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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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02/07/2010 00:13
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As I was away most of the day yesterday, I was unable to post stories on Cardinal Ouellet's appointment to head the Congregation fro Bishops. Of all the recent appointments made by the Pope, this is the one that most directly and immediately affects dioceses around the world.


Cardinal Ouellet with the Holy Father, Cologne, 2005.

In many significant ways, the quality and theological orientation of bishops named by the Pope (after vetting by the Congrgeation for Bishops) shape the local Church they head.

Since the Congregation for Bishops was constituted in 1965, it has had five Prefects, two of whom were non-Italian: Cardinal Gantin of Benin who served from 1984-1998, followed by Cardinal Moreira Neves of Brazil who served from 1998 until his unexpected death in 2000. He was succeeded by Cardinal Re, whom Cardinal Ouellet succeeds.

Not surprisingly, the MSM reports about Cardinal Ouellet focused on his being 'controversial' because of statements he made recently defending Church teaching against abortion. Only in MSM's cockeyed world would a Catholic cardinal's defense of Catholic teaching be called 'controversial'!

Here is how Canada's leading news agency reported it:


Pope Benedict promotes
controversial Cardinal
to important Vatican post

by Andy Blatchford

June 30th, 2010


MONTREAL - The Vatican has promoted Canada's highest-ranking Roman Catholic priest, giving the controversial cardinal a powerful role in Pope Benedict's inner circle.

Ouellet, the Archbishop of Quebec and the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, says he was surprised to get a tap on the shoulder from Pope Benedict.

"It is a mark of great confidence from the Holy Father and I am very grateful to him," Ouellet told a news conference Wednesday in Quebec City. "It is a huge responsibility."


Left, Cardinal Ouellet in his office, May 2010; center and right, at his news conference in Montreal yesterday.

But the outspoken 66-year-old's road to the Vatican has been a bumpy one, and his time at the upper echelon of the Church in Canada has been marked by controversy. [And yet, this story only cites the abortion controversy! How has his road been bumpy and controversial otherwise?]

Ouellet, who has denounced allegations that the Pope covered up cases of sexual abuse by priests, was widely criticized this spring after he described abortion as an unjustifiable moral crime, even in rape cases.

He defended his remark as Church doctrine, but was condemned by the Harper government, Quebec provincial politicians and feminist groups. One newspaper columnist even expressed his wish that Ouellet would suffer a slow, painful death.

When asked Wednesday about the legacy he will leave behind, Ouellet answered he hopes people over time will better understand the choices he has made.

"The historians will have to do their work," he said.

The appointment will see Ouellet succeed 76-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who has retired after nearly a decade in the post.

Ouellet, once considered a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, also aims to help Pope Benedict reverse the Catholic church's ongoing decline in the Western world.

"It's a difficult time, it's a time of crisis, and so it is a time of decision," said Ouellet, who has known Pope Benedict for years.

"I've been supporting him in difficult times."

But those who disagree with Ouellet's firm stance on issues such as abortion are calling his appointment another distressing signal of the direction of the Church.

"In his capacity as an official of the Church, he should have been speaking up for the rights of those victimized within the
Church and for the rights of women in civil society," said Lee Lakeman, spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres. "When he can get pregnant, he can have an opinion."


But others, who wholeheartedly agree with his positions, are happy for Ouellet, even though they will miss him after he departs for Rome in the coming months.

"He has the courage to stand up and speak the truth when it's necessary," said Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer for Campaign Life Coalition, a pro-life advocacy group.

"The only regret is that if he's moved to Rome then he won't be at the disposal of the people in Canada, so it will be a loss for us."

Ouellet's promotion to such a prestigious position is being lauded as a move that will raise the profile of Canada — and the cardinal himself.

"(It) can bring the point of view of the Canadians (to) the whole church," Montreal Archbishop Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte said in an interview.

Turcotte said Ouellet will not only be in a position to explain Canada to his peers in the Vatican, but also to Pope Benedict himself.

"Sometimes (Canada) is a little obscure for those who are living in Rome," he said.

Could this job promotion also be a springboard for Ouellet to eventually succeed Pope Benedict?

"I don't know," Turcotte said. "In the Church, it's not like in a political party — we don't prepare succession during the time of the Pope himself.

"But he will be in a place where he will be very well known by many, many bishops in the world. I think it's interesting that his personality is going to be observed by many, and we don't know the future. I prefer to leave that in the hands of God, than in the hands of the humans."

Turcotte said Ouellet did his duty as a Church official, even if his positions sometimes erupted into controversy.

"The position of the Church was given by Christ, by the gospel and by the theology, the tradition of the Church," he said.

"We can say that many of those positions are not very popular in society today."

Ouellet, a native of La Motte in Quebec's Abitibi region, became Archbishop of Quebec City in 2002 and was once secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Other Canadians have played prominent roles in the Vatican, but Ouellet's position, which will propel him into the Pope's inner circle, is likely the most significant, says religious studies professor Douglas Farrow.

"Certainly he is someone in whom Pope Benedict invests a good deal of trust," the McGill University professor said.

Still, Farrow says this posting doesn't necessarily mean Ouellet is being groomed for the papacy, especially since there are several candidates who could eventually succeed Pope Benedict.

Ouellet doesn't think this position will move him to the front of the line, either.

"I don't think that I will become the Pope some day," he said.

Ouellet's promotion is part of a shuffle of the Vatican's top positions in what is being seen as an acknowledgment that efforts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe need a boost.

The announcement also says Monsignor Rino Fisichella has been chosen to head a new Vatican office to fight secularization and re-evangelize the West. Fisichella has been head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican’s top bioethics official.

The long-rumoured appointments were announced as the Pope wraps up key Vatican business before going on vacation for the rest of the summer at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome.


The story in the UK Guardian was even more slanted and almost hostile - again, no surprise:


Pope gives top job
to abortion hardliner

by John Hooper in Rome

June 30, 2010


The Pope handed one of the most powerful jobs in the Vatican to a cardinal who said recently that abortion was wrong, even in cases of rape.

The reshuffle also saw a senior prelate moved from the institution that helps frame the Catholic church's "pro-life" doctrines, after he appeared to question the announcement by another archbishop that the mother of a child rape victim had removed herself from the Church by arranging for her daughter to terminate her pregnancy.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella was transferred to head a new department charged with stemming the advance of secularisation, particularly in Europe.

[Actually, I felt it was a graceful exit for the Pope from the untenable situation created by Fisichella at the Academy for Life, even if it still seems not quite kosher to have a Vatican dicastery head on record as tolerating compromise on abortion.]

It is the appointment of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, however, that is likely to arouse most controversy. As prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Ouellet, until now the archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada, will be responsible for drawing up shortlists from which the Pope decides who is to get a bishop's mitre.

The prefecture is often regarded as the third most important job in the Vatican administration since its incumbent can prevent even the most gifted priest from rising to a position of leadership in the Church. [Not that anyone can come up with any instance when that has happened, at least not in the past two centuries! In the Church, over the centuries, somehow, the cream finds a way to rise to the top. The Holy Spirit surely can 'pave the way' for those who are destined to become Pope.]

Ouellet has in the past been touted as a successor to Benedict.

This year, Ouellet provoked what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation termed a "firestorm of criticism" when he told an anti-abortion conference in Quebec City that terminating a pregnancy was a "moral crime" even in rape cases.

He said he understood that a sexually assaulted woman should be helped and her attacker held accountable. "But there is already a victim," he said. "Must there be another one?"

Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, said she was outraged by Ouellet's views and accused him of trying to get abortion recriminalised – a claim a spokesperson for the archdiocese denied.

Four days after he made his remarks, the Quebec national assembly passed a unanimous resolution affirming women's right to free and accessible abortion. [But they would have done so whether Ouellet had spoken up or not! - except now, they had added spite for motivation.]

Last year, there was worldwide controversy when Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife in Brazil said the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather had excommunicated herself from the Catholic church.

In response, in an article published on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, Fisichella wrote: "Before giving thought to excommunication, it was necessary and urgent to safeguard the innocent life of this girl."
[That's a sketchy and simplistic presentation of the case, which involved Fisichella's failure to inform himself fully of the circumstances before he wrote the article, nor even to consult the Archbishop of Recife about the case as episcopal courtesy requires. His position was subsequently 'clarified' by the CDF, but he insisted to the Academy for Life that he was correct and had nothing to apologize for to anyone.]

He was replaced as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life by a Spanish prelate close to the conservative Opus Dei. Fisichella's appointment to head the nascent Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation is not a demotion, but it marked the second time in a week that the Pope sent a clear signal that he would not tolerate public dissent [by his bishops and cardinals - who should try to settle differences in private, not wrangle disgracefully in public!].

On Monday, the Vatican announced that the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, had come to Rome to explain himself to the Pontiff after apparently questioning priestly celibacy and accusing a fellow cardinal of mishandling a prominent sex abuse scandal.


Another Canadian news agency chooses to focus on Cardinal Ouellet's potential as a 'papabile', with a ridiculous title - as if anyone (other than, I think, notoriously, Cardinal Tettamanzi) would publicly say he wants to be Pope:

Quebec cardinal claims
no designs on papacy

By Marianne White

July 1, 2010

Controversial Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who is heading to Rome to take over a high-profile position, insisted Wednesday he is not after the Vatican's top job.

The multi-lingual Ouellet has been touted as a possible successor to Pope Benedict XV,I and his new powerful job -- head of the Congregation for Bishops, the organization that picks which priests will become bishops -- ups his profile as a possible contender.

"I'm surprised to be today in this position, and I don't think that I will become Pope someday! I don't think so," Canada's highest ranking Catholic priest told a news conference in Quebec City.

He said his dream as a boy was to be a missionary and that he fulfilled that dream when he worked for 10 years in South America. The 66-year-old said he wants to concentrate on the task ahead which he described as a "huge responsibility."

John L. Allen Jr., a leading Vatican watcher and correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, said Ouellet has been named to one of the three most powerful positions at the Vatican after the Pope.

"In any institution when you are in a position to determine who its future leaders are going to be, that makes you a big deal," he said in an interview from Rome. In 2005, when John Paul II's successor was chosen, Ouellet's name also came up in the list of possible candidates for the job.

Allen believes if Ouellet makes a good impression, it could boost his stock for the next papal election.

"This certainly gives him an opportunity to play on the global stage and if he does that well, it could certainly make him a strong candidate the next time around," he said.

The fact that Ouellet is a traditionalist and devotee of the Catholic right could certainly play in his favour, Allen added.

He said the appointment should be seen as a big vote of confidence from the Pontiff -- whom Ouellet has known for more than 20 years.

Ouellet added Wednesday: "I think the Pope has great trust in me and he knows that I have been supporting him in the difficult times that we've had to go through and I will keep supporting him.

"We are aware that in the Western world in particular, Christianity is going through difficult times. It's a time of crisis, so it is a time of decision, decision in favour of the Gospel and in favour of Christ."

The cardinal recently came to the defence of the Pope when he was accused of turning a blind eye to priests who were sexually abusing children.

Ouellet himself has been under pressure in Quebec to apologize in the Church's name to victims of sexual abuses by priests. Victims' rights activist France Bedard said Wednesday Ouellet doesn't deserve his promotion to the Vatican.

"What has he done for his people, for the victims of sexual assaults by priests? Nothing," Bedard said. "I'm wondering if this is really a promotion or simply an escape."
[And who is she to think that? And why should we Catholics care?]

The Quebec cardinal, who is also the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, is well known in his home province for his conservative views and hardline stance against abortion.

Ouellet set off a firestorm last month when he said abortion was an unjustifiable moral crime, even in the case of rape. He later defended his comments and called for a broader debate on abortion, adding he considers abortion a "serious moral disorder."

The comments provoked rebukes from several women's rights organizations and politicians in Quebec and Ottawa.

Ouellet acknowledged Wednesday he is not perfect and said he hopes Quebecers will remember him for more than only the controversies.

Ouellet was born in La Motte -- a small town near Amos in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region -- on June 8, 1944.

He spent 13 years in Rome as chairman of dogmatic theology before becoming archbishop of Quebec City in 2002.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/07/2010 03:42]
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