BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Saturday, February 5, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

The Passion of St. Agatha was a popular subject for medieval artists. From left, a conventional portrait by Carlo Crivelli, 15th-cent; miniature showing her torture, Sano del Pietro, 1471; a detailed Passion by Del Piombo, 1519; St. Peter healing St. Agatha, school of Caravaggio, 1614; unconventional portrait by Zurbaran, 1630.
ST. AGATA (Sicily, ca 231-253), Virgin and Martyr
She was martyred under Decian but like Agnes of Rome, her story comes down to us mostly from the medieval Legenda Aurea (Golden Legends), and follows the same line: She was arrested for her faith, tortured, sent to a house of prostitution, preserved from violation and put to death. Unique to her legend is that on her second day in prison, her breasts were cut off, but St. Peter visits her cell to heal her. Four days later she is rolled onto burning brands, but this torment is ended by a sudden earthquake. Back in her cell, she prays that Jesus will take her and then dies. She is buried in Catania and is the patron saint of both Palermo and Catania. As an early martyr, she is one of seven women other than Mary who is mentioned in the canon of the Mass.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/020510.shtml


OR today.

The Holy Father addresses the plenary session of the Apostolic Signatura, Church's highest court:
'The demands of justice must be met to build a community of love'
Other Page 1 stories: A reflection on the Pope's decree instituting the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization by Cardinal Scola of Venice; coverage of the Egyptian crisis, which also includes a report on increasing pressure from Washington for President Mubarak to step down now as the protesters demand - the 'day of departure' they decreed for yesterday, Friday, came and went with Mubarak still in place; demonstrations in Cairo had the largest crowds so far (200,000 in a city of 18 million) but they were peaceful. In the inside pages, a story on Kepler-11, a planetary system analogous to our own, with six planets and a sun, and which is 2000 light-years away - it was recently 'discovered' by NASA's Kepler interplanetary probe for other planets in our galaxy that may be potentially habitable; a report on John XXIII's writing on priestly celibacy in his encyclical devoted to St. Jean Vianney; and a review of the DVD Heart speaks unto heart, which is a record of Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom last September.



PAPAL EVENTS TODAY

At 10:00 this morning, the Holy Father presided at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica during which he ordained five recent Curial nominees - three secretaries of congregations and two Apostolic Nuncios - as Archbishops. Homily.





I don't know how much this item, reported in the GErman media yesterday, will be reported in the Anglophone media, since they have so far pretty much ignored the news from Germany last week about a 1970 letter that Joseph Ratzinger co-signed with eight other German theologians urging the German bishops' conference to examine the question of priestly celibacy in view of the worsening priest shortage in Germany.

- This time, the news is that 120 theologians from the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) - reportedly representing one-third of their theology professors (and who would have thought there could be as many as 360 theology professors in countries which even seem proud that their Catholic numbers are declining!) - have signed a petition asking for the abolition of the requirement of priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, allowing laymen to carry out some functions of priests and bishops, and sanctioning same-sex marriage, in a laundry list of 'same-old-same-old' demands by diehard dissidents against Catholic practice as it has upheld Tradition. They also lament 'liturgical traditionalism'!

- And, of course, the Anglophone media are only now reporting Georg Gaenswein's clarification reported two days ago by Vatican Radio that Pope Benedict's organ donor card lapsed ipso facto the moment he became Pope - for obvious reasons!... That are obviously not obvious at all to some malicious types like a Democratic blog which chose to title its report "Pope's organs too holy for mere mortals'... Morons!