The Vatican translation of the Pope's Christmas message Urbi et Orbi has been posted in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES, along with the Pope's multilingual Christmas greetings.

However, the Holy Father also has a special Christmas message for Catholics in the Middle East which the Vatican Press Office has only released in the Italian original. I have now posted a translation in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES.

The message mirrors the Pope's vivid anguish over the situation there but offers words of Christian hope and encouragement to the 'little flocks' of Catholics who are surviving heroically in the Middle East.

Following are the news agency reports on the Pope's Christmas messages:


Pope calls for solutions
to local, regional conflicts
By MARIA SANMINIATELLI
Associated Press Writer




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 - Pope Benedict XVI urged a solution to conflicts across the world, especially in the Middle East and Africa, in a Christmas Day address that included an appeal for the poor, the exploited, and all those who suffer.

"With deep apprehension I think, on this festive day, of the Middle East, marked by so many grave crises and conflicts, and I express my hope that the way will be opened to a just and lasting peace," Benedict said Monday.

The Pope singled out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his speech.

"I place in the hands of the divine Child of Bethlehem the indications of a resumption of dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which we have witnessed in recent days, and the hope of further encouraging developments," the pontiff said from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square.

The pope also mentioned violence in Lebanon, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Darfur and the whole of Africa, as Ethiopian fighter jets bombed airports in Somalia and more people died in suicide bombings in Iraq.

Under his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, the Christmas Day message became an occasion to review progress and setbacks for humanity. Benedict noted Monday that despite its modern-day successes, the world remains in desperate need of a savior.

"This humanity of the 21st century appears as sure and self-sufficient master of its own destiny, the avid proponent of uncontested triumphs," the pope said. "Yet this is not the case. People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and unbridled consumerism."


Worship God not technology,
Pope says on Christmas
By Philip Pullella




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 (Reuters) - Mankind, which has reached other planets and decoded the genetic instructions for life, should not presume it can live without God, Pope Benedict said in his Christmas message on Monday.

In an age of unbridled consumerism it was shameful many remained deaf to the "heart-rending cry" of those dying of hunger, thirst, disease, poverty, war and terrorism, he said.

"Does a 'Saviour' still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium?" he asked in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message to the faithful in St Peter's Square, broadcast live to millions in 40 countries.

"Is a 'Saviour' still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature's secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome?"

He appealed for peace and justice in the Middle East, an end to the brutal violence in Iraq and to the fratricidal conflict in Darfur and other parts of Africa, and expressed his hope for "a democratic Lebanon."

In a separate, written message to the small Christian communities of the Middle East, the Pope said he hoped to visit the Holy Land as soon as the situation allowed.

Speaking to tens of thousands of people in a sunny square, he wished the world a Happy Christmas in 62 languages - including Arabic, Hebrew, Mongolian and Latin - but his speech highlighted his preoccupation with humanity's fate.

Marking the second Christmas season of his pontificate, he said that while 21st century man appeared to be a master of his own destiny, "perhaps he needs a saviour all the more" because much of humanity was suffering.

"People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism," he said from the central balcony of Christendom's largest church.

"Some people remain enslaved, exploited and stripped of their dignity; others are victims of racial and religious hatred, hampered by intolerance and discrimination, and by political interference and physical or moral coercion with regard to the free profession of their faith.

"Others see their own bodies and those of their dear ones, particularly their children, maimed by weaponry, by terrorism and by all sorts of violence, at a time when everyone invokes and acclaims progress, solidarity and peace for all."

The Pope also made reference to the controversial case of Piergiorgio Welby, a paralyzed Italian man who was denied a Catholic funeral because he had asked to die.

"What are we to think of those who choose death in the belief that they are celebrating life?" he said.

Welby, an advocate of euthanasia, died on Wednesday after a doctor gave him sedatives and detached a respirator that had kept the victim of advanced muscular dystrophy alive for years.

In his midnight mass for some 10,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica earlier on Monday, the Pope said the image of the baby Jesus in a manger should remind everyone of the plight of poor, abused and neglected children the world over.

At that mass a member of the congregation read a prayer in Arabic asking God to encourage "a spirit of dialogue, mutual understanding and collaboration" among followers of the three great monotheistic religions -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam.


Pope urges Mid-East peace efforts,
reiterates desire to visit the Holy Land
From BBC News

Pope Benedict XVI has called for fresh efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and Africa, in his traditional Christmas message to pilgrims in Rome.

The Pope spoke of the "many grave crises and conflicts" in the Middle East and voiced "hope that the way will be opened to a just and lasting peace".

He also deplored the conflicts in Darfur and other parts of Africa.

He lamented the many deaths from hunger and disease around the world in "an age of unbridled consumerism".

The Pope noted man's scientific advances in the modern age, but added that in the 21st Century "perhaps he needs a saviour all the more" because so much of humanity was still suffering.

His "Urbi et Orbi" speech was delivered from the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is his second Christmas as pontiff.

The Pope contrasted scientific breakthroughs such as the internet and decoding of the human genome with what he called the "heart-rending cry" for help from those dying of hunger, thirst, disease and poverty.

Some people remain enslaved, others are victims of religious or racial hatred, he noted.

The threats to the individual's personal and moral integrity had become more insidious in the modern age, the Pope said.

His earlier Midnight Mass sermon focused on the plight of suffering children.

He singled out those forced to fight as child soldiers, to beg and those "who suffer deprivation and hunger" and "children who are unloved".

The Middle East turmoil was a central theme of the Pope's Christmas message.

"I place in the hands of the divine Child of Bethlehem the indications of a resumption of dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which we have witnessed in recent days, and the hope of further encouraging developments," he said.

He also issued an "appeal to all those who hold in their hands the fate of Iraq, that there will be an end to the brutal violence that has brought so much bloodshed to the country".

His message was broadcast live on television to more than 40 countries.

He said he would like to visit the Holy Land as soon as circumstances permit.
==============================================================

In humanity's failings,
pope sees need of God
By Tracy Wilkinson
LA Times Staff Writer
December 26, 2006

ROME — In a traditional and often grim Christmas Day message, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said a world that has achieved unimaginable scientific progress still needs God in its unending confrontation with hunger, hatred and war.

Despite the Internet, globalized economies and space exploration, "how can we not hear, from the very depths of this humanity … the heart-rending cry for help?" the pope said.

Humankind's technological advance has not solved its most vexing problems, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church added.

"In this postmodern age, perhaps he [man] needs a savior all the more," the pontiff said, "since the society in which he lives has become more complex, and the threats to his personal and moral integrity have become more insidious."

Draped in golden vestments, Benedict marked his second Christmas as pope, delivering the semiannual message "Urbi et Orbi" — to the city and the world — from the central balcony of majestic St. Peter's Basilica. Tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists, in chilly sunshine, filled the square below to hear the noontime address, which was also broadcast to 40 countries.

St. Peter's Square is an especially popular attraction at Christmastime. It is decorated this year by a 110-foot fir tree from southern Italy's Sila National Park, said to be the tallest Christmas tree ever to grace the Vatican, and a larger-than-life Nativity scene.

The papal Christmas Day message is often an occasion for giving a sobering account of the state of world affairs, the conflicts and disease plaguing humanity and the way that the faith born with Jesus can provide solace.

"Who can defend him [man], if not the one who loves him to the point of sacrificing on the cross his only begotten son as the savior of the world?" Benedict said.

He cited "with deep apprehension" the Middle East, "marked by so many grave crises and conflicts," and urged the path be opened "to a just and lasting peace, with respect for the inalienable rights of the peoples living there."

"I place in the hands of the divine child of Bethlehem the indications of a resumption of dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians, which we have witnessed in recent days, and the hope of further encouraging developments," the pope added, alluding to Saturday's rare meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Benedict also called for the survival of a "democratic Lebanon, open to others and in dialogue with different cultures and religions," and appealed "to all those who hold in their hands the fate of Iraq" that they work to find an end to "brutal violence."

He also prayed for the end to fratricidal fighting in Darfur and elsewhere in Africa and for the continent's "open wounds" to heal.

"Is a savior still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature's secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome?" the pope said.

"This humanity of the 21st century appears as a sure and self-sufficient master of its own destiny, the avid proponent of uncontested triumphs," he continued. "So it would seem, yet this is not the case. People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism."

As he did during a Christmas Eve speech, the pope also made reference to a right-to-die case that has roiled Italy.

An Italian man paralyzed by advanced muscular dystrophy, Piergiorgio Welby, whose pleas to be allowed to die were turned down by the courts, died last week when a doctor turned off his respirator.

The church denied Welby a religious funeral, judging that his death was tantamount to suicide.

"What are we to think of those who choose death in the belief that they are celebrating life?" the pope said.

On Sunday, speaking as Welby was being eulogized by supporters outside the closed doors of his local parish church, Benedict had been more explicit: "The birth of Christ helps us to understand how much value human life has, the life of every human being, from its first instant to its natural sunset."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/12/2006 4.18]

In his Angelus message on Sunday, Christmas Eve, the Pope said, among other things:
"The birth of Christ helps us to be aware how much human life is worth, the life of every human being, from the very first moment to its natural end." (The Italian term he used was is 'tramonto naturale', literally, "natural sunset or decline").

The Italian press immediately saw that as his comment on the recent death of Piergiorgio Welby, a terminally-ill man who asked his doctors to stop all life-sustaining measures and allow him to die after 40 years of suffering from progressive muscular dystrophy. His doctor shut off Welby's respirator Wednesday and he died. His wife wanted funeral rites in his parish but the Church denied it because of the circumstances of his death.




Ratzigirl shares with us an editorial from Il Giornale today, written by an editorialist who left Corriere della Sera a few days ago and who will now be writing for other newspapers. Ratzigirl says this editorial will also appear in the Dec. 27 editions of Quotidiano Nazionale, Resto del Carlino, La Nazione and Il Giorno. Here is a translation:


The Pope and man's 'natural decline'
By Gaspare Barbiellini Amidei


Finally, after a wave of great collective emotion with which atheists and agnostics have been explaining for days in the media how a Christian should behave, Papa Ratzinger spoke up to say something about the dignity of a man and his 'natural end'.

"The birth of Christ helps us to be aware how much human life is worth, the life of every human being, from the very first moment to its natural end," he said.

With that statement, he managed to dispel from the hearts of the faithful all the sharp polemics over the rightness of therapeutic maintenance of life and the inacceptability of euthanasia that has dominated the media lately.

Earlier Sunday, the bureaucracy of faith carried out its unenviable task of denying Catholic rites to bury 60-year-old Piergiorgio Welby.

Just a few hours after his secular funeral, it was the Pope's turn to speak on the issue. After which everyone could proceed to celebrate Christmas with serenity.

That Roman church door that remained closed to Welby would have weighed at length as a questionable decision in the public opinion - which, on the one hand, has been deafened for years by the dogged anti-clerical assault on the Christian sentiments of most Italians, and on the other, has been perplexed by the seeming difficulty of official Catholicism to properly intercept issues that are often distorted in the media which divide the world into good scientists and bad priests.

Some wanted to confuse the ideas in the dispute over the individual right - allowed by Section 32 of the Constitution - to refuse extreme health measures, and the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' which implies not even allowing onself to be helped to die.

But an innocent and just simplicity was restored to this troubled issue by this Pope's lucid intuition.

His exceptional intelligence of 'faith and reason' - which had taken him to a mosque in Istanbul after his lecture in Regensburg - derived from the ambiguous emotional controversy over Welby a formula that is also humanly winning: 'natural decline.'

This means that political context cannot and should not determine the correct boundaries between the nature of declining health, even within a grave illness, and life-sustaining measures.

Ratzinger touched on the nerve center of an enormous issue. Before long, Italy will have a population of which at least one-fourth will be 65 years or older. To codify the 'natural decline' of each of them so as to protect them from the arbitrary decision of others cannot be entrusted to muddled spiritual ministers nor to the technologists of death nor to organizers of supermarket ethics or New Age theologians.

Nature does not depend on states which legislate or morals which change. Neither does it depend on a technology of obligatory survival.

In the brief space of a few hours, Ratzinger - surprisingly quick to read 'emotional' trends - caught two signals: 1) his people, those one usually refers to as 'the people of God', were disconcerted or at least, misinformed about the Church refusal to give Welby the last rites; and 2) the Church's opponents, with emotion on their side, would have a great opportunity to promote their stragegy in favor of legitimizing euthanasia.

But with those two words, 'natural decline,' Benedict XVI reassured the faithful and forced a retreat on a plan that most of us, Catholics or not, will never accept. Governments change, parliamentary majorities will alternate, but God forbid Italians should abrogate the fifth commandment.
===============================================================

This does not mean, of course, that the euthanasia issue has gone away in Italy. Progressives and secularists will continue to advocate it. And the Church, which saw its objections sustained by most of the Italian electorate on tehe question of assisted reproduction, will certainly take its stand once again to the people, in defense of what Benedict XVI has called non-negotiable values.

P.S. Other articles and discussion of the Welby case and euthanasia issues may be found in the thread REFLECTIONS ON THE FAITH...

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Pope Benedict remembers persecuted Christians on the Feast of St. Stephen Martyr

Vatican City, Dec. 26, 2006 (CNA) - Praying the Angelus December 26th on the Feast of St. Stephen Martyr, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the many Christians who are still suffering persecution in today’s world and commended them to the care of Mary.

The Pontiff pointed out how the celebration of the Feast of the martyr St. Stephen on the day after Christmas, “can surprise us, because it strikes the contrast between the peace and joy of Bethlehem and the drama of Stephen, stoned to death in Jerusalem in the first persecution against the newly born Church.”

The Pope also noted that, “St. Stephen was the first to follow the footsteps of Christ with martyrdom; dying like the Divine Teacher, forgiving and praying for his executioners (cf Acts 7,60).”

Moreover, he explained that during the first four centuries of the Church, when all of the Saints were martyrs, “their deaths were not instilled with fear or sadness, but with a spiritual enthusiasm which is always aroused in new Christians.”

“For believers, the day of death, and even more so the day of martyrdom, is not the end of everything, but the “passing” into immortal life, it is the day of their final birth, in Latin “dies natalis.”

“We can understand then, the link which exists between the ‘dies natalis’ of Christ and the ‘dies natalis’ of St. Stephen. If Jesus was not born on earth, mankind would not be able to be born in heaven. Because Christ is born, we are able to be “reborn!” exclaimed the Holy Father.

In conclusion the Pontiff entrusted to Mary “the many who are persecuted and suffering, in various ways, for their testimony and service to the Gospel.”

Without mentioning them by name, the Holy Father made specific reference to Catholics in China, saying, “with a special spiritual closeness, I think also of the Catholics who, maintain true fidelity to the Chair of Peter without surrendering or compromising in times of trial or great suffering.”

“The whole Church admires this example and prays that they have the strength to persevere, knowing that their tribulations are fonts of victory.”

As he promised last week, Sandro Magister today presented - in Italian, English, French and Spanish - major excerpts from the Holy Father's Christmas message to the Roman Curia delivered on 12/22/06.

I am posting here his introduction, but not the excerpts he chose, because I did post on that same day a full translation of the Pope's address in the thread HOMILIES, DISCOURSES MESSAGES.


A Summary Account of Four Voyages –
And a Year’s Pontificate
This is the synthesis that Benedict XVI read in person to the Roman curia, in the traditional pre-Christmas address.
At the center of it all is the question of God. Everything relates to this – the clash of civilizations, Islam, the Holocaust,
the drop in the birth rate, gay marriage, clerical celibacy...
by Sandro Magister



ROMA, December 27, 2006 - In the address that he gave to the Roman curia just before Christmas, Benedict XVI identified the unifying element of the four trips he took outside of Italy in 2006: to Poland, Spain, Germany, and Turkey.

The unifying and decisive element, he said, was “the correlation of the topic of ‘God’ and the topic of ‘peace’.”

This is because, if this correlation is lacking, and “if reason remains closed before the question of God, this will end up leading to the clash of cultures” and religions: a clash ”that looms threateningly” over the entire planet.

Benedict XVI demonstrated that the response to the fundamental question of God affects a series of related questions.

In Poland, he said that man’s desire to “banish God from history” has its most striking memorial in Auschwitz and Birkenau. But even amid His apparent absence, God “does not cease to remain with us,” like the rainbow after the flood.

In Spain, there arose the great question about why Europe “practically doesn’t want to have any more children.” The pope’s reply is that the man of today has become “unsure about man himself.” And this explains the disintegration of the family, the tendency toward de facto couples, the removal of the differences between the sexes: it is a “denigration of corporeality” that leads to man’s self-destruction. The Church has a duty to raise its voice in defense of this endangered man.

In Germany, the pope continued, preaching about God is all the more necessary today because in some regions most people have not even been baptized, and the faith is seen as belonging to the past.

Benedict XVI linked to this issue the priest’s role as a “man of God,” who is celibate not for pragmatic reasons, but precisely because he is “seized by a passion for God.”

He also linked to the question of God the dialogue between faith and reason, which he explored in the lecture at the University of Regensburg.

In Turkey, Benedict XVI wanted to show his solidarity with those faithful of Allah who “precisely on the basis of their Muslim religious convictions struggle against violence and in favor of synergy between faith and reason, between religion and freedom.”

Because this is exactly Islam’s task today: to elaborate the proper synthesis between the faith and “the real achievements of Enlightenment thinking” that Christians have reached over centuries of “laborious and never-finalized research.”

The latter is an approach to dialogue that is much more effective than a thousand ceremonial embraces, as is proved by the “open letter” addressed to the pope last October by 38 Muslim intellectuals and leaders from various nations, including the grand mufti of Istanbul.

But what follow here are the main passages from the extensive address delivered to the Roman curia by Benedict XVI on December 22, 2006, all of which is worth reading....
----------------------------------------------------------------

This is the link to the English excerpts posted by Magister:
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=106762&eng=y
"A voyage in search of what it means to be man"

My translation of the full text is on
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/viewmessaggi.aspx?f=65482&idd=...
(Post #5354)

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/12/2006 16.55]

Pope receives Iranian delegation, letter from president

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI met briefly Dec. 27 with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who gave him a letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Vatican press office confirmed the receipt of the letter, but did not comment on its contents.

Pope Benedict met Mottaki and a four-member delegation in one of the reception rooms of the Vatican audience hall immediately after the pope's weekly general audience.

"During the course of the meeting, the Iranian representatives expressed their best wishes to the pope and their pleasure for 50 years of diplomatic relations between Iran and the Holy See," said a Vatican statement.

"For his part, the Holy Father also offered them best wishes and reaffirmed the role the Holy See intends to exercise for peace in the world, not as a political authority, but religious and moral, appealing to consciences so that the problems of peoples always are resolved through dialogue in mutual understanding and peace," the statement said.

The press officers at the Iranian Embassy to the Holy See and at the Iranian Embassy to Italy were unavailable for comment.

Ehsan Jahandideh, a spokesman for Ahmadinejad, told reporters in Tehran, Iran, that the president's letter did not deal with political concerns, but "on the need to find a way for putting an end to the sufferings of mankind and for promoting human relations based on common religious teachings."

The spokesman said the president wrote the pope that dialogue and cooperation among religious believers could help promote greater justice among individuals and nations.

Illustrating the story above and those below - the Pope is shown shaking hands with the Iranian Vice Presdient Rahim-Moshaee, and on the right, meeting with him and Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. [Osservatore Romano photos transmitted by AP]


Pope gets letter from Ahmadinejad
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO
Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 27



VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI received a letter Wednesday from Iran's hardline president about the recent U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran for refusing to compromise on its nuclear program, Iran's state-run news agency reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter was delivered by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki after the pontiff's general audience at the Vatican's Paul VI hall, the Vatican said.

The Vatican did not release details of the content of Ahmadinejad's letter, but Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said the note focused on Saturday's Security Council vote approving sanctions against Iran in the standoff over its nuclear program.

The Vatican said Benedict stressed his apolitical role in his brief meeting with Mottaki.

The Pope "reaffirmed the role that the Holy See intends to carry out for world peace, not as a political authority but as a religious and moral one ... so that peoples' problems will always be solved in dialogue, mutual understanding and peace," the Vatican said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the Vatican indirectly criticized a conference of Holocaust deniers held in Iran, saying the Holocaust "was a great tragedy before which we cannot remain indifferent" and which must serve as a warning to people's consciences.

Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel and questioned whether the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews took place. [The anti-Holocaust conference was convened by him to 'prove' that the Holocaust did not happen as reported.]

Also this month, Benedict met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who urged Christians to protest Holocaust denials.

On Saturday, the U.N. Security Council voted to impose limited sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enrichment of uranium — a process that produces the material for either peaceful nuclear power or warheads.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies this, saying its program is strictly for generating electricity from nuclear fuel.

Ahmadinejad told a gathering in Tehran on Sunday that Iran is a "nuclear country," whether the world liked it or not.

Of course, the above story quoting Iran's state-run news agency contradicts an earlier statement by a spokesman of Ahmadinejad that the letter to the Pope was 'not political'. Here is the earlier story from AFP:


Iran's Ahmadinejad sends
letter to pope


VATICAN CITY, Dec. 27 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI through his Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the Vatican said in a communique.

Wednesday's statement did not reveal the contents of the letter, but earlier Wednesday a press officer at the Iranian presidency in Tehran told AFP that the letter, the latest in a series of missives to world leaders, was "not political."

"President Ahmadinejad insisted in his letter on the common teachings of the prophets and the importance of establishing new political and human relations based on those teachings," Ehsan Jahandideh said.

"The unjust relations that exist at the moment require the cooperation of different religions to remedy them," Jahandideh quoted the letter as saying.

Benedict was accused of linking Islam to violence in a controversial lecture earlier this year.

The Vatican statement confirmed that Mottaki delivered a letter to the pope from Ahmadinejad.

It added that the visiting Iranian foreign minister wished to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and the Holy See.

"For his part, the Holy Father ... reaffirmed the role that the Holy See intends to play for peace in the world, not as a political authority but a religious and moral one, appealing to consciences so that problems ... are always resolved through dialogue, in mutual understanding and in peace," the communique said.

The Iranian president has written a succession of letters in recent months to explain his world view. In November, Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the American people, in which he urged the 144,000 US troops to leave Iraq.

He also wrote a letter in July to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, complaining that Germany was being exploited by "greedy Zionists", more than 60 years after World War II.

In the first such move, the firebrand leader penned an angry missive to US President George W. Bush in May, lashing out at the US-led invasion of Iraq, questioning Israel's right to exist and telling Bush to be more pious.

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Another AP photo today shows the interior of the 13th century
mosque in Cordoba, Spain.


The caption tells this story:
Spanish Muslims said Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006, that they have appealed to Pope Benedict XVI
to be allowed to pray in the ancient Mosque that was converted into a chuch in the 13th century.
They stressed that Muslims want the mosque to turn into an ecumenical temple, where Christians,
Muslims and believers from other faiths might all be worshipping the same God.
(AP Photo/Javier Barbancho)


P.S. Here's the full AP story which came out much later:

MADRID, Spain, Dec. 27 (AP) - Spanish Muslims said on Wednesday that they have appealed to Pope Benedict XVI to be allowed to pray in the Cathedral of Cordoba in southern Spain, which was once an ancient mosque. [It was built as a mosque by the Caliphate of Cordoba when parts of Spain were under Moorish rule.]

In a letter to the pope, Spain's Islamic Board said Spanish Catholic clergy had rejected requests for Muslims to be allowed to pray inside the Cathedral, which was converted into a church in the 13th century.

They stressed that Muslims want the mosque to turn into an ecumenical temple, where Christians, Muslims and believers from other faiths might all be worshipping the same God. They wrote a similar letter to Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this year.

"What we wanted was not to take over that holy place, but to create in it, together with you and other faiths, an ecumenical space unique in the world which would have been of great significance in bringing peace to humanity," the letter said.

The Cordoba mosque dates back to the times when the Moors ruled Spain, and in its heyday was considered one of the world's most magnificent buildings. It is classified as a United Nations world heritage site.

Spain, a traditionally Roman Catholic country, has a Muslim community of around 800,000 people out of a total population of 44 million.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/12/2006 13.48]

Lella reports in the main forum that the Italian newspaper La Repubblica - whose editor and publisher, Eugenio Scalfari, is an avowed atheist with virulently anti-Christian and anti-Papist views - 'saw fit' not to report a single line about the Pope's Christmas Day "Urbi et Orbi' message, 'choosing instead to publish continuing criticism of the Church for its stand on the Welby case.'

Now, it's one thing for a major newspaper - which La Repubblica is, being the mouthpiece of Italian liberals - to advocate its own causes. But to deliberately not report a major event (or message) that was seen and heard by millions around the world and appropriately reported in all the other media is a shameless abdication of journalistic responsibility. It amounts to ignoring a historical fact (and denying it by doing so) that no self-respecting newspaper should do!

I wonder if we will be reading something from Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who recently joined Repubblica's stable of editorial writers, about this soon. I have been wondering also why Navarro-Valls has not been heard from since before the Pope's Turkey visit.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/12/2006 0.15]

Here's a story with more detail about the Muslim request
to be allowed formal prayer services at the historic Cordoba
cathedral-mosque.


The Cathedral-mosque complex in Cordoba (Photo by Reuters).

Muslims demand to worship at church
by Martin Barillas
Religion Editor, Spero News
Thursday, December 28, 2006




The leaders of the Muslim community of Spain have written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI demanding that their co-religionists be allowed to conduct formal prayer services at a Catholic church in Cordoba.

Bishop Juan José Asencio of Cordoba rejected the demand saying that such a move “would not contribute to peaceful coexistence between the different creeds” and that it would “merely generate confusion among the faithful and give way to indifferentism as to religion.”

The church in question, sometimes called the Cathedral-mosque of Cordoba, was indeed once a mosque for several centuries after the Muslim invasion of the 8th Century AD.

After the Catholic Spaniards returned to the area in the 1200s, they found a mosque superimposed on what had once been a Visigoth Spanish church. Córdoba was a center of Islamic culture and power that rivaled even Damascus and was to color Spanish culture and language indelibly.

Apologists for Islam and the Islamo-Moorish occupation of much of Spain during the Middle Ages frequently hark back to a mythical time of tolerance between the Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic faiths and when great cultural achievements were notable.

The cathedral is one of the most splendid works of architecture in Europe: thousands of visitors come each year to see the iconic Moorish arches and columns in its interior. Once the Catholic Spanish returned, a small church was built within the walls of the former mosque and has been used for Catholic worship for more than 700 years.

Bishop Asencio has proclaimed his respect for Muslims living within the midst of modern Spain. While he also “favors” the dialogue between the two faiths that is promoted by the Pope, he averred that joint usage of the church “would not contribute to the said dialogue.”

While noting the repeated insistence on the part of “Spanish converts to Islam” for joint Christian/Muslim usage of the cathedral, the prelate noted that the church’s deanery “holds legitimate legal title to the Cathedral for its sole use by the Catholic Church".

This is bolstered by the fact that excavations in the 1930s show that long before the imposition of a mosque by the Cordoban Ummayid caliphs that there was a basilica built on the site during the 4th and 5th centuries by Visigoth Christians. The ruins of the church, a seminary and a charitable hospital, destroyed in the wake of the Muslim invasion after 711 AD, are now visible at the site. King Saint Ferdinand III dedicated the new church at the site in 1236 AD.

The interior perimeters of the church bear various devotional chapels that have been erected over the centuries, further denoting the Christian character of the building. Furthermore, said Bishop Asencio, “like all cathedrals” there is not only Catholic liturgy, but also “the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist”: according to the bishop, this is the fundamental fact that makes Muslim worship within its confines “unworkable”.

The bishop’s statement went on to say that the Christians of Córdoba wish “to live in peace with believers of other creeds, but we do not wish to be subject to continuous pressures that do not contribute to peace.” Joint prayer at airports, Olympic villages, and the like would not be affected by the bishop’s insistence that the Cathedral be used solely for Catholic worship.

The letter to the pope by the Islamic Council of Spain, led by Mansur Escudero, noted favorably as an example of “singular ecumenism” that the pontiff prayed at the Blue Mosque during his trip to Istanbul last month. Mansur gave assurances that the Council’s request does not represent a desire to take the surrounding region of Andalusia for Islam but noted the “pathological aspects to which all religions are exposed”.

Catholic worship is not allowed at the Blue Mosque nor at the museum in Istanbul that was a mosque before the inception of the modern Turkish state. It had been built as the Hagia Sophia Church by Byzantine Christians beginning in the 5th Century AD. Priceless mosaics and holy objects were destroyed by iconoclastic Muslims when the church was converted into a mosque in 1453 AD.

Christians face persecution throughout many Muslim countries: in Saudi Arabia, for instance, all worship but that of Islam is strictly forbidden and punishable even by death.

The former president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue, Bishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, once responded to a previous similar request by the Islamic Council by saying “It is difficult to promote coexistence of Christians and Muslims by going back into history or wishing for revenge. We must accept history and move forward.” [Meaning? Was he for geanting the request or against it?]
----------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat and human rights observer who served in Latin America, Europe, and the US. He is Religion News editor for Spero News.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/12/2006 17.33]

As reported yesterday in POPE-POURRI, more than 3.2 million faithful attended the Holy Father's public appearances and were present at special audiences at the Vatican (and during the summer in Les Combes for Angelus, and at Castel Gandolfo) for the year 2006 (up to 12/28/06). Here is the breakdown by month and by type of participation, as released by teh Vatican today.

The figures after the month represent attendance at, respectively, the general audiences, special audiences, liturgical celebrations, and the Angelus.

(Sorry, I haven't figured out how to post a table into these message boxes. They appear like tables when I put them in, but they lose all the spacing when you make the post. I thought I could at least making the spacing after the month uniform by abbreviating the month, but it doesn't work that way either.)


JAN - 38,500 - 10,400 - 30,500 - 185,000
FEB - 47,000 - 11,200 - 10,200 - 120,000
MAR - 126,000 - 25,000 - 66,000 - 125,000
APR - 100,000 - 87,300 -196,000 - 45,000
MAY - 207,000 - 5,000 - 22,000 - 90,000
JUN - 125,000 -156,600 -125,000 - 150,000
JUL*- 20,000 - 100 - ----- - 35,000
AUG*- 80,000 - 220 - 500 - 25,000
SEP - 75,000 - 1,500 - ----- - 15,000
OCT - 120,000 - 51,800 - 52,000 - 95.000
NOV - 50,000 - 6,000 - 12,000 - 150,000
DEC - 43,000 - 2,000 - 25,000 - 260,000

Sub-totals:
General audiences 1,031,500
Special audiences - 357,120
Liturgies - 539,200
Angelus - 1,295,000


TOTAL: 3,222,820

The figures obviously do not include the faithful who saw the Pope during his visits abroad and to places in Italy besides Les Combes and Castel Gandolfo.

The 3.2 million this year compares to 2.8 million who saw Pope Benedict XVI last year in the same 4 categories from May-December 2005 plus the one general audience he held in April after his election. The figure does not include those who attended his Inaugural Mass, which would add at least 250,000 to the total.

John Paul’s peak annual number (total persons seen in the same four categories, at the Vatican, Castel Gandolfo and probably wherever the Pope was vacationing if he led Angelus prayers) in 26 years was reached in 1979, the first full year of his Pontificate – 1,585,000. Then the numbers decreased, and did not pick up again except in the Jubilee Year of 2000, when there were 1,400,000.

So there is either a marked reawakening of the faith and/or more tourists in Rome with more of them wanting to see the Pope.

And how will mainstream media report these numbers, if at all? If Italy's main newspapers chose not to report on the Pope's Urbi et Orbi message on Christmas Day, I doubt that they would see these numbers as significant at all! Which is their way, of course, of playing blind because Papa Ratzinger has defied all their worst prognostications, and has proven them wrong in such spectacular ways. So, of course, they will play deaf and blind to some facts that amount to egg on their faces!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/01/2007 3.56]

2007 promises a world of busyness for Pope Benedict

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A new Vatican calendar features photos of Pope Benedict XVI relaxing, but the pope's own agenda for 2007 leaves little time for repose.

The Vatican will be a busy place throughout the year, with hundreds of papal meetings, liturgies and other events already scheduled and several documents in the pipeline.

The pope will make at least two foreign trips, including his first intercontinental journey, and sometime during the year is likely to name another batch of new cardinals.

The year begins with a spate of traditional papal Masses and meetings, including a "state of the world" address to the world's diplomatic corps in mid-January.

The diplomats speech is prominently covered by the international media. That is not true of more routine papal meetings that also gear up in January, including "ad limina" visits by groups of bishops from around the globe.

The "ad limina" visits have undergone a quiet revolution in recent years, and it's evident in the pope's 2007 schedule. Canon law says the visits, by heads of dioceses to report on the status of their dioceses, should take place every five years, but that interval is now anywhere from six to nine years; many of the bishops coming in 2007 made their last visits eight years ago.

There are several reasons for the change. One is the simple fact that the number of the world's bishops has approximately doubled over the last 50 years. Another is that when Pope John Paul II was ill during the last years of his pontificate, he was unable to keep up the pace of "ad limina" meetings, and a backlog developed.

Today, even with a healthy pope, it's doubtful the Vatican can get back to the five-year schedule, one Vatican source said. The pope would have to meet with 540 bishops a year; last year, he met with 360.

The year 2007 will see "ad limina" visits by bishops from places on four continents, including Italy, Ukraine, Slovakia, Portugal, Serbia, Kenya, Togo, Benin, Gabon, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Korea and Laos.

Pope Benedict plans to travel to Brazil in mid-May to open a meeting of the Latin American bishops' council, or CELAM, and to Austria in September for a Marian pilgrimage. The Brazil trip is his first across an ocean, and Vatican planners are doing all they can to keep it short and sweet.

There's also a chance the pope may visit the United Nations. An informal invitation has been floated and the pope is said to be considering it -- the most likely hypothesis would be a visit in late September to address the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.

"The door is open, and the idea is circulating, but nothing's been decided yet," one Vatican official said.

The pope's native Germany also wants him back for another visit, this time in the capital Berlin. Other invitations have come from the Middle East and Africa, but trips there are considered less probable. He'll make several trips in Italy, including a pilgrimage in June to Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis.

The pope, who turns 80 in May, plans sometime in the spring to publish his book, "Jesus of Nazareth: From His Baptism to His Transfiguration," a work aimed at bringing a vivid portrait of Jesus to a wide audience.

Before then, other papal documents are expected to arrive; they include a post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist and, according to Vatican sources, a document issued "motu proprio" (on his own initiative) that would expand permission to use the pre-Vatican II Tridentine Mass.

Sometime early in the year will appear a preparatory document for the 2008 Synod of Bishops on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church."

The pope has indicated he may name new cardinals on a more frequent basis than his predecessor, and he'll have an opportunity to do so again this year. By the end of February, he'll have at least 10 vacancies among the 120 cardinal-electors, and by June he'll have at least 14 openings.

Candidates for the red hat include heads of major archdioceses like Dublin, Paris, Washington, Toronto and Warsaw, as well as a handful of Vatican officials. But some believe the pope may look particularly to Africa, in an effort for more geographical balance, and to Brazil -- the country with the world's largest Catholic population but with only three cardinal-electors.

The pope recently approved decrees on sainthood causes, paving the way for the canonization of four new saints, probably sometime during 2007.

By the end of the year, Vatican sources said, an important dossier may also land on the pope's desk. Following preliminary approval by commissions of historians and theologians, the cardinal and bishop members of the Congregation for Saints' Causes are expected to examine the cause of Pope Pius XII, whose role during World War II has long been hotly debated between church officials and some Jewish groups.

After sifting through the documentation, the congregation will offer its definitive opinion, sending it on to the pope for a final decision.

Pope prays for peace and for the Church in Africa

Vatican City, Dec. 29, 2006 (CNA) - The Vatican released the prayer intentions of Pope Benedict XVI for January, this morning. The Holy Father will offer his first general intentions of 2007 for a renewed commitment to peace in the world and for the Catholic Church on the African continent.

The Pope prayed, "That in our time, unfortunately marked by many episodes of violence, the pastors of the Church may continue to indicate the way of peace and understanding among peoples."

Announcing his mission intention he prayed, "That the Church in Africa may become a constantly more authentic witness of the Good News of Christ and be committed, in every nation, to the promotion of reconciliation and peace."

This visit will be from 7th to 9th September inclusive. On September 7th Papa will celebrate Mass in Vienna, on September 8th he will make a pilgrimage to Mariazell and on September 9th will return to Vienna and thence home to Rome [Castel Gandolfo,presumably, at that time of year].
Hope these details haven't already been posted. Hot off the press from my Austrian friend, who lives in Vienna. [Yes -you are all invited!!!!!]
Luff, Mary x

As the Vatican has not posted the Pope's homily at Vespers today, more than 3 hours since the event, korazym.org has the only report on it so far. Here's a translation:




VATICAN CITY - The first Vespers of the solemnity of Mary the Most Blessed Mother of God was also an occasion to "thank the Lord at the end of the year."

After the noonday Angelus today dedicated to the Holy Family of Nazareth as the model for the Christian family, Pope Benedict XVI presided at Vespers in St. Peter's Basilica with the traditional end-of-the-year Te Deum thanksgiving service.

In the presence of the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, of other government officials and ranking prelates, the Pope reminded the faithful of the Christian significance of this feast of Our Lady. He said it contrasted strongly with worldly year-end celebrations "predominantly oriented towards entertainment... often serving as an escape from reality, almost as if to exorcise its negative aspects and to propitiate improbable good fortune."

On the other hand, he said, "the Church is called on to live these hours by taking on the sentiments of the Virgin Mother" as she looked on her newborn Baby, sensing joy and hope but also "the sorrows and the anguish of men today."

It is a way of showing that the coming of the Messiah is the most important event in history, the Pope said, and that God's choices are not conditioned by 'historico-political coordinates.'

Rather, the choices come with the 'fullness of time' and are linked with God, who being born among men, became 'a little seed to lead humanity to its full maturation."

In Mary's motherhood, "we find condensed the fundamental truth abotu Jesus as a Divine Person who fully took on our human nature....and for this, the Mother of Jesus can and should be called the Mother of God."

The pope explained that Mary was first defined as such in 431 by the Council of Ephesus, "a city to which I had the joy of making a pilgrimage a month ago."

"How can I not express my filial gratitude to the Blessed Mother of God for the special protection that she accorded me in those days of grace?", he added, referring to his trip to Turkey.

Today, Benedict XVI entrusted to Mary the city of Rome, Italy, Europe and the whole world, and "even situations where only the grace of the Lord can bring peace, comfort and justice."

"Nothing is impossible to God," the Pope stressed.

He concluded by saying: "Let us ask the Mother of God to obtain for us the gift of a mature faith - limpid, genuine, humble, and at the same time, courageous, full of hope and enthusiasm for the Kingdom of God, a faith that is devoid of all fatalism but ready to cooperate in full and joyous obedience to the divine will, in the absolute certainty that God only wants love and life, for all and for always."

And so, the Pope ends the year with a message of hope to all Christians, further underscored by his visit to the Nativity Scene on St. Peter's Square after the services.



He will celebrate Mass at 10 o'clock tomorrow, New Year's Day, in St. Peter's Basilica, to mark the World Day of Peace, with the theme "The human being - heart of peace."

Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, editor-in-chief of AsiaNews, looks at the arbitrary standards applied by opponents of the death penalty in their reactions to Saddam's execution as an indication of rampant relativism in the West. He cites Benedict XVI's admonitions about relativism in his recent message for World Day of Peace, to be celebrated tomorrow. .

“Tears” for Saddam
and relativism that threatens peace
by Bernardo Cervellera


Rome, Dec. 31 (AsiaNews) – We are still amid sorrow and prayer over the execution of Saddam Hussein. But we cannot fail to denounce the hypocrisy of the many champions against the death penalty that the former Iraqi dictator managed to gather around him before and after his hanging.

How is it that these “professionals” about the scandal of a death sentence handed down to a man who admired – and followed – Hitler, should complain so little about other death sentences and violence? Did any Chinese bishop who vanished and was killed in a lager ever find so much solidarity? Have Hindus, Christians and Muslims imprisoned in Saudi or Iranian prisons ever benefited from so much international disdain and personal and public support?

The crocodile tears now shed by many personalities and organizations are a sign not only of suffocating ideological vision but also of profound relativism.

Relativism is a danger to peace like terrorism is. This attitude so widespread in the West, which seeks to shake off any certainty and framework of values, which raises up tyrants and hides the persecuted, which speaks in a vague way about everything because it is interested in nothing, was highlighted by Pope Benedict XVI as one of the true dangers to peace in his message for the World Day of Peace 2007.

So far we have always believed that militarism, wars, tanks, atomic and nuclear bombs were the killers of peace. And they are. All offensive weapons are the fruit of ideologies that view suppression of the other as an indispensable condition to the triumph of one’s ideas.

But in this year’s message, the pontiff pointed a finger at those relativistic concepts of the person that deprive human rights and the value of the human being of their universal meaning.

For years, in the UN, European parliament and other international organizations, there has been a push towards a vision of this type, which does not hold the rights of a Chinese or African as equal to those of a European or American.

The result – recorded frequently by AsiaNews – is always of indifference about the fate of millions of people who are killed, tortured and muzzled from expression as the boat of national and economic interests sails calmly on.

Some months ago, in the lead-up to talks between China and Europe, Antti Kuosmanen, the Finish ambassador to Beijing, said candidly that “human rights” were not a “dominant point” of the report.

If we consider that the same organizations – the UN and European parliament – are fighting a war for “freedom” of gender definitions (male, female, lesbian, gay, and so on), of de facto couples, of abortion as a “reproductive right”, of the manipulation of embryos, then we understand that this relativism is none other than a serious form of schizophrenia. We saw it in action with the death of Saddam Hussein too.

Like a wise and merciful doctor, Benedict XVI tracks down other forms of this disease. Among them is a distorted way of tackling ecological problems. In his message, the pope calls on all to move towards a “social ecology” that includes attention for man and the destiny of peoples.

Thus in the commitment against water pollution, for safeguarding species of fauna from extinction, and the search for alternative energy supplies, we must not forget that at the centre of everything (and not as a problem to be eliminated) are human beings.

The energy devoted to defending whales or to crying over the white dolphin of the Yangtze must be redistributed to help people identify the means of sustainable development with dignity, which include treatment of diseases and the right to drinking water.

And if human rights are for all, there is the need to call for religious freedom not only (and this is right) for Muslims in Europe but also for Christians living in the Muslim world.

This indifference to the “person” factor in global, ecological and diplomatic pacifism is part of an even more radical disease, namely, pessimism about man and his value and his ability to live up to his duties and obligations.

Thus, instead of appealing to man's sense of responsibility, drastic means are chosen like power, war, elimination, slavery or the violence of indifference.

In his message, the pope suggests treatment too: to put man at the centre of peace, then God must be placed at the heart of the life of man.

Benedict XVI puts forward two fundamental tracks:
o Affirming the right to life as a “gift which is not completely at the disposal of the subject”; and t
o Affirming the right to religious freedom that “places the human being in a relationship with a transcendent principle which fress him from human caprice”.

Without these two indicators, relativism and schizophrenia will lead us only to euthanasia and dictatorship, to war and a culture of death.

Pope says peace depends
on respecting human rights
By Robin Pomeroy
Mon Jan 1, 2007



VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - World peace can only be achieved if individuals' human rights are respected, Pope Benedict said in his first public address of the year, stressing that there can be no excuse for treating people as "objects."

Two days after the hanging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - an event the Vatican condemned as "tragic" - the Pope said on Monday that human rights must be put at the heart of the global struggle to end war.

"It is because every human individual, without distinction of race, culture or religion, is created in the image and likeness of God, that he is filled with the same dignity of person," Benedict said in a homily in St. Peter's Basilica.

"That is why he must be respected. No reason can ever justify doing with him whatever one pleases, as if he is an object," he told thousands of worshippers at a New Year mass.

Quoting from a message he issued in December to mark the Church's World Day of Peace on January 1, Benedict said: "By respecting the person, peace is promoted" and called on nations to work for a world where "human rights are respected by all."

Marking his second New Year since succeeding John Paul II, the 79-year-old Pontiff returned to the same theme when he addressed pilgrims in St. Peter's Square later in the day.

"Today people speak a lot about human rights, but it is often forgotten they these need a stable base, not one that is relative or a matter of opinion." That meant respect for individuals and freedom to practice religion, he said.

The Pope used his sermon on world peace to single out the Middle East.

"How can we not turn our attention, once again, to the tragic situation right in the land where Jesus was born? How can we not implore through persistent prayer that the day of peace also arrives in that region as soon as possible?"


Pope calls for Mideast peace
accord in New Year's Day homily


VATICAN CITY, Jan. 1(AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI has called for a peace accord in the Middle East, embroiled in a "conflict that has persisted for too long," during his New Year's Day mass at Saint Peter's Basilica.

Marking World Peace Day, he referred to "the scene of the shepherds of Bethlehem visiting Jesus in the manger," asking: "How can you not look again at the dire situation that characterizes this land where Jesus was born?"

The 79-year-old pontiff asked: "How can you not implore with insistent prayer that the day of peace arrives as soon as possible to this region, the day when the conflict that has persisted for too long will be resolved?

"A peace accord, to be durable, must rest on respect for dignity and the rights of each person," he urged the Vatican diplomatic corps attending the mass Monday.

"In the face of the threats to peace that are unfortunately ever-present, in the face of situations of injustice and violence that persist in many parts of the world, before continuing armed conflicts often forgotten by much of public opinion, and the danger of terrorism that disturbs peoples' serenity, it becomes more than ever necessary to work together for peace," he said.

On December 12 Benedict sent a message to the world's 1.1 billion Catholics ahead of World Peace Day in which he condemned what he called the transformation of religion "into an ideology," and said that "a war in the name of God is never acceptable."

The wide-ranging message also condemned violations of religious freedoms, inequality of the sexes, "disrespectful" attitudes towards the environment, religion transformed into "ideology", terrorism, human rights abuses and the spread of nuclear weapons.

"The way to ensure a future of peace for everyone is found not only in international accords for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, but also in the determined commitment to seek their reduction and definitive dismantling," the pope said.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/01/2007 16.13]

Arcangelo Paglialunga, the dean of the Vatican press corps, offers a year-end review of Benedict XVI's Papacy in the 12/31/06 issue of Gazzettinodel Nord-Est, shared with us by Lella in the main forum. Here is a translation:


At the Vatican, they are examining the record of Pope Benedict XVI's activities in 2006, starting with its first big event - the publicaton of his first cncyclical, Deus caritas est, an appeal for man to love God and love each other, as the Lord commanded.

It was, in effect, a call to a life of peace and calm in a world full of disquiet. A text that became an instant worldwide bestseller, and which the Pope supplemented throughout the year with appeals for peace and brotherhood, in his public discourses as well as in diplomatic initiatives.

A major Papal initiative in 2006 was his encounters with bishops from all over the world [as they make their ad-limina visits to Rome].. He started receiving the bishops of Africa, followed then by the bishops of Europe. And just before the holidays, he met with the Italian bishops.

Benedict's objective is to have a complete picture of how the Church finds herself worldwide. Following each group audience with the visiting bishops, he has taken to one-on-one meetings with many of them.

2006 also confirmed the trend first seen in 2005 of record crowds coming to this Pope's Wednesday general audiences and Sunday Angelus. The crowds testify to how much the faithful appreciate the Pope's Magisterium, which he conveys in accessible language, even when speaking of difficult themes - whether he is describing, as he has done, the individual figures of the Apostles, or when he restates the moral norms of Christian life.

In this respect, the Pope has repeatedly emphasized crucial questions from the point of view of the Church - precisely those issues which have been the object of inflamed public discussions in politics and in society - namely, the defense of human life from conception to its natural end; the defense of marriage and the family as mankind has known these institutions traditionally; the condemnation of genetic experimentation and reproductive manipulation; an appeal to the youth to keep away from false escapes like drugs; but above all, a re-proposition of the figure of Christ as the 'only Savior of the world.'

Then there was the significance of Benedict's four emblematic trips abroad in 2006. First, to Poland, where he paid tribute to his predecessor John Paul II, whose process of beatification he has facilitated. This concluded with an emotional visit to two places forever associated with the Shoah, the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race.

Then, to his native Germany, to reconnect with his own people. His lecture in Regensburg, misreported and falsely interpreted, aroused profound hostility among Muslims who accused him of insulting Mohammed and Islam.

But his subsequent trip to Turkey, with his visit to St. Sophia and that moment of prayer inside the Blue Mosque, surprisingly overcame that difficulty. A trip that had started with so many troubling questions ended with the Turks accepting him as a 'true friend' of their nation.

Earlier, there was his brief visit to Spain, Zapatero's Spain, where the World Encounter of Families was held. It gave the Pope an occasion to re-state the Church's doctrine of matrimony against what he called 'aberrations', namely, de facto unions and same-sex marriages.

The rapprochement with Islam follows in the lines of what he called establishing brotherly ties with other religions, to work together for peace and brotherhood among nations, following the Assisi inter-religious meetings initiated by John Paul II.

Even more important, this concerns the Church's relations with the other Christian religions, whose chiefs the Pope has been meeting.

The most important was his meeting in Istanbul with the patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. Their joint declaration seems to indicate that the day may not be that far off when the Roman and Orthodox churches will be able to celebrate the Eucharist together, in full communion of faith.

As for Italy, the Pope has had several occasions to restate his affection for the nation and its people. At the Convention of the Italian Church in Verona, the Pope underlined the special role that the Italian Church has in the Catholic world, calling on all Catholics, including the politicians, to act in the public sphere and in society in ways consistent with their Christian beliefs and principles.

The Pope's first official meeting with the new Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, was significant in this respect. The Italian president found the correct words to describe the roles that Church and State must play in society, without interfering in each other's business. It was clear the Pope was very pleased with the President's words.

After the visit, Napolitano, an ex-Communist, then chose to leave the Vatican by going through St. Peter's Basilica as Catholic heads of state do, instead of leaving directly as he could have done.

In summary, Benedict XVI in 2006 carried forward his pastoral program: promoting a deeper appreciation of the postulates of Christian faith, a commitment to peace and ecumenism, defense of human life and traditional matrimony and family, and strengthening of moral norms in daily life and society.

2007 will see the publication of the Pope's book on Jesus and further development of the ecumenical dialog. Benedict XVI will try to meet with the Patriarch of Moscow and to establish viable contact with China.

It is notable that in his first consistory, the Pope made the Archbishop of Hongkong a cardinal. Great difficulties are in the way because the Church in China is split between the 'underground' Church that is loyal to Rome, and the co-called 'patriotic Church' which has been naming its own bishops in defiance of Rome.

2007 will also see a major re-launching of Vatican-II positions, as the Church marks the 45th anniversary of that historic meeting called by John XXIII.

And there will be new saints, as maybe Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. And perhaps beatification, not only of John Paul II, but also of Paul VI.

Everything is ready for the Holy Father's first visit to a Caritas shelter in Rome tomorrow, announced last month as part of his activities for the Christmas season. Here is a translation of a story from Libero today, shared by Lella in the main forum:


Photos from Caritas, courtesy of korazym.org


A Caritas card for the Pope
By ANDREA VALLE

Benedict XVI is enrolled at the Caritas 'free kitchen' in Colle Oppio near the Colosseum. He will be given Card # 001 when he visits the homeless shelter tomorrow to dedicate its mess hall to the memory of Pope John Paul II.

The card is one of four symbolic gifts that the Pope will receive from the residents and habitues of the Rome shelter run by Caritas, the Catholic charity organization which was branches all over the world. The card is similar to what is issued to them entitling them to lyunch or dinner at the mess hall.

The other gifts are a blanket, representing indigence and precarious life; an apron, representing the generous work of volunteers who serve the shelter; and a drawing by a little girl whose immigrant mother is now a 'permanent guest' in a home for families operated by Caritas of Rome.

The Pope chose the time before Epiphany to bring his embrace to those who must daily cope with poverty, joblessness, marginalization and suffering. This visit substitutes for the visit to the creche of the streetcleaners of Rome, which he did last year, a tradition begun by Paul VI.

The Caritas center on Colle Oppio was the first homeless shelter in Rome, established in 1983 by Cardinal Ugo Poletti. In the past 26 years, it has housed thousands of homless, Italians as well as foreigners, and has served over 9 million meals.

Pope John Paul II visited the shelter in 1992, and is to him that Pope Benedict XVI will dedicate the mess hall tomorrow, unveiling a commemorative plaque qhich bears a citation from his predecessor: "The suffering man belongs to us."

In 2006, the free kitchen served 122,595 meals. More than 44,000 have used the Center as 'residents,' whereas the transients who have sought shelter include more than 66,000 foreigners and 12,000 Italians.

The Pope will be welcomed to Colle Oppio by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, his Vicar in Rome; Mons. Ernesto Mandara, auxiliary bishop for the south sector; and Mons. Guerino Di Tora, director of Caritas.

The Pope will greet the wards of the Center, then meet with the volunteer workers, the staff of Caritas and youths aorking in an associated youth center.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/01/2007 1.34]

Benedict’s ‘Year of the Muslims’

BY FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA
National Catholic Register
Posted 1/3/07 at 11:08 AM

Two images, both unexpected, dominated the year for Pope Benedict XVI.

The first was iconic in a malevolent sense, with fanatical Muslims burning him in effigy after his Regensburg lecture. The second was iconic and irenic: the Holy Father praying in the Blue Mosque of Istanbul.

The papal year began with the release of the encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love ) and much of what happened afterward would test the limits of papal charity.

The Holy Father’s decision, only a few months after his election, to request a special meeting with Muslim leaders in Cologne already signaled that he considered Christian-Muslim relations, especially in Europe, to be an issue in need of significant attention.

That meeting was full of warm exchanges and respect, a notable achievement in a Europe where there are often social tensions with the large Muslim minorities in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Britain.

Those tensions dominated the early part of 2006, when the Danish cartoon controversy erupted, with Muslim mobs throughout the world resorting to violence to protest caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.

No doubt the Holy Father took note as governments and newspapers across Europe and North America — including influential Vatican voices — rushed to placate the inflamed Muslims in the streets. And no doubt the controversy pointed to potential difficulties ahead for his November trip to Turkey; in Trabzon, an Italian priest, Father Andrea Santoro, was murdered by an Islamic radical upset about the Danish cartoons.

Against this background, with his usual careful preparation, the Holy Father returned to Germany in September and addressed himself at Regensburg to a dominant theme of his entire theological career, namely that reason and faith are both necessary to know the truth.

And then he addressed head-on a central question of our time: Is it reasonable to commit violence in the name of faith? He said No, and asked whether contemporary Islam could give as emphatic a rejection of violence.

It is a question oft-discussed but never formally raised in polite circles. The settled routine after an Islamist terrorist act is for the president/prime minister/Prince of Wales to rush to a mosque to proclaim Islam a religion of peace. Benedict was bold enough to ask the question that has been discussed at kitchen tables the world over since 9/11: Is there something in contemporary Islamic thought that encourages such violence?

Benedict does not raise questions to indulge idle curiosity.

The theologian in him asks questions because he thinks good questions can lead to good answers. His own, implied, answer to the question of Islam and violence is that there are bad religious ideas afoot in the Islamic world — as has also been the case at times in Christian history — that do justify violence, and therefore need to be answered by good religious ideas.

The central geopolitical question of the post-9/11 period is how to counter the malevolence of Islamist terror.

Benedict thinks that is also a spiritual question.

One option is to propose democracy and economic liberty in the Islamic world; another is to propose secularism to reduce religious extremism. Benedict understands better than anyone that bad religious ideas cannot be overcome by non-religious ideas or even worse, anti-religious ideas. Bad religious ideas need to be confronted by good religious ideas, which is simply to say that religious errors need to be corrected by religious truths, not political non-sequiturs or anti-religious errors.

This was why he raised the whole matter in Regensburg, and did not shy away from the same themes in Turkey.

The tone was different, but Benedict did not pretend to overlook the Turkish denial of religious liberty, and he mentioned the murdered Father Santoro by name. What Turkey added was something left implicit at Regensburg, which was that Islamic history itself contains the answer to the temptation of violence, and it is for Muslims themselves to rediscover that heritage in order to confront the challenges of the present day.

Turkey’s own history boasts periods of peace and prosperity under Islamic rule, with ample space given to religious minorities to live in harmony.

That was captured by the moment of prayer in the Blue Mosque. Silent prayer is the antithesis of violence, and it is something shared by Christians and Muslims alike. That it created such a stir — was the Pope capitulating to the Mohammedans, asked some — indicated how off-track the discussion had wandered. The Pope was praying, alongside Muslims, and Muslims who can pray alongside Christians might serve to dissuade their fellow believers from blowing them up.

In retrospect, 2006 was the year in which the Holy Father asked difficult questions in a lecture hall, and he prayed in a place dedicated to prayer.

That both take courage today is an indication of how delicate and complicated the Islamist problem has become.

In daring to do both, Benedict succeeded in clarifying what the problem is, and where solutions might be found. It has been an important year in Christian-Muslim relations, and has established that relationship as a central element of Benedict’s pontificate. Call it Benedict’s “year of the Muslims” as it were; its consequences will be long-lasting.

Belatedly posting the AsiaNews story about the Holy Father's audience today... But I did post a translation of the full text of the Pope's catechesis in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS this morning.




Pope: Jesus rejected by scientific atheism
or reduced to a teacher of wisdom

Vatican City, Jan. 3 (AsiaNews) – From rejection to indifference, from scientific atheism to the depiction of a “post-modernized” Jesus: a mere “teacher of wisdom” or so “idealized” that he seems like a fairytale character.

These are some forms of “rejection of God” in our times: perhaps more subtle and dangerous than those in the past, they go against the welcome of Jesus we are called to extend at Christmas.

This was the subject tackled today by Benedict XVI before 8,000 people who attended the first general audience of 2007. Last year, according to statistics of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than one million – precisely 1,031,500 – took part in 45 general audiences, while 3,222,820 people met Benedict XVI in Rome throughout 2006 in audiences, Angelus prayers and liturgical celebrations.

Music and choirs in different languages (five came from the USA) were all united in the Christmas spirit of the meeting that was mentioned by the pope who noted the Christmassy atmosphere of the audience.

He said the atmosphere was an invitation to joy for the birth of the Redeemer who has “abundantly spread” goodness, mercy and love throughout the world.

The Pope coughed at times during the catechesis. He referred to both the Gospel of John and his letters, dwelling upon the significance of Christmas as a manifestation of our being children of God, “because Jesus came to put up his tent among us”, to gather all peoples into one family, not just one people but one family.

But “the joy of Christmas should not make us forget the mystery of evil, the power of the shadows that seek to obscure the splendour of divine light”.

He said the “tragedy of rejection of Christ expresses itself today in many different ways as it did in the past. Perhaps more subtle and dangerous are those forms of rejection of God in the modern era”, that range from “clear rejection to indifference to scientific atheism” to “the presentation of a modernized, or better still, post-modernized Jesus; Jesus as a man reduced to being a mere ‘teacher of wisdom’ and deprived of his divinity, or else a Jesus who has been so idealized that at times he seems like a fairytale character.”

But Jesus is “true God and true man” and he never tires of promoting his Gospel. At Christmas, then, it is clear that “now we know the face of God” and “the amazing announcement that God loves us”. “It was not we who loved God; it was he who loved us first”.

The Child who is born “asks that we make space for him in our hearts and society”. The pope added: “One cannot remain indifferent before Jesus” and “we too must take a stand all the time. What will our answer be?”

Here's the first story available on the Holy Father's visit today to a shelter for the homeless run by Caritas of Rome - a translation of an Italian news agency item shared by Lella in the main forum:



Nuns look down from an adjoining convent as the Holy Father arrives at Caritas shelter (Reuters photos).


Roma, 4 Jan. (APCom) - Pope Benedict XVI today donated 10,000 blankets and 2,000 heavy jackets to the shelter run by the diocesan Caritas on Colle Oppio, as a sign of solidarity with the indigent and homeless.

[N.B. A later story said the Pope also gave the shelter 100,000 Euros as a monetary contribution.]

Blankets and warmclothing are, in fact, what the shelter first gves out to those who seeks its services for the night.

The Pope was at the shelter for an hour, during which he unveiled the marker naming the shelter and its mess hallin honor of Pope John Paul II.

Before leaving, he wished everyone at the mess hall "Have a good meal and a good day."

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

P.S. The Vatican site has just posted its bulletin on the visit with the Italian text of the address given by the Holy Fahter. I have to leave for work early, so I will post a translation later.

Meanwhile, here's the AsiaNews story -

Pope: true joy comes from God’s love
and is not that extolled in adverts

Visiting the soup kitchen of Caritas of Rome, Benedict XVI said love shines out in the service of others “without distinctions based on race, religion or culture”.


Rome (AsiaNews) – Those who give and those who receive in the daily work of Caritas experience the beauty of the love that Jesus brought and feel “the depth of the joy that derives from it, a joy that is certainly different from the illusory feelings advertised through publicity”.

In his first visit outside the Vatican of 2007, Benedict XVI today went to a Caritas soup kitchen in the Colle Oppio neighbourhood not far from Termini station, described by the pope as a “symbol, somehow, of the Roman Caritas”.

The soup kitchen of Colle Oppio is the first reception centre for homeless people set up in Rome. Opened in 1983, it has hosted thousands of poor Italians and foreigners, giving out more than nine million meals.

And from today Benedict XVI also has a pass – number 1 – given to him by the Roman Caritas director, Mgr Guerino Di Tora. For his part, the pope made the soup kitchen a gift of 10,000 blankets and 2,000 warm jackets to keep out the winter cold.

Greeted by cries of “long live the pope” by hundreds of people gathered in the building, Benedict XVI recalled how Jesus “the bread that came down from heaven... the bread of life... in some way makes himself visible every day in this soup kitchen, where the aim is not only to give people something to eat but to serve them without distinctions based on race, religion or culture”.

In the Caritas soup kitchen, in the words of the pope, “it is possible to touch with our hands the presence of Christ in our brothers who are hungry and in those who offer them to eat. Here, we can feel how, when we love our neighbour, we get to know God better: in the grotto of Bethlehem, in fact, He manifested himself to us in the poverty of a newborn child needy of everything. The message of Christmas is simple: God came among us because he loves us. God is love: not a sentimental love but a love that became a total gift, up to the sacrifice of the Cross.”

Benedict XVI recalled the words spoken by John Paul II in 1992 when he visited the same institution: “The suffering man belongs to us”. The phrase is recorded on a plaque placed at the entrance of the soup kitchen dedicated to Pope Wojtyla and unveiled today by Benedict XVI.

Turning to the creche set up in the room, Pope Benedict said that “from the grotto of Bethlehem, from every crib, comes an announcement for all: Jesus loves us and teaches us to love. The staff, volunteers and all those who come to the soup kitchen can experience the beauty of this love; they can feel the depth of the joy that derives from it, a joy that is certainly different from the illusory feelings advertised through publicity.”

He added: “May the Holy Spirit animate the hearts of those who run this place and all the workers and volunteers so that they may undertake their service with a dedication that is ever more attentive, inspired by the authentic style of Christian love that the Saints of charity took as their motto: good should be done properly.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/01/2007 0.22]

Has the newspaper you usually read reported at all about the attendance figures for Pope Benedict XVI public appearances at the Vatican? None of the 4 area newspapers in New York did.

When I posted the Vatican's statistical data about this several days ago (preceding page, Post #5473, THE NUMBERS SPEAK), I had wondered -

"And how will mainstream media report these numbers, if at all? If Italy's main newspapers chose not to report on the Pope's Urbi et Orbi message on Christmas Day, I doubt that they would see these numbers as significant at all! Which is their way, of course, of playing blind because Papa Ratzinger has defied all their worst prognostications, and has proven them wrong in such spectacular ways. So, of course, they will play deaf and blind to some facts that amount to egg on their faces!"

Antonio Socci wrote a most interesting column today in Libero that starts off by noting the attendance figures for 2006. The title to his article takes off from an Italian saying that says 'Gioca pure coi fanti ma lascia stare i santi' - 'You may jest about knaves (fanti) but let the saints be' :


'You may jest about saints but
meanwhile, start learning Latin'
By ANTONIO SOCCI


"The sensational news has been virtually ignored by the newspapers, except Libero [not a mainstream paper], but it illustrates the defeat of the progressive opposition to Ratzinger (currently linked to the imminent issuance of the Pope's Motu proprio liberalizing the pre-1970 Mass): that in 2006, 3,222,000 persons attended the Pope's public appearances - a stupefying record that is on average, more than twice the peak figures recorded by the crowd-drawing Pope John Paul II.

This confirms the exact opposite of what the so-called 'experts' (including Catholics) had predicted. Sandro Magister in L'Espresso (which is certainly not a Catholic magazine) acknowedleged it textually: "Benedict XVI is the most popular Pope in history."

But still, only the Wall Street Journal among the leading newspapers of the world has begun to rflect on the style and greatness of this Pope. [A November article that I have been unable to trace anywhere online - referred to by Magister in the L'Espresso article cited by Socci - and which I would be most grateful if anyone could find!]

What is it that attracts so many people to Pope Benedict? [The tens of thousands of admiring words in this forum alone certainly constitute an answer!] Our newspapers even avoid asking the question. [But how can they ask it if they will not even admit that people are 'attracted' to this Pope?]

Our daily newspapers present the obvious things expected by their readers.

Yesterday (Jan. 3), Corriere della Sera devoted an entire page (with a display headline on Page 1) to the 'myth' of Mary Magadalene, with all the nonsense about her, beginning with Dan Brown, grist for the gullible.

Yesterday, also, L'Unita had an entire page entitled "Vatican anathema: Rock is hell" (based on a statement made by the 'director of the Cappella Lateranense Frisina' [apparently not a Vatican entity at all, despite the 'Lateranense' in the name].

And La Stampa dedicated an entire page to the Swiss Guard and the 'controversy' over their alleged complaints that their chief had not allowed them to hold a yearend party on the roof terrace of their headquarters.

Fiinally, La Repubblica dedicated its cultural page a second time to the Augias-Pesce book "Inquiry on Jesus" [a typical historico-critical book, the latest of its kind and a best-seller in its category, purporting to show that the Jesus of the Gspels is an invention super-imposed by Christianity on the 'historical Jesus'].

Everything reflects the incredible attraction that Jesus exercises today - even the success of the 'Da Vinci Code'. But that book, like all the chattering in the newspapers about religion, represents the attempt by media and the intellectuals to dig an abyss between believers in the year 2007 and Jesus.

As though that Jesus who dominates the pages of the Gospels and has seduced so many hearts down the centuries did not really exist or were someone unreachable!

Again yesterday, during his Wednesday general audience, Benedict XVI denounced this phenomenon. He spoke of the most important event that had taken place in history - the birth of Jesus and of the 'surprise' we all feel at this 'humanly incredible event,' in which every man 'discovers how freely he is loved by God.'

But then he referred to the 'mystery of evil, mysterium iniquitatis'- the power of darkness to obscure the splendor of divine light, a power that unfortunately we experience everyday."

The Pope explains: "This is the tragedy of rejecting Christ which is, as it was in the past, manifested and expressed these days in different ways. Perhaps the most insidious and dangerous are those contemporary forms of rejecting God: from outright rejection to indifference, from scientific atheism to the presentation of a so-called modern or post-modern Jesus. Jesus as mere man, reduced in various ways to a simple man of his times, devoid of His Godhood; or even a Jesus so idealized as to seem like a fairytale character."

But, Papa Ratzinger protests, things are not so at all: "Jesus, the true Jesus of history, is true man and true God, who does not tire of offering his Gospel to all, knowing he is a 'sign of contradiction'...In fact, only the Baby lying in that manger possesses the true secret of life. That is why He asks to be welcomed, that we make room for Him in our hearts, in our homes, in our cities, in our society."

Having proclaimed again that Jesus is truly living and present today, Ratzinger notes as Kierkegaard did: "Before Him, one cannot be indifferent. Even us, dear friends, must take a position. What will be our answer? With what attitude should we welcome Him?"

The Pope praises 'the simplicity of the shepherds' as well as the faithful quest of the Magi, who 'searched the stars for the sign of God.' But most of all, the Pope cites Mary and Joseph, the first to welcome the Child.

And thus, he illuminates the only reasonable way to welcome Jesus and to know Him: in the company of those who live with Him, the Church.

And where else can we have news about Him? "Over 2000 years of Christian history," said the Pope, "are flled with examples of men and women, youths and adults, children and old people who, believing in the mystery of the Nativity, opened their arms wide to Emmanuel, God-with-us, and became with their lvies beacons of light and hope."

"The love that Jesus, in being born at Bethlehem, brought to the world unites with Him all who welcome Him in a lasting relationship of friendship and brotherhood. St. John of the Cross said, 'God in giving us all, that is, His Son, has said everything through Him. Keep your eyes on Him alone...and you will find even much more than you desire and ask for."

This is the school of Christianity which Benedict XVI has been bringing to the world for almost two years now, and this explains the extraordinary success of his teaching.

The crowds who come to listen to him, attracted by the fascination of Jesus, have come to drink at a true and good source for knowing the Savior better.

It is not by chance that the pope has announced he has written a book on Jesus. He is making every effort to appease this hunger and thirst for Jesus that men today are showing.

He thinks that if so many come to drink at springs that do not quench their thirst, it is often because they do not find anyone in the Church who can give them the true water of life.

It is also for this reason - to make the spring of Jesus more visible and resplendent - that Benedict XVI is set to sign a Motu proprio that will finally liberate the ancient liturgy of the Church, that which was traditionally said in Latin.

It is not only a matter of language, but also to put an end to the enormous number of abuses that have waylaid liturgy in the post-Conciliar church.

As Cardinal, Ratzinger had said, "The ecclesiastical crisis in which we find ourselves today comes in great part from the collapse of liturgy, which is even thought of sometimes 'etsi Deus non daretur,' as if God did not exist - as if it no longer matters whether God is in the liturgy, whether He speaks to us and hears us. But if liturgy no longer shows the communion of faith, the universal unity of the Church and its history, the mystery of the living Christ, then where else can the Church appear in its spiritual substance?"

The Pope has explained that the true place to encounter the living Jesus is in the liturgy of the Mass, where the Savior is always expiating our sins, where, as sacrificial victim, he pays for our sins and frees us.

The Pope's Motu proprio will soon come. Some French bishops are objecting, but their churches are empty. On the other hand, there was an open letter by French intellectuals expressing themselves on the side of the Pope, followed by a similar declaration signed by leading authoritative personalities in Poland ("We are with you, Holy Father").

Here in Italy, we also published a document in favor of the Pope's decision on the Old Mass, whereas an attempt by a dissident Genose priest to gather signatures against the Pope failed miserably (most of the signatures were from pranksters).

The Curia of Genoa has released a document explaining all the reasons behind the anticipated Motu proprio - yet another sign of its imminence.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/01/2007 0.26]

Exercises in Disinformation:
The Pope According to the Leading Newspapers
Here is how the major international media have deformed Benedict XVI’s position
on the entry of Turkey into the European Union. The author of the analysis:
the former Dutch ambassador to China
by Sandro Magister



ROMA, January 5, 2007 – For a pope who is a theologian and a “doctor of the Church” like Benedict XVI, communication is essential. But the machinery of the Vatican is far from providing him with an efficient service, as www.chiesa has documented several times.

But there is also an external obstacle that blocks Benedict XVI’s words from reaching their destination correctly.

This obstacle is found in the leading newspapers.

A striking case of disinformation on a grand scale was seen on the first day of the pope’s trip to Turkey.

It was November 28, 2006. Benedict XVI, newly arrived at the Ankara airport, held a conversation with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The discussion was not followed by any official statement. But the world’s major newspapers concluded, on the basis of what Erdogan told journalists after the meeting, that Benedict XVI had changed his mind about Turkey’s entrance into the European Union.

According to these papers, Joseph Ratzinger had changed the unfavorable view he held before becoming pope into a favorable one.

Here below, Anton Smitsendonk provides a well-reasoned summary of what was written on that occasion by the world’s principal newspapers, which overlooked the statements of a different nature issued by authoritative exponents of the Holy See.

Smitsendonk, now commissioner for Thailand and Indonesia in the International Chamber of Commerce, is a former Netherlands ambassador in China and earlier minister counselor in Turkey. He wrote this commentary expressly for www.chiesa.

But first, it is helpful to review in their entirety both the assertions Ratzinger made in 2004 about Turkey’s entry into the European Union, and the positions expressed by representatives of the Holy See on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s meeting with the Turkish prime minister.

1. – Joseph Ratzinger in "Le Figaro Magazine," August 13, 2004, interviewed by Sophie de Ravinel:

"Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one. It is its culture that gives it a common identity. The roots that have formed it, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. [...] In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. That is why I think it would be an error to equate the two continents. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of culture for the sake of economic benefits. Turkey, which is considered a secular country but is founded upon Islam, could instead attempt to bring to life a cultural continent together with some neighboring Arab countries, and thus become the protagonist of a culture that would possess its own identity but would also share the great humanistic values that we should all acknowledge. This idea is not incompatible with close and friendly forms of association and collaboration with Europe, and would permit the development of unified strength in opposition to any form of fundamentalism."

2. – Joseph Ratzinger in a September 18, 2004 speech to pastoral workers in the diocese of Velletri, a speech printed by the Catholic newspaper in Lugano, Switzerland, "Il Giornale del Popolo":

"Historically and culturally, Turkey has little in common with Europe; for this reason, it would be a great error to incorporate it into the European Union. It would be better for Turkey to become a bridge between Europe and the Arab world, or to form together with that world its own cultural continent. Europe is not a geographical concept, but a cultural one, formed in a sometimes conflictual historical process centered upon the Christian faith, and it is a matter of fact that the Ottoman empire was always in opposition to Europe. Even though Kemal Atatürk constructed a secular Turkey during the 1920's, the country remains the nucleus of the old Ottoman empire; it has an Islamic foundation, and is thus very different from Europe, which is a collection of secular states with Christian foundations, although today these countries seem to deny this without justification. Thus the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical."

3. – Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s foreign minister, speaking to “Avvenire” on November 26, 2006, in an interview with Gianni Cardinale:

“It is not the case that the Holy See has expressed an ‘official’ position on the subject [of Turkey’s entrance into the European Union]. Obviously, it follows the question with great interest, and this again highlights the fact that the longstanding debate over Turkey’s admission into the Union and the positions for or against this show the great relevance of what is at stake. Of course, the Holy See maintains that, in the case of admission, the country must comply with all of the political criteria established by the Copenhagen Summit in 2002, and more specifically in terms of religious freedom, with the recommendations contained in the July 23, 2006 Council Decision on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the Accession Partnership with Turkey.”

4. – Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, after the November 28, 2006 meeting between Benedict XVI and Erdogan:

"The Holy See has neither the power nor the specific task of intervening on the precise point of Turkey's entry in the European Union. It is not its responsibility. However, it regards positively and encourages the path of dialogue and rapprochement to Europe in virtue of common values and principles. In this connection, the pope expressed his appreciation for the initiative of the Alliance of Civilizations promoted by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan."


"As a group of lemmings from the cliff..."
by Anton Smitsendonk


If Turks are in any way concerned about their image as a hospitable nation it might be good if they knew how at Esemboga International Airport of Ankara prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to trap the Holy Father as he entered upon his pilgrimage in Turkey, November 28, 2006.

But our strongest criticism does not go to Erdogan but to the many journalists of the free western press who traveled with the pope and showed so little professional perspicacity.

The renowned New York Times failed in this event. But also the well respected Figaro in France, and nearly all the big newspapers in my own country Holland.

All said more or less that the pope on the airport of Ankara gave up his resistance to Turkey in the European Union.

For instance, The New York Times / International Herald Tribune said in big letters on the front page:
"Pope Backs Turkey's Bid to Join the EU – Gesture seen as effort to temper anger of Muslims."

And explained:
"On his trip this week, the pope is being more diplomatic. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that Benedict had told him it was now the Vatican’s wish that Turkey join the European Union. A papal spokesman was less direct, saying the Vatican was encouraging Turkey’s ‘integration’ into Europe. We hope that the pope’s evolving stance – coupled with his calls for Christian-Muslim dialogue – will soothe popular anger in Turkey and across the Muslim world."

The New York Times again, in an article by Ian Fisher and Sabrina Tavernise:
"Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey on Tuesday armed with a surprise gesture of good will aimed at blunting Muslim anger toward him: he backed Turkey’s long-stalled desire to join the European Union, reversing a statement he made two years ago.

"Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters after a brief meeting with Benedict at the airport here that he had asked the pope to support Turkey in its attempt to become a member of the European Union. ‘He said, You know we don’t have a political role, but we wish for Turkey’s entry into the E.U.,’ Mr. Erdogan said the pope told him. ‘His wish is a positive recommendation for us.’

"Although the Vatican does not play a formal role in the European Union, or delve publicly into domestic matters of other states, the pope’s gesture was nonetheless a piece of political stagecraft at a delicate time both in relations between Muslims and the West and in Benedict’s own damaged reputation among Muslims.

"But the 79-year-old pope’s concession on Tuesday, at the start of a four-day trip here, seemed to make good on his pledge to heal the wounds between East and West. It may also have the practical effect of tamping down anger here."

Le Figaro:
"Accueilli par le premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, le Souverain Pontife lui a déclaré qu'il pourrait voir d'un bon oeil l'adhésion de son pays à l'Union européenne. Une véritable révolution pour un pape qui, avant son élection, s'était ouvertement opposé à cet élargissement, vu comme ‘une grande erreur’. Le pape théologien s'est fait diplomate.

‘Nous ne faisons pas de politique’, a cependant précisé le père Federico Lombardi, directeur du bureau de presse du Saint-Siège, ‘mais nous voyons favorablement le chemin de la Turquie vers l'Union européenne’.

Le Saint-Siège ‘n'a pas le pouvoir ni la compétence pour intervenir sur les points précis regardant l'entrée de la Turquie dans l'Union européenne’, a-t-il ajouté. ‘Cependant, il voit positivement et encourage le chemin de dialogue et d'insertion de la Turquie dans l'Europe sur la base des valeurs communes’".

The Economist, halfway prudent:
"Mr. Erdogan claimed afterwards that one of Europe's most prominent Turco-sceptics had been converted into a supporter of his country's European Union membership – at a time when that flagging cause needs all the help it can get.

"Whether Benedict really has overcome his personal doubts about Turkey's EU membership is open to question; but the new Vatican line is that, if Turkey meets the necessary conditions (including respect for Christian rights) to join the club, that can only be good."

The Observer:
"In an apparent reversal of his previous stance, Pope Benedict XVI has reportedly said he supports Turkey joining the EU. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Catholic Church leader told him during a 20-minute conversation at the outset of the pontiff's four-day trip to the mainly Muslim secular country "we are not political but we wish for Turkey to join the EU."

Het Financieele Dagblad, the main financial daily of the Netherlands:
"It is high time that partisans of Turkey’s adhesion to the European Union speak up, headed by enterprises members of VNO-NCW. One unexpected partisan from Christian side, Pope Benedict XVI gave a very good example, last Tuesday in Turkey."

The misunderstanding continued even at later dates. For instance, on Le Figaro, the well-regarded columnist Ivan Rioufol became their victim as he wrote on December 1st:
"Le diplomate Benoît XVI a contredit, mardi, ses propos passés de théologien, quand il assurait : ‘Ce serait une grande erreur d’englober la Turquie dans l'Europe’."

Andrew Purvis in Time magazine, December 11:
"Early last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reason to be optimistic. During a meeting in Ankara, Pope Benedict XVI said he was in favor of Turkey joining the European Union... This reversed an opinion he had delivered previously as a Cardinal, saying the move would be ‘a grave error against history’."

James Carrol in The International Herald Tribune, December 5th:
"The old structures must be dismantled. We see this very process unfolding in the person of Pope Benedict, who still insists on Europe’s Christian identity. But in Turkey he began to change, which shows the power of Europe’s new hope – the twain meeting at last."

Why were reporters so utterly misguided?

There have had timely and clear and yet polite disclaimers from both Father Federico Lombardi, the head of the Holy See press division, and archbishop Dominique Mamberti of the State Secretariat.

Do reporters not read between the lines? Do they not judge the circumstances, see through the show which had been put up, compare notes with each other and do some investigation? In this case they fell as a group of lemmings from the cliff which Erdogan had prepared for them.

Erdogan may not have acted entirely honorably in treating a guest in this cavalier way and then turning to the journalists misreporting his conversation. That is no great surprise.

It is the western correspondents who had the responsibility to see through such tricks and who dismally failed in such a surprising way.

Maybe they saw their error a few days later. But did any of the correspondents retract their statement when they saw the clear disclaimers which were rapidly given – even during the Turkish visit – by archbishop Mamberti and father Lombardi?

The statements of Lombardi were carefully packaged with a compliment to prime minister Erdogan praising him for his "Alliance of Civilizations", an initiative which he is undertaking with U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, and Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Vatican diplomacy did what it had to do in a most proper way. But the message was not understood by the reporters.

And did the chief editors of those newspapers later take any remedial action? They probably speculated that in our hasty world the error would be forgotten in 48 hours.

It will not be forgotten. The Turkish people may be concerned about how this accident is being seen in the world. Erdogan’s action has even further diminished the chances of Turkey accessing the European Union.

As to the quoted newspapers, they should not be surprised if in establishing truth they are losing ground in comparison with websites and electronic newsletters. The profession of newspaper reporters needs some rehabilitation.

Meanwhile the peoples of Europe may safely assume that their choices on any future relationship with Turkey (either accession, or rather as more and more people now think a "privileged partnership") is still wide open.

The pope has not spoken on this topic.

Although the Vatican site promptly published the text of the Pope's Angelus message delivered at noon today [full translation posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS), it has not yet come online (as of 9:40 EST) with the text of the homily he delivered at the morning Mass of the Epiphany. I think the delay must be because, as the AsiaNews story indicates, the Pope interpellated his written text with many spontaneous additions.


Pope urges need
for 'renewed humanism'
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
Associated Press Writer


VATICAN CITY, Jan. 6 - Religious leaders of all faiths must play a role in ensuring that the spiritual and cultural aspects of life are not forgotten as mankind tackles the challenges of globalization, Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday.

In his homily during Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the pope said recent decades have seen a "challenge to global civilization, where the center can no longer be Europe and not even that which we call the West or the North of the world."

"The need emerged to elaborate a new world political and economic order, but at the same time and above all, a spiritual and cultural one — that is, renewed humanism," he said.

"At the start of the Third Millennium we find ourselves smack in the middle of this phase of human history, that has been for some time dubbed 'globalization.'"

The pope said that while politicians, scientists and researchers play important roles in the modern world, "today, more than ever, it is necessary to place at their side the leaders of the great non-Christian religious traditions" as well as Christian leaders.

Benedict appeared to be building on a theme often stressed by his predecessor, John Paul II, who worried that modernization was coming at the cost of spirituality.

He made the remarks during the Epiphany Mass, which recalls the journey of the Magi, the three wise men guided by a star to pay homage to the baby Jesus.

A festive air reigned in St. Peter's Square. Italians celebrate the Epiphany as a day to bring gifts to children, and thousands of families streamed to the square to receive the pope's blessing at noon, when he appeared at his studio window.

A life-sized Nativity scene and a towering Christmas tree decorated the square. A parade of faithful from Italian towns, dressed in ancient costumes, including that of the Magi astride horses, arrived to the rousing beat of a marching band.

Benedict noted that Eastern Rite Catholics celebrate Christmas on Sunday and offered them "an affectionate wish" for peace and prosperity.


Here is the AsiaNews account of the homily:


Pope calls on 'today's Magi' -
politicians, scientists, religions -
"do not fear the light of Christ"

During Mass to mark the solemn feast of the Epiphany, Benedict XVI outlined the paths towards a new contemporary humanism. And he renewed the invitation of the Second Vatican Council to rulers, researchers and representatives of non-Christian religions to find in Jesus Christ the way of justice and peace for the peoples of the earth.




Vatican City, Jan. 6 (AsiaNews) – On the day when the Church celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles, represented by the Magi who came from the East, Benedict XVI launched a heartfelt appeal to “today’s Magi”: politicians, scientists and representatives of non-Christian religions, that they may discover that Christ is the fulfillment of their searching.

In the setting of St Peter’s Basilica, in a Eucharistic celebration, with Asian, African, Polynesian ministrants, the pontiff presented the message of the Epiphany once again, of a “God who revealed himself in history as the light of the world, to lead and finally to introduce mankind to the promised land, where freedom, justice and peace reign”.

To “today’s Magi” and “to all men of our time”, the pope repeated: “Do not be afraid of the light of Christ! His light is the splendour of truth. Let yourselves be illuminated by Him, all peoples of the earth, allow yourselves to be covered by his love and you will find the path of peace.”

The urgency expressed by the pope in this missionary appeal is partly due to the fact that “twenty centuries have passed since this mystery was revealed and realized in Christ, but still it has not reached fulfillment.”

He recalled “my beloved predecessor John Paul II”, who in “his Encyclical on the mission of the Church, wrote that ‘as the second millennium after Christ's coming draws to an end, an overall view of the human race shows that this mission is still only beginning’ (Redemptoris missio, 1)”.

But the urgency is also down to the tragic situation gripping the modern world, empty of peace, justice and love because it is without God. Benedict XVI recalled that the Second Vatican Council was an attempt to make current the “manifestation [Epiphany] of Christ”.

The pope said:
“In truth, all the Second Vatican Council was prompted by the yearning to announce Christ, light of the world, to mankind of today.

"In the heart of the Church, starting out from the top of its hierarchy, emerged the compelling desire, drawn forth by the Holy Spirit, for a new epiphany of Christ to the world, a world that the modern era had profoundly transformed and that for the first time in history had found itself facing the challenge of a global civilization, where the centre could no longer be Europe or even what we call the West and North of the world.

"The need emerged for a new world order in economic and political spheres but also and especially in cultural and spiritual spheres, that is, a renewed humanism.”

And to stress the difficulties prevalent today, he added spontaneously, “A new social, political and economic order does not work if there is no spiritual renewal, if we do not find God.”

The pope spoke about the situation of the modern world as an “epochal challenge”. He continued:
“At the start of the third millennium, we find ourselves in the midst of this phase of human history that has come to be defined round the word ‘globalization’.

"But then today we realize how easy it is to lose sight of the terms of this very challenge, precisely because we are taken up in it: this risk is greatly reinforced by the immense expansion of the mass media which on the one hand multiplies information but on the other seems to weaken our abilities for critical synthesis.

"Today’s celebration could offer us this perspective, starting from the manifestation of a God who revealed himself in history as the light of the world, to lead and finally to introduce mankind to the promised land where freedom, justice and peace will reign”.

"And once again he added spontaneously: “And we see that we cannot find justice and peace alone, if the face of God does not appear to us, this humble face of God that appears to us in the poverty of the manger.”

Benedict XVI thus made his own the appeal of the Second Vatican Council to those he described as “today’s Magi”: the “rulers” and “men of thought and science”, to which he added another category, “the spiritual guides of the great non-Christian religions”.

Benedict XVI continued:
“Two thousand years later, we can recognize in the Magi a sort of pre-figuration of these three dimensions that make up modern humanism: the political, scientific and religious dimensions.

"The Epiphany shows them in a state of ‘pilgrimage’, that is, in a movement of searching that definitively has its point of arrival in Christ.

"At the same time, it shows us God who in his turn is on a pilgrimage towards man: who is Jesus in fact, if not God who came out, so to speak, of himself to meet mankind? For love, He made himself history in our history; for love he came to bring us the seed of new life (cfr Jn 3:3-6) and to sow it in the furrows of our earth, until it should sprout, flower and bear fruit.”

Citing the message of the Second Vatican Council to rulers the pope said:
“’Your task is to be in the world the promoters of order and peace among men. But never forget this: It is God, the living and true God, who is the Father of men. And it is Christ, His eternal Son, who came to make this known to us and to teach us that we are all brothers. He it is who is the great artisan of order and peace on earth, for He it is who guides human history and who alone can incline hearts to renounce those evil passions which beget war and misfortune.’

"How could we not recognize in these words of the Council Fathers the luminous tracks of a journey that could transform the history of the Nations and the world?”

And again, citing the “Message to men of thought and science”, he said:
“Continue your search without tiring and without ever despairing of the truth. Recall the words of one of your great friends, St. Augustine: ‘Let us seek with the desire to find, and find with the desire to seek still more.’

"Happy are those who, while possessing the truth, search more earnestly for it in order to renew it, deepen it and transmit it to others. Happy also are those who, not having found it, are working toward it with a sincere heart. May they seek the light of tomorrow with the light of today until they reach the fullness of light.”

Again he said spontaneously:
“The great danger – for people of science – is that one despairs of truth and makes do with pragmatism.”

“Today more than ever, it is a must to flank the rulers of peoples, researchers and scientists with representatives of the big traditional non-Christian religions, inviting them to confront themselves with the light of Christ that came not to abolish but to bring to fulfillment what the hand of God has written in the religious history of civilization, especially in the ‘great souls’ that have contributed to building humanity with their wisdom and their examples of virtue. Christ is light and light cannot obscure but only illuminate, make clear and reveal.

"Thus no one should fear Christ and his message! And if throughout history Christians, being limited men and sinners, could at times have betrayed him with their conduct, this shows even more clearly how the light is Christ and that the Church reflects him only by remaining united with Him.”

At the end of his homily, Benedict XVI dwelt on some features of the Magi (of then and now), namely humility and passion to seek truth rather than wealth and power.

The pope said:
“They prostrated themselves before a simple baby in his mother’s arms not in the setting of a royal palace but instead in the poverty of a shed in Bethlehem (cfr Mt 2:11).

"How was it possible? What convinced the Magi that that boy was the ‘king of the Jews’? Certainly they were persuaded by the sign of the star, which they saw ‘rising’ and which stopped right on top of the place where the Boy was (cfr Mt 2:9).

"But even that star would not have been enough had the Magi not been people intimately open to the truth. As opposed to King Herod, who was taken up by his interests of power and wealth, the Magi were looking towards the end of their quest and when they found it, although they were cultured men, they behaved like the shepherds of Bethlehem: they recognized the sign and adored the Baby, offering him precious and symbolic gifts that they brought with them.”

The mystery of the Epiphany “contains a demanding and ever present message” for Christians too, who often whittle their faith and witness down to activism or sentimentalism.

The pope said: “The Church, reflected in Mary, is called to show Jesus to men, nothing else but Jesus. He is the All and the Church does not exist other than to remain united in Him and to make Him known to the world. May the Mother of the Word incarnate help us to be docile disciples of her Son, Light to the nations.”

P.S. For the record, the Vatican site still has not published the text of the Pope's homily - it's now almost 24 hours since that Mass, and there will be another Mass soon and another Angelus! It can't take all that time to check the prepared text against the homily as delivered - we're talking a few sentences added here andthere. Why is the Vatican Press Office so deficient in the most elementary things?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/01/2007 5.32]

Thanks to Beatrice who features on her papal site beatriceweb.eu this unusual papal retrospective of 2006 by Lahire at Le Salon Beige, a French site that features or points to worthwhile commentary about the Church and Catholic affairs. Here is a translation:


RETROSPECTIVE 2006 (3):
THE CLEAR EYES OF BENEDICT XVI


We have numerous pictures to illustrate the title literally, but I thought this picture taken by Benevolens at the Mariensauele in Munich during the Pope's Bavarian visit, captures the Benedictine 'gaze' very well - the clarity, the the joy and the 'looking beyond', not to
mention the blueness! .


It was with the encylical Deus caritas est, signed December 25, 2005, and which was a genuine success, that Benedict XVI opened 2006.

A veritable guide, one finds its markers laid down all through the Pontiff's year.

In effect, the Pope does not work for himself, but in the name of God and God's love. The Pope's humility lies in serving God: "It is me but no longer I - if we live in this manner, we can transform the world", he told his fellow priests on Holy Saturday, and his hope is not terrestrial: "Faith guarantees to us that the last word will be God's: only His", he said on Good Friday.

The Vicar of Christ would say of the Church of God that "the Church of love is also the Church of truth" (Aoril 5, 2006).

The truth for our time is what Benedict XVI has tirelessly repeated this year, invoking the virtues that are required of every Catholic: "Our identity demands strength, clarity and courage in the face of the contradictions of the world in which we live (Oct. 11, 2006).

Our identity, the Pope teaches us, is forged within our faith, which is founded on the Resurrection and nourished by prayer, by closeness to God, by silence, by listening, and by learning (formation).

With his eyes fixed on God, Benedict XVI has a genuine way of seeing things which gives him a clear vision of what he needs to teach, of the situation of the Church, of the needs of the faithful, and therefore, to speak opportunely as well as courageously and understandably.


1 The clarity of the Shepherd's doctrine
"Proclaiming the Gospel and testifying to it are the first services that Christians can give to everyone" (March 11, 2006).

The non-negotiable issues

Seeing the drift of modern society, the Holy Father expounded this year the three most endangered principles of the Church today which he described as 'non-negotiable': the protection of human life, the defense of the family, and the right of parents to educate their children in the Christian tradition.

For instance, in Valencia, he reaffirmed the truth and importance of the family founded on matrimony between a man and a woman, and called on government leaders to work for laws that would protect the family.

Thanking mothers who have the courage to transmit life, he has insisted over and over on respect for life from conception to its natural end - whether speaking to politicians or to the Catholic clergy themselves.

On other occasions, the Pope also reconfirmed the Church position on infectious diseases (including AIDS), stem-cell research, [as well as assisted reproduction and genetic manipulation].

The light of the Church

Benedict XVI has also brought the light of Church teachings on new concerns of modern society such as the environment and new sources of energy.

And when the occasion presented itself, he has responded to errors of interpretation regarding some actions of the Church - whether in reference to its 'repentance' for misdeeds committed in its name against other religions, or the so-called 'spirit of Assisi'.

Faith and reason

Everyone remembers the lecture in Regensburg - misreporting of which required first the intervention of the new Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, then of the Apostolic Nuncios to Muslim countries, and finally, the Pope himself, meeting with Muslim ambassadors to the Holy See - before the annotated version of the lecture was published.

One recalls both the firmness of not retracting what was said as well as the suffering that must have been the Holy Father's for having been misunderstood when all he wanted to do was "to explain that it is not religion and violence that go together, but religion and reason" (Sept. 20, 2006).

2 Clearness about the Church
"The priority in our societies is to give back the faith to adults" (July 2, 2006)

Towards the required unity around Christ

Despite past and present persecutions and the Church's internal difficulties [which he knows firsthand, having spent 25 years in the Roman Curia] - "the little vessel of the Church is ceaselessly buffeted by the winds of ideology" (Jun 29, 2006) - the Holy Father has been tireless in pursuing the unity of all Catholics and the reunification of Christians, which can only be achieved in the spirit of charity.

Redefining the sense of the word 'tradition' and dedicating the catecheses at his general audiences to the idea of the Church, he has sought to keep the new communities and movements on the right path, as much as he has tried to resolve the question of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X.

That is the context for the liberalization of Pius X's Mass, which has been rumored since last April, and which may be the subject of a motu proprio soon.

Regarding separated Christian brethren, two major acts marked 2006: the Common Declaration with the Anglican Church on respect for life, and the Common Declaration with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on the inalienable rights of the European peoples.

Reminding everyone of their obligations

Not ignoring the problems with priestly vocations, Benedict XVI has nevertheless not hesitated to re-focus priests on their mission, which is not activism.

At the same time, he has reminded lay Catholics of their own obligation to the faith by encouraging them to take part in public debate over social issues - all in the spirit of the second part of Deus caritas est. "Every faithful layman must personally live his mission of working for a just social order" (May 19, 2006).

3 Clearsightedness about the world
"To speak in obedience to the dictatorship of common opinion is a sort of prostitution of the word and of the spirit" (October 6, 2006)

The place of the Church in the world

Recalling the distinction between the Church and politics in the context of globalization, Benedict XVI nevertheless redefined the Church's real place in society, insisting on several occasions on her firm intention to have her voice heard in behalf of respect for the individual and man's fundamental dignity because "man is the Church's concern. she has the obligation to defend man, the creature in which the union of body and soul is the image of God" (Dec. 22, 2006).

Modern errors

Having become a priest in defiance of Nazism and having experienced the the effects of modern ideologies himself, Benedict XVI has identified and forcefully denounced the errors of our time: modern atheism, secularism, secularization, relativism, anti-morality. And at Auschwitz, he pointed out how the dark forces which prevailed in Nazi totalitarianism are at work in our world even today. He had said earlier that "a democracy without values fast becomes an open and rampant totalitarianism, as history has shown us" (January 27, 2006).

Facing current events

The Pope keeps an eye on what is happening in the world and has shown marked reactions to current events that are often tragic (like the subway accident in Valencia and various other accidents around the world). He follows the news with interest (the war in Lebanon, Gemayel's assassination) and his comments and reactions are promptly known.

And of course, Benedict XVI uses the language of Western culture when, for instance, he avails of St. Benedict's feast day to remind Europe once more of its Christian roots. [But he does this all the time, feast day or not!]

Finally, in this respect, he has set Papal precedent by answering newsmen in an unrehearsed television interview.

Relations with other religions

An important sign of how Benedict makes decisions is having placed the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog under the aegis of the Pontifical Council for Culture, underscoring the intimate links between religion and culture.

The Church's inter-religious acts in 2006 were marked by a redefinition in Turkey of the dialog between Christians and Muslims, and her insistence on the need for true religious freedom and for reciprocity in this respect.

To conclude, how can we not recall the touching simplicity which Benedict XVI constantly shows us - his closeness to his brother Georg, his little habits (but strongly ingrained) of daily life (prayer), the little unexpected visits he makes (the St. Bernard monastery in Switzerland, the Crucifix at Nemi) - so touching because so personal.

It's a simplicity that also applies to worldly matters, such as the Pope safeguarding his intellectual rights as an author and making known some donations he has made.

The year 2007 will see a book by the Pope on Jesus Christ. Shortly thereafter he will celebrate his 80th birthday. His mission is arduous, and the wolves are always lying in wait.

The Holy Land and Moscow are possible destinations. He will be going to Brazil and to Austria.

It is our duty to continue following his teaching and to respond faithfully to his appeal: "From each of you, I ask that you continue to support me by praying that God may make me the firm and generous Shepherd of His Church" (April 19, 2006).

Finally - around 7:30 EST Sunday - the Vatican site has published online the text of the Papal homily from the Mass of the Epiphany bt not yet the one from today's Mass of the Baptism of Our Lord, although it did post the Angelus text promptly! I have posted translations of the Angelus from today and the homily from yesterday in their respective threads.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/01/2007 15.18]

I posted this first in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH, but it belongs here as well -

Here is a translation of what the Vatican site has just published this 1/7/07:

COMMUNIQUE FROM THE
APOSTOLIC NUNCIATURE IN POLAND

Mons. Stanislaw Wielgus, Archbishop o Warsaw, on the day on which he was scheduled to enter his titular basilica to start his pastoral ministry of the Church of Warsaw, sent His Holiness Benedict XVI his resignation from the canonical office under the norm of Canon 401 Section 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

The Holy Father has accepted the resignation and named His Eminence Cardinal Josef Glemp, Primate of Poland, to be Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Warsaw until other provisions are made.

Warsaw, 7 January 2007
==============================================================

We will have to wait for news stories to find out exactly what 'resignation from the canonical office' means - does it refer only to being Archbishop of Warsaw?

Regardless, we must be grateful that Archbishop Wielgus finally did the right thing. Let us pray for him..

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/01/2007 15.44]

Perhaps it was to be expected. Most of the Italian newspapers today focused on one sentence in the Pope's homily at the Mass of the Epiphany yesterday: his remark on "the immense expansion of the mass media which, although they indefinitely multiply the amount of information available, also seem to weaken our ability to synthesize such information critically." He mentioned this as one of the dangers posed by today's globalized civilization.

This editorial commentary by Massimo Introvigne in Il Giornale is typical.


Globalized hoaxes
By Massimo Introvigne


Benedict XVI is the Pope who at Regensburg (but not only there) has underscored the essential role of reason and knowledge, inviting even other religions, beginning with Islam, to open up to the positive aspects of the Englithenment - a term which Papa Ratzinger does not limit solely to the French Enlightenment, which was secular and anti-clerical, but also includes its Anglo-Saxon version which has been more attentive to reconciling science and faith.

One could therefore expect Benedict XVI to make a positive claim for the role of modern communications media, in the face of which the Church has been quite diffident for some time, though it has tried to understand and evangelize the media, beginning with the Magisterium of Paul VI and flowering in particular with John Paul II. For instance, the Vatican today has a huge site on the Internet.

Therefore, the Pope's denunciation of the mass media in yesterday's homily may have been surprising. [Why would it be surprising? It was very logical!]

But the Pope is, of course, not against the dissemination of information and of knowledge. His statement joins two debates which have been going on for years.

On the one hand, the Church laments the scarce attention given by the media to - and often the distortion of - its interventions: this is a problem which the Congregation for the DoctriNE of the Faith, of which Ratzinger was the Prefect for a long time before becoming Pope, called attention to, time and again, up till recently.

In the Pope's speeches, most media usually look only for that which could 'make news', ignoring the architecture of which they form a part and which is so important to the theologian-Pope.

A textbook example is precisely the Regensburg lecture, which beginning with the first TV reports, was rapidly transformed into a speech 'on Islam' or 'against Islam' - although the part, doubtless important, that was dedicated to the inadequate confrontation of the problem of violence by Muslim theology, was only a tenth of the lecture.

The other nine-tenths, dedicated to an ambitious reconstruction of the historical stages leading to the current crisis of the West, were almost systematically ignored.

In the second place, the Pope's words yesterday echo a debate about the Internet opened years ago by its leading sociologist, Tim Jordan, for whom the Web represents not only a wealth of knowledge.

"It transmits so much information," he wrote in 1999, "that our capacity to absorb data deteriorates, so that what is important can no longer be distibnguished from the irrelevant."

To this phenomenon which Jordan called 'information overload,' the search engines - which are ever more powerful and more integrated into operating systems (such as Microsoft's new Vista) - try to offer some reparation. But this, according to Jordan, could lead to a 'spiral of technopower' because search engines can only ultimately augment the amount of information that they seek to control.

And so it happens that outright hoaxes - like that according to which 9/11 was the result of a conspriacy between the CIA and Israel's Mossad - reach an unthinkable number of people, thanks to the countless Internet sites that propagate it, and to the incapacity of many users to distinguish between serious sites and those maintained by paranoids.

This is a great problem for the 21st century, and the Pope has more than enough reason to be concerned.

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

Unfortunately, this will become increasingly a more serious problem if the traditional primary sources of learning, or more properly, what the Pope likes to refer to as agents of 'formation - namely, the family, first and foremost, then the Church and the schools - do not provide children with the proper preparation for and formation.

There are basic principles and values that every child must be taught - by example and explicitly - from the time he begins to understand anything. In terms of Christian faith, to love God and to love one's fellowman as oneself - because everything else follows from this, in terms of behavior and character. In secular terms, the proper employment of common sense, which is a term for reason that is common to all men, because this guides us in making right decisions.

The teaching task of the Church is analogous to that of the family, 'the little Church', but it is necessarily wider, because it explains the doctrines of the faith in full, and more comprehensively. At least, that is how it should be, and the Pope sets the exmaple for the kind of teaching that the Church should have - essential, simple, understandable.

School learning is even more problematic, because it depends on the society and system in which it is dispensed, and therefore, on the prevailing culture in that society. Globalization has made the prevailing culture virtually homogeneous in Western societies and is definitely influencing non-Western societies where local cultures are still largely determined by hystory and/or religion.

School learning also very much depends on the quality of the educators themselves. Garbage in, garbage out, cannot be more true nor more critical in this respect.

And finally, the 'knowledge' gained at random from the world at large - today this means the Internet and the traditional mass media. 'Random' is a key word here: information and knowledge gained from these sources are not 'systematized'; they do not come with guidance or with caveats.

Unless the user has been adequately prepared by his formation in the family, by his church, and in school - or has innately well-functioning common sense, or better still, intelligence - then he will be unable to discriminate the wheat from the chaff, and will tend to confound 'information overload' - knowing a lot and too much about disparate things - with 'being knowledgeable' abouth the things that matter.

The most obvious example of unthinking access to information - just because it's out there - is when someone wastes his time and effort looking at sites that he knows are not going to be of any use to him because they are openly hostile to his point of view or his belief system.

It is one thing to seek contrary opinion to an argument one wishes to pursue in depth - but from serious sites, or from people who are known to have a certain expertise or authority on that particular argument. It is quite another - and pointless - exercise to look up contrary sites 'just because'.

Apropos, I will never understand why any admirer of the Pope would troll anti-Papist, anti-clerical, anti-Christian and/or atheist/pagan sites for any reason at all!

If there is one thing the contemporary world forces us to do, it is to observe an economy of time and effort. There are just too many things to do and learn that one must prioritize and limits one's efforts to those which mean the most - living an actual life, to begin with, instead of a virtual life. And making the best use of the limited time and energy one has at one's disposal.

Establishing and observing such a personal economy of time and effort allows us to concentrate on what is important. This goes for the things we must do as well as the things we need to know.

If we avoid burdening ourselves with completely unnecessary and useless information overload, then we are better able to make that 'critical synthesis' referred to by the Pope of the information we do have, and therefore, make better use of it.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/01/2007 9.09]

Again, the AsiaNews reference here to several additions the Pope made to his prepared homily explains why the text is not yet available on the Vatican site.

P.S. on 1/8/07 - The text came online today. I have posted a translation in THE HOMLIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES THREAD.


Pope: Baptism is not magic
but a gift of God
in the family of the Church

In the setting of the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI baptized 13 children. He emphasized that one cannot believe in God the Father without living within the Church and he asked parents to be the first witnesses of faith, urging families to gather every day for times of prayer.





Vatican City, Jan. 7 (AsiaNews) – The pope today baptized 13 children, six girls and seven boys, in the splendid setting of the Sistine Chapel. It was John Paul II who started this tradition of baptizing children in the Vatican on the day the Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus.

At least this once a year, the solemn renaissance chapel dominated by paintings of Michelangelo, where pontiffs are elected, becomes a small familiar parish, full of the cries of newborns and parents trying to soothe them.

During today’s mass, Benedict XVI found himself “battling” with the “counter-chorus” of the crying of some of the newborns.

Among those baptized was the fourth son of the commander of the pontifical Swiss Guards, Theodor Maedor. (Left picture, below) The little Damian Elmar Maeder was born on 11 September. Moved, his father read one of the prayers of the faithful.




In his homily dotted with spontaneous additions, the pope underlined the value of life and of the family. “Each child who is born brings us the smile of God and invites us to recognize that life is his gift, a gift to be welcomed with love and to be safeguarded always, at every moment.”

He also said: “Each child that is born is entrusted by God to his parents. How important then is the family founded on matrimony, a cradle of life and love.”

And taking his cue from the Holy Family of Nazareth, the pope said: “I pray to the Lord that even your families may be welcoming places where these children can grow not only in good health but in faith and love for God who today has made them his children through Baptism.”

Benedict XVI then explained the meaning of the sacrament of baptism as an “opening of the heavens on our life”, a deep relationship with Jesus Christ and with the Father.

The pope turned to the reading of the gospel of Luke that tells how Jesus paused in prayer after his baptism and he said: “Jesus in prayer with the Father talked of us and for us, he also talked about me, about each of us and for each of us.”

Explaining the meaning of the sign of water, the pope said this “is the element of fecundity: without water there is no life. In all religions, water is a sign of maternity. And for the Fathers of the Church, water became a symbol of the maternal womb of the Church.”

In baptism, we are united “to the heavenly Father” in “God’s family” and this link with Him is expressed in the relationship with the Mother-Church: “In Baptism, we are adopted by the heavenly Father but in this family there is also a mother, the Mother Church. The Fathers say one cannot have God as a father unless one also has the Church as a mother.”

The “physical”, “material” relationship with the church is underlined by the pope because “Christianity is not only a spiritual, individual, subjective thing” but it is also “a real, concrete, material thing: the family of God is concrete and real in the family of the Church... Only by inserting ourselves in this ‘we’ as children, brothers and sisters, can we say ‘Our Father’ to our heavenly Father.”

Speaking about the “fire” mentioned by the baptism liturgy, the pontiff made a distinction between the baptism of John (“a human desire of purification” based on one’s own strength) and Christian baptism, in which “God himself acts, Jesus, the fire of the Spirit” replaces us and takes our children”.

The pope specified: “But God does not act in some magical way. He acts only with our freedom. God calls for cooperation with the fire of the Holy Spirit... for the opening of our freedom to say yes to this divine action.”

Since children are still “incapable of collaborating” and thus parents are important, godfathers and godmothers: they can offer children “teaching and coherent examples of Christian life” that they may become “active members of the ecclesial community”.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/01/2007 9.00]

VATICAN CITY, Jan. 8 (Reuters) - The Vatican did not know the former Warsaw archbishop had spied for Poland's former communist regime when Pope Benedict nominated him last month, a senior cardinal was quoted as saying on Monday.

Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus resigned on Sunday after admitting to collaborating with Poland's communist secret police - conduct that the Vatican's top spokesman acknowledged on Sunday had "gravely compromised his authority."

Benedict had defended Wielgus in the face of a rising tide of allegations, and the Vatican sent out a statement last month saying it had taken his past into account when it elevated the former bishop of Plock to the prestigious post.

But Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the Congregation for Bishops, the powerful department which decides the future careers of aspiring churchmen, said that the Vatican did not know the truth about Wielgus.

"When Monsignor Wielgus was nominated, we did not know anything about his collaboration with the secret services," Battista Re was quoted as saying in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, without naming sources, said the Pope only received an 80-page fax about Wielgus' spying on Saturday evening. The fax was sent by the Polish government and translated into Benedict's native language, German.

The scandal has been a major embarrassment for the Pontiff, who last year visited Poland, paying tribute to his Polish-born predecessor John Paul II - widely credited with helping hasten the fall of the communist regime there.

The Vatican on Sunday accused the Polish Church's opponents of vindictively dragging up Wielgus's past. Spokesman Federico Lombardi blamed a "strange alliance between the persecutors of the past and their adversaries" for a "wave of attacks."

The Pope has not yet personally commented on the scandal. He is scheduled later on Monday to deliver his "state of the world" address -- a traditional New Year speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican from more than 170 countries.

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The Vatican Press Office has now posted the text of the Pope's address to the Diplomatic Corps at the traditional exchange of New Year's greetings held today. I have posted the official translation of the French text in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/01/2007 15.21]