Going back to the Tosatti artile in La Stampa about the possible nomination of Cardinal Hummes to the Curia, I must admit I posted my resume of his article this morning in haste - from a strange location where I did not have much time - and as I usually do when I translate fairly short pieces like the usual newspaper article, I simply copy the section I wish to translate and paste it on to the reply box and start translating (successively eliminating the original sentence or paragraph as I finish translating them).

What I did not even notice when I read Lella's post the first time was the title La Stampa had given the article, based on some statements Tosatti made towards the end of it (a part I did not pick up for translation) which has aroused much understandable outrage from our Italian sisters.

You will agree that the following is a title that is in bad taste, to say the least, as are the statements that gave rise to it:

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L’ARCIVESCOVO DI SAN PAOLO DEL BRASILE RICEVERÀ LA NOMINA DI PREFETTO DELLA CONGREGAZIONE PER IL CLERO: UN PASSO VERSO IL PONTIFICATO?
Hummes, da teologo della liberazione a favorito per il soglio di Pietro

[THE ARCHBISHOP OF SAO PAOLO IN BRAZIL TO BE NAMED PREFECT OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY: A STEP TOWARDS THE PAPACY?
Hummes, from liberation theologian to favorite for the Seat of Peter]

---

It is breathtaking in its audacious presumption, utter breach of taste, to say the least, and sheer insensitivity to, or even outright disrespect of the Pope who is very much alive!

I went back and read what the body of the article had to say about this. After Tosatti mentions that Hummes was a papabile in the last Conclave, he claims that the Latin American cardinals actually only considered (and voted for) two candidates - Ratzinger and Argentina's Bergoglio. Then he says that Hummes's handicap was he had no Curia experience, but he does not point out that neither does Bergoglio. Nor for that matter, Martini or Tettamanzi, the other two most prominent papabile mentioned then.

So now he concludes that Ratzinger by naming Hummes to a Curial position is giving him that Curial experience and therefore helping him to prepare for the Papacy!

Even if he adds, as he does, in his last sentence that 'let us hope the next Papacy will be far off "- the point is he opened up the topic unnecessarily.

And to talk about the 'next Papacy' when this one is only 18 months old - with a Pope who shows no signs of failing health - does leave a very bad taste in the mouth. Would anyone have talked about the next Papacy when John Paul II was only 18 months in the Seat of Peter? Or the previous other Popes for that matter - even John XXIII?

Next time, I will be more careful to read through everything first...In this case, the omissions from my original summary - being the writer's fancies (in every sense of the word) - were not really germane to the main story, but the context they provide is indeed appalling!

I don't know why John Allen did not refer to this part of Tosatti's story either, unless he intends to write a separate piece about it.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/10/2006 15.15]

In addition to the mass on All Saints Day, Nov. 1, the Holy Fahter will preside at another Mass in St. Peter's Basilica this week.

On Saturday at 11:30 a.m., he will concelebrate the Mass with other cardinals and bishops to remember the caridnals and bishops who died during the year.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/10/2006 14.23]

You might be interested to know that our "friend" Rocco Palmo is also quoting Tossati's breathless words on Cardinal Hummes. For God's sake, is there no decency? It might be just as possible that Pope Benedict is trying to get Cardinal Hummes out of Brazil so he can appointment someone orthodox there.

If you have not seen it before, read this mostly unexceptionable account of the Holy Father's statements on Friday about sexual offenses aginst children by some Catholic priests, and guess where it comes from. They could have chosen not to report it at all, considering. But they did, and that's a plus.
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Pope urges action
on sexual abuse


The Catholic Church must take all necessary steps to prevent further occurrences of child sex abuse by clergy, Pope Benedict has said.

To do this, the church had to find out what had happened in the past, he said.

The Pope made the comments to a group of visiting bishops from Ireland, where abuse scandals dating back decades have damaged the reputation of the church.

Trust in the clergy had been damaged, Pope Benedict said, and rebuilding confidence was an urgent task.

In March, a report from the Archdiocese of Dublin said that more than 100 Catholic priests in Dublin were suspected of having abused children in the last 66 years.

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

But there have been other scandals in various parts of the world.

In the US, a Boston-based scandal in 2002 led to the prosecutions of a number of priests, large payouts to dozens of victims and allegations of a cover-up by senior clergy.

Pope Benedict said that abuse scandals had created deep wounds in the church.

"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," he said, according to a copy of the speech released by the Vatican.

"Above all, (it is important) to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes."

But Pope Benedict said the abuse scandals should not overshadow the work of Ireland's priests.

"The fine work and selfless dedication of the great majority of priests and religious in Ireland should not be obscured by the transgressions of some of their brethren," he said.

Pope Benedict spoke in some of the strongest language he has used so far of his personal anguish and horror at what happened in Ireland, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.

And here's the exceptionable part - they were doing so well but oculdn't resist a parting shot! Still. it oculd have been worse, considering the poisoned source:

But some have questioned whether the Pope's comments are too little too late, and whether an apology should be made directly to the victims themselves.

While welcoming the Pope's expression of regret, Colm O'Gorman, the founder of a victims' group in Northern Ireland, said more action was required by the Vatican to introduce a worldwide system of child protection measures that would be underpinned in church law, our correspondent adds.
---------------------------------------------------------------


OK, so the report itself identifies the source. Can you believe this BBC story does not make a single reference at all to the BBC documentary aired a few weeks back accusing the Pope, from his days as Cardinal Ratzinger, of having taken the lead in delberately seeking to cover up stories priests accused of sexual offenses?

Normally, the MSM never fail to seize the slightest pretext as an occasion to dredge up a pet 'whipping' point, especially if it's something they set much by - as the BBC did with its Panorama documentary of disinformation on the Vatican and child abuse. Consider how a resume of the adverse reaction to the Pope's Regensburg allusion to Mohammed always makes its way into almost any story about the Pope these days!

So, what does it mean that BBC News omits any mention of their one-sided and wilfully wrong reading of the CDF instructions for dealing with priests accused of sexual misconduct? That they now realize they did wrong and they're ashamed about it? Huh!(Snort!) We wish!

Because if they really did, then they should come right out, make a public correction to their deliberate disinformation, and apologize to the Pope. In my dreams! Chances are this report was just an aberration on their part, and they'll dredge up the Ratzinger cover-up accusation routinely soon enough.

Wulfrune, who is British, gives her view of BBC's decline and fall as a worthy news institution in a most interesting recent post in ODDS AND ENDS.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/11/2006 4.07]

So Marco Tosatti - poor taste notwithstanding - did score a scoop on his fellow Vaticanistas!

Tht Vatican bulletin today on the usual Papal 'Rinuncia e Nomine" (Resignations and Nominations) said this:

The Holy Father has accepted the resignation presented by the Most Excellent Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos as Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, under the provision of Canon 354 of the Code of Canon Law.

At the same time, the Pope named to replace him the Most Excellent Cardinal Claudio Hummes, O.F.M., up to now Archbishop of Sao Paolo.

Also a second changeover at the Vatican:

The Pope also accepted the resignation of the Most Excellent Cardinal Francesco Marchisano as Arch-Priest of the Basilica of St. Peter.

Succeeding him is the Most Excellent Mons. Angelo Comastri, emeritus Archbishop of Loreto, Vicar General for the State of Vatican City, and President of the Fabbrica S. Pietro (Vatican works responsible for building and artwork restorations and improvements). Comastri was Marchisano's coadjutor.
================================================================

Some commentators have speculated as to what Hummes's nomination to Catrillon Hoyos's job would mean insofar as reaching out to the Lefebvrians. One would imagine that the Pope, knowing full well how this is one of the main tasks of the Prefect for the Clergy, would have had prior discussions with Cardinal Hummes about this - and all other clergy-related issues, for that matter - before deciding to name him. This could not have been a nomination out of the blue, without prior consultation with and acceptance of the task by the prospective nominee .

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/10/2006 14.21]

Yesterday, 10/30/06, two of our steady sources of Papal commentary - John Allen and Sandro Magister - both revisited Regensburg and its aftermath in different ways.

First, John Allen in his daily column for National Catholic Reporter:

Benedict XVI and
the redemption of jihad
Posted on Oct 30, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Chicago

Can jihad be redeemed? That is, can the religious sense of purpose that fuels Islamic extremism be leavened with a commitment to reason and peace, without thereby losing its sense of self? That’s the $64,000 question facing Islam, and it is for the most part one that only Muslims themselves can answer.

One could make the case, however, that if anyone in the West can help, it’s Pope Benedict XVI, despite Regensburg and all the heartache that followed – because Benedict is the lone figure of global standing in the West who speaks from within the same thought world that Muslims sympathetic to the strong religious identity of the jihadists themselves inhabit.

A detour into the recent history of Islamic thought helps make the point.

Egyptian poet and essayist Sayyid Qutb, hanged by Nasser in 1966, is known as the father of modern Islamic radicalism. Ironically, Qutb’s vision of jihad as an unrelenting conflict with the enemies of Islam was forged in part in the improbable locales of Washington, D.C., Greeley, Colorado, and Palo Alto, California, where he studied from 1948 to 1950 as part of an exchange program sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

Qutb attended Wilson Teachers’ College, the Colorado State College of Education (today the University of Northern Colorado), and Stanford. Based on that experience, Qutb penned his famous tract The America I Have Seen, which has gone through innumerable printings and today can be found in cheap paperback editions in virtually every corner of the Islamic world. It still exercises a profound impact in shaping Muslim perceptions of American culture.

The work amounted to a ferocious attack upon what Qutb called “the American man,” depicted as obsessed with technology but virtually a barbarian in the realm of spirituality and human values. American society, for Qutb, was “rotten and ill” to its very core.

He wrote:

"This great America: What is it worth in the scale of human values? And what does it add to the moral account of humanity? And, by the journey’s end, what will its contribution be? I fear that a balance may not exist between America’s material greatness and the quality of its people. And I fear that the wheel of life will have turned and the book of life will have closed and America will have added nothing, or next to nothing, to the account of morals that distinguishes man from object, and indeed, mankind from animals."

Qutb was not blind to the superficial attractions of America, which draw immigrants from every corner of the globe:

"Imagination and dreams glimmer in this world of illusion and wonder. The hearts of men fall upon it from every valley, men from every race and color, every walk of life, and every sect and creed … America is the land of inexhaustible material resources, strength, and manpower. It is the land of huge factories, unequalled in all of civilization. … American genius in management and organization evokes wonder and admiration. America’s bounty and prosperity evoke the dreams of the Promised Land."

Yet Qutb saw that promise as false, because America’s technical virtuosity is not matched by a similar greatness of spirit:

"It is the case of a people who have reached the peak of growth and elevation in the world of science and productivity, while remaining abysmally primitive in the world of the senses, feeling and behavior. A people that has not exceeded the most primordial levels of existence, and indeed, remains far below them in certain areas of feeling and behavior."

The American man’s obsession with technical power, Qutb wrote, has “narrowed his horizons, shrank his soul, limited his feelings, and decreased his place at the global feast, which is so full of patterns and colors.”

A particular zone of disgust for Qutb was what he saw as the sexual licentiousness of American culture (and this, bear in mind, was the early 1950s). He wrote that a society in which “immoral teachings and poisonous intentions are rampant” and sex is considered “outside the sphere of morality” is one in which “the humanity of man can hardly find a place to develop.”

Qutb said that “providing full opportunities for the development and perfection of human characteristics requires strong safeguards for the peace and stability of the family.”

As Lebanese journalist Fawaz Gerges has noted, Qutb is no De Tocqueville. He barely scratches the surface of American culture, completely missing its underlying religiosity and failing to understand how core spiritual values such as liberty and equality form part of the bedrock of American psychology.

Yet for anyone familiar with the cultural criticism penned over the years by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, there is nevertheless something strikingly familiar in Qutb’s critique – albeit not so much of America, as the West in general. What both men share is a conviction that the West’s scientific and technological achievements are not always matched by its spiritual and moral wisdom.

As early as his 1965 work The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence, Ratzinger warned against:

“… the reduction of man to homo faber, who does not interact with things in themselves, but only regards them as functions of his labor. With this … man’s ability to have a view for the eternal is destroyed. He is incarcerated in his world of labor, and his only hope is that future generations will be able to have more convenient conditions of labor than him, if he has sufficiently struggled to have such conditions created. A truly paltry consolation for an existence that has become miserably tight!”

In his 1990 book In the Beginning, on the doctrine of creation, Ratzinger wrote of contemporary Western society:

“The good and the moral no longer count, it seems, but only what one can do. The measure of a human being is what he can do, and not what he is, not what is good or bad. What he can do, he may do. … He does not free himself, but places himself in opposition to the truth. And that means that he is destroying himself and the world. … [The question] “What can we do?” will be false and pernicious while we refrain from asking, ‘Who are we?’ The question of being and the question of our hopes are inseparable.”

Ratzinger has even linked this critique to the question of birth control, arguing that it amounts to a mechanical solution to an ethical and cultural problem. In the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, he said:

“One of our great perils [is] that we want to master the human condition with technology, that we have forgotten that there are primordial human problems that are not susceptible of technological solutions, but that demand a certain life-style and certain life decisions.”

I adduce these quotes, of course, not to suggest that Benedict is a Christian version of Qutb. Benedict is infinitely more balanced and subtle; among other things, Benedict is far more favorable in his analysis of American culture. As Cardinal Avery Dulles recently pointed out, at times Benedict sounds almost like De Tocqueville in his positive assessment of church/state relations in this country.

Yet Benedict XVI would nevertheless find in Qutb a version – in extreme and distorted form – of the same critique of the West that the pope in many ways shares.

In the end, this is the most compelling reason why Benedict’s repeated insistence that he wants a “frank and sincere” dialogue with Islam is more than lip service.

Fundamentally, the clash of cultures that Benedict sees in the world today is not between Islam and the West, but between belief and unbelief – between a culture that grounds itself in God and religious belief, and a culture that lives etsi Deus non daretur, “as if God does not exist.”

In that struggle, Benedict has long said, Muslims are natural allies.

Yet Benedict is also well aware that at present, Islamic radicalism is having almost the opposite effect – discrediting religious commitment in any form by associating it with violence and fanaticism.

Hence when Benedict presses Muslims to reject terrorism and to embrace religious liberty, he does so not as a xenophobe or a crusader, not as a “theo-con,” but as someone who perceives himself as a friend of Islam, pressing it to realize the best version of itself.

That, no doubt, is part of the argument he will try to make during his upcoming trip to Turkey.

If they could set aside their prejudices, at least some of the spiritual sons and daughters of Sayyid Qutb might well recognize a potential ally in Joseph Ratzinger – and therein lies perhaps the last, best hope for Muslim/Catholic dialogue under Benedict XVI.

================================================================
Sandro Magister's 10/30 'documentation' more properly belongs to the thread REFLECTIONS ON ISLAM, wher I am posting it.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/10/2006 14.36]

And what a springtime for the Church it would be if all bishopsand priests listened to the words of the Pope with the same atentiveness as Archbishop Bonazzi, whom I vote as Apostolic Benaddict honoris causa.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Cuba Is in Heart
of "a Great Pope," Says Nuncio

HAVANA, OCT. 31, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Cuba holds a special place in the heart of Benedict XVI -- "a great Pope" -- says the apostolic nuncio to Cuba.

Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, speaking to the plenary assembly of the conference of religious of Cuba in Havana, communicated to the religious superiors the personal greeting that the Pope extended to the Catholics of the nation during a private audience in the Vatican on Aug. 28.

Benedict XVI customarily receives nuncios at the end of the general audience on Wednesdays. Archbishop Bonazzi said of the 20-minute private audience: "It was a rather singular event, certainly a sign of the Pope's special concern for Cuba."

"We are in the Pope's heart, I can assure you. In the heart of a great Pope, with which the providence of God is blessing the Church and the world," he said.

Regarding the meeting, the nuncio said that he "answered questions and expressed some reflections on the socio-political situation of the country, and especially on the life of the Church."

"Today, in my mission, I feel very supported and strengthened by Benedict XVI's words to me," he added.

According to Archbishop Bonazzi, Benedict XVI's words are "profound and luminous, they satisfy the intelligence and console the heart."

Therefore, he exhorted Cuba's religious "to favor listening to the word of the Pope, to give this word a preeminent place among the sources to which they take recourse to nourish their prayer, to cultivate the spirit and to make evangelization and mission incisive."

"Let's not miss this occasion to walk in history accompanied by an exceptional teacher and witness of the faith," the prelate urged.

To this end he announced that the apostolic nunciature will use the Internet to provide the conference of religious "the Pope's word that has a particular relation and relevance to the religious life."

Archbishop Bonazzi also talked to the men and women religious of the "the 'vocational question,'" which he identified as a fundamental pastoral priority for the Church in Cuba.

There are 11.3 million inhabitants in Cuba. Before Fidel Castro took power in 1959, Catholics comprised about 85% of the population; now it is estimated that the figure has decreased to 50%.

According to data gathered by the nunciature, there are 189 men religious, 606 women religious, 206 diocesan priests and 61 permanent deacons.

The papal representatives thanked the Lord for these "generous servants," and asked that all faithful make their own "every day and with insistence, the Lord's prayer of the harvest, so that he will send laborers to his harvest."

Archbishop Bonazzi assured the men and women religious of his support in prayer and work "to favor the birth and growth, discernment and support of vocations."

The nuncio encouraged the religious in their mission, and encouraged them "to live friendship with Christ."

He added that "only in this friendship do we experience what is beautiful and what makes us free."
================================================================

Cardinal Hummes to Head Congregation for Clergy;
Cardinal Castrillón Still Leads "Ecclesiae Dei"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 31, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI named Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, archbishop of Sao Paulo, 72, as prefect of the Congregation for Clergy.

The Vatican press office announced today that he is replacing Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, 77, who presented his resignation to the Pope for reasons of age, but who will continue in his post as president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei."

Claudio Hummes was born in Montenegro, in southern Brazil, to a family of German origin, in 1934. He was ordained a Franciscan priest in 1958.

He was named bishop in 1957, appointed archbishop of the Diocese of Fortaleza in 1996, then archbishop of Sao Paulo in 1998. He was created cardinal in 2001.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II invited him to preach spiritual exercises to the Roman Curia, meditating on how to be disciples of Christ.

On reporting his appointment, Vatican Radio highlighted his commitment to ecumenical dialogue, promotion of the laity, the pastoral care of labor, and the formation of priests.

"He was one of the architects of the World Meeting of Families with John Paul II in Rio de Janeiro in 1997," added Vatican Radio.

Following the announcement of the new prefect of the clergy congregation, Father Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, confirmed that Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos will continue in his post as president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei."

Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos was named president of the commission in 2000, which was instituted by John Paul II in 1998 to facilitate the full ecclesial communion of the priests, seminarians, communities and men and women religious connected in some way to the Society of St. Pius X, begun by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who wish to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church, keeping their spiritual and liturgical traditions.

The cardinal's work was decisive in surmounting, in January 2002, the schism of the St. John Mary Vianney Fraternity, a Brazilian traditionalist group close to the positions of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Last September, the cardinal worked to help establish the Good Shepherd Institute in France, whose members are priests and seminarians that have left the Society of St. Pius X and returned to full communion with Rome.

As prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos brought about the congregation's Web page, one of the largest Catholic digital libraries, and organized monthly theological videoconferences.

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

If Cardinal Castrillon is continuing in Ecclesia Dei, it would sort of confirm that the Pope hopes to resolve the Lefebvrian issue soon, because the Cardinal has been carrying the brunt of negotiating with the SSPX in recent years and should properly see his work to 'completion.' And the fact that he is beyond retirement age and deserves his apostolic 'rest' probably means the Pope does not see his work with the Lefebvrians as going on indefinitely...

On the other hand, one blogger says that the usually reliable religious correspondent for NPR believes an annoumcement on the Old Mass may come this week even!

Someone else remarks that Cardinal Marchisano who has resigned as Arch-Priest of St.Peter's was firmly anti-Tridentine, so maybe the timing of his resignation is auspicious.

Moreover, Mons. Comastri who replaces him is one of the staunchest Ratzingerians in the Italian clergy. You will recall the Pope asked him to write the 2006 Via Crucis meditations and prayers. He also edited asnd published a handsome picture book on the first year of the Benedictine Papacy.

Benedict's Vatican makeover continues apace!

And here's the AP report, with a brief reaction from Cardinal Hummes in Sao Paolo:
VATICAN CITY, Oct. 31, 2006 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday named Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who heads Brazil's largest Roman Catholic diocese, to head the Vatican office in charge of priests around the world.

Hummes, 72, succeeds another South American, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos as prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. The Vatican said Hoyos, a 77-year-old Colombian, was retiring.

In addition to dealing with supervision of priests around the world, the Vatican clergy office has a watchdog role over local church finances.

Hummes is considered a leading church figure in the Third World and was seen candidate for the papacy in the conclave that elected Benedict last year after the death of John Paul II.

Since 1998 he has headed the archdiocese of Sao Paulo, the biggest in the world's most populous Roman Catholic country. No successor to that post was immediately named.

Hummes said he was ready to take on the challenge.

"I am at the Pope's complete disposal," Hummes, who is expected to head to Rome in about two weeks, told reporters. "When the Pope calls, it is the voice of God I hear."

Hummes is a great grandson of a German immigrant who came to Brazil in the 19th century and married a Brazilian woman of German descent. Hummes was born Aug. 8, 1934, in Montenegro, a small city in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

In 1975, he was appointed bishop of Santo Andre, an industrial district on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, where he gained national attention as a defender of the striking metalworkers, among them Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who has just been re-elected to a second term as president of Brazil. Strikes were illegal and the military regime considered them a threat to national security.

In 1996, John Paul appointed Hummes archbishop of Fortaleza, capital of the northeastern state of Ceara. Two years later, he was transferred to Sao Paulo, home to some 6 million Roman Catholics. He was named cardinal in 2001.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/11/2006 13.54]

Papal Prayer Intentions for November


VATICAN CITY, OCT. 31, 2006 (Zenit.org).- During the month of November, Benedict XVI will pray especially "for an end to all forms of terrorism throughout the world."

The Apostleship of Prayer announced the general and missionary prayer intentions chosen by the Holy Father.

The Pontiff, along with thousands of faithful worldwide, offers his prayers and sacrifices for the intentions.

The Pope's missionary prayer intention for the month is: "For believers everywhere: may they work to remove old and new barriers to Africa's development."

Sanctity simply requires listening to Jesus and following His will, Pope says


Vatican City, Nov. 01, 2006 (CNA) - Thousands of faithful crowded into St. Peter’s Basilica today for the celebration of Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints, presided over by Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father recalled, in his homily, that sanctity simply consists in serving Jesus, listening and following without loosing heart in the face of difficulties.

“It is not necessary to carry out extraordinary acts and works, nor to possess exceptional charisms…it is necessary first of all to listen to Jesus and then to follow Him without loosing heart in the face of difficulties,” Pope Benedict offered in response to the question, “How can we become saints - friends of God?”

The Pontiff said that, “the saints are not only a meager caste of chosen ones, but a numberless crowd,” in which, “there are not only the officially recognized Saints, but also the baptized of all times and nations who have sought to carry out the Will of God with love and fidelity.”

He also stressed that those gathered in the heavenly host each exhibited the, “will to embody the Gospel in their existence, under the impulses of the eternal animator of the People of God, who is the Holy Sprit.”

The Pope quoted St. Bernard in his response to the question of offering tribute to the saints, saying, “’Our Saints do not need our honor and do not receive anything from our ‘worship.’ But for my part, I mush confess that when I think of the Saints, I find myself burning with great desires.’ This, therefore, is the significance of today’s solemnity,” Pope Benedict said, “our looking upon the luminous example of the saints ignites in us the great desire to be like the saints: happy to live close to God, in His light, in the great family of the friends of God…and this is the vocation of each of us.”

“The experience of the Church shows that all forms of holiness, even though proceeding in different ways, pass always through the way of the cross…The biographies of the saints speak of men and women who, docile to the Plan of God, have faced at times tests and indescribably suffering, persecution, and martyrdom. They have persevered in their work, ‘they have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14),’” the Pope continued.

He also recalled that while true joy comes from trusting in the Lord, “the only true cause of sadness and misery for mankind is to live far from Him.”

Because of the Mass for All Saints this morning, the regular Wednesday audience was not held. However, as on all major religious holidays that fall on a weekday, the Pope led the recitation of the Angelus at noontime and delivered a second message after his homily at the Mass.

A full translation of both texts is in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES and in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.
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1 November, 2006
VATICAN
“Eternal life” not a myth
but a destiny that gives meaning
to our daily situations, says Pope


Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The solemnity of All Saints (today) and the commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (tomorrow) are for Benedict XVII the starting point for opening a dialogue with modern man on “eternal life”.

In his reflections before the Angelus prayer, in front of pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, the Pope asked: “Does modern man still expect eternal life, or does he consider it as part of a worn-out mythology? In this day and age, we are so much absorbed by things of this world that it is sometimes difficult to think about God as a player in history and our lives”.

However, he noted, “human existence, by its very nature, tends towards something greater, something that transcends itself. The longing for justice, truth and complete happiness in human beings cannot be suppressed. Faced with the enigma of death, many of us wish and hope of meeting one’s dearly departed. Similarly, there is a strong belief in a last judgement that will restore justice and in a final moment when each will receive what they deserve”.

Sometimes Christians, too, seem to view “eternal life” as something quantitative, as “a life that lasts forever”. In fact, it is “a new quality of life, fully immersed in God’s love, one that frees us from evil and death and places us in endless communion with our brothers and sisters who partake in the same Love”.

In this sense, the Pope added, “eternity . . . can already be at the centre of one’s life here and now, when the soul, through grace, connects with God, its ultimate foundation. Everything passes, God never changes. One Psalm says: ‘Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever’" (Psalm, 73: 26). All Christians, who are called to holiness, are men and women who live solidly anchored to this “Rock”, well grounded but with the heart already in heaven, the ultimate home of God’s friends.”

“Eternal life” is therefore not something detached from everyday life and in the end useless. It is instead “our ultimate and final destiny, which gives meaning to everyday situations”.

Benedict XVI ended his reflections on a plea. “Let us revive the joyous feeling of communion with the saints and let us be drawn by them towards the goal of our existence, which is to meet God face to face. Let us pray that this is the inheritance of all dearly departed, not only our own, but also of every soul, especially of those who have been forgotten and need divine mercy. May the Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of All Saints, guide us in our choice of eternal life in each moment of 'the life of the world to come', as the Credo says, a world already inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ, whose advent we can bring forward through our sincere conversion and our acts of charity”.

After the Marian prayer, the Pope greeted in various languages the gathering of pilgrims. Among those from Italy, he greeted “the group that is carrying the ‘Torch of Dialogue” following in the footsteps of Saint Augustine.”

“After leaving ancient Tagaste in Algeria, the torch reached Hippo Regio, Tunis and Malta. After arriving in Ostia, it went on to Rome from where it will leave for Pavia (northern Italy) where the saint is buried.”

“I gladly bless this initiative of the Augustinian Order, and this Torch, symbol of faith and peace.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/11/2006 23.38]

(ANSA) - ROMA, 1 NOV - More than 2.5 million persons have come to see Pope Benedict XVI so far this year in Rome or in Castel Gandolfo.

The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household released the following statistics for the first 10 months of 2006:
Total number of visitors for the Pope - 2,674,820. Of these, 938,500 attended the Wednesday audiences; 349,120 had special audiences; 502,000 attended liturgical celebrations in Rome; and 885,000 came for Angelus in Rome and in Castel Gandolfo.

[I have not had time to get the figures for 2005, where the counting for Benedict dated from his inaugural Mass on 4/25/05. I will post them here as soon as I find the data.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/11/2006 0.31]

Quite apropos, I was meaning to post this item late last night except that I dozed off while doing the brief translation and decided to put off finishing the post till later.

Beatrice on her website beatriceweb.eu calls out attention to a lengthy article written by Herve Yannou, chief Vatican correspondent of Le Figaro, about Benedict XVI and the media, that prints out to 9 pages (almost twice as long as the Regensburg lecture), for canal academie, the online radio service of the Institut de France, that uniquely French institution that calls itself 'le Parlement de savants' (the Parliament of learned men).

Strange that in his lengthy piece, Yannou does not mention that Benedict XVI, in fact, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected as one of only 12 foreign members to the Institute's Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 1992 to fill the chair vacated by the death of Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov.

(Two other cardinals who are of French nationality belong to the Institut- Jean-Marie Lustiger, in the premier and oldest of the Institute's 5 academies, the Academie Francaise, which was founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635, and Roger Etchegaray, who is in the same Academy as the Pope but as a regular member, being French. Before them, Cardinal Henri de Lubac had been voted into this same Academy).

Yannou's title is "Benedict and the Media: From a Pontificate of gestures to one of words" - a formulation originated by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, and which I am not enthusiastic about because it is an over-simplification and a rather misleading one at that.

As though John Paul II's Papacy was mostly by gesture [with all that the term connotes in theatricality and show, rather than action] without the force of words; and conversely, that Benedict's Papacy would be strong in words, but lacking in action - and here, the implication is on action rather than the theatrical act, which no one in MSM expects of Benedict, even if some of his actions have been great coups de theatre, however much they were not meant to be - think Auschwitz, think Regensburg, and even the camauro and saturno moments.

I am translating the end of Yannou's piece because, after eight pages of first extolling John Paul's unprecedented tour de force as the first mediatic Pope, and then recounting chronologically Benedict's relations with the media through the major events of his Papacy so far, he finally ends by acknowledging something that few in the MSM have been willing to do so far - the present Pope's popularity! The title for the excerpt is Yannou's own section title in the original piece.
===============================================================

The keys to popular success:
Benedict the pedagogue

Benedict communicates above all through his intelligence and an academic spirit that is at home with rhetorical improvisation.

In the first year of his 'reign', Benedict has made far less speeches than John Paul II did in a comparable time (291 vs 569, or put another way, 24 speeches a month vs 47 for Wojtyla).

But although Benedict may not grab the headlines every day [neither did JP-II, at least not every day!], he is breaking all (papal) popularity records.

This pope charms the crowds: up to two million at a Mass in Poland, or an average 50,000 for the Wednesday audiences which have become an event once more, are no longer exceptional occasions. Benedict fills up the venues. This is a popular Pope!

Certainly, pilgrimages to John Paul's tomb and the TV coverage from Peter's Square seen throughout the world in April last year, have made the Piazza and Bernini's colonnade part of the 'museum of images' kept in the mind's eye by every citizen of the world, and have reinforced the obligatory role of the Vatican as an integral part of the the essential Roman tour.

Tour operators now plan their itineraries to end on a Sunday so that for first-timers to Rome, their visit may end on a high note: the Pope's appearance at his window to lead the Angelus.
So, certainly, the element of curiosity and novelty cannot be ignored.

But the 'quality of the pilgrims' - in the jargon of Vatican authorities - is not to be discounted either. Very simply, the Pope holds people's attention.

It is what Joaquin Navarro-Valls called 'a ministry of intelligence", or what the Wall Street Journal sees as the succession from a philosopher Pope to a theologian Pope.

[I am sorry, but I must disagree with such facile labels, because ultimately they do not make sense. When Navarro-Valls says Benedict's is a 'ministry of intelligence' he is certainly not implying that John Paul's was a ministry of non-intelligence! And what does it mean to have a philosopher Pope and a theologian Pope? A theologian needs to be a philosopher as well as a theologian, or before he can be a theologian!]

If the ex-professor wishes to produce less documents and addresses than his predecessor did, he also wants to elevate his audience by the clarity of what he says. During World Youth Day in Cologne, a German newspaper called him "the academic everyone understands."

The Pope instructs the faithful in his light flute-like voice. He allows himself to be interrupted by applause but quickly brings his audience back to attention. His very exigence galvanizes his audiences and arouses their enthusiasm.

The weight of his words is fundamental. Cewrtainly, the Pope, like all the leaders of the world, cannot possibly write eveything that he must deliver or that goes out under his name.
But while the Pope may not write everything attributed to him, he reviews the drafts, edits them and puts them together as he sees fit before delivering the text in public.

Different teams, more or less formally charged with specific subjects, are assigned to write drafts according to guidelines or isntructions from the Pope. In particular, addresses or messages addressed to specific countries are drafted by the section [of the Secretariat of State] concerned with particular countries, with the aid of the local bishops conference and the reports made by the bishops visiting ad limina.

The Pope reserves for himself alone the preparation of his homilies for major religious feasts.

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

And here, the article ends abruptly - and I don't think I'm the only who thinks it is left dangling.

While Yannou's observations about drafitng the Pope's routine interventions may be correct, this Pope's personal input appears to be much more than simply editing drafts.

The messages he delivers and the language in which he delivers them at the audiences and the Angelus, and not just in his homilies, give the impression that they are completely his own. Especially the catecheses - and especially, as it has been speculated, if the Pope's teaching series on the Apostles comes from the book he may be publishing soon about the life of Jesus.

Not to mention the texts the Pope has had to deliver during his apostolic voyages! None of them could have been committee work!Cologne, Warsaw, Cracow, Auschwitz, Valencia, Munich, Regensburg (homily and academic lecture)?

[Footnote on the Regensburg homily - It actually sketched out ahead the main lines of the subsequent Regensburg lecture, but its stand-alone excellence and brilliance as a homily were unfortunately overshadowed by the reactions to the lecture. It is well worth re-reading, if you have the time.]

Verona may have been committee work insofar as the outline of the topics to be covered, but the content was all Benedict. As were the two addresses to university communities in Rome afterwards.

The continuity of thought and reiteration of the essential that characterizes Benedict's texts surely represent his personal input rather than bureaucratic output - as is his avoidance of priestly jargon.

But a far greater omission in Yannou's account are the brilliant homilies that the Pope has delivered extemporaneously, such as the one on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception last year, or his recent homily to the members of the International Theological Commission.

And finally, this Pope's unique contribution to Papal discourse so far - his unrehearsed totally spontaneous answers in open dialog with priests, students and First-Communion children!

So, Yannou is to be commended for having finally acknowledged in the MSM the Pope's record-breaking popularity , but one wishes he could have done a more thorough job on Benedict the communicator.

And my final comment - The line seems to be that Benedict is popular because he manages to communicate. But somehow this ability of his seems to be treated as a thing-in-itself, something that does not necessarily have to do with his personality, that there are no other aspects of his personality that attract people to him! Which we Benaddicts know is the greatest fallacy on earth!

We must await the next stage in media's acknowledgment of the Benedict phenomenon - something only John Allen so far has articulated unequivocally: that another giant stepped in to fill his predecessor giant's shoes, and that there can be two great Popes in succession.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/11/2006 14.28]

Ahead of papal visit, leading Turkish cleric says criticizing Islam threatens world peace

The Associated Press

A leading Turkish cleric called criticism of Islam a serious threat to world peace, speaking Wednesday as Turkey prepared for a controversial visit by Pope Benedict XVI later in the month.

Benedict visits Turkey — his first as pope to a predominantly Muslim country — two months after provoking widespread anger by quoting an emperor who characterized the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman."

Ali Bardakoglu, head of the country's religious affairs, said "it was saddening" to see Islam being criticized while the religion's contribution to civilization is ignored.

"This attitude, which fuels division and lack of mutual trust, is seriously threatening world peace," Bardakoglu told a conference in Istanbul attended by several African Muslim leaders.

The Religious Affairs Directorate oversees religious issues in Turkey. Bardakoglu is expected to meet with Benedict during the pope's Nov. 28-Dec. 1 visit.

"We always tell the truth to everyone," Bardakoglu said when asked whether he would express his dismay to the pope. "People meeting does not mean that they approve each other. It could help them express their opinions with an open heart and know each other correctly."

Benedict has appealed for greater dialogue with Muslims since the September speech at a German university in which he quoted the 14th century Byzantine emperor as calling Islam a religion spread by the sword.

Since the uproar over the speech — which has cast a cloud over his visit to Turkey — Benedict has expressed his regrets for offending Muslims.

Bardakoglu, however, called the pope's apology "indirect." He encouraged Muslim religious leaders to work and correct false and misleading information about Islam.

"Today, Muslims must first remember the human values of Islam ... and the collective peace it aimed for, and tell and teach this to the world," Bardakoglu said.

Benedict, in an appeal last month to Muslim envoys, said the two faiths must together reject violence because the future of humanity is at stake.

Although the official focus of Benedict's trip is his scheduled meeting with Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Benedict is widely expected to use the visit to improve relations with the Muslim world.

The pope's tentative schedule includes a visit Nov. 28 to Ankara to meet with the Turkish president and Bardakoglu; a Nov. 29 trip to the ruins of Ephesus, and a meeting with Bartholomew in Istanbul the following day.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul are expected to attend a NATO summit scheduled for Nov. 28-29 in Riga, Latvia, and were not scheduled to meet the pope.

The pope's vicar in Anatolia, Monsignor Luigi Padovese, told The Associated Press by telephone that Erdogan's absence during the pope's visit was a "lost opportunity."

"It's a pity: It could have been a good opportunity to talk about many issues," Padovese said.

Benedict also is expected to lead a ceremony at Istanbul's Saint Esprit Cathedral on Dec. 1.

Bardakoglu is bad news - has been from the beginning. It was his exaggerated outcry that began the wave of reactions to the Mohammed citation in the Pope's Regensburg lecture. I suspect he was trying to set the ground for a cancellation of the Pope's visit to Turkey. Among all Muslim government leaders,He and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan have made the most stinging personal criticisms of the Pope after Regensburg.

And now this outrageous - and perhaps programmatic - statement that 'criticizing Islam seriously threatenes world peace'! This is a man whose mind is closed, it looks like. And he's going to meet the Pope face to face in Ankara! We can only pray that the Holy Spirit which guides the Pope may also work His ways on Bardakoglu.

Apropos the Turkey visit, John Allen in his daily column comments on the Turkish PM's absence from Turkey during the Pope's visit. Later reports indicate Erdogan will actually be back in Turkey by November 30, so if he wanted to meet the Pope, he could well find the time...but he's playing hard to get.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Turkish PM to skip pope meeting
Posted on Nov 2, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

In late September, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that when Pope Benedict XVI visits his country later this month, he would “set him straight” with regard to his views on Islam.

In the event, however, Erdogan has decided to forgo delivering a theology lesson to Joseph Ratzinger, deciding to attend a NATO summit in Estonia instead while the pope is in town. Erdogan's absence means that Benedict XVI will face the rare circumstance of visiting a foreign nation without being welcomed by its head of government.

The Turkish Embassy to the Holy See made the announcement this week.

Though Turkey is officially a secular state, Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has its roots in political Islam, and many observers believe that Erdogan decided to snub the pope out of fear of antagonizing hard-liners still offended by Benedict’s Sept. 12 comments on Mohammed and Islam in Regensburg, Germany.

Turkey faces elections next year, and all indications are that Islamic movements are a rising force in the country’s affairs.

While Turkey is often singled out as a model of a moderate Islamic state, Erdogan’s reaction in the wake of the Regensburg address was among the most ferocious among leading Muslim politicians.

“I believe it is a must for the Pope to retract his erroneous, ugly and unfortunate remarks and apologise both to the Islamic world and Muslims,” Erdogan said at the time in a televised address to the nation.

“The pope spoke not like a man of religion but like a usual politician,” Erdogan said. “We hope that he will correct his error immediately and avoid casting a shadow over (efforts) to develop dialogue between faiths.”

After Benedict XVI apologized on Sept. 17 for any hurt his words may have caused, and stressed that his quotation from a 14th century Byzantine emperor that Mohammed brought things “only evil and inhuman” in no way reflected his personal opinion, Erdogan called the act of contrition a “maneuver,” and said it fell short of the apology Muslims deserved.

Erdogan’s decision to bow out of meeting the pope is another indication of the tough climate that Benedict may face on his Nov. 28-Dec. 2 trip to Turkey, his first to a majority Muslim nation.

Following his Regensburg remarks, one group of Turkish clerics, backed by a lawmaker from Erdogan’s party, actually demanded that the pope be arrested when he arrives on Turkish soil.

Members of Diyanet-Sen, an imans’ union with the country’s Religious Affairs Directorate, asked authorities to to detain him when he arrives. They said the pontiff had violated Turkish laws upholding freedom of belief and thought by “insulting” Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.

Turkish officials confirmed this week that Benedict will meet President Sezer and Ali Bardakoglu, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate and the leading cleric in the country.


And here's a Reuters report on Erdogan's 'snub':


Turkey PM Erdogan snubs Pope:
Italian papers
By Philip Pullella
Thu Nov 2, 2006


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's decision not to meet Pope Benedict during his visit to Turkey is a diplomatic snub following the pontiff's recent criticism of Islam, Italian commentators said on Thursday.

"You can paint this any way you want but from a western point of view, this is bad manners," said a front-page editorial in Rome's Il Messaggero newspaper.

Vatican observers said it was very rare for a head of government to not have some kind of meeting with a visiting pope.

"Erdogan Snubs Pope," said La Stampa of Turin, which called the lack of a meeting "another cold shower over the trip."

Erdogan's office said he will be attending a NATO summit in Latvia for the first two days of the Pope's November 28 - December 1 trip and will be busy with other meetings in Turkey after that.

"If there was a possibility for a meeting the prime minister would have met him," a Turkish government official told Reuters.

The Vatican has tried to downplay the controversy.

A spokesman said the Vatican knew from the start of planning for the trip that Erdogan would be out of the country for part of it and was told he would "try for but could not guarantee" a meeting with Pope.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and other cabinet ministers will be meeting with the Pope, the Turkish officials said. Sezer, a staunch secularist often at odds with Erdogan, a pious Muslim, extended the invitation to the Pope and will be his host in Ankara.

Benedict's first visit to Turkey has been overshadowed by Muslim anger since a September lecture he gave at a German university in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine Emperor in a passage seen as critical of the Prophet Mohammad.

Leading Turkish newspaper Sabah said Erdogan was "escaping the Pope." Some of the strongest criticism of Benedict has come from Turkey, where nationalists and Islamic activists have pushed for the trip to be canceled.

The Pope or Vatican officials have said at least a dozen times since that his comments had been misunderstood.

The papal visit was not officially confirmed until October 16 and its main purpose is a meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, to discuss Christian unity.

The leader of more than one billion Catholics has several times expressed regret for the reaction to the speech but has stopped short of the unequivocal apology wanted by some Muslims.

Even before the controversy over his comments on Islam, the Pope was already viewed with suspicion in Turkey.

When he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and worked as the Vatican's top doctrinal official, the future Pope said he was against Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

(Additional reporting by Paul Debendern in Ankara)

And here's a CNA update:

Turkey denies “snubbing” Pope
after announcing prime minister
will not meet Benedict

Rome, Nov. 02, 2006 (CNA) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will no longer be available to meet with Pope Benedict XVI when the pontiff visits the Muslim country later this month. But Turkish officials are denying that the cancelled meeting was not a intentional slight.

The Turkish Embassy to the Holy See announced yesterday that Erdogan would be attending a NATO summit in Estonia during that time.

Erdogan had been tentatively scheduled to meet with the Pope on Nov. 28, the first day of the Pontiff’s trip. He would have been the first Turkish prime minister to receive Pope Benedict XVI.

Ahmet Arslan, speaker for Prime Minster Ergodan, told ANSA today that the Turkish premier will be in Riga, Latvia, for a NATO summit until the night of November 29 and the next day he must chair a meeting in Ankara of the Supreme Defence Council, which had been scheduled since the start of the year and would last all day, he added.

"Any intention of a diplomatic snub of the pope for his statements on Islam is totally out of the question," Arslan said.

Meanwhile, ANSA has been told by another spokesman, who preferred to remain anonymous, that final details still need to be worked out on the Pope's schedule and a meeting with Erdogan may still be possible.

The Vatican reported yesterday that Erdogan had indicated he would try to find time to meet with the pope, but if this was not possible a deputy premier would stand in for him.

According to a report in The London Times, Turkish analysts have suggested that, with federal elections on the horizon next year, Erdogan could not afford to meet with the Pope, who provoked outrage across the Muslim world in September when he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor’s statements against Islam.

However, the Pope is confirmed to meet with President Sezer and Ali Bardakoglu, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate and the leading cleric in the predominantly Muslim country.

A statement from the Vatican press office on Thursday said the Holy See had been aware of the Turkish premier's scheduling problems when arranging the pope's visit.

“No one said the Pope had to meet all the officials in Turkey, though he will certainly meet representative authorities,” said papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, reported The Times.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/11/2006 4.04]

I am wondering if anyone has any information on the following. There is a rumor going around some of the US blogs that the motu proprio on the TLM will "never see the light of day." This supposedly comes from those who have a nodding acquaintence with the Holy Father. Now I am as skeptical as anyone of reports from anyone who claims an acquaintance with the Holy Father and I am really skeptical when a report comes from those associated with the radical Traditionalist movement or those associated with it. Still, if any of you have information on this, I would be grateful.

Turkey: Muslim vows to 'strangle' Pope
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nov. 2, 2006

Police on Thursday detained a man who fired shots into the air outside the Italian consulate to protest an upcoming visit by Pope Benedict XVI, and the suspect later told a television reporter he wanted to "strangle" the pope with his bare hands.

"I don't want him here, if he was here now I would strangle him with my bare hands," the suspect, who identified himself as Ibrahim Ak, 26, told a Dogan news agency television cameraman as he was detained by police.

"I fired the shots for God," Ak said as he sat handcuffed inside a police van outside the consulate. "Inshallah (God willing), this will be a spark, a starter for Muslims."

"God willing, he will not come. If he comes, he will see what will happen to him," Ak said.

Benedict was scheduled to visit Turkey between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1.

It would be Benedict's first visit as pope to a predominantly Muslim country, just two months after he provoked widespread anger by quoting an emperor who characterized the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman."

The pope has since expressed regret for offending Muslims and called for dialogue with Islam.

"That shameless, dishonorable pope will not come to this country!" Ak shouted as police escorted him to a nearby police station in the crowded Beyoglu district for interrogation. "I'm telling all Muslims, he won't come!"

Security guards and police said the protester had tossed his gun into the garden of the Istanbul residence of the consul general, which is in the same compound as the consulate building, after firing at least two shots. The state-owned Anatolia news agency said the suspect's gun jammed at one point. He apparently tossed his gun after that.

"I'm a Turkish citizen, but before that, I'm a Muslim," Ak said.

The Vatican's chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, characterized the shooting incident as "an isolated fact, marginal, which won't have any influence on the preparations or climate surrounding the trip."

[Modificato da benefan 02/11/2006 19.17]

What are we to pass over?

Sunday Catholic Weekly
Poland
Nov. 2, 2006

Fr Piotr Gasior talks to Fr Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Koscielniak, a specialist on Islam and lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow.

FR PIOTR GASIOR: - The din in the media concerning the small fragment of Benedict XVI's speech, delivered at the University of Regensburg, has died away. The Pope quoted a few sentences from the historical dialogue about Islam, dated to the end of the 14th century. What in your opinion made the followers of Muhammad indignant about, as the Polish media reported?

PROF. KRZYSZTOF KOSCIELNIAK: - Some followers of Islam felt hurt by the papal speech in Regensburg. However, their outrage over the words of Benedict XVI's was aroused artificially to a considerable extent. The majority of the millions of the protesting Muslims did not make any effort to understand the essence of the papal text, learning about the Pope's speech from others, i.e. from reports in the media. And these reports were full of critical, simplified commentaries. They seldom quote the whole text of the papal speech; instead they settled for the fragment.

Therefore, the smear campaign looked like a peculiar manipulation and it was easy to launch because it is obvious that few people make efforts to understand a political discourse. I do not believe that millions of Muslims, from Morocco to Indonesia, followed the visit of Benedict VI to Germany, listening to his speeches. Very few Muslims commentators brought themselves to discover the philosophical-theological message of the papal speech. Benedict XVI asked an extremely difficult question, which is fundamental to every religion, 'Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?'

- You have stayed in many Arab countries. Recently you have been to Syria. How did they comment on this event?

- Syria is a unique country, with long tradition of peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians. Moreover, the Syrian government is very tolerant and open to followers of other religions. The papal speech was little commented on, without special aggression and manifestation.

- Thus, who and why cares for publicizing the so-called civilisational war between the West and the whole Islamic world?

- It seems that in accordance with the proverb 'extremes meet', the opponents of the Pope's speech include people from completely opposing environments. On the one hand, the critics of Benedict XVI's words embrace extreme liberals and politically correct 'experts on dialogue' from Western Europe. They accuse the Pope of an attitude of closeness, non-dialogue and conservatism. Since neither the official Pope's documents nor his attitude reflect their thesis about the 'hard-liner', self-contained Pope they concluded that his speech in Regensburg would be a splendid occasion to confirm their prejudices. On the other hand, in the Muslim world the anti-Pope front has been formed by those environments that are influenced by Islamic fundamentalism, influence of one sort or another. In turn, these authors seek every occasion to confirm their thesis about modern Crusaders. They want to draw into conflict not only the Western civilisation but also religions: Christianity with Islam.

- And what do you think about the pretentious, and not really understandable, habit of the so-called commentators on religious events who try to juxtapose Benedict XVI's concern for dialogue with followers of Islam with the greater - as they think - ecumenical sensitivity of John Paul II?

- One cannot oppose these two Popes. If Cardinal Ratzinger had not realised John Paul II's ideas he would not have been the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith throughout almost the whole pontificate of our Countryman. John Paul II decidedly opposed violence against Christians by certain Muslim circles. And even more: he was the biggest critic of Muslim violence. In his book entitled 'See You in Paradise' Arturo Mari presented the Polish Pope's reactions during his visit to Sudan where the Muslims had murdered over two million Christians. A. Mari writes, 'I was most deeply impressed by his [the Pope's] words spoken in Khartoum.' Mari, who had to be in a room next to the President's chamber, heard the Pope's strong words condemning murders of Christians. We cannot relate the whole story but allow me to quote one fragment, 'The Pope has never sought any round phrases that would allow him to avoid difficult problems. The President, being surprised and perplexed, said, 'Let us pass over what has been said and let us pretend that it did not happen'. He should not have spoken these words! Hearing this the Pope turned to the missionary, 'Translate exactly... I have come here neither for rest nor on holiday. I have come in the name of God. I have come to defend all the dead, all these families... But the President repeated, 'Good, but let us pass over all these things'. And then the Pope could not bear any longer, 'What are we to pass over?! Are we to pass over these innocent victims?! He spoke for one hour and the atmosphere was really nervous. He spoke in a strong, outraged voice. It was no joke. One could get a fright.'

Pope Benedict XVI, like John Paul II, did not assume an 'anti-Muslim' attitude at all. He only notices, like his Predecessor, injustice and violence, which certain Muslim environments cause. But this is not criticism of Islam as such.

- Is there any Muslim spokesman on dialogue?

- This is an apt question. So far the fundamental problem of the Christian-Muslim dialogue has been to define who is (or who can be) an appropriate spokesman on Islam. Since Islam has no hierarchical organisation like the Catholic Church does. Because of the lack of one centre, is responsible for this religion, it seems that one should appeal to numerous Muslim environments. And this causes much inconvenience. For example, the arrangements with the Muslims in Syria have nothing to do with the attitude of the Islamic circles in Saudi Arabia.

Some doubt whether the divided Islam, and a great number of groups promoting violence identify with it, is able to enter into dialogue. I put my hope in the dialogue that is held between various groups of the followers of Islam, but the dialogue should be conducted in an authentic atmosphere, i.e. without avoiding difficult issues. Conducting dialogue with Islam, contemporary Christianity calls for the necessity to reject violence and grant equal rights to Christians living in the world of Islam. For example, death sentence for converts, ban on marriage between a Muslim woman and a Christian man as well as numerous limitations that discriminate Christians must be lifted by Muslims if we are to speak about dialogue and reciprocity. Otherwise, we only deal with monologue.

- But the representatives of Muslim communities in Europe declare to conduct dialogue. Perhaps we do not understand their mentality enough?

- Of course, many Muslims in European countries are willing to conduct dialogue. Let us take the example of Groupe de Recherches Islamo-Chrétien, which has embraced both Christians and Muslims for years. They have discussed various topics. The situation in Europe is very comfortable in this respect. People of the West like speaking about dialogue, getting to know other religions and cultures. But as for the Muslims the situation is decidedly worse. Cardinal Walter Kasper has clearly said that Muslims, living in those places where they are a minority, want to enter into dialogue, but in those places where Muslims are a majority dialogue recedes into the background or does not exist at all.

I think that we somehow understand Muslims' mentality. After all, they have enormous space for development in Europe. Nobody forbids them to build mosques, create associations, make publications, etc. Islam is even taught in state schools in those countries whose laws do not forbid this practice.

Naturally, there is space concerning behaviour of certain Muslims that cannot be accepted. And one cannot say that we do not understand Muslims because we do not agree to certain practices of some followers of Islam. We can hardly understand, i.e. acknowledge as a normal situation, a father who kills his daughter for having a love affair with a non-Muslim. Europe cannot accept a double law - different for Muslims and different for natives. It is disturbing to know that the terrorists who attacked on 11 September 2001 were Muslims who were brought up in England.

- So what will our future look like? Have we understood the lesson of the reactions against the papal lecture?

- I am not a prophet to know future events. However, one should anticipate events and make plans in order to develop and deepen contacts with Muslims. But now we have better understanding that we should talk about contemporary and urgent topics in a direct way. This was signalled by Magdi Allan, Muslim from Egypt, an expert on political relationships and religions. Commenting on the Pope's lecture in Regensburg he said, 'It is alarming and terrifying to see Muslims who form an international, united front to attack the Pope and demand public apology from him. From Bin Laden to the Muslim Brotherhood, from Pakistan to Turkey, from Al-Dzazira to Al-Arabia, a covenant was renewed, covenant that was created on the occasion of the Danish caricatures. This is indisputable evidence: the root of evil is blind ideology of hatred, spread among some parts of Muslim circles, hatred that violates faith and dulls minds. Why do Muslims, especially those Muslims we regard as moderate, not oppose those who truly profane Islam, i.e. Islamic terrorists, with the same strength?'

Benedict XVI gave us yet another lesson. On the occasion of the attack on the Pope we can also see how little effective dialogue with Islam has been so far. The fragile foundations of the dialogue, which forgets about the truth and reciprocity, have been uncovered. The whole situation gives us, Christians, new impulses to continue efforts to meet Muslims: laboriously, slowly, in the atmosphere of deep respect but without avoiding the most difficult issues and closing our eyes to violence and injustice. It is worth focusing less on secondary facts, for example that the Pope entered a mosque or being delighted with some excessively polite meeting.

Sometimes it is worth focusing on concrete elements of life, reducing spectacular and staged gestures, which mean almost nothing. It seems that it is not the West but the world of Islam itself that needs the Muslim declarations about Islam as religion of peace. It seems that only concrete actions aiming at granting true equality to Christians and actions against theological justification of violence taken by Muslims themselves within Islam, can remove the doubts of many Christians, doubts concerning the sincerity of declarations that Islam represents religion of peace and is able to conduct a true dialogue - I repeat - following the principle of reciprocity and justice.

Meeting with Muslims

'The future of the world depends on the dialogue with Islam', said Benedict XVI during a meeting with the representatives of the Muslim world in Castel Gandolfo on 25 September 2006. The Pope spoke of his deep respect for followers of Islam and his will to continue dialogue with them. In the framework of a diplomatic offensive after the crisis that occurred after Benedict XVI's lecture in Regensburg, the Pope received diplomatic envoys from 22 Muslim countries, accredited to the Apostolic See, a representative to the Arab League and representatives of Italy's Muslim communities. In his address Benedict XVI did not refer directly to his lecture in Regensburg or its consequences. He only stated that the reasons he had invited Muslims to his summer residence were well known circumstances. He repeated after John Paul II that freedom of religion, which favours peace and understanding between peoples played an essential role in dialogue.

[Modificato da benefan 02/11/2006 19.33]

The Italian news agency APCOM reports a follow-up on the incident earlier today at the Italian consulate in Istanbul. The Vatican appears to be downplaying the incident, whereas Cardinal Kasper in Germany has said it should be condemned.

It seems clear that the Vatican is trying to avoid anything that might keep the trip from happening. So it is downplaying Prime Minister Erdogan's snub as well as this incident.

For the Pope, the primary reason for this visit is to join Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I in a celebration of the Feast of St. Andrew on November 30, at which time the Pope and the Patriarch may issue a statement that could significantly advance ecumenical relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Pope clearly wants this trip to happen - not only for ecumenical progress but also as a concrete statement of support for the beleaguered Christians and other religious minorities in Turkey, in whose behalf he will most probably speak to Turkish government officials.

The Turkish government has a great stake in ensuring the Pope's safety and security during his visit to that country, because any untoward incident would further reflect on the already negative prospects so far for Turkey's admission into the European Union.

Surely, Vatican security is getting input from all possible sources, including top Western security organizations, about the actual danger potential to the Pope between now and the time of the visit. And those directly in charge of the Pope's security would not take lightly any serious alerts raised. .
================================================================

Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Ankara, Turkey on November 28 as scheduled, so said Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican Press Office, reacting to the incident earlier today in which a Muslim Turk fired several shots at the Italian consulate building in Istanbul, vowing that he would kill the Pope with his own hands if he could.

"There have been similar threats but they must be considred absolutely marginal," Lombardi said. "We trust completely that the trip to Turkey will take place in all serenity, and we are proceeding with plans accordingly."

"Of course," he continued, "there are always unpleasant facts, but in our judgmebnt, none so far to cause grave concern, and we hope that the atmosphere will be peaceful for the trip."

However, from Germany , Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, told APCOM: "The attack on the Italian consulate in Istanbul is a very serious matter that must be condemned, in any case. The Muslims are just proving that the Pope was right in Regensburg about their tendency to violence."

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In any case, the Holy Father should always have the prayers of all the faithful for his safety, security and continued good health. At the same time, we should also pray that the Holy
Spirit may enlighten the minds of his enemies and all who wish him harm.

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Another brief item from APCOM, which raises big disturbing questions!
===============================================================


VATICAN CITY, Nov. 2(Apcom) - Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who was John Paul II's spokesman for more than 20 years, told the Italian weekly magazine Panorama that he will be teaching anthropology at a Faculty of Medicine, probably the biomedical campus of Opus Dei in Rome, and will be a commentator on Vatican affairs and international politics, but not necessarily for Corriere della Sera or the Italian state TV's TG-1 (premier newscast) on RAI-1, as previously speculated.

And for the first time, Navarro-Valls commented on the controversy that followed Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture. He is quoted as saying he does not want to pass judgment on his successor as director of the Vatican Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, but that there have been communications problems with the 'new Pope' [but when will Benedict stop being the 'new Pope'? It's been more than 18 months already!].

"Yes, there have been various problems of different types, even with the media, but not only with the media," is the direct quotation.

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

Seen baldly, a statement like that can only be considered most tactless, uncivil and even derogatory of Pope Benedict. It is very distressing that someone one had thought to be a true gentleman - with all the good taste and tact those words usually imply - has come to this! However, I will wait to see the full interview before venting myself further.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/11/2006 0.35]

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 2, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI went down to the Vatican Grottoes on All Souls Day to pray in private for a few moments for the Popes buried there and for all the dead.

The Vatican Grottoes, located under St. Peter's Basilica, are the burial sites of several Popes, including Paul VI and John Paul II.

Benedict XVI went to pray around 6 p.m. local time today.

Not all Popes are buried in the Grottoes. Some had special dispositions, such as Leo XIII, who died in 1903, who chose the Basilica of St. John Lateran as his burial place.
================================================================

In spirit, the Holy Father would have been at the family tombs in Ziegetsdorf, Regensburg.

Teresa, do you think it will be possible for you to see the whole interview? I don't like the quotes thus far. Navarro-Valls had been a personal guest of Papa's during his "holiday", and now we read this. Isn't he referring only to Fr Lombardi?

Pope asks Jesuits to continue making Gregorian University a priority

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- Although it may tax their resources, Pope Benedict XVI asked the Jesuits to continue making the Pontifical Gregorian University a priority in their service of the church.

The pope visited the university Nov. 3, addressing students, professors and benefactors, then holding a private meeting with some of the 89 Jesuits who work at Gregorian University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute.

In his public remarks, the pope spoke about his many visits to the university, beginning with a visit during the Second Vatican Council and including his service as a visiting professor in 1972-73.

As he did in late October speeches at the Pontifical Lateran University and to Rome university students gathered at the Vatican, Pope Benedict focused his remarks on the importance of a life of prayer for students studying theology or other subjects in preparation for a life of service to the church.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, founded the Gregorian University as the Roman College in 1551.

Pope Benedict told Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Jesuit superior general, and the Jesuits on the Gregorian staff that running the university is "one of the greatest services" the Jesuits perform for the Catholic Church throughout the world.

The pope told the Jesuits the university "always has been a priority among the priorities of the apostolate of the Society of Jesus."

"The church, aware as it is that this can mean the sacrifice of other works and services, which also are valid for the aims the society hopes to reach, is sincerely grateful and wants the Gregorian to preserve its Ignatian spirit," the pope said.

The university currently enrolls about 3,000 students -- priests, seminarians, religious and laity -- from 130 countries. Thirteen of its former students went on to become pope; 20 alumni have been canonized and 39 alumni have been beatified.

"It is not enough to know God," to study theology or Scripture or church history, the pope told the students. "In order to really encounter him, you also must love him. Knowledge must become love."

The hard work and late nights involved in studying or teaching at a Catholic university make sense, he said, only if they are directed toward building up the kingdom of God, a kingdom of love, justice and peace.

Like the other pontifical universities in Rome, the Gregorian University has a growing percentage of lay students.

Pope Benedict said he hoped their education would help them become people who "know how to perform services and fulfill offices competently in the church and, especially, to be leaven for the kingdom of God in the temporal sphere."

While the Gregorian must maintain its commitment to Jesuit education and to preparing future priests and religious in the study of theology and philosophy, the university also must adapt to new needs, the pope said.

For example, he said, the university must help find ways to address a "secular culture, which in many parts of the world increasingly tends not only to deny every sign of God's presence in the life of society and of individuals, but in various ways that tend to disorient or dim correct consciences tries to corrode people's ability to listen to God."

Pope Benedict also spoke of the importance of dialogue with members of other religions. The university prepares a dialogue for students through its Institute for the Study of Religion and Cultures, which includes Muslim and Jewish students.

Interreligious dialogue, the pope said, is "constructive only if it avoids any ambiguity that weakens in any way the essential content of the Christian faith in Christ as the unique savior of all men and women and in the church as the necessary sacrament for the salvation of all humanity."

Pope to meet Archbishop of Canterbury

Nov. 03 (CWNews.com) - Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, the worldwide head of the Anglican communion, will meet with Pope Benedict XVI in a private audience on November 23.

The Anglican leader will be making his first official visit to the Vatican since the election of Benedict XVI in April 2005. Archbishop Williams met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in October 2003.

The November 23 date of the papal audience carries special significance, because it marks the 40th anniversary of the day when Pope Paul VI greeted Archbishop Michael Ramsey, in the first meeting between the Roman Pontiff and the Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation.

Relations between the Vatican and the Church of England have been severely strained in recent years by the Anglican decisions to ordain women and to appoint openly homosexual bishops. During his October 2003 meeting with Archbishop Williams, Pope John Paul warned of the "new and serious difficulties" for ecumenical talks, as Anglicans broke with traditional Church teachings on "essential matters of faith and morals."

Plans for the visit were revealed by Anglican sources on November 3. The Vatican has not yet confirmed the audience.

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Nice comment from Navarro-Valls. Sounds like he's trying to discredit, not just the new press spokeman, but the Pope himself. Perhaps his own relationship with Pope Benedict was not as "easy" as the one he had with John Paul, i.e., Benedict was more demanding. Anyway, a very poor, discourteous and uncivil show.

Greek Church leader to pay historic visit to Vatican for meeting with pope

The Associated Press

The head of the powerful Orthodox Church of Greece will pay a historic visit to the Vatican next month for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, church officials announced Friday.

Archbishop Christodoulos' Dec. 14 visit will be the first ever official visit by a Greek church leader to the Vatican, with which the eastern Orthodox church — of which the Church of Greece is a part — split in the acrimonious Schism of 1054.

A statement by the Church of Greece's governing body, the Holy Synod, said the visit followed an invitation by the pope.

"The Holy Synod expressed its joy that this visit will be carried out," the statement said. "Its fruits will be positive."

The program of the visit, during which the pope will present the archbishop with an important Christian relic — a section of the chain of Saint Peter — will be settled with the Vatican, the statement said.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, had invited Christodoulos to the Vatican during his historic visit to Athens in 2001 — the first ever by a pope since the schism. But the return visit was postponed after senior Greek church officials expressed fears it might anger Greek Orthodox zealots who oppose any improvement in ties with the Catholic church.

The church wields considerable power in Greece, where some 98 percent of the 11-million population is baptized into the Church of Greece. The country also has a small Catholic minority, while an estimated 1.5 percent of the population is Muslim.

Although Christodoulos traveled to the Vatican for John Paul's funeral last April, that was not rated an official visit.

At the end of this month, Benedict is due to meet with the leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, at his headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey.

I too am waiting to see the full interview in Panorama. However, APCOM appeared to be careful to distinguish between indirect and direct quotes, and the statement about the 'many difficulties...not just with communications' most certainly referred to the Pope, or at least, his Papacy. We should be getting the Panorama piece in full this weekend. I just checked online, and it isn't on yet.

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Inasmuch as MSM - perhaps typically - chose not to do a story about the Pope's address at the Gregorian University this morning, it fell to John Allen to make a story of it based on the Pope's text.

[An unexpectedly long one, by the way, a translation of which I thankfully managed to post in HOMILIES, DICOURSES & MESSAGES by 10 a.m. today, just before the Internet connection on my hospital network went down for most of the day! The Vatican bulletin that came with the text actually gave a few physical details about the visit. I included those in the translation.]

As usual, in one address, the Pope managed to reiterate most of the favorite teaching points of his Papacy, not to mention reminding the Jesuits once again of their fourth vow of 'total obedience to the Roman Pontiff'. [Allen chooses to translate the Italian word 'disponibilita' by its most direct meaning, availability; I choose to translate it as 'obedience'.]
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Pope to Jesuits:
Theology must be rooted in faith
Posted on Nov 3, 2006
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Dallas

Speaking today at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University, Pope Benedict XVI called the university to vigilance against two dangers:
• A form of secular society that denies God and thereby “disorients and obfuscates the correct conscience of man”;
• An approach to inter-faith relations which “weakens the essential content of the Christian faith in Christ as the lone savior of all humanity, and in the church as the necessary sacrament of salvation for all humanity.”

“Human destiny, without reference to God, can only be the desolation of an agony that leads to desperation,” Benedict warned.

In general, Benedict was warmly positive in his visit to the Gregorian, repeatedly thanking the Jesuits for their service, pointing out that no fewer than 16 popes have been Gregorian alumni since the university was founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1551. He said he confirmed his predecessors’ will to entrust the Gregorian to the Jesuits.

By his own standards, Benedict was even nostalgic, briefly recalling a defense of the thesis of Jesuit Fr. Norbert Lohfink at the Gregorian during the Second Vatican Council – attended, the pope said, by “many cardinals” and also by “poor periti such as myself.”

Then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger served as a peritus, or theological expert, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

[Curiously, Allen omits to mention an even more personal reference to then Professor Doctor Ratzinger's relation to the Gregorian University, as follows:
"I also remember with particular fondness the time when, as a Professor of Dogma and the History of Dogma at the University of Regensburg, I was invited in 1972 by then Rector Herve CArrier, S.J., to give a course for students of Cycle II specializing in Dogmatic Theology. I gave a course on the Most Blessed Eucharist."
Somewhere in the RFC Forum from last year, I posted a translation of the Gregorian's account of Father Ratzinger's course at that University in 1972, with a picture from his file even. I will look for it and re-post it here.]

The pope briefly reviewed the impressive intellectual and cultural history of the Gregorian, noting, for example, that the “Gregorian” calendar today in use in most of the world was developed by a Jesuit scientist at the university, Fr. Cristoforo Clavio. That scientific learning, Benedict said, became part of the evangelizing work of Fr. Matteo Rici, which carried him as far as China.

Benedict’s language about inter-religious dialogue, however, was not without a bit of critical subtext. The Gregorian was the home for 20 years of Belgian Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis, whose theological investigations of religious pluralism were the object of a lengthy investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under then-Cardinal Ratzinger. It ended in a high-profile January 2001 “notification” warning of ambiguities which, it said, could compromise Catholic doctrines on the uniqueness of Christ and the church. [The Pope's speech today was very specific about this last point, citing Dominus Iesus even.]

Dupuis was vigorously defended by many in the Jesuit community at the Gregorian, including his canonical advocate, Australian Fr. Gerald O’Collins, and the General of the Jesuits, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach.

In that context, Benedict issued a strong, if indirect, challenge to the Gregorian to ensure that its intellectual explorations never become decoupled from the faith.

“Hope ensures that human beings do not become enclosed in a paralyzing and sterile nihilism, but open up to a generous commitment to improving the society in which they live,” he said.

Benedict encouraged the students and faculty at the Gregorian to be people of deep faith as well as intellectual acumen.

“It’s not enough to know God; in order to really meet God, one must also love,” the pope said. “Understanding must become love. The study of theology, of canon law and of church history is not merely understanding of the propositions of the faith in their historic formulations and in their practical applications, but it’s always their meaning in the faith, in hope and in charity.”

Finally, in the context of calling upon the Jesuits to respond generously when the society calls upon them to serve at the Gregorian, Benedict reminded the society of its famous “fourth vow” – of “complete availability to the Roman Pontiff in whatever he wishes to command.”

“Aware of how this can mean the sacrifice of other works and services, however valid for the ends that the Society proposes to reach, the Church is truly grateful to it and desires that the Gregorian conserve the Ignatian spirit which animates it, expressed in its pedagogic method and in the organization of studies,” Benedict said.

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/11/2006 2.34]

Allen devotes his Friday column ALL THINGS CATHOLIC today, 11/3/06, to an analysis of the men Benedict XVI has named to his Curia so far.

P.S. Predictably, Sandro Magister too comments today on the Hummes nomination but more in the context of the Church as a whole - particularly the great inroads made by Pentecostals and Charismatics into the Catholic population of Hummes's homeland Brazil (nominally the world's largest Catholic nation) and in other countries of the world. I am posting his Friday piece in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH.
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Papal appointments
have been moderates and pastors
Posted on Nov 3, 2006



Though I detest ideological labels, especially in talking about ecclesiastical matters where they usually obscure more than they reveal, sometimes they're the only way to make a big-picture point quickly. One has to trust the conoscenti to understand that things are always more complex when the magnification is increased.

So, examining Pope Benedict XVI's major personnel moves to date, including an important one this week, here's the sound-bite style bottom line: "Moderates and pastoral figures trump conservatives."

For those expecting a "Reagan Revolution" with the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy, meaning a clear swing to the right on virtually every matter of consequence, his appointments are therefore generating no small amount of cognitive dissonance.

The latest such move came on Tuesday, with Benedict's nomination of 72-year-old Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes as the new Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. Hummes replaces Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, a 77-year-old Colombian.

Hummes is known as a progressive on social issues, though not at the expense of a strong Catholic identity on other matters, and a friend of Brazil's left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

To date, Benedict has made four top-drawer appointments in the Roman Curia: Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone of Italy as Secretary of State, William Levada of the United States as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ivan Dias of India as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and now Hummes. This means that of the 10 most important positions in the Vatican (the Secretary of State and the heads of the nine congregations), four, or just one short of half, are now Benedict appointees.

Of the four, only one was seen within his national bishops' conference as representing the most conservative current: Dias of India. Levada and Bertone both had profiles as center-right figures, open to compromise, and Hummes was seen in Brazil as a quintessential centrist.

Tightening the focus to the United States, the same pattern is visible in major appointments so far in this country. In naming Archbishops George Niederauer to San Francisco and Donald Wuerl to Washington, Benedict opted for leaders with reputations as loyal churchmen but generally moderate and pastoral, rather than figures stemming from the more ideologically defined wings of the church.

The same also holds true with Benedict's decision to tap Italian Archbishop Pietro Sambi as his apostolic nuncio in the United States, a role in which Sambi exercises enormous influence in identifying future American bishops. A product of the Vatican's diplomatic corps, Sambi was described at the time of his nomination by a longtime colleague as "not having an ideological bone in his body."

Even in India, Benedict replaced Dias in Bombay with Archbishop Oswald Gracias of Agra, seen as representing a more centrist current on many issues. With the nomination, Gracias is now in line to enter the College of Cardinals.

To date, the profile of a "Benedict cardinal" thus seems to be a figure ready to defend core markers of Catholic identity, but not a crusader seeking to expand those boundaries or to do battle with the church's ideological enemies. Rather, it's a thoughtful, nuanced leader, more committed to the meat-and-potato pastoral basics than to rhetorical fireworks -- not unlike the pope himself.

To be sure, it's possible to read all this as mostly happenstance and the result of behind-the-scenes influence rather than any grand strategy.

Brazil, for example, is the largest Catholic country on earth, yet since the retirement of the late Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves in 2000, it has not had a senior curial official. The Hummes appointment therefore can be seen as a nod to Brazil rather than an endorsement of his leadership style.

Similarly, Niederauer arrived in San Francisco in part because he's a close friend of Levada, Wuerl in Washington because he's well-liked by the other American cardinals, and so on down the line.

Of the four major curial appointments I've mentioned -- Levada, Bertone, Dias and Hummes -- all have served as members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which means that Benedict XVI knows their qualities well and trusts them. Personal respect may therefore be just as decisive, if not much more so, as their stances on particular issues.

There are exceptions to the centrist rule, such as Cardinal Carlo Caffarra in Bologna. Further, if one examines appointments to smaller dioceses, there are more assertive types to be found, such as the recent nomination of Bishop Paul Swain to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Yet all that said, the fact remains that Benedict's most consequential appointments to date don't bear a strong ideological imprint. How to explain this?

One would probably do well to return to Pope Benedict's homily on April 24, 2005, during his Inaugural Mass: "My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole church," he said that day.

Most commentators assumed that this was little more than the pro-forma paean to unity that candidates who win elections always sing, and that his real agenda would emerge once Benedict got his hands on the levers of power. In fact, however, Benedict's major appointments suggest that by and large, he actually meant what he said.

This is not to say, of course, that one can't find elements of the pontificate after 18 months that match expectations for a more "conservative" course, at least as these things are measured in secular terms: the 2005 document on the admission of homosexuals to seminaries, a tougher line on Islamic extremism, and signals of greater openness to use of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, to name just three.

Yet the basic impression one has after a year and a half of Benedict at the helm is of a centrist and gradualist approach to governance.

The Hummes appointment thus confirms anew that Benedict in his own way embraces that bit of wisdom about the papal office memorably articulated by John XXIII: "I have to be pope," John once said, "both of those with their foot on the gas, and those with their foot on the brake."

* * *

I published a story on Sunday, as rumors of the Hummes appointment began to circulate, offering background on the Brazilian cardinal...

As noted in that piece, Hummes is seen across Latin America as a friend of the moderate branch of liberation theology, the movement that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s to break the traditional alliance of the Latin American church with the ruling class and to place Catholicism on the side of the poor.

Extreme forms of liberation theology, which shaded off into Marxist-tinged insurrections, were the object of a critical Vatican document issued in 1984 under Ratzinger, which was followed by a series of investigations and disciplinary actions against some of the movement's key figures.

Hummes's association with liberation theology has at times made him a controversial figure. For example, in a 2004 interview, I asked Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Lima, Peru, about the rumors surrounding Hummes as a possible papal candidate.

Cipriani, himself a strong conservative, was unenthusiastic.

"Hummes is coming from a way of thinking very near the theology of liberation. He was raised in that environment," he said.

Cipriani also said Hummes is a strong proponent of collegiality and bishops' conferences, something about which Cipriani is lukewarm because of the potential, as he sees it, for undercutting papal authority.

For those supporting decentralization in the church, Cipriani said, "Hummes will be an extraordinary candidate," but "not for me."

Aside from Brazilians, social justice advocates and theological moderates, the Hummes appointment will likely be welcomed by one other constituency in the church, albeit mostly because of the exit of the man he replaces.

For many victims of sexual abuse by clergy and their advocates, Castrillón Hoyos has long been a symbol of the way, as they see it, that the Vatican "doesn't get it."

Barbara Blaine of Chicago, national president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, released this statement on Tuesday:

"The departure of a radically insensitive Vatican official, Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, should be welcomed by Catholics everywhere. Of the many blame-shifting and excuse-making public comments made by church authorities on clergy sex abuse, Hoyos' remarks have been among the most harsh and off-the-mark," Blaine said.

"He treated journalists with disdain and arrogance at a now-famous Vatican news conference … He repeated many of the tired and callous misconceptions about the clergy sex abuse crisis and cover up, including that this is largely an American phenomenon," she said.

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

I wouldn't take in Blaine's statements about Cardinal Castrillon hook, line and sinker. She's speaking from a very biased perspective ...

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From Rottweiler to dunce?


By George Weigel
The Tidings Online
Friday, November 3, 2006

A few days after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, some friends and I gathered for a celebratory dinner at Rome's Taverna Giulia --- a favorite haunt of journalists, due in part to the fact that it serves the best lasagnette col pesto on the planet.

I arrived a bit early and, as I walked through the restaurant, I spied the leadership of the National Catholic Reporter, including publisher Sister Rita Larivee, editor Tom Roberts, and the NCR's ace Vatican reporter, John Allen, with whom I had been swapping stories and rumors for years. Being in a somewhat ebullient mood, I went over to the NCR table and invited them to "join the victory party" upstairs.

They had the good taste to laugh, although it was clear that some of their company were not altogether thrilled by the conclave's outcome. Would a papal bull condemning the NCR and all its works soon be forthcoming from the Apostolic Palace?

I doubt that my NCR friends imagined that, a mere 16 months later, they would run an editorial positively chortling over what they assumed to be my discomfiture, and that of my colleagues among the dread neocons/theocons, over the course of the pontificate to date. There was, of course, no more evidence for this than there was for latent fears, on that lovely Roman evening in April 2005, of a new Benedictine inquisition. But, then, journalism is not an exact science, and editorializing is the least exact part of journalism.

Further evidence of which was provided by yet another NCR editorial, in the paper's October 13 issue, which seemed to argue that the man so many on the Catholic Left had long taken to be "God's Rottweiler" had suddenly become God's Dunce.

In his recent Regensburg lecture, the editorial suggested, Pope Benedict XVI may have trafficked a bit "too much in theological abstraction," while failing to weigh sufficiently "the complicated historical, political, and social factors" bearing on the Islamic world's (admittedly "dismal") record on religious freedom. "Focusing exclusively on theological difference between Christianity and Islam --- whether real or imagined --- therefore runs the risk of oversimplifying a complex situation," the editors warned.

So what should Benedict XVI do? Appoint a group of retired and semi-retired cardinals --- men who "understand the complex argot of politics and international diplomacy" --- as roving ambassadors to the worlds within worlds of Islam.

Which would seem to suggest that the 264th successor to St. Peter doesn't know how to talk the talk, much less walk the walk. From Rottweiler to dunce in two months: fast work, indeed.

And completely preposterous. In the weeks immediately following the Regensburg lecture, Iranian television described "Pirates of the Caribbean --- Dead Man's Chest" as a tool of the "Zionist lobby" and "capitalist weapons companies," and informed its audience that Pepsi is a devious acronym standing for "Pay Each Penny Save Israel." At about the same time, the interior minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-'Aziz, urged an audience to "cut off the tongues" of the "transgressors," i.e., Muslims "who are trying to distort Islam with their claims of reform and their corrupt progress." In the same speech, broadcast on Al-Majd TV, Prince Nayef also claimed that Osama bin Laden is "an agent of foreign intelligence agencies."

What, do you suppose, will a roving band of aged cardinals sent on what the NCR proposes as a "listening tour" of Muslim states learn from all that --- or from Iranian president Ahmadinejad's claim that Iran today is "a perfect model of splendid, humane, and divine life"?

At Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI did the world an immense service by giving believers and non-believers alike a language with which to deal with the threat of jihadist ideology: the language of rationality and irrationality. Far from being an exercise in "theological abstraction," the Holy Father's Regensburg lecture was a courageous attempt to create a new public grammar capable of disciplining and directing the world's discussion of what is arguably the world's gravest problem.

It's a shame the NCR missed that. Let's hope the Congress we elect next week doesn't.

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

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