BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

It took me a few days to get around to it, but I finally straightened out the unexpected page change a few days ago - My 'almanac' post for 8/31, without my realizing it, posted four times for some reason, and I never checked the preceding page when I came back Friday evening to find the post at the top of a new page. After getting rid of the extra psts, the first entries on this page moved 'up' to the preceding page.




CARDINAL CARLO MARIA MARTINI, S.J. (1927-2012)

From left, The cardinal with B16 in May 2005; on his 80th birthday in Jerusalem (Feb 2007); next 2 photos taken 2009-2010 after he retired to a Jesuit home in Gallarate, near Milan;llast 3 photos taken 2011-2012.


Vatican newspaper's tribute:
'Generous servant of the Gospel
and of the Church', says Benedict XVI
Translated from the 9/2/12 issue of




The 9/2/12 issue of L'Osservatore Romano features on Page 1 the Holy Father's telegram of condolence, and a similar telegram from Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone in the name of the Roman Curia.

A full-page spread in the inside pages includes the following studiously neutral account of his life and work, a story about condolences from the leaders of other Christian confessions, and the homage of the Archdiocese of Milan to someone who was their pastor for 22 years.


On Friday, August 31, the Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, emeritus Archbishop of Milan, died in Gallarate. When, on August 30, his health condition took a turn for the worse, Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, invited all the people of the diocese and "all who held him dear" to pray for him, in testimony of the great popular affection which had always accompanied him.

Born on February 15, 1927 in Turin, Carlo Maria Martini was ordained a priest on July 13, 1952. He was named metropolitan Archbishop of Milan on December 29, 1979, by John Paul II who ordained him a bishop on January 6, 1980, and made him a cardinal on February 2, 1983.

Having resigned as Archbishop of Milan on July 11, 2002, at which time he revealed that he had Parkinson's disease, he chose to live most of the year in the Holy Land to pursue his Biblical studies. In 2008, he returned to Italy for good for medical care as his ailment advanced. He chose to reside at the Aloisianum, a Jesuit retirement home in Gallarate near Milan.

His funeral rites will be celebrated on Monday, September 3, at 4 pm in the Cathedral of Milan, where he will be buried. He was to lie in state at the Duomo starting Saturday morning.

The way that Cardinal Martini faced Parkinson's disease, with serenity, courage and great faith, was the last lesson he taught, almost a synthesis of his life of rigorous commitment to study - he was one of the last professors of the Pontifical Biblical Institute to hold his classes in Latin - and his pastoral activity, which began when he was named Archbishop of Milan, the world's largest diocese in terms of population.

Immediately following the news of his death, testimonials of affection and esteem have been profuse and unanimous, underscoring the moral authority acquired by the cardinal thanks to a style of dialog that was addressed to everyone.

During his pastoral ministry, he promoted numerous initiatives inn the archdiocese, along with widely read books.

Among the most emblematic episodes of his episcopate, one recalls the surrender of weapons to him by some terrorists of the Brigate Rosse, an acknowledgment of his noble authoritativeness which derived not just from his academic prestige as a Biblical scholar and from his role as Archbishop. But it was an authoritativeness that he always lived with simplicity - 'humbly' was an expression he often used - which was highlighted by a constant dialog with the secular world through what he called 'the cathedra of non-believers', visits to the poor and those in prison, and his attention to individual problems as well as the greater horizon of the universal Church.

Significant in this respect was his episcopal motto which he took from the Regula pastoralis of St. Gregory the Great: "Pro veritate adversa diligere" [For the sake of the truth, choose even unfavorable situations] - an expression to which he was faithful all his life, ever ready to choose and love even situations that were far from easy. As he said, in a 1980s interview, "God is all, and one can ask him everything".

Also significant was his decision to spend his retirement in Jerusalem, in the land where Jesus had lived, in order to pray and resume his Biblical studies, but also as a sign of his special relationship with Judaism.

Then having to return to Italy for appropriate care of his ailment as it progressed. Two rooms at the Jesuit Aloisianum in Gallarate, which he insisted should simply be marked Fr. Carlo Maria Martini.

In recent years, his activities were increasingly limited because of difficulty in moving about, and lately, after it became almost impossible to communicate directly. He had to use a small amplifier as well as the aid of his caretakers.

Despite all this, he was able to come to the Archbishop's residence in Milan last June 2 to meet with Benedict XVI when he was there for the World Encounter of Families. [In a much better state of health, he had visited him at the Vatican in April 2011, when the Pope was deciding on who to appoint as the next Archbishop of Milan.]

Many times, Benedict XVI has paid tribute to Cardinal Martini, even when as Prof. Joseph Ratzinger, he had appreciated the work of Fr. Martini as a consummate textual commentator on the Scriptures and the the only Catholic member of the scientific committee on the Greek New Testament, which has been the critical reference for all of the New Testament translations to various languages.

Born in Turin as the second son of Leonardo Martini and Olga Maggia, he was baptized one week after he was born in the parish of the Immaculate Conception. Educated by the Jesuits at their Social Institute in Turin, he considered the Bible and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola as his inspiration all his life.

He joined the Society of Jesus on Sept. 25, 1944, when he was 17, and undertook his novitiate in Cuneo. He studied philosophy at the Jesuit institute in Gallarate, where he was to spend his final years, and theology at the Theological Faculty of Chieri, where he was ordained a priest on July 13, 1962, by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati, Archbisohop of Turin.

In 1958, he obtained his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University with the thesis, "The historical problem of the Resurrection in recent studies", published in 1959.

After teaching in the Theological Faculty of Chieri, he returned to Rome for further studies in 1966, where he obtained a doctorate in Biblical studies, summa cum laude, at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, with a dissertation on "the problems of reviewing Codex B in the light of the Bodmer papyrus XIV".

[As the work has not been translated to English, I gather that it is a study of Codex B of the so-called Codex Vaticanus which contains the complete text of the Septuagint except for a few minor omissions from the Old Testament. The Codex was believed to be the work of three different scribes designated A, B and C, hence the designations Codex A, b and C. The Bodmer Papyri are a series of 52 papyri found in Egypt in 1952 and purchased by a Swiss, Martin Bodmer. Interestingly, the text commented on by Martini comes from Papyrus XIV-XV (P75), which is believed to contain the world's oldest known written fragment from the Gospel of Luke, the earliest known Lord's Prayer, and one of the oldest written fragments from the Gospel of John. At the time of his research, these papyri were found with the entire collection at the Bodmer Library near Geneva, but in 2007, the two papyri were acquired by an Atlanta busienssman, Frank Hanna II, who presented them to Benedict XVI as a donation to the Vatican.]

He became dean of the Faculty of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, of which he became rector from 1969-1978, when he was appointed Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Jesuit university.

Among his many scientific studies, the most outstanding were an annotated Italian translation of the Acts of the Apostles (1970), his studies on the origins of the Church anthologized in La Parola di Dio (1980), and the critical edition of the Greek New Testament (4th ed., rev, 1993) which he worked on with other Biblical experts in the aforementioned study commission.

He became a popular preacher of spiritual exercises, which was the basis of several books. He also published Life of Moses, Life of Jesus, Paschal Existence (1979), and Israel: Holy Root (1993).

In 1978, he was asked by Paul VI to lead the Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia. On December 29, 1979, John Paul II named him Archbishop of Milan and personally consecrated him as bishop on the Solemnity of the Epiphany in 1980.

Martini formally took his post on February 10, and his first characteristic initiative as Archbishop was to start the Scuola della Parola (School of the Word), that would allow the faithful to know Sacred Scripture better through the method of the lectio divina.

In November 1986, at a diocesan convention in Assago on the theme 'Becoming neighbors to each other', he launched the project of Schools of Formation for social and Political Commitment.

In October 1987, he started a series of meetings called "Questions about the faith" aimed for persons in search of religion.

His letters, discourses and other interventions from 1981-1994 were anthologized in 15 volumes, and another anthology of later texts was published last year in the book Le ragioni del credere (Reasons to believe).

The achievements of Cardinal Martini - who became during his 22 years as Archbishop of Milan, one of the most prominent and esteemed personalities of the Catholic Church - went beyond the confines of the archdiocese.

He was a member of the Council of the General Secretariat of the Bishops; Synod from 1980-1990, and from 1994-2001, he was president of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences. In 2000, he was named an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

[Very strange, but perhaps intentionally, there is not a single line in this tribute to the fact that he was the leading papabile representing Church progressivists in the Conclave of 2005. Nor for that matter, of the ideological content of his writings and preachings.

For all of his prolific literary output, I find it equally strange that in the past seven years when I have had occasion to follow media reporting about Cardinal Martini, I have not seen any news report or commentary citing from any of his previous books (much less from his scholarly work) but only from whatever his latest seemingly anti-Magisterium pronouncement was, including those published in his later books.

In a way, I agree with one Italian comentator who said today that the media 'instrumentalized' Martini all these decades as some sort of battering ram for their own ideas, by pitting him in direct Magisterial competition, as it were, first with John Paul II, and then with Benedict XVI. But on the other hand, he never refuted nor objected to how the MSM described him, although he could have done so with one statement.

Instead, he appeared to play along with them, underscoring the fact that he thought his role was to be able to point out things for the Pope - whether it was John Paul II or Benedict XVI - things that he thought were important for the Church. He could have done so in private, not in highly hyped media statements that tended to confuse the faithful precisely because he set himself openly against what the Popes were saying.]