Thursday, Oct. 18, 28th Week in Ordinary Time
Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist
ST. LUKE (Greek, born in Antioch, Syria; died in Thebes, Greece at age 84)
Apostle and Evangelist, Patron Saint of Physicians
Companion of St. Paul, author of the Gospel considered to be the most historical of the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, recounting the history of the early Church following
the Resurrection. He met Saint Paul in Troas, and evangelized Greece and Rome with him, being there for the shipwreck and other perils of the voyage to Rome.He also stayed in Rome
for Paul’s two years in prison. Much of his Gospel was based on the teachings and writings of Paul, interviews with early Christians, and his own experiences. He is believed
to have painted an icon of Mary now kept in the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the model for icons like the Salus Populus Romanum in Santa Maria Maggiore and the Virgin
of Czestochowa. His remains have had quite an itinerary and have been kept in the Church of St. Giustina in Padua since the 12th century, to where it was taken from
Constantinople for safekeeping. In 2001, scientific testing established that the remains in Padua corresponded to what is known about Luke, and a head that had been kept in Prague
was shown to fit the Padua remains perfectly. See
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/1360095/DNA-test-pinpoints-St-Luke-the-apostles-remains-to-Pa...
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101812.cfm
[Because they were not apostles, the evangelists Luke and Mark have somehow been left out of Benedict XVI's catecheses. They should have come after St. Paul in the series,
before Timothy and Titus, perhaps? St. Luke, strangely, is not the patron saint of any major city, while St. Mark is, of course, the patron of Venice.]
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
No events announced for the Holy Father today.
The Synodal Assembly will have an abbreviated session at noon today, after the Synodal Fathers are honored by
the Commune of Rome at the Campidoglio in the morning. There will be no afternoon session.
At noon today, a news conference was held to present the first Post-Discussion Report after the first 12 days
of the Synodal Assembly.
Present were two of the three President-delegates - Cardinal John Tong Hon, Archbishop of Hongkong; Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya,
Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo); along with Mons. Ján Babjak, S.J., Metropolitan Archbishop of Presov for
Catholics of the Byzantine Rite and president of the Slovakian bishops' conferecen, who is vice-president of the Synodal Assembly's
Information Commission; and Mons. Sviatoslav Schevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč and chief of the Synod of the Greek Catholic
Church of the Ukraine.
The Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's letter to Cardinal Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga, emeritus
Archbishop of Quito, his special representative to the celebration of the 475th anniversary of the first
diocese in Peru and South America, the present archdiocese of Cuzco, The celebrations will be held on
Oct. 24-28. and will also be the occasion for an International Eucharistic and Marian Congress.
As previously anticipated in Catholic media outlets, the Holy Father has named Mons. Joseph William Tobin,
C.SS.R., who has been Secretary of the Congregation overseeing religious orders around the world since 2010,
as Archbishop of Indianapolis (USA).
The usual 'conspiracy theorists' in Catholic media have been speculating that he has been 'promoted out' of the Roman Curia because of
his reported objection to the censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
since he has expressed sympathy for the LCWR in published interviews. The apostolic visitation of the LCWR was begun four years ago by
the Curial Congregation to which Tobin was later appointed. On the basis of results from that visitation, the CDF in 2009 ordered a
doctrinal assessment of the organization, presumably in coordination with the congregation supervising the religious orders. Doctrinal
assessment is the competence of the CDF alone, as surely, Mons. Tobin knows. Moreover, if Benedict XVI or Cardinal Ouellet had any
doubts about Tobin's doctrinal firmness, they would not have named him pastor of an important diocese like Indianapolis. Benedict XVI's
episcopal appointments have been characterized by orthodox firmness, not by doctrinal flabbiness.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 18/10/2012 18:45]