"I just hope something secular comes along to draw the media attention away from the Vatican." Maryjos



Personally, I'm hoping that volcano in Alaska blows.

It's almost worth wishing that there would be some natural disaster like the volcano! Anything to draw attention away from the Vatican! I've been looking at the German section. My German is reasonably good, but I don't understand everything that benedetto.fan and Regina1964 have written the past couple of days. The latter has asked "Ist unser Traum jetzt zu Ende?" - Is our dream now at an end? Oh no! Of course it isn't!
I've been feeling really ill since yesterday and I'm terribly worried about our Holy Father. All I can do is sit here,in the cold, and pray Divine Mercy chaplet and Stations of the Cross - which I've done with the aid of EWTN.
It would be better if the sun would come out. I remember a quote from The Sound of Music [not pornography, but happy entertainment!]:
"You wait for the sun to come out. It always does"
and how true!

From the News about Benedict thread:

TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN
THE POPE AND ANGELA MERKEL
AT HER REQUEST

The Vatican Press Office today issued a rare Sunday statement:

COMMUNIQUE OF THE VATICAN PRESS DIRECTOR
AND THE SPOKESMAN OF THE GERMAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The Holy Father Benedict XVI and Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a telephone conversation requested by the Chancellor, exchanged views in a climate of great respect.

They referred to the statements made respectively by the Holy Father at the General Audience on Wednesday, Jan. 28, and by the Chancellor last Thursday.

The spokesman of the Federal Government, Mr. Wilhelm, and Fr. Lombardi, director of the Press Office, commented: "It was a cordial and constructive dialog, marked by their common profound adherence to the ever-valid warning of the Shoah for mankind".

IN SHORT, SHE APOLOGIZED -
FOR SPEAKING SENTENTIOUSLY
WITHOUT CHECKING THE NEWS FIRST.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. Teresa



Doesn't look like an apology to me. It probably was but it could also be interpreted that Ms. Merkel is giving the pope more advice on what he should and shouldn't say. I suspect the only reason she phoned him was because of Cowgirl's "grumpy" email and threat not to vote for her again. The Vatican is being too kind. They should just say flat out, "She apologized. Hah!"

Well, Mons. Zollitsch is a very good replacement for Card. Lehmann. They're made of the same material, and they're both very much obessed with pleasing public opinion.
I assume he wants to prove to 'his' German Catholiccs, that the reactionary guy in Rome is not to be taken serious.
Possible even also under pressure, as Merkel was, he doesn't see the damage he's doing. Which is def. NO excuse!!
He wants to appease the Jews, the press, the people. I honestly hope, he'll receive a nice, little letter from Rome.

In the meantime, we have some vacancies in Germany. I assume they will be filled with men of a different caliber. Reinhard Marx of Munich is a nice example.

I FIND ZOLLITSCH'S TOADYING
TO HIS QUESTIONABLE 'CONSTITUENCIES',
JEWS INCLUDED, JUST DESPICABLE.


He's making the same blind ideological mistake as his fellow progressivists - they will bend over backwards to be as charitable as they can to people from other religions, while they persecute/disdain/calumniate any Catholic who does not share their views! As if Christ taught 'Love your neigbors but not your own brothers'!

I read somewhere today Zollitsch is asking his theologians to study how they can justify making Bishop Williamson's statements excommunicable under canon law, as a violation of the moral law of the Church. Then each and every Catholic is excommunicable because each of us violate the Ten Commandments - the ultimate moral law - in one way or the other all the time!

In this case, Williamson is most probably violating the commandment against 'bearing false witness', and behind that, lack of charity towards his neighbor. And what about Zolltisch and company's lack of charity towards Williamson, let alone the Pope himself and all other Catholics they disagree with?

Someone just pointed out elswhere, independet of Zollitsch's foolishness, that the Shoah is truth, but it is not an element of Catholic faith, not an element that is 'necessasry for salvation'.

And Benefan, I still say Merkel's request to talk to the Pope was to make an apology. She would be even more of a cad than she already was if she asked for a talk only to pile on him more!

They cannot, of course, say in a statement that she apologized - out of charity, to save face for her, especially because she is running for reelection or whatever....

HOW A RANDOM REMARK ON THE WILLIAMSON CASE
SET ME OFF TO SEE WHO THE JEWS
CONSIDER TO BE THEIR 'NEIGHBOR'
AND LEARNED MANY SURPRISING THINGS!


I thought I would give this little gem a post of its own. From a La Croix report about Bishop Williamson in La Reja. Argentina, and what the people there say about him.

[He seems to be very well-liked and esteemed. I have now seen about 4 or 5 stories from La Reja, and no one has yet been quoted to say that Williamson ever spoke publicly about his views on the Holocaust. This, despite the fact that those European reporters were sent there to sniff out any hidden stench about him - like they tried do with Sarah Palin in Alaska.

So if they had uncovered anything nasty, believe me, they would start painting him now as more evil than Hitler and his whole gang put together.

Here's what gave me pause - a remark by one of the priests at the seminary, who was asked what he thought about Williamson's negation of the Shoah. He claimed no personal knowledge of it but added:

---

"Today, people doubt everything. Above all, Christ. They have been disputing the historical reality of the Gospels. We live in a world of universal doubt."

---

And it struck me as the ultimate irony that I didn't see myself until now.

The Jews are affronted when anyone talks down the Shoah, which is the central event in their history. coming almost two millenia after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Of course, it is stupid, perverse or contemptible (depending on the awareness of the person making the negation) for any informed person to deny the Holocaust happened.

But is that really worse than denying that the historical Jesus was the Jesus of the Gospels?

The Shoah is historical fact. The overwhelming majority of Christians today who have had basic education do not question that.

But Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ was anyone special. A typical Jewish 'fact sheet' about Jesus says:

---

Jews believe that Jesus was a Jew who was born in Bethlehem, raised in Galilee, and killed in Jerusalem. Like other educated Jews in his day, he was faithful to the law of Moses, learned in Jewish scriptures and oral law... Many called him 'rabbi'.

Like other religious, nationalistic Jews before and after him, Jesus angered the Roman government. The Romans considered the ideas preached by Jesus to be dangerous. As a result, the Romans arrested Jesus during his Passover trip to Jerusalem. Then the Romans, upon the order of the Roman procurator, executed Jesus...

Jews believe Jesus himself would have been shocked to know that many people today view him as the Messiah.

According to Judaism, Jesus was a Jewish man who was executed and later given divine status by the Christian church.

---

That's the basic Jewish catechism about Jesus. But there's also this from the Talmud [a central text of mainstream Judaism - a compendium of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history, and dating to the first five centuries of the Christian era.

---

There is debate whether this Yeshu in the Talmud is the same Jesus who later became a Christian divinity.

According to the Talmud, Yeshu was the son of a Jewish woman named Miriam who was betrothed to a carpenter. "Betrothed" means she was legally married to him, but she was not yet living with him or having sexual relations with him.

The story says that Miriam was either raped by or voluntarily slept with Pandeira, a Greek or Roman soldier. Miriam than gave birth to Yeshu, who was considered a "mamzer" (bastard), a product of an adulterous relationship.

The Talmud describes Yeshu as a heretic who dabbled in sorcery and lead the people astray. Later, the Sanhedrin (the Jewish "Supreme Court") ordered Yeshu stoned to death and his dead body was hung from a tree until nightfall after his death, in accordance with the ancient Jewish punishment for heretics.

While some believe there is no connection between the Talmudic Yeshu and the Christian Jesus, others believe there is a connection. Thus, some Jews believe that today's popular Christian ideas about Jesus are based on a melding of the Talmudic story of Yeshu and the historian Josephus's writing about Jesus, which included his execution by the Romans.

---

To think I was blissfully unaware of all this before a comment made in La Reja set me off....

Of course, 'Jesus as the Son of God made man' is the central belief of our faith.

Yet we are not affronted that non-Christians do not believe in Jesus. That's just the way it is. We would want it otherwise, of course, but meanwhile, we live and let live - and evangelize where it is possible.

Why should the Jews think that the heavens have fallen with one Christian's negation of the Holocaust? And chosen to raise such an uproar about it?

It is really a pretext to 'embarrass' Pope Benedict XVI yet again, to 'score another point' against him, as though inter-religious dialog were a sporting match where one seeks to score off each other! They're attempting a sort of 'moral' blackmail, though where they see morality in their machinations is hard to explain.

So I wondered about the Jewish concept of charity, and looked it up. [What did we do before there was Google?] The Jews cite the Old Testament, "Be loving to your neighbor as you would yourself" (Lev 19,18), which comes in a series of exhortations from YHWH himself.

But the first commentary I saw quoted about this exhortation was from the great Maimonides - no slouch! - who wrote, "It is a commandment for every human to love each and everyone from Israel as he loves his own body..."

Which set off all my alarms. Can it be that Jews still believe as the Galilean Jews of Jesus's time did that the Samaritans were not their 'neighbors' simply because they were not Jews? Indeed, the first references I came across were specific that 'neighbor' meant 'any fellow Israelite'.

Thankfully, one of the early articles that came up was one by Rabbi Jacob Neusner who shows the distinction between two schools of thought in Judaism: the older traditional school in which "the commandment of love is limited to one's own group" and the more universal interpretation which sees "humanity as united in genealogy [all descendants of Adam], cousins all" (or neighbors).

Neusner is on the side of the more universal interpretation because he points out that farther on, the God of Leviticus "explicitly extends the rule of love to the stranger or the outsider".

I suspect however that most of the rabbis who have been the most relentlessLY merciless in pillorying the Popes (Benedict XVI, as well as Pius XII anD Pius XI before him) subscribe to the traditional interpretation.

And that may be why they seem so uncharitable from the Christian point of view. They do not feel obliged to love anyone who is not a Jew. Explains a lot.

The next synod in late 2011 will be on Tradition. By then Williamson will have recanted and all four SSPX Bishops will be invited to the synod to discuss Tradition and what it means to be in communion with Rome.

Keep in mind that the 2008 synod was on Scripture. I expect the Apostolic Exhortation to be released at the end of 2009 to be quite ecumenical in scope also, and let's not forget that Volume 2 of Jesus of Nazareth will most likely be out for Christmas 2009. He'll finish it during the summer.

I see what Pope Benedict is up to. He wants to have the Church in shape by the end of 2015, 50 years after the council ended. If necessary he'll take the many bullets so as to make it much easier for the next Pope.

Put the (50th) end of the council in 2015 with the (100th) of Fatima in 2017 and you've got yourself the hermeneutic of continuity in all its glory.

********************************************************************

WELCOME TO THE FORUM, DAVID....

You've certainly put together aN original and plausible scenario. Indeed both anniversaries are so significant, and your reading that the Holy Father will 'take as many bullets as it takes to make it much easier for teh next Pope" is right on!

I hope you register, and even if you don't, that you share your comments or any other posts with us when you will.

THANK YOU, AND WELCOME....

TERESA

Hello,

Thank You!

Sacramental Economy

I read on Zenit there a few days ago that the new social encyclical will more than likely be out in April, and just from reading many Joseph Ratzinger books I do not not think he'll settle for a third way solution to the problem of either socialism or capitalism. The 21st Century has got the 2nd Century A.D written all over it. History rhymes. The emperor Trajan at the beginning of the 2nd Century A.D tried "building" hope and change back into a nervous populace but alas even he must have known that somewhere down the line they'd hit a wall. A pervasive relativism set fire to that hope, as a consequence the cultural jigsaw pieces were thrown up in the air for all to see throughout that century. The early Christians were quite willing to play with fire, theirs had a face, a body, a heart; cast upon the earth and how they wished he'd continue to kindle it. He didn't disappoint! - Pope Benedict knows that fingers must be burned, he's all too willing to be engulfed by the burning love that is Jesus Christ and it's for this very reason that the economy must undergo a baptism of fire (Deus Caritas Est 13-14). I suspect he will substantially expand on the aforementioned and tie it to Philippians 2:5-11 (Kenosis). The Church is Sacramental, not democratic, it is the Sacrament of the world; the economy isn't just something, it ought to be Good diffused and a participation in the Being of the Trinitarian God.

A household is only as good as its members, and for Christians the Member par excellence is Jesus Christ.

CONTINUING FRUSTRATIONS
WITH VATICAN MEDIA


The Anglophone blogs are just now getting into a tizzy over the rumor that Fr. Lombardi will step down as Vatican press director after the Pope's Holy Ladn trip.

That was simply one of the speculations - plausible ones - listed by Il Riformista's Paolo Rodari in a March 25 article translated and posted on the NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT thread on 3/16/09 (Page 268).
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354494&p=268

It's easy to get rid of people - but the question would be: who could replace him? Will it be soemone who is media-savvy and IT-savvy but also with enough common sense to understand that you can never presume when reporting on anything that everyone will understand, that you always try to provide appropriate background, context and simple explanations?

Rodari and other commentators have pointed out that one of Lombardi's main disadvantages was that he was holding too many positions - director of Vatican Radio, director of CTV, director of the Press Office, in addition to having been chosen in the last Jesuit general congregation as one of the order's general supervisors [I have to check the right terminology].

I don't quite buy the argument. He was at Vatican Radio and CTV long enough to have them run directly by a trusted subordinate so he can concentrate on the Press Office operations.

But the fact is that absolutely nothing has changed in the Press Office malpractices that were blatantly evident in the carry-over years with Navarro-Valls (which is all I can judge by, as I was not following anything at the Vatican before April 19, 2005).

Outside of papal trips abroad, official translations still take days to come out or be posted, and the last papal trip was perhaps the worst in terms of releasing official texts.

It seems Fr. Lombardi's staff took the weekend off (the Pope's last two full days in Angola) and left the BOLLETINO on the VIAGGIO stuck at the Pope's homily at the Mass with the clergy on Friday morning, without the Friday evening youth address - until Monday, when the Pope was on his way back to Rome, and they finally posted the rest of the texts.

To make things worse, Vatican Radio, which I was counting on, also turned erratic in the final days of the Angola trip.

Since the Pope's trip to Bavaria, when I discovered that the English service of Vatican Radio was able to post English translations almost as soon as the Pope had delivereded the text, I have always wondered whether Fr. Lombardi coordinates his various departments at all.

If Vatican Radio - whose online service is simply ancillary to their main job, which is broadcasting - can be so prompt about posting text trabslations (for the trips abroad), why can't the same promptness be observed by the Press Office staff?

Or why can't one single duty officer be named for each day of the trip, whose only duty is to post texts as soon as they have been delivered, on all the Vatican outlets, but at least, first of all, on the BULLETIN, which is hardly a bulletin if if it is days behind. How long does it take to post a text that is already pre-formatted? Five minues at most, perhaps. Doing it even on a Sunday would not qualify at all as breaking the Sabbath.

Then there's the big joke that VIS is. The reports they file based on the Pope's speeches are often a haphazard hodge-podge of random quotes from the texts, that it really is not worth reading them (but I am forced to use some of these reports when they are the only English-version report of any kind that is immediately available).

It's what made me decide that as much as I can possibly do it, I would try to translate the Pope's texts promptly. I still believe that since very few of his texts are more than 5 printed pages, one is better off reading his entire text directly, and not rely on the snippets that all the news news agencies like to purvey.

[They report on a speech initially in multiple single-subject items - which lends itself to the soundbite mentality, omits the full context of the speech, and can and does focus attention on sone 'headline-worthy' statement, even if it that statement may not necessarily be the point of the whole address, nor on the chosen issue itself, for that matter.]

Also, VIS hardly ever provides any context to its 'stories', outside of saying where it took place and who else was there, no background at all that would give the event its proper significance. All they give you is what you can find in the Pope's text itself.

They never report, for instance, the messages delivered by the visiting VIP or delegation head to the Pope - which would usually provide much of the context necessary to appreciate a news story better, especially if it has to do with the situation of the Church in other countries.

Plus, VIS starts posting its stories around 3 p.m. Rome time, when the Pope's appointments start at 9 or 10 a.m. And worst of all, they take off on Saturdays and Sundays. The Press Office at least has someone filing the Italian language texts even on weekends.

Of course, we have no way of knowing if anyone at the Vatican has put together or is putting together a masterlist h e-mail addresses, websites and blogs of all bishops'conferences, cardinals, bishops and individual priests, with a view to iimmediately sending them communicatiosn they ought to have, including every single text of the Holy Father, in usable form - i.e., translated to a language that they know (at this point, at least one of the Vatican's official languages is understood by probably 95% of all the world's clergy).

You can't just say, "Let them look it up on the Vatican site" (especially if it continues to be as erratic and sub-optimal as it now is). Politicians, including Obama, never presume their intended 'market' will look up things on their own - they zap the journalists with a constant stream of e-mail.

If you can spoonfeed them, by alll means, do so. Make it easy for them to receive and use Vatican material. Imagine if the Vatican could provide every priest in the world with a timely usable translation of the Pope's weekly catechesis and Angelus mini-homilies. Not to metnion other major texts like the Letter to the Bishops, which is the sort of papal text that requires maximum blanket dissemination as soon as it was made public).

Individual e-mails would short-circuit the ability of dissident bishops to block or hinder dissemination of a papal text they may not like.

In any case, the first common denominator of all the simple moves that the Vatican could do to improve its communications effort is PROMPTNESS. How can you under-estimate that in a super-saturated 24/7 all-the-news-all-the-time environment?

And after that, an acceptable measure of EFFICIENCY, not the bureucratic laissez-faire that seems to pervade the Vatican Press Office. A media outfit needs to be super-efficient all the time. It owes that to itself - and the Vatican Preas Office certainly owes it to the Pope (who happens to be German, yet!)

One more suggestion...

to add to Teresa's above. I think that in all situations where possible, lay people should staff Vatican offices and release the dozens of priests, nuns, and bishops from their desk jobs to go work in the trenches. Since the world is so painfully short of clergy and religious, they need to be out guiding the flock, not filling office jobs that could just as easily be handled by non-clergy and religious. We are wasting our resources.

Surprise


Hey, Teresa, I thought Amy Welborn had stopped writing a blog but I stumbled across one she has been writing for a while (Via Media) and, lo and behold, she was using one of your translations again.

Here is what she said yesterday:
blog.beliefnet.com/viamedia/2009/04/we-must-not-sleep.html

"At today's General Audience, Pope Benedict offered a succinct and beautiful catechesis on Holy Week. The official text is not online, but Theresa Benedetta, dependable unofficial translator to the Holy See, is on it:"

Good to see that she is still fighting the good fight and still appreciative of your hard work on the forum.

I agree,benefan! It shows that this forum is the ONE to watch and that it's still very much alive and kicking, along with our parallel Italian forum and Gloria's new one.
I never look at that old American forum now, but I suspect it's on the way out!

---

I never look at that old American forum now, but I suspect it's on the way out!

---

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.

Earlier this year I posted an account of a visit to India which we made to visit our daughter who was staying with some nuns and doing voluntary work. Before we flew out, we happened to see the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' which has some graphic scenes of poverty and the exploitation of children in the big cities. Once in India, we came to see very quickly that the nuns were offering real hope to the very poor and most vulnerable people. The state of Jharkhand, where we were, is not on the tourist trail and so we were able to see 'real life' as it is for so many. India is rapidly specialising in electronics and computers but this is in the big cities. Life continues to be very hard for the poor. This year the rains were late and the rice crop uncertain. This means that young people will turn to crime to help feed themselves. The nuns do run inexpensive training courses in tailoring and other skills, but even these low costs are unaffordable to many.

We quickly realised that while there is good provision for raising money elsewhere in the 'third world' (though perhaps never enough) there was almost nothing set up in the English-speaking world specifically to help blind children in India. We witnessed a real need and with the credit crunch crunching, the funds which had traditionally been relied on were drying up.

I'm really pleased to say that there is now a means by which people can donate to help the plight of blind children and the very poor from the tribal or dalit ('untouchable') sections of society. This new charity has all its administrative costs donated and every penny, cent and rupee goes directly to the poor. The sisters themselves live very simply and rely on their income from the Indian government as they work as nurses and teachers. The present challenge is to build a new school for blind children. The land has been secured and a little money will go a long way. There are currently about 13 children being taught elsewhere, but the need is huge and a new school could help so many more.
Amar Jyoti Trust

Wulfrune,

The trust that you posted about sounds like a really worthwhile cause. Did your family create that? In looking through the photos on the link you provided, I thought I spotted your daughter in the Who We Are section. Was that her? I have been meaning to ask you for a long time if she is still in India or has returned to England. Either way, it sounds like that experience was a life-changing event for her and perhaps for your whole family. Bravo and good luck with this new venture.

Yes that is Catherine in the picture! We searched hard to find a charity that helps blind children in India but there was nothing per se that fit the bill, so we have had to set something up, Laurence using his business skills to organise the website. The sisters have got a charity in India called Amar Jyoti ('eternal flame' in Hindi or Sanskrit, I'm not clear which) so we are part of that. We'd like it to be possible to sponsor trainees to learn tailoring as well, but all this is an area where we are really ignorant, having no experience whatever.

Thanks for your good wishes - we don't really know where to go from here, now the website is live. Any ideas, anyone?