A translation of the Pope's words at the Angelus today has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.







After the Angelus prayer today in Castel Gandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI announced that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, will be leaving for Peru in a few days to personally convey the Pope's sympathy with the people of Peru and concrete assistance from the Holy See for the victims of the Assumption Day earthquake.

He also greeted the 28th annual Meeting for Friendship among Peoples which opens today in Rimini, the Adriatic resort town in central Italy, under the sponsorship of Comunione e Liberazione.

The program for the three-day meeting indicates it will be dominated by discussions of Pope Benedict's Magisterium, particularly Deus caritas est and the Regensburg lecture, led by prominent members of the Catholic hierarchy, beginning with Cardinal Bertone who celebrated the opening Mass this morning and is giving the opening lecture.





Once again, the Pope had to address an overflow crowd in the town piazza from an external balcony of the Apostolic residence. The internal courtyard can only hold 3,000 pilgrims.

From LIBERO today, thanks to Lella. Here is a translation:


Getting ready for Strasbourg?
By MARIO PRIGNANO



Pope Benedict XVI's visit to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg (France) may take place in early 2008, twenty years after a similar visit by John Paul II.

It is a very sensitive time not only because of the debates that regularly mark European Parliament sessions over homosexual rights adn alleged discrimination against them, but also because of issues about European integration. So there will be plenty for Papa Ratzinger to talk to Europe's lawmakers about.

At the opening of the annual meeting of Comunione e Liberazione in Rimini today, Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, was sharing the stage with Hans Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament, who is giving the keynote address to a meeting dedicated this year to European identity.

Bertone and Poettering are expected to find time to discuss the invitation to Strasbourg formally extended by the latter to the Pope last March, at a private audience in the Vatican.

Relations between the European Parliament and the Vatican have been difficult, especially in the past few years, when the dominantly liberal Parliament and the EU bureaucracy have taken every opportunity to attack the Vatican, including some 30 formal denunciations of Church policy made at some level by the Parliament.

It was not incidental that shortly after Poettering extended the invitation to the Pope, two leftist Euro-deputies from Italy presented a demand that before any such invitation could be considered, the Parliament should demand that the Pope make 'a clear and public apology' for making statements on ethical issues like homosexual marriages, in opposition to the Parliament's dominant attitude about such issues.

Poettering replied bluntly and simply that the invitation has been issued. But the deputies succeeded last April in passing a resolution condemning "discriminatory comments made by political and religious leaders in some European countries about homosexuals."

Poettering is a Catholic Christian Democrat in the tradition of the Fathers of the European community, and was a protege of former German Chancellor Helmut Koehl.

In short, Benedict and he agree on the same issues that were very much the concerns addressed 20 years ago by John Paul II - the Christian roots of Europe, the protection of life at everystage from conception to natural death, the importance of a family founded on traditional matrimony.

If the Pope does go to Strasbourg next year, when a general election is expected in Italy, what he says to the Eurodeputies will have repercussions on Italian politics.

On October 11, 1988, John Paul II addressed the European Parliament to denounce 'currents of thought' in Europe which "are slowly alienating the world and mankind from God" as well as 'advocates of agnostic humanism, which is often atheistic."

Pope Benedict's recent statements about the European crisis have included the following:

"Europe today, while aiming to popose itself as a community of values, more often questions whether ther aer universal and absolute values."

"Europe today is characterized by an apostasy of itself...which leads it to doubts its own identity."

"With the decline in birth rates, Europe is risking syaing its farewell to history."

He has exhorted Christians "to be actively present" in the pbuloic debate on the European level," saying, "Do not yield to the logic of power for its own sake."

Libero, 19 agosto 2007

In the past 28 years, the annual weeklong convention of the movement Comunione e Liberazione in the Adriatic coastal resort of Rimini has become a political rite of summer in Italy. They have been marked by the high-profile participation of Italian and European politicians in well-covered discussions on social and political issues. There's a notable difference this year, as this report shows. A translation:

Rimini 2007: A meeting
under the 'sign of Ratzinger'
By GIACOMO GALEAZZI





This will be known as the 'Meeting of Benedict XVI'. If last year's annual convention of Communione e Liberazione was considered the 'most political' in 27 years - because of the heated confrontations among Berlusconi, opposition politicians and the so-called theo-dem Catholic politician Paola Binetti - the 2007 CL kermesse is a record event for its very high ecclesiastical profile and its alignment with the policies of this Pontificate.

Not too long ago, such a primacy and alignment were considered unthinkable for the CL which began as a rather unorthodox church movement, barely in tune with the Vatican hierarchy.

In 28 years, this is the first time that a Vatican Secretary of State has taken part in the Rimini convention. Neither Cardinal Casaroli or Cardinal Sodano ever accepted an invitation to these conventions from the organization founded by Don Luigi Giussani.

But today, the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Bertone telecast direct by RAI opens a convention that appears focused on the Magisterium of Papa Ratzinger. The most important items on the program are speeches and discussions in the name of Benedict XVI.

The theme of the convention itself - "The truth is the fact for which we are all destined" - comes from a speech given by the Pope at the Pontifical Lateran University last year. He said then: "In fact, if we drop the question of truth and the concrete possibility that every person is capable of reaching it, life becomes reduced to a spectrum of hypotheses without any sure reference points."

Bertone's homily was about truth and what it demands of believers. It was the first of major speeches scheduled by the "Ratzinger boys' at the various discussions and workshops.

Mons. Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University and a theological consultant at the Vatican, was to talk about the spiritual journey of the late Oriana Fallaci and her advocacy of Benedict's teachings.

Professor Schindler, editor of the German edition of Communio (the theological journal co-founded by Joseph Ratzinger with Hans Urs von Balthasar and like-minded theologians after Vatican-II), and Mons. Luigi Negri, bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, will discuss various elements of Benedict's Magisterium based on his encyclical Deus caritas est.

Two hot issues of this Papacy (the Middle East and dialog with the Orthodox Church) have been assigned to two key Vatican liaison men, Franciscan friar Pierbattista Pizzaballa, custodian of the Holy Land, and Fr. Romano Scalfi, an expert on Russian Orthotodxy.

The Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, Diarmuid Martin, another 'Ratzinger old faithful', will discuss how Christians should behave in crisis situations.

But the thematic center of Rimini 2007 is the Pope's Regensburg lecture given less than a year ago, as the launching point for discussing the Ratzingerian ideas on faith and reason.

German philosopher Robert Spaemann, a longtime friend of Joseph Ratzinger, will lead discussions on prospects for inter-religious dialog that have been unexpectedly opened by the Regensburg lecture.

Fr. Ambrogio Pisani, theologian from Catholic University, has been assigned to directly face leaders from other faiths in inter-religious discussions.

Framing this 'Ratzinger Meeting' is a lecture by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice and a CL member, and another by Massimo Camisasca, Superior-General of the Fraternity of San Carlo, and CL's most popular personality for mobilization.

Not to mention the new Bishop of Rimini, Francesco Lambiasi, who, in his work at Catholic Action, has favored rapport between them and CL.

La Stampa, 19 agosto 2007

The Vatican Press Office issued a communique today following the Holy Father's announcement at his Angelus message yesterday:

Following the devastating earthquake which struck the Ica region of Peru, the Holy Father, through the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, has sent a contribution of $200,000 for first aid to the victims.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, will go to Peru next week, on a previouisly scheduled trip, and thus will be able to express, along with the abovementioned token of solidarity, the Holy Father's spiritual nearness to the people of Peru and an assurance of his prayers.

Vatican City, August 20, 2007







I think it is appropriate to post this story and photos here:


Peruvians weep at church statues
that survive quake
By Terry Wade

PISCO, Peru, Aug. 19 (Reuters) - Peruvian earthquake survivors on Saturday wept and hugged statues of Jesus Christ and Catholic saints dug out intact from the rubble of a church where at least 150 people died three days earlier.





Rescue workers placed the life-sized statues in the main square in Pisco, the Pacific coast town that was among the hardest hit by a 8.0 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday that killed more than 500 people in Peru.

The Church of San Clemente was where most of the Pisco victims died, crushed during a funeral mass.


Parish priest Alfonso Berrades in front of the rubble of the San Clemente church.

Desperate and ragged residents, most of them hungry people who haven't slept under a roof since the quake, thronged around the Christ statue in amazement as it was carried in procession into the square by half a dozen men in hard hats and masks.

The survival of the religious figures gave people hope and something to celebrate in their desolation in this predominantly Catholic country.

"The Lord is present here with us, along with the saints, it's a miracle they weren't destroyed," said Amelia Ugaz de Aria, 69, whose home was flattened by the earthquake.

Nearby, a mobile hospital attended to injured survivors while others continued to search for kin among rows of distended, purple bodies laid out in the square and still awaiting identification.

Lourdes Girau, 42, sobbed as she kneeled before Jesus and with a rag dusted off the wooden cross he was staked to.

"The fact that he's here, shows Jesus continues to live to fight so much tragedy," Girau said.

Townspeople rushed to hold the hands of San Clemente or caress the face of Jesus, their fingers tracing the painted blood stains streaming down his skin.

The Peruvian government sent hundreds of troops to the stricken towns of Pisco, Chincha and Ica on Saturday as looting intensified, partly because of frustration over what survivors said was the slow pace of aid.

Some residents were fleeing the area to find food and shelter elsewhere.

Following pictures are from the Church of Belen:





Rescuers lose hope

PISCO, Peru, Aug. 20 (AP) - Rescuers said there was "no hope" of finding anyone else alive in the rubble of this southern port city leveled by a magnitude-8 earthquake that left at least 540 people dead.

"We've stopped the rescue work," said Jorge Vera, a firefighter who led the operation to find survivors at the San Clemente church in Pisco, on Sunday. "We're now working to recover the bodies."

Firefighter Guillermo Merino said 148 bodies had been removed from the debris of the church that came crashing down during Wednesday's quake, in which 1,500 people also were injured. The church's domed ceiling broke apart over some 300 congregants in shaking that lasted an agonizing two minutes.

Almsot 15,000 were present at the opening Mass concelebrated Sunday by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, and Mons. Paolo Romeo, Archbishop of Palermo.

The stage for the altar was the biggest ever in 28 years of the annual Meeting for Friendship among Peoples sponsored by the church movement Comunione e Liberazione in Rimini's well-known Fair grounds.

Participation has been as great as ever for the weeklong event even if political issues are decidedly much less represented in the 118 discussions and workshops this year than in the past.

The 'ciellini' [Italian term for C&L members, from the Italian letters 'ci' and 'el', which together also form the root word ciel, meaning heaven] listened in unreal silence, as they generally do at homilies, to Bertone's homily.

But at the end of the Mass, when the Pope's Angelus from Castel Gandolfo appeared on the videowalls, there was a real ovation for the Pope, which mounted even more when he addressed a special message to the Rimini participants and imparted them his blessing.
.... [The rest of the story is about the first day of the Meeting].

Il Tempo, 20 agosto 2007


This is a description of this year's theme, inspired by Benedict XVI, from the online site of the meeting:

---

The pursuit of truth has always been the all-important challenge facing man. By his nature, man is led to seek the truth, and in this search he engages all the strength of his reason.

However, above all today, there exists a deep-seated mistrust of the possibility of knowing the truth; the relativism and skepticism that undermine our civilization are a direct result of this. So life, deprived of certainties, becomes opaque, apparently lacking any meaning and ultimately exposed to all possible forms of violence and oppression.

These doubts of our ability to know the truth coincide with intimate doubts about the very existence of the truth; without it, however, man is deprived of any hope that he will be able to find definite answers to the great questions of life that trouble his heart.

In this respect the Holy Father Benedict XVI, in conversation with students at the Lateran University, pointed out: “If the question of the truth and the concrete possibility for every person to be able to reach it is neglected, life ends up being reduced to a plethora of hypotheses, deprived of assurances and points of reference”.

The title of the forthcoming Meeting declares with certainty that “Truth is the destiny for which we have been made”, throwing down a challenge to that “weak thought” that seeks to deny the need for any ultimate meaning for which man works, suffers, loves, and thinks.

Our age is profoundly marked by currents of thought that no longer recognize reality in its objectivity as something placed before man and which man can recognize, claiming instead that it is reason that gives substance to reality.

The only alternative is that the truth is something or someone whom man can encounter, something that happens: an event.

---

A translation of the full catechesis has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.





The Pope's catechesis today was a resumption of his discourse on the life of St. Gregory Nazanzene, begun on August 8. There was no General Audience last Wednesday, August 15, Assumption Day.

The Pope flew to the Vatican from Castel Gandolfo for the audience at Aula Paolo VI.

Here is how he synthesized today's catechesis in English:

---

In our catechesis on the teachers of the ancient Church, we now continue our reflection on Saint Gregory Nazianzene.

Gregory considered it his mission to employ his learning and literary talent in the service of the Gospel. Inclined to study and prayer, he nonetheless took part in the many controversies which followed the Council of Nicaea.

Gregory forcefully defended the Church’s faith in one God in three equal and distinct persons. He upheld the full humanity of the Incarnate Son, arguing that Christ took on our human nature in its integrity, including a rational soul, in order to bring us the fullness of redemption.

He likewise defended Mary’s dignity as the Mother of God, her purity and her intercessory power.

Gregory often stresses our Christian responsibility to imitate God’s goodness and love through charity and solidarity with others, especially the sick and those in need. He also speaks eloquently of the importance of prayer, in which we see everything in the light of Christ, are immersed in God’s truth and inflamed by his love.

The life and teaching of Saint Gregory are a celebration of the divine love which is revealed in Christ. Let us open our hearts to this love, which overcomes our weakness and gives lasting joy and happiness to our lives.

---

P.S. PETRUS today carries this short item, translated here. The quotation does not appear in the Vatican text of this morning's catechesis and messages - I checked even the foreign-language messages, including that in Spanish:

---

"One more time I wish to mention my great affection ans spiritual closeness to the dear people of peru, who have been so sorely tried these days. I ask for the Peruvians gestures of Christian solidarity following the teaching of St. Gregory Nazianzene."

In the catechesis, the Pope had quoted St. Gregory, who wrote:"...If you have not fallen, go to the aid of those who have fallen and who live in suffering...console those who are sad...help those who are in the grip of misfortune. Give God proof that you acknowledge him...(that benefiting from him, you too may benefit others)...imitating the mercy of God."

---

A related story from ZENIT:

Caritas Appeals for $11 Million
for Quake Victims

ROME, AUG. 21, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Caritas Confederation has launched an appeal for over $11 million to help victims of last week's earthquake in Peru.

"The situation is still quite difficult for survivors," said Jorge LaFosse, secretary-general of Caritas Peru. "We're still getting strong aftershocks, so it makes the work quite nerve-racking and difficult to carry out."

Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, the president of Caritas Internationalis, said he called "upon the generosity of all the members of the Caritas Confederation to ensure that Caritas Peru receives the necessary resources to help those who are suffering most in that country."

"My prayers are with all the Peruvian people in this period of recovery after living through the earthquake," the cardinal said.

Caritas Peru is currently assisting more than 10,000 families by providing food, clean water, clothing, medicine and other basic necessities.

LaFosse indicated that the scale of the emergency is much graver than is generally being reported.

He said that "Caritas will be increasing the original appeal in the next week to 10 days, since we expect the cost of reconstruction will far surpass the amount we initially estimated.


OVERFLOW AUDIENCE
IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE



Lella reports on her blog that more than 10,000 pilgrims turned up today for the General Audience. Not only was it SRO at the Aula Paolo VI, but the Pope had to ride out in the Popemobile to greet an overflow crowd on St. Peter's Square, as this photo from the Vatican shows - a new precedent for the precedent-setting Pope.

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

As for this one: ???????

AP - Wed Aug 22, Italian faithful hold up a poster,
which shows Pope Benedict XVI being nursed as a baby,
during the Pontiff weekly general audience at the
Vatican. The caption on the poster, not seen, reads:
through the mouth of babies, you God affirm your power.
(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

For some reason, none of us ever saw - I assume because no one posted it - this major article in ZENIT from June 19 - and I thank Christopher Blosser for pointing it out in his BENEDICT BLOG of 8/21.


Moving Away From Religion Toward Christianity:
Interview With John Kenney, an Augustinian Scholar



BURLINGTON, Vermont, JUNE 19, 2007 ( Zenit.org ).- Benedict XVI is moving the Church away from religion, in the modern sense of the term, and toward a deeper understanding of Christianity, says an Augustinian scholar.

In this interview with ZENIT, John Peter Kenney, professor of Religious Studies at St. Michael's College, in Vermont, discusses the role of St. Augustine in the thought and work of Benedict XVI.

Kenney is the author of The Mysticism of St. Augustine: Rereading the Confessions, published by Routledge in 2005.



What Augustinian influences do you see in the Holy Father's work, especially his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, and his general-audience catecheses?


Both the encyclical's hidden architecture and many of its themes are Augustinian.

I was initially struck by the Holy Father's discussion of 'sacramental mysticism' - the ecclesial dimension of Christian contemplation. This is an important theme in the Confessions, part of the emancipation of Augustine's thinking from pagan Platonism.

Too often Augustine has been misread as a proponent of an individualistic sort of mysticism, whereas a close reading of the whole of the Confessions shows his mature recognition that the human soul can only come to know God when nested in "the living soul of the faithful," the Church.

In this first encyclical, the Holy Father also offers a nuanced discussion of the role of the Church in reference to politics and the state that is very much in keeping with Augustine's position in The City of God.

What the catechetical talks have exhibited is just how deeply the Holy Father's thinking is informed by the whole range of patristic theology. He has, as you know, been proceeding chronologically, discussing both major and minor authors in some detail.

I think it is worth keeping in mind that the Pope's thought is not just Augustinian, but broadly patristic.


Augustine is known for his Order of Love - Ordo Amoris - emphasizing love over the intellect. How do you see this fitting into the pontificate of Benedict XVI?

Clearly Benedict XVI believes in the objectivity of truth and in the possibility of the right ordering of human affections in relation to that truth. These convictions were central to Augustine's own conversion and they remained at the core of his thinking.

The Ordo Amoris emerged in Augustine's thought because of his own startled recognition that God is transcendent being itself and we are made in the image of that reality. Our deepest longings, loves and desires can finally be fulfilled only if we order them correctly in relation to their divine source.

For lots of historical reasons, Augustine has sometimes been interpreted as emphasizing love over the intellect.

But the Holy Father understands Augustine in his proper patristic context, as discovering eternal truth within the soul and calibrating human desires in reference to their ultimate divine foundation.

It is the dysfunction of our age that we fail to understand that calibration - something that Benedict XVI's pontificate seems intended to remind us.


How does Augustinian thought differ from Thomistic thought, and how might that influence Benedict XVI?

I'd be very reluctant to see Benedict XVI's affinity with Augustine in terms of any self-differentiation from the thought of Aquinas. Indeed the Regensburg address emphasizes the common intellectualism of Augustine and Aquinas in contrast to the voluntarism of Duns Scotus and the later medieval nominalists.

Both Augustine and Aquinas hold that our knowledge of goodness and truth mirror, at least to some limited extent, the inner nature of God.

God is not so remote and his will so inscrutable that we have no means of knowing him as infinitely good. So for Benedict XVI, Augustine and Aquinas exemplify the great synthesis of biblical faith and Greek philosophy.

They are its twin pillars in the Latin West, even if their philosophical theologies do differ, given their distinctive appropriations of Platonism and Aristotelianism. But it is their common character that Benedict XVI has been emphasizing.


Do you think Benedict XVI identified with Augustine early on because they were both thinkers who became pastors out of necessity?

Yes, perhaps that's true. His doctoral dissertation, completed a few years after his ordination, was on Augustine's conception of the Church.

This suggests a connection with Augustine early on in his life as a priest. But I suspect that the root of this identification went even deeper and lay in his recognition of the Church as an anchor of sacred truth in a world riven by dehumanizing secular ideologies.

He had, after all, first-hand experience of such ideology in the Germany of his adolescence. Like Augustine, he identified the Church as a divinely ordained community that prefigures the heavenly Jerusalem.

So the events of both their lives brought them to see the unique role of the Church in a fallen world and also to discern the pastoral aspects of their own vocations.


What might be the historical significance of having an Augustinian-influenced Pope at this time in world history?

One of the most powerful themes in Augustine's thought is the universality of the Gospel. This is what drew him to Catholic Christianity rather than to Donatism, which seems to have been the dominant tradition throughout much of his native North Africa.

For Augustine, Christianity is by its very nature global, and the Gospel is intrinsically universal in its message and scope. And so the Church can never be just a local sect or a national institution.

Augustine was a member of that post-Nicene generation who articulated what we think of as the Catholicism of the Church and who sought to build a communion of faith across the peoples of the ancient world. There is therefore much in Augustine that speaks to our present age of globalization.


Where do you think Benedict XVI is trying to point the Church and the world right now?

He's pointing us away from religion - in the modern sense of the term. Religion is a category of modernity, usually understood to mean either individually authenticated spiritual experiences or else a particular type of collective ideology based on socially defined values.

To think of Christianity in such terms is to drift toward the relativism that Pope Benedict has so famously decried. Hence Benedict XVI has insisted that personal spiritual experiences can only become meaningful within the shared context of a lived theology. And the collective life of the Church is far more than a form of social or political association. Christianity is not an ideology.

These modern representations of religion can constitute a reduction of Christianity to psychological, sociological and political categories and can result in a denial of its claims to transcendent truth.

Benedict XVI has a masterful grasp of all these reductionist tendencies and he has pushed back hard in order to restore recognition of the richness and depth of Christianity.

So one might say that we have a Pope who is opposed to religion - and in favor of Christianity. Thank God for that.

As the administrators have still not transferred the new thread for PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY to the English section from the private thread where I was putting it together the past few days, here's the latest news on the Pope's visit to Loreto on September 1-2.

8/23/07
P.S. The thread is now in the English section. All subsequent stories on Loreto will be posted there.

PASTORAL VISIT TO LORETO, Sept. 1-2, 2007




From ZENIT'S Italian service, translated here:

ROME, Aug. 21 (ZENIT.org)- Ten days to go before the encounter between Italian youth and Pope Benedict XVI at the Agora for Italian Youth which will take place September 1-2 on the plain of Montorso in Loreto.

Some 300,000 young people from all over Italy, with 800 delegates from 50 European countries, will gather in Italy's premier Marian shrine for a great two-day celebration in the presence of the Pope himself.

1300 Italian volunteers aged 18-35 will help Church officials handle the massive task of guiding and assisting the participants.

The Agora is a project of the Italian bishops conference as part of its pastoral work for the youth. In the autumn of 2006, it launched a three-year program for a yearly summer Agora between now and 2009.
This year's ecounter is also a preparation for World Youth Day 2008 less than a year away in Sydney, Australia.

According to plan, the participants will start arriving between August 29-31, during which they will be staying with host families in 32 dioceses of the Marche, Umbria, Emilia-Romagna and Abruzzo - the four regions adjoining Loreto (in the Marche).



The CEI launched a months-long campaign to solicit host families for the Agora participants.

During their stay in the various dioceses, the guests will take part in diocesan encounters where they can exchange life experiences as Christians and prepare to confront the issues to be discussed at the Agora, along with feasting and getting to know the land.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, Giorgio Minella, who is in charge of the hospitality phase of the Agora, underscored that "everyone, without exception, opened up their homes without even asking first what was the sex or the background of their prospective guest."

He said the families have cooperated with the parishes for the welcome feasts on August 29, and all are willing to accompany their guests to all their local appointments.

On September 1, all the participants will start walking to Montorso in time to get there before the Pope arrives in late afternoon. The walking is intended to emphasize the pilgrimage nature of the event.

The Pope's helicopter is expected to land at the John Paul II Youth Center, built next to the esplanade where John Paul II first addressed a gathering of European youth in 1995. (The Center was inaugurated in 2000. John Paul next visited in September 2004 to address a Catholic ACtion convention - it was the last of 6 visits he made to Loreto during his Pontificate.)


The so-called Conca(shell) of Montorso, where the Agora will take place.
In the left picture, the buildings in the background make up the John Paul II Youth Center inaugurated in 2000.


Altar/stage under construction.

According to a communique from the CEI, "The encounter between Benedict XVI and the youth will take the place of a dialog in many voices. The thread running through the dialog will be the 'situation of the youth', which has been historically, existentially and socially marginal - as it was with a young girl from Nazareth called Mary. But this is, in fact, a fertile and privileged condition for an encounter with God."

The Pope's part in the encounter will end with a prayer, after which he will leave for the center of Loreto itself, to visit the Basilica of the Holy House. He will spend the night at the adjoining Palace of the Pontifical Legation.

The Pope's prayer at the Basilica will be telecast to the youths in Montorso, who will spend the rest of the night in a vigil with activities centered around seven discussion groups, with testimonies, music and reflections.

The morning of Sunday, September 2, will start with Matins before the Mass to be celebrated by the Pope. Adult faithful living near Loreto are also expected to attend the Mass in great numbers.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi as well as former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are expected to lead national politicians who will be attending the Mass.

Italian state TV will telecast the 'Notte dell'Agora' starting at 21:15, with the link to the Pope in prayer in the Basilica of the Holy House.

It will then broadcast the rest of the vigil, with emphasis on the musical program which has been designed around testimonies by prominent personalities in arts and culture joining young people in answering the question, "Are you ready to accept what God wants you to do?"

Providing a link between numbers will be reflections by great Catholic thinkers which will be read aloud by stage and movie actors with background music provided by a 70-member orchestra.

Part of the program will also be the presentation of the Agora's special solidarity project this year in which funds were raised for a youth center in Ethiopia through an SMS campaign throughout Italy.

The most interesting thing on Lella's blog today is this - I am making a quick summary and translation of what I found most significant [and I have added some information about the Cenacle], and will post the entire translated interview later. The Gazzetta del Sud is an important newspaper in southern Italy, published out of Messina :


In a wide-ranging interview with the newspaper Gazzetta del Sud which published it today, Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See, Oded Ben-Hur, said Israel was working for a visit by Pope Benedict XVI top Israel by the end of this year to spring of 2008.

"I can tell you now that there is intense activity going on so that Pope Benedict XVI may be able to visit Israel as soon as possible. We hope that the trip can take place towaqrds the end of 2007, but it will be OK even if it takes place by spring of 2008. We intend to give Benedict XVI the symbolic keys to the Cenacle."

The Cenacle is the room where the Last Supper as well as the first Pentecost is believed to have taken place, and is a pilgrimage site for Christians in the Holy Land.



It is on the second floor of a building on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, just outside the Dormition Church, south of the Zion Gate in the Old City walls.

In the basement of the building is King David's Tomb, so the place is a holy pilgrimage site for Jews. Because of this, the Cenacle is under Jewish custody and does not show any specific signs of being a Christian shrine.

Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

---

In Christian tradition, this was the site where the apostles of Jesus received holy orders and became his first priests, and where they were praying when the Holy Spirit descended upon them on Pentecost.

The building was spared during the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus (AD 70) and became the site of the first Christian church. It was later destroyed by Persian invaders and rebuilt by a monk called Modestus.

During the Crusades, the building was razed to the ground by Muslims and replaced by the Crusaders with a basilica. Franciscan monks cared for the Cenacle from 1333 to 1552 when the Turks captured Jerusalem and banished all Christians.

After the Franciscan friars' eviction, this room was transformed into a mosque, as evidenced by the mihrab in the direction of Mecca and an Arabic inscription prohibiting public prayer at the site. Christians were not allowed to return until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Following a visit by Pope John Paul II, the Israeli government arranged for its ownership to be transferred to the Catholic Church in return for a church in Toledo, Spain which had originally been a synagogue*.

---

*I am not sure about this last statement, because in the last few reports about the ongoing Vatican-Israeli bilateral talks,this condition has never been mentioned.

August 23, 2007
UCANews (www.ucanews.com)

MACAU (UCAN) – Bishop Jose Lai Hung-seng of Macau has welcomed the Chinese central government's mild response to Pope Benedict XVI's June 30 letter to mainland Catholics.

"The Chinese government's low-profile response is a good thing, as the papal letter is solely on church matters," Bishop Lai told UCA News Aug. 20.

The prelate, one of five Chinese bishops who attended the Vatican's January summit on the China church, added that the letter was balanced and did not side with any China church group.

In a July 29 message to Macau Catholics, Bishop Lai said the pope had explained in simple language his deep theological reflections on the nature of the church. The bishop noted that the pope had urged China's Catholics to follow church discipline and traditions in their daily life, bear witness to Christ, and evangelize.

Macau Diocese has published 5,000 booklets containing the Vatican's official traditional Chinese version of the letter as well as a Portuguese translation done by the diocese. According to the diocesan social communications center, the booklets are available for free in all parishes.

Bishop Lai told UCA News that booklets containing a revised Chinese translation by Hong Kong Diocese are also being circulated here to help local Catholics understand the papal letter.

"The Vatican's official Chinese translation is not smooth and some parts were inaccurately translated when compared to the original Italian text," he said.

Various study sessions on the papal letter have been held in the territory. At one of these events, four speakers explored the letter's potential impact on China-Vatican relations. The Chinese Catholic weekly, Observatorio de Macau, organized that seminar, “Prospects of China-Vatican Relations,” which was held July 7 at the Diocesan Youth Pastoral Centre.

Anthony Lam Sui-ki, senior researcher of Hong Kong Diocese's Holy Spirit Study Centre, told participants the papal letter affirmed that a lawful civil authority deserves respect from people and cooperation from the church.

However, it also sent the message that the church, as a community, will not tolerate external interference, including from "state agencies," he said.

Lam expects the papal letter will "bring along positive effects at the diplomatic level, as it eliminates some unrealistic expectations from Beijing." The researcher also pointed out that the pope indicated his concern about the discrepancy between Catholic doctrinal belief and the reality faced by the church under the Communist regime.

Sister Beatrice Leung Kit-fun, professor of the School of Management, Leadership and Governance of the Macau Inter-University Institute, noted that the papal letter is a pastoral document and Chinese leaders seem unsure about how to analyze it.

The Precious Blood nun and scholar pointed out that the Chinese government indicated at least some unhappiness by blocking some mainland Catholic websites that carried the papal letter.

She pointed out that there have been no significant developments in China-Vatican relations during the 20 years since the late Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila discussed possible normalization of ties with Zhao Ziyang in 1987. Zhao was then general secretary of the Communist Party under Deng Xiaoping's leadership.

"Only technical problems remain unresolved," according to Sister Leung. These include how "open" and "underground" church communities can reconcile, the freedom of mainland bishops to meet the apostolic nuncio after the nunciature moves from Taipei to Beijing, how to avoid hurting Taiwan in the process, and how the Vatican and Beijing can agree on the appointment of mainland bishops. Even so, the two sides have not been able to reach any agreement, she said.

Father Howard Lui Ching-hay, Jesuit superior for Macau, told the audience that some underground Catholics have difficulty accepting government-recognized bishops and reconciling with people who had oppressed them. With the papal letter, he said, he hoped the mainland Catholics could learn from the example of Christ to reconcile with their former oppressors.

Legislator Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong, a Catholic, thinks the papal letter should be interpreted together with Pope Benedict's encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is love) in order to have a more complete understanding of China-Vatican relations.

The pope's letter asks for the manifestation of love, including in the Vatican's relations with China, Ng told the seminar.


SOURCE: www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?...

Here is a translation of a ZENIT item in its Italian service:

In Rimini: Inter-religious
discussion of the Regensburg lecture



RIMINI, August 23 (ZENIT.org) - Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture was the subject of one of the Wednesday sessions of the current Comunione e Liberazione 'Meeting' on the theme "May God save reason".

The theme is also the title of a recently released book in Italian containing three of the Pope's September 2006 speeches in Bavaria (the homilies in Munich and Regensburg and the lecture), along with essay commentaries on Benedict's lecture by six Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars.

Participating in the Rimini workshop were three of these scholars:
Wael Farouq, lecturer in Islamic Sciences at the Coptic Catholic Faculty of Sakakini in Cairo; Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University in Jerusalem; and Joseph H. H. Weiler, South African-born Jewish scholar and European Union expert.

During the roundtable, introduced by Ambrogio Pisoni of the Catholic University of Milan, Farouq expressed agreement with the Pope that "nihilism and fundamentalism share a contempt for God and man - the first, because it denies truth, the second because it wants to impose its 'truth.'"

"And this gives rise to violence," said Farouq. "Violence that can be overcome by the commandment of love....Reason is a relationship based on love. Faith itself without love cannot be fulfilled."

He pointed out that Mohammed said, "You will not be brothers until you love each other."

Farouq thinks that the Regensburg lecture was a way to look at the question of faith and reason in depth and to introduce the concept to the Muslim world.

He cites the tradition of Averroes, the great Muslim scholar of medieval Spain, whom he believes to have been 'buried and transferred like his corpse' out of the Muslim world altogether, in such a way that his books and his thinking ceased to have any influence on Islam.

[How different this reading is from the facile citation of Averroes by so many 'scholars, Muslim and Christian, who sought to rebut Benedict by saying Averroes was proof the Pope was wrong about Islam failing to take reason into account - purposefully omitting the fact that Averroes has been a dead letter in Muslim culture since the 12th century when he lived and died!

The irony is that it was Averroes's single-handed resuscitation of Aristotle that provided the West with much of what it came to know about Aristotle, and, in the words of a Muslim scholar today,

---

"It is safe to say that the thoroughgoing naturalism and rationalism of Averroism provided a philosophical justification for the doctrine of separation of church and state. [He is often caleld the father of modern secular thought.]...It is for this very reason that his teaching has had no influence in the Muslim East."

---

On the other hand, the Palestinian Sari Nusseibeh affirmed that "Islamic tradition is just as much impregnated with the rational spirit as Christianity", and that "Islam, Christianity and Judaism represent a single tradition expressed in different forms."

Nusseibeh thinks that "The problem dealt with by Benedict XVI at Regensburg had nothing to do with reason as such, but with reasonableness which means living one's own belief with moderation."

Thus, he said, there are no fanatic religions, only fanatic persons.

"I am a person of faith because I am a reasonable man," he said, "and that's the happy marriage between the message of Benedict XVI and of don Giussani* [founder of CL]."

Joseph Weiler, who is professor of European Law at New York University, complimented the Pope for his 'courageous lecture' in Regensburg, pointing out that "respect is not shown nor earned by compromising on the essential nucleus of one's faith."

Prof Weiler called on Christians not to live their religion only in the private sphere, and underscored that "the relationship between Europe and Christianity is irrenunciable, and no one - Christian or not, European or not - has anything to gain by breaking this link."

"There is no Europe without Christianity, nor Christianity without Europe," he said. "The Church will not be the same if it lost its European moorings," he concluded.

Earlier, Weiler gave a beautiful interview to Vatican Radio (to be translated) in which he says, among other things that "This Pope's coin is truth" and that "the Pope's particular charism is his passion for reason."

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*To place the reference to Don Giussani in better context, here is the final press release from the Rimini meeting last year, which looked forward to this year's meeting:

---

Let’s Set Reason Free
Final Press Release
of the 27th Rimini Meeting
for Friendship Among Peoples

Of the over 120 meetings at the 2006 Rimini Meeting, one was dedicated to the presentation of the first Arabic edition of The Religious Sense by Father Giussani. This book summarizes his thought, his proposal, and the main aspects of our western tradition.

Professor Wa’il Farouq, of the University of Cairo, and Said Shoaib, a journalist from Cairo, spoke at this meeting.

Prof. Wa’il said, “reason and realism are two fundamental concepts in Father Giussani’s book, which presents a new definition of these concepts.”

He explained that the Arabic root of the word “realism” is “falling from the sky.” “Since events fall from the sky, man has no alternative other than resigning oneself. This results in the absence of man’s freedom in his relationship with reality, a relationship lacking in the structure of Arab conscience”. As a consequence, the concept of realism is “amputated”.

Regarding reasonableness, Wa’il said that “in Arabic the main meaning of the word reason is ‘to bind, to imprison, to lock up.’ Mind and reason have always been in eternal conflict with religion, to such an extent that Islamic fundamentalists have even accused intellectuals of apostasy.”

He concluded, “This book not only opens new horizons to the Arab world, but also paves the way to a true dialogue among cultures. By recovering this elementary experience, humanity will be able to find this common language with which to dialogue. Through your presence you have made the first step towards the other.”

Reason is “imprisoned” in the West, too. Reduced to the measure of all things, it culminates in relativism —a s Benedict XVI always reminds us — and in nihilism. Thus it seems there is nothing worth living for.

However, this year’s Meeting showed — in following Father Giussani’s charism — that man’s reason is a “window opened wide on reality.” The Meeting contributed to “setting reason free” by means of its presentations and discussions on science, culture, economics and politics, its exhibits and shows.

By the testimony of those who participated in them, the Meeting began to set this culture free from a position that, in rejecting an adequate use of reason, becomes fatalism, fideism, and inevitably war. Thus the Meeting was a place of encounter, friendship, and dialogue. In other words, peace.

The title of the 2007 Meeting, which will take place in Rimini from August 19th to 25th and deepen this experience, is “Truth is the Destiny for which We Have Been Made.”

Rimini, Italy, 8/26/2006

---

Here is the translation of the Vatican Radio interview with Prof. Weiler referred to in the post above:

The Pope's special charism:
His passion for reason


The Pope's appeal launched almost a year ago in Regensburg to 'open up to the full breadth of reason' was at the center of a discussion yesterday in the Meeting at Rimini, whose theme this year is dedicated to Truth.

One of the principal discussants was Prof. Joseph Weiler, South African-born Jewish professor of international law at the University of New York.

Weiler did not only comment on the Regensburg lecture but also on the homilies delivered by Pope Benedict XVI in Bavaria last year, all of which underscored forcefully the role of reason and freedom with respect to faith.

The professor spoke to Luca Collodi of Vatican Radio:

Weiler: The first thing that I would like to note is the Pope's thinking about freedom. Usually, the Holy See, and the Pope, affirm that religious freedom is the fundamental freedom.

But in our largely secularized culture, such a statement is usually greeted with a sarcastic smile, as if to say, "What freedom can we expect if it is something that comes from the Vatican?"

But in Regensburg, there was a statement from the Pope's homily which struck me: "We do not impose our faith on anyone," he said, and this reflected a famous statement by John Paul II in Redemptoris missio: “The Church proposes, it never imposes”.

For me, true religious freedom is not only the freedom to practice one's religion. In our Jewish tradition we say, "Everything is in the hands of God, except the love of God." Religious freedom is also the freedom to say No to God.

Only he who has both the interior and exterior capacity to say No to God is truly free, because when he says Yes to God, then it is undoubtedly an expression of his sovereign will.

Therefore, when the Pope defends religious freedom - and this involves also any discussion of various religions, proselytism, forced conversions, etc - it's not only about allowing the Christians to practice their religion in any country, but a more profound sense of freedom - the true religious freedom that includes the freedom to say No to God. Only then does a Yes to God become significant - when the human being shows his sovereignty by choosing to accept the Word of God.

"Faith can only develop in freedom," the Pope adds. What does this mean? That it can only develop with free choice by a free man - who is equally free to refuse salvation and to refuse God. That is why religious coercion is not a true religious choice. Salvation is always out there for us, but we must decide if we want it. Ultimately, God created us for that purpose: to enable man to make a choice.


Prof. Weiler, can the use of reason reinforce Christian identity and the public dimension of the faith?

I think so. This is one of the most important aspects of the Pope's discourses in Regensburg. Among Christians - I think, unfortunately -there has been an internalization of the secular stand according to which reason does not support faith. And the Christian himself starts to think, "My faith is something mysterious, something that cannot be explained, that has no relationship to reason, etc."

Almost, one might say the modern Christian in the Western nations is embarrassed to admit being a man of faith. Why? Because faith is not something rational, according to dominant thinking. So the Pope - who insists that faith is rooted in reason, and that, in fact, scientific reason is very limited, as true as it is, because there are problems that cannot be confronted by scientific reason - encourages the Christian to be faithful not only to his own faith but by having the courage to integrate his faith into the totality of his life, in the private sphere as well as the public sphere.

In this sense, it is necessary that the Christian get out of his self-imposed ghetto and show himself confidently as a man of faith rooted in reason. This is very important for the common and collective Christian identity in European lay society today.


And what does reason tell us about the relationship among religions?

On that point, the Pope is formidable. Why so? Because he does not try to hide the differences. When he delivered his homily of September 10 (Munich), he picked up a challenge to a man of peace like he is, from the Reading of the day, taken from Isaiah,
"There is your God, let vengeance come," the prophet proclaims.

The Pope rightly asks in what way the people who hear these words, then as now, might think about that 'vengeance'. The spontaneous reaction is that the prophet is being anything but peaceful, speaking of vengeance.

But the Pope interprets it in the light of the Christian tradition of non-violence; love to the ultimate end. That the definitive explanation of the prophet's word is found in he who died for us on the Cross, in Jesus, Son of God incarnate, who looks at us from the Cross so insistently. His vengeance is the Cross. That is what the Pope said.

As a Jew, I rebel against interpreting Isaiah's word in this manner: I could never accept that the simple words of the Prophet could refer in any way to the Trinity. But Benedict continues: "We do not in this way respect other religions and cultures less; we do not have any less than profound respect for their faith if we proclaim aloud and without half terms the God who opposed his own suffering to violence."

And I liked that! Because in speaking to his faithful, he says exactly what he says when he speaks to other religions. He deals with the coin of the Truth.

For him, it is that truth in the light of which he interpreted Isaiah, and even if I could never accept that interpretation, I am in complete agreement with the Pope when he says "this does not mean we have any less respect for other religions and cultures". I don't feel offended.

I think that dishonesty can never ever be the basis for any genuine dialog. The Pope's affirmation of Christian truth is the only way to express profound respect for my faith. If he had tried to soften his statement in any way, that would not have been an act of respect for me. But that is precisely his special charism: his passion for reason. And I like that very much.

Here is a translation of an item from Avvenire today:

A Ratzinger treasury
from 'Communio'
By Elio Guerriero




'Co-founder of the magazine Communio with Vin Balthasar and De Lubac' is a line that will be found in most biographies of Benedict XVI.

Few people, however, are likely to know how constantly the Pope has been following that initiative from 35 years ago.

Personally, I remember vividly two events linking him and the magazine. On July 1, 1988, then Cardinal Ratzinger presided at the funeral obsequy for Hans Urs von Balthasar at the Hofkirche of Lucerne, Switzerland.

Speaking of his theologian colleague and friend, the future Pope praised both his creative capacity and the spirit of obedience that Von Balthasar managed to keep in equilibrium, though probably with difficulty.

"This obedience to thought that God allowed him to pursue ever outward...finds extremely concrete correspondence in his life," he said.

Four years later, at the Gregorian University in Rome, to mark the 20th anniversary of Communio, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about Christian courage, and in a sort of examination of conscience, done in the name of the magazine, he asked whether during those 20 years, "Did we show enough of this courage? Or did we rather burrow ourselves behind theological erudition to show, perhaps a bit too much, that we too are up to the times?"

One can confirm Ratzinger's continuing active interest in Communio by the number of articles he contributed over the years, which have now been collected together in a special volume which allows us to follow the evolution of his thought.

The book is La vita di Dio per gli uomini. Scritti per Communio,(The life of God for the sake of man. Writings for Communio), Joseph Ratzinger, JACA Book 2007, 350 pp. Euro 32.00).

It is divided into three parts: 'To dwell in love', "Obedience of thought', and 'Peace, work of love'.

But the internal unity of his writing is so solid that the difference between doctrinal documents and those which have a celebratory nature is hardly perceptible.

The light that illumines everything is Jesus Christ, whom Ratzinger invites us to contemplate with a sentence from St. John that he particularly likes: "They will look on him whose side they have pierced."

According to Ratzinger, the believer sees the work of the Father on the Cross, perceiving that "Jesus lived from something different, that his entire being is a sort of exchange, that he comes from the Father and gives back to the Father." And that the circle closes with the Holy Spirit who is common to both Father and Son, and whose essence is, in fact, to be the 'communio' between the two other Persons of the Trinity."

He continues that in looking at Christ on the Cross, we see that blood and water flow from his pierced side - 'a river of living water which generates and fecundates the Church and its sacramental life'.

One of the principal features of the collection - the first article is from 1972, the last from 2005 - is precisely the presence of a series of articles on the sacraments, constituting almost an unpublished text of sacramental theology. The accent is on the Eucharist and with the sense of the Sunday liturgical celebration, but there are also two precious homilies on Confirmation and Matrimony.

Avvenire, 23 agosto 2007

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Elio Guerriero is a theologian-author who has written a biography of Hans Urs von Balthasar among many religious books, and was a past editor of the Italian edition of Communio. With Ingrid Stampa, he was responsible for translating JESUS OF NAZARETH from the original German text to Italian.

POPE TO MEET ISRAELI PRESIDENT ON SEPT. 6

VATICAN CITY, August 24 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI will receive Israeli President Shimon Peres in a private audience at his summer residence outside Rome on September 6, the Vatican said Friday.

The two men have met before, in April last year, and when Peres became president in July the Roman Catholic pontiff urged him to work to "advance the cause of peace" in the Middle East.

Israel and the Holy See have long been in talks about the legal and financial status of the Roman Catholic church in the Jewish state.

Officials from both sides met in May and said they made "significant progress" in reaching a deal on the legal and tax status of Church property in Israel and the commercial activities of Christian communities there.

Peres will visit Castel Gandolfo as part of an official visit to Italy, during which he will also meet his Italian counterpart Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Romano Prodi, ANSA news agency reported.

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

Pope Phones Grieving Gypsy Community


VATICAN CITY, AUG. 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI called to offer condolences at the death of four Gypsy children who died in a fire that broke out in their community under a bridge in Livorno, Italy.

The deaths of the children, between the ages of 4 and 11, occurred early morning Aug. 11. Authorities were uncertain of the cause of the fire.

The diocesan administrator of Livorno, Monsignor Paolo Razzauti, said today that the Pope called Thursday to communicate his "closeness to the city of Livorno," and to express his hopes that the community "will react to the tragedy with a culture of acceptance and solidarity."

In his phone call, the Pope also gave his condolences to the Orthodox Romanian Church, to which the four children belonged.

The parents of the children - two couples - have been arrested on charges of neglect and abandonment.

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

Here is the translation of Mons. Razzauti's interview with Vatican Radio's Italian service:

Mons. Razzauti: The Holy Father, first through the Undersecretary of State, and then personally himself, expressed solidarity with the city of Livorno, with the Rom people (gypsies) and the Rumanian Orthodox Church which the gypsies of Livorno attend, for the death of the four children.

I myself asked the Holy Father for his blessing on Livorno because the city has been shaken by the event, and there is ample discussion now on what the city can do about the problem.

I think that the Pope's personal call to show his direct participation in the sorrow and grief that we all feel, is a gre3at gesture. Today, as the news became known throughout the city, the appreciation was evident.

It shows once more that the Church, even at its highest levels, is attentive to these events - to the little people, to the poor - that it is a true Mother who bends down to each of her children.

I am very grateful to the Pope for his personal attention, and may he continue to be a witness for love and charity towards all.


What is the situation now about these unfortunate deaths?

Unfortunately, it is still under investigation, so it's not even possible to bury them - perhaps not until next week. The parents are in jail, authorities are still trying to find out exactly what happened.

But this has prompted city officials to give prompt attention to the problem of how to treat these gypsies who keep arriving in the city but who must be treated as persons and not as statistics.


What has Livorno done so far for gypsies?

There are discussions on how to welcome them in an appropriate manner- for example, instead of just letting them find shelter under bridges, probably to have a place where they can at least have minimal basic services.


And what is the Church doing for them?

I have asked Caritas to extend its services to them - because it already operates soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

[Perhaps Caritas should be more pro-active in seeking out the gypsies in need, because they do not usually go to charitable institutions, preferring to keep together even without shelter, and to beg as a 'living'.]

ZENIT has an unusual interview with the Ambassador from Japan to the Holy See, who has refreshing secular views about the Pope, the Church and Christianity:


The Vatican: A Japanese Perspective
Interview With Ambassador Kagefumi Ueno



VATICAN CITY, AUG. 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Japan and the Vatican have a lot of reasons to intensify relations in the coming years, especially regarding cooperation in Africa, says the new Japanese ambassador to the Holy See.

Ambassador Kagefumi Ueno, who began his mission at the Vatican in November, adds that "there is a lot of scope for teamwork and coordination between Japanese aid agencies and some important Catholic players in Africa."

In this interview with ZENIT, the ambassador also offers a Japanese perspective of the Vatican, and some thoughts on why Catholics only comprise 0.5% of Japan's population.


Coming from Japan, what strikes you most about the Holy See?

My impression is that the Holy See has four very distinct capacities.

First, it has a moral value or moral authority that is respected not only by Catholics but also by many authorities of non-Christian countries.

For instance, when I extended my credentials to the Holy Father, he expressed his desire for the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The next day, what he said to me was reported almost everywhere around the globe.

Likewise, what he says about Darfur, Iraq, Palestine and so forth, always receives international attention.

The Pope is, in this context, a kind of "guardian" over the international situation. The international community expects him to talk about peace and justice.

When the U.S. president or Russian president speaks on some international issue, it is taken for granted that he speaks from national interests. But that is not the case when the Pope speaks. The Holy See is detached from secular interests.

Second, I regard the Holy See as an international unit like the United Nations. To some extent I deem the Pope as a kind of secretary-general of another United Nations, although with religious foundations.
Third, the Church has a global network that is locally rooted in every continent, with its operational center at the Vatican.

Fourth, they have a big communication power through Vatican Radio, L'Osservatore Romano and other media to spread their message to every corner of the world.

All in all, very unique and impressive!

For me, a man who comes from Japan, a country with a long-lasting imperial household, in fact, one of the oldest institutions in the world besides the Holy See, it is interesting to explore why and how the Holy See has succeeded in lasting for such a long time.


Are their areas of cooperation that the Holy See and Japan have in common?

Before touching upon that, I like to repeat that the most important role to be played by the Pope is to spread the message of peace.

So even personally, not just as ambassador of Japan, I expect him to talk about his views on peace and justice whenever and wherever necessary.

Besides peace and justice, the priority areas of cooperation, coordination and communication between the two are global warming and Africa.

Speaking specifically of Africa, as the second largest donor of assistance in the international community after the United States, Japan offers a lot in terms of aid to Africa.

Up until some time ago, Japanese assistance was focused only in the Asian region.

As many Asian recipients of our aid managed to develop their respective economies successfully over the last 2 or 3 decades, there is less and less urgency to direct our assistance there.

From here, Japan started "a process of dialogue on development" - called TICAD - 15 years ago between Japan, African countries, other donor countries and international agencies.

At a strategic and policy level, Japan, serving as the next chair of the group of eight summit in 2008, should do everything possible to urge the G-8 countries to substantially focus their attention to Africa in a concerted and coordinated manner.

Japan is keen to hear the Holy See's view. The policy dialogue between Japan and the Holy See is expected to intensify.

On a practical and operational level, there is a lot of scope for teamwork and coordination between Japanese aid agencies and some important Catholic players in Africa, such as Caritas International and the Community of Sant'Egidio, among others, in coming years.

I always pay respect to endeavors of Catholic aid donors who, when taken together, make up the largest organization giving assistance to sub-Saharan Africa.

It should not be overlooked, in passing, that one obvious additional advantage of Japan is that there is no historical "negative links" between Japan and Africa: Japan is very "free" in Africa, since they haven't had any experience of colonization there.


What is your view on inter-religious dialogue?

I like to say that, nowadays, whenever the Catholic Church talks about inter-religious dialogue, it seems to me that in reality they mean dialogue with Islam.

Of course, I fully understand that dialogue with Islam has paramount importance for Catholicism. But, dialogue with other religions such as Buddhism, Shintoism, and so forth, should be equally heeded.

Actually, in Japan, when interreligious dialogue is spoken of, the preoccupation is also on Islam, not necessarily Catholicism or Christianity.

So, I like to appeal to both sides - to the Holy See and to Japanese society in general - to think more and more about dialogue between Catholicism on one hand and Buddhism and Shintoism on the other.

In this respect, it is noteworthy that Monsignor Felix Machado, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, participated in the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei, Kyoto, earlier this month.


Has Catholicism contributed in any significant way to Japanese society?

There are two aspects that should be pointed out.

First, in Japan the Catholic Church has established many universities, schools and other welfare facilities.

Many of the graduates from these institutions occupy important positions in a variety of social segments. For instance, at my ministry, the Japanese Foreign Ministry, there are a number of graduates from those schools.

Through these institutions many Japanese are to some extent familiar with Catholic virtues.

Nevertheless, I must add that somehow not many of those educated in Catholic institutions are baptized. Actually, those who are remain a very small proportion.

I believe there are two reasons why so few become Catholic.

First, let me remind you that majority of Japanese have a mentality to perceive or find "souls" in plants, animals, mountains, waterfalls, fountains, rocks and so on, like, say, ancient Celtic people.

This Japanese cosmology, typical of a polytheistic mentality, has a sharp contrast with the monotheistic vision of Christianity.

Second, against this background, it appears to me that Christians tend to adhere to absolute values.

For instance, when they talk about justice or evil, they mean absolute justice or evil - a black-or-white approach.

In contrast with them, when Japanese talk about justice, they mean relative justice - gray-zone approach.

Thus, there are some basic and fundamental philosophical differences between the two cosmologies, which, though vaguely, accounts for a relatively low proportion of Christians in Japan.

However, we should not overlook another side of the coin - that many Japanese accept 70%-80% of the teachings of Catholicism.

For instance, they accept almost all of the Ten Commandments. There are a lot of common denominators between the two cosmologies.

I would say Christianity has had many positive effects on Japanese society.

Here is a translation of avery good report from L'Eco di Bergamo, a northern Italian newspaper, on the discussion of the Pope's Regensburg lecture in Rimini Wednesday:


Two Muslims and a Jew defend
the Regensburg lecture against
religious and ideological fanatics
By Carlo Dignola

RIMINI - Try to imagine a Jew who makes an almost line-by-line exegesis of the Pope's lecture in Regensburg. And alongside him, a convinced Muslim, speaking in Arabic, who says that the lecture - which occasioned violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world - "represents an opportunity for a true dialog among religions, because an authentic dialog requires sincerity."

That's what we heard Wednesday at the Meeting in Rimini, during the presentation of the book Dio salvi la ragione (May God save reason!)(Cantagalli, 192 pp). In addition to essays by the French philosopher Andre Glucksmann and the German philosopher Robert Spaemann, the three scholars who spoke to an SRO auditorium in Rimini also contributed to the book with their reflections on faith and reason.

That usually phantom 'moderate Islam' which the media often speak of, usually when offering explanations for suicide bombers, were here in flesh and bone, for once.

Nor were the two Muslim representatives part of 'weakened Islam' that drinks beer and eats pork because living in Europe has made them doubt certain precepts of the Koran. They are both observant Muslims, gifted scholars, who have looked at the Pope's words in good faith, and find that even for their own religion, what Benedict XVI has to say, is more than just interesting.

Wael Farouq, 34, teaches Islamic Sciences at the Coptic Catholic Faculty of Cairo. He says very bluntly, "The Regensburg lecture was profoundly misrepresented." He cites an anecdote to illustrate what happened -

"During the Cold War, there was an international car race, and the Soviet driver came in second to the American. The following day, this is how the Soviet press reported it: 'At an international car race, the Soviet Union finished second; the United States came in penultimately.' And that's exactly how the Pope's lecture was reported."

The true enemy of peace, according to Farouq, citing the Pope's own words, is not religions, but lying. "Both Western nihilism and fanatic fundamentalism do not have a correct relationship to truth - the first denies it, the second assumes it can impose its truth by force."

But he says there is something which links the two extreme ideologies, despite their apparent opposition: "a dangerous contempt for man and his life, and ultimately, for God himself."

Professor Farouq also cites the Pope's encyclical Deus caritas est, which he says he has read and reread and underscored. It points out, he says, that a relationship with God which is 'correct but without love' makes faith arid, that it is love for man which opens his eyes to God - all of which, he says, a Muslim can agree with.

Farouq presented very well the battle now going on between the advocates of conventional identity and modernization within Islam, and said that modernism itself could be a form of fundamentalism.

He has studied Arab rationalism which goes back to Averroes in the Middle Ages, who was a great commentator of Aristotle. The great 12th century Andalusian Muslim philosopher, Farouq said, has remained a dead letter - but a disturbing one - for Islam all these centuries.

But if Averroes's thought failed to catch on in Islam, Farouq said, it is because, in his own way, Averroes accepted the separation between religion and the state. [He is often called the father of Western secular thought.]

"Why did his books never have an effect in the Arab-Muslim world, unlike his contemporary Al-Ghazali? The answer is also in that tragic separation of faith and reason which the Pope denounced in Regensburg."

Sari Nusseibeh is one of the best-known Palestinian intellectuals, rector of AlQuds University in East Jerusalem. According to him, the question posed by Regensburg to the Islamic world was "whether the Muslim religion, or more generally, Islamic tradition, is essential irrational, and therefore more predisposed to the use of violence, compared to the Judeo-Christian culture or so-called Western tradition."

His answer is a decisive No: "Muslim tradition is just as impregnated with the rational spirit as Christianity," he claims. But within Islam, "there are conflicting visions about concepts like truth, conscience and reason...in a spectrum that goes from extreme rationalism to the most total mysticism."

And yet, he points out, Islam "could not have reached the high levels of civilization that it did if it had not been capable of internalizing the so-called rationalist spirit of Hellenism," which is evident, he says, if one looks at Arab achievements in architecture and medicine [in the Middle Ages].

He concedes that Islam "has had to face this continuous tension between faith and reason as if they represented two parallel courses of arriving at the truth that are in competition with each other." But he says the dilemma is not a particularly Muslim problem; "It is a question that has to be faced and managed by any other religion."

Nusseibeh continued: "But the Pope in Regensburg also posed another question: Would a non-rational tradition (and he does not say Islam is such) be more predisposed to the use of violence?"

He also answers No. "Reason and violence are not mutually exclusive. Guided only by reason, and acting rationally, man is also capable of committing the most odious crimes." He cites 'smart bombs' as an example.

The Palestinian professor thinks that more than reason, reasonableness and moderation are the true antidotes to fanaticism, so that the beliefs of others are respected. They may be challenged on the intellectual and moral levels but never with force.

So, Nusseibeh concludes, the real message of Regensburg is the Pope's urgent alert against 'religious and ideological fanaticism.'

Joseph Weiler, Jewish and constitutional law professor at New York University, points out that besides the lecture at Regensburg University, the Pope also delivered two homilies - in Munich and Regensburg - on the same theme, but these have been overlooked by commentators.

He declares himself frankly opposed as a Jew to the Pope's Catholic interpretation of words by the prophet Isaiah, which he says, does not apply to the Jews and never will.

But, he says, Benedict's forthrightness, which ignores political correctness, is not offensive to a Jew like him, because "Respect is not shown or earned by compromising on the essentials of one's faith. Dishonesty can never be the basis for true dialog."

Joseph Ratzinger's directness "makes his denunciation of coercion in matters of faith far more credible," Weiler points out, and the Popes have not been remiss in saying this clearly, including John Paul II, whom Weiler referred to as John Paul the Great.

In 2,000 years of a complex relationship, "at times very painful", he said, there has never been a Jewish-Christian dialog as good and as wide-ranging as that begun by John Paul II and continued by his faithful successor."

He recalled that during John Paul II's "memorable visit to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, after depositing his prayer of reconciliation and peace in that most sacred place to Jews, he made the sign of the Cross. No one was offended. With the same hand that deposited his message of reconciliation, he also made the sign of the Cross. His invocation to God for peace would have felt false if he had acted otherwise," meaning he did not seek to dissimulate his Christian identity out of a mistaken notion of 'respect.'

Benedict XVI's Bavarian discourses, according to Weiler, were more importantly addressed to Europe. Weiler, a constitutional lawyer and expert on the European Union, bewailed the omission of any reference to Europe's Christian heritage in the 'now defunct' proposed European Constitution.

He said it was turned down by European drafters who claim that the 'values of humanism' and 'respect for reason' have nothing to do with religion, which they think "should not only remain in the private sphere but should be banned from the public sphere." So, ultimately, he says, people believe all these irrational nonsense, and can continue to do so, as long as they don't bother those who govern.

That is the constitutional project that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has always opposed, and rightly, according to Weiler. Equally, Weiler agrees with the Pope's criticism of a secular vision that would limit reason only to scientific reason.

Moreover, "Without fear, Benedict affirms that the use of the word 'religion' does not confer legitimacy by itself. It's not enough to say religion so that everything is allowed; even religion must be subjected to the discipline of reason."

And that was the real message of Regensburg, according to Weiler, which the Pope with "an impressive courageous attitude, addressed
principally to his own flock. The challenge of integrating faith and reason concerns Catholics most of all, because so many Christians think of them as unrelated spheres, and are therefore almost embarrassed to admit in public that they are men of faith."

In Weller's view, Benedict XVI's lecture was his way of telling Christians what John Paul II meant when he said,"Do not be afraid."

L'Eco di Bergamo, 24 agosto 2007

Thanks to Lella for posting this item from this week's issue of the weekly magazine Tempi, which comes with Il Giornale, translated here.


Time's Jeff Israely and
Sandro Magister assess
the Ratzinger phenomenon

'He has the gift of making himself understood
but he catches the Catholic world offguard'

By Emanuele Boffi

Jeff Israely, Time correspondent in Italy, calls himself 'an independent secular reporter'. He covered the Pope's recent trip to Brazil and wrote for Il Foglio what was perhaps the most corrosive report on Catholicism in Latin America [which we missed, unfortunately!]

How is this Pope perceived in the heart of the Empire?

"The United States started to look at Joseph Ratzinger with curiosity after the Conclave. When he was elected, the majority of the American media labelled the new Pope was stern, conservative and traditionalist. Yet during the entire first year of his Pontificate, progressive anti-Vatican elements in the media were hoping he would effect a series of reforms in the Church which John Paul II failed to do. Of course, those who report from Rome, who know the dynamics at the Vatican and had some experience with Cardinal Ratzinger, knew that was only wishful thinking, of desires projected abstractly on reality.

"In fact, Benedict XVI is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, in his gentle manner which is nonetheless firm, but very different from that other image which has been projected of him as God's rottweiler."

Israely, an agnostic, thinks Benedict's surprises will continue.

"History will show that an intellectual Pope is what the historical moment requires," he says. "Clarity is needed, and Benedict XVI has the gift of making himself understood. There is a great void, an enormous lack of the right words and clear thought. I think above all of the Regensburg lecture, when the Pope was capable of saying definitive words about Islamic fundamentalism. although I must say, as a non-Catholic, perhaps he should have been less 'frontal' and a bit more diplomatic, more political."

For Sandro Magister of the Italian magazine L'Espresso, who is considered one of the most brilliant and informed commentators on Vatican matters, "This is a Pope who has forcefully raised the issue of the rationality of faith...and yet, there are circles, usually the so-called cultural elite which includes cardinals, bishops, theologians and philosophers, who have not managed to keep up with him, be in step with him."

In what sense? "In that Papa Ratzinger has posed clearly and unequivocally the issue of the primacy of the truth. In doing so, he has opposed a certain dominant Catholic thinking that has sustained for years the primacy of charity. But it is a distorted charity they advocate, one that has lost the capacity to think about what Christianity is, reducing it to something they think is credible, but one which is not intelligible."

Above all, Magister says it has to do with the decades-long attempt of progressivist Catholic intellectuals and politicians who would presume to tell the Popes, starting with Wojtyla, what they believe to be the 'correct' interpretation of Vatican-II.

"Such Catholics, whom we may describe as 'educated', may have good intentions, but there are evidently calculated elements of conscious opposition. And even if these same persons now praise John Paul II as a saint, they had attacked him in the past for the same things they now denounce in Ratzinger. Those who would now canonize him immediately were denouncing him before as the Polish peasant Pope. Those who attacked John Paul II in the past now attack Benedict XVI for the same reason - because both Popes clearly marked a change in the prevailing interpretation of Vatican-II."

But Magister thinks that "the Alberigos and Mellonis represent rather isolated voices today, much appreciated by editors of secular newspapers, but with little or no effect on the public."

As for the public, it was L'Espresso which expressed surprise that the professor-Pope also inspires the faithful to reach into their pocketbooks. The magazine, in fact, dedicated a rather cutting cover story about this.

But do you think it is a sin that notwithstanding the bad press it continues to get, the Church enjoys such esteem among the faithful that contributions to Peter's Pence have broken all records?

"Obviously not. But even if we put aside the growth in Peter's Pence collections, the fact that the Papal audiences are always so well-attended, that there are always so many people willing to listen to Benedict XVI, is a sign that he is understood by the faithful, by simple Catholics, those referred to scornfully by the elitists as 'unlettered.' Well they understand the Pope much more and better than do the elite, perhaps if only because they have less prejudices.

"But they understand him above all because his thoughts are rooted in the people, they come from a popular tradition which has never been suppressed, anchored on a few essential pillars of the faith: the Credo, the sacraments, the Lord's Prayer.

"In the eyes of the faithful, the Pope, better than anyone else , embodies and gives form to these essential elements."

What about the fact that not even John Paul II's magisterium attracted such attention from non-believers and secularists?

Magister: "I think that if this Pope arouses such great attention from persons who are part of the cultural elite and with disparate backgrounds, it would be political myopia to attribute this to other than the fact that Benedict XVI is someone capable of going to the roots of the crisis of the West describe the fragility of the world. I think it is ridiculous for these critics to constantly dispute so-called 'devout atheists' limiting themselves to the same 2 or 3 names over and over. But the interest in what Benedict XVI has to say is worldwide, and it goes from Juergen Habermas to Roger Scruton - an interest raised by the unusual novelty of a Pope who can rationally explain the truth of the faith."

Tempi, no. 34, 23/08/2007

The current issue of the magazine Tempi has another article about the Holy Father, this time, in the eyes of Mons. Fisichella.

'Benedict is a liberator
and a fighter'
By Luigi Amicone


Mons. Rino Fisichella is a courageous man and priest. Auxiliary Bishop of Rome, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University and respected theologian (as well as chaplain of Italy's lower house of Parliament), he has always been in the frontlines of defending the most anti-conformist elements of Pope Benedict XVI's magisterium.

This Pope, according to Giuliano Ferrara [editor-publisher of Il Foglio] 'is a liberator.' And Jacob Neusner, the rabbi cited by Papa Ratzinger in his book on Jesus says "Benedict XVI is a searcher for the truth. We live in interesting times."


So, Mons. Fisichella, what do you think of these more than flattering verdicts on the Pope?

They are both perfect syntheses. Benedict XVI is in fact a liberator because he is a searcher for truth, and if I may add, because he is an authentic fighter - at the very frontline where modern culture has raised the white flag, where he shows us the crisis in which the West finds itself.

He shows us that this crisis is primarily cultural - of a culture which can no longer recognize the true basis of human existence. He gets down to the root of the human problem - precisely in man's questions about the sense and purpose of life.

That constitutes the very core of reason and its profound and inescapable link to faith. Without that link, reason is reduced and faith degenerates.

And it is in the unity of faith and reason, as the Holy Father so masterfully illustrated in Regensburg, that is the heart of his Magisterium: proclaiming the universality of the Christian event.

Christ is the supreme exaltation of reason and of the unity of faith and reason. That is why Christianity is a universal event. Christ synthesizes the originality of culture, of cultures - and that is why we are living in interesting times.


So you would say that this relationship between faith and reason is the leading thread of this Pontificate?

Yes, I think the key to reading this Pontificate is in that binomial of faith and reason. We must remember that already, in his Introduction to Christianity, Cardinal Ratzinger used two verbs to describe the experience of faith. Faith as 'stehen' (German, to stand] which means etymologically, 'to be present'. And faith as 'verstehen', to understand.

Faith requires a continuous presence in the world. It requires both being there and understanding, to be present and to give a reason for what one stands for.


Maybe a bit too 'present'? If we go by the remonstrations of those - including some Catholic circles - who oppose the public interventions of the Italian bishops conference...

Look, when I hear the bishops being reproached for expressing their opinions and one cabinet minister [Rosy Bindi, a Catholic] says "That cannot be", allow me to remind them that Vatican-II explicitly calls on the clergy to be present in the world 'to give reason for the hope we carry in us'. We must be present, have a presence.

Because our faith is a continuous relationship with Christ and with the historic reality that Christ wanted: the Church. I can only wonder how a politician who says he/she is Catholic can simply pass over these facts with such presumpton. [Teresa's note: Because for people like Bindi, ideology trumps faith any time!]

Catholicism is belonging to Christ in his people, the Church. It's not belonging to one's own ideas or one's party.


But the critics say that the Church should be more prudent - and some progressive Catholics would say, "more taciturn' - about worldly matters. You know very well what they propose instead: dialog. Whether it was the Regensburg lecture or the Verona address, when the Pope called on the Church to dedicate itself to "guardianship of human life in all its phases, from conception to natural death, and to the promotion of the family founded on matrimony, avoiding the introduction into the public order of other forms of union which would contribute to destablize the family, obscuring its particular nature and its irreplaceable social role," then the politician and the intellectual who call themselves 'adult Catholics' feel called on to make exceptions and present a palette of choices in the name of so-called dialog.

The position of such Catholics who criticize the Magisterium is a symptom of an incorrect understanding of the faith and of the presence of Catholics in society. They understand neither the importance nor the profundity of a word (Catholicism) which is said inappropriately when it is sued to describe a presumptuous self-sufficiency or worse, when used to defend positions of power.

In fact, the Magisterium intends - and does - carry dialog to its highest level, insofar as the Church looks at man in his totality. For example, what could be more open and 'dialog-friendly' than Benedict XVI's proposal, calling on "Friendly non-believers, try to live as if God exists"? In other words, try not to prejudicially exclude from life the hypothesis of the Transcendent. It is an enormous cultural challenge from this Pope. It is oxygen for the mind, an invitation to 'widen the scope of reason'. If this is not dialog, then what is? Dialog cannot simply be an exchange of opinions.


Excuse me, but you are re-echoing the happy surprise expressed by Elephantino (Ferrara) in Il Foglio. "He (Benedict XVI) has liberated us from the domination of gossip. At the opening of the new millenium, nothing is more relevant than this gigantic settlement of thinking, this adjustment to reality. For everything else, there is time, but with Ratzinger, it is what he meas by saying let us proceed in haste, and a tame Papolatry in this case will not harm even stray dogs without leashes."

I understand. And that explains a certain tepidity in those who presume to be so mature in their faith that they imagine themselves to be the only ones having the right conscience.


In a few days Benedict XVI will be in Loreto to meet with young people. What themes do you think he will dwell on?

I can't speak for him, but I think that just as with the youth in Cologne in 2005, he will surprise us yet again by taking us back to "the start of being Christian' - to that beginning which, as the Pope says in the encyclical, is "not an ethical decision or a great idea but the encounter with an event."

In this light, one can see very well the closeness of this Pope to the ideas of Don Luigi Giussani [founder of Comunione e Liberazione]. Benedict XVI says, as the title of a basic book by Giussani says, we must return to the origin of the Christian claim - not to a theory, but to a Person."

Tempi No.34, 23/08/2007

The Vatican publishing house has finally caught up with publishers in France, Germany and the United States - at least in the matter of the Pope's catecheses onthe Apostles. Here is ta translation of an item from Vatican Radio today:


The Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV) is coming out this summer with two books on the teachings of Benedict XVI - one book contains the Pope's catecheses on the Apostles and other early disciples of Christ, the second all his other teachings in 2006.

The catechetical cycles devoted to the origins of the Church reflect Benedict XVI's concern for ensuring that the faithful are acquainted with the bases of the faith.

Don Bruno Maggioni, Biblical scholar and lecturer in theology at the Catholic University of Milan, spoke to Alessandro Gisotti about the Pope's catecheses:

Fr. Maggioni: I have to start by expressing my complete appreciation for this catechetical commitment, which I share completely. The faithful need catechesis, and by that I mean above all, clear teaching about the fundamentals from which everything comes.

To have a clear idea of the Church, we have to know about the early Church, a mirror of a situation from the times of Christ himself that still has to be fully realized.


Of course, this is a need that has been expressed before in the writings of Cardinal Ratzinger...

Of course, that's how his books are. His reference point is that a reality like the Church can be seen best in its origins, where its essence is clearest.


Benedict XVI from the start of his Pontificate has always laid stress on the Word of God. In his audiences, in his homilies, the Holy Father almost bends over backwards to make it clear that the focus is not him, but Christ, the center and the heart of our faith...

That is right. I am very consoled by the fact that St. John said "In the beginning was the Word...", not charity! It is clear that the Word has to be the basis. The light from the Word of God also requires the condition that the Word has the primacy, the message not the messenger.

This is so important. Whoever proclaims the Word should never call attention to himself, he should almost disappear even, so as not to detract from the beauty of the Word. Truth is in what Jesus says, not in us. And that also makes us more credible. The faithful recognize erudition that is superimposed on the Word, as against teaching that comes from profound examination of the Word. So the teaching is not yours, but from the Word itself.


So the Pope becomes a prism through which the light of Christ passes.

Yes, the Pope, the whole Church, all Christians should never be the protagonists. Only Jesus is, the Word which we proclaim. Truth is the Word, which is not my word. The Word I proclaim must sound true because it is not mine, but Christ's.


The Pope has called the next Bishops' Synod in 2008 on the theme "The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church". But surely, acquaintance with Scriptures is gravely lacking among the faithful today. How can the Church face this problem, which is obviously a priority for the Pope?

For several years - and even now - it seems that the Word itself has been obscured by secondary research on the origins of the Gospel - so that the significance of the Gospel itself disappears, the beautiful, clear and lucid Word of God which they are subjecting to
scholarship.

But I also fear the other extreme - a reading of the Word which is improvised, superficial, without the appropriate effort to try and understand it. Even interpretations given in homilies are often improvised, sometimes too pious even. But the beauty of the Word is when one uncovers its true sense, and that does not come from one or two readings.

The Gospel is so modern int he sense that it truly encompasses all the great problems of humanity today, or at any time. Above all, the Word is beautiful and convincing.

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

I am sorry, but I think the good father is speaking without practical pastoral experience but only out of his theoretical assumptions as a Biblical scholar.

I still do not see in what way a Catholic - who more often than not, was never raised to study the Bible - is expected to assimilate the various Scriptural readings included in the Mass (even if we limit ourselves only to the Sunday Masses) without any explanatory note or discussion.

I know the homily is supposed to help the congregation take away the message of the Gospel for the day - if one is lucky to have a priest who does his homework right. And I cannot say often enough what difficulty I have with the New Testament passages. Jesus makes a lot of enigmatic statements, and not all his parables are graspable even at the superficial literal level! (I can only be thankful that one is expected at the minimum to remember only the two commandments, from which everything else should follow - to love God, and to love my fellowmen as much as I love myself.)

But what about the Readings, which generally consist of an Old Testament excerpt and a second one from the Letters? The Old Testament accounts are particularly mystifying to me, although they would be perfectly understandable to a Jew.

When Bugnini et al decided it would be wonderful to educate Catholics in the Old Testament by including such Readings, did they make any provision at all for Catholics who generally have no basic schooling in the Bible at all, Old or New? And that is what they meant by 'greater public participation and involvement' in the Mass?

Personally, I go to Mass for worship and prayer, not for direct catechesis, and I doubt that most people go to Mass for that either. Besides, I really don't need any other Word of God during the Mass other than the words of Consecration and the Lord's Prayer.

A full translation of the Holy Father's homily and messages at Angelus today has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.

Rocco Palmo on his blog today whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/
has an exclusive translation of an interview excerpt with the Archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfreed Danneels, from "Big Boys Don't Cry" - a book-length interview of Danneels by the Belgian journalist Peter-Jan Bogaert. The English translation by friends of Rocco is based on an excerpt published last weekend by the Flemish-language newspaper De Morgen.

Here is what Cardinal Danneels, an outspoken liberal, has to say about the Pope - the Pope in general, and Benedict XVI in particular.

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


Are you faithful to the pope or to Jesus Christ?

I am in the first instance faithful to Christ, because the pope is 'only' a representative of Christ. If I am faithful to the pope, it is because he asks that which Christ says in the gospel. Faithfulness to Christ and the church is not only a human accomplishment. It is not only effort and austerity, you get a lot in return. Much more than you are giving. We call that grace, it is given to us to be faithful. That is often difficult to explain to people who do not believe. If we give something, it is because we also receive much. Strength and insight, among other things. We see things more clearly, and so we are getting captivated, and that gives us more vitality to follow our faith.


Could you think of circumstances in which you could not remain faithful to the pope?

The obedience to the pope implicates also the frankness to say what you are thinking. And he is happy with that. Inside the church there is room for dialogue, more than you would think. I feel confident in that, and that is the reason I confide in him from time too time. Or ask: is that really necessary?

Especially this pope, Benedict XVI, will respond to that. It is easy to have a conversation with him, man to man. But when he, after thinking it over, says that he wants to do things a certain way, than I accept that. Often I realize afterwards that he is right, that he has made me see things in a different way. It is therefore certainly not blind obedience.


Have you ever had to defend something that, in your innermost heart, you didn’t agree with?

Not really. At times I have been disturbed by the way in which a certain text or directive was being communicated. When the pope could have said the same thing in a more accessible or sympathetic way. But then we’re talking about form, really. Even if that (form) does say something about the content too. In some encyclical letters – Humanae Vitae, for instance - the same things could have been said, but in a less abrupt and frigid tone.

I have told Pope John Paul II that there was a need for a warmer, and more open tone. And he agreed - only that was our task, he said. In Rome the general rule is drawn up. The bishops have to make the texts clearer, warmer, and explain the practical applications.

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

The rest of the interview is equally interesting and eye-opening, including his views about priestly celibacy (he's in favor of it), given his reputation as a liberal. Also, what he said about Pope Benedict was something of a surprise, since right after the 2005 Conclave, many Anglophone news reports made it appear he was so displeased at the outcome that he left Rome as soon as he could.

The Vatican Press Office today released the texts of telegrams sent by the Holy Father to the Archbishop of Montreal and to the Superior-General of the Order of St. Sulpice, on the death early Sunday morning of Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, P.S.S., emeritus President of the Pontifical Council for the Family and of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. Here are translations from the French:


TO CARDINAL JEAN-CLAUDE TURCOTTE
ARCHBISHOP OF MONTRÉAL
MONTRÉAL


HAVING LEARNED SORROWFULLY OF THE DEATH OF CARDINAL EDOUARD GAGONG, P.S.S., EMERITUS PRESIDENT OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL AND OF THE PONTIFICAL COMMITTEE FOR EUCHARISTIC CONGRESES, I UNITE MYSELF IN PRAYER WITH THE CHURCH OF CANADA, WITH THE FAMILY OF THE DECEASED AND ALL PERSONS AFFECTED BY THIS LOSS.

I ENTRUST TO THE RESURRECTED CHRIST THIS FAITHFUL SERVANT OF THE CHURCH WHO, WITH COMPETENCE AND DEVOTION, NOTABLY CONSECRATED HIS MINISTRY TO THE FORMATION OF PRIESTS BEFORE DEDICATING HIMSELF GENEROUSLY FOR MANY YEARS IN THE SERVICE OF THE HOLY SEE. MAY THE LORD RECEIVE HIM INTO THE PEACE AND LIGHT OF HIS KINGDOM!

AS A TOKEN OF CONSOLATION, I IMPART THE APOSTOLIC BLESSING TO YOU, TO THE BISHOPS OF CANADA, THE SULPICIAN COLLEAGUES OF CARDINAL GAGNON, THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY, AND EVERYONE WHO TAKES PART IN THE FINAL LITURGICAL OBSEQUIES.


BENEDICTUS PP XVI



TO REVEREND FR. LAWRENCE B. TERRIEN
SUPERIOR-GENERAL
ORDER OF THE PRIESTS OF ST. SULPICE
PARIS

HAVING LEARNED WITH SORROW OF THE DEATH OF CARDINAL ÉDOUARD GAGNON, P.S.S., I PRAY TO GOD TO WELCOME BESIDE HIM THIS FAITHFUL PASTOR, WHO WITH EVANGELICAL SPIRIT, CONSECRATED HIS LIFE TO THE SERVICE OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH, GIVING HIMSELF ZEALOUSLY TO THE FORMATION OF PRIESTS AS WELL AS TO THE MINISTRIES ENTRUSTED TO HIM BY THE APOSTOLIC SEE.

AS A TOKEN OF CONSOLATION, I IMPART THE APOSTOLIC BLESSING ON YOU AND ALL THE SULPICIAN COLLEAGUES OF CARDINAL GAGNON.


BENEDICTUS PP XVI

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

P.S. The AP story has some additional info about Cardinal Gagnon.


Canadian cardinal, 89,
dies in Montreal;
Pope sends condolences


VATICAN CITY, Aug. 27 (AP): Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, a Canadian-born former Vatican official who tried decades ago to resolve the case of a renegade archbishop, has died in Montreal, the Holy See said Monday. He was 89.

Pope Benedict XVI sent his condolences in a telegram to Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte. Gagnon died sometime in the night between Saturday and Sunday, the Vatican said. No cause of death was given.

Gagnon had been appointed by Pope Paul VI in 1973 to lead the Vatican's office dealing with family matters, a post he held for many years.

Pope John Paul II made Gagnon a cardinal in 1985.

Three years later, John Paul gave Gagnon a delicate task — try to resolve the case of rebel Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve, a French-born prelate who split with the Vatican over modernizing reforms and who was excommunicated in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without Rome's consent.

The current pope, Benedict, has indicated he wants to normalize relations with the followers of Lefebrve, who died in 1991.

Bruno Volpe caught John Allen at the Vatican recently for this brief interview posted on PETRUS today, translated here:


VATICAN CITY - The dean of American Vatican correspondents [I'm not sure Allen really is, in the sense of being the longest on the Vatican watch among the current crop], who follows in the footsteps of his father as a distinguished religion reporter, an edtiro at National Catholic Reporter and author of the best-selling Opus Dei, gladly spoke to PETRUS about Pope Benedict XVI.




What do you think about the Pope?

To do that, I would need a book, a good book. He's a Pope who knows how to teach, and I think that first of al, he wants to teach us to acknowledge a strong Catholic identity. His wager is that the future of Christianity in Europe is that of a minority, but it will be a creative minority, more clear about its identity, more evangelical, and therefore more influential.


As a human being, how do you judge him? Since he has been wrongly characterized as a cold and detached theologian...

Joseph Ratzinger is a fascinating figure, one who has great interior freedom.


In Italy there's a heated debate over taxes. As an American and a Vatican correspondent, how do you see this issue?

The Italian debate over taxes is something that is very topical everywhere else, particularly in the developing countries where the battle against corruption - which includes tax evasion, is a fundamental commitment for the Church.


Meanwhile, the Pope will be in Austria shortly. What significance does this trip have?

Austria is home to Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the most Ratzingerian of all Ratzinger followers. So it can be a definitive bench test for how much the Pope can attract crowds. On the other hand, Catholics now represent a minority in Austria, where the Church has possibilities for growth and expansion.

Let me take the easy way for now and just lift this from rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
posted by New Catholic today. I will provide a full translation of both articles referenced later:


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

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Fellay speaks:
"Turmoil" in the Church


The most respectable daily in Argentina, La Nación, published this Monday two articles based on interviews granted to its reporters by the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay.




The most relevant excerpts of the first article, including Fellay's actual words:



"We have never moved away from the Church. We have always been and are Catholics, and we have always worked with the intent of remaining so. There are difficulties with the authority, but that does not mean that we deny it [the authority]."

"There are men in the Vatican Curia who do not work for the Pope."
...
"The only problem which remains now is [of a] political [nature]. There is a part of the Church which does not love us, which considers us as dinosaurs, and Rome does not know how to manage this dialectic between the conservatives, as we are, and the progressives who do not want [to follow on] the same path. If [they] give us too much, the others would react."
...
He [Fellay] explained that, "until things improve", the links to the Catholic bishops and priests are very scarse. They do not maintain a dialogue, for instance, with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio [S.J.], Archbishop of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentinian Episcopate. "Father Bouchacourt [head of the Latin American District of the FSSPX, whose headquarters are in Martínez, in the Greater Buenos Aires area] sent two letters to Cardinal Bergoglio, and did not receive an answer. That is, the silence comes more from him than from us," said Fellay.
...
"We have never intended to build a parallel Church or authority"..."The official Church has put us aside. We have been marginalized. That is true. Yet, they cannot say or prove that we are on the outside. It is interesting that in the motu proprio which rehabilitated the ancient Mass of the Tridentine Rite [Summorum Pontificum], the Pope says that the reason for his action is to work towards internal reconciliation in the Church. He is speaking about us. We have thus here the declaration of the Pope himself that we are not schismatics," he affirmed.
...
[On the current situation of the Church:]
"It is very complex," he answers. And he adds: "There are many currents which produce turmoils when they meet, and the authority has lost control over some of these currents. One example is the situation of a de facto schism which is noticed in North America, even though Rome wishes to prevent it from becoming a formal schism".



Part of the actual interview was published in the second article, whose questions and answers are available below:


To the question on whether a real opening [towards the FSSPX] or a state of confusion prevails in Rome, Bishop Bernard Fellay states that "it may be both".

"The Pope - he explains - wishes that all the body of the Church be in peace and he thus pursues the true union of all her members. The Church desires unity with all those who are outside her. But to effect this ecumenical movement without pursuing the internal union would undermine her credibility. There is a task [needed in order] to reorder things, and this takes time. It is very hard to reintroduce discipline. There is a fear of punishing. The Pope wants discipline with order, but I ask myself if he can accomplish it"

-[La Nación] Why would he not be able to do it if he wanted to?

-"Because there are men in the Vatican Curia who do not work for the Pope, but for others."

-[La Nación] For instance?

-"[They work] For groups. One of them is the mafia looking for money in dealings with the Church. There are terrible scandals in this area. Another group, more dangerous, are the Freemasons; there are three of four lodges specific for Vatican Bishops and priests which seek to use the Church to reach the union of all peoples and religions. The current Pope is against this [the current state of affairs] and works to clean it. He has done a part of this work in silence up to now, charging small faithful groups with studying a theme, as, for instance, the motu proprio on the Latin Mass."

-[La Nación] On what other theme?

-"The recently released review of the manner of electing a Pope. This corrects a rule by John Paul II which [had been] done under the direction of the Secretariat of State."

-[La Nación] Do you foresee the future extinction of the current Mass?

-"The Latin Mass appears now [to be] an extraneous body because it was said to be forbidden for 50 years. But one will take the place of the other. This motu proprio which rehabilitates the ancient rite will generate a movement which, at first, will be slow. It will demand time, but it will grow slowly. I am certain [of this]."

-[La Nación] But if so few understand Latin...

-"It is not necessary to know Latin to take part in the Traditional Mass. What is important is that the readings and the sermon be understood by the faithful."

-[La Nación] Is the new Mass valid?

-"It can be. But this is not important. What is important is that we see in it a danger which may lead to an erroneous thought. We say that this Mass has a Protestant flavor. Benedict XVI said that he regrets the excesses in the liturgy, but while we attack it, he defends it. The definition of the Mass which was given had three errors which are heresies. But it was so grave that they changed this definition." [Rorate note: Reference to the first version (1969) of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, number 7, altered in the official text of the 1970 Roman Missal.]

I originally planned to post this in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH, but Magister devotes a great part of his commentary to comparing the ideas of Fr. Barsotti and Pope Benedict that I have decided to post it here.


Divo Barsotti, a Prophet for Today's Church

He was decades ahead in anticipating the main features of the current pontificate.
And now his greatness is being discovered, thanks in part to an exhibit dedicated to him.
He lived in Florence, right in the thick of the turmoil of the Council and the period following it.
A critical comment from the theologian Paolo Giannoni.

by Sandro Magister





ROMA, August 28, 2007 – At this year's international meeting held in Rimini, as it is each August, Communion and Liberation dedicated an exhibit to a Christian personality of great significance who is far too little known: "Divo Barsotti, the last mystic of the twentieth century."

Divo Barsotti – who died at the age of 92 on February 15, 2006, at his hermitage of Saint Sergius in Settignano, north of Florence – was a priest, a theologian, the founder of the Community of the Children of God, and an extraordinary mystic and spiritual master.

One year before his death, the founder of Communion and Liberation, Fr. Luigi Giussani, died in Milan. The two never met in person, but they had great respect for each other.

This year, Communion and Liberation chose this theme for the Rimini Meeting: "The truth is the destiny for which we were made."

And it was precisely on the primacy of the truth that Fr. Barsotti founded all of his life and teaching, in prophetic harmony with the major outlines of the current pontificate. One more reason to rediscover and accentuate his legacy.

In life, Divo Barsotti often found himself alone and misunderstood. When he was a young priest, isolated in his diocese of San Miniato. When he arrived in Florence, understood and supported by few. He again remained alone, for years, in his hermitage in Settignano, abandoned by his first followers. And so also later, ignored and undervalued until the end of his life by much of the Catholic media and intelligentsia.

He was self-taught, with no theology degree. He wrote a great deal: 160 books and countless articles and scattered papers, but no systematic work. And yet his written and oral production bears witness to a depth, a consistency, a foresightedness, a critical acumen, a freedom of spirit that stand out today as absolutely out of the ordinary.

When almost no one in Italy was familiar with Russian spirituality, he was the first to introduce it, with the first of his books, in 1946, and then to spread it. He named his hermitage in Settignano, on the hills of Florence, after the great Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh.

But when orientalism became fashionable, and more for aesthetic than for spiritual reasons, he leveled withering criticism against it: "We Florentines have Blessed Angelico, Masaccio, Giotto, Cimabue. Are they, perhaps, unable to compete with the Russian icons? But of course they compete, and they win, too."

While the manuals of moral theology held a weary dominance in Italy and in the Roman theological faculties during the 1940's and '50's, Barsotti didn't miss a single book by the great French promoters of ressourcement, the return to biblical, patristic, and liturgical sources: Jean Daniélou, Louis Bouyer, Henri De Lubac.

In 1951, when he published his masterpiece entitled Il mistero cristiano nell'anno liturgico[The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year], he was the first in Italy to develop and elaborate theses similar to those of Odo Casel – the German Benedictine who upheld the objective efficacy of the liturgy in representing the Christian narrative – even before he had read his writings.

But he never remained silent about an author's weak points, no matter how much he respected him. With Hans Urs von Balthasar – who, before dying in 1988, was his spiritual director for six months – Barsotti did not spare his criticisms of his questionable theories about hell: "If there were no hell, I could not accept paradise."

He was no less critical of those who entrusted themselves to him as their spiritual master. Giuseppe Dossetti was his spiritual son beginning in 1951 – beginning, that is, when he abandoned politics to become a monk and priest and to dedicate himself to renewing the Church in his own way, until his death in 1996.

But Barsotti by no means approved of all of his political and theological ideas. One day he wrote in his diary: "It seems it would be better if Fr. Giuseppe would retire to some abandoned little island in Hong Kong."

Above all, Barsotti did not accept the fact that Dossetti was so closely connected to Giuseppe Alberigo and his interpretation of Vatican Council II and of the postconciliar period as a "new beginning" in Church history. He saw the close company of the two as a "danger." He came to the point of presenting Dossetti with an either-or: either breaking with Alberigo, or the end of Barsotti's spiritual direction.

The same thing happened with other eminent Florentine Catholics like Giorgio La Pira, Gianpaolo Meucci, and Mario Gozzini, when he did not approve of their political and ecclesial positions.

Fr. Barsotti even directed criticisms at the popes, which to him was an act of justice "willed by the Lord."

In 1971, he was called to the Vatican to preach to Pope Paul VI and the Roman curia at the spiritual retreat for the beginning of Lent. In his preaching, he dealt with the topic of the power of Peter and said – as he later recorded in his diaries – that "the Church has coercive power because God entrusted this to it, and so it must use it. During those years, in fact, anarchy was spreading through the Church, and the Churches of Northern Europe were taunting the Holy Father."

By "coercive power," Barsotti means the assertion of truth and the condemnation of error, exactly what Vatican Council II and a great part of the Catholic hierarchy after it declined to do, as he said and wrote a number of times: it was a refusal "that practically negated the very essence of the Church."

Barsotti was a convinced admirer of John Paul II, for the same reason that the Catholic intelligentsia undervalued him: "What has shown us most of all that Christ is present in this pope is the exercise of a magisterium that, more than the latest council, has affirmed the truth and condemned error." A pope "who has always taught the exclusive nature of the Christian faith: it is Christ alone who saves."

But Barsotti did not silence his criticisms even of pope Wojtyla, the "pillar of the Church," for example in regard to the 1986 interreligious meeting in Assisi. In this, he wrote, "the pope's intentions were perfectly clear."

But the same was not true of the deductions made by many churchmen, who "asserted that the event in Assisi [was] the first step along a journey that should lead to the unity, in peace, of every dogmatic faith."

In two letters, Barsotti wrote to John Paul II that his papal magisterium was "more important than, or at least just as important as, the magisterium of the most recent Council," which "had made only slight modifications to the unbroken testimony of tradition," and so "it is inexplicable why the latest Council is cited almost exclusively."

Barsotti enjoyed the silent respect even of the progressive Catholics, but not because he expressed the same expectations. On the contrary.

In the life of the Church in Italy and the world, he represented the resistance to postconciliar tendencies, in the name of the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith. He saw few prominent churchmen who were equally decisive in "placing the emphasis on the essential, on the newness of Christ, which is what the Church needs most today."

In 1990 he indicated two such churchmen, Joseph Ratzinger and Giacomo Biffi, who later became his two favorite candidates for the papacy.

And when the first of the two really did become pope, in 2005, what took place was a sort of passing of the torch. While Barsotti, now over ninety years old, gradually stopped writing and speaking, the pontificate of Benedict XVI affirmed "urbi et orbi" – with the authority of the successor of Peter – precisely those theses that the Tuscan priest had maintained throughout his entire life.

There is a very strong resemblance between the diagnosis of the Council and the period following it formulated by Barsotti and the one made by Ratzinger both before and after his election as pope, most recently in the conversation he held last July 24 with the priests of Cadore.

There is a noteworthy affinity between the two in their seeking out nourishment in the Church's great tradition and breaking this bread among the great numbers of ordinary Christians.

In the case of Benedict XVI, it should be enough to think of his two cycles of Wednesday catecheses: the first, dedicated to the apostolic Church, with individual profiles of the apostles and the other main characters of the New Testament; the second, dedicated to the Greek and Latin fathers of the first centuries of the Church, which has now arrived at the depiction of the great bishops and theologians of Cappadocia – Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nissa.

There is perfect agreement between Barsotti and Pope Ratzinger on the manner of reading the Sacred Scriptures and penetrating their profound meaning: not solely with the tools of the historical and philological sciences, but also in the light of their ultimate Author, the Holy Spirit, recognizable in the Church's tradition.

The two also share similar views on politics and history. Both are extremely opposed to the idea that in earthly history there is the progressive construction, almost by natural evolution, of a kingdom of peace and justice. Both are absolutely certain that the "eschaton," the ultimate and definitive act of salvation for man and for the world, is already present here and now, and is nothing other than the crucified and risen Jesus.

The "Christian mystery" is him, Jesus crucified and risen, who is seated at the right hand of the Father but at the same time becomes bread for man in the Eucharist. The events of the mystery are made real in the Mass. Here, too, there is extraordinary agreement between Barsotti's book The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year and the later reflections and homilies of Benedict XVI in the pontifical Masses.

From the book Jesus of Nazareth, the chief work of this pontificate, to the centrality of the Eucharist, to the encyclical Deus Caritas Est, the magisterium of Benedict XVI presents a dazzling cohesion.

It is the same cohesion that appeared in the life and works of Barsotti. In a footnote of his 1951 book The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year, there is a reflection on eros and agape that is stunning for how it anticipates the heart of pope Ratzinger's encyclical.

In both of these, there is the awareness that the Church lives on the foundation of truth, and that it is only from "veritas" that "caritas" arises, just as the Spirit proceeds "ex Patre Filioque": from the Father and from the Son who is the Logos, the Word of God.

In what may have been his last public writing, a commentary on a book published in 2006 on the Christian philosopher Romano Amerio, Divo Barsotti left just this bequest:

"I see the Church's progress beginning from here, from the return of holy Truth as the basis of every action. The peace promised by Christ, freedom, love are the goals that every man must attain, but he may reach them only after constructing the foundation of truth and the pillars of faith."

___________


And his disciple Paolo Giannoni reopens the dispute "Florence against Rome".

The rediscovery of Fr. Divo Barsotti – with the opening of the cause for his beatification not far off – also brings to the center of attention the situation of the Church of Florence to which he belonged, a situation analyzed by an article from www.chiesa on June 25, 2007:
>Florence Against Rome: A Catholicism in a State of Unease
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=150941&eng=y

A reply has come to the analysis proposed in that article – mainly by professor Pietro De Marco, also from Florence – from another prominent exponent of Florentine Catholicism: Fr. Paolo Giannoni, 72, for almost half a century a teacher at the Theological Faculty of Florence and Central Italy, today a Camaldolese Benedictine monk and hermit at the Church of Sant'Andrea in Mosciano.

The reply from Fr. Giannoni – which is very extensive and well elaborated, with acute criticism of the doctrinal "refocusing" and the revival of the sense of Christian identity as promoted by the two most recent popes – is presented in its entirety, in Italian, on this other page of www.chiesa:
> Identità cristiana o progetto di potere? Una riflessione sulla Chiesa di Wojtyla e Ratzinger
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=163041
Giannoni cites Barsotti twice in his 6300-word reply.

The first time, he recalls that like other representatives of the Florentine Church, Barsotti, too, was sometimes misunderstood and opposed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy:

"The current 'canonization' of Fr. Barsotti cannot ignore the suffering he endured on account of the opposition against his books during the 1950's, while he was living out and bringing a unique richness to the theological and spiritual life of Europe at that time."

In effect, in 1960 the Vatican congregation of the Holy Office censored his book Commento all'Esodo [A Commentary on Exodus], which was published in France with an imprimatur, but was banned in Italy. Barsotti was called to Rome and required to issue a retraction. The book was in the clear after Vatican Council II, and is now in its sixth edition in Italy, under the title Meditazioni sull'Esodo [Meditations on Exodus]."

The second time he cites Barsotti, Giannoni writes:

"Fr. Barsotti's voice was problematic but precious, even if by this time he had taken a stance of hardline criticism toward contemporary culture. Unfortunately he established a self-sufficiency that was certainly always fruitful but was closed off and bitter in a soul that otherwise held things of the most tender sweetness; and this is said with grateful love toward a father in the Spirit."

These words contain both criticism and admiration. Although he can be numbered among the sophisticated progressive Catholics, Fr. Giannoni recognizes that he, too, was a spiritual son of Barsotti.

And in effect, the edition currently available in Italy of Barsotti's masterpiece, The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year, opens with a preface by Fr. Giannoni, from his hermitage in Mosciano.

On the website of the Communion and Liberation meeting in Rimini, the page dedicated to the exhibit on Divo Barsotti:
> "Divo Barsotti. A 20th-century’s mystical man"
www.meetingrimini.org/default.asp?id=846&item=4365#e4365

The earlier articles about Barsotti from www.chiesa:

> The End of a Taboo: Even Romano Amerio Is "A True Christian" (6.2.2006)
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=45538&eng=y

> A Philosopher, a Mystic, and a Theologian Sound an Alarm for the Church (7.2.2005)
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=22372&eng=y

A translation of the Holy Father's catecheses and principal messages today has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS. Here is a translation of various brief news agency items reported by PETRUS shortly after the audience:


Too many faithful
and too much sun:
The Pope back in the Piazza
wearing the 'galero'



Left, arriving for the GA; right, leaving the GA (without the galero).

VATICAN CITY - Benedict XVI today resumed holding the General Audience in St. Peter's Square instead of Aula Paolo VI to accommodate some 12,000 faithful, twice the capacity of the indoor auditorium used in the summer months to escape from the outdoor heat.

Most represented in today's audience were Germans, Spaniards, Polish, Greeks, as well as Turks and a delegation from El Salvador.

As the Pope went through the crowd in the Popemobile before the audience began, he wore a red straw galero, the wide-brimmed papal hat, against the sun. He arrived in the Vatican earlier by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo.







He devoted the catechesis today to St. Gregory of Nyssa, brother of St. Basil and friend like him of St. Gregory Nazianzene - the two Father of the Church to whom the Pope had dedicated his four previous catecheses (two each for each one).

The Pope said St. Gregory of Nyssa's teachings invited man "to recognize in himself the reflection of divine light."

"Man's ultimate purpose is the contemplation of God," he said. "Only thus can he find his satisfaction. To anticipate this goal in some measure during life, he should progress incessantly towards a spiritual life that is increasingly more perfect."

He said "the most important lesson St. Gregory of Nyssa left us is that 'man finds his full realization in sainthood."

he called him 'the father of mysticism', one who was "gifted with a meditative character, with a great capacity for reflection, and a lively intelligence which was open to the culture of this time."

After the death of St. Basil, the Pope said, St. Gregory of Nyssa virtually "took up his spiritual legacy and cooperated in the triumph of (Catholic) orthodoxy."

St. Gregory "recognized in himself the reflection of divine light." Speaking beyond his prepared text, the Pope added, "By purifying his heart, he returned to being - as man was before - a limpid image of God, exemplary beauty. Thus man can see God, as do the pure of heart, only by washing out the terrible things deposited in our hearts, can one find the light of God."

At the end of the general audience, the Pope extended a special greeting to a delegation from San Marino "who have gathered here today for the 25th anniversary of the visit made by my beloved predecessor John Paul II to that country."

"Dear friends," the Pope said to the 24-man delegation, "may the memory of that significant event inspire you to a renewed adherence to God, fountain of light, hope and peace."

The delegation was accompanied by the Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, Mons. Luigi Negri.

Finally, Benedict XVI invited the faithful to pray for the victims of the floods in Asia as well as the disastrous summer fires in Greece and other parts of Europe.

"In these days," he said, "some geographic regions are devastated by great calamities. I refer to the floods in some Asian countries, as well as the disastrous fires in Greece, Italy and other European nations."

To the appreciative applause of the audience, he said, "Before such tragic emergencies which have created so many victims and enormous material damage. we cannot be unconcerned about the irresponsible behavior of those who place the safety of persons at risk and destroy the ecological patrimony which is a precious asset for all of humanity."



He concluded, "I join those who rightly condemn such criminal actions and I invite everyone to pray for the victims of these tragedies."

BUT HE WILL NOT BE AT THE INTER-RELIGIOUS PRAYER


PASTORAL VISIT TO NAPLES, October 21, 2007


Here is a news update translated from PETRUS today about the Holy Father's pastoral visit to Naples on October 21, a Sunday:


Pope Benedict VXI will meet other religious leaders, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Metropolitan Kirill from the patriarchate of Moscow, when he goes to Naples on October 21.


Cardinal Sepe with the Pope in a recent visit.

Cardinal Cresencio Sepe, Archbishop of Naples, confirmed this today in an interview with Vatican Radio.

The Pope's pastoral visit to southern Italy's largest city coincides with the annual Inter-Religious Prayer Meeting for Peace sponsored by the Sant'Egidio community in a different city every year. It begins on Sunday, October 21, and will go on for two more days.

The meeting is patterned after the first Assisi inter-religious prayer meeting in 1987, but without the participation of the Pope. (Pope John Paul, whose original idea it was, took part in 1987 and 2000, which was also held in Assisi.]

Cardinal Sepe said the Pope would meet with the leaders of Christian churches and other religions after the Mass at the city's Piazza del Plebiscito.

"The Holy Father will arrive in Naples around 9:30 a.m., and after being greeted at the port by civil and religious authorities, he will proceed directly to the Piazza for the 10 o'clock Mass, which will be concelebrated with the cardinals and bishops of the region as well as visiting prelates. After the Mass, the pope will also lead the recital of the Angelus. He will then proceed to the Major Seminary at Capodimonte for a meeting and lunch with the heads of all the delegations to the Inter-Religious Meeting," Sepe said.

Other ranking Christian leaders expected, according to the Cardinal, are the Archbishop of Cyprus, the Patriarch of the Armenian Church and other ranking Orthodox Patriarchs.

After a brief rest, the Pope will venerate the remains of San Gennaro (St. Januarius), patron saint of Naples, at the Cathedral of Naples, then return to Rome at 5 p.m.

I filed this item earlier in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH as a Reuters photo with a provocative caption story, but no accompanying Reuters news report. Subsequently, I came upon Andrea Tornielli's story in Il Giornale which substantiates the Reuters caption story but the sense if the entire interview makes this the more appropriate place.





Reuters - Wed Aug 29. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexiy II leads a service at Tatiana Day
in Moscow January 25, 2007. Alexiy II told an Italian paper that a first meeting with Pope Benedict would only make
sense if the Vatican gave up any missionary ambition to spread Catholicism in his country. (A.Natruskin/Reuters)


Vatican correspondent Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale was in Moscow recently and Alexei II repeated the same sentiments in an interview, although he talked about other things, as well. Here is a translation:


Interview with Alexei II
By Andrea Tornielli


Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio that liberalizes the use of the traditional Mass rite is "a fact we greet positively', says Alexei II, Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias.

The spiritual leader of the largest and most powerful church in the Orthodox world just finished celebrating the solemn liturgy for the feast of Mary's Dormition [Assumption in the Catholic world] in the
Cathedral of the same name inside the Kremlin, the city's oldest cathedral which the Communist regime had made a museum but did not tear down.

It was a very evocative liturgy, with much stupendous chanting. Seated in the first row were the four bishops of the Friuli region (northwastern Italy), who had come to invite the patriarch to Aquileia.

The Patriarch earlier received them fraternally, gave each one a pectoral cross, and received a reproduction on an Aquileia fresco and a relic of St. Justus, martyr.

He then agreed to answer some questions from Il Giornale. He expressed appreciation for the restoration of the traditional Mass and confirmed that, despite criticism of the Motu Proprio from certain progressivist circles, Benedict XVI's decision was something that promotes ecumenism with the Oriental churches.


The Pope published a document which restores the possibilities for using the old Roman missal for the eucharistic celebration. How do you judge that decision?

The recovery and appreciation of the ancient liturgical tradition is a fact that we greet positively.

We set great store by tradition. Without faithful custody of liturgical tradition, the Russian Orthodox Church would never have been able to resist during the epoch of persecutions in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, we had so many new martyrs, in numbers matching those of the early Christian martyrs.


Holiness, how do you judge relationships between Rome and Moscow at this time?

I think Pope Benedict XVI has said many times that he is committed to favoring dialog and collaboration with the Orthodox churches. That is positive. [This takes the prize for the least enthusiastic statement ever made on this issue!]


For years, there has been talk about a possible encounter between you and the Pope. Do you think it is possible? And when?

A meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow should be very well prepared and should absolutely not be reduced to a photo opportunity and appearing together on television. It should be a meeting that truly serves to consolidate relationships between the two Churches.


You make it sound like a remote hypothesis. Why?

Because unfortunately, today, some bishops and Catholic missionaries still consider Russia as a mission land. But Russia, Holy Russia, is already illuminated by a faith that has lasted several centuries, which thank God, has been conserved and transmitted through the Orthodox Church. It is not mission territory for the Catholic Church.

This is the first point that must be clarified and cleared before any meeting with the Pope. The other problem is Uniatism.

And why are the Uniates - who maintain the Eastern rite and tradition but have entered into full Communion with Rome - a problem?
Uniatism concerns us deeply, because we see this tendency even in regions where it was never present, for example, in eastern Ukraine, in Byelorussia, in Kazakhstan, and even in Russia itself.

When these problems are faced and resolved, then the meeting between the Pope and the patriarch of Moscow can take place. Only then can it have some genuine significance.

Il Giornale, 29 agosto 2007

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

In other words, forget or ignore any optimistic reports or speculation about such a meeting! Alexei will always have his pet obsessions - proselytism and Uniatism - to trot out as a pretext. Every time he talks about these two issues, he presents them in a worse light than before.

One had thought the question of proselytism had been resolved. He first raised this in the time of John Paul II because the Orthodox resented all the Polish missionaries sent to Russia [it's the age-old Pole-Russian enmity]. The Polish priests and John Paul have gone, and now he's citing 'bishops and Catholic missionaries'. But what exactly does he mean by proselytism? He can always claim that the simplest homily by a Catholic priest or a catechism lesson for Catholics is 'proselytizing'. What are Catholics supposed to do? Not preach the Catholic faith because they happen to be in Russia?

As for Uniatism, he's now claiming that the 'threat' has spread to other nations of the former Soviet Union, not just the Ukraine. He fails to mention that his Patriarchate's problem with the Ukrainian Uniates is that the Ukrainian government has allowed them to keep their traditional Church properties, and Moscow claims those properties belong to the Orthodox Church. It's a bitter pill enough for Moscow that the Uniates have chosen to enter full communion with Rome, but for them to 'take away' Church property as well is adding insult to injury!

Alexei, of course, has other 'points of pride' to dispute. One being the status of Bartholomew I in the Orthodox world as 'first among equals'. Alexei does not think that is right because Bartholomew's little flock in Constantinople is literally a token compared to the huge Russian Orthodox membership.

And more importantly, the primacy of Peter, howsoever the Orthodox will eventually agree to define it. If the Roman Church is ready to maintain it among other Christian churches as a primacy of honor, why does the Orthodox establishment fear the Pope would interfere in their episcopal jurisdictions and functions?

From Il Foglio today, thanks to Lella's blog, the following information - I don't have time to translate the full article, but most of it is fluff, anyway.


Pope Benedict XVI will consecrate new bishops for the first time as Pope on September 29 when, in addition to consecrating his second personal secretary, Mons. Miecyslaw (Mietek) Mokryczky, as Coadjutor Archbishop of Lviv (Ukraine), he may also consecrate four other new bishops, all Italians.

Benedict had failed to follow John Paul II's annual consecration of bishops on the Feast of the Epiphany, because as in the case of beatifications, he prefers that these take place in the diocese itself of the new bishop of the new blessed.

Correspondent Paolo Rodari of Il Riformista first broke the news about Mietek's consecration by the Pope at St. Peter's Basilica shortly after the nomination as announced last month.

It is now speculated that four other new bishops will be consecrated with him: Barnabite Mons. Sergio Pagano, Prefect of the Secret Vatican Archives, whom the Pope named a bishop earlier this month; Mons. Tommaso Caputo, recently named Apostolic Nuncio to Malta and LIbya, who was chief of protocol at the Secretariat of State; Mons. Francesco Giovanni Brugnaro, former Holy See observer to the International Tourism Council of the UN, expected to be named Bishop of Camerino replacing the current bishop who has been ill for some time; and Mons. Gianfranco Ravasi, prefect of the Ambrosian Library, whom the Pope reportedly will name President of the Pontifical Council for Culture to succeed the retiring Cardinal Paul Poupard.

Speculation about the nomination of Ravasi, a renowned Biblical scholar and a multimedia personality in Italy, is divided, as he has as many admirers as critics. He was previously considered to be named Bishop of Naples (Cardinal Sepe was named instead) and then Assisi (Mons. Sorrentino was named). But both times, he was turned down by the Curia - despite support from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Congregation for Bishops, and by Cardinal Camillo Ruini - because in a March 2002 article for the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, he had written that Christ "did not resurrect; he was raised from the dead"['Cristo non e risorto; si e innalzato' - there may be a more precise translation to English, because the distinction appears subtle - was the Resurrection an active or a passive event, on the part of Christ himself?],an article some theologians claimed raised questions about the historicity of the resurrection.

This year, however, Pope Benedict XVI chose Mons. Ravasi to write the Good Friday Meditation and Prayers for the Via Crucis at the Colosseum.

SPANISH'JON' SELLS OUT WITHIN HOURS -
BUT WHY DID THEY ONLY PRINT 50,000?

I posted this earlier in POPE-POURRI as a follow-up to a small announcement from the Vatican about the release of the Spanish edition of JESUS OF NAARETH in Spain on Monday.

P.S. Thanks to a reader of Lella's blog, here's part of an item about the Pope in the Spanish newspaper El Pais today, translated here.

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The general audience yesterday coincided with the great success of the Pope's book JESUS DE NAZARET, whose Spanish edition sold out within hours of going on sale Monday.

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I was going to ask why the Spanish publishers only decided to print 50,000 copies for a book that has sold about half a million copies at least in both Italy and Germany!

Now, Vatican Radio has this interview with former Vatican press director Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a Spaniard, translated here:


NAVARRO-VALLS ON THE SUCCESS OF 'JON'

JESUS OF NAZARETH is a work which fits within Benedict XVI's ministry of intelligence, according to Joaquin Navarro-Valls who spoke to Vatican Radio after the release of the Spanish edition in Spain, published by La Esfera de Los Libros.


NAVARRO-VALLS: I must say, in all sincerity, that this initial success of the book in Spain, which will certainly be a long-term phenomenon as well, does not surprise me in the least. Int he months since the book came out in Italy, so many people wrote requesting me to buy them a copy of the Italian edition, since it had not come out in Spain. So there was already an audience waiting to read it.


The book confirms what the Holy Father has said from the start of his Pontificate - the primacy of the Word of God, this personal encounter with Christ - as we read in Deus caritas est - and it is this encounter that the Pope writes about in his book...

Of course, the whole theme is very rich. And it is necessarily a personal vision. To me, the center, the fulcrum, of this Pontificate is that which I have called 'the ministry of intelligence'.

At a time when there is great confusion at all levels about ideas, the Pope is conducting an amazing ministry of intelligence, with an extraordinary conceptual richness, and the people are very responsive to this. They are taking notice of the value of the Word which the Pope is offering to mankind.

This book was written in this context. Of course, there are many beautiful pages, and some that are very ascetic. It is as if he is saying: For Catholics, it is not enough to accept the divinity of Jesus but they also have to think about what the historical Jesus means.


The Pope has been going to the heart of the faith, to the apostolic tradition, and all the way to Jesus himself....

There is a need for a clarificatory effort, a rational effort - the Pope uses this in the book again. This Pontificate is also about the rationality of faith, something already implicit in the enormous body of written work by Cardinal Ratzinger, which he is, of course, reaffirming in his Pontificate.

This type of message is very relevant today. It is like a great catechesis at a high level, which the people understand, which they follow, which they feel they understand. And this book confirms what we are saying. I think that is what the readers appreciate about it.