St Peter's Square mass for Italian Saint Padre Pio

Sat Oct 14, 6:05 PM ET
Yahoo

Pope Benedict XVI attended an open-air mass on St Peter's Square for 30,000 pilgrims devoted to the popular Italian Saint Padre Pio, canonised four years ago.

Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope's right-hand man, to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of a hospital founded by Padre Pio at Puglia in southern Italy.

Speaking at the end of the service, the pope recalled the importance Padre Pio had attached to the forces of both prayer and science.

Padre Pio was born in 1887 to a southern Italian farm family and ordained as a priest at age 22 in 1910.

The following year he was suddenly afflicted with wounds to his hands reminiscent of those of Christ on the Cross. The stigmata remained till his death in 1968.

After United States soldiers brought home stories of Padre Pio from Italy following World War II, he became a focus of pilgrimages.

He founded the hospital called House for the Relief of Suffering in 1956.

His canonization miracle involved the cure of Matteo Pio Colella, age seven, admitted to hospital with meningitis.

Doctors had lost hope, but during a prayer vigil attended by Matteo's mother and some Capuchin friars of Padre Pio's monastery, the child's condition improved suddenly.

The miracle was approved by Pope John Paul II in 2001.

Bertone says
Pope's trip to Turkey
chance for dialogue
Sat Oct 14

ROME (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey next month will be a chance for dialogue between religions in the wake of the row stirred up by his recent remarks about Islam, according to a senior Vatican official.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a religious television programme that "the desire of the pope, the holy see and the Catholic church is to continue dialogue," the Ansa news agency reported.

Catholics and Muslims can and should share values "which are essential for the fate and future of humanity," he said, adding that this was what should be read into the pope's controversial address last month.

A furore erupted in the Muslim world when the pope quoted a medieval Christian emperor who equated Islam with violence in his September 12 speech at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

The pontiff later apologized [HE DID NOT! - what he did was to express his regrets several times at the misunderstanding and offense taken] without explicitly retracting the comments themselves.

Bertone said the speech was "a call for cooperation between the Christian and Muslim faiths to share ... the common moral objectives which our modern world cannot renounce."

He said there was no reason why the pope's visit to Turkey from November 28-30, his first to a Muslim country, should not take place.

It would be "an occasion for dialogue and meetings with religious and political representatives," he added.

Pope Benedict proclaims 4 new saints

By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer

Pope Benedict XVI gave Catholics four news saints Sunday, bestowing the honor on a 19th-century nun who struggled on the American frontier, a bishop who tended to the wounded during the Mexican Revolution and two Italian clergy.

French-born Mother Theodore Guerin endured harsh conditions on the American frontier and resisted the objections of a local bishop in pursuing her dream of establishing Catholic education for pioneers. She established a college for women in Indiana, which enrolled its first student in 1841.

Among those at the ceremony on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica were ailing Chicago Cardinal Francis George and five Indiana churchmen. George, who is recovering from cancer surgery, flew to Rome with hundreds of alumnae, trustees and students of St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana.

"The Church rejoices in the four new saints," Benedict told a crowd of several thousand at the end of the two-hour ceremony. "May their example inspire us and their prayers obtain for us guidance and courage."

After enduring a long sea and land journey, Guerin, born Anne-Therese Guerin in Brittany in 1798, turned the porch of a drafty farmhouse into a chapel for spiritual comfort. By the time of her death in 1856, her order was running schools and orphanages in Indiana, the pope noted.

In the crowd was the American man whose restored vision was judged by the Vatican to be the miracle necessary for Guerin's sainthood.

"Being here with so many faithful, seeing the pope," said Phil McCord, "it's really overwhelming." McCord, a 60-year-old engineer who manages the campus of Guerin's order, recalled how he had faced a corneal transplant after damage from cataract surgery. He entered the chapel at the college, asked Guerin for help and his eyesight started to improve the next morning, said McCord, the son of a lay Baptist minister.

Young people from the Indiana delegation waved blue scarves when the pope praised Guerin. Many of them wore T-shirts with Guerin's image.

The pope also elevated to sainthood Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia, a missionary who risked his life to tend to the wounded during the Mexican Revolution, sometimes disguising himself as a street vendor or a musician.

Guizar Valencia, who died in 1938, was a great uncle of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ order of priest whom the Vatican restricted from public ministry this year amid allegations Degollado sexually abused seminarians.

Benedict praised Guizar Valencia for working tirelessly in "the beloved Mexican nation," even facing persecution, to ensure that seminarians were properly educated "according to the heart of Christ."

A dozen years after the bishop's death, when his body was removed from a cemetery to the cathedral in Xalapa in the Mexican state of Santa Cruz, his remains showed little sign of decay.

"We register them in the roll call of the saints and we establish that in all the Church they will be devotedly honored among the saints," Benedict said as he read the canonization ritual in Latin.

Also joining the ranks of sainthood was Italian Rev. Filippo Smaldone who pioneered education for the deaf and founded an order of nuns, the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts. The order has convents in Brazil, Moldavia, Paraguay and Rwanda. Smaldone died in 1923.

The other Italian, Rosa Venerini, was also a social pioneer, advocating education for young girls in Italy. Veneri, who died in 1728, founded the Congregation of the Holy Venerini Teachers order of nuns and pushed to establish the first public schools for girls in Italy.

"Their names will be remembered forever," Benedict said of the saints, as he began his homily to the applause of several thousands of faithful in the square.

It was Benedict's first canonization ceremony in nearly a year.

His predecessor, John Paul II, led several canonization and beatification ceremonies yearly, but Benedict has departed from that practice. Ceremonies for beatification, the last formal step before sainthood, are now held in the country where the faithful lived or worked, and the services are led by local prelates.

Lella in the main forum shares this item from today's Il Messaggero:


By FLORIANA BUCCI

MANOPPELLO - The devotion and exemplary composure of the Capuchin fathers and the faithful of the Majella region - who have kept custody of the cloth image of the Holy Face for 500 years - must have profoundly struck Pope Benedict XVI during his visit there on Sept. 1.

Less than two months since that visit, the Pope has elevated the Sanctuary of the Holy Face to a minor basilica.

The Vatican communicated this to the Archbishop of Chieti, Mons. Bruno Forte, who in turn transmitted the news to Fr. Carmine Cuccinelli, rector of the Sanctuary, now a Basilica.

The decree wass signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Cognregation for Sacred Rites, who visited Manopello last year.

The decree said that "granting the title shows the attachment and the devotion of the Seat of Peter to this important Church and at the same time, the intention to make it the center of specific liturgical and pastoral activities."

"We can't deny that the Pope's pilgrimage to the Holy Face indirectly accelerated the granting of our request," said Fr. Carmine. "But above al, I want to address special thanks to Mons. Forte, who has been our advocate in obtaining this acknowledgment and privilege."

2006, the half-millennium anniversary of the 'arrival' of the mysterious image in Manoppello, will certainly be a very special year in the history of the Sanctuary - with the Pope's pilgrimage, the elevation to basilica status, and the decision of the regional government to invest money in order to make Manoppello a major religious and touristic destination.

The 10/15/06 issue of La Stampa, one of the leading Italian newspapers, carried a news article and an analysis looking to a trip to Moscow as early as 2007 by the Holy Father.

There is no apparent occasion for the stories - unless it is to look beyond the dialog between Benedict and Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Greek Orthodox Church next month, to the more difficult reconciliation with a Russian Orthodox Church that is touchily jealous about its cultural and geographic jurisdiction!

One of the earliest cartoons about Benedict - it was posted in this Forum very early on - shows a spacesuited Ratzinger saying, "Now, where was it that Wojtyla has not gone?" Actually, Benedict does not need to go to outer space - Moscow and Beijing were Wojtyla's biggest unfulfilled challenges, and it could well fall to Benedict to blaze those trails.

Here first is a translation of the news article, shared with us by Lella in the main forum:
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Pope could go to Moscow by 2007:
The trip Wojtyla could not make
By Giacomo Galeazzi

VSTICAN CITY - The Pope in Moscow. The dream unrealized by John Paul II is abouit to become reality for his successor.

The historic visit to the Orthodox Patriarchate is a principal objective of Benedict XVI, and the Secretariat of State is feverishly at work, though with maximum discretion, to clear the final obstacles.

The dialog between Vatican diplomats and representatives of Alexei II, Patriarch of all the Russias, has never been so intense. The Vatican is said to be getting 'extraordinary signals of openness and readiness' from Russia, leading the hierarchy to hypothesize 'an acceleration' in events and even to imagine a papal trip to Moscow by next year.

The patchwork of informal contacts, secret dialogs and meetings between representatives of both sides may soon allow a long-awaited visit by a Pope to what has been called the Third Rome. Indeed, after a long freeze, the efforts at getting together are proceeding apace.

From September 18-25, Catholic and Orthodox delegations met in Belgrade to resume theological discussions that had been suspended six years ago.

On October 2, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan and a pointman of Vatican diplomacy in the dialog with the Orthodox, met with Patriarch Alexei II in Moscow, where he delivered a much-appreciated 'mea culpa' about past proselytism in Orthodox lands by Catholic priests (reportedly Polish).

The Papal envoy expressed the wish that both sides could soon overcome the consequences of the Catholic-Orthodox split and any arrest in ecumenical efforts.

"It is for us a reason to suffer that there have been Western Christians, including Catholics, who have not known how to recognize and appreciate the spiritual richeness of Holy Russia, nor to respect and value the religious and cultural patrimony of the great Orthodox tradition," Tettamanzi said, referring to an accusation often made by Moscow against Rome.
"It is precisely this lack of attention to the life of the spirit that has led to that proselytism denounced by so many voices, not just Orthodox but also Catholic."

Tettamanzi's words were a sign awaited by the Patriarchate and welcomed by Alexei II who expressed the hope for "an ultimate development of reciprocal support."

It is a climate of relaxation which "can be transformed into collaboration," says Archbishop Francesco Gioia, a curial expert in ecumenism. "Until not very long ago, it was unthinkable that Benedict XVI woudl be able to visit the Patriach of Constantinople Bartholomew II but this will soon take place in Turkey."

"At this moment in time," Gioia continued, "if only in response to the Islamic issue, the distances within the Christian world have been reduced. And ecumenical channels have been rapidly reactivated, one after the other."

Orthodox esteem for Benedict XVI has contributed to making Moscow an imminent step.

"Benedict XVI and Alexei II share the conviction that unity can be found in prayer," Gioia said. "We expect ecnouraging developments within a reasonable time."

This would appear to be a propitious time, a profitable convergence "which leads us to expect we can now overcome long-standing difficulties," according to Cardinal Achielle Silvestrini, one of the protagonists of Papal 'Ostpolitik' in John Paul II's time.

"There are positive points of contact (attention to the interior life, to liturgy, to divine worship)," says Silvestrini, former Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches and ex-'foreign minister' of the Vatican.

Last week, Benedict XVI sent a message to the first plenary assembly of the presidents of the European Bishops Conference to ask for their "encouragement of the witness and contribution made by the Catholic Church in ecumenism and in the collaboration between the different Christian confessions."

On October 9, Patriach Alexei II also sent the European bishops a letter to express his 'sincere hope' that the initiatives of the Holy See "may become another atage on the road to cooperation."

"The road to Moscow was barred to Karol Wojtyla by centuries of ethnic Slavic conflicts and of accusations that Poles (in seeking converts to Catholicism] were invading Russian Orthodox jurisdiction," says the theologian Fr. Gianni Baget Bozzo. "John Paul II sought to overcome that history, but Benedict's theological approach can ride over concrete questions like the properties that shoudl or should not belong to teh Uniate churches [Orthodox churches that have declared union with Rome, whose properties are being claimed by the Russian Orthodox Church]. Cultural affinities bring Benedict XVI closer to the Patriarchate and could allow him to repair and make an epochal change in the millennial separation ebtween the Catholic and Orthodox churches."

Such harmony was seen recently "in the agreement between Rome and Moscow on archives and the recent publication of numerous ecumenical texts by the Vatican publishing house," says Mons. Vittorino Grossi, secretary of the Pontifical committee on historical sciences and professor of Patristics at the Augustinianum and the Lateran University.

After ten centuries, a complex of historical and psychological reasons are bringing down barriers to "the reconciliation among all Christian faithful and the unitary proclamation of Christ's Gospel in the world," Grossi adds.
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Now, here is a translation of the analytical piece, posted by Ratzigirl on a different news thread, and which I actually saw ahead of Lella's post.

A German might do it
where a Pole could not


Benedict XVI to Moscow? Or, should we rather say that the protagonist to a possible - or, according to increasinly more insistent sources - a probable pilgrimage to the Third Rome, heart of Slavic Orthodoxy, would be the eminent Bavarian theologian Joseph Ratzinger.

In the attempt to give more consistency to voices that are filtering through from various sides, we cannot avoid assuming that the heretofore diffident powerful custodians of Russian Orthodoxy are probably preparing for an ecumenical encounter with the German Pope, precisely because he is German, after having refused with such obstinacy to meet with the Polish Pope, precisely because he was Polish.

To catch the sense of the historic turnaround with which the highest levels of the Muscovite clergy now ssem ready for a rapprochement with the current Pope, we must go back to the complicated hostilities - not simply confessional but inter-ethnic - which have caused Russian Christianity to be strongly opposed to Polish Christianity, which is of course very much part of Rome and the West.

Ratzinger, let us repeat, does not come out of Slavic Catholicism like Karol Wojtyla. Even as a German, he is, moreover, a son of that remote and gentle Bavaria, and not a Prussian, one who could evoke the violent baptismal rampages of Teutonic knights among the pagan Slavic peasants.

For the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, a dialog with Wojtyla would have been too 'familial', bringing up historic intra-Slavic hostilities, and therefore, insidiously complicated.

As far as Moscow was concerned, John Paul II was almost half-Russian. His father was Polish and his mother was Ukrainian. And of course, he spoke the langugage of Tolstoy perfectly, read Cyrillic, knew the smallest details about Orthodox liturgy, and knew much about the Uniates and the Catholics practising the Latin rite in the East.

In the eyes of the closed and nationalistic Patriarchate of Moscow - today very close to Putin - the role played by Wojtyla in the political and ideological battle against communism was certainly important, but only to a certain point.
Beyond which their perspective changes for the worse.

What they saw was a pugnacious Catholic priest from Cracow who became a triumphal Pope, promoter of Polish patriotism and dangerous destroyer of the Communist empire (which was also a Greater Russian Empire), champion of the Croatians against Serb Orthodox - all this could not but arouse the atavistic antipathy of the national Church in Russia for Catholics of Slavic origin whom they consider to be miscreant and errant.

With the collapse of the atheistic Bolshevik empire, which paradoxically was at once prison and defensive fortress for the Russian Church standing alone, Wojtyla's pan-Christian ecumenism was frowned upon by the Orthodox prelates as a form of sneaky apostolic proselytism.

The Roman Pontiff who from nearby Vilnius (Lithuania) llooked east and repeated the famous Chekhovian cry, "Moskva, Moskva!"
annoyed, irritated, almost frightened the bearded defenders of the autonomy of Muscovy's ancient Orthodoxy.

When Wojtyla dared to step foot in Kiev (Ukraine), Patriarch Alexis II, traditional anti-Papist as well as ally of Putin, traveled to Byelorussia and from that stronghold of Stalinism, called the Pope's Ukrainian trip a "Catholic incursion" into orthodox lands.

The Polish Pope, though crowned with so many political and apostolic successes, always considered it a defeat, perhaps the most scorching one in his long life, the 'Nyet' reserved for him with repeated acrimony by the Russian Patriarch. He had already visited Rumania, Greece, orthodox Georgia. But Kiev, root and key at once to Russian history, would have been for him - rather than a place of dispute - the key to reunion with the Russian confession and nation. A natural gateway for access to the Third Rome, a start to closing the deep schismatic wound among Slavic peoples.

Ratzinger, the German, or rather the Bavarian, who understands all about inter-Germanic schisms and lacerations, who is a gifted exegete of religious and cultura differences, may perhaps succeed where the too passionate and too Slavic Wojtyla could not.

Wojtyla probably saw above all, in the rupture that he wanted to heal between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, the unfortunate and often tormented religious separation between eastern and western Slavs. The long-standing tensions among Russians, Ukrainians and Poles, the repeated massacresamong Croatians and Serbians 9n the past century, were proof.

It is possible to assume instead, that in Ratzinger's historicizing and philosophical perspective, the schism has lost a great deal of its contingent ethnic connotations to assume instead the character of the wider millennary short-circuit - now burnt down and exhausted - between the Byzantine East and the European West.

It is therefore possible that Alexis II sees in Ratzinger what he could not see in Wojtyla - namely, a more detached interlocutor who is not personally involved in the Slavic offshoots of a very old pan-European theological and cultural divide.

That being said, will we soon see Benedict and Alexis officiating at divine service together in St. Basil's Cathedral right next to the Kremlin?

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/10/2006 14.21]

Monday, October 16, the Holy Father will preside at a funeral mass for Cardinal Dino Monduzzi, Emeritus Prefect of the Pontifical Household, who died earlier this week.

This will take place at 5 p.m. Rome time, at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica.

Thanks for the two articles, Teresa. It is most interesting and, for me, informative. I REALLY wish Papa could visit Russia.

Vatican confirms trip to Turkey, despite some Muslims' misgivings

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican officially confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Turkey at the end of November, despite misgivings among many Muslims over recent papal remarks on Islam.

The pope's Nov. 28-Dec. 1 trip, his first to a predominantly Muslim country, will include stops in Ankara, Ephesus and Istanbul, the Vatican said Oct. 16.

The pope will travel at the invitation of the Turkish government and the Orthodox Church's Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

In Ankara, the capital, he is expected to meet with political leaders Nov. 28. The following day he is expected to say Mass in Ephesus, an important early center of Christianity in western Turkey.

The pope will meet with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul in the evening of Nov. 29 and participate in an Orthodox liturgy Nov. 30. On Dec. 1, he is expected to celebrate Mass for Catholics in the city before returning to Rome.

In September, the pope gave a speech in Germany that quoted from a text that criticized Islam and accused Muslims of spreading their faith "by the sword." The speech caused widespread indignation among Muslims, particularly in Turkey, where some suggested the papal trip be canceled.

Since then, on several occasions the pope has expressed his regret at the offense taken by Muslims and distanced himself from the critical comments he quoted. Many Muslim leaders have welcomed the papal statements, while others have asked for a fuller apology.

The day before the Vatican confirmed the trip to Turkey, 38 Islamic scholars published an open letter to the pope, pointing out what they considered mistakes and oversimplifications in his speech but condemning any violent reaction.

Among those signing the letter was the grand mufti of Istanbul, Mustafa Cagrici.

The visit to Turkey will be Pope Benedict's fifth foreign trip since his election in April 2005.

In his now-daily report for National Catholic Register, John Allen explains why the Vatican has to underplay any visit by the world's most respected and well-known Buddhist leader, who also leads, aince 1959, a Tibet government-in-exile.
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Pope and Dalai Lama:
The audience that wasn't
Posted on Oct 14, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Though one will find no evidence of it in collections of official papal acts, Pope Benedict XVI received the Dalai Lama on Friday, Oct. 13, his first meeting as pope with the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, perhaps the only religious leader in the world with an iconic standing approaching that of the Roman Pontiff.

The meeting did not appear in the list of the pope’s appointments on Friday, nor was it mentioned in the news bulletins of the Vatican Information Service or Vatican Radio. No journalists were present, and there were no official photos. When reporters called the vice-director of the Vatican Press Office, Passionist Fr. Ciro Benedettini, they were told that it was a “private meeting.”

Such has been the protocol for meetings between the pope and the Dalai Lama at least since September 1982, when John Paul decided to receive the Tibetan leader in a “private” visit. All told, the Dalai Lama and John Paul met eight times, including the 1986 summit of religious leaders in Assisi called by John Paul to pray for peace, but in general the Vatican has played down the public dimension of these encounters.

A senior Vatican official who has been involved with past visits of the Dalai Lama told NCR that the reason for the low-key treatment was not fear of antagonizing China, despite the fact that establishing diplomatic relations with China is a key priority of the Holy See. Instead, he said, a decision was taken several years ago, under John Paul II, that such visits should be kept “low-profile,” in order to be sure that meetings with the pope did not become artificial exercises in seeking photo opportunities simply to keep the Tibetan cause in the news.

The pope recognizes the Dalai Lama as a spiritual authority, this official said, and is always willing to meet with him, but doesn’t want to confuse that relationship with political causes.

The Dalai Lama’s first meeting with a pope came in September 1973, when he met Pope Paul VI in Rome during the Tibetan leader’s first trip outside Asia.

The Dalai Lama was accompanied on Friday by three assistants, his secretary and his spokesperson, while two officials from the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue also took part in the brief meeting with the pope.

The Dalai Lama afterwards told reporters that the two spiritual leaders discussed “human values, religious harmony and the environment,” and found themselves in “substantial agreement.”

Notably, he did not say if the two men had discussed the thorny issue of autonomy for Tibet, occupied by China since 1951. The Dalai Lama led about 80,000 Tibetans into exile in 1959, and heads a government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. For this reason, the Chinese government frowns upon any official recognition of the Dalai Lama by governments or other hosts.

On the same day that Benedict and the Dalai Lama met, Chinese authorities acknowledged that they had opened fire on a group of Tibetan refugees trying to cross the border with Nepal and that they killed “at least one”.

Despite the near-invisibility of Friday's meeting with Pope Benedict, a Buddhist monk in Lumbini, Nepal, considered the birthplace of Buddha, was quoted by the AsiaNews service as calling it a “historic event.”

“The Pope and Dalai Lama have no big armies, but they are the monarchs of the hearts of millions of people all over the world,” said Bhante Satyabrata. “Their meeting was focused on peace not violence. This event is a living witness that God is not myopic to our requests and actively strives to make love triumph over hatred.”

Here is a translation of a news agency item shared with us by Francesca in the main forum:

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 17, 2006 (Apcom) - Special thanks and an emotional recollection characterized the homage paid by Benedict XVI to his predecessor in a television message transmitted last night on Polish television on the occasion of Pope's Day in Poland.

Six years ago, October 16th of every year was designated as Pope's Day in Poland to commemorate the election of Karyol Wojtyla to the Papacy.

"With you," Benedict said in his message, "I wish to recall that unforgettable day of his election to the the Seat of Peter. I still hear the echo of his words - humble, wise and full of dedication, when he answered the question of whether he accepted the choice that had been made by the Cardinals: 'In obedience to the faith, before Christ my Lord, trusting in the Mother of Christ and of the church, aware of the great dificulties, I accept.'

Papa Ratzinger said that moment was impressed in his mind, as well as John Paul's first appearanee before the world as Pope.

"I see before me his strong and serene figure on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, when for the first time he gave his blessing Urbi et Orbi, entrusting himself to the protection of Our Lady and to the love of everyone in the world of whom he ha had beocme pastor and guide. And I have never forgotten his prophetic call: 'Do not be afraid! Open your doors to Christ!'"

The German Pope then expressed thanks to God because he was able to "spend more than two decades by his side, rejoicing in his goodness and friendship, and that now, I am able to continue his work under his protective attention from the house of the Lord. "

"I thank God," he concluded, "for his life that was spent in the love of Christ and of all men, a life which has enriched all of humanity in its quest for brotherhood and pace."

And here is the story from Vatican Information Services. I really don't understand why they just don't release the full text of the message - it's not as if it were kilometric!:

VATICAN CITY, OCT 17, 2006 (VIS) - For the occasion of the "Day of the Pope," which for the last six years has been celebrated in Poland every October 16, the day of Karol Wojtyla's election to the See of Peter, Benedict XVI recorded a video message broadcast yesterday on Polish television.

Recalling the day of John Paul II's election, Pope Benedict says he can "still hear the echo" of the words pronounced by Karol Wojtyla as he accepted the cardinals' decision, and also remembers his "prophetic call: 'Do not be afraid! Open the doors to Christ!'."

The Holy Father continues: "I thank God that with these images in my heart I was able to pass more than two decades at his side enjoying his benevolence and friendship, and that today I can continue his work under his protective gaze from the house of the Father. I thank God for his life, passed in the love of Christ and of men, that enriched ... all humanity with the grace of the Holy Spirit .... Finally, I thank God for the witness of his suffering associated to Christ's own tribulation unto death - witness that gives us the strength to live, and secures in us the hope of eternity."

Benedict XVI highlights John Paul II's devotion to the Church in Poland, which he "loved as a mother" and "as a community always united around its pastors;" a community "which in the past suffered various persecutions," but which always "remained faithful to evangelical values."

When Poland regained its liberty, adds the Pope in his Message, John Paul II took care to ensure that "his countrymen learned to live in the freedom of the children of God and not of the children of this world, and that they upheld the faith.

"Aware of this heritage that he left to the Church in Poland," Pope Benedict adds, "I came among you this year with Paul's words: 'remain strong in the faith.' ... I pray to God to preserve this faith for the future generations of this noble land. I thank you particularly for all your displays of loving union with the Pope who succeeded your great countryman, and I entrust my service for the Church and for the world to your spiritual support."

The Pope concludes his Message by expressing the hope that "the memory of John Paul II, the study of his works and his teaching," may bring the Polish people closer to Christ. "May this be the bond of unity in a shared concern for the future of the Church and the nation."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/10/2006 18.47]

Here is a translation of an item posted by Lella in the main forum from today's issue of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, following the official announcement yesterday of the Pope's apostolic voyage to Turkey.

It adds some details to the story widely reported yesterday soon after the Vatican made the official announcement.
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VATICAN CITY - It is official. Papa Ratzinger's trip to Turkey is on.

After all the doubts raised about this much-awaited Papal pilgrimage following Muslim reaction to a citation quoted by the Pope in his Regensburg lecture of September 12, the Vatican Press Office formally announced yesterday that the Pope will be in Turkey from November 28 to December 1 at the invitation of the Turkish government.

The exact program for the visit will be made known in the next few days, but the dates, the stages of the trip and some important details were made known, demonstrating that the climate between the Vatican and Turkey appears back to normal, despite some bitter polemics from Turkish civil and religious officials after Regensburg.

"In response to the invitation of the President of the Turkish Republic, Ahmet Necdet Sezer," the Vatican announcement read, "Benedict XVI will make an apostolic voyage to Turkey visiting Ankara, Ephesus and Istanbul."

The Pope leaves for Ankara on Tuesday, November 28; the following day, he will fly to Smyrna and Ephesus; and in the evening, he will go on to Istanbul, where he will sray till December 1.

Among the most awaited stages of this trip are the Pope's visits to the Grand Mufti and director of Turkish religious affairs, Ali Bardokoglu, and his visit with the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I [whose invitation to the Pope early last year to join him St. Andrew's Day celebration in Istanbul was the original reason for the visit; however, the Turkish government did not see fit to issue an invitation in time for last year's St. Andrew's Day].

But the Pope will also be meeting with Turkish President Sezer and with the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, who had been one of the harshest critics of the Pope's Regensburg statement. [An earlier item from Turkey had said Erdogan would be in Latvia attending a NATO summit during the Pope's visit.]

The atmosphere has changed for the better," said Mons. George Marovitch, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Turkey, "We look forward to words from the Pope which will warm the hearts of his listeners, after a statement that was widely misunderstood."

Great expectations however on the ecumenical aspect of the trip. Benedict and Bartholomew will be meeting on more than one occasion in Istanbul and they may sign a joint delcaration about the Petrine primacy, namely, the role of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as supreme guide for all Christians.

Mons. Luigi Padovese, apostolic vicar for Anatolia, says: "I think the meetings between the Pope and Patriarch Bartholomew will be very significant. I do not know if it will mean a distinct ecumenical step forward, but their meetings will not simply be formal."

In the meantime, it was learned that in Istanbul, the Pope will stay at the house where the Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, Angelo Roncalli (future John XXIII), lived from 1935 to 1945.

Also, some news about the end of Ramadan, the traditional Moslem month of fasting and penitence. For the first time, the traditional message sent by the Vatican to all Muslims on this occasion will be presented at a Vatican news confernce by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Councils for Inter-Religious Dialog and for Culture.

Poupard will have on hand Mons. Pier Luigi Celata, secretary of teh Inter-Religious Council; its undersecretary Mons. Anthony Felix Machado; and the Council's point man for Muslim relations, Mons. Khaled Akashed.

VATICAN CITY, OCT 17, 2006 (VIS) - The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff made public today the calendar of celebrations to be presided over by the Holy Father in the months of November and December 2006:

NOVEMBER

- Thursday, 2: All Souls Day. At 6 p.m. in the Vatican Grottoes, a moment of prayer for deceased Supreme Pontiffs.

- Saturday, 4: At 11.30 a.m. at the altar of the Cathedra in the Vatican Basilica, Mass for the repose of the souls of cardinals and bishops who died during the course of year.

- Tuesday, 28 to Friday, December 1: Apostolic trip to Turkey.

RITES OF BEATIFICATION APPROVED BY THE HOLY FATHER

- Sunday, 5: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. At 10 a.m. in the cathedral of Sao Paulo, Brazil, beatification of Servant of God Mariano de la Mata Aparicio.

DECEMBER

- Saturday, 2: At 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, First Vespers for the first Sunday of Advent.

- Friday, 8: Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At 4 p.m. in Rome's Piazza di Spagna, homage to Mary Immaculate.

- Sunday, 10: 2nd Sunday of Advent. At 9 a.m., pastoral visit and Mass at the Roman parish of "S. Maria Stella d'Evangelizzazione."

- Sunday, 24: Vigil of the Solemnity of the Birth of Our Lord. Midnight Mass in the Vatican Basilica.

- Monday, 25: Solemnity of the Birth of Our Lord. At midday from the central loggia of the Vatican Basilica, "Urbi et Orbi" blessing.

- Sunday, 31: At 6 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, First Vespers of thanksgiving for the past year.

RITES OF BEATIFICATION APPROVED BY THE HOLY FATHER

- Sunday, 3: 1st Sunday of Advent. At Ollur in the archdiocese of Trichur, India, beatification of Servant of God Eufrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Eluvathingal.

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

It's shaping up to be a great week for Benedict-watchers. On Saturday, he was in St. Peter's Square for the Padre Pio cmmemorative events; on Sunday, he was back there for the Canonization Mass and the Angelus; on Monday, he celebrated the Funeral Mass for Cardinal Monduzzi in the Basilica; tomorrow will be his regular Wednesday audience; and Thursday he will be in Verona to close the fourth decennial conference of the Italian Church, so that will be a full-day coverage almost, from the time he gets there, to his address to the convention, to the Holy Mass that he will celebrate at Verona's sports stadium in the afternoon, to when he goes back to Rome.

Happy Papa-watching, everyone!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/10/2006 21.47]

Archbishop Foley on the lessons of Regensburg

Created Oct 17 2006 - 00:24
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
National Catholic Reporter
Rome

In the middle of the crisis unleashed by the pope’s Sept. 12 comments on Islam, I found myself on a CNN prime-time news program. The host opened our interview as follows: “Now, John, I’ve read the entire text of the pope’s speech, and …”

I confess I lost track of the rest of the question, wondering when the last time might have been that a network television anchor had bothered to read the full text of a 4,000-word papal lecture.

That, in a nutshell, captures one prevalent reaction in Rome as post-Regensburg reflection passes the one-month mark: Whatever one makes of Benedict’s analysis of Islam, at least he got the world’s attention.

“It got people talking, and talking on a very high level,” said Archbishop John Foley, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in an Oct. 16 interview with NCR in his Vatican office.

If the pope hadn’t stirred up a hornet’s nest, or so the conventional wisdom goes, the Regensburg address would probably have passed in silence. As things stand, it is instead among the most-read, most-dissected, and most-commented upon papal discourses in recent memory.

Obviously, however, everyone concedes that it would be nice to stimulate global conversation without unleashing violence and heartache. One major post-Regensburg challenge for Benedict XVI, therefore, could perhaps be formulated this way: how to create a buzz without setting off a bomb.

Foley, a man who has been on the front lines of church communications since the era of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), recognizes the depth of the challenge.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said, that sometimes in a sound-bite culture, it can take poking someone in the eye to get their attention.

Foley formulated the problem with typical candor: “People don’t like to be invited to think.”

Yet Foley said he believes the pope has two tools in his toolbox that can generate the same level of global interest as Regensburg, but without the more extreme reactions.

First, he mentioned “symbolic actions.”

“When John Paul II called religious leaders together in Assisi to pray for peace, or when left a note [expressing regret for anti-Semitism] in the Western Wall in Jerusalem, those dramatic gestures created serious dialogue by their very nature,” Foley said.

Foley noted that “not everyone was in favor” of John Paul’s decision to host the Assisi event, especially forces concerned that it might lead to religious relativism. But, Foley said, John Paul proceeded despite that opposition, realizing the potential of such an event to raise global consciousness.

Foley acknowledged that Benedict XVI does not have the same dramatic instincts as John Paul, but suggested that he can find ways to perform meaningful symbolic actions consistent with his own style and temperament.

Second, Foley said, Benedict is very adept in media interviews, noting that sessions with journalists before his recent trips to both Poland and Germany played to uniformly good reviews.

“He comes across very well,” Foley said. “He’s obviously a very well-informed, logical, kind and pastoral man.”

“I hope there will be more of the same,” Foley said, referring to live sessions between the pope and the press.

I asked if there’s any plan to arrange a session with the press before the Turkey trip, perhaps involving representatives from important news outlets in the Islamic world.

“I don’t know of any plan to do that,” Foley said, but added, “anything’s possible.”

Foley joked that one sign for him that Regensburg was destined to be a global phenomenon is that he was actually in Helsinki when the story broke – and even there, he was pressed for comment.

Foley acknowledged that Regensburg also illustrates the need to “foresee possible reactions” to papal statements, and thus to avoid language that might spark undesired blowback.

Has the lesson been learned?

“It should be,” he said, then added: “Whether or not it has been, I don’t know.”

In the end, however – whether as a result of conscious strategy or good fortune – Foley said that on balance, the post-Regensburg picture seems fairly positive.

“For one thing, because of the controversy a number of publications around the world printed the entire text of the pope’s talk, which was a very good talk,” Foley said, “stressing the need for dialogue and understanding, and the importance of philosophy as background to that.”

“Through the providence of God,” he said, “it’s turned out better than we might have imagined.”

2 Trips and Christmas on Pope's Agenda

Will Travel to Verona and Turkey

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's calendar for the remainder of 2006 includes two trips -- one in Italy and one to Turkey -- and a full Christmas agenda.

The calendar, published today by the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, confirms that the Holy Father will preside over all the Christmas celebrations in the Vatican, as did Pope John Paul II.

This Thursday, Benedict XVI will travel to the Italian city of Verona to open Italy's 4th National Ecclesial Congress, which is held every 10 years.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, the Pope will celebrate the feast of All Souls. At 6 p.m. he will pray in the Vatican Grottoes for all the deceased Pontiffs, particularly at the tomb of John Paul II.

On, Thursday, Nov. 4, at 11:30 a.m. at the altar of the Cathedra in St. Peter's, the Holy Father will preside over a Mass for the repose of the souls of cardinals and bishops who died during the course of the year.

From Tuesday, Nov. 28, to Friday, Dec. 1, Benedict XVI will travel to Turkey. His itinerary includes visits to Ankara, Smyrna and Istanbul, the Vatican press office confirmed Monday.

On Saturday, Dec. 2, the Pope will mark the beginning of Advent, the liturgical period in preparation for Christmas, presiding at the first vespers for the first Sunday of Advent at 5 p.m.

On Friday, Dec. 8, feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father will preside at 4 p.m. over the traditional homage to Mary Immaculate in Rome's Piazza di Spagna.

On Sunday, Dec. 10, the Bishop of Rome will make a pastoral visit and celebrate Mass at 9 a.m. at the Roman parish of St. Mary Star of Evangelization, and meet with the parish community.

On Sunday, Dec. 24, Benedict XVI will preside at the Christmas vigil -- Midnight Mass -- in St. Peter's.

At midday on Monday, Dec. 25, Christmas Day, the Pope will impart the blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world) from the central balcony of St. Peter's.

On Sunday, Dec. 31, the Holy Father will preside at the first vespers of thanksgiving at the year's end at 6 p.m. in St. Peter's.

Other appointments

The calendar does not list the rest of the activities proper to the Pope's ministry, among them his appointments outside the Vatican walls.

On Saturday, Oct. 21, the Pontiff will visit the Lateran University to open the academic year.

On, Friday, Nov. 3, he will visit the Gregorian University of Rome.

Yet another Mass presided by the Holy Father has been added to his schedule this week.

On Friday, October 20, at 5 p.m., he will celebrate a funeral Mass at St. Peter's Basilica for Cardinal Mario Pompedda, who died in Rome today after an illness for which he was hospitalized.

Cardinal Pompedda was 77. He was Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature (the Vatican's highest canonical court) from 1999 to 2004.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 18/10/2006 20.45]

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 18. 2006 (AP)- Pope Benedict XVI will travel Thursday to Verona in northern Italy to address a meeting of the nation's bishops on the state of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy and celebrate an open-air Mass.

Premier Romano Prodi heads a list of Italian dignitaries expected to greet the pope and attend the late-afternoon Mass in the city's soccer stadium, the Vatican said in releasing Benedict's schedule on Wednesday.

The bishops and lay people from across Italy have been attending a national church convention, the first since 1995 and only the fourth in the past 30 years.

The bishops are a powerful force in Italy, where more than 90 percent of Italy's 58 million citizens are at least nominally Catholic.

The church kept a low profile after the Christian Democrats, with whom the Vatican had close ties, collapsed under the corruption scandals of the early 1990s. But a successful campaign asking Italians to boycott a referendum on easing assisted fertility restrictions last year appears to have emboldened the bishops.

After Prodi met with Benedict in a Vatican audience last week he said "there aren't any controversies" between the Vatican and Italy.

But Prodi's coalition includes communist parties and radicals, who often denounce what they consider interference by the church in Italian affairs.

His electoral platform included a pledge to give some legal status to unmarried couple, but it stopped short of endorsing gay marriage, which the Vatican firmly opposes.

Benedict is scheduled to return to the Vatican Thursday night.

And it's been everything but dull! The Church lives, the Church is young - under this Pope of love and joy, of strength and courage, of a thinking heart and a feeling mind.

Who of us can forget April 19, 2005?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/10/2006 8.20]

Lella shared this item yesterday from the newspaper La Repubblica, written by their chief Vatican correspondent and partially translated here.

Pope may name Fisichella
to be Bertone's deputy
By Marco Politi

VERONA - Benedict XVI is preparing a new move in his reorganization of the Vatican Curia.

Very soon the number-2 man in the Secretariat of State, Mons. Leonardo Sandri, could be replaced by Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University which will be visited by the Pope this Saturday.

In the past weeks, more and more voices have indicated that his candidacy for the position - usually referred to by the Italian term "Sostituto" (deputy), therefore deputy Secretary of State - is rapidly growing. Fisichella is considered a 'man of Ruini' (Cardinal Camillo Ruini) and also enjoys the trust of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State.

The Pope is very discreet and no one in the Vatican can honestly say what his plans are, but Fisichella's name has been circulating in the Apostolic Palace more insistently.

That Sandri would vacate his post was expected. Every new Pontiff eventually chooses his own Secretary of State (it took Papa Ratzinger more than a year to do that), and they then choose as his #2 man someone they both trust. Sandri was called to the position by the previous Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.*

Mons. Fisichella, 55, is from Lombardy and is known in the Italian Church as a staunch supporter of Cardinal Ruini. In political circles, he has become known as the "chaplain of Montecitorio" [Palazzo Montecitorio houses the Italian Parliament].

In a short time, he has managed to establish cordial relations with politicians of all parties. But this has not kept him from taking lethal thrusts against political initiatives which he considers contrary to Church policy, such as the Gay Pride issue in 2000 and last year's referendum on assisted reproduction.

He came to Ratzinger's attention as a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Launched by Ruini, in his capacity as president of the Italian bishops conference, and quickly noticed and appreciated by Pope John Paul II, Fisiohella became an auxiliary Bishop of Rome in 1998 and rector of the lateran University in 2002.

By becoming the Sostituto, who is traditionally charged with focusing on Italy, Fisichella would have immediate supervision of Vatican relations with the Italian state. And it would not be a bad thing for Papa Ratzinger.
---------------------------

* I omitted a gratuitous and logic-defying speculation on the part of the writer that the more immediate reason for replacing Sandri soon had something to do with what he calls 'the Regensburg debacle'. He would have the Pope's circle recriminating Sodano (who was still Secretary of state then) and his staff for failing to warn the Pope against the possible effect of the controversial statement he cited, out of sheer spite because the Pope does not consult them on what he writes! And some such baloney!

Politi's coverage of Benedict's papacy so far has been characterized by a hostility that has been at times outright venmous.

It was definitely his longest speech ever in the 18 months of Benedict XVI's pontificate that he completes today. Its 20 pages of text took him an hour and 15 minutes to deliver and was interrupted multiple times by applause from the 4th National Convention of the Italian Catholic Church in Verona this morning.

The Pope caps his apostolic voyage to Verona with an afternoon Mass at the Verona stadium Bentegodi. He returns to the Vatican tonight.

Here is how the Italian news agency ANSA summarized the Pope's speech to the Convention:

An ovation that lasted 3-1/2 minutes after an hour and 15 minutes of delivering a 20-page address, applause at every mention of citations from Paul VI and John Paul II, and repeated applause for the parts of the address related to the political role of Catholic laymen and to a reaffirmation of the Church's No to laws that undermine families founded on matrimony; Catholic education; and the dignity of life.

Such were the highlights of Benedict XVI's first address ever to the fourth national convention of the Italian Catholic Church, which is held every decade.

The standing ovation at the end was broken only because it was noontime - time for the Angelus.....

--------------------------------------------------------------
Pending translation of the full Papal text, here is the AsiaNews report that quotes some major excerpts from the text in English translation.


19 October, 2006
VATICAN
Pope: Introduce what is just and good
in western culture that has excluded God


In the face of another wave of enlightenment and secularism, Benedict XVI has called on Catholics to reap the good fruits of modern society and to strive to make it accept questions about the meaning of life and the need to love and be loved. School, charitable works and politics are fields in which to give concrete content to Christian witness.


Verona (AsiaNews) – In the face of a western culture stricken by a “new wave of enlightenment and secularism”, which considers only what is experiential as rationally valid, and all that is useful as ethically acceptable, Catholics have the duty to introduce reason to what is just and good, confronting the challenges facing faith in our times.

This task, “a fascinating adventure which merits all one’s efforts” was proposed by Benedict XVI as a way of giving western culture back its soul.

This culture set out from an “assertion of the centrality of man and his freedom” and ended up by implementing a “real turnaround”, with a “radical diminishing of man, considered as a simple product of nature and as such, not truly free and susceptible to being treated like any other animal”.

In a long speech to participants of the fourth national Convention of the Italian Church, which is taking place in Verona, the pope once again tackled the relationship between modern culture and Christianity, and hence between faith and reason, which was at the heart of his speeches throughout his trip to Germany in September.

Benedict XVI today repeated that in modern society -
“God is excluded from culture and public life, and faith in Him becomes more difficult, not least because we live in a world that presents itself ever more as our work. It is a world in which, so to say, God no longer appears directly; he appears to have become superfluous and extraneous... In the same way, ethics are brought back to within the borders of relativism and utilitarianism, with the exclusion of any moral principle that is valid and binding.”

This type of culture is not only a “deep and profound cut” with Christianity, but “more generally with religious and moral traditions of mankind”. It is unable to establish true dialogue with other cultures, in which the religious dimension is strongly present, and it is unable to respond to the fundamental questions on the meaning and direction of our lives. This is why this culture is marked by profound deficiencies and also by a large, uselessly hidden, need for hope.”

This culture also draws attention to the insufficiency of a “rationale closed in on itself” that refuses transcendence and hence any moral principle valid in itself. Of this culture, “the disciples of Christ recognize and willingly take in the authentic values, like scientific knowledge and technological development, human rights, religious freedom and democracy”.

However they “do not ignore or underestimate the dangerous fragility of human nature that threatens the journey of man in all historical contexts. In particular, they do not neglect the interior tensions and contradictions of our time.”

“The human being is not, on the other hand, only reason and intelligence. He carries within himself, inscribed in the deepest part of this being, the need of love, of being loved and of loving in his turn. This is why he asks questions and often becomes confused when faced with the hardships of life, with the evil that exists in the world and that seems to be so strong, and at the same time, so senseless.”

So the question returns persistently, whether our life can be a safe space for authentic love and in the ultimate analysis, whether the world is really the work of the wisdom of God. Here, much more than any human reasoning, the moving news of biblical revelation comes to our rescue: the Creator of heaven and earth, the only God who is the source of every creature, loves man personally, loves him passionately and wants to be loved by him in turn.”

Affirming this truth “is indispensable to give the Christian witness concrete and feasible content, assessing how it can be implemented and developed in each of the great fields in which human experience is articulated.”

Benedict XVI gave some indications for such activities, “across the board, on the level of thoughts and action, of personal conduct and public witness”.

The first pointer he gave was education. He said: “A true education needs to awaken courage to take definitive decisions, which today are considered to be a chain that puts down our freedom, but in reality they are indispensable to enable love to mature in all its beauty, hence to give consistency and meaning to freedom itself.

"From this solicitude for the human person and his formation comes our ‘no’ to weak and deviant forms of love and contradictions to freedom, as well as to the reduction of reason merely to that which is calculable and can be manipulated. In truth, saying ‘no’ is rather saying ‘yes’ to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God”.

In the second place, there should be the witness of charity, because “the authenticity of our adherence to Christ is verified especially in love and concrete solicitude for the most vulnerable and the poorest, for those are in the greatest danger and most serious difficulties”.

Reaffirming the non-involvement of the Church as such in political life, Benedict XVI indicated the task of lay Catholics to “move in the political environment to build a just order in society”.

He said: “Special attention and an extraordinary commitment are called for today by great challenges which throw large parts of the human family into great danger: wars and terrorism, hunger and thirst, terrible epidemics.

"But there is the need to confront – with the same determination and clarity of intent – the risk inherent in political and legislative decisions that contradict fundamental values and anthropological principles and ethnics rooted in the nature of the human being, especially with regard to safeguarding human life in all its phases, from conception to natural death, and to the promotion of the family founded on matrimony, avoiding the introduction in public law of any other forms of union that would contribute to destabilizing it, obscuring its peculiar character and irreplaceable social role.”

And here is the press release from Vatican Information Services:

POPE ADDRESSES ITALIAN ECCLESIAL CONGRESS

VATICAN CITY, OCT 19, 2006 (VIS) - This morning, the Pope travelled to the Italian city of Verona. On arrival he went directly to the Fair of Verona where he pronounced an address in the presence of more than 2,700 people - bishops and delegates from all Italian dioceses - who are participating in the 4th Italian Ecclesial Congress on the theme: "Witnesses of the Risen Christ, Hope of the World."

The past three ecclesial congresses were held in Rome in 1976, on "Evangelization and Human Promotion;" in Loreto in 1985, on "Christian Reconciliation and Human Community;" and in Palermo in 1995, on the "Gospel of Love for a New Society in Italy."

"This 4th national congress," said the Pope, "is a new stage on the journey of implementation of Vatican Council II, upon which the Italian Church is embarked; ... a journey that embraces evangelization ... undertaken in constant union with Peter's Successor."

Benedict XVI recalled the figures of Paul VI and John Paul II, whose contributions to past congresses "strengthened the Italian Church's confidence in being able to ensure that faith in Jesus Christ may continue to offer meaning and guidance for life, even to the men and women of our own time."

"The Resurrection of Christ," said the Pope, "is a historical fact of which the Apostles were witnesses, certainly not creators," and "a decisive 'leap' towards a profoundly new dimension of life." This "concerns, in the first place, Jesus of Nazareth, but with Him it also concerns us: all the human family, history, the entire universe." For this reason the Resurrection constitutes "the core of Christian preaching and witness."

The Resurrection "inaugurated a new dimension of life and reality whence emerges a new world that constantly penetrates our own world, transforming it and drawing it in. All this is brought into practical effect through the life and witness of the Church. ... Indeed, we are called to become new women and men in order to be true witnesses of the Risen Christ, bringing, in this way, Christian joy and hope into the world and ... into the human communities in which we live."

Italy, said the Holy Father "appears to us as a land in profound need of, and at the same time receptive to, such a witness." Italy "participates in the predominant culture of the West ... according to which only things that can be demonstrated and calculated have rational validity while, at a practical level, individual freedom is held up as a fundamental value to which everyone must submit."

"Thus God is excluded from culture and public life, and faith in Him becomes more difficult, also because we live in a world that is almost always presented as our being of our own making, in which ... God does not appear directly. He seems to have become a stranger, superfluous."

"Ethics are brought within the confines of relativism and utilitarianism, and any moral principles that are valid and binding of themselves are excluded. It is not difficult to see how this kind of culture represents a radical break ... with the religious and moral traditions of humanity and is not, then, capable of establishing a true dialogue with other cultures in which the religious element is strongly present."

In Italy, nonetheless, the Church "is a living reality that maintains a widespread presence among the people," and "Christian traditions are often still firmly rooted." Furthermore, an awareness exists of "the gravity of the risk of breaking with the Christian roots of our civilization, ... even among people ... who do not practice our faith."

In this context, "our attitude must never be one of refusal and closure. ... We must maintain and, if possible, increase our dynamism; we must open ourselves trustingly to new relationships, and not neglect any of the energies that can contribute to the cultural and moral growth of Italy."

"Christianity," the Pope stressed, "is open to everything that is just, true and pure in cultures and civilizations. ... The disciples of Christ, then, recognize and welcome the true values of the culture of our times, such as technological knowledge and scientific progress, human rights, religious freedom and democracy."

However, with their awareness of "human frailty, ... they cannot overlook the interior tensions and contradictions of our age. Hence evangelization is never a simple adaptation to cultures, but always involves purification, a courageous break that leads to maturity and renewal."

"At the roots of being a Christian, there is no ethical decision or lofty idea, ... but a meeting with the person of Jesus Christ," said Benedict XVI. "The fruitfulness of this meeting is apparent ... also in today's human and cultural context," he added, using the example of mathematics, a human creation in which the "correlation between its structures and the structures of the universe ... excites our admiration and poses a great question."

"It implies that the universe itself is structured in an intelligent fashion, in such a way that there exists a profound correspondence between our subjective reason and the objective reason of nature. It is, then, inevitable that we should ask ourselves if there is not a single original intelligence that is the common source of both the one and the other."

"This overturns the tendency to grant primacy to the irrational, chance and necessity. ... On these premises, it again becomes possible to broaden the horizon of our rationality, open it to the great questions of truth and goodness, and unite theology, philosophy and science, ... respecting their reciprocal autonomy but also aware of the intrinsic unity that holds them together."

The Holy Father then turned his attention to the question of human beings and love, affirming that people "need to be loved and to love. For this reason they question themselves and often feel disoriented in the face of the harshness of life, and of the world's evil that appears so strong and, at the same time, so radically meaningless. ... Hence the question arises, repeatedly and insistently, as to whether our lives can contain a secure space for authentic love and, in the final analysis, whether the world really is the work of God's wisdom."

After highlighting how God "is the source of all creatures," and how He "loves man personally and passionately, and wants in His turn to be loved by him," the Pope indicated that in Jesus Christ "God becomes one of us, our brother in humanity, and even sacrifices His life for us."

"Precisely because He truly loves us, God respects and safeguards our freedom. Against the power of evil and sin, ... He prefers to place the limit of His patience and mercy. This limit is, in concrete terms, the suffering of the Son of God."

Pope Benedict pointed out how "the cross, quite naturally, frightens us, just as it provoked fear and anguish in Jesus Christ; however, it is not a negation of life from which, in order to be happy, we must free ourselves. Rather, it is God's extreme 'yes' to man, the supreme expression of His love and the source of full and perfect life. It contains, then, the most convincing invitation to follow Christ along the path of self-giving."

The Pope emphasized the need always "to be ready to respond to whosoever asks us for the reasons of our hope." We must respond "with that gentle strength that comes from union with Christ. We must do so in all fields: at the level of thought and of action, of personal behavior and of public witness. ... May the Lord guide us to live this unity between truth and love in the situations of our own time, for the evangelization of Italy and of the world today."

Going on to consider the topic of education, the Pope indicated that "true education needs to reawaken the courage of definitive decisions, ... which are indispensable for growth and for achieving anything worthwhile in life, and especially for ensuring that love can mature in all its beauty."

In this context, he recalled how Catholic schools still have to face "old prejudices that generate harmful and no longer justifiable delays in the recognition of their function and in the authorization to carry out their activities."

"The Church in Italy has a great tradition of providing aid and showing solidarity to the needy, the sick and the marginalized," said Pope Benedict, adding: "It is extremely important that all these forms of witness of charity ... remain free from any ideological leanings or party sympathies. ... Practical activity is important, but even more important is our personal involvement with the needy and with the suffering of our fellows."

On the subject of the civil and political responsibilities of Catholics - a question that had been considered during the congress - the Pope recalled the distinction between the things of Caesar and the things of God.

"Religious freedom," he said, "which we perceive as a universal value particularly necessary in today's world, has its historical roots here. The Church, then, is not nor does she intend to be a political player. At the same time, she has a profound interest in the good of the political community, the soul of which is justice."

The Holy Father underlined the fact that politics "is an undertaking of the greatest importance, to which Italian lay Christians are called to dedicate themselves with generosity and courage, enlightened by faith and the Church's Magisterium, and animated by Christ's charity."

There are, said the Pope, "great challenges" that require "particular attention and extraordinary commitment." These include "wars, terrorism, hunger, thirst and terrible epidemics. However," he continued, "it is also necessary to use the same determination and clarity of intent to face the risk of political and legislative choices that contradict the fundamental values and the anthropological and ethical principles that are rooted in the nature of human beings."

"This is especially so as regards the protection of human life at all stages, from conception to natural death, and the promotion of the family based on marriage, opposing the introduction ... of other forms of union that would contribute to destabilizing it, obscuring its special nature and its irreplaceable social function. The open and courageous witness that the Church and Italian Catholics have given, and continue to give, in this matter constitutes a precious service to Italy, which is also a useful stimulus for other nations."

The "real strength" we need to face our duties and responsibilities, he said, is to be found "by nourishing ourselves on Christ's Word and His Body, ... and by adoring Him in the Eucharist. ... In the union with Christ, we are preceded and guided by the Virgin Mary. ... Through her, we learn to know and to love the mystery of the Church, ... we learn to resist that 'interior secularization' that undermines the Church of our time, a consequence of the processes of secularization that have profoundly marked European civilization."

Having completed his address, the Holy Father travelled by car to the episcopal palace of Verona, where he had lunch.

At 4 p.m., the Pope will preside at a Eucharistic concelebration in the city's Bentegodi Stadium, before returning to the Vatican this evening.
---------------------------------------------------------------

As useful as AsiaNews and VIS are for providing English translations of excerpts from papal texts when the Vatican itself does not provide a translation of the complete text, I am truly appalled at the amateurism of their reporting of any news story based on a text.

Instead of reading through the whole text and drawing up a brief summary of its main points first, and then only, to start citing quotes from the text, their writers simply pick out chunks of text in seemingly random manner and plug it into their report without much rhyme or reason.

It doesn't make for easy reading and I think it turns off the reader who just wants to know - OK, what did he really say that was most important, and don't make me wade through solid blocks of text to find out!

Even visual presentation counts in presenting a news story. Look through wire service reports and the news stories in the mainstream media, and you will note that the stories (though not always the actual text on which a speech story is based) always avoid lengthy paragraphs that turn up in print as black blocks with little breathing space.

If some of you have wondered, that is the reason why when I post articles (including the Papal texts released by the Vatican) from any source, I break up long paragraphs into smaller ones - as I've done with both stories above.

Not only does the report become more readable - it also serves to better expose an important point which might otherwise be neglected if it is buried in a big block of text.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/10/2006 17.46]

That Turkey's supposedly most popular newspaper chooses to stir up this tempest in a teapot simply reflects hostility in the Turkish press to Benedict - dating back to when he was a Cardinal - as well as the Turkish government's official position that does not recognize organized religions as a juridical entity. In fact, this is one of the points the Pope is expected to take up with Turkish government leaders.


19 October, 2006
Turkey to welcome Pope
only as a “foreign leader of state”

This was announced by Turkey’s most popular daily that referred to a “diplomatic crisis” between Turkey and the Holy See.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – Benedict XVI will be welcomed as a "foreign leader of state” on his arrival in Turkey and not as a religious leader.

Hurriyet, Turkey’s most popular daily, pointed to a “diplomatic crisis” brewing over the upcoming papal visit. The newspaper said the Vatican generally described the Pope's visits as "religious missions," but state officials said that since he has been invited by the President of the Republic of Turkey, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the Pope would be welcomed as a "foreign leader of state."

The newspaper said that “although it was not clear at first whether this would be acceptable to the Vatican, agreement should be reached this week”.

The “diplomatic crisis” hinted at in Turkey does not seem to have any substance in reality. There have already been papal trips where the pope is welcomed as “head of the Vatican” and not as head of the Catholic Church. Moreover, the Holy See has already given official notice of the visit, which has been scheduled from 28 November to 1 December.

Hurriyet said that when he arrives in Turkey, Benedict XVI will be greeted at the airport by top level government officials, and then taken to the Cankaya President Palace to be formally welcomed by the head of state. The newspaper said the Pope will give President Sezer an antique Bible and a book of some of his works and prayers.

Around 1,000 journalists are expected to cover the event.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/10/2006 19.18]

Danich in the main forum filed this bulletin from one of the Italian news agencies. Here is a translation -

Applause and enthusiastic chants [PA-PA-PA-PA! BE-NE-DET-TO!] by supporters for Papa Ratzinger at the Bentegodi stadium of Verona today as the faithful awaited the arrival of the Pope to celebrate Mass.

At least a hundred thousand faithful, waving streamers and colorful scarves, sought to come as close as they could to Pope Benedict XVI today after he arrived in Verona to address the 4th National Convention of the Italian Church.

Although only 42,000 could be accommodated inside the stadium for the afternoon Mass to conclude the Pope's short apostolic visit to this city in northern Italy, another 60,000 were expected to follow the Mass on maxi-screens set up at various points in the city.

The altar set up at the stadium is dominated by a 15th-century Crucifix from the parish church of St. Luke depicting the Passion of Christ. It is one of nine still existing Stational Crosses that were used in the city from the second half of the 15th century to guide the faithful in following the Way of the Cross.



The Pope will ride by Popemobile from the Bishop's Palace to the stadium.

After arriving in Verona this morning, the Pope proceeded to the Verona Fairgrounds to address some 2,700 delegates to the convention, It was the longest speech he has made since he became Pope, and it reaffirmed the Church positions on major social and political issues of the day.

He prcoeeded from the convention to the Bishop's Palace for lunch, after which he was scheduled to visit the Cathedral of Verona and the historic Church of St. Zeno privately.

Italy's top political leaders from the present and past goivernments, including Prime Minister Romano Prodi and his immediate predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, were expected to attend.

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

In his blog for October 20, entitled "Benedict's Big Day in Verona, Sandro Magister focuses on how the Pope explained the theme of the convention in hishomily Thursday afternoon:


"Witnesses of the Risen Jesus, hope of the world" is teh title for the Fourth Convention of the Italian Church held in Verona October 16-20.

Not an easy title. But Benedict XVI explained it this way in his homily at the Mass held in Bentegodi stadium:

"Witnesses of the Risen Jesus" - that preposition 'of' should be understood correctly. It means that the testimony is 'of' the risen Lord, meaning it is about Him, and as such, we should render Him valid witness, be able to speak about him, make Him be known, lead people to Him, convey His presence.

"It's the exact opposite of what happens to the other term, 'hope of the world.' Here the preposition "of" does not indicate belonging, because Christ is not of this world, just as Christians should not be of this world. Hope,which is Christ, is in the world, and for the world, but it is son only because Christ is God, He is the Holy One (in Hebrew Qadosh). Christ is the hope of the world because He has risen, and He has risen because He is God.

"Christians too can bring hope to the world, because they are of Christ and of God to the dregree that they die with Him to sin and arise with him to a new life of love, of pardon, of service, of non-violence.

As St. Augustine said: "You have believed. You were baptized. Your old life is dead, it was killed on the Cross, buried at baptism. The old life in which you lived badly has been buried; the new life arises." (Sermone Guelf. Ic, in M. Pellegrino, Vox Patrum 177).

"Only if, like Christ, they are not of this world can Christians be the hope of the world and for the world."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/10/2006 6.16]

In the absence of something better for the moment, here is AP's wrap-up story of the Verona trip. As the event was an Italian affair, the Italian media should give us more thorough coverage in tomorrow's papers.

Pope urges Italians
to hold to traditions
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 19, 2006


VERONA, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI urged Italians on Thursday to remain faithful to their Christian traditions, saying they can be examples for the world and enable dialogue with other cultures that are deeply religious.

In an hour-long speech to Italian bishops and lay leaders, Benedict warned that a secular shift in the West had led to threats to traditional families, including "other forms of unions," a reference to gay marriage.

But overall, he praised the health of the Catholic Church in Italy, saying "the Christian traditions are often deeply rooted and continue to produce fruit." The pope was addressing a national church convention in the northern city of Verona.

Benedict has been stressing the need for dialogue between religions and cultures, which he has said was the point of his speech in Germany last month that angered the Muslim world for its references to Islam and violence.

He said that cultures in which "God is excluded" — referring to a secularized West — "were not able to establish a real dialogue with other cultures in which the religious dimension is strongly present."

Benedict received a standing ovation from the audience of several hundred at the Verona fairgrounds. Later Thursday, he celebrated an open-air Mass in a soccer stadium before an estimated 50,000 people, including Premier Romano Prodi and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader.

Prodi was heckled from the stands by a small number of participants as he left the stadium. Some Catholics resent the liberal positions of Prodi, a Catholic who leads a center-left coalition.

The pope also reiterated the church's opposition to abortion and euthanasia, saying human life must be protected "in all its phases, from conception to natural death." Abortion is legal in Italy; euthanasia is not, but it is being debated by politicians.

He called on lay people to defend against "the risk of political choices and laws that go against the fundamental values ... rooted in the nature of the human being." He said it was up to lay Catholics to fight the battle, saying the church is not a "political agent."
The national church convention is the first since 1995 and only the fourth in the past 30 years.

The bishops are a powerful force in Italy, where more than 90 percent of the country's 58 million citizens are at least nominally Catholic.

The Catholic Church kept a low profile after the Christian Democrats, with whom the Vatican had close ties, collapsed under corruption scandals in the early 1990s. But the bishops appear emboldened after a successful campaign last year asking Italians to boycott a referendum to ease restrictions on assisted fertility.

Prodi's coalition includes communist parties and radicals, who often denounce what they consider the church's interference in Italian affairs. But after an audience with Benedict last week, Prodi said "there aren't any controversies" between the Vatican and Italy.

Prodi's electoral platform included a pledge to give some legal status to unmarried couples, but it stopped short of endorsing gay marriage, which the Vatican firmly opposes.

Sandro Magister today offers an English translation of key excerpts from the Pope's 20-page address yesterday to the Italian Church convened in Verona this week. The section headings are translated as they appear in the Pope's text..

Benedict XVI Is Betting on Christian Italy:
For a "Great Service to Europe and to the World As Well”
The programmatic address from the pope
to the National Conference of the Church in Italy,
delivered in Verona on Thursday, October 19, 2006.

by Benedict XVI


Dear brothers and sisters! It is my joy to be with you today, in this beautiful and historic city of Verona, to participate actively in the 4th National Conference of the Church in Italy, [...] a new stage in the journey of implementing Vatican Council II. [...]

The Church in Italy has made this journey in close and constant union with the successor of Peter: I gratefully remember together with you [...] John Paul II, with his fundamental contributions to the conferences of Loreto [1985] and of Palermo [1995], which strengthened the Italian Church in [...] “its role as a guide and its drawing power” in the nation’s journey toward its future. [...]



The risen Lord and his Church

[...] You have made a rather happy choice by placing the risen Jesus Christ at the center of attention for the conference, and for the entire life and witness of the Church in Italy. The resurrection of Christ is an historical event, of which the Apostles were the witnesses, and certainly not the inventors. [...] It is the greatest “transformation” that has ever taken place, [...] and has inaugurated a new dimension of life and of reality, from which emerges a new world that constantly penetrates our world, transforming it and drawing it toward itself.

All of this takes place, in concrete terms, through the life and witness of the Church; moreover, the Church itself constitutes the first fruits of this transformation, which is the work of God, and not our own.

This comes to us through faith and the sacrament of Baptism, which really is death and resurrection, rebirth, transformation in a new life. It is what Saint Paul reveals in the Letter to the Galatians: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (2:20). [...] This is the formula of Christian existence founded upon Baptism, the formula of resurrection within time, the formula of the Christian “news” that is called to transform the world. [...]


The service of the Church in Italy
to the nation, to Europe, and to the world

The Italy of today presents itself to us as a territory in deep need of such witness, and at the same time very favorable toward it. It is in deep need, because it is part of the predominant Western culture that would like to present itself as universal and self-sufficient, giving rise to a new way of life.

What arises from this is a new wave of Enlightenment-influenced thinking and secularism, according to which only what is empirical and calculable is valid, while on the level of praxis individual freedom is erected as the fundamental value to which all the others must be subject.

Thus God remains excluded from culture and from public life, and faith in Him becomes more difficult, in part because we live in a world that almost always presents itself as our own work, in which, in a manner of speaking, God no longer appears directly, and seems to become superfluous and extraneous.

In close connection with all this, there takes place a radical reduction of man, who is considered as a simple product of nature, and as such not truly free and susceptible to being treated as any other animal.

Thus takes place an authentic overturning of the point of departure for this culture, which [before] was an assertion of the centrality of man and his freedom.

Along the same lines, ethics are brought within the confines of relativism and utilitarianism, with the exclusion of any moral principle that would be valid and binding in itself.

It is not difficult to see how this type of culture represents a radical and profound departure, not only from Christianity, but more generally from the religious and moral traditions of humanity: it is therefore incapable of establishing a true dialogue with other cultures in which there is a strong presence of the religious dimension, apart from its inability to respond to the fundamental questions about the meaning and direction of our lives.

For this reason, this culture is distinguished by profound shortcomings, but also by a great and uselessly hidden need for hope.

But Italy, as I have already mentioned in passing, constitutes at the same time a rather favorable terrain for Christian testimony. The Church, in fact, is here a very lively reality, which retains a grassroots presence among people of every age and condition. The Christian traditions are often still rooted here and continue to bear fruit, while a great effort of evangelization and catechesis is underway, directed in particular toward the younger generations, but increasingly toward families as well.

And furthermore, there is an increasingly clear awareness of the insufficiency of a rationality closed off within itself and of an excessively individualist ethics: in concrete terms, there is a sense of the risk of being cut off from the Christian roots of our civilization.

This sense, which is widespread among the Italian people, is explicitly and forcefully formulated by many important men of culture, even among those who do not share – or at least do not practice – our faith.

The Italian Church and Italian Catholics are therefore called to seize this great opportunity, and above all to be aware of it. Our attitude must therefore never be that of a resigned turning in upon ourselves: we must instead keep our dynamism alive, and even increase it if possible; we must open ourselves with trust to new relationships, and not overlook any of the forces that can contribute to Italy’s cultural and moral growth.

It is, in fact, up to us – not with our own scant resources, but with the power that comes from the Holy Spirit – to provide positive and convincing responses to the questions and the hopes of our people: if we are able to do this, the Church in Italy will render a great service not only to this nation, but also to Europe and to the world, because secularism insinuates itself everywhere, and just as universal is the necessity for a faith lived in relationship with the challenges of our time.



To make visible the great “yes” of the faith

Dear brothers and sisters, we must now ask ourselves how, and on what basis, [...] to provide concrete and practicable resources for Christian witness [...] I would like to emphasize how, through this multiform testimony, what should emerge above all is that great “yes” that, in Jesus Christ, God has spoken to man and to his life, to our freedom and our intelligence; and how, therefore, faith in a God with a human face should bring joy to the world.

Christianity is, in fact, open to everything that is right, true, and pure in cultures and civilizations, to that which brings joy, consoles, and strengthens our existence.

Saint Paul wrote in the Letter to the Philippians: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8).

The disciples of Christ thus recognize and willingly welcome the authentic values of the culture of our time, such as scientific knowledge and technological development, human rights, religious liberty, and democracy.

But they do not ignore or underestimate the dangerous frailty of our human nature that is a threat to man’s journey in any historical context; in particular, they do not overlook the interior tensions and contradictions of our age.

Thus the work of evangelization is never a simple adaptation to cultures, but is always a purification, a courageous departure that turns into a process of maturation and healing, an opening to that which permits the birth of the “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15) that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

As I wrote in the encyclical Deus Caritas Est, at the source of Christian existence – and thus also at the origin of our witness as believers – is not an ethical decision or a great idea, but the encounter with the person of Jesus Christ, “who gives life a new horizon and with this its decisive direction” (no. 1).

The fecundity of this encounter manifests itself in a particular and creative way in the current human and cultural context as well, above all in relationship with the reason that has given rise to the modern sciences and to the related technologies.

A fundamental characteristic of the latter of these is, in fact, the systematic employment of the tools of mathematics in order to work with nature and to place its immense energies at our service.

Mathematics as such is a creation of our intelligence: the correspondence between its structures and the real structures of the universe – which is the premise for all the modern scientific and technological developments, already formulated explicitly by Galileo Galilei with the famous assertion that the book of nature is written in mathematical language – arouses our admiration and raises a great question.

It implies, in fact, that the universe itself is structured in an intelligent manner, in such a way that there exists a profound correspondence between our subjective reason and reason as objectified in nature. So it becomes inevitable to ask if there must not exist a single originating intelligence, which would be the common source of both the one and the other.

And so it is reflection on the development of the sciences which itself brings us back to the creator Logos. This reverses the tendency to give primacy to the irrational, to chance and necessity, bringing back into focus our intelligence and freedom.

On these bases, it again becomes possible to expand the spaces of our rationality, to reopen it to the great questions of truth and goodness, to bring together theology, philosophy, and science, in full respect for their proper methods and their reciprocal autonomy, but also in the awareness of the intrinsic unity that holds them together.

This is a task that stands before us, a fascinating adventure in which it is worthwhile to exert oneself, in order to give a new impulse to the culture of our time and to restore the full citizenship of Christianity within it. The “cultural project” of the Church in Italy is doubtless, to this end, a happy intuition and a rather important contribution.



The human person -
Reason, intelligence, love

[...] Following Christ is never easy: it faces, instead, opposition and controversy. The Church thus remains “a sign of contradiction,” in the footsteps of its Master (cf. Luke 2:3-4), even in our time. But we do not lose heart because of this.

On the contrary, we must be always ready to give an answer (apo-logia) to anyone who asks us the reason (logos) for our hope, as we are invited to do in the first letter of Saint Peter (3:15), which you have rather opportunely chosen as the biblical guide for the unfolding of this conference.

We must respond “with kindness and respect, with an upright conscience” (3:15-16), with that meek power that comes from union with Christ. We must do this in every area, on the level of thought and action, of personal behavior and public witness.

The strong unity that was realized in the Church of the first centuries between a faith friendly toward intelligence and a practice of life characterized by reciprocal love and solicitous attention toward the poor and suffering made possible the first great missionary expansion of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. This also happened later, in various cultural contexts and historical situations.

This remains the king’s highway of evangelization: the Lord guides us to live this unity between truth and love in the conditions proper to our time, for the evangelization of Italy and the world today.


Education

In concrete terms, in order for the experience of Christian faith and love to be welcomed, lived, and transmitted from one generation to another, a fundamental and decisive question is that of the education of the person.

[...] A real education needs to reawaken the courage of definitive decisions, which today are considered a constraint that chafes at our freedom, but in reality are indispensable in order to grow and to attain something great in life, and in particular to bring love to maturity in all its beauty: and thus to bring coherence and meaning to freedom itself.

From this concern for the human person and his formation come our “no’s” to weak or distorted forms of love, or to counterfeits of freedom, as also to the reduction of reason only to what is calculable and manipulable. In truth, these “nos” are rather “yeses” to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God.

I want to express here all of my appreciation for the great formative and educative work that the individual Churches carry out tirelessly in Italy, for their pastoral attention to the new generations and to families.

Among the many forms of this commitment I cannot help but recall, in particular, the Catholic schools, because to some extent they still are the object of old prejudices that create harmful and no longer justifiable delays in the recognition of their function and the permission of their concrete activity.


Witnesses of charity

Jesus told us that whatever we do to the least of his brothers we do to Him (cf. Matthew 25:40). The authenticity of our adherence to Christ thus proves itself in a special way in love and in concrete concern for the weakest and the poorest, for those who find themselves in the greatest danger and difficulty.

The Church in Italy has a great tradition of closeness, help, and solidarity toward the needy, the sick, the marginalized, which finds its highest expression in a marvelous series of “saints of charity.” [...] And therefore it is all the more important that all these forms of charitable witness keep always lofty and luminous their unique profile, nourishing themselves on humility and faith in the Lord, keeping themselves free from ideological suggestions and from partiality. [...]



The civil and political
responsibilities of Catholics

Your conference has also rightly confronted the topic of citizenship; that is, the questions of the civil and political responsibilities of Catholics. Christ, in fact, came to save man as a concrete reality, who lives in history and community, and thus Christianity and the Church, from the beginning, have also had a public dimension and value.

As I wrote in the encyclical Deus Caritas Est (cf. nos. 28-29), Christ brought a substantially new development to the relationships between religion and politics, clearing the way for a more human and more free world, through the distinction and reciprocal autonomy between the State and the Church, between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s (cf. Matthew 22:21).

Religious freedom itself, which we perceive as a universal value that is particularly necessary in today’s world, has its historical roots here. The Church, therefore, is not and does not intend to be a political agent. At the same time, it has a profound interest in the good of the political community, the soul of which is justice. [...]

A special attention and an extraordinary commitment are required today by the great threats to vast segments of the human family: war and terrorism, hunger and thirst, certain terrible epidemics.

But we must also face, with like determination and clarity of intention, the risk of political and legislative choices that would contradict fundamental values and anthropological and ethical principles rooted in the nature of the human being, in particular with regard to the safeguarding of human life in all its phases, from conception to natural death, and to the promotion of the family founded upon marriage, avoiding the introduction into the public order of other forms of union that would contribute to destabilizing it, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role.

The open and courageous testimony that the Italian Church and Italian Catholics have given and are giving in this regard are a valuable service to Italy, and useful and encouraging for many other nations. This commitment and this witness are certainly part of that great “yes” that we, as believers in Christ, say to man, who is loved by God.


To be united with Christ

Dear brothers and sisters, the tasks and responsibilities that this ecclesial conference bring into evidence are certainly great and manifold.

We are thus encouraged to keep always in mind that we are not alone in carrying this weight: we support one another, in fact, and above all the Lord himself guides and sustains the fragile barque of the Church.[...]

Preceding and guiding us in union with Christ is the Virgin Mary, who is so loved and venerated in every quarter of Italy. In Her we find, pure and undeformed, the true essence of the Church, and thus, through Her [...] we become in our turn “ecclesial souls,” and learn to resist that “internal secularization” that infiltrates the Church of our time, in consequence of the processes of secularization that have profoundly marked European civilization.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us raise together to the Lord our prayer, humble but full of trust, that the Italian Catholic community [...] may bring with renewed verve to this beloved nation, and to every corner of the earth, the joyous witness of the risen Jesus, the hope of Italy and of the world.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 16.01]

The Pope's discourse to the Italian church in Verona yesterday was so comprehensive that immediate analyses can only focus on some aspects at a time.

Lella in the main forum shares one evaluation of the Pope's programmatic speech from today's issue of La Repubblica, a liberal newspaper. It is written by someone who appears to be a devout Catholic. Here is a translation:

Pope Benedict and
a true return to Vatican-II
By PIETRO SCOPPOLA

It would be easy to place emphasis in the Pope's address in Verona on the usual, almost obligatory themes, like his denunciation of the destructiveness of secularism or the value of the family or the defense of life from conception to its natural end. Yes, the speech had all those and could not have done without their reaffirmation.

But it is more interesting to try and identify the new elements through which the complex personality of Papa Ratzinger expresses itself. First of all, it is striking that the Pope proposes a 'reflection', therefore, a contribution of ideas, a reflection precisely, which leaves space for dialog and questioning.

But above all, what characterized the address was that it was strongly loaded with the message of religion and faith. The introduction was a powerful affirmation of the belief of the Church in the resurrection of Christ, which was "not simply a return to our earthly life" - as very often even believers think - but the 'decisive leap" towards a new life, which inaugurated "a new dimension of life and of reality, from which a new world emerged." [Not really new for this Pope, who expressed this very powerfully during his last Easter message and homily.]

One is prompted to say: Finally the Church is speaking about the faith in its most intimate and profound dimension! One quotation will suffice to show the impossibility of a deeper analysis: "For my part, I wish to emphasize" - one must note how the Pope speaks as one of the faithful himself among the faithful - "how faith in the God who has a human face brings joy to the world: Christianity is in fact open to all that is just, true and pure in the cultures and civilizations of the world, to all that lightens, solaces and strengthens our existence."

Here we have the very premise for rethinking that unconditional negative judgment on the Enlightenment that has been previously discussed and developed.

The Pope's address develops along this tight religious logic, as though to re-equilibrate the previous accent on the relation between reason and religion that characterized his past several addresses on this issue.

But even in this discourse, that theme, dear to Joseph Ratzinger, was not missing. Indeed it returns with a suggestive acknowledgment to Galileo and to the mathematical sciences.

But it is strongly counterbalanced by an affirmation of the primacy of love that emerges powerfully from the Pope's words, with a suggestive opening to the extistential dimension of the religious experience, and to the responsibilities and the role of the Church confronting "the endless multitudes of the poor on this earth."

It is only in this intensely religious context that we can consider the usual (social) themes I referred to earlier, destined unfortunately to claim the most attention and the usual polemics.

Whereas, in my opinion, it is very much worthwhile to grasp the profound novelty that the Pope's discourse contained regarding the presence of Catholics in public life, particularly in political life - a novelty that nevertheless goes back in some way to Paul VI's positions and those of Vatican-II. (A Council which, parenthetically, even in the opening address by Cardinal Tettamanzi, has finally been re-proposed on the basis of its dominant theme).

Why a 'return'? It is difficult to forget the emphasis that the role of the Church as 'social force' had during thw pontificate of John Paul II - 'social force' is a term that undoubtedly expressed and continues to express historical reality but within which fundamental distinctions risk being lost.

And now, in the words of this Pope, those distinctions are back with all clarity: the role of the Church and its Magisterium is distinct from the role of lay faithful who are once again defined in the ancient forgotten words we last read in Gaudium et spes and which we now hear again with deep satisfaction.

I think that if the lay culture would be willing to read this discourse in its proper religious context, it will be possible for it to examine in depth that confrontation which the times urgently call for.

For instance, one must not underestimate the role that religious conscience plays in a democracy, an institution whose crisis is visible to all today and which must be innervated with strong idealistic tensions.

I also think that this discourse could signal a turning point for a new season in Italian Catholicism beyond its political exploitation [by the secular culture] that we have seen and which we still continue to see daily.

We had thought and hoped that, after the end of the Christian Democratic Party, the use of religion in politics would have diminished.

Conversely, we have seen and continue to see a multiplication of new party acronyms which indicate a nostalgia for a now-irrecoverable past - that, in fact, of Catholic unity under the banner of the Christian Democrats - but within a void of culture and political ideas.

There is a creeping temptation to re-introduce religion as a social force, as an aggregate element to the political agenda. We have returned in some ways to the old controversy between Catholics who make their political presence felt and Catholics who simply favor mediation with everyone.

And so I think that the Pope's invitation, his appeal to the responsibility and freedom of lay Catholics to make themselves heard and felt, can contribute to a new season for Italian Catholicism.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/10/2006 18.46]

Lella contributes another analysis of the Pope's discourse in Verona by a leading Catholic writer and commentator, writing for the online news and opinion journal libero.it. Here is a translation:

A rap on the knuckles
for Tettamanzi and many others
By ANTONIO SOCCI

Benedict XVI towers above a class of clergy which literally has dropped its arms (and not only that).

Yesterday, at the convention of the Italian Church in Verona, the Pope with another splendid intervention brought back the Bark of Peter towards the right direction.

As a good father, he did not 'attack' anyone, but the 'corrections' that he made were many and powerful. Let us name names.

The first salutary correction was directed at the incredible Cardinal Tettamanzi of Milan. In opening the convention, the Archbishop of Milan gave a spech which Corriere della Sera headlined thus: "Tettamanzi to the theo-cons: Enough with proclaiming the faith in words".

His central message was this: "It is better to be a Christian without saying so than to proclaim it without being one."

By that, he also intended a thrust against all non-Catholic laymen - from Giuliano Ferrara, ex-Communist, to Marcello Pera, agnostic - who are 'guilty' of respecting and defending the Catholic Church.

Two out of three 'Catholic progressives' will cite the opening to the lay world intended by the Second Vatican Council, but would fire broadsides when laymen do turn up with an active interest in the Church and its public role.

Tettamanzi's dictum ("Better to be A Christian without saying so") - pronounced at a point in time when one may risk legal sanction by simply wearing a Cross on a necklace - will be considered by some Catholics as praise for their own cowardice and opportunism.

Tettamanzi's incredible gaffe confirms that Don Giussani's [founder of the Communion and Liberation movement] dramatic cry in the last interview he ever gave - "The Church has become ashamed of Christ!" - is a snapshot of this historical moment.

Now let's come to the case of Ferrara and others like him. [Giuliano Ferrara was a prominent leaderr of the Italian Communist Party who has since become a leading voice in Italian politics for convervative values associated with the Catholic Church, and who is editor of Il Foglio, a newspaper that promotes his conservative views.]

St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei (Of the City of God) observed that Christ has friends and allies in the city of man and enemies within the City of God.

The Pope, who knows Augustine well, in effect explained to the Church in Italy yesterday what a great gift it is to find today a lay world that no longer has exclusively anti-Catholics like Eugenio Scalfari and Paolo Flores d'Arcais, but also very respectful and interested names like Ferrara, Pera and many others (but not always theocons, like Ernesto Galli della Loggia).

This is what he actually said:

"We are aware of the grave risk of detaching our civilization from its Christian roots. This sensation, which is widespread among the Italian population, has been explicitly and forcefully expressed by many important men of culture, even among those who do not share or, at least, do not practice, our faith. The Church and Italian Catholics are therefore called upon to seize this great opportunity, and above all, to keep it always in mind.

"Our attitude should never be a renunciatory folding back into ourselves - instead, we must keep alive and possibly increase our dynamism, we must open ourselves confidently to new relationships, and not neglect or ignore any energies that can contribute to the cultura and moral growth of Italy."

Of course, the Pope - who is no cultural subaltern (nor is any Catholic) - also invites them, these providential allies of the Church, to look Jesus in the face. He invites them to acknowledge with their reason the evident Intelligence that created and regulates the cosmos.

And he invites them to acknowledge - through their innate 'need for love" - Christ Himself as the total response to the human desire for happiness.

I can only list the gist of the Pope's other 'corrections":

To those who would reduce faith to a moral or ideological crusade, the Pope would remind them again that "the origin of our faith as believers was not an ethical decision or a great idea, but the encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ."

To those would turn the Church into an ideologized humanitarian agency, he tells them "it is necessary to bear charitable witness, keeping free of ideological suggestions and partisan sympathies...above all measuring our action by the yardstick of Christ's actions".

To those who, like the magazine La Civilta Cattolica, perhaps, which last month argued against apologetics, he says, quoting St. Peter: "We should always be ready to give a response (apo-logia) to anyone who asks us the reason (logos) for our hope."

To the secularists who, in the name of dialog, attacked him for his Regensburg lecture, he responds that the modern and secular "reduction of man" who is "treated today like just another animal" [according to the lights of 'relativism' and 'utilitarianism'] makes it impossible to dialog "with other cultures in which the religious dimension is strongly present."

Finally, the Pope proclaims anew that the novelty of Christianity arose from "the Resurrection of Christ which is a fact that took place historically."

With these words, he liquidates the dominant tendencies in current theology according to which one must distinguish between the "historical fact" of the Resurrection and its 'reality" - Heideggerian sophisms with which some theologians have even managed to build their ecclesiastical careers on.

Earlier, Paul VI had underscored 'the empirical and sensible fact' of Jesus's apparitions after the Resurrection in this manner: "If we do not keep our faith in this empirical and sensible fact," he said, 'we would transform Christianity into mere gnosis." And that is the risk of so much modern theology.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 3.04]

Eugenia in the main forum contributes this account in L'Arena, Verona's main newspaper, on the Papal visit yesterday. Here is a translation.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Ovation at Bentegodi
for Benedict XVI
By Giancarlo Beltrame


The Popemobile passes by the famed Arena di Verona.

«Tutti pazzi per Papa Ratzy» (Everyone's crazy for Papa Ratzy)read a streamer on the southern arc, unconcerned [more likely, knowingly] that the diminutive is a homonym for one of the best-known and universally used Italian words, 'paparazzi.'

But to paraphrase another popular saying, it is not that the Veronese have really 'gone mad' for Pope Benedict. But those who were inside Bentegodi stadium yesterday afternoon - more than 40,000 reinforced by visitors from the nearby provinces - welcomed the entrance of the Popemobile through the Maradona Gate with all the unbridled enthusiasm of sports fans. So much that the crowd had to be requested later over the public-address system to recover its composure and concentration before the Mass could begin.




The encounter between a city with a reputation for being 'cold' and incapable of much enthusiasm, on the one hand, and a Pope who was reputed to be as 'cold' as his snow-white hair could have been potentially risky. Instead, the faithful of Verona reserved for Papa Ratzinger nothing less than a whole afternoon of applause, interrupting his homily at least 20 times to applaud at his most significant lines.

But the faithful of Verona also reserved a great ovation for their own bishop, Mons. Flavio Roberto Carraro, whom they see as the primary architect of having brought the Pope to this city on the banks of the Adige river.

They also applauded when the Pope acknowledged the secretary of the Italian bishops conference, Mons. Betori, who came down with a severe ailment on the very eve of the Convention; for Cardinal Trttamanzi; for the entire Verona community; and even for the politicians and journalists. For everyone, but not quite.

Silence - who knows why? - greeted the name of Cardinal Camillo Ruini who closes the convention today and perhaps, his presidency of the Italian bishops conference as well.

In his homily, Benedict avoided the socio-political issues he confronted in his morning address and spoke like an old wise pastor explaining learnedly the sense of the Biblical readings from the day's liturgy, underscoring that they illuminate the theme of the convention: "Witnesses of the Risen Christ, hope of the world."

Thus he explained the meaning of the First Letter of St. Peter, cited from the Acts of the Apostles and St. Augustine, and closed with the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Bring glad tidings to the lowly, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, announce the year of favor from the Lord... Rebuild the ancient ruins, raise up the former wastes, and restore the ruined cities."

He invited Christians explicitly to spread "in the world and for the world" the hope of God, strengthened by two certitudes - that "no adverse forse can ever destroy the Church" and that "in a changing world, the Gospel never changes." Also, that Catholics are 'the heirs of triumphant witnesses for the faith - martyrs, saints and blessed ones who have left indelible traces through two millenia of Christian history."

Benedict is a Pope of certitudes. A Pope who speaks to the mind, who makes us reason, but does not warm the heart nor carry his audience along as did his predecessor. [But didn't this writer just describe the sportsfan-like enthusiasm and all the applause - even before the Pope spoke? What was that for? Because they were already pondering his message? Come on!]

He doesn't like applause. He doesn't seek it, nor does he try to raise it through his words. One senses that he cuts it off when he feels it is out of place or too long. Even his way of coming close to people is restrained, controlled, rational. [Oh, this very much depends on the circumstances! This writer obviously has not watched him at the general audiences or other informal occasions in public. Surely, before a Mass, formality is more appropriate.]

After the warm words of welcome by Mons. Flavio, before the Mass began, he rose from his chair and went forward to greet him. Everyone expected him to embrace the bishop. Instead, he kept himself to a handshake and then, the bishop's kiss on the Papal ring.

When he came off the Popemobile in the center of the athletic track, between two ranks of onlookers, through the songs, the chanting, and teh applause of more than 40,000 people, he walked towards the 'sacristy' prepared for him to put on his garments for Mass.



He shook many hands held out to him, he raised his arms with hands together in an attitude of prayer, but it was clear that he was trying hard not to completely discard the inforrmality that had been introduced by Karol Wojtyla's theatricality, perhaps because his own ideal of behavior tends to be more hieratic.




Could this be soon after he recovered his ring
that had slipped off during a handshake?

He is also a 'liturgical' Pope, in the sense that, following in the wake of theologian and philospher Romano Guardini (a German of Veronese descent), he considers liturgy an essential element of prayer. He likes prayers recited and sung in Latin, as one could hear in Verona yesterday both at his morning address to the Convention, as in the afternoon Mass.

But even in the disposition of the clergy during the Mass sent a message. [Surely, he is not implying the Pope had anything to do with the design of the altar nor the placement of the clergy!]



First, he alone, a small figure, but a giant in the role entrusted to him, at the center of the altar, wearing a green chasuble symbolizing hope (a key word of the Convention) a shade brighter than the green worn by the cardinals and bishops, ranged as two wings on platforms flanking the altar. On a lower level, like two wings of an imaginary Biblical dovehouse, the entire sacerdotal corps of the diocese of Verona, and on the other, all the visiting priests and religious taking part in the Convention.[IMG]



His self-control, as the maxi-screeens had shown during the plenary session of the Convention, is evident even in his facial discipline, the facial muscles usually firm and immobile, almost impassive, except for the very lively eyes which scrutinize the speaker or are engaged in following his own line of thought.

Pope Benedict, from the very choice of his papal name, would very much be the monk Pope, dedicated to 'ora e labora', prayer and work, which in his case, was and remains exquisitely intellectual, even though when he has to, he does not disdain contact with the faithful, as he showed yesterday.

And he goes around confidently, although - given that 'mala tempora currunt' (these are evil times) - even while he is wslking through the red carpet that leads to the altar, on the way in as on the way out, he is accompanied at his side not only by Archbishop Marini as ceremonial master and by his private secretary Georg Gaenswein, but by very alert close-in security men.

And among the thousands of multicolored scarves that are being waved in his honor, just above the ledge of the stadium's southern arc, one can see the black silhouettes of two sharpshooters armed with binoculars and weapons to safeguard the Pope from any threat.

At the end, after the Pope had left among new choruses of "Be-ne-det-to", chanted in rhythm with their clapping, there was the reported 'political' incident. There were whistles asnd boos for Prime Minister Prodi and applause for his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi (but even he got his share of whistles and boos in aother part of the stadium).

Perhaps it was the fact of being inside a sports stadium that made these persons forget they were still in a place that had just been consecrated by the celebration of Holy Mass and the presence of the pPope.

For them, the Pope's spiritual message was already filed away. The prayers of the faithful dedicated to the hot issues of the convention, the ordeals and the fragility of life, the family as a privileged place for the growth of love, the complexity of economic relationships, the fatigues of labor and the difficulty of celebrating, politics pursued for the common good and 'not for personal interests' (as the Pope said in his morning address), growing obstacles to the dissemination of the Christian message - all these seem to have been forgotten by them.

Fortunately, there were few of them. Many more went away comforted in their faith or asking themselves questions which, before this Pope, not even the hierarchy of the Italian Catholic Church had really raised before them.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/10/2006 14.30]

Forgive me for asking the obvious, but how does this guy know that the participants had "already forgotten" the Pope's message?

And I love the persistent shibboleth about Papa Benedetto not being as popular with the crowds as his predecessor. It's only been disproved about a million times.

Well, I've just been in a 'discussion' upstairs about this reporter's story and its internal contradictions - the most obvious being that he starts out by recounting popular enthusiasm for the Pope before he even arrives, and goes on to describe further shows of enthusiasnm till the Popemobile finally leaves the stadium, but then says somewhere in the story that this Pope is 'unable to carry crowds along' the way his predecessor did!

I have come to the conclusion that I will 'excuse' him a bit, because he does get other things right. But I do gather that he has never before watched any video of the Pope, and is obviously seeing him for the first time, while laboring under all the usual stereotypes about Joseph Ratzinger that have since been dispelled by the living daily reality of Pope Benedict, even among the most hostile MSM! So his account comes out confused at best. Now, why his newspaper assigned someone like him for this coverage is an obvious editorial mistake.

As to his conclusion that the people who booed Prodi already appeared to have 'forgotten' the Pope's message, I think he meant that so soon after an important Mass with such a significant homily, the booers reverted immediately to their routine reactions in the secular world, instead of remaining conscious of their being Christian, and that being Christian, they should behave properly if not charitably.

But as none of the Italian MSM appear to find it worthwhile to add details of local color or observing what the Pope does as a person instead of just reporting what he says, this is the only story so far from Verona that gives us a flavor of how it was. The reporter may be naive and provincial, but he did make the effort of looking at Benedict as a person, not just as the Pope.

If you can get the Avvenire issue of 10/20/06, it will be very much worth it,
as you can see from these facsimile pages of their coverage of the Pope's visit to Verona.











Sorry I still have not figured out how to access their photographs for re-posting unless they post it
in a special photo-gallery with the dossiers they compile every so often on a special event. They have not put up any in the Verona dossier, strangely....

P.S. Caterina in the main forum has scanned some of the photos from the actual newspaper and posted them on -
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/viewmessaggi.aspx?f=65482&idd=...

I will post translations eventually of their best stories on the Pope in Verona... Meanwhile, this overall introduction gives us a taste of the coverage:


Peter was here
and left his mark
By Francesco Ognibene

Less than 10 hours all told. It seems a chronologically brief time - barely long enough to begin knowing each other.

But what Benedict XVI left Thursday in the hands of 2700 participants of the Church Convention in Verona was a powerful concentrate of challenges, diagnoses, maps and projections - an intense session of teaching which will be assimilated over time.

But already it had left its mark on the event which was to conclude Friday. Not only by the force of the words that he said before the Convention itself and at the stadium Mass.

What is best engraved in memory - further reinforcing the Pope's words - was the Pope's close encounter with delegates from all over Italy; with the city of Verona that is host to the convention; and with the Veronese who welcomed Benedict XVI at Bentegodi stadium with an affecrion that dispelled earlier fears about a lukewarm reception.

The images are laid down in memory as much as the words, sewn together seamlessly. That is why we are opening our account of yesterday's events with a photographic album that tells the story of Benedict's day in Verona, starting from around 9:30 when he arrived at the Villafranca airport to his departure from the same place around 7 p.m. [You can see why I am frustrated not having access just yet to their photos.]

It documents an encounter that was anything but fleeting, organized necesarily around just two events, which had an intensity that was commmunicated to all with a jolt - from the sentences in his two discourses, to the looks, smiles, greetings, even the measured gestures which Italians (and others) have already come to appreciate in this Pope, and conversely, the many ways in which the Veronese expressed their affection for the Holy Father.

The sky was grey that morning, but the people who waited for the Pope along the route from the airport to the city were colorful.

Photo after photo shows the Pope's encounter with people who greeted him with a warmth undiminished by hours of waiting - an expectation already palpable the day before - not just for him but for his words, for that density of reflection that they then promptly found in every sentence of the Pope's 'lecture'.

They were ready for it. It was almost like a reward for the preparation and the commitment that all convention participants had put into their preparations for Verona and their work in the past few days.

And in the afternoon, further food for meditation from the Pope's homily, which wove together Scriptural exhortations (a citation from Isaiah) and his own words of encouragement ("Only Christ can fully satisfy the profound expectations of the human heart") with a solemn and precise liturgy.

These are images which will be looked at not only as the obligatory chronicle of a great event. They will be accompanied - for those who did not have the fortune to be there - by an interior sound track, a personal echo of the Pope's words which we reprint in this issue.

The Pope has the ability to sculpt his concepts in a few words that have the clarity of captions. They can be heard and read in one breath, and everything is there - clear and immediate like a well-taken photograph.

One is left with words that are instant slogans - "In a changing world, the Gospel does not change" - along with an elaboration of ideas in calibrated and precise words we would do well to use, circulate and make our own.

Just to mention one, the 'full citizenship' that Catholics should obtain for the Christian faith in the culture of our time, which he describes as "a fascinating adventure well worth undertaking."

This is the story of a day in which words and images, the encounter with Benedict XVI and his 'letter' to Italy, all came together.

Peter has passed this way, and has left his mark.

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


The Pope's 20-page address to the convention in Verona was so comprehensive that no single analyst has yet been able to make an overall commentary about it.

It is certainly one of the most significant speeches of his Pontificate thus far. However, the fact that it was delivered in a specifically Italian context may keep Anglophone commentators from giving it the attention it deserves.

The editor of Avvenire attempts a broad overview in the editorial he wrote for the 10/20 issue of the newspaper. Here is a translation:

Sails to the wind: How the Church
must help safeguard modernity
By Dino Boffo


The “people of Yes”, they who affirm God, were tickled pink by the visit of the Pope Thursday. And happily surprised even if the event was long anticipated.

The 42 applauses that interrupted the long Papal discourse in Verona on Thursday morning were smiles and winks, encouragement and consensus, from an assembly of persons – very diverse, everyone of them someone responsible in their respective dioceses, and therefore, far from casual signals from an uninformed audience.

And Pope Benedict ‘endured’ each applause almost docilely. Except in certain passages, almost always after saying the word “Yes”, when he would pause, lift his eyes from his text, and give his now-familiar shy smile. And his audience responded promptly.

It was this repeated evocation of the great Yes from God - in Jesus Christ - to man and life, to man’s wish to love, to his freedom and to his intlligence, that strongly characterized the papal address. All of it was positively oriented - even when he was expressing reservations or underlining some No’s that must be said, because these too were really part of the Yes we must affirm to life and to modernity.

Nothing was omitted in the Pope’s architectonic discourse, objectively significant in its structure as well as its content - what he expressed in conceptual terms and how he applied this shrewdly to the realities of Italian life today, and his coverage of the work done by the Church in Italy.

Nothing of interest was overlooked in his examination of the cultural climate which now pervades the West. It was here that the typically Ratzingerian address sounded most urgent.

We are assailed, he said in effect, by new waves of experimental illuminism and individualist secularism, unprecedented attempts to reduce man to his animal dimensions, and by the relativization of values to the banality of utilitarianism.

Penetrating analyses now shared by many thinking people. Which indeed, the people of Verona and of the convention acknowledged with repeated applause.

But the Pope is not a social analyst nor a tribunal. He goes beyond his 'reflections' on this issues to call on each individual to truth and responsibility, to friendship in faith and concrete acts of neighborliness towards everyone, the poor above all, with open arms but without naivete.

And beyond citing the risks, he cites the opportunities. In this respect, he suggests, the epitome of all Christian qualities is the ability to discern, to evaluate and to purify the spirit of the times.

One recalls an image that Joseph Ratzinger used a few years ago at another meeting of the Italian Catholic Church. We must be, he said, like those who cut the bark of sycamores. This is an African tree that bears much fruit that is tasteless. But tasteless only until the peasant carefully makes cuts on the tree bark, after which, when the fruits are mature, they would now be pleasing to the palate.

And so, today’s culture may be insipid but that is no reason to ditch it completely. One must make the necessary cuts - purifying in a way - something that is not easy to do because one must know the fruits and when they will mature; one needs experience and the wisdom that comes with it.

But, as knowledgeable cultivators, we must be able to make these cuts expertly. “A courageous cut,” the Pope said Thursday, “which will lead to healling and maturation.” One does not cut down the tree, but neither must one leave it as it is; one must work on it with expertise and trepidation to make it better, and in these way, safeguard and improve all of its fruits.

And that is positive Catholicism, gentle and smiling, but also well-equipped and well-informed. Our task must be appropriate to the challenge of our times. Nothing less.

In spelling out the task for the Italian Church, the point of fusion between the Pope and the Italian Church appeared evident and revealing. The delegates were happy, and so was the Pope, who did not remain aloof from the situation but immersed himself in the affairs of the Italian Church with a very refined theological summa that framed the situation in Italy in great practical detail.

Italy has a historical calling. John Paul II had once before referred to Italian extroversion and what Italy was destined to do in terms of global humanism. Now, that reference has been elaborated into reasoned proposals.

Italy can use its exceptional situation to take the lead [in defense of the Christian roots of the West]. This must be seen not as an imposition but as an option taken, a lucid and conscious choice – one in which even non-Catholic laymen wish to contribute their efforts - to celebrate Christian values by further developing the positive characteristics that distinguish the people of Italy. Of which perhaps, even the United Nations may wish to avail of.

Such affirmation of Christian values is not a renunciation of progress but the elaboration of a way to modernity that is original and very pertinent.

Thank you, Pope Benedict. Your visit has been very good for us.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/10/2006 21.35]

The Avvenire writer called it Pope Benedict's "letter' to Italy and the Church in Italy. Mons. Bruno Forte, Bishop of Chieti-Vasto, member of the International Theological Commission, and one of the Italian theologians known to be close to the Pope, takes it one step further and calls it Benedict's encyclical for the Church in Italy.

Here is a translation of Mons. Forte's commentary on the Pope's discourse in Verona on Thursday, published in Il Messaggero on 10/21/06:

An encyclical for
the Church in Italy
By Mons. Bruno Forte

The address that Pope Benedict XVI made to the 4th National Covnention of the Italian Church was a true ‘encyclical’ for the Italian Church, even if it was presented modestly as a personal reflection “on what appears to be truly important for the Christian presence in Italy.”

His point of departure was the theme of the Convention itself: "Faith in Christ risen from the dead, and hope of the world.”

His Resurrection,” the Pope said, “ was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love that dissolved the chains of sin and death. It inaugurated a new dimension of life and of reality, from which emerged a new world, which continually compenetrates our world, transforms it, and draw it to itself.”

Whoever receives the gift that God made to the world in the person of Christ, becomes one with Him, “a new and unique subject,” in which “our I becomes liberated from isolation.”

The life of the disciples of the Risen One is to exist for God and for others. “I but no longer me: this is the formula of Christian existence founded on Baptism, the formula of resurection within time, the formula of the Christian innovation called upon to transform the world. In this is our Paschal joy.”

This theological premise leads to the true strong point of the Pope’s entire address: If things are so, then the Christian cannot be a man of No. He is called on to announce the great Yes that God has given the world in Jesus Christ.

Christianity is not a religion if prohibition and condemnation. It is rather the good news of God’s sympathy for life and for the freedom of human beings. It is the divine wager on the side of history, the revelation of the sense that is at the heart of all things and which can be discovered with the light of reason, helped and illumined by faith.

To make visible the great Yes of the faith is to give credit to man’s intelligence and to his ability to recognize the sensible structure of everything that exists, not ignoring human frailty, but recognizing it and reinforcing it with the power of love which is the other face of God.

Intelligence and love always go together, respecting the difference between theology and philosophy, between faith and reason, between ethics and science, but even in the awareness of the relationship that unites and holds together everything that God willed into being.

The practical translation of this task covers many levels in the Pope’s proposals: from personal existence to politics, from international current affairs to an ethic founded on respect for the dignity of human life, from the family to the education of children, to the reasons for hope that we must always be ready to offer to whoever truly seeks it.

On the political plane, the Pope insists on the personal and direct responsibility that each lay Catholic must assume, without invoking any ‘collateralism’ from the hierarchy.

Free from ideological seductions and partisan sympathies, the Church should be the home and school of a communion inspired by the Gospel, source of freedom for all.

“It is even more important that any work of charity should always keep high and shining its own specific profile, nourished by humility and trust in God, keeping itself free of ideological suggestions and partisan sympathies, and above all, measuring its vision against that of Christ.”

The task of building a just political and social order is recognized as clearly one for the laity, who must however be educated by the Gospel, sustained in the choice of the objects for generosity and dedication, but never authorized to use the term Christian or the fact of being Christian for any exploitative ends.

Side by side with the adult Christian’s political commitment must be his social commitment, in which volunteer work, solidarity with the poor of the earth, the different expressions of ‘caritas’ are further testing grounds for the truth that is implied in being a followeer of Jesus.

In the same horizon as that great Yes of God, we also see the Nos that must be pronounced: No to violence against life in all its forms and stages; No to barbarous terrorism and to war seen as a way to resolve conflicts; No to the injustice of hunger in the world and of other conditions of life that are offensive to human dignity.

But to these No's correspond Yes'es, humble, always to be rediscovered and yet decisive and clear in being faithful to the Gospel: Yes to peace built on dialog, reciprocal pardon and justice for all; Yes to the human person, his dignity, his freedom and the infinite value of his life; Yes to the family founded on matrimony as the natural place for the transmission of life and of formation in the qualities that correspond to God’s design; Yes to schools – especially those inspired by Gospel values - not as spaces to be occupied or expressions of hegemony, but as a service to teach love of life, uniting intelligence without prejudice with charity lived as a joy and gift of living.

The Church Benedict proposes is everything but an opposition to man, or worse, an enemy of human happiness. Rather, it is an ally of the human being, of the beauty of being and of wanting to be human, able to offer a concrete model of communion and co-responsibility before God, and service to the poorest and weakest among our companions on the way.

A Church to which the entire Italian society may look to with friendship, recognizing in her a partner desirous of dialog and of collaboration for the good of everyone. Not a center of power or a fortress of conservatism, but a community of joy, of authentic freedom, of love that is given and received, of hope based on faith in Jesus Christ and in the promise that, through Him, God made to history, for the future of all.

This is a difficult but possible goal, and may its ever fuller realization truly be in the hearts of everyone, because it is the gift of hope for everyone.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 3.01]