Because of the lengthy New York Times magazine article above, please note that the coverage of the Easter Mass and Urbi et Orbi blessing, with first photos, precede the Times article on this thread.



Police estimate of the crowd at St.Peter's today is over 120,000 - possibly a record.

Here are additional photos:

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/04/2007 17.53]

It looks like Italian state TV will make up for its relative disinterest in programming anything special for Benedict XVI with its planned line-up next week on RAI-1, their premier channel that's available even outside Italy if you have the right cable service.

Lella tells us that RAI-1's venerable Vaticanista, Giuseppe di Carli, assures the viewers there will be a lot of previously unseen video about Benedict, including some taken in the papal apartments. The thing to watch out for is the documentary, because CTV will definitely broadcast the Mass and the concert, regardless.

In any case, here are the RAI programs and the times:

Saturday, April 14, 10:35 AM
Benedetto XVI: il Papa dell'amicizia con Dio - Part I
(BENEDICT XVI: The Pope of friendship with God)

Sunday, April 15, 9:00 AM
Benedetto XVI: il Papa dell'amicizia con Dio - Part II

Sunday, April 15, 10:00 AM
Holy Mass for the Pope's 80th birthday

Monday, April 16, 5:55 pm
Concert in honor of Benedict XVI

Last year, on the first anniversary of Benedict's Papacy, RAI decided to show a program on THE TWO POPES, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Fair enough. Only it turned out that Benedict's part in the presentation only came towards the closing minutes. Three days earlier, RAI had ignored the Pope's birthday, instead choosing to honor the Queen of England on her official birthday.

I suppose they couldn't very ignore an 80th birthday this time. And I like the title of their documentary special - it shows whoever produced it has been listening to Benedict...I do have a quibble. Why did tney not schedule the documentary for prime time, and then replay them in the morning?

Also, don't forget - both Bavarian state TV and ZDF, the second German network have programmed TV marathons for the birthday and the second anniversary. Maybe Andrea can post the updated line-up for us.

Explaining Benedict's focus on Africa


By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
National Catholic Reporter
April 9, 2007

Benedict XVI, this most European of popes, once again exhibited a notable concern with Africa during the Easter season. In his traditional urbi et orbi greeting, Benedict spoke in greater detail about the political and humanitarian struggles of Africa than any other part of the world.

“I look with apprehension at the conditions prevailing in several regions of Africa,” Benedict said. “In Darfur and in the neighboring countries there is a catastrophic, and sadly to say underestimated, humanitarian situation. In Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the violence and looting of the past weeks raises fears for the future of the Congolese democratic process and the reconstruction of the country. In Somalia, the renewed fighting has driven away the prospect of peace and worsened a regional crisis, especially with regard to the displacement of populations and the traffic of arms. Zimbabwe is in the grip of a grievous crisis, and for this reason the bishops of that country in a recent document indicated prayer and a shared commitment for the common good as the only way forward.”

In conjunction with Benedict’s 80th birthday on April 16, a new book titled Jesus of Nazareth, a personal meditation on the life of Christ, will be released. During Holy Week, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published extracts from the work, which includes strong language connecting the parable of the Good Samaritan to the contemporary African situation.

“If we apply it to the globalized world, we see how the populations of Africa, who have been robbed and plundered, concern us,” the pope wrote.

The wealthy, Benedict said, have stripped the poor bare and have wounded them spiritually.

“Instead of giving them their God, the God that is close to us in Christ, and welcome from their traditions all that is dear and great ... we brought them the cynicism of a world without God, in which only power and profit matters,” Benedict said.”

These comments build upon a strikingly substantial track record of attention to Africa during Benedict’s first two years as pope.

One of Benedict’s first meetings with a head of state, in early Mary 2005, came with Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa. During that session, Benedict spoke about the need to bring peace to war-torn Africa. Afterwards, Mbeki said he had the sense that Africa was “on the radar screen” of the new pope.

Later that month, Benedict publicly issued an appeal for Africa during a General Audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“Today is Africa Day,” he said, referring to a holiday established by the African Union.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the beloved people of Africa. I encourage our Catholic institutions to continue giving generous attention to their needs, and I hope and pray that the international community will become ever more involved in the problems of the African continent,” he said, speaking in English.

In June, during an ad limina session with the the bishops of South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho, Benedict encouraged both the church and the international community to continue its fight against what he called the “cruel epidemic” of HIV/AIDS. He noted that the AIDS crisis threatens not only the physical health, but also the economic and social stability of the continent.

Also in June 2005, Benedict XVI announced his intention to call a synod of bishops from Africa to discuss the crisis facing the continent. One month later, when the leaders of G-8 nations gathered in Scotland, Benedict called upon them to take to heart “the often neglected continent” of Africa.

“I wish with all my heart for the success of this important meeting, hoping that it will lead to a sharing of the costs of reducing debt, to putting into motion concrete measures for uprooting poverty, and to promoting ... development of Africa,” Benedict said.

In February 2006, Benedict called upon Europe to do a better job in taking care of African migrants.

“There are increasingly more immigrants from less-privileged areas, in search of better conditions of life, who knock at the doors of Europe, placing a growing number of them in illegality, and on occasions creating situations that put in grave danger the dignity and safety of people,” the pope said in an address to the new ambassador of Morocco to the Holy See. He asked that “the institutions of the host or transit country take care that [the immigrants] not be considered as merchandise or a simple work force, and that their fundamental rights and human dignity be respected.”

In March 2006, Benedict XVI took part in a special satellite conference of university students to discuss how they can promote cooperation between Europe and Africa. The same month, Benedict disappointed some Africans when the only new cardinal from the continent in his first consistory was Peter Poreku Dery of Ghana, who was already over 80. The group included two new Americans, further exacerbating the disparity in the College of Cardinals between the United States and Africa; in the conclave of 2005, the United States by itself had more voting cardinals than all of Africa, 12 to 11, despite the fact that Africa numbers more than twice as many Catholics as the United States.

Yet in February 2007, Benedict took some of the sting out of this omission when, for the first time, he named two residential African cardinals to the Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organizational and Economic Questions of the Apostolic See, the body that oversees Vatican finances: Wilfrid Fox Napier of Durban, South Africa, and Anthony Olubunmi Okogie of Lagos, Nigeria. Because wealthy northern dioceses are typically the largest contributors to Vatican coffers, membership in this council has often gone to cardinals from affluent sees such as Chicago, New York, Cologne and Milan. Benedict’s decision to appoint cardinals from the developing world, including two from Africa, was a break with this pattern.

In November 2006, when a new International Finance Facility for Immunization was launched by the World Bank to raise $4 billion over 10 years for the immunization of children in impoverished nations, above all in Africa, against preventable childhood diseases, the very first bond was purchased by Pope Benedict XVI.

The foregoing are merely selective examples of a broader pattern. In fact, over the first twelve months of his papacy, Benedict actually used the word “Africa” more often in his texts, messages, and public addresses than he did the term “sex,” a total that includes his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, devoted to human erotic love.

To be sure, one can argue that Benedict’s attention to Africa has hovered at the level of verbiage, and that his words have not been matched by equally energetic actions. One year ago, the Kenyan newspaper The Nation editorialized on that basis that after a year in office, “Pope Benedict has scored dismally in fostering Vatican relations with the Church in Africa,” complaining of a “Euro-centric focus.” (The editorial came shortly after the pope had not included any Africans under 80 in his first batch of new cardinals.)

Yet at least by the standards of what the pope talks about when he addresses international questions, there’s little question that Africa has occupied a clear pride of place. How to explain the papal focus on Africa?

First, there’s the obvious fact that Africa is gripped by multiple crises which any leader would find difficult to ignore. In his Easter message, for example, Benedict mentioned the on-going fighting in Congo, the center of a regional war in the Great Lakes area of Africa which, over the last decade and a half, has caused an estimated 2.5 million deaths and produced untold millions of refugees and displaced persons. Conflict in Darfur has produced an estimated 300,000 deaths and as many as 2.5 million refugees and displaced persons. Zimbabwe, also singled out by the pope, suffers from hyperinflation of more than 1,700 percent a year, 80 percent unemployment, chronic shortages of food and other basic necessities, and has one of the world’s lowest rates of life expectancy. More broadly, African nations are among those most left behind by the new era of economic globalization; 34 of the 50 nations on the United Nations list of “least developed countries” are in Africa, and while Africans represent 14 percent of the population of the world, they form more than 60 percent of the population of all least developed nations.

Given that many of sub-Saharan Africa’s 140 million Catholics are among the victims of those humanitarian disasters, it’s hardly a surprise that the pope would be sensitive to them.

Second, Africa in many respects represents the future of the Catholic Church in the 21st century. Catholicism grew in sub-Saharan Africa during the last century more rapidly and more dramatically than in any other place and time over the course of its 2,000 year history, exploding from three million to 140 million, a staggering rate of 6,708 percent. More than half of the adult baptisms in Catholicism today are in Africa. Vocations to the priesthood and religious life are booming; the largest Catholic seminary in the world is thought to be Bigard Memorial Seminary in Enugu, Nigeria, the heart of Ibo-land, which currently houses almost 1,100 candidates for the priesthood.

In that light, the pope has an obvious interest in promoting peace and stability in Africa, so that the church can build upon its expansion and put down roots. This is perhaps a special challenge for Benedict XVI, whose perceived interests traditionally have been more focused on the West, above all Europe. For just that reason, the Vatican as well as the African episcopacy has been concerned that the pope send clear signals that Africa will not be forgotten on his watch.

There is yet a third factor, however, which speaks less to the contemporary realities of Africa than it does to the ecclesiology of Benedict XVI.

During the daily General Congregation meetings of the College of Cardinals which led up to the conclave two years ago, the African cardinals as a block made a decision to use their speeches to describe the suffering of their continent, and to plead with the next pope, whoever he might be, to place Africa at the center of his pastoral concern. As I reported at the time, most participants in those meetings described the presentations by the Africans as the most powerful contributions to the General Congregation discussions.

In his capacity as Dean of the College, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger presided over those meetings. He was thus in a special position to hear the cries of his brother cardinals from Africa, and to sense the overwhelming support their appeals enjoyed within the body of cardinals.

Benedict’s focus on Africa, in other words, is also an expression of his understanding of collegiality, which he promised would be an important feature of his pontificate. In the homily for his installation Mass as pope on April 24, 2005, Benedict said, “My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the while church, so that we may discern the will of the Lord in this hour of her history.”

Two years on, the pope’s engagement with Africa has emerged as one way in which he sees himself to be making good on this vow. The open question, however, is what more the pope may have up his sleeve beyond expressions of concern.

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Maybe Andrea can post the updated line-up for us

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Those of us reading German may consult the thread "Fernsehtermine" in the German section. On page 6 and 7 there are the most important programmes on all German TV regarding the Holy Father's birthday and second anniversary

Andrea

[Modificato da @Andrea M.@ 09/04/2007 20.29]

Very interesting article on the Pope and Africa. Thanks for posting.

Pope Benedict On Divine Mercy

"God’s passionate love for his people — for humanity — is at the same time a forgiving love.

BY The Editors
National Catholic Register
April 15-21, 2007 Issue | Posted 4/10/07 at 8:00 AM

"God’s passionate love for his people — for humanity — is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice.”

This is a startling, radical, statement about divine mercy — the kind of declaration that one might expect to see attributed to Pope John Paul II. But it was Pope Benedict XVI who wrote it, in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love).

Seven years after Pope John Paul II first announced the creation of Mercy Sunday, many priests are still wary of the feast. Why do they hold back? There is a certain assumption that the Divine Mercy is a private devotion that had a personal meaning to a particular Polish man who happened to also be Pope, but that it is not for everyone.

Reading Pope Benedict’s words about Divine Mercy should dispel that notion. Rather than attributing the popularity of the Divine Mercy devotion to Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI seems more likely to attribute the greatness of Pope John Paul II to his devotion to Divine Mercy.

In his homily before the conclave that elected him, he summed up John Paul’s pontificate by speaking about the late Pope’s emphasis on the Divine Mercy: “Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: Encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God,” said Pope Benedict. “The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love.”

He concluded last year’s Way of the Cross by saying: “The Way of the Cross is the way of mercy, the way of mercy that puts a limit on evil: This is what we learned from Pope John Paul II. It is the way of mercy; hence, the way of salvation. … Let us pray to the Lord to help us be ‘infected’ by his mercy.”

He often noted that Pope John Paul II died after Mercy Sunday Mass. And in a March 26 homily last year, Benedict said forcefully: “The Pope, in this last text which is like a testament, then added: ‘How much the world needs to understand and accept Divine Mercy!’”

In a visit with the sick on May 7, Pope Benedict embraced not just the message of Divine Mercy, but the specific devotion popularized by St. Faustina.

The image the devotion promotes is a portrait of Jesus with rays of light emanating from his heart. The words “Jesus, I trust in you” are inscribed below.

Pope Benedict told the sick people, “You who say in silence: ‘Jesus, I trust in you’ teach us that there is no faith more profound, no hope more alive and no love more ardent than the faith, hope and love of a person who in the midst of suffering places himself securely in God’s hands.”

He later spoke about visiting the convent where “Sister Faustina Kowalska, contemplating the shining wounds of the Risen Christ, received a message of trust for humanity which John Paul II echoed and interpreted and which really is a central message precisely for our time: mercy as God’s power, as a divine barrier against the evil of the world.”

In his homilies, the Holy Father has given us some of our most eloquent and adamant enunciations of God’s mercy:

Men and women are prone to doubt God’s care for them. So Pope Benedict stressed: “God loves us in a way that we might call ‘obstinate’ and enfolds us in his inexhaustible tenderness.”

The wrong kind of emphasis on God’s mercy can create the impression that God forgives all in an apathetic way, more like a benign uncle than a loving Father.

So the Pope stresses God’s anger, too. “[T]he anger and mercy of the Lord alternate in a dramatic sequence, but love triumphs in the end, for God is love.”

And always, he seeks to root trust in God’s mercy in the Gospels and the sacraments rather than in private revelation.

“How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts!” he said, in one homily. “Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only ‘sign’ is Jesus raised on the cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign.”

The Church grants an indulgence for participation in Mercy Sunday devotions (see page B2). In his new document on the Eucharist, Pope Benedict recommends such indulgences, but emphasizes that the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist are the most important aspects of them.

Finally, Pope Benedict used Divine Mercy to sum up our Christian lives.

“To understand and accept God’s merciful love: May this be your commitment, first of all in your families and then in every neighborhood milieu.”

This Mercy Sunday is a good day to start.

[Modificato da benefan 11/04/2007 5.17]

[Modificato da benefan 11/04/2007 5.19]

Benedict at 80: Truth, Love and Liturgy

The Surprising Pontificate of the Man Who Was Ratzinger

BY EDWARD PENTIN
National Catholic Register
April 15-21, 2007 Issue | Posted 4/10/07 at 8:00 AM

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI turns 80 April 16, just three days before he completes the second year of his pontificate. Having become Pope at such a mature age, some believed he would accomplish little and would be merely a “caretaker pope.”

But that’s not how this pontificate is turning out: The Holy Father has already made his mark, powerfully reminding the world in his first encyclical that Christianity is primarily about God’s love, reaching out to a spiritually stricken Europe and Islam, and taking careful but firm steps toward Christian unity.

He has also been striving for better relations with China and, in his upcoming visit to Brazil in May, focusing on Latin America.

“I think he has a great mission,” says Benedictine Father Notker Wolf, abbot primate of the Benedictine Order. “We have seen it now; he puts his fingers on very important matters.”

Abbot Wolf says that Benedict’s pastoral approach is decidedly Benedictine. “It’s about the basics, holy Scripture and our good, solid Tradition,” he said.

Benedict’s quiet style is, of course, a striking contrast to Pope John Paul II. But it’s just right for the times, says Robert Royal, director of the Washington D.C.-based Faith and Reason Institute.

“After John Paul II, the great charismatic leader and the man who helped to beat communism and brought us into a new world, Benedict is exactly the right person for the kind of conversation that we need to help us understand ourselves in the future in the 21st century,” Royal said.

Among the Pope’s most valuable contributions are his ability to teach, and his expertise as one of the finest theologians in the Church’s history. These qualities are particularly evident, says theologian and diplomat Michael Novak, in his approach to militant Islam.

“When jihadist hotheads scream for the imposition of the sharia (Islamic law based on the Quran) of the 11th century, no one has the authority or the arguments to ridicule them for their preposterous winding back of the clock,” says Novak. “[But] Pope Benedict’s recent formulation is quite original and brilliant: Dialogue between Islam and Christianity on the plane of religion is next to impossible; but there can and must be dialogue between Islamic and Christian cultures.”

The Holy Father’s approach to the problems of the secularized West has also been an important element of his pontificate.

The dangers of reason without faith, and faith without reason, have been an emphasis of Benedict’s discourses. The topic has been a central element of the Pope’s attention for years and consequently is a matter he can eloquently bring into the public debate, as he did in his controversial speech last September at the University of Regensburg in his native Bavaria.


Positive Focus

But while his approach to Islam and secularism was anticipated by his earlier focus as a priest, bishop and cardinal, Benedict’s first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love) was a surprise to many.

Many Church observers, even those who know him well, expected the Pope’s first major document — one that usually suggests the future direction of a pontificate — to focus on European relativism and faith and reason.

Instead, he concentrated on the positive, explaining that God is simply love. And in so doing, he swept away the harsh and inaccurate image derived from media interpretations of his previous position as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“He is very positive-minded,” said Abbot Wolf, “and I think that is something which has astonished quite a lot of people.” This is particularly true in his homeland of Germany, where negative reactions to his supposedly stern reputation were replaced by respect and curiosity.

Royal pointed to Deus Caritas Est.

“I think he put his mark down with Deus Caritas Est, that that is the central point about our idea of God, whatever other people might think about God,” said Royal. “It was a brilliant move on his part and I think it came straight out of his heart; I don’t think it was calculated.”

The Pope has taken a positive approach to many other issues, too; in his trip last July to the World Congress of Families in Valencia, Spain, he stressed what makes a good family rather than focusing on the forces ranged against it, and during his visit to Ephesus in Turkey he praised the heroism of the slain priest Father Andrea Santoro but didn’t blame his killers.

And his major interest in inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue, heavily influenced by the Second Vatican Council, is primarily concerned with how religions and Christian denominations can unite on matters they hold in common.


Planting Seeds

Theologian Novak said Benedict is posing hard questions about the meaning of life and doing so “by way of ideas, deep and carefully put, and in the good humor of a skilled professor who loves the classroom, his students and his subject matter.”

And while Benedict’s style is vastly different to his predecessor’s, his contribution may be all the more significant as a consequence.

“I wonder if Pope Benedict sometimes imagines that it does the Church good to follow one human type with another, and that it is essential that he just be himself, and that the virtual storm of encyclicals and activities that gushed forth from the fertile soul of John Paul II should be followed by a quieter, more reflective time,” Novak said. “Good seeds recently planted need time to germinate.”

A Pope Who Gets It

By Micah Halpern
MicahHalpern.com | April 9, 2007
FrontPageMagazine.com

It has been confirmed by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on behalf of the fifteen British sailors and marines taken captive by Iran. Writing this letter to Iran's Muslim leader was a very bold move on the part of the world's leading Catholic.

Evil incarnate is the way the Muslim world views the Catholic Pope. The Muslim world in general and Iran specifically have deemed the Pope the most dangerous leader on our planet. The Western world pales in comparison. The United States is a mere trifling annoyance. Israel is a speck on the Muslim hatred meter when compared to the Catholic Pope.

The Pope is a threat to Islam.

Unlike other Western leaders who, according to present day Muslim theological thought, might be misled by Western ideas and thoughts and whose followers are secular, the Pope is the leader of the behaviors and attitudes of nearly a billion and a half religious people across the globe. The Pope's people are fervent in their belief and their belief and their teachings are very different from Muslim belief and teachings. Muslim fear of and hatred for Catholicism is not new. In Muslim historical memory the horrors of the Crusades are still palpable. The indignity thrust upon Islam when Christians arrived at their doorstep in order to convert them and rule over them and dictate to them and control their holy sites still reverberates throughout the Muslim world.

Given all that Islamic emotional and historical baggage the question begs asking: Would a missive by the Pope have any impact on The Supreme Leader? The answer is, it doesn't matter. This letter was not about Muslim attitudes. This letter was not about the Catholic Church in general. This letter was specifically about the mindset and the insight of Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict wrote this letter not to defend the honor of the Church, after all, there are only 4.2 million Catholics in England as compared to about 24 million Protestants. Pope Benedict penned this letter to put forth and articulate a humanitarian objective. Note that the letter was sent not to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was sent directly to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Ahmadinejad might be the public presenter, the face of Iran to the outside world, but inside Iran, he is second fiddle. The Ayatollah is just as his title describes, the Ayatollah is absolute supreme leader. Whatever the Ayatollah wants, happens. Whatever the Ayatollah decrees, is implemented. As much policy freedom as we are now seeing from Ahmadinejad, his personal survival depends on doing just as he is told.

This Pope understands Iran. This Pope understands the dangers of Islam. This Pope knows radical Islam to be one of the greatest threats to Europe Catholicism and to the Western World. This Pope knows that a cultural and religious battle pitting Islam on one side and the rest of the world on the other is brewing.

This Pope understands that at stake is the world as we know it. The Ayatollah Khamenei knows this, too.

The Ayatollah Khamenei is determined to be at the forefront of the world's conversion to his brand of Islam. The Ayatollah Khamenei knows that the only leader who has a chance at stopping the wave Muslim influence around the world is the Pope. The Ayatollah Khamenei is planning a reverse Crusades.

Both leaders are reading the numbers. Khamenei represents a population of seventy to seventy-five million Iranian believers and followers. He dreams of representing the entire Muslim world, 1.5 billion Muslims strong. He knows that his chances of actually leading the Muslim world are small now, he understands that the masses are so involved in their daily survival that they are not psyched for a massive religious conflict. But he is laying the foundation.

Laying the foundation includes Iran's Holocaust denial. It includes Iran's resistance to play by the rules on matters of nuclear development. And laying the foundation is why the British sailors and marines were captured. And laying the foundation is why they were later released. The Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei was paid his due respect by the great Great Britain. He received the apology he craved, the apology he felt he deserves, the apology that was heard around the Muslim world.

The actions of the Ayatollah Khamenei are calculated by their ability to showcase Iran's honor. Khamenei's ploys, his actions, his decisions, even his bluster are calculated to showcase Iran's place of honor among Muslim nations. It is the eyes of his fellow Muslims that he is watching, it is the hearts of Islam that he is seeking.

Pope Benedict XVI put aside his bigger battle to try to solve the little issue. The message that the Pope put forth to the supreme leader of Iran was simple: if you are really interested in the message of God, if you are really interested in relieving pain and suffering, you will release your captives.

This time, the Pope called the Ayatollah's bluff.

The Vatican Press Office has released the official program of the Pope's visit to Brazil.

APOSTOLIC VOYAGE
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO BRAZIL ON THE OCCASION OF
THE V GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS
May 9-14, 2007



PROGRAM

I T A L Y

Wednesday, May 9
Fiumicino (Rome)

09.00 Departure from Leonardo da Vinci international airport
for São Paulo/Guarulhos.

B R A Z I L

Guarulhos (São Paulo)

16.30 Arrival at the international airport of São Paulo/Guarulhos.
WELCOME CEREMONIES
- Address by the Holy Father

17.30 Transfer by helicopter from São Paulo/Guarulhos
to the airport of Campo di Marte [old airport of São Paulo].

18.00 Arrival at Campo de Marte.
Greetings from local officials.

18.10 Travel by Popemobile
to the Monastery of St. Benedict in central São Paulo.

18.45 Arrival at the Monastery,
where he will be staying till May 11.
- Greeting and blessing the faithful
from the balcony of the Monastery.


Thursday, May 10

08.00 Holy Mass, private, at the chapel of the Monastery.

10.30 Travel by car to the Palacio dos Bandeirantes.

11.00 COURTESY VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL
at Palacio dos Bandeirantes.

12.00 Travel by car back to the Monastery.

12.30 Arrival at the Monastery.
Meeting with representatives of
other Christian confessions and religions.

13.15 Lunch at the Monastery with the Presidium
of the Brazilian episcopal conference
and members of the papal entourage.

17.30 TraveL by car from the Monastery
to the municipal stadium of Pacaembu i
n the center of the city.

17.50 Arrival at Pacaembu stadium

18.00 MEETING WITH THE YOUTH at Pacaembu stadium
- Address by the Holy Father.

20.00 Travel by car from Pacaembu
back to the Monastery.

20.30 Arrival at the Monastery.


Friday, May 11

08.30 Travel by car from the Monastery to Campo de Marte.

09.00 Arrival at Campo de Marte.
Tour by Popemobile among the faithful assembled for Mass.

09.15 Arrive at the Sacristy set up under the altar
built for the Mass.

09.30 HOLY MASS
AND CANONIZATION RITES OF BLESSED FREI GALVÃO
- Homily.

11.45 Return to Sacristy.

12.00 Travel by car from Campo de Marte
back to the Monastery.

12.15 Arrive at the Monastery.

15.40 The Pope takes his leave from the Monastery.

15.45 Travel by Popemobile
to the Cathedral of Sé in São Paulo.

16.00 MEETING WITH THE BISHOPS OF BRAZIL at the Cathedral
- Address by the Holy Father.

17.15 Travel by Popemobile
from the Cahedral to Campo de Marte

17.45 Arrival at Campo de Marte airport.
Send-off by local officials.

18.00 Departure by helicopter for Aparecida.

Aparecida

19.00 Arrival at the heliport of
the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida
Greeting by local officials.

Travel by Popemobile to the "Bom Jesús" Seminary
where he will be staying in Aparecida.

19.30 Arrival at the Seminary


Saturday, May 12

08.00 Holy Mass, private, at the chapel of the Seminary.

09.30 Travel by car from the Seminary
to the Fazenda da Esperança in Guaratinguetá,
the city of which Apareida was once part.

Guaratinguetá

10.30 Arrival at the alla Fazenda da Esperança,
a national rehabilitation center for drug addicts.
VISIT TO THE CHURCH OF THE FAZENDA
- Greeting by the Holy Father.

10.45 MEETING WITH THE COMMUNITY of the Fazenda
- Address by the Holy Father

11.45 Travel by car from Guaratingueta
back to the Seminary in Aparecida.

Aparecida

12.45 Arrival at the Bom Jesús Seminary.
Lunch with the Presidium of the V General Conference of CELAM
and members of the papal entourage, at the Seminary.

17.45 Travel by Popemobile from the Seminary
to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida.

18.00 Arrival at the Sanctuary.
RECITAL OF THE HOLY ROSARY
MEETING WITH PRIESTS, RELIGIOUS, SEMINARIANS
AND DEACONS of Brazil, in the Basilica.

19.30 Travel by car back to the Seminary.

19.45 Arrival at the Seminary.


Sunday, May 13

09.15 Travel by Popemobile to the Sanctuary of Aparecida.

09.30 Arrival at the Sanctuary.
Tour by Popemboile among the faithful assembled for Mass.

09.45 Arrival at the Sacristy set up next to the altar
in front of the main entrance to the Sanctuary.

10.00 HOLY MASS to inaugurate the V General Conference
of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops,
on the esplanade in front of the Basilica.
- Homily

RECITAL OF THE 'REGINA COELI'
- Words by the Holy Father

12.15 Return to the Sacristy.

12.30 Travel by car back to the Seminary.

12.45 Arrival at the Seminary.

15.45 Travel by car from the Seminary
to the Conference Center of the Sanctuary.

16.00 Arrival at the Conference Center.
INAUGURAL WORKING SESSION OF
THE V GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS
- Address by the Holy Father

17.30 Travel by car from the Cofnernce Center
back to the Seminary.

17.40 Arrival at the Seminary.

18.20 The Pope takes his leave from the Bom Jesús Seminary.

18.30 Travel by car from the Seminary
to the heliport of the Sanctuary.

18.40 Arrival at the heliport.
Send-off by local officials.

18.50 Departure by helicopter
for the international airport of São Paulo/Guarulhos.

Guarulhos (São Paulo)

19.40 Arrival at the international airport.
DEPARTURE CEREMONIES
- Address by the Holy Father.

20.15 Departure for Rome (Ciampino).


Monday, May 14

I T A L Y

12.45 Arrival at Rome/Ciampino airport.


Time differences:

ROME: GMT +2.
São Paulo e Aparecida: GMT -3

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2007 21.20]

VATICAN
Pope: By carrying Christ in our hearts
we spread the great news of His resurrection



Vatican City, April 11 (AsiaNews) – “We cannot keep the great news to ourselves” of Christ’s resurrection, but “each Christian must spread the word through witness, using the same words as the disciples: “We have seen the Lord!”

That was Benedict XVI’s message today in his Wednesday audience, the first following Easter, held in St Peter’s square. The pontiff who is spending these days of rest in Castel Gandolfo, came to Rome to meet the 50,000 faithful gathered in the Vatican.

Among them were hundreds of young boys and girls currently preparing themselves for the profession of faith which precedes the sacrament of Confirmation.

Almost as if he wished to encourage these young people in their profession of faith, the Pope spoke of the certainties of faith, death and Christ’s resurrection, of our encounter with the Risen Christ, our need to “carry Our Lord in our hearts”, urging his listeners to become witnesses and missionaries for the faith.

[The report proceeds to quote from the Pope's discourse. A full translation of the Pope's catechesis-homily ahs been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2007 16.47]

In two more days, it will be out in German, Italian and Polish. It looks like the English edition will come out a month later, May 15, according to the last report I saw. But last April 8, a writer for the Italian newspaper Libero published an article with descriptive samplings from the whole book. Earlier, of course, Corriere della Sera in Italy and Die Zeit in Germany published separate excerpts from the chapter on parables in the book.

Here is a translation of the Libero article, which I actually finished before my enforced inactivity on the Forum the past two days, but which I almost forgot about.



The Gospel according to Ratzinger
By MARTINO CERVO

On his 80th birthday, the Pope is treating us to an absolute novelty. On April 16, his book JESUS OF NAZARETH (447 pp, 19.50 Euro, in the Italian edition by Rizzoli] is coming out – and for the first time ever, the author of a ‘secular’ book on Jesus Christ is none other than His Vicar on earth.

Libero can now anticipate the contents of this much-awaited book, made even more interesting because of recent statements made by the Pope about the historicity of the Gospels.

The Pope, who has been called ‘dogmatic’, “traditionalist’ and ‘doctrinaire’ in the past, earlier told us what it is about – this book on which he had worked three years (from the summer of 2003 to September 2006).

“This book is not in any way an act of Magisterium” but “an expression of my personal research into the ‘face of the Lord.’ Therefore, anyone may contradict me.”

It was almost a challenge for others to dispute him, to ‘try’ him, Corrado Augias would say [Augias is the atheist journalist who is co-author with Biblical scholar Mauro Pesce of a current best-seller about the ‘historical Jesus’] , who would now have the opportunity to compare his “Investigation of Jesus’ with the Pope’s book.

Ratzinger began working on the book when he was still the guardian of Catholic Orthodoxy as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the expectation that he could devote himself fulltime to it once he reached the obligatory retirement age and could leave his office.

Well, meantime, something else came up. The weight of the Petrine ministry meant that the Pope has set aside the chapters on Jesus’s infancy and childhood to be able to send to press the chapters about His public life, “from the baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration.” They are the parts most useful, he explains in his Introduction, to "the development of a living relationship with Him.”

Ten chapters, from His Baptism, to Jesus’s affirmations about Himself: a weighty text, very erudite but accessible.

Ratzinger immediately states a thesis that will make director Ermanno Olmi [director of a current film which espouses a Jesus almost like that of the liberation thelogists] jump out of his skin. The author says that not only is the tug-of-war between the ‘historical Jesus’ and the ‘Jesus of the faith” inexistent, but that a more reasonable hypothesis – from the standpoint of philology, history and conscience – is that Jesus is really who He says He is.

That the most convincing explanation for his corresponding and unexpected humanity is his unimaginable claim of divinity. It is a ‘wager’ that involves faith and reason: “The Christologic hermeneutic [interpretation], he explains in the Introduction, “which sees in Jesus Christ the key to everything, presumes a choice of faith and cannot arise purely from historical method. But this choice of faith has its reasons."

It is striking that this Pope – an erudite theologian, a refined philologist, a cultured exegete - uses all the ‘weapons’ at his disposal to present the Jesus of the Gospels as ‘real’ and inseparable from his physical historicity.

Ratzinger cites his reference points (Guardini, Schnackenburg, De Lubac, Newman). But his teachers do not need to be named explicitly. From St. Thomas to Von Balthasar, their influence is so obvious that they do not need explicit references.

The vertex of the Ratzingerian theology – in perfect harmony with the tone of his pontificate – coincides with the clear and simple maxim of the Christian message as he restated it on the evening of Good Friday: “”Ours is not a remote God.”

All the Jewish traditions, the psalms, the Biblical references with which the Pope illuminates the Gospel narrative are fulfilled in that “historical event that is precisely datable” which was Christ’s earthly life.

Ratzinger’s confidence in the Gospels is enriched by an interpretative step which is not unprecedented but nevertheless daring (Repubblica yesterday observed, in an almost wondrous tone, that ‘Ratzinger has surprises in store for us’): It concerns the relationship between Jesus and the Jewish community of Essenes.

On Maundy Thursday, the Pope indicated the possibility that the Nazarene could have celebrated Passover according to the Essene rite, as Caterina Maniaci explains in her article on this page. [Oooh, I must go back and check that out!]

This is not a mere historical curiosity. The hypothesis settles an apparent contradiction between the synoptic Gospels and that of John, by referring to the Dead Sea scrolls from Qumran, whose discovery – much debated – revolutionized historical research about Jesus.

Concretely, the Essene element reconciles the synoptic accounts of the Paschal rites celebrated by Jesus and the fact that His death occurred, as John says in His gospel, on the eve of the Jewish feast of Passover. Because the Essene calendar, according to the Qumran scrolls, celebrated the Passover one day earlier than traditional Judaism did. So the apparent contradiction is resolved.

The Pope book speaks openly of a Jesus who had ties to the Essenes: “It seems that John the Baptist, but perhaps even Jesus and His family, were close to this community….It cannot be ruled out that John the Baptist lived for some time among the Essenes and partly received his religious formation from them.“

Much later, in a chapter dedicated to the fourth Gospel, the Pope defends the reliability of direct testimony (“personal memory and historical reality go togehetr”) as a necessary antidote to gnosticism which would "do away with the flesh, the Incarnation, with true history, in fact”.

Starting with the baptism of Christ, Ratzinger strikes at ‘liberal theology’ (Bultmann above all) which has been bent on separating history and faith. In his survey of the life of Christ, the Pope weaves together the Old and the New Testaments, thereby showing the need for interpretative unity. The continuous comparison between the words of the Psalms and the Prophets to those of the evangelists opens the way to make references to the present.

His re-reading of the three temptations to Jesus is an example: they represent “the (contemporary) claim of reality. That the real is that which can be observed: power and bread. By comparison, the things of God appear unreal, a secondary world for which there really is no need.”

To illustrate the effect of these temptations, the Pope cites two opposing examples: the Benedictine monasteries and Chernobyl(“a disturbing expression of Creation enslaved to the oblivion of God”).

In the episode of Satan daring Jesus to change stones to bread, Ratzinger detects the glimmer of Marxism, “which made of this ideal the heart of its promise of salvation: that it would make hunger a thing of the past and that the deserts would yield bread.”

But the negative outcome of the Marxist utopia allows the Pope to draw an equivalence to the Western attude towards poverty: “The aid to developing countries, based on principles that are purely material and technological...have made the Third World a Third world in the modern sense.“

Then there’s a surprising reference to Vladimir Soloviev, the great Russian philosopher last brought up a few weeks ago by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi. The Pope recounts Soloviev’s “Story of the Anti-Christ”, in which the character received his degree in theology from the University of Tuebingen (where the Pope himself had taught).

“Interpretation of the Bible,” hs notes, ”can truly be a tool for the Anti-Christ. The worst books seeking to destroy the figure of Christ, those that would dismantle the faith, have been woven from much-touted results of exegesis.”

A bit further, he will have critical tones as well for “the scribes, those who occupy themselves with God as a profession...so easily are they entangled in the intricacies of their own learning.”

So is Raz Degan right after all? [C][Raz Degan is the actor who plays the Jesus figure in Olmi’s filmm ‘Cento chiodi’ about a theologian who gives up books and the world of academe to preach a Christ who simply shares the life of society’s marginalized people.]

The ‘third temptation of Christ” provides an answer to the great question: “What has Jesus really brought the world, if he has not brought peace, well-being for all, a better world? The answer is very simple: God.” – no longer just a word but reality,and consequently, an ethos, a way of life.

After a sophisticated chapter on the Kingdom of God, Ratzinger dedicates 70 pages to an enthusiastic re-reading of the Sermon on the Mount. Here the Pope launches a reflection that reechoes the tones of the Regensburg lecture: “Would someone become blessed and be recognized by God as just because he has committed himself forcefully for and in a ‘holy war'? Or because he has declared as a norm for conscience his own opinions and desires, and thereby elevated himself into a criterion? No! God asks the opposite.”

No less clear is the message of the Beatitudes for secularism: “Political and social arrangements must be liberated from being sacred matters based on divine right, and left to the disposition of free men.”

Jesus, therefore, is neither a rebel nor a liberal, much less an insipid ‘middle way’. For Ratzinger, everything – philology, faith, history – concur to show that the Nazarene was who He claimed to be: the Law in Person, God-become-man to teach man how to be man.

That is what the Church is all about. It is a fact that shows ‘how reason carves out for itself in history the space of its own responsibility.” And here is the program – hardly conservative by any means – that it implies: “Even Christianity should continue to re-elaborate and reformulate the social order. In the face of new developments, it must correct that which has been previously established.”

In the chapter dedicated to the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer taught by Jesus, Ratzinger investigates every word, and when he comes to the invocation, “deliver us from evil”, he alludes to man’s presumption of autonomy and self-sufficiency.

“When you lose God, you lose yourself, and you become nothing more than a casual product of evolution.”

In considering the figures of the Apostles, he takes up once again the theme of enlightened rationality contained in the Christian faith. “Only faith in the one God can truly liberate and rationalize the world,” he writes.

Reason and knowledge are equally important in the Pope’s re-reading of the parables of Jesus, as the perfect emblem of how to educate, a synthesis to prove that understanding is not given without one’s participation, one’s connection, one’s ‘belonging.' In fact, "knowledge and belonging are the same thing essentially” (and perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than the insistent use of the verb “to remain” in Chapter 15 of the Gospel of John, says the Pope).

The ‘demanding knowledge' that Jesus introduces calls for a reason that does not limit the real to “that which is demonstrable by experiment.” In the face of such closing off of human freedom, not even miracles can prevail – as the Pharisees who witnessed the miracle of Lazarus coming back from the dead, were led not to faith but to a ‘hardening’. It is such reduction that happens in the 'spirit of modern rebellion against God” whereby “man who should be actually free has become a mere slave”.

In his analysis of the Gospel of John, the Pope has harsh words for a Christianity that is concerned only with “the word, but not its flesh and blood” – becoming nothing more than "pure doctrine, pure moralism and a question of intellect.” The saving character of the blood shed by Jesus is no longer accepted – it upsets intellectual harmony! Who cannot see in that a threat to Christianity today?

In the final part, Ratzinger reviews two episodes from Christ’s life: the confession of Peter (“Lord, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”) and the Transfiguration. They are the two events that introduce the mission, the task generated for those who recognize Him and who follow Him in His permanence in history: “In following Jesus Christ, what is at stake is the new humanity that comes from God.”

JESUS OF NAZARETH will provide material for debate and discussion for a long time to come. And basically, it is the Pope himself who asks for it. What remains most insistent is the proposition Ratzinger has often made to live ‘as if God existed.’

It was by giving credit to this hypothesis that the great English writer C. S. Lewis undertook conversion to Catholicism. His words of wonder – as recalled by the Pope – are an effective synthesis of this whole book: “How strange! The whole story about a God who dies – it seems that, for once, it really happened.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2007 19.41]

An item from the Italian press yesterday that escaped even Lella's attention (she only posts it today), but which Fr. Zuhlsdorf, who lives in Rome, apparently promptly translated on his blog, because it is from his April 10 entries.

Here is how he reports it:

IL TEMPO:
MOTU PROPRIO NEXT MONDAY
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
wdtprs.com/blog/


The Italian daily Il Tempo has published an unsigned article claiming in the headline that the Motu Proprio will be issued next Monday, 16 April, after the celebration for the Holy Father’s 80th Birthday.

Here is the article from Il Tempo in my translation:


The long-awaited Motu Proprio next Monday
Mass in Latin: Tradition returns

The long-awaited papal "Motu Proprio" on the recovery of the pre-Conciliar Mass in the Latin has been ready for a while, but its publication, foreseen at first for before Easter, will slide instead to after 16 April (slitterà a dopo il 16 aprile), the day of the 80th Birthday of Benedict XVI. So indicate reliable sources in the Vatican.

The document, written by the Pope himself, will restore the possibility of celebrating the Mass in Latin with the Tridentine Rite. That is not to say that this Rite is forbidden: but there are so many and so complex burocratic obstacles and approvals to obtain from local bishops that most of the faithful - to whom it would be a pleasure to return to the feel of things as established by the Council of Trent - give up intead.

The Motu Proprio – according to the previews that have surfaced in the last months – would permit the celebration of [the old] Mass in an almost automatic way, if it is requested by a certain number of people.

The Tridentine Mass in Latin is the only one accepted by the followers of the deceased schismatic [sic] Bishop Marcel Lefevbre, and the pontifical document would without question reopen the way for a repair of the break that occured in the ‘80s of the last century.

The French bishops, guided by their president Jean Pierre Ricard, aren’t hiding a certain discomfort in the face of losing control over their liturgical 'capital', [an issue that is] still burning in France, where the following of the Lefebvrite community of St. Pius X is strong.

There are many French priests who refuse to celebrate in Latin. Specifically to smooth the perplexity of the episcopacy on that side of the Alps, the publication of the Motu Proprio was delayed several times.

On the other hand, it is evident that the return of a spirituality more closely connected to the millennial tradition of the Church is one of the central points of this Pontificate: even in the post-Synodal Exhortation on the Eucharist, a greater use of Latin and of Gregorian chant was wished for.

Tuesday, 10 April 2007

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2007 20.06]

Sandro Magister argues rightly that the Vatican communications outreach is woefully inadequate, especially since - as we have had occasion to comment time and again - you really can't count on the mass media to report the Pope's spiritual messages: it's just not 'news' to them. So for all intents and purposes, the Pope's beautiful homilies are probably read and appreciated only by those like us who, out of devotion, make it our business to know what the Pope is saying and doing all the time.

Which is a crying shame, and a crime of the most flagrant and inexcusable omission.

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


Easter in Rome:
The Secret Homilies of the Successor of Peter

They’re secret, except for those who were able to listen to them in person, while Benedict XVI was pronouncing them.
In the "urbi et orbi" message, too, the pope presented much more than a list of countries at war.

by Sandro Magister




ROMA, April 11, 2007 – The image above is taken from a painting by Caravaggio. The risen Jesus appears to the apostles, and to the doubting Thomas he says: “Put your finger here, and see my hands; put forth your hand and place it in my side, and be no longer unbelieving, but believe!"

The incredulity of Thomas and his following profession of faith – “My Lord and my God!” – are at the center of the message that Benedict XVI addressed to the world on Easter Sunday.

Pope Joseph Ratzinger said that “we may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas.” The countless evils that afflict men put faith to a hard test. But it is precisely in the wounds of the risen Christ that the true face of God appears: “the face of a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself the wounds of injured humanity.”

It is here that a nearly dead faith is reborn: because “only a God who loves us to the extent of taking upon himself our wounds and our pain, especially innocent suffering, is worthy of faith.”

At this point, Benedict XVI singled out by name the most wounded and suffering regions of the world: from Darfur to the Congo, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to the “blessed Land which is the cradle of our faith.”

And he added: “Dear Brothers and sisters, through the wounds of the Risen Christ we can see the evils which afflict humanity with the eyes of hope.”

Earlier, he had said that “humanity today expects from Christians a renewed witness to the resurrection of Christ; it needs to encounter him and to know him as true God and true man.”

But little or nothing of this proclamation of the risen Christ was picked up by the major media outlets. These highlighted only the list of countries stricken by wars and calamities.

There is a limit beyond which the words of Benedict XVI do not go. They reach completely only those who listen to them in person, whether present physically or thanks to a live television broadcast. The number of these persons is substantial, more than for any earlier pontificate.

The Easter “urbi et orbi” message and the Way of the Cross on Good Friday were followed by huge crowds and retransmitted in more than forty countries. But even more vast is the number of persons who receive the pope’s message in an incomplete form – or not at all.

Benedict XVI experienced this communications block to an even greater extent in the other celebrations of last Holy Week.

In the Chrism Mass on Thursday morning, the pope dedicated the homily to explaining the profound meaning of being a priest, “clothed with Christ” and thus able to act and speak “in persona Christi.” He did this by reviewing the symbolism of the liturgical vestments. But how many of the more than four hundred thousand Catholic bishops and priests did his words reach?

In the homily for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday evening, Benedict XVI illustrated the novelty of Jesus’s Passover with respect to the one celebrated by the Jews.

In the homily for the Easter Vigil, he described the victory of Jesus over death by using the depictions customary in the Eastern Churches: with the risen Jesus who descends into Hades, and thus “brings the journey of the incarnation to its completion. By his death he now clasps the hand of Adam, of every man and woman who awaits him, and brings them to the light.”

But among those present at these Masses, only those who understood Italian were able to listen fruitfully to the pope’s homilies. The Catholic media outlets that translated and distributed the texts in various countries barely extended the listening area, to a niche audience.

For a pope like Benedict XVI, who has centered his ministry precisely upon the word, this is a serious limitation. The offices in the Roman curia that deal with communications have to this point done nothing new in order to remedy this, at least in part.

For example, no one sees to a quick distribution of the pope’s texts by internet to all the bishops and priests of the world, in the various languages.

The only effective initiatives in this area are those of Benedict XVI in person. With his book about Jesus that will be issued in a few days in multiple languages, he will reach in a direct and personal way an extremely high number of readers all over the world.

And it is precisely Jesus, “true God and true man,” who is the heart of Pope Benedict’s message. Just as he was the heart of his Easter homilies.

[Magister then goes to provide English translations of the Pope's homilies during Holy Week 2007. We had the translations in timely manner in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES.]


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

For the nth time, one can only underscore that it is absolutely inexcusable for the Vatican - with its wealth of multilingual speakers, not to mention fulltime professional translators - not to be able to provide reasonably prompt translations [by which I mean within 6 hours of delivery or release] of the pope's texts into the official languages of the Vatican.

What would it take to assign 6 persons - one for each of the languages - to get to work right away on translations? The Pope does not issue an encyclical or an Apostolic Exhortation every day - and for those major lengthy documents, the Vatican does have an SOP so that when they are released, they come out simultaneously in all the Vatican official languages. Most of the Papal texts are very convenient and not at all difficult to translate - and I say this as one who has managed to translate ASAP even if I do it 'part-time' while 'sneaking' some time off while I am at work. So where's the excuse?

What's happening is a crime that the Vatican communications people should be ashmed of and must be answerable for. It is not as if it were a major problem. The SINGLE objective of anyone who has anything to do with communications at all: Get out your message as fast as you can and as correctly as you can ,to everyone you may possibly and conceivably want to reach.

Magister mentions the world's 400,000 Roman Catholic priests. All but the poorest, most remotely located parishes in the world must have Internet access somehow. Why can't the Vatican have a media plan that allows instantaneous transmission of Papal texts and other important church documents to each parish, at least? At least one of the official languages of the Vatican will be understood by probably 90% of all parish priests around the world. SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

And if the Vatican does not yet have a master list of e-mail addresses or websites for every parish that has one, then more shame on them! They should even start compiling the e-mail and/or website addresses of individual priests, and program their transmissions in such a way that as soon as a papal text is available in a language understood by the priest or parish, then it gets sent automatically.

Has Sandro Magister picked up the phone to speak to Fr. Lombardi about all this? Magister has certainly written more than enough both in his regular articles and on his blog about the Vatican's perennially aject communications incompetence - to no apparent effect. Either Lombardi or any of his subordinates do not read Magister at all, or they do, but prefer to ignore him.

So failing any such response at all to his public needling and prodding, can't he ask to see Lombardi to discuss this with him? Surely he, Magister, has the clout to ask for a sit-down session with the man the Pope entrusted with his communications!

It is just so frustrating to find our Pope the victim of such monumental professional negligence on the part of Lombardi et al. Not that it was any better with Navarro-Valls!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2007 23.46]

Here is a translation of a tribute to Benedict XVI published in today's issue of La Repubblica, wwrtten by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who was John Paul II's spokesman for 22 years, adn continued as Vatican Press Office director for Benedict XVI for another 16 months.


Let me tell you
about Ratzinger's style
by JOAQUIN NAVARRO-VALLS


The English writer Chesterton said the miracle of language is that it allows a man not only to express his ideas but also to leave traces of himself, of his own irrepeatable individuality.

Obviously, this does not have to do only with writing, but with the 'style' of a person, which is revealed by his actions, his behavior, his life.

During my long years at the Vatican, I took part many times in working sessions with Cardinal Ratzinger. And I always came away enriched with every conversation I had with him. From these encounters, my mind teems with numerous memories that constitute the features of an integral and inconfoundable style.

And in evoking them, I cannot but be moved to think about the cardinal who no longer exists except in the official vestments of a Pope who declared of himself, "I but no longer myself", as he did in his Easter homily last year.

I like to think of Joseph Ratzinger, his personality and his elevated, perhaps unattainable, behavior - as discreet, present, Roman, but nevertheless always bound to his German origins.

Indeed, to understand his style, it is essential to start from his homeland, his Bavaria. And the characteristic of that land, as it is of his personality, is its wealth of influences. The inhabitants of Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, have both the moderate and reserved character typical of Nordic peoples as well as the genuine vitality and imagination of Mediterraneans.

Indeed, the fusion of diverse qualities is one of the specific qualities in the personality of Joseph Ratzinger, and one of the reasons for the profound trust and friendship that he inspires in so many persons in diverse fields, and surely, that he inspired in John Paul II.

In his book Alzatevi e andiamo (Rise, let us be on our way), he reserved for the future Benedict XVI words that I would call unqiue of their kind - words that I personally never heard Papa Wojtyla use, but which he wrote: "I thank God for the patience and the help of Cardinal Ratzinger, who is a trusted friend."

Their friendship dates later than most people think, more recent than usually claimed, and more profound than anything written about it so far.

Their first real encounter dates to the first Conclave of 1978, shortly after the death of Paul VI. Ratzinger remembers Wojtyla at the time for the impression he made in his interventions during the general congregations held in the Sede Vacante interval.

I am not surprised at this, because Ratzinger is an acute observer who is always open to wonder. I have heard him several times express his profound appreciation of colleagues and university professors from his academic years, each of whom he always valued for their individuality and through their intellectual itineraries that he more or less shared.

For Ratzinger, it is not so much that ideas give a face to a person, but rather that a person reveals himself through his ideas.

His assignment at the Vatican, begun in 1982 - something that was neither immediately nor easily accepted by him - certainly sealed the reciprocal esteem between the two Popes, allowing the birth of a friendship - and an osmosis of ideas - that had not been there before.

From his prior intellectual and academoc experience, Ratzinger came away with another legacy: a minute attention to problems, a detailed and very accurate analysis of issues, expressive of an intensely reflective character. And certainly, of that faith in reason that gives him optimism about human thinking and its ultimate ends that is such a definitive aspect of his personality.

If one considers the sure conviction that he has expressed so many times about the rationality of faith, one can say he is a 'realist.' From which derives the most definitive characteristic of his immense body of written work: an incessant, happily obstinate ministry of intelligence which he will never abandon.

His literary style is explicatory and interpretative, so consistent and logical as to be always - out of pure conviction - open to dialog: confident about the rationality of his interlocutors and their capacity to find the truth, as well as man's irrepressible need to search honestly for what is good. In this sense, one can say that he has a complete trust in men.

This is not a secondary quality, but part of his open personal style, with his certainty that the truth is always 'human,' and to recognize it is the specific duty of every person.

The human species does not have the privilege of creating a new truth by a stroke of genius, but rather to recognize the intimate 'logos' of things as they are realized gradually from one's own personal experience.

People speak of the apparent fragility, almost vulnerability, of Ratzinger, something that inspires affection; of the deliberate way he walks; of his serene manner in conversation with anyone. But the conclusions that may be drawn from his manner are often inadequate.

I believe that in Ratzinger, his elegant manners are not simply the result of an 'education of form' but the physical expression of the refinement of his thoughts. In him, expressive movements, his every gesture, are not born out of sheer custom nor as a technique of relating to others, but from the very way in which his ideas develop. His elegant and effective gestures are that way because that is exactly the way he thinks.

Another characteristic of his style is certainly caution. But we must use this word without all the ambiguity that usually accmpanies its common usage. His caution is not one of reserve and indecision, but an expression of his serious consideration of an issue with all the profound and adequate knowledge that it deserves.

And often, in order to be fully understood, a situation requires apppropriate time and appropriate maturation. I think it is that typically German intellectual seriousness that Hegel called "the effort of concept" and which Thomas Aquinas, having learned it of the Teutonic Albertus Magnus, described as a "diligent and subtle investigation."

True prudence is active and dynamic, it has its timing and resolution, but it requires a period of maturation: it cannot dally but neither can it hurry.

Even as a young man, Ratzinger confessed to preferring among the great theology teachers those who were 'cautious exegetes', who preferred freshness and vitality to the sterile monotony of servile repetition.

Often, his measured deliberation has been misunderstood as being wariness and hesitant circumspection - far from what it really is. It is true that Ratzinger has the unusual and admirable force of someone who prefers more to be surprised with wonder rather than to evoke surprises himself, but even
this attitude is not out of sheer meekness, but the placid gentleness and sensitivity, if not delicacy, of someone who has achieved the detachment and the necessary elevation to truly look into the hearts of men.

His emotions - more frequently expressed than commonly thought - are not a passionate reaction to things, but rather the effect of allowing himself to be conquered by the surprise of truth, by what is uncommon and unpredictable in the mystery that is man.

When, quite often, I see this trait of his interpreted as 'timidity', I always ask myself: how can anyone be timid who is so open to dialog and so ready to take on its challenges?

His theological disputes with Rahner and with diverse theologians - even those from other confessions, his recent confrontations with lay personalities like Habermas, even in multicultural environments like Oxford University, are not compatible with timidity, much less with guarded fear.

Whoever enters into dialog is not afraid. Whoever enters into dialog is not impressed either by the clamor or silence of the crowd or of contrary opinion. But whoever enters into dialog must know how to dialog, must know the mechanisms that move opinion and must think that a confrontation of ideas is worth the while. And that is exactly how Ratzinger thinks.

By the same token, no fearful or timid person would ever make such intense and courageously daring homilies as those we have heard from him, starting with the funeral eulogy for John Paul II and before the Conclave.

But my recollection of Joseph Ratzinger ends at the moment that he entered the Sistine Chapel for the last Conclave: our eyes met, he indicated a greeting to me, and that was the last I saw of him.

The man I saw after that was no longer Cardinal Ratzinger, but the Pope in his sacred vestments who appeared for the first time
on the loggia of St. Peter's as Benedict XVI. At that moment, I understood subconsciously that everything had really changed for him. At that moment, I understood that his previous life had ended - but without disappearing - forever.

And today, I am better able to understand the true meaning of his subsequent statement, "I, but no longer myself".

With his usual delicate but brilliant discretion, his personal life receded that day to make way for the sacred identity and responsibility of the institution that is the Pope. And in Ratzinger that day began the mystery that every Pope carries in him, or rather, the mystery that every Pope is.



Repubblica, 12 aprile 2007

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/04/2007 13.03]

All right, what man in the whole history of ideas has contributed to the intellectual discourse of his time on his 80th birthday with two major reflections on the polarly extreme topics of the nature of Jesus Christ and the nature of evolution?

Which intellectual today is capable of - and has hazarded - positing his views on the two issues that most bedevil the modern mind - the question of God, and the supposed primacy of science? [I cannot count among such intellectuals Richard Dawkins and his ilk, who a priori rule out the very possibility of God, and are therefore in no position to write about God, let alone about God-become man.]

It really boils down to one issue - do you believe in God, and if you do, how does that affect the way you think about Jesus Christ and about science as an antithesis to God?

It is a measure of Benedict XVI's breadth of mind that he has dared tackle these issues in such an explicit manner now - through two books, JESUS OF NAZARETH, coming out on April 16, and CREATION AND EVOLUTION, which was released in Germany yesterday, and which is the topic of the reports that follow:



Pope says science too narrow
to explain creation
By Tom Heneghan
Religion Editor

PARIS, April 11 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life's origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book "Schoepfung und Evolution" (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or "intelligent design" views about life's origins.

Those arguments, proposed mostly by conservative Protestants and derided by scientists, have stoked recurring battles over the teaching of evolution in the United States. Some European Christians and Turkish Muslims have recently echoed these views.

"Science has opened up large dimensions of reason ... and thus brought us new insights," Benedict, a former theology professor, said at the closed-door seminar with his former doctoral students last September that the book documents.

"But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need. Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it," he said.

"The issue is reclaiming a dimension of reason we have lost," he said, adding that the evolution debate was actually about "the great fundamental questions of philosophy - where man and the world came from and where they are going."

Speculation about Benedict's views on evolution have been rife ever since a former student and close advisor, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, published an article in 2005 that seemed to align the Church with the "intelligent design" view.

"Intelligent design" (ID) argues that some forms of life are too complex to have evolved randomly, as Charles Darwin proposed in his 1859 book "The Origin of Species." It says a higher intelligence must have done this but does not name it as God.

Scientists denounce this as a disguised form of creationism, the view that God created the world just as the Bible says. U.S. courts have ruled both creationism and ID are religious views that cannot be taught in public school science classes there.

In the book, Benedict defended what is known as "theistic evolution," the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.

"I would not depend on faith alone to explain the whole picture," he remarked during the discussion held at the papal summer palace in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.

He also denied using a "God-of-the-gaps" argument that sees divine intervention whenever science cannot explain something.

"It's not as if I wanted to stuff the dear God into these gaps - he is too great to fit into such gaps," he said in the book that publisher Sankt Ulrich Verlag in Augsburg said would later be translated into other languages.

Schoenborn, who published his own book on evolution last month, has said he and the German-born Pontiff addressed these issues now because many scientists use Darwin's theory to argue the random nature of evolution negated any role for God.

That is a philosophical or ideological conclusion not supported by facts, they say, because science cannot prove who or what originally created the universe and life in it.

"Both popular and scientific texts about evolution often say that 'nature' or 'evolution' has done this or that," Benedict said in the book which included lectures from theologian Schoenborn, two philosophers and a chemistry professor.

"Just who is this 'nature' or 'evolution' as (an active) subject? It doesn't exist at all!" the Pope said.

Benedict argued that evolution had a rationality that the theory of purely random selection could not explain.

"The process itself is rational despite the mistakes and confusion as it goes through a narrow corridor choosing a few positive mutations and using low probability," he said.

"This ... inevitably leads to a question that goes beyond science ... where did this rationality come from?" he asked. Answering his own question, he said it came from the "creative reason" of God.


Here is AP's story:

Pope says evolution can't be proven
By MELISSA EDDY


BERLIN, ap;ril 11 (AP) - Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation.

In a new book, "Creation and Evolution," published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer.

"The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science," the pope said.

He stopped short of endorsing intelligent design, but said scientific and philosophical reason must work together in a way that does not exclude faith.

"I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science," the pope was quoted as saying in the book, which records a meeting with fellow theologians the pope has known for years.

In the book, Benedict reflected on a 1996 comment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who said that Charles Darwin's theories on evolution were sound, as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God, and that Darwin's theory of evolution was "more than a hypothesis."

"The pope (John Paul) had his reasons for saying this," Benedict said. "But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory."

Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.

"We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory," he said.

Evolution has come under fire in recent years by proponents — mostly conservative Protestants — of "intelligent design," who believe that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher force rather than evolving from more primitive forms.

The book, which was released by the Sankt Ulrich publishing house, includes reflections of the pope and others who attended a meeting of theological scholars at the papal summer estate in Castel Gandolfo in early September.

The pope's remarks were consistent with one of his most important themes, that faith and reason are interdependent.

"Science has opened up large dimensions of reason ... and thus brought us new insights," the pope wrote. "But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need.

"Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it," he said.
report.


Here is a translation of an article in today's La Repubblica, from Lella's blog, reporting on the Pope's essay:

RATZINGER RE-READS DARWIN
By Orazio La Rocca


VATICAN CITY - Scientific research? "By itself, it cannot explain the origins of life." And Cahrles Darwin's theory of evolution? "It is not all demonstrable."

The words are by Benedict XVI, according to whom, at the beginning of 'everything', including life, there cannot simply be 'chance', but a 'design' that is directly linked to God.

The Pope expressed his views during a closed-door symposium held at the Papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo last September by some 40 theologians and academics whom he had advised in their doctoral studies during his years as university professor.

The subject was "Creation and Evolution," and Benedict gave what amounted to a lecture about Darwinian theories, speaking out for the first time as Pope on one of the more burning issues in recent years that has highlighted the difficult dialog between faith and science.

After 8 months, the Pope's statement to his ex-students now appears in the book "Schoepfung und Evolution" published in Germany yesterday and which will soon be made available in other major languages.

Ratzinger argues that the origin of life, which is 'the work of God', "cannot have a scientific explanation because science, despite its openings and the progress it has achieved, will always have its limitations."

And "Darwin's theory of evolution," he says, "is not completely demonstrable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be simulated in the laboratory."

"Science," he acknowledges, "has opened so many new paths for reason, bringing it to new depths. But in its joy over the extent of its discoveries, science tends to take away those dimensions of human reason that man still needs."

He adds: "Scientific results raise questions that go beyond its canonical methods," and cannot be explained only by scientific canons.

Questions about the origin of life increasingly "require a dimension of reason that the modern world has lost," he notes.

The debate on evolution, he points out, touches on 'the great questions of philosophy" - where do man and the world come from and where are they going.

[The rest of the story gives a background on the Schuelerkreise and the presentation tomorrow of the Pope's book JESUS OF NAZARETH.]

Repubblica, 12 aprile 2007

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/04/2007 16.35]

BRASILIA, Brazil, April 12 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI is expected to attract more than a million people to two open-air Masses during his upcoming visit to Latin America's biggest country, Brazilian church leaders said Wednesday.

The pope, in his first trip to Latin America, will only visit the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil's wealthiest and most populous, home to one of the world's the largest Roman Catholic dioceses.

The pontiff will celebrate his first open-air Mass before a crowd that is expected to top 1 million people on May 11 at Sao Paulo's Campo de Marte airport, said Odilo Pedro Scherer, the archbishop of Sao Paulo.

At least 350,000 people are expected to attend the second open-air Mass on May 13 at the small city of Aparecida, Scherer said.

Home of Brazil's biggest shrine, Aparecida was named after Nossa Senhora Aparecida, or Our Revealed Lady, the patron saint of the world's largest Roman Catholic country.

Benedict also is expected to address more than 30,000 Catholic youths May 10 at Sao Paulo's Pacaembu soccer stadium.

And here's a reminder from the Vatican Press Office today:

Accredited journalists are hereby informed that on April 17, at 11:30, a briefing will be held at thr John Paul II Hall of the Press Office on the pastoral visit by Pope Benedict XVI on April 21-22 to Vigevano and Pavia, particularly his visit to the tomb of St. Augustine.

Participating will be:
Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office
Fr. Robert Prevost, Prior-General of the oOrder of St. Augustine (OSA);
Fr. Vittorino Grossi, of the Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, which had oriignally invited the Pope to make this visit; and
Fr. Giustino Casciano, Prior of San Pietro in Cieldoro, the cathedral in Pavia where the saint's tomb is located.

On the eve of his 2-year anniversary as pope, Benedict set to name influential U.S. bishops


By Eric Gorski
ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:36 a.m. April 12, 2007

Two years into his reign, Pope Benedict XVI is finally poised to make a major mark on American Catholicism with a string of key bishop appointments and important decisions about the future of U.S. seminaries and bishops' involvement in politics.
Benedict's election on April 19, 2005, shook liberals and comforted conservatives who expected a doctrinal hard-liner. So far, they have found an easier hand – and someone who has not made the United States much of a priority.

When Benedict has gained attention, it has mostly been on the world stage, focusing on the re-Christianization of Europe, Islam and mending relations with Orthodox Christians. He also has stressed universal themes of faith and reason.
“The last two years have been much quieter years as far as the papacy is concerned because you have a very different personality” than John Paul II, said Monsignor Robert Wister, chairman of the church history department at Seton Hall University's School of Theology.

“Many Americans were surprised – some happily, some disappointed – that he did not turn into the pit bull of dogma. He is taking a very pastoral approach, and I think people resonate very positively with that.”

Yet America's turn may be coming. At the top of the list is a looming generational shift among the nation's bishops, whose decisions at the local level greatly affect Catholics in the pews and can carry national weight. For instance, church leaders recently closed parishes in Boston and New York, while the St. Louis archbishop has clashed with a heavily Polish parish over control of its assets.

Key appointments are expected in New York, Baltimore and Detroit, where cardinals have reached retirement age – 75. And in the next two years appointments are expected in five other smaller dioceses, notes George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and John Paul II biographer.

Then there is the potential ripple effect – if some bishops move to larger cities, then they too must be replaced.

“At the end of these two years, we will see what the enduring impact of this pontificate on the leadership of the U.S. church will be,” Weigel said.

So far, Benedict has appointed former Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl to the prestigious Washington, D.C., archdiocese, and he chose former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada as his successor to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog. Levada is the highest-ranking American ever at the Vatican.

While faithful to Rome, neither man has a hard-line reputation. Wuerl, for instance, has refused to withhold Communion from Catholic legislators who support legal abortion. Levada has strongly affirmed traditional Catholic teachings while shepherding flocks in liberal cities – San Francisco and Portland – before that.

Benedict “has tended to appoint people who are moderate, who are good teachers, good communicators and pastoral,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “John Paul II was appointing people who frankly were kind of in-your face, who were more aggressive and liked playing cop.”

“These guys don't want to do that. They're more conciliators than fighters.”

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, predicted that for the major posts that lie ahead, Benedict will appoint bishops who are “vibrantly orthodox” and strong communicators.

Neuhaus dismisses suggestions that conservative Catholics such as himself are disappointed that Benedict has not been tougher, and derides media portrayals of the pope transforming himself from “God's rottweiler” to kindly uncle.

“There is no evidence whatsoever he has changed his judgment on anything of consequence the last two years,” Neuhaus said. “He is a gentle, thoughtful, paternal, firm and loving person. That's the man you see. For those of us who knew Ratzinger over the last 25 years, there were no surprises at all.”

Another development to watch: the results of a review begun in 2005 by Vatican-appointed investigators of 229 U.S. Catholic seminaries for evidence of a gay culture and faculty dissent from church teaching. Neuhaus said there is no signal yet on the result of the investigation, which grew out of reforms following the clergy sex abuse crisis.

Some Catholics expected Benedict, a champion of orthodoxy, to crack down on dissident theologians. But there has been no purge. The Vatican did censure the writings of the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a priest in El Salvador and proponent of liberation theology, over his writings about Christ's divinity. Even in that case, however, Sobrino was not barred from teaching or publishing.

In 2004, a few vocal Catholic bishops spoke out against Catholic politicians who take stances in conflict with church teaching, particularly on abortion. The main target then was Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic. This next election cycle, it's a Catholic Republican and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani who clashes with the church on abortion and gay marriage. He also is twice divorced, though one marriage was later annulled.

The pope “is taking a forceful approach on a number of life issues,” said Wister, of Seton Hall. “He has made very clear his opposition to same sex marriage and abortion. The question is, to what extent he will ask bishops to take very forceful positions or not take steps in the political arena?”

[The mainstream media strikes again.]


The Missing Pope

Benedict has been almost invisible in the places he's needed most.

By Joseph Contreras
Newsweek International

April 16, 2007 issue - April 19 marks the second anniversary of Benedict XVI's election as pontiff, and in a few weeks he heads to Brazil. Not long ago, when a pope traveled to the region it didn't occasion much comment; John Paul II was a globe-trotter who hit Mexico and the Caribbean during his first 100 days. But Benedict, who turns 80 this month, has rarely left home and seems most interested in trying to revive European Catholicism.

On his upcoming trek to the Brazilian town of Aparecida do Norte, he plans to huddle with regional prelates worried about their declining influence, the growth of evangelicals and local moves to legalize gay unions and abortion. The pope should choose his words carefully; on one of his last trips, to his native Germany, he sparked a firestorm when he quoted in passing scathing comments about the Prophet Muhammad. Within days Benedict was being burned in effigy. He can expect a warmer greeting in South America. But there's no denying he's been a disappointment to many faithful there and elsewhere. Some U.S. Catholics condemn him as aloof, Europeans resent his intrusions into their affairs and he's never been popular in Latin America. The region, home to 450 million Catholics, had hoped to see one of its own succeed John Paul. Many there have felt ignored by the man who ultimately did.

Part of the problem is style. The last pope was a former parish priest who recast himself as an international player (he spoke eight languages, including Spanish and Portuguese). Benedict is a colorless academic who spent much of his career teaching theology and philosophy. "This is a professor, a quiet man, not an actor skilled in politics," says the American theologian Michael Novak. "[People] should not judge him by the standards of John Paul II."

Perhaps, but the differences go beyond personality. During his long tenure, John Paul undertook more than 100 trips abroad and showed real concern for the developing world. Although Benedict calls for more aid to Africa in a new book, he seems preoccupied by Europe. His defenders say this narrow focus represents a return to tradition. "Prior to the election of John Paul II, it was understood that the pope played a far more active role in European affairs," argues Friar Thomas Williams of the Legion of Christ.

But Benedict's emphasis hasn't won him many fans. Just before his ascension, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned Italians that "Europe has developed a culture that ... excludes God from the public conscience," and last month he decried Europeans' "dangerous individualism." Also last month, Italy's bishops came out against the country's attempt to extend rights to gay and unmarried couples. Such moves have rankled politicians—one parliamentarian has warned Benedict against imposing a "clerical dictatorship" in Italy—and many of the faithful. "Ratzinger is getting too intrusive on [subjects] such as civil rights for unwed couples and is too out of date," says Milanese housewife Maria Novella Dall'Aglio.

In the rest of the world, meanwhile, Benedict's presence has scarcely been felt. He was nowhere to be seen in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, arguably the most Catholic city in the United States. Nor has he paid much attention to Latin America, home to nearly half the world's Catholics and a key focus of John Paul's papacy. "He's ignored us completely," says Roberto Blancarte, a sociologist specializing in religious affairs at the Colegio de México in Mexico City.

In Benedict's absence, the influence of his church has continued to wane. In Latin America an estimated 8,000 people leave the Catholic Church every day, and according to the polling firm Latinobarómetro, the number of locals who call themselves Catholic dropped 9 percent between 1995 and 2005. The church's decline is most evident in Mexico, which has the second largest Catholic population on the planet. Coahuila state OK'd same-sex civil unions in January. Two months earlier, Mexico City granted new rights to same-sex couples, and it is expected to decriminalize abortion soon. Such measures would once have seemed unthinkable in a society where the Virgin of Guadalupe rivals the flag as a national symbol. But left-wing politicians no longer fear the Vatican. Under John Paul, politicians "used to have a certain respect [for the church] and a belief that it wasn't in their interests to pick a fight" with it, notes Elio Masferrer Kan, a religious historian at Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History. Now they see it as a "paper tiger," as do judges in Argentina and Colombia, who have ruled in favor of allowing abortions in the past year.

Were Benedict to become more active in Latin America, however, it wouldn't likely change matters. His one foray into local affairs alienated more Catholics than it reassured: in October he personally approved a Vatican document sharply critical of Father Jon Sobrino, an advocate of liberation theology. The irony of this was that liberation theology—a progressive Catholic social movement—is already considered a dead letter these days. His criticism thus struck many as mean-spirited and unnecessary; Leonardo Boff, a former Brazilian priest, wrote an open letter saying the pope's sanctions "filled me with sadness" and "defraud[ed] the poor."

It also underscored just how conservative—and far from the mainstream—Benedict is. That will cause more trouble in the future, especially in Latin countries that already believe he is behind the times. Later this month, the Vatican is expected to permit congregations to celebrate mass in Latin without seeking prior approval. This represents a big step backward: Pope Paul VI abolished the Latin rite in 1969, and relatively few modern Catholics can even recall it. But that doesn't worry Ratzinger. "He's an old-fashioned guy who wants to go back to what [the church] was before," says David Gibson, the author of an acclaimed 2006 biography of the pope.

The problem, according to Gibson, is that Benedict "doesn't seem to realize that he's a world leader and not an academic." Indeed, the pope's great misfortune may be his election to a job he was never suited for. With the Vatican facing an acute shortage of priests and nuns and its moral authority tarnished by child-abuse scandals, the world's 1.1 billion Catholics could use a shepherd who would help them tackle present and future problems. What they've got instead is a reclusive intellectual more interested in resurrecting old rituals and disputes.

With Jacopo Barigazzi in Milan and Mac Margolis in Rio de Janeiro

[Modificato da benefan 12/04/2007 22.40]

....what a pathetic little "article". Who wrote it? A grade five child????

In its current edition, the Italian magazine FAMIGLIA CRISTIANA dedicates the cover story and several features to pay tribute to Pope Benedict XVI on his 80th birthday and on the second anniversary of his Pontificate.



In this interview, Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, a theologian who has known Joseph Ratzinger since he was a young priest involved in launching the Italian edition of the theological journal Communio in the late 70s, offers a very sharp and clear assessment of Benedict as Pope.


'Love is the common thread
that runs through this Papacy'
By Alberto Bobbio


The Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, is a refined theologian and careful observer of everything that animates pluralistic society today and the role that the Church plays in such a society.

He recently published a book called Una nuova laicita (A new secularism) in which he analyzes many aspects, most of them sensitive, of contemporary culture and faith.

Famiglia Cristiana asked him to give us his assessment of the style and substance of the theologian-Pope.

Eminence, what do you think characterizes the Pontificate of Benedict XVI two years since he was elected?
Simple straightforward intelligence about the faith and reality. I think that synthesizes the style of his Pontificate. He joins extraordinary humility - which to our people in Venice recalls that of John Paul I - to the razor-sharp intelligence that we have known in him for years and years.

And where is this best seen?
In the essential profundity of his teaching - which makes him capable of addressing children making their First Communion, young and old, simple folk and learned minds. This ability to express himself so powerfully and effectively according to the audience he addresses is a distincitve feature of Benedict's Magisterium. And it finds excellent confirmation among the faithful, the popular attention that he gets, so that in terms of numbers, the participation in his Wednesday audiences and at Angelus are superior to those of John Paul II..

Where do you think he learned this?
It's the fruit of the formation he had since he was a small boy in Bavaria, where Catholicism was and still is, in good part, a popular experience. The rhythm of the liturgical year tends to shape the personal and community life of the people in all its expressions, from personal affection to work to leisure activities. The Pope narrates all this in his autobiography.

And I think this is also why Benedict XVI has showm himself to be an extraordinarily pastoral Pope, and it would be reductive to try and define him only on the basis of his previously well-known gifts as a theologian.


Is it for this reason that he is very attentive to liturgy?
Certainly. Even this derives from his personal experience, his taste for the beauty of liturgy which he had even as a child. In the past two years, we have seen how, gradually, he has transformed even grand events to essential liturgical gestures. He did this in Cologne for World Youth Day, in Bari for the National Eucharistic Congress. He did this two weeks ago with the pentitential liturgy for the youth at St. Peter's, then a few days later, with the Memorial Mass for John Paul II.

In his recent Apostolic Exhortation, along with advanced doctrine on the Eucharist, he had about 50 practical suggestions on the art of celebrating liturgy,'ars celebrandi'.

Why did he do that?
To give a positive impetus to the liturgical reforms intended by Vatican-II, which invites us to rediscover the vertical action (God-directed) of liturgy and all the sacraments.

About his preaching as a theologian, why has he chosen to speak about the Fathers of the Church in his Wednesday audiences?
In response to a need which his good friend, the theologian Hans Urss von Balthasar, brought to light decades ago - that the basic ecclesiological question was not 'What is the Church?' but 'Who is the Church?'

Benedict began by talking about the Apostles, and now about the early Church Fathers. He is stressing the absolute involvement of those who were called - in communion with Christ and among themselves - to make the Church actual.

Is there a thread running through this Pontificate?
Yes, you will find it in the encyclical. In Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI resolves a long-standing theological debate on the essence of love. The Pope says there is only one love , no opposition between eros and agape. In his Magisterium, he links the Hellenic theme of reason, Logos, and the Johannine idea of love: reason moved by love is the Word (Logos) made flesh.

With love, in the sense he defines it, as the common thread, he is able to hold together, in an original way, faith and reason, religion and culture. And goes on to explain the relationship between justice and charity.

So, he offers valuable indications on how to deal with our emotions, our relationships, our work, justice, peace, all the factors that make for a good life.

Why does he always insist on the reasonableness of faith?
Because faith opens up the horizons of reason - it offers, so to speak, ulterior reasons. A person who is truly reasonable must consider everything in play, every phenomenon, those that can be measured by the sciences, as well as those that impose themselves on moral conscience. Love, for instance, cannot be measured arithmetically, it is more important than arithmetic.

Today, it is no longer said, thank God, that one does not need to ask questions about the ultimate meaning of existence because it is a question that cannot be answered. The Pope shows that all the questions coming from the heart of man deserve to be answered. Above all, those age-old questions - Who am I? Where am I going? Who loves me? What is there after death? - these are fundamental questions to which a reasonable man will find answers arrived at through a reasonable faith.

And the Church, religion? What exactly is their role?
The church is the concrete experience of friendship with Christ which allows the man of faith to face, along with others, all the questions about existence.

As for religion, the relationship btween faith and reason is decisive for it. Faith always lives in a religion, and every religion needs faith in order to be purified.

The Pope has said it so many times, and has shown, with his trip to Turkey, his profound ecumenical sensitivity as well as his commitment to inter-religious dialog.

What have been the most impiortant statements made by Benedict XVI?
Now is the time to read his lecture at Regensburg very carefully. That was one of the central points of his Pontificate. And of course, the encyclical and the Exhortation on the Eucharist.

Also central are the Wednesday catecheses on the Apostles and the figures of early Christianity, in which the Pope uses the most elementary way of knowing: knowledge that is passed on through the testimony of witnesses.

But I would also cite his homily at the concluding Mass for World Youth Day in Cologne, in which, using a daring image, he likened the mystery of the Eucharist to nuclear fission.

Finally, his address to the Italian Church in Verona, in which he showed that following the example of the Risen Christ is the best way to live the human experience.

The media have misreported him at times. What do you think public opinion is about the Pope?
The great majority of of our parishioners, members of the movements and associations, love him - they love how he looks at people - intensely and clearly; they listen to him with great attention and they understand what he says.

But then we have the so-called opinion leaders and the media - those who above all seem to want to measure themselves against the intellectual Pope. In this connection, allow me to quote a famous saying in scholastic philosophy: "Everything is received according to the measure of the recipient."

Nevertheless, at a time of great trials like now, we have to accept that the words of the Pope and the bishops are bound to arouse controversy, but that is all right, as long as it does not detract from listening to your interlocutor and giving his words due respect, as the Pope always does for everyone."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2007 9.42]

Here is a translation of the other excerpt from JESUS OF NAZARETH that came out in German in DIE ZEIT. Subsequently, FAMIGLIA CRISTIANA published it in Italian in its current issue.



From Chapter VII
THE MESSAGE OF THE PARABLES

Now comes the much-awaited book, that which the Pope signs ‘Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI', that written by the theologian who became Pope, that which he himself has authorized to be disputed, that which is not linked in any way to the pontifical Magisterium.

The Pope of words makes a gift of words on his 80th birthday and two years of his Pontificate. He puts on paper the fundamental idea that the Jesus of the faith and of the Gospel it not different from the so-called historical Jesus. Jesus is a person, not a myth, and he is a person with whom it is possible to establish a friendship.

Joseph Ratzinger has written about Jesus before, and each time, it was to clear the decks of expressions that are reductive, ideological, poisoned by unreasonable messianism or buried under the incrustations of time.

He gives us a passionate narrative about events that also show around Jesus so many figures to whom Jesus offered his company and his friendship, and who become examples and symbols of works, ideas, reflections.

From that book, JESUS OF NAZARETH, written by Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, we preview an exceprt from Chapter VII, “The message of the parables”. The volume (448 pp, 9.59 euro), is published by Rizzoli, under contract with the Vatican publishing house, which also authorized it to sell publishing rights around the world.



The parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus (Lk 16,19-31)

In this story, we find ourselves once more faced with two contrasting figures: the rich man who carouses in his prosperity, and the poor man who cannot even manage to catch the morsels that the rich people toss away at mealtime, those ieices of bread that the diners, according to the custom of the time, used to clean their hands with and then threw away.

Some of the Fathers have included this parable in the 'two brothers' narrative scheme, applying it to the relationship between Israel (the rich man) and the Church (poor Lazarus), but this way, losing the completely different typology that is in play here.

One already sees it in the different ending to the story. While the 'two brothers' texts remain open-ended, here the irrevocable destiny of both protagonists is described.

As a background that may open up our understanding of this story, we should consider the series of Psalms in which a lament is raised to God by the poor person who lives by his faith in God and in obedience to His commandments, yet knows nothing but misfortune, whereas the cynics who scorn God go from success to success and enjoy all the happiness on earth.

Lazarus is among those poor ones whose voice we hear, for example in Psalm 44: "You make us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us...For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered (v. 15-23; cfr. Rm 8,36).

Israel's ancient wisdom was based on the assumption that God rewarded the just and punished the sinner, and that therefore, sin deserved unhappiness and justice, happiness. But at least from the time of the exile, this wisdom underwent a crisis.

Not only did Israel as a people suffer more than the other peoples who surrounded them, who forced them into exile and oppressed them. But even in private affairs, it became more evident that cynicism was profitable and that, in this world, the just are destined to suffer.

In the Psalms and the later writings on wisdom, we witness the laborious effort to resolve this contradiction, a new attempt to become 'wise', to understand life correctly, to find and understand in a new way this God who seemed unjust and even completely absent.

One of the more penetrating texts in this search, Psalm 73, can be considered in some aspects as the cultural background for our parable. We can almost see standing before us the figure of the rich man, about whom the person praying, Lazarus, laments: "I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they suffer no pain; their bodies are healthy and sleek...They are not afflicted like others. Thus pride adorns them as a necklace...Out of their stupidity comes sin...From on high they utter threats...So my people turn to them and drink deeply of their words. They say, "Does God really know? Does the Most High have any knowledge?" (Ps 73,3-11).

The just man who suffers and sees all this is in danger of losing his faith. Does God not really see? Does he not feel? Does the fate of men not concern him?

"Is it in vain that I have kept my heart clean...For I am afflicted day after day, chastised every morning...My heart was embittered and my soul deeply wounded" (Ps 73,13f,21).

The unforeseen change takes place when the just man, suffering in the temple, turns his face towards God, and seeing Him, enlarges his perspective.

Then he sees that the apparent intelligence of the cynios rich with success, when seen in the light, is stupidity; that this kind of 'wisdom' means to 'be stupid and not to understand", to be 'like a beast" (Ps 73,22). They remain like beasts and have lost the perspective of man that goes beyond the material aspect: towards God and eternal life.

At this point, another Psalm comes to mind, in which someone who is persecuted says at the end: "Their bellies are being filled with your friends; their children are satisfied too...I am just - let me see your face; when I awake, let me be filled with your presence. (Ps 17,14f).

Here two kinds of satiety are counterposed: satiety of material goods and satisying oneself "with your presence", the satiety of the heart through its encounter with infinite love.

"When I awake" - this definitely refers to the new life, the eternal one, but it also refers to a more profound 'reawakening' even while yet in this world: awaking to the truth which can give man a new satiety.

Psalm 73 speaks about this awakening in prayer. Indeed, the person praying now sees that the happiness he so envied of the cynics is nothing but 'a dream after waking'; he sees that the Lord, when He arises, "dismisses them like shadows" (Ps 73,20).

And now, the person praying recognizes true happiness: "Yet I am always with you; you take hold of my right hand...Whom else have I in the heavens? None beside you delights me on earth...
To be near God is my good" (Ps 73,23.25.28).

These are not just beautiful words to make us hope for what is beyond, but it is the awakening to the true grandeur of being a man, part of which, of course, is the calling to eternal life.

With all this, we have only apparently strayed away from our parable. Actually, with this story, the Lord wished to introduce us to that process of 'reawakening' which found expression in the Psalms.

This story is not a mean-spirited condemnation of wealth and rich people, which is generated by envy. In the Psalms which we have briefly considered, every envy is overcome. Rather, to the person praying, it becomes obvious that envy for this kind of wealth is stupid, because he knows now what is truly good.

After the crucifixion of Christ, we meet two wealthy men - Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea - who have found the Lord and are persons who are 'reawakening.' The Lord wants to lead us from stupid 'intelligence' to true wisdom - He wants to teach us how to recognize true goodness.

And so, even if this is not found in the text, we can say on the basis of the Psalms that the rich man of the parable even on this earth already had an empty heart, that in his excesses, he only wanted to fill up the void within him. Only in the hereafter would he see the truth that was already present even here and now.

Of course this parable, while reawakening us, is at the same time an exhortation to the love we should give our poor brothers and our responsibility towards them - on a wider scale, to the global society - as well as in the narrow circle of our day-to-day life.

In the description of the hereafter that follows in the parable, Jesus keeps to the concepts that were current in Judaism in His time, and so, we need not strain ourselves about this part of the text: Jesus adopts pre-existing imagery without formally elevating them to become part of his teaching on the hereafter.

Nevertheless, he clearly approves the substance of the imagery. Therefore, it is not insignificant that Jesus takes up here the idea of the state that is intermediate between death and resurrection, which had become a common patrimony of Judaism.

The rich man finds himself in Hades as a provisional destination, but not in 'geenna' (Hell), which is the term for the definitive state [of condemnation].

Jesus does not know of 'a resurrection in death." But as we said, this is not the true teaching that the Lord wished to transmit with this parable. As Jeremias has demonstrated convincingly, the second peak of this parable is about the request for signs.

From Hades, the rich man tells Abraham that which, then as now, so many men say, or would like to say, to God: If you want us to believe and to conform our existence to the words of revelation in the Bible, then you should be more clear. Send us soemone from beyond who can tell us what it is really like.

This problem of asking for signs from someone from beyond who can tell us what it really is like - asking for better evidence of revelation - pervades the entire Gospel. Abraham's answer - like that of Jesus, outside this parable, to the demand for signs from his contemporaries - is clear: Whoever does not believe in the words of Scripture will not believe either in the words of someone who comes from beyond. The most sublime truths cannot be constrained into the (mold of) empirical evidence which, precisely, has only material dimensions.

Abraham cannot send Lazarus to the paternal home of the rich man [to take his place]. But now comes to mind something which strikes us. Let us think of the resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany, narrated in the Gospel of John. What happened? "Many of the Jews then believed in Him," the evangelist tells us.

They go to the Pharisees and tell them what happened. The Sanhedrin is convoked to discuss it. The event was considered in this meeting in its political aspect: a popular movement which could cause the Romans to act and generate a dangerous situation for the Jews. So they decided to kill Jesus. The miracle did not lead them to faith but rather to a 'hardening' (Jn 11,45-53)...

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2007 16.18]

Pope set to make mark on U.S. church
By ERIC GORSKI
AP Religion Writer
April 12, 2007



Two years into his reign, Pope Benedict XVI is finally poised to make a major mark on American Catholicism with a string of key bishop appointments and important decisions about the future of U.S. seminaries and bishops' involvement in politics.

Benedict's election on April 19, 2005, shook liberals and comforted conservatives who expected a doctrinal hard-liner. So far, they have found an easier hand — and someone who has not made the United States much of a priority.

When Benedict has gained attention, it has mostly been on the world stage, focusing on the re-Christianization of Europe, Islam and mending relations with Orthodox Christians. He also has stressed universal themes of faith and reason.

"The last two years have been much quieter years as far as the papacy is concerned because you have a very different personality" than John Paul II, said Monsignor Robert Wister, chairman of the church history department at Seton Hall University's School of Theology.

"Many Americans were surprised — some happily, some disappointed — that he did not turn into the pit bull of dogma. He is taking a very pastoral approach, and I think people resonate very positively with that."

Yet America's turn may be coming. At the top of the list is a looming generational shift among the nation's bishops, whose decisions at the local level greatly affect Catholics in the pews and can carry national weight. For instance, church leaders recently closed parishes in Boston and New York, while the St. Louis archbishop has clashed with a heavily Polish parish over control of its assets.

Key appointments are expected in New York, Baltimore and Detroit, where cardinals have reached retirement age — 75. And retirements or appointments are likely in at least seven other dioceses and archdioceses: Seattle; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Pittsburgh; New Orleans; Louisville, Ky.; Omaha, Neb.; and Mobile, Ala.

Then there is the potential ripple effect — if some bishops move to larger cities, then they too must be replaced.

"At the end of these two years, we will see what the enduring impact of this pontificate on the leadership of the U.S. church will be," said George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and John Paul II biographer.

So far, Benedict has appointed former Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl to the prestigious Washington, D.C., archdiocese, and he chose former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada as his successor to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog. Levada is the highest-ranking American ever at the Vatican.

While faithful to Rome, neither man has a hard-line reputation. Wuerl, for instance, has refused to withhold Communion from Catholic legislators who support legal abortion. Levada has strongly affirmed traditional Catholic teachings while shepherding flocks in liberal cities — San Francisco and Portland — before that.

Benedict "has tended to appoint people who are moderate, who are good teachers, good communicators and pastoral," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "John Paul II was appointing people who frankly were kind of in-your face, who were more aggressive and liked playing cop."

"These guys don't want to do that. They're more conciliators than fighters."

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, predicted that for the major posts that lie ahead, Benedict will appoint bishops who are "vibrantly orthodox" and strong communicators.

Neuhaus dismisses suggestions that conservative Catholics such as himself are disappointed that Benedict has not been tougher, and derides media portrayals of the pope transforming himself from "God's rottweiler" to kindly uncle.

"There is no evidence whatsoever he has changed his judgment on anything of consequence the last two years," Neuhaus said. "He is a gentle, thoughtful, paternal, firm and loving person. That's the man you see. For those of us who knew Ratzinger over the last 25 years, there were no surprises at all."

Another development to watch: the results of a review begun in 2005 by Vatican-appointed investigators of 229 U.S. Catholic seminaries for evidence of a gay culture and faculty dissent from church teaching. Neuhaus said there is no signal yet on the result of the investigation, which grew out of reforms following the clergy sex abuse crisis.

Some Catholics expected Benedict, a champion of orthodoxy, to crack down on dissident theologians. But there has been no purge. The Vatican did censure the writings of the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a priest in El Salvador and proponent of liberation theology, over his writings about Christ's divinity. Even in that case, however, Sobrino was not barred from teaching or publishing.

In 2004, a few vocal Catholic bishops spoke out against Catholic politicians who take stances in conflict with church teaching, particularly on abortion. The main target then was Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic.

This next election cycle, it's a Catholic Republican and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani who clashes with the church on abortion and gay marriage. He also is twice divorced, though one marriage was later annulled.

The pope "is taking a forceful approach on a number of life issues," said Wister, of Seton Hall. "He has made very clear his opposition to same sex marriage and abortion. The question is, to what extent he will ask bishops to take very forceful positions or not take steps in the political arena?"

We already indicated this earlier with the programming schedule RAI-1 released for the Pope's birthday and second anniversary as Pope. But this item, thanks to Lella, gives us further details. Here is a translation:

A birthday treat for the Pope-
and from the Pope!

Roma, April 12 (Adnkronos) - "Benedetto XVI - Il Papa dell'amicizia con Dio" (The Pope of friendship with God) is the title of the program that RAI's Vatican bureau is dedicating to Joseph Ratzinger, the theologian-turned-Pope, on his 80th birthday.



It is a 100-minute TV biography to be broadcast in two parts: the first part on RAI-1 at 10:30 Saturday, April 14; the second part, on Sunday, April 15, at 9:00 AM, preceding the Mass to be celebrated by the Holy Father at St. Peter's Square.

It is probably the first TV biography of the Pope [No, German TV has done it before, but not with the 'in-house' footage] - from his birth in Marktl am Inn on April 16, 1927, to the present.

It represents one year of work, with images from the photo archives of the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, as well as from the Universities where Joseph Ratzinger taught (Freising, Bonn, Muenster, Tuebingen, Regensburg).

There are interviews with friends who have known Joseph Ratzinger through the hears: from his prefect of studies at the seminary to his house neighbors; from writer Vittorio Messori to theologian Hans Kueng.

The program is divided into chapters: The boy who wanted to be a cardinal; the Professor; the Prefect; the 'humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord'; the "B16 style'; the apartment.

It shows the Pope as no Pope has been seen before. What happens and with whom he shares the Papal apartment on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. From his early-morning Mass to his afternoon walk; the Pope's study; meals with some guests; preparing his lunch and dinner; watching the evening newscasts on TV; behind the scenes at Angelus and the Wednesday audiences.

It is the first time a Pope has allowed himself to be filmed in private, in such detail, and in the company of those we might consider his 'family' now.

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

RAI-1 had better carry it on their international feed!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2007 16.21]

I have been asleep at the post! I missed it that Newsweek came out with its two-year assessment of B16, and here's Carl Olson blogging about it yesterday on Ignatius Insight
insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2007/04/and_this_weeks_.html

Posted by Carl Olson
Thursday, April 12, 2007


And this week's winner...

... of "Pathetically Skewed and Angry Attack 'News' Piece About the Pope" is "The Missing Pope" by Joseph Contreras for Newsweek International.

Contreras had stiff competition from Jane Kramer of The New Yorker, but his piece — as Mollie Hemingway ably shows—is so wretchedly bad, it's a clear winner. In the losing kind of "winner" way. For example:

---

On his upcoming trek to the Brazilian town of Aparecida do Norte, he plans to huddle with regional prelates worried about their declining influence, the growth of evangelicals and local moves to legalize gay unions and abortion. The pope should choose his words carefully; on one of his last trips, to his native Germany, he sparked a firestorm when he quoted in passing scathing comments about the Prophet Muhammad. Within days Benedict was being burned in effigy. He can expect a warmer greeting in South America. But there's no denying he's been a disappointment to many faithful there and elsewhere. Some U.S. Catholics condemn him as aloof, Europeans resent his intrusions into their affairs and he's never been popular in Latin America. The region, home to 450 million Catholics, had hoped to see one of its own succeed John Paul. Many there have felt ignored by the man who ultimately did.

Part of the problem is style. The last pope was a former parish priest who recast himself as an international player (he spoke eight languages, including Spanish and Portuguese). Benedict is a colorless academic who spent much of his career teaching theology and philosophy. "This is a professor, a quiet man, not an actor skilled in politics," says the American theologian Michael Novak. "[People] should not judge him by the standards of John Paul II." ...

But Benedict's emphasis hasn't won him many fans. Just before his ascension, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned Italians that "Europe has developed a culture that ... excludes God from the public conscience," and last month he decried Europeans' "dangerous individualism."

Also last month, Italy's bishops came out against the country's attempt to extend rights to gay and unmarried couples. Such moves have rankled politicians — one parliamentarian has warned Benedict against imposing a "clerical dictatorship" in Italy —and many of the faithful.

"Ratzinger is getting too intrusive on [subjects] such as civil rights for unwed couples and is too out of date," says Milanese housewife Maria Novella Dall'Aglio.

---

Whoa — he rankles politicians! (And that's bad?) And a housewife thinks he's "out of date." Next you'll be saying that he's "too conservative" and is obsessed with Latin and is stuck in the past. Well, shore nuff, you do!

---

It also underscored just how conservative —a nd far from the mainstream — Benedict is. That will cause more trouble in the future, especially in Latin countries that already believe he is behind the times. Later this month, the Vatican is expected to permit congregations to celebrate mass in Latin without seeking prior approval. This represents a big step backward: Pope Paul VI abolished the Latin rite in 1969, and relatively few modern Catholics can even recall it. But that doesn't worry Ratzinger. "He's an old-fashioned guy who wants to go back to what [the church] was before," says David Gibson, the author of an acclaimed 2006 biography of the pope.

The problem, according to Gibson, is that Benedict "doesn't seem to realize that he's a world leader and not an academic." Indeed, the pope's great misfortune may be his election to a job he was never suited for. With the Vatican facing an acute shortage of priests and nuns and its moral authority tarnished by child-abuse scandals, the world's 1.1 billion Catholics could use a shepherd who would help them tackle present and future problems. What they've got instead is a reclusive intellectual more interested in resurrecting old rituals and disputes.

---

Yep, it is truly befuddling why B16 keeps addressing Islam, relativism, secularism, nihilism, modernity, post-modernity, liturgy, the Eucharist, love, God, Jesus, and the relationships between faith and reason, Church and state, science and religion. That is, like, wow, so yesterday!

Truly pathetic, even for Newsweek.

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

I have said before that media - with its widespread misinformation and the dogged vicious hostility of some journalists - is Benedict's Cross to bear. But bigoted and hateful (because literally 'hate-full') articles such as this still leave me apoplectic. Like the Israeli caption to a photo of Pope Pius XII in their Holocaust memorial, almost every statement in this article is false, misleading or willfully uninformed...I need some time to calm down.

And not to be masochistic, but for the record, and so each one can judge for herself/himself, here's the full article - in 8 pts.


Pope Benedict the Invisible
Benedict has been almost invisible in the places he's needed most.
By Joseph Contreras
Newsweek International
April 16, 2007 issue

April 19 marks the second anniversary of Benedict XVI's election as pontiff, and in a few weeks he heads to Brazil. Not long ago, when a pope traveled to the region it didn't occasion much comment; John Paul II was a globe-trotter who hit Mexico and the Caribbean during his first 100 days. But Benedict, who turns 80 this month, has rarely left home and seems most interested in trying to revive European Catholicism.

On his upcoming trek to the Brazilian town of Aparecida do Norte, he plans to huddle with regional prelates worried about their declining influence, the growth of evangelicals and local moves to legalize gay unions and abortion. The pope should choose his words carefully; on one of his last trips, to his native Germany, he sparked a firestorm when he quoted in passing scathing comments about the Prophet Muhammad. Within days Benedict was being burned in effigy. He can expect a warmer greeting in South America. But there's no denying he's been a disappointment to many faithful there and elsewhere. Some U.S. Catholics condemn him as aloof, Europeans resent his intrusions into their affairs and he's never been popular in Latin America. The region, home to 450 million Catholics, had hoped to see one of its own succeed John Paul. Many there have felt ignored by the man who ultimately did.

Part of the problem is style. The last pope was a former parish priest who recast himself as an international player (he spoke eight languages, including Spanish and Portuguese). Benedict is a colorless academic who spent much of his career teaching theology and philosophy. "This is a professor, a quiet man, not an actor skilled in politics," says the American theologian Michael Novak. "[People] should not judge him by the standards of John Paul II."

Perhaps, but the differences go beyond personality. During his long tenure, John Paul undertook more than 100 trips abroad and showed real concern for the developing world. Although Benedict calls for more aid to Africa in a new book, he seems preoccupied by Europe. His defenders say this narrow focus represents a return to tradition. "Prior to the election of John Paul II, it was understood that the pope played a far more active role in European affairs," argues Friar Thomas Williams of the Legion of Christ.

But Benedict's emphasis hasn't won him many fans. Just before his ascension, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned Italians that "Europe has developed a culture that ... excludes God from the public conscience," and last month he decried Europeans' "dangerous individualism." Also last month, Italy's bishops came out against the country's attempt to extend rights to gay and unmarried couples. Such moves have rankled politicians—one parliamentarian has warned Benedict against imposing a "clerical dictatorship" in Italy—and many of the faithful. "Ratzinger is getting too intrusive on [subjects] such as civil rights for unwed couples and is too out of date," says Milanese housewife Maria Novella Dall'Aglio.

In the rest of the world, meanwhile, Benedict's presence has scarcely been felt. He was nowhere to be seen in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, arguably the most Catholic city in the United States. Nor has he paid much attention to Latin America, home to nearly half the world's Catholics and a key focus of John Paul's papacy. "He's ignored us completely," says Roberto Blancarte, a sociologist specializing in religious affairs at the Colegio de México in Mexico City.

In Benedict's absence, the influence of his church has continued to wane. In Latin America an estimated 8,000 people leave the Catholic Church every day, and according to the polling firm Latinobarómetro, the number of locals who call themselves Catholic dropped 9 percent between 1995 and 2005. The church's decline is most evident in Mexico, which has the second largest Catholic population on the planet. Coahuila state OK'd same-sex civil unions in January. Two months earlier, Mexico City granted new rights to same-sex couples, and it is expected to decriminalize abortion soon. Such measures would once have seemed unthinkable in a society where the Virgin of Guadalupe rivals the flag as a national symbol. But left-wing politicians no longer fear the Vatican. Under John Paul, politicians "used to have a certain respect [for the church] and a belief that it wasn't in their interests to pick a fight" with it, notes Elio Masferrer Kan, a religious historian at Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History. Now they see it as a "paper tiger," as do judges in Argentina and Colombia, who have ruled in favor of allowing abortions in the past year.

Were Benedict to become more active in Latin America, however, it wouldn't likely change matters. His one foray into local affairs alienated more Catholics than it reassured: in October he personally approved a Vatican document sharply critical of Father Jon Sobrino, an advocate of liberation theology. The irony of this was that liberation theology —a progressive Catholic social movement — is already considered a dead letter these days. His criticism thus struck many as mean-spirited and unnecessary; Leonardo Boff, a former Brazilian priest, wrote an open letter saying the pope's sanctions "filled me with sadness" and "defraud[ed] the poor."

It also underscored just how conservative — and far from the mainstream — Benedict is. That will cause more trouble in the future, especially in Latin countries that already believe he is behind the times. Later this month, the Vatican is expected to permit congregations to celebrate mass in Latin without seeking prior approval. This represents a big step backward: Pope Paul VI abolished the Latin rite in 1969, and relatively few modern Catholics can even recall it. But that doesn't worry Ratzinger. "He's an old-fashioned guy who wants to go back to what [the church] was before," says David Gibson, the author of an acclaimed 2006 biography of the pope.

The problem, according to Gibson, is that Benedict "doesn't seem to realize that he's a world leader and not an academic." Indeed, the pope's great misfortune may be his election to a job he was never suited for. With the Vatican facing an acute shortage of priests and nuns and its moral authority tarnished by child-abuse scandals, the world's 1.1 billion Catholics could use a shepherd who would help them tackle present and future problems. What they've got instead is a reclusive intellectual more interested in resurrecting old rituals and disputes.

With Jacopo Barigazzi in Milan and Mac Margolis in Rio de Janeiro

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2007 16.28]

Re-discover "real Jesus,"
Pope urges in new book
By Philip Pullella


VATICAN CITY, April 13 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in his first book since becoming Pontiff, shares his "personal search for the face of the Lord" and indirectly dismisses popular speculative versions of Christ's life like "The Da Vinci Code."

"Jesus of Nazareth," released on Friday, is a highly complex theological treatise on Christ as both God and man in which the Pope dissects and analyzes scripture passages like the old university professor he once was.

Benedict says the reader should not consider the 450-page work, a study he began about two years before his election and finished last September, as an infallible part of official Church teaching, writing: "Anyone is free to contradict me."

The book is sprinkled with hundreds of Biblical references, citations, and quotes of people as disparate as Karl Marx and Mother Teresa, Socrates and Confucius, Dante and Nietzsche.

"I have tried to present the Jesus of the Gospels as the real Jesus, as the historical Jesus in the true sense," writes Benedict, the Vatican's top theologian for nearly 25 years before his election to the papacy in 2005.

Recently, Christian churches have fought against depictions or interpretations of Christ which have worked their way into works of fiction such as "The Da Vinci Code," which claimed that Jesus married, had children and never rose from the dead.

As if to confront these, Benedict writes:
"Yes, it really happened. Jesus is not a myth. He is a man made of flesh and blood, a totally real presence in history ... he died and rose from the dead."

In presenting the book to the media, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna was more direct in his criticism of recent interpretations of Christ's life.

"The innumerable fanciful images of Jesus as a revolutionary, as a timid social reformer, as the secret lover of Mary Magdalene, can be put to rest in the ossuary of history," Schonborn told a news conference, adding that the book was based on "the solid, historical credibility of the Gospels."

For over a century, Biblical scholars have used new critical analytical methods and newly found documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls to portray Jesus as more human than divine. This scholarship reached popular audiences with The Da Vinci Code.

The book, a first volume in a larger work, concentrates on Christ's public ministry. Mostly an academic work blended with personal touches, it starts with his baptism in the Jordan River when he was already an adult and ends with the Transfiguration.

While the book is mostly a theological study, at times the Pope offers contemporary relevance to some Biblical accounts.

After analyzing the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Pope says rich countries bent on power and profit have "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the "cynicism of a world without God."



Benedict XVI releases first book as pope
By NICOLE WINFIELD



VATICAN CITY, April 13 (AP) - Benedict XVI criticizes the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and the power of the wealthy over the poor in his first book as pope released on Friday.

Benedict began writing his personal meditation on Jesus Christ's teachings, entitled "Jesus of Nazareth," in 2003 when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He stressed that the book is an expression of his "personal search for the face of the Lord" and is by no means official Catholic Church doctrine.

"Everyone is free, then, to contradict me," he wrote.

Benedict — a prolific and well-known theologian well before he became pope — thoroughly examined the Gospel accounts of Jesus' public ministry to arrive at the foundation of the Christian faith: that Jesus is God.

Benedict said the fundamental question he is exploring in the book is what Jesus did.

"What did Jesus truly bring, if he didn't bring peace to the world, well-being for all and a better world? What did he bring?

"The answer is very simple: God. He brought God."

The 448-page book is due in bookstores in German, Italian and Polish on Monday, Benedict's 80th birthday. The English edition is due for release May 15 and translations are planned for 16 other languages.

The book is the first of two volumes: Rizzoli, the Italian publisher, said Benedict is expected to write a second volume exploring the birth of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection.

"Jesus of Nazareth" covers several key points of Jesus' public life and ministry. An entire chapter is devoted to his baptism, another to the prayer Jesus taught the faithful, the Lord's Prayer, and another to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, praising the poor, the meek and the hungry in the "Beatitudes."

"Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in a new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth."

In another chapter on the key Biblical parable, the Good Samaritan, Benedict decries how the wealthy have "plundered" Africa and the Third World both materially and spiritually through colonialism.

"Instead of giving them their God, the God that is close to us in Christ, and welcome from their traditions all that is dear and great ... we brought them the cynicism of a world without God, in which only power and profit matters," he wrote.

He criticized the lifestyles of the wealthy, citing "victims of drugs, of human trafficking, of sexual tourism, people destroyed on the inside, who are empty despite the abundance of their material goods."

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and a friend of the pope's, told a Vatican presentation of the book on Friday that Benedict was seeking to portray Jesus as he was historically.

Despite the social justice tone of many of Jesus' teachings, however, Schoenborn said it would be wrong to call him a "social reformer."

He noted Benedict's tough stance on liberation theology — the theology of salvation as liberation from injustice — when he was prefect at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

During his two-decade tenure as prefect, Ratzinger worked to cripple support for "liberation theology;" some versions of the movement, which is especially popular in Latin America, are at variance with church teaching because they view Christ as a mere social liberator.

"The innumerable fanciful images of Jesus as a revolutionary, as a moderate social reformer, as the secret lover of Mary Magdalene, etc ... can be calmly deposited in the ossuary of history," Schoenborn said.




Christ must be known as Son of God,
pope says in new book
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY, April 13 (CNS) - In his new book, "Jesus of Nazareth," Pope Benedict XVI said Christ must be understood as the Son of God on a divine mission, not as a mere moralist or social reformer.

Re-emphasizing Christ's divine nature is especially important in a world that tends to ridicule religious faith and that is experiencing a "global poisoning of the spiritual climate," the pope said.

While Christ did not bring a blueprint for social progress, he did bring a new vision based on love that challenges the evils of today's world - from the brutality of totalitarian regimes to the "cruelty of capitalism," he said.

The 448-page book was presented in its Italian, German and Polish editions at the Vatican April 13. It was to go on sale April 16, the pope's 80th birthday, with subsequent editions in English and 18 other languages.

The book, the first of two planned volumes on Christ's life, covers the public acts of Jesus from his baptism in the Jordan River to the transfiguration before his disciples. Its 10 chapters analyze Scriptural passages, but also explore commentary from early church fathers and modern scholars.

In a preface, the pope makes an unusual disclaimer, saying the book should not be read as an expression of official church teaching, but as the fruits of his personal research.

"Therefore, anyone is free to contradict me," he said.

Throughout the text, the pope cites Old and New Testament passages to show that to understand Christ one must understand his "union with God the Father."

Even at his baptism, Jesus appears as the divine savior, not as an ordinary man who perhaps had a vocational or psychological crisis that led him to the Jordan River, he said.

Likewise, the pope said, Christ's radically different teaching does not come from any human school but from direct contact with God. That is seen clearly in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ summarized Christian virtues in the Eight Beatitudes, he said.

The idea that the meek or the poor are particularly blessed has struck some - including the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche - as a resentful complaint against the world's more fortunate or successful people, the pope said.

But recent decades have demonstrated the lasting value of this Christian vision, he said.

After witnessing the way totalitarian regimes of the modern era have trampled human dignity and beaten the weak, "we understand once again those who have hunger and thirst for justice," he said.

"Faced with the abuse of economic power, faced with the cruelty of capitalism that downgrades man to a commodity, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and understand in a new way what Jesus meant when he warned against wealth," he said.

The pope said the widespread modern expectation that religion should act as a recipe for earthly peace and justice finds an echo in Satan's temptation to Christ - to change the stones of the desert into bread to relieve his hunger.

Still, many people may ask "what Jesus really brought, if not peace in the world, well-being for everyone, a better world," the pope wrote.

"The answer is very simple. He brought God," he said. By revealing himself as the Son of God, Christ lets people know that God is close to their lives and at work in human history, he said.

Especially in the modern era, there is resistance to accepting God as anything more than a subjective reality, the pope said. The idea of "removing God" is the nucleus of every temptation, he said, and is seen in the modern approach to problems like global poverty and hunger.

Foreign aid to Third World countries, for example, has imposed a materialistic and technical solution on populations, ignoring their religious beliefs, he said.

Africa in particular has been "robbed and looted," he said, and like the man on the roadside in Christ's parable, is in need of good Samaritans.

Instead of giving these populations God, he said, "we have brought them the cynicism of a world without God, in which the only things that count are power and profit."

The pope warned that some of the "reconstructions" of Jesus offered by biblical scholars have also diminished his divinity and end up depicting Christ as simply one among many founders of religions. In this sense, he said, "the interpretation of the Bible can effectively become an instrument of the Antichrist," by denying that God acts in human history.

The Christian faithful need to know that the New Testament is more than a collection of symbolic or allegorical stories, and that this is not just another myth of death and rebirth, he said.

"Yes, it really happened. Jesus is not a myth, he is a man of flesh and blood, a real presence in history. ... He died and rose again," he said.

In one chapter, the pope focused on the importance of prayer as taught by Jesus in the Our Father. He posed the question: "Isn't God also mother?"

While there are expressions of God's maternal love in the Bible, and while God cannot be said to be either male or female, the pope concluded that the image of the father was appropriate at that time to express the transcendent "otherness" of the creator.

For Christians today, that language remains the norm, he said.

"Mother is not a title of God nor a name with which one prays to God," he said. "We pray as Jesus did ... not as it occurs to us or how it pleases us."

The pope said that when Christ's followers prayed "deliver us from evil," they sometimes had a concrete danger in mind: the Roman political power that threatened to swallow them.

But the phrase has lost none of its relevance today, he said.

"Today, too, there are on one hand the powers of the market, of arms trafficking, of drugs and men - powers that oppress the world and drag humanity in chains that are impossible to escape," he said.

"On the other hand, there is also today the ideology of success, of well-being, that tells us: God is only a fiction, he's only a waste of time and he robs us of the desire to live," he said.

The pope explained in his preface that the book was the product of a "long inner journey," and that he had begun writing it in 2003. He said he was concerned that the figure of Jesus was becoming increasingly unclear, even for believers.

He decided that he could offer a portrait of the "historical Jesus" that was "more logical and understandable than reconstructions we have seen in recent decades."

Naturally, he said, to believe that Christ was God and that he revealed this in his public life goes beyond the possibilities of the historical method. In this sense, he said, the Scriptures should be read in the light of faith.

At the Vatican presentation, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said the pope's book should act as a corrective to the "innumerable fanciful images of Jesus as a revolutionary, as a meek social reformer, as the secret lover of Mary Magdalene," which have appeared recently in the mass media.

Doubleday, the U.S. publisher of the pope's book, plans to release the volume in English in May.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2007 23.27]