BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

I'm posting this item here belatedly for the record, and also to register my apology for having been too 'kind' about it in an earlier remark. I've gone back and revised that judgment. I do not think Magister is completely sold on everything the Pope says and does, but his argument seems to be "He's highly popular, and here's why", as if somehow the reasons he cites would justify anything and everything.

A Pope Like None Before. Can He Do It?
The symbolic voyage to Lampedusa. His great popularity. The reform of the curia.
The calculated silence on ethical issues. But also his first error over an IOR appointment.
The challenge of Francis in changing the Church is meeting with obstacles and enemies. Including at the Vatican. [Has this not been said of every Pope in recent history? So, even the pluperfect Pope is not exempt from this? ]

by Sandro Magister
English translation by Matthew Sherry


ROME, July 11, 2013 – At the marking of his fourth month as pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has produced his first encyclical and completed his first voyage. Two symbolically powerful acts, but almost opposite in character.

"Lumen Fidei" indeed bears the signature of Pope Francis, but was conceived and almost entirely written by Benedict XVI. By making it his own, Bergoglio has wanted to give witness to his full agreement with his predecessor in carrying out the distinctive mission of the successor of Peter: “to strengthen the faith.”

The voyage to Lampedusa, however, marks a clear departure. In order to speak a Christian word on the encounter and clash between civilizations, the theologian Joseph Ratzinger would willingly give an erudite "lectio magistralis" at the Islamic university of Al Azhar. [First, it is most unfair to imply that Benedict XVI only had an academic and not pastoral attitude about pressing ssocial issues. I must find time to compile all the pastoral concern he expressed over the years about the plight of migrants compelled to seek asylum in Italy.

Just as importantly, Francis's visit to Lampedusa was not about 'the encounter and clash between civilizations' but about forced migrations and ultimately, illegal immigration! If anything, it shows how Muslims, must flee their own homelands for Christian lands to seek a better life!

The visit to Lampedusa, when announced, was meant to underscore Pope Francis's grief at the deaths of migrants coming from North Africa to enter Europe without legal standing. Which then, on Lampedusa, the Pope morphed into a reproach to all men for our 'global indifference' to the plight of immigrants. Although he dramatically cited God's reproach to Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, it was far-fetched to blame 'everyone' for the deaths of the migrants, and even more so, for the conditions that force them to leave their homelands, nor for the fact that potential host countries like Italy need to impose some semblance of order and practical limitations to what they can do to admit migrants entering their countries bypassing regular immigration procedures.

None of these considerations, however, made it to the reporting and commentary of a Francis-besotted media. Even Magister completely overlooks these most relevant and significant points. Moreover, I am still bothered that when the Pope announced his decision to go to Lampedusa, he said it was prompted by a recent accident at sea to a boat carrying African migrants bound for Europe, whose deaths, he said, felt 'like a thorn in my heart'. Surely, even in Argentina, he must have read of accidents to these boat people since the supposed Arab spring first occasioned their exodus in early 2011! So many of them that his heart would be mincemeat by now from all those thorns!]

The pastor Bergoglio, instead, has taken his inspiration from Francis. Just as the saint of Assisi began his mission by going to kiss the lepers, who were banned from the city at the time, so also the pope who has taken his name has wished to go first of all to a far-flung little island, the landing or wrecking place of thousands of migrants and refugees. At the Mass he wanted to have read the biblical pages of Cain who kills Abel, and of the massacre of the innocents. A voyage of penance. [This 'synthesis' of the Lampedusa trip is much too problematic to even begin to fisk! I find it an unwarranted spin on simple facts. The migrants find life in their homelands or specific circumstances thereof such as political persecution, unsupportable, so they risk their all - many with their families - to get to Europe in small boats that are not seaworthy. In the process there have been tragic accidents that have cost many lives. But not all the world is indifferent to their plight. Without needing the Pope to urge us, those of us who pause to note such tragedies pray for the victims, as we do for victims of any accident or natural catastrophe, of disease and violence; those who can also contribute to assistance funds for such victims, or even end up working directly to assist in their resettlement, rehabilitation or repatriation, as the case may be. As I remarked after reading the Pope's homily on Lampedusa, he seemed to have forgotten that often, the Catholic church and Catholic associations are in the forefront of efforts to soften the harshness of refugee life for these migrants. While the phrase 'globalization of indifference' may have been picked up by the headline-writers as they did Cardinal Ratzinger's 'dictatorship of relativism' in 2005, the spiritual leader of Christianity cannot 'globslize' his prophetic wrath to jgnore those who do work silently and lovingly in the vineyard if the Lord.]

It comes as no surprise that after the voyage to Lampedusa, the universal popularity of Francis should have reached its highest peaks. [Because people think they are not in any way alluded to when the Pope says 'everyone' is responsible for the migrants' deaths and overall plight? But in general, people love to hear high sanctimony expressed which they can share by their enthusastic support, feeling good by condemning everyone else, not themselves personally, for their faults and sins. Who then is 'everyone' that the Pope refers to?]

“God does the statistics,” he has said. But there is an evident concurrence between the words and actions of this pope and those which could have been suggested to him by a scientific planner of his success. Almost everything that he does and says is difficult to contest for Catholic and secular public opinion, starting with that “how much I would like a Church that is poor and for the poor” which has become the identity card of the current pontificate.

One key element of Francis's popularity is his personal credibility. [What? The Popes before him - at least those we know from contemporary information-saturation - had no personal credibility????]

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he lived in a modest two-room apartment. He cooked for himself. He got around by bus and metro. He fled from worldly engagements as from the plague. He never wanted to make a career for himself, but on the contrary patiently stepped aside when his own Society of Jesus, of which he had been provincial superior in Argentina for several years, brusquely deposed and isolated him.

For this reason as well, every time he invokes poverty for the Church and rails against the ambitions of power and greed for wealth present in the ecclesiastical camp, no voice is raised to criticize him. [What a mindless statement! Who in his right mind would openly criticize denouncing what is wrong, anyway? Yet when Benedict XVI denounced the same thing over and over again, did anyone take note in the media???? A whole book can be compiled about Joseph Ratzinger's constant admonitions to men of the Church!]


Who could ever justify the oppression of the destitute, and come to the defense of unmerited careers? Who could ever charge Francis with failing to practice what he preaches? On the lips of the current pope, the paradigm of a poor Church is an infallible one. [Hardly 'infallible' - in fact, a facile slogan that is misleading about St. Francis's idea of poverty - but it goes down well with everyone who wants to be perceived as being on the side of good!] It garners a practically universal consensus, both among the friends and among the most ardent enemies of the Church, those who would like to see it so impoverished as to disappear altogether. [It bears out exactly what I said about the natural tendency for 'everyone' to feel like the breast-beating Pharisee, "Oh Lord, I thank you that I am not like others who sin" and thank God that someone out there is denouncing sinners - which does not include themselves, of course.]

But then there is another key factor of Francis's popularity. His invectives, for example, against the “invisible tyranny” of the international financial centers does not strike a specific and recognizable objective. And therefore none of the true or presumed “strong powers” feel effectively touched and provoked to react. [And how does that become a factor in the Pope's popularity? That again, no one feels personally alluded to by his denunciations? Then everyone is inhabiting a parallel world in which 'everyone' is blameless, as opposed to that other world denounced by Francis where everyone is to blame! This is news analysis????]

Even when his reprimands take aim at misdeeds within the Church, these almost always stick to generalities. [Of course, Popes cannot descend to specific names or individuals when they are denouncing sins and faults, which they must denounce, but not the sinners who must be led to 'convert'. But almost each of the Pope's homilettes has been aimed directly at specific 'groups' of offenders. singling them out caustically.]

Once when pope Bergoglio, in one of his conversational morning homilies, raised an explicit doubt over the future of the IOR, the Institute for Works of Religion, the controversial Vatican “bank,” the spokesmen bent over backward to defuse the situation.

And when he denounced the fact that a “gay lobby” at the Vatican “is there, it's true,” the damage control emerged all down the line. Even secular public opinion, more lavish today than ever in hurling accusations of homophobia, forgave him for this statement, with an indulgence that certainly would not have been granted to his predecessor.

Benedict XVI, in effect, was different. In spite of his meek appearance, he was often very explicit and direct in expressing his judgments and in getting his listeners on the ropes. [Yes, but by the force of his arguments against misdeed or sin, not by making direct personal accusations, colloquially colorful as they may be!] The earthquake unleashed by his lecture in Regensburg remains the most spectacular effect of this. [Wrong example! The 'earthquake' was not due to the lecture itself, and its very serious theme of guarding against the pathology of unreason in all religions, but because Muslims took offense at an unflattering description of Mohammed by a Byzantine emperor whose empire was conquered by the sword of Islam!]

But there was another important discourse of his that illustrates the case even better.

It was during his third and last voyage in Germany, in September of 2011. In Freiburg, pope Joseph Ratzinger wanted to meet with a representative group of German Catholics “active in the Church and in society.”

And to them, as also to the bishops of Germany who were present almost in their entirety, he serenely addressed words of deadly severity, extremely demanding. Entirely focused on the duty of a poor Church, “stripped of worldly wealth," “detached from the world,” “freed from material and political burdens and privileges,” in order to be able “to dedicate itself better and in a truly Christian way to the whole world.”

So then, that discourse of his met with a chilly reception and was rapidly hushed, in the first place by those to whom the Pope had addressed himself. Because precisely he had taken aim with precision, asking for a change: at that German Church which he knew very well: wealthy, satisfied, bureaucratized, politicized, but poor in the Gospel.

Pope Francis's way of speaking is certainly one of his most original traits. It is simple, understandable, communicative. [And does that mean that the way Benedict XVI and John Paul II spoke was difficult, incomprehensible and uncommunicative? How can experienced writers like Magister fail to note the implications and connotations of statements they make? You could tell right away it sounds wrong when you reread a statement like that after you have written it! Statements must be appropriately qualified, not just made baldly, as if in a vacuum. Everything has context!]

It has the appearance of improvisation, but in reality is carefully studied, as much in the invention of formulas - the "soap bubble" that he used in Lampedusa to represent the egoism of the modern Herods - as in the fundamentals of the Christian faith that he loves most to repeat and are crystallized in a consoling “all is grace,” the grace of God who incessantly forgives although all continue to be sinners.

But in addition to the things that he says are those about which he is deliberately silent. It cannot be an accident that after 120 days of pontificate Pope Francis has not yet spoken the words abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage.

Pope Bergoglio succeeded in dodging them even on the day that he dedicated to “Evangelium Vitae," the tremendous encyclical published by John Paul II in 1995 at the culmination of his epic battle in defense of life “from conception to natural death.”

Karol Wojtyla and Benedict XVI after him exerted themselves incessantly and in person to combat the epochal challenge represented by the modern ideology of birth and death, as also by the dissolution of the creatural duality between male and female.

Not Bergoglio. It seems well-established by now that he has decided to remain silent on these issues that touch upon the political sphere of the entire West, including Latin America, convinced that such statements are not the responsibility of the Pope but of the bishops of each nation. He told the Italians in unmistakable words: “The dialogue with political institutions is your affair.” [That's a baffling copout, as I've remarked before. He's the Bishop of Rome, who presides in charity over all the other bishops. What is wrong with him taking the lead in asserting the 'non-negotiable values' of Catholicism? Are these any less significant than insisting that priests must not behave like materialist laymen? Benedict XVI preached all categories of Christian teaching alike, without fear or favor. And does everyone forget that it was precisely because canon law used to allow the local bishop to have sole jurisdiction and disposition over sex crimes committed by their priests that the great cover-up and silence over these crimes developed so tragically that the Vatican had to step in to take the lead?]

The risk of this division of labor is high for Francis himself, given the hardly flattering judgment that he has repeatedly demonstrated he has on the average quality of the bishops of the world. But it is a risk that he wants to take. [An unnecessary risk, because he has nothing to lose - other than popularity among libera) seculars (and why would that be important to him?] by taking the lead in speaking out himself about these issues?] This silence of his is another of the factors that explain the benevolence of secular public opinion in his regard. [Does Magister - or Pope Francis, for that matter - really think that any anti-Church secular or religious would consider the Pope acquiescent with current liberal thinking on social issues just because he has chosen not to speak about them himself?]

Also in his favor is the visible intention of reforming the Roman curia, and in particular of acting upon that festering boil which is the IOR. Oh the stereotypes Vaticanistas have constructed about IOR, determined to see nothing good in it! And yet, Magister himself was supportive of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and his work at IOR, and rightly furious for the way he was sacked! i will offer a Mass in tribute when one of them finally writes something objective and fact-based about IOR - and the Roman Curia.]

He has entrusted the study of a reform of the curia to an international council of cardinals, all of them appointed by him. Who in turn have called upon trusted experts to advise them. Some have seen this as a first step towards a democratization of the Church, with the passage from a monocratic to an oligarchic authority.

But as a perfect Jesuit, Bergoglio wants instead to apply to his exercise of the papacy the model proper to the Society of Jesus, in which the decisions are not made collegially, but only by the superior general, in absolute autonomy, after having listened separately to his assistants and to anyone else he may wish. [So how exactly is that different from Benedict XVI's decision-making - for which media excoriated him because he made his decisions autonomously, and in their view, this meant he listened to no one or consulted no one! That decision-making process is obviously not exclusive to Jesuits, but a commonsense approach by anyone who thinks and who is in a decision-making role!]

It is therefore foreseeable that in early October, when the eight cardinal advisors meet in Rome to place the collected plans in the basket, the views will be very disparate.

A forewarning of disagreement has come from Germany, where a plan to reform the curia was also asked of the former director of the Munich branch of McKinsey, Thomas von Mitschke-Collande. The request was made to him by the powerful secretary of the German episcopal conference, the Jesuit Hans Langerdörfer, but without the knowledge of the archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx, one of the eight advisors appointed by the pope, and on the contrary., to his great disappointment, since he had come to a rather negative judgment on von Mitschke-Collande, especially after reading his latest book, with the polemical title: “Does the Church want to destroy itself? Facts and analyses presented by a business consultant.”

Meanwhile another figure of the German Church has sent the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith some of the McKinsey man's other writings, with the doctrinal errors it is alleged to contain highlighted.

If on the reform of the curia and on a more rigorous selection of candidates for bishop/COLORE] [More rigorous? Were they lax at all under Benedict XVI, whose selection of bishops has not been impugned at all>] the initiatives of Pope Francis have remained for now only at the level of announcement - these too being hailed with a general consensus - a number of concrete actions have instead been taken already on the front of the IOR.

Not so much by the pope but by different agents, some of them even in disagreement with each other, inside and outside of the Church. Moreover with a disastrous mishap that has fallen upon Francis himself.

The external agent that has had a decisive role in determining events has been the Italian magistracy, which in June ordered the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, until one month before the head of accounting for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.

The charge is of illicit trafficking of money, including through accounts of the IOR and with the consent of the highest directors of the institute, carried out in 2012 precisely while the Vatican was engaged in front of the world in adopting the strictest international anti-laundering norms.

At the same time, the Italian magistracy has also concluded its investigations concerning the director and vice-director of the IOR, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, also accused of suspicious movements of money in fourteen operations carried out between 2010 and 2011, therefore once again precisely while Benedict XVI was pushing forward a general reorganization and housecleaning of the Vatican financial offices.

The inexorable result of these actions of the Italian magistracy was the resignation of Cipriani and Tulli. that is, precisely the two who in the spring of 2012, the president of the IOR at the time, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, had demanded should be removed, maintaining that they were the ones truly responsible for the misdeeds of the institute. Obtaining instead his own brutal expulsion on May 24 by the board of the IOR, at the mandate of cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone.

Against this background of devastation, Pope Francis took two provisions strictly of his own initiative.

On June 15, he appointed as “prelate” of the IOR, with full powers, Monsignor Battista Ricca, whom he had gotten to know and appreciate as director of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he chose to live instead of in the pontifical apartments.

And the following 24th he instituted a commission of investigation on the IOR, reporting to him, made up of five authoritative outside figures, including the former ambassador of the United States to the Holy See and professor of law at Harvard, Mary Ann Glendon.

Unfortunately, however, when Pope Francis instituted this commission, he had already discovered that he had erred spectacularly in the first appointment, that of the “prelate."

In the days immediately before June 24, in fact, meeting the Vatican nuncios who had come from all over the world to Rome, he had received from some of them incontestable information on the “scandalous conduct” of which Monsignor Ricca had given proof in 2000 and 2001 in Uruguay, when he was serving at that nunciature, from which he was brusquely removed before finally being called back to Rome.

The empty chair at the concert offered in his honor on June 22 was perhaps due in part to the sorrow felt by Francis at the discovery of this error of his, while meeting with the nuncios during those same hours and days. [Oh please, cut out the melodrama, Mr. Magister! The Pope's 'sorrow' could not have been so great as to disable him from attending a one-hour concert, during which Beethoven's music would have soothed his heart and spirit!]

No pope is infallible. Not even the most beloved by all. [So, already he is that!]
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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/07/2013 06:36]