BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Monday, July 2, 13th Week in Ordinary Time

Panel shows the saint's head enshrined in Drogheda, Ireland.
ST. OLIVER PLUNKETT (Ireland, 1629-1681), Bishop, Primate of Ireland, Martyr
Mentioned early on by Benedict XVI in his Letter to the Catholics of Ireland in March 2010, Plunkett was martyred
by the English for defending the faith in Ireland during a period of severe persecution. He studied for the
priesthood and was ordained in Rome, where he served among the poor until he was appointed Archbishop
of Armagh. A new wave of anti-Catholic persecutions in 1973 forced him to do his pastoral work in secret
and to live in hiding. Priests were exiled, schools were closed, Mass had to be held in secret, convents
and seminaries were suppressed. In 1679, he was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, then sent
to London for trial. He was found guilty of fomenting revolt by a jury that deliberated for all of 15 minutes.
Then he was hanged, drawn and quartered. Considered the second patron of Ireland after St. Patrick, his
head is enshrined in Drogheda, his body in another abbey, and other relics in various Irish churches.
He was beatified by Benedict XV in 1920 and canonized by Paul VI in 1965.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070212.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, President of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See

- Mons. Pier Luigi Celata, until last week Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog.
[His replacement was announced last week without any mention of his resignation, which is unusual.]




Finally, the announcement:
Mons. Mueller now heads the CDF

The Holy Father has accepted the resignation of Cardinal William Joseph Levada, after reaching canonical retirement
age, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and ex-officio president of the Pontifical Commission
Ecclesia Dei, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and the International Theological Commission.

He has named to succeed him Mons. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, until now Bishop of Regensburg, who has been raised to the rank of Archbishop.


On a day of new beginnings, this is the first day at work at the Vatican for the new communications adviser to the Secretariat of State, Greg Burke.



It's really annoying when journalists draw general, often fallacious, conclusions from a limited number of facts that happen to be 'synchronic', or taking place around the same time. In scientific studies, one always begins by first calculating the minimum nunber of cases one has to investigate in order for the study to have any conclusive 'power' at all, one way or the other. And yes, 'power' is the technical term for that minimum number. It could be as little as 50 or as many as a few million, depending on how specific is the conclusion you want to draw. Certainly not 3, because in any study, there are 3 possible conclusions to draw - true, false or inconclusive - and you can't possibly draw a conclusion from examining only 3 cases. Yet in the past 24 hours, I have read the following 'conclusions':
- The Opus Dei is the new 'grey eminence' in the Vatican because of Cardinal Herranz, Greg Burke, and the declaration of Opus Dei's second superior, Alvaro del Portillo as Venerable. (Sandro Magister et al)
- The Americans are an emerging power bloc in the Vatican because of the new appointments for Mons. Di Noia and Greg Burke, and the apparent major role of Knights of Columbus leader Carl Anderson at IOR (John Allen)
- Benedict XVI's recent appointees are 'progressives' - Mueller to CDF, Brugues as Archivist-Librarian, and reaching back to last year, Braz de Aviz to the congregation in charge of religious orders - and therefore, the orthodox Pope is showing himself to be more 'open' to progressive thinking! (Carlo Marroni)

All such conclusions are forced for effect and have no statistical power at all, obviously, but journalists tend to make them periodically anyway. But they don't need statistical power at all in the case of analyzing the Curia - just simple proportion. To be plausible at all, they would have to factor in the total population of 'ranking' prelates in the Vatican and its organisms as the common denominator for whatever hypothesis of dominance they have - Italians, Opus Dei, Americans, progressives, non-Europeans, football fans, whatever. There are 22 Curial offices at present, with two ranking officials (Prefect or President, and Secretary) - so that's 44. Add another 10 for the top officials in SecState after the top 2, and for the Vatican's communications poohbahs. You get 54 as a denominator. 3 out of 54 - if we apply it to the 'conclusions' drawn by the Vaticanistas - is hardly significant..