From Madrid, ZENIT published yesterday a commentary taken from the Spanish newspaper El Mundowritten by Professor Rafael Navarro-Valls, of the University of Madrid, who has written a book entitled “State and Religion.”
Here is a translation -
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"Deus caritas est":
Globalizing justice and love
By Rafael Navarro-Valls
Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

In the face of the abuse of religion which has even reached “an apotheosis of hate”, Benedict XVI’s first encylical counter-proposes a God who created man out of love and who bends down towards him.

This explains why, as newly elected Pope, Ratzinger had said that the first challenge to humankind is to achieve solidarity between generations, solidarity among nations and among the continents, for “an increasingly more equitable distribution of the planet’s resources among all men.” This would not be simple philanthropy but a “divine impulse” to alleviate misery. This is the key of the encyclical. But few commentaries have pointed out that this is clearly a social encyclical – a document in the mold of the great social encyclicals starting from Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum.

Since the middle of the 18th century, specifically since Benedict XIV (1740), encyclicals have been printed circular letters, addressed by the Pope to all (or part) of the episcopate, and through them, to the faithful, as well as all men of good will. Usually responding to the particular issues of an epoch, encyclicals have been one of the principal sources of preaching for the Catholic Church. What Benedict XVI has just published is #294 since Benedict XIV.

In the 20th century, the Pope who published the most encyclicals was Pius XI (41), the one with the least, John XXIII (7). John Paul II published 14. It does not seem like Benedict XVI will be among the prolific ones. Not merely because of his age, but because he does not think that the problems of the Church can be dealt with from a desk. He has said that the Church “talks too much about itself – we do not need a Church that is more human but one that is more divine.”

The first encyclical of the Popes in the 20th century tended to be programmatic, marking the basic direction in which they wished to lead the Church. Thus, John XXIII dealt in his first encyclical (Ad Petri cathedram) with the objective that he had proposed in calling the Second Vatican Couincil: to promote the recognition of truth as a path towards the restoration of Church unity and of peace.

Paul VI smiliarly linked his first encyclical (Ecclesiam suam) with Vatican-II, whose conclusion coincided with the publication of the encyclical. In it, he proposed the three ways along which he planned to lead the Church – conscience, renewal and dialog.

Finally, John Paul II in Redemptor hominis, his first encyclical, pointed out that the question of man cannot be separated from the question of God. Thus his objective – evident throughout his long Papacy – was to bring together anthropocentrism with Christocentrism, namely, that it is possible to understand man only when one looks at God of whom he is the image.

In line with his predecessor’s program, Benedict XVI’s first encyclical starts by defining love as the essence of God. But contrary to affirmations by the initial commentaries I have read, it is also a programmatic encyclical. So programmatic that, against every precedent, the Pope himself, two days before its publication, wished to explain its ultimate purpose. He did it taking the Divine Comedy of Dante as his point of departure. Just as Dante in his cosmic excursion brings the reader to the face of God, which is the “love that moves the stars”, Ratzinger wants to bring man face to face with a God “who took on a human face and heart.”

When he began his Papacy, Benedict XVI affirmed that his true program of government would not center on following his own ideas, “but in allowing myself to be led by the Lord, so that it is He himself who will guide the Church at this time in its history.” That intention is confirmed in reading his first encyclical, which is not an exposition of any of Ratzinger’s favorite themes, such as relativism, for instance. It is a text in which the author stays in the background, concentrating his attention on the word with which the encyclical begins – God. His program appears imposed on him by a great force, a force that has impelled him towards the themes of justice and charity.

Ratzinger in his writings has tried in many ways to reinstate reason into Christianity – what he himself has called “the victory of intelligence” in the world of religion. But in this encyclical, he seems to allow himself to be led by a different impulse: the validation of justice and love as distinctive marks of his program of action.

It must not be forgotten that since Ratzinger pulished his first book in 1954, his scholarly production has been overwhelming – hundreds of articles and more than 50 books. The intelligence and clarity of what he writes have made him one of the most widely-read authors of the 20th century.

“I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger,” Oriana Fallaci once told the Wall Street Journal. “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and the Pope can believe in the same things, then there is much truth there.” In effect, no one – believer or otherwise- could argue with Benedict XVI’s message in Deus caritas est.

In summary, I would say that his encyclical aims to “globalize justice and love” so that within the human family – as well as in the family that is the Church – no one “should suffer from lacking what is necessary.”

Of course, in speaking of love, justice in human relations must be addressed. That is why Benedict XVI uses a harsh quotation from St. Augustine who said that a State that is not governed by justice is simply “a band of thieves.” He is saying that justice is the object and measure of all politics. Politics is not simply a method, a technique, it is first of all an ethic.

Of course, justice is the mission of the State, but not exclusively. It is above all the great task of humanity. That is why Benedict XVI claims for the Church the obligation to offer, “through purification of reason and of ethics,” a specific contribution that can make justice comprehensible and politically realizable. Thus also, the absolute need for freedom of religion.

But if justice is indispensable, Benedict XVI also affirms an important place for charity as love. Suffering does not merely call for justice. It also demands loving personal attention. In this area, social institutions, including the Church, are irreplaceable for addressing material and spiritual indigence.

The encyclical expresses vigorous encouragement for new forms of social volunteerism which unite spontaneity with personal individual attention to persons who are in need. One of the most engaging passages of the encyclical is the contrast that Benedict XVI makes between the degradation resulting from the “anti-culture of death” (drugs, for example) and the dignity that young people gain from “the culture of life” when they devote themselves to others through volunteer work.

But Benedict XVI’s message is not simply an exhortation to social activism. It is much more than that, because in singling out Teresa of Calcutta (probably the most outstanding social activist of the 20th century), the Pope notes that her productive example arose from her interior life, her union with God in caring for the most abandoned of his creatures. From this, Papa Ratzinger concludes: “The time has come to reaffirm the importance of prayer for the activism and secularism of many Christians who are engaged in charitable work.”

In the 20th century and as we begin the 21st, the center of gravity of the Church has passed from Europe to the Third World, with 62% of all Catholics living in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In these areas where poverty extends its tentacles most strongly, Benedict XVI appears to see one of the great challenges of his Papacy. That is why I say that Deus caritas est is above all a social encyclical.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/02/2006 23.06]

From Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, in translation -
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By Paolo Lambruschi

Love has broken through. In just one week, Benedict XVI’s encyclical sold more than 500,000 copies [in addition to more than a million that had been distributed with publications like Famiglia Cristiana and Osservatore Romano].

To understand the more important points of the encyclical, we discussed some of the salient points in Part I with Elio Guerrrero, eitor of the international journal of theology “Communio” founded in 1972 by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger.

We start with the now-celebrated reference to eros and agape.
“The Pope starts from this binomy,” Guerrero says, “ because it is important for him to show that there is no conflict between the two but that they must be integrated. And so he contrasts classical eros of the ancient Greeks, revisited by Nietsche, with Christian eros in the Song of Songs, which is achieved through purification. In this, Ratzinger shares the thinking of Henri de Lubac.”

"Nietsche accused Christianity of poisoning eros, as the Pope reminds us. It is a notion that has remained current. Ratzinger
refutes it. Towards the end of the 40s and in the decade of the 50s in the past century, when this Pope underwent his own formation, Nietszche’s ideas were very much present in contemporary culture. But it is an anthropological concept which tends to debase man. Benedict responds to it with an argument for the divine who calls his human creation upwards. A man should be a man in full. He should not descend to the level of animals in eros, he should keep his humanity. The religious element then helps him to the maturation of love. This is not poisoning eros, this is to humanize it. Through its purification, we arrive at authentic love, Christian love, which is the joy through which eros becomes agape.”

In a very topical passage, the encyclical makes an analogy between monogamous love and a monotheistic God. How do you interpret this?
Benedict starts by a reference to the Song of Songs which exalts human love. He points out that the love between man and woman finds a parallel in the alliance between God and man. An alliance which the matrimonial contract reproduces. Matrimony presupposes the evolution of human love that is open to the divine, it implies forgiveness for the one who does not love enough, but not for whoever breaks his pact with God. We ought to recognize daily that, in truth, we do not love enough and that we should continually ask forgiveness for this failing.

Another question posed by tne encyclical is – If no one has ever seen God, how is it possible to love him?
This is a question St. John dealt with. But the Pope states, as did St. John, that we have seen Christ, the son of God. He cites the passage, “They will look on Him whom they have pierced through,” which he has used so many times as a point of departure in his theological works. It is the image of the Pierced Christ who is at the center of his reflections. In the piercing of Christ’s body, we see the tremendous love of God for man. In the image of the Son on the Cross, thanks to the Holy Spirit, we receive the mystery of love and life, of the Father who gives, of the Son who is given, and of the Spirit who helps us undertsnad this love. It is a passage that is also very close to the thinking of Von Balthasar. From the pierced side of Christ came forth blood and water, an image of the birth of the Church and the origin of the Eucharist. And so the Pope says that charity, love, is inextricable from the life of the Church. Living a Christian life is not possible without charity, which develops within oneself as a sense of brotherhood and which is expressed outwardly in services that give witness to the love of God.

In giving such witness, what commitment is asked of Christians towards society?
The Church does not play politics, but it takes part in the struggle for justice. It is a theme very dear to Joseph Ratzinger, who discussed it in his encounter with Juergen Habermas in Munich in 2004. He said then that at a time when destructive forces are on the rise, the constructive forces of soceity should coalesce in order for the State to avoid self-destruction. Benedict invites all Christians to work in strong collaboration with all men of good will to build a just society. Participation in the democratic struggle is necessary so as not to leave the world prey to those who wish to conquer it by force. These are concepts which were born out of the young Ratzinger’s experiences with Nazism and the war. The Pope affirms that s state that is not founded on respect for human life, on striving for the common good, on solidarity and on mutual assistance, risks imploding on itself. The battle which the Church and every Christian must engage in passionately today is to create the ethical conditions for a just society.
Benedict always emphasizes the element of reason. If God is charity, then man, to come closer to God, should not give in only to instinctive eros but cultivate that love which can bring us a just and welcoming society which mirrors the love of God.

FROM THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

Encyclical finds favor in unexpected quarters

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
February 10, 2006
Rome

Perhaps the most intriguing reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, is the generally positive response of liberal Catholics who were the most apprehensive about the election to the papacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long known as the church’s doctrinal watchdog.

Several expressed relief that in dealing with human and divine love, the pope steered clear of areas where the church’s message has stirred controversy -- such as homosexuality, birth control and abortion. Many praised the document’s lofty, positive tone.

Paul Collins, for example, called the 71-page document “a welcome change from the often dense and sometimes almost incomprehensible missives of many of his papal predecessors.”

Collins, a former Missionary of the Sacred Heart, left the priesthood in 2001 amid a Vatican investigation of his writings on papal infallibility and other matters that had been initiated by Ratzinger.

The encyclical, Collins wrote, “tells us that Benedict XVI is going to be a low-key pope concerned with the essence of Catholicism rather than an actor on the world stage like his predecessor. This will be a modest and more traditional papacy. Just what Catholicism needs, really.”

Andrew Sullivan, who was strongly critical of the Vatican’s recent document on gay priests, called the encyclical “a beautifully written document.”

“It is not as extreme or as repressive as Benedict’s well-earned reputation. It is a sign, one hopes, of a papacy that can change and grow and concentrate on the central truths, not peripheral obsessions. For that, a great sigh of relief.”

Deus Caritas Est was released at the Vatican Jan. 25. The first section offers a spiritual meditation on love, arguing that eros, or human sexual love, must be “purified” into agape, or the total giving of one’s self to another. The second is composed of reflections on Catholic charitable work, stating that political and economic justice is primarily the responsibility of laity and the state, while the church’s primary competence is direct charitable outreach to people in need.

Swiss theologian Fr. Hans Küng praised the encyclical’s “solid theological substance on the subjects of eros and agape, love and charity, and not drawing false contradictions between them.”

Küng, whose license to teach Catholic theology was withdrawn by Pope John Paul II in 1979, was frequently critical of Ratzinger while he led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Catholics should be happy, Küng said, that it is “not a manifesto of cultural pessimism or restrictive sexual morality.”

Writing in The New York Times, Peter Steinfels said, “Anyone looking for a substantial and challenging message about the nature of existence and humanity can find it in Part I. It is controversial not as one more sortie in the culture wars but as what it is, a statement of metaphysics and religious faith.”

Christian Weisner, spokesman for the liberal Catholic group “We Are Church,” told The New York Times that the encyclical is “a sign of hope” that Benedict would prove to be a “human face for Christianity and for the Catholic church.”

Those reactions have largely been paralleled in the global press.

Der Standard of Austria, where the We Are Church movement began, wrote, “Many of those who regarded Joseph Ratzinger as an instrument of the Holy Inquisition, and perhaps continue to do so, are now probably disappointed.”

France’s Le Monde editorialized that the encyclical “does not resemble the normative documents published by his predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul II, on sexuality and the morality of couples,” arguing that, although there has been no revolution, the language used has changed.

“Resolutely philosophical and spiritual, the pope situates himself at a high level of principles and depth,” it said.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung, the newspaper of Munich, Germany, where Ratzinger was once archbishop, wrote that the encyclical is “remarkable and in many passages outstanding.”

The newspaper described it as a document that “largely does without a warning finger.”

The chorus of praise was not, however, universal.

Speaking to Newsday, Scott Appleby of Notre Dame said he found the distinction in Deus Caritas Est between justice and charity troubling.

“This seems to be a return to a theology of church in which the church is primarily given the responsibility to form consciences and to provide charity -- something no Catholic would disagree with -- but which is not further responsible for prophecy or for actual social reform toward justice,” Appleby said.

“That’s not how my generation of Catholics understood Vatican II.”

David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church, said he is “agnostic” on whether the encyclical will draw people to the church.

“I think on both sides, people will be asking, ‘Is this all?’ ” he said.

Frequently, liberals who praised the encyclical did so with reservations.

Küng, for example, said that the pope had failed to mention the charity the church should show toward loving couples who use contraception, those who divorce and remarry, and Protestant and Anglican clerics.

Weisner said he hoped that the pope’s emphasis on love would make him more open to opposing views.

“Loving your neighbors also means loving critical theologians,” he said. “He also has to apply these ideas within the church itself.”

Nor was the secular press universally smitten. A front-page commentary in Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel, for example, asserted that the pope wants to show he is an authority on love, although he “knows little of what it is and how you live it.”

“This may be part of his duties as Catholic chief executive, but it is not helpful,” the paper said.

Spain’s El Pais said Pope Benedict wants “to dedicate his work to reaffirming the fundamentals of the Catholic faith,” because he’s worried about a “profound crisis” in Europe.

But it asked why, considering all the “serious problems afflicting the world,” the head of the Catholic Church has focused his energies on arguing the difference between pornography, sex and “pure love.”

The paper also questioned his statement that “the church cannot and should not get involved in the political battle for a fairer society.” El Pais asserted this is something that both liberation theologians and conservatives who oppose liberal laws “are not going to like.”

In the end, for some commentators, it was what Pope Benedict left unsaid that seemed troubling.

On that score, longtime Ratzinger friend Jesuit Fr. Joseph Fessio told The New York Times that the encyclical’s positive focus does not mask a retreat from the pope’s doctrinal stances.

“He is saying no divorce,” Fessio said. “He is saying no promiscuity. He is saying no multiple wives. No homosexuality. He’s completely positive, but if you accept the teaching, consequences follow.”

John L. Allen Jr. is NCR Rome correspondent.

FROM IGNATIUS PRESS

God's Revolution
Pope Benedict XVI's New Book Reveals a Pope Who Continues to Surprise People February 7, 2006


Benedict XVI continues to astound people. In Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, they were told, the world was getting "God’s Rottweiler" as Pope. Now, after Benedict’s first encyclical, God is Love, many people are wondering if he isn’t really the "Love Pope."

God’s Revolution by Benedict XVI (Ignatius Press, 2006), the collection of his World Youth Day talks and other addresses in Cologne, only adds to the amazement. Thoughtful readers will discover in its author far more than they bargained for.

It’s August, 2005. The newly elected Benedict XVI returns to his homeland, Germany, for World Youth Day–the spectacular event created by his popular predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

All eyes are on the German pope in Cologne. "Will he relate to young people as John Paul II did?," people wonder.

The vast crowds of over a million young people and their zealous, loving welcome provide the answer. Benedict XVI pulls it off–in his own way, with his own style, without missing a beat. His encounters with young people are magical, even mystical. His message–a straightforward presentation of the Christian faith aimed at answering the perennial questions of young people: Who am I? Where am I going? Is there Someone who can help? How can I make a difference in the world?

Benedict XVI’s answers to these questions all point to Jesus Christ and his teaching. He urges young people not to think that following Jesus requires abandoning anything of real worth.

"Christ takes from you nothing that is beautiful and great," he declares.

He dares young people to become "radicals"–to be part of "God’s revolution." To commit themselves without reservation to Jesus Christ.

"Only from God does true revolution come," he declares, "the definitive way to change the world."

"It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true," Benedict says.

But God’s Revolution also warns against abusing faith in God: "There are many who speak of God: some even preach hatred and perpetuate violence in God’s Name. So it is important to discover the true face of God."

"In Jesus Christ," the Pope declares, "who allowed his heart to be pierced for us, the true face of God is seen."

God’s Revolution isn’t only for young people, for Catholics alone or even only for Christians. Benedict XVI’s thoughtful and inspiring messages to the Jewish and Muslim communities in Germany are included.

Speaking in a synagogue in Cologne, Benedict urges Jews and Christians to grow closer to one another. He recalls the horrors of the Holocaust and warns against "new signs of anti-Semitism." As he commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi death camps, the Pope’s words are especially poignant: as a teenager, Benedict XVI was forced to join the Hitler Youth, against his will and that of his anti-Nazi parents.

Benedict speaks to representatives of Muslims in Germany of the common faith Christians and Muslims share in one God. He acknowledges how some Muslim leaders have rejected terrorism. Yet he adds: "Those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison out relations and destroy trust, making use of all means, including religion, to oppose every attempt to build a peaceful and serene life together."

These and other comments take on new meaning in light of recent events.

God’s Revolution also addresses Protestant Christians. Coming from the land of the Reformer Martin Luther, Benedict knows Protestant concerns. He presents Catholic teaching in a way that underscores the common Christian commitment Catholics and Protestants share.

"Together we confess that Jesus Christ is God and Lord," he states, "together we acknowledge him as the one mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Tim 2:5), and we emphasize together that we are members of his Body."

To the German Catholic leaders he urges renewed efforts to present Christ and Christianity to the modern world. While challenging them to respect people’s search for the truth, the Pope call on them to be true to the Christian message: "We must teach patience, discernment, realism, but without false compromises, so as not to water down the Gospel!"

He asks the bishops to find new ways to address young people, the future of the Catholic Church.

In short, Benedict XVI issues a clarion call in this for all people to join "God’s Revolution."

A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE ENCYCLICAL
From Acton Commentary


A Tocquevillian in the Vatican
by Samuel Gregg, D.Phil.

Upon Joseph Ratzinger’s election to the Papacy in April 2005, many commentators correctly noted that Benedict XVI’s self-described theological “master” was St. Augustine. The fifth-century African bishop is widely acknowledged as a giant of the early church whose life and writings are counted, even by his detractors, among the most decisive in shaping Western civilization. Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, is full of citations and themes drawn from Augustine’s texts.

The encyclical’s publication appears, however, to confirm that another, more contemporary thinker has influenced the way that Benedict XVI views religion in free societies and the nature of the state. That person is the nineteenth-century French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville.

The author of classic texts such as Democracy in America, Tocqueville’s own relationship with Christianity is best described as “complex.” Raised in a devout French aristocratic family, Tocqueville was appalled at the French Revolution’s assault on the Catholic Church -- an attack involving looting of church property and violence against clergy and laypeople alike. But Tocqueville also disapproved of the post-Revolutionary clergy’s tendency to attach itself to political absolutism. On a personal level, Tocqueville oscillated between doubt and faith for most of his life.

What Tocqueville did not doubt, however, was religion’s importance in sustaining free societies. This theme is addressed at length in Democracy in America. More importantly, it has attracted Joseph Ratzinger’s attention. Upon being inducted into the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France in 1992, then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.”

Describing Tocqueville as “le grand penseur politique,” the context of these remarks was Ratzinger’s insistence that free societies cannot sustain themselves, as Tocqueville observed, without widespread adherence to “des convictions éthiques communes.” Ratzinger then underlined Tocqueville’s appreciation of Protestant Christianity’s role in providing these underpinnings in the United States. In more recent years, Ratzinger expressed admiration for the manner in which church-state relations were arranged in America, using words suggesting he had absorbed Tocqueville’s insights into this matter.

What has this to do with Deus Caritas Est? The answer is that Benedict XVI has taken to heart Tocqueville’s warnings about “soft-despotism.” In Deus Caritas Est, he writes:

“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person -- every person -- needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need (DCE no.28).”

As someone who experienced Nazism, Benedict XVI needs no lessons about totalitarianism. As a confirmed Augustinian, he is rightly sceptical of any proposal for heaven-on-earth. The words above, however, indicate Benedict’s awareness of Tocqueville’s insistence that even free societies can find themselves almost imperceptibly allowing the state to subsume those autonomous associations that, according to Tocqueville, gave America its dynamic character and limited government power.

There seems little doubt that Pope Benedict is concerned about the state’s potential to sap Christian charities’ autonomy -- not through abruptly absorbing their work but by slowly diluting their distinct identity. In principle, Deus Caritas Est does not object to Christian charities cooperating with the state (DCE no.30, 31). Nevertheless the encyclical firmly reminds Christians that “the specific expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the State” (DCE no.29) and indicates concern about“the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work” (DCE no.36).

The contemporary identity-crisis of many Christian charities is not mono-causal. Its sources include many Christians’ effective lapse into practical atheism, their adoption of moral reasoning more akin to John Stuart Mill than Jesus Christ, and some Christian charities’ direct involvement in political activism, the latter explicitly disapproved by Deus Caritas Est.

Yet the Tocquevillian theme subtly woven into Deus Caritas Est surely provides Christian charities with an opportunity to reflect upon the wisdom of associating too closely with the state. This might involve asking questions about the effects of church taxes levied in countries such as Germany or the prudence of accepting government contracts when such agreements require adherence to regulations stating who religious charities may employ and what they may say. If they conclude that such an association undermines their ability, as Benedict XVI states, to be “credible witnesses to Christ” (DCE no.31), then tactful disassociations might be in order.

Better this than compromising the fullness of the Truth and Love that sets us free.

Dr. Samuel Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is the author of Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (University Press of America, 2001) and On Ordered Liberty: A Treatise on the Free Society (Lexington Books, 2003).

As Papa announced at the end of his general audience today (See post of 2/8/06 catechesis in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS), he received yesterday a letter written by Don Andrea Santoro to him just a few days before he was barbarously killed in Trabzon, Turkey. After a long applause from the 8,000 present in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father added: "May the Lord take the soul of this silent and brave servant of the Gospel."

The Pope said Don Andrea's letter would be published in the Osservatore Romano. Here it is, from the 2/9/06 issue as published on line by the Vatican. In translation -
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Rome
31 January 2006

Your Holiness,
I am writing you in the name of some Georgian women in my parish of Saint Mary at Trabzon on the Black Sea in Turkey. They dictated me a letter in Turkish, and I have translated it as it came from their own mouths, when they learned that I was coming to Rome.

I am Don Andrea Santoro, a Fidei donum priest of the Roman church in Turkey, in the diocese of Anatolia, where I have been living for the past 5 years. My flock is composed of 8-9 Catholics, the many orthodox Christians in the city and the Muslims who form 99% of the population. They too would be part of your apostolic Vicariate, Holiness, as you are the Bishop of both the diocese I came from (Rome), as well as the diocese I am going to. It is by virtue of both of your titles that I send you this letter from three Georgian women.

---

Dear Pope,
In the name of all Georgians we greet you.
We ask God to grant you health in the name of Jesus.
We are very happy that God chose you to be Pope. Pray for us, for the poor, for the suffering in all the world, for the children. We believe that your prayers will reach God directly. We Georgians are very poor, we have debts, we have no homes, no work. We have no strength.

At this time, we are living in Trabzon where we are working. Please pray that God bless us and make our hearts new and clean. We do not forget the Christian life, and we try to be good examples to the Turkish people in the name of God so that in that way they may see and glorify God.

WE have lots of things to tell you, but Inshallah (If God wills it), we can talk about it face to face if you would come to Trabzon. Your coming here would be a happy feast. From God we ask and wish for for you health and peace and Christian living. We kiss your hands. We would be happy if you could answer us and send us your picture with your signature.

And you, as our Pope, please pray for Don Andrea and Loredana, that God may give them strength and that through them, the Church may grow and multiply in Trabzon.

Maria, Marina and Maria

In the name of other Christian Georgians, we invite you to Trabzon when your visit Turkey in November.

---

Holiness,
I join this three women in inviting you to come and see us. It is a small flock, which, as Jesus said, seeks to be salt, yeast and light on earth. A visit from you, even if it was a quick one, would bring consolation and encouragement. If God wills it – and with God, nothing is impossible.

I greet you and thank you for everything. Your books nourished me during my studies in theology. Bless me. And may God bless and assist you.


Don Andrea Santoro
Fidei donum priest of the Diocese of Rome
In Turkey, diocese of Anatolia, city of Trabzon on the Black Sea
Church of Saint Mary

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/02/2006 23.57]

Thank you Teresa for posting this - I assume we have you to thank also for the translation.

This letter moved me deeply by its humility, simplicity and faith - the presence of holiness. Yesterday at the audience, B16 said that it had moved him as well and now I can see why. I think he will almost certainly go to Trabazon now. What a good priest Fr Santoro was, his greeting to the Pope is full of sincerity, especially the part about how he had been nourished by Ratzinger's books.

Does anyone know what a Fidei donum priest is? Gift of Faith - the donum hasn't got a capital D so it's not an order. Could he be some kind of 'loan' from one diocese to another?

How terrible that Fr Santoro's murder was done in the name of religion - this dreadful act must surely sow seeds of local reconciliation between Christianity and Islam since the great majority of Moslems will be horrified by this action.

Thanks again Teresa for posting this edifying letter.

Yes, Wulfrune - I posted my translation of what Osservatore Romano published. I noticed this morning that Whispers in the Loggia also published an "exclusive" translation yesterday, so it's good to make clear that we do our own translations here!

As for Fidei donum, I saw the term first used when Cardinal Bertone went to Havana last October for the assignment of sme Italian priests from Genova to be Fidei donum priests in Cuba, So I think it is a term for priests who are assigned to other dioceses abroad as literally a "gift of faith."

P.S. Just picked this up from Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference-

The Fidei donum are sent by the Italian dioceses to parts of the world in need of evangelization. The practice started with Pius XI's encyclical on evangelization, Fidei donum, in 1957.

Since then, some 1900 priests from 160 Italian dioceses have been sent abroad for this missionary work. In 2005, more than 550 priests were serving actively.

However, more than 100 of the Fidei donum have met violent deaths. Between 2000-2005, 18 were killed.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/02/2006 9.33]

From the Vatican Press Office today-

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls confirmed today that President Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey has invited Pope Benedict XVI to make an official visit to Turkey on November 28-30 this year and that the Holy Father has accepted the invitation.
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Maybe, the Pope will have a chance to work in a visit to Trabzon as Father Santoro and the Georgian women requested. What a gesture that would be!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/02/2006 2.36]

I just found this item online at http://www.catholic.net/the_pope_page/template_article.phtml?channel_id=18&article_id=3721
It is a commentary on the Pope's Message for the World Day of Peace last month, but since very few writers commented appropriately on what is a major message from the Pope, this article deserves a good reading.
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The Visionary – Blessed are the peacemakers
by Br Shane Johnson, LC


He is a Pope of surprises. He always seems to be the Benedict we thought we knew, but didn’t. He was the surprisingly endearing father at World Youth Day and the equally endearing grandfather at his recent encounter with young first communicants in Rome. He was a defanged, compassionate German Shepherd at his private heart-to-hearts with dissident theologian Hans Küng and the head of the schismatic Lefebvrite movement, bishop Bernard Fellay.

And so, unsurprisingly, he manages to surprise us again with his message for the January 1st World Day of Peace, released Tuesday. In barely 5 pages of clear, impassionate prose, Pope Benedict cuts a new figure: that of sage-on-the-mountaintop. www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051213_xxxix-world-day-peace...

His very name, he writes, was consciously chosen to echo that of Pope Benedict XV, the Pope who wore himself down in an ultimately futile effort to halt the “useless slaughter” of World War I and establish a lasting peace in its wake. The name also echoes that of the great Saint Benedict whose monastic foundations “inspired a civilization of peace in the whole continent” of Europe.

Like both of his predecessors, Pope Benedict speaks from a mountaintop far above the shabbiness of political debate. Benedict is different. Our comfortable, one-size-fits-all labels of “liberal” and “conservative” wash right off him. He is neither peacenik nor hawk, neither in Darfur nor Iraq.

His goal is not simply to end a conflict here or there. In fact, what he seeks is not a goal at all. It is hope: “hope for a more serene world, a world in which more and more individuals and communities are committed to the paths of justice and peace.”

We need this message because we need a visionary. We need a prophet to condemn ballooning military expenditure and the flourishing international arms trade and weigh them on the balance against the young lives they snuff out daily in petty conflicts worldwide. We need a prophet to remind us that politically-driven efforts to “maximize historical and cultural differences” between peoples and, if you will, civilizations, is a lie about our common destiny as members of our human family: goodbye realpolitik. We need a “conservative” stalwart who supports the troops “engaged in the delicate work of resolving conflicts and restoring the necessary conditions for peace” and condemns terrorism vigorously. We need a “liberal” crusader against nuclear stockpiling, reminding us that “tactical considerations” and political posturing blind us to the common sense that it is a mind-bogglingly senseless and self-destructive endeavor. We need a visionary with this transcendent slogan: “Peace cannot be reduced to the simple absence of armed conflict.”

Benedict is that visionary, and his vision is a gravely urgent challenge to humanity. It seems to me that this message sees further than the comparable documents of even John Paul II. In this document, thought through carefully in his own unmistakably penetrating style, Benedict sees in the here-and-now both the ominous echo of the past and the winds blowing us toward an uncertain future. He puts his finger squarely on the root of the problem: seduction.

It is no different today than in the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, he writes. Lies are seducing the human heart. He himself endured the Nazi years in Germany, when “aberrant ideological and political systems willfully twisted the truth and brought about the exploitation and murder of an appalling number of men and women, wiping out entire families and communities.”

And yet, the lies of our own time are “the framework for menacing scenarios of death in many parts of the world.” We are lied to by the false logic of terrorism. We lie to ourselves when the logic of fighting terrorism disregards human rights in order to stamp it out. We lie if we say that war justifies any action. We lie if we believe that nuclear arms guarantee peace, and that concentrating them in the hands of a “virtuous few” is somehow different in the long run. Christians lie if they make religious differences the seed of conflict, implicitly denying that God is Love, and anyone lies when they deny God to others. “History has amply demonstrated that declaring war on God in order to eradicate him from human hearts only leads a fearful and impoverished humanity toward decisions which are ultimately futile.”

But what is all this deceit fundamentally about? It is about what the Second Vatican Council, in its document Gaudium et Spes published forty years ago this month, called “the truth of peace”.

It is a truth about who we are and what human society is. And Benedict XVI is a prophet of that truth, a moral witness of the stature of John Paul II. He dreams of a world “which ultimately enables the truth about man to be fully respected and realized”, and perhaps from his mountaintop he speaks especially to the United States.

The key lesson for us is the word that never appears once in the document: “power”. So often we seem to treat power as though it were an end in itself. What is power good for? For doing good. Power means responsibility, and not just for Spiderman. No coincidence, then, that “responsibility” is a recurring theme in Pope Benedict’s message.

Our nation, more than any other, and as much as any can be said to do so, holds the reins of the future and the possibility of peace. We are living the American Moment. And yet, it is no more than that: a moment. Centuries from now, history will judge us matter-of-factly, in passing. We need this vision from the mountaintop to put ourselves in perspective and learn to make the decisions that humanity and history can expect us to make. In our moment, we can be seduced by the siren songs of the lies proffered daily to us, or we can build humanity’s future on “the truth about God and man”.

Then and only then, as Benedict kneels in silent prayer during Christmas Midnight Mass, as soldiers gather for Christmas services in tents in the Iraqi desert, as Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity languishes practically empty, as Christians in the Far East suffer silently the annual Christmas atrocities at the hands of religious fanatics, only then will the words of the angels not seem to mock us so hollowly and ironically: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”



Br Shane Johnson, of the Legionaries of Christ, studies for the priesthood in Rome.

From Reuters (Photo and story) today -




VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict received U.S. First Lady Laura Bush on Thursday and told her that he was worried about terrorism around the world and violence sparked by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

"He talked to me about the worries of terrorism, the worries right now about the violence in Beirut, Damascus and other cities," she told reporters after the meeting the Pope.

"His hope and certainly our hope (is) for peace and tolerance for each of us, to treat everyone else with respect," she said.

Angry Muslims have demonstrated around the world over the cartoons, first published in Denmark, then Norway and several other countries in Europe and elsewhere.

The caricatures, including one showing the Prophet Mohammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, have unleashed fury among many Muslims who consider any portrayal of their prophet as blasphemous, let alone one showing him as a terrorist.

The Vatican has already condemned the cartoons.

"I know that Muslims are offended with these cartoons. I understand their offence (but) on the other hand I don't think violence is the answer. I think everyone around the world needs to speak out and say 'lets stop the violence,"' she said.

The Pope told Mrs Bush that he hoped her stay in Italy for the start of the winter Olympics would be peaceful.

"We hope you will have a peaceful time," the Pope told Mrs Bush and her daughter Barbara when he welcomed them into his private study in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.

Mrs Bush and Barbara, 24, are in Italy as head of the official U.S. delegation to the Turin games, which start on Friday.

The First Lady, Barbara and Francis Rooney, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, spoke privately for about 15 minutes in the Pope's study.

At the picture taking session afterwards Mrs Bush gave the Pope a silver bowl and he gave his visitors rosary beads and medals of his pontificate.

Mrs Bush is due to have lunch with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and visit a Rome hospital before heading to Turin for the start of the games.

She will also visit U.S. military personnel stationed at the Aviano air base in the north before returning to the United States.

Pope Benedict’s Valentine
2/9/2006

National Catholic Register

How did “God’s Rottweiler” become the Valentine Pope?


When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI after his April 19 election, National Public Radio described him as “rigid” and “doctrinaire.” Reuters called him “strict” and “divisive.”

Less than a year later, after the promulgation of his first encyclical, God Is Love (Deus Caritas Est), headlines are coming to a different conclusion. “Persuasion Rather Than Stern Reminders in Papal Reflections on Love,” said the Sydney Morning Herald. “An Unexpected Letter of Love From the Pope to His Church,” said Canada’s Globe and Mail.

But those who have actually read the pope’s words all along shouldn’t have been surprised by the encyclical at all.

In his homily before being elected pope, the most talked-about phrase was Cardinal Ratzinger’s denunciation of “the dictatorship of relativism.” Many expected his papacy to focus on intellectual battles in the church.

But even his “dictatorship of relativism” homily wasn’t mainly about the dictatorship of relativism. Its main theme was friendship with Jesus. Cardinal Ratzinger defined friendship with the old Roman phrase about friends, idem velle — idem nolle (“same desires, same dislikes”), and applied it to our love for Christ.

Far from being a new direction, his new encyclical quotes the same Latin phrase to make the same point about what our relationship with God should look like (only he adds a word: Idem velle atque idem nolle [“to want the same thing and to reject the same thing”]).

That phrase targets the fundamental mistake many people make about Christianity. They think of it as a system of doctrines and rules instead of a love relationship with a real person.

Pope Benedict sums up this misunderstanding at the beginning of his encyclical: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

He says later, “The real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts – an unprecedented realism.”

It’s in fleshing out that idea that Pope Benedict gives us one of the encyclical’s most radical passages. He uses the word eros – a which is associated with human romantic love – to describe God’s love for mankind.

God loves his people “with a personal love,” he says. “His love, moreover, is an elective love: Among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her – but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape,” that is, the self-giving love we normally associate with God.

This divine eros is why the Old Testament writers “described God’s passion for his people using boldly erotic images,” writes the pope.

God is so taken by this love he has for us that he arranges for his relationship with us to be like our own romantic relationships, writes the pope. He does this by sending his son, Christ, to live among us, remain with us in the Eucharist and enter into us in Communion.

“The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable,” writes Benedict, “it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood.”

This love relationship is so real, writes the holy father, that we are deceiving ourselves if we think we are joining in this love relationship with God but aren’t going to church. But we’re also kidding ourselves, he adds, if we think that by being “devout” and performing our “religious duties” we can love God. The pope calls such a relationship “loveless.”

“Only my readiness to encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well,” he says at the beginning of the encyclical’s second part, about the church’s charitable works. “Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.”

It sounds commonplace until you zero in on the “only.” If we Catholics get this, we can turn Benedict’s love letter to us into a love letter from Catholics to secular society.

Maybe that’s why Benedict addressed this encyclical only to Catholics. He wants us to be the ones to address it to the rest of the world.

The Pope today addressed the Congregation he had led for almost a quarter-century, stressing the themes of truth and love in the promotion of the Catholic faith.
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IN CHRIST LIES THE FULFILLMENT OF ALL HUMAN ASPIRATIONS

VATICAN CITY, FEB 10, 2006 (VIS) - This morning, Benedict XVI received participants in the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, telling them that in their service to the entire Church, and in particular to bishops, they must highlight "the centrality of the Catholic faith, in its authentic expression."

The Pope pointed out how "when the perception of this centrality diminishes, the fabric of ecclesial life also loses its original vivacity and is damaged, decaying into a form of sterile activism or deteriorating into mere worldly political cunning." Yet, if the truth of faith holds a central position in Christian life, human existence "is revived by a love that knows neither rest nor limit."

"Jesus Christ," the Holy Father went on, "is the Truth made Flesh, Who draws the world to Him. The light radiated by Christ is splendor of truth. All other truths are fragments of the Truth that He is and that leads back to Him. Jesus is the pole star of human freedom, and without Him [that freedom] loses direction, because without knowledge of the truth freedom is distorted and isolated, and is reduced to sterile will."

Benedict XVI highlighted the fact that Jesus Christ "attracts to Himself all men's hearts, opening them and filling them with joy. In fact, only the truth is capable of occupying the mind and making it fully happy." This happiness, he went on, frees the soul from "the shackles of egoism, making it capable of authentic love."

"Love for truth also inspires and guides the Christian approach to the modern world, and the Church's evangelizing commitment," said the Pope. The great advances made in the field of scientific knowledge, "have helped us better to understand the mystery of the creation." However this progress "has sometimes been so rapid as to make it very difficult to recognize how it can be compatible with the truths concerning mankind and the world revealed by God. At times, certain scientific assertions have even been opposed to such truths." On this matter, the Pope reaffirmed the need for "deeper knowledge of the truths discovered by reason, in the certainty that there is no cause for competition of any kind between reason and faith."

Benedict XVI then indicated that "dialogue between faith and reason, religion and science, offers not only the possibility of demonstrating to modern man, in a more effective and convincing manner, the reasonableness of faith in God, but also that of showing that in Jesus Christ lies the definitive fulfillment of all authentic human aspirations. Thus, serious evangelizing efforts cannot overlook the questions arising from modern scientific discoveries and philosophical debate."

The Holy Father concluded his address by telling the members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that "your service to the fullness of the faith is a service to truth and, hence, to joy, a joy that comes from the depths of the heart. ... From this viewpoint, your doctrinal ministry can well be defined as 'pastoral.' Your service is, in fact, a service to the full diffusion of the light of God in the world!"
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The discourse is best appreciated in full. I will post a translation in HOMILIES, DISOURCES AND MESSAGES as soon as I can.

JUST CAN'T GET OVER THAT ENCYCLICAL

From The Tidings Online

Pope Benedict's 'back to basics' theme

By John Thavis

Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical underlined the "back to basics" approach of his papacy, taking one of Christianity's fundamental beliefs and illuminating it with deeper analysis.

In its title, "Deus Caritas Est" or "God Is Love," and throughout its 71 pages, the encyclical presented the faith in a clear and positive perspective. The core mission of Christianity, it said, is to help people accept God's love and share it, recognizing that true love involves a willingness to make sacrifices.

In short, love of God and love of neighbor --- that's a message the pope believes many people can agree to, if only they are led to think about it.

While challenging the contemporary approach to love and sexuality, the pope avoided the hot-button doctrinal issues that often dominate discussion on religious affairs: abortion, birth control, gay marriage and divorce.

It's not that Pope Benedict doesn't care about these issues, but he knows that unless people understand the essentials of the faith these doctrinal teachings will not stick.

So instead of fine-tuning the church's rules and precepts, the pope is working on the foundations. Telling people that God loves them is step one. Asking people to consider the implications of that love in their own lives is step two.

At the beginning of his encyclical, the pope said his message is timely today because "the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence." The obvious allusion was to terrorism inspired by religious fanaticism.

But the pope's intended audience here is not really the Muslim world or the political world or even the world of humanitarian organizations: It is primarily the Catholic faithful.

Most Catholics who read "God Is Love" will find the text challenging, provocative and insightful, offering reflections on topics they might not expect to find in an encyclical, the highest form of papal teaching.

In discussing eros, or sexual love, for example, the pope confronted head-on the accusation that the church has been "opposed to the body" and sexual pleasure. He acknowledged that "tendencies of this sort have always existed."

But he argued that eros, and its power to impart supreme happiness, has a place in Christianity. It just needs to be balanced with "concern and care for the other."

"Eros tends to rise in ecstasy toward the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing," he said.

In its intellectual sweep, the encyclical reminds readers that the author is Joseph Ratzinger, long considered one of the church's most intelligent theologians.

He drew on a wide range of sources --- ranging from Plato to Friedrich Nietzsche, from Rene Descartes to Blessed Mother Teresa --- and used them creatively to show the interaction between Christianity and culture through the ages.

For example, to illustrate the impact Christian charity had on society even in its earliest days, he told the story of the emperor, Julian the Apostate, who persecuted Christians, in remarkably sympathetic terms.

Julian had witnessed the murder of his family by the emperor, Constantius, "who passed himself off as an outstanding Christian," the pope wrote. Thus Christianity was discredited in Julian's eyes, which led him to revive paganism --- but in a way that preserved the one thing that impressed him about Christians, their charitable activity.

The pope seemed willing to look critically at the church's record. Reviewing the 19th-century rise of the capitalist system, he said bluntly that "church leadership was slow to realize that the issue of the just structuring of society needed to be approached in a new way."

When "God Is Love" came out, much was made of the fact that the groundwork for the second part of the text, on the church's charity operations, began under Pope John Paul II. But this part of the encyclical also carries the strong mark of Pope Benedict, especially where it says that in helping the needy the church can never be motivated by a political or ideological agenda.

In the 2002 book, "God and the World," then-Cardinal Ratzinger said Jesus' instruction to "feed the hungry" or "clothe the naked" means more than upholding fine principles or making a donation. It means being "on the lookout to see where people need me" --- something that is usually uncomfortable and inconvenient, he said.

Thinking about particular cases and not just "mankind as a whole" is what distinguishes Christian love from Marxist policy, he said in his book. That's a point strongly underlined in the encyclical, too.

One interesting section of "God Is Love" will be read by many as an endorsement of the Bush administration's policy of increased federal funding for faith-based organizations in charitable programs.

The pope argued that the state, instead of trying to provide everything to the needy through its own programs, should support "initiatives arising from the different social forces" --- including the church. In this way, church agencies "are able to give a Christian quality to the civil agencies, too."

Pope Benedict's first encyclical was remarkable in a couple of other respects. First, he sent it around for review by several other Vatican offices and theologians, got feedback and then made changes in the text, according to informed sources.

The pope also broke with tradition by talking about the content of the encyclical three times before it was published, in effect scooping himself.

That didn't diminish journalistic interest. When the encyclical was presented at a press conference Jan. 25, the Vatican press room was standing room only. It was the biggest crowd of reporters assembled for a papal document in many, many years.

John Thavis is Rome Bureau Chief for Catholic News Service.

[Modificato da benefan 10/02/2006 19.53]

From George Weigel in The Tidings Online
Feb. 10, 2006

Benedict XVI and the divine love story

German journalist Peter Seewald once posed a question to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: Why is the Catholic Church always saying "No?"

Cardinal Ratzinger explained that the Church wasn't fundamentally a matter of "No" but of "Yes" --- God's "Yes" to humanity, most dramatically revealed in the Incarnation, when God entered the human world in order to redeem it. If the Church has to say "No" sometimes, that "No" is in service to a higher "Yes." The Church says "No" to call us to the dignity and glory that are ours through God's redemptive action in Christ.

That "Yes" rings clearly throughout Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est ("God Is Love"). The text is classic Joseph Ratzinger: a master theologian, weaving together materials from the Bible and two millennia of Christian reflection to teach the basic truths of Catholic faith.

The subject matter is also classic Ratzinger. Those who bought the cartoon of "God's Rottweiler" might have imagined a first encyclical entitled "No You Don't." The real Ratzinger, the real Benedict XVI, wrote something quite different: an encyclical of affirmation, an invitation to ponder more deeply and live more completely "the heart of the Christian faith" --- the claim that God is love.

Press attention to the encyclical, such as it was, tended to focus on its second, programmatic part, which explores living the charity which the love of God should compel in each of us. The Pope makes some important points here, including a critique of the notion that charitable giving and charitable work are a distraction from our obligations to build just societies; Benedict neatly scuttles that piece of soft-Marxist flotsam with a few well-chosen sentences.

The theological meat of the encyclical is in its first part, however, and here, four ideas seemed particularly striking.

First, Pope Benedict teaches that God's relationship to the world is best understood as a love story, not as a relationship of power that expresses itself in a contest of wills. The God who comes into history in search of man does so precisely to draw men and women into a communion of love --- with each other and with the Triune God. As God's love enters ever more deeply into our lives, the Pope writes, "self-abandonment to God increases and God becomes our joy."

Second, the Pope suggests that the image of God in a culture will have a profound effect on that culture's image of man. The fundamental orientation of a culture is not derived from its family patterns, its way of doing politics, or its method of allocating goods and services.

Rather, cultures take their basic direction from what they worship: from the way in which a culture imagines the divine, thinks of the divine (if it imagines that the divine can be "thought"), and relates to the divine. To believe in and worship a God who is love "all the way through" (as Thomas More puts it in A Man for All Seasons) gives Christian cultures a distinctive view of the human enterprise in all its dimensions.

Which brings us to a third point Benedict makes, if briefly: warped ideas of God lead to warped ideas of the human, warped understandings of human relationships, and, ultimately, warped politics. When Pope Benedict speaks of "a world in which the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence," it is not difficult to imagine at least one of the primary reference points. That the Pope has jihadist Islam in mind here is also suggested by his address to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican on January 9, when he spoke of a danger that had been "rightly" described as a "clash of civilizations."

Finally, the Pope neatly links the two great commandments, reminding us that we can love our neighbor because we have been first loved by God. Love of neighbor is thus a response to the experience of love by which God has first graced us, rather than rote obedience to an order from an external authority.

A great teacher and an acute cultural analyst sits in the Chair of Peter.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

From Time Online

5 Rules for Covering a Vatican Visit

TIME White House Correspondent Mike Allen reports that Laura Bush's visit with the Pope wasn't all just pomp and circumstance

By MIKE ALLEN
Posted Thursday, Feb. 09, 2006

Being a member of the White House Press Pool, especially when you are subject to the strict rules of the Vatican, is not nearly as glamorous as some may imagine. As the print pool reporter for the First Lady's five-day trip to Italy, responsible for sharing my reporting with my fellow journalists in the Fourth Estate, I experienced that firsthand during Mrs. Bush's visit to the Pope Thursday morning and learned the 5 Rules of the Press Pool when you're visiting the Pope.

1) Don't mess with the nuns
The press pool was in the charge of a nun, attired in blue, who could not conceive of ABC's Ann Compton taking a laptop into the palace. The reporters had been told to bring their stuff with them because they would be running to catch the motorcade as Mrs. Bush departed. "Leave it to a colleague outside," the nun said insistently. "You don't need a computer." Finally, the nun did away with diplomacy and said, "There is no way." An Associated Press reporter from Rome asked about a tape recorder. "Absolutely no recorder in the library of the pope," the nun replied, then clicked her tongue reprovingly, as if in a movie. The nun hurried reporters along one of the narrow, back corridors of the Vatican, which have marble floors and art hanging on the wall, saying, "That's the way." At one point, I was scolded for an unintentional and mysterious infraction. She said, "You understand English? Do you prefer me to use Latin? Spanish? Italian? No more 'Yes, ma'am'! I will call a Swiss Guard and have you removed" Apparently deciding the sin only was a venial one, she granted absolution by reaching in her black bag and handing over a color map and a fact sheet, with a businesslike smile.

2) Plan for everything to be meticulously planned
Press arrangements for such a visit are the product of delicate and exhausting negotiations by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and the White House advance staff. The Vatican, with a couple thousand years of history on its side, does not respond to urgency or pushiness. Speed, "necessity," tension — all are anathema. It's one of the few places the President or First Lady goes that the White House doesn't basically get what it wants. Vatican officials don't like e-mail — everything has to be faxed or hand-delivered, with many of the details spelled out in diplomatic notes, known locally as "dip notes." The Vatican still moves at its ancient rhythm. But one legacy of Pope John Paul II's well-known attention to the news media was evident: a Vatican satellite truck was parked out back as Mrs. Bush's motorcade arrived.

3) Be prepared to be awed
The First Lady, accompanied by her daughter Miss Barbara Bush, met His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI in the ultimate inner sanctum — the ornate, sun-splashed Papal Library in the Apostolic Palace, just off St. Peter's Square. The half-hour audience, all in the library, was so quick it was a blur for both participants and onlookers. It began with a greeting for the cameras among the Pope, Mrs. Bush, Miss Bush and Francis Rooney, the seventh U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. The Pope, in a characteristic gesture, held both hands out and said, in English, "Welcome." Then the three visitors took white chairs in front of the Pope's desk for brief private audience. As the press was ushered out, Mrs. Bush was remarking on the unseasonably warm weather. Cameras were brought back in for an exchange of gifts, followed by quick handshakes and blessings for five members of the White House staff and a Secret Service agent. Some of these aides, frequent visitors to the Oval Office, were struck literally speechless with respect, so communication was mostly by body language. All were concerned about the protocol of this once-in-a-lifetime moment. One of them said it was so surreal she was unsure if she was supposed to clasp the Pope's hand the way she usually does because she didn't know if she should touch his ring. While the Pope and First Lady exchanged gifts of silver platters and boxes of rosaries, the press pool was given rosaries in vinyl cases.

4) Try to talk about the news
After her audience, the First Lady spoke to reporters at the Hotel Eden about her papal audience, but was soon peppered with questions about rioting over cartoon depictions of Muhammad. "I know that Muslims are offended with these cartoons, and I understand their offense," she began. "On the other hand, I don't think violence is the answer. I think that everyone around the world needs to speak out and say, 'Let's stop the violence.' It's really not necessary to get the point across that they were offended by those cartoons." She said she and the Pope had discussed the matter "just briefly." Then she added, "But we talked about religion, and we talked about the separation of church and state and religion. I talked about how many, many people in the United States are religious. But, of course, we're diverse, a lot of different religions, and that we respect the freedom of religion or the freedom not to worship if people choose not to." Later in the day, after a stop at the U.S. Embassy and changing into a pink suit, the First Lady went in her black Cadillac limousine — with District of Columbia plates, but not the hood flags that adorn the President's limousine — to the 16th Century Villa Madama for a leisurely lunch with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. During the photo session, the notably bronzed Berlusconi sucked in his midriff. Then he and Mrs. Bush went into lunch and the press milled about before being taken to a room with casserole, Coke and a few electrical outlets.

5) Get a driver who knows shortcuts
The First Lady missed the second-most-exciting part of the day, which came as the press was leaving the U.S. Embassy and heading toward the Prime Minister's residence. The driver of the bus designated Press 2 was nowhere to be found, so the whole pool piled into a Press 1, a Mercedes bus. It turned out that driver was also snoozing. When the First Lady's motorcade took off, we all screamed at him to step on it, but he had trouble navigating the narrow car-bomb barriers at the embassy gate, and the motorcade was nowhere to be found. Even worse, as it turned out the tail-end of the motorcade, including the ambulance and some police cars, was now behind us. Once we got predictably stuck in Roman traffic, the Secret Service press agent on board our bus told the driver to let the police take the lead. The unmarked white Taurus, siren wailing, jumped in front and led us on a wild ride through the narrow, ancient streets of Rome. A second officer opened the backseat door on the driver's side and gestured frantically at traffic and pedestrians to get out of the way. Peter Watkins of Mrs. Bush's staff pointed out: "This is like the movie 'The Italian Job,' only in a bus!" In the end, the genius in the Taurus had taken us on a shortcut and actually beat Mrs. Bush to the Villa Madama. And the Olympics don't even open until tomorrow.

From Commonweal

A Distinctive Voice
by Paul Baumann
2/10/2006


The reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s long-awaited first encyclical, Deus caritas est (God Is Love), has been appreciative, even enthusiastic. If some assumed that a 78-year-old celibate, best known for policing the errors of his fellow theologians, would have little of import to say about the nature and reality of love, they have been proved wrong.

Much to her own surprise, Ruth Gledhill, the religion correspondent for The Times of London, was moved and impressed. “I started reading Deus caritas est expecting to be disappointed, chastised, and generally laid low,” she wrote. Instead, Gledhill discovered a voice comparable to George Herbert’s or C. S. Lewis’s. “This encyclical is not the work of an inquisitor,” she concludes. “It is the work of a lover-a true lover of God.”

In his New York Times “Beliefs” column, Peter Steinfels made the case that those who found the encyclical uncontroversial, even bland, because it didn’t provide ammunition for the culture war over sexual morality, were being obtuse. One can argue, Steinfels wrote, that the eloquent, carefully reasoned case Benedict makes “for love, personal, self-giving love, as the bottom-line character of reality is the wildest, most astonishing of claims” that can be made in an era when scientific materialism and modern skepticism are commonly thought to foreclose such a possibility.

There is little reason to disagree with these assessments. A very appealing and persuasive voice, one that speaks in almost personal tones, animates the encyclical. This is especially evident in the first section, “The Unity of Love in Creation and in Salvation History.” Perhaps more than anything else, the voice is that of a teacher, of someone accustomed to laying out arguments clearly and carefully. There is, of course, extraordinary erudition also on display. Scriptural exegesis is effortlessly combined with the explication of Christian doctrine and philosophical argument. To those who think Christianity despises the body and denigrates sexual love, Benedict says think again. While conceding that some Christians have wrongly despised the body, the pope shows why Christianity “in no way rejected eros as such; rather, it declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, because this counterfeit divinization of eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it.”

Benedict shrewdly avoids any simple condemnation of the sexual disorder evident in much of contemporary culture. Instead, he strives to show how love connects us to one another and to the world, and how we move naturally from eros, or erotic love, toward agape, the spiritual, other-directed love that draws us toward God.

A pope’s first encyclical often signals the direction of his papacy. Since it appears that the second part of Deus caritas est, dealing with the relations between church and state, the pursuit of justice, and the requirements of charity, was initially conceived by John Paul, it is not clear how much this encyclical is a harbinger of things to come. Still, the style and emphasis of the letter, even the second part, strongly correspond to what may distinguish Benedict’s papacy from that of his predecessor. It has been widely bruited about that despite then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s enormous respect for John Paul, he was suspicious of the cult of personality that came to dominate (and, some argue, distort) aspects of the previous papacy. No one questions Benedict’s theological conservatism. That very conservatism, however, may in fact lead Benedict to conclusions about the scope and exercise of papal authority that will not sit well with the last pope’s more fervent fans.

An article by long-time Commonweal contributor Paul Elie in the January/February Atlantic (“The Year of Two Popes”) seems prescient in this regard. In describing Benedict’s earlier writing, Elie could have been talking about this first encyclical: “In long, learned chapters he marries the searching orthodoxy of the great preconciliar theologians to the modern existentialist’s concern for what can be called the situation of the unbeliever. Belief in our time, he proposes, is formed in the crucible of unbelief, and unbelief is formed in defiance of the yearning to believe.” Elie’s analysis also anticipates the encyclical’s personal, almost intimate tone, and its corresponding emphasis on the Christian’s individual duty to perform acts of charity.

Elie wrote that Benedict’s “influence will most likely be felt more through his character than through his power to bring about change,” that “his program as pope is a good deal narrower than John Paul’s,” and that, as a consequence, Catholics “ought to turn away from the question of what the pope believes and consider just what it is that we believe.” That seems to be the first challenge Benedict has in fact issued to his flock.

[Modificato da benefan 11/02/2006 18.08]

Alejandro Bermudez in his Catholic Outsider blog today on
www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/
reminds us of the meeting the Pope will have tomorrow which may bring him closer to doing something about the Lefebvrists. A full story on the coming February 13 meeting and its background was posted on this thread on 2/6/06. .
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Tomorrow, Monday 13, at 10:30 at the Sala Clementina in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI will meet in private with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Cardinal Dario Castrillon, Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy and President of the Commission “Ecclesia Dei” created to approach the Lefebvrists; Cardinal Julian Herranz, President of the Council for Legislative Texts; and Archbishop William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to discuss the issue of how to act regarding the requests of the Society of St. Pius X, the schismatic group created by Lefebvre when he decided to ordain four bishops outside the Church.

According to a Vatican source, these are the issues to be discussed at the meeting:

- A text eliminating the excommunication of the four bishops.
- The creation of an autonomous organization under the code of canon law - either a Personal Prelature or an Apostolic Administration.
- A greater concession for the universal use of the pre-Vatican Missal.

Monday’s meeting is just one of consultation, so hopes should not go that high.

It is important also to remember that the Lefebvrist leader, Bishop Fellay, even if in a lower tone, still keeps a confrontational attitude towards the Vatican.

The hot potato will definitively the issue of ecumenism. Most of the issue, which the Lefebvrists reject, will be discussed at the meeting with the capi dicasterio (heads of dicasteries) in April.

I posted this item this morning (2/13) in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH, but it should also be in this
thread. This is an item from Corriere della Sera of 2/13/05, in translation-
----------------------------------------------------------------
By Luigi Accatoli

Some 30 heads of Curial offices met today with Pope Benedict XVIto discuss issues concerning the Lefebvrists. Mainly, whether to revoke the excommunication of 4 bishops ordained in 1988 without Vatican authorization, and whether they – and other traditionalists – may be allowed to use the pre-Vatican-II Mass rite without having to get permission from their local bishop.


It is thought that the Pope favors both measures but wants a consensus from his co-workers, as well as a juridical definition of conditions to normalize relations between the Vatican and the Pius X Fraternity, formal name of the organization created by the late Bishop Marcel Lefebvre (deceased 1991) which has 480 priests and tens of thousands of followers around the world.

It is also said that the Pope wishes to act on the matter expeditiously, and that a second decisive meeting will take place on March 23. Thus, the dicasterial heads - some 30 cardinals and archbishops who preside over the congregations and other principal organisms of the Roman Curia – were presented with the issues today and will have about 40 days to consider them and give their opinions.

This double meeting on the same topic is without precedent even in John Paul’s Papacy and appears to be part of an attempt by Benedict to define a new way of governing the Church – namely, to convoke the Curia for rapid and effective decision-making on specific priorities.

Today’s meeting must be seen in relation to the meeting held by Papa Ratzinger on Agusut 29, 2005, with Bishop Bernard Fellay, current head of the Lefebvrists. The Vatican communique after that meeting in Castel Gandolfo said it took place in a “climate of love for the Church and a desire to arrive at perfect communion…(and) although aware of the difficulties, both sides manifested the will to proceed by degrees and within a reasonable time.”

It appeared that the “degree” reached today was this: Cardinal Francis Arinze (Prefect of the Congregation for Liturgy) and Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos (president of the Ecclesia Dei pontifical council, responsible for negotiating with the traditionalists) were to propose a strategy for reaching the desired “full communion.”

For instance, the use of the pre-Vatican II Mass would be conceded provided those who would use it would declare that they consider the post-Vatican-II Mass “valid”, and similarly the excommunication order would be revoked provided the bishops would affirm that they “accept” the results of Vatican II.

As previously said, no conclusion was expected to be reached today. The Curia is known to be divided over the issues. And Bishop Fellay said last June (before the meeting in Castel Gandolfo): "We cannot subscribe to any declaration of adherence to Vatican-II, and the same thing goes regarding the post-Vatican II Mass.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/02/2006 3.53]

FROM SANDRO MAGISTER
Catholic News Agency

(I hope this isn't already posted.)

A Clear and Coherent Direction in the Beginning of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate, says Vatican Expert.

Washington DC, Feb. 14, 2006 (CNA) - Sandro Magister, a columnist for the Italian magazine L’Espresso and one of the top “Vaticanistas”, an expert on Church affairs and the intricate world of the Vatican, gave yesterday an interview in Washington to Catholic leaders. He drew on the first months of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, and the current situation of the Catholic Church. The event took place at the Cosmos Club in Washington DC, and was sponsored by the Athanasius Conferences -an iniciative of the Morley Institute- and Catholic News Agency.

Magister affirms it is possible to identify a clear and coherent direction in the beginning of Pope Benedict’s pontificate. He particularly recalls the pope’s first Mass at Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome, on Saturday, May 7.

“In it, Benedict XVI asserted that the pope “must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God's Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
So this is the program Pope Benedict has enunciated since the beginning: that of restoring to the truth – which is Christ in the definitive – its primacy and splendor.”
“In ten months, he has shown his intention to carry this out in all areas: in his first encyclical, in the liturgy, in catechesis, in law, in pastoral practice, in the magisterium of the bishops, in the application of Vatican Council II, in working for peace…”

Reviewing Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Magister underlines this same consistency with the beginning of his pontificate: “to speak the truth about love, a word today "so tarnished, so spoiled and so abused". To demonstrate that “Deus est caritas.”

“The encyclical is a letter to the Christian people, but is also addressed to those far from the faith, to the “secularists,” to those without faith. To all of these, Benedict XVI says: This is the true heart of the Christian faith. Understand this. With a God such as this, you may have the strength to live “as if God exists,” even if you do not have the strength to believe.”

On the issue of liturgy, “Benedict XVI has wished to restore to the celebration of the Mass the truth expressed by the great liturgical tradition.”

“The pope has said in many ways that the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is real, supremely real, not symbolic. He said it by adoring the consecrated host silently on his knees, with a million young people in Cologne – in Protestant country! – and with the one hundred thousand children who received first communion in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.”

In particular, the pope called back to faithful observance of the true liturgical tradition the Neocatechumenal Way: one of the most vibrant Catholic movements of the past half century, but which often modifies the Mass and uses it as an “instrument” for missionary expansion, instead of accepting and celebrating it as the work of God, the “source and summit” of Christian life.

In the second part of his intervention, Magister comments on the way the Pope is managing the Church and his relation to bishops, the way he is implanting the teachings of the Vatican II council. “Benedict XVI has addressed severe reminders to bishops he believes to be timid, doubtful, reticent in teaching true doctrine.”
The pope also wanted to restore its proper truth to Vatican Council II, forty years after its conclusion.

"He has criticized the false interpretation of the Council as “discontinuity and rupture,” as “the spirit” contrasted with “the letter.” And he explained, instead, its “proper hermeneutic,” its “rightful key of interpretation and application”: that is, the Council as “reform,” as “renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.”

On a more international scope, Magister stressed the pope’s role in world affairs such as his message for the World Day for Peace

“Significantly, Benedict XVI entitled his first message for the World Day for Peace “In truth, peace.” The pope wanted to express, right from the title, “the conviction that wherever and whenever men and women are enlightened by the splendor of truth, they naturally set out on the path of peace.”In this message, and then in his speech to the diplomatic corps, he brought all of international politics beneath the scrutiny of the truth:

“In short, the primacy of the truth appears to be truly the common thread since the beginning of this pontificate. Benedict XVI, the first pope-theologian, is showing himself as a “doctor of the Church.”

It is true that Benedict XVI enjoys the trust and attention of great crowds of the faithful – the number of those who attend his liturgies and preaching is more than double than in the case of John Paul II, and participants listen to him with great attentiveness.

Finally on the rumors of the bad conduct of his election as Pope, “These rumors are intended to show that the election of Ratzinger was not at all equitable, that it was in doubt until the very end, that it was unduly favored by the fact that he was the dean of the college of cardinals, that he is in the pocket of Opus Dei, that the time is ripe for a new pope, preferably a Latin American, and that, in short, Benedict XVI should submit himself to these inherent limitations.”

Thanks Benefan...I've been on the lookout for it since Alejandro Bermudez said on his blog that CNA was going to run the story but I have been away from the PC since 8:30 this AM.
I hope someone runs the full interview or talk - According to John Allen, Magister will be going to other cities in the US to give talks about the Vatican. I am so glad he is on Papa's side!

Thanks to Kirsty in the German section, I can share this article by Uwe Siemon-Netto, a Protestant theologian and journalist who currently lives in Washington, D.C. His name caught my eye because shortly after Benedict's election, he had written for UPI a refreshingly different assessment of the Pope, in which he showed how much he had followed and studied the thought of Joseph Ratzinger. I will post that earlier article after this translation of a piece he wrote in the Christian media magazine PRO in July 2005, at
www.kepnet.info/livecms/51.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=98&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=18&cHash=0c...
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THE POPE IS CATHOLIC -
AND WHAT ARE WE?
By Uwe Siemon-Netto

If there is anything that sends my blood sugar up, it’s all this Protestant belly-aching about the German Pope who is supposedly stealing the show from us evangelicals - that we have been reduced to a minority in the land of the Reformation, and to top it all, by a Bavarian Bishop of Rome, on whom all cameras are focused, someone however who has a lot to say about being Christian.

Let us not begrudge the Pope that he is a proper Catholic. How nice it would be if all Lutheran bishops were proper Lutherans!

That brings me right to (Lutheran Bishop) Maria Jepsen, who is always good for something original. She has let us know that “I myself once celebrated a service with Cardinal Ratzinger and stood with him at the altar together.. But it was clear that he set certain limits – that he appreciated us [by "us", she meant Lutheran female priests like her] as human beings but not as office-bearers.”

This is best commented on in Saxon: Nu guggema!! [I’ll have to ask our German Schwestern to help me out with that!] So she felt a distance – she, who advocated the deletion without replacement of Paragraph 218 regarding abortion; she who instead of the Cross – the redeeming reality in the life of Christians - would hold up the Manger as the central symbol of our belief. Well, I can only hope that Luther authority Ratzinger, while he was up there with Ms. Jepsen on the altar, whispered the Reformer’s words in her ear: “The whole Scripture is nothing else but a word for the Cross, esteemed Sister.” (Die ganze Schrift ist nichts anderes denn ein Wort des Kreuzes, verehrte Amtsschwester.)

Ironically, Madame Bishop Jepsen later said this about Pope Benedict XVI: “He fears the Zeigeist (spirit of the times).” William R. Inge, the “dark dean” of London’s St. Paul Cathedral during World War II, addressed one of his most astute of his most astute aphorisms to that subject: “Whoever goes to bed with the Zeitgeist,” he said, “will soon wake up a widow.”

Jepsen, who praised same-sex love in an article for a Hamburg homosexual magazine, must know herself what it costs when a Church flirts with the Zeitgeist. She lost, in no time at all, a third of her Church members!

I doubt whether the Pope is letting himself be lead by his “fears.” But even if he had fears, they would be understandable. Let us imagine that Benedict had lost, as Jepsen in Hamburg, one-third of his worldwide flock. That would mean losing about 400,000 Catholics. No one would like to face his Judge with such a record!

Being “bedfellows” with the "spirit of the times," which in the Evangelical Church often competes with the Holy Spirit, has always had bad results. The Church makes itself unworthy of belief to outsiders when, for example, it does not have the strength to take away the priesthood from the television preacher Juergen Fliege, whose motto is “God is a gangster”. We know what havoc can be wrought by Zeitgeist theologians who, in World War II, brought all of German Protestantism into worldwide disrepute, somewhat unfairly, because only one third of German ministers were part of the Hitler-friendly “German Christians” of the time. But we all know the saying “Mitgefangen, mitgehangen” (If you are together, you hang together), and unfortunately, that holds true even for the Church.

This is a frightful catastrophe. Because worldwide Christendom needs reform-minded voices. It is not the many preachers who are faithful to the confession who have reduced German Protestantism to a joke. It is those who belie the Truth of Scripture word for word, and then complain that Rome will not go into a cuddly-feast with them in a shared Eucharist.

Just one example: Please tell us, who would respect a Church which, in defiance of all relevant passages in the Old and New Testaments, elects a lesbian President who has just contracted an anti-Biblical partnership with another woman inside a "house of God”, as we saw not too long ago in Hesse-Nassau?

“We evangelicals do not need a Pope,” is the mantra that many of our Church leaders try to use in order to counter the media circus around the German Pope. In principle, that is correct, since the evangelical “Pope” – meaning the authority to whom we should look to – is Holy Scripture alone.

Except there is one catch: in this media age, simple preachers are hardly ever noticed. On the contrary, those who are heard (and often secretly laughed at) are those who are able to call attention to themselves by a lot of twaddle. But these flyweights could never hope to measure up to the solid theologian from Bavaria who sits on Peter’s Chair in Rome!

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Here's the article Mr. Siemon-Netto wrote for Christianity Today in April 2005 the day after Benedict's election:

Upright But No Panzer Pope
Why he was chosen—
and why he's no narrow-minded blockhead.
by Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI | posted 04/20/2005 09:30 a.m.

Now that Josef Ratzinger, the erstwhile "Panzerkardinal," has become the leader of the Catholic Church, some will doubtless be tempted to call him the "Panzerpapst," or panzer pope—just for alliteration's sake.

But those who know him and his work well have an entirely different image of Pope Benedict XVI, as he will now be known after his speedy election Tuesday.

To be sure, he will be a counterrevolutionary, just like John Paul II, with whom Ratzinger collaborated closely. His blunt condemnation of the "tyranny of relativism" in his last sermon before joining 114 colleagues in the conclave that eventually opted for him, indicated as much.

This "tyranny of relativism" is in part the consequence of the youth rebellion of the 1960s, a phenomenon that has turned him from a liberal to a staunch voice for Christian orthodoxy.

It was during his liberal phase as a theological adviser to Cardinal Josef Frings, the hugely popular archbishop of Cologne after World War II, that he called the Inquisition a "scandal to the world." Later John Paul II would make him prefect of this very office now called Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

Ratzinger bemoaned the relegation of Christianity to a ghetto since the 19th century; he wrote sadly against the "leaden loneliness and inner boredom of a world emptied of God."

Germany, his own country, is more affected by this gloomy state of affairs than most others. He has watched and fought its decline into godlessness since its darkest hour when he was drafted into the Hitler Youth, the Nazi boy scouts, and had the guts to resign his compulsory membership in this organization—and then to desert from the German army.

You don't have to be a soothsayer to guess why Ratzinger was chosen over Italian, Latin American, and African candidates to lead the church. As the Rev. Anthony Figueirero, an Indian-born former papal adviser, said Tuesday prior to Ratzinger's elevation, "Let the Church in the Third World continue its growth—it is the global North that has to be re-evangelized," meaning it is that part of the globe with which the pope must be particularly familiar.

Hence a pope from an almost post-Christian country was needed to continue the missionary dynamism to which John Paul II gave top priority during his long ministry. John Paul, even as an old man, was stellar in the eyes of young people. He had promised to travel to Cologne, Germany, in August to be with the hundreds and thousands of young people attending World Youth Day in that ancient Roman city on the Rhine.

Now Ratzinger, as Benedict XVI, will undertake his first journey abroad since his election to that very place where he was once a priest. And there he will address his fellow Germans — and others — not in the snarling tone of a Panzer officer but with the mild and melodious voice that always seems to surprise those who meet him for the first time.

He will doubtless baffle many of his former detractors by stressing the need for a return to reason, which is a central theme of his theology. For Ratzinger, the significance of reason was precisely why John the Evangelist used the word, "Logos," in referring to Christ in the opening sentence of his Gospel.

"'Logos' denotes reason and meaning, but also Word," Ratzinger wrote. "The God, who is Logos, assures us of the rationality of the world, the rationality of our being, the divine character of reason, and the reasonable character of God, even though God's rationality surpasses ours immeasurably and appears to us as darkness."

Ratzinger insists, "Rationality has been the postulate and the condition of Christianity and will remain a European legacy with which we can confront peacefully and positively Islam as well as the great Asian religions."

But where this rationality "reduces the great values of our being to subjectivity, then it will endanger and destroy man, it will amputate man."

Hence, he continued, "Europe must defend reason. To this extent we must be grateful to secular society and the Enlightenment. It must remain a thorn in our side, as secular society must accept the (Christian) thorn it its side—meaning the founding power of the Christian religion in Europe."

The tenure of this 78-year old Bavarian on St. Peter's throne may be a relatively short one but it is bound to bring surprises. Coming from the land of the Protestant Reformation, this allegedly doctrinaire Catholic has already made it clear by his very actions the journey out of the "tyranny of relativism," whose properties are suspended ethical principles, must be an all-Christian enterprise.

Almost unnoticed by the world's media looking for sensations at the memorial service for John Paul II, Ratzinger quietly communed with Brother Roger Schutz, the Swiss Protestant pastor and founder of the vibrant ecumenical community in Taizé, France.

Benedict XVI, arguably the foremost Catholic theologian of our time, has always been an ecumenist, though never a fuzzy one. If he gives the Sacrament to a member of another Christian church — and Schutz was not the only one — he makes it abundantly clear he consider this person a fellow member of the mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church.

This is not the way narrow-minded blockheads behave.

There is nothing stiff, hard or dogmatic about Benedict XVI. He is, as those close to him have always insisted, simply a "coherent thinker," and coherence is precisely what the confused secularized world appears to be longing for.

It is well worth listening to the ecumenical tenor of his vision for faith to leave its ghetto by going public with a property that is intrinsically its own — the suffering God (a favorite expression by Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer) who is also judge.

"This God," Ratzinger wrote in a frontal attack on postmodern relativism, "is the God setting standards for us; the God whence we originate and where we shall return."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/02/2006 5.19]

UWE NEEDS TO CONVERT

He's a better Catholic than most that I know. He might as well make it official and convert. We could use his intellect and communication skills.

VATICAN CITY, FEB 15, 2006 (VIS) - At the beginning of the general audience Benedict XVI recalled that today's catechesis was the last "of the long cycle begun years ago by my beloved predecessor, the unforgettable John Paul II," who wished to cover "the entire sequence of Psalms and Canticles that constitute the basic fabric of the Liturgy of the Hours and of Vespers.

"Having reached the end of this textual pilgrimage - like a journey through a flower garden of praise, invocation, prayer and contemplation - we now come to the canticle that closes the celebration of Vespers: the Magnificat."

The Pope went on: "It is a canticle that reveals ... the spirituality ... of those faithful who recognized themselves as 'poor,' not only in detaching themselves from all forms of idolatry of wealth and power, but also in profound humility of heart, free from the temptation to pride and open to the irruption of divine saving grace."

If the first part of the Magnificat, the Holy Father explained, is "the celebration of divine grace which irrupted into the heart and the life of Mary, making her Mother of the Lord," Mary's personal witness was nonetheless "not solitary, ... because the Virgin Mother was aware she had a mission to achieve for humanity, and her own story is part of the history of salvation."

In the second part, "the voice of Mary is joined by the entire community of faithful" who celebrate God's actions in history. "The 'style' that inspires the Lord of history is clear: He takes the side of the least and the lowliest." On this subject, the Pope quoted the words of St. Ambrose: "May each one of us glorify the Lord with the soul of Mary. ... If, according to the flesh, the mother of Christ is one, then according to the faith, all souls generate Christ."

Prior to the general audience, which was held in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope went to the Vatican Basilica to greet a group of Italian students and participants in a pilgrimage promoted by the French religious family, "Freres de Saint-Jean."

Addressing the students, Benedict XVI spoke of his recent Encyclical Deus caritas est, recalling that "the love of God is the source and motive for our true joy. I invite each of you to understand and accept ever more this Love that changes life and renders you credible witnesses of the Gospel."

The Holy Father then turned to the participants in the pilgrimage of the "Freres de Saint-Jean" who are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the foundation of their organization. "May your pilgrimage be a time of renewal, one in which to analyze the experiences you have had, learn the appropriate lessons, and discern with ever greater profundity the vocations that arise and the missions to which you are called, in trusting collaboration with the pastors of local churches."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/02/2006 5.11]

Thanks to Ratzi.Lella in the main forum for putting together a few articles published yesterday In Italy about the Ruini succession. I have translated highlights instead of the full articles, because much of the other stuff is repetitive:
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Who leaked to the press the letter of the Apostolic Nunzio in Italy, dated January 26, sent to the 226 bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference asking them to name who they would want to succeed Cardinal Camillo Ruini as their president?

The following is said to be the text of the letter:

---

Most Reverend Excellency, as you know the mandate of the Most Eminent Cardinal Carmillo Ruini as president of the CEI ends on March 6. The Holy Father, who has always appreciated the service rendered by the most eminent cardinal to the Italian Church, also thinks that a change is also in order because the Cardinal will be celebrating his 75th birthday soon.

To such end, I have been charged with addressing Your Excellency to request you to indicate to me the prelate whicn you would wish to suggest for this position. This consultation, considering its importance and sensitivity, is subject to pontifical secrecy which obliges maximum discretion (about the matter) with anyone. Indeed I request you to return this letter to me along with your answer, and not to make any copy of it.
Until then, I thank you heartily for the help which you, through the office of the Apostolic Nunciature, would be extending to the Successor of Peter in such an important and delicate question.

Paolo Romeo, Apostolic Nuncio
Rome, 26 January 2006

---

Gian Guido Vecchi writes:

Many bishops greeted the publication of the news about the Pope’s survey with surprise, unease and even outrage. Some of them claimed they had not even received the letter.

“Clearly I am upset,” said one bishop, who is usually referred to as “authoritative” in news items that identify him, “Very upset. To think that whenever I receive any confidential mail, I don't even show it to my secretary – I personally answer it by hand. Whoever violated the confidentiality and revealed this letter must have known what he was doing. Was it sabotage? I don’t know. This was a gesture of great openness (to us) by the Pope, his decision to consult all the Italian bishops. A precious instrument which it now at risk because of indiscretion – it may not invalidate the survey but it reconfigures it.”

Many other bishops said they respected the Pope’s discreet style, which they know from his time as Cardinal Ratzinger. “He was never one to anticipate anything in public, never!”

Archbishop Tomasso Valentinetti of Pescara said: “To violate a Papal confidence is serious and a grave responsibility. I cannot say anything more.”

Bishop Paolo Urso of Ragusa said: “Of course, there is chagrin at how some secrets could be made public, but the fact remains that the Pope saw the need to hear from the Italian bishops – that’s a beautiful thing, very beautiful and important.”

Mons. Luciano Pacomio, Bishop of Mondovi, theologian and ex-rector of the Collegio Capranica in Rome, said there was nothing unusual in the Vatican announcing yesterday that Cardinal Ruini would remain chairman of the Italian Bishops Conference donec aliter provideatur (until otherwise provided for).

“It was the same formula the Pope used shortly after his election when he confirmed all the members of the Roman Curia in the positions they held under Pope John Paul II. It is similar to the answer nunc pro tunc (now as then) given to all bishops who turn 75 and submit their resignation – that is, the Pope acknowledges they have reached the age limit but reserves the right to name a successor at a time he finds right.

Another aspect of Ruini’s impending departure from his high-profile position is that it may be time to dissociate the double office of CEI president and Pope’s Vicar for Rome. Pacomio comments: “It would seem to many a good opportunity to do that, but it depends on the historical situation, and I can’t say if it will happen or if the Holy Father has even considered the question.”

Two Vaticanistas at Corriere della Sera size up the possible contenders to succeed Ruini.

Luigi Accatoli writes –

Among the favorites are Dionigir Tettamanzi of Milan, Angelo Scola of Venice, Ennio Antonelli of Florence, Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, and Severino Poletto of Turin. Tettamanzi presents the profile most suited to guarantee continuity in programs as well as a change in management style.

He was secretary to Ruini during one five-year term; he would not be tempted to take alternative attitudes and would know how to introduce new things without throwing off the efficient mechanism that Ruini has set in place. His gift for human relations will help him. On the other hand, Scola would be quite a strong alternative, as a truly new – and very determined – figure at the head of the CEI.

Alberto Melloni writes-

All the obvious names are expected to emerge from the survey of the bishops – Antonelli would be a welcome choice to the bishops, Bertone to the Pope, Scola to the church movements like C&L, Tettamanzi not unwelcome to anyone. The numbers each one gets in the survey, the nuances of the way they are nominated by their colleagues, will be known only to the Pope. He would also be able to gauge the state of health of the Italian episcopate, but ultimately he must decide who he thinks would know best to lead the CEI at a new stage in its history.
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Accatoli adds that it is believed Ruini will still preside at the Italian bishops convention in Verona this October. This takes place once every 10 years, and Ruini has been preparing for it. The Pope will come to Verona to address the bishops, and it is possible he could announce Ruini’s successor then.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/02/2006 14.47]

Father Aidan Nichols, who wrote one of the best introductions to the theology of Joseph Ratzinger in 1988 (reissued in 2005 as "The Thought of Benedict XVI") wrote this commentary on Deus caritas est for the Catholic Herald on 2/3/06 at
www.christendom-awake.org/pages/anichols/lifebelt.htm
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The Pope throws a lifebelt
to a Church drowning in syrup
Commentary by Aidan Nichols OP

A twinge of disappointment followed the discovery that the new Pope’s first encyclical was going to be on love. Those who expected from Benedict XVI the smack of firm governance feared the worst. Certainly the topic of love is a soft option for clergymen. I dare say we have all come across the kind of preacher who, whatever the feast or the biblical text, manages to bring everything back to the theme of general benevolence. That is always safe. No one can possibly object to love, so defined, and it lifts the burden of analytic thinking. The readiness with which “love” lends itself to sentimental treatment was the first reason for anxiety about this encyclical. The second was a niggling worry: had the subject been suggested by a spin-doctor? Cardinal Ratzinger’s image in the secular media, and even or especially sections of the Catholic press, was almost entirely negative. Could it be redeemed by pouring over us a warm, fragrant, bubbly cascade of “luv”? That would be an understandable strategy. It would also be a mistake. At least in the Western world, the Church is drowning in syrup already.

Perusal of the document largely sets these fears to rest. Part the First shows that the Petrine charism has not extinguished the cardinal’s forceful philosophical and theological mind. Part the Second which was, it seems, in preparation under his predecessor shows a willingness to leave (temporarily) the exalted heights of doctrine for more hands-on involvement with possibly malfunctioning elements in present-day ecclesial culture.

So, what then does the Pope have to say? The introduction alerts us to the love-theme’s real urgency, as distinct from saccharine acceptability. At the present time, the life of the world is scarred by vengeful believers in a distortion of the biblical God. As readers of the Guardian will need no reminding, this is getting theism a bad name. The Pope opens, accordingly, by seeking to reconstitute the image of God around the central revealed attribute of the New Testament, which is God’s gratuitous charity, or what the Greek Fathers call God’s “philanthropy”, his loving kindness towards man. The Jews, to their everlasting credit, had already defined as key to right belief an obedient loving response to the merciful goodness of God and they did so without the support of the Incarnation and Atonement to steady them. The second motivation for this letter, so its preamble makes plain, is a desire to get straight the unity of the Bible’s two love commands. Love, we are told, is to be directed both towards God and to our neighbour. But how is it possible to set our face in these two directions simultaneously?

Part One of the encyclical notes the ubiquity of the language of love, and a more Thomistic pope might have signalled that language’s analogical character. C S Lewis, whom the Pope, when Cardinal Ratzinger, did not disdain to cite, claimed there were basically four loves. As Benedict XVI points out, there are a great many more. They have something in common and something that differentiates them (here is where analogy comes in). For the Pope, the prime analogate is the love of man and woman, in comparison with which all other loves pale. With such a starting point, Benedict cannot escape entering the question of the relation between eros and agape, the love that desires fulfilment for itself, crucial to sexual attraction as this is, and the love that seeks to confer fulfilment on another, insensible of the cost to self if need be.

For an understanding of the Pope’s argument, it is essential to grasp that eros, or love that is desirous, has its most palpable instance in sexual love but also reaches far beyond it. When the fourth-century Eastern Father St Gregory of Nyssa tells us that the soul is essentially erotic, he does not mean it is inevitably attracted to soft porn. He means it is filled with a longing which ultimately only God can satisfy. Journalists who have described the Pope¹s language in this letter as itself “erotic” are probably, therefore, missing half the point.

Back in the 20th century, Western theology was polarised by the thesis of a Swedish Lutheran, Anders Nygren, to the effect that eros the impulse to seek fulfilment has nothing to do with agape the self-lavishing love of the New Testament. No more, it was said, has Athens, pagan philosophy and literature, to do with Jerusalem, the biblical revelation. We cannot practise both loves, so we must choose, under grace, which ours is to be. The Pope replies that this is a false antithesis, an unnecessary choice. Or rather, speaking of choice, we must choose both, as God in his plan for us has done. Only if the sacrificial charity-love of the Scriptures, whose origin is in the Redeemer God by way of Jesus Christ, captivates and transforms the desiring eros-love implanted in us by God the Creator can people be fully in the image of God, healed, saved and transfigured.

Naturally, the Pope is not holding a seminar on 1930s theology. He evidently thinks this is the good news contemporary Western culture, which to some extent is global culture, now needs to hear. The letter offers a Gospel of transfigured humanism. Benedict’s message is a mystical relocation of the theocentric, Christ-determined humanism of John Paul II.

Benedict’s mystical doctrine is not, however, a “flight of the alone to the Alone”. Rather is it sacramental and ecclesial. Here is where the issue of the unity of the love commands love of God and love of neighbour enters the picture. If the Eucharist “draws us into Jesus’s act of self-oblation”, then the direction charity-love confers on the drive of eros will be twofold. When the Word incarnate on the Cross loves to the end, his love embraces both the Father and the brethren for whom, by the Father’s good pleasure, he lives and dies and lives again this time, in the Resurrection-life, for ever. The Saviour loves human beings in the Father’s Spirit and for the Father’s sake. In this way Jesus gives us the model for a Christian love directed inseparably to God and neighbour alike.

Part Two of Deus Caritas Est will reveal the Pope¹s concern, no doubt based on accumulating documents in Curial archives, that much of the historic charitable outreach of the Church is currently menaced by secularisation. So he stresses at the end of Part One that heartfelt love of those we either do not know or, if we know do not like, is impossible without accepting the God-informed perspective of Christ. And this is so even if there can be, as he admits, a frozen-hearted piety which only the reawakening of love for our fellow human beings is likely to melt.

The transition from Part One to Part Two of the letter is not flawless, and what has reached the public forum about the mode of preparation of the document explains why. Two texts, one entirely the Pope’s and one not, have been spliced together of course, with his consent and above his name. The mystical charity of Part One turns on participation in the Trinitarian life by holiness through grace. The social charity considered in Part Two is an outworking of that in the body of the Church.

But the historical references provided for the (social) “practice of love” may suggest the intervention of the Pope’s hand. As some Eastern Orthodox are happy to acknowledge, this is a Pope who looks for inspiration to the age of the Fathers of the Church. The organised social charity of the Church which emerged in that epoch (which) was something novel in the context of the Greco-Roman world is for Benedict a crucial aspect of right practice of the faith. Even in an age where state agencies accept a good deal of responsibility for temporal welfare, the Church, he thinks, cannot abandon her charitable activity without undergoing a diminution of her nature. The order of justice, the proper sphere of politics, will never supplant the role of practical charity, since, in a world marked by original sin, no society is ever going to be so perfectly just that hard cases will not abound.

Benedict sees the social role of the Church working out in two ways. The first way is by forming conscience in civil society. Benedict comes close to the Liberal dream of “a free Church in a free State”, but he never quite surrenders to its lure. Without an input from the Church’s revelation-assisted grasp of human norms and human destiny conscience will suffer not its freedom of exercise but in the value of its deliverances. The State can afford to allow that to happen no more than can the Church.

The other form social outreach takes is through the Church’s own charitable agencies, and these Benedict bids to stay faithful. Their essential foundations are faith in the God of Jesus Christ and the exercise of faith’s most tangible organ, which is prayer. Professionalism can mean competence (excellent); it can also signify secularisation (in the optic of this letter, disastrous). A rash of name-changes for erstwhile overtly Catholic organisations in the post-Conciliar period symptomises what the Pope means. Agape as the Gospel tradition conceives it is not likely to survive the entry of secularism by the back door.

The need to re-evangelise, and re-catholicise, agencies that originated in the mystical Body but now operate with a considerable degree of detachment from its life helps to explain why the Pope ends this letter with the saintly patrons of social charity. It has been said that Benedict XVI will emphasise Scripture where John Paul II stressed the saints. But Benedict is not likely to forget the saints. He considers them the empirical verification of the Gospel. Also, I think he will continue to follow a convention established by his predecessor and, as here, end each encyclical with a reference to the Mother of God. Marianism is too deeply rooted in his religious personality for him to discontinue. And no bad thing, for a Church that seeks to be once again a holy Mother.

The great Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac once declared that the hierarchy should be maternal. The pope and bishops exercise in their own mode the motherhood of the Church. This is a warm, nurturing love which, however, is not intended to produce mummy’s boys. Fortunately, and despite initial fears, Deus Caritas Est does not envelop us in a bosomy embrace sufficient to suffocate. It does reassure us that we are loved and meant to love. But it also has backbone. Like counsel from a good parent, it would have us get on with life, which for a Christian means in particular theosis, divinisation (compare Part One of the letter), and (compare Part Two) meeting the myriad needs of the world.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/02/2006 1.57]

Pope names Vatican's Muslim expert
as nuncio to Egypt, Arab League

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI named the head of the Vatican's interreligious dialogue council, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, as the new ambassador to Egypt and the Arab League.

The appointment, announced Feb. 15, placed the Vatican's most experienced Muslim expert in Cairo, where many of the Vatican's Islamic dialogue partners are located.

At the same time, it raised questions about the future of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. No successor was named to head the council, and Vatican sources said the pope was considering combining its functions with another department in a restructuring move.

Archbishop Fitzgerald told Catholic News Service that he knows Cairo well and expects to continue talks with Muslim leaders there "as much as a nuncio does."

"I would hope that as a nuncio I can encourage this," he said.

The archbishop said it was important that he would also be representing the Vatican to the Arab League, which has 22 member states from across the Middle East and North Africa. The Arab League has headquarters in Cairo.

Archbishop Fitzgerald will replace Archbishop Marco Brogi, who has served as nuncio since 2002. Archbishop Brogi will turn 74 March 12; the Vatican did not mention him in the appointment announcement.

A member of the Missionaries of Africa, Archbishop Fitzgerald, 68, said his interest in interreligious dialogue may have stemmed from having a wide circle of friends while growing up who were "not all Catholics and not all Irish."

Born of Irish parents in a small town north of Birmingham, England, he pursued his dream of becoming a missionary priest and heading to Africa.

He spent four years in Tunisia, studying theology and learning Arabic, and two years teaching Christian-Muslim theology in Kampala, Uganda, during the reign of the dictator Idi Amin. The archbishop also lived for two years in northern Sudan, carrying out dialogue with Muslims and proclaiming the Gospel to a small Christian community there.

During this time he was frequently called back to Rome, either to work at the Pontifical Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies or to hold offices on the general council of the Missionaries of Africa.

In 1987 he was appointed secretary of the Vatican's Secretariat for Non-Christians, which later became the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; he was named president of the council in 2002.

The interreligious council grew out of a mandate of the Second Vatican Council, which said the church should enter into "discussions and collaboration with members of other religions." In 1964, Pope Paul VI created the Secretariat for Non-Christians; in 1974, he established the Commission for Religious Relations With the Muslims within the secretariat.

The office has established and nurtured contacts with scholars and leaders of Islam, Eastern religions and traditional religions -- including African and native American -- as well as sects and new religious movements. Religious relations with Jews comes under the authority of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Looking back on his work at the council, Archbishop Fitzgerald said one sign of progress was that the dialogue efforts today "are not just from the Catholic side, but initiatives are taken by people of other religions as well."

At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict held a private audience with religious leaders of other faiths and assured them that "the church wants to continue building bridges of friendship with the followers of all religions, in order to seek the true good of every person and of society as a whole."

At the same audience, the pope said he was particularly pleased at the growth in dialogue between Christians and Muslims on the local and international levels. Last August, the pope met with Muslim and Jewish leaders in special audiences during his visit to Cologne, Germany.
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This CNS story is a straightforward report of a new Papal appointment, but the Italian press have seen in this more far-reaching implications. I am working on translations, but briefly, they see this as 1) a demotion for Fitzgerald and some sort of reproof for past actions (these are described in detail)that were interpreted as being too concerned with promoting "closer" relations with other faiths to the extent of glossing over elements that distinguish Catholicism from other faiths; and 2) a sign that the Pope will indeed cut down the number of Curial departments by consolidating some offices together.

From Radio Vatican's German service today, in translation -

Pope Benedict XVI approves of peaceful demonstrations by Muslims against the Muhammad cartoons, he told Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, whom he saw in private audience today.

Siniora, a Muslim, also told reporters that his government rejects violent demonstrations. Lebanon's population is 60% Muslim and 35% Maronite Christian.

Siniora took over as Prime Minister after the assassination of
Rafik Hariri last year.

Here is how Vatican Information Services reported the audience:

VATICAN CITY, FEB 16, 2006 (VIS) - Given below is the text of a communique released by the Holy See Press Office following today's visit to the Vatican by Fouad Siniora, prime minister of Lebanon:

"Today, February 16, 2006, the Holy Father Benedict XVI received in audience Fouad Siniora, prime minister of Lebanon. The prime minister subsequently went on the meet with Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano.

"The visit of the head of the Lebanese government and of the official delegation accompanying him, had the aim of confirming the great devotion of the Lebanese people towards the Roman Pontiff, and towards the Holy See in general, which has always remained close to that noble country.

"In the course of the discussions, opinions were exchanged concerning the current situation in Lebanon and in the Middle East in general, highlighting the joint commitment to work towards educating people in reconciliation and peace, while respecting human rights, especially that of religious freedom.

"Particular attention was reserved for the situation of Christians and for the contribution they intend to make to the progress of the country, in keeping with the guidelines laid down, prior to the Jubilee 2000, by the Apostolic Exhortation "A new hope for Lebanon," of Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory."
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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/02/2006 0.35]

Here is an Italian journalist's analysis of the reassignment of Mons. Michael Fitzgerald from head of a Vatican dicastery to Apostolic Nuncio in Egypt.
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Benedict XVI's Reform of the Curia Begins
By Matteo Spicuglia
16/02/2006

The president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog has been named Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt, and in the Vatican, this seen as Act I of the Curial reform that has been awaited for months.

The Pope’s decision was made known yesterday: The English Monsignor Michael Fitzgerald, 59 years old, who has headed this dicastery since 2002, will leave Rome for Cairo, where he will also be the Holy See’s delegate to the Arab League.

After the naming of Archbishop William Levada to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fitzgerald’s reassignment is the first Papal decision which involves one of the key positions in the Curia. His name had figured in the betting over who would be named cardinals in the next consistory, since he was one of five dicastery heads who was not a cardinal. He may not need the red hat now.

Speculation immediately arose over the reasons for the Pope’s decision. Some would frame it in the context of the need to strengthen dialog with Islam by assigning to an influential Arab nation a recognized authority on Islam, who has been involved in the last few years with developing closer relations with other religions. Some say it could be a “punishment” for the arhbishop’s lifestyle.

Salvatore Izzo, of the news agency Agi, has spoken of “a stern policy (by Benedict) that will not allow a personal lifestyle not conforming to the discharge of fundamental responsibilities.” According to the Vaticanista, “The Pope has not shown himself willing to compromise on aspects concerning the personal life of Curia officials.” Ansa, another Italian news agency, also raised the same question.

However, it was impossible to understand what they are alluding to; the agencies have not given a hint but instead have reported what appears to be gossip as news.

In fact, Mons. Fitzgerald’s transfer corresponds to a deliberate choice of governing style by Benedict XVI. The appointment should be seen without a doubt as a demotion (heading the nunciature in Egypt certainly cannot be compared to heading a dicastery), the result of different viewpoints between the Pope and the Englishman about dialog between religions.

On the one hand, we have Benedict, who in his Christmas message to the Curia, upheld the value of religious freedom, but not in the sense of “expressing man’s incapacity to find the truth” and the “canonization of relativism.” On the other hand, the archbishop has been criticized several times for his tendency, according to many, to blur the Catholic identity. Such objections most likely kept him from being nominated a cardinal in John Paul II’s last consistory in October 2003.

Among the questionable episodes attributed to Mons. Fitzgerald: organizing a symposium in Qatar in 2004, at which exponents of the extremist movement Muslim Brotherhood took part, including Sheick Yussef al Qaradawi; his participation in a Festival of Faith in Kentucky, also in 2004, sponsored by the Cathedral Heritage Foundation, which proposes a consensus among religions, advocating that claims to truth should be set aside in the name of peace. In 2003, he made some disputed statements during a congress on sanctuaries which was held in Fatima. At that time, the idea was floated to transform the Marian seacntuary into an inter-religious center, in which members of every confession could meet each other. It was an idea promoted by one of the guests, the theologian Jacques Dupuis (who had already been investigated by the CDF because of his ideas on religious pluralism). Dupuis had said, “The religion of the future will be a general confergence of religions in a universal Christ who will satisfy everyone,” adding that “The Holy Ghost works and is present in the sacred tests of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christians and non-Christians.”

The following day, Mons. Fitgerald had no problem affirming that “Father Dupuis has explained to us the theological basis for stabilizing relations with those who belong to other religions.” This statement was seen as a provocation to many Catholic circles, especially those who are more traditionalist, who organized petitions against Fitzgerald. For instance, the association called Una Vox invited visitors and sympathizers on its Internet site to write a letter of protest to the then-Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger.

Obviously, someone responsible for inter-religious dialog, who is as decidedly liberal as Mons. Fitzgerald, will hardly fit the vision of Benedict, who has committed himself to inter-religious dialog but without glossing over differences and the singular identity of the Catholic Church.

Beyond everything else, the Pope’s decision on Fitzgerald seems to anticipate some orientations which will characterize his reform of the Curia, like the probable dissolution of some pontifical councils. The fact that no successor to Fitzgerald was named appears to support those who say that the council he used to head will be incorporated into the Council for Culture, presided by Cardinal Paul Poupard. A similar consolidation may take place with the Council for Justice and Peace, which would absorb the Pontifical Council for migrants and itinerants as soon as its president, Cardinal Stephen Hamao, is granted his request to return to Japan. A similar consolidation is expected between the Pontifical Council for the Laity and that for family ministry.

Benedict’s Curia will be more streamlined and will have fewer cardinals. Interesting in the light of the comiong Consistory. Most recent speculation now has only 4 curial heads slated for the red hat: Agostini Vallini of Segnatura Apostolica ( the highest church court); William Levada of the CDF; Franc Rode, Prefect of the Congreagation for the Clergy; Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; and Paul Cordes, president of Cor Unum.

The new appointments to the Curia will not come before spring, and if any new appointment gets a post usually occupied by a cardinal, he will have to wait for the next consistory to be elevated. It is said that the Pope wants to follow rules, therefore he does not eant to go beyond the maximum of 120 cardinal-electors set by Paul VI and reconfirmed by John Paul II (who however went beyind the limit).

New cardinals?
Rome buzzes with excitement as rumors fly

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Sometime this year -- perhaps as early as March -- Pope Benedict XVI is expected to create his first batch of cardinals, a prospect that has already generated a buzz of excitement in Rome.

Vatican observers, especially journalists, tend to get overagitated when it comes to new cardinals. Since last summer, there have been at least three false alarms about impending consistories.

The current rumor is that the pope is preparing to name new cardinals in late February and invest them in late March. Holding a consistory during Lent would be unusual but not without precedent; Pope John XXIII did so twice in the 1960s.

The appointment of new cardinals is seen as a leading indicator of any papacy, but it's important to remember that, whenever Pope Benedict announces his choices, it will be a list that he has inherited in large part from his predecessor.

Of the 20 or so prelates most frequently mentioned as likely cardinal appointees, all but two were put in line for the red hat by Pope John Paul II. One of those two is Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, the late pope's personal secretary, who in a sense will also be seen as a Pope John Paul selection.

Only U.S. Archbishop William J. Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is considered a Pope Benedict appointee in this "likely cardinal" list.

Archbishop Levada is one of three Roman Curia officials virtually certain to be named cardinal. The others are Slovenian Archbishop Franc Rode, head of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Italian Archbishop Agostino Vallini, head of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, the Vatican's highest tribunal.

Other Roman Curia possibilities include German Archbishop Paul Cordes, head of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum; U.S. Archbishop John P. Foley, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications; and Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

From the archdioceses around the world, potential cardinals include Archbishop Guadencio Rosales of Manila, Philippines; Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland; French Archbishops Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris and Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux; Archbishop Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy; Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley of Boston; Archbishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong; Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi, Vietnam; Archbishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki of Nairobi, Kenya; and Spanish Archbishop Antonio Canizares Llovera of Toledo.

Others occasionally mentioned in the cardinal sweepstakes are archbishops from Monterrey, Mexico; Dakar, Senegal; Brasilia, Brazil; and Barcelona, Spain.

There are a number of things to watch for when the list is announced:

-- The numbers. There are currently 178 cardinals, of whom 110 are under age 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave. Two more cardinals turn 80 before March 25, the rumored date of the consistory.

The technical limit on the number of voting-age cardinals is 120. That means that if the pope respects that ceiling, he could name 12 new ones. The wild card factor is that Pope John Paul set aside the 120 limit more than once, swelling the ranks to as many as 135 under-80 cardinals. Pope Benedict, as supreme legislator, can also derogate, or suspend, this rule, but opinions are divided over whether he will do so.

-- The mix. If he wanted to, the pope could fill half the cardinal vacancies with Roman Curia officials. But the trend under Pope John Paul was toward more archdiocesan cardinals, and not always from places that were traditional cardinal sees.

People also will be looking carefully at the geographic distribution, to see if Pope Benedict continues his predecessor's wider distribution of red hats in the Third World.

-- The over-80 cardinals. Popes often have named one or two elderly cardinals as a sign of respect or appreciation. Often, they have been nonbishop theologians. Given the pope's background in dealing with Catholic theologians, there is great interest in his potential choices.

One rumor reported by The Times of London in early January was that the pope's over-80 cardinal nominations might include Msgr. Graham Leonard, a former Anglican bishop of London who was ordained a Catholic priest in 1994. If that happens, beyond the ecumenical implications, the College of Cardinals would have its first married member in several centuries.

Whenever it happens, Pope Benedict's first consistory will also offer clues about how he intends to use the College of Cardinals during his papacy. Pope John Paul turned to the cardinals several times for advice, convening them in Rome for discussions on such topics as church finances, anti-abortion strategies and pastoral goals for the new millennium.

Given that Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, helped plan and preside over some of these "extraordinary consistories," many expect him to keep up this type of consultation.

As he looks ahead, the pope no doubt realizes that putting a personal stamp on the College of Cardinals is a long process. During his 26-year papacy, Pope John Paul called nine consistories to create 231 cardinals; in the end, he had named all but two of the 115 cardinals who elected his successor.