All day, I was hoping for the wire services to file their stories on the Pope's always newsmaking New Year state-of-the-world assessment in front of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican. But, none so far! Here is AsiaNews's story.

In case, you are just checking into the Forum for the first time today, the full text was posted in the THREAD HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES, this morning. The Vatican Press Officee was fairly prompt in releasing the text (delivered in French) along with the official translations into the other official languages of the Holy See.

Only by respecting the human person
can peace be promoted, says Pope

To mark the beginning of 2007, the Pope addresses diplomatic envoys, highlighting the world’s dark and bright spots like the lack of religious freedom in Asia, conflicts in Africa, tensions in the Middle East, hunger, attacks against life and the family and disarmament negotiations at a standstill. However, he also stresses the growing awareness of the need for dialogue.




Vatican City, Jan. 8 (AsiaNews) – For Pope Benedict XVI, the beginning of 2007 is still marked by many dark spots in the world — the lack of religious freedom in Asia, conflicts in Africa, tensions in the Mideast, hunger in many countries around the world, growing attacks against life and the family, disarmament negotiations at a standstill — but there are some bright ones as well, first of all, a greater awareness that a dialogue between cultures and religions is a “vital necessity” even though more is needed because only “respecting the human person” can “peace [. . .] be promoted”.

In his address to the envoys of the 175 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Vatican, to the representatives of the European Communities and the Sovereign Order of Malta, as well those representing two special missions, that of the Russian Federation and that of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Pope presented the world as seen from the perspective of the Holy See.

In turning his “attention to the international situation, so as to focus upon the challenges that we are called to address together” and singling out specific situations in 28 countries,

Benedict XVI identified among the “key issues” the “worsening scandal of hunger,” a problem that is “unacceptable in a world which has the resources, the knowledge, and the means available to bring it to an end”.

It is something that “impels us to change our way of life, [and] reminds us of the urgent need to eliminate the structural causes of global economic dysfunction and to correct models of growth that seem incapable of guaranteeing respect for the environment and for integral human development, both now and in the future.”.

The Pontiff urged each and everyone, but especially to the wealthiest nations, “to take the necessary steps to ensure that poor countries, which often have a wealth of natural resources, are able to benefit from the fruits of goods that are rightfully theirs.”

For this reason he expressed hope that trade negotiations in the Doha Development Round under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation will be resumed, and that “the process of debt cancellation and reduction for the poorest countries will be continued and accelerated,” insisting at “the same time” that “these processes must not be made conditional upon structural adjustments that are detrimental to the most vulnerable populations.”

By the same token, he said “the commitment of developed countries to devote 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product to international aid” must be maintained.

For him, “the continuous attacks on life, from conception to natural death” are part of this wider problem, pointing out that such “attacks do not even spare regions with a traditional culture of respecting life, such as Africa, where there is an attempt to trivialise abortion surreptitiously”.

Similarly, “there are mounting threats to the natural composition of the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, and attempts to relativise it by giving it the same status as other radically different forms of union. All this offends and helps to destabilize the family by concealing its specific nature and its unique social role."

"Other forms of attack on life are sometimes committed in the name of scientific research. There is a growing conviction that research is subject only to the laws that it chooses for itself and that it is limited only by its own possibilities. This is the case, for example, in attempts to legitimise human cloning for supposedly therapeutic ends.”

Referring, again in general terms, to the crisis in disarmament negotiations in both the conventional and weapons of mass destruction areas, the Pope stressed the fact that “security issues — aggravated by terrorism, which is to be utterly condemned — must be approached from a global and far-sighted perspective.”

In this context, Benedict XVI pointed to Iran and North Korea, calling on Tehran “to give a satisfactory response to the legitimate concerns of the international community,” whilst warning of the “[d]angerous sources of tension [. . .] lurking in the Korean Peninsula” and reiterating the “goal of reconciling the Korean people and maintaining the peninsula as a nuclear-free zone—which will bring benefits to the entire region—[. . .] within the context of negotiations.”

The Pope insisted also on the Holy See’s view that humanitarian aid to Pyongyang should continue to flow.

Again talking about Asia, he expressed hope that the growing role played by China and India on the international scene “will bring with it benefits for their own populations and for other nations”, adding that the Christian communities in that continent are “small but lively [. . .] with a legitimate desire to be able to live and act in a climate of religious liberty.”

He noted that this “is not only a primordial right but it is a condition that will enable them to contribute to the material and spiritual progress of society, and to be sources of cohesion and harmony.”
Turning to single Asian countries, beside what he said about Korea, the Pope said that in “East Timor, the Catholic Church intends to continue making her contribution, notably in the fields of education, healthcare and national reconciliation. The political crisis experienced by this young state, and by other countries in the region, highlights a certain fragility in the processes of democratisation.”

The Pope expressed concern over Afghanistan, where “in recent months, we can only deplore the notable increase in violence and terrorist attacks. This has rendered the way out of the crisis more difficult, and it weighs heavily on the local population. In Sri Lanka, the failure of the Geneva negotiations between the government and the Tamil movement has brought with it an intensification of the conflict, causing great suffering among the civilian population. Only the path of dialogue can ensure a better and safer future for all.”

“The Middle East,” he noted, “is also a source of great anxiety. For this reason I decided to write a Christmas letter to the Catholics of the region, expressing my solidarity and spiritual closeness to them all, and encouraging them to remain in the region, as I am sure that their witness will be of assistance and support for a future of peace and fraternity. I renew my urgent appeal to all parties involved in the complex political chessboard of the region, hoping for a consolidation of the positive signs noted in recent weeks between Israelis and Palestinians."

"The Holy See will never tire of reiterating that armed solutions achieve nothing, as we saw in Lebanon last summer. In fact, the future of that country depends upon the unity of all its components, and upon fraternal relations between its different religious and social groupings. This would constitute a message of hope for all.

"It is no longer possible to be satisfied with partial or unilateral solutions. In order to put an end to the crisis and to the sufferings it causes among the population, a global approach is needed, which excludes no one from the search for a negotiated settlement, taking into account the legitimate interests and aspirations of the different peoples involved.

"In particular, the Lebanese have a right to see the integrity and sovereignty of their country respected; the Israelis have a right to live in peace in their state; the Palestinians have a right to a free and sovereign homeland. When each of the peoples in the region sees that its expectations are taken into consideration and thus feels less threatened, then mutual trust will be strengthened.”

If relations between Iran and the international community improve, mutual trust will help “stabilise the whole region, especially Iraq, putting an end to the appalling violence which disfigures that country with bloodshed, and offering an opportunity to work for reconstruction and reconciliation between all its inhabitants.”

As for the rest of the world, Benedict XVI expressed sorrow for the conflicts that continue to afflict Africa, from the Darfur to Somalia — which he mentioned in remembering Sister Leonella Sgorbati, “who gave her life in the service of the least fortunate, and prayed that her murderers be forgiven” — and Uganda, a “cruel conflict which has even seen numerous children enlisted and forced to become soldiers.”

In latin America, the improvement in certain economic indicators, the commitment to combat drug-trafficking and corruption, and recent elections and are “all signs to be viewed with satisfaction”.

Yet, “the practice of democracy must not be allowed to turn into the dictatorship of relativism, by proposing anthropological models incompatible with the nature and dignity of the human person.”

For Latin America, the Pope devoted a special thought to kidnap victims in Colombia and to Cuba. “In voicing the hope that all of its inhabitants may realize their legitimate aspirations, amid concern for the common good, I should like to renew the appeal made by my venerable Predecessor: ‘Let Cuba open itself to the world, and let the world open itself to Cuba.’ Mutual openness to other countries can only bring benefits to all concerned.”

Finally, for Europe, the Pope said that “some reflection on the Constitutional Treaty would seem appropriate.”

“I hope that the fundamental values that are at the basis of human dignity will be fully protected, particularly religious freedom in all its dimensions and the institutional rights of Churches. Likewise, one cannot ignore the undeniable Christian heritage of the continent, which has greatly contributed to the formation of European nations and European peoples.”

By way of conclusion, the Holy Father noted that “situations I have mentioned constitute a challenge that touches us all — a challenge to promote and consolidate all the positive elements in the world, and to overcome, with good will, wisdom and tenacity, all that causes injury, degradation and death. It is by respecting the human person that peace can be promoted, and it is by building peace that the foundations of an authentic integral humanism are laid. This is where I find the answer to the concern for the future voiced by so many of our contemporaries. Yes, the future can be serene if we work together for humanity.”


The Italian news agency APCOM reported in a sidebar that -

At the end of the Pope's address, there was lengthy applause by the ambassadors present who all rose to theri feet to give teh Pope a standing ovation.

Afterwards, each envoy went forward to greet Benedict XVI individually, along with his Secretary of State, cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/01/2007 4.53]

For some reason, I think we missed this item when it came out on 12/11/06, but since - despite its reference to the Turkey visit - it is not really 'topical', I am posting it almost one month late, for the record.

It has its merits, and I have commented where I dispute the statements. For instance, right off the bat - to start by rather far-fetched, if factual, 'similarities ' about trips made in the first two years of teh papacy is deplorable, since it implies that Benedict was seeking to take a page out of his predecessor's travel book.

Different popes
reflect different periods
By Eric J. Lyman
Special for USA TODAY


VATICAN CITY — Like John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI made a visit to Turkey the main foreign policy initiative of his second year as leader of the world's Catholics. And like John Paul did, Benedict is making Brazil a priority. He plans a visit to the largest Catholic nation in May.


Beyond such similarities, the pontiffs' leadership styles diverge. John Paul preferred grand overtures and worked the crowds using his personal appeal, while Benedict wields his intellect.

These differences may have more to do with the changing times than the individuals, says Gilberto Mazzoleni, an author and religious history professor at Rome's Sapienza University.

"I think we are seeing more than a difference between two men," he says. "We are seeing a difference between two eras."

Even the crowds that gather to see the pope are different. Many of the pilgrims who gather in St. Peter's Square expressed affection for John Paul and respect for the intellect of his successor.

"People here loved and adored John Paul, but they have a profound respect for Benedict," said Alfred Marshall, 38, a teacher from Philadelphia who has been living in Rome for three years. [And since when have love and respect been mutually exclusive? Was not John Paul II respected as much as he was loved? Why can't most commentators cited in the media grant that Benedict can be, and is, is loved as well and as much as he is respected?]

"I think the faithful came to listen to Pope John Paul," said Lorenzo Cagliari, 50, a deacon in Ostia, a seaside town 20 miles from Rome. "And they come to learn from Pope Benedict."

Though some of the differences are tied to the times, Benedict also may be approaching his papacy with a greater sense of urgency. He took over the Holy See as a somewhat frail man of 78. John Paul was 58 when he was elected pope.

"Benedict has a sense that there is a need for realpolitik at the Vatican," says Sandro Magister, a veteran Vatican observer with the Italian newsweekly L'Espresso. "In the context of the world today, the church feels it is called upon to act."

There is little difference between Benedict and John Paul when it comes to church doctrine. For example, there is no space between them on the need to maintain a celibate clergy, though they handled the issue differently.

Renegade Archbishop Emanuel Milingo of Zambia tested both on that issue. In 2001, Milingo married a Korean woman in a group ceremony of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. He also threatened to set up a rival branch of the Catholic Church that would let priests marry. John Paul's response was typical of his style: Milingo was called to the Vatican and forgiven.

Milingo bucked the Vatican again in September, when he ordained four married American men as bishops — an act that meant automatic excommunication. In keeping with his more academic, policy-oriented approach, Benedict called a summit of 20 church leaders to reiterate the church stance on celibacy.

"Benedict focused on the issue, the problem and not the specific situation," Magister says.

During his trip to Turkey in 1979, John Paul called on Christians and Muslims to "seek ties of friendship with other believers who invoke the name of a single God." Benedict's recent four-day visit to Turkey had a similar theme.

John Paul underlined his point with a typically grand gesture: He kissed the Quran. During his visit, Benedict stuck to a program that included discussions with political and religious leaders, including Ali Bardakoglu, the country's director of religious affairs and one of the pope's biggest critics after Benedict's comments in September suggested a link between Islam and violence. [Quite egregious not to even mention the prayer at the Blue Mosque which as gestures go, couldn't be more significant, even if not theatrical!]

Although Benedict, like John Paul, visited sites holy to Muslims and Christians, his trip became one of reconciliation and discussion among faiths rather than one of symbolism.

Benedict's more academic style was evident in September, when he stirred controversy by quoting a Byzantine emperor who called the prophet Mohammed's teachings "evil and inhuman." The Vatican said the speech was intended as a lecture on violence driven by religion.

Benedict sought to assuage the anger that swept across the Muslim world, saying the quote did not reflect his opinion, but he did not apologize. He said his speech was meant to start a dialogue to heal the growing breach between Christianity and Islam. His papacy is likely to continue to deal with that rift and other such divisions in global society.

"All through the Christian world, we see that politics is becoming more secular," Mazzoleni says. "And so it stands to reason that the church could seek to compensate by becoming more political."

Over the first 19 months of Benedict's papacy, the Vatican has waded into debates on issues such as women wearing the veil in Christian society (Benedict says they should follow local, secular laws).

The Holy See has criticized the Chinese ordination of Catholic bishops not approved by the Vatican, sexual abuse in the church and human trafficking. It also has called for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Benedict "was selected in part because he is the right man for these times," professor Mazzoleni says. "For what it is worth, I think future popes will be more like Pope Benedict than like Pope John Paul.

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Pope says Christians should embrace persecution as source of blessing

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Christian community and its members always will face persecution and suffering, but they should embrace it as a source of blessing, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Speaking at his Jan. 10 general audience about the ministry and death of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, the pope said the persecution of the early Christian community is what pushed the disciples to leave Jerusalem and bring the Gospel to the world.

"Even in our lives the cross, which is never lacking, becomes a blessing," the pope said.

And by accepting suffering in the knowledge that it will lead to growth and blessings, "we learn the joy of Christianity even in moments of difficulty," Pope Benedict said.

St. Stephen, he said, "teaches us to love the cross because the cross is the path Christ always uses to arrive in our midst."

The pope also spoke about the ministry of St. Stephen, who was elected by the Christian community and confirmed by the apostles as one of "seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom," charged with distributing charity.

The fact that St. Stephen and the other six also preached the Gospel, he said, is a reminder that "charity and proclamation always go together."

The pope touched briefly on the fact that before having them begin their ministry, the apostles laid hands on the seven, which is why many Christians see them as the church's first deacons.

Pope Benedict did not refer directly to theological discussion over the possibility of ordaining women deacons based on New Testament texts describing community leaders laying their hands on the heads of women chosen to carry out specific tasks on behalf of the community.

However, he said, the gesture of laying hands on someone's head "can have different meanings. In the Old Testament the gesture mostly has the significance of transmitting an important charge."

Sts. Paul and Barnabas were anointed that way before being sent off to evangelize the gentiles, as was St. Timothy, he said.

Pope Benedict said that St. Paul's descriptions of the power of the laying on of hands and the need for discernment prior to anointing someone in that way demonstrate an evolution in the meaning of the gesture, which later developed "in the line of a sacramental sign."

At the end of the audience, Pope Benedict greeted 30 members of an international soccer team made up of priests. The priests gave him a yellow jersey with his name in Italian, "Benedetto," and his number in Roman numerals, "XVI."

Here are a couple of pictures from the audience today. For those who may be interested, this morning, I posted a translation
of the full text of the Pope's catechesis in the thread AUDIENCE & ANGELUS TEXTS.

Brazil Bound

Latin American Trip Highlights Benedict’s 2007 Agenda

BY EDWARD PENTIN
National Catholic Register
January 14-20, 2007 Issue
Posted 1/10/07 at 8:00 AM

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI provided a number of surprises last year. And with a number of significant events scheduled for 2007 — and with the Holy Father’s capacity for spontaneity — more surprises may be in store this year.

Of the events planned, the Pope’s visit to Brazil is among the most anticipated. The main purpose of the visit is to open the fifth general conference of the Latin American bishops’ conference (CELAM) at the Marian shrine in Aparecida.

By coming to Brazil, the Holy Father will be visiting the country with the largest Catholic population in the world, but also a nation that is experiencing growing secularization. And like other Latin American countries, the number of Catholics has also been diminishing because of conversions to the evangelical and Pentecostal sects of Protestantism.

Brazil was also the focus for the liberation theology movement in the 1970s, a doctrinal error that Benedict rejected in the 1980s in his capacity as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Some analysts predict this year’s visit will give him an opportunity to provide a more authentic understanding of the Church’s preferential option for the poor, just as his recent visit to Turkey highlighted the Church’s desire for an intercultural dialogue with Muslims based on truth and charity.

Another widely anticipated event is a motu proprio document through which the Pope would allow broader use of the Tridentine Mass.

Vatican sources say the motu proprio’s text, which is currently being examined and is likely to be issued in early 2007, is not expected to give blanket approval for celebration of the Mass of St. Pius V, as that could create confusion and friction.

Instead, the Holy Father may relax some restrictions requiring local bishops to give explicit permission for a priest to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.

“Circles who insist on celebrating the Tridentine Rite often say that it is the only valid rite and that the new rite [promulgated in 1969] is heretical, and that’s the problem,” said Abbot Notker Wolf, Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Order.

The publication of a post-synodal document on the Eucharist is also expected early this year.

Another possible document might address the hot-button question of condom use as a means of HIV/AIDS prevention. Speaking to the Register Dec. 20, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Health Care, said a draft document on the matter, which was initially assembled by his council, is now being examined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Lozano could not say when a final document was likely to be published. But Vatican sources confirm that it is a priority of the Pope to correct false media claims that the Church is about to change its position regarding the immorality of using condoms as a means of contraception.

“Benedict XVI is very disturbed when he hears intellectually untenable positions,” said one official. “The teaching simply cannot change.”

Benedict’s Book

In March, the Pope’s new book Jesus of Nazareth: From His Baptism to His Transfiguration will be published. According to papal spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the book, which the Holy Father began writing in 2003, is “not a long encyclical on Jesus, but a personal presentation of the figure of Jesus by the theologian Joseph Ratzinger.”

Meanwhile, other papal pilgrimages are planned. In September, Benedict will travel to Austria to mark the 850th anniversary of the Mariazell, a Marian shrine on the Danube. The trip will also include a visit to Vienna.

The Pope has also been invited to Berlin March 25 for a special session of the European Council to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which marked the beginnings of the European Union. Although that trip has not yet been confirmed, it would afford a chance for the Holy Father to underline the importance of the Christian roots of Europe.

Closer to home in Italy, Benedict will travel to Assisi June 17, and possibly to Ravenna this fall to open the joint Catholic-Orthodox theological commission with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Such a meeting, and a planned Vatican symposium on Catholic-Muslim relations, would add substance to ongoing dialogue in both areas.

“After years of signs of courtesy,” said Abbot Wolf, “it’s high time to get down to work.”

Vatican confirms meeting soon
between pope, Vietnamese PM

VATICAN CITY, Jan. 10 (AFP) - The Vatican confirmed that a historic meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was under consideration.

"Indeed we are discussing this meeting," which may take place late this month, a Vatican source told the I-Media news agency, noting "goodwill" on both sides.

It would be the first meeting between a pope and a prime minister of the communist country, despite the absence of diplomatic ties between Hanoi and the Holy See.

Church officials in Hanoi told AFP earlier Wednesday that such a meeting was possible during an upcoming trip by Nguyen to Italy.

Several sources in Hanoi said Nguyen planned to visit Paris and Rome en route to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, starting January 24, but may have to cut the trip short for a meeting of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Committee.

The communist government has always been alarmed at the potential of religious groups - both Christian and Buddhist - to undermine its hold on power, but conditions have improved considerably for Catholics in recent years.

About six million of Vietnam's 84 million people are Catholics - the second largest group of followers in Southeast Asia after the Philippines.

Several foreign observers have noted a thaw in relations in recent months, saying normalization of Vietnam-Vatican ties is only a matter of time.

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Vatican City, Jan. 11 (AsiaNews) – On January 25 the head of a Vietnamese government will be in the Vatican for the first time. Prime Minister Nguy?n T?n Dung’s visit, which official sources have not yet announced, represents a further sign that relations between the Vatican and Hanoi are improving and might be the prelude to full normalisation.

Before Nguy?n T?n Dung, a delegation of Vietnamese government officials visited the Vatican on July 2, 2005, and held talks with their Vatican counterparts. At the time, the parties expressed “hope for a quick move towards normalization” of relations.

On November 22, 2002, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan crossed the threshold into the Apostolic Palaces to meet then Secretary of State Card Angelo Sodano, and John Paul II’s foreign minister, Mgr Jean-Louis Tauran.

Visits by delegations from the Holy See to Vietnam have been more numerous, 14 altogether, at almost regular intervals, the latest occurring in November 2005 led by the prefect of the Congregation for the evangelization of peoples, Card Crescenzio Sepe, who met Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan.

Cardinal Sepe’s trip came in the wake of the Vietnamese government’s decision to accept the creation of the new diocese of Ba Ria. During that same trip, the prelate was able to ordain 57 new priests in Hanoi.

Upon his return from a mission to Vietnam in May 2004, Mgr Pietro Parolin, undersecretary of the Section for Relations with States at the Vatican Secretariat of State, said “how on more than one occasion the Vietnamese side stressed its intention to put the past behind and look forward to the future with confidence”.

In terms of the Vatican-Vietnam relationship, “the deeply felt condolences to the Vatican, the world’s Catholic community and Vietnam’s Catholic faithful” which the government of Vietnam expressed in a note sent by then Prime Minister Pham Van Khai to the secretary of state, Angelo Cardinal Sodano, upon the death of John Paul I was a significant step.

On that occasion, the authorities allowed Hanoi Cathedral to set up a maxi screen to give people an opportunity follow the Pope’s funeral ceremony.

The Vietnamese government’s current attitude towards the Catholic Church is closely linked to its belief that the Church can play an important role in helping the poor and the disabled and in running kindergarten and health facilities, which are all theoretical still government prerogatives.

Similarly, the role the Church can play in revitalising the country’s soul at a time of problems related to the rush for riches and corruption is valued positively.

Last but not least, Vietnam’s successful bid to join the World Trade Organisation was partly dependent on its ability to improve the country’s human rights situation, including its ability to guarantee freedom of religion. (FP)

Lede us not into confusion

By George Weigel
The Tidings Online
Friday, January 12, 2007

Journalists often use the spelling "lede" to distinguish the first sentence of a story from other connotations of "lead." The 2006 Lede Us Not Into Confusion Prize goes to Malcolm Moore of London's Daily Telegraph who, in a November 22 dispatch from Rome, managed to pack an awful lot of confusion into a single sentence:

"The pope has shocked theologians and opened a chink in the theory of papal infallibility by saying that people should feel free to disagree with what he has written in his latest book, a meditation on Jesus Christ."

Really? The pope said that?

Of course he did, and you'll only be surprised if you're as clueless as Mr. Moore seems to be about the Catholic Church's understanding of the infallibility exercised under certain circumstances by the Bishop of Rome.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses infallibility after reminding us of a theological first principle: the Church's teaching authority is an expression of the fact that God, having gathered a people to himself in Christ, wishes to preserve that people in the truth. The Church's teaching authority exists, not for its own sake and not by its own devices, but to guarantee that each generation has the possibility of professing the truth of Catholic faith without error.

The doctrine of infallibility has somehow come to mean, to some, that everything not infallibly defined is up-for-grabs in the Church, which is clearly not the case --- and certainly not what Vatican I intended.

Why is that important? Because if, as the Lord taught, the truth is what makes us free [John 8.32], then the Church's teaching authority is the guarantor of authentic Christian and human liberation.

This service of witness-to-the-truth is exercised by the Church's pastoral authorities in matters of faith and morals, and in several ways, of which an infallible declaration is but one. Here is the Catechism, quoting the Second Vatican Council, on the "reach" of infallibility:

"'The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful ... he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith and morals.... The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council" [Catechism 891].

So Mr. Moore and the nervous "theologians" he cites can relax. What Pope Benedict himself terms "the expression of my personal research" doesn't come within a country mile of being a "definitive act" proclaiming "a doctrine pertaining to faith and morals." Benedict XVI's forthcoming book is his book, period; it doesn't engage his supreme teaching authority as universal pastor of the Church.

What this tempest in a British teapot does suggest is that Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility, which was intended to settle the question of the pope's authority in (and for) an age of radical skepticism, has had almost precisely the opposite effect.

The Church believes that it is preserved in the truth by the Holy Spirit, and that this abiding-in-truth is, under very rare and clearly defined circumstances, manifest in an exercise of the charism of infallibility by a pope or an ecumenical council. Yet the doctrine of infallibility has somehow come to mean, to some, that everything not infallibly defined is up-for-grabs in the Church, which is clearly not the case --- and certainly not what Vatican I intended.

The doctrine of infallibility has also been misconstrued as a claim to omniscience in all matters, which it also clearly is not. Misunderstandings about infallibility intersect as well with confusions about the nature of Catholic doctrine --- thus another recent British headline announced that the Church would soon change its "position" on condom use as a means of AIDS-prevention, as if this were akin to the Blair government changing its "position" on hydrocarbon emissions. Similar confusions are in play when the Church's settled teaching on abortion, embryo-destructive stem cell research, euthanasia or the nature of marriage is described as the Catholic or Vatican "position."

When the issue at hand is one of either Catholic doctrine or settled Catholic moral teaching, the lede is a matter of truth, not of anyone's "position" --- and getting the lede right is important.

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

God will call us to account for the good and bad we have done our brothers and sisters, Pope warns

Vatican City, Jan. 12, 2007 (CNA) - In keeping with an annual tradition, Benedict XVI today received members of the General Inspectorate for Public Security at the Vatican, to whom he expressed his "appreciation and recognition" for their service. While speaking to those entrusted with securing the Vatican for visitors, the Pope recalled that all men and women are “called to be the guardians of our fellows.”

"I well know, also from personal experience, how important for pilgrims and tourists is your discreet presence in the places that constitute the heart of Christian Rome," said the Pope. Many of the people "who visit St. Peter's Basilica or pause under Bernini's imposing colonnade see your faces and not infrequently avail themselves of your help."

"You have the task of protecting and overseeing sites that have inestimable value for the memory and faith of millions of pilgrims, places that contain great treasures of history and art; above all places where, by some inscrutable mystery, the living encounter of the faithful with the Lord Jesus takes place. The People of God, pilgrims, all people understand, as they pass by you, that they enjoy a special and reassuring protection."

The Holy Father concluded with a reflection which, he said, applies to us all: "we are called to be the guardians of our fellows. The Lord will call us to account for the responsibilities entrusted to us, for the good and bad we have done to our brothers and sisters; whether we accompanied them carefully on the daily journey, sharing the anguish and joys of their hearts; whether we stayed beside them discreetly but constantly, helping and supporting them when the path became more difficult and tiring."

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Here is a translation of an article appearing in the Italian Panorama magazine this weekend. It was picked up by Lella from the site of the gossip columnist who calls himself Dagospia, who often has accurate reports about the Vatican. In this case, he merely anticipated the appearance of Panorama on the news stands.

The byline is familiar, Ignacio Ingrao. He is one of those journalists who, instead of simply reporting facts, does so with his own spin. He also bases much of what he writes about his speculations rather than fact. Altogether, not your ideal journalist.

Worse, he has written some poisonous and patronizing (to be patronizing about this Pope takes a lot of gall, indeed, but that is the tone of this whole article, beginnning with its title) items in the past about the Pope based mostly on his speculations, as this one is.

Why am I bothering to post it? Because it gives us an idea of the anti-Benedict attitude that prevails in the Italian media and of their speculative games.

One must take what he writes with a grain of salt, starting with his first statement about Glemp, which I do not recall seeing anywhere.


SAVE RATZINGER, THE SOLDIER OF CHRIST -
The diplomatic incident with Israel, the gaffe on Islam,
now the scandal of the bishop-spy:
Superficiality, inefficiency or traps for the Pope?
Gang rivalry erupts at the Vatican -
who's involved and what they do
By Ignacio Ingrao

A few lines in Latin the day after the new Archbishop of Warsaw was named, Stanislaw Wojciech Wielgus, was how Benedict XVI announced to the outgoing Archbishop, Cardinal Josef Glemp, that in three years [when Glemp turns 80], he would also lose the title Primate of Poland, which was conferred on him for life by Pope John Paul II.

It is the last blow to the relations, increasingly distant, between the German Pope and the Polish faithful. [I am truly puzzled how Ingrao could say this, having been in Poland himself during the Pope's visit there last year!]

The cause for John Paul II's beatification is proceeding at record pace, but for the Church in Poland, it is a time for settling accounts. [His premise is that Benedict is hostile to Polish clergy who were named to Curial positions by John Paul II - in effect, attributing to the Pope an ordinary politician's typical attitude towards people 'not of his own party.']

There was no cardinal's hat for Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and ghost writer of John Paul II's last books.

Cardinal Edmund Szoka, an American of Polish origin, has been replaced as governor of Vatican city. [He reached age 75!]

Next moves: Transferring the secretary of the Congregation for the Cause of Sainthood, Edward Nowak, to the small church of St. Stanislaw, to become chaplain of the Polish community in Rome. And the replacement of the Archbishop of Moscow, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, of Polish ancestry, in order to improve chances for a meeting between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Alexei II. [Kondruciewicz is obviously not in the Curia nor has he anything to do with Wojtyla except having Polish ancestry. Che c'entra? as the Italins would ask - What does this have to do with anything?]

Benedict XVI also aims to reorganize the Church in Poland, which is torn between a nationalist, ultraconservative wing gathered around the founder of Radio Maryja, Tadeusz Rydzyk, and the progressive wing linked to John Paul, led by Adam Boniecki. [A rather drastic simplification of a complex situation!]

After having turned down 6 candidates for the Archdiocese of Warsaw, the Pope chose Wielgus, with his long academic record, a reputation for being conservative, but also for being unwilling to make concessions to the nationalist government of the Kacyzynski twins [who are president and prime minister of Poland].

But the nomination mechanism malfunctioned: while in Rome, voices were muted about Wielgus's involvement with Communist secret services, government and church circles in Poland fanned the flames of the campaign to discredit him.

Benedict XVI defended his decision to the very end, convinced that one should not 'indulge in easy accusations, in the absence of real proof or ignoring different circumstances' prevailing in the Communist era.

But when it was shown that Wielgus had lied, and that the confidence of the faithful in the Church would be compromised, the Pope asked the new Archbishop of Warsaw to resign.

On January 6, after the Mass of the Epiphany, the dramatic epilog took place in the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, asked the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Giovanni Battista Re, to communicate the Pope's decision to Wielgus.

Among those who had not been in favor of the nomination was the Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. [He was not? On the day Wielgus resigned, Dziwisz said, "He made the right decision, even if he has not done anything wrong."]

Wojtyla's ex-secretary could have disclosed many particulars about the time Wielgus maintained contacts with the Communist secret police, but he chose to remain silent. [I wonder what Dziwisz would say to that!] He will probably reveal some things in his much-awaited memoirs, 'Una Vita con Karol' (A Life with Karol) written with the journalist Gianfranco Svercoschi, coming out on January 24.

Nevertheless, the retreat on Wielgus has not compromised Benedict's plans for the Polish church. There is talk now of the possible replacement of the Apostolic Nuncio Josef Kowalczyk, who has been the scapegoat for the whole mess. [By calling him a scapegoat, Ingrao makes it sound as though Kowalczyk carried no responsibility at all for the mess.]

To succeed Glemp in Warsaw, the name bruited about is Zygmunt Zimowski, Bishop of Radom, who worked with Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will be another disappointment for the Wojtylians. [Why? It was Wojtyla who called Zimowski to work at CDF.]

Meanwhile, the hunt continues against priests who collaborated with the secret police. The rector of Cracow's Wawel Cathedral, Janusz Bielanski, who atrtended seminary with Dziwisz, has resigned.

Among those accused are Miroslaw Drozdek, rector of the sanctuary at Zakopane, and Miecyslaw Malinski, John Paul's first biographer.

In 1978 [the year Wojtyla became Pope], the secret police reportedly enrolled 14 Polish bishops to be informants. There are those who predict that the noose may tighten to include even Dziwisz himself [Now, how likely can that be!]

But the Pope has not allowed himself to be intimidated and has
denounced, through the Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, the 'strange alliance between the persecutors of the past' and enemies of the Church today.

The Polish fiasco has betrayed a silent battle taking place behind Vatican walls. Almost two years since his election, Benedict XVI finds that he still has to do battle with groups and factions that formed during the last years of John Paul's long pontificate.

The German Pope wants a Church that is focused on proclaiming the message of the Gospel, a Church rid of the weight of unnecessary structures. A month before the death of John Paul, the future Pope had denounced 'the filth' that had found a nest in the Church. But it is not easy to clean house.

Benedict XVI does not have the temperament of a 'decisionista' [there is really no English equivalent for the term, which means someone who is capable of making resolute decisions - which is a strange accusation to make against the erstwhile Panzerkardinal!] and he must reckon with his age, as he will be 80 in April [What does age have to do with it? Is he any less lucid and less resolute because he is older?]

Moreover, his initiatives are encountering much resistance. [You would think all his intiatives were!]

The French cardinals, led by the president of the French bishops conference, Jean-Pierre Ricard, oppose liberalization of the old Mass.

The reorganization of the Curia - undertaken according to a study made by Cardinal Attilio Nicora to reduce the number offices as well as expenses - has been stalled.

Even moving out of his apartment at the Apostolic Palace by the ex-Secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, became a prolonged and complex process, forcing his successor to occupy temporary lodgings for the duration.

The rotation of Apostolic Nuncios in the major diplomatic assignments has been blocked for some time.

And some of Benedict XVI's main supporters at the Conclave have been disappointed. The Legionaries of Christ and their Mexican supporters are miffed because their founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, was convicted by the Pope without trial ['condannato senza processo']. [If they are miffed, they have nevertheless publicly accepted the Pope's decision - which was not a conviction but an imposition of penance.]

Opus Dei's presence in the Curia has declined. After Joaquin Navarro-Valls resigned as Vatican press director [which is not a Curial position by any means!], the next to go may be Cardinal Julian Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts [ who is retiring because of reaching the statutory age], whose office may be absored by the Tribunal for Apostolic Segnatura.

A bitter pill even for Cardinal Camillo Ruini. [Ingrao doesn't say what the bitter pill is. Ruini's term as president of the Italian bishops conference (CEI) was extended a year ago 'until other provisions are made', and it is now reported that even after a replacement is named for him at CEI, he will continue to be the Pope's Vicar in Rome].

Meanwhile, the American cardinals are demanding to have a major share in Curial positions because despite the scandal over sexual offenses by American priests, the U.S. Church remains the main financial contributor to the Holy See. [What a hoot! Is Rocco Palmo aware of this?!]

The Latin Americans, despite having bagged thenomination of the Archbishop of Sao Paolo, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, lament the pope's lack of attention to the difficulties undergone by the Church in their continent. [Lack of attention? He took the initiative of having CELAM hold its next conference in Brazil,which he is visiting soon, and has Ingrao not read any of the speeches he has made toLatin American bishops and ambassadors at the Vatican?]

The German Church is also having difficulty reconciling groups whose thinking is represented by Cardinals Karl Lehmann, Joachim Meisner and Walter Kasper. [And all along I thought that matters were pretty stable in the German Church, especially since the Bavarian visit. All three cardinals mentioned have been very supportive of the Pope's initiatives in recent months. Lehmann has even come to Benedict's heated defense after Regensburg. Kasper has been the Pope's loyal and trusted pointman in ecumenical matters. And Meisner is, of course, an unabashed admirer and loyal friend of the Pope.]

It is not comfortable to move about in such a complex geography. For many months, Benedict has appeared isolated, cloistered in his study to polish his speeches and write a book on Jesus. [Benedict's supposed isolation has been a favorite delusion continually pushed by Ingrao and other Vaticanistas. As if the Pope did not have all those daily audiences, public and private, at which he talks to - and with - a great range of people! As though he never makes or receives any telephone calls or letters, even e-mail, from friends and peers! What does he know of what takes place in the Papal apartments?]

His only outings - dinners at the house of his former secretary, Mons. Josef Clemens. [As if a Pope were free to make any 'outings' he wishes to make!]

Benedict XVI has paid dearly for the absence of team play: the diplomatic incident with Israel in July 2005 [when the Pope delivered an Angelus message lamenting terrorist acts in many parts of the world but omitted a mention of Israel], the furoious polemics that followed his lecture in Regensburg, the Wielgus case lately. [What exactly did the Pope have to pay for dearly? Israel's protest was quickly resolved, and followed shortly thereafter by Ariel Sharon's invitation for the Pope to visit Israel, reiterated recently by his succssor Olmert who sought a visit with the Pope; the Pope almost singlehandedly defused the Regensburg issue with his visit to Turkey; and Poland has not blamed him for Wielgus but has praised his decision to have him resign.]

It has only been a few months since the Pope finally started assembling his own work force: the Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone [whose assumption of office was delayed by his predecessor's obvious unwillingness to leave right away - and how could Benedict have unceremoniously dumped a Secretary of State who is also Dean of the College of Cardinals?]; his 'foreign minister," Mons. Dominique Mamberti; and the director of the Vatican press office, Fr. Lombardi.

To whom have been added the Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, heading the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples [an appiointment that came long before Bertone, Mamberti and Lombardi, by the way] and Cardinal Claudio Hummes at the Congregation for the Clergy. [What about Cardinal Levada, his first important nominee to be his successor at CDF?]

The shy and solitary Pope has chosen as his right hand man the exuberant and highly-motivated Salesian, Cardinal Bertone. The effectiveness of Benedict XVI's reforms will depend on the success of this partnership.

The Secretary of State has jestingly proposed the formation of a football team at the Vatican. The play-off has started within the Curia: the following months will show whether the Ratzinger-Bertone team will prevail over their opponents.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/01/2007 18.02]

There were two short sidebars to the above Panorama article. The first one here refers to an open secret that has only been hinted now and then in various 'insider' accounts of the Vatican. It is a depressing and disillusioning picture about the Vatican prelates - supposedly men of God - who surround the Pope and undermine him daily. That they do so as so-called Wojylians is blasphemy and treason to John Paul II, in life as in death.

Lack of cooperation with Benedict:
Ratzinger's new course is blocked by
the power play among the Wojtylians
By Filippo di Giacomo


According to the Vaticanista's manual, the first line on the first page is the fundamental rule: a pontificate is judged above all by the quality and actions of the College of Cardinals and the college of bishops which the Pope chooses.

As an application of this golden rule, some serene spirit, in the days immediately following the election of Benedict XVI, rightfully asked: why did a college of 114 cardinals chosen by Papa Wojtyla elect as his successor the 115th cardinal - namely, the only cardinal among them named by Paul VI?

After the infamous events in Warsaw, the answer seems finally clear. It concerns the now obvious feud between the right and left wings of the Wojtylian episcopal corps. A gang war on a global scale, which began between 1993-1995, at the start of the long decline of John Paul's pontificate, and which has since extended throughout the Catholic world, including Polonia semper fidelis[ever faithful Poland].

A feud which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, on Good Friday 2005, prophetically revealed and described in his meditation and prayer for the Ninth Station of the Corss" "How little faith there is in so many theories, how many empty words! How much filth there is inthe Church...Lord, often Your Church seems to us like a boat that is about to sink, a boat that is drawing water from all sides. And even in your own field of grain, we see more chaff than grain. The garments and the face of the Church that are so sullied fill us with dismay. But it is we ourselves who have done it." [And most of us thought then it only referred to the abusive priests!]

It has been said that grass never grows in the shade of an oak. It was the evening of March 25, 2005, just a few days before the luminous end to the human and spiritual journey of Karol Wojtyla.

It is not difficult to imagine that the words of Joseph Ratzinger, echoing from the Colosseum throughout the entire Catholic world thanks to worldwide TV and the media, became part of that 'electoral manifesto' which those cardinals crushed between the two feuding wings were waiting to hear from a future Pope.

For many months, many in the Church have been hoping that a positive fallout, on the ecclesiastical level, of Ratzinger's election would have caused in the local bishoprics a positive shuffling of the cards and the system of cooptation and choice of future bishops.

In short, that it would have opened to question the bulimia for power (often to the limits of simony [the monetary sale of high positions]) among both rightwing and leftwing Wojtylism - thereby enabling the Congregation for Bishops, the Vatican organ responsible for the choice of prelates, to take in hand once more those mechanisms of nominating power which during the long Pontificate of John Paul II, had become improperly monopolized and abused by the more enterprising among the Wojtylians.

With a 'clean sweep,' Pope Benedict XVI was to have opened the Church to a season of renewal and new faces. Then on January 7, from the Cathedral of Warsaw, came an indication that important organs of the pontifical system have denied Benedict XVI - whom the cynics of the Curia consider a lameduck because of his age - their cooperation and loyalty.

In the Vatican, the old always take time to die, and the new is always prevented from being born. The balance needs to be restored.

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

The second sidebar is a bit odd....

The difficult job of being Pope
By Vito Mancuso
Theologian
University of San Raffaele, Milan

Poisonous polemics swirl about Benedict XVI's pontificate these days. However, looking at things in perspective and a realistic view, I am convinced that the misfortune of the Wielgus case will end up in time rather minor compared to another event - which was a genuine sensation - in which Papa Ratzinger was the only actor.

I refer to that gesture which came spontaneously at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul during his visit to Turkey in late November. That was when Benedict XVI, facing Mecca, standing side by side with the Grand Mufti of Istanbul, shared a moment of prayer that was a clear sign of peace and inter-religious dialog. A sign that our torn and divided world, often reproached by this Pope for its relativism, did not hesitate to recognize for its spiritual as well as absolute value.

It cannot be easy to be Pope, especially these days. To some, it comes easy and spontaneously to play this immense public role, as it was for John Paul II. Others suffer from this public exposure as did Paul VI.

Benedict XVI is more like the Pope from Brescia. He is a theologian, who loves reading and writing more than speaking and smiling [I don't know about that - since speaking and smiling come so naturally to him, and his speaking earned him the nickname Goldmund early on!], and he has never had to perform.

But when he accepted to become Pope, he also knew that he must expose himself to our contemporary culture of imagery. How many speeches must he read every week? How many persons must he meet? I think that the papacy needs a drastic diet of reduction: less speeches, letters, encyclicals, books (which few read, not even the clergy) [a generalization which hardly applies to Joseph Ratzinger!], but more gestures. Like the prayer at the Blue Mosque which is worth a thousand speeches.

The importance of a symbolic gesture is enormous. It is the spiritual action par excellence of a Pontifex, literally a bridge-builder, to unite humanity. Benedict XVI at Istanbul showed that. I hope he continues to be one.
===============================================================

With all due respect, how can one compare the Wielgus case, which was a bureaucratic fiasco, with the prayer at the Blue Mosque? The first one is bound to be ephemeral, insofar as it concerns the Pope directly, and mundane, almost quotidian, in nature. The second one was transcendental, unique, God-given.

Mancuso is a theologian himself. How can he propose less words for a theologian Pope who is also a teaching Pope, whose best weapon is the spoken and written word? Benedict himself has pared down his speaking commitments and audiences to half those of his predecessor's. He is a realist and knows what he can do - and what he can't. How much less can he do, until and unless - God forbid - infirmity imposes it?

Benedict's actions consist as much of the way he uses his words as it does in concrete gestures, like the way he celebrates Mass or any other liturgy and the way he reaches out to the people he meets, or in the substantive acts of his papacy. He may be shy in nature but we have seen that he is far from being a shrinking wallflower, that indeed he blooms in the company of people. Moments like those at the Blue Mosque will arise spontaneously - and we can be sure Benedict will not miss the cue.

I don't think this Pope needs lessons in how to be Pope, from Mancuso or anyone else. As Vicar of Christ, the Holy Spirit is with him.

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

Apropos the first sidebar, here is an excerpt from a news story today in Libero, reporting about the Warsaw bishops conference yesterday:

There is no doubt that the Wielgus case has brought to light one fact: in the Roman Curia there exists a sort of 'bloc' adversarial to the Pope, or who, nevertheless make it difficult for him to govern internally - very likely the circle of 'fedelissimi' [literally, 'the most faithful', in the sense of 'diehards'] in the hierarchy which consolidated during the ontificate of John Paul II, particularly the power group that grew around Cardinal Angelo Sodano when he was Secretary of State.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/01/2007 2.51]

If you think any rapprochement is imminent - or even possible - with the Lefebvrians, reading the words of one of their leaders in a recent interview with a French magazine (?) called Rivarol, issue of 1/12/07, will make you think it is IMPOSSIBLE!

Thanks to Beatrice who discusses it on her site beatriceweb.eu and provides the link to La Forum Catholique which reproduced the interview.

The man, Richard Williamson, 66, dean of the 4 bishops of the Pius X Society, was one of the four bishops consecrated by Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre in the act which earned him excommunication. To us, Williamson may sound like a madman, but he is a Cambridge-educated British citizen who speaks several languages and has directed the Lefebvrian seminary in La Reja, Argentina since 2003.

Talk of being more Popish than the Pope, here's a sampler:

1) He is opposed to any agreements with Benedict XVI, whom he thinks is a 'bad Pope' along with the other Popes after Pius XII, because they have endorsed and followed Vatican-II documents.

2) He quotes Lebevre who said Vatican-II was a good idea but all the documents it produced were bad because heretical. So the Popes who have followed Vatican-II documents are really heretics, but cannot be formally declared heretics because church law requires that this can only be done by the supreme authority of the Church, namely the Popes themselves.

3) He calls Benedict XVI a modernist who wants to adapt the Church to the modern world, and that "his past writings are full of modernist errors, (and) modernism is the synthesis of all heresies" [this last phrase is a quotation from St, Pius X).

4) As a heretic, Benedict is even worse than Martin Luther because at least "Luther knew and said that he was breaking with Catholic doctrine" whereas Ratzinger is "convinced that his errors are a true continuation of Catholic tradition."

5) About the prayer in the Blue Mosque, he chooses his words carefully: "If Benedict XVI prayed inside a mosque, surrounded by Muslims [he calls them Mohammedans}, praying in the way Mohammedans pray, then he committed a mortal sin against the Catholic faith and an enormous scandal for the entire Church."

6) If the Church does not throw out all the documents of Vatican-II, he thinks that within 5-20 years, God will intervene with an 'exemplary punishment' to re-establish order in the Church, or the Church will find itself cowering in catacombs waiting for such a punishment, because "in any case, the present situation is irrecoverable by purely human efforts."

Now, I have always avoided reading far-out religious views, but some of you may already be familiar with the views I listed above from what you have previously known about the Lefebvrians. I do not know if all of them think this way.

This is actually my first exposure to this kind of thinking - because Mons. Fellay, the only Lefebvrian whose statements I have had occasion to follow since I became interested in 'Church matters' after 4/19/05, has sounded reasonably normal in all the stories I have read about him. And no, I have never researched the Lefebvrians nor intend to.

I just thought since I had looked up the interview, I might as well share its most shocking points with you. However, the following did surprise me:

Williamson is all for the liberalization of the Tridentine Mass:
"I may be wrong but the liberalization, even partial, of the the traditional Mass would be a step ahead for the universal Church. The very strong grace of this rite, which has been virtually strangled by the Mass of Paul VI, will spread a bit more throughout the world."

He does not mind that the New Mass will also be in force:
"Why do you think the Conciliar-Mass advocates are so afraid of the Old Mass? Isn't it because they know that once the Ark of the Alliance is back in the Churches, their rites of Dagon will be in danger?...Why should we be fearful of them?"

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/01/2007 21.57]

---

"Why do you think the Conciliar-Mass advocates are so afraid of the Old Mass? Isn't it because they know that once the Ark of the Alliance is back in the Churches, their rites of Dagon will be in danger?...Why should we be fearful of them?"

---

I have fear of general indult of Tridentine mass only because I think St. Pius X Society and other so called "true" churches will become more arogant. There would be more visible possibility to mark Novus Ordo Mass as heretical completely. I think personal indult when every bishop gives his permission to celebrate Old mass to reliable person or reliable community is good. And I think Papa bit fears about abusing Tidentine by schismatics too, that's maybe reason, the genral indult is forecasted for long time, but still not valid.
But on the other hand I have to admit: Novus Ordo Mass is sometimes so abused, so I have dreams about abolishing certain music instruments or songs by Motu proprio.

Maklara...I understand what you mean. But there are so few
of them! There's not much they can do with their arrogance,
especially if they are 'out' of the Church really, as the
Lefebvrians are.


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


Osservatore Romano provided this picture to the wire services
without an accompanying story. But I am using it because
it is the first picture we have that I can remember of
Pope Benedict and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires
together. As we all know, Bergoglio was supposed to have
emerged as the only challenge to Joseph Ratzinger in the last
Conclave, getting as many as 40+ votes in the third balloting.


OK, I see now. Cardinal Bergoglio led a group of Argentine
bishops who came to Rome for their ad-limina visit. They saw
the Pope this morning, according to the daily bulletin on
Papal audiences.

P.S. In the afternoon, the Pope met with Cardinal Giovanni
Battista Re, Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops, who
must have had some explaining to do about the Wielgus fiasco!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/01/2007 4.35]

Can a pope's childhood roots shape a Church?

BY KATHLEEN STAUFFER
Catholic Digest

BAVARIA, GERMANY - Unsullied by time, the picture-postcard landscape unfolds in visual cliché: Immense round hay bales balance in bucolic fields. Red geraniums pour from flower boxes hanging from windows of whitewashed chalets. Brown cows graze calmly on grass so green it glints yellow in sunlight. Trees brood blackly in the shade. A craggy horizon of pale purple Alpine peaks reaches as far as the eye can see.

It’s almost as if change knocked at Bavaria’s door and, unlike the rest of the West, Bavaria said no thanks. Though the region is known for its folksy hospitality, friendly Bavarians won’t say “hello”; or “guten Tag,” they’ll say “Grüß Gott” (“Greetings, in God’s name”). Enter a shop to buy an Alpine hat in Oberammergau, and before asking if you need help, the shopkeeper will smile, “Grüß Gott.”

Faith is the sustenance to which Bavaria cleaves: More than half its citizens identify as Catholic, and by some measures the figure could be as high as 70 percent. In Regensburg, where Professor Josef Ratzinger taught university theology from 1969 until he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977, 83 percent of residents are Catholic.

There’s no separating Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, from his native land. His philosophical roots remain planted in fertile, faithful, hardworking Bavaria — Germany’s most economically productive region. “My heart beats Bavarian,” he once told a flock of reporters in Rome.

Father Markus Moderegger grins indulgently, head tilted toward the ceiling. The thin, bespectacled rector of the Student Seminary of St. Michael in Traunstein, where Josef Ratzinger lived his high school years, acknowledges the thundering soles of boys running overhead. The young priest shrugs. "Tomorrow is the first day of school…”

St. Michael Seminary is a dormitory built to encourage vocations. Saving souls and forming souls, along with a healthy indulgence in sport, were its mainstays even when young Josef Ratzinger lived here in the 1940s. Gold- and silver-plated soccer trophies fill a case in the hall.

Opposite the sports board hang photocopies of German press clippings. There’s no whitewashing here. The articles chronicle controversies surrounding the newly elected Roman Catholic pope. Hints of a Nazi past. Explanations of how the teenage Josef Ratzinger ended up briefly joining the Hitler youth. It’s a candid collection, aimed at encouraging discussion.

But St. Michael’s most famous graduate wouldn’t likely have come boisterously down the stairs. Still smiling, Moderegger explains that Ratzinger didn’t like sports and didn’t even like life in Traunstein, population 18,000, when he first arrived. “He grew up in a humble farmhouse, very close to his family. This was so different from his life in the country.” Ratzinger hails from a typical Bavarian family, with ties that bind.

Yet the food for thought posted on the bulletin board hints at the deeper story. It was here that Josef Ratzinger first encountered the art of theological polemics and academic disputation. And, he liked it.

Up at 5 a.m., Mass at 5:30, next a Bible study and a quick bite to eat before heading off to school — such a life might not suit every young man, but it suited the future pope once he began meeting like-minded friends at St. Michael. From the beginning, by all accounts, the introverted pope liked a good debate that required him to use his wits. What he lacked competitively on the soccer field he made up for in the classroom. Josef Ratzinger grew to love St. Michael, returning annually for extended stays and vacations right until the day he became pope.

Widmar Tanner was a vice president of the University of Regensburg and a full biology professor when Professor Josef Ratzinger served as co-vice president with him from 1975 to 1976. Tanner represented the college of sciences; Ratzinger, who’d been ordained in 1951 and earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich in 1953, headed up the college of humanities. “We were told when he was presented that he was one of the great theologians of Germany.” Tanner’s personal encounters with the newly appointed vice-president reinforced the rumors.

Though Ratzinger proved formidable with an argument, Tanner fondly remembers his colleague. “He was very friendly. He was an exceptional speaker, but he was very modest. He stayed in the background. But when he made his argument, he made it brilliantly. We had great respect for him as a leader in his field.”

Tanner chuckles. “When we had arguments against each other, he usually won!”

The halls at Regensburg buzzed when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope on April 19, 2005. Tanner says those who knew Benedict XVI held a different opinion than those who did not. “On the day he was elected, people were critical. For many years he had been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Since then, you hear people talk about him changing or softening, but I don’t think he’s changed.” While others talked that spring of having an inquisitor for a pope, Tanner remained silent. Knowing him, I didn’t speak of him in this way. When people take on more responsibility, they often change. They have to change. But I would say that, rather, in my short time of knowing him, he did lead me to think that he is capable of listening and conciliation.”

Father Rupert Berger, retired professor of liturgy science at the University of Freising, sits in his study in a small parish house in Traunstein. A newspaper lies open on his dining-room table, and a homey jumble of books and papers cluttering the room pegs him for an academic. A pair of glasses resting on the outspread newspaper suggests he has been following Pope Benedict’s travels here in Bavaria. For Berger, the news stories evoke mixed emotions.

Josef Ratzinger, Rupert Berger, and Ratzinger’s older brother Georg attended seminary and were ordained together in 1951. The pope is one of Berger’s closest friends. Often, they concelebrated Mass at St. Oswald, the village church here, and then went afterward to the pub next door. Berger would have a glass of wine, but Josef Ratzinger usually drank water. “He doesn’t like it,” shrugs Berger when asked why the future pope rarely indulged in something stronger.

In those postwar days, there were no typical teenage high jinks.The seminary in Munich had been bombed to ruins. Seminary candidates were charged with clearing the site for rebuilding. Rupert, Josef, and Georg staggered under the weight of wheelbarrows laden with chunks of concrete and shards of steel. In payment, they received rations from the Marshall Plan: rice, cornbread, grains, and cereals. It was strange fare to youth accustomed to bratwurst and potatoes. But they were grateful to have food at all. “We didn’t get into trouble not because we were good boys,” said Berger, “but because we were so relieved to have survived the war and to have found ourselves back in school.”

Josef was even slighter than his friend and his brother, but he hoisted and pushed load after load of rubble without complaint. All the while, the boys attended lectures in anticipation of taking high school graduation exams. They were all good students. “But he was always the best.”

Regulations also required the boys to submit to “re-education” during the Allied occupation of post-World War II Germany. Berger says they didn’t mind the repatriation. “The lectures were really interesting. We had lived through these things (the atrocities the Allied indoctrination underscored). We had seen it all for ourselves!”

Was Josef Ratzinger ever a sympathetic member of the Hitler youth, as some reports imply? Berger sits forward in his chair and waves his arms. “Nein, nein, nein — no, no, no.”

“We were not Nazis! Quite the opposite!” Berger’s father, also named Rupert, had been a leader in the Nazi resistance from the early days of Hitler’s regime and spent six months in Dachau for his work in the Bavarian People’s Party. Afterward, the family was banished from Traunstein.

Even as a young seminarian, Josef Ratzinger made an impression. “We all admired [Josef] because he worked so hard,” continues Berger. “We would go for walks, but he never joined us for entertainments. He sat at his desk and read all the time.” In a region noted for its industry, Ratzinger proved even more industrious than your average Bavarian. Berger would have to drag his friend from the books to gain a social companion for an afternoon. A lot of the seminarians liked ballet, but Ratzinger didn’t care for it and neither did Berger. Once or twice a month, though, Ratzinger could be persuaded to visit the theater for a play or an opera.

Ratzinger’s bookishness goes hand in hand with his introversion. Berger says Ratzinger always was friendly but left others to make the introductions. “His privacy is extremely important to him.” Yet the pope is hardly humorless. Berger, with great amusement, points out that we have a joyful pope, not a comedian. “He loves to laugh, but he is not the one who tells the jokes!”

The two pals have not met since Cardinal Josef Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. Prior to Benedict’s papacy, they annually spent time together during Ratzinger’s extended vacations in Traunstein.

On his visits, Ratzinger bunked at St. Michael, where his love for books and his passion for priesthood first converged. His brother Georg always joined him. In the evening, Josef would read the paper to Georg, whose eyesight is reportedly delicate. Then Georg, an accomplished pianist, would begin working the piano while Josef turned on the lamp in the room across the hall and got down to business.

Father Markus Moderegger stretches one palm above the other, about 15 inches apart. “He always brought work with him, a big stack of papers.” The Sisters who handle St. Michael’s housekeeping miss the beneficent Ratzingers. Both brothers regularly hiked into Traunstein. “You would see their two white heads going off down the road. When they returned, they carried sacks of presents. They’d gone shopping. For the Sisters!”

In a simpler world, these intimate vacations would continue. But modern security concerns and an international press corps make such dreams impossible.

Could Rupert Berger pick up the phone just now and call his friend, the pope? Berger’s smile is slow and warm and fond and sure. “Yes, I think so. I am very careful with the word friend. There are really only very few people you can call your friends in life. The pope is one of mine.”

Does the pope like beer? Not really. Press reports that Pope Benedict XVI likes his beer are inaccurate, says the pope’s longtime friend Father Rupert Berger. “He doesn’t like the taste of alcohol,” Berger says with a shrug. “He just never did.” At home, the pope drinks orange juice. But never let it be said that Benedict XVI is a party pooper. “On special occasions, when everybody else is having a drink, he will join in so he doesn’t spoil the fun.” Then, the pope will sip a radler, or what Germans call a bicycler. The drink, a combination of beer and lemonade, derives its name from the source of its invention: In the 1920s, Alpine bicyclists wanting to avoid wobbling along the twists and turns of a long ride diluted their beer at lunchtime to avoid riding under the influence.

---------------------------
Radler recipe
½ glass of lemonade
½ glass of German beer
Mix gently and serve. (For a more accurate rendition, serve at room temperature — as is the German custom.)
---------------------------

With Benedict, you get equal helpings of Bavarian geniality and Bavarian self-discipline. You get singular intelligence and deep affection in the same man. “What people who know him admire is that he is so bright and so pious. This combination you just don’t find very often,” Berger says. “And I admire his sermons because they come from the heart in spite of his living so much in the head.”

Hand-cut stacks of wood nestle tidily beside each doorstep of every home in the rolling Bavarian hills, a testament to hearth, family, and a diligence and conformity that mirror the inner world of the current pope. Bavarians embrace the rigors of life and its comforts too. Warm pretzels and warm beer equal warm hospitality. Hard work and hard winters are God’s reminder that life requires serious toil amid the play. Some things don’t change because they aren’t meant to change. “Grüß Gott.”

Father Berger and Professor Tanner assess the new pope similarly. Berger sees both orthodoxy and flexibility going hand-in-hand. “Whatever job he is given, he adapts to the task. As a cardinal, he adapted. As a pope, he is a completely different man than the Defender of his Faith. He is always open. He is always learning and adapting.

“To touch the children, to wave — he learned this from his predecessor.” But Berger jumps a little in his chair when asked if this change will be reflected theologically. When the pope’s friend speaks of change, he is talking not about the essence of theology but about the essence of human behavior. Such precision with phraseology is a rhetorician’s domain, and it is here where Benedict and his friend Berger feel most at home. The pope has been known to speak with a lover’s yearning about missing his academic debates, mourning his loss of time for theological endeavor.

In the speech in Regensburg, where the pope compared Christian relativism to Muslim fundamentalism, using a stark (and to orthodox Muslims, offensive) illustration, he perhaps intended to spark a dialogue between the two faiths. Clearly, he was warning both Christians and Muslims to guard against deferring to the self ’s rationalizations in living their faiths: It’s not what makes sense to us but what makes sense to God that matters. For Benedict, being a little bit Catholic is like being a little bit Bavarian: There’s no such thing.

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL ARTICLE! Catholic Digest and the writer are to be commended. I can't recall the last time I saw something similar in the Anglophone press about Ratzinger's early days, since right after the Conclave. And I think it's the first time I've read about anyone speaking to Fr. Berger at length about the days he shared with the Ratzinger brothers. Strange, when one consides he is immortalized with them in the most widely-circulated pictures of their ordination, such as this one:



And Benefan, I hope you don't mind, I would like to re-post the article as well in ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FUTURE POPE.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/01/2007 23.48]

Still no story in the Anglophone press about the Polish bishops' letter today to all Polish Catholics. Meanwhile, here's a belated story from AP on the Pope's Angelus emssage today (translation of full text posted this morning in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS).




VATICAN CITY, Jan. 24 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI urged immigrants on Sunday to respect the social values of their new countries and said laws are needed to protect their dignity.

Benedict, addressing pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square, said migration should be seen as a resource, not a problem. Without naming any country or nationality, he lamented the "painful" conditions refugees, exiles, the homeless and the persecuted often endure.

"I hope that soon there will be a balanced management of migratory flows and of human mobility in general, so benefits can reach the entire human family, beginning with concrete measures which favor legal emigration and the reuniting of families," the pontiff added.

"Only respect for human dignity for all migrants, on one hand, and the recognition by the migrants themselves of the values of the societies which host them, will make possible the proper integration of families in the social, economic and political systems" where they are now living, Benedict said.

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, a top official of the Vatican's office on migrants, said the pope was particularly concerned about the families of refugees.

"There is a tendency today to protect order and well-being from the threat that many see in the continuous arrival of foreigners, a mix of migrants and refugees," Marchetto told Vatican Radio.

The prelate lamented the lack of adequate funding for humanitarian assistance for refugees, "especially for women and children" leaving them easy prey for abuse.

The Catholic Church on Sunday was marking the annual World Day for Migrants and Refugees.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/01/2007 2.35]

About that cavalierly calumnious piece by Peter Popham recently that made me wish I were Linda Blair in The Exorcist so I could drown him and his ilk in the devil's dreck, here is a comment posted by a reader of Fr. Tim Finigan's blog (The Hermeneutics of Continuity) about it:

The Independent newspaper uses this incident (the Wielgus case) to throw mud at Pope Benedict in an item from Peter Popham in Rome.

" A member of the Nazi Youth...., 'Ratzinger is not a courageous man,' said one Vatican specialist."

The Vatican 'specialist' is too much of a coward to give his name to his libel of a man who looked death in the face by visiting Turkey recently.

Your readers may like to remember this when they buy their next paper.

Regards, Ken

1/14/2007 3:16 AM

The Next Battle
For and Against Jesus
Will Be Fought by the Book
And the new book announced and released by Joseph Ratzinger will be the best-seller of the year.
by Sandro Magister


ROMA, January 15, 2007 – His book about Jesus was announced at the end of November, and will be on sale next spring. But a week does not go by without Benedict XVI preaching about the book’s protagonist: Jesus “true God and true man.”

It is as if Pope Joseph Ratzinger himself were already focusing on the book’s publicity campaign. A year ago, he did the same thing with the encyclical Deus Caritas Est: before its publication, he repeatedly spoke out to illustrate its essential contents, increasing the anticipation each time.

The last time Benedict XVI referred to his upcoming book about Jesus was the general audience on Wednesday, January 3.

Speaking about Christmas, the pope called attention back to “the power of the darkness that seeks to obscure the splendor of the divine light.” And he said:

“This is the drama of the rejection of Christ, which, as in the past, is unfortunately manifested and expressed today in many different ways. It may be that today’s forms of the rejection of God are even more subtle and dangerous than in the past: from explicit rejection to indifference, from scientistic atheism to the presentation of a so-called ‘modernized’ or ‘postmodernized’ Jesus. This is Jesus as a man, reduced in various ways to a mere man of his time, deprived of his divinity, or a Jesus so idealized as to seem sometimes a character in a fairy tale.”

To this false Jesus, the pope has opposed the “true Jesus of history”: that Jesus who is “true God and true man, and does not weary of offering his Gospel to all.” Before him, “one cannot remain indifferent. We too, dear friends, must continually take a position.” Not to reject him, but to welcome him. Knowing that “to those who received him, he gave power to become sons of God” (John 1:12).

The either-or choice that Benedict XVI presents between the false and the true Jesus is, therefore, the same one that he sees being played out in the books that reduce Jesus to a mere man, and the ones that instead present him in his human-divine reality.

Among today’s books displaying the “power of darkness,” the pope has one especially in mind, a book that has sold half a million copies in Italy in just a few months, entitled: “Inchiesta su Gesù. Chi era l’uomo che ha cambiato il mondo [The Jesus Inquest: Revealing the Man Who Changed the World].”

The authors of the book are the agnostic Corrado Augias, a journalist, writer, and editorialist for the major liberal newspaper La Repubblica, and the Catholic Mauro Pesce, a professor of Church history at the University of Bologna who specializes in ancient Christian documents.

The thesis of this book is that “everything that the Christian faith professes about Jesus is false.” This is at least the judgment of Fr. Giuseppe De Rosa in his review of the book by Augias and Pesce for La Civiltà Cattolica, the journal of the Rome Jesuits that is printed with the supervision and authorization of the Vatican secretariat of state.

Another review of the book that was just as severe was published in the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire. It was written by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, 72, a specialist in the history of early Christianity and since 1980 the preacher of the pontifical household, the man who preaches to the pope and the Vatican curia during Advent and Lent.

So although Benedict XVI hasn’t yet explicitly cited the book by Augias and Pesce, these two authoritative reviews are sufficient to conclude that in the Vatican this is held to be the latest and most representative text of that attack against the Christian faith which for more than two centuries has taken Jesus as its target.

The upcoming book by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI – this is the byline on the book because he wrote it both before and after his election as pope – intends precisely to pose the authentic Jesus against the false “modernized or postmodernized” Jesus.

It is easy to predict that the pope’s book will also meet with great commercial success in Italy and the world.

But more than a publishing war, this announces a new phase of the perennial clash between acceptance and rejection that has always had in Jesus its “sign of contradiction, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35, cited in the audience on Wednesday, January 3).

This is exactly what is foreshadowed by the preface Benedict XVI wrote for his book, which will be entitled “Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration,” the first of two anticipated volumes, with the second one continuing to the Resurrection.

By publishing the preface in advance, the pope has taken another step in the book’s release - and in the battle for and against Jesus.

Magister then proceeds to give a link to 'the original preface, in German:
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=108661
and then provides 'our English translation'.

I looked back to my posts at the time the book was announced and note that one of them was actually a translation of the Italian version of the preface released at that time, which Magister himself posted in www.chiesa, but only in Italian - Post #4852 on 11/22/06 in
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/viewmessaggi.aspx?f=65482&idd=431&t=1164374384140&p=68#...
and he is only now posting his English translation.

In any case, it is not the complete preface that was released - in both the German and the Italian versions - because it clearly omits the description of the Pope's research and critical methodology, which the Pope refers to in the paragraph that is after the *** in the German text provided by Magister, as in his translation.

But here is the English translation provided by Magister:

"My interpretation of
the figure of Jesus in the New Testament..."
by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

I came to this book about Jesus - the first part of which I now present to the public – after a long interior journey.

In the time of my youth – during the 1930’s and ‘40’s – there was published a series of exhilarating books about Jesus. I recall the names of just a few authors: Karl Adam, Romano Guardini, Franz Michel Willam, Giovanni Papini, Jean-Daniel Rops.

In all these books, the image of Jesus Christ was outlined beginning with the Gospels: how He lived upon the earth and how, although He was truly man, He at the same time brought God to men, being one with God as Son of God. Thus, through the man Jesus, God became visible, and beginning with God one could see the image of the just man.

Beginning in the 1950’s, the situation changed. The rift between the “historical Jesus” and the “Christ of faith” became wider and wider; the one pulled away from the other before one’s very eyes.

But what meaning can there be in faith in Jesus Christ, in Jesus the Son the of living God, if the man Jesus is so different from how the evangelists present Him, and from how the Church proclaims Him on the basis of the Gospels?

Progress in historical-critical research led to increasingly subtle distinctions among the different levels of tradition. Behind these layers, the figure of Jesus, upon whom faith rests, became increasingly more uncertain, and took on increasingly less definite outlines.

At the same time, the reconstructions of this Jesus, who had to be sought behind the traditions of the Evangelists and their sources, became increasingly contradictory: from the revolutionary enemy of the Romans who opposed the established power and naturally failed, to the meek moralist who permitted everything and inexplicably ended up causing his own ruin.

Those who read a certain number of these reconstructions one after another will immediately notice that these are much more the snapshots of the authors and their ideals than they are the unveiling of an icon that has become confused. In the meantime, distrust has grown toward these images of Jesus, and in any case the figure of Jesus has withdrawn from us even more.

All of these attempts have, in any case, left behind themselves as their common denominator the impression that we know very little for sure about Jesus, and that it was only later that faith in His divinity shaped His image. This impression, in the meantime, has deeply penetrated the general consciousness of Christianity.

Such a situation is dramatic for the faith because it renders uncertain its authentic point of reference: intimate friendship with Jesus, on which everything depends, threatens to become a groping around in the void.

* * * [Teresa's note: The omitted portion is here]

I felt the need to provide the readers with these indications of method because these determine the route of my interpretation of the figure of Jesus in the New Testament.

For my presentation of Jesus, this means above all that I trust the Gospels. Naturally, I take for granted what the Council and modern exegesis say about the literary genres, about the intention of various expressions, about the communitarian context of the Gospels and the fact that they speak within this living context. While accepting all this as much as possible, I wanted to make an effort to present the Jesus of the Gospels as the real Jesus, as the “historical Jesus” in the real sense of the expression.

I am convinced – and I hope that I can also make the reader aware of this – that this figure is much more logical, and from the historical point of view also more understandable, than the reconstructions we have had to confront in recent decades.

I maintain that this very Jesus – the Jesus of the Gospels – is an historically sensible and convincing figure. His crucifixion and the impact that he had can only be explained if something extraordinary happened, if the figure and the words of Jesus radically exceeded the hopes and expectations of his time.

Around twenty years after the death of Jesus, we find already in the great hymn to Christ in the Letter to the Philippians (2:6-8) the full expression of a Christology, in which it is said of Jesus that He was equal to God but stripped Himself, became man, and humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross, and that to Him is due the homage of creation, the adoration that in the prophet Isaiah (45:23) God proclaimed as due to Himself alone.

Critical research quite rightly poses this question: what happened in those twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus? How did this Christology develop?

The action of anonymous communitarian formations, whose representatives are being sought out, in reality doesn’t explain anything. How could unknown groups be so creative, how could they be convincing and impose themselves? Isn’t it more logical, even from the historical point of view, to suppose that the great impulse came at the beginning, and that the figure of Jesus burst beyond all of the available categories, and could thus be understood only by beginning from the mystery of God?

Naturally, to believe that even as a man He was God, and made this known by concealing it within parables while nevertheless making it increasingly clear, goes beyond the possibilities of the historical method. On the contrary, if one begins from this conviction of faith and reads the texts with the historical method and with its openness to what is greater, the texts open up to reveal a way and a figure that are worthy of faith.

What then becomes clear is the multilevel struggle present in the writings of the New Testament over the figure of Jesus, and despite all the differences, the profound agreement of these writings.

It is clear that with this view of the figure of Jesus I go beyond what Schnackenburg, for example, says in representation of a good portion of contemporary exegesis.

I hope, however, that the reader understands that this book was not written against modern exegesis, but with great recognition of all this has given and continues to give to us. It has made us familiar with a great quantity of sources and conceptions through which the figure of Jesus can become present to us with a liveliness and depth that we couldn’t even imagine just a few decades ago.

I have sought only to go beyond mere historical-critical interpretation, applying the new methodological criteria that allow us to make a properly theological interpretation of the Bible that naturally requires faith, without thereby wanting or being able in any way to renounce historical seriousness.

Of course, it goes without saying that this book is absolutely not a magisterial act, but is only the expression of my personal search for the “face of the Lord” (Psalm 27:8). So everyone is free to disagree with me. I ask only that my readers begin with that attitude of good will without which there is no understanding.

As I said at the beginning of the preface, my interior journey toward this book was a long one.

I was able to begin working on it during summer vacation in 2003. In August of 2004, I gave definitive form to chapters 1 through 4. After my election to the episcopal see of Rome, I used all of my free moments to carry the project forward.

Because I do not know how much more time and strength will be granted to me, I have now decided to publish the first ten chapters as the first part of the book, going from the baptism in the Jordan to the confession of Peter and the Transfiguration.

Rome, the feast of Saint Jerome
September 30, 2006

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

At the time, however, I also posted (Post 4856 on the same page of the thread) the following translation of an excerpt from the INTRODUCTION to the book, which only korazym.org had at the time - and to my knowledge, has not appeared elsewhere - with korazym's account of Fr. Lombardi's words about the book, in which he refers to the excerpt from the INTRODUCTION.

I think the excerpt from the INTRODUCTION was overlooked by most journalists at the time because they assumed it was the same thing as the PREFACE abridgement, which it obviosuly is not.

"From what we read in the excerpt that we have been given from the Introduction," Fr. Federico Lombardi explains, "Jesus is presented as the new Moses, the new prophet who speaks with God 'face to face', who is the Son profoundly united with the Father. If this central aspect of the figure of Jesus is set aside, then He becomes contradictory and incomprehensible. Joseph Ratzinger speaks to us with passion of the intimate union of Jesus with the Father and wishes to involve the disciple who follows Jesus in this communion.

"We will therefore be reading a great work of exegesis and theology but also of spirituality. I think of the great impression and the spiritual fruit that I gained as a young man from reading Ratzinger's first great expositional work, Introduction to Christianity, (and) I am certain that even this time, we will not be disappointed, and whether we are believers or not - all persons who are truly willing to understand more profoundly the figure of Jesus Christ - we will be immensely grateful to the Pope for his great testimony as a thinker, a scholar and a man of faithon the most essential point of the Christian faith."


From 'JESUS OF NAZARETH', by Joseph Ratzinger, Rizzoli 2007
Introduction:.
A first look at the secret of Jesus.

(...) In Jesus the promise of the new prophet is fulfilled. In Him is fully realized what in Moses was imperfect: He lives in the presence of God, not only as a friend but as the Son, in profound union with the Father.

Only from this can we truly understand the figure of Jesus that we meet in the New Testament. Everything that we are told - the words, the actions, the suffering and the glory of Jesus - is based on this. If we set aside this authentic center, we ignore what is specific about the figure of Jesus, which then becomes contradictory and indeed, incomprehensible.

Only from this can one answer a question which everyone who reads the New Testament must ask himself: Where did Jesus get His teachings from? How does one explain His coming?

The reaction of his listeners was clear: His teachings did not come from any known school. It is radically different from that which could be learned in any school. It is not a lesson drawn according to a certain method of interpretation, it is different, it is an explanation 'with authority.'

We will get back to this perception by His listeners when we reflect on the words of Jesus and we seek to examine their significance.

Jesus's teaching does not come from any human learning whatsoever. It comes from His immediate contact with the Father, a dialog 'face to face', from seeing what is 'in the bosom of the Father.' It is the word of the Son. Without this interior foundation, His words would have been sheer recklessness. As the wise men of the Temple in Jesus's time judged them to be, precisely because they would not see its interior significance: a seeing and knowing 'face to face' (with God).

To know Jesus it is fundamental to take note of the recurrent references to the fact that Jesus would retire 'up a mountain' and would pray there the whole night, 'alone' with the Father. These brief references lift the veil of mystery somewhat, allowing us to look into the filial existence of Jesus, to examine the wellspring of His actions, of His teaching and of His sufferings.

This 'praying' by Jesus is the Son speaking to the Father, in which Jesus's human consciousness and will, His human soul, is involved, so that man's 'prayer' can become a participation in the communion of the Son with the Father.

The famous statement of Harnack that Jesus's pronouncements come from the Father, in which the Son does not take part - which would mean that Christology does not come from Jesus's teaching - is a hypothesis that belies itself. Jesus can speak of the Father, as He does, only because He is the Son who lives in filial communion with the Father. The Christological dimension - that is, the mystery of the Son who reveals the Father - this 'Christology,' is present in all the statements and actions of Jesus.

Here another important point is evident. We said that in the filial communion of Jesus with the Father, His human soul is inolved in the act of prayer. Who sees Jesus sees the Father (Jn 14,9). The disciple who follows Jesus thus becomes involved together with Him in the communion with God.

And this is what truly saves us: this surpassing of human limits. This potential to surpass his limits is inherent in man as an expectation and a possibility from the moment he was created in the image of God. ...
================================================================

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/01/2007 16.12]

Often, someone out of the mainstream will hit the nail on the head on what's wrong with MSM, and here is one such dead-on analysis from the Italian online opinion journal ragione politica shared with us by Lella and translated here.

Fortunately, we posted translations of the 3 Panorama articles it cites as examples, and I cannot be happier that my own reactions to those items anticipate most of his. :

Systematic disinformation
about an 'inconvenient' Pope
By Gianteo Bordero
13 January 2007


Benedict XVI does not generally have a good press.

It could be due to the sudden diet to which the Holy See's communications effort has subjected Vatican correspondents to - something which has made their job 'harder' compared to what it was in the previous Papacy.

It could be due to the atavistic image of the Grand Inquisitor that was laid by the media on Cardinal Ratzinger during his years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It could be for his 'critical spirit' in the face of the dominant thinking that media peddles - about which he had hard words to say again recently.

Whatever it is, every occasion is good for the media to re-launch and spread a deformed and partial image of the Ratzinger Papacy or of the Pope himself.

The media interpretation of his lectio magistralis in Regensburg is an object lesson in this respect. A lesson in disinformation.

The curious thing is that, in that case, many Italian and European organs of information - instead of making the effort to read the entire lecture - simply stuck to the interpretation typified by Al-Jazeera [but certainly initiated even by some major Western media] which saw the lecture as Benedict XVI's attack on Islam, thus vigorously fanning the flames of controversy to show that the Pope had called on Christianity to a new holy war with Islam.

When actually, things were the other way around - it was Al-Jazeera and its satellites who launched a 'crusade' in grand style against the Pope and Christianity.

Very few, on the part of the Western media, made any effort to report the real sense of the Pope's words in Regensburg. Most commentators preferred to gloat on the image of a crusading Pope, fomenting hate and advocating a clash of civilizations.

Why? Because the Pope's words touched a nerve in the supposed 'good conscience' of the Western world - the cultural and intellectual elites who are secular and relativistic - had been struck in the very heart of their radical chic (according to which faith equals superstition) by a discourse on faith and reason, on human reason (logos) as an image of the divine Logos, of an invitation to "open yourself up to the breadth of reason and don't reject its greatness."

For almost two years now, Benedict XVI - through his actions and his words - has been giving the world a great catechesis on the sense and essence of Christianity, and how it responds to the deepest needs of the human person and humanity, of their life and being.

Apropos, theologian Vito Mancuso in this week's Panorama delivers the latest twist - calling on the Pope to carry out more gestures like the prayer at the Blue Mosque and deliver far less discourses: in which Mancuso is wrong, because actions and words are all part of the same proposition, they respond to the same challenges. [Right on, Mr. Bordeo! I felt obliged to challenge Mancuso's idea as soon as I read - and posted [see farther up on this thread] - a translation of his piece.]

Ratzinger is describing - through the figures of the apostles that he has been presenting at the Wednesday general audiences - the new man who is born out of the encounter with Christ: a man who, even while living in this world, is no longer a slave to the images and suggestions to which the world with its cynical uses of power would like to chain the individual.

He is describing the truly free man - one who is free in his heart and in his reason from those heavy chains that are linked to a merely horizontal view of existence.

Papa Ratzinger speaks of the man who is in the world but is not of this world. And so, there is a world out there that criticizes him. On PACS, on the embryo, on ethical issues, but even - when their blows in this regard come to nothing or they run out of ammo - on his way of being Pope and how he governs the Church.

Let us take once again the current issue of Panorama as an example, in which, the cover and the images they chose to use in it present the picture of a shattered Papacy, incapable of governing the Curia and victim of obscure power plays among factions within the Vatican.

It refers to 'the gaffe on Islam' and the 'Polish fiasco.' Ignacio Ingrao writes in his article that "Benedict XVI does not have the temperament of a 'decisionista' and must deal with his age" (giving the image of a weak Pope, in all respects).

He says, "For many months, Benedict XVI has appeared isolated, closed up in his study to polich his speeches, to write a book on Jesus...and to play the piano" (i.e., a Pope who has taken himself out of the daily context of Vatican affairs and indifferent to what is going on around him).

As if that were not enough, Ingrao also claims disappointment among 'many of those who voted for Ratzinger in the Conclave, who expected to be rewarded for their support" (as if the Church were merely a collection of parties, each aspiring for nothing but to occupy seats of power).

And the icing on the cake is a comment by Filippo di Giacomo (in the third Panorama article) who takes up a thesis by Alberto Melloni, expressed in his book 'L'inizio di Papa RAtzinger', according to which the Conclave of 2005 voted for the only cardinal among them who was nominated by Paul VI, because the Church of Wojtyla had been reduced to bloody gang wars [in the hierarchy and Vatican bureacracy].

The resulting portrait is depressing. Everything comes down to dark plots and struggles for power. Not a line is given to the propositions and messages that the Pope has been giving to Christians and to the world, to the record crowds attending the Angelus, general audiences and liturgical celebrations, to the success of the Pope's books. Nothing. Not a word. And they call this information?

We could go on - there is an embarrassment of choices. But to speak badly of Papa Ratzinger has become the favorite sport of many Italian newspapers.

Let us take a llok at that daily newspaper Liberazione which, a few days ago, with an editorial written by the 'pacifist" senator Lidia Menapace. touched the abyss of poor taste with an article entitled 'Nothing we can do but laugh (or cry) about the Vatican'.

But even La Riformista, which has been tending that way for some time, has not been far behind. last year, when Benedict XVI's first encyclical, Deus caritas est, came out, the orange paper tried to show that it was a 'social democratic' document, in fact, a 'reformist' one. As it is impossible for it to 'annex' Benedict XVI the same way that it 'appropriated' John Paul II, it has moved from that benevolent annexation of the previous Pope to a more or less frontal attack on this Pope.

With the news that Benedict XVI has decided not to go to Fatima for the 90th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there, Fabrizio D'Esposito, with a fantasy worthy of the best of that genre, wrote that the Pope was afraid of the 'fourth secret'- according to the theory of 'Fatimists' promoted in Antonio Socci's new book, the 'fourth secret' is supposed to be the second part of the 'third secret' which the Popes will continue to hide because it is too 'apocalyptic' and embarassing for the Church.

Even if there were any truth to what the Fatimists and Socci sustain, then D'Esposito is holding the wrong end of the stick because Benedict XVI should fear more the revealed secret, which describes a Pope killed at the foot of the Cross by soldiers, which, when first disclosed in 2000, many interpreted as a reference to the assassination attempt on John Paul II in May 1981.

It makes no difference. What matters to that newspaper is to show a distorted image of Benedict XVI as a Pope who cowers in fear. But why did not D'Esposito refer at all to the trip to Turkey, which this Pope made despite death threats, all kinds of alarm and the hostile climate that preceded it?

Any pretext is good, as we said, to try to undermine this Pope, to cast shadows on him, to ridicule a Pope who with his discourses, his actions and the purity of his vision annoys the media circus and the dominant culture which is avid for gossip but substantially indifferent to what really counts.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/01/2007 3.11]

Church-Islam dialogue:
The path starts from Regensburg's Pope
by Samir Khalil Samir, SJ


Benedict XVI’s speech at Regensburg received a lot of criticism but it in fact launched an effective model for Islamo-Christian dialogue: refusal of violence,love of truth, interpretation, mission. The only way to go beyond the trivially tolerant appearance of dialogue promoted by many Muslims and by a good part of the Catholic Church.

Beirut, Jan. 16 (AsiaNews) – Benedict's masterly lecture at Regensburg was seen by many Christians and Muslims as a false step by the Pope, a simple mistake, something to get over and forget, if we don't want to set off a war of religions.

Instead, at Regensburg, this Pope traced, with his balanced, courageous and by no means trivial thinking, the basis for true dialogue between Christians and Muslims, giving voice to many reformist Muslims and suggesting to Islam and Christians the steps to be taken.

Still today in the West and in the Islamic world, reactions to that speech are strong. But many Muslim scholars are beginning to ask themselves: “After the tumult of initial misunderstandings, what did Benedict XVI say to us after all? He told us that we Muslims run the great risk of eliminating reason from our faith. In this case, the Islamic faith becomes simply an act of submission to God, which can conceivably degenerate into violence, perhaps even ‘in the name of God’, or ‘to defend God.’”

The much-exploited and detested quotation of Manuel II Paleologus itself was important because it underlined that "God does not love blood and violence," and that violence is against the nature of God and of man. Unfortunately, being that this phrase was pronounced on September 12th, a day after the anniversary of the attack against the Twin Towers, people read it in a political key (helped by the manipulations of Al Jazeera and Western liberals).

Now Muslims themselves are wondering: "All in all, the Pope said that there is the risk of violence in Islam. And this is not true? It is not our history and our daily problem? Are we not running the risk of emptying faith by separating it from reason and from critical thought?" Even if not in public, various Islamic scholars are saying: "This separation between faith and reason is more than ever today’s danger in Islam!"

From the 9th to the 11th century Islam had integrated in its vision the Hellenistic dimension of Greek philosophy and, through this, the critical, logical and reasonable dimension. This happened thanks to the Christians that lived in the Muslim world. But, for almost a thousand years, Islam abandoned reason to continuously repropose a literal application of what was said in the past. The current crisis in the Muslim world is based on this very gap between faith and reason and, many Muslims, in various ways, are saying so.

Speaking in parliament about a month ago, the Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, criticized the spread of the Islamic veil in Egypt saying that "such a thing had never before been seen in our country. This path has taken us backwards by at least 30 years." Another member of parliament took up his argument: "Not only have we gone back 30 years, but to the times of Mehmet Ali [i.e. to the early 19th century]."

Unfortunately, the minister was accused of having gone against the Egyptian Constitution, which foresees the Koran and Sharia as sources of law. Thus, Farouk Hosni, who has been minister for 20 years and is a noted artist, risked being removed by fundamentalists. Plus, being 62 years old and unmarried, he was also attacked with accusations of being a homosexual.

The crisis of Islam is there for everyone to see and is being pointed out by all the intellectuals. It is an attempt to take refuge in the past for fear of self-criticism, reason and modernity.

When the Pope stresses to Muslims the importance of integrating reason and faith, he is actually suggesting the way for making great strides forward, as he also does with the secular world when he stresses the importance of integrating the spiritual dimension into the concept of reason.

Another important element that emerged at Regensburg is the courage to speak: the time has come to be frank about Islam. Even a pope has the full right to say things simply and directly to our Muslim brothers, as also to the Jews, to non-believers and to his own Catholics (1). This Pope has claimed freedom of speech.

Secondly, he said reasonable and unpleasant things, but he is convinced that such things must be said as this constitutes true dialogue. The aim of the Regensburg speech - this is said in the conclusion - is precisely humanistic dialogue, which rejects nothing positive in Islam or in the Enlightenment, but criticizes what is extremist or anti-spiritual in one and the other.

In such a way, Benedict XVI has set the basis for a universal dialogue, in making a proposal to the two opposite tendencies today: on one hand, Islam with its fideism that excludes reason (and it is worth specifying that this does not mean that all of Islam has always rejected reason, as some would have us believe he said); on the other hand, he has made a proposal to laicist, rationalist, Enlightenment thinking that relegates religion to the insignificant.

Since Regensburg, he has also "displayed" this dialogue, by making concrete gestures. It is worth recalling the Pope's prayer in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, during his visit to Turkey.

The Pope concretely underlined that we Christians recognize and respect the spiritual dimension present in Islam: he removed his shoes upon entering the sacred place (a tradition that is biblical and that we find among the Copts and the Ethiopians); invited to pray, he turned toward the mihrab, the niche which indicates Mecca. He prayed because he does not reduce Islam to politics; he prayed without creating ambiguity or confusion. These gestures gave the true meaning of the Regensburg speech for Muslims.

Still today, there are Muslims who write to me thanking the Pope for what he said in Germany. Right after the speech, Abdelwahhab Meddeb of Tunisia thanked Benedict XVI because "finally someone dared to speak and point a finger at violence in Islam." For Meddeb "the seed of violence in Islam is found in the Koran," as he entitled one of his articles.

Such a statement - on the part of a Muslim - shines a light on the real, great problem of dialogue today: the lack of truth, the reluctance to accept discussion on critical points.

On the question of violence, all Muslims know that its seeds are in the holy Book, but everyone also tries to hide this by saying that "No, it is not true, Islam means peace, salam, respect, non-violence,” thus denying the facts (2).

Benedict XVI's speech did not deny the facts, but proposed that they be understood within a human context. That is, he suggested that Islam begin to undertake an interpretation of texts.

When the Pope quoted verse 2,256 of the Koran, "There is no violence in matters of faith", he added a phrase that scandalized many: "This is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammad was still powerless and under threat."

These comments seem to me fundamental: he is stressing the need for exegetic work to be done on sacred texts. In this specific case, he gave an example of hermeneutic of the Koran, proposing that that verse be read within the human experience of Mohammad. He was criticized by many, both Muslims and Catholic scholars: "He is ignorant," they said, "that verse is not from the initial period (Mecca), but from the Medina period."

In effect, according to the official edition of the Koran, it was the Medina period. But reading the comments in the bilingual Arabic-English and Arabic-French editions of the Koran, edited by Saudi Arabia, we can read "This is the first surah revealed in Medina."

In sociological terms, this means that is was revealed immediately after the Hijra - the flight from Mecca - when Mohammad left his tribe to unite with the opposing tribes of Aws and Khazraj. In that moment and for the next two years (until 624), he had no real power and was constantly under threat. He sought support in fact from the Jews, the richest and most powerful in Medina. When this failed, he began making raids, as was usual on the part of those who could not get by.

If this surah - as Muslim commentators say - is the first of Medina, that means that it is before the raiding period. It is true therefore that it was "from the second period", but it is also true, as the Pope says, that it comes at a moment in which Mohammad himself was "powerless and under threat."

With his small comment, Benedict XVI seems to suggest to Muslims: we must read the text in its context; and this is fundamental for beginning an Islamo-Christian dialogue. We must reread the sacred texts to see "the circumstances of revelation" (asbab al-tanzil, as is said in the Muslim tradition). In this, the Pope is resuming the healthy tradition of interpretation which was alive in the 9th century. Unfortunately, this no longer occurs in contemporary Islam.

Instead, if we come across violent verses - and they do exist - in the Koran, we must seek to understand them in the context in which they appeared. It is clear that Mohammad waged wars; it is also clear that he did not fight for the love of violence: in line with Old Testament tradition, he fought wars "for God", "in the zeal of God." All this, put in the perspective of the cultural and religious tradition of the Middle East, is natural and not surprising.

But it should also be said that, today, the mentality has changed: does God truly need to be defended by man? It thus follows that the Koran needs to be reread and interpreted for today.

For a century, all Muslim reformists have been saying that the solution for modernizing Islam lies in the interpretation of the Koran. For at least 30 or 40 years, we have been in a phase in which there is no longer any innovation in interpretation, but repetition ad nauseam of the same things and clichés. The same memorized things are repeated.

A young Iranian Muslim, with a degree in Islamic studies, told me the other day: "We can no longer think of the Koran as directly dictated by God to Mohammad through the angel Gabriel. It must be interpreted. Unfortunately, in today's Islam there is not much freedom: a few decades ago, one of our intellectuals, Abdolkarim Soroush (3) was removed from university teaching for having taught such things. In the end, to be able to live and express himself, he had to emigrate to Europe."

In today's Islam, ideas are available, especially among reformists and young intellectuals, but they are keeping quiet because freedom in the Islamic world is highly limited.

The Pope had the courage to identify the key points: reason, violence, hermeneutics... And he touched on a sore point with the question of the interpretation of the Koran, without which there can be no dialogue.

This urging of Islam toward interpretation is done out of love for Islam. Certain Christian and Muslim theologians criticized the Pope for having been too hard at Regensburg and they instead applauded him in Turkey. Actually, though, it is the same Pope who, out of love for Islam, did not fail to criticize it at Regensberg, and did not lack spiritual brotherhood in Istanbul.

At Regensburg, Benedict XVI dared to speak of violence, the lack of reason, the necessity of interpretation in Islam, and thus many Muslim intellectuals praised him and hoped that "the Pope does not apologize."

In the West, the calls for an apology were numerous, even among Christians. In effect, what had happened, however, was that the Pope's behaviour at Regensburg upset the overly irenic conception of the Church's mission and the tolerant do-goodism of lay environs. Benedict XVI made it understood that speaking the truth, saying things that hurt, is not an insult, but a path for healing. Occasionally, a bitter pill must be given.

Often among Christians who are engaged in dialogue with Islam, there is a tendency to "hide" and not speak about differences. This is acceptable at the beginning: if I begin a relationship with you, I certainly don't begin by defining how much there is that separates me from you. But the relationship must deepen.

An outcrop of the "clarity" suggested by the Pope is the behaviour of the Bishop of Cordoba. This prelate received the umpteenth request from a group of Muslims (converted Spaniards) who wanted to use the cathedral to pray together and give an image of "true ecumenism." The bishop replied that he saw this possibility as ambiguous and did not allow it. Various European lay newspapers criticized the bishop because "he rejected an open and brotherly proposal," etc...

Without any violence, a sense of culture and identity and of real religious freedom is growing among Christians. Thus, that irenic and falsely multi-ethnic attitude of a mishmash of religions is beginning to fall by the wayside.

This is especially urgent in France, where fear of offending Islam does not even allow for the annual drafting of statistics on conversions from Islam: bishops and those responsible for dialogue with Muslims refuse to give news on the number of Muslims who are asking for baptism.

I personally am not against the fact that there are Christians who become Muslims, as long as they convert for reasons of faith and not for political or economic reasons. But I also want news on how many Muslims are becoming Christians and that such information can be freely given. It is in such frank openness that true spiritual emulation is created.

For Muslims and Christians alike, mission is an obligation. Muslims call it "da'wa" and it is an obligation; Christians call it evangelization, and it too is an obligation. Unfortunately, there are among Christians more and more people who refuse to announce and to speak of their faith, out of "respect" or as not to fall into proselitism.

Muslims have da'wa offices all over the world. They are tied to each Islamic state and build mosques, spread the Koran, send out preachers and other resources: a sort of Propaganda Fide for each Islamic state. The difference is that, among Muslims, it is the state that supports Islamic mission. In the case of Christians, it is the communities, the Church which supports mission.

If a Church or a bishop is not interested in mission, it means that they are asleep or closed in upon themselves. So far, I have seen churches which are very well organized vis-à-vis Muslims from the point of view of charity: help to immigrant, hospitality, schools, etc. It is, however, a generosity without proclamation. It is said that this happens to save dialogue. But proclamation is necessary so that dialogue is a dialogue in truth.

It is necessary that the Church realize that its existence – not only numerical – depends on the proclamation of the Gospel to Muslims also. If this drive is lacking, then it means that she has lost that sense of the beauty of faith encountered in Christ. It means slipping into the void of relativism.

NOTES

(1) As he did - already as cardinal - at the Via Crucis held at Rome's Coliseum on Good Friday 2004, speaking of the "filth in the Church."

(2) It should be noted that the Koran also contains seeds of non-violence. And since both one and the other are found in it - as in the Hebrew Bible – a hermeneutic, an interpretation of sacred texts is needed to discern its true meaning for us today. And this is one of the Pope's important ideas, as I had the occasion to hear from him firsthand at the encounter held at Castel Gandolfo in September 2005

(3) See his site: wwwdrsoroush.com/Englishhtm

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/02/2007 2.55]

Pope Meets With Head of U.N. Food Program

Benedict XVI's Spirit Uplifts Us All, Director Says

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 15, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI received the executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, who thanked the Pope for his commitment to the poor.

Today's audience with James Morris followed the Holy Father's Jan. 8 address to the diplomatic corps, in which the Pontiff stressed the importance of the commitment to reduce hunger, a scourge that is now growing again after decades of decline.

A communiqué from the U.N. agency described the meeting as "an admonition that reflected the daily work of the World Food Program, and encouraged the international community to carry out active policies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, first of all, to halve the proportion of the hungry by 2015."

Morris recalled the "extraordinary help provided to WFP worldwide by Catholic organizations," and expressed his wish to "thank His Holiness for his continuous personal commitment, as well as that of the Catholic Church, to the poor and desperate people in the world."

"The developed world must do more to help the over 850 million people who don't have enough to feed themselves," Morris said.

Catholic partners

The World Food Program has numerous Catholic groups and organizations as partners, such as Caritas, Catholic Relief Services, the Daughters of Charity, and the International Catholic Migration Commission.

Morris stressed that 18,000 children die every day from hunger and malnutrition. He also mentioned the increase in natural disasters, which are among the main causes of global hunger.

"The spiritual, moral and material support of Pope Benedict XVI and of the Catholic Church represents a real hope to provide a future to millions of children," Morris said. "I am so grateful for their good will, encouragement, faithfulness and especially for the Holy Father's special concern for vulnerable people at risk around the world. His spirit uplifts us all."

Pope to convene special meeting on China: media source

AFP
Wednesday • January 17, 2007

Pope Benedict XVI is reportedly expected to convene a Vatican meeting soon to discuss the Roman Catholic church's strategy in China.

The meeting is to focus on China's strained relations with the Holy See after Beijing consecrated several bishops last year without papal approval, a move seen as "unlawful" by Pope Benedict, said the I-Media news agency, which reports in French on Vatican affairs.

A spokesman for Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen last week said that the Catholic leader planned to attend the meeting.

China's state-sanctioned church, which does not answer to the pope, has about four million worshippers, official figures show. The Vatican estimates the country's underground Catholic church has around 10 million followers.

Beijing in 1951 cut diplomatic ties with the Vatican, which has since recognised Taiwan, regarded by China as part of its territory awaiting reunification.

China had insisted that to re-establish ties, the Vatican must sever ties with Taiwan and not interfere in its internal affairs.

Lawyer for Tariq Aziz asks Italy, Vatican to help Aziz live in Italy while he awaits trial

By Associated Press
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - Updated: 11:35 AM EST

ROME - Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has asked the Italian government and the Vatican to act as guarantors on his behalf so that he can live in Italy while he awaits trial in Iraq, his Italian lawyer said Tuesday.

Giovanni Di Stefano said he was planning to apply for bail for Aziz, who was also Iraq’s foreign minister and who is being detained at a U.S. military base in Baghdad.

He was arrested after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003 and is being held by U.S. forces under agreement with the Iraqi government.

"I’ve asked the Italian government and the Vatican to guarantee for him to live in Italy in peace," Di Stefano told reporters in Rome, showing two letters he said were signed by Aziz. "He will not be sentenced to death, but he will die in prison if he’s not released."

Aziz’s family also appealed with the Vatican in the past, asking Pope Benedict XVI to intervene with U.S. authorities for his release to allow him to receive medical care abroad_ claiming his health had deteriorated drastically. Aziz, a Chaldean Catholic, had a heart attack before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"This man needs urgent medical attention and he is not getting it," said Di Stefano, who said he met with Aziz on Friday.

Government spokesman Silvio Sircana was not immediately available for comment. The Vatican’s spokesman said he was unaware of the letter.

Aziz met with the late Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in February 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, in a bid to head off the conflict.

Aziz is accused of being involved in several party purges in the 1970s and 1980s during which an unspecified number of people died. He has denied the allegations, saying his role was confined to foreign affairs and dealing with the media.

Separately, Di Stefano said that he had asked the Hague-based International Criminal Court to prosecute Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi officials responsible for the executions of Saddam and two of his associates.

Thank God there's AsiaNews. For the benefit of those of us who cannot usually follow listen the morning TV coverages of the Holy Father [because the time difference finds us on this side of the Atlantic deep in sleep], Fr. Cervellera's staff have really been conscientious about getting the prepared text beforehand, checking it against what the Pope actually says, and then reporting on it as soon as they can.

So until the Vatican site for the daily bulletins gets back on line, this is what the Pope spoke about today at the general audience:

Journey towards Christian unity
long and difficult
but we should not be discouraged, says Pope

On the eve of the Christian Unity Week, Benedict XVI stresses how strong “the desire for unity” he felt
in his meeting with other Christian leaders, especially Bartholomew I. Friendship between Jews and
Christians is growing “for justice and peace in the world”.


Vatican City, Jan 17 (AsiaNews) – A “long and difficult journey” will lead Christians to their unity but we “must not be discouraged.”

Instead, we must “continue it,” first of all through prayers “every day” that it may occur but also through charitable work that show Christians’ shared understanding.

These, in essence, are the main points Benedict XVI made in his address to 7,000 people who had gathered in the Paul VI Hall for the Holy Father’s general audience. His remarks were dedicated to the Week of Prayers for Christian Unity and for friendship between Jews and Christians.

In mentioning that Christian Unity Week begins tomorrow, “a crucial time for commitment and prayer by all Christians,” he said that he “saw how much the desire for unity was strong during the meetings with representatives of Churches and ecclesial communities in these years and especially during the very moving meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, Turkey, at the end of November.”

“These and other experiences have made my heart more hopeful.” Even though it will be a “long and difficult journey,” we “must not be discouraged” but should instead “continue it,” counting on the help Jesus promised.

Benedict XVI told his audience that in a few countries, including Italy, “the Week is preceded by a day of Jewish-Christian reflection which we celebrate today”.

This day is meant to “promote awareness” and “develop the relationship based on respect and friendship between Jews and Christians”. Their relationship, he stressed, further “developed” after the Second Vatican Council and John Paul II’s “historic visit” to Rome’s main synagogue on April 13, 1986.

“Friendship between Jews and Christians,” he added, “must be based on praying for all if we want it to be fruitful.” Similarly, he urged Jews and Christians to show mutual “respect and esteem and work together for justice and peace in the world.”

Speaking about the Week of Prayer, Benedict XVI reminded his audience that this year the topic taken from the Bible was about making the deaf hear and the mute speak, taking its inspiration for the healing of the deaf-mute as told in the Gospel of Mark.

Every Christian, “spiritually deaf and mute because of original sin,” receives through baptism the means to hear the word of God and proclaim it to his brothers. Or better still, from this moment Christians are given the responsibility of maturing in the awareness and love of Christ so as to be able to announce the Gospel.

Announcing the Gospel and bearing witness about charity —i.e. “every comfort Christians may concretely bring to others’ suffering” — “will favour,” in the Pope’s words, “the journey towards unity”.

“The harmony of purpose to alleviate man’s suffering, the search for truth, the conversion of one’s life and repentance are necessary steps each Christian must take”.

However, “praying for unity cannot be limited to a week per year. It must be done every day of the year” so that “significant steps can be taken on the path to full and perfect communion.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/01/2007 15.54]

Re: Williamson of the SSPX

Totally hearsay, but I believe he's supposed to be one of the more anti-reconciliation SSPX guys. He's also supposed to be having a lot of trouble maintaining his popularity and power in the SSPX; the somewhat more reasonable guys are more popular, so he doesn't want to do anything they're doing.

He has every reason to try to torpedo a deal by saying horrible things to the press, in other words. Such comments also ensure he keeps the support of the more rabid members of his group.

Croatian premier visits Pope

Vatican, Jan. 17, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI met on January 17 with Croatian Prime Minister Ivor Sanader in a private audience at the Vatican.

The Croatian leader, who was elected as his country’s prime minister in 2003, has been seeking support for his country’s bid to join the European Union, and that quest was likely to have been a topic in his conversations with the Pope. But the Vatican did not release any account of the meeting.

Sanader was one of the last world leaders to visit Pope John Paul II before the death of the Polish Pontiff. He held a brief conversation with the late Pope on February 22, 2005, shortly after John Paul II had been released from the Gemelli hospital.

Croatia, a former province of Yugoslavia, proclaimed its independence in 1991, triggering a period of bloody struggle in the Balkans. In a meeting with the Croatian bishops last year, Pope Benedict XVI remarked that the country “is still feeling the consequences of the recent conflict, the negative effects of which are visible not only in the economy but also in the souls of the inhabitants."

Pope calls on Christians
and Jews for peace



VATICAN CITY , Jan, 17 (AP)- Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday called on Christians and Jews to work together for world peace as Israel's chief rabbi, addressing a conference on Christian-Jewish relations, urged the international community to "do everything" to defend the Jewish state.

The pope has been reaching out to Jews, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the late John Paul II. Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, during his first trip abroad as pontiff in 2005.

"I invite all to ... invoke the Lord so that Christians and Jews respect each other, appreciate each other and cooperate for justice and peace in the world," Benedict told thousands of faithful during his weekly general audience at the Vatican.

The pope also touched upon another frequent theme when he called for Christian unity, saying the road is "long and not easy" but adding it is necessary "not to get discouraged."

The Italian Bishops Conference has dedicated Wednesday to Catholic-Jewish dialogue [as it has done for the past 20 years, according to the Pope, on the day preceding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and as some other countries also do].*

Separately, a Catholic lay organization, the Sant'Egidio Community, organized a conference drawing Vatican officials and religious leaders to discuss Christian-Jewish relations.

At the conference, the chief rabbi of Israel appealed to the international community and the United Nations to "do everything to avert the threat against my people and my country."

Yona Metzger said his country is being threatened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"There are those who try to imitate the Nazi leader with very grave warnings," Metzger said. "To remain inert before Iran today is a grave sin."

He pointed to "fanatics of Islam" and warned against "the use of religion for terrorist ends."

The rabbi also reiterated his country's invitation to Benedict, saying "whenever the pope would like to come to Israel, we will welcome him warmly." He hailed current relations between Christians and Jews as very positive.

Benedict has said he hoped to travel to the Holy Land and pray in Jerusalem as soon as circumstances permit it.

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

*I wonder why no one has started an initiative to dedicate one day as well to Christian-Muslim relations, so that the inter-religious context is complete, at least for the three monotheistic religions. Esspecially in the light of recent events.

Incidentally, this time last year, we were all awaiitng the release of the Holy FAther's firet cyncyclical, which he timed to coincide with the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. I wonder how much truth to the rumor that he may be coming out with a second one soon!

Malta's premier meets Pope, invites visit

Vatican, Jan. 18, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI met on January 18 with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi of Malta, in a private audience at the Vatican.

After the meeting, Gonzi told reporters that he had invited the Pope to visit Malta, perhaps for the canonization of Dun Gorg Preca, who will be Malta’s first canonized saint.

After his meeting with the Pontiff, the Maltese leader spoke with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State. He and his wife, accompanied by several other officials from Malta, then visited the crypt of the Vatican basilica to pray at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

Group asks Pope to remove anti-Semitism in art

By Reuters
Thursday January 18, 10:30 PM
By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian group on Thursday asked Pope Benedict to order the removal of all religious works of art and Catholic traditions that still smack of anti-Semitism.

The Roman Association of Friends of Israel sent a letter to the Pope asking him for a "clear and strong signal" that he would not tolerate any residual or resurgent forms anti-Semitism in religious art or popular culture, such as processions.

The group sent the letter to protest against an exhibition in a church in the Umbrian city of Orvieto which includes several old paintings depicting Jews desecrating a consecrated communion host, which Catholics believe is the body of Christ.

"The fact that this culture (of anti-Semitism) continues to survive in parishes is very worrying and alarming for us," said the letter, a copy of which was made available to Reuters.

"It is a sign that the embers of intolerance and hate continue to smoulder under the ashes, which, after the Holocaust, we had hoped were definitively put out," it said.

One painting, called the "Miracle of Trani", portrays the legend of a Jewish woman in the year 1000 who sneaked into a church in the southern city of Trani and stole a consecrated host.

According to the legend, she took it home to desecrate it by frying it in oil. But then the "miracle" happened. The host became flesh and started bleeding. The woman was hanged and the event is still recalled in Trani today during Easter week.

"The fact that this painting is on display in a church is so grave and insulting that we decided to write directly to he Pope, bypassing priests and bishops," Anna Borioni, the president of the association, told Reuters.

"Only the Pope can do something to stop these kinds of things from still happening," said Borioni, who is Catholic.

The association's letter to the Pope said the exhibition showed that there were still residues of "virulent anti-Jewish" feelings in some sectors of Italian Catholicism.

Jews say that some religious processions held during Easter week in small cities still have traces of anti-Semitism.

In the Middle Ages in Rome, when Jews lived in the Ghetto across the Tiber from St Peter's Basilica, a papal envoy gave the Jewish community leader a public kick in the backside every year at a ceremony when Jews offered tithes to the pope.

Until only 40 years ago, a ritual recited by Catholics during Good Friday services commemorating Christ's death read: "Let us pray for the perfidious Jews".

Pope John XXIII ordered the phrase removed and in 1965 the Second Vatican Council issued a major document that repudiated the notion of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death.

In the past few decades, the Vatican has strived to improve relations with Jews. It established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994 and Pope John Paul visited the Holy Land in 2000.