Monsignor Forte's statement about the Pope's 'encyclical for Italy' became the take-off for an interview with him that appeared in Il Mattino today. Like the item above, both were posted by Lella in the main forum. Here is a translation:


By ALCESTE SANTINI

Why an encyclical for Italy?
Because on the one hand, the Pope has reflected on the Italian situation, looking at the difficulties which the Church faces with respect to individual freedom [in the United States, its advocates call it 'primacy of conscience'] asserted by persons who are closed in on themselves, giving rise to ethical relativism.

On the other hand, speaking of the intelligent structure of the universe, he has shown that in the depth of every reality, there is a design that allows human reason - even that of non-believers - to ask itself about the sense of existence. This opens the way to dialog within the Church and outside it.


What were the choices given by the Pope as to how Catholics may practice their politics?
The Pope reminds us of the evangelical essence of the Church, which keeps it above ideologies and parties. Taking off from the use of both intelligence and love, political choices inspired by the Gospel lead us to some big and basic No's in the task of building a new social and political order: No to violence, to terrorism, to war as a means to resolve conflicts, to epidemics that devastate the earth, to any attempt to manipulate life, to any negation of the concept of family based on matrimony.

These are accompanied by the great Yes'es of the Church: to the promotion of human rights and human dignity, to peace, to justice in terms of eliminating the causes of unacceptable poverty and hunger.

Some have pointed out to a divergence between the opening speech of Cardinal Tettamanzi and the Pope's address. What is your opinion on what Catholics must do?
I would not talk of differences. We must talk of God's love for man to whom He has given his trust. The task for the Church is to continue to preach the Gospel and help men and women to be inspired by it so that they may responsibly make their own choices. It is a more evangelical vision of the Christian presence in history.

What does the Pope think about a re-valuation of technology?
The Pope has pointed out the limits of technology when it is only concerned with the rational aspect. Because reason that is not united with love and with the human being's moral resources can be destructive.

It is in this context that the Pope lays value on education through the family and through Catholic schools as an instrument to provide this kind of education.

With respect to Paul VI and John Paul II, where is the Church going with Benedict XVI?
Papa Ratzinger spoke of Paul VI with great respect for having called the first National Convention of the Itlaian Churhc in 1976. As for the difference between John Paul II and Benedict XVI, I will answer with a Biblical image.

John Paul II was the Moses who led his people across the Red Sea, with his mystical and messianic vision. Benedict XVI is the Moses who came down from the mountain with the Table of the Law and is explaining it to his people as a gift of love in the service of mankind...

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 1.24]

Here is a surprising report from La Repubblica's Marco Politi, who has been quite negative, to say the least, about his reporting on Benedict XVI.

In this report, he talks to some of the delegates to the recent convention in Verona, and for some reason, does not cite a single negative reaction to Benedict's address! This is more the sort of report one expects to find in Avvenire rather than La Repubblica, the mouthpiece of Italian liberals.

The usual MSM device in these reaction stories is to try to get an equal number of pro and con testimonies about an issue, and if the journalist shows his bias, he might cite more of one than the other. Who knows why Politi has decided in this piece to shed sweetness and light for a change?

In any case, here is a translation:
-------------------------------------------------------------

Travelling among the delegates to Verona:
The Pope's invitation for individuals
to act in society won over most of them

Ratzinger galvanizes his base:
"Now let's go home and
start giving concrete witness"
By Marco Politi

VERONA - One wishes to take part in politics, but is diffident of 'leaderism' among politicians.

Another affirms his soldier's right to choose a political party, but aalso wants to be among other Catholics to be able to discuss issues according to values that are shared.

The people of the parishes - those whom we never get to hear on talk-shows - talk about concrete acts and an enormous desire for active commitment to help their fellowmen in flesh and blood.

What a pity that a great majority of the political class do not have 'channels' to be in contact with these citizens.

Domenico Vestito, from the diocese of Locri, was not happy about the whistles that greeted Prime Minister Prodi at the stadium in Verona, because "they should respect the Premier." Besides, a liturgical site such as the stadium was Thursday for the papal Mass, should be a space of 'charity and welcome.'

Nonetheless, that aappeared to be of minor importance to most of the delegates.

Giselda Toppetti, a young woman from Pescara, commented that the episode - as well as the abstract relation between religion and politics - did not really concern many of the participants in this general assembly of the faithful.

"We are interested in man and in his needs, because we want to be able to serve our fellowman in all aspects," she remarked.

Vestito himself adds that what matters is to join one's commitment with defined values: "A Catholic politician who is attentive to the Magisterium of the Church cannot, for instance, vote for a law that discriminates against immigrants."

Italo Cardarilli, a priest from Frosinone, advocates a balanced relationship between Church and State, because "together both can work for the full realization of the human potential." However, he says, Christians should not be afraid to stand up for ideas and values which are universal.

Luisa, a nun in her 40s, could well be an icon of this convention. Sturdy brown moccasins with red woolenm socks, beige trousers, ivory shirt, a necklace of coral beads, and gray sweater. Just one citizen among other citizens. She chews gum and took notes during the convention. What concerns her most is the question of diversity - economic, social, ethnic, cultural - and how to reconcile these differences.

Ultimately, the parish faithful are interested in developing positive relationships that will allow them to grow as children of God.

"We should know how to give hope to others, and to place man at the center of our practical concerns," said a young girl with a knapsack, mounting the bus that would take her home.

Padre Giuseppe, who comes from Sardinia, is still enthusastic about the Pope's address. "He showed quite clearly where the Church stands. That it should avoid giving the impression of interfering politically,[ because it has no political interests, but that individual Catholics must uphold their political convictions]. At the same time, the Church must concentrate on transmitting the message of Christian love."

It is very important, he said, that "Christians should be bearers of joy, and not seen to represent a Church that only knows how to say No."

A business executive in his 50s is convinced that the Pope is right when he entrusts Italian Catholics with the mandate to "show that the Gospel has not been superseded" contrary to the prevalent mentality in other European countries.

Benedict's repeated emphasis on the relationship between Church, reason and culture has galvanized many of the delegates.

"Chistianity ahs always known how to adapt to other cultures or ideologies," says Laura Viscardi of Rome. She says she is not afraid to confront the 'theocons.'

"Even in the Hellenstic era, the Fathers of the Church stood up the intellectuals of their time. A debate of ideas is healthy."

The general impression is that the convention sessions and then Ratzinger's discourse were so rich in stimuli that everyone can go back home with a number of initiatives to chose from.

Suor Annarita Cipolla, of the USMI (the directorate for female religious orders) said she was grateful for the Pope's "clarity." It pleased her that he said "The Church can inspire politics, but the responsbility for concrete political commitment rests with the laity."

That way, she said, "the Church can concentrate on its fundamental mission - to announce that Christ is truth and love."

A priest from southern Italy remarked: "In the seminary, we all read Ratzinger's books in secret. It seems like he has changed quite a bit from his pessimism about the contemporary world."
----------------------------------------------------------------

I still don't get it that many commentators have concluded that Ratzinger's earlier views and writings were 'pessimistic'. His analyses of contemporary culture have been realistic - and if some of it is negative, that has nothing to with his world view but his evaluation of objective facts. Anyway, who could possibly present any rosy view of Western culture in the past century, say? To describe things as they are has nothing to do with pessimism or optimism, only with truth.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 2.57]

Here are the wire-service reports on the Pope's messages at Angelus today. A full translation of his text has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.
---------------------------------------------------------------

22 October, 2006
Pope speaks about
the Christian mission,
the end of Ramadan and
violence in Iraq

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Missionary work is born from an awareness of the love of God and finds expression in announcing this love to the world, as St Francis did 800 years ago, otherwise it would be “reduced to philanthropic activities and social work”.

Today, the 80th World Mission Day, Benedict XVI dedicated his words to mission as he addressed 40,000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square before the Angelus.

The tragic situation in Iraq was mentioned by the pope after recital of the Marian prayer, with an appeal to the world to help this people to rebuild their homeland and to Iraqis themselves to realise that different ethnicities and religions are a source of richness.

A large crowd turned up for the Angelus, despite the grey and rainy weather: Latin Americans were particularly numerous today and a big group held a procession in Via Conciliazione, accompanied by a band and bearing images of the crucifix and Our Lady.

Before the prayer, Benedict XVI recalled that his message for World Mission Day was based on the theme “Charity, the soul of mission”. He said: “In effect, mission, if not animated by love, is reduced to philanthropic activities and social work. For Christians, however, the words of the apostle Paul apply: ‘For the love of Christ urges us on’ (2 Cor 5:14)”.

[The story goes on to quote most of the text.]

After the recital of the Angelus, Benedict XVI sent “cordial greetings to Muslims of the whole world who, in these days, are celebrating the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. To all, I send wishes of serenity and peace!”

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

Pope salutes Muslims,
prays for Iraq

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 22, 2006 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI has sent his "cordial greetings" to the world's Muslims on Eid al-Fitr, the feast day ending the holy month of Ramadan, and voiced concern for the "innocent victims" of the violence in Iraq.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, who earlier this year offended many Moslems with comments that appeared to link their religion to violence, offered his greetings during his weekly Angelus prayer at the Vatican Sunday.

"I am happy to send cordial greetings to Muslims around the world who are these days celebrating the end of the Ramadan fasting month," the pope said from the window of his apartments in the Vatican.

"I send them all my wishes for serenity and peace."

The pontiff said "this atmosphere of joy contrasts dramatically with news from Iraq concerning the very serious security situation and the atrocious violence to which many innocent people are exposed for the sole reason that they are Shiite, Sunni or Christian."

"I am aware of grave concerns in the Christian community and I want to make clear that I am close to them and with all the victims," he said.

He prayed that "religious and political leaders both locally and around the world will have the courage needed to help the Iraqi people along the path of reconstruction ... in mutal respect and the understanding that their diversity is an integral part of their richness."

In September the pope offended Muslims all over the world when he quoted a medieval Christian emperor who equated Islam with violence.

The pontiff later said he regretted the offence his comment -- made in an address given in his native Germany -- had given, but did not explicitly apologise for or retract it.

The feast of Eid al-Fitr, which brings to an end the fasting of Ramadan, is considered the most important in the Muslim calendar.

The Vatican on Friday called for mutual respect between Christians and Muslims, even as a senior cardinal warned the Roman Catholic Church to beware of Islam's "religious, social and political revival."

A message from the Church's top official for inter-faith dialogue to mark the end of Ramadan referred implicitly to the row provoked by the pope's recent remarks.

The message addressed to "Dear Muslim friends" by Cardinal Paul Poupard, said: "The particular circumstances that we have recently experienced together demonstrate clearly that, however arduous the path of authentic dialogue may be at times, it is more necessary than ever."

Pope Benedict's comments came weeks before the pontiff's scheduled visit to Turkey at the end of November, his first trip to a Muslim majority country since he took office.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said last week the visit would offer a chance for dialogue between religions, which the Church wanted to see continue.

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 address last month.

But the head of the Catholic Church in Italy, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, explicitly linked Islamic radicalism to terrorism at a church conference in Verona on Friday, while stressing "the duty to build peace."

"The challenge that international terrorism represents ... is only one aspect of a much wider problem that one can sum up in the religious, social and political revival of Islam and the determination to be new protagonists on the world stage which is shared, at least partially, by Muslim people," he said.

The story from Reuters:

Pope calls for end
to sectarian violence in Iraq


ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Iraqis and religious and political leaders worldwide on Sunday to stop the violence between religious factions in Iraq that has cost the lives of innocent Muslims and Christians.

The Pope, who is trying to mend fences with Muslims offended by a speech of his seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, used his regular Sunday address to send "cordial greetings" to Muslims celebrating the end of their annual Ramadan fast.

"In dramatic contrast with this happy atmosphere there comes news from Iraq of the grave situation of insecurity and cruel violence to which many innocent people are exposed just because they are Shi'ite, Sunni or Christian," he said.

The U.S.-backed Iraqi government is led by Shi'ite Muslims who are struggling to rein in Shi'ite militias battling Sunnis in a sectarian conflict that kills about 100 Iraqis every day.

Since the Pope's speech, Christians in Iraq fear they could become the targets of more violence.

Iraq's main Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim parties all denounced the Pope's remarks as an attack on the Prophet Muhammad, while demonstrators burned a white effigy of the Pope last month.

A recent U.S. government report on religious freedom in Iraq estimated the number of Christians has shrunk to about 1 million from 1.4 million in 1987. Most are Catholics known as Chaldeans.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/10/2006 16.24]

Emma in the main forum shares this item from today's Corriere della Sera written by Vittorio Messori, whose commentary takes off from the Pope's address at the Lateran University yesterday. Here is a translation:

Professor Ratzinger
and the notebooks
of the faithful
By Vittorio Messori


It is urgent "to find new ways which can help the West to emerge from the dramatic crisis of culture and identity which we see before us." And let no one forget the disquieting myth of Icarus!

Those were the words of Benedict XVI yesterday at 'his' university, the Lateran - the Pontifical University par excellence.

So, after his words in Verona, just more Papal alerts, more reproaches for our time and its culture?

We certainly are not implying that everyone should agree with the Pope. But we would like to invite the reflection of whoever is shaking his head at this point and would think of this as nothing more than 'the usual clerical whining' or the 'usual priestly denunciations of the evils of our time.'

It is not a surrender to Catholic apologetics, but there are facts that honesty compels us t0 acknowledge.

None of the Popes within the lifetime of anyone who is in his 60s today could be called 'unprepared', in the sense of being a mere priest devoid of any profound culture nor solid human experience.

How could one possibly say that of a Pacelli, a Roncalli, a Montini, a Wojtyla? Fate willed it that the world did not get to know much about Albino Luciani, but whoever met him knows how much richness lay behind that smiling face of a rural curate.

Moreover - extending our horizon, and despite the scorn of pessimists who only see decline everywhere - let me cite an observation made by Fr. Hubert Jedin, one of the most outstanding historians of the 20th century.

That scholar observed that, after the bloody purifications at the hands of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, the series of Popes who came during the next two centuries up to our time does not contain a single one who would not be worthy of being included in the list of saints and blessed ones. In fact, many of them have been canonized, and others are in the process.

According to Jedin, there has never been such an uninterrupted series of such worthy Popes in the previous history of the Pontificate.

And even in dissent, not even the most partisan of anti-clericalists would say that Benedict XVI represents a break in that succession. whicn a believer would not hesitate to call providential.

Moreover, this Bavarian Pope has an intellectual prestige that wasn't lacking in any of his predecessors but which, in him, seems almost emblematic of his Pontificate.

For example, in comparison with his venerated predecessor, John Paul II, who had such a wealth of gifts and virtues in him that made him unique, as we saw from the impressive reaction to his death. Among so many qualities that Karol Wojtyla had, his culture was only one aspect of an extraordinarily polyhedral personality.

But in Ratzinger, even the popular sense of him is that of a 'professor.' The crowds which gather at his every public appearance seem to be composed mostly of people who come not to be swayed by emotion but to learn, almost as though attending a lecture by a wise but generous professor, who is able to convey his knowledge even to those who are not at his level.

This is a Pope whose words people take actual notes on, so that they may be able to reflect at their leisure later on words that are dense with meaning. Surprised, I have seen this myself.

Beyond the reactions of the faithful, significant as they are, this man conveys the thinking of a Pope who occupied professorial chairs in state universities in a country like Germany, where the sacredness of 'Kultur' renders the academic selection process implacable.

Ratzinger has never ever yielded to invective that is rancorous or misinformed against "the sins of the world" or the "risks of non-believing." Nothing in him ever had the slightest whiff of clerical rhetoric!

He knows what he speaks of and argues it well - this leader of a Church that seems to have become the principal bulwark of Reason today.

Will enough of his critics, secularizing more than secular - people who say, "Let him speak, he is just doing what he must as Pope" - not refuse, for once, to confront what he says, which is reasoned analysis and not emotional preaching?

The following is a translation of an earlier commentary on the Pope's words about faith and science in his Verona address. Lella posted it from the 10/21/06 issue of Il Foglio and it anticipated Benedict's visit to Lateran University but comments on a passage from the Pope's speech in Verona on Thursday, where he talks about the Catholic attitude towards modern science and tehcnology.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Faith in science
brings us to God
By ANDREA PAMPARANA

As you read these lines, Benedict XVI, back from a ‘bagno di folla’[literally a 'crowd bath' - I still have not decided on a n English equivalent] in Verona, is inaugurating the new Academic Year at the Pontifical Lateran University.

At the same time, he is inaugurating extraordinary new structures brought to completion under the university recotr, Mons. Rino Fisichella, which includes a very modern library with more than 70,000 volumes and thousands of magazine titles, and the renovated and elegant Aula Magna (main lecture jall) which seats 550.

The Lateran is a technologically advanced university, with thpusands of students from many countries of the world, incluing Italy, of course, who are preparing to face the new cultural challenges of our time.

I see in the first row so many dear friends and teachers – among them, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Mons. Antonio Livi, student of the great philosopher Etienne Gilson, and Prof. Roberto di Ceglie, professor of Philosophy of Religion, of whom I am reading a book that is formidable in its intensity and informative capacity on difficult topics in philosophy and on the religions.

Prof. De Ceglie, in a book entitled “Reason and Incarnation” and published by the Lateran University itself, observes that “weighty charges of irrationality are still attributed to religion.”

In effect, he continues, “sometimes religion has offended man, his intelligence, his dignity, his rights. The sad events of violence and vague spiritualism which prevail in the current panorama of world religions cpnfirm that fact.”

“But having come from a God who chose to be incarnated, should not the intelligence and the will of man not be exalted instead?”

Strong words that are not far from those Pope Benedict XVI himself said in Verona: "The disciples of Chris acknowledge and gladly welcome authentic cultural values of our time, like scientific knowledge and technoloical progress, human rights, religious freedom and democracy.”

Many authoritative observers commented yesterday on the Pope’s address in Verona, placing their emphasis on the part considered ‘political’ – in which Benedict XVI says the Church is not and does not intend to be a political agent.

In my humble opinion, very few chose to point out the extraordinary reach of his sentence about Catholioc adherence to the values of science and technology, human rights and democracy.

I wish that the reflections of Pope Benedict on mathematics and God’s grand design for the universe could be read and studied in Italian schools, but I fear this wish will remain on paper.

The Greeks felt they could reason about everything: on the immortality of the soul, on metempsychosis [transmigration of souls], the nature of God, the role of reason in the universe.

Modern reason, beginning with Kant, has rejected this type of unbounded speculative reasoning. For modern reason, there is no sense in raising such questions because they cannot be answered scientifically. And so, reason has come to be identified only with that which can be called science.

Mathematics and scientific method can uncover truths that are considered absolutely certain, scientific truth. And the human sciences - philosophy, psychology, sociology = try to conform themselves to this canon of ‘scientificity.’ Ethics, religion, God, are excluded FROM the investigative scope of modern reason – they are considRred to be purely subjective.

The Pope’s Verona discourse could be the manifesto for the modern Western man whether he believes or not in the Incarnation! [Er...shouldn't it rather be the Regensburg lecture?]
===============================================================

In one of the first comments I posted tight after reading the Regensburg lecture for the first time, I suggected that it should be required reading for all university students and professors?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/10/2006 3.13]

In case you have not seen it, you may be interested in an excellent article by Spengler of Asia Times who comments on the 'Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI' by a group of Muslim scholars. I posted it in REFLECTIONS ON ISLAM although ot belongs here as well.
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/viewmessaggi.aspx?f=65482&idd...
Would it surprise you to know that reason, as defined by the Muslim scholars who wrote the letter, is not reason as we know it in the West? Then how can we reason together?

Another thought: Benedict XVI is such a man of ideas that many stories about him are inevitably about his ideas. This makes 'reporting' the reporting on him - which is what we do when we post reports - that much more interesting. Especially if the commentators can engage his ideas intelligently!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/10/2006 18.11]

French clerics criticize
Pope's Latin mass plans
By Tom Heneghan
Religion Editor


PARIS, Oct. 23, 2006 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's expected revival of the old Latin mass has provoked protests from Roman Catholic clergy in France, a major center of the traditionalist schism the Pontiff hopes to overcome with the gesture.

Five bishops and 30 priests -- a considerable number in a church normally wary of open dissent [Teresa's note: "Wary of open dissent" in France? Come on!] - have expressed grave concern about making this concession to ultra-conservatives who reject the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Unswerving loyalty to the old Latin or Tridentine mass often goes hand in hand with a rejection of the Vatican II reforms [Teresa's note: Excuse me! Where does that 'often' come from? Is there any other group besides the Lefebvrians that reject the other Vatican-II reforms along with the new Mass? This is editorializing in a deliberately misleading way!]] which opened the church to respect for and cooperating with other faiths and switched to a modern mass conducted in local languages.

The protests printed in the Catholic press highlighted serious issues the Vatican faces if, as church sources have reported, it announces soon that priests are free to say the vintage mass as an alternative to the modern liturgy.

Demand for a return of the Tridentine mass -- an austere ceremony in which the priest prays in Latin with his back to a silent congregation -- is minimal among the world's 1.1 billion Catholics. [It's not a question of demand - it's a question of properly reinstating something that was never abrogated. And no one would be forced to attend the old Mass if they prefer the new Mass. But we still have to see that, won't we?]

In the modern mass, the priest faces the faithful, who pray and sing in active participation with him.

"This could create grave difficulties, especially for those who have remained loyal to Vatican II," Toulouse Bishop Robert Le Gall told the Catholic daily La Croix.

In an open letter, 30 young priests said Benedict, 79, should encourage them "to work in the world as it is ... rather than plunge us back into the liturgical life of another age."
{And the Pope has not been encouraging priests, every chance he gets, to "work in the world as it is" but not to forget that a priest must be first of all a man of prayer??]

Dating back to 1570, the Tridentine mass was dropped in the 1960s and can now be said only with a bishop's special permission.

But the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a Swiss-based group launched by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to oppose 1960s reforms, has demanded a blanket permission, or indult, for the Tridentine mass as a condition for its return to the church.

SSPX leader Bishop Bernard Fellay and other leaders were excommunicated in 1988.

Fellay says the Vatican looks set to grant the indult soon to take the SSPX back into the church.

But he insists his million-strong movement, many in France, would continue to contest Vatican II reforms from inside the church, creating a loyal opposition keen to steer it back to earlier practices.

The Vatican has already provoked protest in Bordeaux by readmitting five SSPX priests who preformed a Tridentine mass in a church they occupied there.

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, Bordeaux archbishop and head of the French Bishops' Conference, has urged French Catholics to welcome rebel priests who return to the church.

"We can be charitable and welcoming but we also have to be honest," Besancon Bishop Andre Lacrampe told the daily L'Est Republicain. "I'm not ready to receive them because one cannot erase Vatican II with a stroke of a pen."

"There are very deep and painful theological reasons behind this schism," Angouleme Bishop Claude Dagens told the Catholic weekly La Vie. "You can't pretend that Archbishop Lefebvre's break with the church was only caused by the liturgy."

Lille Archbishop Gerard Defois said some SSPX faithful were linked to far-right political movements and noted in a statement that some had "resorted to violent means to occupy churches."

===============================================================

---

"I'm not ready to receive them because one cannot erase Vatican II with a stroke of a pen."

"This could create grave difficulties, especially for those who have remained loyal to Vatican II,"

---

Aren't these objectors jumping the gun - the Vatican has not made any announcement yet; and making the wrong premise - it's only the press that has been branding the Pope's proposed liturgical 'correction' as principally a concession to the Lefebvrians.

And how can formal revalidation of a rite that was never declared invalid by Vatican II be said to 'erase Vatican-II with the stroke of a pen?"

We can be sure when -and if - the Papal word comes down, it will be crystal-clear as to its theological and liturgical implications, and place the whole issue correctly in the context of Vatican-II and what it intended by liturgical reform. So enough of this outrage before the fact!

================================================================

Here's John Allen's input to the above report, from his daily jornal today. My comments above continue to apply to the absurdity of the 'arguments' mustered by these French clergy who are really speaking out of turn! .


Several French bishops
cool to pre-Vatican II Mass
Posted on Oct 23, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

Natural science is familiar with the “observer effect,” meaning that sometimes the mere act of placing a process under observation can unintentionally distort its outcome. In such cases, the scientist is no longer a neutral observer, but actually becomes part of the experiment.

Covering the Vatican can also be an exercise in the “observer effect,” in that the mere fact of bringing a story to public attention can sometimes alter its outcome. Take, for example, the case of a not-yet-published Vatican document. Leaks give both proponents and opposition a chance to mobilize, allow the drafters to gauge public reaction, set loose a volley of discussion in the press and in the Catholic world, and in general can change the calculus in the Vatican concerning the content of the document and, perhaps, the wisdom of issuing it at all.

One can see this process at work today on the question of a document, thought to be forthcoming from Pope Benedict XVI, which would liberalize use of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass.

It all began on Oct. 11, when Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli broke a story in Il Giornale indicating that such a document was ready, missing only the signature of the pope. Tornielli wrote that the document would return the pre-Vatican II Mass to “full citizenship” in the church, in effect erecting it as a separate rite alongside the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites in the West.

[Actually, Marco Tosatti's story in La Stampa - of which I posted a translation - came out online ahead of Tornielli's, so when Tornielli's came out, I didn't bother to translate it because it contained nothing different from Tosatti's which, in fact, had a bit more background and breadth.]

It is testament to Tornielli’s stellar reputation that people by and large took his report on faith, despite the fact that it has proved nearly impossible to find anyone in the Vatican who has actually seen, much less worked on, a document on the old Mass. Assuming it exists, it is a closely-guarded secret.

Meanwhile, the report has let loose an avalanche of discussion, some of it from traditionalists cheered by the prospect of such a gesture – some of it from liturgists and bishops skeptical about the pastoral need for, or theological significance of, a broader return to the old Mass.

In France, where the breakaway Society of St. Pius X founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre has its stronghold, and where polarization between avante garde and traditionalist wings of the church is severe, discussion has been particularly intense.

Over the weekend, several more French bishops added their voices to the fray.

Archbishop Gerard Defois of Lille, for example, told Le Figaro that he has nothing against the older liturgy which “formed generations of Christians,” but said the problem lies “in the world-view of those who often proclaim themselves its defenders.”

Specifically, Defois mentioned “their refusal of an adaptation of the church to modern society” and “their integralist vision of the Gospel of Christ which confuses the Reign of God with that of human beings.”

In European Catholic discourse, “integralism” describes a social theory which rejects on principle the idea of church/state separation, arguing instead for a confessional state based on Catholic doctrine.

Defois warned that any reawakening of this form of Catholic traditionalism “could have immediate consequences,” such as “intellectual collusion between certain extremist political currents and religious legitimizations.”

Defois went on to say that reconciliation with the Lefebvrite movement “cannot be accomplished at the expense of the Council,” [BUT WHOEVER SAID THAT ANYWAY? THEY REALLY INSULT BENEDICT'S INTELLIGENCE AND HIS GENUINE LOYALTY TO THE COUNCIL BY EVEN SUSPECTING HIM OF THIS AT ALL!!!]referring to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and said that the council’s teaching on ecumenism, relations with other religions, and freedom of conscience “were considered fundamental” by Pope John Paul II, and should be seen as non-negotiable.

Defois walked up to the brink of issuing a warning to Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Vatican's Ecclesia Dei Commission, who has taken lead in attempts to reconcile with the traditionalists: “In Rome, the cardinal wants to build bridges,” Defois said. “That’s good, on the condition that it be done based on truth.”

Meanwhile, six bishops of the French region of Normandy sent a letter to their priests, urging them to “remain faithful to the church and to its living tradition,” including the post-conciliar period.

Bishop Claude Dagens of Angouleme was explicit in requesting a chance to discuss the merits of any papal document: “We, the bishops, ask to be informed [about the document] in order to exercise our discernment with the Bishop of Rome and under his authority,” Dagens wrote.

Not everyone in the French hierarchy, it should be noted, seems troubled by the idea of a broader use of the old rite. The dioceses of Strasbourg and Fréjus-Toulon, for example, have recently approved the opening of parishes in which the pre-Vatican II Mass will be celebrated.

Yet Archbishop Robert Le Gall of Toulouse gave voice to a critical perspective that seems fairly widespread among many French bishops.

“In France, where we’re often at odds with each other, the liturgical question remains very ideological,” Le Gall said. Thus liberalizing the Latin rite, Le Gall said, risks “exacerbating this opposition,” even if the intent is to reduce it.

That is a message, Le Gall said, which “should be delivered to Rome.”

One can safely assume that this discussion is indeed being followed in the Vatican. What effect it may have on the outcome, however, is, for the moment, anyone’s guess.
---------------------------------------------------------------

---

“In France, where we’re often at odds with each other, the liturgical question remains very ideological..."

---

AND THERE'S THE WHOLE FALLACY OF THIS OPPOSITION! WHAT HAS IDEOLOGY GOT TO DO WITH LITURGY????

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/10/2006 1.25]

Pope's affirmation of Christianity transcends politics, topical notes

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VERONA, Italy (CNS) -- Navigating the murky waters of Italian ecclesial politics is no easy task, so interest was high when Pope Benedict XVI addressed the country's most important Catholic gathering in 10 years.

The 2,700 delegates to the Fourth National Church Convention would carefully weigh the pope's words to find winners and losers -- among bishops debating the church's social and political role, among pastors proposing strategies for parish renewal, and among lay movements looking for a sign of papal approval.

But when the pope finished his hourlong speech in the northern Italian city of Verona Oct. 19, it was clear that his agenda did not fit the "winners and losers" model.

Like many of the most important talks of his pontificate, this one was striking not for its political arguments or topical commentary but for its eminently religious affirmation of the Christian faith.

It said very little about church factions and a lot about the church's most fundamental purpose, saving souls.

At 20 pages, the papal talk resembled a miniencyclical. At its core was an explanation of Christ's resurrection as the motivator of all Christian witness.

The pope described the Resurrection as a historical event to which the apostles were the witnesses, not the inventors.

The Resurrection, he said, was not simply a "return to earthly life, but the greatest 'mutation' that ever occurred, the definitive leap toward a profoundly new dimension of life, the entry into a different order."

This new order, in which love triumphs over sin and death, continually penetrates and transforms our world, he said. The concrete way in which this happens is through the life and witness of the church, he said.

Here, as he has done so often in his pontificate, the pope emphasized the positive aims of the church and the universal appeal of faith in Christ -- rather than dwell on specific doctrinal teachings.

Christianity, he said, is like a great "yes" to human life, human freedom and human intelligence, and that should be seen in what the church says and does. Essentially, he said, the faith should bring joy to the world.

"Christianity in fact is open to all that is just, true and pure in cultures and civilizations, to whatever brings cheer, comfort and strength to our existence," he said.

The pope went on to briefly allude to a number of contemporary issues like abortion, gay marriage and state aid to church schools -- perennial topics on Italy's church-state horizon. He asked Italian Catholics to help resist encroaching secularization that tends to exclude God from public life.

But he said none of this will happen unless the faithful understand that being a Christian begins with a personal encounter with Christ -- not with a social or political program.

In fact, the pope seemed to go out of his way to de-emphasize the church as a political player in Italy when he said it was the responsibility of Catholic laypeople -- and not the church as an institution -- to bring the Gospel to political life, operating "as citizens under their own responsibility."

In the days leading up to the pope's appearance, the Verona convention had been interpreted by most Italian media in a strictly political key, and speeches by leading bishops were frantically sifted for signals to the left, right and center.

Perhaps the oddest example came after Milan Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, at the end of a long speech, cited St. Ignatius of Antioch's dictum that it was better for a man to be silent and be a Christian than to talk and not to be one.

Italian media decided to interpret that as a put-down of conservative Catholic leaders who want a closer identity between Christianity and Italian culture. In headline-speak: "Tettamanzi puts the brakes on theocons."

Pope Benedict's talk attempted to transcend the usual political patterns and strike a deeper religious chord.

"I don't see in his speech the consecration of any group or individual," Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, Italy, told the newspaper La Repubblica. "There's no space here for a group to try to use Christianity to advance its partisan ideas."

In a sense, the pope was continuing what he himself has dubbed a pastoral "strategy of intelligence," presenting the faith as a fresh and compelling invitation and, at the same time, trying to liberate the church from popular prejudices.

As Archbishop Forte remarked, the pope wants to offer the Gospel as a source of inspiration and reject the negative vision of Christianity as "a repressive faith that tramples human freedom."

Rather than present the Italian church with a list of political objectives, the pope posed a broader challenge. He said Italian Catholics, by living their faith, need to provide "positive and convincing" answers to the ethical and spiritual questions of contemporary men and women.

John Paul II Foundation receives Pope Benedict's encouragement

Oct. 23 (CWNews.com) - Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow led a group of 800 members of the John Paul II Foundation at a meeting on October 23 with Pope Benedict XVI.

The Holy Father expressed his pleasure at meeting with a group dedicated to "keep live John Paul II's memory, his teaching, and the apostolic work he undertook." He gave his whole-hearted support to the organization's goal of studying the work of the late Pontiff, and said that he hoped the foundation would succeed in passing on a widespread interest in the thoughts of John Paul II.

The John Paul II Foundation, set up to help prepare priests for service in central Europe, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Created by a pontifical decree in October 1981, the group has worked from bases in Rome and in Lublin after the fall of the Communist empire. The non-profit foundation also provides support for students whose training will be used to help spur development in their native countries.

Pontiff urges academic rigor at pontifical universities

Oct. 23 (CWNews.com) - In a message delivered to professors and students at the pontifical universities, at a Mass celebrated on October 23 to mark the opening of their academic year, Pope Benedict XVI said that Christian academic life should cultivate both rigor and discipline, avoiding "the inflation of worldly discourse that seeks the consensus of public opinion."

Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski presided at the Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter's Basilica for the 17,500 students at pontificial universities in Rome. Pope John Paul II made it his regular practice to celebrate the Mass beginning each academic year. But Pope Benedict, in keeping with the general practice, has chosen instead to deliver a message to the congregation at the conclusion of the Mass.

The Pope-- who appeared to be suffering from a cold-- said that academic rigor is important because "thoughts always need purification." He encouraged students and professors to pursue "a deeper understanding of Christian truths," at the same time allowing room for "education in silence and in contemplation."

I have posted a translation of the Pope's address to the pontifical university students in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES & MESSAGES.

Pope to Get Bush-Like Protection

By Sedat Gunec, Ankara
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
zaman.com

Strict security measures will be taken during Pope Benedict XVI’s official visit to Turkey scheduled for November 28 to December 1, 2006.

The Security General Directorate, in cooperation with the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) and the Gendarmerie, is working on security plans in an effort to prevent any provocations or even assassination attempts against the Pope, who, after his offensive remarks on Islam and prophet Muhammad, will be visiting Turkey.

During the papal visit, the Directorate will adhere to their Type A protection plan, which was previously invoked during US president George W. bush’s visit to Turkey.

During his stay, Benedict XVI will visit Ankara and Istanbul and meet officials. The Pope, will also visit Hagia Sophia and other historical sites in Istanbul.

The Type A security plan will be enforced during the entire visit. Turkish F-16 aircraft will accompany the pope’s flight upon its entrance into Turkish airspace.

During the pope’s four-day visit, the Security General Directorate will not permit any leave of absences in Ankara and Istanbul.

In other provinces, the police will also take security measures against probable street actions and protests.

7,000 policemen will be on duty in Ankara, and 9,000 in Istanbul to protect the Pope.

Soon after the Pope lands, traffic will be halted. He will be taken to an armored vehicle. As an additional measure, two identical official cars will be part of the Pope’s convoy.

Police officers from special units and sharpshooters will be stationed beforehand along the Pope’s route.

Meanwhile, where the Pope will be staying during his visit to Turkey is still unclear. It is reported that he will stay either at the Holy See Embassy Residence, or at the Hilton Hotel, where George Bush had stayed before.

Thanks, Benefan. It's very reassuring to read about all these security measures. In view of its bid to enter the European Union, Turkey cannot really afford to have anything bad happen to teh Pope while he is visiting there. Nevertheless, we must all pray....

As for where the Pope will be staying in Istanbul, I thought the Vatican had indicated earlier - at least through the Catholic hierarchy in Turkey - that he would be staying at the house John XXIII lived in from 1935-1945 when, as Bishop Angelo Roncalli, he was Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey. Presumably it is still Vatican property.

And if it is still the official residence of the Apostolic Nuncio, then that would be the most likely place for him. Pope Paul VI (once) and John Paul II (twice) stayed at the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila during their visits there.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/10/2006 18.02]

I'm just a little amazed that, according to the article posted by Teresa Benedetta by Vittorio Messori, people are actually taking notes during Benedict's talks! I wonder if that has ever happened before in Papal history!
Messori states that "a believer would not hesitate to call (Benedict's succession) providential." I for one see his ascent to the Chair of Peter that way, for many reasons. He seems best equiped, intellectually, spiritually and by reason of his life experiences to lead the Church right now. But there also seems something providential in the fact that a man who is able, through his words, to touch so many and stimulate reflexion in them should become Pope in the age of the internet. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I would wager that few outside of Italy would have read or heard much of what he said. Now his addresses (Deo gratia!) are usually available somewhere online (often here first! ) the day they are given!

Right on about the Internet, Lily! And global TV, I might add. I had remarked some time during the first anniversary of Benedict's election that many Anglophone writers continued to say "Benedict is not known to many people", that if they meant in the sense of not knowing about him or recognizing him, then they were forgetting one thing:

The weeks of worldwide TV coverage of the Vatican following John Paul's death also projected the figure of Joseph Ratzinger prominently as Dean of the College of Cardinals who not only presided at the the late Pope's funeral Mass, but also over preparations for the Conclave that would elect his Successor. Inevitably, he was the single figure associated with the Church during the Sede Vacante.

[In 1978 when John Paul II was elected, does anyone remember who the Dean of the College of Cardinals was? Satellite TV was already around at the time, but worldwide satellite broadcasts were not yet routine, and the Internet was in its infancy. I attended Paul VI's funeral Mass and I can't even remember who the principal celebrant was! There is no comparing the visibility index in 1978 with 2005.]

On the basis of TV visibility alone, it is obvious that no Pope before his election was more familiar to the world - to the tens of millions who were following the Vatican coverage on TV, among which one would expect Catholics to be the majority - than Benedict XVI was. Even if we limited ourselves to the funeral Mass alone and to that powerful homily, the soon-to-be Benedict had a bigger onetime audience than any Pope ever had before him, John Paul included - thanks, of course, to the singular and enormous impact that the latter had on the people of the world.

I'd say to all who continue to have blinders about Benedict that he has set some pretty amazing records for outreach in 18 months, even if the MSM prefer not to see it. That people actually write notes during his discourses is only one more of them.
===============================================================

ON THE GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY:



Vatican City, Oct. 25, 2006 (AsiaNews) –St Paul, the “thirteenth apostle”, taught through his life that God should be put in the centre, and he showed how “salvation is offered to all mankind without exception” with his universal apostolate, “because God is God of all”.

Benedict XVI today announced a new cycle of catechesis to 25,000 people (the Italian news agency AGI estimated the crowd at 40,000 - "all sectors were full, but people continued to stream in") - gathered for the general audience, since he has completed his depiction of the 12 apostles. Starting with Paul of Tarsus, he will now tackle “men and even women who dedicated their lives to the Gospel and to the Lord”.

{The rest of the story quotes from the Pope's catechesis. A full translation has been posted in AUDIENCE &ANGELUS TEXTS]

From Francesca in the main forum, we have this bit from one of the Italian news agencies:

At the end of the audience, the Pope met with the family of Alessandra Lisi, the girl who died in the Metro accident in Rome last week.


The Pope comforts Alessandra's mother; Mayor Veltroni looks on.

The family, which included the girl's parents and brother, was accompanied by Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, who said: "It was a very important meeting for the Lisi family. Although it was short, the Pope talked to them with words that were very beautiful, very affectionate and very warm, for them as well as for the memory of their daughter."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/10/2006 1.10]

Mass will supersede papal audience on November 1

Oct. 25 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on November 1, the feast of All Saints, the Vatican's liturgy office has announced.

Because the feast falls on a Wednesday, the Pope will not hold his regular midday public audience. Instead, after celebrating Mass at 10 in the morning, he will hold an Angelus audience in St. Peter's Square.

Following a papal tradition, on the feast of All Souls, November 2, the Holy Father will visit the grotto in the crypt of the Vatican basilica to pray at the tombs of previous Popes.

Benedict Will Face Touchy Issues During Turkey Visit

BY EDWARD PENTIN
Register Correspondent

October 29- November 4, 2006 Issue
Posted 10/25/06 at 7:00 AM

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit to Turkey is both a diplomatic minefield and a sea of valuable opportunities.

Analysts say the trip is of major importance for three reasons: for furthering religious freedom in Turkey and other Muslim-majority states, for improving Muslim-Christian relations, and for advancing the cause of Christian unity.

As the Register went to press, the details of the apostolic voyage had yet to be finalized. But according to Asia News and Vatican sources, the Pope is scheduled to arrive in the Turkish capital of Ankara Nov. 28, where he will spend the day with the country’s political authorities.

The following day, the Holy Father will travel to the port city of Izmir near Ephesus where he will visit an ancient Christian community, before moving on to Ephesus itself where he is expected to visit Meryem Ana, a small house on a hilltop overlooking the Aegean Sea where, according to tradition, Mary lived out her final years and was assumed into heaven.

On Nov. 29, Benedict is scheduled to arrive in Istanbul, where he will have a private audience with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, the person who first invited the Pope to Turkey.

On Nov. 30, on the feast of St. Andrew, the Pope will attend a solemn Divine Liturgy presided over by the patriarch. The Holy Father is expected to deliver a discourse on the quest for Christian unity and comment on this year’s resumption of the Commission of Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Before returning to Rome Dec. 1, the Pope will also meet with Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II, who leads a Christian community that has suffered intermittent persecution for centuries.

Religious Freedom

Turkish Christians still face discrimination, despite residing in the country for 2,000 years (the Orthodox have few rights over their property and are subject to special legal restrictions).

And while Turkey is ostensibly a secular state, in recent years it has experienced a strong trend towards Islamism. The numbers of attacks on Christians have risen, the most notorious being the murder of Italian priest Father Andrea Santoro earlier this year.

“We have to hope that the Pope’s visit — to an ecumenical patriarchate that is for all practical purposes controlled by the Turkish government — advances the cause of religious freedom in Turkey and throughout the Islamic world,” papal biographer George Weigel told the Register.

“No one should gainsay the difficulty of that project, however,” Weigel said. “Not because of the Pope’s Regensburg lecture, which, in fact, identified the crucial issues with precision, but because of the current jihadist drift of too much Islamic thought and sentiment.”

A number of senior Vatican officials hope Benedict will be able to reach out to Muslims during the trip by conveying the true message of his Regensburg speech, which sparked intense anger in Turkey and other Muslim countries.

Some observers recommended caution in addressing that issue.

“If he refers directly to it, I don’t think it will help because Muslims are not ready to understand it,” said Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir, professor of Oriental theology at St. Joseph’s University in Lebanon.

But others insisted that the focus of the Pope’s Regensburg address — the need to reconcile faith and reason — is crucial to furthering Muslim-Christian dialogue and to helping Muslims renounce violent extremism.

“Why do we have to wait to discuss this?” asked Father Justo Lacunza-Balda, rector emeritus of the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. “For years, we have not confronted these issues; we have to begin somewhere.”

EU Membership

Another touchy issue is Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, which is linked to the issues of religious freedom and Muslim-Christian relations. The matter is made more sensitive by Benedict’s statement in 2004 that he was opposed to Turkey joining the economic bloc.

A Turkish government spokesman told the Register Oct. 20 that the Pope will probably have to “clarify” his position on the matter.

The meeting with Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II might also generate friction. Some Italian commentators have argued that by meeting the patriarch, the Pope will bear witness to allegations that Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenians in a planned act of genocide in 1915. The Turkish government strongly denies those charges.

Vatican officials, however, are playing down any such interpretation of the meeting.

Benedict’s meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew I is likely to be much less controversial, but potentially far more significant.

The patriarch told reporters Sept. 29 he was anticipating the visit with “great brotherly love.” That fraternal affection could be decisive in reaching a constructive outcome now that formal Catholic-Orthodox dialogue has resumed, and discussions have begun on the key issue of papal primacy.

Security

Some Vatican analysts have expressed concern about the Pope’s security in the wake of the Regensburg controversy. The Turkish government spokesman stressed that Benedict will be welcomed as a “foreign leader of a state” rather than a “religious leader,” in order to “give more importance” to the visit and ensure he is “protected as a head of state.”

The Turkish government has also moved to ease the security concerns by noting that the country has hosted many world leaders without problems, including President Bush in 2004.

The government spokesman said that Turks view the papal visit as an opportunity for reconciliation, not confrontation.

“There is no opposition to his visit, but we have been heartbroken and offended, recently after the Regensburg speech, but also [through] the cartoon crisis and the war in Iraq and Lebanon,” the government spokesman said. “The hope is that he will bring healing, and there are strong indications of that.”

After Verona:
How to “Restore Full Citizenship
to the Christian Faith”
Pope Ratzinger and his vicar, Ruini, see in Italy
“a rather favorable terrain” for the public rebirth
of Christianity in Europe and the world, too.
But many do not accept their view.
And the archbishop of Milan has placed himself
at the head of the opposition.

by Sandro Magister


ROMA, October 26, 2006 – After the five-day conference in Verona, the uniqueness of the Italian Church will be the highly envied object of study in the episcopal sees of Europe and America, especially where Christianity is most in decline.

From October 16-20, the Italian Church gathered in Verona the full spectrum of its members: bishops, priests, and faithful. And the German pope placed his bet precisely on what distinguishes Christian Italy: its being, not a minority Church, but a Church of the people, “a very lively reality, which retains a grassroots presence among people of every age and condition.”

For Benedict XVI, Italy’s uniqueness is not residual, but the forerunner of the Christian rebirth of the West, for which he hopes intensely. He assigned a very demanding project to Italian Catholics. “If we are able to do this,” he said, “the Church in Italy will render a great service not only to this nation, but also to Europe and to the world.”

But in the meantime, broad sections of the apparatus of this same Italian Church are looking at Benedict XVI’s program with fear and amazement. They politely greeted the pope’s arrival in Verona on Thursday the 19th; they punctuated his monumental address with applause; but it did not win them over.

Of the 2,700 delegates, a good third of them kept their arms crossed – the same ones who, the next day, refused to applaud for cardinal Camillo Ruini, who for more than fifteen years straight has been the head of the Italian bishops’ conference, by the mandate of this pope and the previous one.

Ruini, who has turned 75, is for reasons of age at the end of his long premiership. He was the man handpicked by John Paul II, in 1985, at the conference of the general membership of the Italian Church in Loreto that year, to restore to that Church “its role as a guide and its drawing power” that he, Karol Wojtyla, saw instead as diminished and denied by the “religious choice” that was the rallying cry for the heads of the Church at the time, foremost among these cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan and president of the organizing committee for the conference.

The “religious choice” was synonymous with a Church that would be docile and friendly toward modernity, silently mixed together with the forces of progress, invisible like “yeast in the dough,” concentrated on the spiritual and on the primacy of the individual conscience.
[Teresa's comment: 1) 'concentrated on the spiritual' - meaning they should fold their hands and not do anything concretely in the public arena, not even let their voices be heard? and 2) 'primacy of the individual conscience' - so exalted by the progressives, especially in the USA, to mean primacy over the Magisterium, thereby promoting and encouraging cafeteria Catholicism. Of course, everyone is free to follow his so-called 'individual conscience' but not to impose their 'conscience' on the Magisterium, as the most strident advocates of women priests, gay marriages, abortion, euthanasia, etc. want to do. And surely, they are not 'concentrating on the spiritual', but rather being more than just political, ideological]!

This was an unacceptable choice for a pope who had come from the beleaguered and combative popular Catholicism of Poland: a pope, in effect, seen as a “barbarian” by much of the Italian Catholic intellectual class at the time.

These views on pope Wojtyla are expressed in an authoritative book: an interview with Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti, collected by Pietro Scoppola and Leopoldo Elia and issued by the publisher “il Mulino” after Dossetti’s death.

Now professor Scoppola, in commenting on the Verona conference, is sparing Benedict XVI from similar criticisms, but he does so by wrongly attributing to the reigning pope the very same “religious logic” and “conciliar” spirit that remain the dream and the language of those disappointed by the “restoration” of Wojtyla and Ruini.

In Verona, this dream was burnished by Martini’s successor to the see of Milan, cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi. The inaugural address fell to him, as president of the preparatory committee for the conference. And Tettamanzi, true to form, turned this into an address on the succession – and opposition – to Ruini.

To those who think (such as Church historian Alberto Melloni, in the book “Chiesa madre chiesa matrigna [Mother Church, Church Stepmother”) that the long, theatrical pontificate of John Paul II simply concealed the Church’s real problems, which have remained the same for the past forty years – new ministries for laymen and women, new sexual morality, etcetera: the issues listed by cardinal Martini in 1999, invoking a new Council – Tettamanzi promised a return to the source, to the “deliberately optimistic” spirit with which Vatican Council II looked at the modern world in the 1960’s, sowing, “instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging remedies; instead of gloomy forecasts, messages of confidence.”

[ A familiar invocation of the 'spirit of Vatican-II' by everyone who wants it to be what they think it is because that is what they want it to be! Why not first look at the 'letter' of Vatican-II, which was copiously documented with documents, and in which one can read the genuine 'spirit' instead of these airy-fairy notions unsupported by the actual documents?...And when Tettamanzi says 'we must return to the source', he means
Vatican-II, when the 'ressourcement' meant at Vatican-II was the Church looking back to the early Church and the Fathers in opening itself to the world today...As for his Polyanna attitude, it would be a denial of reality that there are no 'depressing diagnoses' for today's world - and he acknowledges it, in fact, by saying there should be 'encouraging remedies' for such diagnoses.]

On the interpretation of the Council itself, Tettamanzi highlighted a statement by Paul VI in 1965, but completely passed over the theses illustrated by Benedict XVI in one of his most significant addresses, the one he gave to the Roman curia on December 22, which was highly critical of the idea of Vatican II as a “new beginning” for Church history across the board.

For those who cherish “a Church that listens before speaking” (see the brief book “La differenza cristiana [Christian distinctiveness]” by the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi) the archbishop of Milan asserted that “it is better to be Christian without saying so than to proclaim this without being so.”
[What a platitude - even if it is St. Ignatius of Antioch, but quoted out of context! No one's going to disagree with that. The point is, however, in times like ours, why can't Christians do both - act Christian and proclaim their faith at the same time by fighting for it against those who would want to silence it in the public arena? The Pope could not have been clearer about what he wants each Christian to do. He said in Verona, "We must do it [being Christian] full time, on the level of thought and action, of personal behaviour and public witness."

The following day, the major Italian newspapers interpreted these words as a slam against the “devout atheists,” like Oriana Fallaci or Giuliano Ferrara, who were and are estranged from the faith but strongly aligned in defense of Christian civilization, and great admirers of Pope Benedict.

Tettamanzi, when questioned on this, was very careful not to reject this interpretation, but in reality he’s looking more within the Church than outside of it. It doesn’t seem to matter that the real author of this statement, the sainted second-century bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch, was anything but taciturn, and on the contrary proclaimed his faith in such a loud voice that this brought him to martyrdom.

The interweaving of Christianity and modernity so dear to Tettamanzi is not purely theoretical. It has been put into practice for years in the very heart of his Milan archdiocese, in the cathedral church, the famous Duomo.

At the Requiem Mass for Gianni Versace, in 1997, Elton John played and sang “Candle in the Wind” in the middle of the Duomo.

The “cathedra of the non-believers” created by cardinal Martini has hosted highly popular secular personalities, not to praise Christianity, but to reawaken within Christians as well “the non-believer within us.”

During Lent, for meditation on the “last words of Christ on the cross,” the readings in the Duomo were not from the four Gospels, but selections from the writings of Oscar Wilde, Marguerite Yourcenar, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Jack Kerouac, with an audience that had its back turned to the altar, watching videos projected on the back front of the church, with a musical stage beneath it.

At Pentecost, there were recitations from the works of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, with the debut of a musical composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen and a video display by the Japanese abstract artist Tatsuo Miyajima.

Finally, in the crypt beneath the main altar, beside the relics of saint Charles Borromeo, who together with saint Ambrose is a patron of Milan, a cubbyhole was set up with the title “Via dolorosa,” within which, in darkness, one could watch an 18-minute video of images with no sound and almost entirely in black. The stated aim: “to bring the visitor into a cloud of unknowing, in which he finally faces the free decision to believe or not believe.”

[This is the diocese which, for a fee, allowed the Duomo, that lovely Gothic confection that is the glory of Milan, to accommodate a giant billboard on one side of the cathedral, showing Madonna advertising some product at around the time she was in Italy for her music tour with the Cross-exploiting sequence!]

During the first three days in Verona, the Tettamanzi effect had stunning success. In the absence of Benedict XVI and with the silence of cardinal Ruini, the dominant words among the delegates, divided into dozens of groups for parallel discussions, were “welcoming,” “listening,” “dialogue,” “oblation”: words imbued more with passion than with analysis of the epochal changes that have taken place in the world and in the Church over the past twenty years.

The pope was almost completely ignored, even by the official speakers. His lecture in Regensburg was cited only once: by the rector of the Catholic University of Milan, Lorenzo Ornaghi, a dyed-in-the-wool disciple of Ruini.

That was until Benedict XVI arrived and pulverized what had held the stage until then. “L’Osservatore Romano,” on the mark for once, printed the papal address beneath a full-page headline: “To restore full citizenship to the Christian faith.” [Truly one of the Pope's most succinctly powerful statements of purpose recently - not to mention a wonderful turn of phrase - that no one else in the media appeared to have caught, except OR and now, Magister !]

This means the public citizenship, equivalent in secular terms, of Christians capable of saying ‘no’ (and the pope omitted nothing of what he sees as obligatory for the defense of human life from conception to natural death, the family, freedom of education) but above all of saying ‘yes’ “to everything that is right, true, and pure in cultures and civilizations,” in short, “that great ‘yes’ that, in Jesus Christ, God has spoken to man and to his life.” This is, in essence – the pope said – the “cultural project” conceived and implemented for the Italian Church by cardinal Ruini.

To those who contrast the hidden purity of Christianity during the early centuries with the visible role that the Church of today wants to assign to the faith, Benedict XVI replied that “Christianity and the Church, from the beginning, have also had a public dimension and value,” and that the “king’s highway” of the missionary expansion of Christianity remains the same today as it was then: “a practice of life characterized by reciprocal love and solicitous attention toward the poor and suffering,” but at the same time “a faith friendly toward intelligence.” Or again, a Church “always ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us the reason for our hope.”

Bolstered by the strength of the papal seal, the following morning, Friday October 20, a radiant Ruini surveyed, point by point, the many accomplishments during his years as president of the Italian bishops’ conference, and the many things still to be done. These will be taken care of by his successor, who will probably be a cardinal, and perhaps cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice. The appointment belongs to the pope.
[Scola reportedly ran a close second to Tettamanzi in a survey of Italian bishops, misleadingly conducted in the name of the Pope, who were asked to name their preference to succeed Ruini at CEI. But since the choice rests on the Pope alone, as Primate of Italy, it seems unlikelier now, as Magister suggests in the next paragraph, that Benedict would name Tettamanzi. However, the survey result appears to indicate a split in tendencies among the Italian bishops.]

The first of those out of the running, Tettamanzi, will still be able to draw strength from the Catholic sector of “conciliar” bent, made up of some bishops, many priests, and a great many laypeople in Church employ, who had a strong presence in Verona and count among their mentors Scoppola, Bianchi, and Melloni.

But that’s not where the Church of the people, upon which Benedict XVI and Ruini have placed their bet, is to be found. As a theologian, Joseph Ratzinger said he wanted to defend “the faith of ordinary people.” The real followers of Ratzinger in Italy are among the ordinary Catholics, those who listen to Radio Maria, those who support the Movement for Life, the millions of faithful who go to Mass on Sunday and are asking this pope, not to remain silent, but to speak as he knows so well how to do.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Before Verona, Magister wrote a piece called "Church of the people vs. Church of the elite" on
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=89247&eng=y

A Zenit wrap-up of the Verona conference has additional information for a better perspective. Notwithstanding Tettamanzi, then, the convention appears to have adopted the Ratzinger-Ruini approach in their concluding statement:

Italian Catholics to Focus on Life, Family and Dialogue
Conclusions of 4th National Church Congress

VERONA, Italy, OCT. 24, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Church in Italy has identified life, marriage, family and interreligious dialogue as the main issues of focus for the next 10 years.

These conclusions were made at Italy's fourth national ecclesial congress on the theme "Witnesses of the Risen Jesus, Hope of the World." The meeting, which drew more than 2,700 people, including delegates from all the Italian dioceses, took place in Verona, from Oct. 16-20.

The final message issued by the participants explained that their "hope is a person: the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."

The message continued: "We want to experience
o our affections and family as a sign of the love of God;
o work and leisure as moments of a fulfilled existence;
o solidarity with the poor and the sick as an expression of fraternity;
o the relationship between the generations as a dialogue oriented to release the interior energies of each one, orienting them to truth and goodness;
o citizenship as an exercise of responsibility, at the service of justice and love, on a path of authentic peace."

Among the great challenges facing them today, the participants singled out in their conclusions: "the promotion of life, of the dignity of every person, of the value of the family based on marriage," and "the dialogue between religions and cultures."

Some 26,000 parishes were represented in the meeting, which were attended by 11 cardinals, 222 bishops, 608 priests, 41 deacons, 322 men and women religious, 15 consecrated lay people and 1,275 laymen.

Also participating were 30 immigrants residing in Italy, youth delegates and more than 500 journalists.

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Milan and president of the event's preparatory committee, opened the congress. He said that the hour of the laity had arrived in the Church, and that it was time to "translate the Second Vatican Council into Italian." [He makes it sound as though the Church in Italy has ignored or has not understood Vatican-II all these past 40 years!]

Benedict XVI addressed the meeting on Oct. 19. In his discourse he delineated the challenges facing the Church in Italy.

In the afternoon, the Holy Father presided over a Mass in Verona's soccer stadium.

In his homily he said the secret to transmitting the faith is to first have a personal encounter and friendship with him.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's vicar for Rome and president of the Italian episcopal conference, closed the congress, stating that in the forthcoming decade, when secularization is foreseen to advance at a galloping pace, the Catholic Church will have the challenge to develop "the sense of ecclesial belonging" in her children.

The conclusions of the event, which takes place every 10 years, will be gathered in a pastoral note which the bishops will study and approve in their general assembly in May.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/10/2006 19.46]

Pope plans visit to Gregorian

Oct. 26 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI will visit the Gregorian University on November 3, officials at the pontifical institution have confirmed.

The Holy Father, who made an appearance at the Lateran University on October 21, will make a morning visit to the Jesuit institution in central Rome, meeting with professors and students there.

The Pope has delivered two messages recently to students at pontifical universities. During his visit to the Lateran, where he presided at the dedication of a new auditorium, he remarked that future pastors have a valuable opportunity during their academic years to reflect on the meaning of existence. And on October 23, in a message delivered at the close of a Mass formally inaugurating the academic year, he advised students to avoid "the inflation of worldly discourse that seeks the consensus of public opinion."

The Gregorian University-- one of the pontifical universities that fall under the jurisdiction of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education-- was established in 1551 by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order. Originally the institution was known as the Roman College, and dedicated to the training of Jesuit missionaries. In 1584, Pope Gregory XIII transferred the university to a new location and gave it his name. The Gregorian now has 1,500 students pursuing work in theology, philosophy, canon law, and social sciences.

Here is a translation of an article from L'Arena, Verona's city newspaper, that was posted by Lella in the main forum:

The Bishop of Verona
looks back on
a succesful convention
By Giancarlo Beltrame


The prize for popularity among the participants of the recent 4th National Convention of the Italian Church in Verona would go to its own Bishop, Mons. Flavio Roberto Carraro.

Everytime his name was mentioned during those 5 days in connection with the work he had done to prepare for the convention, it was greeted with a storm of applause. Particularly at the Mass in Bentegodi stadium when Pope Benedict XVI himself expressed his thanks and appreciation for the bishop's work.

But Padre Flavio, as the Veronese still call him, is the soul of humility. When asked on a local TV program what he felt at that moment, he said, "Embarrassment!"

He is much loved in his diocese - all the more now that his flock realize he will be replaced in a few months. They have learned to love him for his moderation and direct way of dealing with people. And he has the respect of non-believers who appreciate the Franciscan virtues he brings to his calling.

We asked him to relive some of the most important moments of the Convention.

Padre Flavio, you were often near the Pope last Thursday. Did you receive any 'confidences' from him?
He said he had been to Verona in 1977 with his sister. But it was difficult to speak with him in the Popemobile because he had to pay attention to the crowds and look from one side to the other all the time to wave and give his blessing.

Earlier you said you felt embarassed when the crowd at the stadium gave you a standing ovation...
Yes, but later, I understood that I was a symbol...The Pope and the people themselves were really applauding what Verona did.

And what Verona did you see from the Popemobile?
I felt the first emotions on the way to the airport to greet the Pope - seeing the streets to the airport lined with people who had come from the countryside, from Dossobuono and Caluri, and the schoolchildren with their little banners waiting for the Pope.

And was the Pope happy with his welcome?
Very much so, especially for the affection that the people showed him. On his way to the airport to go back home, there were still many mothers waiting along the way, hoping for a Papal hug for their children.

Did the security people allow it?
The Pope wanted to accommodate everyone he could, but the security men came in between...So his secretary, who is a tall strong man, started picking up the children and bringing them close to the Pope.

What things will you remember from the convention?
I think it will be a very strong help in our pastoral work. It was very encouraging for all those who truly live their faith with commitment. And the Pope gave them a lot of encouragement to make their witness known to the world. And we need to do this because these days, we are besieged and attacked by communications media which are far stronger than us.

What did the delegates tell you about the organizational work for the convention?
They had nothing but good words, and I don't think they were merely being polite, because most of them said they were very satisfied indeed with the way things were organized.

And what would you tell your volunteer workers?
I am planning a small event to thank them each personally. they have been very committed and I can only thank the Lord for their willingness and assistance. It must be recognized that a lot gets done in Verona through volunteer work. We have fifty registered volunteer organizations, not to mention spontaneous offers of assistance which are all catalogued.

It is a great asset for the city...
I remember when (former) President Ciampi came here on a visit, and we spoke together for at least 45 minutes. He told me: "The most vivid reality that I see in Verona and that I have only now been made aware is the volunteer work." Well, we saw it demonstrated again last week.

So it seems that the tradition continues of those 'social saints' that have been a treasure for the Church in Verona...
Like it or not, they certainly have influenced the faithful. Even today, they are very much present in the religious institutions they founded which continue to bear much fruit. We also have many pending causes for canonization. The latest is that of Mons. Giuseppe Carraro, my predecessor who happens to have the same surname as myself. He restructured this diocese soon after the Second Vatican Council. And we continue to live following his pastoral line.

You also come from a religious order. How has the typical education and spirituality of the Capuchins influenced your ministry?
The order is very exigent about spirituality...and I try to live according to our vows, which have always been my ideal in life. In my ministry, I hope I convey them through my homilies and through my encounters with the faithful, even spontaneous ones, in which I try to project always the sense of optimism that St. Francis had."

Soon you will go back to being a simple Capuchin friar again. Or have you been asked to stay on?
According to standard practice, I submitted to the Holy Father my application to retire when I reached 75. The Apostolic Nuncio told me, "Be patient, Padre Flavio, be patient." I think that when the pastoral year ends in June, a decision will be made as to my succcessor, who should be installed here by the end of next summer.

But you don't expect to be extended...
Well, I have told the Bishops Conference that the diocese of VErona has special historical and spiritual needs, and that the situation is complicated by the presence of so many immigrants, who are a blessing from God, because many businesses need them and many families need help with caring for their old people. But new residents also multiply the city's problems. I am counting on the generosity and charity of the VEronese, as well as for dialog among all concerned to resolve problems. And we have good relations with other religions, because most of the immigrants are non-Christian.

There is a feeling that Verona is a 'happy island' for ecumenism and inter-religious dialog.
I am not in a position to say how things are in other dioceses, but we are pretty well-organized here. I am very thankful to don Sergio Gaburro, who is a professor at the San Zeno theological school and our representative for ecumenical and inter-religious relations, who has very good contacts and is very hard-working.

Have you decided where you are going after you retire?
That's for my Provincial Superior to say. In the Capuchin province of Triveneto, there are 33 Capuchin houses to choose from.

But you could also stay in Verona...
I would love to, but that would not be convenient. A Bishop who leaves is better off staying away. When I was given this diocese, Cardinal Gantin asked me whether the previous bishop was staying. I said he was retiring to his family home among some vineyards. The cardinal said, "That's a wise thing to do, because even if the past and present bishops like each other and agree with each other, people will be making comparisons. Better to let the new one have a clear field." I buy that.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/10/2006 6.14]

Thanks to Rocco Palmo's blog for the lead to this story, which assumes greater significance in the light of the recent BBC Panorama 'disnformation' documentary on The Church and sex offenses by the clergy.

It is the first time since his impassioned denunciation of the 'filth' within the Church in his Good Friday meditations of 2005 (before he became Pope) that the Pope has been quoted on this specific subject. Here is the report in the Irish Times of 10/26/06:


Pope tells bishop of 'horror'
at sex abuse in Ferns
Patsy McGarry
Religious Affairs Correspondent
and Martin Wall in Rome


Pope Benedict, in the strongest language he has ever used in relation to clerical child sex abuse, has expressed his own "personal anguish and horror" at what happened in the Ferns diocese [of Ireland] over a 40-year period from the early 1960s onwards.

He said the "incomprehensible behaviour" of some clergy in Ferns had "devastated human lives and profoundly betrayed the trust of children, young people, their families, parish communities and the entire diocesan family".

Pope Benedict's comments were made public last night by the director of the diocese of Ferns communications office, Fr John Carroll. The pope was speaking during a private audience at the Vatican for the new Bishop of Ferns, Most Rev Denis Brennan, who is accompanying the other Irish Catholic bishops on an ad limina visit to Rome.

The 271-page report of the Ferns inquiry, chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy, was published a year ago. It identified more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse made between 1962 and 2002 against 26 priests operating under the aegis of the diocese.

It severely criticised the way complaints against priests had been handled by the church authorities, particularly by the former bishops of Ferns, Donal Herlihy and Brendan Comiskey.

Yesterday was the first time Pope Benedict had commented on the Ferns inquiry report.

According to the statement issued by the Ferns diocese yesterday, the pope "expressed to Bishop Brennan his deep sorrow and distress at the suffering endured by the victims of child sexual abuse involving some priests of the diocese of Ferns.

"He asked Bishop Brennan to assure those who have been sexually abused by priests, of his concern for them and his deep regret at the harm and suffering they have experienced. His prayer at this time is for healing and peace of all those who have suffered."

The statement added that "Pope Benedict also asked Bishop Brennan to convey to all the faithful of the diocese of Ferns his care and solicitude for them, as supreme pastor of the universal church.

"The Holy Father expressed prayerful solidarity with the lay-faithful, religious and priests of Ferns in the sufferings they have endured and in the deep pain caused by the scandal of sexual abuse of the young, by some of those entrusted with the sacred ministry."

The Irish bishops are coming to the end of their two-week ad limina visit to Rome. Such visits to the Vatican by bishops' conferences take place every five years.

Due to the illness of Pope John Paul, however, it is seven years since the last such visit.

Pope says Christians must heal divisions to be sign of hope

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians have a responsibility to heal their divisions so that they can be a real sign of hope for the world, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"Those who profess that Jesus Christ is lord are tragically divided and cannot always give a consistent common witness," the pope said during an Oct. 27 meeting with representatives of the world's major Christian communities.

The Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions held its annual meeting in Rome. Since 1957, the conference has brought together top officials of the international offices of 18 Christian churches and denominations for informal discussions.

The secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has represented the Vatican at the meetings, which also include representatives of the Anglican Communion, mainline Protestant federations, the Salvation Army, Orthodox churches, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mennonites and others.

The group does not engage in an official dialogue, but rather serves as a forum for sharing information about the official dialogues and ways to support them.

Pope Benedict told the group, "The theological dialogues in which many Christian world communions have been engaged are characterized by a commitment to move beyond the things that divide, toward the unity in Christ which we seek.

"However daunting the journey, we must not lose sight of the final goal: full visible communion in Christ and in the church," he said.

The pope said he understands people's frustration when progress is slow, "but there is too much at stake to turn back."

The world needs to hear the Gospel and the Christian message of hope, he said, but that message is clouded when Christ's disciples are divided.

"Though there are many obstacles still to be overcome," Pope Benedict said, "we firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is ever present and will guide us along the right path."

The Rev. Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and chairman of the conference, told the pope that through the theological dialogues different Christian communities have made "great strides in mutual understanding."

He expressed hope that all Christians would grow closer to full unity "for the sake of a human family that cries out for a fresh expression of God's healing ways."

Here is John Allen's ALL THINGS CATHOLIC column for this week...

Who will say no to Benedict XVI?
By John L. Allen, Jr.
Posted on Oct 27, 2006



Of all the questions generated by the Regensburg crisis, perhaps the one of greatest long-term consequence for this pontificate, across a range of issues much wider than Catholic-Muslim relations, is the following.

Who will say no to Benedict XVI?

It's a question only now coming into view, as the immediate need for damage control with the Muslim world, and for finalizing the agenda for the pope's Nov. 28-Dec. 1 trip to Turkey, recedes.

I've just returned from two weeks in Rome, "taking the temperature," so to speak, of the post-Regensburg climate. Speaking on background, virtually every Vatican official I saw offered some version of the following analysis:

The point Benedict made in Regensburg about reason and faith needing each other is an urgent one, and he was both right and courageous to flag it as a special challenge for Islam today. Extreme reactions in some parts of the Islamic world actually confirmed his argument. In the end, the tumult at least put the question on the table.

Nevertheless, Benedict's citation of a Byzantine emperor's polemical remarks about Mohammad could have been more nuanced. Had it been, some of the violence that resulted -- including attacks against Christian churches and, perhaps, the slaying of an Italian nun in Somalia -- might have been avoided.

One senior Vatican official put it to me this way: "Had he just inserted a single phrase, saying clearly, ‘This does not reflect my personal opinion,' it would have been a different story."

All of which begs the obvious question: Why didn't somebody who had read the speech in advance urge him to do just that?

At least eight people saw the Regensburg address before its delivery: Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the then-Secretary of State; Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the "substitute" in the State Secretariat; Archbishop Paolo Sardi, who coordinates the production of papal texts in the State Secretariat; Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson; Monsignor Georg Gänswein, the pope's private secretary; and the translators. I don't know what any of them might have said to Benedict, but obviously it did not change the outcome.

It's not that Benedict is closed to such counsel. A parallel case from his trip last May to Poland makes the point.

Then-Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls read the text of Benedict's May 28 speech at Auschwitz the day before its delivery, and noted that the pope did not use the Hebrew word Shoah in reference to the Holocaust. Fearing that its absence might be taken as a slight, Navarro-Valls sought out the pope, interrupting him at prayer, in order to suggest that Shoah be inserted.

According to an official who witnessed the exchange, Benedict responded positively, asking, "Where do you think it should go?" In the end, he thanked Navarro-Valls for the suggestion, and added a phrase to the speech with the term Shoah.

I happened to be standing among Jewish dignitaries at Auschwitz before Benedict arrived, and spoke with Jerzy Kluger, longtime Jewish friend of Pope John Paul II. Kluger had heard about the addition, and said it would be of help to voices in the Jewish world committed to dialogue with Christianity.

"It shows he's trying," Kluger said.

The insertion certainly did not prevent criticism of the Auschwitz speech by those who felt it didn't go far enough, but it was nevertheless an important gesture of sensitivity.

This example leads me to believe that had Benedict been offered similar advice by someone he trusts prior to Regensburg, he probably would have taken it.

To be fair, Regensburg fell during a time of transition, in which the possibility for this sort of intervention was limited. Sodano's departure had already been announced, and his replacement, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, had not yet arrived. Navarro-Valls had been replaced by Lombardi, who was just beginning to get a feel for the job.

Moreover, because Benedict XVI wrote the speech himself, there was no before-the-fact "vetting" that might occur with texts in which several hands are involved.

Beyond these circumstances, there are at least two other reasons why it's always difficult to "rein in" the pope.

First, those who work in the Holy See understand themselves to be at the service of the pope, and hence they're constitutionally disinclined to "correct" him. The idea is to enter into the pope's mind, not to try to "spin" him.

Second, this pope in particular is held in such intellectual awe that there's an even greater psychological reluctance to challenge him; one Vatican official this week laughed and then said, it would feel like Emperor Joseph II saying to Mozart that his score contains "too many notes."

Yet at the end of the day, even -- perhaps especially -- a pope needs a trusted confidante with the capacity to say, "You're wrong," or "You can't say this." The idea is not to prevent the pope from being himself, but precisely to help him achieve his own objectives.

Within the circle of those closest to Benedict, a few figures loom as the most likely candidates for this function: Bertone, the new Secretary of State; Bishop Josef Clemens, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and former private secretary to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger; Gänswein, the current private secretary; and whoever may succeed Sandri as the "substitute," traditionally the pope's right arm in day-to-day church affairs.


There are questions marks about each.

Some worry that Bertone lacks diplomatic background, and they wonder if he has the sensitivity it would have required to see the post-Regensburg reaction coming. Yet he has pastoral experience from his Salesian formation, as well as his four years as bishop of Vercelli and three as archbishop of Genoa. During his years at the congregation, he was a loyal Ratzinger lieutenant, but he also had his own mind.

Sources say that during the Wednesday feria quarta meetings, when the cardinal members of the congregation and the superiors go over cases, the custom was for Ratzinger to make a presentation first, the other cardinals to speak in turn, and then the secretary last. Normally, sources say, Bertone supported Ratzinger's position, but there were a few occasions when he forcefully argued for a different approach, and Ratzinger always seemed open to his points.

Gänswein does not have the same father/son relationship with Benedict that Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz had with John Paul II, yet time and proximity to the pope will make him a steadily more authoritative figure. Clemens maintains a close bond with Benedict, occasionally arranging dinners on his own initiative for longtime friends and other guests with the pope. The new "substitute" remains a wild card.

Unfortunately, we won't know until much later the extent to which any of these figures, or someone else, steps into the role of filling the pope's blind spots, given that their impact will be measured largely in things that don't happen.

The fact that there's no applause to be won, however, doesn't make the task any less important -- especially with a pope whose intellect every now and then needs to be leavened by a dash of sensitivity to public reception, and the realities of modern sound-bite media coverage.

During one of those infamous Roman lunches, a John Paul II intimate recently put it to me this way, speaking about Benedict's inner circle: "I hope there's somebody who will have the courage to say, ‘If you give the order, I'll do what you want immediately. But I'm obligated in conscience to tell you that it's a mistake.'"

That's a tough thing to say to any boss, and above all to a man regarded as the Vicar of Christ on earth. Regensburg illustrates, however, that every so often, somebody has to do it.

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

The point is well-taken. But I would like to react.

Going by the immediate coverage in the Western media itself of the Regensburg lecture, I don't think any of the MSM outlets led off with the Mohammed citation in the stories written within the first 24-36 hours of the lecture. In which the overwhelming attention was rightly given to what the lecture was really about - the Pope's argument for the necessity of reason and faith going hand in hand, and that therefore, violence in the name of religion was incompatible with reason and therefore, with God.

As Allen unfortunately did not cover the Bavarian trip, I don't think he wrote an instant article on it, which would have been his own spontaneous first reaction. Would he have led off with saying that "Oops, the Pope just did a big No-No," if he had been there?

That hard-bitten reporters, who are only too ready to make polemical grist out of thin air if they want to, were not struck by the 'insensitivity' of the Mohammed citation enough to lead off with it, or at least point it out in their initial stories , can only mean that the first reaction to the lecture by 'normal' persons, including hostile reporters, was to the entirety of the lecture, not to a tangential part of it. (Especially if we remember how the Italian MSM made big headlines early in the trip that the Pope's Munich homily was directed at Islam even if he never mentioned Islam in the homily!)

Just as an exercise, think back on the first time you read the Regensburg lecture (or heard it, if you understand German) - before the Muslims got wind of it and spun it out of control - did that particular citation set off alarm bells in your brain and tell you, "Oh my God! This is worse than the Danish cartoons!"?

In my case, it didn't even enter my mind - I was just so taken by the force of this particularly beautiful, almost dazzling, but very accessible restatement of 'fides et ratio' formulated in strikingly new ways. and by the sheer architectural construction of the lecture, that I read the German text aloud to myself at least three times in the first 24 hours.

[Probably one reason I did not react particularly to the Mohammed citation was that since age 14, a statement by Ernest Renan has been etched in my mind, "Islam soils everything that it touches" - not that I believe it wholesale, because I admire so many achievements of "Moorish" culture from Samarkand to Spain in the golden age of Islam - but certainly something set off the author of "The Life of Jesus" to make such a statement!]

So, would a Vatican diplomat have reacted against inclusion of the Mohammed statement at all? I don't know what Cardinal Sodano, a man of great diplomatic skill, may have told the Pope about it, but if he had expressed his objection, surely we would have heard about it by now from his allies in the Vatican. Or maybe, he preferred not to say anything in the spirit of "Well, let him deal with it, if he gets into a spot about it!" - and I prefer to think cardinals would be more charitable than that.

It's easy for 'virtually every Vatican official I saw' alluded to by Allen to say in hindsight, "If only he, the Pope, had done this, such and such might have been avoided" ... But do they really think that even if the Pope had very clearly stated - "By the way, I do not share the sentiment in this statement at all", that it would have stopped those who were just waiting for a pretext to gang up on him and the West? No - they would still have protested anyway that he should not even have cited the quotation at all!

As to the suggestion that perhaps the people around the Pope are too much in awe of him to speak out when they should, I think that is doing them a gross injustice. It is precisely when you love and admire your boss so much that you would not hesitate to say, "In my humble opinion, it might be better if...." Because you do not want him to get into any unpleasant situation at all, or worse .

I have worked with people in power - about whom myths of ruthlessness and worse have been wrongfully perpetrated. But in the time I worked for them, it never stopped me from speaking my mind, in the most respectful way I could, but even bluntly when I had to.

Believe me, since they are so used to having everyone kowtow to them, they actually welcome it when someone is frank with them for a change. They may laugh you off or ignore what you say, but at least with the two people I had the privilege to serve, I was never denied the chance to speak my mind. In fact, it makes them habitually ask you later, "What do you think?", even if they may be saying so only out of noblesse oblige. Honesty does compel respect. And certainly, in the matter of re-phrasing sentences so that there would be no equivocation, they respected my opinion as a writer and a journalist.

And these were politicians, temporal powers, not a spiritual leader like the Pope, who considers himself - and behaves accordingly - as 'a simple worker in the vineyard of the Lord.' It is also a diminution of Benedict to think that he might be offended if his subordinates have a difference of opinion with him, because his whole history, as Allen himself has occasion to cite intances, shows he has always been open.

If Allen worked for him, would he have a misguided reservation about speaking out when he has to and just keep his mouth shut instead? I would like to think not. So why should Bertone, Gaenswein et al be suspected of being too timorous to say No to the boss?

I still think, as I have from the beginning, that the Pope deliberately decided to proceed as he did - the same way Cardinal Ratzinger deliberately decided to express his views about Turkey's entry into the European Union. They may have been faulty decisions in the eyes of many, but they were his decisions, for which he knows he alone is answerable. This Pope, after all, is big on taking personal responsibility!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/10/2006 4.02]

Glad to see the AP took note of this - and I see in the main forum that the Italian media are giving it the attention it deserves, as well.

The full text of the Pope's address to the Irish bishops has been posted in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES. Please read along with the news item posted earlier about what the Pope said in private to the Bishop of the Irish diocese that has the worst record in that country for sexual offenses by priests.

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 28, 2006 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that the church must urgently rebuild confidence and trust damaged by clerical sex abuse scandals, which have created deep wounds.

The pope made the remarks to a group of visiting bishops from Ireland, an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation where the church has been damaged by sex abuse scandals over the past decade.

"In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors," the pontiff told the bishops. "These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric."

"The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged," Benedict said.

Benedict told the bishops that as they continue to deal with the problem, "it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/10/2006 17.27]

Here is a translation of an article posted by Lella from this week's issue of OGGI, a People-style Italian magazine. It obviously is not the usual fare the magazine has, and it's a welcome surprise.
--------------------------------------------------------------

At the National Convention of the Italian Church in Verona, as well as at the Lateran University, the Pope warned man of the risk of losing his identity when suffocated by a science lacking truth, that is, not sustained by faith.

Why was the Verona speech unanimously considered historic? A journalist and author answers:

By Sergio Zavoli

Joseph Ratzinger is a theologian, yes, and of the first order, but do not forget that he is also and above all, Pope now. However, when he speaks of matters that not only require technical competence and understanding but also absolute responsibility, he is constantly being tugged in either way by those who would want to see a divide in what is a single indissoluble person.

Very often, commentators seem to find it hard to believe that the Pope is not speaking in the name of an old Catholicism that is fevered, triumphalist and emotive, but that he is addressing a very uneasy world in which everything has been profoundly transformed by scientific progress and the reality of current cultural and social anthropology, therefore resulting in new values that are a direct challenge to the faith itself.

Indeed, Catholicism today is embroiled in a cultural atmosphere that calls for updating the relation between Church and society, humanism and science, ethics And technology. And among the different faiths and their believers - between them and the secular world, between secular believers and those who have been called 'devout atheists' [a term used by Oriana Fallaci to describe herself].

The apposition between illuminism and secularism is obvious, but it does not make sense to dwell on its negative sense. The weight of the Pope's recent declarations have referred in the first place to the relation between the Church Magisterium - what it teaches - in defense of family values and the role of science in matters which regard the faith (i.e., life and death issues].

Ratzinger keeps himself very distant from the usual clerical rhetoric. He invites us to live the present with all possible tolerance, that is, without 'priestly condemnations,' as Vittorio Messori calls them, but warning yet again of the dangers from a science without 'truth', even if he grants that the culture of knowledge would measure itself by the secular nature per se of scientific research, and does not have the task of safeguarding a value system.

To a dramatic "crisis of culture and identity" and a science that "without limits, could be like the flight of Icarus," the Pope responds by underlining two phenomena that mark the West and the Church today - the frigid advance of secularism on the one hand, and on the other, the too ardent return of conservative and rigoristic Christian apologetics.

Benedict XVI has declared himself firmly against both extremes
of Christian spirituality. But what he has emphasized most clearly and repeatedly has at its center "the pedagogy of the family" [the family based on matrimony as the place where Christian values are first learned], and it is up to the faithful to live up to this, in the name of a humanism that will benefit everyone.

[Wow! FAMIGLIA CRISTIANA meets OGGI!]

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On her site, beatriceweb.eu, Beatrice has noted the deluge of articles in the French Catholic media urging the Pope not to even think of restoring the Old Mass, or woe betide him!

The general sentiment of the anti-Old Mass crowd was of course best expressed in the letter sent by some French bishops and 30 priests described as 'young' (born after Vatican-II) who, one and all, said, in effect, that by making the Old Mass more freely accessible in current liturgical practice, the Pope would be overturning Vatican-II and returning the Church to a retrograde era! What have they been smoking? [See Post #4527 on 10/23/06 on the preceding page of this thread.]

Beatrice scanned some of the typical articles in the religious press - just to give you an idea of how incensed the Pope's critics are about the issue:


It's not worth the effort to regurgitate their absurd rantings, especially since no one really knows what the Pope will do and how he will do it. Our attitude as Catholic faithful should be that whatever the Pope decides will be the right thing. Period.

But all is not bleak on the French landscape. One of the Catholic periodicals called Homme Nouveau (New Man) actually decided to open a blog just for online supporters of the Pope to express themselves!

Among the first letters (translated here) was one from a priest who wrote this as though in behalf of other priests who feel equally inspired by the Pope's continual exhortation asking priests to be men of prayer above all, and everything else would follow from that!

---

Most Holy Father,

You know the friendship and affection that we have for you.

From the first day of your Pontificate, you have awakened and guided us to an internal life that is more intense, genuine, clear and profound. You inspire and build in us a loving intelligence, which searches after the Truth...so we may become - in the face of the ideologies of the Enlightenment - 'the enlightened generation.'

You ask us to live a true interior conversion, finding and living the joy of faith in Jesus the Savior.

Thank you, Holy Father, for being our father. We desire, through prayer, through love, and service to the Church, to remain always close to the father's heart that beats in you, to feel every beat of your heart and not lose a single one, so we may be, like you, simple, poor and humble workers of joy in the vineyard of the Lord.

Father ..... 10/24/06

---

May his tribe increase!

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One can say that the address of the Holy See's Permanent Representative to the United Nations yesterday on religious freedom formally placed on record in international councils Pope Benedict's intention to give religion a voice in the public arena - not through the Church as an institution, but through the personal efforts of Catholic individuals who wish to safeguard and promote essential Christian values in the the conduct of society. An extension of rteh Pope's Verona speech, in fact.

In his column for today, 10/28, John Allen discusses what Benedict's Vatican means when i6 asks for full reciprocity.

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

Reciprocity:
Not only Muslims are meant
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
Posted on Oct 28, 2006


One distorting effect of a major international crisis is the way it can cause an artificial reduction of other important issues to nothing more than epiphenomena of that crisis.

In the wake of Regensburg, for example, there’s a tendency these days to construe Pope Benedict XVI’s arguments for “reciprocity,” meaning respect for religious freedom across the board, as little more than a critique of Islamic societies.

While the pope clearly does believe that Islamic states need to do a better job of respecting the rights of their religious minorities, that’s not where the story ends.

Benedict and his key Vatican advisers also believe there is an equally serious threat to religious freedom in the developed West – not de jure but de facto, in the strong cultural tendency to exclude religious voices from public debate.

One thinks of Alistair Campbell, for example, the legendary communications guru for Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, who in a 2003 interview with Vanity Fair magazine cut short questions about Blair’s religious faith with the epigrammatic line, “We don’t do God.”

That sort of exile of religion from the public sphere is also, in the view of senior Vatican policy makers, a breach of “reciprocity,” and deserves a challenge every bit as tough as that leveled against intolerant applications of shariah.

Indeed, one of the reasons that, despite everything, Benedict and his team remain committed to dialogue with Islam is because they believe Muslims are their natural allies in insisting that a civilized society must provide space for religiously and morally serious people to help shape the public culture.

In other words, it may only appear for the moment that the reciprocity issue divides Christians and Muslims. In the long run, and seen in the broad sense which is current in the Vatican, it may actually end up being the cause which brings the two back together.

All this comes to mind in light of the speech delivered yesterday before the General Assembly of the United Nations by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See.

“My delegation is seriously concerned that freedom of religion or belief does not exist for individuals and communities, especially among religious minorities, in many parts of the world,” Migliore said. “We are also concerned that the high level of religious intolerance in some countries is leading to an alarming degree of polarization and discrimination. We share a grave duty to work together to reverse this trend.”

Though Migliore did not direct his remarks at any particular country or region, it was obvious that he had recent struggles over the role of religion in European society in mind when he made the following observation:

“There appears to exist a recurring case of intolerance when group interests or power struggles seek to prevent religious communities from enlightening consciences and thus enabling them to act freely and responsibly, according to the true demands of justice,” he said.

“Likewise, it would be intolerant to denigrate religious communities and exclude them from public debate and cooperation just because they do not agree with options nor conform to practices that are contrary to human dignity.”

Migliore closed with a powerful argument for the public role of religion – certainly not a point directed at the Islamic world, where religion’s role as an arbiter of civic morality and political life is largely unquestioned.

“In our diverse and ever-changing world, religion is more than an internal matter of thought and conscience,” Migliore said.

“It has the potential to bind us together as equal and valuable members of the human family. We cannot overlook the role that religion plays in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick and visiting the imprisoned.

"Nor should we underestimate its power, especially in the midst of conflict and division, to turn our minds to thoughts of peace, to enable enemies to speak to one another, to foster those who were estranged to join hands in friendship, and have nations seek the way to peace together.

“Religion is a vital force for good, for harmony and for peace among all peoples, especially in troubled times."

For Western politicians and commentators eager to enlist Pope Benedict and the Holy See in anti-Islamic crusades, seeing in reciprocity a powerful “wedge” issue, Migliore’s address should be a reminder that what the Vatican is truly interested in is not just the right to build churches, but the capacity for churches to build culture. In that regard, the problem is not primarily Islam, but post-Enlightenment Western indifference to the supernatural.

Reciprocity, in other words, is not just for Muslims anymore.

* * *

As a footnote, some Vatican officials, seeking to play down any contrast between Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have suggested in conversations with journalists and diplomats that any new emphasis on “reciprocity” under Benedict is entirely a creation of the media, and that in fact both popes have always said entirely the same thing.

Thankfully, Migliore himself has put an end to such artificial efforts to pretend that papal thinking never evolves. In his address yesterday, he said: “My delegation is increasingly convinced of the indispensable importance of reciprocity, which, by its very nature, is apt to ensure the free exercise of religion in all societies.”

The adverb “increasingly” concedes that there has been an evolution in Vatican emphasis, and Migliore’s explicit use of the term “reciprocity” means the issue is not just a journalistic invention.

29 October, 2006
VATICAN
Pope: every Christian has
“innate missionary vocation”
through Baptism

The Latin text of the Angelus prayer appeared on maxi screens in St Peter’s Square. Benedict XVI announced that he will go to Loreto with Italian youth next year in the lead up to Sydney 2008.


Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Baptism, which in the ancient Church was also significantly called “enlightenment”, gives each Christian “an innate missionary vocation”.

On the last Sunday of the missionary month of October, Benedict XVI talked once again about mission, taking his queue from the Gospel episode of Bartimaeus, the blind man who, having asked for and obtained healing “because of his faith”, becomes a disciple.

In St Peter’s Square, on a sunny day reminiscent of summer, the Latin text of the Angelus prayer was shown on maxi screens for the first time, to enable the faithful present to pray the words together with the Pope.

Among the crowd of 50,000 pilgrims, there was a large yellow and blue arch with the word “Loreto”, put up by youth delegates from all the regions of Italy. They are currently meeting in Rome to implement a three-yearly project of the Italian church entitled “Agorà of youth”.

Greeting them after the Marian prayer, Benedict XVI publicly announced his intention of going next year to the city that hosts a famous Marian shrine. “Dear friends,” he told them. “I bless your journey and I await you in large numbers for the meeting of young Italians scheduled for 1 and 2 September 2007 in Loreto.”

He added: “Near that beloved Marian shrine, we will live a moment of grace together, in the joy of faith and perspective of mission, not least in preparation for the World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.”

An unusual group present in the square today was composed of hundreds of motorcyclists of the Motorcyclists Association of the police force, who thundered down Via Conciliazione.

Before the Angelus, leaning out of the window of his study in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope spoke about the Gospel reading, stressing that the “decisive moment was the personal, direct encounter between the Lord and that suffering man. They face each other: God with his desire to heal and the man with his desire to be healed. Two freedoms, two converging desires: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ asks the Lord. ‘Let me see again,’ responds the blind man. ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ With these words, a miracle takes place; the joy of God, the joy of man. And Bartimaeus, who has come to the light, ‘followed him on the way’, according the Gospel. Thus he becomes his disciple and goes with the Teacher to Jerusalem, to participate with Him in the great mystery of salvation."

[A full translation of the Pope's words at the Angelus has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.]

After the Angelus, Benedict XVI made an appeal “for people who, in countries around the world, are victims of kidnapping. While I reiterate the firmest condemnation of this crime, I give assurance that I remember in my prayer all victims and their relatives and friends. In particular, I join the urgent appeal recently made to me by the Archbishop and community of Sassari for Mr John Baptist Pinna, kidnapped on 14 September, so that he may be swiftly restored to his dear ones.”

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I WILL BE GONE MOST OF THE DAY WITHOUT PC/INTERNET ACCESS. PLEASE POST ANY URGENT UPDATES IF YOU CAN. THANK YOU.

Unexpectedly found an Internet-ready PC where I am, so just a quick 'flash' from the main forum where Lella has posted a rather long article from La Stampa today, bylined by veteran Vaticanista Marco Tosatti, under the subhead 'Ecclesiastical gossip"...

The gist is that -

Benedict XVI is reportedly set to name Cardinal Claudio Hummes, archbishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil, as the next Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, as early as October 31.

He would be responsible for the overall supervision, guidance, formation, and periodical educational upgrading of some 400,000 Catholic priests around the world today.

At the same time, as ex officio president of the Pomtifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, he would be directly involved in the ongoing negotiations to bring back the Lefebvrians into the Roman church.

Hummes would be taking over from another Latin American cardinal, Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, who at 77 is two years past retirement age.

Hummes is 72, of German ancestry, a Franciscan and a theologian who was among the early advocates of the theology of liberation. But it is said John Paul II convinced him to steer clear of that movement's alliance with the political left and to stand up for traditional Christian values. In a very poor region of Brazil, he managed to have the liberation theology-inspired but hyperpoliticized 'base communities' co-exist with charismatic movements .

In 1998, he was named Archbishop of San Paolo which has 12 million inhabitants and where the disparity between rich and poor is extreme. He has managed to keep working for social changes while keeping firm on the Church's teachings on morality and bioethics.

In the 2005 Conclave, he was among the papabile.

Tosatti hypothesizes two reasons for Benedict's choice, if Hummes is indeed named next week.

First, it would continue Benedict's internationalization of the Curia. Of his three previous major curial nominees, only Cardinal Bertone at State is Italian. Cardinal William Levada, who succeeded Benedict at the CDF, is American, and Cardinal Ivan Dias, who has taken over as Prefect of the Congegation for Propagation of the Faith, is Indian. With 130 million Catholics, Brazil is the largest Catholic nation in the world.

Second, the Pope is honoring a fellow theologian, even if it issomeone who has been associated with liberation theology which as CDF Prefect, he had to 'police'.

Tosatti claims other Curial appointments may be made shortly.

================================================================

Well, I'm back home now, to find that John Allen's column today is based on Tosatti's story above, so instead of translating Tosatti's original story, here's John Allen's version, with additional information to round out our instant image of Cardinal Hummes in anticipation of his nomination - if Tosatti has it right!

Pope to name liberation theology ally
to key Vatican post, report says
Posted on Oct 29, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

Pope Benedict XVI is set to name a Brazilian cardinal known as a longtime supporter of the liberation theology movement to a senior Vatican post, according to an Italian news report today.

Writing in the Italian daily La Stampa, veteran Vatican writer Marco Tosatti reported that Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, 72, of São Paulo, Brazil, will become the new prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, replacing Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, a 77-year-old Colombian.

If confirmed, the report would mean that Benedict has tapped a theological moderate and a man long identified as one of liberation theology’s friends in the Latin American hierarchy. Hummes is a close personal friend and longtime supporter of Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The irony would not be lost on the Latin American church, where then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, while still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was known as the author of a 1984 Vatican document highly critical of liberation theology – judged to be excessively politicized, and to shade off at times into Marxist-inspired terrorism.

Since Castrillón is also President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which is responsible for relations with Catholic traditionalists attached to the pre-Vatican II Mass, the nomination of Hummes could mean that a cardinal not known to be as friendly as Castrillón to the traditionalists will now be handling their affairs. What implications that might have for a document rumored to be forthcoming on wider use of the pre-Vatican II Mass remains to be seen.

The appointment would also remedy what has long been perceived as a slight to the Brazilian church, the largest Catholic community in the world at 144 million. At present, no Brazilian occupies a senior Vatican position.

Tosatti reported that Hummes’ nomination would be announced by the Vatican early this week, perhaps on Tuesday, Oct. 31, in tandem with other curial appointments.

The Vatican has had no immediate comment on the La Stampa report.

If Hummes does land a senior Vatican position, the nomination would be taken in church circles as confirmation of two points about this pontificate:

First, that Benedict XVI wants to govern from the center rather than from an ideologically driven position; and second, as a sign of respect for the developing world.

The latter point is reinforced by Benedict’s recent appointment of Cardinal Ivan Dias of Bombay as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Hummes is a member of the Franciscan order, like the legendary Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns whom he replaced in Sao Paolo. In a typical Franciscan touch, Hummes’ episcopal motto is “We Are All Brothers”.

Like Arns, Hummes was born in southern Brazil from German immigrant parents. As a young bishop, he had a reputation as a progressive, opposing Brazil’s military regime and backing workers strikes. Hummes also allowed Lula, now Brazil’s president, to make political speeches during Masses.

Under John Paul II, Hummes moved to the center, adopting a more traditional theological stance and distancing himself from direct political action. In July 2000, when a Brazilian priest suggested that condoms could be justified to fight AIDS, Hummes threatened disciplinary action.[Teresa's reaction:???!!!] Hummes is well-respected in Rome, and was invited to preach the 2002 Lenten Retreat for the papal household.

Yet he defends the Movimento dos Sem Terra (landless movement), arguing that people should be encouraged to organize themselves to defend their rights. He reminds government leaders that the Church defends private property, but “with social responsibility.”

Frei Betto, the famous Brazilian Dominican and liberation theologian, told NCR in 2002 that Hummes would be a “great pope.” His lone flaw, according to Betto: “He works too much.”

In last year’s Synod on the Eucharist, Hummes took up the issue of the impact of the Protestant “sects” in the developing world, noting that 83 percent of Brazilians called themselves Catholic in 1991, while today the number is 67 percent. Roughly one percent of Brazilian Catholics a year, Hummes said, are leaving the Catholic church, many to enter charismatic and Pentecostal groups.

“How long will Latin America be a Catholic continent?” Hummes asked.

In response, he called for a new level of missionary energy in the Catholic church, fueled by deep Eucharistic faith.

In a March 2005 Rome conference on the 40th anniversary of Gaudium et Spes [which translates as 'Joy and Hope', a very Ratzingerian title], Hummes outlined a vision of the church based on that document’s inspiration that many took as a statement of Hummes’ own theological platform.

Hummes noted that the document expressed an optimistic reading of the world, and affirmed “the autonomy of earthly affairs.” Hummes called that recognition “a great step of the Council, and one that synthesized it with modernity.”

Hummes praised Gaudium et Spes for embracing the human rights tradition of modernity, including “liberty/autonomy, equality, fraternity, dignity and the inviolable authority of the intimacy of the moral conscience.”

Hummes then turned to the call of Gaudium et Spes for the church to be “inserted in the world.”

“Gaudium et Spes, inspired by all the reflection of the council, emphasizes that the church is at the service of the human person and all human beings … and does not seek to dominate humanity. In this, it follows the example of Christ, who presented himself as a servant,” Hummes said.

That observation led Hummes to reflect on the church’s engagement with other social forces.

From Teresa: Does not all the following (section in bold) cied by Allen sound almost exactly like what Benedict XVI has been saying?

“In this context, the church supports and favors every effort today to seek the full development of the personality of all human beings, and to promote their fundamental rights, their dignity and liberty,” he said.

Yet Hummes emphasized that passion for social justice does not have to come at the expense of Christian identity. Concern for development, he said, must not neglect efforts “to help people to encounter the full truth about human beings and their vocation in this world,” meaning “Jesus Christ, in whom this full truth is met.”

Hummes returned repeatedly to the idea of the church as servant.

“A servant church must have as its priority solidarity with the poor,” he said. “The faith must express itself in charity and in solidarity, which is the civil form of charity,” Hummes said.

“Today more than ever, the church faces this challenge. In fact, effective solidarity with the poor, both individual persons and entire nations, is indispensable for the construction of peace. Solidarity corrects injustices, reestablishes the fundamental rights of persons and of nations, overcomes poverty and even resists the revolt that injustice provokes, eliminating the violence that is born with revolt and constructing peace.”

Hummes then asked a rhetorical question arising from these reflections.

“Does not today's terrorism,” Hummes asked, “have as one of its ingredients a revolt against an imposed poverty, experienced as practically irreversible in the short and medium term?”

Hummes emphasized that in its social engagement, the church does not seek to impose solutions but to engage in dialogue.

“The church, inserted and active in human society and in history, does not exist in order to exercise political power or to govern the society,” he said, but to “organize and promote the common good.”

“The church must constantly promote dialogue,” Hummes said. “Perhaps it is among the most important methods today for positive and constructive relations with society.”

Hummes said this must be “a dialogue with courage -- open, frank, sensible and humble. A dialogue with the contemporary person, with the human race, science, the advances in biotechnology, with philosophy and the cultures, with politics and economics, with everything that has to do with social justice, with human rights, and with solidarity with the poor.”

“A dialogue with the religions,” Hummes added. “A constant dialogue, systematic, with professionalism, constructive. A dialogue that knows how to listen, to debate, to discern and to assimilate whatever is good and true, just and consistent with human dignity, proposed by the interlocutor. A dialogue that at the same time knows how to proclaim the truth of which the church is the depository, and to which it must remain permanently faithful. However, it must always remain a dialogue, and never an imposition of the church's own convictions and methods. Propose, not impose. To serve, and not to dominate.

“A church of dialogue in the contemporary world … a church, taking on the mission of Jesus, which is in the world not to judge humanity, but to love it and to save it.”

================================================================

NESSUNA - We would love to have your input from Brazil about all this! What is the reaction in the Brazilian media? What do you personally think about the 'news', and about Cardinal Hummes?

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