BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Double almanac posting again to make up for yesterday, Saturday...

Saturday, July 13, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

Two of the prayer cards show the saint and his wife St. Kunegunde; second from right, the lid on their tomb in Bamberg, Germany; and the center icon shows Henry as Holy Roman Emperor.
ST. HEINRICH (Henry II) (Germany, 972-1024), Duke of Bavaria, King of Germany and Italy, Holy Roman Emperor (1014-1024)
Educated by the bishops of Freising first then Regensburg, Heinrich had thought of becoming a priest, but he became duke in 995 upon his father's death, then King of Germany in 1002. Two years later, he was also crowned King of Italy, and in 1014, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Benedict VIII. In 998, he had married Kunegunde of Luxembourg, a descendant of Charlemagne. As they never had children, many stories claim that they made a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. Heinrich fought many battles to consolidate his power and secure his borders, but he and his wife always had a reputation for helping the poor, giving away much of their own wealth. As a ruler, he founded schools and monasteries, quelled rebellions, worked to establish a stable peace in Europe and to reform the Church while respecting its independence. He supported bishops against the monastic clergy, and enforced priestly celibacy to prevent the clergy from passing on any of the public lands and goods he bestowed on the Church to personal heirs. In 1007, he established the Diocese of Bamberg which immediately became a center for scholarship and art. In 1020, Benedict VIII visited him in Bamberg to consecrate the new cathedral. He started construction of the cathedral of Basel, Switzerland, which later took him for its patron saint. When Heinrich died, Kunegunde entered a Benedictine nunnery and died in 1040. Heinrich was canonized in 1146, Kunegunde in 1200.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071313.cfm

AT THE VATICAN, July 13, 2013

No events announced for Pope Francis.

But an update on what's going on in IOR, surprisingly, without any mention of Pope Francis for a change:

IOR freezes the accounts
of accused Mons. Scarano

July 13, 2013

The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, issued an update this morning about the ongoing investigations by competent Vatican authorities into the case of Mons. Nunzio Scarano.

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By court order on the 9th of July, the Vatican Promoter of Justice has frozen funds at the IOR attributed to suspended Vatican employee Nunzio Scarano as part of an ongoing investigation by the Vatican judicial authorities. The investigation was triggered by several suspicious transaction reports filed with AIF and could be extended to additional individuals.

IOR commissioned an objective review by Promontory Financial Group of the facts and circumstances of the accounts in question and is fully cooperating with the Vatican Financial Intelligence Unit AIF and judicial authorities to bring full transparency in this matter.

The IOR is currently undergoing an outside review by Promontory Financial Group of all client relationships and the anti-money-laundering procedures it has in place. In parallel, the Institute is implementing appropriate improvements to its structures and procedures.

This process was initiated in May 2013 and is expected to be largely concluded by the end of 2013. Over the past weeks, the IOR nominated a Chief Risk Officer at Directorate level with a specific brief to focus on compliance, and introduced measures to substantially strengthen the reporting system.

As President Ernst von Freyberg recently pointed out, the IOR is systematically identifying and will have zero tolerance for any activity, whether conducted by laity or clergy, that is illegal or outside the Statutes of the Institute.

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One year ago...
No events announced for Benedict XVI, who had been in Castel Gandolfo since July 3 for his annual summer sojourn there.


But on this day in 2011, the Irish government released the full text of what came to be known as 'the Cloyne report', triggering a summer furor of renewed but far more vicious and relentless attacks in the media against the Pope and the Church, which had seemingly peaked (it could not be worse, but it turns out it could) in the summer of 2010...Then it was a determined effort by the world's major media outlets to link Joseph Ratzinger personally, directly and indirectly, to sex abuse cases and the cover-up thereof. 'Smoking gun' after 'smoking gun' headlines came out, none of which amounted to zilch.

In 2011, the furor was over results that had long been known (publication of the full text was delayed until a court case involving one of the accused priests was out of the way), but the way Ireland - and most of MSM - reacted, one would have thought it was the first time the world had ever heard of sexual abuses committed by priests against minors. One week later, the Irish Prime Minister would deliver a thoroughly scurrilous attack against the Pope and the Church, including a few flat-out false statements about the Pope. It gave MSM something to run with during the summer news doldrums, and indeed, they ran with it full steam ahead for about three weeks though it seemed like an eternity then. It wasn't that MSM had found something new to occupy itself with - they just ran out of things to say, or negative twists to invent, that had not already been said again and again. And three weeks later, there was WYD Madrid, and suddenly, Benedict XVI was once again 'Benedict, superstar' in the eyes of the media, for a few days, at least.




July 14, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Extreme left: Earliest portrait of Kateri, by a French Jesuit to whom she appeared in a vision shortly after her death.
SAINT KATERI TEKAKWITHA (b upstate New York 1656, d near Montreal, 1680), Virgin, 'Lily of the Mohawk', first Native American saint
Kateri was born nine years after the Jesuit saints Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were killed by the Iroquois near their place of martyrdom. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who was captured and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawks, the strongest of the Iroquois. At age 4, Kateri's parents and brother died in a smallpox epidemic which also left her near-blind and disfigured with scars. Adopted by her uncle who succeeded her father as chief, Kateri had contact with Jesuit fathers who, under a French peace treaty with the native Americans, were allowed to be present in villages with Christian natives. At 19 she was baptized. But it meant she was thereafter treated by her tribe like a slave. As she grew in holiness, so did their persecution. On the advice of a priest, she escaped one night and walked 200 miles to a Christian village near Montreal. There, she lived the few remaining years of her life dedicated to prayer, penance, and care for the sick and aged. She also took a vow of virginity. She died in 1680 at age 24. Her first biographer, a Jesuit priest, wrote in 1696 that Kateri's scars vanished at the time of her death revealing a woman of immense beauty; that many sick persons who attended her funeral were healed on that day; and that she appeared to two different individuals in the weeks following her death. A move towards her canonization began in 1884. She was declared Venerable in 1943 and beatified in 1980. In 2011, a miracle was reported which was 'certified' earlier thiiturgical feast os commemorated s year, which led to her canonization in October by Benedict XVI as the first native American saint.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071413.cfm


WITH THE POPE TODAY

Pope Francis made a surprise visit today to Castel Gandolfo, traveling by car in the morning, to greet the personnel
and staff of the Pontifical Villas. Afterwards, he led the Sunday Angelus from the Apostolic Residence, walking out
to the square in front to greet the townspeople. It was the first time he has done so, although he visited here on March 23
for his first post-Conclave meeting with Benedict XVI. In his reflection on today's Gospel about the Good Samaritan,
he recalled the 17th-century Italian priest Camillo de Leliis on his liturgical feast today. He founded the order called the Camillians
dedicated to helping the sick and the poor.
NB: In the United States, St, Camillo's feast continues to be observed according to the pre-Vatican II calendar on July 18.


Center photo: The saint's statue in the Founders Gallery of St. Peter's Basilica; poster at right looks towards the 400th centenary of his death in 2014.
ST. CAMILLO DE LELLIS (Italy, 1550-1614), Priest, Founder of the Camellian order, Patron of Nurses
The saint was born in Bocchianico, Italy. He fought for the Venetians against the Turks, was addicted to gambling, and by 1574 was penniless in Naples. He became a Capuchin novice, but was unable to be professed because of a diseased leg he contracted while fighting the Turks. He devoted himself to caring for the sick, and became director of the San Giacomo Hospital in Rome. He received permission from his confessor (St. Philip Neri) to be ordained and decided, with two companions, to found his own congregation, the Ministers of the Sick (the Camellians), dedicated to the care of the sick. They ministered to the sick of Holy Ghost Hospital in Rome, enlarged their facilities in 1585, founded a new house in Naples in 1588, and attended the plague-stricken aboard ships in Rome's harbor and in Rome. In 1591, the Congregation was made into an order to serve the sick by Pope Gregory XIV, and in 1591 and 1605, Camillus sent members of his order to minister to wounded troops in Hungary and Croatia, the first field medical unit. Gravely ill for many years, he resigned as superior of the Order in 1607 and died in Rome on July 14, the year after he attended a General Chapter there. He was canonized in 1746, was declared patron of the sick, with St. John of God, by Pope Leo XIII, and patron of nurses and nursing groups by Pope Pius XI. A church in Rome is dedicated to him.