The White House says it expects "frank" but constructive talks in President Barack Obama's meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.
The Vatican has been openly interested in Mr Obama's views and scheduled an afternoon meeting to accommodate the American president at the end of his stay in Italy for a G8 summit Photo: AP
The two men share similar views on helping the poor and pushing for Middle East peace but disagree on abortion and stem cell research.
With some Catholic activists and American bishops outspoken in their criticism of Mr Obama, even as polls have shown he received a majority of Catholic votes, the audience is much awaited.
Mr Obama's election presented a challenge for the Vatican after eight years of common ground with President George W. Bush in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite the Vatican's opposition to the war in Iraq.
But the Vatican has been openly interested in Mr Obama's views and scheduled an unusual afternoon meeting to accommodate the American president at the end of his stay in Italy for a G8 summit meeting in the earthquake-stricken city of L'Aquila and just before he leaves for Ghana.
In the tradition-conscious Vatican, most such meetings are held at midday. The Vatican has also arranged live television coverage of the open session of the meeting after their private talks.
"I think there will be frank discussion," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said earlier this week. "I think that there's a lot that they agree on that they'll get a chance to discuss."
"We know the pope has been keenly aware of the president's outreach to the Muslim world. The pope shares the president's view on reducing the number of nuclear weapons. So I think there's certainly a lot of common ground." more...
The city of Rome is waiting for the meeting today of US President Barack Obama with Pope Benedict XVI
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
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"True humanism in Christianity... true Christianity — we repeat — is the sacrifice of self for others, because of Christ, because of God. It is shown by signs; it is manifested in deeds. Christianity is sensitive to the suffering and oppression and sorrow of others, to poverty, to all human needs, the first of which is truth." —Pope Paul VI, Homily at the Mass for the Canonization of St. John Neumann, June 19, 1977
In about three hours, US President Barack Obama will arrive in the Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
The leader of the world's greatest temporal power will carry a gift for the leader of the world's greatest spiritual power.
He will drive in his limousine into Vatican City, and into the Cortile San Damaso (photo, left, taken in 1930), the little square at the very heart of the Vatican.
He will get out of his car (parked more or less where the single car in this photo is parked), go into the door at the far end of the square, and, accompanied by American Archbishop James Harvey, the head of the papal household, take the elevator up to the fourth floor. more...
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reports that the pope’s new encyclical, Charity in Truth, places the Holy Father to the left of President Barack Obama on some issues:
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good advises Catholics to “Suggest to your pastor that he give a homily highlighting the Pope’s reflections on social justice and the common good.” Notice what was excluded: the pope’s thoughts on the sanctity of human life, bioethics, the indiscriminate acceptance of all lifestyles, sexuality as a form of entertainment, the role of religion in the public square, etc. It is hardly surprising that left-wing Catholics do not want to highlight these issues, but the ironies run even deeper.
In his encyclical, the pope says that “respect for life” [his italics] is “an aspect which has acquired increasing prominence in recent time, obliging us to broaden our concept of poverty….” Are the pope’s new fans prepared to think of abortion as a poverty issue?
The best way to service the poor, according to the pope, is not to create bureaucratic monstrosities that cripple the dignity of the indigent. “By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, [the principle of] subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.” Similarly, the pope admonishes us not to promote “paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.” In other words, the tried and failed, dependency-inducing welfare programs that mark the social policy prescriptions of the poverty industry are seen by the pope as a disaster. Not exactly what those who work for HHS want to hear.
Finally, when the pope slams greed and criticizes a market economy shorn of moral principles, he is hardly upsetting most of those who champion the rights of the unborn. But some stereotypes are hard to break.
Pope Benedict XVI is presented with a box of Australian wine by Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the pontiff's private library at the Vatican July 9. The Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, offered some world leaders, including Rudd, the opportunity to meet Pope Benedict at the Vatican. (CNS/Reuters)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, offered some world leaders the opportunity to squeeze in a visit to meet with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
The pope then used the occasion to present leaders with a special copy of his first social encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" ("Charity in Truth"), which the Vatican released July 7, the day before the G-8 summit began.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met with the pope in a 25-minute closed-door meeting July 9. Australia is not part of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, but was among the other countries Italy invited.
Rudd, who was raised Catholic but attends an Anglican church, told the pope, "I'm reading your encyclical."
Rudd has written about the role of a Christian in contemporary politics and wrote in a 2005 essay that he sees the Gospel as "an exhortation to social action."
In a customary exchange of gifts, the pope gave Rudd a signed, white leather-bound copy of his new encyclical and a pen shaped like a column of the famous baldacchino, or canopy over the main altar, in St. Peter's Basilica done by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Rudd gave the pope a black leather-bound copy of the Australian government's apology to Aborigines for the wrongs committed against them and the stolen generations forcibly separated from their families.
Rudd, who spearheaded the move to publicly acknowledge past injustices against indigenous peoples, presented the document to the pope and said, "This is a book of my apologies to the native Australians."
The prime minister also gave the pope a wooden box holding six bottles of sweet rose Australian wine and said, "Think of us Australians when you're in the Vatican." more...
The stole that President Obama will give to Pope Benedict XVI was once draped around St. John Neumann's body. The DiCocco Family St. Jude Shop also had a chair built for the pontiff. View images... 1 of 2
The owners of the DiCocco Family St. Jude Shop are getting to be experts at this. When there's a presentation for the pope, call the store in Havertown.
Twice in the last 15 months, the store owners have been tapped for their Benedict XVI know-how.
The first time, they helped supply a specially made chair the pope used during a U.S. visit. This time, they assisted the White House in finding a gift for him.
That present will be given to Benedict as part of President Obama's visit to the Vatican tomorrow.
The box will contain a stole that had been draped around the enshrined body of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia for nearly 20 years.
"It's a sacred gift," said the Rev. Kevin Moley, pastor of the National Shrine of St. John Neumann in Northern Liberties. "I'm glad [the administration] asked St. Jude, and St. Jude asked us, because it represents the U.S. and Rome. We should all be pleased and thankful."
White House officials declined to confirm the gift or discuss the matter before the meeting tomorrow. more...
In this excellent editorial, John-Henry Westen, differentiates the Pope's meaning on a key point in his new encyclical "Charity in Truth"--the Pope's view of the meaning of the phrase, "true world political authority" and the secular view on "one-world government":
Wednesday July 8, 2009
Editorial by John-Henry Westen
July 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Newspapers, blogs, talk-shows on radio and television are full of discussion over Pope Benedict XVI's supposed call for a "new world order" or a "one-world government." These ideas are, however, neither based in reality nor a clear reading of the Pope's latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, the release of which yesterday spawned the heated discussion.
The Pope actually speaks directly against a one-world government, and, as would be expected from those who have read his previous writings, calls for massive reform of the United Nations. Confusion seems to have come from paragraph 67 of the encyclical, which has some choice pull-quotes which have spiced the pages of the world's news, from the New York Times to those of conspiracy theorist bloggers seeing the Pope as the Anti-Christ.
The key quote which has led to the charge reads: "To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago."
However, in paragraph 41, the Holy Father specifically differentiates his concept of a world political authority from that of a one-world government. "We must," he says "promote a dispersed political authority." He explains that "The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State. In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State's role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains a key factor in their development."
Later in the encyclical (57) he speaks of the opposite concept to one - world government - subsidiarity (the principle of Catholic social teaching which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority) - as being essential. "In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity," says the Pope.
Another of the key quotes which is being extracted for shock value from the encyclical is this: "In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth."
Since long before his papacy, Joseph Ratzinger has vigorously fought the United Nations' vision of a 'New World Order'. As early as 1997, and repeated subsequently, Ratzinger took public aim at such a vision, noting that the philosophy coming from UN conferences and the Millennium Summit "proposes strategies to reduce the number of guests at the table of humanity, so that the presumed happiness [we] have attained will not be affected."
"At the base of this New World Order", he said is the ideology of "women's empowerment," which erroneously sees "the principal obstacles to [a woman's] fulfillment [as] the family and maternity." The then-cardinal advised that "at this stage of the development of the new image of the new world, Christians - and not just them but in any case they even more than others - have the duty to protest." more...
Wife of Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Sarah Macaulay, seen here arriving for an event at Rome's town hall, provided a behind-the-scenes look at the G8 on Wednesday as she blogged about the 'good food and good company' at the so-called spouses' summit.Photo:Tiziana Fabi/AFP
LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife Sarah provided a behind-the-scenes look at the G8 on Wednesday as she blogged about the "good food and good company" at the so-called spouses' summit.
"Landed in Italy, and Gordon is whisked off to the summit. I spend the first day in Rome and join the programme for the First Ladies and PMs' wives," one breezy entry began.
Updated every hour from Italy, the blog details the wives' audience with Pope Benedict XVI -- although it was a case of deja vu for Sarah.
"In February, Gordon took me and our boys to a private audience with the Holy Father where we were touched by his kindness and concern for the developing world," she wrote.
The wives, including Brown's friend Michelle Obama whom she got to know at the G20 summit in London in April, are then treated to a "wonderful lunch" hosted by the mayor of Rome's wife featuring the chef's signature "ravioli carbonara".
"Thanks to the good food and good company, I have to skip the museum tour as I am now running a bit late for the next event," she admitted.
The prime minister's wife, a 45-year-old former public relations boss, also found time to update readers on "excitement" at the British embassy in Rome about the resident beehives and their "imminent harvest of honey".
The G8 summit in L'Aquila brings together leaders from the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
News.com.au From correspondents in Rome Agence France-Presse July 09, 2009 03:00am
POPE Benedict XVI has hosted the wives of world leaders who were in Italy attending the G8 summit, the Vatican said.
Following his weekly general audience in the Vatican City, the pope received the group on Wednesday, which included five wives of country leaders.
Among them were Sarah Brown, the wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Margarita Calderon, wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Filippa Reinfeldt, wife of Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt.
Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma, wife of South African President Jacob Zuma, and Gursharan Kaur, wife of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, were also at the audience along with Margarida Barroso, wife of European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.
The three-day G8 summit started Wednesday in L'Aquila, central Italy.
New encyclical seeks to place man at center of economy
Vatican City, Jul 8, 2009 / 11:24 am (CNA).- This morning in Rome, the Pope interrupted his series of teachings on the saints to explain the essential thoughts contained in his new social encyclical, published yesterday. In the face of the world's “vast and profound” problems, Benedict XVI stated that the world economy must recover ethical principles.
The encyclical, explained the Holy Father, highlights the fact that "charity in truth is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. ... Only with charity, illuminated by reason and by faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that possess a more humane and humanizing value."
The document, he went on, "intensifies Church analysis and reflection on social themes of vital interest to humankind in our century. In a special way it harks back to what Paul VI wrote more than forty years ago in his 'Populorum progressio.'"
In a manner similar to all papal teachings, Pope Benedict noted that “'Caritas in veritate.' does not seek to offer technical solutions to the enormous social problems of the modern world. ...What it does do is recall the fundamental principles that are indispensable for building human development over coming years." more...
Several aspects of Pope's encyclical, "Charity in Truth"
Articles from CNA, Zenit, CWN, Vatican Radio and National Catholic Reporter expand on several aspects of the Pope's new encyclical, "Charity in Truth:"
SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 /Christian Newswire/ -- Ignatius Press, the primary English-language publisher of the works of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), is now publishing its titles in three formats -- print, electronic, and audio -- beginning with today's release of Pope Benedict's new encyclical, Charity in Truth, on the world economy.
"As we release Charity in Truth -- obviously a very important document, given the far-reaching economic crisis -- we want it to be as widely accessible as possible," said Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, Editor and Founder of Ignatius Press, and former student of Joseph Ratzinger. Releasing the encyclical in three formats is part of Ignatius Press' expansion of its work into electronic and audio publishing.
"It's important that people have as many options as possible to read or hear it. Because we believe the other writings we publish are also important, we want to make them available in all three formats, too. So it makes sense that we would launch the new program with the publication of Benedict’s new encyclical and rapidly expand the program as we can," Father Fessio noted.
Ignatius Press remains committed to the traditional print book--its publications use high-quality paper and first-rate bindings, as well as beautiful covers. Nevertheless, as preferences of book readers diversify, the San Francisco-based publisher is diversifying its offerings to include electronic and audio editions. As new books are published, Ignatius Press plans to make them available in the three major formats. more...
By Christophe Simon, AFP/Getty Image Enlarge photo... Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd in Luanda, Angola, March 22. The pope has said the world's poor shouldn't bear the brunt of the economic downturn as they are not responsible for it.
Pope Benedict XVI today called for reforming the United Nations and establishing a "true world political authority" with "real teeth" to manage the global economy with God-centered ethics.
In his third encyclical, a major teaching, released as the G-8 summit begins in Italy, the pope says such an authority is urgently needed to end the current worldwide financial crisis. It should "revive" damaged economies, reach toward "disarmament, food security and peace," protect the environment and "regulate migration."
Benedict writes, "The market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak."
The encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) is a theologically dense explication of Catholic social teaching that draws heavily from earlier popes, particularly PaulVI's critique of capitalism 42 years ago. And echoing his predecessor John Paul II, Benedict says, "every economic decision has a moral consequence."
Issued days before his Friday meeting with President Obama, the pope's views here are "to the left of Obama in terms of economic policy," particularly in calls for redistribution of wealth, says political scientist Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. more...
MSNBC Associated Press updated 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has called for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate.
In "Charity in Truth," Benedict denounces the profit-at-all-cost mentality of the globalized economy and laments that such greed has brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The document, in the works for two years, was released Tuesday, one day before leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet to coordinate efforts to emerge from the financial crisis. The release was clearly designed to give world leaders a strong moral imperative to correct the errors of the past and make a more socially just and responsible world financial order. more...
The Bilateral Commission will meet July 9. The U.S. administration has long been concerned with the resolution of problems in relations between the State of Israel and the Holy See, which perhaps will be a topic at the meeting between Barack Obama and Benedict XVI. Father Jaeger is cautious but optimistic.
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) - The Bilateral Permanent Commission between the Holy See and the State of Israel, the first since the Pilgrimage of Pope Benedict XVI, will take place at Israel’s Foreign Ministry next Thursday, 9 July. There has been no official announcement, but it is already known in ecclesiastical and diplomatic circles. Is it purely by chance that this will be the day before U.S. President Barack Obama will be received in Audience by the Supreme Pontiff in the Vatican? Probably not.
At least since 2003-2004, Israel is particularly aware of the support of the United States for the hopes of the Catholic Church to enjoy legal and fiscal security in Israel. This indeed is the purpose the negotiations underway since 11 March 1999. Many times since then, members and staff of the U.S. Congress, but also American officials and diplomats have interceded – though always kindly and in friendliest fashion, as appropriate between friends – in order to encourage successive Israeli governments to a more exact observance of the Agreements already made with the Holy See (in 1993 and 1997, respectively), and especially in order to recommend greater engagement in the current negotiations.
The United States have a special interest in the matter, not only because of their role in persuading the Holy See to establish official relations with Israel even before securing the situation of the Church in the Jewish State, but also because a very high portion of the offerings that sustain the Church in the Holy Land are made by U.S. citizens-taxpayers-voters of Catholic faith.
The tensions that have emerged on occasion between the Church’s hierarchy and he Obama Administration (over such ethically sensitive matters as legalised abortion, the use of embryos for research and the like) can only contribute to increasing this interest of the present U.S. Government, which is probably looking for ways to increase and consolidate the esteem of the Church in its regard. In fact, seasoned observers suggest, it is possible that the relations between the Catholic Church and the State of Israel will rate a mention in the talks in the Vatican on 10 July. Such a possibility can only be helpful to the renewed Holy See – Israel talks to take place on the day before. But the road to agreement may still not be a short one. more...
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The private Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace is a place for the pope and his closest aides to contemplate their call to follow the crucified and risen Christ and to lead believers in hope, Pope Benedict XVI said.
The pope inaugurated the newly restored chapel -- decorated with Michelangelo's murals of the conversion of St. Paul and the crucifixion of St. Peter -- during an evening prayer service July 4.
The prayer service was attended by members of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums from the United States, England and Ireland. They donated the $4.6 million needed to restore the private papal chapel.
"Solemn celebrations with the people are not celebrated here. This is where the successor of Peter and his collaborators meditate in silence and adore the living Christ, present especially in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist," the pope said in his homily.
"The Eucharist is the sacrament in which the whole work of redemption is concentrated: In Jesus the Eucharist we can contemplate the transformation of death into life (and of) violence into love," the pope said.
Pope Benedict said it was interesting to note that Michelangelo depicted St. Paul as an old man when he was converted on the road to Damascus, even though the apostle probably was only in his 30s.
The artist's choice recognizes that maturity in faith comes from being enlightened with divine grace, the pope said.
The face of St. Peter in the mural on the opposite wall, the pope said, is not that of a man in pain, but of a man who is searching for someone or something.
"He realizes precisely at that moment the culmination of following" Christ, the pope said. "The disciple is not greater than the master, and now he will experience all the bitterness of the cross, the consequences of sin that separates us from God, all the absurdity of violence and lies."
Pope Benedict said the chapel invites the pope and his aides "to meditate in silence on the mystery of the cross, which accompanies the church to the end of time, and to welcome the light of faith, which -- thanks to the apostolic community -- can extend to the ends of the earth the missionary and evangelizing action entrusted to it by the risen Christ."
Benedict XVI deplores the attack near the cathedral in the Filipino city and stresses that the use of violence will never bring about a solution to problems. Reflection before the Angelus dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, source of hope in a world torn apart by violence and hatred.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - At the end of the Angelus prayer, Benedict XVI today condemned this morning’s attack in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Cotabato in the Philippines. The Pope assured his prayers for the victims, among which there are "women and children" and raised his voice to “condemn the use of violence, which is never a way of solving problems.”
And violence and Christ’s non-violent response to it was in fact at the heart of his reflection before the Marian prayer: "Christ - he said - did not respond to evil with evil but with good, with his infinite love”. The blood of Jesus, indeed, is a source of hope for all mankind, marked by violence and hatred.
The pope recalled that the first Sunday of July in the past was dedicated to the devotion of the Most Precious Blood of Christ. Blood was important in the Old Testament: "the sprinkling with the blood of sacrificed animals - said the pope - in the Old Testament, represented and established the covenant between God and his people”. Jesus shed his blood as the sacrificial lamb of the Old Covenant: "from his scourging, to the piercing of his side after his death of the cross, Christ poured out all of his blood, as the true Lamb slain for universal redemption”. more...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Saturday it ran a deficit in 2008 as its finances and donations from across the world were hit by the global economic crisis.
The Vatican posted a budget deficit for a second straight year, though the figures improved strongly from 2007. The Holy See's 2008 deficit was around euro0.9 million ($1.28 million), compared with a loss of euro9.06 million a year earlier.
The financial report released Saturday by the Holy See's press office listed revenues of euro253.9 million and expenses for euro254.8 million.
Most of expenses went to support the activities of Pope Benedict XVI and the Holy See's offices, especially Vatican Radio and other media divisions, the report said.
It said the separate administration of the Vatican City state was particularly hit by the economic crisis. High costs to restore the Vatican's cultural treasures and ensure security left the tiny state with a euro15.3 million deficit, after closing 2007 with a euro6.7 million gain. more...
New Haven, Conn., Jul 4, 2009 / 01:37 pm (CNA).- With the release of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical just days away, the head of the Knights of Columbus is warning people not to ask how the Pope's teaching will validate their world view but how their views should change in response to the document.
The Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Anderson, states that those in positions of economic influence shold take notice of "Caritas in Veritate", the Holy Father's forthcoming encyclical, to be released on July 7th.
"Commentators," Anderson says, "should avoid trying to analyze the pope’s document from their own perspectives or through a political lens. Pope Benedict XVI's comments in this encyclical, like his writing on the economy previously, concern the need for an ethical underpinning in order for any economic system to be sustainable. An ethical underpinning to economic systems must transcend politics." more...
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Group of Eight leaders meeting in Italy next week to discuss the state of the global economy should not forget about the world's poor, Pope Benedict said in a letter released by the Vatican on Saturday.
The pope said aid programmes, particularly those for Africa, risked being cancelled or drastically reduced because of the financial crisis, plunging even more people into poverty.
"I appeal to G8 member states ... to maintain and boost development aid, not in spite of the crisis but precisely because this is one of the main solutions to it," he said in the letter, addressed to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Leaders from the G8 countries -- the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Canada -- and the main developing economies meet in the city of L'Aquila from July 8-10.
Italy has invited 40 countries and organisations, and on the final day of the summit, talks will be broadened to include some African nations -- a step which the pontiff said was a significant progress.
"It is necessary to consider carefully all issues, not just those put forward by the most important or most economically successful countries ... Let's hear the voice of Africa and of least developed nations," he said. more...
Pope Benedict clears way for Cardinal John Newman to become first English saint in 40 years
Daily Mail By Simon Caldwell Last updated at 10:46 PM on 03rd July 2009
Cardinal Newman, pictured in his study chapel at the Birmingham Oratory in 1889, will be given the title 'Blessed'
Cardinal Newman, the Anglican vicar who shocked Victorian Britain by converting to Roman Catholicism, is a step closer to becoming the first English saint for 40 years.
Pope Benedict XVI yesterday announced the beatification of John Henry Newman, meaning he will be given the title 'Blessed'.
It follows the recognition by the Vatican of the healing of an American man with a severe spinal condition as a miracle which came about as a result of praying to the Cardinal.
A second miracle is needed to recognise Newman as a saint. The Pope's decision to beatify him was welcomed by Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. He said: 'I am delighted to learn this news, which will be warmly welcomed by Catholics around the world.'
Father Paul Chavasse, provost of the Birmingham Oratory, the church that Newman founded, said: 'The Holy Father's decision is one of great significance for the whole Church.'
Newman will be beatified during a solemn Mass in the next year. When Gordon Brown visited the Vatican in February he invited Pope Benedict to Britain to perform the ceremony in person, possibly at Wembley Stadium. more...
Archaeologists have unearthed in Jordan what they believe to be the first Christian church in the world. Dating back almost 2,000 years to sometime between 33 AD to 70 AD, the church, which is actually a cave, was found underneath Saint Georgeous Church, which itself dates back to 230 AD, in Rihab in northern Jordan near the Syrian border.
Agence France Presse and The Jordan Times report that the church is thought to have sheltered the world's earliest Christians from persecution and certain death. "We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians--the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ," Abdul Qader al-Husan, the head of Jordan's Rihab Centre for Archaeological Studies, told AFP.
According to Wikipedia, the 70 disciples were early followers of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke 10:1-24 says that Jesus appointed them and sent them out in pairs to spread his message.
Those 70 early Christians that created this church are described in a mosaic as "the 70 beloved by God and Divine," says Husan. They fled persecution in Jerusalem and founded churches in northern Jordan.
Rihab is now home to a total of 30 churches, and Jesus and the Virgin Mary are believed to have passed through the area, Husan told AFP.
Citing historical sources, Husan explained that these early Christians lived and practiced their religious rituals in the underground church and only left it once Christianity was accepted by Roman rulers. The bishop deputy of the Greek Orthodox archdiocese, Archimandrite Nektarious, described the discovery as an "important milestone for Christians all around the world."
What did they find inside the world's first church? In addition to several stone seats that were probably used by clergy and a circular-shaped area that served as an apse, they found pottery that dates back to between the 3rd and 7th centuries, indicating the church was used until late Roman rule. There is also a deep tunnel that is thought to have led to a source of water.
A painstaking five-year restoration of a massive fresco painted by Michelangelo in the Vatican has revealed what experts believe is a self-portrait of the Renaissance genius.
Daily Telegraph By Nick Squires in Rome Published: 12:36AM BST 02 Jul 2009
The Vatican has spent over three million euros restoring the last frescoes ever painted by Michelangelo which may have unveiled a new self-portrait ( blue turban). Photo: ANSA
Restorers claim that a bearded man wearing a blue turban in the Crucifixion of St Peter bears a striking resemblance to portraits and bronze busts of the artist.
"It's an extraordinary and moving discovery," said the Vatican's chief restorer, Maurizio De Luca. "The self-portrait is one of three knights on the left-hand top corner of the fresco who wears a lapis lazuli blue turban. His features are very similar to other known portraits of Michelangelo."
The fresco shows the moment at which St Peter was raised on the cross by Roman soldiers, his face showing suffering but also defiance.
It is not the first time the renowned Italian master included his portrait in one of his works.
He painted a cleverly disguised self-portrait into The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
His face appears in a ghoulish image of St Bartholomew, with the saint holding a knife and his skin after it has been flayed from his body.
The Vatican spent more than three million euros (£2.6 million) restoring the Crucifixion of St Peter along with another important fresco, the Conversion of Saul.
Completed between 1542 and 1550, they were the last frescoes Michelangelo ever painted.
"After the Pauline Chapel he ended his life as a painter and dedicated himself only to sculpture and architecture," said Mr De Luca.
The frescoes adorn either side of the Pauline Chapel, which is closed to the public and used only by the Pope and his closest entourage.
The chapel, in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, was commissioned by Pope Paul III in 1537 and completed in 1540.
Michelangelo began work on the Pauline Chapel murals in 1542 after he had finished the work in the Sistine Chapel, finishing the project at the age of 75.
Pope Benedict XVI will officially inaugurate the restored chapel with an evening prayer service on Saturday.
The project was funded with the help of donations from around the world, including from Britain, the US and Ireland.
(IsraelNN.com) A top anti-assimilation organization says the Pope’s recent consent to “consider” revealing the names of hidden Holocaust Jewish children has led to a “flood” of requests on the topic.
Two weeks after a Papal representative agreed in principle to consider asking Catholic Church members to “reveal to Holocaust orphans their Jewish past,” many Jews are anxious to “keep up the momentum” and ensure that this actually happens.
Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifschitz, chairman of the Yad L’Achim anti-assimilation and anti-missionary organization, says emotional letters and reactions to the idea continue to “flood our offices.” Many of the letters contain details of children given up for protection to church orphanages during the Holocaust.
“Just one word from the Pope,” Rabbi Lifschitz told members of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) this week, “could reveal, all at once, thousands of names hidden away in the monasteries.” The RCE is actively involved in the attempt to locate the currently-lost Jews, and has dispatched a special envoy to Italy to coordinate the activities among the relevant bodies.
Yad L’Achim wrote to Pope Benedict shortly before his visit to Israel three months ago, asking the pontiff to take action to reveal the “hidden Jewish children” of the Holocaust. Specifically, the request was to ask Church members to “reveal to Holocaust orphans their Jewish past and provide them with accurate information concerning their families.”
Earlier this month, an official response was received from Archbishop Antonio Franco, of the high Vatican rank of Apostolic Nuncio. Franco wrote, “I know that there has been action taken by the Holy See, but at this moment I cannot be accurate in my information. I assure you that I will try to provide more precise information and see if an appeal like the one you propose could be made.” more...
Vatican City, Jul 1, 2009 / 10:56 am (CNA).- The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict’s third encyclical, “Caritas in veritate” (Charity in Truth) will be presented on Tuesday, July 7 at 11:30 a.m. local time.
Last Sunday, following the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father revealed that the publication of his latest encyclical “is imminent” and noted that the document delves “more deeply into certain aspects of the integral development of our age, in the light of charity and of truth.
”Those participating in Tuesday’s conference will be: Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino and Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, respectively president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," and Stefano Zamagni, professor of political economy at the University of Bologna, Italy and consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Vatican City, Jul 1, 2009 / 11:17 am (CNA).- At the general audience in St. Peter’s Square this morning, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the Year for Priests, laying out the essentials of the priestly mission and identity. He also prayed that this Year will be “an opportunity for the inner renewal of all priests and, consequently, for the revitalization of their commitment to the mission."
The Pope announced that much of his teaching in coming months will center of St. John Mary Vianney, during this Year marking the 150th anniversary of his death.
Of the many virtues exhibited by the Cure of Ars, the Holy Father said he finds that one of the most remarkable was “his complete identification with his ministry. He used to say that a good pastor, a pastor after God's heart, is the greatest treasure the good Lord can give a parish.”
The Priestly Mission
“In fact, it is by considering the dual term 'identity-mission' that each priest will become better aware of the need for that progressive self identification with Christ which guarantees the faithfulness and fruitfulness of his evangelical witness,” Benedict continued. “Thus, in the life of a priest, missionary announcement and worship are inseparable, just as sacramental identity and evangelizing mission are likewise inseparable.”
The goal of priests' mission, the Pope taught, could be described as, “'of worship': that all men and women may offer themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, receiving the charity which they are then called to dispense abundantly to one another.” more...
VATICAN CITY, 1 JUL 2009 (VIS) - Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for July is: "That the Christians of the Middle East may live their faith in full freedom and be an instrument of peace and reconciliation".
His mission intention is: "That the Church may be the seed and nucleus of a humanity reconciled and reunited in God's one and only family, thanks to the testimony of all the faithful in every country of the world".
Barack Obama sought a meeting with the Pope and will have that meeting on July 10th. We owe to one of our many CatholicCulture.org users the suggestion that we sponsor another perpetual rosary, this time for the intention that President Obama will be profoundly influenced by his visit with Benedict XVI. Sign up for a time slot here.
It can be surmised that Obama wanted the meeting both as a matter of diplomatic propriety and to further enhance his legitimacy in the eyes of Catholics. The President is well aware of the divisions in the Catholic community, and he has proven himself a master of staffing his administration with Catholics who disregard the Magisterium of the Church.
The degree to which such Catholics have chosen to ally themselves with Obama's programs is well illustrated by a recent feature story in Catholic World Report by Anne Hendershott: Obama and the Alternative Magisterium.
All the more reason, then, to pray that the meeting with the Pope will be a different kind of "Catholic" experience for our President, an experience leading to conversion.
One would also hope that Obama's contact with American bishops would be a catalyst for conversion. Unfortunately, some bishops still get sidetracked into dubious political issues, as when the head of the USCCB's Committee on International Justice and Peace wildly endorsed an enormously expensive piece of legislation designed to reverse global warming: US Catholic hierarchy shows support for legislation requiring massive tax hike.
The reality is that something far worse than global warming is at work in our culture. I refer to continuing moral and spiritual deterioration, which really is the province of the bishops. This deterioration is frequently promoted through the pervasive media influence which shapes us all. Here's a timely reminder of how carefully parents need to control their children's use of new means of social communication: Can Teens Stay Connected Without Losing Touch?
Combating these influences is most successfully done by actually developing a counter-culture. I've been reflecting (again) on what this means. Here are my latest ideas on How Culture Is Done.
During a Sunday Vespers service closing the Pauline Year, Pope Benedict XVI made a few observations about his forthcoming encyclical Caritatis in Veritate. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter analyzes the Pope's words for clues about the content of the document, and concludes that one major theme of the encyclical will be that "building a better world requires forming better people."
Michael Novak, writing for First Things, begins his own analysis with a candid statement: "What exactly is in Benedict XVI’s new encyclical on the economy and labor issues is not yet known." He goes on to argue that critics of world capitalism have generally misunderstood the system, and particularly the motivations that drive economic creativity.
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
AP – Pope Benedict XVI, right, receives assistance while walking down a step, as he leaves with other prelates …
AP via Yahoo! News Mon Jun 29, 7:29 am ET
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical Monday, a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.
The document, entitled "Charity in Truth," is expected to be published soon.
The pope has said his third encyclical will outline the goals and values that the faithful must defend to ensure solidarity among all peoples.
Benedict has frequently spoken out on the financial crisis, urging leaders to ensure the world's poor don't end up bearing the brunt of the downturn even though they are not responsible for it. He has said the downturn shows the need to rethink the whole global financial system.
The pontiff announced he had signed the document Monday, a major Catholic feast day, after celebrating a Mass during which he told new archbishops they must be models for the faithful, guiding them and protecting them as shepherds care for their flock.
Thirty-four new archbishops, including the new archbishop of New York, Monsignor Timothy Dolan, received the pallium, a band of white wool decorated with black crosses that is a sign of pastoral authority and a symbol of the archbishops' bond with the pope.
Benedict said the archbishops should be like Christ "who as a good shepherd carried on his back humanity — the lost sheep — to bring them home."
Benedict has been working on "Caritas in veritate," as the encyclical is known in Latin, since 2007 but held back on issuing it so that he could update it to reflect the global economic crisis.
See also from CNA, "Italian newspaper reveals key paragraphs from Pope's upcoming social encyclical
An encyclical is the most authoritative document a pope can issue. Benedict has written two in his four years as pope: "God is Love" in 2006 and "Saved by Hope" in 2007.
On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Benedict XVI imposes the pallium on 34 archbishops, three of whom are from Asia. Beyond thinking and talking, we need the experience of faith, of the vital relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith must not remain theory: it must be life. Obedience to the truth.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The impoverishment" of the soul "not only destroys the individual, but threatens the destiny of humanity as a whole. Without the healing of souls, without the healing of mankind from within, there can be no salvation for humanity. " And to avoid this impoverishment "obedience to the truth" is needed which "often begins with small daily truths, which can often be tiring and painful. This obedience then extends to obedience without reserve in front of the one Truth that is Christ”. This is Benedict XVI’s warning to mankind on a particularly solemn day in which the Church of Rome celebrates its patron saints, Peter and Paul, and in which the newly appointed metropolitan archbishops receive the pallium from the pope, the stole that indicates their special communion with the head of the Catholic Church. On this occasion too, the statue of St. Peter in the basilica is traditionally draped in papal vestments.
The feast of the apostles Peter and Paul sees the presence of a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in St. Peter's, a participation that is acknowledged and returned by Rome during the feast of Saint Andrew, patron saint of the Patriarchate. Recalling this presence, during the Angelus, Benedict XVI expressed the hope that "the common veneration of these martyrs be a pledge towards full communion, increasingly felt among Christians all over the world."
This year there are 34 metropolitan archbishops, from all over the world, upon which the Pope imposed the pallium. Among them, Msgr. Anicetus Bongsu Sinaga Antonius, Archbishop of Medan (Indonesia), Msgr. Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij, archbishop of Bangkok (Thailand) and Msgr. Albert Malcolm Patabendige Ranjit Don, Archbishop of Colombo (Sri Lanka).
In his homily, Benedict XVI underlined some passages from the First Letter of Saint Peter, starting with St. Peter's affirmation that Christ is the "Bishop of souls." "If Christ is the bishop of souls - highlighted the Pope - the goal is to prevent the soul’s impoverishment in humans, to ensure that man does not lose his essence, the ability for truth and love. To ensure that he comes to know God, that he is not lost in dead ends, that he is not isolated, but remains open to all. Jesus, the 'bishop of souls', is the prototype for all episcopal and priestly ministry. To this ends being a bishop, being a priest means: taking on the place of Christ. Think, see and act from his elevated position. Starting from Him, be at mankind’s disposal, so they may find life. "
Another sentence of the Petrine letter: "Worship the Lord Christ in your hearts, always ready to answer whoever asks you to account for the hope that is in you" (3:15), was indicated by the Pope as the assertion "The Christian faith is hope. It opens the path to the future. And it is a reasonable hope; we can and we must expose the reason of this hope. Faith – he continued - comes from the eternal Reason, which came into our world and showed us the true God. It goes beyond the capacity of our own reason, just as love sees more than simple intelligence. But faith speaks to reason and in the dialect of discussion can hold it’s own with reason. It does not contradict it, but goes along with it, and at the same time, leads beyond it - introducing us to the greater Reason of God. As pastors of our time, it stands to us first and foremost to understand the reason of faith. Not to simply leave it as a tradition, but to recognize it as the answer to our questions. Faith requires our rational participation, which is deepened and purified by a shared love. It is part of our duties as Pastors to penetrate the faith with our thoughts in order to be able to show the reason for our hope in the disputes of our time. However - thought, alone, is not enough. Just as talk, alone, is not enough”. “Only by tasting will you see. Let us think of the disciples in Emmaus: only in convivial communion with Jesus, only in the breaking of the bread were their eyes opened. Only in truly experienced communion with the Lord did they see. This applies to all of us; beyond thinking and talking, we need the experience of faith, of the vital relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith must not remain theory: it must be life. If we meet the Lord in the sacrament; if we speak with him in prayer, and if we adhere to Christ in our daily decisions - then we 'see' more and more that He is good. Then we experience that it is good to be with him Only from such an experience of certainty comes the ability to communicate the faith to others in a credible way. The Curé d'Ars was not a great thinker. But he 'tasted' the Lord. He lived with him in the minutiae of his daily life as well as in the larger demands of his pastoral ministry. In this way he became 'one who sees'. He tasted, and so knew that the Lord is good. We pray the Lord grant us to enjoy this so that we can become credible witnesses to the hope that is within us. " more...
Fragments of bone which have been kept in an underground sarcophagus for nearly 2,000 years have been identified as the remains of St Paul.
Basilica's Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome hosting a tomb thought to contain the remains of Saint Paul Photo: AFP/GETTY
Telegraph By Nick Squires in Rome Published: 2:15PM BST 29 Jun 2009
Pope Benedict XVI said scientific tests confirmed shards found in the underground chamber at the church of St Paul's-Outside-the-Walls in Rome were from the apostle.
Saint Paul was said to have been buried with Saint Peter in a catacomb on the Via Appia, one of the Roman roads which leads out of the city, before being moved to a basilica which was erected in his honour.
For centuries it was believed that his remains were buried beneath the basilica's main altar, which was covered with a slab of marble inscribed in Latin with the words Paulo Apostolo Mart – "Paul, apostle and martyr".
The theory gained credence in 2006, when Vatican archeologists discovered a white marble sarcophagus hidden beneath the floor of the basilica – the largest in Rome after St Peter's at the Vatican – after four years of excavations.
It took three years for archeologists to subject the remains to the first ever scientific tests and establish that they belonged to Saint Paul, a Jewish Roman citizen from Tarsus, in what is now Turkey.
Pope Benedict XVI announced the findings during a service at the basilica, as Rome prepared to celebrate the Feasts of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. more...
Archaeologists have uncovered a 1,600 year old image of St Paul, the oldest one known of, in a Roman catacomb.
The 4,000 year old Fresco was restored using a laser
Telegraph By Nick Pisa in Rome Published: 5:46PM BST 28 Jun 2009
The fresco, which dates back to the 4th Century AD, was discovered during restoration work at the Catacomb of Saint Thekla but was kept secret for ten days.
During that time experts carefully removed centuries of grime from the fresco with a laser, before the news was officially announced through the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
There are more than 40 known Catacombs or underground Christian burial places across Rome and because of their religious significance the Vatican's Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archeology has jurisdiction over them.
A photograph of the icon shows the thin face of a bearded man with large eyes, sunken nose and face on a red background surrounded with a yellow circle – the classic image of St Paul.
The image was found in the Catacomb of St Thekla, close to the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, which is said to be built on the site where he was buried. more...
Benedict XVI sums up the positive results of the Pauline Year which comes to an end tonight. Saint Paul is also a model for priests in this Year for Priests which just began. The Pontiff greets the parish priest and the faithful from Latakiyah (Syria). Tonight the Pontiff will preside over Vespers in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, together with representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – With tonight’s Vespers at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which bring to a close the Pauline Year, Benedict XVI will sum up this year dedicated to the rediscovery of the Apostle Paul whom he presents as a model for the Year for Priests which just begun. Benedict XVI will preside over Vespers in the basilica, home to the Apostle’s remains, in the presence of representatives of Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The Pauline Year, which the Pope launched to remember the 2,000 years since the birth of the Apostle of Tarsus, “was a true period of grace in which, through pilgrimages, catecheses, publications and various initiatives, the figure of Saint Paul was offered again to the entire Church. His vibrant message among Christian communities revived everywhere the passion for Christ and the Gospel.”
At the same time the Apostle Paul represents “a splendid model to follow” in the Year for Priests as well, which began on 19 June, a year which can strengthen the latter’s “commitment to inner renewal, making them stronger and more incisive evangelical witness in today’s world.” more...
World Net Daily reported late Wednesday that Patriarch Pauolos of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church would reveal to the world the true Ark of the Covenant today, Friday, June 26. Pauolos is reported to have said in Rome, excerpt:
Abuna Pauolos, in Italy for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI this week, told the news agency, "Soon the world will be able to admire the Ark of the Covenant described in the Bible as the container of the tablets of the law that God delivered to Moses and the center of searches and studies for centuries."
The announcement is expected to be made at 2 p.m. Italian time from the Hotel Aldrovandi in Rome. Pauolos will reportedly be accompanied by Prince Aklile Berhan Makonnen Haile Sellassie and Duke Amedeo D'Acosta.
It is currently about 7:00 p.m. in Rome and no ark.
I've been trying to track down whether and to what extent this is a hoax. The World Net Daily article is based on a report from from a news agency in Italy, Adnkronos. The first problem with the WND report is that what they report as the Patriarch's words is actually only the original Italian article's lede:
Roma, 17 giu. (Adnkronos) - Presto il mondo potrà ammirare l'Arca dell'Alleanza descritta nella Bibbia come il contenitore delle Tavole della Legge che Dio consegnò a Mosè e al centro, nei secoli, di ricerche e studi.
Secondly, the Italian article is dated June 17, so the forthcoming Friday was June 19, not today.
Patriarch Pauolos actually did have a press conference June 19 where according to Adnkronos, he backed off saying:
Non sono qui per dare delle prove che l'Arca sia in Etiopia, ma sono qui per dire quello che ho visto, quello che so e che posso testimoniare. Non ho detto che l'Arca sarà mostrata al mondo. E' un mistero, un oggetto di culto.
Or roughly:
I am not here to give evidence that the Ark is in Ethiopia, but I am here to say what I saw, what I know and I can testify. I did not say that the Ark will be shown to the world. It is a mystery, an object of worship. more...
Sketch of Ark of the Covenant based on a description by the late explorer Ron Wyatt (wyattmuseum.com)
The leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church today backed off on a much-anticipated announcement about the Ark of the Covenant -- the ancient container holding the Ten Commandment -- which he claims to have seen.
But no other evidence or, indeed, even any announcement, was made public today when word had been expected.
Ark hunters and Bible enthusiasts have been buzzing for two days on the report from the Italian news agency Adnkronos that Patriarch Abuna Pauolos, in Italy for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI this week, said, "Soon the world will be able to admire the Ark of the Covenant described in the Bible as the container of the tablets of the law that God delivered to Moses and the center of searches and studies for centuries."
He had suggested the possibility the artifact might be viewable in a planned museum.
"I repeat (the Ark of the Covenant) is in Ethiopia and nobody … knows for how much time. Only God knows," he said in the Adnkronos report available online.
The report said Pauolos reported the artifact "is described perfectly in the Bible" and is in good condition. more...
In his long-awaited new encyclical on the economy, Pope Benedict XVI appears set to call for new global “synergies” among labor unions in order to resist cuts in social safety nets, stronger efforts to combat world hunger, and greater protections for the “ecological health of the planet.”
Beyond those policy matters, the pontiff also will apparently strike three vintage personal themes:
• Social justice depends upon individual conversion, and the roots of the present crisis are in an “ethical deficit” within economic structures, especially greed; • The defense of the poor and the defense of unborn life, implying opposition to abortion and artificial birth control, are necessarily linked. • Preaching Christ is not a distraction from building a better world, but “the principal resource at the service of the true development of every single person and of all humanity.”
Benedict’s new social encyclical, titled Veritas in Caritate (“Truth in Charity”), will likely not be released until early July, but this morning’s Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading daily newspaper, carried lengthy extracts.
While the pope has consulted a number of experts, both economists and theologians, the final text of the encyclical appears to be very much his own work. According to the Corriere report, Benedict XVI has been working on the text for months, even correcting a draft during his mid-May trip to the Middle East.
As the title suggests, the idea of “truth” runs through the encyclical like a leitmotif.
“Without truth, without trust and love for the truth, there is no conscience and no sense of social responsibility,” the encyclical will assert, according to the extracts published this morning.
In the absence of respect for truth, Benedict writes, “Social action falls into the hands of private interests and the logic of power, with destabilizing effects on society, all the more so in a society undergoing globalization.”
The pope apparently will invite commercial and political leaders to cultivate a new awareness of “the social responsibility of a business firm in an ample sense, which takes account of all the social effects of its activity.” He will also call for “urgent reforms in order to respond, courageously and without delay, to the great problems of injustice in the development of peoples.”
“Development of peoples,” the pope writes, “depends above all upon the recognition that we’re all part of one family.”
Though the pope takes on complicated questions about international economic structures in Veritas in Caritate, he also writes that the present crisis was born of an “ethical deficit” among individual persons, and that recovery will require a common ethical code founded “at the same time upon faith and reason.”
“Development is impossible without just human beings, without economic and political leaders who live the appeal to the common good strongly in their own consciences,” the pope writes. more...
Rome - Translation problems have delayed the long-awaited publication of a new encyclical from the Pope, Italian media reported Saturday. A ruling from the Vatican of Catholic teaching on "Caritas in Veritate" (Charity in Truth) is expected before the G8 summit in Italy next month, and has been in preparation for some two years.
Pope Benedict XVI has indicated he wants the encyclical to encompass the current economic crisis.
But according to La Repubblica, problems have emerged translating the text.
Although English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Chinese have not posed a problem, finding Latin equivalents for "market value" and "tax haven" have proved difficult, the paper reported.
The original publication date was postponed from last year in order to focus on the financial meltdown. Publication is now expected on or around June 29.
Another Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, reported that the message of the encyclical would be that "social conscience and social responsibility are not possible without truth, without trust, and without love for the truth."
Vatican City, 25 June (AKI) - Internal rivalry at the Vatican may compromise moves to beatify Pope John Paul II, according to a report published in the Italian weekly, Panorama, on Friday. The magazine says a long-running rivalry between former secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and the cardinal of Poland, Cardinal Stanislao Dziwisz, has re-emerged. The rivalry "runs the risk" of compromising the beatification of the popular Polish pope.
Sodano is the current dean of the College of Cardinals and was secretary of state from 1990 to 2006, under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Dziwisz, the archbishop of Krakow, was personal secretary to John Paul II for 40 years and one of the most powerful people at the Vatican during his papacy.
The Vatican began the process for the beatification of Pope John Paul II shortly after his death in April 2005, waiving the normal five year restriction usually required after a person's death.
There is speculation that his beatification, one of the stages that may lead to sainthood, may be confirmed on the fifth anniversary of John Paul's death in April 2010.
Panorama magazine claimed that the Vatican is beset by a number of internal conflicts that risk paralysing the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI.
It says several cardinals in senior positions are divided over issues including dialogue with China, relations with the Jews and the beatification of the late pope.
Inside the Vatican, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Levada, is reported to be in conflict with the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Antonio Canizares.
Another cardinal, Achille Silvestrini, is accused of challenging the power of the Vatican's influential secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone.
According to the magazine article, Pope Benedict has had positive medical tests in recent weeks, including a magnetic resonance test and his heart is said to be functioning well.
However, the article is suggesting that manoeuvres have already begun for the next papal conclave to determine his successor.
Presently, there is an unprecedented push for peace in the Mideast. President Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, along with a significant host of other powerful world leaders, clamor once and for all for a two-state solution. They have heightened concern that the writing is on the 403-mile wall currently protecting Israeli's from Palestinian terror that a Middle East war is imminent.
As the clock rapidly ticks toward what will likely be the prophetic Psalm 83 showdown, Israel circles the wagons in preparation for a multi-front confederate conflict with its ancient enemies, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loosens his grip from the thorny Obama olive branch of "Engagement."
Currently, the international prescription for two states comprised of Jews and Palestinians living autonomously and peacefully side by side requires Israel to destroy outposts, freeze settlements, forfeit land acquired after 1967, divide Jerusalem and allow Palestinian refugees to homestead the Holy Land. These refugees number in the millions, cannot obtain citizenship in the surrounding Arab nations and represent a second-generation population that hates and blames the Jews for their impoverished existence. The ploy of Israel's enemies has been to banner the plight of these Palestinians as the justification for Islamic jihad against Israel and her supporters.
It is quite apparent that the world has become empathetic to the Palestinian plight but apathetic to God's foreign policy contained in Genesis 12:3 and the one-state solution prescribed in Jeremiah 12:14-17. Genesis 12:3 bestows blessings upon those that bless the Israeli descendants of Abraham but conversely must curse those populations that oppose them. Jeremiah 12:15-17 follows stride by declaring that God would have compassion on the pro-Israel populations, but "will utterly pluck up and destroy" Israel's neighbors who fail to operate in compliance with God's roadmap for peace.
God's peace plan
The Bible foretold in Isaiah 11:11, Ezekiel 37:12, Deuteronomy 30:3-5 and elsewhere of a time when the Jews would be brought back into the Promised Land from the nations of the world. This regathering began 61 years ago on May 14, 1948, and is ongoing today. Possessing omniscient foresight, God foreknew that an Arab-Israeli conflict would erupt as a result.
Jeremiah 12:14-17 tells us that as the time drew near for the return of the Jews into Israel the landscape of the Middle East would undergo a geopolitical facelift as God intended to restore Arabs, Persians and Jews back into the historical homes of their ancestral heritages. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, we see this turn of geopolitical events take place as one by one the Arab, Persian and Jewish states emerged. more...
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After 12 months of special liturgies, conferences, Bible reflections, indulgences, concerts and pilgrimages, the Year of St. Paul has left the Apostle a more clearly defined figure on the Catholic landscape.
Even before Pope Benedict XVI led final closing ceremonies in Rome June 29, Vatican officials declared the jubilee year a success.
"The result has been positive, even beyond the most optimistic predictions," Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls, said at a Vatican press conference June 26.
At the Pauline basilica, which had often been overlooked by pilgrims to Rome, overflow crowds came to visit and pray at the tomb of the Apostle, the cardinal said. Thanks to some architectural finessing, a portion of the tomb, a rough-hewn marble sarcophagus buried beneath the main altar, was for the first time made visible to visitors.
It was Pope Benedict who almost single-handedly gave the jubilee its content. In weekly talks, homilies and liturgical celebrations, he sketched a detailed portrait of the man considered the model of Christian conversion and the archetypal missionary. more...
Another conversation with a Vatican official... Plus, still more on the upcoming encyclical... And, true joy...
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
Today was warmer than yesterday, but it is still quite cool compared to the usual June heat. Perhaps it will stay cool through the weekend, when so many bishops will come to Rome to receive the "pallium" from the Pope on Monday, June 29... Let's hope so.
=======================
A very important document was supposed to come out last Friday, June 19.
It didn't come out Friday. Or Saturday. Or Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or today.
And behind this delay, there is a story.
=======================
What document am I talking about?
Not the long-awaited social encyclical! That is still coming, trundling along, due to be signed June 29, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. This morning, in the press office, I was talking to one of my colleagues, who said she thinks they've already started printing the encyclical.
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "yesterday I was in the Vatican to do a bit of shopping at the supermarket. As I came walking out with my bags, I walked by the tipografia (the building of the Vatican printing press). I noticed the machines were humming more than usual, as if there was some big project on the presses.
"I was able to just catch a glimpse of some piles of printed paper on pallets. So I really think some of the editions of the encyclical are finally being printed. I think it is coming.
"But perhaps not the Chinese and Latin editions. I've heard they are having problems finalizing the translations of the Latin and Chinese editions. There aren't as many Latinists of the highest quality as there used to be, nor too many qualified Chinese translators..."
(Her words recalled to my mind the memory of my Latin teacher, Father Reginald Foster, who taught me Latin in the 1980s at the Gregorian, and who worked for 30 years as a papal Latinist, writing the official Latin of papal documents. He has gone back to America — he is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin — and the Eternal City now lacks one of its most colorful characters, and perhaps the greatest teacher I have ever known.)
So the encyclical, which evidently has passed through seven or eight distinct drafts, and was blocked for six months at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith while it was being studied carefully, and which will be the Pope's considered response to the world economic crisis (and so of considerable interest even outside the Church), will be signed June 29, and available to all of us a day or two, or three, after that... more...
Vatican City, Jun 25, 2009 / 10:46 am (CNA).- At a Thursday meeting of organizations dedicated to providing aid to the Eastern Churches, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated his call for an end to war, violence and injustice in the Holy Land and pledged the Church's continued support.
The audience with the Holy Father involved participants in the annual general meeting of the Reunion of Organizations for Aid to the Oriental Churches (ROACO). The meeting had focused on the situation in the Holy Land and on the Catholic Church in Bulgaria.
Pope Benedict began his speech to the group by reflecting on charity, which he called “the fertile source of all forms of service to the Church.” Charity is the measure, method and means by which one can verify these services, he said.
The members of ROACO, the Pope said, are able to “continue, even to augment, that 'movement of charity which, by papal mandate, the Congregation supervises so that, in a disciplined and equitable way, the Holy Land and other eastern regions may receive the spiritual and material support necessary for ordinary ecclesial life and for special needs."
Recalling his pilgrimage to the Holy Land this past May, Benedict XVI stated, "I renew my prayer and my appeal for no more war, no more violence, no more injustice.” more...
(IsraelNN.com) Ethiopian church leader says Friday, June 26, marks the right time to unveil the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, which he says has been hidden in his church for centuries.
Abuna Pauolos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, was in Rome this week to meet with Pope Benedict XVI. While there, he told reporters that the time had come to reveal before the world the Holy Ark. He said that the holy container has been in the custody of his church for hundreds of years.
Paulous said he would make the full announcement this Friday, June 26, 2 PM local time (3 PM Israel time, 8 AM New York time) at a press conference in Rome.
The claim that the Biblical Holy Ark has been kept at the Church, in the city of Axum, is an old one, but this is the first time that the Church plans to actually reveal the actual container, or news of it. It is not known whether the Church claims that the actual Tablets of the Law are inside it.
Copies of the alleged Ark are kept in many other churches in Ethiopia.
The news of the impending announcement was first reported by the Italian news agency Adnkronos. Pauolos told the news outlet, "Soon the world will be able to admire the Ark of the Covenant described in the Bible as the container of the tablets of the law that G-d delivered to Moses, and the center of searches and studies for centuries."
Pauolos said "The Ark of the Covenant has been in Ethiopia for many centuries. As Patriarch, I have seen it with my own eyes, and only a few, highly-qualified persons could do the same - until now."
Back to Earth
Stuart Munro-Hay, author of “Quest for the Ark of the Covenant: The True History of the Tablets of Moses,” concluded that the object in question is definitely not the original Holy Ark.
The building of the Ark of the Covenant – also known as the Ark of Testimony and the Ark of G-d’s Covenant – in accordance with Divine instructions is recounted in the Book of Exodus. The Ark held the Tablets of the Law, and traveled with the People of Israel, leading the way into the Promised Land. It was placed first in the Tabernacle in Shilo, and centuries later in the Holy Temple built by King Solomon. Since then, its whereabouts have been unknown, though one popular legend says it was brought to Ethiopia. Alternatively, it could be under the Temple Mount, in a cave at Mt. Nevo in Jordan, in the Vatican, a hideaway in Utah, or elsewhere.
Pope to Publish Encyclical on Economy, Call for New Paradigm
By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Lorenzo Totaro
June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI by the end of June will probably publish his first official document on the economy, including his views on lessons to be learned from the financial crisis.
Entitled “Caritas in Veritate,” which in Latin means “charity in truth,” the encyclical has been two years in the making. Publication was held up when the credit crunch crippled the world economy, and the document may now be released June 29, according to Cardinal Renato Martino. The pontiff has also added reflections on poverty from his first-ever trip to Africa in March.
Earlier this month, Benedict said the financial crisis shows “how the economic and financial paradigms that have been dominant in recent years must be rethought.”
Benedict made his comments in a June 13 speech to members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontice Foundation, set up by Pope John Paul II in 1991 to promote social doctrine. He also said in the speech that his encyclical would “be published soon.” Cardinal Martino told reporters in Rome on June 23 that June 29, which is the feast of St. Peter and Paul and is a holiday in Rome, would probably be the official date. A Vatican spokesman declined to confirm the timing.
Financial ‘Prophecy’
Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said Nov. 20 that the pope was the first to predict the crisis in the global financial system, referring to a “prophecy” in a paper Benedict wrote when he was a cardinal. German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict in April 2005.
Ratzinger in 1985 presented a paper entitled “Market Economy and Ethics” at a Rome event dedicated to the Church and the economy. He said a decline in ethics “can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.”
Pope Benedict has made frequent comments on the economy since the beginning of the financial crisis. In an Oct. 7 speech last year he reflected on crashing markets and concluded that “money vanishes, it is nothing” and warned that “the only solid reality is the word of God.”
The Vatican’s official newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, on the same day criticized the free-market model for having “grown too much and badly in the past two decades.”
A conversation with a Vatican monsignor... Plus, more on the upcoming encyclical
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
I rang the bell by the massive double doors. A secretary answered, and buzzed me in.
My friend, a Vatican monsignor, was still working at his computer, his desk piled high with letters and books and news clipping from around the world.
A few minutes later, we were walking down the Borgo Pio to Roberto's restaurant, which many of you reading this will know well, and we took our seats at a table in the corner near the door.
We chatted about many things, and worked through our primo piatto of tomato and mozzarella with basil and olive oil ("un caprese").
Then the monsignor began to talk about Mary.
"You know," he said, "the Lutherans had five main tenets of their new undersatnding of the faith: 1) Solus Deus; 2) Solus Christus; 3) Sola Gratia; 4) Sola Fides; and 5) Sola Scriptura. God alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone. And they were actually very close...
"But they were wrong. This is not Catholic doctrine. These are errors..."
"Why, precisely," I asked. "Where is the error?"
"The error is in simplification, oversimplification. In the end, the error is in misundersatnding the role of Mary.
"There's God, and the world, and God chose the world to have the world collaborate with him in the salvation of mankind." He hesitated, then added. "Especially the world of angels and of men. And he chose that his work of salvation would come about through the collaboration, finally, of a woman.
"And that moment, the moment of the woman's choice to collaborate in that work, was one of the supreme moments of all human history, the greatest, I would say. The angel waited on her response... And Mary accepted.
"God chose her, and she accepted his will. And so she became a blessing for all mankind, as she herself later said: 'All generations shall call me blessed.' And that is why we, too, in our time, call her blessed -- the Blessed Virgin Mary..."
I asked my friend if Pope Benedict XVI has a Marian devotion as profound as that of Pope John Paul II. The monsignor's eyes lit up with excitement.
"I have to tell you, and few people are aware of this, but Benedict XVI is surprising me. He is saying things that as Cardinal Ratzinger he never said and never would have said about Our Lady.
"I am reading everything he says and writes, and I am finding remarkable references in his homilies and addresses regarding Mary's special role in our redemption, not a role which diminishes the central and unique role of Christ, but a profoundly important role nevertheless. He is a Marian Pope, and he is becoming ever more so..."
"And the debate over the proposed dogma of Mary as Co-Redemptrix?" I asked. "It is said John Paul II was considering declaring this teaching formally as a dogma. What does Benedict think on the matter?"
"That is a question I cannot answer," the monsignor said. "But I can tell you this: the Pope is becoming more Marian each year, each month. I am quite amazed, frankly. As Pope, he is changing..."
"There have been many visions and apparitions of Mary in the past," I said. "But are there still such phenomena?"
The monsignor just about jumped out of his chair.
"Of course!" he almost shouted. "Mary is the Mother of the Church. Paul VI made that clear at the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council. And the Church Fathers state very clearly that until the last of her children enters into the kingdom,
Mary will still actively be working, interceding, encouraging, guiding, supporting, praying for their salvation... She is a mother, and she will work until her maternal work is finished."
I was reminded again of the Pieta, Michelangelo's great sculpture, which I saw a week ago with my son, the sorrow and the serenity of Mary...
The monsignor was very excited.
"Look," he said. "It is a matter of love. No one else ever fell in love with Christ more than she did. After after her, Joseph and John. Mary is totally relative to him. And we are able to understand our own role in dignity through looking at her. We too are invited by the Lord to participate with her, and Him, in the building up of the kingdom, the building up of the body of Christ. If I didn't believe this, I guess..." He paused. "If I didn't believe this, I guess i would just give up." more...
Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves at the end of his general audience is Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican June 24, 2009. The pope was wearing the red 'saturno' to provide some protection from the sun. The hat was so named in Italian because some thought it resembled the planet Saturn. Photograph by: Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters
Canada.com - 1 hour, 4 minutes ago Agence France-Presse June 24, 2009 5:01 PM
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama will meet Pope Benedict XVI for the first time at the Vatican on July 10, the White House said Wednesday.
Obama, who favors a woman's right to abortion and has taken other measures that the Vatican strongly opposes, will be in Italy from July 8 to July 10 for the Group of Eight industrialized powers' summit.
"On his upcoming trip overseas on Friday, July 10th, the president will visit with the holy father, Pope Benedict the XVI, to discuss a range of issues, including their shared belief in the dignity of all people," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Without confirming the meeting, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi earlier told the ANSA news agency that "the pope was ready to meet the president of the United States, Barack Obama, on the afternoon of July 10."
A Vatican source involved in the preparations told AFP the meeting would take place at 4 pm (1400 GMT). more...
What do Pope Benedict XVI, Marilyn Manson, Eminem and U2 have in common? They all have record deals with the British music label, Geffen UK.
The pope and Vatican priests will record Christmas music and prayers, according to the UK's Daily Mirror. "Everyone thought it was a wind-up when we got a call from the Vatican. But it was the pope's representative inviting us to Rome. Two senior managers flew out. The pope wasn't there in person, sadly. But we didn't hesitate to offer His Holiness a deal," the newspaper quoted a source at the London-based record label.
Vatican City, Jun 24, 2009 / 10:19 am (CNA).- During Wednesday's general audience address to 30,000 people in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict XVI focused his remarks on why he initiated the Year for Priests and what it means to be a priest.
"Why a Year for Priests?" the Pope asked. “The aim of this Year for Priests," he said, "is to support each priest's struggle towards spiritual perfection, upon which the effectiveness of his ministry particularly depends, and to help priests, and with them the entire People of God, to rediscover and revive an awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of Grace which the ordained ministry represents.”
The priesthood is an indispensable gift for “the person who receives it, for the entire Church, and for the world which would be lost without the real presence of Christ," the Pope explained.
"In a world in which the common view of life leaves ever less space for the sacred, in place of which 'functionality' becomes the only decisive category, the Catholic concept of priesthood could risk losing its due regard, sometimes even in the ecclesial conscience," the Holy Father cautioned.
Pope Benedict identified two conceptions of the priesthood: on the one hand, "a social-functional conception which identifies the essence of priesthood with the concept of 'service;'” on the other hand, “a sacramental-ontological conception…as determined by a gift called Sacrament, granted by the Lord through the mediation of the Church."
“Priests are Christ's servants, in the sense that their existence, ontologically configured to Him, has an essentially relational character. The priest is in Christ, for Christ and with Christ at the service of humankind,” the Pontiff explained. “Precisely because he belongs to Christ, the priest is radically at the service of man." more...
The Vatican archives today presented a facsimile copy of a 500-year-old Appeal of the British Lords to Rome on behalf of Henry VIIIth in his effort to divorce Catherine of Aragorn. And an elderly monsignor remembers Pius XII. Plus, more on the upcoming encyclical...
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
A cool, sunny day in Rome -- and now a cool evening. Hardly like the searing heat of many of the Junes I have known here for the past 25 years...
Centuries ago, history unfolded at a slower pace. Today, news flashes around the world almost instantaneously. But 500 years ago, King Henry VIII took six years from the moment he decided to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragorn, until the moment he actually divorced her and married the fiery Anne Boleyn -- whose execution he ordered a few years later.
This morning, in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, a beautiful palace about a mile from the Vatican which is nevertheless a part of the Vatican's territory in the heart of Rome, a panel of distinguished scholars presented a facsimile edition of one of the most important documents in the history of Great Britain (photo).
In early 1530, 479 years ago, 83 British nobles (about 70% of the House of Lords of that time), including numerous abbots and bishops who were all Roman Catholics and still, like King Henry himself, fully united with Rome, wrote to Pope Clement VII pleading with him to grant Henry's request for a marriage annulment. The document was sealed by each man, and sent to Rome (it took three months to arrive).
And when he received the document, Pope Clement was not moved. He refused to grant the annulment.
Unwilling to accept the decision, Henry VIII — who had been a very strong Catholic, writing a theological treatise in defense of the seven Church sacraments against the Lutherans — decided that he would proclaim himself the head of the Christian Church in England, and Anglicanism began.
In a sense, this document is a the precise mid-point of the 6-year process that led to the schism that divided London from Rome, and so changed world history.
Now, 200 copies of this historic letter with all its seals have been reproduced in exquisite detail by the Vatican in a limited facsimile edition.
The cost: 50,000 euros (£43,000) each.
Each facsimile of the Causa Anglica ("The Anglican Case") as the three-foot-long document is known, took two months to produce. The Vatican hopes that the facsimiles will be bought by museums and national libraries around the world.
The project was timed to coincide with Wednesday's 500th anniversary of Henry's coronation in Westminster Abbey in 1509.
The copies were produced by Scrinium, a specialist publisher linked to the Holy See but based in Venice. Venetian glass workers were employed to reproduce the wax seals in minute detail. more...
ROME, JUNE 23, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The hospital that Pope John Paul II jokingly referred to as "Vatican III," the third papal residence, will be decorated with a statue in honor of the Polish Pontiff.
The statue, work of the Tuscan sculptor Stefano Pierotti, will be blessed June 30 by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, archbishop of Krakow, John Paul II's longtime personal secretary.
Pierotti has named his work "Be Not Afraid," one of the Pope's most often-expressed exhortations, proclaimed from the very beginning of his pontificate in 1978.
The statue will be placed in the patio near the main entrance of the Gemelli, where John Paul II stayed nine times between May 13, 1981, (the day of the assassination attempt) and March 2005, shortly before his death.
John Paul II looked over this patio when he came to the window of his 10th floor room to pray the Sunday midday Angelus, or bless the faithful. On one of those occasions -- during a stay in 1996 -- he dubbed the hospital Vatican III: the third papal residence after the Apostolic Palace in Rome and the summer home in Castel Gandolfo.
The mayor of Rome is expected to attend the unveiling of the statue.
Vatican City, Jun 23, 2009 / 10:21 am (CNA).- Right now the Church is in a period of liturgical overlap, with the Year for Priests having begun last Friday and the Year of St. Paul set to conclude on June 28. The Pope's Office of Liturgical Celebrations announced today that the Holy Father will close the Pauline Year with Vespers next Sunday.
The period of dual celebration is due to Pope Benedict XVI's desire to adhere to the liturgical feasts connected with the two saints associated with the two Years—St. Paul and St. Jean Vianney. The year dedicated to St. Paul is scheduled to conclude on the vigil of the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, while the Year for Priests was opened on the 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean Vianney.
The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff announced on Tuesday that the Year of St. Paul will officially close at 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, in the Roman basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls with the celebration of Vespers.
The Office also gave notice that Pope Benedict will preside over a Eucharistic celebration on Monday, June 29, with the new metropolitan archbishops he has named in recent months. The Holy Father will bestow palliums—a circular band about two inches wide and made from the wool of two blessed lambs—on the new archbishops. The pallium signifies the duty of shepherding the universal Church that the archbishops are entrusted with alongside the Pope.
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI will welcome U.S. President Barack Obama to the Vatican July 10 for an audience scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
Obama will visit Italy July 8-10 to participate in the Group of Eight summit, a meeting of leaders of the world's wealthiest nations. The meeting will be held in L'Aquila, site of a devastating earthquake in April.
After the G-8 summit, the president and his wife, Michelle, are scheduled to fly to Ghana, arriving late July 10.
Although Pope Benedict usually meets heads of state and government in the morning, the Vatican agreed to host Obama's first visit to the papal palace the evening before he flies to Africa.
It is not clear whether Miguel Diaz, a theology professor tapped by Obama to be the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, will be present for the meeting. As of June 23, the Senate hearing for the new ambassador's confirmation was not on the public schedule of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Discussions between popes and U.S. presidents usually focus on common concerns regarding world events and the church's concerns over issues or policies with special moral relevance. So in addition to discussing ongoing tensions in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Iraq, Pope Benedict likely will bring up his concerns regarding abortion policy in the United States and renewed government permission for embryonic stem-cell research.
Yesterday, NCR launched a series of podcast interviews discussing U.S.-Vatican relations. Look at this page for updates over the next several days.
The Pope and St. Padre Pio, Lefebvrist ordinations, a summer rainstorm, and the message in the bottle...
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
What does holiness mean? What do we mean by the word "holy"?
It's a serious question, just as serious as saying what do we mean by other words, like rain, or snow, or sunsets, or matter, or energy, or money, or life itself...
For a Christian, for a Catholic, the word "holy" has a central importance; that we know, even if we are at pains to give it a meaning.
The word "holy" is connected with God, with the nature of God, this we know -- in the "Our Father," which was the prayer Jesus himself taught us, the third phrase is "hallowed be the name" or "thy name be made holy" or perhaps even "your name is 'HOLY'."
Someone may contradict me, but it seems to me that this is near to the truth: that God's "name" is to be regarded as holy, and, in fact, is "holy."
So holiness is a quality of divinity, or the essence of divinity, or the nature of divinity. Which is a way of saying that holiness is something important, something truly real, not a dream, or a vision, but a reality connected to the eternal, and not just a word we use in this passing, temporal world.
====================
The odd thing about Padre Pio is that we find it almost redundant to call him "St. Padre Pio."
"Padre Pio" by itself seems sufficient... By this I mean that the fame of sanctity of Padre Pio, who died in 1968 and was canonized on May 2, 1999 -- 10 years ago -- was so great, that his reputation for being close to God was so great, that to say "Padre Pio" was already to say "St. Padre Pio."
Yesterday, on the turning point between spring and summer, Pope Benedict XVI went from Rome across Italy to the little town of San Giovanni Rotondo where Padre Pio, St. Padre Pio, lived, died and is buried.
What was the essence of Benedict's message?
That St. Padre Pio's devotion to the Church's sacraments, thos mysteries of holiness we call the Eucharist and Confession, made him a model for all priests.
The Pope, who has just inaugurated the "Year of the Priest," urged priests around the world to look to St. Padre Pio during this Year for Priests.
Confession, which has become much less common in recent years, whould be renewed in our time, Benedict added (Padre Pio spent many hours each day in hearing confession).
"The sacrament of penance must be valued more highly and priests must never resign themselves to seeing their confessionals deserted, nor limit themselves to noting the faithful's lack of appreciation for this source of serenity and peace," the Pope said. more...
News coverage of Pope Benedict XVI tends to leap from big event to big event, so perhaps it's no surprise that after his Holy Land pilgrimage last month the German pontiff has fallen off the mainstream media radar.
To cite a single but typical example, in the month following the Holy Land trip the New York Times did not report about any of the pope's activities at the Vatican. Even in Italy, coverage of Pope Benedict has fallen off markedly.
The pope is likely to step back into the spotlight when he meets with President Barack Obama and when he issues his encyclical on social justice -- two major events expected in the first half of July.
But then the pope goes on vacation outside of Rome, and re-emerges only at the end of September with a visit to the Czech Republic. He doesn't completely disappear, of course; he continues to give talks and meet with individuals and groups. But the press will take little notice.
The pattern of media attention -- or lack of it -- has led some Vatican officials to privately lament what they see as a paradox of Pope Benedict's pontificate: the pope's primary focus and greatest talent is teaching, they say, but it's the kind of teaching that rarely breaks into the news cycle.
"You don't get soundbites from this pope, and that is a challenge to journalists. Another challenge is that he often speaks a language that presupposes faith," said one senior Vatican official.
One priest complained that controversies generated by such episodes as the rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop have detracted from the pope's newsmaking capability.
"They're not interested in him. I think part of the reason is that there is a prejudice there now," he said.
Whether or not the whole world is watching, the pope takes his day-to-day ministry seriously. As a sampler, here are four recent talks that received little or no coverage in the mainstream media, but which touched on essential themes of his pontificate:
-- God is love, and can be perceived in the created world. On June 7, the pope delivered another mini-lesson on this favorite topic, saying God can be sensed in the macro-universe of galaxies and planets as well as the micro-universe of cells and genetic material. more...
VENICE, Italy (CNS) -- Relations with Muslims have improved significantly in recent years, but problems remain on issues like conversion and freedom of worship, the Vatican's top interreligious dialogue official said.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said one of the biggest challenges was to make sure that the greater openness shown by Muslim leaders -- the "elites" involved in dialogue -- filters down to the average Muslim in the street.
So far, that does not seem to have happened, the cardinal told a conference in Venice June 22.
Cardinal Tauran recounted an episode in Jordan that occurred a week before Pope Benedict XVI arrived to a warm official welcome from government and Islamic officials. A Christian woman fell on a street in Amman and asked passers-by for help; two Muslim women on the scene walked away, saying they could not assist an infidel, he said.
"I don't think that's the reaction of a good Muslim. But this is the reality on the street. On one hand we have the elites, on the other the masses," Cardinal Tauran said.
The cardinal said that at the official level the Vatican's various dialogues with Muslims have attained "a climate of greater trust."
"On the part of our dialogue partners can be seen a desire to give a more positive image of Islam," he said. Christian and Muslim leaders also are increasingly aware that cooperation is needed to remedy secular societies' "deafness" to God and to help build peace in the world, he said. more...
San Giovani Rotundo, Italy, Jun 21, 2009 / 10:29 am (CNA).- During his trip today to the town where St. Padre Pio lived and ministered, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass, visited a house dedicated to caring for the suffering and the tomb of the famous Italian saint. At the tomb of Padre Pio, the Pope recalled the devotion that the Capuchin saint, canonized in 2002, had to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
"All his life,“ the Pope said, "his apostolate took place under the maternal gaze of the Blessed Virgin and by the power of her intercession. Even the House for the Relief of Suffering he considered to be the work of Mary, 'Health of the sick.'"
"To the intercession of Our Lady and St. Pio of Pietrelcina, " he continued, "I would like to entrust the Special Year for Priests, which I opened last Friday on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. May it be a privileged opportunity to highlight the value of the mission and holiness of priests, to serve the Church and humanity in the third millennium!"
The Holy Father also briefly recalled the U.N.'s World Day for Refugees, held yesterday.
"There are many people who seek refuge in other countries fleeing from situations of war, persecution and natural disasters, and hosting them poses many difficulties, but is nevertheless necessary,” Benedict XVI stated.
“God grant that, with the commitment of everyone, we do as much as possible to remove the causes of such a sad phenomenon."
Pope Benedict XVI prays in front of the exhumed body of the mystic saint Padre Pio in the crypt of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo, southern Italy June 21, 2009. Padre Pio is one of the Catholic Church's most popular saints and during his lifetime the monk was said to have the stigmata, the wounds of Jesus' crucifixion on his hands and feet.REUTERS/Andreas Solaro/Pool (ITALY RELIGION)
Benedict XVI visits San Giovanni Rotondo and proposes the characteristics of the Saint from Pietrelcina to capuchin monks, Padre Pio spiritual groups and all faithful. The Pope prays before the body of the saint.
San Giovanni Rotondo (AsiaNews) – “Simplicity”, humility and having been “seized by Christ”, the characteristics of Padre Pio, part of the inheritance he left his brother capuchins, the prayer groups inspired by him and all Christians, to combat secularism and activism: this was the pope's message during his pastoral visit to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Graces, in San Giovanni Rotondo, the final resting place of the bodily remains of Padre Pio, who was canonized in 2002. At the beginning of the Year for Priests, Benedict XVI has launched another model for all priests showing to all the example of the friar from Pietrelcina: "A simple man of humble origins, 'seized by Christ' (Phil 3:12) ... to make of him an elected instrument of the perennial power of his Cross: the power of love for souls, forgiveness and reconciliation, spiritual fatherhood, effective solidarity with the suffering. The stigmata, that marked his body, closely united him to the Crucified and Risen Christ ".
From the Vatican, the pontiff travelled by plane to the sanctuary. Before the Eucharist, together with hundreds of thousands of faithful from all over the world, the Pope paused for a few minutes in the crypt which houses the body of the saint, lighting two lamps in memory of his visit.
In his homily, Benedict XVI reflected on the Gospel of the day, which recounts the miracle of the clamed storm (Mk 4, 35-41). “The solemn gesture of calming the stormy sea is clearly a sign of the lordship of Christ over the negative powers and it induces us to think of His divinity: "Who is He – ask the disciples in wonder - that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mk 4.41). Their faith is not yet steadfast, it is taking shape, is a mixture of fear and trust; rather Jesus trusting abandonment to the Father is full and pure. This is why He sleeps during the storm, completely safe in the arms of God - but there will come a time when Jesus will feel anxiety and fear: When His time comes, He shall feel upon himself the whole weight of the sins of humanity, as a massive swell that is about to fall upon Him. Oh yes, that shall be a terrible storm, not a cosmic one, but a spiritual one. It will be Evil’s last, extreme assault against the Son of God….. In that hour, Jesus was on the one hand entirely One with the Father, fully given over to him – on the other, as in solidarity with sinners, He was separated and He felt abandoned”. more...
This is wonderful news and, further, perhaps an encouraging sign that the U.S. Bishops are in agreement on the urgency and importance of looking to the sacred liturgy as the central means of conversion and building the culture of life in parishes. Let us pray that other nations will follow the USCCB's lead. The votive Mass could be celebrated on January 22nd, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade which led to legalized abortion in the U.S. in 1973.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, JUNE 19, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A text for a Mass in Thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life received overwhelming approval from the U.S. bishops' conference, which also voted to include it in the Roman Missal.
A press release from the conference reported that the Mass received 183 votes, with only three deciding against the text and three abstaining, at a biannual conference meeting taking place in San Antonio.
The U.S. adaptation of the text to the missal was supported by 179 bishops, with one voting against and one abstaining.
The communiqué reported that these items are part of the ongoing adaptation of a new English translation of the Roman Missal. The conclusions of the meeting will be sent to the Vatican for a final approval.
The Mass in Thanksgiving for Life was originally proposed in 1990 by Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, who founded the Sisters of Life and died in 2000.
Wichita, Kan., Jun 20, 2009 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Several pro-life groups in Wichita have received death threats after last month’s killing of abortionist George Tiller.
Operation Rescue says they have received various threats over the years, but that number has increased drastically since Tiller’s shooting.
Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, told The Wichita Eagle that some of the threats have mentioned the pro-life prayer vigil and memorial scheduled for this each day this weekend. Off-duty officers have been hired to help with security at the weekend’s events.
Of the messages received, some have threatened “vengeance” against the pro-life movement, while others specifically targeted Newman and his family.
Although leaders of the pro-life movement have spoken out against the shooting, some abortion supporters have accused the pro-life movement of encouraging the attack on Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who provided late-term abortions. more...
Benedict XVI inaugurates the Year for Priests with Vespers of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Chris’s heart contains the revolutionary novelty of Christianity. Priests must contemplate his Heart in order to be his witnesses, and to learn the “pain of sins”. Veneration of the relics of Saint Jean Marie Vianney, the Curè d’Ars, to be imitated this year also in his devotion to Mary.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – With the Vesper prayers, in the presence of priests of all ages and from every corner of the world, Benedict XVI inaugurated the Year for Priests, for the rediscovery of the value and style of vocation to the priesthood, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint Jean Marie Vianney (the Curè d’Ars). “Ours –said the pope – is an indispensable mission for the Church and the world, which requires complete fidelity to Christ and a ceaseless union with Him; it requires that we constantly strive for sainthood as did Saint Jean Marie Vianney”. Ahead of the celebration the pontiff briefly venerated the relics of the Curè d'Ars, in the chapel of the choir of St Peter’s basilica.
The Pope published a letter for the year of the priest (issued yesterday) in which citing the example of the Curè d’Ars, he urges priests to contemplate the Heart of Christ, to pastoral charity and to “give their lives for their flock”. The Pope quotes the saint, “Priesthood is love of the heart of Christ” and adds: “How can we fail to remember that the gift our priestly ministry springs directly from this heart?”.
This was why the Pope had wanted to inaugurate the Year for Priests on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which marks “the mystery of the heart of a God who is moved and pours out his love on all humanity…He does not give up in the face of ingratitude and not even in the face of rejection by the people He has chosen; in fact, with infinite mercy, he sends his Only Son to the world so he will take upon himself the destiny of a destroyed love, defeating the power of death and evil, to restore dignity of children to the humans made slaves by sin. All of this comes at a price: the Only Son of God is immolated on the cross”. more...
On the second day of their three-day meeting in San Antonio, the bishops of the United States by large margins approved a Spanish-language lectionary and a special Mass of Thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments must confirm both actions before they take effect in American dioceses.
The US Spanish-language lectionary blends readings from the Mexican lectionary and psalms from the Spanish lectionary. The text of the Mass of Thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life-- which could be used on January 22, the anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision and now a special day of penance in American dioceses-- is identical to a Mass text approved by the US bishops in 1992. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, then led by Cardinal Antonio María Javierre Ortas, failed to confirm the Mass formulary at the time.
The bishops’ most heated debate concerned revised translations of the Masses for Various Needs and Intentions, Votive Masses, Masses for the Dead, Ritual Masses, and the Ordo Missae II, which contains prefaces, solemn blessings, and additional Eucharistic Prayers. The revised translations stem from prepared in accord with Liturgiam authenticam, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments’ 2001 document that called for more accurate liturgical translations.
The chief proponent of the more accurate translations under discussion was Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship; the most vocal opponent was Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie. Joining Bishop Serratelli in support of the translations were Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth, and retired Archbishops Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile and Alfred Hughes of New Orleans. Joining Bishop Trautman in expressing concerns about the translations were Archbishop Henry Mansell of Hartford and Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine.
Each of the revised translations required a two-thirds vote (163 bishops) for approval. The votes ranged from 134-47 on the rarely-used Masses for Various Needs and Intentions to 159-19 on the Ordo Missae II, whose prefaces will be used daily. The votes will be decided by ballots mailed to 55 bishops who were absent from the meeting.
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ATLANTA, June 19 /Christian Newswire/ -- Pope Benedict XVI will open the "Year for Priests" today, June 19 in St. Peter's Basilica. "Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of priests" is the theme for a year that ends on June 19, 2010 in St. Peter's Square at a World Meeting of Priests. The year also marks the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney, known as the "Curé of Ars."
According to the Vatican announcement, Pope Benedict stressed that priests need to be "present, identifiable and recognizable -- for their judgment of faith, personal virtues and attire -- in the fields of culture and of charity which have always been at the heart of the Church's mission." The Vatican's intention for the "Year for Priests" is to rebuild strong priestly spiritual identities, noting that "priests are important not only for what they do, but also for who they are."
In a letter to priests, the Holy See stressed that the Church "is proud of her priests, loves them, honors them, admires them and recognizes with gratitude their pastoral work and witness.
"The prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, is encouraging local dioceses and parishes to plan events that will "celebrate and show appreciation for priests." more...
'O, how great is the priest! ... If he realized what he is, he would die.' (St. John Mary Vianney)
'Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the priest who continues the work of redemption on earth. ... What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of His goods. ... Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest, and they will end by worshipping the beasts there. ... The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you.' (Cure of Ars)
ROME (Catholic Online) - Pope Benedict XVI has sent a tender, personal and theologically beautiful letter to every Catholic priest in the world. On June 19, the Solemnity of the Most sacred heart of Jesus, he will inaugurate a "Year for Priests." The year will be dedicated to prayer for the sanctification and renewal of the clergy. Using the words and witness of the saintly Cure of Ars, St. John Mary Vianney, as a backdrop for this letter to his beloved priests he has broken open for all the depth and beauty of the priestly vocation. He has also invited all of the faithful to fully participate.
We present excerpts from this beautiful letter below. We encourage all of our readers to feast on its richness by studying it in its entirety. It is also posted below in its entirety as our first story. Print it, read it, pray over it and give a copy to a priest. We are dedicated to spending this year inviting our global readership to intense and dedicated prayer for our priests. We will focus much of our coverage on the beauty and dignity of the priestly vocation. All of this in a concerted effort to honor priests and encourage vocations to the priesthood:
'Priesthood Is the Love of the Heart of Jesus'
Dear Brother Priests,
On the forthcoming Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday 19 June 2009 - a day traditionally devoted to prayer for the sanctification of the clergy - I have decided to inaugurate a "Year for Priests" in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the "dies natalis" of John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests worldwide. more...
Daily Readings (on USCCB site): » June 19, 2009 (will open a new window)
Collect: Father, we rejoice in the gifts of love we have received from the heart of Jesus your Son. Open our hearts to share his life and continue to bless us with his love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
"I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment" (Jesus to St. Margaret Mary).
Sixteenth century Calvinism and seventeenth century Jansenism preached a distorted Christianity that substituted for God's love and sacrifice of His Son for all men the fearful idea that a whole section of humanity was inexorably damned.
The Church always countered this view with the infinite love of our Savior who died on the cross for all men. The institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart was soon to contribute to the creation among the faithful of a powerful current of devotion which since then has grown steadily stronger. The first Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart were composed by St. John Eudes, but the institution of the feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The celebration of the feast was extended to the general calendar of the Church by Pius IX in 1856. more...
"Fighting Nun" Publishes New Book on Wartime Pontiff
By Edward Pentin
ROME, JUNE 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- She may be 87, but Sister Margherita Marchione isn't even close to retiring.
The indomitable sister of the Religious Teachers Filippini, and ardent defender of Pius XII, has just published a new book on the wartime Pontiff which she launched in Rome last month. Called "Pope Pius XII -- An Anthology on the 70th Anniversary of Coronation," the work is just one of over 60 she has written. Most of them are passionate defenses of Pius against accusations he did too little to save Jews in World War II.
Meeting Sr. Margherita is always a pleasure. A loveable, tiny nun whose broad New Jersey accent matches her tough resilience in clearing Pius's name, she ardently defends Pope Pacelli's holiness and innocence at every opportunity. And her historical research is supported by a growing number of prominent figures, including the highly reputed Jewish historian Sir Martin Gilbert and -- increasingly -- rabbis and ordinary Jews.
She began campaigning to clear Pius XII's name after hearing of the many Jews who were saved through hiding in the convent of her Order in Rome. She also has especially fond memories of meeting the wartime Pope in 1957. "Just that one time I met him, I can still visualize him," she recalls. "Just thinking about him, I can hear his voice -- there was something about him that was so saintly."
But this isn't mere sentiment: She backs up these claims with hard facts. He was not silent, she says, as his condemnations of Nazism were regularly reported in L'Osservatore Romano and on Vatican Radio; she stresses that whatever the bishops or apostolic delegations did in Europe to save Jews was on the Pope's instructions; moreover, she argues that all the convents, monasteries and the Vatican itself opened their doors to hide Jews because Pius XII had asked them to. "What more could he have done?" she asks.
What Sr. Margherita and many others have been trying to counter is the so-called black legend – a smear campaign masterminded by communists in the Soviet Union after the War to discredit the ardently anti-Communist wartime Pope. He was not silent during the war, says Sr. Margherita and others in his defense, but kept a low profile in order to avoid aggravating the situation of the victims.
Sr. Margherita also is quick to brush away one criticism which often comes up: that other Catholics who lost their lives to save Jews, and who have not yet been beatified, should be elevated to the altars before Pius XII who survived the war. She insists Pius XII did lay down his life -- he risked his own self and was prepared to die (a recent testimony has given credence to rumors that the Nazis secretly planned to kill or kidnap Pius in 1943). "Can you picture the kind of fear he experienced day in and day out?" she says. "What would happen to him and the Catholic Church, the Vatican? He had a terrible responsibility." more...
Much is happening in Rome: the departure of Archbishop Ranjith and the arrival of American theologian Augustine Di Noia in the liturgy Congregation have been officially announced; the Pope has issued a letter on the Year of the Priest, which begins tomorrow; the embattled editor of the Osservatore Romano has defended himself; Benedict has changed his doctor, while he continues to write his second book on Jesus; and I have spent a wonderful day with my son, Christopher, who just passed through the Eternal City on his way to Russia...
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
Rome is peaceful this week, even as the Vatican "wraps up" the year of work in preparation for summer. So there are many things to report, but I thought I'd start with the most important to me: I just experienced a shining morning with my son, Christopher, who visited Rome for a day, after long absence. He was en route from the United State to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he will spend the summer studying the Russian language. Now he has gone, and the internet in our office is down, so here I am sitting in a cafe on the via delle Fornaci, just 100 yards from the Vatican, with my laptop, writing this newsflash...
Two days ago, Christopher, who is 19 and has been attending college in America, arrived with his fellow scholar, Will. After I picked them up at the airport, we walked at night through the old city, and ate at Mario's in Trastevere just before midnight.
Yesterday morning, we were able to go into the Vatican, where I had a brief meeting, and to see the hall of maps, which runs along the terza loggia (where the Secretariat of State is), and go out on the balcony overlooking the square. There we stood, in the blazing morning sun, silent at the scene spread out below.
The Pope was holding his general audience in a colorful, crowded square. (Years ago, when Christopher was just a year old, and his head a mass of yellow curls, we once met Joseph Ratzinger on the square, and the Pope picked Christopher up and held him.) more...
President and Mrs Abela praying on the late Pope John Paul II's tomb. Photo: DOI, Omar Camilleri
Times of Malta Updated: Pope may visit next year Thursday, 18th June 2009 - 13:21CET
Mark Wood
Pope Benedict XVI told President George Abela he hoped to see him next year after the latter invited him to visit for the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck.
President Abela met the Pope at the Vatican City on his first official visit since he took office two months ago.
His first words on leaving the private audience were "it was a profound spiritual experience".
On greeting the President at the Apostolic Palace, the Pope described Malta as a great friend of the Holy See.
The audience lasted about half-an-hour and the subjects discussed included immigration. The President told the press after the meeting that the Pope was well aware of the problems Malta was facing and said the problem had to be address by all countries by helping Africa.
The President invited the Pope to visit Malta next year on the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck. The Pope hinted he would consider the invitation by looking the President in the eye later and saying "I hope to see you next year".
Following the audience, the President met Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state of the Holy See and tonight he is due to be hosted at an official dinner by Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grandmaster and Prince of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Dr Abela, who is accompanied by Mrs Abela and Foreign Minister Tonio Borg, returns to Malta tomorrow.
MEDIA ADVISORY, June 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- Worldpriest has organised four Masses to be celebrated June 19 at 3 pm local time in Sydney, Australia, Kerala, India, Knock Shrine, Ireland, New York City, USA. Celebrants will be George Cardinal Pell, Fr. Sebastian Koodappattu OCD, Archbishop Michael Neary, and Monsignor Michael Curran. respectively
Additionally, to mark the World Day of Prayer for Priests and the beginning of the Year of the Priest On Sunday 21 June, Mass will be celebrated in the RTE National TV studios by Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne; President of Saint Jarlath's College, Tuam. Music will be provided by the Classicus Youth Chamber Choir, directed by Maire Ledwith Butler, with organist Ronan Murray.
Worldwide live broadcast will be at 11:15 am Dublin time on RTE One National Television. This will be available for viewing the following week on http://www.worldpriestday.com/.
The Worldpriest organisation, with offices in Dublin Ireland and New York, USA have designed a new logo to celebrate the Year of The Priest, which is available free to use through http://www.worldpriest.com/.
Worldpriest also developed a Catholic Identity Card for their wallets in the event of an emergency asking that a priest be called. It is also a reminder to pray for our priests in this Year of The Priest.
"It must be a year that is both positive and forward looking in which the Church says to her priests above all, but also to all the Faithful and to wider society by means of the mass media, that she is proud of her priests, loves them, honours them, admires them and that she recognises with gratitude their pastoral work and the witness of the their life. Truthfully priests are important not only for what they do but also for who they are." --Cláudio Cardinal Hummes Prefect, Congregation for the Clergy.
"Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of priests" is the theme of the Year for Priests announced by Pope Benedict XVI, according to a statement from the Holy See Press Office. Worldpriest is a not-for-profit organization which offers on-line resources to priests and promotes the World Day of Prayer for priests annually.
Worldpriest Inc. USA: 15th Floor / 410 Park Avenue / New York, NY 10022Phone: (212) 231-8265 / Fax: (212) 751-3500 / E-mail info@worldpriest.com
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2009 / 11:35 am (CNA).- In preparation for the Year of Priests, Pope Benedict XVI has sent a Letter to the priests of the world, calling on them to live out the words of St. John Vianney, “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.”
The Holy Father will inaugurate the Year of Priests during Vespers at St. Peter's Basilica tomorrow, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The celebratory year marks the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of priests worldwide, and is intended to “deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the Gospel in today's world.”
In his letter, the Holy Father praised “the courageous fidelity of so many priests who, even amid difficulties and incomprehension, remain faithful to their vocation.” Speaking of he great role of the priesthood, he recalled the words of St. John Vianney, “O, how great is the priest!...If he realized what he is, he would die.”
The Pope pointed to the example of St. John Vianney, who “devoted himself completely to his parish's conversion” by living a holy and dedicated life of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
“St. John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life,” said the Holy Father, inviting priests around the world to follow St. Vianney’s example of offering himself as a sacrifice. “It is the priest who continues the work of redemption on earth.”
He continued to speak of the priest’s essential role in bringing the gift of Christ to the faithful through the sacraments and emphasized the importance of the priest harmonizing his life with that of Christ.
Highlighting the importance of the Sacrament of Penance, Pope Benedict said, “Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this Sacrament.”
The Pope encouraged priests to follow in St. Vianney’s footsteps by engaging in mortification for souls and remaining strong in the midst of suffering, saying, “Souls have been won at the price of Jesus' own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their salvation if he refuses to share personally in the ‘precious cost’ of redemption.”
The Holy Father concluded his letter by entrusting the coming Year of Priests to the Virgin Mary and encouraging priests to demonstrate “unity with their bishop, with one another and with the lay faithful, which today, as ever, is so necessary.”
Politicians must pay attention to and support the role of religions in society. In his General Audience Benedict XVI calls to mind Saints Cyril and Methodius, “Apostles of the Slavs”, “examples of what today is called enculturation”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Every nation must introduce the message of Salvation into its culture, “expressing it in its own language and alphabet”. That was what the 2Apostles to the Slaves”, Cyril and Methodius did, setting “a classic example of what today we call enculturation”. Benedict XVI dedicated his general audience today to the two “brothers, in blood and in faith”, “scholars of the Church of the East and of the West”. Over 30 thousand pilgrims were present in St Peter’s Square among them groups from Malaysia and Singapore, unusual additions to this papal appointment.
During the audience Benedict XVI also recalled the meeting of religious leaders from around the world, currently under way in Rome ahead of the G8 summit. “I am confident – he said in comments in English - that it will do much to draw the attention of world political leaders to the importance of religions within the social fabric of every society and to the grave duty to ensure that their deliberations and policies support and uphold the common good''.
Regarding the “Apsotles of the Slavs”, the younger of the two, Cyril was born in Thessalonica, modern day Salonica in 826. From his earliest youth, Benedict XVI remarked, he learnt the Slavic language and was sent to Constantinople at 14 years of age, where he was a companion of the Emperor Emanuel III. “He refused a brilliant marriage”, took holy orders and became the Patriarchate librarian. After attempting to find refuge in a convent, he became a teacher of the “sacred and profane sciences”. Encouraged by the example of one of his six older brothers, Michael born in 816, he decided to enter a monastery. more...
White House and Vatican officials are working to arrange a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama, the National Catholic Register reports. The meeting would take place sometime during Obama's stay in Italy for the G8 summit, which will take place July 8- 10. Because of tight schedule constraints, the two sides are reportedly having difficulty in finding a mutually agreement date.
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L'Osservatore Director Blames Communists, Church Division
ROME, JUNE 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The director of the Vatican's semi-official daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano contends that the Black Legend surrounding Pope Pius XII and Nazism has two causes: Communist propaganda and division within the Church.
Giovanni Maria Vian affirmed this when he talked with ZENIT about a book that he edited titled "In Difesa di Pio XII: Le Ragioni della Storia" (In Defense of Pius XII: The Reasons of History).
Benedict XVI's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, presented the book last week.
Vian uses the expression "leggenda nera" (black legend) in referring to the controversy surrounding Pius XII, which claims the Pope did too little to stop the Nazi horrors against the Jews. He said that at the Pope's death in 1958, he was unanimously praised for his efforts during the Second World War, but since then he has truly been "demonized."
How was such a reversal of image possible, a reversal that took place within the space of a few short years, beginning more or less around 1963?
Vian attributes this campaign against the Pope first of all to Communist propaganda, which intensified during the Cold War.
"The line that the Pope and the Holy See assumed during the years of conflict, averse to totalitarianism but traditionally neutral, was, according to actual deeds, favorable to the anti-Hitler alliance and was characterized by a humanitarian effort without precedent, which saved many human lives," he observed. "This line was, in any case, anti-Communist, and because of this, already during the war, the Pope became the target of Soviet propaganda as being in cahoots with Nazism and its horrors."
Soviet propaganda against Pius XII was powerfully re-launched in Rolf Hochhuth's play "Der Stellvertreter" (The Deputy), performed for the first time in Berlin on Feb. 20, 1963, which presented the Pope's silence as indifference to the extermination of the Jews, Vian said.
Already then, Vian continued, it was noted that the play took up many of the ideas proposed by Mikhail Markovich Scheinmann in his book "Der Vatican im Zweiten Weltkrieg" (The Vatican in the Second World War), first published in Russian by the Historical Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a propaganda instrument of Communist ideology. more...
Pope Benedict XVI offered a quick preview of his forthcoming social encyclical, and disclosed that it would be issued "soon," during a June 13 audience with members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation.
The Holy Father said that a market economy serves society "only if oriented toward the common good." Moreover, he said, "freedom in the economic sector must be circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality."
The Pontiff said that reflections on economics and the common welfare are particularly necessary today in light of the worldwide financial crisis. That crisis, he said, "clearly indicates the need to reconsider certain economic-financial paradigms that have dominated over the last few years."
Pope Benedict said that his encyclical, applying the principles of Catholic social teaching to current economic discussions, will address that need for a new examination of the global economy. The text, he said, will "highlight what, for us as Christians, are the objectives that need to be pursued and what values to be tirelessly promoted and defended in order to create a truly free and united form of human coexistence."
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Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday led a procession for the Feast of Corpus Christi through the streets of Rome. Today, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz led a similar procession of some 10,000 people through the streets of Minsk in Belarus, under a gentle rain. Reflections on the meaning of "becoming the Eucharist" in a secularized age...
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
Editor's note: We will be reporting more often from Rome during the next few weeks, during the days leading up to the Pope's important encyclical on the Church's social teaching. Today, the opening report in this series is on the Eucharist, source of summit of our faith. —The Editor
On Thursday evening, June 11 — the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which is celebrated on Sunday (today) in the United States, Australia, and a number of other countries — Pope Benedict XVI, after driving in a car from the Vatican across Rome to St. John Lateran, celebrated Mass on the square in front of the basilica (photo), then led a Eucharistic procession to the basilica of St. Mary Major.
Today, in Belarus, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz led a similar procession for four and a half hours through the streets of Minsk, accompanied by some 10,000 Catholic faithful, despite a steady rain.
The ceremony of a public eucharistic procession has in recent decades become less common, but these two processions, and many others elsewhere, suggest the return of this manifestation of popular eucharistic piety in the public squares of the world.
In his homily, Pope Benedict commented on the words pronounced by priests at the moment of consecration: "This is My Body... This is My Blood."
Addressing his remarks to priests, the Holy Father said: "Becoming the Eucharist: let this be our constant desire and commitment! more...
Vatican City, Jun 14, 2009 / 07:28 am (CNA).- On Saturday Pope Benedict XVI explained that his upcoming encyclical will not be a massive criticism deeming the market economy to be responsible for the current global financial crisis. Rather, it will be a presentation of the values that have to be “promoted and defended tirelessly” to achieve “human coexistence in freedom and solidarity.”
Pope Benedict made his comments while receiving participants in the international congress “Values and news for a new model of development,” organized by the Vatican Foundation “Centesimus Annus.”
The foundation was named after the last social encyclical of Pope John Paul II.
In his brief message, Pope Benedict revealed that his upcoming encyclical “Veritas in Caritate,” expected for June 29, will be dedicated to “the extensive issue of the economy and labor.” more...
The feast of Corpus Domini confirms in Christ “love exists and because it exists things can change for the better and we can hope”. It also has cosmic dimensions in recalling the abundance of the summer harvest. He augurs the UN will face the economic crisis in solidarity with poor nations and rid the world of hunger. A prayer for the Year for Priests that begins this Friday June 19th, feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Benedict XVI reflected on the “Bread of Life”, the Body of Christ, celebrated by the church today, a sign of Christ that transforms the world; he also appealed ahead of a UN conference for global institutions to rid the world of the hunger that is being suffered by hundreds of millions of human beings, in his Angelus address to 15 thousand pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square.
The Pope also asked the faithful for their prayers during the upcoming Year for Priests, which begins on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on June 19th next, feast of priestly consecration.
“Corpus Domini – said the pope – is a manifestation of God, proof that God is love. In a unique and peculiar way, this feast speaks to us of divine love, what it is and what it does. It tells us for example that it is regenerated in the gifting of oneself to the other, that in giving we receive, it is never lacking, it never runs out – as the hymn of St Thomas Aquinas intones: ‘nec sumptus consumitur’. Love transforms all things, and therefore it is understood that at the very heart of today’s feast of Corpus Domini there is the mystery of transubstantiation, the sign of Christ-Caritas that transforms the world. Looking at Him and adoring Him we say: yes love exists, and because it exists things can change for the better and we can hope. It is the hope that comes from the Christ’s love that gives us the strength to live and to face difficulties. This is why we sing as we carry the Blessed Sacrament in procession; we sing and we praise God who revealed himself to us by hiding himself in the symbol of the broken bread. We all need this bread, because the path to freedom, justice and peace is long and tiring”.
Benedict XVI also explained the “cosmic dimension” of the feast of Corpus Domini: “Corpus Domini – he continued - is a day that involves a cosmic dimension, the heaven and the earth. It evokes firstly – at least in our hemisphere- this beautiful and fragrant season in which spring gives way to summer, the sun is strong in the sky and in the fields the crops mature. The feast days of the Church –as in the Hebrew tradition – are intertwined with the rhythm of the solar year, of sowing and reaping. This is particularly true of today’s solemnity, at the centre of which is the bread, fruit of the earth and the heavens. This is why the Eucharistic bread is a visible sign of He in who the earth and the heavens. God and man became one. And this shows that the bond between the seasons and the liturgical year in not merely exterior”.
After the Marian Prayer Benedict XVI related the “Bread of Life” that we celebrate today to the “hundreds of millions of people who suffer from hunger”. This – continued the pontiff – “is an absolutely unacceptable reality, which is difficult to overcome despite the efforts of the past decades. Therefore it is my hope that on the occasion of the next UN Conference and within international institutions, steps are taken that are shared by the entire international community and strategic choices are made, (choices that are) sometimes not easy to accept, but necessary to ensure basic nutrition and a dignified life for everyone, in the present and in the future”.
The Pope’s appeal to the UN is urgent because as he explained: “From the 24-26 of this month a conference on the current global economic and financial crisis and its impact on development will be held in the United Nations in New York. I invoke upon all of the Conference participants, as well as those responsible for public life and the fate of the planet, the spirit of wisdom and human solidarity, so that the current crisis may become an opportunity, capable of favouring greater attention to the dignity of every human being and the promotion of an equal distribution of decisional power and resources, with particular attention to the unfortunately ever growing number of poor”.
Before greeting pilgrims in different languages, Benedict XVI also recalled the beginning of the Year for Priests, with the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 19th. The year, called by the Pope to support vocations to the priesthood, takes place on the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint Cure d’Ars (John Maria Vianney). “I trust in your prayers – said the pope – this new spiritual initiative, which follows on from the Pauline Year that is near to its conclusion. May this new jubilee year be a propitious occasion for deepening the value and the importance of the priestly mission and to ask the Lord to gift his Church numerous and holy priests”.
The Eucharist is a mystery that is meant to plunge its roots deeply into every area of our lives. It is a gift to be received and lived.
After having received the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, Catholic Christians proceed from the Sanctuary into the Streets of the world, pausing along the way for solemn worship, songs of adoration, and holding the Lord aloft, enthroned. The procession symbolizes the ongoing redemptive mission of Jesus Christ to the world as it is now lived out through his Church.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - This Sunday is the Feast of “Corpus Christi”, the Body and Blood of the Lord, in much of the Western Catholic Church. The Holy Father led the celebration on its traditional Thursday in Rome. His words were profound as he called the whole Church to a deeper devotion to the Eucharist by reminding us of the miracle which occurs at every Holy Mass: "With the Eucharist, heaven comes down to earth, God's tomorrow descends into the present moment and time is, as it were, embraced by divine eternity".
There was a custom practiced on this day in almost every parish for years in the Western Church. The faithful would process the consecrated Eucharist through the public Streets. The Priest, accompanied by a deacon or another priest, would lead this beautiful Procession, singing hymns and leading the faithful in prayer. Fortunately, this prophetic and powerful procession is undergoing a strong resurgence in many places as adoration of and devotion to the most Holy Eucharist experiences a wonderful renewal.
After having received the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, Catholic Christians proceed from the Sanctuary into the Streets of the world, pausing along the way for solemn worship, songs of adoration, and holding the Lord aloft, enthroned. The procession symbolizes the ongoing redemptive mission of Jesus Christ to the world as it is now lived out through his Church. I have fond memories of this beautiful event which stretch back into my early childhood. This Feast is a landmark feast in my own life. It was on this day that I was ordained to the Diaconate in Christ. Since my ordination, it has also come to signify my call as a Catholic Deacon to go, as I so often say, “from the altar into the world.”
In this act of public procession we proclaim that God still loves the world so much that He still sends His Son, through His Church. This procession is a reminder of the baptismal vocation of every Christian to carry forward in time the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ until He returns. At an interior level, it also symbolizes the universal call to holiness, to continuing conversion in Christ. We who are baptized are called into a very real communion with the Trinitarian God. He comes to dwell within us and we are to live our lives now in Him, for the world. more...
Catholic Culture « June 14, 2009 » Old Calendar: Second Sunday after Pentecost
Daily Readings (on USCCB site): » June 14, 2009 (will open a new window)
Collect: Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood help us to experience the salvation you won for us and the peace of the kingdom where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
"While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, 'Take it; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.'"
Where the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is not observed as a holy day, it is assigned to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday, which is then considered its proper day in the calendar. more...
Benedict XVI speaks of the “imminent” publication of his next encyclical that will deal with the questions of economics and work and he repeats the words of John Paul II: “ownership morally justifies itself in the creation, at the proper time and in the proper way, of opportunities for work and human growth for all”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The current global economic crisis proves that the rules and values that have dominated the economy in past years need to be replaced by a concept that its “respectful of the needs and rights of the weakest”, a theme that Benedict XVI will go into in greater depth in his encyclical “soon” to be published. The Pope himself spoke about it today, specifying that the document will contain points that “are objectives to be pursued and values to be tirelessly promoted and defended by all Christians, with that aim of realising a human coexistence that is truly free and supportive”.
Today’s meeting in the Vatican with members of the “Centesimus Annus - Pro Pontifice” Foundation, gave Benedict XVI the perfect opportunity to return to the theme of the global economic crisis and the development model that caused it.
“Today’s’ meeting takes on a particular significance and value in light of the situation all humanity is living at this moment in time. In fact, the financial and economic crisis that has hit industrialised, emerging and developing nations clearly shows us that the economic-financial paradigms that have dominated in recent years must be re-thought”.
“I am pleased to learn – he continued – that you have examined, in particular, interdependence between institutions, businesses and market starting from, in accordance with the encyclical Centesimus annus of my venerated predecessor John Paul II, the reflection that recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector’ (n. 42), which can be a path of economic and civic progress only if oriented towards the common good (n. 43). This vision however must be accompanied by another reflection into which the freedom in the economic sector must be inserted ‘within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious’ (n. 42). Opportunely the aforementioned encyclical states: ‘Just as the person fully realizes himself in the free gift of self, so too ownership morally justifies itself in the creation, at the proper time and in the proper way, of opportunities for work and human growth for all’ (n. 43)”.
“As you all know – he concluded - my next encyclical, soon-to-be published, is dedicated to the vast theme of the economy and work: it will evidence the objectives that Christians must pursue and the values Christians must promote and defend tirelessly, in order to realize a world in which all people can live together in a manner that is truly free and based on mutual assistance”.
Vatican City, Jun 12, 2009 / 10:38 am (CNA).- While celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi yesterday in front of the basilica of St. John Lateran, Pope Benedict encouraged the faithful to nourish themselves with love of Christ in the Eucharist and warned of secularization within the Church.
In his homily, the Holy Father explained that though we are inadequate due to sin, we need to nourish ourselves “from the love the Lord offers us in the Eucharistic Sacrament.” Noting yesterday's feast, he said, “this evening we renew our faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Such faith must not be taken for granted!”
The Pope went on to warn of the risk “of insidious secularization, even inside the Church” which “could translate into a formal but empty Eucharistic worship, in celebrations lacking that involvement of the heart which finds expression in veneration and respect for the liturgy.”
"There is always a strong temptation to reduce prayer to superficial and hurried moments, allowing ourselves to be overcome by earthly activities and concerns," he cautioned.
However, reminded Benedict XVI, we must remember that in the Eucharist, “heaven comes down to earth, God's tomorrow descends into the present moment and time is, as it were, embraced by divine eternity." more...
Pope Benedict XVI takes part in a candlelit Corpus Domini procession between the basilicas San Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome June 11, 2009. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito (ITALY RELIGION)
Roman Catholic priests pray in front of a poster saying 'We thank you for freedom,' outside St. Anne's church during of the Corpus Christi procession in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday June 11, 2009. The slogan pays homage to Pope John Paul II, in recognition of the inspiration he gave to resisting the communist regime during the Cold War. Poland this month celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism and the 30th anniversary of the late pontiff's first pilgrimage to his homeland after being elected pope, a historic visit that inspired the birth of the Solidarity freedom movement. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Christian Today Posted: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 11:00 (BST)
The world’s largest missionary society is to relaunch in September as Missio in England & Wales, it was announced this week.
The Catholic agency, Pontifical Mission Societies in England & Wales, announced the change following a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Faustino Sainz Muñoz, Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, and reception at their London headquarters on Tuesday.
Mission said the Apostolic Nuncio’s presence demonstrated the importance of mission to Pope Benedict XVI and the Church as a whole.
Missio said its new name symbolised unity in faith and mission in overseeing the support given to the 1,069 mission dioceses in the world through the collection of funds and support according to their needs. These include supporting 194,855 schools, 5,246 hospitals, 17,530 dispensaries, 577 leprosy centres and 80,560 social and pastoral projects worldwide. Funds collected in each diocese of England and Wales are sent directly to local bishops in the mission territories.
Despite the name change, Mission said its mission of the last 70 years - "To be a Christian is to be a missionary" - remains unchanged.
Pope Benedict drew attention to the importance of mission and the work of Missio in his message for World Mission Sunday last year, expressing his appreciation of the agency's work. more...
Archbishop Józef Miroslaw Zycinski of Lublin has joined Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow in criticizing Dr. Wanda Poltawska’s decision to publish her private correspondence with the late Pope John Paul II.
“Publishing papal letters is a sign of narcissism, a wish to be noticed,” Archbishop Zycinski said. “It suggests the Holy Father showed special trust in me by discussing particular problems in his letters. We can do without this.”
“The Pope tried to treat all his letter writers with respect,” Archbishop Zycinski added. “He never rebuked them or said what they’d written was immature or unserious.”
Responding to Cardinal Dziwisz’s criticism, the 87-year-old Dr. Poltawska-- a psychiatrist, member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, and longtime defender of Catholic teaching on contraception-- said that “the Pope wanted me to give this testimony when I spoke to him before his death. Nothing else matters to me.”
“I wanted to bring people closer to the Holy Father's spirituality, whereas Cardinal Dziwisz wishes to keep his experiences to himself,” she added.
Polish prelates are not unanimous in their opposition to Dr. Poltawska’s decision. Her book of correspondence contains a foreword by Archbishop Józef Michalik of Przemysl, the president of the nation’s episcopal conference.
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Vatican City, Jun 10, 2009 / 10:24 am (CNA).- Fifteen thousand people were present in St. Peter’s Square for today's general audience with Pope Benedict XVI. In his address, the Pope summarized the work of St. John Scotus Erigena, an Irish theologian of the ninth century who taught that true authority and reason can never contradict each other.
Scotus had an intimate knowledge of both the Greek and Latin Patristic culture, and developed a particular love for the writings of Dionysius, which led the Irish theologian to study the latter’s works thoroughly and to translate them into Latin, the Pope explained.
According to Pope Benedict, Scotus’ writings are important because they highlight the need to “constantly search for truth.” The Irish saint "develops certain stimulating theological and spiritual ideas which could indicate interesting avenues for further study, even for modern theologians," said Benedict XVI, referring to his understanding of “true authority.
“He is convinced that authority and reason can never be in contrast with one another,” the Pope explained, summarizing the saint's teachings. “True religion and true philosophy coincide.” more...
An interview with the Coptic Orthodox Priest with a 60 million dollar bounty on his head from al Qaeda.
I am a Copt. In my early 20s, I became a priest. Of course, in predominantly Muslim Egypt, Christians—priests or otherwise—do not talk about religion with Muslims. My older brother, a passionate Christian learned that lesson too late: after preaching to Muslims, he was eventually ambushed by Muslims who cut out his tongue and murdered him.
WASHINGTON (Jihad Watch) - Father Zakaria Botros is a Coptic Orthodox Priest who was named World Magazine's 2008 "Daniel of the Year" because of his courageous witness to the Christian faith in an extraordinarily hostile environment. Catholic Online presents for our worldwide readers an interview which Father Botros gave to FrontPage Magazine. We were granted permission to republish this startling interview by Robert Spencer, the Director of "Jihad Watch." This interview appeared in the June 4, 2009 FrontPage under the title of “The Strange Teachings of Muhammad.”
Interview with Father Zakaria Botros, “Radical Islam's Bane”
FrontPage Interview’s guest today is Coptic priest Fr. Zakaria Botros, who al Qaeda has called "one of the most wanted infidels in the world," issuing a 60 million dollar bounty on his head. Popular Arabic magazines also call him "Islam's public enemy #1". He hosts a television program, “Truth Talk,” on Life TV. His two sites are Islam-Christianity.net and FatherZakaria.net. He was recently awarded the Daniel of the Year award.
FP: Fr. Zakaria Botros, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Botros: Thank you for inviting me.
FP: Let’s begin with your own personal story, in terms of Islam and Christianity.
Botros: I am a Copt. In my early 20s, I became a priest. Of course, in predominantly Muslim Egypt, Christians—priests or otherwise—do not talk about religion with Muslims. My older brother, a passionate Christian learned that lesson too late: after preaching to Muslims, he was eventually ambushed by Muslims who cut out his tongue and murdered him. Far from being deterred or hating Muslims, I eventually felt more compelled to share the Good News with them. Naturally, this created many problems: I was constantly harassed, threatened, and eventually imprisoned and tortured for one year, simply for preaching to Muslims. Egyptian officials charged me with abetting “apostasy,” that is, for being responsible for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Another time I was arrested while boarding a plane out of Egypt. Eventually, however, I managed to flee my native country and resided for a time in Australia and England. Anyway, my life-story with Christianity and Islam is very long and complicated. In fact, an entire book about it was recently published.
FP: I apologize for asking this, but what were some of the tortures you endured when you were imprisoned?
Botros: Due to my preaching the Gospel, Egyptian soldiers broke into my home putting their guns to my head. Without telling me why, they arrested me and placed me in an extremely small prison cell (1.8x1.5x1.8 meters, which was further problematic, since I am 1.83 meters tall), with other inmates, and in well over 100 degree temperatures, with little ventilation, no windows, and no light. No beds of course, we slept on the floor—in shifts, as there was not enough room for all of us to lie down. Due to the lack of oxygen, we used to also take shifts lying with our noses under the crack of the cell door to get air. As a result, I developed a kidney infection (receiving, of course, no medical attention). Mosquitoes plagued us. Food was delivered in buckets; we rarely even knew what the gruel was. The prison guards would often spit in the bucket in front of us, as well as fling their nose pickings in it.
FP: My heart goes out to you in terms of this terrible suffering you endured.
What is your primary purpose in what you do?
Botros: Simple: the salvation of souls. As I always say, inasmuch as I may reject Islam, I love Muslims. Thus, to save the latter, I have no choice but to expose the former for the false religion it is. Christ commanded us to spread the Good News. There is no rule that says Christians should proselytize the world — except for Muslims! Of course, trying to convert the latter is more dangerous. But we cannot forsake them. This is more important considering that many Muslims are “religious” and truly seek to please God; yet are they misdirected. So I want to take their sincerity and piety and direct it to the True Light.
FP: In what way can you summarize for us why you think that Islam is a “false” religion?
Botros: Theologically, as I am a Christian priest, I believe that only Christianity offers the truth. Based on my faith in Christ, I reject all other religious systems as man-made and thus not reflective of divine truths. Moreover, one of the greatest crimes committed by Muhammad—a crime which he shall surely never be forgiven for—is that he denied the grace and mercy that Christ brought, and took humanity back to the age of the law. more...
Fr. Botros is a brilliant apologist for Christ to Islam; he speaks from a core of deep spiritual understanding. His videos on YouTube are well worth watching. See especially:
Despite an increase in the Catholic population of the United States during 2008, the number of baptisms, confirmations, first Communions, and marriages all declined, according to The Official Catholic Directory. While the number of baptisms and confirmations declined by less than 2% and the number of marriages declined by less than 3%, the number of adult baptisms and receptions into the Church plummeted by 9% in a single year-- from approximately 136,000 to 124,000.
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Archbishop Timothy Dolan participates in his installation mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral April 15, 2009 in New York City. (UPI Photo/Chris McGrath/POOL) Enlarge
NEW YORK, June 8 (UPI) -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York says he will ask Pope Benedict XVI to grant St. Patrick's Old Cathedral basilica status.
Dolan, who became New York's archbishop in April, said the Little Italy church deserved the designation given to those churches deemed to have significant historical or spiritual significance, the New York Daily News said Monday.
"I just think it deserves it," Dolan said of the New York church. "I'm so proud of this old cathedral."
Dolan announced his decision Sunday at the church as it marked its bicentennial celebration, the Daily News said.
"It is granted to churches with special prominence or significance in the life of a diocese -- and in the case of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, in the life of the Catholic Church in this country," archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said more...
Israel’s Embassy to the Holy See releases statement saying that Church funds will not be frozen, that the current “situation remains unchanged.” Foreign Ministry blames the incident on a “misunderstanding.” Father Jaeger hopes talks between the Holy See and Israel will continue till an agreement is reached, including the tax status of the Church.
Rome (AsiaNews) – The order by Israel’s Finance Ministry to freeze funds held by some Church institutions has been rescinded. A press release by the Israel’s Vatican Embassy said that “the seizure of funds by the Ministry of Education destined for education institutions of the Catholic Church in Israel shall not be carried out. The [current] situation remains unchanged.”
On 20 May the Chief Tax Collector at Israel's Finance Ministry Yehezkel Abrahamoff informed Catholic Church institutions that his office was seizing their funds to pay for taxes he thought they owed the State.
The decision appeared to be an attempt to stop the Holy See and the State of Israel from reaching an agreement on, among other things, the tax status of the Church and its educational and charitable organisations in Israel. more...
Hong Kong, China, Jun 8, 2009 / 01:14 pm (CNA).- The new Bishop of Hong Kong, John Tong, said the recent publication of the Compendium of Pope Benedict XVI 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics could help the Chinese to work through their differences and be united with a Pope who is intent upon speaking to them despite the continuous efforts of the regime to silence his voice.
In a special report sent to Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Tong said the concern the Holy See has for the Chinese has astounded them, and that the Compendium is an answer to the attempts of Communist officials to block the circulation of the Pope’s 2007 letter.
The Communist regime has prohibited Chinese from have access to the letter via the Internet. “In almost any other part of the world, Catholics can openly meet to study a papal document, but in China this continues to be difficult.”
Referring to the Compendium, which uses a question-answer format, Bishop Tong explained that it can “help to better understand the general contents (of the 2007 letter). This format has been used for a long time in China to systematically present Catholic catechesis.”
Bishop Tong, who was part of a special commission that helped draft proposals for the Compendium, said the document “reflects the spirit and essence” of the 2007 letter, which was intended to foster greater unity among Chinese Catholics.
In his Angelus Benedict XVI reiterates that “God is love and love alone, pure, infinite and eternal”, an inexhaustible source of life. We instinctively know this by looking at the planets, the stars, the galaxies, and by observing cells, atoms and elementary particles. “The ‘name’ of the Sacred Trinity is impressed on everything that exists, because everything comes from love, reaches out for love and is moved by the spirit of love”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - “The greatest proof that we are all made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live to love and to be loved. Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that the human “genome” is profoundly imprinted with the Trinity of God-who-is-Love”. On the day when the universal Church celebrates the feats of the Holy Trinity, Benedict XVI returned to dwell on one of the themes dearest to him, that of God-who-is-Love, to which he dedicated his encyclicals Deus Caritas est. To the 20 thousand people gathered in St Peter’s Square for the Angelus prayer, on an overcast day, the Pope said “everything that exists, because everything comes from love, reaches out for love and is moved by the spirit of love” and that God “is love and love alone, pure, infinite and eternal”.
Benedict XVI began by recalling that “after the period of Easter-time, that culminate din the feast of Pentecost, the liturgy is marked by these three solemnities of Our Lord: today the feast of the Holy Trinity; next Thursday, that of Corpus Domini” and finally the following Friday the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Each of these liturgical events – he added – highlights a perspective by which the entire mystery of Christian Faith is embraced: those being respectively, the reality of the One and Triune God, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the divine-human centre of the Person of Christ. In reality they are all aspects of the one mystery of salvation, from the incarnation to the resurrection and the ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit. more...
Daily Readings (on USCCB site): » June 07, 2009 (will open a new window)
Collect: Father, you sent your Word to bring us truth and your Spirit to make us holy. Through them we come to know the mystery of your life. Help us to worship you, one God in three Persons, by proclaiming and living our faith in you. We ask you this, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, true and living, for ever and ever. Amen.
The fundamental dogma, on which everything in Christianity is based, is that of the Blessed Trinity in whose name all Christians are baptized. The feast of the Blessed Trinity needs to be understood and celebrated as a prolongation of the mysteries of Christ and as the solemn expression of our faith in this triune life of the Divine Persons, to which we have been given access by Baptism and by the Redemption won for us by Christ. Only in heaven shall we properly understand what it means, in union with Christ, to share as sons in the very life of God.
The feast of the Blessed Trinity was introduced in the ninth century and was only inserted in the general calendar of the Church in the fourteenth century by Pope John XXII. But the cultus of the Trinity is, of course, to be found throughout the liturgy. Constantly the Church causes us to praise and adore the thrice-holy God who has so shown His mercy towards us and has given us to share in His life. more...
A man holds a portrait of the late Pope John Paul II during the unveiling ceremony of a giant cross monument in central Warsaw marking the 30th anniversary of the Polish-born pontiff's first visit to his homeland, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 6, 2009. The 30-foot or nine-meter, tall white granite cross stands on the site where John Paul II delivered a Mass in 1979 in then-communist Poland inspiring the country's nascent pro-democracy groups and giving rise to the Solidarity freedom movement that helped topple communist rule in 1989.(AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
Vatican City, Jun 5, 2009 / 03:39 pm (CNA).- The Holy See's press office announced today that Pope Benedict XVI will leave for vacation in northern Italy from July 13-29, without knowing if President Barack Obama, who will be in Italy for the G8 summit, will formally request an audience with the Pope.
From Monday, July 13 to Wednesday, July 29, the Pope will spend vacation time at Les Combes di Introd, in the northwestern Italian province of Valle d'Aosta.
On July 19, the Pope will visit the town of Romano Canavese in the diocese of Ivrea, where he will preside over the Angelus prayer. On Sunday, July 26, he will visit the town of Les Combes, also praying the Angelus there.
The general audiences of Wednesday 15, 22 and 29 will be suspended.
President Obama will travel to Italy to attend the G8 summit in the Italian town of L’Aquila, July 8-10, but he will reside at the U.S. embassy in Rome. The Vatican has not yet been contacted by the White House for a possible meeting between the President and Pope Benedict XVI.
Vatican City, Jun 5, 2009 / 10:39 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has sent a telegram to the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) to lend his support to a worldwide call for a "new mobilization on behalf of children" initiated by the United Nations in Geneva.
The telegram references the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of the Child and says, "Twenty years after its ratification, there is an urgent need for it to be implemented to the full." This is especially important, "given the new challenges" of the modern world. The Convention, ratified two decades ago, sets out the basic human rights of children that must be respected, based on the four core principles of non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.
National governments that have agreed to the obligations of the Convention have committed themselves to upholding its standards and to being held accountable before the international community. more...
Limited issue platinum, gold and silver medals will be minted in the Czech Republic ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to the county, CTK reports.
The coins will depict a portrait of the pontiff, designed by Daniela Kartakova, on one side and a portrait of tenth-century duke St Wenceslas - also patron saint of Bohemia - on the other.
Project initiator Petr Pitra explained that the coins will represent a major coup for collectors, particularly because the platinum version will be the first ever to feature the Pope.
He told the news provider: "The portraits express a dialogue of centuries, a meeting of the present church with the main representative of the Czech cultural tradition.
"Medals with the Pope's portrait have already been minted in other countries, but never platinum ones."
The local Ceska mincovna mint is producing the coins and Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk received the first issue in Jablonec yesterday (4th June).
A total of 280 platinum medals with diameters of 37mm will be produced, alongside 60 gold medals with a diameter of 37mm, a further 333 gold medals with a diameter of 28mm and an unspecified number of silver medals.
The Pope is scheduled to visit the Czech Republic between 26th and 28th September.
Shipyard workers stand in front of the main gate to the Gdansk Shipyard with portraits of Pope John Paul II, left, and Benedict XVI, during a Mass in Gdansk, Thursday, June 4, 2009. The Mass was a part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of historic elections in Poland which delivered a sweeping victory to the Solidarity movement, born in the Gdansk, then Lenin Shipyard, and paved the way to the fall of communism in eastern Europe in 1989.(AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
John Paul II could be beatified this year, ex- spokesman says
(ANSA) - Rome, June 4 - Late pope John Paul II could be beatified this year, former Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Thursday.
''The two key technical passages that are missing could happen this year,'' he told Sole 24 Ore.
Once the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have greenlighted a decree recognising John Paul's ''heroic virtues'' - a key requirement - and certified a miracle attributed to him, ''the pope can decide the date to proclaim his beatification,'' Navarro said, adding that ''he can do it at any moment''.
The Vatican this week denied reports in Italian newspapers that John Paul II's cause had been slowed because a Polish psychiatrist, Wanda Poltawska, had failed to hand over some personal correspondence with the Polish pontiff.
Navarro-Valls said Wednesday that he did not believe the letters ''would put the brakes on the process'', adding that he ''did not see this great friendship'' which Poltawska claims to have had with the late pope.
''I exclude, 1000%, that (Poltawska) could have influenced the pope's decisions,'' he added. more...
PARIS, JUNE 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A message from Benedict XVI was read at the opening of an interreligious gathering in Paris' Notre Dame cathedral, expressing sorrow for the victims of Monday's Air France plane accident.
The Pope affirmed his prayer that God will "give his support and consolation" to all those people affected by the tragedy that claimed 228 lives when a flight en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean.
Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris and president of the French bishops' conference, transmitted the condolences of the Pontiff at Wednesday's gathering.
The Holy Father entrusted the deceased to God's mercy, and expressed the hope that their families will "find the help that they need around them in these hours of anguish."
Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, was present at the gathering along with other government representatives, Christians, Jews, Muslims, families and friends of the victims and Air France workers.
To symbolize the lives lost in the tragedy, 228 candles were placed on the altar.
Rabbi Haim Korsia, chaplain of the air personnel, invoked the "fraternity that unites us, believers and non-believers."
Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, directed some words of support and compassion to the families and friends of the victims, and he sang the first sura of the Koran.
Claude Bay, president of the Protestant Federation of France also expressed his sympathy, followed by the Metropolitan Emmanuel on behalf of the French Assembly of Orthodox bishops.
Pilots and crew members, dressed in uniform, recited verses from the Book of Lamentations and the Gospel of Luke, in French, Portuguese and English.
The archbishop of Paris concluded the ceremony with a message of encouragement and support for the families.
Vatican City, Jun 3, 2009 / 10:22 am (CNA).- At today's general audience, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the life of St. Rabanus Maurus, whom the Holy Father said speaks to us today by reminding Christians to set aside time for God, whether at work or on vacation.
Pope Benedict began his catechesis by recalling the early life of St. Rabanus for the more than 17,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.
Born in Mainz, Germany around 780, Rabanus became an oblate of the abbey of Fulda at a young age. “This precocious introduction to the Benedictine world and the fruits he reaped from it,” observed the Pope, “give us an interesting glimpse at the life of the monks and the Church as well as the society of that time, described as Carolingian.” more...
At the general audience Benedict XVI traces the life and legacy of Rabanus Maurus, an “extraordinary figure” from the High Middle Ages, and so called “praeceptor Germaniae”. He teaches that “those who do not dedicate space in their lives to the Lord, deny themselves God’s light and allow their thoughts to be taken over by earthly things”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – At work, “with its pressing rhythm” and on vacation, we must “reserve” a moment for God, opening up to Him “with a thought, a meditation, a small prayer, and “not forget the Lord’s Day”, which is “the day of liturgy, of sacred music, so we can perceive the beauty of the Church of God and allow it enter our beings: only in this way can our life become true and great life”.
That was Benedict XVI’s call to 25 thousand people present at his general audience, during which he traced the life and legacy of an “extraordinary figure” from the High Middle Ages, Saint Rabanus Maurus, one of the protagonists of Carolingian culture. Born in Mainz, Germany around 780, Rabanus entered monastic life at a young age as an oblate, in the abbey of Fulda. “This precocious introduction to the Benedictine world and the fruits he reaped from it – observed the Pope – give us an interesting glimpse at the life of the monks and the Church as well as the society of that time, described as Carolingian. His “extraordinary culture brought him quickly to the notice of the great men of his time, he was an advisor to the princes”. As the Abbot of Fulda and then as Archbishop of Mainz, “he studied ceaselessly, showing us that you can be available to others without denying yourself of time for study and meditation”. “He knew how to maintain the bond with the culture of the ancient wise men”, “keeping theological and spiritual culture alive”, so much so he was called Praeceptor Germaniae. He is the author of “De laudibus sanctae Crucis” and among his many writings there is also perhaps “one of the most beautiful hymns; Veni creator Spiritus”. more...
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has said his official visit to the Vatican was extremely important in the context of strengthening relations between Ukraine and the Vatican.
"This was the first official visit in the history of our bilateral relations, therefore, it was historical and important," the presidential press service quoted him as saying on Monday.
Yuschenko said that during an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, particular attention had been paid to the subject of an inter-confessional and inter-religious dialogue. He said that Ukraine could currently serve as an example of equal attitude to all of the churches and confessions.
Yuschenko said the creation of a united local Orthodox church was the main subject discussed at a meeting with the Pope.
"The united local Orthodox church in Ukraine is a desired goal for many believers and clergy in all of the leading Orthodox confessions," he said.
Yuschenko and Pope Benedict XVI also spoke about Ukraine's plans to join the European Union and an "important role, which the Vatican and its policies play in this process." Yushchenko stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine's relations with the Vatican, because around six million Ukrainians belong to the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches.
The Ukrainian president also thanked His Holiness for assisting Ukraine in the recognition of the Holodomor Famine of 1932-1933, as well as unity demonstrated by the Vatican to the Ukrainian people during the 75th anniversary of this tragedy. As reported, Pope Benedict XVI addressed Ukrainian citizens in their native language on November 23, 2008, the Day of Memory for Famine Victims.
Yushchenko also said that at a meeting with Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, he had discussed work on continuing a study of documents from the Vatican Secret Archives.
Associated Press Mon Jun 1, 9:44 AM ET Pope Benedict XVI, right, receives a gift, at left foreground, from Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko, left midground, during a meeting in the pontiff's private library, at the Vatican, Monday June 1, 2009. Behind Yushchenko, his wife Kateryna Mykhailivna. (AP Photo/Tony Gentile, POOL) Enlarge photo...
Today in Spirit Daily, Michael Brown, offers an excellent commentary on his perceptions of some of the spiritual dimensions surrounding the pro-life battle in America:
It could not have come at a worse time. Just as the cause of fighting abortion was reaching historic momentum (a new poll showed a pro-life majority in the U.S. for the first time since that poll has been conducted), there is a pro-life murder.
We live in a culture of hatefulness, as well as a culture of death. Hate is heard all around. As for Dr. George Tiller: we can not judge him. We don't know what was going through his mind. He thought he was being compassionate -- or so it is portrayed. His father (who was killed with his mother and sister in a plane crash) was an abortionist. There were family issues here. There was at best spiritual blindness. Killed in a church!
There was also something very twisted here. The clinic owned by Dr. Tiller (who originally had wanted to be a dermatologist, but who took over the family practice) performed a reported 60,000 abortions -- many into the ninth month, the "late-term" ones often for reasons of "mental health" (or because a baby was seen as defective) and conducted by putting a drug in a long needle through the woman's abdomen and into the infant's beating heart.
In a fashion that can only be described as macabre, Dr. Tiller's clinic not only killed the unwanted child in chilling fashion, but offered: photographs of the mother with the child (if the parents wanted this, before disposal), "baptism" by a chaplain who regularly dropped by, footprints, handprints, a certificate of miscarriage, cremation, a urn, or burial in Wichita or wherever the mother chose. We had a link Monday showing one mother who terminated her baby for cystic fibrosis and posed cuddling the gruesomely aborted infant on a bed with flowers and a picture of Jesus. We removed the link because it is simply too upsetting.
Something very extraordinary and spooky was at work there in Kansas and more incredible than the blindness or whatever of Dr. Tiller is that the United States and a "good" society could for a moment allow this. As a result, we see chastisement all around us. America is melting down. While many wait for a singular event (God setting us straight), there already are tragedies everywhere we look. We are in a time when we must pray for protection (which will work) because everyone seems afflicted whether with emotional upsets, family divisions, career problems, financial difficulties, or sickness, especially cancer, and in particular cancer of organs (breast, prostate, cervical, ovarian) associated with reproduction. A major chastisement is in progress. It will intensify. It will precipitate. Kevorkian. Schiavo. more...
First, we should grieve for him that he did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker. Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with the innocent blood of tens of thousands of babies that he murdered. Surely there will be a dreadful accounting for what he has done.
It now falls to pro-life activists like you and me to stand strong and unflinching in the face of the unjust criticism we will now endure because of his killing. And so I turn my attention to the attacks that will follow his death.
We must use this as a “teaching moment;” a chance for “dialogue” with our fellow Americans concerning this terrific holocaust of the unborn. In that light, I am going to speak clearly and without compromise. I beg you to read this entire letter, and to then watch the video I filmed.
Let us be clear: George Tiller was a mass murderer. He routinely killed innocent children who were “viable.” For the unlearned, that means that those babies could live outside the womb on their own. He specialized in killing “handicapped” children whose parents decided that they were not fit to live. He even offered photographs of the dead children and baptisms for the victims that fell under his knife.
According to God’s laws, and the laws that govern how we protect the innocent in times of peace, George Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the “legal” murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.
I write all of these words with surgical precision to shore up the more timid elements of the pro-life movement. Pro-life leaders are already falling over themselves to exclaim, “We are peaceful! We deplore this violence!”
Of course we are peaceful; that is why this horrific shooting in a church has immediately garnered national attention. It is precisely because we are peaceful that Dr. Tiller’s killing sticks out like a huge wart on an otherwise flawless complexion. If abortionists were gunned down every week, it would gather no more attention than crack dealers who are gunned down every week by fellow drug dealers. more...
Dr. George Tiller, killed on Sunday morning in Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kan., May 31, 2009 / 05:05 pm (CNA).- Prominent voices of the pro-life movement have repudiated the murder of the late-term abortion provider George Tiller, who was shot and killed Sunday morning at a Wichita Lutheran church.
Tiller was shot dead by an unidentified assailant shortly after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Wichita. The 67-year-old was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions in the country.
Troy Newman, President of the Kansas-based Operation Rescue said in a statement that his organization “has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller's family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ."
Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List -a nationwide network of Americans dedicated to representing pro-life women in politics- also condemned "this anti-life act in the strongest of terms." more...
Vatican City, Jun 1, 2009 / 09:43 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict's liturgical and travel schedule for the months of June through September was released by the Vatican on Monday. Highlights for the summer months include, the closing of the Year of St. Paul and a trip to the Czech Republic.
The full set of events is published below.
JUNE
Thursday 11: Solemnity of Corpus Christi. Mass at 7 p.m. in the basilica of St. John Lateran, followed by a procession to the basilica of St. Mary Major for Eucharistic blessing.
Friday 19: Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Vespers at 6 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica for the opening of the Year for Priests.
Sunday 21: Pastoral visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.
Sunday 28: At 6 p.m. in the basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, First Vespers for the closing of the Pauline Year.
Monday 29: Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles. Mass at 9:30 a.m. in the Vatican Basilica. Blessing and imposition of the pallium on new metropolitan archbishops.
AUGUST
Saturday 15: Solemnity of the Assumption. Mass at 8 a.m. in the parish church of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castelgandolfo.
SEPTEMBER
Sunday 6: Pastoral visit to Viterbo-Bagnoregio, Italy.
Saturday 26 - Monday 28: Apostolic trip to the Czech Republic.
VATICAN CITY, 1 JUN 2009 (VIS) - Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for June is: "That international attention towards the poorer countries may give rise to more concrete help, in particular to relieve them of the crushing burden of foreign debt"
His mission intention is: "That the particular Churches operating in regions marked by violence may be sustained by the love and concrete closeness of all the Catholics in the world".
