Still waiting for the Vatican Press Office to place the text of the Pope's homily at Vespers today online. Since the event took place Thursday evening, are they perhaps waiting until they get to work Friday morning to post? Meanwhile, here's the story from Associated Press:

Pope calls for
honest Christian dialog
By FRANCES D'EMILIO



After Vespers at St. Paul (left), the Holy Father visits Rome's newest tourist attraction for the first time - the tomb of the Apostle Paul underneath the main altar. It was recently made accessible for public viewing after archeologists confirmed that it contains the sarcophagus of Rome's other great Apostle.

VATICAN CITY, Jan. 25 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday called for honest dialogue among Christians as he expressed sadness over tensions between churches following centuries of divisions.

Benedict presided at a prayer service in St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica in Rome to mark the end of a week of prayer dedicated in churches around the world to efforts aimed at uniting Christians.

"Honest and loyal dialogue constitutes the typical and indispensable instrument in the search for unity," Benedict said.

Christians were praying "so that all the disciples of Christ be one, and so ... they can give harmonious testimony to the men and women of our times," said Benedict, who is devoting much of his papacy to achieving Christian unity.

In his homily, Benedict said through such encounters as Thursday's service it has been possible to perceive the joy of brotherhood, together with sadness for the tensions that remain.

The Vatican is eager for Christian churches to work together on positions they can share, such as opposition to abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriages.

Benedict reached a milestone on the path toward possible Christian unity two months ago when he met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, in Istanbul.

Tensions with the Orthodox Church in Russia kept the late John Paul II from making his hoped-for pilgrimage there. Vatican officials said this week they are hoping Benedict can go to Moscow but that there are no concrete plans despite improving relations with Russian Orthodox Church.

Pope says he hopes 2008 synod helps Catholics note value of Bible

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said he hoped the preparation for and celebration of the 2008 world Synod of Bishops would help Catholics realize how important the Bible is in their lives and the life of the church.

The synod, to be held Oct. 5-26, 2008, will focus on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church."

Pope Benedict met Jan. 25 with the synod's preparatory council at the end of a meeting to draft an outline that will be sent to bishops' conferences around the world for comment.

The pope said it was important for the church to focus on the Scriptures because the life and mission of the church are based on the word of God.

The Bible, he said, "requires special veneration and obedience" by all Christians, and a common commitment to following its teaching can help Christians overcome their denominational divisions.

Pope Benedict said he hoped the entire synod process would help Catholics "rediscover the importance of the Word of God in the life of every Christian, every ecclesial community and even every civil community."

The word of God was given to humanity to "enlighten our path in the earthly pilgrimage toward the full realization of the kingdom of God," he said.

[Modificato da benefan 26/01/2007 4.27]

[A bit more detail on this event.]


Pope urges Christians to end divisions in face of global problems

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- In the face of global instances of racism, poverty and conflict, Christians need more than ever to end their divisions and proclaim the Gospel with one voice, Pope Benedict XVI said.

He made the comments at a Jan. 25 ecumenical prayer service, the liturgy that closed the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in the Rome Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

After entering the brightly lit basilica, the pope was joined on the altar by representatives of Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches.

Below the main altar was a recent architectural opening that allows visitors to glimpse what church officials have identified as the tomb of St. Paul. The pope said he was happy that the tomb is now visible to pilgrims and called St. Paul a "tireless builder of unity" in the early church.

After the service, the pope walked into the crypt area and peered through the opening to see the saint's burial place.

In a sermon, the pope said the theme of this year's ecumenical prayer week, "Open Our Ears and Loosen Our Tongues," made reference to Christ's healing miracles in order to underline the importance of healing "incommunicability and division" in the Christian community.

He said the first ecumenical task was to listen to the word of God, which is something all Christians can do together in prayer and reflection on Scripture.

The second task, he said, was to communicate the word of God to others, including those who have never heard the Gospel and those who have "forgotten it and buried it under the worries and deceptions of the world."

"We have to ask ourselves: Have we Christians perhaps become too mute? Don't we perhaps lack the courage to speak and to witness?" he said.

The pope said ecumenical dialogue must also be a process of listening and communicating with an attitude that is open to "fraternal correction."

[Modificato da benefan 26/01/2007 4.27]

The Vatican webcam is working. You can get it through the newer VLC links added to the site. I used to be able to watch CTV through Windows Media but for some reason I can't get it anymore. And RealPlayer never worked for me. You can download/install the VLC player www.videolan.org/vlc/ then copy & paste the VLC/Quicktime link's URL address in File, Open Network Stream to watch the webcam through the player (as opposed to opening the link in a new window in your browser). This is the only way now for me to watch CTV coverage through the internet.

Thank you Imladris, I also had problems with the Windows MP and the Real player too. I read that the Vatican will have a kind of "CNN"( I posted an article about it on the Iberian Section.....

[Modificato da @Nessuna@ 26/01/2007 5.07]

Leading U.S. Rabbi calls for New International Ecumenism in Defense of Morality

By Gudrun Schultz

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States, January 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Leading Orthodox rabbi Yehuda Levin delivered an impassioned plea for a “new ecumenism” among international religious leaders in defense of morality, during a speech at the March for Life demonstration in Washington Jan.22.

“It’s time for religious people to come out of our places of worship and bring our faith in to the artificially denuded public square,” said Rabbi Levin, saying support for abortion and homosexual marriage within Jewish communities was “paganism.”

Head of an Orthodox Jewish congregation in New York City, Rabbi Levin founded Jews for Morality in an effort to counter the growing support for liberal moral policies in the Jewish community. A prominent speaker in defense of traditional moral teaching, Rabbi Levin has addressed the annual March for Life in Washington for the past 25 years.

The rabbi reiterated his call for moral solidarity between leading Western religions, asking Pope Benedict XVI to stand at the forefront of what he called a “new ecumenism” in defense of morality.

“On Jan.2 I visited the Vatican to propose a new type of ecumenism. No theology, no dialogue, no apologies…Just joining together to preserve our Godly values. Religious leaders must reclaim their leadership roles in society from the political panderers, the legislative and the judicials.”

In his meeting with the Pope, Rabbi Levin pledged the support of the Orthodox Jewish community to the Catholic Church’s efforts in combating moral decay in Western society.

“I might seem now to be speaking in almost a prophetic way. I have the blood of prophets in my veins. I am saying with certitude—with a logical certitude—that the group in Western Civilization and perhaps in World Civilization with the most potential to act as a catalyst for a moral counterattack, pushing back the barbarians who stand against the gates of Rome and Jerusalem . . . are Catholics. You don’t have to be a prophet to understand that,” Rabbi Levin told LifeSiteNew.com at the time .

“And the personality whom God has placed at the top: I couldn’t have prayed, as an Orthodox Jew, for a better person.”

Emphasizing the pressing need for strong leadership from religious authorities, Rabbi told March for Life crowds that the visible participation of spiritual leaders was vital in countering the assault on the family and social morality.

“In former times, people of faith were called to sacrifice they’re lives to be martyrs. All we’re asking today is that our religious leaders accompany us as we take to the street.”

“I turn to the Moslem world and their leadership. Sign a petition, bring it to the Pope. Let’s start a revolution!”

“Let the pope come here, he’s an outstanding champion,” Rabbi Levin said, calling for a papal visit to New York. “We need you in America. We need a new ecumenical alliance.”

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

Jewish Rabbi: If Catholic Leaders Rally, Jews and Evangelicals Would Follow
www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07010409.html

Beatrice on her Papal website beatriceweb.eu has once again provided an unusual perspective of Benedict XVI - and his expected liturgical reform - in the eyes of a priest who was ordained in the SSPX (the Lefebvrian movement) but who left the movement (without resigning or being expelled) in order to devote himself to writing about contemporary problems of the Catholic Church.

Abbé Claude Barthe, born in 1947, was ordained in Econe in 1979. In 1987 after leaving the SSPX, he helped found the magazine CATHOLICA, which he continues to work with. He has written books like 'Is there still faith on earth?', 'What's the future for Vatican-II?', "Christian exegesis today', "To reconstruct the liturgy,' 'Which way for the Church?', and has edited and co-edited books on liturgy. He has a special dispensation to say the Tridentine Mass, which he celebrates daily in Paris at 86 rue de Grenelle, and gives courses on liturgy at the seminaries of the Institut du Christ-Roi and the Institut du Bon Pasteur.

Or, as Beatrice says, he's from the 'enlightened fringe' of the SSPX movement. One will get a sense of his thinking from the following excerpts of an interview given recently to Le Forum Catholique. Here is a translation:

NB: Ecclesia Dei refers to the Pontifical Commission created by John Paul II to oversee the activities of 'traditioanlist' movements like the SSPX and the Bon Pasteur group.

How do we interpret the fact that the Pope’s Motu proprio [referred to hereafter as MP] on the Mass has not yet come out to be communicated to the whole Church? Besides the fact that the bishops of France are, I believe, against the Pope’s decision, what other factors might there be? And if it does get promulgated, don’t you think it will be so restricted in its applications that it will make the task difficult for the priests and religious of all the Ecclesia Dei movements, as well as those of the 'conciliar Church' itself and the FSSPX movement? In other words, will this liberalization not become more of a constraint? On the other hand, have you not exaggerated somewhat by describing Benedrict XVI as an ‘enlightened traditionalist’?

As far as we know, there have been two successive versions of the MP. It is the second one – which is said to be more complete and which would be more precise about settling disputes – which has been examined by the plenary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission in December. The few modifications suggested have reportedly been integrated into the MP by the Commission and the text is ‘on his desk’ ready for the Pope’s signature. But it is well known that he takes his time on making decisions – it became legendary in Munich where he was archbishop for a few years.

The text is known to Cardinal Ricard, Cardinal Barbarin and a few other French bishops, at least along its major lines. Their reactions, the precautions they are taking, the way in which they have been talking about it to their clergy, appear to indicate that there is nothing institutional about the document – that is, it should not theoretically concern the Ecclesia Dei communities in any way – but it does state that “the demands of the faithful” should be satisfied [by the local bishops], who cannot object without due cause.

I don’t think – and I may be wrong – that it will constrain the freedom it allows. I think that the psychological shock that this liberalization will produce will be healthy, even if it may raise some difficulties, some of which we can foresee and some which we can’t.

I’ve answered your questions a bit out of order but I believe I know what you’re driving at. And I insist on speaking conditionally as I have always done. I have spoken of John XXIII's ‘moderate progressivism” as opposed to Benedict XVI’s ‘enlightened traditionalism.' Conceding the journalistic character of the expressions, I stand by them. I say ‘enlightened’ because Joseph Ratzinger is not without a certain intellectual superiority in the best sense of the term – he is trying to save what good there was from the thinkers of the Enlightenment.

The ‘reform of the reform’ is one of Benedict XVI’s great ideas. Recent disclosures in Le Figaro and Italy’s Il Foglio show that he already had concrete ideas about its implementation (namely, a mixture of the two missals) since he came to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the start of the 1980s.(…)

The post-synodal exhortation should contain some encouragements to ‘touch up', in the words of one cardinal which the Pope has used, Paul VI’s reform. But apparently, things are taking some time. The Pope is a man of prudent reflection, a person more inclided to exhortative texts rather than obligatory discipline, a man whose exemplary actions are by small touches rather than through sweeping mediatic coups.

And I think the analogy, in reverse sense, between Popes Roncalli and Ratzinger as transitional Popes, is probably correct on this point: each in his own way is opening up doors. It is for us to walk across.

In many of your writings and speeches, you have used the term ”positive crossing the line”(franchisement positive) to describe the period starting from the later years of John Paul II’s papacy to the present. How do you see the situation evolving with respect to liturgy as well as the ‘return to the Magisterium' when the much-awaited MP has been delayed coming out and is surrounded by a lot of criticism, and on the other hand, the forces working for the dissolution of the Church do not seem to be weakening.

I used the term ”positive crossing the line” to describe Ratzingerian reform – that of the theologian-turned-Pope and the theologians close to him. That is to say that, neither in liturgy, nor in a more general sense, do they intend any return to the time of Pius XII (pre-Vatican II). Simply and purely, one must not expect them to close the parenthesis between what the liturgical reform represented and what the Council represents in its most Conciliar expression…

Ratzingerism is seeking a synthesis of two confronting positions, relativising the ‘progfressive’ position while keeping something of what it contributes positively. This applies in liturgy and other aspects of any ‘reform of the reform.’…If this process takes place, it will have the positive effect of provoking a sort of disequilibrium in the ideological edifice of the Council – I don’t mean all the texts of the Council but the Council as an ideology….

As to the forces for dissolution of the Church, it is true that it seems to be breaking down more than ever. Sooner of later, it will come to a moment of truth: that will be the other aspect (condemnation or its equivalent) of the return to dogma. What the Church has always asked of the traditionalists – to show proof that they are ‘in communion’ – it should also ask, and the earlier the better, the Parisian professor who perverts the doctrine of Humanae vitae, the priest who does not believe in hell, the bishop who says the Church has no business giving directives about conscience.

The Church cannot go beyond a certain positive frontier (this is what one must believe = dogma) and a negative one(whoever does not believe this is no longer part of the Church).

Isn’t there a basis for the disappointment being expressed in the traditional/conservative camp after almost two years since Benedict XVI became Pope? Examples- Odd nominations like Cardinal Hummes. The Arles version of the MP on liturgy,, which reportedly Cardinal Ratzinger has been considering for 30 years. The consequences of some ambiguous discourses about Islam. Has the record not been disappointing after almost two years? In other words, has Benedict XVI shown himself to be weak-spirited?

...My optimism is deliberately intentional.

On doctrine, Benedict XVI is not a traditionalist but a reformist. [I wish the interviewer had asked Barthes to clarify how Benedict could be considered a 'reformist' on doctrine!] But he is close to many theologians who are frankly traditional in spirit. It is a banality to say he is intelligent. But his genius has great suppleness. He is so humble and yet he has solid theological arguments. Did he not write in 1969 that “the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus would never have been questioned if Jesus had been born out of a normal marriage”? But he corrected himself clearly in 1977.…
[If anyone knows what the 'correction' was, please enlighten me.]

Therefore if he now says as he did in the speech to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2006, that he “respects the Islamic faith,” citing Nostra aetate, he can very well come back to this statement later, saying, for example, that he respects a priori all men who prantise the Muslim faith or that he respects the elements of natural religion that one finds in Islam.

About the way he governs, right now he is under attack from the left (in a recent article by Henri Tincq, in the Italian magazine Panorama)*, all using an identical line : Benedict XVI has shown he is not a man capable of governing, weakened as he is, they claim, by the disastrous nomination of an archbishop for Warsaw – an event they say doubles an already complex crisis between him and the Polish hierarchy; weakened also, they say, by the effects he failed to foresee from Regensburg, and weakened by the announcement of a motu proprio that has placed the French bishops in a state of incipient revolt.
*[We have carried translations on this thread of both the Tincq and the Panorama attacks.]

All the more reason for defending him….. But I repeat: I am convinced that having men in the Curia who have his confidence [I say men he trusts, whom he has known for a long time, who have never betrayed him, who are not necessarily traditionalists as we would like them to be] will result in a fruitful outcome for his nominations to the French hierarchy. I want to believe that!

Benedict XVI is particularly tenacious – maybe even stubborn - about his projecsts. It will be him, or his successor, who will meet the great challenges within the Church which are the ultimate and inevitable consequences of the era of Vatican-II.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/01/2007 22.12]

Lella shares this news agency item report about another important Jewish voice endorsing the initiatives of Benedict XVI. Here is a translation:


VATICAN CITY, Jan. 27 9APCOM) - The visit to the Cologne Synagogue in 2005, the memorable visit to Auschqitz in 2006, maybe a visit to Israel in 2007. This could be Pope Benedict XVI's line of thought, according to Israel's Ambassador to the Holy See, Oded Ben Hur.

"Twenty months since his election," the ambassasdor underscored, "this Pope has already done so much for the Jewish people and for the state of Israel, in affirming his position. He made a first step with the visit to the synagogue in Cologne in 2005. Then in May 2006 he went toAuschwitz, where milliosn of Jews had been reduced to ashes. If I can follow his line of thought, it would be logical to think of a trip to Israel this year. It's a very realistic hypothesis."

Ben Hur was asked about the progress of work in the Bialteral Commission established by the Holy See and Israel to settle outstanding juridical questions involving the CAtholic Church in Jerusalem.

"We hsve resumed negotiations in a more decisive manner," he told Varican radio. "Now we know better what difficulties remain and what are the ways in whichw e can overcome these difficulties. There have beenmeetings with the director-general of the Isrraeli ministry most competent to deal with these questions. Prime Minister Olmert has come to visit the Pope and met with the Secretary of State as well as the Vatican 'foreign minister', Mons. Mamberti."

"Now we see clearly the basis for remaining problems, and there is a serious and authentic desire to reach a resolution and agreement after all these negotiations, because without an agreement, things could get worse.

"We should do everything to arrive at an agreement that will assure proper conditions for the Catholic communities in Israel. That is why the meetings have become more frquent, and the prospects are positive. There is erciprocal hope, and this is important. And we will reach agreement because wee have the means and the goodwill to go forward," he concluded.

Pope warns against annulments

thewest.com.au
28th January 2007, 7:45 WST

Pope Benedict XVI called on the Vatican's top Rota court today to keep making annulments of marriage the exception and maintain Church traditions that rule out de facto unions.

Members of the tribunal of the Roman Rota, which deal with marriage annulments, must not "deny the existence of an indissoluble conjugal tie", he said.

They should also not "be tempted by other ways or interpretations that imply a break with Church traditions", a clear reference to countries where de facto unions - which are also available to unmarried heterosexual couples - or gay marriages have been legalised.

The Pope said that those ways were leading away from "the true essence of marriage" and were counterfeiting the reality of marriage.

He spoke to what is quintessentially the Roman Catholic Church's appeal court at the start of a new judicial year, a day after the publication of an Italian poll which found that two-thirds of Italians favour legal status for gay couples.

An Italian draft bill on the subject may be unveiled at a technical meeting on Tuesday and submitted to the centre-left cabinet on Friday.

The Eurispes poll found that 67 per cent of Italians approved of recognising de facto unions‘ - which will also be available to unmarried heterosexual couples.

A majority of respondents, 58 per cent, opposed homosexual marriage, while 34 per cent said they supported it.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi's Union coalition promised in its election manifesto last year to grant legal recognition to common law partnerships, a plan approved reluctantly by centrist Catholics within the alliance.

The Pope criticised unspecified Church circles for condoning a regularisation of an irregular marital situation, warning against seeing marriage as "a simple social formalisation of emotional ties".

According to Vatican figures Rota members looked into 1679 cases during the last year, taking 262 decisions including 69 marriage annulments.

Cases were submitted from 27 countries, mostly from Italy (128).

Marriages are generally declared null and void by the Vatican court for 'emotional immaturity‘ of one of the spouses or when one of the spouses is unable to fulfil his or her marital duties.

[Modificato da benefan 28/01/2007 2.01]

It would have been unthinkable to pass over the first anniversary of the first best-selling papal encyclical ever. Although Osservatore Romano appears to have ignored that anniversary (at least on its front pages), Avvenire did not, and asked Mons. Rino Fisichella to write this guest editorial. Here is a translation:


One year later, Benedict XVI's
first encyclical continues
to have a vast resonance
By Mons. Rino Fisichella
Rector
Pontifical Lateran University

A year ago, the first enclyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, was published. It carried the significant date of December 25, the day on which the mystery of God's love becomes evident as He takes on human form to reveal to everyone the highest and most significant calling possible: to love and be loved.

This document had been greatly awaited for months. In fact, through his first encyclical, every Pope makes known the 'program' for his Pontificate and sets down the principles which will orient his pastoral work.

With Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI did not disappoint expectations. Indeed, he affirmed that his program was that which the Church has followed for 200 years - to give testimony of God's love and to live off it and through it.

The effect caused by the encyclical was an avalanche. One simply has to look back at its reception over the first few months to understand not only that Benedict XVI had hit on the right theme but also that he was effectively understood by everyone.

Deus caritas est has been read, studied, reflected, debated in different circles, from the various Christians communities to many diverse fields of secular culture.

The text has been read by Catholics, orthodox, protestants. Everyone has grasped its ecumenical value and given it his own personal reading, contributing remarkably to it by this involvement.

For everyone, the words of the famous theologian from Tuebingen, Eberhard Jungel, are valid: "Normally, Protestant theologians read papal encyclicals with some mistrust. I am a Protestant theologian and I know the rule applies to me. But there is no rule that has no exceptions. I have read Benedict XVI's first encyclical more than once. The text has touched me not the least because it evokes in the evangelical reader a harmony that comes from a profound consensus of vast ecumenical significance."

This no mere expression of courtesy, but a conviction that those pages hold ideas that can overcome the misunderstandings, the limitations and the contradictions that we all carry within us.

Deus caritas est, in the simple language that Benedict XVI has accustomed us in his interventions, especially in his Wednesday catecheses and his homilies, contains themes that require great reflection in order to become part of one's behavior and turn into a genuine lifestyle.

Think of the great theme of Christian love, which goes beyond any form of disincarnated myth, because in the person of Jesus Christ, it enters directly into human history and becomes a paradigm for all those in search of a love that is authentic, free and true, which gives a definitive sense to one's existence.

On the other hand, one must not under-estimate the great cultural challenge posed by those pages to the West, above all. Increasingly fragmented in a sort of apathy that has caused disorientation and with it the loss of identity, this old continent is urged to understand that without a recovery of its own roots, it does not have a real future before it.

The encyclical also urges a consideration of the theme of physicality, urging us to overcome a partial and exploitative vision that limits love to passion and makes the body a piece of merchandise to be used only for coarse, unbridled pleasure.

In the face of what is reported in the news these days, which contantly makes the truth of these words emerge dramatically, it is useful to hold on to Benedict's teachings as something very relevant. It becomes precious for what it suggests in order that one may arrive at a profound unity within oneself. Only thus can one recover the true harmony that allows one to live in an equilibrium of body and spirit, of reason and feeling, of eros and agape.

After the thousands of articles that the world press has devoted to the encyclical, at a distance of one year, we begin to see increasingly the theological commentaries and more reasoned analyses. This is only the beginning of a long course
which is not going to end soon, as the reception of Benedict's first encyclical begins to bear fruit.

If at this point, we find ourselves moved by these pages and they succeed in giving us a profound understanding of love, then it is really true that Christianity is not a theory but an encounter with the mystery of someone who deserves to be visited by us all our life, Jesus Christ.

Lella shares wIth us this article from Il Giornale of 1/25/07 which touches on how this question remains the primary obstacle to Catholic-Orthodox reunification and raises the question of whether the term 'inter-religious dialog,' makes sense at all!

...And is dialog with Islam
as a religion really possible?
By ANDREA TORNIELLI

To arrive at unity between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, what is required is 'a concrete gesture of reciprocal humility" which will bring the Orthodox to 'recognize the divine essence of the primacy of Peter" and Catholics to recognize the traditions and structure of the Oriental churches.

But the principle of Peter's primacy should not be considered an 'obstacle' or a 'stumbling block' because it is an element 'of unity, not division.'

This is the message in the book 'Pietro ama e unisce' (Peter loves and unites)(Edizioni Studio Domenicano, pp. 224, 10 euro), written by two theologian consultants to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, don Nicola Bux and Fr. Adriano Garuti.

The book was presented at the Vatican this week during a round-table discussion coordinated by don Salvatore Vitiello, with the participation of Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University, and Elio Guerriero, editor of the Italian edition of Communio, among others.

In attendance were Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, several prelates, as well as Magdi Allam, deputy editor of Corriere della Sera.

The book is not only an academic contribution; rather, it sets the baselines (and supporting structures) for an ecumenical dialog according to the theology of Joseph Ratzinger.

It is a book essay that will be debated because it goes against
an ecumenical concept that is widespread even among Catholics, which has neded up by considering the role of the Bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope) as an obstacle to unity, and which sees the redimensioning of the Pope's role as the only way to unblock the road.

For decades, it has been debated how to progress in talks with the Orthodox Churches, who have conserved the sacraments and the apostolic succession, but who do not acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome 'to preside in charity" and be a unifying factor.

In the 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint, John Paul II expressed his willingness to find new ways to 'exercise' this primacy tat would satisfy the demands of the separated Eastern churches.

But the dialog has not made any significant steps ford in this respect, and instead, Fr. Garuti said yesterday "that willingness has been misunderstood, almost as though it was the primacy itself that was in question rather than the ways of exercising it."

Benedict XVI restated that willingness when he was in Turkey, and on the day following his election as Pope, he had assured everyone of his commitment to making progress in the ecumenical process.

But even the two authors could not give a definite answer to what these new ways of 'exercising the primacy' might be. They did indicate the way to a reciprocal acknowledgment that would imply, on the part of the Orthodox, an acceptance of that primacy.

The introduction to the Bux-Garuti book also refers to the dialog between Christians and other religions.

"If one faith is the truth," they note, "then that by itself rules out confronting another 'truth,' without falling into syncretism. In this sense, inter-religious dialog does not properly exist," but, as suggested recently by the philosopher Marcello Pera, inter-cultural dialog - which appeals to reason alone - is possible.

At the presentation, Mons. Fisichella partially corrected that formulation, pointing out that the statement applied to all other religions, including Islam, but not to Judaism: "With the Jews, dialog should not be limited to the cultural, because we have the Old Testament in common, and to use the words of St. Paul, we are grafted to the plant." [Yes, but Jews deny the divinity of Christ, which is the central point of Christianity!]

Cardinal Bertone concluded with a citation from then-Cardinal RAtzinger who, in 1987, wrote that "The Pope remains, even for those who deny the validity of his ministry, the reference point who is personally responsible for bringing and expressing the word of faith to the world."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/01/2007 16.33]

In the previous page, Benefan posted in a timely manner an online story about the Pope's meeting with the Roman Rota last Saturday to mark the start of the judicial year.

The Holy Father, of course, delivered a most topical address to them Saturday noon, which I have just reaklized I failed to translate. [Will make up for it soon]. Meanwhile, here is how VIS reported excerpts from the address:

DISCOVER THE BEAUTY
OF THE "TRUTH OF MARRIAGE"

VATICAN CITY, JAN 27, 2007 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, Benedict XVI received the dean, judges, promoters of justice, defenders of the bond, officials and lawyers of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, for the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year.

At the beginning of his address to them, the Holy Father pointed out that "the expression 'truth of marriage' loses all existential significance in a cultural context marked by the relativism and juridical positivism that consider marriage as a mere social formalization of the ties of affection. Thus, marriage not only becomes contingent, as human affections can be contingent, but appears as a superimposed legal structure which human will can manipulate at will, even denying its heterosexual character."

The Pope warned against those who believe that "the conciliar doctrine on marriage - and in particular the description of that institution as 'intima communitas vitae et amoris' - necessarily leads to denying the existence of an indissoluble conjugal bond," on the grounds that this is "an 'ideal' which not all 'normal Christians' can be 'obliged' to follow."

"The anthropological and salvific truth of marriage - also in its juridical dimension - is already present in Holy Scripture," said the Pope, and he quoted: "[He] made them male and female, and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. ... What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." T

he Book of Genesis, he continued, also "presents the truth of marriage at the 'beginning'," a truth that achieves fullness "in the union of Christ with the Church."

"Each marriage is certainly the fruit of the free will of a man and a woman, but their freedom puts into effect the natural capacity inherent to their masculinity and femininity. ... The indissolubility of marriage does not derive from the definitive commitment of the two parties involved; rather it is intrinsic to the nature of the 'potent bond established by the Creator.' The contracting parties must make a definitive commitment because such is the nature of marriage in the plan of creation and redemption."

"Against the subjective and libertarian realization of sexual experience," said Benedict XVI, "the tradition of the Church clearly affirms the naturally juridical nature of marriage, in other words the fact that, by its very character, it pertains to the field of justice in interpersonal relationships."

In this context, he went on, "the law interweaves with life and love. ... Love [between husband and wife] is the fruit of their freely seeking the good of the other and of the children."

Referring to the danger of the erroneous interpretation of current canonical norms, the Holy Father encouraged his audience to react "with courage and trust, ... without allowing yourselves to be seduced by interpretations that entail a break with the tradition of the Church."

"The contribution of ecclesial tribunals to overcoming the crisis in the significance of marriage, both in the Church and in civil society, may seem to be some somewhat secondary," he said.

However, "precisely because marriage has an intrinsically juridical dimension," it is of fundamental importance to be "wise and convinced servants of justice in this delicate and important field. ... You, dear prelate auditors, are committed to a task in which responsibility for truth is especially felt. ...

"Remaining faithful to that task, seek to ensure that your activities become a harmonious part of a global rediscovery of the beauty of the 'truth of marriage' - the truth of the 'beginning' - that Jesus taught us, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds us continually in the Church today."

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

Since VIS does not see fit to explain what the Roman Rota is, here is some information from Wikipedia:

The Tribunal of the Rota Romana or Roman Rota is the normal appellate tribunal of the Holy See and the second highest ecclesiastical court in the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church has a complete legal system which is the oldest and one of the most advanced legal systems still in use today. The court is named Rota (wheel) because the judges, called auditors, originally met in a round room to hear cases.

The Rota adjudicates cases in a panel (called a turnus) of three auditors assigned by the dean of the tribunal. The Pope appoints the Rota's auditors, whose decisions are written in Latin, and also designates the tribunal's dean. The current dean of the Roman Rota is Most Rev. Antoni Stankiewicz, who has served in this capacity since January 31, 2004.

The Rota's main function is that of a third instance appellate tribunal, reviewing decisions of lower courts if the original court and the first appeal court do not agree on the outcome of a case. Dominating its case load are marriage annulment cases due to the increased civil divorce rates among Catholics, but it hears non-administrative cases in any area of canon law.

You may read more on
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacra_Rota_Romana

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

Here's how the Guardian of England reported the story:


Pope calls for
tightening up on annulment
Tom Kington in Rome
Monday January 29, 2007
The Guardian


Pope Benedict XVI has warned Vatican judges to get tough on couples who ask the Catholic Church to annul their marriages.
The Pope ordered the clampdown after new figures showed that the church's appeals court allowed 69 annulments in 2005 for reasons which included husbands being too attached to their mothers.

The court, known as the Sacra Rota, considers petitions from couples claiming their marriages were never truly valid.

Apart from the get-out clause for women married to "mummy's boys", an "inability to assume conjugal obligations", usually due to a childhood trauma, appears among the successful reasons for annulment in 2005, as do alcoholism, use of cannabis (marijuana), infidelity and a serious lack of "moderation in judgment" by a partner, meaning jealousy or a propensity to lie.

The Vatican does not permit divorcees to remarry in church and a growing number of annulment requests are winding their way from lower ecclesiastical courts to the appeals court in Rome, with the majority Italian, followed by requests from America and Poland.

Princess Caroline of Monaco was able to annul her 1978 marriage to Philippe Junot on the grounds that they had produced no children.

But the Pope appeared to take a hard line on Saturday when he told the court's 20 judges to "respond with courage and faith" to "a distorted interpretation of the canonical norms in force".

He has repeatedly criticised the Italian government's plans for a law defining rights for unmarried couples. The institution of marriage, he said, was in danger of becoming no more than a legal agreement, "manipulated at will", and "even denied of its heterosexual character".

The Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, said on Saturday that a bill on civil unions was close to completion.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/01/2007 4.47]

Lella shares with us this article by veteran Vaticanista Andrea Torneilli in today's Il Giornale with an update on the Pope's book on Jesus. Here is a translation.

The Ratzinger Code from
the publishers of Dan Brown
By Andrea Tornielli
1/29/07

Benedict XVI's book on Jesus will find itself on the same English-language catalog as The Da Vinci Code. Random House, which raked in on the Dan Brown best-seller, has announced on its website that it will be marketing the Pope's Jesus of Nazareth (400 pp, $24.95) in the United States. [Originally, it was supposed to be Doubleday, or have they merged?!]

The Pope's book - the first to be published during his Papacy in his capacity as Joseph Ratzinger, scholar, not as Pope - is not an act of Magisterium [i.e., not Church teaching), but Joseph Ratzinger's scholarly attempt to show that the historical Jesus and the Jesus of the Christian faith are one and the same. [But because Joseph Ratzinger is also the Pope, the authorship is attributed to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.]

In excerpts released from the book's Preface and introductory chapter, the Pope says that the Nazarene of the Gospels is "much more logical, and even from the historical viewpoint, even more understandable than the 'reconstructions' we have been confronted with in recent decades."

"I maintain," says Ratzinger/Benedict, "that this Jesus - the Jesus of the Gospels - is the historical Jesus who is most convincing and makes the most sense."

In fact, it is the historical figure of Jesus as reported in the Gospels that became Church canon - as opposed to apocryphal texts that the Church chose to discard - which Dan Brown's cartoonish novel chooses to dispute.

The copyright to the book, as of all Joseph Ratzinger's and Benedict XVI's writings, belongs to the Vatican publishing house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV), which therefore also oversees foreign distribution of the Pope's books.

Mons. Giuseppe Scotti, president of LEV, told 30 Giorni in an interview in September 2005 (when LEV acquired the Pope's copyyrights): "There are many (marketing) temptations, of course, but our attitude must be different - business and the economic turnaround cannot be the dominant element. To succeed ,we need great faith and great strength. It is so tempting to open up, expand our business dealings, but it is useful to rely on and collaborate with experts in the field (publishing)."

LEV's collaboration with Rizzoli publishers, who are publishing the book in Italy and will supervise foreign distribution, is in that spirit.

And certainly, the partnership with Random House, which describes itself on its website as 'the largest publisher of English books in the world', should guarantee the widest and most systematically detailed distribution for the English edition of the Pope's book.

Moreover, readers will find in the same catalog a precious and most authoritative 'antidote' to the nonsense of the Da Vinci Code.

The renewed debate over Jesus Christ and the historicity of the Gospels is no longer confined to theological faculties or to academic seminars. After the publication of the Da Vinci Code, apocrypha like the so-called Gospel of Judas piblished by National Geographic have received international media attention.

In April 2006, in his Good Friday homily at St. Peter's, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Papal Household, thundered aginst these publishing operations which, without real arguments but withgreat publicity, attack the Christian faith, thereby creating a possible crisis of faith among the faithful who do not have the right cultural preparation to evaluate them appropriately.

"Christ is being sold again," said Cantalamessa, "not to the chiefs of the Sanhedrin for 30 denarii, but to editors and publishing houses for billions...And no one can stop this wave of speculation."

In the past few months, the book Inchiesta su Gesu( Inquiry on Jesus, Mondadori publishers), by the atheist journalist Corrado Augias and the nominally Catholic Biblical scholar Mauro Pesce, has been a big best-seller in Italy.

It purports to bring to light the historical figure of Jesus but denies his divinity. The book, of course, has been immediately disputed and rebutted by Catholic intellectuals writing for La Civilta Cattolica and Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference.


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

Yesterday, Sandro Magisogged about the recent Jesus books that are already out there - and one realizes all the more how much Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is laying on the line by coming out with his book on Jesus.

Biblical scholars, theologians, other authors, the media, and every Tom, Dick and Harry will all put in their two bits and more about it, and surely no Pope in history would ever have had to deal with such a situation.

But his whole career has been, in many ways, a succession of throwing down the gauntlet and wagering his all on the things he believes, so there is probably no one better prepared and equipped to take on the critics.

Meanwhile, this is what's out there so far, according to Magister, translated here ...


Mauro Pesce and the Bologna school:
A stab in the back
from an erstwhile brother


A new episode opens in the historical-theological controversy over who Jesus is.

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, who had launched the first major rebuttal of the best-selling Inchiesta su Gesu (Inquiry on Jesus) by the agnostic journalist Corrado Augias and the Biblical scholar Mauro Pesce, has returned to the battle with a new article in the January 26 issue of Avvenire.

[We posted the English translation of Fr. Cantalamessa's review of the Augias-Pesce book in READINGS.]

This time, to recommend a monumental study on Jesus by the English biblical scholar James Dunn, published in Italy by Paideia in three volumes totalling more than a thousand pages under the general title La memoria di Gesu [Remembering Jesus, I think, translates the sense of the title best], part of an even more imposing work called The beginnings of Christianity.

In recommending Dunn's work, Fr. Cantalamessa favorably cites another recent great work on Jesus, A marginal Jew, by the American Catholic scholar John P. Meier, published by Queriniana in Italy, also in three big volumes.

If we add to these two Jesus studies the book Jesus by the German Lutheran Klaus Berger - also translated by Queriniana and recently endorsed in Famiglia Cristiana by Mons. Gianfranco Ravasi - then we have three works of great scientific and theological value confronting the Augias-Pesce best-seller.

Their disadvantage is that these three books, especially the first two, are highly specialized. For the wider public, there is Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's soon to be released Jesus of Nazareth, which will definitely be even more diametrically opposed to the Augias-Pesce line.

But the Augias-Pesce book also came in for a severe criticism Saturday, January 27, in Corriere della Sera - a thinly argued but quite venomous panning by by Alberto Melloni.

Pesce and Meloni were staunch allies for several years at the Institute for Religious Sciences founded in Bologna by don Giuseppe Dossetti [who was a leading advocate of the progressive interpretation of Vatican-II, the so-called 'Bologna school'].

Until one day, Pesce walked out, slamming the door behind him, in profound dissent that has never been healed, with the man who now runs the institute, Giuseppe Alberigo, and his dauphin, Alberto Melloni.

In the same article, Melloni also seeks to demolish by scornful words the Pope's coming book before it has even been printed!

But to get back to Augias and Pesce, it is curious that among Catholic gurus, the only one so far who has reviewed it favorably is Enzo Bianchi, the prior of the Bose cmmunity, who wrote about it in La Stampa in mid-October last year. [Of course, Bianchi vaunts an ecumenical community - aren't ecumenicals are supposed to be Christian, though? - but how can any Catholic be favorable to a book that denies the basic tenet of the Christian faith, that Jesus was God made man?]

But Bianchi, too, was for years an important collaborator at the Bolgona Institute. Not anymore, of course.

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

[So now, I must go and find Melloni's article - I can't wait to see how he can try to demolish something no one but the author and his translators have seen yet.]

P.S. I have checked out Melloni's article, and it's not really a broadside against anyone - it's his take on the recent spate of Gospel- and Jesus-oriented books, and is in fact entitled "Vangeli superstar. Il Nuovo Testamento come genere letterario: e il grande pubblico riscopre il Gesù storico" [Gospels as superstar. The New Testament as a literary genre: the larger public rediscovers the historical Jesus].

Nor is it thinly argued. He is saying that all these books do not really respond to what the Christian needs, which is to hear Jesus Himself in the preaching, the teaching and the discipline of the Church, that Christian salvation must be announced by keeping one's eyes fixed on Jesus, as on someone from behind whose shoulder we are walking.

Perhaps, he says, that is why Papa Ratzinger is writing his Jesus book to respond to this need, otherwise "it will simply end up as one of those pontifical bestsellers we have seen that are not always edifying".

And frankly, I wonder what he means by that, because there were no pontifical best-sellers before John Paul II, and surely he cannot mean 'Deus caritas est' or any of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's books (nor JP-II's for that matter), because if there is one thing the two Popes have in common - as they should - it is their endless teaching and preaching of Christ as the center of the Church and of every Christian's life.

Maybe if I take time to translate the entire essay through and through, I might appreciate why Magister thought it was so negative against the Augias-Pesce book and the Pope's.

About the Augias-Pesce book, Melloni points out that for all the scholarly and unorthodox material they put into it, the authors end up ignoring the Jesus who is the constant and only subject of the Gospels, which are really intended for those who truly want to enter into a relationship with that Jesus (Papa B. always calls it 'friendship' with Christ).

But is that not the obvious agenda of all these high-faluting attempts - to present a Jesus different from the Jesus of the Gospels? It certainly is the most valid criticism of these so-called historico-critical exegeses, short of disputing their denial of the divinity of Jesus, which Melloni does not bother to do (perhaps because he grants that it is their working hypothesis, after all).

Melloni says Augias and Pesce would fit in well with those Christians who behave as though they no longer need Jesus, at least not of His historicity as the Gospels present Him to us, and mask their contempt for traditional believers in diplomatic courtesy.

His second reference to the Pope is when he says that there is an essay by one Giuseppe Ruggieri that is being reissued soon,in which the author reflects on the truth that Jesus speaks of, inofar as his messianic mission is concerned, not as generic truth but as 'the crucified truth' (i.e.,the truth that arises from the Cricifixion). And he says that if it is not irreverent, he would recommend the Pope reads it, if he doesn't already know it. [Well...not irreverent perhaps, but maybe a bit patronizing?]

When Melloni is not going on about the 'authentic and correct' interpretation of Vatican-II, it is actually quite refreshing to hear his voice as a Christian believer.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/02/2007 0.32]

At last, someone has stepped back far enough to discern that the key difference between Benedict's Papacy and his predecessor's is that these are different times altogether that call for different approaches.

Here is a translation of an analysis by a veteran journalist and political commentator with an interesting past (see below). As usual, the indefatigable Lella shares this with us from the main forum. Here is a translation of the article that appears in La Stampa today, 1/20/07

The Pope opens up to the times
By Gianni Baget Bozzo


With the passage of time, the differences between the pontificate of John Paul II and that of Benedict XVI are becoming more relevant. Not in matters of doctrine, where there is great continuity, but in the relationship between the church and public opinion.

The public perception of the two pontificates is quite divergent, because it is a different world today.

John Paul II was the Pope of human rights. First of all, by virtue of his being Polish, and from having influenced the public movements that began in Poland and destabilized the Soviet empire.

The impact of the papal intervention on these developments was perhaps amplified beyond what it really was, but it made the Pope a symbol of human rights. Thus he was able to affirm the value of freedom and rights even in areas outside of eastern Europe, to dictatorships of both right and left, to Pinochet as to Fidel Castro.

Because he was Polish, John Paul II could think that, in the face of the modern and the post-modern, traditional religions, including Christianity, could be the custodians of universal dialog and consensus.

And so, human rights and inter-religious dialog were fundamental to how John Paul II chose to present himself to the world.

Then came 9/11,whose religious matrix John Paul II refused to consider, and the rejection of the Christian past in Europe's Constitution. These two events signaled the historical end of a Papacy before a world that had changed. They were the signs of the new times.

Benedict XVI has completely changed the basis for inter-religious relations and the way they should talk to each other. It is no longer religion as such that is the object of interest, but the relation of each religion to reason and to freedom.

Benedict XVI has wished for Islam that it may have a movement similar to the European enlightenment, in which the demands of reason are radically confronted, and freedom is recognized as a primary value, particularly freedom of religion.

Inter-religious relations cease to be such and instead becomes a relation between the cultures of these religions, involving their secular dimensions as well.

Therefore, the approach he takes compared to his predecessor's is a complete change. The modern is now considered a positive experience by the Church, despite the irreligiosity of rationalism. It is certainly a a historical turn to Pius X's syllabus against the errors of modernity. Benedict XVI is responding to the signs of the times.

But even the question of human rights has changed in the European context. In John Paul II's time, human rights were above all the rights of the individual, his rights to freedom. In this, the liberal ideal was the same as the Christian one - the enlightenement and Catholicism could converge.

Now, Benedict XVI finds himself facing human rights which have become in Europe not the right of single persons, but the rights of minorities! And this excludes the traditional values of conscience and the law, excluding the very foundations, therefore, of European history.

Rights have become group rights, no longer based on values, but on the composition and weight of the interst group for whom certain rights are being defended.

It is not accidental that homosexuality has become the key issue of the new human rights - no longer concerned with the freedom of the individual conscience but with the existence of group distinctions.

Conscience and freedom presuppose an interior law, and must therefore refer somehow to God. The very fact that modern thought defines itself occurring 'as if God did not exist' is its very reference to God.

In the new human rights, the adversaries are no longer the totalitarian states but the law and conscience in which a reference to God as legislator and judge is implicit even when God is not acknowledged.

Interest groups are a perfect immanence conceived to negate the existence of a universal human nature and coddle the cultural choices of minorities and individuals who constitute them.

Benedict XVI recognizes in nihilism (which is a negation of human nature) and fundamentalism tthe two dangers that threaten Christianity in Europe.

Human rights for groups would deny the universality of human nature, a concept that always carries the moral sense of having a creator God.

And so Benedict XVI is colliding with the prejudices of his time, whereas John Paul II found an accomodation. But the signs of the times tell us that the two situations are vastly different and cannot have a comon measure.

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

About Baget Bozzo, Wikipedia tells us that he was ordained a priest at the age of 42 after having been a Christian Democrat representative. Then in the in the 1980s, his priestly privileges were suspended by John Paul II because he ran for office. In fact, he was elected to two terms in the European Parliament. He regained his priestly functions after his second term ended in 1994.

However, he went on to join Silvio Berlusconi in the newly-founded center-right coalition called Forza Italia, where he is editor of its online organ, ragionpolitica. He has written a few books on religion in contemporary society and writes political articles for many of Italy's leading publications.

Lella shares this article from Il Messaggero of today, 1/30/07, on speculation about a new consistory:

Maybe as many as 17
will get the red hat
By MARIA LOMBARDI


ROME - It is almost a year now since Papa Ratzinger's first consistory,and there is buzz about a new 'convocation' of cardinals by the Pope.

Maybe in June, maybe later, but certainly within the year ,because seven cardinals are turning 80 this year and will therefore lose the right to vote in any new conclave.

Insiders say this would give the Pope 17 posts to fill up. On paper for now, he has 10 to fill up, since there are now only 110 cardinals below 80 and therefore entitled to vote. Paul VI had fixed the 'maximum' number of cardinal electors at 120.

If one adds the 7 who will be turning 80 this year, then the Pope will have at least 17 'promotions' to make.

Leading candidates at the moment appear to include the Tuscan Archbishop Angelo Comastri, 63, whom Benedict named last October to be the arch-priest of St. Peter's Basilica replacing Cardinal Francesco Marchisano.

Also in the running are Mons. Paolo Romeo, a Sicilian from Acireale, 68, Apostolic Nuncio to Italy till he was recently named Archbishop of Palermo; and Mons. Giovanni Lajolo, who was named last September to head the Governatorate of the Vatican.

Then there were three names who didn't make it to Benedict's first consistory - Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, Archbishop Martin Darmuid of Dublin, and Polish Archbishop Stanyslaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

Last March, Benedict named 15 new cardinals, three of whom were older than 80. He himself will be 80 soon.

The cardinals who will turn 80 this year are Carlo Maria Martini, who was Archbishop of Milan for 22 years and who now lives in retirment in Jerusalem; the Spanish cardinal Euardo Martinez Somalo, emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for the Religious and current chamberlain of the Church;; the Hungarian Cardinal Laszlo Paskai; the Polish Francisek Macharski, ex- Archbishjop of Cracow and one of the intimates of the late Pope; the Indian Varkay Vithayathil; the American cardinal of Polish origin Edmund Szoka; and lastly, in November, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who will, however, remain dean of the college of cardinals.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/02/2007 23.35]

Pope Benedict's February prayer intentions

Feb. 1, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has announced Pope Benedict's prayer intentions for the month of February.

The Holy Father's general intention is: "That the goods of the earth, given by God for all men, may be used wisely and according to criteria of justice and solidarity." His missionary prayer intention is: "That the fight against diseases and great epidemics in the Third World may find, in the spirit of solidarity, ever more generous collaboration on the part of the governments of all nations."

Jews, Christians, and Muslims called to strengthen ties that bind, Pope says

Pope Benedict meets with Prince of Jordan and international foundation


Vatican City, Feb 1, 2007 / 10:14 am (CNA).- Today in the Vatican, Benedict XVI received a delegation from the Foundation for Inter-religious and Inter-cultural Research and Dialogue, led by their president, Metropolitan Archbishop Damskinos of Adrianoupoli. Among the members of the delegation was also His Royal Highness Prince Hassan of Jordan.

In his address to the group the Pope, who as Cardinal Ratzinger was one of the foundation's founding members, thanked Metropolitan Damaskinos for his gift of the first fruit of their labors: a joint edition of the three sacred texts of the three monotheistic religions, in chronological order and in the original languages. "It was our first project," the Pope recalled, "to make a specific and positive contribution to dialogue between cultures and religions."

"Jews, Christians, and Muslims," he went on, "are called to recognize and strengthen the ties that bind us together. It was this idea that brought us to create the foundation, the objective of which is to discover 'the most essential and most authentic message that the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - can communicate to the 21st century world,' with the aim of giving a fresh impulse to inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue through the joint discovery and communication of the elements in our respective spiritual legacies that contribute to reinforcing the fraternal bonds between our communities of believers."

"The rereading - for some people the discovery - of texts that are sacred to so many people enforces our mutual respect," said the Holy Father. "Men and women today await from us a message of harmony and tranquility, and the concrete expression of our shared will to help them realize their legitimate aspirations to live in justice and peace."

"The work of the foundation will contribute to raising ever greater awareness of all the aspects of the various cultures of our time that correspond to divine wisdom and serve the dignity of man. This will lead to greater discernment, and to a rejection of all usurpation of the name of God and denaturalization of man's humanity."

"Our respective religious traditions," Pope Benedict concluded, "underline the sacred nature of life and the dignity of the human person. ... We, with all men and women of good will, long for peace. For this reason I reiterate that inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and research are not an option, but a vital necessity of our time."

Two Papal events today
at St. Peter's Basilica

At midday today, the Holy Father was to preside at a funeral Mass for Cardinal Antonio Maria Javierre Ortas, S.D.B., prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, who died in Rome this morning at the age of 85.

VIS has this report on the funeral mass:

---

VATICAN CITY, FEB 2, 2007 (VIS) - At midday today, at the altar of the Cathedra in St. Peter's Basilica, the Pope presided at the funeral of Cardinal Antonio Maria Javierre Ortas S.D.B., prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, who died yesterday in Rome a few weeks before his 86th birthday.

In his homily, the Holy Father affirmed that the late Spanish cardinal, following the example of Don Bosco, would have wanted to live his Salesian vocation in direct contact with young people, in the mission lands, but Providence called him to other duties. Thus he became an apostle in the universities and in the Roman Curia, although without missing an occasion to continue his intense spiritual activity ... in the field of theology and in the wider field of culture, especially by animating groups of teachers and religious, and as chaplain to university students. His service to the Church was faithful and generous, always willing and cordial."

"Cardinal Javierre Ortas," he continued, "wanted his personal life and his ecclesial mission to be a message of hope. Through his apostolate, following the example of St. John Bosco, he strove to communicate to everyone that Christ is always with us. How often did he - son of the land of St. Theresa and of St. John of the Cross - pray in his heart: 'Nada te turbe, / nada te espante. / Quien a Dios tiene / nada le falta / ... / Solo Dios basta'." [Nothing disturbs you,nothing frightens you. Whoever has God lacks for nothing....God alone is enough.]

"As a worthy son of Don Bosco," the cardinal "was profoundly devoted to the Virgin Mary, whom he loved and venerated as Our Lady of Help. He sought to imitate the manner of discreet and generous service of the Madonna, 'Ancilla Domini.' He left his functions as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments 'on tiptoe,' in order to dedicate himself to another function, one that must never be abandoned: that of prayer."

---

This afternoon, the Pope will address members of various religious congregations at St. Peter's Basilica after a Mass celebrated at 5:30 p.m. to commemorate the Feast of thePresentation of our Lord and the XI Day for the Consecrated Life.

Cardinal Franc Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of apostolic Life, will preside at the concelebrated Mass.

Mass will be preceded by a liturgy of light, with the lighting and blessing of candles and a procession.

The Holy Father will join the congregation after the Mass to address give his address.

(The VIS story on the Holy Father's eulogy for Cardinal Javierre really does not do justice to the eulogy. I have posted a translation of the full text in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES. The Pope's appreciation for a cardinal who lived as a priest with a rich spiritual life centered on the Eucharist is very obvious from the effort he took to quote from the cardinal's own letters to John Paul II to illustrate how the Spanish cardinal was committed to his vocation.

As he did with Comunione e Liberazione's don Giussani in February 2005 and with John Paul II in April 2005, Joseph Ratzinger makes the funeral eulogy an ineffable thing of beauty, a celebration of faith and of a life of faith, never sentimental but spoken with a sense of wonder at what man can be who lives the word of God and earns the grace of God.)

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

The Vatican also released this yesterday:


CALENDAR OF THE CELEBRATIONS
TO BE PRESIDED BY THE HOLY FATHER
FEBRUARY-APRIL 2007


Feb 21, Ash Wednesday
Basilica of Saint Sabina, 17:00
Holy Mass, blessing and impositon of ashes

Feb 25, I Sunday of Lent
Apostolic Palace
Redemptoris Mater Chapel, 18:00
Start of spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia

Mar 3, Saturday
Redemptoris Mater Chapel, 9:00
Conclusion of spiritual exercises

Mar 25, V Sunday of Lent
Pastoral visit to the Roman parish
of St. Felicity and sons, Martyrs, 9:30
Holy Mass

Mar 29, Thursday
St. Peter's Basilica, 17.30
Penitential celebration with Diocese of Rome youth

April 1, Palm Sunday
St. Peter's Square, 9:30
Blessing of the palms, Procession
Holy Mass

April 2, Holy Monday
St. Peter/s Basilica, Altar of the Confession, 17:30
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Holy Mass for the late Pope John Paul II

April 5, Maundy Thursday
St. Peter's Basilica, 9.30
Holy Mass of the Chrism

Basilica of St. John Lateran, 17.30
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Start of the Paschal Triduum
Holy Mass of the Lord''s Supper

April 6, Good Friday
St. Peter's basilica, 17:00
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Celebration of the Passion of our Lord

Colosseum, 21.15
Via Crucis

April 7, Holy Saturday
St. Peter's Basilica, 22:00
CAPPELLA PAPALE
Easter Vigil

April 8, Easter Sunday
St. Peter's Square, 10.30
Holy Mass

Central Loggia of St. Peter's, 12:00
Easter "Urbi et Orbi" Blessing

April 15, II Sunday in Easter
St. Peter's Basilica, 10:00
Holy Mass for the Holy Father's 80th birthday (4/16)

April 21, Saturday and
April 22, III Sunday in Easter
Pastoral visit to Vigevano and Pavia (northern Italy)

April 29, IV Sunday in Easter
St. Peter's Basilica, 9:00
Priestly ordination of deacons of the Diocese of Rome

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

Which takes us to May and the trip to Brazil May 9-13.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/02/2007 3.17]

02 February 2007

Cardinal Wetter retires from office



Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of the archbishop of Munich. He will continue as Apostolic administrator until a successor is named - the Holy Father also accepted the resignation of bishop Kamphaus (of the diocese of Limburg).

Rome/Munich (www.kath.net). Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the renouncement of the archbishop of Munich and Freising, cardinal Friedrich Wetter (78), effective 2 February 2007. At the same time, he appointed the cardinal as Apostolic administrator for the diocese with all the rights and the authority of a Diocesan bishop, who will guide the diocese in his name up to the nomination of a new archbishop.

This announcement was given on Friday, 2 February, the celebration of the “Feast of the presentation of Our Lord”, at the same time in Rome and Munich. Cardinal Wetter remains as Apostolic administrator for the diocese, he is also a member of the German bishop’s conference, whose Faith commission he leads, likewise the chairman of the Freising bishop’s conference.

He was born on 20 February 1928 in Landau/Pfalz and on 10 October 1953 he was ordained priest in Rome. Wetter was appointed as bishop of Speyer on 28 May 1968 by Pope Paul VI and ordained on 29 June 1968 in the cathedral of Speyer as bishop. Pope John Paul II had appointed him on 28 October 1982 to become archbishop of Munich and Freising. On 25 May 1985 he had been accepted into the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Wetter is the oldest serving German diocesan bishop.

Before the press the cardinal described his renouncement of office and his appointment on 2 February in Munich as the Apostolic administrator. He had, in accordance with Canon Law directly before his 75th birthday already offered his retirement in the year 2002 to the Pope.

John Paul II had decided that he remain archbishop of Munich and Freising. Wetter said he had reminded Pope Benedict XVI at their meeting some weeks ago of the fact that on 20 February 2008 he will be 80. Regarding this date, the Pope now accepted his retirement which he had expressed four years earlier.

He himself agreed with the Pope to put the office back into the hands of the Pope on 2 February, on the celebration of the “Feast of the presentation of Our Lord”. Literally the cardinal said: "Thus the conditions are created, in accordance with provisions of Canon Law and the Bavarian concordat for a successor for the office of the archbishop of Munich and Freising to be sought."

With gratitude towards the Holy Father and based on solidarity with him like also with the faithful diocese he said he was ready to take over the service of a Apostolic administrator for the diocese which he was offered.

Wetter literally said: "From today on will I take the office Apostolic administrator diocese Munich and Freising at the order of Pope Benedict XVI to lead our diocese with all the rights and authority as before." He thanks the Pope that he had entrusted him with this duty. The cardinal added: "I will fulfil it gladly for the diocese which has become so dear to me. God’s blessing may rest on it."

© kath.net

Andrea - I hope you don't mind. I couldn't resist putting in the picture of the Pope and Cardinal Wetter together - such a beautiful picture (thanks to Rocco Palmo). It's amazing to think that Cardinal Wetter has been Archbishop of Munich for more than 24 years!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/02/2007 19.27]

CHINA – VATICAN
Pope’s letter to the Chinese Church
ready “around Easter”, says Cardinal Zen


Hong Kong, Feb. 2 (AsiaNews) – Pope Benedict's letter to Chinese Catholics will be completed around Easter. Its wording about relations between Beijing and the Holy See will be “prudent,” said Card Zen Ze-kiun, bishop of Hong Kong, in an interview with the diocesan weekly Kung Kao Po.

According to Mgr Zen, a prudent dialogue is possible with the Chinese government but “on religious freedom, the Vatican should have a clear stance. This is not an irrational request.”

He noted that the "Vietnam model", which allows the Vatican and the government to select bishops, was "quite good". Specifically, the model allows the Vatican to present several appropriate candidates to the government and after considering opinions expressed by the government, the Pope would make a final decision.

This is an “acceptable compromise” also because Vietnam also does not have a patriotic association like China, which is seen as "illicit and unacceptable" by the Roman Catholic Church.

The decision to write a letter to Chinese faithful was taken during a Vatican's meeting on ‘The Situation of the Catholic Church in Mainland China’ held on January 19-20.

Chinese bishops from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan took part in the deliberations as did officials from the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. The meeting was chaired by the Secretary of State, Card Tarcisio Bertone.

According to some sources, the Vatican is working on a 20-page letter.

[Modificato da benefan 03/02/2007 1.59]

A Pope for the Melancholy Modern Age

By Alexander Smoltczyk
Spiegel Online
February 2, 2007


Why is a reactionary Bavarian anti-modernist in white robes so fascinating to the enlightened intellectuals among us? The riddle that is Joseph "Sepp" Ratzinger, aka Benedict XVI.

The man has everything needed to induce weeping and gnashing of teeth in the most hardened left-wing liberal.

He has put an end to liberation theology. He despises rock and pop music, even if people pray along with it. He has ruled out ecumenical services and stubbornly refuses to allow divorcees to take communion. He fraternizes with the anti-modernist Lefebvre disciples and pro-lifers, but gay priests are banished from the seminaries. And to top it off, all this power is expressed in a slightly effeminate, old man's voice: "Cari fratelli e sorelle ..."

Pope Benedict XVI is a thorn in the side of every enlightened intellectual.

His reorganization of the Roman Curia - the world's oldest bureaucracy - shored up the strictest sticklers among its staff. The flock's most loyal followers hold the key positions: Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is the new secretary of state. Viennese Archbishop Christoph Schönborn is no longer alone in his crusade against the theory of evolution.

Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a British expert on Islam, was removed as President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and shipped off to Cairo as papal nuncio; in Ratzinger's pontifical opinion, he has been a little too open to dialogue. Anyone combing the Vatican for reformers in the spirit of Hans Küng (horribile dictu!) need not look any higher than janitor level.

"Atheists should welcome the election of Pope Benedict XVI. For this aged, scholarly, conservative, uncharismatic Bavarian theologian will surely hasten precisely the de-Christianization of Europe he aims to reverse," predicted the British political writer Timothy Garton Ash immediately after the conclave.

He was way off base.

The man from Marktl am Inn

The man from Marktl am Inn may not have packed the churches in Bavaria. But for some reason, during the 18 months following his investiture, the Roman Catholic leader has drawn greater numbers of the curious to St. Peter's Square than his predecessor. Notwithstanding dire prophecies to the contrary, he has not launched a crusade, not insulted women and not destroyed any political icons. He is fêted in Cologne and Bavaria like the German national soccer squad. And following his speech in Regensburg, he put his personal stamp on intellectual discourse urbe et orbe like few popes before him.

What is it about Benedict?

Or could it just be that times have changed? German feature journalism, in particular, has undergone a seismic shift. Columnists are yearning blithely for the good old Latin liturgy and meeting with approval. The editor-in-chief of a new intellectual magazine has composed a "creed": "Why the return of religion is a good thing." Highbrow newspapers like Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine carefully analyze every utterance from the Apostolic Palace. All the German pundits worth their snuff are hanging on the pontiff's every word.

Intellectual interest in papal pronouncements has long been a tradition in Italy, and Joseph Ratzinger maintained an ongoing dialogue with the agnostics. In Germany, this intellectual involvement marks a new departure. Something has happened: The country of Luther, Marx and Nietzsche has lost faith in godlessness.

Germans in many parts of the country - and World Youth Day and the pope's visit to Bavaria have done nothing to change this - may still believe that a rosary has something to do with flowers. But they are no longer indifferent to faith. Unlike just a few years ago, they take a real interest in tidings from Rome, even in a thoroughly politicized city like Berlin. The secular intelligentsia's curiosity is piqued; it is flirting with the una sancta, the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."

B XVI is the ideal partner for this tango. Pope John Paul was into images; Benedict is a man of words. He sympathizes with the nonbelievers. He does not say, as his predecessor did: Kneel down and say the rosary. He says: Enlightenment must be enlightened. He is an intellectual who does not replace reason with mysticism, but instead deploys it in the service of God.

For a melancholy, modern age

For him, the truth lies not in mystical self-immersion, but right here on Earth, on his desk. For Ratzinger, action driven by reason is the trademark of true religion.

Benedict is the right pope for an age in which people have strayed from the path of faith but still yearn to arrive at a destination - even if that destination is ultimately faith. He is the right pope for a melancholy, modern age.

Benedict's surprising charisma is due in part to the differentiated attitude this German has brought to the papacy in particular and Roman Catholicism in general.

Broadly held assumptions notwithstanding, Joseph Ratzinger did not want this job. For decades, as guardian of the Grail, he had spent "80 percent of [his] time dealing with old women who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary," as he once remarked to a visitor.

What he wanted was to go home to Bavaria and write the three fundamental treatises that only he could write, along with a study of Jesus Christ.

The address he delivered as cardinal deacon to open the conclave sounded like a candidate's election speech. But it was intended as a legacy. "How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking?" he lamented in the style of Cato the Elder. "The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth."

An audible voice in Europe

"Having a clear faith" was being perceived as fundamentalism, he proclaimed. As hopelessly passé under a "dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has, as its highest goal, one's own ego and one's own desires." That sounded like a parting shot, but it backfired. The popemakers in Italy elected the German professor - despite his advanced age. They believed he alone was capable of lending the truth-seeking Church an audible voice in a Europe cacophonized by transcendental illiteracy.

The cardinals wanted a European pope - not yet another charismatician who would even have been amenable to Latin Americans, because he could pray like a champion and virtually twist himself into a knot, as if posing for Ernst Barlach. But who would never have satisfied an enlightened European community.
Benedict XVI is the antithesis of this type. He prays with a fixed stare and barely moves his lips, like an altar boy whose thoughts are somewhere else entirely.

In his years as chief dogmatician, Ratzinger had said Mass every Thursday morning on the Campo Santo, the German patch of holy ground just outside St. Peter's. Little clusters of pilgrims had always waited for him afterwards. The cardinal had asked robotic questions about where they were from and where they were going. It was all too obvious, though, how foreign to his nature were the ecstatic handshakes, the bows, the photo sessions, the children hoping for a papal pat on the head. Not bothersome; simply foreign.

He is a strange spectacle: an absolutist world leader who prefers not to be the center of attention. John Paul II became the face of Catholicism. Pope Benedict spreads a gospel that entails more than do's and don'ts, but he preaches his brand of Catholicism with an immobile mien.

"If Joseph Ratzinger ever has a question, he goes to the library. He clearly doesn't have a friend he turns to for advice," says a priest and church historian who knew this J.R. before his metamorphosis.

He toils away

The library is the Holiest of Holies. The professor pope pens page after page: letters, sermons, speeches, epistles, books. Several hundred theological works already make him the most published pontiff in church history. He seizes every opportunity to put systematic theology into practice and into print. Benedict XVI is even capable of working a reference to fundamental theology into a letter of accreditation to the Andorran ambassador.

But the man can be stubborn, too, stubborn as only a German professor can be. Clear a speech? Never. Even if it criticizes the prophet Mohammed.

Ratzinger's appointment as head of the church has not really interrupted his lifelong mission. He toils away at his basic conflict, pitting "truth" against the "relativism" of the modern age: The focus must be on the human being as God's creature, not as a substitute for God.

Worldly promises of salvation have always led people to their doom, be they the promises of the Nazis at home in Traunstein and elsewhere - or those of the Marxists and their disciples with their liberation theology. There is no freedom in this life.

"Within this history of mankind which is ours," Ratzinger wrote, "there will never be the absolute, ideal condition." Which more or less means: Salvation is not of this world, let's not fool ourselves, but instead try to live truthfully. "Many of those who are responsible for proclaiming [the truth] fear that people might recoil from excessively clear words. However, general experience proves that the opposite occurs," Benedict XVI exhorted bishops whose road had led to Rome for an ad limina visit.

It was at Auschwitz, in May 2006, that he said, "We believe in a God of reason, not a kind of cold mathematics of the universe, but in a God who is one with love and goodness." That is an extended definition of reason, in which technological, scientific rationality harks back to the human as godly. Faith, he wrote in his first encyclical, "helps reason to better fulfill itself to become ever more fully itself."

At times profoundly pessimistic

Man approaches God through the Word, not through fasting and wearing a crown of thorns.

Ratzinger has mulled all his life over these unequal siblings, faith and reason, which explains the leniency and interest with which German cultural critics have received this pope. He is one of us. He refuses to be defined in terms of the laical trinity, i.e. the triple threat of condoms, women priests and abortion.

He is a thinker, with a theology that has not changed significantly since his 1959 inaugural lecture in Bonn. Christianity is the daughter of Greek philosophy. In the beginning is the Word, logos, not blind faith. And certainly not mystical experience.

Man encounters the self at the level of thought. That is why believers can communicate with non-believers. That is why the Frankfurt philosopher Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger harmonized so perfectly when they discussed the "Dialectics of Secularization" at the Catholic Academy in Munich. If the Word is a gift from God, then the theorist who champions communicative action can but nod agreement.

Joseph Ratzinger is an intelligent man and therefore, in his view of humankind, at times a profoundly pessimistic man. The Church is like a leaking ship which is close to sinking, he says; her clothing is as filthy as her face. This was his Easter message in 2005, when he was still a cardinal, shortly before the death of Pope John Paul II. Maybe he was having a bad day.

Benedict knows that his days on Peter's throne are numbered, and one of his closest associates is certain that this pope will not stay on until his dying breath: "Being a thinker, he will know when he is no longer capable of adequately performing the duties of his office."

Time is running out. Ratzinger has planned three reforms in the spirit of veritas, none of which is political in the true sense of the word. These are ecclesiastical reforms which radicalize the organization, penetrating to its liturgical, structural and ecumenical roots.

"Beauty of the liturgy"

The core project of Benedict's pontificate is his counterreform of the liturgy. Even at his first World Synod of Bishops, debate centered on the hosts, chronology, form and sequence of the Eucharist.

For Ratzinger, the church crisis is a crisis of the liturgy as well. This pope is trying to preach a message, not sell it. He is more interested in establishing the truth than marketing the doctrine in a glitzy campaign. This is also why he is trying to push Karol Wojtyla's event manager, Piero Marini, out of his post as "Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations."

Ratzinger is convinced that the churches have already "papified" themselves too much - at the expense of the sacred. As a child, he himself had found faith in the "beauty of the liturgy," back when people still prayed on their knees and the children mindlessly rattled off responses in a foreign tongue they could not understand.

If the Latin Mass (which was never formally prohibited) is now resurrected, this should not be done solely to win back the traditionalists. The dramatization of the sacred - Gregorian chants, billowing incense, ritual formulas murmured in Latin, the whole marvelous mystery play with a soupçon of Dan Brown - is a "unique selling point" on the faith market, and should not be thoughtlessly cast aside.

The second reform concerns ostpolitik in its ecumenical guise. A dialogue with
the Eastern Orthodox Christians is far more important to Pope Benedict than debating with the Anglicans or the Protestants - not least because Patriarch Alexi II, for one, now presides over a veritable national church.

Anything but a dogmatic Rottweiler

This is also why Cardinal Walter Kasper has been reappointed president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. It is hoped that the Swabian, who heads a joint theological commission of Orthodox and Roman Catholics, will help break the ice in Moscow. In March 2006, as a sign of goodwill, the pope also relinquished the title "Patriarch of the West."

Lastly, the perestroika process inside the Vatican must continue. The number of congregations and working groups has been reduced and a non-member of the Curia - Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa - appointed secretary of state. The College of Cardinals has been further globalized by the appointment of three new Asian members.

As his own successor as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger chose the Archbishop of San Francisco, Cardinal William Levada, who is anything but a dogmatic rottweiler.

Ratzinger does not need additional bite.

Notwithstanding the smiles, the imputed Prada shoes and his new collection of headgear, Ratzinger has not backed away an inch from his rigid stance on socio-political issues. Marriage is forever; abortion is a crime; women are not entitled to follow the Apostles. Modern society must abide by God's word. Period.

Ratzinger has not changed his tune; he has simply modulated his tone. As pope, he no longer has to be "Mr. No." The Catholic Church, he often notes, is not a steel body of rules, regulations and bans. Or at least, not just that. It is also a community of the loving.

Benedict XVI knows how to maintain a level of abstraction so far removed from earthly toils that it has all the appearances of compassion. Deus caritas est, Benedict's first encyclical in January 2006, was a meditation on love - and not the widely anticipated reactionary harangue against homosexual unions, unmarried cohabitation, inchastity and other works of the Devil.

Sexy to the intellectuals

Mum was the word on all of these issues. The encyclical was a eulogy, extolling love, eroticism in marriage, and social work. He simply switched the level of abstraction and made himself more unassailable. This pope doesn't talk about condoms; he talks about exploiting people (even if it's only for a one-night stand). This pope gets to the bottom of things. This pope is a radical - another trait that makes him sexy to the intellectuals.

In October 2006, a star-studded colloquium at the University of Münster discussed "The Return of the Religions" - and identified an "ego weariness" in Germany, a post-modernist upward valuation of the concept of truth: "Man cannot survive on doubt, irony and deconstruction alone." What is left for us to believe in, if everything is open to discussion? And who is going to take us seriously? This is the fundamental question addressed in Germany by numerous bestsellers and talk-show debates on "values," "the new Kulturkampf," "the parenting challenge" and so on.

In the post-modern age, everything was somehow OK; values were relative, and we believed that was a good thing. By September 2001 at the latest, this belief was called into question. There was no more room for irony.

How can truth exist in a pluralist society? Joseph Ratzinger has pondered this question all his life. And it has never been more relevant than today.

A today that is perhaps not the hour for prayer, not the age for ritual, but rather a time for introspection, for self-examination, for thought. And in that context, the man in the Papal Palace is right for his role. Benedict XVI is not a comfortable pontiff, because he can communicate eye-to-eye with the secular world. He already sees eye-to-eye with the spiritual one.

[Modificato da benefan 03/02/2007 2.02]

WOW! is all I can say. Thank you, Benefan, for this excellent article by the last person I would have thought capable of doing it.

I have posted other 'omnibus' articles by Smolczyk in this Forum in which I resented his condescension, if not contempt, for Joseph Ratzinger - notably his first article about him after he was elected Pope; his account of the 'genesis' of the Regensburg controversy; and even as late as his 'diary' of the papal visit to Turkey in which he seemed not to acknowledge that the Pope had done anything unusual, much less historical, on that trip.

And here, apart from a few curious statements I will question later - and an ominous start in the vein of his previous articles [e.g., 'an effeminate old man's voice']- he seems to have captured the uniqueness of Benedict XVI as a person and as a Pope. It might be he is just putting himself in line with those of the German intelligentsia, whom he claims appear to have converted from outright hostility to Joseph Ratzinger to respect and regard for an intellectual 'peer' they can respect and look to [what is funny is he was always that - more really - but they just didn't want to see him that way because they preferred to eulogize the Kungs and Drewermanns who disputed the Church, while disdaining the defender of the faith].

But back to Smolczyk, he does make the right statements to support his new-found positive opinions of the Pope. So this is no put-on.

Well, truth - as caritas-veritas - conquers all. And as improbable as it seemed on April 19, 2005, in less than two years, Benedict the truthful and the truth-loving, humble but serenely firm in his faith, has conquered many who were once hostile, and with the grace of God, will continue to conquer, if not new believers, then more and new attention to the word of God.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/02/2007 2.30]

Teresa,

I thought the Speigel article was terrific too. Some of the writer's comments made me want to jump up and yell, "Finally! They've got it!" But they still haven't picked up on "it" completely. Not only is Benedict fascinating and increasingly popular for all the reasons in the article but he is also joyful, loving, and stunningly handsome. The intellectuals may view him as sexy because he "is a radical" but all of us view him as sexy because he IS sexy.

Thanks Benefan! Excellent article (although I'm piqued at the 'effeminate' voice as well.... )

"He sympathizes with the nonbelievers." I think this is part of the reason for his great appeal. He concedes that people have trouble accepting what the Faith demands and he understands that many are fearful. Even in his homily at his inauguration he talked about how many are afraid that if they allow Christ into their lives they will have to give up some part of themselves. Another time he talked about how people sometimes believe that if one is a Christian one is a bore. He understands people's unease, acknowledges it, then gently reassures and encourages the doubting into belief.

What a Pope! I'm so glad he's having an positive effect on his countrymen, and that they're finally beginning to appreciate him.

Very well said, Benefan - but let's leave some things for them to discover, shall we? Though I don't know that they could ever break free of cast-iron prejudices to come around to admit that a Pope can be physically sexy - as though being Pope cancels out physicality, and as if physicality rules out spirituality and vice-versa.

I don't think they ever even acknowledged that about JP-II in his prime, whom I thought - without any disrespect at all, only utmost admiration - to be the 'sexiest man' I could possibly think of in the 1980s [when I was not even aware someone like Joseph Ratzinger existed], just in terms of sheer physical magnetism, let alone the palpable grace he emanated!

Think of the quantum leap that journalists have to take to imagine that anybody - least of all thousands, if not tens of thousands, of women, young and old - would find an 80-year-old man the most beautiful and fascinating creature on God's earth.


The Holy Father at St. Peter's Basilica today, Feb. 2, to celebrate the Day for Consecrated Life.

I just answered someone who has planted nuisance posts in several threads of the forum today, who commented in one of the picture threads of the main forum that this forum is nothing but a personality cult to apotheosize the Pope [he actually used the term 'divinizzare' which is even more absurd]. I think it is apropos to translate here what I said -

"Anyone who has frequented this forum for some time will understand that the picture threads are the lighter side of the forum, in which we vent (and sometimes self-ironize) our admiration for the Pope through his photographs - which simply capture the exterior expression of his inner being, his purity, spirituality and total dedication to the Triune God, for otherwise, how could he look so beautiful in the total sense of the word? And we will continue to express this admiration the way we do because it makes us happy, and the photos make others happy (though obviously not you!).

"The only 'cult' we have in this Forum is the worship of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Almost all of our textual pages are dedicated to helping spread the word of God somehow, through news items, commentaries, writings and documents about the Pope and the Church, and in defending and explaining our faith when we have to.

"The Pope is Christ's Vicar on earth, who wants to lead all men of goodwill to a friendship with Christ - Way, Truth and Life!
For us, it is an additional grace that Benedict XVI also happens to be a most beautiful embodiment of 'il dolce Cristo in terra'" [the words St. Catherine of Siena used to describe the Pope of her time].

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/02/2007 7.46]

As usual, the Vatican Press Office has not yet released the text of the address given by the Holy Father Friday evening at St. Peter's Basilica. I suppose no one works after 5 p.m. in the Press Office. So here, for the time being, is the AsiaNews report about it:

The consecrated life:
'A total and final answer to God'




Vatican City, Feb. 2 (AsiaNews) – Those who dedicate their life to God by giving Him “a total and final answer... one that is unconditional and full of passion,” whilst at the same time like Jesus stand as “a sign of contradiction” and “witness that God is love” are a “vital sector of the Church,” said Pope Benedict XVI this afternoon on the day that celebrates the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, a day dedicated to consecrated life.

The Pope told the thousands of men and women religious who had entered the basilica holding candles as a symbol of divine light, that in today’s disoriented but meaning-seeking world, by offering “an unconditional answer to God” and choosing poverty, chastity and obedience, the religious can show that “any attachment to material things cannot satisfy the heart.”

As witnesses to love, the religious can therefore be a “sign of contradiction” because their way of thinking and living is different from the one presented in the mass media.

This is particularly relevant in our times when “among young people there is a strong longing to encounter God”.

It is this task that “many people around the world fulfill faithfully by bearing witness of their love for God and their brothers, witness that frequently takes the hue of martyrdom,” working as “examples that produce in many young people a desire to serve Christ.”

Benedict XVI also referred to “the difficult times that we are going through,” times in which many institutions are experiencing a sense of confusion; however, the “Baby Jesus who is presented today in the temple is alive amongst us” and “invisibly supports us”.

Finally, the Holy Father said that whether in contemplation or in action, in solitude or in community, the religious should be “ready to bear witness that God is love.” May “Mary teach you to pass on to today’s men and women this divine law which must shine through your words and actions."

I know it's a bit early in the morning for me, BUT....."slightly effeminate"!!!!!!!!!!!! Hardly!!!!! Joseph Ratzinger has the most mellifluous of masculine voices....and I MEAN MASCULINE!
Good morning to you all!
Luff, Mary x

I agree with the "effeminate old man's voice" remark, maryjos. I've heard him say "Cari fratelle e sorelle" a thousand times and never thought that.

By the way, what does the "Sepp" mean?

'SEPP' is a diminutive for Joseph, pronounced ZEP, as it is usually spelled.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/02/2007 19.31]