BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Please see preceding page for earlier posts today, 12/31/09.





The big news of 2009:
Pope welcomes disaffected Anglicans
by Ian Hunter

Dec. 29, 2009


With year's end fast approaching, columnists and pundits will hold forth on what was the most significant news story of 2009. The story I nominate is unlikely to bulk large in their consideration, unlikely even to be mentioned, but I suggest that the most important story was Pope Benedict XVI's overture to disaffected Anglicans.

The story really begins a couple of years earlier, when a group of breakaway Anglicans (most had left the church after 1977 over Anglican ordination of female priests) who call themselves the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) petitioned Rome en masse through their primate, Archbishop John Hepworth.

The TAC, whose size is estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 souls worldwide, asked for full communion with Rome without preconditions or demands, while expressing the hope that it might be possible to retain traditional Anglican liturgy and hymnody. Their petition was cordially received at the Vatican, but for many months, there was only silence.

Then, on Oct. 20, the response of Pope Benedict XVI was a decisive, magnanimous “Yes.” The subsequently published Apostolic Constitution (Anglicanorum Coetibus) confirmed that TAC members will be permitted to join collectively and will be allowed to retain the liturgies and traditions “that are precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith.” Small wonder that Archbishop Hepworth called the Pope's offer “generous at every turn … very pastoral” and “a beautiful document.”

TAC bishops and congregations will consider and vote on the Vatican's offer in a series of national and regional synods to be held early next year.

This means, in practice, that a place will be made within Catholic liturgy for Thomas Cranmer's 1662 Book of Common Prayer – considered by many to rival William Shakespeare's plays as the apotheosis of the English language. Also to be welcomed is the rich treasure of Anglican hymnody. All of this is (to paraphrase Hamlet) “a consummation devoutly to be wished,” and it was greeted as such by many thoughtful Catholics and Anglicans of my acquaintance.

The immediate benefits are obvious: First, the Catholic Church will be strengthened by an influx (no one can yet say exactly how many) of committed, orthodox Christians. The priests who arrive with them will be men following Christ's instruction to leave everything behind – job security, income, pensions and, in some cases, families – to follow Him. These priests may help to alleviate, to some extent at least, what is in danger of becoming a chronic shortage of Catholic vocations.

Until 2006, I was an Anglican. By the time I left, I had grown sick of hearing colleagues whimper about the growing apostasy within Anglicanism but doing nothing about it. Well, now they can do something. Pope Benedict XVI has called their bluff. The destination was always there; now, there is a bridge to cross over. No one need jump; no one need swim. It will be fascinating to see who crosses and who stays put; those who stay put should be heard from no more.

Yet I also have reservations.

First, I worry that the liberal element within Catholicism, particularly in North America, will do all it can (which could be considerable) to frustrate this welcome initiative. There are some Catholics who would rather move the church in the direction of Anglicanism, even Anglicanism in its death throes, than to see orthodoxy strengthened.

Second, it is unclear how Rome will reconcile its traditional teaching (e.g. on the invalidity of Anglican orders) with this new initiative.

Finally, it is unclear whether this rapprochement with Anglicanism is only the first step of an initiative to all orthodox Protestants; in other words, is Pope Benedict XVI signalling that the ecumenism of the 21st century is not more pointless dialogue with the decaying husks of old-line Protestantism, but rather a new beginning with any ecclesial community willing to engage with Rome on historic Christendom?

I hope this is so. If it is, then the Pope's Oct. 20 announcement will be remembered as the day when the Berlin Wall of religious separation began to crumble; the wall erected five centuries ago – on Oct. 31, 1517 – when Martin Luther affixed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

If we have lived to see that breach healed, to witness the Christian church finally taking seriously Jesus's prayer that “they may be one, as I and the Father am one,” then this is the most important story of 2009.

Ian Hunter is professor emeritus in the faculty of law at the University of Western Ontario.




THE POPE'S DAY



Vespers today and Thanksgiving Te Deum for 2009
Eve of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
5:30 p.m., St. Peter's Basilica





It is now 2010 in the Southern Hemisphere!

It's Thursday, which is when I check what Bruno Mastroianni has to say this week...


Wojtyla and Ratzinger:
Apostles of
'The living Church that carries
the future of the world'
Translated from

December 31, 2009


At the start of a new year, one needs to look at the future more than assessing what is past. Perhaps, even starting from an action by Papa Ratzinger carried out in the final days of 2009: formally proclaiming the heroic virtues of John Paul II.

It is a gesture full of significance for the future. Papa Wojtyla was not just a beloved Pope. He represented a turning point: the end of Christianity's inferiority complex in the face of the secularist Enlightenment persuasions of the modern era.

With time, it has become clear that papa Ratzinger is the worthy heir* of this sea change. The work of both Popes, in fact, going beyond their differences in style, is marked by a continuity of spirit: the awareness that Christianity is not a doctrine in defense of something but the true response to the yearnings of mankind in search of fullness and completion.

As Benedict XVI underscored once again in his Christmas message to the Roman Curia, the Church has the task of keeping alive the quest for God by man, including those who are far from the faith.

John Paul II was fearless in confronting Communism because he knew that, as a Godless way, it was destined to fail. Benedict XVI, with the same tranquillity, is facing the agnostic impasse* in which the modern spirit has found itself bogged in.

Wojtyla's "Do not be afraid - open wide your doors to Christ" finds vigorous echo in Ratzinger"s "living Church that carries in it the future of the world", as he has projected it since the start of his Pontificate.


*It's more than just an agnostic impasse. Agnostics, in general, appear to be reasonable, simply saying "I do not know if God exists", and keeping it their private belief, not proselytizing others.

But the newly strident (and best-selling) apostles of atheism do not only proclaim that 'There is no God' but also, illogically, an active hatred and contempt for God and all those who believe in God.

If you don't believe in God, then what/who is there to hate? Just live your atheist life, without creating all sorts of petty but malicious nuisances - which add up to massive exasperation - for people who do believe in God.

One has to find God first to believe in God. So, no one can rule out that atheists, too, individually, may yet get to meet God in this life, and then, they will know what it means to believe in God.

The year that was with Benedict XVI
Translated from
the Italian service of

December 31, 2009


The trip to the Holy Land and the earlier one to Africa, the Synodal assembly for the Church of that continent, the proclamation of the Year for Priests and the publication of his third encyclical, Caritas in veritate - the first of a social nature - were the major events that characterized 2009 for Benedict XVI.

On the last day of the year, Alessandro De Carolis looks back on 2009 with the words of the Pope:

As at every start of the year, Benedict XVI addresses the whole world through his homily for the Mass of January 1, Solemnity of the Most Holy Mother of God, on which the Church also observes a World Day for Peace.

Benedict XVI's chosen theme for the 42nd World Day for Peace was "Fight poverty and build the peace". He would echo these words in his address to the Vatican diplomatic corps one week later.

"To build the peace, we must give hope to the poor", the Pope told then, noting, among other things, the economic crisis which a few months earlier had involved the entire planet.

"To make the economy healthy, it is necessary to build new trust. This can be realized only through an ethic that is based on the dignity that is innate in the human person. I know how demanding this is, but it is not a utopia".

On January 24, the Holy See published a decree whereby the Pope revoked the ecommunication of four bishops who had been ordained without pontifical mandate in 1988 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX).

For a few weeks, media attention focused on this Church milestone - though it is transitory, along the road to full communion with Rome for the Lefebvrians - because of statements questioning the historical reality of the Holocaust made in the past by one of the four bishops, Mons. Richard Williamson, which provoked a wave of indignation.

At the General Audience of Jan. 28, recalling "the blind racial and religious hatred " which ;ed to the deaths of millions of Jews, Benedict XVI reiterated forcefully:

"Let the Shoah be a warning for everyone against forgetting, against negation and reductionism, because violence against one single human being is a violence against all... Let the Shoah teach both old and new generations that only the laborious way of listening and dialog, of love and forgiveness, can lead peoples, cultures and religions of the world to the desired goal of brotherhood and peace in truth. Nevermore should violence debase human dignity!"

Nonetheless, the wave of criticisms and protests ended up distorting the meaning of the Pope's action. It was with great regret that the Pope, on March 12, wrote a letter to all the bishops of the world to clarify the decree that revoked the excommunications.

Very frankly, the Pope admitted errors in communication but noted that the 'gesture of holding out a hand' ended up causing 'a great outcry' even in some Church circles, where unfortunately, that 'biting and devouring' denounced by St. Paul persists 'as a sign of a poorly understood freedom".

On March 17, the Pope travelled to Africa for the first time to visit Cameroon and Angola. The occasion was to turn over to the bishops of thr continent the Instrumentum laboris (working agenda) for the October Synodal assembly on Africa in the Vatican.

But for Benedict XVI, it was also the opportunity to speak from his paternal heart to the heart of a continent that he has always kept in mind...

"Africa suffers disproportionately: a growing number of her inhabitants end up prey to hunger, poverty, disease. They cry out for reconciliation, justice and peace".

A week before he left for Africa, Benedict XVI visited Mayor Gianni Alemanno of Rome who had invited the Bishop of Rome to come to the seat of the Commune of Rome on the historic Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill).

The Pope called on Rome to "recover its most profound soul" - the Christian - in order to be 'the promoter of a new humanism", and before returning to the Vatican, he prayed before the remains of St. Francesca Romana, in the monastery named after her in Tor de' Specchi.

On February 11, the Pope began a new cycle of catecheses in his general audiences. After 20 catecheses dedicated to the Apostle Paul, the Pope turned his attention to the great Christian writers of the Middle Ages.

In the following weeks, Saints Cyril and Methodius, St. Bernard Clairvaux and the major monastic and scholastic theologians lived again - with attention to historical fact and made relevant to the faithful today - in the portraits which the Pope offered to the thousands of faithful who gather at the Vatican every Wednesday to listen to him.

On APril 26, before a massive crowd in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI presided at the first of the two canonization ceremonies of 2009.

There were five new saints: the parish priest and workers' advocate Arcangelo Tadini; the medieval monk Bernardo Tolomei; Portuguese general and national hero Nuno de Santa Maria Alvares Pereira, who in the 15th century laid down his sword for the cloister; and two founders of religious institutions, Gertrude Comensoli and Caterina Volpicelli.

Five more new saints were canonized on October 11: The apostle of the lepers, Damiaan Veuster of Belgium; the Polish bishop Sigismund Felinski; the Spanish priest Francisco Coll Guitart and his compatriot, Cistercian monk Rafael Arnaiz Baron; and the French nun Jeanne Marie (Jugan) of the Cross, founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

May was the month of a much-awaited papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Benedict XVI arrived in Jordan on May 8, and was in Israel from May 11-15.

he called it "a pilgrimage to visit the Holy Places" where Christ walked teh earth, and the various stages of his trip were characterized by a spiritual intensity evoked by the sites where the Christian faith was born.

The Pope also underscored the importance of dialog between Jews and Muslims, invoked peace between Israelis and Palestinians, spoke to commemorate the Holocaust, and against the hostility brought about by walls between people - convictions and hopes that he synthesized in his departure speech at Tel Aviv airport:

"No more bloodshed! No more fighting! No more terrorism! No more war! Instead, let us break the vicious cycle of violence. May there be lasting peace based on justice. May there be reconciliation and healing."

As he had first announced in March, Benedict XVI inaugurated the Year for Priests on June 18 with a letter to all priests, in which he held up the Curate of Ars, St. Jean Marie Vianney, as a model for every priest. The day after, at a solemn inaugural Mass in St. Peter's, the Pope said:

"Our mission as priests is indispensable for the Church and for the world, requiring full fidelity to Christ and incessant union with him. Remaining in his love demands that we strive constantly for holiness as did St. Jean Marie Vianney".

On June 21, the world witnessed Benedict XVI in prayer before the remains of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo - one of the Pope's four pastoral visits within Italy for 2009.

Earlier, on May 24, the Pope knelt at the tomb of St. Benedict during his visit to the Abbey of Montecassino and the town of Cassino.

On September 6, the Pope visited Viterbo, where he venerated the remains of Santa Rosa, native daughter and patron saint of 'the city of the Popes', and in the afternoon, he paid homage to St. Bonaventure in his hometown of Bagnoregio.

Finally, on November 8, a visit to Brescia and Concesio in homage to Paul VI 30 years after his death.

On June 28, at the closing ceremony of the Year for St. Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, the Pope announced 'with profound emotion' the result of a preliminary scientific investigation using a probe inserted into the sarcophagus of St. Paul, which has remained sealed for 20 centuries.

He said the examination showed 'tiny bone fragments' and cloth samples that "appear to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that it contains the moral remains of the Apostle Paul".

The month of July opened with the much awaited publication on July 7 of Benedict XVI's third encyclical, Caritas in veritate. The ample social Magisterium that characterizes it - 18 years after Papa Wojtyla's Centesimus annus - immediately drew worldwide attention.

The following day, at the General Audience, the Pope explained that he had looked at the main questions that are of concern to contemporary society - from poverty to the economic crisis to protection of the environment - and remarked:

"That is why it is necessary to undertake a profound moral and cultural renewal responsible discernment of the choices that must be made for the common good. A better future for everyone is possible if it is founded on the rediscovery of fundamental ethical values".

Three days later, on July 10, many of those same topics - from the defense of life to peace in the Middle East, from the economic crisis to inter-religious dialog - were taken up between Benedict XVI and the new American president, Barcak Obama, in a 40-minute private meeting.

The first black American Preisdent had come to Italy to take part in the G8 summit hosted by Italy and held in L'Aquila among the ruins of the Holy Week earthquake that had claimed more than 200 lives and caused vast destruction.

The Pope himself visited the region on April 29 to bring comfort and solidarity to the thousands of displaced persons and other victims of Italy's worst earthquake in 40 years.

Benedict XVI spent July 13-29 in Les Combes of Introd, in Italy's Val d'Aosta, for his annual summer holiday. On July 17, a stumble in the dark resulted in a fracture to his right wrist. He was treated in a hospital in Aosta, and his arm and hand were placed in a cast that was taken out one month later.

Before leaving Les Combes for Castel Gandolfo, the Pope recalled with gratitude the sympathy shown to him by everyone, and commented on the incident this way:

"Unfortunately my guardian angel did not prevent my little accident, surely on 'higher orders'... Perhaps the Lord wanted to teach me to have more patience and humility, and give me more time for prayer and meditation".

On October 4, cardinals, bishops and laymen gathered at the Vatican - 240 Synodal fathers and dozens of lay auditors - for three weeks of deliebrations in the second special Synodal assembly dedicated to Africa.

The meetings, on the theme "The Church in Africa in the service of reconciliation, justice and peace", were intense, and the relations and testimonials, often very moving, gave a concrete face to the continent at the start of the 21st century.

In his homily at the inaugural Mass, Benedict XVI said:

"With her work of evangelization and human promotion, the Church can certainly give a great contribution to all of society in Africa, which unfortunately experiences poverty, injustice, violence and wars in many countries".

The month of November saw the Holy See involved in a historic dialog with the Anglican community. On November 9 came the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus laying down the terms for personal ordinariates for Anglicans wishing to enter into full communion with Rome.

The document is intended to "open a new road for the promotion of Christian unity, while recognizing the legitimate differences in the expression of our common faith". This new stage was sealed by the visit to the Pope on November 21 of the Archbishop of CAnterbury, primate of the Anglican Communion.

Some of the social issues dealt with in Caritas in veritate and in many other papal texts during the year were reflected again in the address given by Benedict XVI at the Rome headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, at a world summit on food security. The Pope said:

"Hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty. One cannot continue to accept opulence and waste when the tragedy of hunger takes on increasingly greater dimensions".

An event that had great media impact took place on November 21 at the Sistine Chapel, when Benedict XVI met with more than 200 artists from various disciplines. It took place 10 years after John Paul II's Letter to Artists, and 45 years since Paul VI met the world of art at the Sistine Chapel.

Benedict XVI spoke of a renewed friendship between the Church and artists, whom he called on to be "proclaimers and witnesses to hope for mankind".

"Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art. On the contrary, it exalts and nourishes, and encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimnate and definitive goal, teh sun that does not set, the sun that illumines the present and makes it beautiful".

On November 28, Benedict XVI commemorated at the Vatican the 25h anniversary of a peace treaty between Argentina and Chile, which had been concluded with the direct interest of John Paul II who helped resolve a territorial dispute without resort to arms.

In the presence of delegations from both countries, Benedict XVI called the signing of the treaty "a luminous example of the power of the human spirit and of the desire for peace against barbarism and the irrationality of violence and war as means to resolve differences".

Two audiences of great international importance took place at the Vatican in early December. On the third of the month, Benedict XVI received Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, which would lead a few days later to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Russian Federation.

The second was the visit on December 11 of the Vietnamese President Nugyen Minh Triet, who became the first Vietnamese head of state to be received by a Pope.

On December 4, Benedict XVI was honored at a concert in the Sistine Chapel (by the Chamber Orchestra of Munich and vocal soloists) offered by President Horst Koehler of Germany to mark the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 20th anniversary of teh fall of the Berlin Wall.

"The history of Europe in the 20th century," noted the Pope, "demonstrates that responsibility before God is of decisive important for correct political action" in order "to generate new energies in the service of an integral humanism".

Words that reflect Benedict XVI's confidence as he looks towards the future of the planet. The confidence is anchored in God and in his intervention in history, as the Pope repeated in his Christmas mesage urbi et orbi:

"Even today," he said, "for the human family so profoundly marked by a grave economic crisis that is above all, a moral crisis, and by the painfoul wounds of wars and conflicts", the Church draws its strength form the presence of Jesus in the world, and "like Mary", is fearless because:

"...that Baby is her strength. But she does not hold him for herself: she offers him to all those who seek with a sincere heart, to the humble of the earth and to the afflicted, to the victims of violence, to those who yearn for the blessings of peace... In the spirit of sharing and of faithfulness to man, the Church repeats with the shepherds, "Let us go to Bethlehem" - and there we will find hope.

VESPERS AND TE DEUM
NEW YEAR'S EVE


Cover illustration of libretto, left: 'Mother of God', Albrecht Altdorfer, 1480, Kollegiatstftung Skt. Johann, Regensburg.






In New Year's Eve homily,
the Pope calls for solidarity
to help people weather the crisis




If you watched the telecast, you will know the Pope walked in his usual stately manner down the center aisle unassisted, although two deacons held up the sides of his cope in the prescribed manner - and prominently close enough to him was Inspector Giani on the left and Swiss Guard commandant Anrig on the right. Mons. Marini too walked much closer to him than he did in the past, The photo on the right showing the Pope being assisted was not taken from the central aisle, but as he prepared to mount the steps to the Papal chair, but it's a tendentious choice by the newsphoto editors - after the Christmas Eve incident - to portray a Pope who needs to be assisted much of the time! Well, how about showing him walking briskly entirely without attendants whenever he enters or leaves a room for an audience?


Vatican City, Dec. 31 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI Thursday called for more solidarity to help people find their way through the fallout of the economic crisis during his annual New Year's Eve address.

While giving thanks for the year that is coming to a close, the head of the Roman Catholic Church reminded listeners that many people are still suffering unemployment and other problems stemming from the global financial crisis and urged the more fortunate to show greater support for those people in 2010.

The pontiff's "Te Deum laudamus" (we praise thee, Lord) evening service is held every New Year's Eve to express thanks for the year coming to an end.

On Friday, the Pope will deliver his annual New Year's address at St Peter's Square at 0900 GMT. Since its establishment by Pope Paul V in 1967, the New Year's Day speech has been used by pontiffs to deliver a message of peace to rulers around the world.

{This is in addition to the more detailed Message for the World for Peace usually released several weeks earlier, as it was this year.]







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

---

Dear brothers and sisters!

At the end of a year rich in events for the Church and for the world, we are here this evening at the Vatican Basilica to celebrate the First Vespers of the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Mary, Mother of God, and to raise a hymn of thanks to the Lord of time and history.

Above all, it is the words of the Apostle Paul that we heard just now, which throws a particular light on this time of year: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman... so that we might receive adoption" (Gal 4,4-5).

This dense Pauline passage speaks to us of 'the fullness of time' and enlightens us on the content of the expression.

In the story of the human family, God introduced his eternal Word, making it take on humanity like ours. With the Incarnation of the Son of God, eternity entered time, and the history of man was opened to absolute fulfillment in God.

Time had been, so to speak, 'touched' by Christ, the Son of God, and the Son of Mary, and had received new and surprising significances: it had become a time of salvation and grace.

It is precisely in this perspective that we could consider time at year's end and that to come, in order to place the most diverse events of our life - important or trivial, simple or indecipherable, joyous or sad - under the sign of salvation and accept the call that God addresses to us to lead us towards a goal that is beyond time itself: eternity.

The Pauline text also underscores the mystery of the nearness of God to all mankind. It is the nearness itself of the mystery of Christmas: God became man, and thereby gave man the unprecedented possibility to become a child of God.

All this fills us with great joy and brings us to raise praises to God. We are called to express with our voices, our hearts and our lives our thanks to the Lord for the gift of his Son, source and fulfillment of all the other gifts with which divine love fills the existence of each of us, of families, of communities, of the Church and of teh world.

Singing the Te Deum, which resounds today in Churches around the world, is a sign of the joyous gratitude which we address to God for all that he has given us in Christ. Truly, "from his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace" (Jn 1,16).

Following a happy custom, this evening, I wish, together with you, to thank the Lord, in particular, for the super-abundant graces granted to our diocesan community of Rome in the course of the year that is coming to an end.

I wish to address, first, a special greeting to the Cardinal Vicar, the the auxiliary bishops, priests and consecrated persons, as well as the many lay faithful who are gathered here.

I also greet with cordial deference the Mayor of Rome and other authorities present. My thoughts to go all who live in this city, especially those who are in situations of difficulty and hardship - to all and and to each one, I assure my spiritual closeness, with constant remembrance in my prayers.

As for the course followed by the Diocese of Rome, I renew my appreciation for the pastoral choice to take the time to verify the itinerary that has been followed so far, in order to increase the sense of belonging to the Church and to promote pastoral co-responsibility.

To underscore the importance of this verification, I too have wanted to make a contribution, speaking to the Diocesan Convention at St. John Lateran on May 26. I am happy that the diocesan program is proceeding positively with capillary apostolic action carried out in the parishes, prefectures and various church organizations, in two fields essential to the life and mission of the Church, namely, the celebration of Sunday Eucharist and the witness of charity.

I wish to encourage the faithful to participate in great numbers in the assemblies taking place in their parishes, in order to offer a valid contribution to the edification of the Church.

Even today the Lord wants to make his love for humanity known to the residents of Rome and entrusts to each one, in the diversity of their ministries and responsibilities, the mission of announcing his words of truth and bearing witness through charity and brotherly solidarity.

Only by contemplating the mystery of the Word incarnate can man find the answers to the great questions of human existence and thus discover the truth of his own identity.

Because of this, the Church, in all the world, and here in the Urbe, is committed to promoting the integral development of the human being.

Thus, I have learned approvingly of a programmed series of 'cultural encounters in the Cathedral' which will have my recent encyclical Caritas in veritate as the subject.

For many years, so many families, numerous educators and the parochial communities have been dedicated to helping young people construct their future on solid foundations, particularly on the rock that Jesus Christ is.

I hope that this renewed educational commitment may increasingly lead to a fruitful synergy between the church community and the city in order to help young people plan their lives.

I also hope that a precious contribution to this important field may come from the convention promoted by the Vicariate which will take place next March.

In order to be authoritative witnesses to the truth about man, prayerful listening to the Word of God is necessary. In this regard, I wish above all to recommend the ancient tradition of the lectio divina. The parishes and the various ecclesial entities, thanks to the subsidy prepared by the Vicariate, can usefully promote this ancient practice so that it becomes an essential part of ordinary pastoral ministry.

The Word - believed, announced and lived - urges us to behave with solidarity and sharing. In praising the Lord for the help that the Christian communities have offered with generosity to those who have knocked on their doors, I wish to encourage everyone to follow through with this commitment to alleviate difficulties in which so many families still find themselves due to the economic crisis and unemployment.

May the Nativity of the Lord, which reminds us of the gratuitousness with which God came to save us, in taking on our humanity and giving us his divine life, may help every man and woman of good will to understand that only by opening up to the love of God, can human behavior change, is transformed, becoming the yeast for a better future for everyone.

Dear brothers and sisters, Rome needs priests who can be courageous announcers of the Gospel, and at the same time, reveal the merciful face of the Lord.

I invite all young people not to be afraid to answer with the complete gift of their own existence the call that the Lord makes for them to follow him in the way of priesthood or the consecrated life.

I also hope that the encounter next March 25 - on the 25th anniversary of the institution of World Youth Day, and the 10th anniversary of that unforgettable gathering in Tor Vergata [Rome, site of the Jubilee Year WYD] may represent for all the parochial and religious communities, movements and associations, a key moment for reflection and invoking the Lord for numerous vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.

As we take leave of the year that is ending and we face the new year, the liturgy today introduces us to the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Mary, Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of the Church and mother of each of her members, that is, the mother of each of us, in Christ.

Let us ask her to accompany us with her thoughtful protection today and always, so that Christ may welcome us one day, in his glory, to the assembly of saints: Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. ['Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting- from the Te Deum laudamus hymn, attributed to St. Ambrtose.] Amen!

---

Pope visits the Nativity scene
on St. Peter's Square

After the Vespers service, the Holy Father visited the Nativity scene on St. Peter's Square accompanied by Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, president of the Vatican Governatorate. He arrived and left in the Popemobile.











The Pope returned to the Apostolic Palace around 8 p.m.

[I have not read anywhere whether Mons. Georg Ratzinger is already in Rome - he usually flies in on or around Dec. 28 to spend New Year and his birthday (Jan. 15) with his brother.]

Friday, January 1
WORLD DAY FOR PEACE

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD
From left: The first known Marian image is a Madonna painted on the wall of a 2nd century Roman catacomb; Our Lady of Kazan, 13th-century Russian icon; Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a 13th-century icon from Crete brought to Rome in the 16th century and venerated since the 19th century under her present title; Our Lady of Vladimir, 12th century Russian icon and one of the most venerated images in the Russian orthodox faith; two graphic icons of Mary as the God-bearer,
In 1974, Pope Paul VI instituted this feast on January 1 in place of the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, as the Roman Catholic Church had celebrated the day for centuries. As the Church also celebrates a World Day for Peace on January 1, Paul VI pointed out it was doubly appropriate since Mary is also the Queen of Peace. The first documented reference to Mary as the Mother of God was made by Origen in 252. Veneration of Mary as the Theotokos - 'God-bearer' - became widespread in the next two centuries and initiated a great controversy when the Emperor Nestorius claimed that Mary was only the mother of Jesus the man. Both the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon in the 5th century condemned the Nestorian heresy and confirmed the doctrine of the Theotokos. Mary as the God-bearer was a favorite subject of Byzantine icon painters.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/010110.shtml


OR today.

The issue was printed before last evening's Vespers so that event is not carried in this issue.
The Page 1 papal story is the Holy Father's letter to the Bishop of Santiago de Compostela,
on the opening of the Holy Year of St. James (Santiago in Spanish) the Major. A front-page
editorial focuses on Benedict XVI's insistence on asserting God in today's world. Other news:
the terror killing of 8 CIA agents in an Afghan base by an Afghan whom they were recruiting
as an informant; continuing tension in Tehran as protesters defy the regime; and renewed
fear of terrorist attacks in the United States.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica and then led the Angelus
from his window overlooking St. Peter's Square.



The Holy Father's
prayer intentions for January 2010

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Young people and social communications media
General: That young people may learn to use modern means of social communication
for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society.

Christian unity
Missionary: That every believer in Christ may be conscious that unity among all
Christians is a condition for more effective proclamation of the Gospel.

---

THE POPE'S MASS
SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD


Illustrations for libretto: Miniatures from Libro Corale per la Liturgia delle Ore, 1607-1614, Madonna dell'Arco, Naples.
See full libretto on www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2010/2010...




Translated from


At 10 a.m. today, the Holy Fahter Benedict XVI presided at the Eucharistic Celebration on the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God in the octave of Christmas.

It is also the 434d World Day for Peace observed annually by the Catholic Church. This year's theme is "If you wish to cultivate peace, tale care of Creation".

Concelebrating with the Pope were Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State; and Renato Raffaele Martino, emeritus* President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Mons. Fernando Filoni, deputy Secretary of State; Mons. dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with other states; and Mons. Mario Toso, secretary of thw Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

*[Unless this was an unintended error, it appears that the retirement of Cardinal Martino is now in effect. Though it was widely expected because he is well past retirement age, it has not been formally announced, and his successor has not been named.]


Pope calls for respect
and peace in 2010
by ALESSANDRA RIZZO



VATICAN CITY, Jan. 1 (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI on Friday called for respect of all people without discrimination and the protection of children from war and violence as he celebrated the start of the new year.

Jan. 1 is also the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, and the Pontiff issued an appeal to all armed groups to "stop, reflect and abandon the way of violence," even if it seems impossible.

"You will feel in your hearts the joy of peace, which you have perhaps long forgotten," Benedict said during the Angelus prayer.

He said peace begins by recognizing that men are brothers, not rivals or enemies.

"Peace begins with a look of respect that recognizes in another man's face a person, regardless of the color of his skin, nationality, language or religion," he said during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica earlier in the day.

The value of respect for all should be taught from an early age, Benedict said. Noting that classes containing children of different backgrounds are common, he said that "their faces are a prophecy of the kind of humanity we are called upon to create: a family of families and peoples."

The 82-year-old Pope put children, especially those hurt by conflict or forced to leave their homes, at the heart of his call for peace.

He said they make it evident that men are brothers because "despite differences, they cry and laugh the same way, have the same needs, communicate spontaneously, play together."

The painful images of children at the mercy of war and violence, their faces "disfigured by pain and desperation," are a silent appeal for peace, Benedict said.

The Pope celebrated the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica a week after he was knocked down by a woman on Christmas Eve. He was unhurt in the fall and has kept up his busy holiday schedule.

The Vatican said the woman was mentally unstable and identified her as 25-year-old Susanna Maiolo, a Swiss-Italian national. She remains in a clinic for treatment.

In his comments, Benedict also renewed his call to protect the environment, saying that the degradation of man leads to the degradation of the planet.




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

---

Venerated Brothers,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
Dear brothers and sisters:

On the first day of the new year, we have the joy and the grace of celebrating the Most Blessed Mother of God, and at the same time, the World Day for Peace.

In both, we celebrate Christ, Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and our true peace. To all of you who are gathered here - Representatives of the peoples of the world, of the Roman and universla Church; priests and faithful, and all those who are linked to us by radio and television - I repeat the words of the ancient blessing: "The LORD let his face shine upon you... and give you peace!" (cfr Nm 6,26)

It is precisely the subject of the Face and of faces that I wish to dwell on today in the light of the Word of God: the Face of God and the faces of men - a subject that also offers a key to the problem of peace in the world.

We heard in the first Reading, taken from the Book of Numbers, and in the Responsorial Psalm, some expressions that contain the metaphor of the face referring to God:

"The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!" (Nm 6,25)

"May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. So may your way be known upon earth; among all nations, your salvation." (Ps 66/67,2-3)

The face is the expression par excellence of the person, namely, that which makes him recognizable and which shows his sentiments, thoughts and his heart's intentions.

God, by his nature, is invisible, but the Bible uses the image of the face even for him. Showing his face expressed his benevolence, whereas hiding it meant his ire and scorn.

The Book of Exodus tells us that "the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another" (Ex 23,11), and it was also to Moses that the Lord promised his closeness, using a very singular expression: "My face will go with you to give you rest" (Ex 33,14). [In the New American Bible, this is translated as "I myself willgo along, to give you rest".]

The Psalms shows us that believers are those who seek the face of God (cfr Ps 26.27,8l 104/105,4) and who, through worship, aspire to see him (cfr Ps 42,3); and they tell us that 'righteous men' 'contemplate' him (Ps 10/11,7).

All of Biblical narration can be read as the progressive revelation of the face of God, until it reaches its full manifestation in Jesus Christ. "When the fullness of time had come," the Apostle Paul reminds us even today, "God sent his Son" (Gal 4,4) - adding right away, "born of a woman, born under the law".

The face of God took on a human face, allowing himself to be seen and recognized in the son of the Virgin Mary, whom we hnor because of this with the most elevated title of 'Mother of God".

She, who kept in her heart the secret of her divine motherhood, was the first to see the face of God made man in the tiny fruit of her womb.

The mother has a very special relationship that is unique and somewhat exclusive with her newborn son. The first face that the baby sees is that of his mother, and this look is decisive for his relationship to life, with himself and with others, and with God. It is decisive as well so that he may become a 'child of peace' (Lk 10.6).

Among the many typologies of the icon of the Virgin Mary in the Byzantine tradition, there is that which is called 'tenderness' which shows the Baby Jesus with his face held, cheek to cheek, on his Mother's.

The Baby looks at the Mother, and she looks at us, almost reflecting to him who observes, who prays, the tenderness of God, who had descended to her from heaven and incarnated in this Son of man that she carries in her arms.

In this Marian icon we can contemplate something of God himself: a sign of the ineffable love that impelled him "to give his only begotten Son" (Jn 3,16).

But the same icon also shows us, in Mary, the face of the Church which reflects on us and the entire world the light of Christ - the Church through which the good news comes to every man: "You are no longer slaves but children" (Gal 4,7), as we read in St. Paul.

Brothers in the Episcopate and in the priesthood, Messieurs Ambassadors, dear friends: To meditate on the mystery of the face of God and of man is a privileged way that leads to peace.

Indeed, peace begins with a respectful look, which recognizes in the face of the other a person, whatever be the color of his skin, his nationality, his language, his religion. But who, if not God, can guarantee, so to say, the 'depth' of the face of man?

In fact, only if we have God in our heart, are we able to see in the face of another a brother in humanity - not a means but an end, not a rival or enemy, but another 'myself', a facet of the infinite mystery of the human being.

Our perception of the world, and in particular, of our peers, depends essentially on the presence in us of the Spirit of God. It is a kind of resonance: he who has an empty heart does not see anything other than flat images without depth.

On the other hand, the more God dwells in us, the more we are sensitive to his presence in everything that surrounds us: in all creatures, but especially, in other men, even though sometimes, the human face, marked by the hardness of life and by evil, may be difficult to appreciate and to accept as an epiphany of God.

For more reason, than, in order to recognize and respect each other as we really are, namely brothers, we must look to the face of a common Father who loves us all, despite our limitations and our errors.

Already as small children, it is important to be educated to have respect for others, even when they are different from us. It has become increasingly common to have classes in school that are made up of children with different nationalities, but even if this does not happen, children's faces are a prophecy of the humanity that we are called on to be - a family of families and peoples.

The younger children are, the more they arouse in us tenderness and joy for an innocence and brotherhood that appear to be obvious: despite their differences, they cry and laugh in the same way, they have the same needs, they communicate spontaneously, they play together...

The faces of children are like a reflection of God's vision for the world. Why then should we shut down their smiles? Why do we poison their hearts?

Unfortunately, the icon of the Mother of God portraying tenderness finds its tragic coutnerpart in the painful images of so many children and their mothers who are prey to wars and violence: refugees, forced migrants. Faces emaciated by hunger and disease, faces disfigured by pain and despair.

The faces of young innocents are a silent appeal to our responsibility: in the face of their helpless condition, all the false justifications for war and violence collapse.

We should simply convert ourselves to plans for peace, to lay down arms of every type, and commit ourselves together to a world that is more worthy of man.

My message for the 43rd World Day of Peace today - "If you wish to cultivate peace, take care of Creation" - fits the perspective of the face of god and the faces of men.

We can, in fact, affirm that man is capable of respecting creation to the degree which he carries in his own spirit a full sense of life. Otherwise he will come to despise his own self and everything that is around him - and therefore, he will have no respect for the environment he inhabits, no respect for Creation.

Whoever recognizes in the cosmos the reflections of the Creator's invisible face, is broguht to have more love for creatures, a better sensitivity for their symbolic value.

The Book of Psalms is particularly rich with testimonials of this properly human way of relating to nature: with the sky, the sea, mountains, hills, rivers, animals...

"How varied are your works, LORD! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures" (Ps 104/103,24).

In particular, the perspective of the 'face' asks us to dwell on that which, in the Message for today, I called "human ecology' There is, in fact a very close link between respect for man and safeguarding Creation. "The duties towards the environment derive from those towards the person considered in himself and in relation to others" (ivi, 12).

If man becomes degraded, then the environment he lives in is degraded. If the culture tends to nihilism, whether theoretical or practical, nature cannot but pay him back with consequences.

One can, in fact, observe a reciprocal influence between the face of man and the 'face' of the environment. "When human ecology is respected in society, then even environmental ecology benefits" (ibidi; cfr, Caritas in veritate, 51).

Therefore, I renew my appeal to invest in education with the goal - besides the necessary transmission of technico-scientific knowledge - of fostering a wider and deeper 'ecological responsibility' based on respect for man and his fundamental rights and duties.

Only then can commitment to the environment truly become an education for peace and the building of peace.

Dear brothers and sisters, at Christmastime, a Psalm recurs that contains, among other things, a stupendous example of how the coming of God transforms Creation and brings on a kind of cosmic feast.

This hymn begins with a universal invitation to give praise: "Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless his name" (Ps 96/95,1-2).

But at a certain point, this call for exultation extends to all of Creation: "Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice; let the sea and what fills it resound; let the plains be joyful and all that is in them. Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice before the LORD who comes, who comes to govern the earth" (vv 11-12).

The feast of faith becomes a feast of man and creation. The feast of the Nativity is expressed even in deocorations on the trees, in the streets, in homes. Everything flowers anew because God has appeared among us.

The Virgin Mary shows the Baby Jesus to the shepherds of Bethlehem, who rejoice and praise the Lord (cfr Lk 2,20). The Church renews the mystery for men of every generation - she shows them the face of God so that, with his blessing, we may walk along the path of peace.

---

ANGELUS TODAY


The Pope wore his winter mozzetta for his first Angelus of 2010.

After the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the Holy Father appeared at his study window about ten minutes later to lead the noontime Angelus.

Here is a translation of his words before and after the prayers:

---

Today the Lord gifts us with the start of a new year in his name and under the loving eyes of the Most Blessed Mary, whose Divine Motherhood we celebrate today. I am happy to be with you for this first Angelus of 2010.

I address you all, who have gathered in such great numbers here in St. Peter's Square, and to those who join us in prayer through radio and television. I wish for everyone that the year which has just begun may be a time when, with the help of the Lord, we can walk to meet Jesus and the will of God, so that we may improve our common home which is the world.

A goal that can be shared by everyone, an indispensable condition for peace, is to administer the resources of the earth with justice and wisdom.

"If you wish to cultivate peace, safeguard Creation": to this theme, which is of great relevance today, I dedicated my message for the 43rd World Day of Peace today.

When the Message was first published, heads of state and government were assembled in Copenhagen for a summit on the climate, where once more, the urgency of orientations agreed upon on a global level emerged.

Nonetheless, at this time, I wish to underscore the importance, for the protection of the environment, of choices made by individuals, families and local administrations.

"A change of mentality that can lead everyone to adopt new lifestyles has become indispensable" (cfr Message, No. 11). Indeed, we are all responsible for the protection and care of creation.

That is why even in this field, education is fundamental: to learn to respect nature, to orient ourselves increasingly to "building peace starting with wide-ranging choices at the personal, familial, communitarian and political levels" (ibid.).

If we must take care of the creatures that surround us, what consideration must we have for persons, our brothers and sisters? What respect for human life?

On the first day of the year, I wish to address an appeal to the consciences of those who are part of armed groups of any kind. To each and everyone, I say: "Stop, reflect, and abandon the way of violence! At the moment, this may seem impossible to you, but if you have the courage to do it, God will help you, and you will feel the joy of peace, which perhaps you have forgotten for some time, return to your hearts".

I entrust this appeal to the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary. Today, the liturgy reminds us that eight days after the birth of her Baby, she, along with her spouse Joseph, had him circumcised, according to the law of Moses, and named him Jesus, as the angel had called him (cfr Lk 2,21).

This name, which means 'God saves', is the fulfillment of God's revelation. Jesus is the face of God, he is the blessing for every man and for all peoples, he is peace for the world.

Thank you, Holy Mother, for giving birth to the Savior, the Prince of Peace!


After the prayers, he said this:

These days, I have received so many messages and greetings. I thank everyone with affection, especially for their gift of prayer.

I wish to address a special wish to the President of the Italian Republic. To him, to the other authorities of the state, and to the entire Italian people, I express best wishes for the year that has just begun.

On today's World Day for Peace, I address a cordial greeting to the participants of the march entitled "Peace in all countries", promoted by the Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome and in many other countries of the world.

I extend the expression of my spiritual closeness to the multiple initiatives for peace organized by local churches, associations and ecclesial movements. I think in particular of the national marches staged yesterday in Terni and L'Aquila.


In English, he said:

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Angelus prayer and I wish you all a blessed New Year filled with abundant joy and consolation in Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

On this World Day of Peace I pray that Christians everywhere, through the intercession of Mary the Mother of God, may be careful stewards of nature and diligent promoters of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace!

---

NB: Although the Holy Father also spoke of environmental responsibility in his homily at the morning Mass,
this Reuters report refers to his Angelus message later which develops the message.


Pope urges lifestyle changes
to save environment



VATICAN CITY, Jan. 1 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict used his traditional New Year address [it was his Angelus homily!] on Friday to call on people to change their lifestyles to save the planet, saying environmental responsibility was essential for global peace.

Recalling that world leaders had gathered in Copenhagen last month for the U.N. climate conference, the Pope said action at a personal and community level was just as important to safeguard the environment.

"Nevertheless, in this moment, I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment," the Pope told the thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square.

"An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth's natural resources with justice and wisdom."

The Pope, who had a scare last week when a woman with a history of mental problems knocked him down during Christmas Eve mass, also said "ecological responsibility" should be taught as part of the education syllabus.

The Pope and his predecessor John Paul have put the Vatican firmly on an environmentalist footing. [That is such a wrong take! Promoting individual and social awareness of man's responsibility to safeguard Creation is not being 'environmentalist', a description that appies to environmental ideologues for whom the environment often seems to be more important than man himself. Most of Benedict XVI's message on the environment warn specifically against such ecocentrism.]

Last month, in a message sent to heads of state and international organizations, the Pope called on rich nations to acknowledge responsibility for the environmental crisis and shed consumerism.

[Partial, tendentious reporting of the Pope's environmental messages by the liberal media who are environmental ideologues is most unfair and patently wrong. It distorts the Pope's message because it appears to put him - and Church teaching about ecological responsibility - in the same class as Al Gore and his fellow fanatics.]

Thanks to Beatrice and her site's faithful collagist, Gloria, for the appropiate seasonal illustrations.



Synod, saints, and Shroud
all on the papal agenda for 2010
By John Thavis



VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As Pope Benedict XVI says goodbye to 2009, his 2010 calendar is already being filled.

On the horizon for the next 12 months are four papal trips; a Middle East Synod of Bishops; the expected publication of a document on the Bible and the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth; a major gathering of the world's priests; a pilgrimage to the Shroud of Turin; a probable consistory and several likely canonizations and beatifications -- including that of Pope John Paul II.

In April Pope Benedict marks five years in office, and the event will no doubt be marked by modest festivities and lots of analysis on the accomplishments and priorities of the German pontiff, who turns 83 the same month.

Several of his endeavors are works in progress, like the ongoing negotiations with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and the effort to bring its leaders back into full communion. No breakthrough is guaranteed in 2010, but Vatican officials say that, at the very least, the picture should be much clearer as twice-a-month meetings proceed.

January brings traditional papal liturgies and meetings, including an encounter Jan. 11 with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican. Six days later, Pope Benedict will visit Rome's synagogue for the first time, an event that has added drama since the Pope's recent decision to advance Pope Pius XII's sainthood cause.

The new year also means a new slate of "ad limina" visits by groups of bishops around the world. Although the visits traditionally are made every five years, the interval has grown longer recently, and it now appears that U.S. bishops, who last came in 2004, will not be making their "ad limina" visits until 2011 -- or even later.

The Pope's second volume on the life of Jesus is expected to be released in the spring, although translations may take a little longer. It is expected to cover Christ's childhood, passion, death and resurrection.

Pope Benedict will make at least four foreign trips in 2010: to Malta in April, to Portugal in May, to Cyprus in early June, and to England in mid-September.

The fact that all four will take place in Europe or the Mediterranean gave rise to a rumor that the Pope has decided not to make any more long-distance trips -- a rumor that informed Vatican sources said was completely untrue.

During his visit to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, the Pope will present the working document for the Synod of Bishops on the Middle East, which will take place Oct. 10-24 at the Vatican. Joining him in Cyprus will be Church leaders from North Africa, the Holy Land and Iraq.

The Pope is still putting the finishing touches on a document from a previous synod, the 2008 assembly on the Bible. That text is expected in the first half of the year.

Pope Benedict is scheduled to make four trips within Italy in 2010, including a visit in early May to see the Shroud of Turin, which many believe is the burial cloth of Christ. In early October, he makes a one-day visit to Palermo, Sicily, to address a meeting of families and youths. [The two other pastoral visits in Italy will be to the birthplaces of two Popes - Sulmona in the Abruzzo, for the eighth birth centenary of St. Celestine V, and Carpineto in Lazio, for the 20tth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's birth.]

Beatifications and canonizations will loom large on the papal calendar in 2010. Romans are already planning for the possible beatification of Pope John Paul II in October -- presuming that a miracle attributed to his intercession will be certified definitively sometime during the next several months.

On his September trip to England, the Pope is expected to preside over the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the influential 19th-century theologian and former Anglican.

Among those due to be canonized by the Pope in 2010 is Blessed Mary MacKillop, the Australian founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart.

Pope Benedict will close the Year for Priests in June, presiding over a worldwide congress of priests in Rome June 9-11 on the theme "Fidelity of Christ, Fidelity of the Priest." The program includes an evening gathering with the Pope in St. Peter's Square.

Consistories to create new cardinals are always tough to predict, but most insiders expect Pope Benedict to hand out red hats some time in 2010.

Given the limit of 120 cardinals under age 80 eligible to vote in a conclave, the Pope would have at least 12 vacancies to fill by the middle of the year, and 19 if he waits until mid-November.

There's already a lot of speculation about which U.S. prelates, if any, would be named a cardinal. While most point to the archbishops of New York and Washington as likely candidates, it should be remembered that both archdioceses still have cardinals under the age of 80.

Both Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and New York Cardinal Edward M. Egan are retired from their posts as archbishops.

In addition, the number of U.S. voting-age cardinals is at a record high 13, which will dip to 11 by the end of 2010.

Among those most certain to be on the next list of new cardinals is U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, head of the Vatican's highest tribunal, an office usually held by a cardinal.



ZENIT has a similar article posted 1/1/10 which covers most of the main known events planned in 2010 but is less complete than Thavis's.

Thanks to Beatrice, who has opened a new subsite for 2010 on her

I realize what I have missed that needs to be shared from the French media - and once again it is La Croix's new permanent correspondent in Rome, whose December 23 'Ecce homo' about Benedict XVI I translated and posted on Page 54 of this thread... Finally, someone from MSM who gives the Holy Father due credit for how he literally 'bounced back' from his Christmas Eve fall.


The Pope's path
by Frédéric Mounier
Special Correspondent in Rome
Translated from

Dec. 27, 2009


They have been saying he is tired. And earlier, the media made a fuss about the new schedule for Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican, which began at 10 p.m.instead of midnight.

Instead, one must remark that Benedict XVI on that occasion showed a resounding example not merely of his physical form but also his spiritual state.

Pulled down to the floor by a deranged person, under the eyes of tens of millions of TV viewers around the world, he was back on his feet immediately. And as though immune from the circumstances that could have been tragic, he went on calmly towards the altar of St. Peter's Basilica.

Up front, cardinals and diplomats who were seated in the front rows, suspected nothing of what had happened as they watched him firmly ascend the steps to the Pope's altar.

Then, above all, he read irreproachably a homily that was very personal. The theologian Pope used simple words to call on all those who have been baptized to emerge from their daydreaming and awaken to the Essential, with humility - not to let themselves be crushed by day-to-day emergencies in order to dedicate time to God and to one's neighbor.

Later, the Vatican said firmly: "The Pope is a pastor. He must remain close to the people. There will not be a wall between him and the faithful," in a prompt statement from Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director.

Since the incident, the Pope has kept his schedule. On Christmas Day, at noon, from the central loggia of St. Peter's, Benedict XVI appealed to the world to welcome immigrants, respect human rights, go beyond selfish and technical mentalities, consider mankind as a family, and cultivate the bonds of brotherhood and the common good.

This man, whom people have thought to be physically weak, as well as indifferent to the media, has shown that his strength lies precisely in his distance from the media.

Far from the false urgencies of the media, the seeming weakness of the Gospel and those who seek to bring it throughout the world can be an overwhelming force.

For this, one must accept to be touched - if sometimes at the cost of a fall - in order to go ahead. The path that leads from the modest light of Christmas to the empty tomb of Easter still lies ahead.

And Benedict XI will take this path in stride - his stride.


Earlier, Mounier gave a personal account of the Christmas Eve Mass on his blog on La Croix...


What I saw in St. Peter's
on Christmas Eve
Translated from

by Frederick Mounier
Dec. 25, 2009


There was a moment of uncertainty and uneasy emotion Thursday evening at St. Peter's Basilica.

As the Pope was going down the central aisle at 10 p.m. to celebrate the Christmas Eve Mass, which had been advanced two hours this year, Susanna Maiolo, 25, jumped over the barrier to accost him, seized him by the pallium and dragged him down, causing a crush down the line.

A sudden silence followed by a brouhaha from those who were near the event, in a basilica that was full to overflowing. In the crush, the Pope was pulled down but was helped to his feet immediately without apparent difficulty.

But that was not the case for Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, former president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace [and John Paul II's special envoy for delicate missions, such as that to Saddam Hussein ebfore the 2003 Iraq war].

After falling down, the French prelate had to be carried out in a stretcher and taken to the Gemelli polyclinic. He did not lose consciousness, but shortly afterwards, doctors diagnosed a fracture of his hip bone.

Susanna Maiolo was taken away by the Vatican police, showing signs of obvious mental disturbance.

The evening had begun at 6 p.m., when Pope Benedict lit a candle for peace at his study window overlooking St. Peter's Square, after the Nativity scene at the foot of the obelisque had been unveiled.

Starting at 9 p.m., one had to fall in line at St. Peter's Square, under an almost springlike shower, in order to enter the Basilica. All available entrance tickets had been given away three months before.

Within, seating protocol had cardinals in red, prelates of all ranks in purple. and the formal tails of the diplomats with their wives in black veils.

On the Square, the huge creche (occupying 300 square meters} had been unveiled - depicting in a realistic way, other than the Nativity scene itself, various Gospel vignettes taken from Matthew and Luke.

As Benedict XVI - with joyous step despite the recent incident - ascended to the papal altar, attention was also drawn to the 14th century wooden sculpture of the Madonna which had been placed in front of the left pillar of Bernini's baldachin since the first Vespers of Advent. The Pope's liturgical office wished to show thereby the Marian aspect of Advent and Christmastide.

Much of the Mass was said in Latin, which according to the Pope's liturgical master, is "the language of the Church, in which the faithful can find its unity and catholicity, beyond the different origins of everyone". That diversity was evident in the congregation. The whole world was at St. Peter's, attentive and even meditative.

A moment of joy marked the start of the Gloria - as all the bells inside and outside St. Peter's rang out to signify joy in the world.

Benedict's homily which he read with much facility and pedagogy, seemed to have flowed naturally from his pen, with simple words to affirm the essence of the Christian faith on this Christmas night.

The clear truth: "The Lord is here" - not the remote God which "through his Creation and with the help of one's mind, can be glimpsed, somehow, from afar. He has come into the world".

If the shepehrds could respond to the message announcing the birth of Jesus, it is "because they were awake". In his usual way, Benedict draws from this a conclusion for today, which would run through his homily:

"We must wake up... We must become truly vigilant... To awaken means to emerge from this particular state of daydreaming and enter common reality within truth which alone can unite us all. The conflicts of the world, our relational difficulties, come from the fact that we are all enclosed in our own interests and in our personal opinions, in our small interior world."

Benedict, a refined musician, uses an appropriate metaphor: "There are persons who say they do not have an ear for religion". It is almost as if the aptitude to perceive God is a gift that some people do not get.

And indeed, our way of thinking and behaving, the mentality of the contemporary world, the spectrum of our experiences are such as to benumb sensitivity to God, to 'deprive us of the musical ear' for him.

And yet, in every soul, overt or hidden, there is a waiting for God, the capacity to meet him. To gain the necessary vigilance, the state of waking for the essential, "we must pray for ourselves and for others, for those who seem to be 'lacking a musical ear' who, nonetheless, have a sincere desire to see God manifest himself".

One finds again the Pope's preoccupation, that he had expressed last a few days earlier to the Roman Curia, for those who are indifferent to God. He knows that "Most men do not consider the question of God a priority - it does not concern us just now."

So he goes back to the shepherds of Bethlehem: "We must learn from them how not to let ourselves be crushed by all the urgencies of daily life. We must learn from them the interior freedom of placing other occupations - as important as they may be - in second place so we can approach God, let him enter into our life and our time. The time dedicated to God is never time lost, with respect to him, and to our neighbor."

Bceause there is a way for everyone. Even if the way 'may surpass our strength'. "God has come down to us. By ourselves, we could never meet him. He has gone down the greater part of the way. And now, he asks of us: Come and see how much I love you."

Finally, Benedict turns back to the essential meaning of Christmas: "The sign of God is his humility... We become similar to God if we let ourselves be shaped by this mark - if we ourselves learn humility, and therefore, true greatness, if we renounce violence and resort only to the weapons of truth and love".

The Mass went on without a hitch. In the Piazza, in front of jumbo screens, several thousand attentive pilgrims took part in their own way. The rain had stopped.

The Pope can go back to his apartment, but the lights will stay on a little bit more on that third floor of the Apostolic Palace.

His next appointment - noon on Christmas Day for his Christmas message to the city and to the world.


Mounieer wrote a second Christmas Day blog on what he saw at St. Peter's on Christmas Day.



What I saw and heard
on St. Peter's Square
on Christmas Day:
the Pope's 'us'
Translated from

by Frederick Mounier
Dec. 25, 2009


Clement weather this morning on St. Peter's Square. It is a pleasant 18 degrees (Centigrade = 64 Fahrenheit) by Bernini's colonnade. The crowds flow in, appreciably more numerous than on an 'ordinary' Christmas.

The incident that had taken place before the Christmas Eve Mass is on their minds. Many came to show their support for Benedict XVI.

Appearing on the central loggia of the Basilica, he himself showed no trace of the previous night's occurence.

And once again, the papal message was distinguished by its personal and simple tone. "The liturgy of the Dawn Mass reminded us that now that the night is gone, the day is here - the light that came from the cave in Bethlehem shines down on us".

This 'us' is at the center of the message. "This 'us' is the Church, the great family of believers in Christ who awaited with hope the new birth of the Savior and who, today, celebrate in this mystery the permanent reality of that event".

And Benedict XVI proceeds to paint a broad fresco, both historical and theological: "At the start, around the crib in Bethlehem, this 'us' was almost invisible to the eyes of men... God loves to kindle circumscribed lights which will later illumine a vast radius. Truth, like Love, which are in that light, enlighten wherever the light is welcomed, to spread afterwards in concentric circles, almost by contact, in the hearts and spirits of those who, opening themselves to its splendor, become in turn sources of light".

True to his method, in going from the past to today, Benedict XVI clarifies the present: "Today, as well, through those who go forth to meet the Baby, God still kindles lights in the night of the world so that men may recognize in Jesus the 'sign' of his saving and liberating presence, and to broaden the 'us' of the believers in Christ to all of mankind".

He evokes the present crisis: "Today, too, for the human family that is profoundly affected by a grave economic crisis, which is first of all moral, and by the painful wounds of wars and conflicts, through its sharing and fidelity to men, the Church repeats with the shepherds: 'Let us go to Bethlehem!' (Lk 2,15) - there we will find our hope."

From the Holy Land to Iraq, passing through Sri Lanka, the Philippines and all of Africa, the Pope reviewed the local situations, appealing tirelessly in behalf of human rights.

Elsewhere, in Europe and North America, the 'us' of the Church urges going "beyond selfish and technocentric mentality to promote the common good and respect weaker peoples, starting with those who are yet unborn".

The Pope defined in simple words what the Church is today, opportunely or not: "In the face of the exodus of those who are emigrating from their countries and who are pushed far afield by hunger, by intolerance or by environmental degradation, the Church is a presence that offers welcome. In short, the Church announces the Gospel of Christ everywhere, despite persecutions, discrimination, attacks and indifference, sometimes hostile, which allows Christians, whoever they are, to share the fate of their Lord and Master".

In the piazza, the atmosphere is peaceful. When the Pope expresses greetings in 65 languages, including Mongolian, each group addressed reacts noisily.

Obviously, this means a lot to these men and women, often having come from afar, migrants and tourists commingled with the natives.

The blessing 'urbi et orbi' binds them all together in hope for justice and peace. And then a huge roar comes from the crowd. Visibly moved, the Pope contemplates them.

The bells of St. Peter peal at full volume. And life goes on...

For a new world:
The Pope's insistence
on the question of God
Editorial
by Carlo Di Cicco
Translated from
the 1/1/2010 issue of



In the year that has just passed, the question of God seems to have returned to actuality. His traces had seemed to have disappeared or become confused with an endless list of new idols on whom even the most evolved societies seem to confer celebrity so easily.

But no one can guarantee that the return of God to debates, nor even his 'presence' on the Internet, means his friendly reception into the history of our day and in the life of religions themselves.

Benedict XVI - who is without doubt the most passionate and convinced advocate of a renewed encounter with God that can make the earth and the homes of men more livable - invites us above all to take reasonable steps towards a God who is not generic, but who was incarnated in Jesus Christ.

Thus, his Pontificate is showing itself increasingly to be a bridge between God and modernity. The Pontiff, above every other concern, has opened in the Church a new attention to the things of the spirit.

Evangelization - announcing the Gospel of Jesus, Savior of the World - takes place through the practice of charity. Papa Ratzinger has pointed out, in every phase of his Magisterium and with every kind of interlocutor, the need based on reason to actualize the encounter of contemporary society with God, a decisive point even for the future of mankind.

Opening with the use of the senses a broader horizon of progressive inquiry into the cosmos helps to find new harmonies in the universe which, in small steps that have been registered by science even in the year just past, appears to us more and more known.

Benedict XVI's belief that a new era for humanity is facilitated by man's friendly encounter with God is a perspective that is far from banal.

To reason about God makes man more careful, it liberates him from ire and from the will to dominate, because it teats both his greatness as well as his limitations.

This sense of limitation is helpful to scientists, politicians and churchmen, as the Pope continually reminds himself and everyone. Just as he repeats thorough various formulations a basic concept: to be Christian is to live as the family of God.

Familiarity with God is a gift open to everyone. And God - at least, the God shown by Jesus, the one we invoke in praying 'Our Father' - should not be brandished against anyone. Because to be with God cannot be reduced to using God.

Everyone who wants to may draw up a balance sheet and evaluate the actions of Papa Ratzinger, but it would be necessary to soar as high as he does, without getting bogged down in internal diatribes that are also partial, because they lose sight of the whole picture.

Among the many significant events that the Church experienced in the year just past - one can just think of the Synodal assembly dedicated to Africa with its prophetic power that Benedict XVI himself has noted - two deserve special reflection, as signs that reveal a plan and a method that, like seeds, could flower.

In the first place, one must reread the letter of March 10, 2009, addressed by the Pope to the bishops of the Catholic Church "on the remission of excommunication from the four bishops ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre".

For the circumstances that gave birth to it, for its tone, for the unexpected and exceptional gesture that it was, and for the questions it touched upon, it cannot be easily shelved. Indeed, it lays bare the burning issues that are disquieting the Church

The return to a peaceful confrontation among Catholics is, in fact, capitally important in order to understand the authentic sense of Vatican II without without recriminations and without instrumentalization - but rather, accepting it, with all its consequences, as a true Pentecost in our time.

Benedict XVI reads the disquiet that degenerates to harsh confrontation as a manifestation of the gradual attenuation and disappearance of God from the horizon of men. Discord among believers weakens their credibility as witnesses to Christ's message.

In the second place, it is impossible not to recall the encyclical Caritas in veritate, in which, while effectively expressing the love and respect of the Church for secular society and its autonomy, the Pope has chosen to deal with economics, one of the central problems with the present international order.

Casting seeds for a new economy, the encyclical is open to a very wide circle of persons and peoples. The global crisis has shown very concretely how much the world economic order affects the life of individuals, besides its effects on international politics and within individual nations.

If the economy goes wrong, everyone suffers, and the poor suffer worse. From the disorder that is created under the skies, with its cyclical crises, it is possible to find a way out, if man learns to look at the skies again.

Because the God who lives in heaven and that Benedict XVI has been 'showing' to everyone, also lived once on earth among men. He will help men to overcome through effective solidarity the repugnance for each other that man, forgetting fraternity, drags him down and that he feeds continually - thinking up and raising, with incredible imagination, walls and fences of every kind.

Here's a belated post that I am inserting for the record because I suppose it reflects the common secular view among Jews about the Holy Father and the Jews, and of course, about Pius XII.... To much of it, the kindest comment is "YADA, YADA, YADA', since it's the same irrational emotion-fuelled drivel and cavalier disregard for objective fact that we have been hearing for the past five years.


After Pius move, Pope Benedict
practices delicate Jewish dance
By Ruth Ellen Gruber



ROME, Dec. 31 (JTA) -- For at least the third time in his papacy, Pope Benedict's XVI is doing the Jewish dance that takes him one step back, one step forward.

The step back came when Benedict made a move in mid-December to bring Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII a bit closer to sainthood. The step forward will come in mid-January, when Benedict visits Rome's main synagogue -- a trip planned long before Benedict's move on Pius.

The question is what impact the visit will have on ruffled Catholic-Jewish relations.

"It is an important event, a milestone in the dialogue," Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, told Vatican Radio about the planned synagogue visit. "We have great expectations for what it can mean in terms of the general climate."

"If we stop at the things that divide us deeply, we won't get anywhere," he said. "The differences are important to move forward."

Benedict's visit -- set to take place Jan. 17, the Catholic Church's annual Day of Dialogue with Judaism -- will come a month after he recognized the religiously defined "heroic virtues" of both John Paul II and Pius XII, putting them one step away from beatification.

The Polish-born John Paul made fostering Catholic-Jewish relations a hallmark of his papacy. But critics have long accused Pius of having turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. The Vatican and other supporters say Pius acted behind the scenes to help Jews.

Gary Krupp, a Jew and the head of Pave the Way, a nonsectarian foundation that promotes interfaith dialogue, suggested in a recent Op-Ed in The New York Post that criticism of Pius XII began in the 1960s as part of a Soviet smear campaign against the Catholic Church, which at the time was profoundly anti-Communist. The Anti-Defamation League responded with a call on the Pope to disregard Krupp's "flawed" evidence.

Scholars and Jewish organizations for years have called on the Vatican to fully open its secret archives in order to clarify the issue before Pius is moved any further toward sainthood.

[In the interest of fair reporting, the reporter should at least mention that the Vatican is working to do this and that it expects to be able to open the full Pius XII archives in five years.]

Benedict's decision to green-light Pius's advance drew widespread criticism from Jewish bodies. While many Jewish organizational leaders said it was up to the Vatican to decide whom to honor with sainthood, they renewed calls for the archives to be opened.

"As long as the archives of Pope Pius about the crucial period 1939 to 1945 remain closed, and until a consensus on his actions -- or inaction -- concerning the persecution of millions of Jews in the Holocaust is established, a beatification is inopportune and premature," the World Jewish Congress’ president, Ronald Lauder, said in a statement.

The Vatican responded with a conciliatory statement saying Benedict's move was in no way "a hostile act towards the Jewish people" and should not be considered "an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church."

The uproar over Pius XII is not the first episode where the Vatican had to backpedal, clarify or explain a Pope Benedict decision that angered Jews.

In 2008, Jewish protests over the reinstatement of a Good Friday Latin prayer that appeared to call for the conversion of the Jews led the Vatican to change some of the prayer's wording. Still, Italian rabbis were so angry over the issue that they boycotted participation in last year's January 17 Day of Dialogue with Judaism.

One year ago, the Pope's lifting of a 1988 excommunication order against Richard Williamson, a renegade Bishop who turned out to be a Holocaust denier, sparked outrage among political figures and mainstream Catholics as well as Jews.

Williamson was one of four bishops rehabilitated as part of the Pope's effort to bring their ultra-conservative movement, the Society of St. Pius X, back within the mainstream Catholic fold.

The Vatican ordered Williamson to recant and admitted that the Pope had not been aware of his views -- despite a video of Williamson that was widely circulated on YouTube [only after the outcry!]

The Pope himself issued a strong message of support to a visiting delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and announced to the group the plans for his May 2009 visit to Israel, his first to the Jewish state as Pontiff.

Analysts said Benedict's move on Pius is part of the Pope's effort to shore up conservative forces within the Church. [A fallacious hypothesis which makes Benedict XVI no better than a secular politician looking to strengthen his base - especially if one considers that 'conservative' Catholics, among all Catholics, are those who need the least shoring up, since they are the firmest and most orthodox of the faithful.]

"The Pope apparently has chosen to balance his unquestionable commitment to the Catholic Church's good relations with world Judaism with his commitment to recuperating the religious right wing of Catholicism," said Lisa Palmieri Billig, the American Jewish Committee's liaison to the Vatican. "Obviously his path is strewn with warring obstacles."

Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, an expert in interfaith relations and the vice president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, said, "The great struggle of this moment is shoring up the most traditional elements of his church as he fights the growing secularization and Islamification of the European stage, which is right before his eyes."

Bretton-Granatoor said that the visit to the synagogue in Rome is "far more telling about the state of Catholic-Jewish relations" than the move to elevate Pius.

His visit to the shul in two weeks will mark only the second time that a Pope has crossed the Tiber River from the Vatican to visit the synagogue in Rome. As Pope, Benedict has visited synagogues in his native Germany and in the United States, and he made the trip to Israel last May.

But the Rome synagogue has particular significance. Rome is said to have the oldest continuous Jewish community in the Diaspora. The visit to the synagogue in 1986 by Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was the first time any Pope had set foot in any shul since the time of St. Peter.

Bretton-Granatoor put some of Benedict's apparent gaffes down to differences in style and substance that set this Pope apart from his predecessor.

John Paul "was an actor and a pastor -- he understood that every gesture had meaning," Bretton-Granatoor said. Benedict, on the other hand, "was an academic and was never a pastor-- he doesn't seem to get it in the same way as his predecessor."

[He was pastor for five years of Munich-Freising, one of the largest dioceses in Europe. And it's Jews like Bretton-Granatoor who don't get it about Benedict XVI - he's not playing to the media in any way, nor has he ever. Not that John Paul II was playing to the media either, because he made many good decisions that the media did not welcome, and perhaps did not do enough about the sexual offenses by priests that the media focused on in the last five years of his Pontificate.]

He added, "This Pope is vastly different from his predecessor. He is a German and, therefore, cannot speak about the Shoah in the way that [John Paul], a Pole, could." [What rot! On the contrary, doesn't the fact that Benedict XVI happens to be German make his repugnance of the Nazis even more resonant? Besides, a crime against humanity is a crime against humanity regardless of nationality!


Here is the Krupp article referred to, which I am posting here for thematic continuity:


Friend to the Jews:
Pius XII's real record
By GARY L. KRUPP

December 28, 2009


A recent papal decree moved Pope Pius XII, among others, closer to sainthood -- returning to the forefront the controversy over his role in World War II and the Holocaust.

Growing up Jewish in Queens, I never dreamt I would be defending the man I once believed to be a Nazi sympathizer and an anti-Semite. But my work since 2002 with my wife, Meredith, and the Pave the Way Foundation has led me to this point

We founded Pave the Way to identify and eliminate nontheological obstacles between religions. Thus, despite our early prejudices, we decided to investigate the papacy of Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), one of today's greatest sources of hurt between Jews and Catholics.

After years of research in documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony, what we found shocked us. We found nothing but praise and positive news articles concerning Pius' actions from every Jewish, Israeli and political leader of the era who lived through the war.

A few articles in the postwar era suggested that he should have done more to confront the Nazis -- but it wasn't until 1963, in the wake of the fictitious play "The Deputy" (written five years after Pius died), that accusations began flowing that he had failed to act, that he was a cold-hearted Nazi sympathizer who couldn't care less about the Jewish people.

The evidence strongly suggests this was part of a KGB-directed and -financed bid to smear Pius, a Soviet disinformation campaign meant to discredit the Catholic Church, which at that time was profoundly anti-Communist.

In any case, the facts simply don't match what so many have come to believe about Pius.

It is unquestionable that Pius XII intervened to save countless Jews at a time most nations -- even FDR's America -- refused to accept these refugees. He issued false baptismal papers and obtained visas for them to emigrate as "Non Aryan Catholic-Jews." He smuggled Jews into the Americas and Asia. He ordered the lifting of cloister for men and women to enter monasteries, convents and churches to hide 7,000 Jews of Rome in a single day.

Among the 5,000 pages of documents that Pave the Way has located, there is abundant evidence that Pacelli was a lifelong friend of the Jews. Some highlights:

* In 1917, at the request of World Zionist Organization Director Nachum Sokolow, Nuncio Pacelli intervened with the Germans to protect the Jews of Palestine from extermination by the Ottoman Turks.

* In 1925, Pacelli arranged for Sokolow to meet with Pope Benedict XV to discuss a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

* In 1930, Pacelli supported the German bishops' orders excommunicating anyone who joined "the Hitler Party."

* In 1938, Pacelli intervened to defeat a Polish anti-koshering law.

* In 1939, A.W. Klieforth, the US consul general based in Cologne, Germany, wrote a confidential letter to Washington reporting on the "extremeness" of Pacelli's hatred of National Socialism and of Hitler.

* In 1947, at the United Nations, he encouraged the 17 Catholic countries out of the 33 in favor to vote for the partitioning of Palestine to create the State of Israel.

* A 1948 deposition by Gen. Karl Wolff, the SS commandant for Italy, revealed the Nazis' wartime plan to kidnap the pope, kill countless cardinals and seize the Vatican.

But the personal tales may be more compelling. Pacelli's childhood best friend was Guido Mendes, an Orthodox Jewish boy. He tells how Pacelli shared Shabbat meals with him. Mendes taught him Hebrew, and Pacelli helped him to emigrate to Palestine in 1938.

Pius XII's detractors prefer to criticize rather than simply look at the evidence. Two years ago, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the opening of the Vatican's archives up to 1939, containing much evidence of Eugenio Pacelli's activities leading up to his papacy. According to the sign-in sheets, few of Pius' critics have bothered to come to the archives to view the material.

Pinchas Lapide, a Jewish historian, theologian and Israeli ambassador, stated that the actions and policies of Pius XII saved as many as 860,000 Jews.

Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, the chief rabbi of Palestine, the chief rabbi of Rome and the heads of every Jewish organization showered praise upon him during his lifetime.

Were all these witnesses who lived through the war misguided?

Gary L. Krupp is president of the Pave the Way Foundation, which has many of the documents noted here online at ptwf.org and which will soon publish a book with the main evidence in English, Hebrew, Spanish and French.

I almost completely forgot about this item from the 1/1/10 OR.
My first post in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread last May was about the Holy Year of St. James in 2010:




Benedict XVI on the Holy Year of St. James:
An occasion to meet Christ
even for non-believers
Translated from
the 1/1/10 issue of



The opening of the Holy Door in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela on the afternoon of December 31, 2009, marked the start of the Holy Year of St. James 2010, which calls on the Spanish faithful and pilgrims from all over Europe and the other continents to visit what tradition has always held to be the tomb of St. James the Major, brother of John.

[Santiago is Spanish for 'St. James' derived from his Jewish name Jacob, Sant'Iacobo --> Santiago.]

The solemn rite was followed by a Eucharistic Celebration presided over by the Archbishop of Santiago, Mons. Julián Barrio Barrio.

The Holy Year of 2010 is the 119th since 1120 when Pope Callistus II granted the diocese the privilege of declaring a Holy Year every time that the Feast of James, July 25, falls on a Sunday.

On the eve of this Holy Year, the archbishop wrote a pastoral letter in which he uses the story of the disciples in Emmaus to explain the significance of the Holy Year as well as the spirit and the place of pilgrimage in the observance of the faith.

For the occasion, Benedict XVI sent Archbishop Barrios the following letter (translated here from the Spanish):

---

To Mons. Julián Barrio Barrio
Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela


1. On the occasion of the opening of the Holy Door which will begin the Compostela Jubilee of 2010, I send a cordial greeting to Your Excellency and the participants in this significant ceremony, as well as to the pastors and faithful of the local Church, which for its immemorial link to the Apostle St. James, has its roots anchored in the Gospel of Christ, offering this spiritual treasure to its children and to pilgrims from Galicia, other parts of Spain, Europe and the farthest corners of the world.

This solemn act opens a special time of grace and forgiveness, of the 'great pardon', as tradition calls it. A special opportunity for believers to recall their calling to holiness in life, to commit themselves to the Word of God which enlightens and interpellates, and to acknowledge Christ who comes to accompany men in the vicissitudes of their journey in this world and gives himself to them personally, especially in the Eucharist.

But even those who have no faith, or perhaps have allowed it to shrivel, will have a singular opportunity to receive the gift of "Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have true life" (Lumen gentium, 16).

2. Santiago de Compostela has been distinguished since remote antiquity as an eminent destination for pilgrims, whose steps have marked the Way that bears the Apostle's name [Camino de Santiago], to whose tomb have come countless people, especially from the most diverse regions of Europe, to renew and strengthen their faith.

It is a Way that is sown with so many examples of fervor, penitence, hospitality, art and culture that speak to us eloquently of the spiritual roots of the Old Continent.

The theme of this new Compostelan Jubilee Year - "A pilgrimage towards the light" - as well as the pastoral letter for this occasion, "Pilgrims of the faith and witnesses to the Risen Christ", faithfully follow this tradition and offer anew an evangelizing call to the men and women of today, recalling the essentially pilgrim character of the Church and of the Christian in this world (cf. Lumen gentium, 6.48-50).

Along the Way, one contemplates new horizons which allow a recapacitation from the straits of one's own existence for the immensity of the human being within and outside himself, preparing him to go forth in search of what his heart truly yearns for.

Open to wonder and transcendence, the pilgrim lets himself be instructed by the Word of God, and in this way, rid his faith of unfounded adherences and fears.

As the Risen Lord did with some disciples, who still stunned and disheartened, were on their way to Emmaus. When his words were completed by his breaking bread with them, their eyes were opened (cfr Lk 24,31) and they recognized him whom they had thought dead.

Thus did they meet Christ personally, who lives for always and is part of their lives. At that moment, their first and most ardent desire was to announce and testify to others what had just occurred (cf. Lk 24, 35).

I ask the Lord fervently to accompany the pilgrims, that he may enter their hearts "so that they may have life and have it in abundance" (Jn 10,10). This is the true destination, the grace which the mere material undertaking of the journey cannot accomplish by itself, and which brings the pilgrim to convert himself into a witness to others that Christ lives and he is our enduring hope for salvation.

The Archdiocese, along with many ecclesial organizations, has placed into motion multiple pastoral initiatives of a spiritual nature to help achieve this essential objective of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, even if in some cases, there has been a tendency to ignore or distort them.

3. In this Holy Year, which blends in with the Year for Priests, priests have a decisive role - their spirit of hospitality and full commitment towards the faithful and pilgrims has to be especially generous.

Pilgrims themselves, they are called on to serve their brothers, offering them the life of God, as men of the Divine Word and of the sacred (To the International Priests Retreat in Ars, Sept. 20, 2009).

Therefore, encourage the priests of the Archdiocese, those who will augment their numbers during the Jubilee, and those of the dioceses along the Way of St. James, to do all they can in administering the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, since the most sought after and most precious characteristic of the Holy Year is forgiveness and encounter with the living Christ.

4. In this circumstance, I express my special closeness to the pilgrims who are arriving and will continue to arrive in Santiago. I invite them to take stock of the experiences of faith, charity and brotherhood that they encounter along their journey so that they may live the pilgrimage interiorly above all, allowing themselves to listen to the call that the Lord makes to each of them.

Thus they can say with joy and firmness when they get to the Portico of Glory in Compostela, "I believe".

I also ask them not to forget in their prayers those who could not be with them, their families and friends, the sick and the needy, immigrants, the weak of faith and the People of God with their pastors.

5. I cordially thank the Archdiocese of Santiago, as well as the authorities and other collaborators, for their efforts in preparing for this Compostelan Jubilee, and to the volunteers and all who are willing to contribute to its success.

I entrust the spiritual and pastoral fruits of this Holy Year to our Mother in heaven, the Pilgrim Virgin, and to the Apostle James, 'the friend of the Lord', as I impart to all with affection the Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
December 18, 2009

---

Saturday, January 2

From left: Basil and Gregory; St. Basil; St. Gregory; and the two saints with St. John Chrysostom - celebrated in the Orthodox Churches as the "Three Hierarchs' with their joint feast on January 25
SAINTS BASIL THE GREAT (Asia Minor, 330-379) and GREGORY NAZIANZENE (Asia Minor, 330-390)
BISHOPS, THEOLOGIANS AND DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH
Apart from the fact that they were friends from youth and had almost parallel lives, I have not immediately found an explanation for why they have the same feast day. Both born in what is now central Turkey, they studied together in Cappadocia and much later, in Athens. Both were engaged in the great battle against Arian heresy. Basil, as Bishop of Cappadocia, also distinguished himself for spelling out what Benedict XVI called 'the first social doctrine of the Church'. Gregory, who later became Bishop of Constantinople, was such a gifted theologian that he is also known as Gregory the Theologian. His most outstanding contributions are to the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Holy Spirit. In July and August 2007, Benedict XVI dedicated two catecheses each to these two towering figures of fourth-century Christianity. Along with St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom, they were the first Doctors of the Eastern Church in the Catholic faith.
Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/nab/010210.shtml



No OR today.

No events scheduled for the Holy Father.


POPE MOURNS THE DEATH
OF EMERITUS IRISH CARDINAL


CardIinal Cahal Brendan Daly, Emeritus Archbishop of Armagh (ireland), died in Belfast on Thursday, DEc. 31. The funerals ervices will be held on Tueday, January 5.

Here is the text of the telegram sent by the Holy Father to Cardinal Sean Brady, current Archbishop of Armagh:

---

TO MY VENERABLE BROTHER
CARDINAL SEAN BAPTIST BRADY
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH

DEEPLY SADDENED TO LEARN OF THE DEATH OF CARDINAL CAHAL DALY, I OFFER HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES TO YOU AND YOUR AUXILIARY BISHOP, TO THE PRIESTS, RELIGIOUS AND LAY FAITHFUL OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF ARMAGH AND TO ALL THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.

I RECALL WITH GRATITUDE CARDINAL DALY’S LONG YEARS OF DEVOTED PASTORAL SERVICE TO THE CHURCH AS PRIEST, BISHOP AND PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND, HIS ASSISTANCE AS A MEMBER OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, AND ESPECIALLY HIS SUSTAINED EFFORTS IN THE PROMOTION OF JUSTICE AND PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND.

IN COMMUNION WITH YOU IN THE HOLY SPIRIT I PRAY THAT, THROUGH THE GRACE OF CHRIST, GOD OUR MERCIFUL FATHER MAY GRANT HIM THE REWARD OF HIS LABOURS AND WELCOME HIS SOUL INTO THE JOY AND PEACE OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

TO ALL GATHERED FOR THE SOLEMN RITES OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL AND ESPECIAL1Y TO CARDINAL DALY’S RELATIVES AND FRIENDS, I CORDIALLY IMPART MY APOSTOLIC BLESSING AS A PLEDGE OF CONSOLATION AND HOPE IN THE LORD.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

---

Pope sends Mons. Gaenswein
to visit Susanna Maiolo
by Antonio Sbraga
Adapted and translated from

January 2, 2010


SUBIACO - Mons. Georg Gaenswein, the Pope's private secretary, paid a half-hour visit on December 31 to Susanna Maiolo, 25, who had 'attacked' Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve, at the psychiatric ward of the local hospital where she is being temporarily kept for observation and care.

The visit was made in great secrecy, but upon leaving the hospital by a secondary exit door, Gaenswein was recognized by persons waiting in the hospital's first-aid area.

Apparently he arrived at 11:45 a.m. in a vehicle with Italian, not Vatican ,carplates, and dark windows. The visit was arranged with the head of the Psychiatric department and the hospital's nursing director.

Maiolo, who lives in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, has a history of psychiatric disturbances for which she has been previously treated. She first tried to approach the Pope after the Christmas Midnight Mass in 2008, but at that time, she was caught before she could get near him.

"I immediately recognized Mons. Georg," said one of the witnesses, who is a sacristy aide in one of the parishes of Subiaco.

However, the department head Paolo BGalimberti preferred to say "No comment".

He did say that "The patient is cooperating in her care and she is not under any obligatory health treatment. The question of a transfer has not been discussed, but she will decide for herself. We will continue to provide the appropriate care".





In a variety of stories, the Italian media are reporting on the major points made by Pope Benedict XVI in his various texts since Christmas Eve - probably because he is the only leader anywhere in the world whose Christmastime agenda is crammed with substantial events!

The problem with the early release of the Pope's messages for special occasions is that by the time the observance comes around, media usually 'forget' about the message previously given and do not revisit it on the occasion itself. So it was, for the most part, with the Pope's Message for the World Day of Peace yesterday.... which makes this commentary all the more welcome.


How Benedict XVI's ecological
message is generally misread
by Flavio Felice
Translated from

January 2, 2010


Felice is president of the Italian Tocqueville-Acton Study Center, an adjunct to the American Enterprise Institute.

"Safeguarding creation and the realization of peace are realities that are intimately connected... If you want to cultivate peace, take care of creation".

So much commentary on Benedict XVI's Message for the 43rd World Day for Peace observed yesterday has interpreted it as an 'ecological turning point' in Pontifical Magisterium.

Which is forcing an argument, though it is understandable because the present Pope has offered a social reflection in which ecological issues occupy a primary place.

But one aspect, among so many, must be underscored particularly - the nexus that Benedict XVI establishes between strictly ecological questions and what he calls 'human ecology':
"Duties to the environment derive from those towards the individual person considered in himself alone and in relation to others".

It follows that Benedict XVI urges education of the new generations about their specific ecological responsibility, but the Pope's ecological messages certainly do not echo the rhetoric of 'sustainable development' (in which denatalization - slowing down the birth rate - is the measure of sustainability).

On the contrary, the main objective of ecological education is to safeguard an authentic human ecology. Benedict XVI's ecological message refers back to the anthropological question - relating all events to their consequences on man - and not to a sociology of 'egalitarianism' among all living beings (plant, animal and human). No matter how noble the intention may be, it is inadequate, at the very least, from the Christian point of view.

With the nexus he makes, Benedict XVI renews the central message of the Church's Social Doctrine on "the inviolability of human life at every stage and in every condition", and reaffirms the "dignity of the person and the irreplaceable mission of the family to educate children about love for their neighbor and respect of nature".

The Pope's arguments are those traditionally found in the 'theology of Creation' which was already a specially distinctive mark in the social Magisterium of John Paul II, in relation to labor, capital, business and profit, as analyzed in the encyclicals Laborem exercens (1981), Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987), and Centesimus annus (1991).

Benedict XVI emphasizes the authentically human face of development, reiterating what he spells out in Caritas in veritate (2009).

It is a view of development that is closely related to the basic nature of man as a being created in the image and likeness of God, a beneficiary of the Creator's paternal love. This love makes all men God's children and therefore brothers on earth, and imposes the calling to love each other as God loves us. Such a reading obviously goes back to the mystery-'scandal' of the Cross, the measure of how much God loves us.

This anthropological, or man-centered, view is even more evident when the Pontiff affirms:

---

"If the Magisterium of the Church shows its perplexity at the idea of the environment inspired by ecocentrism and biocentrism, it does so because such a concept eliminates the ontological and axiologic difference between the human person and other living beings. Such a notion eliminates man's identity adn superior role in favor of an egalitarian view of the dignity of all living beings. This leads in turn to a new pantheism with neo-pagan accents which wees man's salvation in nature alone".

---

On the contrary, the Pope tells us, the Church calls for considering ecological questions 'in a balanced manner', respecting first of all "the grammar that the Creator has inscribed in his work".

This grammar entrusts to man the role of active custodian, not a foolish guardian who abdicates his role as co-creator - a role that comes from having been crated in the image and likeness of God.

Respect and caring concern for the material world make up only a minimal aspect of the space for activity that is open to man so that he may express his own creativity.

Creation is not merely ex nihilo - out of nothing - but also contra nihilum- against nothing, and against the inconsistency of things.

Benedict XVI tells us that ecological denial is not only an anti-aesthetic disfigurement of the beauty of creation, making the cosmos less smiling and attractive - it also takes away from man the possibility of a calm and communicative encounter with reality. It takes away from reality itself the possibility of a continual process of perfection.


Avvenire's editorialist, poet Davide Rondoni, writes for another newspaper to comment on the 2010 Peace message:

The Pope's New Year messages:
Man enrapt in the sacredness of Nature
by Davide Rondoni
Translated from

January 2, 2009


The center from which Benedict XVI's 'ecology' flows is Psalm 8. He cites a well-known passage to establish the premise for his demanding Mesesage for the first day of the year and the Church's World Day for Peace.

"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place - What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?" (Ps 8,4-5) [I have been using the New American Bible to render all Biblical citations made by the Holy Father in English, but for this psalm, I much prefer the traditional translation, 'What is man that thou art mindful of him?" as much more idiomatic and poetic!]

The root of the 'human ecology' raised once more by Benedict XVI is to be found in that bewilderment, the wonder of God's creature that re-echoes in so many brilliant expressions through the ages - think of our [Giacomo] Leopardi [1798-1837, philosopher, essayist and great lyric poet].

Thus, the Pope's invitation to 'cultivate the peace and take care of creation' - rather than a heavy-handed ethical imperative or an epochal need - is the attitude that flourishes in a spirit shaken by the disproportion that the human being sees between himself and the vastness of Creation.

It is the attitude of someone who sees in this bewilderment a kind of tremorous privilege: that there is no other point in all of creation that can equal man, his dignity and the grandeur of his consciousness.

This hinge of man's primordial wonder is also linked to the tenderness that the Pope referred to in his homily at the New Year's Day Mass - in the example of brotherhood that is evident among children of various races and origins when they are together, as a sign of that for which man was made, above and beyond all differences.

Respect for others is strong if it is born out of that wonder. It is the 'face of God', says the Pope, who can make 'an empty heart' sensitive and 'reveal' to it the faces of men, "even if at times, the human face marked by the hardness of life and by evil makes it difficult to appreciate and accept it as an epiphany of God".

"In order to recognize and respect each other as we truly are, namely, brothers... we must look to the face of our common Father, who loves us all despite our limitations and errors".

The Pope pegs his message and his homily to the words of the Psalm, which provide the current of energy that sustains the Pope's calm, firm and free reasoning when he talks of man's relationship to Creation.

Without that wonder at the vastness of Creation and the special position that man occupies in its 'grammar', Benedict XVI says, man cannot take on a true and proper responsibility for it.

Once more, the great challenge: the religious man, who lives 'as if God exists', can develop a more responsible attitude towards existence than one who believes that life occurs as a result of some obscure and unknown urge or casual fate.

In this sense, Benedict's message - even as it deals with issues that are part of the great public debate but often prey to stale and tiresome commonplaces - is once more distinguished by its radical difference that challenges thought and not just behavior.

In short, the Pope's Message is not the nth ecological appeal repeated this time by a Pope rather than by Greenpeace. No, it is a free and dispassionate plunge into the subject of correct knowledge that can allow better care of the world.

Having established this, the Pope's reasoning and and does proceed in great freedom and accuracy to get to the crux of the problem - and he calls on everyone, without half terms, to their individual responsibility - in the face of Nature tyrannized by self-interests and therefore taking its toll on mankind.

Ecological irresponsibility violates "inter-generational solidarity'. Technology, detached from its inner tension to favor development, becomes a factor for inequality and domination. Instead of the moderation and solidarity that we are called on to observe as principles of existence, what persist are attitudes of deception and indifference to consequences.

These consequences include the tragedy of 'environmental refugees' who are constraiend to flee unlivable conditions and multiply the ranks of those who are refugees from wars and violence.

The book of nature, the Pope insists, is one. There cannot be concern for nature without respect for the human being and acknowledgment of his supreme dignity - a true and proper ontological distinction from other living creatures.

And even as he praises the activities of many non-governmental entities who urge more equitable choices, he also warns against taking on a pantheistic vision - that in which a human being is not worth as much as a seal cub.

If one is truly committed to saving the latter, it would be inevitable to be concerned first about the right to life and dignified existence of the former.

The Pope's strong appeal on New Year's Day to anyone who belongs to any armed groups, to stop every offensive and violent action is part of his passion for a 'human ecology'.

The Pope is firm and solid in his analyses and in his appeals. But he also advocates seeing crisis as possibility. We have the opportunity, he said, that from every difficult situation there can come a call to everyone for a change in mentality. A call on each one to operate at the level that is possible to him, according to the principle of subdidiarity.

Benedict XVI is not a complaining type. He always calls on everyone to hope for what is possible, and underscores the religious root of responsibility. That is, the root of joy from which, alone, commitment to the great questions of life - often expressed in many small things - can arise and endure.

Cardinal Ratzinger's joke -
and lament - about
the quality of preaching

A few days ago, L'Osservatore Romano carried an article by Mons. Mariano Crociata, secretary-general of the Italian bishops conference, lamenting the poor quality of preaching among most Italian priests.

A female reporter, writing for Gazzetta del Sud, a regional newspaper, recalled an anecdote by Vittorio Messori on this issue - an anecdote that must be shared.

---

"Even Ratzinger jested once when he was still cardinal: 'One confirmation for me of the divinity of the faith is that it has survived millions of homilies every Sunday', he said at a dinner in Bsssano del Grappa in the early 1990s."

"Of course, it was a joke, said during a meal," Messori said yesterday, "but nonetheless revealing of the perplexity he certainly had."

---

I'm sorry I never did get around to translating Mons. Crociata's article.

PAPAL & VATICAN NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2009



VATICAN CITY, 30 DEC 2009 (VIS) - Following are highlights of the activities of Pope Benedict XVI and the Holy See for the months of September through December 2009.


SEPTEMBER

5: Publication of the Holy Father's Message for the 83rd World Mission Day, to be celebrated on Sunday 18 October on the theme: "The nations will walk in its light".

6: Pastoral visit of the Holy Father to the Italian towns of Viterbo and Bagnoregio.

7: Benedict XVI receives a group of prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (West 1-2) at the end of their "ad limina" visit.

11: Holy Father receives in audience Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal, president of the Republic of Panama.

11: Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue publishes its annual Message to Muslims for the end of the month of Ramadan. The Message, signed by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, respectively president and secretary of the council, has as its theme: "Christians and Muslims: Together in overcoming poverty".

15-20: Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for External Church Affairs of the Patriarchate of Moscow, visits Rome at the invitation of Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

16: Holy Father receives in audience Emil Boc, prime minister of Romania.

17: Benedict XVI receives a group of prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (Northeast 2) at the end of their "ad limina" visit.

19: Benedict XVI receives Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops from the Oriental Churches.

26-28: Apostolic trip to the Czech Republic.


OCTOBER

4: In the Vatican Basilica, Benedict XVI presides at a Eucharistic concelebration with Synod Fathers for the opening of the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops.

4: Beatification of Servant of God Eustachio Kugler (ne Joseph), German professed religious of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, in the cathedral of Regensburg, Germany.

11: In St. Peter's Square, Holy Father canonises Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski, Francesc Coll y Guitart, Jozef Damian de Veuster, Rafael Arnaiz Baron, and Mary of the Cross Jugan (nee Jeanne).

18: Beatification of Servant of God Ciriaco Maria Sancha y Hervas, Spanish cardinal and archbishop, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, in the cathedral of Toledo, Spain.

25: Beatification of Servant of God Carlo Gnocchi, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the "Pro Juventute" Foundation, in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy.

25: In the Vatican Basilica, the Pope presides at a Eucharistic concelebration with Synod Fathers to mark the closure of the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops.

31: Beatification of Servant of God Zoltan Lajos Meszlenyi, Hungarian bishop and martyr, in the cathedral of Esztergom, Hungary.


NOVEMBER

8: Pastoral visit of the Holy Father to the Italian city of Brescia.

9: Pope receives participants in the World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees, being held in the Vatican from 9 to 12 November on the theme: "A pastoral response to the phenomenon of migration in the era of globalisation".

9: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith publishes the Apostolic Constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus", which provides for personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, and some Complementary Norms for the same Apostolic Constitution.

12: Holy Father receives in audience Stjepan Mesic, president of the Republic of Croatia.

12: Benedict XVI receives 7000 professors and students of Rome's LUMSA University (Libera Universita Maria Santissma Assunta) for the seventieth anniversary of its foundation by Servant of God Luigia Tincani.

13: Holy Father receives in audience Gordon Bajnai, prime minister of the Republic of Hungary.

14: Holy Father receives in audience Boris Tadic, president of the Republic of Serbia.

14: Holy Father receives in audience Jan Fischer, prime minister of the Czech Republic.

17: Publication of a letter from Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B. to priests of the Catholic Church in the People's Republic of China, for the occasion of the Year for Priests called to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, the saintly "Cure of Ars".

17: Holy Father receives in audience Pierre Nkurunziza, president of the Republic of Burundi.

18: Holy Father receives in audience Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh.

21: Benedict XVI meets with artists in the Sistine Chapel.

22: Beatification of Servant of God Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas (nee Soultaneh Maria), co-foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem, in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel.

27: Publication of the Holy Father's Message for the ninety-sixth World Day of Migrants and Refugees. The theme of this year's Message is "Underage migrants and refugees" and the Day is due to be celebrated on 17 January 2010.

28: Benedict XVI receives in separate audiences Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina, and Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the two States.

30: Holy Father receives in audience Alan Garcia Perez, president of the Republic of Peru.

30: Holy Father receives in audience His Royal Imperial Highness Otto von Hapsburg, archduke of Austria.


DECEMBER

3: Publication of the Pope's Message for the eighteenth World Day of the Sick, which is due to be celebrated in the Vatican Basilica on 11 February 2010, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

3: Holy Father receives in audience Dimitri Medvedev, president of the Russian Federation. Re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Russian Federation.

4: Holy Father receives in audience His Beatitude Anastas, archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All Albania, who was accompanied by other representatives of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania.

5: Benedict XVI receives a group of prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (Region South 3 and 4) at the end of their "ad limina" visit.

5: Holy Father receives in audience Horst Kohler, president of Germany.

10: Holy Father receives in audience Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of the Republic of Gabon.

11: Holy Father receives in audience Nguyen Minh Triet, president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

12: Holy Father receives in audience Sali Berisha, prime minister of the Republic of Albania.

14: Holy Father receives in audience Milo Djukanovic, prime minister of Montenegro.

15: Publication of Pope's Message for the forty-third World Day of Peace, due to be celebrated on 1 January 2010, on the theme: "If You Want To Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation".

15: Publication of Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio, "Omnium in mentem", dated 26 October, containing two variations to the Code of Canon Law.

17: Holy Father receives Letters of Credence of eight new ambassadors to the Holy See: Hans Klingenberg of Denmark; Francis K. Butagira of Uganda; Suleiman Mohamad Mustafa of Sudan; Elkanah Odembo of Kenya; Mukhtar B. Tileuberdi of Kazakhstan; Abdul Hannan of Bangladesh; Alpo Rusi of Finland, and Einars Semanis of Latvia.

17: Benedict XVI receives prelates from he Conference of Catholic Bishops of Belarus, at the end of their "ad limina" visit.

19: Publication of decrees concerning the martyrdom, miracles and heroic virtues of twenty-one Blesseds and Servants of God, among them Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II.

21: In his traditional pre-Christmas meeting with the Roman Curia, the Pope recalls that 2009 was a year "passed under the sign of Africa".


This is a convenient reference and a commendable service from VIS. I became aware of it only in the preceding quarter. I wonder if they have something comparable that goes all the way back to April 19, 2005.... I've always meant to go back over all the daily Vatican bulletins since then, and do something similar because now that we are going into the sixth year of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, it's getting more difficult to rely on my faulty memory when I need cross-referencing about events in the Pontificate. But obviously, I've been unable to find the time.

Everytning I do on the Forum is on the run, unfortunately, time stolen from other things I need to do - so I don't have the time to think back or think forward, to plan anything in advance, beyond the snap decisions I have to make, the moment I see an item that I need to post, and determine whether I already have a thematic banner for it, or if I need to cobble together a new thematic banner, assuming I know where to get the elements for it and can do it all in a few minutes. The same snap decisions I have to make on how to post photographs, how they should be resized and sorted in a logical way that is also 'aesthetic'.

All this, like I had to do in the days when I had an hourly deadline to put a TV newscast on the air or to put together the front page of a newspaper in time for the press run. In the ame way, I interpose my comments when necessary under the same pressure-cooker constraints I had when churning out a daily editorial or column in the midst of other editorial duties (such as giving and checking news assignments and editing reporters' copy, which was always the most laborious and time-consuming).

The one standard I try to keep at all times since I started being a contributor at PRF - and as long as I have access to the Internet - is to post all the important and interesting items I can find about Benedict XVI (avoiding unnecessary duplication of content), including prompt translations of all papal texts, and accompany them with as many photographs of him that are immediately available (though I did not arrive until relatively late at the logical SOP that the best place for photographs is to accompany the news items they illustrate).

Everything else is secondary.

Sorry to have to post something unpleasant again - but this is what passes for conventional wisdom in the liberal media these days. In many ways, this is worse than the JTA article I posted earlier today.

This article easily qualifies as one of the most stupid I have seen lately - perpetrated by unthinking editors who do not see the absurdity of calling anything 'a rush to Pius XII's sainthood": The man has been dead for 50 years, the cause for his canonization was introduced in 1965 - 45 years ago - and that's a rush?????... The rush is in the liberal media seeking to discredit a Pope for their own reasons - pandering to the Jews, genuine dislike for Catholicism and using anythng to beat it down with, who knows?

Everything about this article drips with shameless ignorance and bitter bias against the Church! It's incredible how seemingly intelligent people can pontificate in print over the internal affairs of a Church they do not even seek to learn more about. Would they dare to pontificate about strictly internal religious decisions made by, say, the Supreme Leader of the 'Islamic Republic of Iran'? Or the Chief Rabbis of Israel, for that matter?

Nothing in this article leads me to believe that the reporter is or ever was a Catholic. And if she is, then she is being willfully ignorant about the Church.



Why a rush to sainthood for Pius XII?
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
Published in

January 1, 2009


PARIS (Bloomberg News) — Does the world really need yet another Roman Catholic saint, particularly if that means canonizing one of the most controversial popes in history? [How rash! Has she ever stopped to consider the entire history of the papacy????]

By one count, there are already more than 10,000 saints and “beati,” or blessed, accumulated since Roman times, with at least three saints already assigned for every day of the year.

[Why do non-Catholics care at all? If they find nothing exemplary about the lives of known and recognized Catholic saints, that's their loss. They misunderstand the nature and significance of sainthood if they think the Church can have 'too many saints'!]

That’s just one of several reasons why Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to proceed toward the canonization of Pius XII, the Church’s World War II-era Pope, was so surprising.

Another two miracles to his name, and Pius will have cleared all the hurdles to sainthood, where he will be among the ranks of such beloved figures as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joan of Arc.

[So? Considering how many hundreds of millions of Catholics lived under the Papacy of Pius XII [compared to the population of the Middle Ages] and who venerated him as Pope - as Catholics still did in those days, who is to say that he was not - and is not - 'as beloved as other saints'? Can anything be sillier?]

It’s hard to see the urgency or the necessity of an act that was sure to anger and upset large groups of people — most significantly, Jews who worry that Benedict has again delivered a setback to the difficult and delicate task of reconciling Catholicism and Judaism.

There may be explanations for Pius XII’s studied silence about the Holocaust in the early 1940s: it is true that public criticism might have put more innocent people in danger, and it is also true that the Pope, like many Catholics, took risks to protect Jews.

The question of Pius’s wartime record remains open, and will stay that way as long as the relevant archives are closed.

Benedict himself had previously asked Vatican officials to hold off any decision on Pius until the opening of the 1939-58 archives, now slated for 2014.

[He did no such thing, and this is blatant falsehood. He said at the time that he was going to reflect on the matter some more (he didn't say how long) - and meanwhile, without publicity, he ordered his own private review of the available documentation by a reputable adn respected Church historian. At the same time, the head of the Vatican Archives said in 2008 that it would take its technicians at least six years to catalog all the documents before they could be open to the public. A year has passed, so the Vatican recently said 'Five years more".]

This approach was endorsed by Jewish leaders, who are now left expressing puzzlement and dismay over Benedict’s decision to jump the gun and issue a decree proclaiming Pius’s “heroic virtues,” setting the stage first for beatification, and then canonization.

So what was the rush? The answer is politics — which does not make for an edifying religious spectacle. [Nor does it make for valid analysis. It is passing off sheer speculation for analysis!]

The common perception [by whom????] , disputed by the Vatican, is that by pairing Pius XII with John Paul II in the Dec. 20 decree, Benedict had hoped to satisfy both the conservative and the liberal wings of the Catholic Church.

[The pairing hypothesis is something that has been put forward by some Vaticanistas. Their speculation does not necessarily make it true.]

Let’s just leave aside the fact that there isn’t much of a public constituency clamoring for a St. Pius XII (Pius IX is beatified, and Pius I, V and X are already saints), as there is for a St. John Paul II, a charismatic Pope who played a key role in the collapse of Communism. At his funeral in 2005, crowds called for a quick beatification, with chants of “Beato subito.” [Brava! She can't even get this one right - anyone ever heard that line 'Beato subito' before????]

In contrast, Pius XII — born Eugenio Pacelli, scion of Rome’s so-called black nobility, which has staffed the church’s upper ranks for centuries — was a lifelong Vatican bureaucrat-turned-diplomat, with a dour, ascetic manner. [And that's all this woman knows about Pius XII? How pathetic that she doesn't even try to learn more about one of the most erudite and holy men among the Popes of the modern era!]

This isn’t Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born nun who spent her life caring for the poor of Calcutta and was beatified in 2002, or even Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the Polish priest who was beaten to death by the Communist secret police in 1984 and who this month was put on the path to sainthood, together with Pius XII and John Paul II.

[Who is she to decide - on the basis of media images - who is worthy to become a saint or not? The Church has used stringent criteria for proclaiming saints for centuries - they have become more stringent in the past four decades that there has been a Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood - and the process is long, involved and intensive. This willfully ignorant reporter makes it sound as though saints were created by papal whim!]

So the Vatican once again found itself trying to calm waters stirred by one of Benedict’s decisions. Last February, when the pope offered an olive branch to leading figures of a conservative schismatic movement who included a Holocaust-denying ex-bishop, the Vatican blamed “a management error.”

This time, the Vatican press office issued a statement explaining that the pope’s decree on Pius’s “heroic virtues” wasn’t an assessment of “the historical impact of all his operative decisions,” but a confirmation that he had led a deeply Christian life. Surely, that was a requirement Pacelli met when he was chosen to be the Pope in 1939.

Many experts think that Benedict is trying to reconcile the Church with its own history, with teachings that prevailed before the Second Vatican Council, the historical gathering of church leaders convened by Pope John XXIII in the 1960s.

That was when the Roman Catholic Church entered the modern age, adopting such principles as separation of church and state [Excuse me! Does this woman even review history at all????], freedom of religion, a more modern liturgy and a repudiation of anti-Semitism.

“Benedict wants to emphasize the continuity of the Church’s teachings, to make the point that the Second Vatican Council was not a break with the past,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit scholar and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

This isn’t a surprising line of thinking from a conservative Pope who, as a theologian, once kept watch over the Church’s doctrine. But he didn’t need to add another Pope to the roster of saints to make the point.

[For the nth time, Ms Biohlen, whoever you are, it's not the Pope who is 'adding' to the roster of saints. He only acts on the outcome of the Congregation's rigorous norms.]

Of the 265 popes in history, 76 are already saints: six are blessed. Perhaps now is the time to declare a halt to the practice, for liberals like John Paul II and John XXIII, as well as for conservatives like Pius XII.

As Father Reese aptly noted, Popes cannot be examples for ordinary Christians: Popes can only be examples for other popes. [Excuse me???? How can a Pope not be an example for all Christians? He is the spiritual leader of Roman Catholicism.! Would Reese say that Obama should not be an example for all Americans, but only for Presidents? Spare us the ponderations of people like Thomas Reese who are, in juridical parlance, 'hostile witnesses' to begin with.]

After President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a lot of people argued that heads of states should not be nominated for that kind of award until after they have left office. Maybe in the case of Popes, sitting on the throne of St. Peter should be honor enough.


Dear God! Forgive them for they know not what they write so cockily about - and do not mind exposing their blissfully willful ignorance!...

Some reporters really delude themselves into thinking that their criticism and contempt will do anything to influence the course of the work undertaken by the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood, in particular, or Benedict XVI's decisions in general!

For the record, yet another year-end list, this one based very much on name recall and, sometimes, how much in the news someone has been - which certainly helps name recall.



Americans most admire Obama, Clinton, Palin -
and Benedict XVI ranks 5th among the men
By Susan Page
USA TODAY



Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Dec. 11-13, of 1,025 adults. Margin of error +/4 percentage points.


WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 — President Obama is the man Americans admired most in 2009, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are virtually tied as the most-admired woman.

The close finish by Clinton, named by 16% in the open-ended survey, and Palin, named by 15%, reflects the nation's partisan divide. Clinton was cited by nearly 3 in 10 Democrats but only 6% of Republicans, Palin by a third of Republicans but less than 1% of Democrats.

Obama dominates the field among men at 30%, though his support also shows a partisan split. He was named by more than half of Democrats but just 7% of Republicans.

While the president's job-approval rating has eroded during his first year in office, his standing as the most-admired man demonstrates "a very strong fan base," says Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief. The only past presidents to score higher were George W. Bush in 2001, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and John Kennedy in 1961.

First lady Michelle Obama ranks as the fourth most-admired woman, behind Oprah Winfrey.

The survey, taken by Gallup almost every year since 1948, shows the nation's broad judgment — and name recall — of politicians, popes and talk-show hosts. Presidents often lead the list, though as president-elect, Obama swamped Bush in 2008. This year, as last, Bush finished a distant second.

South African leader Nelson Mandela is third and conservative commentator Glenn Beck fourth. Evangelist Billy Graham, who has been on the top-10 list every year the survey has been taken since 1955, is sixth, just after Pope Benedict XVI.

The question asked of the respondents is:
Who is the living man/woman you most admire?

Therefore, the names come entirely from the respondents and are not suggested to them.



I went back and checked how Benedict XVI has fared in this poll in the first four years of his Pontificate: In 2005, he was #4 (behind Presidents Bush, Clinton and Carter); in 2006, #7; in 2007, #9; in 2008, #4. So far, five for five.

Pope Pius XII made the list 10 times since 1946 when the poll was first taken (since he died in 1958, it means he missed it two years) - American Jews certainly were among the respondents in that time period!; Pope Paul VI, 12 times during his Pontificate (missed making it for 3 years); John Paul II, every year for 26 years, topping the list in 1980 (the year President Carter was weakest and ended up being defeated by Ronald Reagan).

In 1999, Gallup did a poll of the 'most admired' persons of the 20th century, living and dead, and Mother Teresa won it by a mile, with half of the respondents naming her. John Paul II came in #8, with 24%. (#2-#7 were Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Billy Graham.)

My initial impression is that US Presidents and Popes almost automatically get into the list - it's an interesting sign that there are enough respondents for whom a Pope or a religious leader like Billy Graham or a living saint like Mother Teresa is the most admired person.

An interesting 'twinning' - possibly random - in most of these polls is Benedict XVI and Bill Gates, who have tied or ranked next to each other in the Gallup lists of the past five years, as well as in a couple of 'power' lists drawn up in 2009.

In any case, I think these are choices whose significance other than superficially sociological cannot really be accredited nor validated.