4% of the population.

The Brazilian census also contains a third category of Protestants, labeled “unclassified.” That group has grown from less than 1% of Brazil’s population in 1991 to 5% in 2010.2

The rapid growth of Pentecostals and other Protestants in Brazil cannot be explained fully by demographic factors, such as fertility rates or immigration. Brazilian census data from 2000 indicate that total fertility rates for Protestants are about the same as for Catholics. In addition, less than 1% of Brazil’s population is foreign born – too small a percentage for immigration to make a significant difference in the religious composition of the country as a whole.

Rather, the main factor in the growth of Protestantism in Brazil appears to be religious switching, or movement from one religious group to another. The country’s decennial census does not ask Brazilians whether they have switched religions. But a 2006 Pew Research survey of Brazilian Pentecostals found that nearly half (45%) had converted from Catholicism.

Catholics have decreased as a share of Brazil’s population while Protestants have risen among men and women, young and old, people with and without a high school education, and those living in both urban and rural areas.

But the changes have been particularly pronounced among younger Brazilians and city dwellers, as shown in the tables below. For example, the percentage of Brazilians ages 15-29 who identify as Catholic has dropped 29 percentage points since 1970, and the share of Catholics in Brazil’s urban population has fallen 28 points.

Brazilian Catholics tend to be older and live in rural areas, while Protestants tend to be slightly younger and live in urban areas. Brazilians with no religious affiliation also are younger, on average, than the population as a whole and are more likely to reside in urban settings. The remainder of this report examines these demographic patterns in more detail.

Factors affecting differences in
religious affiliation among Brazilians

Age
Generational change has contributed to the declining number of Catholics in Brazil. As of 2010, nearly three-quarters (73%) of Brazilians ages 70 and older are Catholic, while fewer than two-thirds (63%) of those ages 15-29 identify as Catholic.

Younger cohorts are somewhat more likely than older Brazilians to be Protestant or to have no religious affiliation. As of 2010, for example, Protestants make up more than a fifth (22%) of Brazilians ages 15-29, compared with 17% of those 70 and older. And 10% of 15-to 29-year-olds had no religious affiliation in 2010, while just 4% of Brazilians ages 70 and older are unaffiliated.

Urban versus rural
Brazil’s overall population has become increasingly urban. In 1970, about half (56%) of Brazilians lived in urban areas; as of 2010, more than eight-in-ten (84%) do. As a result, all of Brazil’s religious groups have become increasingly urban – but some more so than others.

In general, Catholics are more likely than other religious groups to live in rural areas. According to the 2010 census, more than three-quarters (78%) of Brazilians who live in rural areas are Catholic, compared with roughly six-in-ten (62%) urban dwellers.

In 1970, the religious profiles of rural and urban residents were very similar, but the differences have become more pronounced in recent decades. Today, Brazil’s cities are home to a much lower share of Catholics than the country’s rural areas. For example, less than half (46%) of the population of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city, is affiliated with the Catholic Church.

Gender
According to the 2010 census, about equal percentages of Brazilian men (65%) and women (64%) are Catholic. By contrast, a slightly higher percentage of women (24%) than men (20%) identify as Protestant, while a slightly higher share of men (10%) than women (6%) have no religious affiliation. Similar shares of men (5%) and women (6%) belong to other religions.

These gender patterns have become more distinct over time. For instance, the religious profiles of men and women were quite similar in the 1970s and 1980s. But over the past two decades, the share of women who are Protestant has ticked up, as has the share of men who are religiously unaffiliated.

Education
Looking at two education levels – completion of high school and less education – there are only minor differences in the percentages of Catholics, Protestants and the unaffiliated in each group. The notable exception is that a greater share of adults who have completed high school belong to other religions (9%) compared with those who have less education (4%). This is particularly true of Brazilians belonging to spiritist movements. As of 2010, the share of spiritists who have completed high school (70%) is almost twice as high as in the general public (36%).

]TThe rest of the summary is an explanation of the methodology used in the survey and the sources for the census data used.]

This report is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, an effort funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation to analyze religious change and its impact on societies around the world.



On the eve of Benedict XVI's apostolic visit to Brazil in May 2007, Sandro Magister wrote a lengthy commentary in which he claimed tendentiously that Benedict XVI had virtually 'ignored' Latin America during the first two years of his Pontificate. Among other things, he noted this::

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In 1980, when John Paul II went to Brazil for the first time, Catholics had a near monopoly with 89 percent of the population. In the 2000 census, they had fallen to 74 percent, and today in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, and the urban areas, they are under 60 percent.

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I commented at the time:

If, in the 20-year period spanned by these statistics, the situation for Catholicism in Latin America grew worse - despite 4 Papal visits to Mexico, 2 visits to Brazil, and at least one each to almost all the other countries of Latin America, by the Pope who has been the most 'ad extra' in modern history - why is Benedict being judged now - after two years in office - for something that, clearly, not the Pope, nor any single institution, is capable of solving overnight?

The problem of Latin American Catholicism is obviously not a simple one - and how can the bishops of Latin America be unaware of it? [Magister also claimed in the article that the working document for the Aparecida conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops, which Benedict XVI opened during his trip to Brazil, 'ignored' the problems raised by the challenge of secularism and the spectacular rise of Pentacostalism in Brazil.] At the root was the superficial Christianization of the continent, which absorbed traditional Catholic practices into its culture far better than it did Christian doctrine itself.

That is why the Catholic mission there, as it is in the rest of the world, is 're-evangelization". Which is what Benedict is doing daily in trying to re-introduce the Christians of the world to Christ and to Christianity. That is where re-evangelization - or as it is now called, 'the new evangelization' - begins.

But you don't re-introduce Christ and Christianity in the misguided way the liberation theologians are doing - by making him out to be nothing more than a social activist, while ignoring, neglecting or even questioning his divinity. That is not simplifying Christ - that is falsifying him.

Through the centuries, hundreds of millions of simple folk cumulatively came to accept Christianity as it was taught to them, simply. As the Apostles did, simply: Christ is the Son of God, He is God's gift for the salvation for all men, and the Christian way of life is to love God, and love all men as one loves oneself. Benedict is settng an example for all Catholic priests on how to convey the message of Christ. Surely in time, it will have an effect.

The Protestant evangelists in Latin America have simplified their message too, not denying Christ's divinity, to begin with, but in ways that, as sociologists and historians and other scholars have studied, are able to get their message through somehow far more effectively and efficiently than the Roman Catholic Church. How lasting these 'conversions' will be, no one can tell yet...

In checking out some facts about religion on Brazil, I had turned to the APOSTOLIC VISIT TO BRAZIL thread in the Papa Ratzinger Forum - and found myself engrossed in rereading the whole thread - which began with preparations for that visit all the way through a full coverage of the visit itself and the major commentaries thereof. I needed to be reminded of the multifaceted richness, the breadth and depth, of that visit by Benedict XVI, in which he canonized Brazil's first native-born saint, Frei Antonio Galvao, and opened the Aparecida conference. But he also had an amazing encounter with the young people of Sao Paolo, which I shall resurrect here in connection with the current WYD Rio. Maybe he was thinking of that evening rally in Pacaembu Stadium when he decided tow years ago that the 2013 WYD would be held in Rio de Janeiro...

But I also came across his address to the bishops of Brazil in Sao Paolo Cathedral where he said, among his comprehensive checklist of the tasks for Latin American bishops, a number of things that resonate today under a new Pontificate, including the exhortation to bishops and priests to 'go to the outskirts', and starting with his citation of the Gospel passage that states the theme for this year's WYD, and goes on to anticipate the fundamentals he would seek to emphasize in decreeing the Year of Faith five years after that visit to Brazil:

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"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

These words are simple yet sublime; they speak of our duty to proclaim the truth of the faith, the urgent need for the sacramental life, and the promise of Christ's continual assistance to his Church.

These are fundamental realities: they speak of instructing people in the faith and in Christian morality, and of celebrating the sacraments. Wherever God and his will are unknown, wherever faith in Jesus Christ and in his sacramental presence is lacking, the essential element for the solution of pressing social and political problems is also missing.

Fidelity to the primacy of God and of his will, known and lived in communion with Jesus Christ, is the essential gift that we Bishops and priests must offer to our people (cf. "Populorum Progressio," 21).

Our ministry as Bishops thus impels us to discern God's saving will and to devise a pastoral plan capable of training God's People to recognize and embrace transcendent values, in fidelity to the Lord and to the Gospel.

Certainly the present is a difficult time for the Church, and many of her children are experiencing difficulty. Society is experiencing moments of worrying disorientation.

The sanctity of marriage and the family are attacked with impunity, as concessions are made to forms of pressure which have a harmful effect on legislative processes; crimes against life are justified in the name of individual freedom and rights; attacks are made on the dignity of the human person; the plague of divorce and extra-marital unions is increasingly widespread.

Even more: when, within the Church herself, people start to question the value of the priestly commitment as a total entrustment to God through apostolic celibacy and as a total openness to the service of souls, and preference is given to ideological, political and even party issues, the structure of total consecration to God begins to lose its deepest meaning.

How can we not be deeply saddened by this? But be confident: the Church is holy and imperishable (cf. Ephesians 5:27). As Saint Augustine said: "The Church will be shaken if its foundation is shaken; but will Christ be shaken? Since Christ cannot be shaken, the Church will remain firmly established to the end of time" ("Enarrationes in Psalmos," 103,2,5: PL 37,1353).

A particular problem which you face as Pastors is surely the issue of those Catholics who have abandoned the life of the Church. It seems clear that the principal cause of this problem is to be found in the lack of an evangelization completely centered on Christ and his Church.

Those who are most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of sects - a just cause for concern - and those who are incapable of resisting the onslaught of agnosticism, relativism and secularization are generally the baptized who remain insufficiently evangelized; they are easily influenced because their faith is weak, confused, easily shaken and naive, despite their innate religiosity.

In the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, I stated that "being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (No. 1).

Consequently, there is a need to engage in apostolic activity as a true mission in the midst of the flock that is constituted by the Church in Brazil, and to promote on every level a methodical evangelization aimed at personal and communal fidelity to Christ.

No effort should be spared in seeking out those Catholics who have fallen away and those who know little or nothing of Jesus Christ, by implementing a pastoral plan which welcomes them and helps them realize that the Church is a privileged place of encounter with God, and also through a continuing process of catechesis.

What is required, in a word, is a mission of evangelization capable of engaging all the vital energies present in this immense flock. My thoughts turn to the priests, the men and women religious and the laity who work so generously, often in the face of immense difficulties, in order to spread the truth of the Gospel.

Many of them cooperate with or actively participate in the associations, movements and other new ecclesial realities that, in communion with the Pastors and in harmony with diocesan guidelines, bring their spiritual, educational and missionary richness to the heart of the Church, as a precious experience and a model of Christian life.

In this work of evangelization the ecclesial community should be clearly marked by pastoral initiatives, especially by sending missionaries, lay or religious, to homes on the outskirts of the cities and in the interior, to enter into dialogue with everyone in a spirit of understanding, sensitivity and charity.

On the other hand, if the persons they encounter are living in poverty, it is necessary to help them, as the first Christian communities did, by practising solidarity and making them feel truly loved.

The poor living in the outskirts of the cities or the countryside need to feel that the Church is close to them, providing for their most urgent needs, defending their rights and working together with them to build a society founded on justice and peace.

The Gospel is addressed in a special way to the poor, and the Bishop, modelled on the Good Shepherd, must be particularly concerned with offering them the divine consolation of the faith, without overlooking their need for "material bread".

As I wished to stress in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, "the Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the sacraments and the word" (No. 22)....

Starting afresh from Christ in every area of missionary activity; rediscovering in Jesus the love and salvation given to us by the Father through the Holy Spirit: this is the substance and lifeline of the episcopal mission which makes the Bishop the person primarily responsible for catechesis in his diocese.

Indeed, it falls ultimately to him to direct catechesis, surrounding himself with competent and trustworthy co-workers. It is therefore clear that the catechist's task is not simply to communicate faith-experiences; rather - under the guidance of the Pastor - it is to be an authentic herald of revealed truths.

Faith is a journey led by the Holy Spirit which can be summed up in two words: conversion and discipleship. In the Christian tradition, these two key words clearly indicate that faith in Christ implies a way of living based on the twofold command to love God and neighbour - and they also express life's social dimension.

Truth presupposes a clear understanding of Jesus's message transmitted by means of an intelligible, inculturated language, which must nevertheless remain faithful to the Gospel's intent.

At this time, there is an urgent need for an adequate knowledge of the faith as it is presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its accompanying Compendium. education in Christian personal and social virtues is also an essential part of catechesis, as is education in social responsibility...

- BENEDICT XVI
Address to the Bishops of Brazil
Sao Paolo Cathedral
May 11, 2007

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/07/2013 11:00]

SORRY ABOUT BEING AWAY YESTERDAY...
RESERVED FOR STORY OF POPE'S INFLIGHT STATEMENT
AND INTERACTION WITH JOURNALISTS

RESERVED FOR ALMANAC POSTING FOR WEDNESDAY, JULY 24

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Brazil,
urges resistance of money, pleasure
by Nicole Winfield and Jenny Barchfield


APARECIDA, Brazi, July 24, 2013 - Pope Francis urged Catholics to resist the "ephemeral idols" of money, power and pleasure in celebrating the first public Mass of his initial international foreign journey as pontiff during an emotional visit to one of the most important shrines in Latin America.


Pope Francis preaching (to the right of the altar area) at the Basilica. Unfortunately, there is the usual paucity of representative photos of the Mass, much less any that illustrate what the news reports say.


Thousands packed into the huge Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, tucked into an agricultural region of verdant fields halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo, and tens of thousands more braved a cold rain outside to catch a glimpse of the first pope from the Americas returning to a shrine of great meaning to the continent and him personally.

Before the Mass, Francis stood in silent prayer in front of the 15-inch-tall image of the Virgin of Aparecida, the "Black Mary," his eyes tearing up as he breathed heavily. [Unfortunately, I have seen no photos of this so far.] It was a deeply personal moment for this pontiff, who has entrusted his papacy to the Virgin Mary and, like many Catholics in Latin America, places great importance in devotion to Mary.


These are two photos of the Pope with the image of Nostra Senhora do Aparecida, but not during his prayer, obviously.

After his Mass, the pope blessed the tens of thousands gathered outside the basilica and announced that he would return to Aparecida in 2017, the year that marks the 300th anniversary of a fisherman finding the Black Mary statue in a nearby river.

During his homily, Francis urged Catholics to keep their values of faith, generosity and fraternity, a message he was expected to repeat later in the day during a visit to a drug rehabilitation centre in Rio de Janeiro.

"It is true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone including our young people feels attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer hope: money, success, power, pleasure," he said. "Often a growing sense of loneliness and emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these ephemeral idols."

The Church is struggling in Latin America to keep Catholics from straying to evangelical and Pentecostal churches that often promise help in finding material wealth, an alluring attraction in a poverty-wracked continent. Francis's top priority as pope has been to reach out to the world's poor and inspire Catholic leaders to go to slums and other peripheries to preach.

It was no coincidence, then, that the first major event of his first foreign trip as pope was a Mass in Aparecida. The shrine, which draws 11 million pilgrims a year, hosted a critical 2007 meeting of Latin American bishops who, under the guidance of then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, drafted a mission statement on how to reinvigorate the faith on the continent. [No mention at all that Benedict XVI opened that important conference, and that it had been his personal choice to hold it in Aparecida. The Fifth General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops had been scheduled to take place in Rome instead of Quito, Ecuador, because John Paul II was no longer able to travel. But with his death in 2005, Latin American bishops asked the new Pope, Benedict XVI, in autumn of 2005 whether they should continue to plan the meeting in Tome. To their surprise, he told them, "Let's do it in Aparecida - and I will be there".]

"I've seen people in my own congregation leave because the Evangelicals offer them something new and exciting and the Catholic Church was seen as kind of old and stuffy," said Marcia Cecilia de Souza, the 52-year-old owner of a private school in the southern state of Santa Catarina, as she searched for newspaper to stuff into her soaked leather boots. "Francis is such an inspiration, so humble and giving I think he's going to bring people back into the fold."
[This has been such an exhausted cliche with every new Pope since John XXIII, and would it were true in general - instead of which there has been a steady loss to secularism and the 'easier, more attractive' new Protestant denominations. This attrition was most dramatically illustrated in that it steadily increased - especially in Latin America, and most particularly in Brazil - through the 27 years of John Paul II's Pontificate, during which he visited Latin America multiple times - three times to Brazil alone and four times to Mexico. Which shows that not even the most popular of Popes - before Francis, that is - csn singlehandedly stanch the losses, and why he, John Paul II, launched the idea of the New Evangelization which is the heart of the 'continental mission' for aAmerica that Benedict XVI urged in 2007, and was enunciated in the final document of the Aparecida conference, of which the now Pope Francis was the chief drafter and editor. That is the context for Aparecida 2007 that the news reports today have completely ignored.]

Unlike the scenes of chaos that greeted Francis upon his Monday arrival in Rio, when a mob of faithful swarmed his motorcade from the airport, the security situation in Aparecida was far more controlled.

Chest-high barriers kept the faithful far from his car. Soldiers in camouflage, emergency crews in raincoats and other uniformed security forces stood guard along his route while his bodyguards walked along the side of his vehicle.

Not all were pleased with the increased security.

"They put up a Berlin Wall between us and the pope and we couldn't get anywhere near him. You could tell he wanted to get close to us but the police really insisted on this separation," said Joao Franklin, a 51-year-old from Minas Gerais state. "I felt really excluded by all these barriers and don't see the need for them. We're all here to show our love for him and we just want to get close to show him that love."

[Sadly, the unintended consequence of the decision not to use the Popemobile used by John Paul II and Benedict XVI on their travels - which was designed to give the Pope maximum visibility to those present - his seat is elevated well above the eye level of the average person so that even persons standing in the rear of can get to see him - while also providing the maximum security under the difficult circumstances when everybody naturally wants to get as close to the Pope as possible. As it is, the Popemobile that has been used by Francis in Brazil so far is not really the open-top jeep he uses in St. Peter's Square - as many news agencies continued to report today, despite the photos showing it was not an open top Popemobile, but an open-sided one. Benedict XVI used it in St. Peter's Square on days of inclement weather as it provides protection from the wind and even from a sudden rain. A comparison of photos showing Francis in Aparecida this morning and Benedict XVI in Aparecida in May 2007 shows why the classic Popemobile was really a happy compromise between maximum visibility of the Pope and as much security as is necessary.

Photos above are from the reportage on B16's pre-Mass Popemobile tour of the crowd in Aparecida, and were taken fromthe APOSTOLIC VOYAGE TO BRAZIL thread in the PRF.
http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=355107&p=7

Aparecida, July 24, 2013:



The bullet-proof windows of the classic Popemobile roll down, and they almost always were when Benedict XVI toured the crowds before a Mass or a big event - they were rolled down all the way when a baby or child was passed through for the Pope to bless. The only substantial difference I can see is that Pope Francis can be seen full length through the open-sided jeep, and that he must necessarily stand all the way. But the classic Popemobile makes the Pope more visible to more people because he is elevated above the crowd's eye level, visible even above the forest of upraised arms surrounding the Popemobile. I believe the Popemobile was intended to satisfy the most number of people wanting to see the Pope during the occasions it is used, not to gratify the Pope's personal wish to be 'accessible' to the People, since even with the most generous of arrangements, he can be accessible, i.e., touched, only by a few. Of course, certain gestures can be powerful, but they are less so when they are self-assertive and 'advertised', as it were. Did anyone ever complain during the JP2-B16 years that the Popemobile made them inaccessible? Accessibility need not be literal all the time. Might as well have 'open house' regularly at Casa Santa Marta when anyone is free to drop in and be hugged by the Pope.]

Nacilda de Oliveira Silva, a short 61-year-old maid, perched at the front of the crowd though she was barely tall enough to see over the metal barrier.

"I have been up for almost 24 hours, most of that time on my feet and in the rain and the cold. But I don't feel any pain. I feel bathed in God's glory, and that's because of the pope. For me, it's the same thing as seeing Jesus pass by. That's how moved I feel."

Before the Mass, some pilgrims sought shelter from the Southern Hemisphere winter chill beneath tarps while others wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags.

And many left offerings to the Virgin. Lena Halfeld, a 65-year-old housewife, paused to add her offering to a cardboard box filled with stuffed animals, leg braces and other personal objects. She deposited an embossed invitation to her niece's December wedding, which she was praying for the Virgin to bless.

"I have real faith in the powers of the Virgin of Aparecida," said Halfeld, adding she had made the hours-long trip to the church once a week for a year during her husband's recent illness. "Now he's cured, so I owe it all to her. I can't think of a more wonderful setting to see the new pope."

Francis is in Brazil for World Youth Day, a church event that brings together young Catholics from around the world roughly every three years. Approximately 350,000 young pilgrims signed up to officially take part in the Youth Day events.

In Aparecida, 16-year-old Natalia Pereira, a high school student from Sao Paulo state, said the cold rain she endured to get to the basilica was a "test of faith."

"I've been up all night in line, I'm soaked to the bone and freezing but I'm so excited that it's worth it," said Pereira, who tried to huddle from the drizzle beneath a friend's large umbrella. "This is my first time seeing a pope and this was an opportunity of a lifetime for me. I wasn't about to let it go because of a little rain."

Here is the Vatican translation of the Pope's homily delivered in Portuguese:

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My Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

What joy I feel as I come to the house of the Mother of every Brazilian, the Shrine of our Lady of Aparecida! The day after my election as Bishop of Rome, I visited the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, in order to entrust my ministry as the Successor of Peter to Our Lady. Today I have come here to ask Mary our Mother for the success of World Youth Day and to place at her feet the life of the people of Latin America.

There is something that I would like to say first of all. Six years ago the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean was held in this Shrine. Something beautiful took place here, which I witnessed at first hand.

I saw how the Bishops – who were discussing the theme of encountering Christ, discipleship and mission – felt encouraged, supported and in some way inspired by the thousands of pilgrims who came here day after day to entrust their lives to Our Lady. That Conference was a great moment of Church.

It can truly be said that the Aparecida Document was born of this interplay between the labours of the Bishops and the simple faith of the pilgrims, under Mary’s maternal protection. When the Church looks for Jesus, she always knocks at his Mother’s door and asks: “Show us Jesus”. It is from Mary that the Church learns true discipleship. That is why the Church always goes out on mission in the footsteps of Mary.

Today, looking forward to the World Youth Day which has brought me to Brazil, I too come to knock on the door of the house of Mary – who loved and raised Jesus – that she may help all of us, pastors of God’s people, parents and educators, to pass on to our young people the values that can help them build a nation and a world which are more just, united and fraternal.

For this reason I would like to speak of three simple attitudes: hopefulness, openness to being surprised by God, and living in joy.

1. Hopefulness. The second reading of the Mass presents a dramatic scene: a woman – an image of Mary and the Church – is being pursued by a Dragon – the devil – who wants to devour her child. But the scene is not one of death but of life, because God intervenes and saves the child (cf. Rev 12:13a, 15-16a).

How many difficulties are present in the life of every individual, among our people, in our communities; yet as great as these may seem, God never allows us to be overwhelmed by them. In the face of those moments of discouragement we experience in life, in our efforts to evangelize or to embody our faith as parents within the family, I would like to say forcefully:

Always know in your heart that God is by your side; he never abandons you! Let us never lose hope! Let us never allow it to die in our hearts! The “dragon”, evil, is present in our history, but it does not have the upper hand. The one with the upper hand is God, and God is our hope!

It is true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone, including our young people, feels attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer hope: money, success, power, pleasure. Often a growing sense of loneliness and emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these ephemeral idols.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us be lights of hope! Let us maintain a positive outlook on reality. Let us encourage the generosity which is typical of the young and help them to work actively in building a better world.

Young people are a powerful engine for the Church and for society. They do not need material things alone; also and above all, they need to have held up to them those non-material values which are the spiritual heart of a people, the memory of a people.

In this Shrine, which is part of the memory of Brazil, we can almost read those values: spirituality, generosity, solidarity, perseverance, fraternity, joy; they are values whose deepest root is in the Christian faith.

2. The second attitude: openness to being surprised by God. Anyone who is a man or a woman of hope – the great hope which faith gives us – knows that even in the midst of difficulties God acts and he surprises us.

The history of this Shrine is a good example: three fishermen, after a day of catching no fish, found something unexpected in the waters of the Parnaíba River: an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

Whoever would have thought that the site of a fruitless fishing expedition would become the place where all Brazilians can feel that they are children of one Mother? God always surprises us, like the new wine in the Gospel we have just heard. God always saves the best for us.

But he asks us to let ourselves be surprised by his love, to accept his surprises. Let us trust God! Cut off from him, the wine of joy, the wine of hope, runs out. If we draw near to him, if we stay with him, what seems to be cold water, difficulty, sin, is changed into the new wine of friendship with him.

3. The third attitude: living in joy. Dear friends, if we walk in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine which Jesus offers us, we have joy in our hearts and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy.

Christians are joyful, they are never gloomy. God is at our side. We have a Mother who always intercedes for the life of her children, for us, as Queen Esther did in the first reading (cf Est 5:3).

Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us.

As Benedict XVI said: “the disciple knows that without Christ, there is no light, no hope, no love, no future” (Inaugural Address, Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, Aparecida, 13 May 2007, 3).

Dear friends, we have come to knock at the door of Mary’s house. She has opened it for us, she has let us in and she shows us her Son. Now she asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). Yes, dear Mother, we are committed to doing whatever Jesus tells us! And we will do it with hope, trusting in God’s surprises and full of joy. Amen.

---

The obvious lookback feature at time is not by date but by occasion. In this case, the Mass celebrated by Benedict XVI on the esplanade of the Shrine in Aparecida on May 12, 2007, and the Regina caeli that followed it.

Benedict XVI in Aparecida:
Opening Mass of the V CELAM Conference
May 12, 2007







Here are the Vatican translations of the homily and pre-Regina caeli remarks, both of which the Pope delivered in Portuguese and Spanish.

---

Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear priests, and all of you, brothers and sisters in the Lord!

There are no words to express my joy in being here with you to celebrate this solemn Eucharist on the occasion of the opening of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean.

I greet each of you most warmly, particularly Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis, whom I thank for the words he addressed to me in the name of the entire assembly, and the Cardinal Presidents of this General Conference.

My respectful greeting goes to the civil and military Authorities who have honoured us with their presence.

From this Shrine my thoughts reach out, full of affection and prayer, to all those who are spiritually united with us, especially the communities of consecrated life, the young people belonging to various associations and movements, the families, and also the sick and the elderly. To all I say: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:3).

I see it as a special gift of Providence that this Holy Mass is being celebrated at this time and in this place. The time is the liturgical season of Easter; on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, as Pentecost rapidly approaches, the Church is called to intensify her prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The place is the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, the Marian heart of Brazil:

Mary welcomes us to this Upper Room and, as our Mother and Teacher, helps us to pray trustingly to God with one voice. This liturgical celebration lays a most solid foundation for the Fifth Conference, setting it on the firm basis of prayer and the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis.

Only the love of Christ, poured out by the Holy Spirit, can make this meeting an authentic ecclesial event, a moment of grace for this Continent and for the whole world. This afternoon I will be able to discuss more fully the implications of the theme of your Conference.

But now, let us leave space for the word of God which we have the joy of receiving with open and docile hearts, like Mary, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, so that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ may once again take flesh in the "today" of our history.

The first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, refers to the so-called 'Council of Jerusalem', which dealt with the question as to whether the observance of the Mosaic Law was to be imposed on those pagans who had become Christians. The reading leaves out the discussion between "the apostles and the elders" (vv. 4-21) and reports the final decision, which was then written down in the form of a letter and entrusted to two delegates for delivery to the community in Antioch (vv. 22-29).

This passage from Acts is highly appropriate for us, since we too are assembled here for an ecclesial meeting. It reminds us of the importance of community discernment with regard to the great problems and issues encountered by the Church along her way.

These are clarified by the "apostles" and "elders" in the light of the Holy Spirit, who, as today’s Gospel says, calls to mind the teaching of Jesus Christ (cf. Jn 14:26) and thus helps the Christian community to advance in charity towards the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 16:13). The Church’s leaders discuss and argue, but in a constant attitude of religious openness to Christ’s word in the Holy Spirit. Consequently, at the end they can say: "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…" (Acts 15:28).

This is the "method" by which we operate in the Church, whether in small gatherings or in great ones. It is not only question of procedure: it is a reflection of the Church’s very nature as a mystery of communion with Christ in the Holy Spirit.

In the case of the General Conferences of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, the first, held in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, merited a special Letter from Pope Pius XII, of venerable memory; in later Conferences, including the present one, the Bishop of Rome has travelled to the site of the continental gathering in order to preside over its initial phase.

With gratitude and devotion let us remember the Servants of God Paul VI and John Paul II, who brought to the Conferences of Medellín, Puebla and Santo Domingo the witness of the closeness of the universal Church to the Churches in Latin America, which constitute, proportionally, the majority of the Catholic community.

"To the Holy Spirit and to us". This is the Church: we, the community of believers, the People of God, with its Pastors who are called to lead the way; together with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, sent in the name of his Son Jesus, the Spirit of the one who is "greater" than all, given to us through Christ, who became "small" for our sake.

The Paraclete Spirit, our Ad-vocatus, Defender and Consoler, makes us live in God’s presence, as hearers of his word, freed from all anxiety and fear, bearing in our hearts the peace which Jesus left us, the peace that the world cannot give (cf. Jn 14:26-27).

The Spirit accompanies the Church on her long pilgrimage between Christ’s first and second coming. "I go away, and I will come to you" (Jn 14:28), Jesus tells his Apostles. Between Christ’s "going away" and his "return" is the time of the Church, his Body.

Two thousand years have passed so far, including these five centuries and more in which the Church has made her pilgrim way on the American Continent, filling believers with Christ’s life through the sacraments and sowing in these lands the good seed of the Gospel, which has yielded thirty, sixty and a hundredfold.

The time of the Church, the time of the Spirit: the Spirit is the Teacher who trains disciples: he teaches them to love Jesus; he trains them to hear his word and to contemplate his countenance; he conforms them to Christ’s sacred humanity, a humanity which is poor in spirit, afflicted, meek, hungry for justice, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking, persecuted for justice’s sake (cf. Mt 5:3-10).

By the working of the Holy Spirit, Jesus becomes the "Way" along which the disciple walks. "If a man loves me, he will keep my word", Jesus says at the beginning of today’s Gospel. "The word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me" (Jn 14:23-24).

Just as Jesus makes known the words of the Father, so the Spirit reminds the Church of Christ’s own words (cf. Jn 14:26). And just as love of the Father led Jesus to feed on his will, so our love for Jesus is shown by our obedience to his words. Jesus’s fidelity to the Father’s will can be communicated to his disciples through the Holy Spirit, who pours the love of God into their hearts (cf. Rom 5:5).

The New Testament presents Christ as the missionary of the Father. Especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus often speaks of himself in relation to the Father who sent him into the world. And so in today’s Gospel he says: "the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me" (Jn 14:24).

At this moment, dear friends, we are invited to turn our gaze to him, for the Church’s mission exists only as a prolongation of Christ’s mission: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you" (Jn 20:21). The evangelist stresses, in striking language, that the passing on of this commission takes place in the Holy Spirit: "he breathed on them and said to them: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’" (Jn 20:22).

Christ’s mission is accomplished in love. He has kindled in the world the fire of God’s love (cf. Lk 12:49). It is Love that gives life: and so the Church has been sent forth to spread Christ’s Love throughout the world, so that individuals and peoples "may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10).

To you, who represent the Church in Latin America, today I symbolically entrust my Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, in which I sought to point out to everyone the essence of the Christian message.

The Church considers herself the disciple and missionary of this Love: missionary only insofar as she is a disciple, capable of being attracted constantly and with renewed wonder by the God who has loved us and who loves us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:10).

The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by "attraction": just as Christ "draws all to himself" by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfils her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.

Dear brothers and sisters! This is the priceless treasure that is so abundant in Latin America, this is her most precious inheritance: faith in the God who is Love, who has shown us his face in Jesus Christ.

You believe in the God who is Love: this is your strength, which overcomes the world, the joy that nothing and no one can ever take from you, the peace that Christ won for you by his Cross!

This is the faith that has made America the "Continent of Hope." Not a political ideology, not a social movement, not an economic system: faith in the God who is Love — who took flesh, died and rose in Jesus Christ — is the authentic basis for this hope which has brought forth such a magnificent harvest from the time of the first evangelization until today, as attested by the ranks of Saints and Beati whom the Spirit has raised up throughout the Continent.

Pope John Paul II called you to a new evangelization, and you accepted his commission with your customary generosity and commitment. I now confirm it with you, and in the words of this Fifth Conference I say to you: be faithful disciples, so as to be courageous and effective missionaries.

The second reading sets before us the magnificent vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. It is an image of awesome beauty, where nothing is superfluous, but everything contributes to the perfect harmony of the holy City. In his vision John sees the city "coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God" (Rev 21:10).

And since the glory of God is Love, the heavenly Jerusalem is the icon of the Church, utterly holy and glorious, without spot or wrinkle (cf. Eph 5:27), permeated at her heart and in every part of her by the presence of the God who is Love.

She is called a "bride", "the bride of the Lamb" (Rev 20:9), because in her is fulfilled the nuptial figure which pervades biblical revelation from beginning to end. The City and Bride is the locus of God’s full communion with humanity; she has no need of a temple or of any external source of light, because the indwelling presence of God and of the Lamb illuminates her from within.

This magnificent icon has an eschatological value: it expresses the mystery of the beauty that is already the essential form of the Church, even if it has not yet arrived at its fullness. It is the goal of our pilgrimage, the homeland which awaits us and for which we long.

Seeing that beauty with the eyes of faith, contemplating it and yearning for it, must not serve as an excuse for avoiding the historical reality in which the Church lives as she shares the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially those who are poor or afflicted]/G] (cf. Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1).

If the beauty of the heavenly Jerusalem is the glory of God —his love in other words — then it is in charity, and in charity alone, that we can approach it and to a certain degree dwell within it even now. Whoever loves the Lord Jesus and keeps his word, already experiences in this world the mysterious presence of the Triune God.

We heard this in the Gospel: "we will come to him and make our home with him" (Jn 14:23). Every Christian is therefore called to become a living stone of this splendid "dwelling place of God with men". What a magnificent vocation!

A Church totally enlivened and impelled by the love of Christ, the Lamb slain for love, is the image within history of the heavenly Jerusalem, prefiguring the holy city that is radiant with the glory of God. It releases an irresistible missionary power which is the power of holiness.

Through the prayers of the Virgin Mary, may the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean be abundantly clothed with power from on high (cf. Lk 24:49), in order to spread throughout this Continent and the whole world the holiness of Christ. To him be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.



REMARKS BEFORE LEADING 'REGINA CAELI'

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
With great affection I greet all of you who have come from the four corners of Brazil, from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as those who are listening to me via radio and television.

During the celebration of Mass, I invoked the Holy Spirit, asking him to make fruitful the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which I shall inaugurate shortly.

I ask you all to pray for the fruits of this great gathering, which opens up a future of hope for the Latin American family. You have a part to play in building your Nations' destiny. May God bless you and be with you!

I offer affectionate greetings to the Spanish-speaking groups and communities present today, and to all those in Spain and Latin America who are spiritually united with this celebration.

May the Virgin Mary help you to keep alive the flame of faith, love and harmony, so that by the witness of your lives and by faithfulness to your baptismal vocation, you may be light and hope for humanity.

Let us also pray that the celebration of this Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean will bear many fruits of authentic spiritual renewal and untiring evangelization. God bless you!

I warmly greet all the English-speaking groups present today. Families stand at the heart of the Church's mission of evangelization, for it is in the home that our life of faith is first expressed and nurtured.

Parents, you are the primary witnesses to your children of the truths and values of our faith: pray with and for your children; teach them by your example of fidelity and joy!

Indeed, every disciple, spurred on by word and strengthened by sacrament, is called to mission. It is a duty from which no one should shy away, for nothing is more beautiful than to know Christ and to make him known to others!

May Our Lady of Guadalupe be your model and guide. God bless you all!

Dear French-speaking families and groups, I greet with all my heart those of you who live on the South American Continent, especially in Haiti, in French Guiana and in the Antilles. May you build, in cooperation with others, a more generous and fraternal society, taking care to help young people discover the greatness of family values.

Today is the ninetieth anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. With their powerful call to conversion and penance, they are without doubt the most prophetic of all modern apparitions. Let us ask the Mother of the Church, who knows the sufferings and hopes of humanity, to protect our homes and our communities.

In a special way we entrust to her those peoples and nations that are in particular need, confident that she will not fail to heed the prayers we make to her with filial devotion.

I remember in a special way those brothers and sisters who suffer from hunger. In this regard I want to mention the "March against Hunger" promoted by the World Food Programme, the United Nations agency responsible for food assistance. This initiative is taking place today in many cities worldwide, including Ribeirão Preto here in Brazil.

Our prayers are offered also for the Afro-Brazilian community, who this Sunday are commemorating the abolition of slavery in Brazil. May this celebration foster a renewed sense of missionary outreach towards this highly significant socio-cultural group in the Land of the Holy Cross.

I also extend my warm greetings, together with my sincere gratitude, to all the groups and associations gathered here. May God reward you and keep you firm in the faith.

Let us now proclaim with joy the hymn of our salvation.

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I've added this last photo only because I think the cardinal on the right was Cardinal Bergoglio, but I cannot get a better resolution of the face which is shadowed. Maybe someone with good photoshop skills can clarify it...We have only seen one photo of Benedict XVI and Bergoglio in Aparecida - that where they are greeting each other with a poster written in Portuguese in the background.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/07/2013 11:52]

Pope Francis visits recovering
drug addicts in Rio hospital
By FRANCIS X ROCCA

July 25, 2013



Pope Francis addressed a group of recovering drug addicts at hospital in Rio de Janeiro, offering them a message of compassion and a challenge.

At the Hospital of St Francis of Assisi, which the Pope called a “shrine of human suffering,” he told patients they were the “flesh of Christ,” like the leper embraced by the institution’s patron saint in a crucial step toward his conversion. He also said those struggling with drug dependency deserve the “closeness, affection and love” of all society.

Yet he also stressed the necessity of personal will in recovering from addiction. “To embrace someone is not enough,” Pope Francis said. “We must hold the hand of the one in need, of the one who has fallen into the darkness of dependency perhaps without even knowing how, and we must say to him or her: ‘You can get up, you can stand up. It is difficult, but it is possible if you want to.’

“Dear friends, I wish to say to each of you, but especially to all those others who have not had the courage to embark on our journey: ‘You have to want to stand up; this is the indispensable condition.’”

The Pope arrived at the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and was greeted by patients, family members and hospital staff packed into one of the hospital’s courtyards. The audience was in good spirits despite the rain, and Pope Francis spent nearly an hour passing through the crowd. He then listened to several speeches, including two by recovering addicts.

The Pope’s speech, delivered in Portuguese, also addressed the social, political and economic ramifications of drug abuse. He denounced the “scourge of drug-trafficking that favurs violence and sows the seeds of suffering and death,” and called traffickers “dealers of death,” who “follow the logic of money and power at any cost.”

He said that the answer to drug addiction was not a “liberalisation of drug use, as is currently being proposed in various parts of Latin America,” but solutions to the “problems underlying the use of these drugs.”

Such solutions, Pope Francis said, include “promoting greater justice, educating young people in the values that build up life in society, accompanying those in difficulty and giving them hope for the future.”

During his visit, Pope Francis inaugurated a new wing of the hospital dedicated to treating users of crack cocaine, who represent three percent of the population of Brazil, according to the World Health Organisation statistics cited by the hospital. The city of Rio estimates there are 6,000 crack users in the city alone.



Here is the official Vatican translation of the Pope's remarks:

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Dear Archbishop Tempesta, brother Bishops,
Distinguished Authorities,
Members of the Venerable Third Order of Saint Francis of Penance,
Doctors, Nurses, and Health Care Workers,
Dear Young People and Family Members,

God has willed that my journey, after the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, should take me to a particular shrine of human suffering – the Saint Francis of Assisi Hospital.

The conversion of your patron saint is well known: the young Francis abandoned the riches and comfort of the world in order to become a poor man among the poor. He understood that true joy and riches do not come from the idols of this world – material things and the possession of them – but are to be found only in following Christ and serving others.

Less well known, perhaps, is the moment when this understanding took concrete form in his own life. It was when Francis embraced a leper. This brother, suffering and an outcast, was the “mediator of light ... for Saint Francis of Assisi” (Lumen Fidei, 57), because in every suffering brother and sister that we embrace, we embrace the suffering Body of Christ.

Today, in this place where people struggle with drug addiction, I wish to embrace each and every one of you, who are the flesh of Christ, and to ask God to renew your journey, and also mine, with purpose and steadfast hope.

To embrace – we all have to learn to embrace the one in need, as Saint Francis did. There are so many situations in Brazil, and throughout the world, that require attention, care and love, like the fight against chemical dependency.

Often, instead, it is selfishness that prevails in our society. How many “dealers of death” there are that follow the logic of power and money at any cost! The scourge of drug-trafficking, that favours violence and sows the seeds of suffering and death, requires of society as a whole an act of courage.

A reduction in the spread and influence of drug addiction will not be achieved by a liberalization of drug use, as is currently being proposed in various parts of Latin America. Rather, it is necessary to confront the problems underlying the use of these drugs, by promoting greater justice, educating young people in the values that build up life in society, accompanying those in difficulty and giving them hope for the future.

We all need to look upon one another with the loving eyes of Christ, and to learn to embrace those in need, in order to show our closeness, affection and love.

To embrace someone is not enough, however. We must hold the hand of the one in need, of the one who has fallen into the darkness of dependency perhaps without even knowing how, and we must say to him or her: You can get up, you can stand up. It is difficult, but it is possible if you want to.

Dear friends, I wish to say to each of you, but especially to all those others who have not had the courage to embark on our journey: You have to want to stand up; this is the indispensible condition! You will find an outstretched hand ready to help you, but no one is able to stand up in your place.

But you are never alone! The Church and so many people are close to you. Look ahead with confidence. Yours is a long and difficult journey, but look ahead, there is “a sure future, set against a different horizon with regard to the illusory enticements of the idols of this world, yet granting new momentum and strength to our daily lives” (Lumen Fidei, 57).

To all of you, I repeat: Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! And not only that, but I say to us all: let us not rob others of hope, let us become bearers of hope!

In the Gospel, we read the parable of the Good Samaritan, that speaks of a man assaulted by robbers and left half dead at the side of the road. People pass by him and look at him. But they do not stop, they just continue on their journey, indifferent to him: it is none of their business! Only a Samaritan, a stranger, sees him, stops, lifts him up, takes him by the hand, and cares for him (cf. Lk 10:29-35).

Dear friends, I believe that here, in this hospital, the parable of the Good Samaritan is made tangible. Here there is no indifference, but concern. There is no apathy, but love.

The Saint Francis Association and the Network for the Treatment of Drug Addiction show how to reach out to those in difficulty because in them we see the face of Christ, because in these persons, the flesh of Christ suffers.

Thanks are due to all the medical professionals and their associates who work here. Your service is precious; undertake it always with love. It is a service given to Christ present in our brothers and sisters. As Jesus says to us: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).

And I wish to repeat to all of you who struggle against drug addiction, and to those family members who share in your difficulties: the Church is not distant from your troubles, but accompanies you with affection.

The Lord is near you and he takes you by the hand. Look to him in your most difficult moments and he will give you consolation and hope. And trust in the maternal love of his Mother Mary.

This morning, in the Shrine of Aparecida, I entrusted each of you to her heart. Where there is a cross to carry, she, our Mother, is always there with us. I leave you in her hands, while with great affection I bless all of you.

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As it happens, there was a similar event during Benedict XVI's apostolic visit to Brazil in May 2007, on a larger scale. I've chosen to re-post John Allen's account because he admirably places the event in the context of Benedict's consistent message during the trip...

Benedict issues dramatic warning
to drug dealers,
but his real message is Christ
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Guaratinguetá, Brazil
Posted on May 12, 2007




Day four of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Brazil was designed to be the one when the pope immersed himself in the social trauma of Latin America, visiting a rural center for young victims of alcohol and drug addiction, many of whom were driven into dependency as a result of poverty and hopelessness.

The pope delivered on those expectations, issuing a rare papal threat – this time, to drug pushers. He called the drug traffic “evil” and warned that, “God will demand an accounting of what they’ve done. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon like this.”

Yet even in this setting, the pope did not pull back from what has been the heart of his Brazilian message: If the spiritual fundamentals are missing, no program of attending to material and social needs – however worthy in itself, such as the fight against drugs – can offer an ultimate solution to human suffering. That solution, he insisted, stems from only one source, Jesus Christ.

In that sense, Benedict XVI’s Brazil trip has had a decidedly Christological emphasis.

His message on drugs resonates in today’s Latin America. Once considered a scourge of far-off, First World countries, drug addiction has reached epidemic proportions here over the last two decades.

In Brazil, World Health Organization estimates are that the cost of health care related to drug abuse in the 1990s soared from $900 million to almost $3 billion, and the percentage of AIDS cases caused by intravenous drug use rose from 2.5 percent to 25 percent.

The pope’s comments on the drug scourge came at Fazenda Speranda, or “Farm of Hope,” a recovery center founded by a German priest named Fr. Hans Stempel. It draws on the spirituality of the Franciscans and the Focolare movement.

To reach the spot, Benedict traveled by car roughly an hour into the Brazilian countryside from Aparacida, to a bucolic agricultural setting distinguished by rolling hills, a small river, and the occasional cow mooing at passer-bys.

The beauty of the setting, and the obvious enthusiasm of the crowd of roughly 6,000, most of them young people from the Fazenda Speranza, did not distract the pope from his Christological focus.

In a brief session with Poor Clare Sisters who work at the Farm of Hope, Benedict said their efforts offer “a clear witness to the Gospel of Christ amid a consumer society far removed from God,” and complimented them for attempting to “vanquish the prisons and break the chains of drugs that bring so much suffering to God’s beloved children.”

“We need to build up hope, weaving the fabric of a society that, by relaxing its grip on the threads of life, is losing the true sense of hope,” the pope said.

At the center itself, Benedict stressed that most important work done by the Farm of Hope is not physical and psychological recovery, valuable as that is, as but spiritual conversion – “returning to God, and to participation in the life of the church.”

“It’s not enough to cure the body,” Benedict said. “One has to adorn the soul with the most precious divine gifts acquired in baptism.”

Citing Jesus’s promise in the Gospel of John that whoever follows him “will have the light of life,” Benedict said that his mission is to “renew in people’s hearts this light that never goes out, so that it will shine in the most intimate corners of the souls of all those who seek true goodness and peace, which the world cannot give.”

“God does not compel, does not oppress individual liberty,” the pope said. “He only asks the openness of that sacred place of our conscience, though which all the noblest aspirations pass, but also the disordered feelings and passions that obscure the message of the Most High.”

Benedict told the Poor Clares that, “It is the risen Christ who heals the wounds and saves the sons and daughters of God, saves humanity from death, from sin and from slavery to passions.”

The bottom line for Benedict XVI in Brazil thus seems to be this: If you want to give life to the suffering peoples of Latin America, give them Christ.

Downplaying the specifically “religious” dimension of the church’s message not only betrays its mission, he believes, but in the end it fails to produce the desired social results.

“It is God alone whose essence is love, and whose glory is man fully alive,” Benedict said.

Stempel, the founder of Fazenda Speranda, is from the Paderborn diocese in Germany. He arrived in Brazil in 1972, and later became a Franciscan. Serving as a parish priest in the rural community of Guarantinguetá, he decided to find a social center, initially for victims of alcohol and drug abuse, and later expanding to serve other vulnerable populations, including young unwed mothers and poor families.

Stempel was the architect of Benedict’s visit to Fazenda Speranza. In January 2006, he traveled to Rome to meet with Benedict, and delivered letters from 80 bishops asking that the pope add a stop here, and in December 2006 he received confirmation that the pope would come. Today, he was the host and emcee of the event with the pope.

Paderborn is one of the wealthiest dioceses in Germany, which funds many projects in Brazil, including the Fazenda Speranza. A large banner above the entrance the day of the pope’s arrival captured the German influence, wishing Benedict Herzlich Willkommen, Heilige Vater!, or “Hearty Greetings, Holy Father!”




Prior to the pope’s remarks, five young people told the pope their stories of recovery from drug addiction, anorexia, and other maladies. Several choked back tears as they spoke. Adding an ecumenical note, one of the youths was Lutheran and another Orthodox. After each spoke, the pope wrapped him or her in an embrace.

At the end of the roughly hour-long event, it was announced that Benedict XVI had donated $100,000 to the Fazenda Speranza. Added to the $200,000 that Benedict earlier donated for churches in the Amazon, that brings the total for papal generosity in Brazil to $300.000. [NB:These are his personal donations, from the royalties earned by his writings, which fund charitable causes, as well as the research and theological scholarships carried out by the foundations set up in his name.



It would be a grave oversight not to re-post the addresses given by Benedict XVI at the Facenda da Esperanca. Those of us who watched the CTV coverage of the Brazil events are not likely to forget the immense spiritual and emotional power of each encounter that the Holy Father had. As with everything he writes, every re=reading is a new spiritual experience that is also an adventure in ideas. Here are the Vatican translations of his words to the community, and rhe remarks he made in private earlier to the Poor Clares who help run the facility. The addresses were delivered in Portuguese.

[How strange, by the way, that he says almost more about Francis of Assisi here than Pope Francis did yesterday at the Franciscan hospital for drug rehabilitation! In fact, Benedict XVI may have said more about Francis of Assisi during the eight years of his Pontificate than everything Pope Francis has ever said about his namesake before he became Pope and since, and perhaps more than any Pope in living memory. A compilation of Benedict XVI's dicourses and citation of Francis could be a very edifying book...I digress, but another point I have been dying to make these days is how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has never called attention to his devotion to Mary - yet he grew up venerating her on frequent childhood pilgrimages to Altoetting with his family; he wrote three books about Mary when he was cardinal; and he offered the papal Golden Rose to each of the Marian shrines he visited in Italy (even the little-known rural ones) and in other countries. And yet, the prevailing media meme is that his oredecessor and his successor are both passionate Marian devotees in a way that puts him outside their league (as in every other category if the media could simply have their untramelled way!]... Anyway, back to the Facenda Esperanza...

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Address to the Community

Dear Friends!
At last I am here with you at "Fazenda da Esperança"!

I greet with particular affection Brother Hans Stapel, founder of the charity "Nossa Senhora da Glória", which is also known as "Fazenda da Esperança ". Firstly I wish to rejoice with each of you for having believed in the ideals of good and of peace which define this place.

To all of you who have come here today from the various "fazendas" to be with the Pope - those undergoing treatment and those who have been cured, volunteers, families, those who have already been through the programme, and benefactors -- I wish to say: "pax et bonum!"

I know that there are representatives here from other places where the "Fazenda da Esperança " has opened centres. You have come to see the Pope. You have come to listen and to assimilate what I wish to say to you.

The Church of today needs a renewed awareness of its task to draw the world's attention to the voice of him who says: "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12).

It is the Pope's mission to renew in the hearts of people everywhere that light which does not grow dim, because it seeks to illumine the depths of every soul that seeks the true good and peace that the world cannot give.

All that this light needs is a heart open to the desire for God. God does not force us, he does not oppress our individual freedom; he simply asks for openness in the inner sanctum of our conscience, through which pass all our noblest aspirations, as well as the affections and disordered passions which tend to obscure the message of the Almighty.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20). These are divine words which penetrate to the depths of our souls and shake us at our deepest roots.

At some stage in people's lives, Jesus comes and gently knocks at the hearts of those properly disposed. Perhaps for you, he did this through a friend or a priest, or, who knows, perhaps he arranged a series of coincidences which enabled you to realize that you are loved by God.

Through the institution which has welcomed you, the Lord has given you this opportunity for physical and spiritual recovery, so vital for you and your families. In turn, society expects you to spread this precious gift of health among your friends and all the members of the community.

You must be Ambassadors of hope! Brazil's statistics concerning drug abuse and other forms of chemical dependency are very high. The same is true of Latin America in general.

I therefore urge the drug-dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society: God will call you to account for your deeds. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way. The harm done will receive the same censure that Jesus reserved for those who gave scandal to the "little ones", the favourites of God (cf. Matthew 18:7-10).

Through treatment, which includes medical, psychological and educational assistance, and through much prayer, manual work and discipline, many people - especially young people - have already succeeded in freeing themselves from alcohol and drug dependency, thereby recovering meaning in their lives.

I wish to express my appreciation for this work, which has the charism of Saint Francis and the spirituality of the Focolare Movement as its spiritual foundation.

Reintegration in society undoubtedly demonstrates the effectiveness of your initiative. Yet it is the conversions, the rediscovery of God and active participation in the life of the Church which attract even greater attention and which confirm the importance of your work. It is not enough to care for the body, we must adorn the soul with the most precious divine gifts acquired through Baptism.

Let us thank God for all those who have set out along the path of renewed hope, with the help of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the celebration of the Eucharist.

Dear friends, I cannot let this opportunity pass without thanking all those who contribute materially and spiritually to enable the charity "Nossa Senhora da Glória" to continue its work.

May God bless Brother Hans Stapel and Nelson Giovanelli Ros for having answered his call to devote their lives to you. I ask the Lord also to bless all those who work here: the consecrated men and women, and the volunteers. We ask God's special blessing too on all those friends, support groups and authorities who supply your needs, and on all those who love Christ present in these beloved children of his.

My thoughts turn now to those many other institutions throughout the world which work to rebuild and renew the lives of these brothers and sisters of ours present in our midst, whom God loves with a preferential love.

I am thinking of groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous as well as the sobriety associations working generously in many communities so as to build up the lives of others.

The proximity of the Shrine of Aparecida assures us that the "Fazenda da Esperança" came into being under her protection and maternal gaze.

For a long time now, in my prayers, I have been asking Our Lady, Queen and Patron of Brazil, to extend her protective mantle over the participants in the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Your presence here provides a considerable help for the success of this great gathering; offer your prayers, sacrifices, and renunciations on the altar of the Chapel, in the certainty that they will rise up to heaven in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as a fragrant offering to Almighty God. I am counting on your help!

May Saint Frei Galvão and Saint Crescentia keep watch over you and protect each one of you. I bless you all in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And here is the Vatican translation of the Pope's address earlier to the Poor Clares at the Facenda:

ADDRESS TO THE POOR CLARES

Be praised, my Lord, for all your creatures!

With these words, addressed to the Almighty and Good Lord, the Poor Saint of Assisi acknowledged the unique bounty of God the Creator, and the tenderness, strength and beauty that gently flows out upon all his creatures, making them mirrors of the Creator's omnipotence.

Dear Sisters, spiritual daughters of Saint Clare, our gathering here in this "Fazenda da Esperança " is meant to be a sign of the affection of the Successor of Peter towards the cloistered Sisters, and also a serene manifestation of love, echoing through the hills and valleys of the Mantiqueira mountain-range and spreading throughout the whole land: "No speech, no word, no voice is heard; yet their span extends through all the earth, their words to the utmost bounds of the world" (Psalm 18:4-5).

From this place, the daughters of Saint Clare proclaim: "Be praised, my Lord, for all your creatures!"

In places where society no longer sees any future or hope, Christians are called to proclaim the power of the Resurrection: it is here, in this "Fazenda da Esperança " - home to so many, especially young people, who are seeking to overcome drug addiction, alcoholism, and chemical dependency - that a clear witness is given to the Gospel of Christ amid a consumer society far removed from God.

What a contrast from the prospect of the Creator beholding his work! In their contemplative lives, the Poor Clare Sisters and other cloistered religious gaze upon the greatness of God and also discover the beauty of his creation; hence they can picture him as the sacred author indicates, caught up in wonder at his handiwork, his beloved creation: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good!" (Genesis 1:31).

When sin entered the world, and with sin, death, God's beloved creation, though wounded, was not totally deprived of beauty: on the contrary, a still greater love was received: "O happy fault, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" - as the Church proclaims in the Exsultet during the mysterious and radiant night of Easter.

It is the risen Christ who heals the wounds and saves the sons and daughters of God, saves humanity from death, from sin and from slavery to passions. The Passover of Christ unites heaven and earth.

In this Fazenda da Esperança, the prayers of the Poor Clare Sisters are united with the demanding work of medicine and therapy in order to vanquish the prisons and break the chains of drugs that bring so much suffering to God's beloved children.

In this way God's creation is restored to the beauty that so delights and amazes its Creator. He is the Almighty Father, it is he alone whose essence is love and whose glory is man fully alive, in the expression of Saint Irenaeus.

He "so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16), in order to raise up the one who had fallen along the roadside, attacked and wounded by thieves on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho.

On the pathways of the world, Jesus is "the hand" that the Father stretches out to sinners; he is the way that leads to peace (cf. Second Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation). Truly we discover here that the beauty of creation and the love of God are inseparable.

Francis and Clare of Assisi also discover this secret and they propose to their beloved sons and daughters one very simple thing: to live the Gospel. This is their norm of conduct and their rule of life. Clare expressed it very well when she said to her sisters: "Among yourselves, my daughters, let there be the same love with which Christ has loved you" (Testament).

In this same love, Brother Hans invited them to be the guarantors of all the work carried out in the Fazenda da Esperança. Through the strength of silent prayer, through fasting and penance, the daughters of Saint Clare live out the commandment of love for God and neighbour in its supreme form, loving to the end.

This means that we must never lose hope! Hence the name given to this work by Brother Hans: Fazenda da Esperança. We need to build up hope, weaving the fabric of a society that, by relaxing its grip on the threads of life, is losing the true sense of hope. This loss, according to Saint Paul, is the self-imposed curse of "heartless persons" (cf. Romans 1:31).

My dear Sisters, make it your task to proclaim that "hope does not disappoint" (Romans 5:5). May the sorrow of the Crucified Lord, which filled Mary's soul at the foot of the Cross, console the hearts of many mothers and fathers who weep with sorrow because of their children's continuing dependency on drugs.

By your silent prayerful self-offering, an eloquent silence that the Father hears, proclaim the message of love that conquers sorrow, drugs and death. Proclaim Jesus Christ, a human being like us, who suffers like ourselves, who took our sins upon himself in order to deliver us from them!

Soon we shall begin the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean at the Shrine of Aparecida, so close to the Fazenda da Esperança. I trust in your prayers, that our peoples may have life in Jesus Christ and that we may all be his disciples and missionaries.

I implore Mary, the Mother Aparecida, the Virgin of Nazareth who, in following Christ, kept all these things in her heart, to keep you in the fruitful silence of prayer.

To all cloistered Sisters, especially to the Poor Clares present in this institution, I impart my blessing with great affection.

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Sorry about the 'unrepresentative' photos from Guaratingueta. I was using Image Shack at the time, and somehow half of the photos I posted online through them have vanished into cyberspace. During the Cologne WYD, I was very much the online neophyte, that I did not even think to archive the photos - all I did was to print out every photo I could find (and all I had was a B&W printer), and so I have a pretty thick album of B&Ws on Cologne but nothing immediately Forum-usable. It would have been very opportune now to repost all that is available of WYD Cologne, but not 'working' at the time for any Forum, but simply contributing my bit to commentary celebrating Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, I do not have any ready material to pick and lift...

Thurssday, July 25, 16th Week in Ordinary Time
FEAST OF ST JAMES THE APOSTLE

St. James is one of the most depicted among the Twelve Apostles, next only to Peter and Andrew. Extreme left, St James by Rembrandt; fourth from left, by Andrea del Sarto; next three photos, James as Santiago Matamoros and as patron of pilgrims; the two on the right, St James, by Alonso Cano and El Greco.
ST. JAMES THE GREATER (SANTIAGO EL MAYOR), Apostle and Martyr, Patron Saint of Spain
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on June 21, 2006 to this saint,
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060621...
mentioned in the Bible as third in seniority among the apostles after the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew. Indeed, he and his younger brother John (the Beloved, also thought to be the Evangelist John) were disciples of John the Baptist, and were the second pair of fishermen brothers called by Jesus to join him. James became the first of the Apostles to be martyred, beheaded by order of Herod Agrippa in 44 AD, as cited in the Acts. Before that, legend has it that he had gone to Iberia to preach the Gospel, where Mary appeared to him atop a pillar (now conserved in the Cathedral of Zaragoza, main shrine of Nuestra Senora del Pilar), and that he subsequently returned to Judea where he met his death. Subsequently, one version has his body miraculously transported by angels to Iberia where it was enclosed by a rock in Compostela; alternatively, disciples carried the body by boat to Spain, landed on the coast of Galicia and took it inland to Compostela. The next Spanish legend concerning James (Jacobus in Latin, Iago in Spanish, hence Sant'Iago=Santiago) was that he appeared on horseback in the 10th-century battle of Clavijo to lead a vastly outnumbered Spanish army to defeat the Moors. Since then, he became known as Santiago Matamoros (killer of Moors), giving rise also to what has become the traditional battle cry of Spanish armed forces, "Santiago y cierra Espana!" (St James, and close ranks for Spain). The saint's relics were discovered in Compostela in 814 by a hermit, thus starting the tradition of the pilgrimage to the Galician town which became the third major pilgrimage destination in the Middle Ages, after Jerusalem and Rome. In Europe the routes to Compostela passing through France and Spain are known as the Camino de Santiago. The present Cathedral of St. James in Compostela was begun in 1075. In 1884, Leo XIII issued a papal bull declaring the authenticity of the relics in Compostela. [A rival claim to be the burial place of St. James is made by the Cathedral of St. Sernin in Toulouse.]
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072522.cfm


APOSTOLIC VISIT OF POPE FRANCIS TO BRAZIL

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Day 3
Thursday, 25 July 2013

07:30 Private Mass at the Sumaré Residence in Rio de Janeiro

09:45 Consignment to the Holy Father of the keys to the city and
Blessing of the Olympic flags at the City Palace of Rio de
Janeiro

11:00 Visit to the Community of Varginha (Manguinhos), slum area in
Rio. Address of the Holy Father.

*Apparently, in a late addition to his program, the Pope then proceeded
to the Cathedral of Rio to meet with the Argentine participants in WYD
and addressed them.

18:00 The participants of WYD officially welcome Pope Francis at
Copacabana beach. Greeting and address by the Holy Father.

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One year ago...

No events announced for Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican released the text of a telegram of condolence sent in the Pope's name by Deputy Secretary of State Angelo Becciu to the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, mourning the deaths of Cuban human rights activists Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante in a road accident on Sunday... The Pontifical Council for Ministry to Migrants and Itinerant Workers on the occasion of this year's World Tourism Day.

The more relevant lookback today is Bernedict XVI's arrival in Madrid in August 2011 for WYD,


THE POPE AT WYD 2011: Day 1
Arrival and official welcome to Spain,
then the welcome by the youth at
Puerta de Alcala and Plaza Cibeles

Unlike Pope Francis this year who has had one day of rest and almost two days of pre-WYD events, Benedict XVI in 2011 hardly had time to catch his breath from the arrival ceremony at Madrid's Barajas airport, where he was welcomed by the King and Queen of Spain as well as outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, then it was time to formally join the WYD festivities which began the previous day....








Pope urges youth to build
their lives on the rock of Christ

August 18, 2011

“Dear Holy Father this is the young assembly who heard your call, drawn from across the world…now we are here, we who John Paul II called the ‘sentinels of the third millennium’, to hear your words”, said the young woman, greeting Pope Benedict XVI.

Looking out over Madrid’s Cibeles square, looking out at the hundreds of thousands of young people, on Thursday evening, Pope Benedict opened his arms and he told them: “Through your presence and your participation in these celebrations, the name of Christ will echo throughout this great City. Let us pray that his message of hope and love will also resound in the hearts of those who are not believers or who have grown distant from the Church”.

They had had been waiting patiently since early afternoon, since his plane had touched down at Barajas International Airport, for this moment, the moment when Pope Benedict XVI was finally welcomed to the Spanish capital by the real protagonists of this, his 20th Apostolic voyage, the World Youth Day pilgrims.

And the Pope had special greetings for them in many of their different languages, including English, as he told them:

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I extend an affectionate greeting to the many English-speaking young people who have come to Madrid.

May these days of prayer, friendship and celebration bring us closer to each other and to the Lord Jesus. Make trust in Christ’s word the foundation of your lives!

Planted and built up in him, firm in the faith and open to the power of the Spirit, you will find your place in God’s plan and enrich the Church with your gifts. Let us pray for one another, so that we may be joyful witnesses to Christ, today and always. God bless you all!”

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They had lined the route from the nunciature to Independence square, transforming the security barriers into one endless multinational flag and their cries were deafening.

Beneath the towering triumphal arch of the Puerta del Alcala, traditional entry gate to Madrid, he was formally welcomed by the city mayor who handed him the golden keys to the city. Then, together with 50 young people in traditional dress, (ten from each continent), Pope Benedict passed through the central arch of the historic gate. symbolically entering the Spanish capital.

There he was invited to plant an olive tree, memento of this visit, symbolic of its theme, St Paul’s command to the early Christians: “Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith”.

An exhibition of majestic Andalusian horsemanship, the release of white balloons, a flyover by the Spainish airforce Aguila squadron – all of this paled by comparison with what awaited Pope Benedict as he set foot on the central stage of Cibeles square. The square literally erupted, drowning out the two hundred strong choir.

“Your visit is of exceptional value”, Card. Ruoco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid told the Pope, “With you comes the 'Young Church', accompanied by her diocesan bishops, priests, and consecrated members in numbers representative of a truly universal 'catholic' Church! Christ Resurrected is passing by!”.

Following the Liturgy of the Word, Pope Benedict addressed them saying “in the face of our weaknesses which sometimes overwhelm us, we can rely on the mercy of the Lord who is always ready to help us again and who offers us pardon in the sacrament of Penance”.

He then challenged them to present “a valid alternative to all those who have fallen short”, “who are content to follow fashionable ideas”, “who, creating their own gods, believe they need no roots or foundations other than themselves”, who “take it upon themselves to decide what is true or not, what is good and evil”.

It is important not to give in to them, warned the Pope “because, in reality, they lead to something so evanescent, like an existence with no horizons, a liberty without God”.

Instead he said, “God is looking for a responsible interlocutor, someone who can dialogue with him and love him. Through Christ we can truly succeed and, established in him, we give wings to our freedom”. This is the firm ground upon which to build the civilization of love and life, capable of humanizing all of us".




Here is the official Vatican translation of the Holy Father's opening remarks to the pilgrims of WYD and of his homily at the prayer service.

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INITIAL ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid
Thursday, 18 August 2011

Dear Young Friends,
It is a great joy for me to meet you here in the heart of this lovely city of Madrid, whose keys the Lord Mayor has kindly presented me.

Today Madrid is also the capital of the world’s young people, and the gaze of the whole Church is fixed here. The Lord has brought us together here so that during these days we can experience the beauty of World Youth Day.

Through your presence and your participation in these celebrations, the name of Christ will echo throughout this great City. Let us pray that his message of hope and love will also resound in the hearts of those who are not believers or who have grown distant from the Church.

Many thanks for the splendid welcome which you gave me as I entered the City, as a sign of your love and closeness to the Successor of Peter.

I greet Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and his staff in that Council, with gratitude for all the work which they have done. I also thank Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, the Archbishop of Madrid, for his kind words and for the efforts made by his Archdiocese, along with the other Dioceses of Spain, in preparing this World Youth Day; my thanks also go to all those in so many other Particular Churches throughout the world who have generously contributed to its preparation.

I express appreciation to the national, the autonomous regional and the local authorities for their presence and for their generous help in ensuring the good organization of this great event.

My thanks go also to my brother Bishops, the priests and seminarians, the consecrated men and women and all the faithful present here today, who have helped to prepare the young people to experience these intense days of pilgrimage towards an encounter with Christ.

I offer all of you a heartfelt greeting in the Lord and I repeat that it is a great blessing for me to be here with you. May the flame of Christ’s love burn always bright in your hearts.

[French] Dear young French-speaking people, you have responded in great numbers to the Lord’s call to come and meet him in Madrid. I congratulate you for this! Welcome to World Youth Day!

You have brought with you profound questions, and you are seeking answers. It is always a good thing to keep seeking. Above all, seek the Truth, which is not an idea or an ideology or a slogan, but a person: Christ, God himself, who has come into our midst! You rightly wish to plant your faith in him, to ground your life in Christ. He has always loved you and he knows you better than anyone else.

May these days so rich in prayer, teaching and encounters help you to rediscover this, so that you may love him all the more. May Christ accompany you during this special time when, all together, we shall sing his praises and offer him our prayers!

[English] I extend an affectionate greeting to the many English-speaking young people who have come to Madrid. May these days of prayer, friendship and celebration bring us closer to each other and to the Lord Jesus.

Make trust in Christ’s word the foundation of your lives! Planted and built up in him, firm in the faith and open to the power of the Spirit, you will find your place in God’s plan and enrich the Church with your gifts.

Let us pray for one another, so that we may be joyful witnesses to Christ, today and always. God bless you all!

[German] Dear German-speaking friends! I greet all of you with great affection. I am happy that you have come in such great numbers. During these days we want together to confess our faith in Jesus Christ, to deepen that faith and to pass it on. Let us realize ever anew that Jesus is the one who gives true meaning to our lives. Let us open our hearts to Christ. May he grant all of us a joyful and blessed time here in Madrid.

[Italian] Dear young Italians! I greet you with great affection and I am delighted that so many of you have come here, filled with the joy of faith. Experience these days in a spirit of intense prayer and fraternity, and testify to the vitality of the Church in Italy, its parishes, associations and movements. Share this wealth with everyone. Thank you!

[Portuguese] Dear young people of the different countries whose official language is Portuguese, and all those who accompany you, welcome to Madrid!

I greet all of you with friendship and affection and I invite you to draw close to the eternal source of your youth and to know the absolute protagonist of this World Youth Day and – I hope – of your own lives: Christ the Lord.

In these days you will personally hear his word resound. Let this word into your hearts, let it take root, and make it the foundation of your lives. Firm in the faith, you will be a link in the great chain of believers. No one can believe without being supported by the faith of others, and by my faith I also help to support others in the faith. The Church needs you, and you need the Church.

[Polish] I greet the young people who have come from Poland, countrymen of Blessed John Paul II, the founder of World Youth Day. I am delighted by your presence here in Madrid! I pray that these will be good days, days of prayer, in which you will strengthen your relationship with Jesus. May God’s Spirit guide you.

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The Pope's homily
Welcome Ceremony with WYD Pilgrims
Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid

Dear Friends,
Thank you for the kind words addressed to me by the young people representing the five continents. And I salute with affection all of you gathered here, young people from Oceania, Africa, America, Asia and Europe; and also those unable to be here.

I always keep you very much in my heart and pray for you. God has given me the grace to see and hear you for myself and, as we gather together, to listen to his word.

In the reading which has just been proclaimed, we heard a passage from the Gospel which talks of welcoming the words of Jesus and putting them into practice.

There are words which serve only to amuse, as fleeting as an empty breeze; others, to an extent, inform us; those of Jesus, on the other hand, must reach our hearts, take root and bloom there all our lives. If not, they remain empty and become ephemeral. They do not bring us to him and, as a result, Christ stays remote, just one voice among the many others around us which are so familiar.

Furthermore, the Master who speaks teaches, not something learned from others, but that which he himself is, the only one who truly knows the path of man towards God, because he is the one who opened it up for us, he made it so that we might have authentic lives, lives which are always worth living, in every circumstance, and which not even death can destroy.

The Gospel continues, explaining these things with the evocative image of someone who builds on solid rock, resistant to the onslaught of adversity, and in contrast to someone who builds on sand - we would say today in what appears a paradise - but which collapses with the first gust of wind and falls into ruins.

Dear young people, listen closely to the words of the Lord, that they may be for you “spirit and life” (Jn 6:63), roots which nourish your being, a rule of life which likens us - poor in spirit, thirsting for justice, merciful, pure in heart, lovers of peace - to the person of Christ.

Listen regularly every day as if he were the one friend who does not deceive, the one with whom we wish to share the path of life. Of course, you know that when we do not walk beside Christ our guide, we get lost on other paths, like the path of our blind and selfish impulses, or the path of flattering but self-serving suggestions, deceiving and fickle, which leave emptiness and frustration in their wake.

Use these days to know Christ better and to make sure that, rooted in him, your enthusiasm and happiness, your desire to go further, to reach the heights, even God himself, always hold a sure future, because the fullness of life has already been placed within you.

Let that life grow with divine grace, generously and without half-measures, as you remain steadfast in your aim for holiness. And, in the face of our weaknesses which sometimes overwhelm us, we can rely on the mercy of the Lord who is always ready to help us again and who offers us pardon in the sacrament of Penance.

If you build on solid rock, not only your life will be solid and stable, but it will also help project the light of Christ shining upon those of your own age and upon the whole of humanity, presenting a valid alternative to all those who have fallen short, because the essentials in their lives were inconsistent; to all those who are content to follow fashionable ideas, they take shelter in the here and now, forgetting true justice, or they take refuge in their own opinions instead of seeking the simple truth.

Indeed, there are many who, creating their own gods, believe they need no roots or foundations other than themselves. They take it upon themselves to decide what is true or not, what is good and evil, what is just and unjust; who should live and who can be sacrificed in the interests of other preferences; leaving each step to chance, with no clear path, letting themselves be led by the whim of each moment.

These temptations are always lying in wait. It is important not to give in to them because, in reality, they lead to something so evanescent, like an existence with no horizons, a liberty without God.

We, on the other hand, know well that we have been created free, in the image of God, precisely so that we might be in the forefront of the search for truth and goodness, responsible for our actions, not mere blind executives, but creative co-workers in the task of cultivating and beautifying the work of creation.

God is looking for a responsible interlocutor, someone who can dialogue with him and love him. Through Christ we can truly succeed and, established in him, we give wings to our freedom.

Is this not the great reason for our joy? Isn’t this the firm ground upon which to build the civilization of love and life, capable of humanizing all of us?

Dear friends: be prudent and wise, build your lives upon the firm foundation which is Christ. This wisdom and prudence will guide your steps, nothing will make you fear and peace will reign in your hearts. Then you will be blessed and happy and your happiness will influence others.

They will wonder what the secret of your life is and they will discover that the rock which underpins the entire building and upon which rests your whole existence is the very person of Christ, your friend, brother and Lord, the Son of God incarnate, who gives meaning to all the universe.

He died for us all, rising that we might have life, and now, from the throne of the Father, he accompanies all men and women, watching continually over each one of us.

I commend the fruits of this World Youth Day to the most holy Virgin Mary, who said “Yes” to the will of God, and teaches us a unique example of fidelity to her divine son, whom she followed to his death upon the Cross.

Let us meditate upon this more deeply in the Stations of the Cross. And let us pray that, like her, our “Yes” to Christ today may also be an unconditional “Yes” to his friendship, both at the end of this day and throughout our entire lives. Thank you very much.

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Pope Francis in Rio:
Day 4 of the visit,
Day 1 at WYD: A wrap-up
by NICOLE WINFIELD, MARCO SIBAJA AND JENNY BARCHFIELD


This AP wrap-up is a textbook illustration of the acritical rah-rah-and-hurrah hermeneutic that has characterized reporting and commentary on the Pope since March 13, 2013.

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 25, 2013 (AP) -- Pope Francis has shown the world his rebellious side, urging young Catholics to shake up the church and make a "mess" in their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the faith. It's a message he put into practice by visiting one of Rio's most violent slums and opening the Church's World Youth Day on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach. How exactly does 'going out to the streets' to spread the faith make a 'mess'? Is that not the direct aim of the World Youth Days, to make young people know, appreciate and live their faith so that they can spread it to others by their witness? How does that make a mess?]

Francis was elected pope on a mandate to reform the church, and in four short months he has started doing just that: He has broken long-held Vatican rules on everything from where he lays his head at night to how saints are made. He has cast off his security detail to get close to his flock, and his first international foray as pope has shown the faithful appreciate the gesture. [That's a stupid statement. People always appreciate gestures of 'closeness' from their leaders, and we did not have to wait for the trip to note the public's overwhelming appreciation of the Pope's openly populist gestures!]

He's going further Friday, meeting with a small group (five!) of young convicts. He'll also hear confessions from some Catholic youth and then head back to Copacabana beach for a Stations of the Cross procession.

Dubbed the "slum pope" for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown on Thursday, part of a slum area of northern Rio so violent it's known as the Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed entirely at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side.

"No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!" Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. "No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself."

It was a message aimed at reversing the decline in the numbers of Catholics in most of Latin America, with many poor worshippers leaving the church for Pentecostal and evangelical congregations. Those churches have taken up a huge presence in favelas, or shantytowns such as Varginha, attracting souls with nuts-and-bolts advice on how to improve their lives. [Preaching constantly what Francis said today, John Paul II with his enormous charismatic and prophetic powers was unable to reverse that trend over the 27 years of his Pontificate - it is not a task for one person alone - and so he launched the new evangelization, against growing secularism and against the outflow of Catholics to the new sects, an initiative taken up under Benedict XVI as the 'continental mission' for the Church in Latin America. Reporters and commentators persistently fail to see or choose to ignore that the Church's mission has remained the same for 2000 years - 'Go forth and make disciples of all nations', as Christ said. And any Pope would be remiss in his duty who did not constantly stress that. Pope Francis has not re-invented the wheel of faith.]

The Varginha visit was one of the highlights of Francis's weeklong trip to Brazil, his first as pope and one seemingly tailor-made for the first pontiff from the Americas.

The surprise, though, came during his encounter with Argentine pilgrims, scheduled at the last minute in yet another sign of how this spontaneous pope is shaking up the Vatican's staid and often stuffy protocol.

He told the thousands of youngsters, with an estimated 30,000 Argentines registered, to get out into the streets and spread their faith and make a "mess," saying a church that doesn't go out and preach simply becomes a civic or humanitarian group.

"I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!" he said, speaking off the cuff in his native Spanish. "I want to see the Church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!"

Apparently realizing the radicalness of his message, he apologized in advance to the bishops at home.

Later Thursday, he traveled in his open-sided car [Finally, a stop to saying'open-top car' when it clearly is not!] has stopped through a huge crowd in the pouring rain to a welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach. It was his first official event with the hundreds of thousands of young people who have flocked to Rio for World Youth Day. Vatican officials estimated the crowd at 1 million.

Cheering pilgrims from 175 nations lined the beachfront drive to catch a glimpse of the pontiff, with many jogging along with the vehicle behind police barricades. The car stopped several times for Francis to kiss babies - and take a long sip of his beloved mate, the traditional Argentine tea served in a gourd with a straw, which was handed up to him by someone in the crowd.

After he arrived at the beach-front stage, though, the crowd along the streets melted away, driven home by the pouring rain that brought out vendors selling the plastic ponchos that have adorned cardinals and pilgrims alike during this unseasonably cold, wet week.

In an indication of the havoc wreaked by four days of steady showers, organizers made an almost unheard-of change in the festival's agenda, moving the Saturday vigil and climactic Sunday Mass to Copacabana Beach from a rural area 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the city center. The terrain of the area, Guaratiba, had turned into a vast field of mud, making the overnight camping plans of pilgrims untenable.

The news was welcome to John White, a 57-year-old chaperone from the Albany, New York, diocese who attended the past five World Youth Days and complained that organization in Rio was lacking.

"I'm super relieved. That place is a mud pit and I was concerned about the kid's health and that they might catch hypothermia," he said. "That's great news. I just wish the organizers would have told us."

Francis's visit to the Varginha slum followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited two such favelas during a 1980 trip to Brazil, and Mother Teresa, who visited Varginha itself in 1972. Her Missionaries of Charity order has kept a presence in the shantytown ever since.

Like Mother Teresa, Francis brought his own personal history to the visit: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently preached in the poverty-wracked slums of his native city, putting into action his belief that the Catholic Church must go to the farthest peripheries to preach and not sit back and wait for the most marginalized to come to Sunday Mass. [And since when has the Church done that after the Protestant Reformation? Latin America itself was evangelized because the conquistadores from Spain and Portugal always brought with them the Cross and its missionaries to the literal edges of the known world at the time! In many ways, Pope Francis's favorite refrain about the Church staying closed within herself is, in its broadest sense, anti-historical and anti-fact. The great gains of Catholicism in Africa in the past century were all due to the same missionary reach. If he means priests must do what he did oin Buenos Aires, all well and good. But it seems the Pope ignores the worldwide priest shortage that has befallen the Church since Vatican II. Priests already are overworked within their own parishes where, yes, they have the duty to attend to their own internal 'peripheries', their marginalized parishioners, before they can even think of going out to farther 'peripheries'! As cardinal, Francis had the option to go out and preach and do his apostolate where he wanted, and to assign more priests to poorer neighborhoods if he had enough priests to spread around. Think of the priests in places like France who must say Mass and give the sacraments in multiple rural parishes who no longer have 'parish priests'. They have no time to do little else. How much more 'peripheral' can they get? There's only so much each priest can do. Besides, the rich, the well-off and the powerful in the centers (i.e., off-periphery) who have lost the faith and openly flaunt their secular disdain for ethics are just as much If not more) in need of pastoral attention as the materially marginalized. Christ did not mean the Church to be merely 'a Church for the poor' but for everyone whose heart is open to his message - that should be a basic objection to this sloganeering and demagogic idea that no one dares to analyze, an idea that in fact, everyone rushes to chime in with fervor because in this, everyone behaves like the typical vote-hunting politician whose heart can only be 'with the poor' and must proclaim so loudly all the time.]

Francis's open-air car was mobbed on a few occasions as he headed into Varginha's heavily policed, shack-lined streets, but he never seemed in danger. He was showered with gifts as he walked down one of the slum's main drags without an umbrella to shield him from the rain. A well-wisher gave him a paper lei to hang around his neck and he held up another offering - a scarf from his favorite soccer team, Buenos Aires's San Lorenzo.

"Events like this, with the pope and all the local media, get everyone so excited," said Antonieta de Souza Costa, a 56-year-old vendor and resident of Varginha. "I think this visit is going to bring people back to the Catholic Church." [How many thousands of times sentiments like these were expressed by all and sundry= and unduly cited as prophecies, no less, by the media - everytime John Paul II made one of his apostolic visits! But the numbers are growing less in the formerly Christian West, offset only by the gains made in traditional mission lands!]]

Addressing Varginha's residents, Francis acknowledged that young people in particular have a sensitivity toward injustice.

"You are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good," Francis told the crowd. "To you and all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished."

It was a clear reference to the violent protests that paralyzed parts of the country in recent weeks as Brazilians furious over rampant corruption and inefficiency within the country's political class took to the streets.

Francis blasted what he said was a "culture of selfishness and individualism" that permeates society today, demanding that those with money and power share their wealth and resources to fight hunger and poverty.

"It is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry - this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy," he said.

I chose to use the AP story, as objectionable as it is in many parts, for lack of time, but I will probably add the Vatican Radio reports and John Allen's to give a better picture. I have not had the time to hunt for photos, either. On a couple of days during Benedict XVI's visit to Brazil - and on many other occasions, I have been unable to 'comply' as I would want to, and I apologize.

P.S. Did I say 'a better picture' - from Vatican Radio??? OOOPS! in a big way... Consider this headline and item - misspelling the name of Rio's most famous beach is the least of its issues.



If even the Pope's radio can so blatantly mistake the finger for the moon, it means the people at RV - or at least the one who wrote this headline and the one who made the report - have not only bought in on the hype themselves but are even leading the hype. (And that as usual, there are no editors or supervisors worthy of the name doing what they ought to do at RV!) There is not even one mention of Jesus or God in the report.

I was going to be nice and say, it's a typo - they left out a preposition, it should be "celebrate with Pope Francis", not "celebrate Pope Francis", but the text quite clearly does celebrate Pope Francis, and omits any mention of the reason for WYD and this celebration, other than the brief quote 'Faith revolutionizes our lives'... I am hoping there will be a visible correction, but I'm not holding my breath. Who knows if anyone at the Vatican even noticed it? (If he read RV online, Benedict XVI would! Remember his words to the Curia in 2008 after WYD Sydney? "The Pope is not the star..."

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Address of Pope Francis to
the community of Varginha in Rio
Rio de Janeiro
Thursday, 25 July 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good morning! It is wonderful to be here with you! It is wonderful! From the start, my wish in planning this visit to Brazil was to be able to visit every district throughout the nation. I would have liked to knock on every door, to say “good morning”, to ask for a glass of cold water, to take a cafezinho, - not a glass of grappa! – to speak as one would to family friends, to listen to each person pouring out his or her heart – parents, children, grandparents ... But Brazil is so vast! It is impossible to knock on every door!

So I chose to come here, to visit your community, this community, which today stands for every district in Brazil. How wonderful it is to be welcomed with such love, generosity, and joy! One need only look at the way you have decorated the streets of the community; this is a further mark of affection, it comes from your heart, from the heart of all Brazilians in festive mood. Many thanks to each of you for this kind welcome! And I thank Rangler and Joana for their kind words.

1. From the moment I first set foot on Brazilian soil, right up to this meeting here with you, I have been made to feel welcome. And it is important to be able to make people welcome; this is something even more beautiful than any kind of ornament or decoration.

I say this because when we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them – some food, a place in our homes, our time – not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched.

I am well aware that when someone needing food knocks at your door, you always find a way of sharing food; as the proverb says, one can always “add more water to the beans”! Is it possible to add more water to the beans? … Always? … And you do so with love, demonstrating that true riches consist not in material things, but in the heart!

And the Brazilian people, particularly the humblest among you, can offer the world a valuable lesson in solidarity; a this word that solidarity is too often forgotten or silenced, because it is uncomfortable. It almost seems like a bad word … solidarity.

I would like to make an appeal to those in possession of greater resources, to public authorities and to all people of good will who are working for social justice: never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity!

No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world! Everybody, according to his or her particular opportunities and responsibilities, should be able to make a personal contribution to putting an end to so many social injustices.

The culture of selfishness and individualism that often prevails in our society is not, I repeat, not what builds up and leads to a more habitable world: rather, it is the culture of solidarity that does so; the culture of solidarity means seeing others not as rivals or statistics, but brothers and sisters. And we are all brothers and sisters!

I would like to encourage the efforts that Brazilian society is making to integrate all its members, including those who suffer most and are in greatest need, through the fight against hunger and deprivation.

No amount of “peace-building” will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself. A society of that kind simply impoverishes itself, it loses something essential.

We must never, never allow the throwaway culture to enter our hearts! We must never allow the throwaway culture to enter our hearts, because we are brothers and sisters. No one is disposable!

Let us always remember this: only when we are able to share do we become truly rich; everything that is shared is multiplied! Think of the multiplication of the loaves by Jesus! The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty!

2. I would also like to tell you that the Church, the “advocate of justice and defender of the poor in the face of intolerable social and economic inequalities which cry to heaven” (Aparecida Document, 395), wishes to offer her support for every initiative that can signify genuine development for every person and for the whole person.

Dear friends, it is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry – this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy, the hunger for dignity.

There is neither real promotion of the common good nor real human development when there is ignorance of the fundamental pillars that govern a nation, its non-material goods: life, which is a gift of God, a value always to be protected and promoted; the family, the foundation of coexistence and a remedy against social fragmentation; integral education, which cannot be reduced to the mere transmission of information for purposes of generating profit; health, which must seek the integral well-being of the person, including the spiritual dimension, essential for human balance and healthy coexistence; security, in the conviction that violence can be overcome only by changing human hearts.

3. I would like to add one final point, one final point. Here, as in the whole of Brazil, there are many young people. You young people, my dear young friends, you have a particular sensitivity towards injustice, but you are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good.

To you and to all, I repeat: never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished. Situations can change, people can change. Be the first to seek to bring good, do not grow accustomed to evil, but defeat it with good.

The Church is with you, bringing you the precious good of faith, bringing Jesus Christ, who “came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

Today, to all of you, especially to the residents of this Community of Varginha, I say: you are not alone, the Church is with you, the Pope is with you. I carry each of you in my heart and I make my own the intentions that you carry deep within you: thanksgiving for joys, pleas for help in times of difficulty, a desire for consolation in times of grief and suffering.

I entrust all this to the intercession of Our Lady of Aparecida, Mother of all the poor of Brazil, and with great affection I impart my blessing. Thank you!

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The Vatican also has posted the transcript of the Pope's remarks to Argentine WYD pilgrims at the impromptu meeting with them yesterday at the Cathedral of Rio, but no translations have been provided so far.

Thankfully, in contrast to that earlier mindlessly over-the-top faux pas by one of its correspondents, Vatican Radio's English service gets it very right in its reportage of the Pope's first WYD event:

Prayer service at Copacabana
with WYD pilgrims

July 25, 2013

Pope Francis greeted young pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday. The sprawling sands of Rio’s famous Copacabana beach was the scene of the gathering, which was the first official encounter of pilgrims with the Holy Father during the week of events leading to the 28th World Youth Day on Sunday, July 28th.

The Copacabana appointment opened with an extraordinary display by 150 young people who offered an artistic interpretation of daily life in the “Marvelous City”. The festivities centered on a prayer service that included a reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke, which recounts the episode of the Transfiguration (9:28-36). Prayers of the faithful were offered, as well as testimonies from five young people representing every inhabited continent.

In brief words of greeting to the young people, Pope Francis expressed his joy at being able to celebrate with them, and made his own the hopeful words of encouragement spoken by Bl. John Paul II at the 1987 World Youth Day in his native Buenos Aires, “I have great hope in you! I hope above all that you will renew your fidelity to Jesus Christ and to his redeeming Cross.”

Following the Gospel reading, the Holy Father delivered a homily in which he focused on the twin themes of faith in and faithfulness to Christ, in spiritual commitment and the discipleship of everyday life. As he has since the very beginning of his pontificate, Francis spoke of the spirit of adventure the imbues a life given over to Christ, and renewed his call never to tire of asking God’s forgiveness when there is need of it in one’s life.

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]Greeting from Pope Francis to WYD pilgrims
Thursday, July 25th, 2013
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Dear Young Friends,
Good evening! In you I see the beauty of Christ’s young face and I am filled with joy. I recall the first World Youth Day on an international level. It was celebrated in 1987 in Argentina, in my home city of Buenos Aires. I still cherish the words of Blessed John Paul II to the young people on that occasion: “I have great hope in you! I hope above all that you will renew your fidelity to Jesus Christ and to his redeeming Cross” (Address to Young People, Buenos Aires, 11 April 1987).

Before I continue, I would like to call to mind the tragic accident in French Guiana in which young Sophie Morinière was killed and other young people were wounded. I invite all of you to observe a minute’s silence and to pray for Sophie, for the wounded, and for their families.

This year, World Youth Day comes to Latin America for the second time. And you, young people, have responded in great number to the invitation extended by Pope Benedict XVI to celebrate this occasion. We express to him our heartfelt thanks.

I am looking at the large crowd before me – there are so many of you! And you have come from every continent! In many cases you have come from afar, not only geographically, but also existentially, culturally, socially and humanly.

But today you are all here, or better yet, we are all here together as one, in order to share the faith and the joy of an encounter with Christ, of being his disciples. This week Rio has become the centre of the Church, its heart both youthful and vibrant, because you have responded generously and courageously to the invitation that Christ has made to you to be with him and to become his friends.

The train of this World Youth Day has come from afar and has travelled across all of Brazil following the stages of the project entitled “Bota fé – put on faith!” Today the train has arrived at Rio de Janeiro. From Corcovado, Christ the Redeemer embraces us and blesses us.

Looking out to this sea, the beach and all of you gathered here, I am reminded of the moment when Jesus called the first disciples to follow him by the shores of Lake Tiberias. Today Christ asks each of us again: Do you want to be my disciple? Do you want to be my friend? Do you want to be a witness to my Gospel?

In the spirit of The Year of Faith, these questions invite us to renew our commitment as Christians. Your families and local communities have passed on to you the great gift of faith, Christ has grown in you.

I have come today to confirm you in this faith, faith in the living Christ who dwells within you, but I have also come to be confirmed by the enthusiasm of your faith!

I greet you with great affection. To all of you assembled here from the five continents and, through you, to all young people of the world, and in particular to those who have not been able to come to Rio de Janeiro but who are following us by means of radio, television and internet, I say: Welcome to this immense feast of faith! In several parts of the world, at this very moment, many young people have come together to share this event: let us all experience the joy of being united with each other in friendship and faith.

And be sure of this: my pastoral heart embraces all of you with universal affection. From the summit of the mountain of Corcovado, Christ the Redeemer welcomes you to this beautiful city of Rio!

I wish to extend greetings to the President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the dear and tireless Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko, and to all who work with him. I thank Archbishop Orani João Tempesta, of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, for the warm welcome given to me and for the considerable work of preparation for this World Youth Day, together with the many Dioceses of this vast country of Brazil.

I would also like to express my gratitude to all the national, state and local authorities and to those who have worked to make possible this unique moment of celebration of unity, faith and fraternity.

Thank you to my brother Bishops, to the priests, seminarians, consecrated persons and the lay faithful that have accompanied the young from various parts of the world on their pilgrimage to Jesus. To each and every one of you I offer my affectionate embrace in the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, dear friends, welcome to the XXVIII World Youth Day in this marvellous city of Rio de Janeiro!

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In off the cuff remarks during his greeting Pope Francis revealed he had asked Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to accompany him in prayer to Rio and the Holy Father said Pope Benedict accepted this request with joy and is now in front of his TV watching this event.

During his greeting he also added that Bishops sometimes have problems that make them sad. How terrible, a sad Bishop, he exclaimed, "and why am I not sad?" because he said, he had come to be infected by the spirit of the young people at World Youth Day.

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Homily of Pope Francis
Copacabana prayer service
July 25th, 2013
Rio de Janeiro

Dear Friends,

“It is good for us to be here!”, Peter cries out after seeing the Lord Jesus transfigured in glory. Do we want to repeat these words with him? I think the answer is yes, because here today, it is good for all of us to be gathered together around Jesus! It is he who welcomes us and who is present in our midst here in Rio.

In the Gospel we have heard God the Father say: “This is my Son, my chosen one; listen to him!” (Lk 9:35). If it is Jesus who welcomes us, we too ought to welcome him and listen to his words; it is precisely through the welcome we give to Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, that the Holy Spirit transforms us, lights up our way to the future, and enables us joyfully to advance along that way with wings of hope (cf. Lumen Fidei, 7).

But what can we do? “Bota fé – put on faith”. The World Youth Day Cross has proclaimed these words throughout its pilgrimage in Brazil. ''“Put on faith”: what does this mean? When we prepare a plate of food and we see that it needs salt, well, we “put on” salt; when it needs oil, then you “put on” oil. “To put on”, that is, to place on top of, to pour over. '

nd so it is in our life, dear young friends: if we want it to have real meaning and fulfilment, as you want and as you deserve, I say to each one of you, “Put on faith”, and your life will take on a new flavour, it will have a compass to show you the way. “Put on hope” and every one of your days will be enlightened and your horizon will no longer be dark, but luminous. “Put on love”, and your life will be like a house built on rock, your journey will be joyful, because you will find many friends to journey with you. Put on faith, put on hope, put on love!

But who can give us all this? In the Gospel we have just heard the answer: Christ. “This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him!” Jesus is the one who brings God to us and us to God. With him, our life is transformed and renewed, and we can see reality with new eyes, from Jesus’s standpoint, with his own eyes (cf. Lumen Fidei, 18).

For this reason, I want to insist with you today: “Put on Christ!” in your life, and you will find a friend in whom you can always trust; “put on Christ” and you will see the wings of hope spreading and letting you journey with joy towards the future; “put on Christ” and your life will be full of his love; it will be a fruitful life.

Today, I would like each of us to ask sincerely: in whom do we place our trust? In ourselves, in material things, or in Jesus? We are all tempted to put ourselves at the centre, to think that we alone build our lives or that our life can only be happy if built on possessions, money, or power.

But it is not so. Certainly, possessions, money and power can give a momentary thrill, the illusion of being happy, but they end up possessing us and making us always want to have more, never satisfied.

“Put on Christ” in your life, place your trust in him and you will never be disappointed! You see how faith accomplishes a revolution in us, one which we can call Copernican, because it removes us from the centre and restores it to God; faith immerses us in his love and gives us security, strength, and hope.

To all appearances, nothing has changed; yet, in the depths of our being, everything is different. Peace, consolation, gentleness, courage, serenity and joy, which are all fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22), find a home in our heart, and our very being is transformed; our way of thinking and acting is made new, it becomes Jesus’s own, God’s own, way of thinking and acting.

During the Year of Faith, this World Youth Day is truly a gift offered to us to draw us closer to the Lord, to be his disciples and his missionaries, to let him renew our lives.

Dear young people: “Put on Christ” in your lives. In these days, Christ awaits you in his word; listen carefully to him and your heart will be warmed by his presence.

“Put on Christ”: he awaits you in the sacrament of Penance, to heal by his mercy the wounds caused by sin. Do not be afraid to ask God’s forgiveness! He never tires of forgiving us, like a father who loves us. God is pure mercy!

“Put on Christ”: he is waiting for you in his flesh in the Eucharist, the sacrament of his presence and his sacrifice of love, and in the humanity of the many young people who will enrich you with their friendship, encourage you by their witness to the faith, and teach you the language of charity, goodness and service.

You too, dear young people, can be joyful witnesses of his love, courageous witnesses of his Gospel, carrying to this world a ray of his light.

“It is good for us to be here”, putting on Christ in our lives, putting on the faith, hope and love which he gives us. Dear friends, in this celebration we have welcomed the image of Our Lady of Aparecida.

With Mary, may we be disciples and missionaries. Like her, may we say “Yes” to God. Let us ask that her maternal heart intercede for us, so that our hearts may be open to loving Jesus and making others love him. He is waiting for us, and he is counting on us. Amen.

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I find this one of the most beautiful homilies by Pope Francis so far. "Put on Christ" is a great catch phrase that is not sloganeering because it is unequivocal and clear to anyone who can listen. (It reminded me of an OR headline a few years bac when a Spanish writer disputed all the trivia peddled in the media about Benedict XVI, wearing Prada, and all that. The headline read, "Benedict does not wear Prada - he wears Christ".]

Thursday, July 26, 16th Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF SAINTS JOACHIM AND ANNE
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The names of Mary's parents are not mentioned in the canonical Gospels, but come from the apocryphal Proto-Evangelium of James which tells their story and how Mary came to be conceived in Anna's old age. Joachim was said to have been a rich and pious man from the House of David whose offerings to the Temple of Jerusalem were rejected because his barrenness was considered a sign of divine displeasure. He went to the desert to fast and pray for 40 days. During that time, both he and Anna had angelic visions telling them that they would become parents. Giotto's famous painting (first left in the panel) shows them embracing at the city gates of Jerusalem after Joachim returned from the desert. The child was Mary. In gratitude, they took her to the Temple at age 3 and dedicated her to God. She was educated at the Temple until she was betrothed to Joseph. Joachim and Anna are considered the patron saints of grandparents.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072613.cfm


POPE FRANCIS'S APOSTOLIC VISIT TO BRAZIL

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Day 5
Friday, 26 July 2013

07:30 Private Mass at the Sumaré Residence in Rio de Janeiro

10:00 The Pope heard confession from five WYD paerticipants at the Quinta da Boa Vista Park

11:30 Brief encounter with some young prisoners in the Archbishop;S Residence in Rio

12:00 Recital of the Angelus Domini from the Central Balcony of the Archbishop's Residence. Remarks by the Pope.

12:15 Meeting with the Organizing Committee of the 28th World Youth Day and Benefactors, at the Archbishop's Residence

13:00 Luncheon with 12 pilgrims representing the WYD participants, at the Archbishop's residence

18:00 Way of the Cross, a WYD event, along the Copacabana beachfront.

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