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


OR today.

No papal stories in this issue. The main story
is about a thaw in relations between the European
Union and Russia, following a meeting between
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, current EU
president, and Russian President Medvedev, who
agreed to freeze missile deployment in Kaliningrad
until further discussions with the United States
and to hasten the Soviet retreat from occupied
parts of Georgia. There is an editorial commentary
on the Eluana Englaro case (translated and posted
in CULTURE & POLITICS). Other stories are about
Group of Five discussions on Iran's nuclear
program and how the financial crisis is affecting
the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with
- Participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Address in Italian.
- Participants in the International Conference on "The care of Sick Children' organized by
the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Ministry. Address in Italian.
- Cardinal Georges Marie Martin Cottier, O.P., emeritus Theologian of the Papal Household
- Mons. Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising.



Meeting with laity,
Pope says Catholics in politics
must follow their faith






VATICAN CITY, Nov. 15 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging Catholics who get involved in politics to stay true to their Church's teaching.

Benedict says it is necessary that a new generation of Catholics in politics be "consistent" with the faith they profess. [The report omits to mention the occasion for the statements, which was an address to the plenary session of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.]

He also recommends that they act with moral rigor and work passionately for the common good.

The Pope urged Vatican officials in a speech Saturday to be vigilant about the evangelical education of Catholics who get so involved in society.

Benedict recently said religion and politics should be "open to each other."

The Vatican is particularly attentive to political action about abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research.

Benedict XVI reaffirms
the value of every human life
Translated from
[online]




VATICAN CITY, Nov. 15 - The Pope spoke again today about science and medicine, especially of their limitations, as the tragic case of Eluana Englaro dominates the public discourse in Italy.

Although he made no direct reference to it, Benedict XVI's remarks, in an address to health care workers involved in the care of gravely ill children, dwelt on the ethical questions that surround the verdict of Italy's highest appeals court allowing a person in coma to die by discontinuing alimentation and hydration.

"Every human being has his own intrinsic value," Benedict XVI said, addressing an International Congress organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Ministry, "because he is created in the image of God, in whose eyes someone is more precious when he appears most weak in the eyes of man".

He also condemned every form of what the Italians call 'therapeutic obstinacy' [persistence in continuing extraordinary therapeutic measures despite obvious futility] and experimentation not intended for the good of the patient.

"Medical research," he continued, "finds itself faced with difficult choices when it involves, for instance, seeking the right equilibrium between therapeutic insistence and desistence in order to assure adequate treatments for the true needs of patients, without yielding to the temptation of experimentalism."

In this respect, the Pope added, "it is not superfluous to recall that at the center of every medical intervention should always be the aim of obtaining true good for the child (patient), considered in his dignity as a human being with full rights".

"Therefore, one must always take care of the child with love, helping him to face suffering and sickness, even before he is born, to the degree that his situation requires."

"The child must be respected," he said, "as a gift and a precious asset for society, who possesses full human dignity even before he is born, when he is still in his mother's womb."


I suppose the reason the Pope did not directly address the Englaro case is that it does not have to do with any medical treatment but with life support. Perhaps too, he will be saying something about it directly in his Angelus message tomorrow.


Benedict XVI tells health care workers
gravely ill children must always
be treated with respect and love
Translated from
the Italian service of



In caring for every sick child, especially one with a grave disease, one must "offer the best there is of competence and of humanity", Benedict XVI said to participants of the 23rd international conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Ministry whom he addressed today at the Vatican.

He said the right balance must be found to provide proper health care without futile therapeutic obstinacy, and that communications with the family is important to assure them of solidarity, especially when a child's illness is one more burden to lives that are already impoverished in many other ways. Alessandro De Carolis reports:

"Great reverence is owed to a child". This fragment from the Latin poet Juvenal summarizes effectively the responsibility that adults must have towards children who are defenseless, even before they are born, and particularly if they are stricken with grave illness.

Benedict XVI cited Juvenal in underscoring today that "the Church does not forget its smallest children", speaking before an audience that included many world-renowned physicians and scientists who have taken part in an international conference on the care of gravely ill children.

The Pope pointed out that the crisis facing children today, 'unfortunately widespread in many regions of the world', is best dramatized by a single number: the four million children born yearly whose life expectancy is 16 days or less - despite the fact that medical progress has allowed new opportunities for many gravely ill children.

He said: "Medical research finds itself faced with difficult choices when it involves, for instance, seeking the right equilibrium between therapeutic insistence and desistence in order to assure adequate treatments for the true needs of patients, without yielding to the temptation of experimentalism."

"It is not superfluous to recall that at the center of every medical intervention should always be the aim of obtaining true good for the child (patient), considered in his dignity as a human being with full rights".

Thus, even before he is born, a child who is afflicted with a serious disease - which often requires 'particularly invasive' treatments - should always be assisted with love, "making sure that he is in constant communication with his family".

"The health aspect can never be dissociated from the human," he said, "and every assistential and health structure, especially Christian institutions, have the duty to offer the best there is of competence and of humanity. The sick person, particularly a child, understands best the language of love and kindness, inspired in believers by the desire to show the same preference that Jesus expressed for children."

The Holy Father thanked the participants for their personal and professional contributions in health care, and cited Catholic social and health institutions that aid sick children, like the pediatric hospital Bambino Gesu in Rome.

He ended with an appeal for generosity in behalf of all suffering children, especially those who are victims of particularly disadvantaged social environments.

"I think in particular of orphans or children who are abandoned because of poverty and family break-ups. I think of the innocent victims of AIDS, war and other armed conflicts taking place in many parts of the world. I think of children who are dying because of poverty, drought and hunger.

"The Church does not forget its littlest children, and while, on the one hand, I praise the initiatives of wealthier nations to help developing nations, on the other, I feel strongly that I must ask them to pay greater attention to their basic needs so that, thanks to universal brotherhood, they too can look at life with confidence and hope."

Pope says church must care for the born as well as the unborn

By John L Allen Jr
National Catholic Reporter
Created Nov 15 2008 - 09:19

On the heels of the U.S. bishops’ recent declaration that abortion remains their top political priority, Pope Benedict XVI this morning issued a reminder that children already born, especially those who suffer from poverty, disease and war, must also have a place within the church’s ambit of concern.

While Benedict clearly affirmed the dignity of human life from the moment of conception, his remarks suggest a desire that the church’s opposition to abortion not exclude other pressing social concerns.

The pope spoke this morning to participants in a Nov. 13-15 conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Assistance to Health Care Workers, on the theme of “Pastoral Care of Sick Children.”

Benedict noted that every year, some four million newborn children die around the world at less than 26 days after birth, often due to poverty, poor health care systems, and armed conflict. He called that a matter of “urgent” concern.

“I’m thinking above all of the little ones who have been orphaned or abandoned as a result of misery or the breakdown of the family,” Benedict said. “I’m thinking about the little ones who are innocent victims of AIDS, or of war and the many armed conflicts underway in different parts of the world; I’m thinking about the infants who die because of poverty, drought and hunger.”

“The church does not forget these smallest of her children,” the pope said.

“If, on the one hand, it applauds the initiatives of wealthy nations for improving the conditions of their development, on the other, it strongly feels a duty to invite greater attention to these brothers and sisters of ours, because it’s only due to our choral solidarity that they can look to life with trust and hope.”

The pope expressed hope that “conditions of disequilibrium, which still exist, be healed as quickly as possible by resolute interventions in favor of our smallest brothers and sisters.” He quoted a line from the Roman poet Juvenal: Maxima debetur puero reverential, “Maximum reverence is owed to a child.”

“The ancients already recognized the importance of respect for the child, a precious gift for society, whose human dignity must be recognized – a dignity the child possesses to the full from when, still unborn, it finds itself in the womb,” Benedict said.

The pope called for striking a balance between aggressive medical treatment and what he called “experimentalism,” meaning treating sick children as mere research subjects.

“At the center of every medical intervention must always be attainment of the true good of the child, considered in terms of his or her dignity as a human subject with full rights,” the pope said.

In this regard, the pope called for special efforts to communicate with – and to take consideration of the wishes of – the families of sick children, above all their parents.

“If health care workers, doctors and nurses, feel the weight of the suffering of the small patients they care for, one can only imagine how much greater is the suffering experienced by the parents!” the pope said.

“The medical aspect of treatment and the human dimension can never be separated," the pope said. "The sick person, especially the child, understands the language of tenderness and love particularly well.”

For believers, the pope said, that tenderness and love is an expression “of the predilection that Jesus nourished for the little ones.”

The bishops of the United States met Nov. 10-13 in Baltimore, their first gathering in the wake of the 2008 elections. In a statement issued by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the conference, the bishops signaled that opposition to abortion – especially the prospects for passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA – will be a top concern with the incoming Obama administration.

At the same time, the bishops signaled willingness to work with the Obama White House on issues such as “economic justice and opportunity for all; immigration and the situation of the undocumented; better education and adequate health care for all, especially for women and children; [and] religious freedom and peace at home and abroad.”

OR today.

To an international congress on care of seriously ill children -
The Pope appeals for children who are victims of war, hunger and disease:
'Every human being has intrinsic value even if helpless in the eyes of man'

Other Page 1 stories: The Pope tells Laity plenary that the Church has a special need for women; an editorial commentary on
the Washington summit on the world financial crisis; the UN sends former Kenyan president to mediate Congo conflict; and
an article by historian Andrea Riccardi on 'Who was Pius XII really?'


THE POPE'S DAY

Noontime Angelus at St. Peter's Square.

ANGELUS TODAY





The Holy Father's mini-homily before the Angelus prayers today was on the parable of the talents from today's Gospel.

After the prayers, he asked the faithful to pray for the cloistered orders, whose day will be celebrated next Friday on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary at the Temple.

He also noted that in the Ambrosian rite (followed by the Archdiocese of Milan), today is the first Sunday of Advent.

In his message to English-speaking people, the Holy Father urged safe driving, making unexpected use of a citation from today's Second Reading from St. Paul:

---

On this third Sunday of November, we remember in a special way all those who have died as a result of traffic accidents. We pray for their eternal rest and for the consolation of their families who grieve their loss.

Dear brothers and sisters, I implore everyone - drivers, passengers and pedestrians - to heed carefully the words of Saint Paul in the Liturgy of the Word today: "stay sober and alert".

Our behavior on the roads should be characterized by responsibility, consideration and a respect for others. May the Virgin Mary lead us safely along streets and highways throughout the world.

---

The Holy Father's mini-homily before the Angelus prayers today was on the parable of the talents from today's Gospel.

After the prayers, he asked the faithful to pray for the cloistered orders, whose day will be celebrated next Friday on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary at the Temple.

He also noted that in the Ambrosian rite (followed by the Archdiocese of Milan), today is the first Sunday of Advent.

In his message to English-speaking people, the Holy Father urged safe driving, making unexpected use of a citation from today's Second Reading from St. Paul:

---

On this third Sunday of November, we remember in a special way all those who have died as a result of traffic accidents. We pray for their eternal rest and for the consolation of their families who grieve their loss.

Dear brothers and sisters, I implore everyone - drivers, passengers and pedestrians - to heed carefully the words of Saint Paul in the Liturgy of the Word today: "stay sober and alert".

Our behavior on the roads should be characterized by responsibility, consideration and a respect for others. May the Virgin Mary lead us safely along streets and highways throughout the world.

---

Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's words today:

---

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Word of God today - the penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year - invites us to be vigilant and industrious while awaiting the return of the Lord Jesus at the end of time. The Gospel narrates the famous parable of the talents reported by St. Matthew (25,14-30).

The 'talent' was an ancient Roman coin of great value, and precisely because of the popularity of this parable, the word 'talent' has become synonymous to a personal gift which everyone is called on to fructify.

In fact, the text tells us of "a man going on a journey (who) called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them." (Mt 25,14).

The man of the parable represents Christ himself, the servants are his disciples, and the talents are the gifts that Jesus entrusts to them. Thus, these gifts, besides their natural qualities, represent the wealth that the Lord Jesus has left us as a legacy so that we may make them bear fruit: his Word, deposited in the holy Gospel; Baptism, which renews us in the Holy Spirit; prayer - the 'Our Father' - which we raise to God as children united in his Son; his forgiveness, which he ordered us to bring to everyone; the Sacrament of his Body that was immolated and his Blood that was shed.

In a word: the Kingdom of God, who is Christ himself, present and living in our midst.

This is the treasure that Jesus entrusted to his friends at the end of his brief earthly existence. The parable emphasizes the interior attitude with which to accept and appreciate this gift.

The wrong attitude is fear: the servant who feared the master and dreaded his return buries the money in the earth and it fails to bear fruit. This is what happens, for example, to him who, having received Baptism, Confirmation and Communion, then buries these gifts under layers of prejudice, under a false image of God who paralyzes faith and good works, and doing so, he betrays the Lord's expectations.

But the parable highlights the good fruits borne by those disciples who, happy with the gift they received, did not hide it in fear or envy, but made it bear fruit, sharing it, making it work.

Yes, what Christ gives us will multiply by giving it away. It is a treasure meant to be spent, invested, shared with everyone, as we are taught by that great administrator of Jesus's talents, the Apostle Paul.

The Gospel teaching which the liturgy offers us today has also had an impact on the historico-social plane, promoting among Christian peoples an active and enterprising mentality.

But the central message is about the spirit of responsibility with which we must accept the Kingdom of God - a responsibility to God and to mankind.

This attitude of the heart is perfectly incarnated in the Virgin Mary who, receiving the most precious of all gifts, Jesus himself, offered him to the world with immense love.

let us ask her to aid us to be 'good and faithful servants' so that one day we may take part 'in the joy of our Lord'.

After the Angelus, he said:

Next Friday, November 21, on the liturgical commemoration of the Presentation of the Most Blessed Mary at the temple, is also the Day pro Orantibus, for the cloistered religious communities.

Let us thank the Lord for the brothers and sisters who have embraced this mission, dedicating themselves totally to prayer and who live only on what they get from Providence.

Let us pray in turn for them and for new vocations, and let us commit ourselves to support the monasteries in their material needs.

Dear sisters and dear brothers, your presence in the Church and in the world is indispensable. I am close to you all, and I bless you with great affection.

In the Archdiocese of Milan and other communities who follow the Ambrosian Rite, Advent starts this Sunday. In addressing a special greeting to them, I wish to point out that today, the New Ambrosian Lectionary comes into effect. This is the collection of Biblical readings, renewed in the light of Vatican-II, for that ancient and noble liturgical order.

It is significant that this takes place shortly after the Assembly of the Bishops' Synod that was devoted to the Word of God.

May the Ambrosian Church, nourished with wisdom and abundance by Sacred Scriptures, always walk in truth and charity to render valid testimony to Christ, the Word of salvation for mankind in all times.

---

No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met with
- H.E. Georges Chakib El Khoury, Ambassador of Lebanon, who presented his credentials. Address in French.
- Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M., Prefect of the Coongregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life
- Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor unum
- Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, O.F.M., Archbishop of Seville (Spain).


Benedict to the new Lebanese ambassador:
Lebanon as a laboratory for
resolving multi-cultural conflicts





VATICAN CITY, 17 NOV 2008 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, the Holy Father received the Letters of Credence of Georges Chakib El Khoury, the new ambassador of Lebanon to the Holy See, to whom he expressed the hope that the Lebanese people "may courageously continue their efforts to build a united and solidary society".

"The millennial history of the country, and the place it occupies at the centre of a complex region, give it a fundamental mission to contribute to peace and harmony among everyone", said the Holy Father.

After highlighting how "because of its experience of life and of inter- community and inter-cultural collaboration, Lebanon is a 'treasure' that has been entrusted to all the Lebanese people", the Pope expressed the hope that "the international community may protect and value the country and, through real commitment, may contribute to preventing it becoming a land in which regional and global conflicts are played out. Lebanon must, then, be a laboratory in which to seek effective solutions to the conflicts that have long troubled the Middle East".

"The election of the resident of the Republic, the formation of a government of national unity and the approval of a new electoral law", he said, "will favour national cohesion and contribute to the true coexistence of the various components of the nation. ... I hope that, leaving particular interests to one side and healing the wounds of the past, everyone will make an effective commitment to the path of dialogue and reconciliation so that the country may progress in stability".

"The tensions that still exist demonstrate the need to continue down the path opened some months ago with the Doha Agreement, in order to build Lebanese institutions together", Pope Benedict noted. "In this commitment to the common good, people must be guided by an unshakeable certainty: each member of the Lebanese people must feel Lebanon as their home and know that their own concerns and legitimate expectations are effectively taken into consideration, while showing reciprocal respect for the rights of others".

"To this end", the Holy Father went on, "it is necessary to promote and develop true education for peace, reconciliation and dialogue, directed above all at the young generations. ... Lasting peace, which is the profound aspiration of all Lebanese, is possible only if everyone gives fundamental importance to the will to live together in the same land, and considers justice, reconciliation and dialogue as the appropriate context in which to resolve the problems of individuals and groups".

On this subject, Benedict XVI underlined how building a society "which ensures all its members a free and dignified life" calls for "increasingly tight co-operation between all sides of the nation, based on trusting relationships between individuals and communities".

"The Holy See", he said, "always follows events in Lebanon very closely and pays particular attention to the efforts made to find a definitive solution to the problems facing the country. Particularly sensitive to the sufferings undergone for so long by the people of the Middle East, the Holy See continues with determination its commitment to peace and reconciliation in Lebanon and throughout that region so beloved to all believers".

Finally the Holy Father, recalling the recent beatification of Fr. Jacques Ghazir Haddad, "apostle of mercy", greeted the Catholic community in Lebanon, inviting its members to become "architects of unity and fraternity".


Pope urges Lebanese to renew
efforts for peaceful coexistence
By Cindy Wooden



VATICAN CITY, Nov. 17 (CNS) -- The Lebanese people's love for their country must translate into a renewed commitment to ensuring that Lebanon is a place where Christians, Muslims and Druze live and work together, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Lebanon's history of religious and cultural diversity "is a treasure entrusted to all Lebanese. It is a gift that must be preserved and made fruitful for the good of the entire nation," the pope told Georges Chakib El Khoury, Lebanon's new ambassador to the Vatican.

Welcoming the new ambassador Nov. 17, the pope also said the international community must maintain its commitment to helping Lebanon re-establish peaceful coexistence rather than being "a field of confrontation for regional or international conflicts."

"Lebanon should be like a laboratory for finding effective solutions to the conflicts that have afflicted the Middle East for so long," the pope said.

With the election of a new president, the formation of a government of national unity and the passage of a new electoral law, combined with the "national dialogue" process set to hold its third session in December, the pope said he hoped Lebanese leaders would be able to identify the key challenges the country faces and agree on methods for resolving them.

"I hope that by putting aside individual interests and healing the wounds of the past, all will agree on dialogue and reconciliation as the way to help the country progress with stability," the pope said.

"The basic attitude that should guide everyone in this commitment to the common good remains unchanged: that each component of the Lebanese people would feel truly at home in Lebanon and would see that its concerns are being taken into account while recognizing the rights of the other," he said.

The Italian edition of a book originally published in German by Mons. Alfred Laepple has just come out, we learn from Lella's blog today. I can't get a better picture of the book cover just yet.

Laepple, now 93, has been a professor of philosophy and author of many books on religion. Forum readers will remember him for the fascinating and very informative interview he gave 30 GIORNI back in 2006 in which he recalls the early postwar years when he first met the Ratzinger brothers at the seminary in Freising where he was the prefect of studies. See translated article in Page 1 of ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FUTURE POPE
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354530&p=1
Here is a translation of his Preface to his new book.

---

Benedetto XVI e le sue radici.
Ciò che ha segnato
la sua vita e la sua fede
[Benedict XVI and his roots:
What shaped his life and his faith]
Alfred Laepple. Marcianum Press, 2008.
177 pp

---

When Fr. Laepple said his first Mass in 1947, the young Joseph Ratzinger was his acolyte.


Why I wrote this book
by Mons. Alfred Laepple

---

"Strength is not in the branches but in the roots. Only he who is profoundly rooted will overcome tempests and rests storms... The tree stays upright and us supported by its roots. It is said that a tree has as many roots beneath as the branches it has above. The diameter of the crown corresponds to that of the roots."
- Hermann Hesse(1877-1962)

---

This book would never have been written if something happened that was very personal for me but relevant to the history of the world and the Church.

"There are often events," wrote the Bishop of Innsbruck Reinhold Stecher, "which have for the persons involved a significance that is emblematic, charged with symbolic value."

What was my event? On the late afternoon of April 19, 2005 (it was a Tuesday), I was in front of my TV as millions all over the world were. I was in my village in upper Bavaria, in Gllching [A SUBURB OF mUNICH].

That Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been a papabile for years was known to many observers of the Vatican scene around the world, but he turned 78 on April 16, 2005. The oldest elected Pope in modern history was Angelo Roncalli who was 77 when he became Pope in 1958, and so he was initially thought to be nothing more than a 'transitional Pope'.

When, on that April 19 of 2005, from the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, the announcement came, 'Habemus papam', one then heard, above the understandable commotion, the name 'Josephum'. And it flashed through my mind that it could only be Ratzinger. I would not have wanted to be in his place!

Shortly after, when the new Pope Benedict XVI appeared at the Loggia, he came out with arms raised and he looked radiant and happy. I have been linked to this man for more than half a century.

On March 19, 1997, in a letter on his name day, I wrote the Cardinal: "I thank God for having met you! I thank you for having given me a friendship that has lasted more than 60 years. And I thank God for having called you to the position, difficult and full of responsibility, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

In his goodness, truthfulness and humanity, Pope Benedict XVI, with his theology of the heart, is a rock who gives support and orientation for many. Because, as Goethe said, the man who in times of fluctuation is also disposed to fluctuate simply multiplies evil and spreads it, but he who firmly perseveres in his ideas can shape the world.

Following multiple solicitations, verbal and written appeals - and even because of false statements and inexcusably erroneous interpretations - and urged on by friends, ecclesiastics and publishers, the consideration of a book grew in me, the consideration solidified into a sense of responsibility, and the responsibility into duty, to write this book.

This work is not a biography nor a sketch of one. While writing it, I was always conscious of the sensitive question of citing from letters containing many personal matters without first asking permission from the addressee.

On the other hand, should not some events and experiences known only to me be better cited at this time for the use of future biographers? Thus, I have in this book indicated these events and experiences, dating to 1946 when we first met, for the record.

Here I have tried to describe and document the roots from which developed his life and his thought, his faith and his prayer - a sketch, if you will, of his biography and theology imprinted in those early years. This text was written and is intended to be read as an obligation of the heart, or better still, as the grateful impulse of the heart.

While writing it, my guiding axiom was the heraldic motto chosen by John Henry Newman when he was made a cardinal in 1879: “Cor ad cor loquitur” (The heart speaks to the heart).


Written in Gilching,
where in 1943 Joseph Ratzinger served
as a Flak* auxiliary.

*FLAK, from the German term Flugzeug-abwehr-kanone, anti-aircraft cannon


The book contains previously unpublished excerpts written by Joseph Ratzinger, such as his letters to the auhtor, his pastoral letter of October 1978, an important speech he gave in December 1978 at Unterwössen, and ample citations from German newspaper articles that have not previously been published in Italy.

OR for 11/17-11/18:

Benedict XVI on the parable of the talents at the Sunday Angelus:
'The treasure entrusted to us by Christ must be shared with everyone'

Other Page 1 stories: An editorial commnetary on 'paradoxes of the economic crisis'; the G20 summit plan for financial recovery does not look at the plight of poorer countries; the Pope receives the new Lebanese ambassador and calls for a commitment to national reconicliation; and the agreement between the Iraqi government and the United States on wihthdrawal of US troops by 2011.






The Holy Father has no scheduled events today (Tuesday).

Will the Pope and Obama
clash over abortion?
By Jeff Israely

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008

Before even reading it, I am already put off by the title. As usual, Israely treats the Pope as if he were a politician. Everyone knows where Obama stands on abortion, and of course, the Vatican will continue to advocate its age-old positions on life issues. DUH!


Barack Obama won't be announcing his foreign travel plans any time soon, it's a good bet that the new American President will meet Pope Benedict XVI some time next year, perhaps in early July to coincide with the G8 summit in Italy. It promises to be one of the great photo ops of 2009.

Benedict sent a personal message to Obama the day after his victory, which referred to the "historic occasion" of his coming presidency; and Obama subsequently telephoned the Pope as part of a round of calls to world leaders. [All routine. The Pope would have sent a congratulatory message whoever won, and how could he not have called historic the election of the first black man to become the US President?]

But well before the two men have their historic handshake, the ground is already shifting underneath U.S.-Vatican relations. After the Bush administration, the election of a pro-choice, pro-diplomacy Democratic president is changing the Vatican's game plan vis-a-vis Washington on several levels.

Bush was viewed in Rome as a rare ally in the West for his opposition to such issues as abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research. And the first issue to watch is abortion. (See a map showing the new fronts in the U.S. abortion battle.)

The Pope's top aides may have already informed Benedict about a campaign promise Obama made on July 17, 2007, to Planned Parenthood, stating that his first act as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo legislation that put restrictions on access to abortions.

Some Catholics have warned that such a decree, which would essentially codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience.

"There's more fear here than wrath," a senior Vatican official told TIME with regard to the Catholic hierarchy's attitude toward Obama.

However, if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act in his first months in office "it would be the equivalent of a war," says the same official. "It would be like saying: 'We've heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns."

U.S. Catholic bishops meeting last week in Baltimore vowed to take on Obama for his support of abortion rights; they are also skeptical about his assurances to try to reduce the number of abortions while supporting the right to choose.

Even before the election, the Democrats were warned not to risk becoming the "party of death," according to former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke. It was Burke who famously pledged in 2004 to deny communion to the pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry. The archbishop has since been promoted to Rome as the head of the Holy See's equivalent of a Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, in response to a question last week on Obama's pledge to reverse Washington's policy on stem cell research, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health, made it clear the Church will not shy away from the debate.

"What builds up man is good, what destroys him is bad," he told reporters, arguing that one human being should never become a material resource for the betterment of another.

Nevertheless, 54% of U.S. Catholic voters went for Obama, who is Protestant. That may give the new President the cover to move ahead with his pledges. An added twist to the Obama administration will be its pro-choice Catholic Vice-President.

Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pennsylvania, hometown of Vice President-elect Joe Biden told his fellow bishops last week: "I cannot have a vice president-elect coming to Scranton to say he's learned his values there when those values are utterly against the teachings of the Catholic Church."

Another pro-choice Catholic, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, may be on the short list for potential Secretary of Health and Human Services in an Obama administration.

Though there are plenty of pro-choice Catholic politicians in Western Europe, these issues tend to get played out more openly in the United States, both because of its superpower status and a more vocal traditionalist wing of the American Church.

Beyond bioethics, Vatican officials generally view the incoming American administration's economic and foreign policy as a marked improvement over the past eight years, which included vocal criticism from Rome over the war in Iraq and a skepticism toward unfettered capitalism preached by Republicans.

The possibility of an open clash over abortion could squander the potential for the Vatican to work side-by-side with Washington on issues such as Middle East peace, human rights and environmental protection. It might also tighten the smiles when it's time for that first photo op.

OR today.

No papal news today.
Page 1 stories: a UN report on increasing air pollution around the world;
an editorial commentary calliong for a redefinition of 'health' for purposes
of public policy (in 1948 the World Health Organization defined it utopically
as 'a state of complete pyschical, physical and social wellbeing' - by which
standards few woiuld be healthy!); and fighting continues in the Congo's
North Kivu despite a supposed truce.


THE POPE'S DAY

General Audience today - In his continuing catecheses on St. Paul,
the Pope spoke about his theology of justification as both faith and good works.



And three years and seven months ago today,
HABEMUS PAPAM JOSEPHUM...

AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER AMATISSIME!


I must beg forgiveness that having been unexpectedly called away to a family emergency I had to deal with until late in the day, I left my 'basic' daily duties for the Forum far from complete, including the monthly anniversary note.

This interview may get rather 'technical' in parts, but it is most unequivocal about the clarity that Benedict XVI has given and is trying to give to orthodox or 'traditional' Catholic doctrine in the light of Vatican-II.

Referring primarily to the CDF Responses about the 'one true Church of Christ' that raised hackles last year (the same ones that bristled at Dominus Iesus), it makes clear that the Responses were drawn from the actual Acts - that is, official documentation and transcripts - of Vatican-II proceedings, proof of what Benedict XVI calls the 'hermeneutic of continuity'.


One year later...the forgotten document:
A reaffirmation of the one true Church of Jesus Christ
An interview by Brian Mershon

November 18, 2008


Fourteen months ago, the long-anticipated document Summorum Pontificum was promulgated by the Holy See officially acknowledging what many Catholics have held for years — that the Traditional Latin Mass was never abrogated and that every priest in the Latin Church had the right and continues to have the right to use this form of the Latin rite without scruple.

Three days after the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, another document, at least as important, if not morecso, was promulgated by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, with the full consent and approval of Pope Benedict XVI.

Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church was like a second nuclear bomb being detonated within the post-Conciliar Church and the modern world.

These two nuclear bombs, however, were bombs of grace and significant examples of Pope Benedict's program announced in his December 2005 address to the Roman curia, showing how the Second Vatican Council, both liturgically and doctrinally, can be understood in continuity with the previous 1,965 years — "Vatican II in light of Tradition."

In this second document, long-held traditionalist Catholic objections to misinterpretations of subsistit widely disseminated within the heart and soul of the Church — not just by intentionally dissident theologians — but by some theologians and clerics who are viewed as orthodox — have again been firmly acknowledged as correct. The Catholic Church is indeed, and continues to be, the one true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which neither holiness nor salvation can be found.

The "Responses" document, hereinafter called the "Subsists" document, clearly and concisely, in just five simple questions and answers, dismantled the entire post-Conciliar misunderstanding and misunderstanding of ecclesiology.

And the genius of Pope Benedict's method is that it was done by relying solely upon the Second Vatican Council documents and the official notes from the Synod (explanatory commentary) to show how the traditional understanding of the Church was reaffirmed by the Council Fathers.

In short, the much debated term from Lumen Gentium paragraph eight, subsistit in, in Latin, received an official magisterial explanation and clarification.

Some traditionalist Catholics objected that this document did not use any pre-Conciliar references to show its continuity with Church doctrine on its being "the one true Church."

However, the genius and clarity of Pope Benedict XVI was to show from the explanatory notes of the Council itself, the true intention of the Council, rather than to use Mystici Corporis, for instance, promulgated by Pope Pius XII, toward the end of his pontificate and shortly before the Council. It should, however, be noted that Mystici Corporis is indeed referred to in footnotes in Lumen Gentium. [In his recent address on Pius XII's Magisterium, Benedict XVI underscored how much the late Pope's work anticipated Vatican-II and said that after the Bible, he was the most-quoted authority at Vatican-II].

The St. Benedict Center's Brother Andre Marie, famous for defending and upholding the Church's thrice-infallibly defined dogma Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus (Outside the Church, there is no salvation) explained a much-overlooked aspect of the "Subsists" document that revealed the authoritative magisterial definition of subsistit in.

In footnote No. 4 from the document, there is a series of questions and answers taken from the commentary from the "Notes of the Synod" of the Second Vatican Council that clearly shows the intention of the Council Fathers was two-fold in using the words subsistit in.

One, they wanted to reaffirm that the one true Church of Jesus Christ has its identity in the Catholic Church. The commentary said they chose the term subsistit in to show the perduring identity of the one true Church of Christ with the Catholic Church.

The second truth they wanted to make explicit, even though it has been traditionally held and taught by the Church for centuries, is that elements of sanctification, or grace, exist outside the visible and formal structure of the Church, even within heretical and schismatic non-Catholic denominations.

Many traditionalist Catholics, priests and maybe even a bishop or two, hold semi-heretical views by continuing to promulgate the false notion that no grace exists outside the visible boundaries of the juridical Church. This is simply not traditional doctrine.

The St. Benedict Center treatise on the "subsists" document can be found at www.catholicism.org/responses-footnotes.html entitled "What's in that Latin footnote?" The unofficial Latin-to-English translation of this footnote, which has not been translated into any of the vernacular translations, declares the following: "The Council wished to express the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. This is clear from the discussions on the decree Unitatis redintegratio." [1]

Another question from the Council floor on whether or not the language C]subsistit in clearly affirmed the identity of the one true Church of Christ with the Catholic Church received this authoritative response: "Afterwards it is clearly affirmed that the Catholic church alone is the true Church of Christ. (Act Syn III/VII 12)." [2]

And a third example from the footnote in the "Subsists" document: "Thus the commission whose task it was to evaluate the responses to the Decree Unitatis redintegratio clearly expressed the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church and its unicity, and understood this doctrine to be founded in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium."

I would heartily encourage readers to re-read the official document at the Vatican's official website and then read the St. Benedict Center commentary, expressed clearly and succinctly, to see how monumental this Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith document really is in explaining the continuity of Vatican II with Tradition.

Traditionalist Catholics who do otherwise raise the level of the authority of Vatican II to a higher doctrinal level than does the Church — many times while simultaneously claiming that Vatican II was merely pastoral and has little, if any, doctrinal value.

The following interview with Brother Andre Marie of the St. Benedict Center www.catholicism.org/responses-footnotes.html delves more deeply into this document and its potential ramifications for the Church and the traditional Catholic doctrinal perspective.


Would you please let our readers know the mission of the St. Benedict Center?
Our community was founded in 1949 by Fr. Leonard Feeney. We were founded as a missionary and educational community.

We do apostolic work by encouraging Catholics to learn more about the Catholic Faith — all of the full, complete doctrine of the Church — including the hard truths. We especially educate people about the doctrine "Outside the Church, there is no salvation."

Relevant to that, we also try to work for the conversion of non-Catholics. We do this through education and publishing, both electronic and with print with newsletters and tracts.


What is your status in the Church? Is your community's understanding of 'Extra ecclesia nulla salus' an orthodox one?
We have it on the word of the Monsignor who was the juridical vicar for the Worcester, Massachusetts diocese. In fact, there are several houses of our community associated with Fr. Feeney still within that diocese that have gone through processes of canonical regularization. The have complete canonical status as Catholic religious communities. They still uphold exactly what Fr. Feeney always taught.

There were inquiries that had to go to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith during this process and in every case, even though they still believe and teach what Fr. Feeney believed and taught, they still have the complete bona fides of the Church. And they are able to teach exactly what priests always taught commonly all along.

We also have a letter on our website from Pete Vere, a canon lawyer who attests to our orthodoxy from his inquiries from different Roman congregations, and who has done considerable canonical study himself.

He came to the conclusion that because of the way the situations have been handled by the different Roman dicasteries and by the diocese of Worcester, the Church allows us to teach this — by the common parlance — a rigorous interpretation and certainly falling within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.


In Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, Pope John Paul II said, "Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church." [3]

In the English-speaking Church world, it seems that only a few, Fr. Brian Harrison, Fr. Brian Mullady and the late Fr. William Most come to mind, have taken up this calling.

In view of the late Pope John Paul's challenge coupled with Pope Benedict XVI's call for a hermeneutic of continuity of Vatican II with Tradition, how important do you think this "Subsists" document is?
Near the beginning of his pontificate during his Christmas address of December 22, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the two divergent interpretations of Vatican II; one he called "the hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity"; the other is now truncated to "the hermeneutic of continuity."

He actually used a much broader circumlocution. People now say "hermeneutic of continuity". He differentiated the two and he said that Vatican II, as Pope John Paul II affirmed in the indult document, that it must be understood in light of Tradition — in continuity with Tradition. He laid a foundation there.

Now this document is a direct application, as you correctly pointed out, of one of the keystones of this papacy. Some people I guess — liberals and conservatives — progressives and traditionalists — whichever terms you want to use... Some people in these camps have expressed cynicism as to whether there really is continuity. Here the Pope has shown that it is possible to read it with continuity.

From observing the Catholic press, the effect has been that many traditionalists who have not been happy with the ambiguities of Vatican II, and who certainly have not been happy with the way it has been interpreted by and large, are very heartened to see the positive developments and are welcoming them.

As Michael Matt recently said in the Remnant, we have to realize that the Holy Father is attempting to move heaven and earth to try to restore liturgical and doctrinal sanity to the Church. And we have to support that. And if he can show us how to read Vatican II in light of Tradition, then we will welcome that.

I would just emphasize that this is a concrete application of that theoretical principle that he has outlined at the beginning of his pontificate.


Secular and Catholic media covered this story extensively right after the document was issued, but it seemed to lose some of its "media legs" if you will due to the fact that Summorum Pontificum somewhat overshadowed it since it was issued so close to its promulgation.

Your Catholic community seems to be the only one that seems to have found "the interpretive key" so-to-speak, on the "Subsists" document. Would you like to comment on how important the four footnotes, which were kept in the original Latin in all translations, are for a proper understanding this document?

How do you answer those who charge that because this document referenced only Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents, it cannot begin to show continuity with Tradition?
These footnotes, especially on the heels of the motu proprio, are very important.

There is the traditional axiom, "lex orandi est lex credendi" — the law of prayer is the law of belief. It can also be inverted; it works both ways. And fundamentally, we learn our Faith from the way we pray. That is the organic way we learn.

That is one of the reasons — not perhaps the most important one — but it is still one of the reasons why messing with the liturgy or tampering with it is always going to cause confusion and jeopardize the faithful, unless it is the organic development that has always happened in our Church's history.

One of the most important reasons is that the liturgy is the way that we give glory to God. For that reason alone, you don't want to do anything to lessen its vigor.

From a doctrinal point of view, whenever we pray, whenever we enter into the most sacred part of the Mass on Sundays and on important feast days, what do we do? Before entering into the most sacrosanct part of Mass, we recite the Creed.

This shows us that in order pray rightly in a way that is pleasing to God, we have to believe rightly. We have to remind ourselves of the Faith and we profess it in the Creed.

It's the same thing when we recite the rosary. Before we get into the full mysteries of the rosary, we recite the Creed at the beginning to summarize our Faith — to show that right prayer follows from right belief.

We think this document is important because it gets to the issue of some of the most controverted and neglected aspects of Catholic doctrine that pertains to the Church's teaching about herself.

This is a very important thing today. On the one hand, you have people who are indifferentists and who think any religion is as good as any other. The Church has always condemned indifferentism.

On the other hand, you have Catholics who are confused about the nature of the Church itself. There are those who think the parameters of the Church go considerably wider than the confines of the Catholic Church with the Pope as its head.

This document uses the word "identity." It confirms that the true Church of Christ has an identity to the Catholic Church. You can debate all day what subsistit in means, but once you use the word "identity," that settles it entirely.

You have figuratively drawn an equals sign between "true Church of Christ" and "the Catholic Church." The document did that thoroughly.

If I could comment on the reaction of some traditionalists who are displeased because the answers were limited to only the documents of Vatican II; there is a good reason for that. In order to appreciate that reason, you have to understand the nature of this document. Rather, what is the nature of the document it is citing.

Those footnotes come from the Acts of the Synod, which is an enormous resource for theologians and historians to use to draw from for writing about the history of Vatican II.

In fact, most histories of Vatican II are based upon the notes of the periti like Ives Congar. Many of the periti took copious notes and had diaries like books and those became the sources of most of the writing about the history of Vatican II.

But there is a more authoritative source than that which is in all Latin and has the discussions of everything that was going on in the committees and so forth: these are the official Acts of the Synod. Very few scholars have dug into those to actually get into what happened during the discussions.

This document was based upon those. In seeking to answer questions about Lumen Gentium, they looked through a series of responses that were coming from the bishops that were being sent into the Secretariat of Christian Unity, not about Lumen Gentium, but about Unitatis Redingratio: the Decree on Ecumenism.

The draft of the document was handed out to the bishops who were reviewing them and they would send in their suggestions and objections. You can see from all of the objections that were made that are related in this footnote, the bishops were concerned about that Unitatis Redingratio was not firm or clear enough that the true Church of Christ is the Catholic Church.

In several different instances, the answers were sent back by the Secretariat of Christian Unity under Cardinal Bea. Their response was this had already been sufficiently explained elsewhere in the text. They brought out quotes from Unitatis Redingratio showing that the Catholic Church was called "the one sole flock of God," for instance, and other expressions of that nature. We pointed those out in our summary.

They also said that this is what the decree De Ecclesia said. What they were doing was referring to the draft of Lumen Gentium. They were taking the passage of Lumen Gentium, No. 8, which contains the phrase 'subsistit in'. They were using that to show that the Council already teaches that the true Church of Christ is the Catholic Church.

But they were wondering why they had to keep affirming that here, in the part where they were trying to affirm the ecclesial elements of the Church that were present in other so-called Christian communities.


This is nothing new. Despite what some prominent traditionalist naysayers have publicly written and apparently hold, the Church has always taught that grace can exist outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church, right?
Absolutely, one of the heresies condemned against the Jansenists was that no grace could be found outside the Catholic Church.


With the understanding that the Pope said earlier in his pontificate, through the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, that the Church currently has not issued authoritative translations of the documents of the Second Vatican Council from the Latin. So, we are relying upon unofficial translations for 40-plus years. Why do you think the nebulous language of "numerous elements of sanctification... in non-Catholic denominations" was used throughout the Second Vatican Council documents instead of calling it "grace"? For examples, there are different types of grace that exist such as actual grace and sacramental grace, but those alone are not always necessarily sanctifying.
When reading these texts, it is important that we keep a level head about them. We cannot limit the graces to simply actual graces because there are sacramental graces too. The Greek Orthodox have them. Protestants generally have two sacraments. So there are sacramental graces as well. The priesthood of course is sacramental.

You also have what is called external graces when truths of the Faith are preached that are part of the Gospel and what the Catholic Church preaches and teaches; for example, the Trinity and the incarnation. So if you limited it to actual graces, you wouldn't have a sufficient expression of it [those graces found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church].

The Church Fathers recognized that the Greek philosophers had seeds of the Word. And I think Vatican II quoted Eusebius of Caesaria something to that effect. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging this.

St. John said the Word — Logos — enlightens every man that comes into this world by natural knowledge of reason or by some knowledge of supernatural revelation or a combination of both. Every man has something that they have received through the Word — through our Lord.

But I think what Unitatis Redingratio did say, but perhaps could have emphasized much more clearly, was that all of these things lead toward Catholic unity. It did say that. It said that all of these ecclesial elements that are found outside the visible confines of the Church — whether it is the priesthood of the Russian Orthodox — the priest or Bishop — or the baptism that a Presbyterian minister can confer which of course makes the baby a Catholic — all of these lead toward Catholic unity. These are concrete examples where you can see it.

Unfortunately, in the broader context of the kind of unheard-of optimism about non-Catholic sects... that is kind of the ambience of Unitatis Redingratio — those truths [graces impelling toward the Catholic Church] get easily get passed over.

There I think is the key. Everyone knows there are ambiguities. Some people say it is because of the phenomenological philosophical underpinnings that were part of the whole abandonment of scholasticism — where you had this kind of ambiguous verbiage.

But the ambiguity combined with "news-style" optimism about non-Catholic religions, either Christian denominations or the Jews or the Moslems, this new-found optimism put the whole understanding in a different light.


So just because there are "salvific elements" outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church, it does not follow that those people are saved without, in the end, uniting themselves, or with the denominations uniting with, the Catholic Church? The hope expressed in Unitatis Redingratio is that these graces will impel non-Christian denominations to unite themselves to seek full unity with the Catholic Church, right?
Absolutely. For instance, since we know the whole purpose of actual grace is to bring to us to, to keep us in, and to increase us in, the state of sanctifying grace. But that does not mean that everyone who has actual grace is going to persevere to the end and find sanctifying grace and everlasting life.

By the same token, if we consider all of these elements that help impel people toward Catholic unity, they are not necessarily going to achieve their goal. That is the tragedy of the drama of salvation. But to acknowledge that these do that is fine. It just ought to be emphasized more clearly that these elements are not sufficient within themselves. They are necessary. They are good. But they are not sufficient.


Many readers may find your positive comments to the bsistit document surprising because they may misunderstand the St. Benedict Center teaching on Etra ecclesiam nulla salus. Do you have any final thoughts on how you think this document might encourage evangelization efforts of Catholics now that an authoritative pronouncement on the meaning of subsistit in has reaffirmed the identity of the one true Church of Christ with the Catholic Church?
I can say that I have seen concrete good results from this document. Where formerly, I had conversations with people about this, [they now see that] traditional teaching is indeed still binding, where they had viewed Vatican II to efface it. They used this Bologna school interpretation where Vatican II is seen as a new beginning.

Here, without discounting Vatican II, without saying it has no authority or that it was not an Ecumenical Council, using clarifications - especially most recently with some of things Cardinal Biffi has in his book where he said explicitly that Vatican II did not bind the Church to any new teaching - there is a whole body of evidence now that none of the supposedly new things attributed to Vatican II are 'binding' on the Church.

Now, it did say some important things about bishops that had not previously been clarified. And in some regards, it actually completed some of the work that Bl. Pope Pius IX had done to explain the role of bishops and the magisterium.

It is important to say that here we have an example where we even had theologians like Avery Cardinal Dulles who explained this subsistit in issue completely wrong. If you read one of his books on Catholic theology, it completely misinterpreted this passage. but that was the sort of reigning "orthodoxy," if you want to call it that about what this passage meant.

Now the Holy See has completely come down on the side of Tradition as far as the identity of the Church.


So to simplify, 'subsistit in' (subsists in) means at least 'est' (is). St. Thomas uses it in the Summa Theologiae, right?
You see. That is the problem. It is a very problematic term. They [Vatican-II]were not really using it in the scholastic [Aquinas] sense. They were using it in a more classical sense. Early Latin, not medieval Latin.

In medieval Latin, subsistit in is an abominable platology. It just makes no sense. To "subsist" is the manner of being of a substance, not an accident. Subsist means "to exist in itself." So if you say subsistit in, it is like saying "subsist in in" in English. In makes no sense.

Long before this document came out, there was a German Jesuit, Fr. Becker, who gave a similar reading of based upon a much longer study .[4] He was going into this question and he was quoting some of these same passages that are in the document. I wouldn't be surprised if that article was used as the basis for some of this.

He gave three different readings of what subsistit in could mean. He discounted the scholastic use, because again as I said, it is gibberish. But he said it is an older, classical Latin. You can't discount that. The Council Fathers, when they abandoned scholasticism, which has a consecrated vocabulary, opened us up to these divergent readings.

Such a luminary as Cardinal Dulles could get it completely wrong. Yet this German Jesuit, Fr. Becker, could get it right. And this new document is authoritative. I'm sure that Cardinal Dulles has conformed. I would assume that others have as well.

It should give the traditionalists who have complained about his ambiguity some relief.


They [the CDF] have taken the commentary notes of the Council where the Council Fathers themselves explained what this term meant completely in keeping with the traditional doctrine.
That is absolutely true. In fact, I would be incomplete in my analysis if I didn't say that knowing what the Secretariat of Christian Unity was doing — they weren't doing the best stuff at this time. There were a lot of shenanigans going on. But when you look at some of these answers that came back in hindsight, you have to say they [the Secretariat] were being a little bit coy. They were being coy in that they were saying, "We've already answered that. We've already answered that. We've already answered that."

But here we have the answers [of the Council Fathers] saying, "Yes. We affirm, and already have affirmed, the traditional explanation." So if that is what they are doing, we can say that this is a definitive reading of substitit in.


The late Michael Davies wrote about "time bombs" within the Council documents that were planted so they could be interpreted differently once the Council was approved. That is what you are talking about here, right?
Yes. And the ecclesiastical career of a lot of these Secretaria ecclesiastics like Cardinal Bea showed what their true colors were. But nonetheless, they could only get away with so much in black and white.

But here [the CDF Responses based on actual Vatican-II Acts] we have a black and white document that reflects traditional orthodoxy. And that is good.


So to wrap up, Brother Andre, would you say the St. Benedict Center is pleased with this document as well as the liturgical actions of this pontificate?
Yes. We are pleased.


NOTES:
[1] Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church, Approved June 29, 2007, by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Footnote No. 4: "The Council wished to express the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. This is clear from the discussions on the decree Unitatis redintegratio. The Schema of the Decree was proposed on the floor of the Council on 23.9.1964 with a Relatio (Act Syn III/II 296-344). The Secretariat for the Unity of Christians responded on 10.11.1964 to the suggestions sent by Bishops in the months that followed (Act Syn III/VII 11-49). Herewith are quoted four texts from this Expensio modorum concerning this first response. www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones...

[2] A) [In Nr. 1 (Prooemium) Schema Decreti: Act Syn III/II 296, 3-6]
"Page 5, lines 3-6: It also appears that the Catholic church is found among those Communions, which would be false."

The reply is made: Here only the fact, as it is viewed by all, is to be described. Afterwards it is clearly affirmed that the Catholic church alone is the true Church of Christ. (Act Syn III/VII 12).

[3] Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, motu proprio of Pope John Paul II, July 2, 1988. www.unavoce.org/eccldei.htm. With the noted of exceptions of Father Brian Mullady and Father Brian Harrison and the late Father William Most, there have been noticeably few theologians, aside from Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, who have taken up the task on showing how some elements such as religious liberty and ecumenism, for instance, harmonizes, and does not contradict, the previous, continuous ordinary magisterial teaching of the Church.

[4] L'Osservatore Romano, one of the weekly Dec. 2005 issues.

GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY






The Holy Father, continuing his catechetical cycle on St. Paul, spoke today on St. Paul's doctrine of justification. Here is how he synthesized the catechesis in English:

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In our continuing catechesis on Saint Paul, we now consider his teaching on our justification.

Paul’s experience of the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus led him to see that it is only by faith in Christ, and not by any merit of our own, that we are made righteous before God.

Our justification in Christ is thus God’s gracious gift, revealed in the mystery of the Cross. Christ died in order to become our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (cf. 1 Cor 1:30), and we in turn, justified by faith, have become in him the very righteousness of God (cf. 2 Cor 5:21).

In the light of the Cross and its gifts of reconciliation and new life in the Spirit, Paul rejected a righteousness based on the Law and its works. For the Apostle, the Mosaic Law, as an irrevocable gift of God to Israel, is not abrogated but relativized, since it is only by faith in God’s promises to Abraham, now fulfilled in Christ, that we receive the grace of justification and new life.

The Law finds its end in Christ (cf. Rom 10:4) and its fulfilment in the new commandment of love.

With Paul, then, let us make the Cross of Christ our only boast (cf. Gal 6:14), and give thanks for the grace which has made us members of Christ’s Body, which is the Church.

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Here is a full translation of the catechesis:

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#13 - Catechetical Cycle for the Pauline Year

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the journey we are taking under the guidance of St. Paul, let us dwell today on a topic which was at the center of the controversies in the century of the Reformation: the question of justification.
How does man become just in the eyes of God?

When Paul encountered the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he was a fully 'realized' man: irrepressible as to the justification that comes from the Law (cfr Phil 3,6), he surpassed most of his contemporaries in the observance of the Mosaic prescriptions and he was zealous in sustaining the traditions of the Jewish fathers (cfr Gal 1,14).

The enlightenment of Damascus radically changed his existence: he started to consider all the merits that he had acquired in a most correct religious career as 'rubbish' in the face of knowing Jesus Christ (cfr Phil 3,8).

The Letter to the Philippians offers us a moving testimonial of Paul's passage from justice founded on the Law and acquired by observing prescribed acts, to a justice based on faith in Christ. He understood that what had until then appeared to him as gain was, in fact, a loss in front of God, and therefore, he decided to stake his entire existence on Jesus Christ (cfr Phil 3,7).

The treasure hidden in the field and the precious pearl, into the acquisition of which one must invest everything, were no longer works done under the Law, but Jesus Christ, his Lord.

The relationship between Paul and the Risen Lord became so profound as to lead Paul to maintain that Christ was not only his life but his living [non era più soltanto la sua vita ma il suo vivere], to the point that in order to reach him, even death would be a gain [cfr Phil 1,21). ["For to me, life is Christ, and death is gain".]

It was not that he deprecated life, but he understood that for him, living now had no other purpose - and therefore, he felt no other desire - but to to be with Christ, and as in a race, to be always with him. The Risen Lord had become the beginning and the end of his existence, the reason and the goal of his race.

It was only his concern for the maturation of faith among those he had evangelized and his solicitude for all the Churches he had founded (cfr 2 Cor 11,28) that led him to slow down his pace towards his one Lord, in order to care for the disciples so that together they could all 'race' towards the goal.

If in his previous observance of the Law, he could not be reproved as to his moral integrity, once he met Christ, he preferred not to make judgments about himself (cf 1 Cor 4,3-4) but limited himself to speaking about his pursuit of the One who had conquered him (cfr Phil 3,12). "I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ".]
It is precisely because of his personal experience of a relationship with Jesus Christ that Paul would now place at the center of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between two alternative courses towards justice: one built on the works of the Law, the other founded on the grace of faith in Christ.

The choice between justification by the working of the Law and that by faith in Christ thi\us becomes one of the dominating themes throughout his Letters:

"We, who are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles,
(yet) who know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified" (Gal 2,15-16).

To the Christians of Rome, he reiterated that "all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3,23-24), adding that "a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (ibid 28).

Luther translated this point as "justified by faith alone". I will return to this point at the end of the catechesis.

First, we must clarify what is this Law from which we have been liberated and what are the 'works of the Law' that do not justify.

Already in the community of Corinth, there existed an opinion that would systematically return throughout history: it consisted in maintaining that the 'Law' referred to moral law, and that Christian freedom thus consisted in being liberated from ethics.

Thus the catch phrase 'For me, everything is allowed' circulated among the Corinthians. It is obvious that this interpretation is wrong; Christian freedom is not libertinism. The liberation St. Paul speaks of is not liberation from doing good.

What then is this 'Law' from which we have been liberated and does not save? For St. Paul, as for all his contemporaries, the word Law meant the Torah in its totality, that is, the five books of Moses.

The Torah implied, in the Pharisaic interpretation - that which Paul had studied and made his own - an ensemble of behavior and actions that ranges from its ethical nucleus down to ritual and cultic observances which substantially determined the identity of the 'just' man.

Especially circumcision, observances with regard to pure food and ritual purity in general, the rules on the observance of the Sabbath, etc. Actions that often figured even in the debates between Jesus and his contemporaries. All these observances which express a social, cultural and religious identity had become singularly important in the era of Hellenistic culture, starting with the third century before Christ.

This culture, which had become the universal culture of that time - and was an apparently rational culture, a polytheistic culture, apparently tolerant - constituted a strong pressure for cultural uniformity and thus threatened the identity of Israel, which was politically constrained to enter the common identity of Hellenistic culture with a consequent loss of its own identity, and therefore also a loss of the precious heritage that was the faith of the Fathers, faith in the one God and God's promises.

Against this cultural pressure, which threatened not only Israelite identity, but also faith in the one God and his promises, it was necessary to create a wall of distinction, a shield of defense, to protect the precious heritage of faith - and this wall consisted of the observance of all the Jewish prescriptions.

Paul, who had learned these observances precisely in their function as a defense of God's gift, of the heritage of faith in the one God, saw this identity threatened by the freedom of the Christians - and that is why he persecuted them.

At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One, he understood that with the resurrection of Christ, the situation had radically changed. With Christ, the God of Israel, the one true God, became the God of all peoples.

The wall - he says in the Letter to the Ephesians - between Israel and the pagans was no longer necessary: it is Christ who protects us against polytheism and all its deviancies. It is Christ who unites us with and in the one God. It is Christ who guarantees our true identity in the diversity of cultures.

The wall was no longer necessary. Our common identity in the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is him who makes us just. To be just simply means to be with Christ and in Christ. And that is enough. Other observances were no longer necessary.

Therefore Luther's expression 'sola fide' (faith only) is true, if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look to Christ, entrust oneself to Christ, attach oneself to Christ, conform to Christ, to his life. And the form of Christ, the life of Christ, is love: therefore, to believe in Christ and to conform to him is to enter his love.

That is why St. Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians - where he developed above all his doctrine on justification - speaks of faith that works through charity (cfr Gal 5,14).

Paul knows that the Law is present and fulfilled in the double love of God and of neighbor. Thus, in the communion with Christ, in the faith that creates charity, all of the Law is realized. We become just by entering into communion with Christ who is love.

We will see this in the Gospel next Sunday, the solemnity of Christ the King. It is the Gospel of the judge whose only criterion is love. All he asks is this: Did you visit me when I was sick? When I was in prison? Did you give me food when I was hungry, did you clothe me when I was naked? Thus, justice is decided in charity, and at the end of that Gospel, we can almost say: sola carita, only love.

But there is no contradiction between this Gospel and St. Paul. It is the same vision - that vision according to which communion with Christ, faith in Christ, creates charity. And charity is the realization of communion with Christ. Thus, united with him, we are just, and in no other way.

In the end, we can only pray to the Lord that he may help us to believe. To truly believe - believing thus becomes life, union with Christ, a transformation of our life. Thus, transformed by his love, by the love of God and our neighbor, we can truly be just in the eyes of the Lord.

---

IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS AND SEVEN MONTHS SINCE THAT APRIL DAY...
AND HE'S MORE WONDERFUL THAN EVER! DEO GRATIAS!
AD MULTOS ANNOS, DEAREST PAPINO!

Italian Jews decide to stop
all common initiatives
with Catholics
by GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Translated from

November 19, 2008


After the polemics over the beatification of Pius XII, the Day of Judaism, celebrated by Italian Jews every January 17, will no longer be done with the Catholic Church 'as it has been till now".

Announcing the 'halt' was Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, president of the Italian rabbinical assembly, at a meeting on religions and peace at the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

"That is surprising news, considering the excellent state of relationships and to many gestures of goodwill from the Pope towards our 'older brothers'," said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. "I am confident that it is not a definitive decision and that the Italian Jewish communities may reconsider this decision."

The president of the Jewish Community of Rome, Riccardo Pacifici, said he would 'look deeper into the situation'.

Laras said the 'suspension' of collaboration in various activities, starting in 2009, is mainly due to 'the unresolved question of the Good Friday prayer' which, he said, notwithstanding the re-formulation by Pope Benedict XVI in response to Jewish protests, simply rekindled the tensions. [This is a misleading presentation of the facts: The question of the Good Friday prayer was actively brought up by the Jews after the Pope universally liberalized the use of the traditional Roman rite with Summorum Pontificum - although they had never raised it after the two indults John Paul II had given for the same rite, which uses this prayer. It was not Pope Benedict's reformulation that 'rekindled' the tensions!]

"This year," Laras said, "the Day of Judaism will not be marked together with Catholics, as has always been done." [Always? It must have started after Nostro aetate, which dates to 1965.]

There has been a 'dialog' with the hierarchy at the Holy See [about the Good Friday prayer], Laras says, "but we have not arrived at any result that is satisfactory to us."

Also influencing the decision by the Italian Jews, said Laras, is the controversy over Pius XII.

"We are not interfering in the internal affairs of the Catholic Church, " Laras said, "but we reserve the right to formulate a historico-critical judgment. During the Shoah, Pope Pius XII could certainly have protested more against the Nazi-Fascist regimes." [That may be, but why don't these anti-Pius critics even acknowledge the concrete things that he and the Church did for the Jews, which by all accounts - including that of unbiased historians and many Jewish leaders at the time - weer much more than any other single entity had done during those dark years!]

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


I think the Italian Jews are politicizing religion. Period. Whether it's Pius XII or the Good Friday prayer. Or the bilateral agreement Israel signed in 1993 with the Vatican on the juridical status of the Catholic Church and related issues - but which has never been implemented and is still the subject of twice-yearly negotiations!

Some straight-thinking Jewish rabbis like Jacob Neusner have already pointed out to us non-Jews that the Jews have similar statements about Christians in their daily prayers as the statement they object to in the Good Friday prayer.

Recently, Rabbi David Rosen in Budapest also made a statement about the Good Friday prayer, saying that he accepted Cardinal Walter Kasper's explanation that the wording of Pope Benedict's reformulation of the Good Friday Prayer had an eschatological sense deriving from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans. [Cardinal Kasper published a clear explanation of this in Germany and in Italy on Wednesday of Holy Week this year.]


A REPLY FROM THE ITALIAN BISHOPS



VATICAN CITY, Nov. 20 (Translated from PETRUS) - - The Church in Italy calls on the Jews to reconsider their decision, but announces that, with deep sorrow, it will nonetheless celebrate the Day for Jewish-Christian Reflection on January 17, 2009.

Giuseppe Laras, president of the Italian rabbinical assembly, had earlier said that the Jews would not take part as a protest against the re-introduction of the pre-Conciliar Roman rite which contains a Good Friday prayer that the Jews find objectionable.

"We will obviously continue to observe that day on January 17," said Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Commission on Ecumenism and Dialog of the Italian bishops conference (CEI).

Mons. Paglia told Vatican Radio that the decision of the Italian rabbis was 'painful' and creates a 'wound' in Jewish-Christian relations.

He called on them to reconsider their decision and "not to be lost behind problems like these... when the real challenge is for a common commitment against anti-Semitism.".


Interesting that where Laras referred to the day as Day of Judaism [implying it is a Jewish initiative], Mons. Paglia calls it the Day for Jewish-Christian Reflection, which sounds more plausible as a post-Vatican-II initiative.

P.S. I'm sorry I didn't check Vatican Radio directly first, but the full report on which the PETRUS story was based, clears up many questions and imprecisions in earlier reporting:


Mons. Paglia discusses
the Jewish decision
Translated from
the Italian service of



The day for Jewish-Christian Dialog, observed every January 17, has been suspended, and in its place a Day of Judaism will be observed.

This was announced by the president of the Italian rabbinical assembly, Rabbi Giuseppe Laras.

The decision, Laras explained, was motivated by the issue over the Good Friday prayer in the traditional Roman rite that was modified by Benedict XVI following Jewish objections raised after the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum in July 1977.

In the new formulation God is invoked to 'enlighten' the hearts of Jews "so that they may recognize Jesus Christ as the Savior of all men".

Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, Bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia and president of the Commission for Ecumenism and Dialog of the Italian bishops conference (CEI), commented on the developments, in this interview with Amedeo Lomonaco:

MONS. PAGLIA: Obviously, this decision by the rabbinical assembly announced by Rabbi Laras is painful. Actually, I have been in touch with Laras for several months about this very problem, for the questions about the Oremus for Jews on Good Friday in the Pius V Missal, particularly the invocation that "God may enlighten their hearts so that they may recognize Jesus Christ as the Savior of all men".

But that is an invocation that places within the hands of the Lord the how and the when, in an eschatological perspective, this may happen. I think that this more than resolves the question. So this decision is painful, but I would not over-emphasize it. The rabbi, in his note, expresses the wish that the path of dialog may be resumed.


The decision to suspend this Day of Dialog would be an occasion for reflection...
Certainly. We can use it for further reflection on Jewish-Catholic relations. And this is why we will go ahead and celebrate it on January 17 as a Day of Reflection. It will be rather wounded, but it is a wound that we hope can help us all to reflect more deeply on the indispensable relationship and accord between Christians and Jews.


What would you tell Rabbi Laras and his assembly to ask them to reconsider?
Unfortunately, there persist to be concerning foci of anti-Semitism and this requires vigilant attention: therefore we should not only not slow down or loosen up our relations, but reinforce it in order to uproot any tendency that favors anti-Semitism.

So I would tell them: "Dear Jewish friends, we cannot lose our way behind such problems [as the Good Friday prayer]. There is a front that we must continue to watch very closely, and very united, in order to fight a common battle against any form of anti-Semitism, and above all, to widen that common theological and moral patrimony that brought monotheism to the entire world. To speak about God, to speak of moral law, to speak of saintly behavior, and even of the eschatological tension towards the fullness of God's manifestation - that, I think, is our absolute priority task."

In his Wednesday catechesis on St. Paul, the Pope points out
there is no opposition between faith and good works:
'Love alone is the criterion for justice'


Other Page 1 stories: On the ongoing financial crisis, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is optimistic about initial steps towards financial
recovery, but Detroit's top 3 automakers live in dread; NATO examines its role for Afghanistan's future; and a teaser for a couple of inside-page
stories on a Catholic University seminar about global finance and economy.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State (SCV),
and of the SCV Governatorate
- Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Archbishop of Toledo (Spain)
- Participants in the Plenary Session of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life
and Societies of Apostolic Life. Address in Italian.


MONASTERIES AS OASES OF ASCETIC LIFE





VATICAN CITY, 20 NOV 2008 (VIS) - The Pope today received participants in the plenary assembly of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. The assembly was held from 18 to 20 November.

Having recalled the theme of the meeting - "Monastic life and its significance in the Church and the world today" - the Holy Father indicated that "consecrated persons are a special part of the People of God. Supporting and protecting their faithfulness to the divine call is the fundamental role you play", he told the members of the dicastery.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address to the plenary session participants:

---

Eminent Cardinals,
Venerated brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear brothers and sisters!

It is with joy that I meet you on the occasion of the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, which celebrates 200 years of existence and activity.

A century has passed since on June 29, 1908, my venerated predecessor, St. Pius X, with the Apostolic Constitution Sapienti Consilio, made your dicastery autonomous as the Congregatio negotiis religiosorum sodalium praeposita, a name that was subsequently modified many times.

To recall this event you have planned a Congress this November 22nd with the significant theme of "A hundred years of service to the consecrated life", and I wish you complete success in this initiative.

Today's encounter is for me a very propitious occasion to greet and thank all of those who work in the dicastery. First of all, I greet your Prefect, Cardinal Franc Rode, who I also thank for the words he expressed in your behalf.

Together with him, I greet the members of the dicastery, the secretary, the under-secretaries and the other officials who, with different functions, render daily service with competence and wisdom, to 'promote and regulate' the practice of the evangelical councils in the various forms of consecrated life, as well as the activities of the societies of apostolic life (cfr Apostolic Const. Pastor bonus, n. 105).

Consecrated persons constitute an elected part of the People of God: to sustain and protect faithfulness to the divine call, dearest brothers and sisters, is the fundamental task that you carry our according to modalities that have been well tested, thanks to the experience of these hundred years of activity.

This service of the Congregation has been even more assiduous in the decades after the Second Vatican Council which has seen the effort of renewal, both in the life as well as in the legislation, of all the religious and secular institutes, and of the societies of apostolic life.

That is why, as I join you in rendering thanks to God, giver of every good, for the good fruits produced in these years by your dicastery, I remember with acknowledgment all those who, during this century of activity, have given their s=energies for the benefit of consecrated persons.

The plenary of your Congregation has focused its attention this year on a subject which is particularly dear to me: monasticism, forma vitae which has always been inspired by the early Church, generated by the Pentecost (cfr Acts 2,42-47; 4,32-35).

The conclusions of your work, especially focused on female monastic life, may give rise to indications useful to all those monks and nuns who are 'searching for God'. realizing their vocation for the good of all the Church.

Even recently (Address to the world of culture, Paris, Sept. 12, 2008), I wished to show the exemplariness of the monastic life in history, underscoring that its purpose is simple as well as essential: quaerere Deum, to look for God and find him through Jesus Christ who revealed him (cfr Jn 1,18), to look for him while looking at the invisible realities that are eternal (cfr 2 Cor 4,18), and awaiting the glorious manifestation of the Savior (cfr Titus 2,13).

Christo omnino nihil praeponere (cfr RB 72,11; Agostino, Enarr. in Ps. 29,9; Cipriano, Ad Fort 4) - Place nothing ahead of Christ - this expression, which the Rule of St. Benedict took up from preceding tradition, expresses well the precious treasure of monastic life practised till now both in the Christian West as in the East.

It is a pressing message that shapes monastic life in order to make it the evangelical memorial of the Church, and when it is authentically lived, "exemplary of baptismal life' (cfr John Paul II, Orientale lumen 9).

By virtue of the absolute primacy reserved for Christ, the monasteries are places in which room is made to celebrate the glory of God, in which one adores and sings the mysterious but real divine presence in the world, in which one seeks to live the new commandment of love and reciprocal service, thus preparing the final "manifestation of the children of God" (Rom 8,19).

When monks and nuns live the Gospel in a radical way, when those who are dedicated to an integrally contemplative life cultivate profoundly their spousal union with Christ - which the instruction Verbi Sponsa (13.V.199) of this Congregation amply dwelt upon - monasticism can constitute for all the forms of religious life and consecration a memorial of that which is essential and which has the primacy in every baptismal life: to look for Christ and to place nothing ahead of his love.

The way indicated by God for this search and for this love is his own Word, which in the books of Sacred Scriptures, is offered abundantly for man's reflection.

Desire for God and love for his Word are thus nourished reciprocally and generate in the monastic life the irrepressible demand of opus Dei (the work of God), of studium orationis (study in prayer), and of lectio divina, which is listening to the Word of God accompanied by the great traditional voices of the Fathers and of the saints, and finally, of prayer that is oriented and sustained by this Word.

The recent general assembly of the Bishops' Synod, celebrated in Rome last month on the the theme 'The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church", renewing the appeal to all Christians to root their existence in listening to the Word of God contained in Sacred Scriptures, specially invited the religious communities and every consecrated man and woman to make the Word of God their daily food, particularly through the practice of lectio divina (cfr Elenchus praepositionum n. 4).

Dear brothers and sisters, whoever enters a monastery looks for a spiritual oasis in which to learn how to live as true disciples of Jesus in serene and persevering fraternal communion, welcoming even eventual guests as Christ himself (cfr RB 53,1). This is the testimony that the Church asks of monasticism even in our time.

Let us invoke Mary, the Mother of our Lord, 'the 'woman who listens', who placed nothing ahead of the love of the Son of God born of her, so that she may help the communities of consecrated life, especially the monastic ones, to be faithful to their vocation and mission.

May the monasteries always be oases of ascetic life, where the allure of the spousal union with Christ is always felt, and where the choice of God's Absolute is enclosed in a constant climate of silence and contemplation.

While I assure you of my prayers for this end, I impart from my heart the Apostolic Blessing on all of you who are taking part in the Plenary, to all who work in the dicastery and to the members of the various institutes of consecrated life, especially those that are integrally contemplative.

May the Lord pour on you the abundance of his comforts.

---

BEATIFICATION RITES APPROVED
BY THE HOLY FATHER


The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff announced today two beatification ceremonies due to take place in the coming days:

- Servant of God Peter Kibe Kasui, Japanese priest of the Company of Jesus, and 187 companions, killed in Japan between 1603 and 1639; at midday on Monday, Nov. 24, in the Nagasaki Big N. Stadium, Japan.

- Servant of God Jose Olallo Valdes, Cuban professed religious of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God (1820-1889); at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 29, in the Plaza de la Caridad of Camaguey, Cuba.

Cardinal Ratzinger 'prophesied'
a market collapse in a 1985 paper
on the Church and the economy
By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Lorenzo Totaro



I was going to translate an Italian article about this, but meanwhile, here is Bloomberg's report.


ROME,Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI was the first to predict the crisis in the global financial system, a ``prophecy'' dating to a paper he wrote when he was a cardinal, Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said.

"The prediction that an undisciplined economy would collapse by its own rules can be found" in an article written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became pope in April 2005, Tremonti said yesterday at Milan's Catholic University.

German-born Ratzinger in 1985 presented a paper entitled 'Market Economy and Ethics' at a Rome event dedicated to the Church and the economy. The future Pope said a decline in ethics "can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse".

Last October, Pope Benedict reflected on the crashing financial markets and concluded that "money vanishes, it is nothing" and warned that "the only solid reality is the word of God".

The Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, on the same day criticized the free-market model for having `"grown too much and badly in the past two decades".


Here is L'Osservatore Romano's report on Tremonti's speech referred to in the above article:


The monsters that devour the economy
by Alberto Manzoni
Translated from
the 11/20/08 issue of




OR illustration with this article:
'The Money Changer and His Wife',Quentin Massys, 1514; Louvre, Paris


The question posed in the title "A social economy of the market?" already promised a discourse that would contain not only certainties or at least attempts at a response, by the Italian Minister of Finance and Economy, Giulio Tremonti, but also real doubts about the global financial crisis evident to everyone.

If, on the one hand, Minister Tremonti furnished elements to interpret current events, in conclusion, he declared he was not sure that the end of communism has not not also led to the end of capitalism.

But one thing, he said, was certain: ethics and economy cannot be separated, as the German magazine Ordo had maintained in the 1940s.

In this sense, he pointed out, there is a flavor of prophecy in a paper written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "Church and economy", published in a 1986 issue of the theological jounal Communio, in which he noted that "the forecast that the decline of economic discipline and the loosening of laws and regulations governing the economy would bring about a collapse of the laws of the market itself, causing it to implode" are coming true.

Tremonti's address concluded the official inauguration of the academic year at the Catholic University of Sacro Cuore in Milan Wednesday morning.

The day started with a Mass at the Basilica of St. Ambrose (Milan cathedral) presided by Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan, whose homily was on the theme "Seek good... that you may live' from the book of the prophet Amos (5,16).

Tettamanzi, as president of the Giuseppe Tonilo Institute of Higher Studies (founding entity of the Catholic University), later delivered a greeting at the academic rites.

The university's Rector Magnificus, Lorenzo Ornaghi, gave an inaugural speech which we are reporting separately in this issue.

While Cardinal Tettamanzi underscored the importance of a 'high motivation' for students, Minister Tremonti's speech reiterated the Pope's appeal for a return to the ethical foundations of the economy which have been literally 'devoured' by what he calls 'monsters' - from the collapse of the credit markets to that of the stock exchanges and to the worst 'monster' of all, the so-called 'derivatives'.

[Derivatives are financial instruments, whose values are derived from the value of something else (known as the underlying). The underlying on which a derivative is based can be an asset (e.g., commodities, equities (stocks), residential mortgages, commercial real estate, loans, bonds), an index (e.g., interest rates, exchange rates, stock market indices, consumer price index (CPI), or other items (e.g., weather conditions, or other derivatives)].

In recent decades, after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the United States, Tremonti said, turned to Asia by favoring debit acquisitions which have proven to be ruinous in the long term.

Here, he said, "techno-finance took over... destroying the ethics of capitalism based on genuine responsibility", which means in practical terms, the confidence of the citizens who entrust their money to banks, and the assumption of risks by the bankers.

A contextual observation that cannot be ignored in this respect is this: phenomena that usually took several generations to develop have now taken place in this single generation.

Many consider one of the causes for the present crisis is so-called de-regulation, and this is only partly true, notes Tremonti, in the sense that the United States started de-regulation only between 1995-2000, whereas the European Union always had it.

The true problem, he said, is "the possiblity now of undertaking financial activities outside any jurisdiction".

Another critical change, according to Tremonti, which at first glance may appear to be merely technical, has a moral and political character: the new finance, he says, has 'forgotten' one of the two principal foundations of a capitalist society - namely, responsibility for a patrimony - for what is left to the future - in favor of merely managing resources in view of current economic considerations.

What has been called an economy of share-holder values is more properly a take-out economy, he said.

Can we then return - or start anew - to speak of a relationship between ethics and economy? Tremonti says 'we ought to", if only because "We are in terra incognita. We know that there is a solution at the end of every crisis, but in this situation, we do not see it" and there is a need for 'a change in perspective'.

At the very least, he said, "we should have the scientific ignorance of someone who knows he does not know, and therefore, should guard against those who do not know they don't know."

His criticism, though veiled, was directed at those who did not foresee that this crisis was bound to happen and who may perhaps be offering prescribed solutions now.

Tremonti concluded by saying he does not know whether capitalism is destined to survive. He believes that the world will be forced to have a pragmatic vision that will find room for a 'social economy' through the introduction of moral values, abandoning the quest for superfluous goods and favoring communitarian investments based on 'solid prospects'.

"Then it shall no longer be the market, but moral conscience, which will determine power. Aristotle said that the only good coin of exchange is phronesis [the virtue of moral thought, usually translated as 'practical wisdom'] - that is, intelligence, one that is vigilant, especially if it is aided by God."

Thanks to the Acton Institute

for the text of the Ratzinger paper referred to in the preceding post.

Normally, I would have posted this in the thread IN HIS OWN WORDS (where I will also cross-post it), but because of its news relevance, I am posting it here first.

It was written when Marxism-Communism was still very much a major player in the world, but that does not change its actual relevance and validity today. And I must say it is rather exhilarating - the sensation I usually feel when reading Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI - to find fundamental economic principles discussed so knowledgeably and accessibly by a Church dignitary.


Market Economy and Ethics
By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Presented at a 1985 Rome symposium on
“Church and Economy in Dialogue”

This article, translated by Stephen Wentworth Arndt, is provided courtesy of Dr. Johannes Stemmler, secretary emeritus of the BKU (Federation of Catholic Entrepreneurs) and secretary of Ordo socialis in Köln, Germany. The article appeared previously in English under the title “Church and economy: Responsibility for the future of the world economy,” Communio 13 (Fall 1986): 199-204.


Allow me to give a cordial welcome — also in the name of the two other patroons, Cardinal Höffner and Cardinal Etchegaray — to all the participants here present for the Symposium on Church and Economy.

I am very glad that the cooperation between the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the International Federation of Catholic Universities, the Institute of the German Economy and the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, has made possible these world-wide conversations on a question of deep concern for all of us.

The economic inequality between the northern and southern hemispheres of the globe is becoming more and more an inner threat to the cohesion of the human family.

The danger for our future from such a threat may be no less real than that proceeding from the weapons arsenals with which the East and the West oppose one another. New exertions must be made to overcome this tension, since all methods employed hitherto have proven themselves inadequate.

In fact, the misery in the world has increased in shocking measure during the last thirty years. In order to find solutions that will truly lead us forward, new economic ideas will be necessary.

But such measures do not seem conceivable or, above all, practicable without new moral impulses. It is at this point that a dialogue between Church and economy becomes both possible and necessary.

Let me clarify somewhat the exact point in question. At first glance, precisely in terms of classical economic theory, it is not obvious what the Church and the economy should actually have to do with one another, aside from the fact that the Church owns businesses and so is a factor in the market. The Church should not enter into dialogue here as a mere component in the economy, but rather in its own right as Church.

Here, however, we must face the objection raised especially after the Second Vatican Council, that the autonomy of specialized realms is to be respected above all. Such an objection holds that the economy ought to play by its own rules and not according to moral considerations imposed on it from without.

Following the tradition inaugurated by Adam Smith, this position holds that the market is incompatible with ethics because voluntary “moral” actions contradict market rules and drive the moralizing entrepreneur out of the game.(3)

For a long time, then, business ethics rang like hollow metal because the economy was held to work on efficiency and not on morality.(4) The market's inner logic should free us precisely from the necessity of having to depend on the morality of its participants. The true play of market laws best guarantees progress and even distributive justice.

The great successes of this theory concealed its limitations for a long time. But now in a changed situation, its tacit philosophical presuppositions and thus its problems become clearer.

Although this position admits the freedom of individual businessmen, and to that extent can be called liberal, it is in fact deterministic in its core. It presupposes that the free play of market forces can operate in one direction only, given the constitution of man and the world, namely, toward the self-regulation of supply and demand, and toward economic efficiency and progress.

This determinism, in which man is completely controlled by the binding laws of the market while believing he acts in freedom from them, includes yet another and perhaps even more astounding presupposition, namely, that the natural laws of the market are in essence good (if I may be permitted so to speak) and necessarily work for the good, whatever may be true of the morality of individuals.

These two presuppositions are not entirely false, as the successes of the market economy illustrate. But neither are they universally applicable and correct, as is evident in the problems of today's world economy.

Without developing the problem in its details here — which is not my task — let me merely underscore a sentence of Peter Koslowski's that illustrates the point in question: “The economy is governed not only by economic laws, but is also determined by men...”. (5)

Even if the market economy does rest on the ordering of the individual within a determinate network of rules, it cannot make man superfluous or exclude his moral freedom from the world of economics.

It is becoming ever so clear that the development of the world economy has also to do with the development of the world community and with the universal family of man, and that the development of the spiritual powers of mankind is essential in the development of the world community. These spiritual powers are themselves a factor in the economy: the market rules function only when a moral consensus exists and sustains them.

If I have attempted so far to point to the tension between a purely liberal model of the economy and ethical considerations, and thereby to circumscribe a first set of questions, I must now point out the opposite tension.

The question about market and ethics has long ceased to be merely a theoretical problem. Since the inherent inequality of various individual economic zones endangers the free play of the market, attempts at restoring the balance have been made since the 1950s by means of development projects.

It can no longer be overlooked that these attempts have failed and have even intensified the existing inequality. The result is that broad sectors of the Third World, which at first looked forward to development aid with great hopes, now identify the ground of their misery in the market economy, which they see as a system of exploitations, as institutionalised sin and injustice.

For them, the centralized economy appears to be the moral alternative, toward which one turns with a directly religious fervor, and which virtually becomes the content of religion.

For while the market economy rests on the beneficial effect of egoism and its automatic limitation through competing egoisms, the thought of just control seems to predominate in a centralized economy, where the goal is equal rights for all and proportionate distribution of goods to all.

The examples adduced thus far are certainly not encouraging, but the hope that one could, nonetheless, bring this moral project to fruition is also not thereby refuted.

It seems that if the whole were to be attempted on a stronger moral foundation, it should be possible to reconcile morality and efficiency in a society not oriented toward maximum profit, but rather to self-restraint and common service.

Thus in this area, the argument between economics and ethics is becoming ever more an attack on the market economy and its spiritual foundations, in favor of a centrally controlled economy, which is believed now to receive its moral grounding.

The full extent of this question becomes even more apparent when we include the third element of economic and theoretical considerations characteristic of today's situation: the Marxist world.

In terms of the structure of its economic theory and praxis, the Marxist system as a centrally administered economy is a radical antithesis to the market economy. (6)

Salvation is expected because there is no private control of the means of production, because supply and demand are not brought into harmony through market competition, because there is no place for private profit seeking, and because all regulations proceed from a central economic administration.

Yet, in spite of this radical opposition in the concrete economic mechanisms, there are also points in common in the deeper philosophical presuppositions.

The first of these consists in the fact that Marxism, too, is deterministic in nature and that it too promises a perfect liberation as the fruit of this determinism. For this reason, it is a fundamental error to suppose that a centralized economic system is a moral system in contrast to the mechanistic system of the market economy.

This becomes clearly visible, for example, in Lenin's acceptance of Sombart's thesis that there is in Marxism no grain of ethics, but only economic laws. (7)

Indeed, determinism is here far more radical and fundamental than in liberalism: for at least the latter recognizes the realm of the subjective and considers it as the place of the ethical.

The former, on the other hand, totally reduces becoming and history to economy, and the delimitation of one's own subjective realm appears as resistance to the laws of history, which alone are valid, and as a reaction against progress, which cannot be tolerated.

Ethics is reduced to the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of history degenerates into party strategy.

But let us return once again to the common points in the philosophical foundations of Marxism and capitalism taken strictly.

The second point in common — as will already have been clear in passing — consists in the fact that determinism includes the renunciation of ethics as an independent entity relevant to the economy.

This shows itself in an especially dramatic way in Marxism. Religion is traced back to economics as the reflection of a particular economic system and thus, at the same time, as an obstacle to correct knowledge, to correct action — as an obstacle to progress, at which the natural laws of history aim.

It is also presupposed that history, which takes its course from the dialectic of negative and positive, must, of its inner essence and with no further reasons being given, finally end in total positivity.

That the Church can contribute nothing positive to the world economy on such a view is clear; its only significance for economics is that it must be overcome. That it can be used temporarily as a means for its own self-destruction and thus as an instrument for the “positive forces of history” is an ‘insight’ that has only recently surfaced. Obviously, it changes nothing in the fundamental thesis.

For the rest, the entire system lives in fact from the apotheosis of the central administration in which the world spirit itself would have to be at work, if this thesis were correct. That this is a myth in the worst sense of the word is simply an empirical statement that is being continually verified.

And thus precisely the radical renunciation of a concrete dialogue between Church and economy which is presupposed by this thought becomes a confirmation of its necessity.

In the attempt to describe the constellation of a dialogue between Church and economy, I have discovered yet a fourth aspect. It may be seen in the well-known remark made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912: “I believe that the assimilation of the Latin-American countries to the United States will be long and difficult as long as these countries remain Catholic.”

Along the same lines, in a lecture in Rome in 1969, Nelson Rockefeller recommended replacing the Catholics there with other Christians 8 — an undertaking which, as is well known, is in full swing.

In both these remarks, religion — here a Christian denomination — is presupposed as a socio-political, and hence as an economic-political factor, which is fundamental for the development of political structures and economic possibilities.

This reminds one of Max Weber's thesis about the inner connection between capitalism and Calvinism, between the formation of the economic order and the determining religious idea. Marx's notion seems to be almost inverted: it is not the economy that produces religious notions, but the fundamental religious orientation that decides which economic system can develop.

The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy — whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead — is doubtless even today still very widespread, and much in recent history seems to speak for it.

On the other hand, we can no longer regard so naively the liberal-capitalistic system (even with all the corrections it has since received) as the salvation of the world. We are no longer in the Kennedy-era, with its Peace Corps optimism; the Third World's questions about the system may be partial, but they are not groundless.

A self-criticism of the Christian confessions with respect to political and economic ethics is the first requirement.

But this cannot proceed purely as a dialogue within the Church. It will be fruitful only if it is conducted with those Christians who manage the economy. A long tradition has led them to regard their Christianity as a private concern, while as members of the business community they abide by the laws of the economy.

These realms have come to appear mutually exclusive in the modern context of the separation of the subjective and objective realms. But the whole point is precisely that they should meet, preserving their own integrity and yet inseparable.

It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. (9)

Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse. An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group — indeed, not only to the common good of a determinate state — but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength.

The political formation of a will that employs the inherent economic laws towards this goal appears, in spite of all humanitarian protestations, almost impossible today. It can only be realized if new ethical powers are completely set free.

A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality.

A scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific.

Today we need a maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialized economic understanding may enter the service of the right goals. Only in this way will its knowledge be both politically practicable and socially tolerable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


NOTES:
[3] Cf. Peter Koslowski, “Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer Wirtschaftsethik,” Scheidewege. Jahresschrift für skeptisches Denken 15 (1985/86): 301, 204–305. This fundamental study has given me essential suggestions for my own paper.

[Ed. note: This paper, “On the Necessity and Possibility of an Ethics of the Economy,” is further elaborated and available in English in the book by P. Koslowski, Ethics of Capitalism; and, Critique of Sociobiology: Two Essays with a Comment by James M. Buchanan, vol. 10, Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1996), with the 6th German edition 1998, along with Spanish, Korean, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese translations.]

[4] Koslowski, “Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer Wirtschaftsethik,” 294.

[5] Koslowski, “Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer Wirtschaftsethik,” 304; cf. 301.

[6] Cf. Card. J. Höffner, Wirtschaftsordnung und Wirtschaftsethik. Richtlinien der katholischen Soziallehre, ed. Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (Bonn, 1985), 34–44. The English translation of this paper was published by Ordo socialis: Economic Systems and Economic Ethics–Guidelines in Catholic Social Teaching (Association for the Advancement of Christian Social Sciences, 1986).

[7] Koslowski, “Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer Wirtschaftsethik,” 296, with reference to Lenin, Werke (Berlin, 1971), I 436.

[8] I found these two considerations in the contribution of A. Metalli, “La grande epopea degli evangelici,” Trenta giorni 3, no. 8 (1984): 9, 8–20.

[9] For detailed information see P. Koslowski, “Religion, Okonomie, Ethik. Eine sozialtheoretische und ontologische Analyse ihres Zusammenhangs,“ in Die religiöse Dimension der Gesellschaft, Religion und ihre Theorien, ed. P. Koslowski (Tübingen, 1985), 76–96.

[Ed. note: This paper, “Religion, Economics, Ethics: An Analysis of Their Relationship from the Perspective of Social Thought and Ontology,” in The Religious Dimension of Society: Religion and its Theories, is further elaborated and available in English in the book by P. Koslowski, Principles of Ethical Economy, vol. 17, Issues in Business Ethics (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), with a 2nd German edition in 1994 along with French, Russian, Chinese, and Spanish translations.]

A new book about WYD-Sydney:
The days in Sydney, St. Paul
and the value of witness
By Enrico De Covolo
Translated from
the 11/20/08 issue of



Editor's Note: We are publishing here one of the addresses given at the presentation of the new book by Mons. Leuzzi, director for university pastoral ministry in the Diocese of Rome.

---

'The Pentecost of Sydney in the Pauline Year:
The Pope, youth and modernity'
Mons. Lorenzo Leuzzi
Rome, San Paolo, 2008
82 pp

---

Reading this new book by Mons. Leuzzi, I immediately looked for the thread that connects the speeches if the Pope in Sydney and the reflections that accompany them.

Actually, many themes emerge, each of them very relevant. I will list a few without going into depth.

Above all, there is a reference to the Gospel 'according to Paul' and the extraordinary testimonial of the Apostle's life, to such an extent that in the second chapter of the book, Mons. Leuzzi uses the Pauline Year as the 'hermeneutic key' to World Youth Day in Sydney last July.

Thus we face, closely interwoven, the great themes of modernity, its crises, the youth situation in this context, the consequent 'educative emergency' and the dialog that cannot be put off between the Gospel and modernity: a dialog that must now be qualified in unprecedented terms, and which - through the Church's evangelizing work - should tend towards a new civilization of love.

The book also has a moving revisitation of the imposing figure of John Paul II, the charismatic founder of the World Youth Days, when Mons. Leuzzi speaks in the first chapter of the book about 'the miracle produced by John Paul II'.

But what then is the common thread that links these various themes? As a theologian, I think that the book is a sign of decisive progress in the not easy but quite urgent attempt to define a 'theological category' which has, since the years of Vatican-II to the present - above all, thanks to the magisterium of the Popes from Paul VI to Benedict XVI - become increasingly decisive in order to renew completely our way of 'doing theology'.

That category is called 'witnessing'. Everyone knows Paul VI's famous statement that men today, particularly young people, no longer listen to doctors or professors, and if they do listen to them, it is because they are 'witnesses'. This statement was developed by Paul VI in his post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, but few can say exactly when the Pope first said it.

He said it on the crest of a great wave of emotion. A wise Buddhist monk from Laos had come to meet him. He explained to the Pope the violent tensions in his country which was at the mercy of more powerful nations.

"Holiness." he said, "the Russians come and promise us weapons. The Americans come and promised us the most advanced technology. The Germans come and promise us money. But, Holiness, if you sent us a Francis of Assisi, then we would all convert."

According to his faithful secretary, Mons. Pasquale Macchi, Paul VI was so struck by that declaration that, after the audience, he heard him murmuring: "Men today don't know what to do with doctors and professors - they would much rather listen to witnesses."

The theme of WYD in Sydney was from one of Jesus solemn instructions to his disciples: "You will receive power when the Holy spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1,8). It was the Master's testament before ascending to heaven.

"Tonight", Pope Benedict XVI told the youth at the prayer vigil in Randwick, "we will focus our attention on ;how' we may become witnesses", an d added a decisive question: "What is our answer, as witnesses for Christ, to a divided and fragmented world?"

A first answer to that crucial question is found in this book starting with its preface by Giuseppe Dalla Torre. It is an answer, he says, that inspired all the catecheses that the Pope gave in Australia: a catechesis that was centered on the action of the Holy Spirit "who is the Lord and gives life".

"The choice may seem strange to the superficial observer," he notes. "It might almost be seen as a 'digression' from the current problems that assail society as well as the Church. On the contrary, Benedict XVI's teaching is anything but theoretical and disembodied, nor is it a flight from the expectations of the young in a world that is disenchanted and even desperate."

In fact, the Pope's teachings in Sydney were an ample and well-articulated 'catechesis on bearing witness' which involves the use of faith and reason in the name of an integral humanism.

"Let the gifts of the Holy Spirit shape you,", Benedict XVI urged the young people. "Just as the Church is undertaking the same journey as all of mankind, you too are called on to exercise the gifts of the Spirit through the highs and lows of daily life. Let your faith mature through your studies, work, sports, music, art.... By welcoming the power of the Holy Spirit, even you can transform your families, your communities and nations. Release these gifts! Let wisdom, intelligence, strength, knowledge and piety be the signs of your greatness" (p. 74).

And that is 'how' to become a witness for our Lord in the world today. It means, says Mons. Leuzzi, to understand and to live the fact that "what originated from Pentecost was not just a social or religious experience, no matter that it had such high moral and humanitarian value, but a new historical reality which is the Church, whose soul is the Holy Spirit, and in which man can discover and realize his highest calling, that of building a civilization of love" (p 18).

"Of this" - meaning, ultimately, 'from my Person, who am the Gospel' -"you will be my witnesses", Jesus continues to tell the youth in this third millennium.

To decline the theme of bearing witness, to link to the Holy Spirit and his gifts, to the life of the Church and the world, was the great message of Benedict XVI to the youth in Sydney.

Among other things, this is the way - perhaps the most important - to re-direct theological reflection today (which is often repetitive, abstract and involuted) from the crisis which envelops it, reconnecting it in a fecund dialog with the theologians par excellence represented by the saints, who are the privileged witnesses to our faith - whether they are formally beatified and canonized (and Benedict cites the Australians Mary McKillop and Peter Torot) or those who are not (and the Pope cites many times the powerful witness of those who were out first teachers in the faith, our parent and grandparents).

[From the few 'samples' of current theology that we have been able to read because of their deviances from the Magisterium, it does appear that the new theologians all believe they are re-inventing the wheel, that no one before them has had the impulse for 'the common good' that they have, much less acted upon them - forgetting that every saint whose life and work we know about have all 'been there, done that' in the most concrete and direct ways possible!]

We must be thankful to Pope Benedict, above all, but also to Mons. Leuzzi, for inspiring us in this fascinating itinerary which invites us to spell out existentially - but also theologically - the 'categories' of witnessing to the faith and of sanctity.

OR today.

The Pope urges contemplative orders to live the faith radically:
'Monastic life teaches how to search for God'

Other Page 1 stories: An Indian nun tells how her community has been living through
the anti-Christian attacks, 'Prayer in the midst of persecution' (the first of five
articles on the cloistered life in this issue, to mark the Day pro Orantibus today);
and Wall Street hits a five-year low in the stock market.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
- Mons. Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
- Mons. Nicolas Djomo Lola, Bishop of Tshumbe (Democratic Republic of the Congo), president of his
country's bishops' conference.
- Senator Renato Schifani, President of the Italian Senate, his wife, and delegation.



Calendar item:
Friday, Nov. 28 - News conference at the Vatican's Aula Giovanni Paolo II to present the album
"Amore infinito" - songs inspired by the poems of John Paul II-Karol Wojtyla - by tenor Placido Domingo,
for Deutsche Gramophon. A DPA item says the album features 12 songs, including Domingo performing
duets with US gospel singer Vanessa Williams and with his son Placido Domingo Jr.

The Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations has released the schedule of liturgical rites
to be presided by the Holy Father from November 29, 2008, to January 25, 2009.


NOVEMBER 2008

Nov. 29, Saturday
17:00, St. Peter's Basilica
CAPPELLA PAPALE
First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent


Nov. 30, Sunday
First Sunday of Advent
Pastoral Visit to the Basilica of St. Lawrence outside the Walls
to mark the 1750th anniversary of the saint's martyrdom
0945 Holy Mass


DECEMBER 2008

Dec. 8, Monday
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
16:00, Piazza di Spagna
Act of Veneration to Our Lady


Dec. 24, Wednesday
Solemnity of the Lord's Nativity
24:00 St. Peter's Basilica
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Midnight Mass

Dec. 25, Thursday
Solemnity of the Lord's Nativity
12:00, Central Loggia of St. Peter's
'Urbi et Orbi' Blessing

Dec. 31, Wednesday
18:00, St. Peter's Basilica
First Vespers and Thanksgiving for 2008


JANUARY 2009

Jan. 1, Thursday
Solemnity of the Most Holy Mother of God
XLII World Day of Peace
10:00, St. Peter's Basilica
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Holy Mass

Jan. 6, Tuesday
Solemnity of the Lord's Epiphany
10:00, St. Peter's Basilica
Holy Mass

Jan. 11, Sunday
Feast of the Baptism of our Lord
10:00 Sistine Chapel
Holy Mass and Baptism of Babies

Jan. 25, Sunday
Solemnity of the Conversion of St.Paul
17:30 Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls
Celebration of Vespers

'The Pope's newspaper'
is making noise -
some say, too much

Twice in recent months, L'Osservatore Romano has prompted negative reactions from part of the hierarchy
and the Catholic world, over organ transplants and euthanasia. But on other issues as well, its commentaries -
for instance about Pius XII and the Jews - have been generating much buzz within the Church and outside it.




ROME, November 19, 2008 – A "newspaper of ideas" is what L'Osservatore Romano was intended to become when Professor Giovanni Maria Vian took command of it thirteen months ago.

A "newspaper of ideas" is how Giovanni Battista Montini had described it many years before, as Archbishop of Milan, before he became Pope Paul VI.

He meant by this a newspaper that "does not seek only to furnish news; it intends to influence thought. It is not enough for it to report events as they happen: it intends to comment on them in order to indicate how they should have happened, or not happened. It does not only conduct a conversation with its readers; it conducts one with the world: it comments, discusses, polemicizes."

Today, that promise has been kept. The OR acts as an official bulletin only for a few things: those appearing daily on the front page under the rubric "Our information," reporting the Pope's audiences and canonical nominations made [also, the full texts of teh Pope's discourses, messages and important letters].

Other than this, it is a newspaper of documents, of news, of commentary, and even of polemics, under the autonomous responsibility of those who write for it and edit it - tith the entire world as its horizon, and on questions without boundaries.

For example, death, which is no longer determined by cardiac arrest, but by the total cessation of brain function. This convention, introduced by the "Harvard report" of 1968, has extraordinary practical effects, because it allows organ transplants from donors whose hearts are still beating. But the point is that this is simply a convention. It is questionable, and controversial.

Last September 2, OR published a front page commentary – signed by Lucetta Scaraffia – that reopened the dispute about what really establishes the end of life, and therefore about whether current transplant practices are permissible.

The article raised a firestorm. In the first place, within the Church itself. The Vatican has generally agreed to the practice of transplanting organs after the confirmation of brain death. A chorus of protest came from the Curia against the newspaper.

A conference on organ transplants was approaching at the Vatican, and pressure was applied to make the Pope use the opportunity to cut off the dispute by confirming brain death as a valid criterion.

But when Benedict XVI received the conference participants last November 7, he didn't talk about brain death. Instead, he noted that "science in recent years has made further progress in verifying the death of the patient." And he warned that "where certainty has not been reached the principle of precaution must prevail."

This meant that the Pope was siding with his newspaper and with those scholars of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences who, at a previous conference at the Vatican, from February 3-4, 2005, had taken a majority position against the criterion of brain death.

But to show how significantly the Vatican authorities are divided over this question, just consider that the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Bishop Marcélo Sánchez Sorondo – a staunch supporter of brain death as a valid concept for establishing death – kept the proceedings of that conference in 2005 from being published.

Now that the dispute has been reopened, he has rushed to put on the Academy's Vatican webpage, the authors who share his point of view at the top of the list of the academy's texts.

In any case, the controversy reopened by the OR is not by any means confined to the Church. It was extensively discussed in The Economist on October 4, in the lead article of the section "Science and technology."

Le Monde caddressed it on November 2-3, with an analysis by its science editor, Jean-Yves Nau. In Italy, it was addressed by Professor Marco Ventura in a commentary for Corriere della Sera on November 3.

But the issue of brain death is only one of the many disputes "of ideas" recently ignited by the Pope's newspaper.

Another, very recently, concerns the definition of health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being," as established by the Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946.

In a commentary published on November 19, Professor Carlo Bellieni highlighted the dangerous consequences stemming from this definition, in particular the "medicalization of desire" that goes so far as to maintain that life itself is a pathology to be ended whenever one wishes, even by people not affected by terminal illness.

A few days earlier, on November 15, another commentary by Lucetta Scaraffia struck new sparks in the case of Eluana Englaro, an Italian young woman in a vegetative state like the American Terri Schiavo, and like her, now condemned to die of hunger and thirst, because of an Italian judicial ruling authorizing her euthanasia.

Scaraffia criticized Catholics for not being very "convincing" in obtaining greater support for Eluana's life, because of weak argumentation and PR.

This criticism was more than a little irritating to the Catholic newspaper that had led the battle in favor of Eluana, Avvenire, owned by the Italian bishops' conference.

In the field of historiography, the OR has brought new elements to a topic of discussion that has become more fiery than ever - the one concerning Pius XII, Nazism, and the Jews.

Special attention goes to an extensive interview published on October 9, with the editor of Corriere della Sera, the most widely circulated Italian secular newspaper, Paolo Mieli, a historian of Jewish descent, who cites facts and figures to dismantle the "black legend" about Pius XII, whom he calls "the most important Pope of the twentieth century."

It must be added that the regular columnists for the OR now include two Jews: the mathematician Giorgio Israel, and the historian Anna Foa.

It was Foa whom the newspaper entrusted with the front-page commentary on November 10, anniversary of "the night of broken glass," the anti-Jewish pogrom that openly began the Nazi persecution that led to the Holocaust.

For now, there is no Muslim among the columnists for the pope's newspaper. But there will be soon - in Khaled Fouad Allam, an Algerian-born Italian citizen and a professor at the University of Trieste. He is the author of books of significant depth on Islamic culture and the relationship between Islam and the Christian West.

Last but not least in this brief summary is the contribution to the analysis of the global economy made in the OR by a very prominent Catholic economist and banker, with highly original judgments - Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president in Italy of the Banco Santander Central Hispano.

In one of his commentaries, last October 18, he concluded as follows:
"Since this is the season of the Nobel prizes, we are tempted to propose the institution of a new category: a Nobel for anti-economics, to be given to the one who causes the most damage to the global economy. There are plenty of candidates for this today."


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


It's too bad that Mr. Magister has chosen to focus only on the 'flashpoint' stories in the OR, without a word for the rich offerings it has almost daily - even on its online 'reduction' which is all I get to see - about the state of the Church in various parts of the world, the activities and thoughts of the major Vatican dicasteries and offices, Church history, and an astonishing cultural menu on ecclesiastical/liturgical art and contemporary culture. My great regret is my utter lack of time to translate all but a selected few [which happen to be both topical and freshly informative - such as about previous Popes, or about the liturgy) of these.I could easily translate every item very easily every day if I did not also have to make a living and live my life!