Pope Benedict XVI Blog

Beatitudes provide 'new horizon of justice,' teaches Pope at Angelus

2010-02-14T14:18:00.007-05:00

NOTICE:

My home Internet connection was inadvertantly disabled on the afternoon of February 11. I'll be writing posts via the library's computer as much as I can until my own computer is up and running again. Until then, God's blessings and thanks so much for your patience.

Denice

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Vatican City, Feb 14, 2010 / 11:21 am (CNA).- The Holy Father followed a visit to the Caritas homeless shelter in Rome on Sunday morning with the traditional midday Angelus at the Vatican. He spoke of Jesus' presentation of the Beatitudes and the importance of implementing their lessons and seeking justice in society.

The Beatitudes, announced in the Gospel of Luke, are based on the existence of “a divine justice that picks those who have been wrongly humiliated back up and humbles those who exalt themselves," said the Pope before the Angelus.

"The first will be last and the last will be first," quoted the Holy Father, adding that "this justice and this beatitude will be realized in the 'Kingdom of Heaven'... that will reach its fulfilment at the end of time but that is already present in history."

"Where the poor are consoled and admitted to the banquet of life, there, already, is manifested the justice of God," underscored the Pope. "This is the task that the disciples of the Lord are called to carry out also in today's society."
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Ordinary Time: February 11th; Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes

2010-02-11T08:07:00.009-05:00

Daily Readings for:
February 11, 2010
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: God of mercy, we celebrate the feast of Mary, the sinless mother of God. May her prayers help us to rise above our human weakness. 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.

Catholic Culture: Liturgical Year
Old Calendar: Apparition of Our Lady at Lourde

Today marks the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and many cures and conversions have taken place. The message of Lourdes is a call to personal conversion, prayer, and charity.

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Our Lady of Lourdes

The many miracles which have been performed through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes prompted the Church to institute a special commemorative feast, the "Apparition of the Immaculate Virgin Mary." The Office gives the historical background. Four years after the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), the Blessed Virgin appeared a number of times to a very poor and holy girl named Bernadette. The actual spot was in a grotto on the bank of the Gave River near Lourdes.

The Immaculate Conception had a youthful appearance and was clothed in a pure white gown and mantle, with an azure blue girdle. A golden rose adorned each of her bare feet. On her first apparition, February 11, 1858, the Blessed Virgin bade the girl make the sign of the Cross piously and say the rosary with her. Bernadette saw her take the rosary that was hanging from her arms into her hands. This was repeated in subsequent apparitions.

With childlike simplicity Bernadette once sprinkled holy water on the vision, fearing that it was a deception of the evil spirit; but the Blessed Virgin smiled pleasantly, and her face became even more lovely. The third time Mary appeared she invited the girl to come to the grotto daily for two weeks. Now she frequently spoke to Bernadette. On one occasion she ordered her to tell the ecclesiastical authorities to build a church on the spot and to organize processions. Bernadette also was told to drink and wash at the spring still hidden under the sand.

Finally on the feast of the Annunciation, the beautiful Lady announced her name, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
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See also from Rome Reports, "The 67 miracles of Lourdes":

The Pope's visit - worth every penny

2010-02-10T21:56:00.006-05:00

From Times Online
February 8, 2010

Secularists will want to portray Catholics as closed-minded oddballs obsessing about sex, but the truth is rather different

Christopher Lamb

“Why should British taxpayers pick up the bill for the Pope’s visit?” an indignant radio presenter asked me live on air last week.

After the media storm whipped up over Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of the Government’s equality legislation, there appears to be a growing hostility to his visit to Britain later this year.

However, in answer to the earlier question I think there are some compelling reasons why people in Britain should look forward to this historic event.

Firstly, this is a visit from a head of state whom Britain benefits from having good relations with. Quietly, in recent years, Britain and the Vatican have worked together to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which aim to eradicate extreme poverty, combat aids and protect the environment. Recently, Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, writing in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, explained that, “the Catholic Church… has been a crucial partner to the international community in helping to achieve the MDGs.”

People can easily forget that the Catholic faith has around a billion followers and it has embassies all over the world. Therefore the papal visit, only the second ever made by a pontiff to this county, is a boost to Britain’s foreign policy. And just for the record, while the taxpayer will be paying for a large part of the visit, the Catholic Church in this country is donating a sizeable chunk.

Second, the Pope’s visit is not only for Catholics. He’s the most prominent Christian leader in the world and won’t just be addressing his own followers – as if they were part of a sect – when he speaks.

His desire is to address, in the words of the seminal Second Vatican Council text, Gaudium et Spes, “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age.”

One area where he has something important to say is on the economy. The Pope’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, was a subtle critique of unfettered capitalism. In the light of the British economy’s travails his message that support should be given to “economic initiatives which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic…of profit as an end in itself,” seems like an apt one.
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Pope John Paul brought dignity to all who suffer, supreme knight says

2010-02-10T18:30:00.003-05:00

By Sarah Delaney
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II's humility and willingness to let the whole world watch his declining health gave dignity and meaning to suffering, said Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.

"John Paul suffered boldly before millions," Anderson said at a Vatican conference on health care Feb. 9. "He was willing to have the humility to do this before the world.

"Through this, John Paul showed exactly what human dignity is all about," he said.

Anderson, leader of the worldwide Catholic fraternal organization, was one of the keynote speakers at the meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. The Feb. 9-11 gathering, titled "The Church in the Service of Love for the Suffering," marked the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul establishing the council.

Anderson said Pope John Paul had preached the Gospel and evangelized "with every gift God had given him," including his acting and singing talents, his athletic abilities and his writing. "And as life went on, we saw him communicate the Gospel using what he also called 'a gift,' that is we saw him use his own suffering," Anderson said.

The late pope, who died April 2, 2005, was able to show that Christ is united with those who are suffering, because he himself suffered on the cross, Anderson said.
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Pope: contemplating the cross one understands the greatness of human dignity

2010-02-10T17:14:00.008-05:00

» 02/10/2010 12:57
VATICAN

One understands man’s value by contemplating how God accepted to suffer for him. A reflection that comes from the thought of Saint Anthony of Padua, the figure Benedict XVI dedicated his general audience to. In a times of crisis, "the economy needs ethics to function efficiently, not any ethics but an ethics that is people friendly”.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The greatness of human dignity and value of the human being is fully visible in the "mirror of the Cross", in seeing how God accepted to suffer for man. Taking his cue from the figure of Saint Anthony of Padua Benedict XVI dedicated his audience today to the importance of the cross for our culture, our humanism, born of the Christian faith.

A saint who was part of the first generation of Friars Minor and who "laid the foundations of Franciscan theology", "contributed significantly to the development of Franciscan spirituality" and who in a period of economic growth, recommended that the poor not be forgotten. "A very important and timely teaching - the Pope said. Recalling the words of Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI said that "when the economic crisis and severe economic imbalances impoverish many people the economy needs ethics to function efficiently, not any ethics but an ethics that is people friendly".

To eight thousand people present at the Vatican for the general audience the pope recalled the saint, "one of the most popular in the whole Catholic Church, revered not only in Padua, but around the world", was born in Lisbon in 1195 to a noble family. Baptized as Fernando, as a young man he entered the canons who followed the monastic rule of St. Augustine. His interest in studying the Bible and the Church Fathers helped him acquire "a theological science which he began to incorporate into his teaching and preaching."

A fundamental episode that was to change his life took place in 1220 in Coimbra, where the relics of the first five Franciscan missionaries to Morocco, who were martyred there, were brought. In the young Ferdinand the desire to imitate them was born. He asked to leave the canons and to enter the Franciscans. He left for Morocco. He fell ill, he went to Assisi, where in 1221, he participated in the famous "Chapter of Mats" and where he "also met with St. Francis. Later, he lived for a time in total obscurity in a convent near Forli in northern Italy, where the Lord called him to another mission. Invited by completely random circumstances, to preach at the ordination of a priest, he was equipped with such knowledge and eloquence, that his superiors assigned him to preaching".
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See also:

From Zenit, "On St. Anthony of Padua: One of the Most Popular Saints in the Whole Catholic Church"

From CNA, "Pope extols St. Anthony of Padua's insights on prayer"

From Catholic World News, "St. Anthony knew true wealth comes through faith, Pope tells audience"

From Catholic News Service, "Christian faith without love cannot live, pope says"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope: the cross enriches the meaning of life
February 10, 2010

The Plot to Kidnap Pope Pius XII

2010-02-09T17:44:00.006-05:00

InsideCatholic.com
by Ronald J. Rychlak
2/09/10

A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII
Dan Kurzman, Perseus Books, 285 pages, $26

In July 1943, Italian partisans toppled Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and threatened the German-Italian alliance. Hitler, on learning of Mussolini's ouster, concluded that "Jew-loving" Pope Pius XII was involved. The Führer wasted no time in sending his troops into northern Italy and occupying an allied nation, including its capital, Rome.

Israel Zolli, the chief Rabbi of Rome (later a convert to Catholicism) wrote about the terror felt by his community as the Nazis took control of the city. Zolli personally snuck past German patrols to enter neutral Vatican City and request a loan to pay a ransom so that the Nazis would not deport his people. The pope agreed to provide as much gold as was needed for as long as was necessary. The Jews gave their gold to the Nazis, but it did not prevent the deportations. Roman Jews went into hiding or they were deported.

As the persecution of the Jews intensified, Pius was widely recognized as a "lonely voice" out of the silence enveloping the continent. Victims thanked him, rescuers cited him as their inspiration, and the Nazis despised him. In retrospect, however, many modern critics blame Pius for being too quiet during the occupation.

Dan Kurzman's A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII focuses on an aspect of this story that has never before received a book-length treatment. It centers on General Karl Wolff, who in 1943 was named German chief of police and SS commander in Italy.

According to sworn testimony that Wolff gave in 1972, Hitler summoned him shortly after the troops moved into Rome. Hitler said:

Now, Wolff, I have a special mission for you, with significance for the whole world. . . . I want you and your troops . . . to occupy as soon as possible the Vatican and Vatican City, secure the archives and the art treasures, which have a unique value, and transfer the pope, together with the Curia, for their protection, so that they cannot fall into the hands of the Allies and exert a political influence.

Hitler wanted to "destroy the Vatican's power, capture the pope, and say that we are protecting him."

The kidnapping never took place, but Wolff drew up the plan. It called for German soldiers disguised in Italian uniforms to invade the Vatican, kill all members of the curia, and take the pope prisoner. Other soldiers would then storm the Vatican to "rescue" the pontiff. They would kill the disguised troops, and if the pope tried to escape he would also be shot. Hitler felt it could be explained because tragic things happen during wars. Besides, the world would consider the Italians culpable.

This kidnapping plot has been known for a long time, but skeptics have been reluctant to take General Wolff at his word. Kurzman, however, not only interviewed Wolff; he also reviewed relevant documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses.

One of the most interesting revelations in the book is the number of German officials that tried to prevent Hitler from invading the Vatican. Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, regularly cautioned Church officials not to provoke Berlin. Albrecht von Kessel, Weizsäcker's closest aide, explained, "All we could do . . . was to warn the Vatican, the church, and the pope himself against rash utterances and actions." The German ambassador to Italy, Rudolf Rahn, was also in on the plan. They told the pope that Hitler would not only attack the Vatican but would seize the hundreds of thousands of Jews from Church buildings in which they were hiding throughout Europe. Righteous Catholics would also be persecuted. After Kurzman's book, it's hard to deny that Pius loathed Hitler, that Hitler loathed the pope, or that Hitler wanted to invade the Vatican.
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See also from the Daily Record, "Local nun backs sainthood for Pius."

Irish abuse victims to ask Vatican for 1 billion euros

2010-02-09T13:53:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 09, 2010

When the Irish hierarchy meets with Pope Benedict on February 15 and 16, Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, will deliver a letter from representatives for abuse victims asking for one billion euros (approximately $1.37 billion) in compensation. Irish religious orders “paid just €128m of the total compensation bill of €1.2bn” following the Ryan report, notes the Irish Independent.

The victims’ representatives also requested that Pope Benedict meet with abuse victims during his September apostolic journey.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Victims ask Pope for €1bn (Irish Independent)

Open letter to the Pope (Irish Times)

Abuse survivors meet bishops (IOL)

Irish Bishops Meet Representatives of Support Groups for Victims of Abuse (Vatican Radio)

Irish religious order offers €128 million to abuse victims (CWN, 12/4/09)

Former Saints star says Super Bowl victory revealed a ‘team with destiny’

2010-02-09T10:14:00.016-05:00

Former Saints wide receiver Danny Abramowitz

New Orleans, La., Feb 9, 2010 / 07:10 am (CNA).- Danny Abramowicz, Catholic speaker and former New Orleans Saints player, has said the Saints’ Super Bowl victory on Sunday showed they were a “team with destiny.” The family quality of Sunday’s game made it more enjoyable and showed the benefit Christian values can bring to sports, he thought.

Abramowicz, a star wide receiver for the Saints from 1967 to 1973 and an offensive coordinator for the team in the late 1990s, discussed the American football championship game in a Monday interview with CNA.

Though the saints “should have lost” the NFC Championship game against the Minnesota Vikings and yesterday faced a 10-0 deficit just “being dominated” by the Indianapolis Colts, they came back under the leadership of Drew Brees.

“They were a team with destiny,” he remarked.

In Abramowicz’s view, the decisions of Saints coach Sean Payton to make a fourth down push for the end zone and to open the third quarter with an on-side kick “took guts” and told his players “we’re out to win here.”

“I’m just so proud of the team, the coaches the players,” the former Saint said. “But I’m even more elated for the fans. They’ve waited all these years, they’ve put up with a lot of stuff.

“It’s been a long time waiting, but the city is just going crazy.”

Asked what defeat means for the Colts and their fans, Abramowicz noted that the Colts have won the Super Bowl one time already. However, it is still “tough to lose,” especially after a strong start.

“They’ll be fine. With a quarterback like Peyton [Manning], they’ll be back,” he said.

CNA asked Abramowicz his view about the relationship between sports and Catholic men’s outreach.

“We need more leaders out there in the sports arena, Christian values, guys like Drew Brees, guys like Peyton Manning,” he commented.

The latest Super Bowl had “no controversy” and had “solid men of good character.” There were not “selfish” players or commercials with poor representations of the virtues, Abramowicz thought.

“You got to enjoy the football game, you could watch the game with your son and have no problems,” he added.

“We need to take the same desire for sports and use that in our Christian outlook in life too.”

He encouraged men to start thinking about what their spiritual life means to them and then described to CNA the goals of his EWTN television show “Crossing the Goal.”

“It uses a sports format to get across issues like the virtues, like prayer, like how a man is supposed to be,” he explained.

The show examines who a “virtuous, godly man” is, whether a man is the “spiritual head of the family” and whether he “treats people right.”
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See also:

From EWTN, in audio, the series with Abramowicz and the Crossing the Goal Team, "Crossing the Goal."

From Catholic Online, these excellent articles by Sonja Corbitt re: the steady pressure from secular forces endeavoring to strip men of their God-given masculinity, but our godly response to that pressure--to celebrate and promote true God-centered masculinity endued with the strong, sacrificial love of Jesus, "Opinion: Super Bowl Ads and ‘Who Wears the Pants?’," "In Support of Men: The Genius of Women" and "Married Love for Life: 'With My Body I Thee Wed'"

From Sonja Corbitt, her blog, "Pursuing the Summit *A flaming Catholic Scripture teacher talks" and web site, "Sonja Corbitt: pursuing the summit"

Doctor Says Many Are Cured in Lourdes

2010-02-08T19:32:00.002-05:00

Invites Physicians to Attend Congress for Their Own Healing

LOURDES, France, FEB. 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The former head of the Lourdes Medical Bureau is affirming that all people can receive a cure at Our Lady's shrine if they pray and hope for it with perseverance.

Doctor Patrick Theillier, who retired from leadership of the bureau last year, stated this in an interview with France Catholique.

The cure, he explained, "might not be as spectacular as to be considered a miracle."

However, the physician added, it can affect "in a profound and lasting way the person who experiences it, in all his being, body, soul and spirit."

Doctor Theillier affirmed that "these cures are truly innumerable."

The bureau is a medical organization run by doctors that operates within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, which, among other things, is responsible for the medical investigation of cures associated with the shrine.

The doctor noted that there are, of course, miraculous cures as well in Lourdes, and 67 have been officially recognized as such.

He affirmed that these miracles are sometimes "necessary," such as at the beginning of the Church. "For faith to increase, it must be supported by miracles," Doctor Theillier said.

Moral sufferings

Yet today, he continued, perhaps more than a century ago, we have a need "to be relieved from moral sufferings and the wounds of life, of a psychological-spiritual order, which goes beyond medicine."
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Joan's Rome: The Family, A Beneficial Resource for the Cohesion, Development of Society

2010-02-08T19:03:00.006-05:00

by Joan Lewis
Monday, February 08, 2010
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Pope Benedict’s weekend was fairly quiet. Saturday he welcomed Alfonso Roberto Matta Fahsen, Guatemala’s new ambassador to the Holy See who presented his Letters of Credence. He also received the president and staff of ACEA (Rome’s municipal energy and environment firm), which has just celebrated the centenary of its foundation.

Sunday the Pope recited the noon Angelus with the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square. Before the Marian prayer he reflected on the theme of the “divine call” experienced by Isaiah, Peter and Paul who, feeling unworthy to serve the Lord and His Church, nonetheless recognize the grace He has given them to be” intrepid apostles and proclaimers of salvation.” He said, “the humility that Isaiah, Peter and Paul bear witness to, invites those who have received the gift of a divine calling not to focus on their own limits, but to keep their gaze fixed on the Lord and on his surprising mercy, to convert the heart and continue, with joy, to ‘leave everything’ for him.”

After the Angelus, Benedict XVI reflected on Italy’s celebration of the Day for Life, whose theme was “The Power of Life: A Challenge in Poverty.” “In the current economic difficulty,” he said, “those mechanisms that cause poverty and create major social inequality, wound and offend life, striking above all the weakest and most defenseless, become more harmful.” The Holy Father said, “such a situation calls for the promotion of an integral human development to overcome poverty and need, and above all reminds us that man’s destiny is not well-being but God himself, and that human existence must be defended and favored in all of its stages.”

Today the Pope gave a very important talk to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family. However, before I bring you a summary of that talk prepared by VIS, I’d like to ask my readers who are involved in pro-life movements for some input.

I have been asked to address a gathering of U.S. collegiate pro-life movements who are having their annual meeting this year at the University of Notre Dame the weekend after Easter – significantly enough, Divine Mercy weekend. I would be interested to learn about your experiences: 1. Why did you become active in the pro-life movement instead of being a bystander? 2. What are your greatest challenges (family members not in agreement with you, etc)? 3. How have you been most successful in changing “pro-choicers” into “pro-lifers? Many thanks in advance!

THE FAMILY, A BENEFICIAL RESOURCE FOR THE COHESION, DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY

Monday morning, Pope Benedict XVI received participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, including council president Cardinal Ennio Antonelli. He began his remarks by recalling the late Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the council for eighteen years. He underscored how the council’s activities are taking place between the Sixth World Meeting of Families, held in Mexico in 2009, and the Seventh World Meeting of Families, to be held in Milan in 2012.

The Holy Father noted how the Pontifical Council undertakes various activities “to raise awareness of the fundamental importance of the family for the life of the Church and society.” Among these, he mentioned the project known as “The Family, Subject of Evangelization,” that aims “to organize a worldwide review of various experiences in the field of family pastoral care, to serve as inspiration and encouragement for new initiatives.”

He also referred to a project entitled “The Family, A Resource for Society” which, he said, “seeks to call public attention to the benefits the family brings to society, to its cohesion and its development. Another important commitment the dicastery has undertaken,” he went on, “is the compilation of a ‘vademecum’ of preparation for marriage” inspired by the ideas of John Paul II, who outlined how such preparation “includes three main stages: remote, proximate and immediate.”

Vademecum, from the Latin “go with me,” is an authoritative guidebook or handbook.
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Church will never stop condemning abuse, states Pope Benedict

2010-02-08T16:52:00.012-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 8, 2010 / 11:01 am (CNA).- The Holy Father met with members of the Pontifical Council for the Family on Monday to mark the start of their 19th Plenary Assembly. In his address, he stressed the importance of providing for the rights of children, including an intact family with a mother and father.

To begin the Plenary Assembly, which follows the theme of "The Rights of Infancy" this year, Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the role of the Church in the protection of children, saying that "through the centuries, by the example of Christ, (it) has promoted the protection of the dignity and rights of minors and, in many ways, has taken care of them."

"Unfortunately," he lamented, "in different cases, some of its members, acting in contrast with this commitment, have violated these rights: a behavior that the Church doesn't and will never stop deploring and condemning."

One upcoming example of this commitment will be when the Pope meets with the bishops of Ireland next week to address the sexual and physical abuse recently brought to light by the Ryan Report. The Pope had previously his declared "outrage" and "anguish" upon learning the details of the transgressions and has since accepted the resignation of one of the four bishops who was included in the report for having ignored abuse.

Speaking to the members of the Pontifical Council for the Family on Monday, the Holy Father pointed to the lesson to be learned from Jesus, "who considered children a model to imitate to enter the kingdom of God." The Pope also highlighted Christ's "tenderness and teaching" that call us to nurture “profound respect and care" for children.

"The strong words of Jesus against whomever scandalizes one of these little ones oblige everyone not to lower the level of this respect and love," the Holy Father emphasized.

The Pope added that the greatest help you can offer a child is a family "founded on matrimony between a man and a woman" because "they want to be loved by a mother and a father that love one other."

He stressed the need of children to grow up with both parents, "because the maternal and paternal figures are complementary in the education of children and the construction of their personalities and identities."

"It's important then,” he noted, “that everything possible is done to allow them to grow up in a united and stable family," urging married couples to never forget the deep sacramental roots of matrimony and to nurture them with prayer, listening to the Word of God, constant dialogue and forgiveness.
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See also:

From Zenit, "Benedict XVI's Address to Family Council: 'Raise Awareness of the Fundamental Value of the Family'"

From Catholic News Service: News Briefs, Feb-8-2010, "Church committed to children, defends the right to a family, pope says"

From Asia News, "Pope: a guidebook for engaged couples preparing for marriage"

From Canada.com, "Church must keep up guard versus pedophilia: Pope"

From AP via Yahoo! News, "Pope Benedict XVI condemns child abuse by priests"

From Bloomberg, "Pope Says Some Priests ‘Violated’ Rights of Children (Update2)"

And From YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope: Children have the right to grow up in a united family
February 8, 2010

Leading Anglican prelate dismisses Pope’s establishment of ordinariates

2010-02-08T13:11:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 08, 2010

A leading Anglican prelate has dismissed Pope Benedict’s decision to create ordinariates in which Anglican communities that seek full communion with the Holy See would be permitted to retain elements of the Anglican liturgy.

“If people genuinely realize that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics,” said Ugandan-born Archbishop John Sentamu of York. “As far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn’t go into an ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Archbishop of York dismisses Pope's call for conversions to Roman Catholicism (The Telegraph)

Life Scores Super Bowl Victory; Beautiful Evangelizers

2010-02-07T16:52:00.009-05:00

2/7/2010
Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org)

In today's Super Bowl the winners won’t be limited to the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints. A victory will go to life.

Created and paid for by Focus on the Family, the commercial features Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of the Florida Gators, and his mother, Pam Tebow, discussing her difficult choice for life.

ROME (Zenit.org) - Every year, millions across the United States of America fervently follow the athletic clash of titans called the Super Bowl. In today's Super Bowl, however, the winners won’t be limited to either the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints. A special victory will go to life, thanks to a singular advertisement that will air during the most watched sporting event of the year.

Created and paid for by Focus on the Family, the commercial features Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of the Florida Gators, and his mother, Pam Tebow, discussing her difficult choice for life.

While missionaries in the Philippines, Pam Tebow and her husband were advised to terminate her pregnancy after she contracted amoebic dysentery. The cure, said the doctors, would cause serious damage to her unborn child and as a result could possibly cost Pam Tebow her own life. The Tebows refused and 23 years later, the world famous athlete will have a chance to thank his mother for choosing life in front of 100 million spectators.

Like all great victories however, this one has not come easy. Last year the Catholic Vote organization filmed a pro-life video telling the story of Barack Obama and his single mother’s choice for life. Despite having raised the necessary $3 million and produced a highly professional spot, both NBC and CNN refused to air the ad, claiming a policy of not airing advocacy ads.

This year, CBS agreed to air the Tim Tebow ad despite massive pressure. A coordinated campaign organized by the National Organization of Women and NARAL, the National pro-abortion organization, is lobbying CBS to drop the ad. Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, had some choice comments on the spot (which she hasn't seen): "CBS has cleared the way to subject nearly 100 million people to Focus on the Family's extreme agenda by agreeing to air its new pro-life ad during the Super Bowl"; adding, "If that isn't bad enough, its views on women are just plain insulting and dangerous."

The good news is that Keenan described the ad as "pro life," forgetting in her rant her Orwellian newspeak term, "anti-choice."

The better news is that even the New York Times, not known for pro-life sympathies, published an editorial last week defending the advertisement.
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See also:

Colts Players See Talents as 'Gift from God'

Catholic History of New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl Chaplains Help Teams Prepare

Pope: Priests, men, poor and weak, transformed into fearless preachers of salvation

2010-02-07T16:15:00.008-05:00

» 02/07/2010 13:19
VATICAN

In the Year for Priests we must pray for priests and for those who are called to the vocation of total consecration. He recalls the Day for Life in Italy and for the "Week of life and family" in Rome. On 11 February, the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, the pope will celebrate Mass with the sick in the Basilica of St. Peter.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Drawing from the Sunday liturgy (the fifth of the year), which presents Isaiah’s call to mission, Paul and the first disciples of Jesus, in his reflection before the Angelus, Benedict XVI urged priests "not to focus on their limitations, but to keep their gaze fixed on the Lord and His wonderful mercy, to convert our hearts and continue to joyfully 'leave everything' for Him." "He - he continued – does not look at what is important for man: 'man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart' (1 Sam 16:7), and makes men, poor and weak, but who have faith in him, intrepid apostles and heralds of salvation".

"In these three experiences [of Isaiah, Paul and Peter] - he continued - we see how the genuine encounter with God leads man to recognize his own inadequacy and poverty, his limits and his own sin. But, despite this weakness, the Lord, full of mercy and forgiveness, transforms the life of man and calls him to follow Him. " "In this Year for Priests - he concluded - we pray to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers for His harvest, so those who hear the Lord's invitation to follow him, after the necessary discernment, will respond with generosity, not trusting in their strength, but opening themselves to the action of His grace. In particular, I urge all priests to revive their generous willingness to respond to the call of the Lord every day with the same humility and faith of Isaiah, Peter and Paul. Entrust to the Blessed Virgin all vocations, especially those to religious life and priesthood. May Mary arouse in everyone the desire to give their "yes" to the Lord with joy and total dedication".

After the Marian prayer, before greetings in different languages, Benedict XVI recalled that today in Italy we celebrate the Day for Life. "I willingly - said the pontiff – join the Italian Bishops and their message on the theme: 'The force of life, a challenge in poverty'. During the current period of economic difficulty, those mechanisms that lead to poverty and create great social inequalities become even more dramatic, hurting and offending life, affecting especially the weakest and most defenceless. This situation, therefore, committs us to promoting integral human development to overcome poverty and need, and above all remember that the man’s goal is not wellbeing, but God, and that human life must be defended and promoted in every stage. No one is master of his own life, but we are all called to preserve and respect it, from the moment of conception until its natural end".

The pope then highlighted that the diocese of Rome, in addition to the Day for Life, is celebrating a "Week for life and family." "I hope - he said – for the success of this initiative and encourage the activities of clinics, associations and movements, as well as university teachers engaged in support of life and family."

"In this context – he concluded - I remind you all that on February 11 in remembrance of the Blessed Virgin of Lourdes and World Day for the Sick I will celebrate morning Mass with the sick in St. Peters Basilica."

See also:

From CNA, "God's grace makes it possible for weak men to answer 'divine call,' declares Pope" and "Benedict XVI joins Italy in celebrating National Day for Life"

From Zenit, "Pope: Encountering God Reveals One's Inadequacies" and "On the Divine Call: "Encounter With God Brings Man to Recognize His Own Poverty"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Responding to Gods Call with Generosity and Trust
February 7, 2010

Letter #4, 2010 -- Tim Tebow

2010-02-06T23:59:00.003-05:00

insidethevatican - Feb 6, 2010

Quarterback for Life

During this year's American football championship, the Super Bowl, a pro-life television commercial has sparked controversy. Background on a moving story by Stefanie Stark

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from America

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

Controversy over Life at the Super Bowl

Tomorrow evening, millions of America will be glued to their television screens to watch the final championship game of the professional football season, the "Super Bowl" game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints.

In the weeks leading up the game, there has been an intensifying "quarterback controversy," but not involving either of the starting quarterbacks.

Rather, it involves a young man named Tim Tebow, who just graduated from college in December. He is one of the best young quarterbacks in the country, and a pro-life television commercial featuring his mother will air for 30 seconds during the "big game." Hearing of this, pro-abortion groups have protested and sought to have the ad canceled.

I asked a good friend, a Catholic mother and writer/researcher Stefanie Stark, who lives a short distance from the Tebow family in Jacksonville, Florida, to look into the background of this controversy. She filed the following report. —Robert Moynihan

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

"God Sent Me a Quarterback"

"I asked God to send me a preacher. God sent me a quarterback." —Bob Tebow (Tim's father)

"And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.'" —Mark 16:15

by Stefanie Stark

JACKSONVILLE, Florida, February 6, 2010 — Across the country tomorrow, many families and friends will gather around their flat-screen televisions to watch the Indianapolis Colts battle the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl XLIV airing on CBS. But the football player who has dominated the headlines is not the Colt's Peyton Manning or Saints' quarterback, Drew Brees. Instead, it is a player who has not yet been signed to the NFL: recent University of Florida graduate and 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow.

The 22-year-old Gator quarterback has been called the next Brett Favre and is well known not only for his incredible talent as an athlete but also for the public witness to his faith by writing Bible verses in his eye black during games.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that CBS is scheduled to air a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl that features Tim's mother, Pam, discussing her decision to refuse her doctor's advice to have an abortion and to have Tim.

The ad was funded by the Christian organization Focus on the Family and, according to Tim Tebow, the central message is "Celebrate family. Celebrate life."

On the other side of this so-called "controversial" ad are the "pro-choice" groups such as National Organization for Women (NOW) and Planned Parenthood, who have called CBS's decision to air the Tebow commercial "an outrage" because they believe "it sends the wrong message."

These women's groups have launched their own televised campaign demanding that CBS pull the 30 second Tebow ad.

At this point, it looks as though the network will continue with its plans to run the ad.

There are also rumors today that a second Tim Tebow ad, an uncut version of the one scheduled to run during the Super Bowl, will air during the pre-game show.

Why are many outraged over a gifted athlete and his mother with a moving, pro-family message, while so many other outrageous things seem to be accepted with no protest at all?
more...

Benedict XVI calls on Guatemala to protect the vulnerable

2010-02-06T18:42:00.005-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 6, 2010 / 01:44 pm (CNA).- The Holy Father accepted the credentials of the new ambassador to the Holy See from Guatemala, Mr. Alfonso Roberto Matta Fahsen, on Saturday morning. In his message to the diplomat, the Pope addressed the importance of protecting the vulnerable in the country and reinforcing their strong values.

Pope Benedict referred to the centuries-long history of the Gospel in the country of Guatemala, throughout which the people have demonstrated a "very rooted faith in God," devotion for the Virgin and a "faithful love" for the Church and the Successor of Peter.
more...

See also from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope Benedict XVI: Help the Poorest Countries
February 6, 2010

Pope addresses Italian power company on rethinking the economy

2010-02-06T18:06:00.005-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 6, 2010 / 02:52 pm (CNA).- On Saturday at the Apostolic Palace, Pope Benedict met in audience with a group from a local Italian municipal agency. Speaking with them, but also to the international community, Holy Father stressed the importance of "social responsibility" in the business environment “to promote the good of all.”

Meeting with directors and personnel of the Roman branch of ACEA, a company that specializes in providing energy and water services to Italy, the Holy Father expressed his hope that the development model that has brought the world to its present economic crisis would be rethought so that man with his “capacity to produce, innovate, think and build the future” is placed at the center.

It’s important, he continued, to increase consciousness for “the necessity of a broader ‘social responsibility’ in business, that strives to hold in just consideration the expectations and needs of workers, clients, producers and the entire community, and to pay special attention to the environment.”

“In this way,” added Pope Benedict, “the production of goods and services will not be tied exclusively to the search for economic profits, but also to the promotion of the good for all.”
more...

See also:

From San Francisco Chronicle, "Pope weighs in on Fiat's planned closure."

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope Benedict XVI: Corporate responsibility towards society
February 6, 2010

Yahad in Unum: Catholics and Jews joins hands for Holocaust victims

2010-02-05T23:59:00.001-05:00

romereports

February 5, 2010. Auschwitz in Poland, may be the most well-known concentration camp, but it’s not the only one. These camps of horror are widespread throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

It’s estimated, 11 million people were executed in camps like these. But Nazis are also known for killing thousands more for the same reasons outside the walls of the camps.

Fathers, mothers and children lie in mass graves throughout Eastern Europe waiting for a proper burial.

Father Patrick Desbois, the person who heads Yahad-In Unum, wants to find the bodies of the victims the Nazis killed and lay them to rest with dignity.

Father Patrick Desbois
President Yachad in Unum
“So the main challenge for now is to find all the main graves of Jews and gipsies who were been killed in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.”

The name of the association is in Hebrew and Latin, ‘Yahad’ and ‘In Unum’ both mean together. The group is a clear example of how the Jewish and Catholic communities are collaborating to close the wounds caused by the Holocaust.

With the help of written testimonies and eye witnesses who say they saw Nazis drag Jews into forests to be executed, Yahad-In-Unum searches for mass graves in the outskirts of Ukraine. The organizers aim to give family members of the deceased a tomb and their loved ones a proper burial so they can be remembered.

Father Patrick Desbois
President Yahad in Unum
“We found seven hundreds extermination sites and interviewed 1 thousand five hundred witnesses representing the killing side to testimony to know where are because, the Jews have never been buried or the gipsies either.”

The Catholic priest works with people from other religious backgrounds in this project that goes beyond inter-religious dialogue.

Rabbi Joseph Levi
Chief Rabbi of Florence
“In this sense we see how with help from the Church, Father Desvois has introduced a very important project to uncover another dark side of the Holocaust some may not know about .”

Rabino David Rosen
International Director of Inter-religious Affairs
“The Catholic priest and his colleagues are dedicating themselves to looking after, finding, discovering, rehabilitating Jewish cemeteries. There could not be a more wonderful testimony of friendship and mutual respect.”

Yahad-In Unum doesn’t seek to reopen old wounds, rather make for effective dialogue between people of faith. Jews and Catholics cooperating so that hundreds of Holocaust victims can now rest in peace.

Pope’s message for World Day of the Sick: Serve the sick out of love

2010-02-05T23:31:00.005-05:00

RomeReports
February 05, 2010

Accompany the sick in their suffering and heal their physical and spiritual wounds. Thats the message Benedict XVI conveyed to those who dedicate themselves to serving the sick, including nurses, doctors and all those who daily deal with suffering.

The pope’s message for World Day of the Sick, titled "The Church at the service of love for the suffering" stresses the need to serve those who are sick, out of love.

Benedict XVI made a special call to priests who work in hospitals. He encouraged them to help heal the sick, their wounds and their spirit.

For World Day of the Sick, doctors, volunteers, nurses and chaplains will gather from February 9th to 11th in Rome to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. During the 3 day conference, there will be meetings and exhibitions that will help them understand the pain of those who are suffering.

Benedict XVI will close the events with a Mass on February 11, the day of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Vatican. Relics of St. Bernadette of Lourdes will be on display during the ceremony.

A day meant to encourage health care workers so they can provide quality service to patients and respect them up until their final moments.

See also from Zenit, "Official Reflects on Church's Mission in Health Care."

‘Stop dehydration deaths,’ says Terri Schiavo’s brother in response to new brain scan

2010-02-05T22:54:00.006-05:00

Bobby Schindler

St. Petersburg, Fla., Feb 4, 2010 / 08:32 pm (CNA).- Reacting to news of a breakthrough in brain scanning technology, Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler is calling for a halt to removing hydration from brain-damaged patients who are thought to be in a persistent vegetative state. An “unscientific, inaccurate” diagnosis of unresponsive patients is being used as “a criterion to kill,” Schindler charged.

Schindler was responding to news that researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the University of Liège have used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map a patient’s brain activity while he was asked to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.

One patient, a 29-year-old man who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in a traffic accident, was able to communicate by willfully changing his brain activity, a press release from the MRC reports. He correctly answered questions such as “Is your father’s name Alexander?”
more...

See also:

From CNN, "'Vegetative state' man responds to questions"

From LifeSiteNews.com, "'Vegetative' Patients may Retain Awareness: Study"

Pope tells Scottish Catholics to prepare to 'grapple' with secularism

2010-02-05T13:18:00.009-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2010 / 11:19 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI met with bishops from Scotland Friday morning on the occasion of their “ad Limina” visit to the Holy See. Not only did he confirm that he will be visiting their nation this year, but he addressed a variety of issues relevant to the Scottish Church, including the need to defend Church teaching in the face of secularism.

In his message to the bishops, Benedict XVI commended them for their "Priests for Scotland" initiative, which addresses significant issues being dealt with by the Scottish clergy. The Pope remarked that “the witness of priests who are genuinely committed to prayer and joyful in their ministry bears fruit not only in the spiritual lives of the faithful, but also in new vocations.”

Initiatives of this sort, he said, must be offered along with catechesis to remind the lay community of the “indispensable” nature of the priesthood to the life of the Church, especially in providing the Eucharist.

A “renewed focus” on the role of the “lay apostolate” is also needed as it is sometimes confused with “lay ministry,” the Pope said, noting that through the clarification of the roles of clergy and laity a “strong impetus” will be given to the evangelization of society.

The task of evangelization, Benedict XVI continued, “requires a readiness to grapple firmly with the challenges presented by the increasing tide of secularism in (your) country” especially in regard to the important issues of euthanasia and medical ethics.
more...

See also:

From Zenit, "Benedict XVI's Address to Scottish Bishops: 'People of Faith Bear Witness to the Truth'"

From Catholic News Service, "Catholic teaching is not a list of 'no's,' pope tells Scottish bishops"

From Asia News, "Pope: Church cannot accept any compromise on euthanasia"

From Catholic World News, "Combat 'rising tide of secularism,' Pope urges Scottish bishops" and "Pope confirms he will visit Scotland"

From AFP via Yahoo! Canada News, "Pope speaks out against euthanasia in Scotland"

From BBC News, "Pope confirms visit to Scotland"

From The Scotsman, "Pope's "joy" as visit to Scotland is confirmed"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: Create a better society
February 5, 2010

Shroud of Turin: Image provokes prayer, curiosity, scholarly disputes

2010-02-05T11:58:00.007-05:00

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
Feb-5-2010

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Shroud of Turin, which many Christians believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus, goes on public display this spring, at a time when experts are debating new claims about the 14-foot-long piece of linen.

Pope Benedict XVI has already made plans to view the shroud during a one-day trip to the northern Italian city of Turin in early May. Many observers are wondering how the pope will refer to the cloth: as a sign, an icon or -- as Pope John Paul II once characterized it -- a relic.

The shroud's last showing was 10 years ago, when more than a million people lined up to see it in the cathedral of Turin in northern Italy. Officials are predicting similar crowds for the exposition April 10-May 23, and visitors are being urged to book their visits online at http://www.sindone.org/.

The pilgrims come to witness with their own eyes what they may have read about or glimpsed on TV. Most go away impressed with what they see: a faint image of a bearded man who appears to have been whipped, crowned with thorns and crucified.

Carbon-14 tests in 1988 dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, and seemed to confirm the theory that the shroud was a pious fraud. But since then, some experts have faulted the methodology of the testing, and said the tiny samples used may have been taken from areas of the cloth that were mended in medieval times.

The shroud has also been chemically analyzed, electronically enhanced and computer-imaged. So far, no one has been able to fully explain how the image was transferred to the linen cloth, although experts have put forward theories ranging from enzyme reaction to solar imaging.

The shroud has been studied from virtually every scientific angle in recent years. Its weave has been examined, pollen grains embedded in the cloth have been inspected, and red stains have been analyzed for hemoglobin properties. One particular sub-category of debate focuses on enhanced images that, in the opinion of some scientists, reveal the impression of 1st-century Palestinian coins placed on the eyes of the shroud's figure.

The "jury" on the shroud includes hundreds of experts, some of them self-appointed. They do not split neatly into believers and skeptics, however. The latest controversy, in fact, involves a Vatican archivist who claims to have found evidence of writing on the shroud -- a hypothesis that has drawn sharp criticism from other Catholic scholars.

The archivist, Barbara Frale, said in a new book that older photographs of the shroud reveal indications of what was essentially a written death notice for a "Jesus Nazarene." The text, she said, employs three languages used in 1st-century Jerusalem.

The book immediately prompted a Web site war in Italy. Several sites dedicated to the shroud ridiculed Frale's hypothesis, saying it bordered on Dan Brown-style fantasy. Vatican Radio, however, featured an interview with Frale about her "important discovery." No doubt the world will hear more about this scholarly spat when the shroud goes on display.

It will be the first public showing of the shroud since it underwent a restoration in 2002, which removed repair patches and a large piece of linen of a later date. To prepare for the exhibit, the Archdiocese of Turin has taken the unusual step of closing the cathedral for three months. It will take that long to set up the viewing area and the informational exhibit for visitors as they wait in line.

Pope Benedict's arrival is a big event for organizers of this year's shroud exposition. Many Catholics look to Rome for direction on how to evaluate the shroud, as Pope John Paul II discovered en route to Africa in 1989, when he called the shroud a "relic." When excited reporters asked whether this meant it was the authentic burial cloth of Christ, the Polish pope conferred with an aide before answering more cautiously: "The church has never pronounced itself in this sense. It has always left the question open to all those who want to seek its authenticity. I think it is a relic."

Clearly, Pope John Paul was personally convinced, although when he went to see the shroud in 1998 he carefully avoided using the term "relic."

Pope Benedict has long been cautious about the value of private signs, apparitions and revelations. But he seems to consider the Shroud of Turin in a different category.

In his book, "The Spirit of the Liturgy," then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote that the shroud was "a truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing."

In his meditations on the Good Friday Way of the Cross in Rome shortly before his election as pope in 2005, he wrote regarding the 11th station, "Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross": "The Shroud of Turin allows us to have an idea of the incredible cruelty of this procedure."

The pope then offered a kind of prayer inspired by the figure of the shroud: "Let us halt before this image of pain, before the suffering Son of God. Let us look upon him at times of presumptuousness and pleasure, in order to learn to respect limits and to see the superficiality of all merely material goods. Let us look upon him at times of trial and tribulation, and realize that it is then that we are closest to God."

See also from Google Books, Pope Benedict's, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, book "The Spirit of the Liturgy."

Not Ignorance, Incompetence, or Bias, but Media Fraud

2010-02-05T10:51:00.004-05:00

By Sonja Corbitt
2/5/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Crucial facts are left out of news stories when those facts will undermine or destroy a liberal argument.

Mainstream media reporters like CNN’s Rick Sanchez seemed unable to discern who had more supporters present, and CNN cameramen aired shots of small groups of pro-abortion protesters close-up in the foreground, making the 300,000 pro-life marchers seem insignificant, invisible, or at the very least, not newsworthy.

BETHPAGE, TN (Catholic Online) - Some American journalists act like communist governments, sifting and spinning the “news” into propagandist, policy-molding sound bites, but sadly media bias itself is no longer news because it is defrauding the country.

Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of US journalists vote for Democrats, even though the country is evenly split between the two major political parties. A fellow at the Manhattan Institute, William McGowan offered an explanation for such journalistic malpractice in his book “Coloring the News.”

In it McGowan revealed news organizations create special editorial caucuses consisting exclusively of homosexual, feminist, black, or Hispanic journalists who decide how the news about their respective groups will be reported, or whether it will receive air time or print at all.

Crucial facts are left out of news stories when those facts will undermine or destroy a liberal argument, while false stories and claims are reported widely as factual in the media when they support liberal views. Recent examples abound.

March for Life

Some claim the reports on the recent March for Life in Washington demonstrate outright media fraud. Reports from those on the ground on the numbers of pro-lifers at the march were estimated at 300,000 and pro-abortion advocates fewer than a hundred.

But mainstream media reporters like CNN’s Rick Sanchez seemed unable to discern who had more supporters present, and CNN cameramen aired shots of small groups of pro-abortion protesters close-up in the foreground, making the 300,000 pro-life marchers seem insignificant, invisible, or at the very least, not newsworthy.

Such corruption in reporting for the March for Life is said to be a late-January tradition in Washington, to the point that pro-abortion protestors are always given pride of place in mainstream stories, no matter their scant numbers compared to those participating in the March. Footage is edited to give misleading impressions and numbers are skewed in favor of pro-abortion activists, leading pro-abortion activists to pack up when the media leaves.

In major media outlets like Newsweek, young women participants in the March for Life are said to be absent, implying there is no support for the pro-life cause among young women, when in reality they compose the largest demographic in the movement.

McGowan confirms the same biases in reporting on the abortion issue, attributing them to the fact that over 80% of journalists surveyed say they are pro-choice, and offers the widespread media promotion of safe sex and use of the term “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life” as examples of ways journalists “color” the news.
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Political programs cannot achieve justice and equality, Pope says in Lenten message

2010-02-04T20:25:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 04, 2010

In his message for Lent, Pope Benedict XVI cautions against a purely secular approach to achieving justice in society.

While Jesus "surely condemns the indifference that even today forces hundreds of millions into death through lack of food, water and medicine," the Holy Father writes, nevertheless "distributive justice does not render to the human being the totality of his due." Man seeks for something much more-- for salvation-- which can only come through Christ and his Church.

The Pope's annual message takes its title from St. Paul's letter to the Romans: "The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ." Pope Benedict begins with some reflections on the meaning of the word "justice." He notes that the most common definition involves giving every person his due. But a problem arises immediately, he notes: "What man needs most cannot be guaranteed to him by law."

Efforts to achieve justice through the force of human law cannot succeed, the Pope says. The radical impulse to eliminate all oppressive structures, hoping thereby to bring a just and equal society, is doomed. The Pontiff explains: "Injustice, the fruit of evil, does not have exclusively external roots; its origin lies in the human heart, where the seeds are found of a mysterious cooperation with evil."

The goal of the faithful during Lent, the Pope writes, should be to root out the evil in their own hearts. This effort requires humility, because Christians must acknowledge that they cannot change the world-- or even change themselves-- by their own powers; they must rely on the help of their Savior. Christians must be determined to pursue God's justice, not their own.

The Christian who is determined to answer God's call will indeed work for justice in society, the Pope continues: "God is attentive to the cry of the poor and in return asks to be listened to: He asks for justice towards the poor, the stranger, the slave." But the Christian recognizes that his own efforts to help others are guided by God. He concludes that the justice to which St. Paul refers is "the justice that comes from grace, where it is not man who makes amends, heals himself and others."

At a Vatican press conference introducing the Pope's Lenten message, Hans-Gert Poettering, the former president of the European Parliament, observed that the Pope "has indicated that a secularly radicalized form of the idea of distributive justice that is decoupled from faith in God becomes ideological." He added: "As a politician, I would like to add: We have experienced in collapsed socialism where this thinking can lead to."

Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, agreed. He told the press conference: "Whoever dedicates deeper study to the Church's contribution in favor of peaceful understanding among human beings will soon discover that the problem of just coexistence cannot be resolved only though worldly interventions."

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Papal Message for Lent 2010-- full text (VIS)

Salvation in Christ is the Foundation of Human Justice (VIS)

Pope: God's justice is not that of men

2010-02-04T14:05:00.008-05:00

» 02/04/2010 12:42
VATICAN

In his "Message for Lent”, Benedict XVI highlights how man must overcome the illusion of self" and “ the deep state of closure, which is the origin of injustice" to open himself to the love of God. Jesus "certainly condemns the indifference that even today forces hundreds of millions of human beings to death for lack of food, water and medicine."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Divine justice is not that of men, it does not follow the traditional rule that identifies it in "to render to every man his due”, but one for which " where the just man dies for the guilty and the guilty receives in return the blessing due to the just one". It is a "justice" - said Benedict XVI in his message for Lent - which makes men "emerge from the illusion of self sufficiency," overcoming "the strange force of gravity that leads him to fall back on himself, to assert himself over and against others".

Titled "The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ ", the papal document, released today, focuses on the very definition of justice. The classical definition, "does not specify what “due” is to be rendered to each person. What man needs most cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full, something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift”. " Material goods are certainly useful and required – indeed Jesus Himself was concerned to heal the sick, feed the crowds that followed Him and surely condemns the indifference that even today forces hundreds of millions into death through lack of food, water and medicine – yet “distributive” justice does not render to the human being the totality of his “due.” Just as man needs bread, so does man have even more need of God”.

There is, the Pope notes, a "a permanent temptation within man: to situate the origin of evil in an exterior cause. Many modern ideologies deep down have this presupposition: since injustice comes “from outside,” in order for justice to reign, it is sufficient to remove the exterior causes that prevent it being achieved. This way of thinking – Jesus warns – is ingenuous and shortsighted. Injustice, the fruit of evil, does not have exclusively external roots; its origin lies in the human heart, where the seeds are found of a mysterious cooperation with evil".
more...

See also:

From CNA, "'Divine justice' focus of Holy Father's Lenten message"

VIS-Press releases, "Salvation in Christ is the Foundation of Human Justice" and "Papal Message for Lent 2010"

From Catholic News Service, "Conversion breaks bonds of selfishness, pope says in Lenten message"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Message for Lent: Contribute toward creating just societies
February 4, 2010

Winter Olympics are 'building block of peace and friendship,' declares Pope Benedict

2010-02-04T11:03:00.008-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 4, 2010 / 10:53 am (CNA).- In a letter to the Archbishop of Vancouver, the Holy Father expressed his happiness for the occasion of the 21st Winter Olympic Games and the 10th Paralympic Winter Games to be celebrated between February and March.

The Pope noted the importance of the event for everyone involved and recalled the words of John Paul II, who said that sport "can make an effective contribution to peaceful understanding between people and to establishing the new civilization of love."

With those words in mind, Pope Benedict added, "may sport always be a valued building block of peace and friendship between people and nations."

The Holy Father also referred to the "More Than Gold" initiative in his message and prayed that all those who make use of the spiritual and material assistance the effort provides for the games "will be confirmed in their love of God and neighbor."
more...

See also:

VIS-Press release, "Telegram for Winter Olympics in Canada."

From Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, "Pope wishes good luck to Winter Olympic athletes"

From ABC News, "Pope Sends His Wishes for Peaceful Olympics"

The Gordon Gekko Scale of Greed

2010-02-03T22:50:00.004-05:00

Inside Catholic
by John Zmirak
2/03/10

Over the course of many months thinking about the deadly sins and opposing virtues, I've ranged pretty widely. In dealing with Greed and Generosity, I have drawn (so far as I know) the only direct connections yet between Chinese Communism, elves, ostrich farms, and the mortgage crisis. But that's what being Catholic (from katholikos, or "according to the whole") is all about -- learning to look at the whole world in all its dimensions, exploring its murkiest shadows in the light of remembered truths. And most questions that vex current politics can be best understood by understanding the relationship of justice and mercy. In theory, it's a simple one: Justice is the foundation of the house and its stress-bearing walls, while mercy provides the windows and the doors. Neglect the first, and you live in a tottering ruin; the second, and you're in a prison.

But the point of these reflections isn't to change the way you vote but to help you achieve the Golden Mean of virtue in daily life. That means avoiding the sin of Greed without lurching over sideways into Prodigality, learning to give liberally without enabling the wasteful. We must not, to paraphrase Scripture, eat up our substance with prodigal giving -- particularly when we're speaking of wealth or rights that belong to our fellow citizens. Taking part in a partly free economy, many of us are offered frequent temptations to act greedily, and it's hard to know where or when to stop. In a culture that has tacitly decided (long about 1688) to shelve religious questions and concentrate on getting rich, it's all too easy to see accumulating property as a virtuous end in itself. Dostoevsky, of all people, called money "coined freedom," and who wouldn't want more of that? Well, Dostoevsky for one, who threw his wealth away most prodigally at the gambling tables, and only embraced Christianity while serving in a labor camp.

So we're ringed round with paradoxes, and the issues aren't simple. In search of those clinking little icons of liberty, we can easily enslave ourselves to workaholic habits, or corrupt our friendships and even our families by commercializing them -- for instance, when you try to recruit your college pals into a pyramid scheme, or nix your chance at marriage by wrangling over a pre-nup. Perhaps the best approach is one proposed by Catholic philanthropist Frank Hanna, whose book What Your Money Means proposes a deeply biblical approach. Going back to the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30 and Lk 19:12-27), he suggests we think of every natural good that God has given us as something precious we've been entrusted to use in unique way. Had God other plans for each gift, He would have given it to someone else. With that fact in mind, we should husband our resources prudently, aware that on Judgment Day we'll be called to account for each of them. That's not the time you want to be on your hands and knees with a trowel.

Keep that image in your head as you take my Trademark-Busting Cosmo-Style Quiz™, to see where you fall on the Gordon Gekko Scale. Take out your pencil and score yourself carefully -- the answer might affect your credit rating.
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Obama Adviser Stands by Assertion That Pope Benedict XVI Is 'Hurting People in the Name of Jesus'

2010-02-03T22:40:00.003-05:00

Wednesday, February 03, 2010
By Karen Schuberg

(CNSNews.com) – Harry Knox, who serves on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is standing by a statement he made last March that Pope Benedict XVI is “hurting people in the name of Jesus.”

When asked on Tuesday whether he still holds that view that the pope "is hurting people in the name of Jesus," Knox said, “I do.” (See video below.)

In addition to advising President Obama on the government's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership programs, Knox is the director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a homosexual activist group.

At the National Press Club on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Knox, “You put out a statement saying Pope Benedict XVI was—quote—‘hurting people in the name of Jesus’ because he did not support promoting the use of condoms as a means to control the spread of HIV. And I was wondering, do you still believe the pope’s position on condoms is ‘hurting people in the name of Jesus’?”

Knox answered, “I—I do.”

In a follow-up question, CNSNews.com asked Knox: “So, even in light of—Edward Green, a Harvard researcher in AIDS prevention said the pope was correct in that condom use aggravates HIV, the spread of it, in Africa. So, in light of that statement, do you still hold to that position?

Knox answered, “He is simply incorrect in his assertion. All the other evidence of science shows otherwise.”

On March 17, 2009, Pope Benedict flew to Africa to visit Cameroon and Angola. During the flight, he answered several questions from reporters, including one concerning AIDS in Africa: Given that the Catholic Church’s position in fighting AIDS “is often considered unrealistic and ineffective,” would the pope “address this theme during the journey?”

Pope Benedict gave a lengthy response, detailing many of the Church’s humanitarian efforts to help people with AIDS in Africa. “I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money, necessary though it is,” he said. “If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help [by responsible behavior], the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it.”

In response to the pope’s remarks, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) issued a statement. It quoted Harry Knox as follows: “The Pope’s statement that condoms don't help control the spread of HIV, but rather condoms increase infection rates, is hurting people in the name of Jesus.”

“On a continent where millions of people are infected with HIV, it is morally reprehensible to spread such blatant falsehoods,” said Knox in the statement. “The Pope’s rejection of scientifically proven prevention methods is forcing Catholics in Africa to choose between their faith and the health of their entire community. Jesus was about helping the marginalized and downtrodden, not harming them further.”

Senior Harvard AIDS Prevention Researcher Edward Green, who describes himself as a liberal, says that science backs the pope’s message.
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UK Catholics Learn Media Skills Ahead of Papal Visit

2010-02-03T18:01:00.002-05:00

Project Seeks to Generate Positive Coverage of Pope

LONDON, FEB. 3, 2010 (Zenit.org).- If you've read the news this week, you've probably seen that Benedict XVI is against equality in England -- or that's what it sounds like.

The Pope's address Monday to bishops of England and Wales in Rome for their five-yearly visit generated news that the Holy Father was "swiping" and "attacking" a U.K. equality law.

In truth, he spoke about natural law and the freedom of religious groups to act according to their beliefs. Homosexual rights activists expressed chagrin, and the headlines reflected their opinions.

This kind of press response is precisely what the initiative "Catholic Voices" of the Catholic Union of Great Britain will try to head off when the Holy Father visits the United Kingdom in September.

It will be "an 'authoritative but unofficial' bureau of media-trained and well-briefed Catholic speakers," prepared to speak to the press about what the Pope is really saying and other related themes.

Ready for the spotlight

Around 25 people will be trained with twice-monthly briefing sessions imparted by "experts on contentious issues likely to come under the spotlight during the papal visit," a statement from the group announced. "They will also receive three day-long media skills training sessions during those months, and conclude their formation with a residential retreat at Worth Abbey in the summer."

Catholic Voices is independent of the bishops' conference, but approved by it.

The president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, Lord Daniel Brennan, and the abbot of Worth, Christopher Jamison, are the project's patrons.

The project communiqué noted that the Holy Father had another message Monday that didn't make the news.

He called on bishops to "insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society" and "to draw on the considerable gifts of the lay faithful in England and Wales and see that they are equipped to hand on the faith to new generations comprehensively, accurately, and with a keen awareness that in so doing they are playing their part in the Church’s mission."

According to Abbot Jamison, "Pope Benedict’s address to our bishops in Rome show how important and necessary this project is."
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Americans Looking for Real Political, Economic Change. Pope's Insights Help.

2010-02-03T14:43:00.006-05:00

By Carl Anderson
2/3/2010
Zenit News Agency (http://www.zenit.org/)

Benedict XVI has given us a great roadmap for a future that includes ethics in its economics.

'Until the American people see change they can believe in from both Washington and Wall Street, until they see business decisions made on a moral basis, the crisis in confidence among American workers and consumers will continue, and that bodes badly for all of us.'

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (Zenit.org) - Americans continue to see the country heading in the wrong direction.

During 2008, President Barack Obama clearly perceived this mood and brilliantly seized the day with the campaign slogan "Change We Can Believe In." Now, a year into his presidency, Washington appears incapable of delivering, and Americans are increasingly losing confidence in government.

A recent Knights of Columbus/Marist poll found that while Obama has overall approval from a majority of the American people, nearly six in 10 have lost confidence in Washington's ability to handle the economic crisis.

In addition, 55% say that increased government regulation will only hurt the economy further.

But while the American people don't support more regulation and lack confidence in government's response to the economy, they are hardly giving Wall Street a pass.

In fact, even more people are unhappy with greed in the business community.

It will not be enough for business to simply oppose greater government regulation since most Americans don't want runaway regulation by the government, for by even wider margins they don't trust business leaders.

Some 81% of Americans believe that business leaders have a different set of ethical standards for work and their personal lives. And 75% say that's not right.

The public is looking for change from the business and financial communities.

People want a higher standard and stronger commitment to ethics in business.

This feeling of the American people can’t be dismissed as angry populism. Rather, Americans are insisting on a free market with rules that make sense. They see -- and rightly so -- that a moral compass is the essential foundational of free markets.

As Americans do in their own lives, they expect the market to value such standards as honesty, fair play and concern for one's neighbor. That has always been the best of the "American way," and that is the only way business leaders can rebuild their relationship with the American people.

Are today's corporate executives capable of delivering a free market version of "change we can believe in?"

Ethical business

Interestingly, in 1985, Benedict XVI -- then Cardinal Ratzinger -- warned of the consequences of a system that removed itself from its moral foundation. He said: "It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse."

We have seen ethics separated from the market, and we have seen the market collapse under the weight of greedy and selfish investment practices. The question is, can we achieve an ethical market system?
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See also:

Poll: Americans Oppose Regulation & Greed

What We Need is a Moral Bail Out

Pope's Encyclical 'Charity in Truth'

Pope: "a missionary fire must always burn” in the heart of the Church

2010-02-03T13:17:00.009-05:00

» 02/03/2010 13:29
VATICAN

Illustrating the figure of St. Dominic of Guzman, Benedict XVI speaks of the "temptation" of career and power, "to which even those who have a role in animation and government in the Church are not immune " and recommends priests and seminarians to lovingly care for the "cultural dimension" of faith.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – A "missionary fire must always burn," in the Church which urges us to proclaim the Gospel to all and to live in accordance with what is proclaimed, without the "temptation of career and of power" even though, it is present at times. These are the lessons to be drawn from the life and work of St. Dominic of Guzman, the founder of the Dominicans, whose figure was outlined today by Benedict XVI to eight thousand people present in the Paul VI Hall for the general audience. A meeting also animated by the performance of a group of acrobats, to the Pope’s obvious enjoyment, who applauded them.

Reflecting on the personality of the founder of the Order of Preachers, known as the Dominicans, the Pope also recommended priests and seminarians to lovingly care for the "cultural dimension" of faith "so that the beauty of Christian truth can be better understood and faith can be truly nourished, strengthened and even defended. "
more...

See also:

From CNA, "Benedict XVI reflects on life of St. Dominic, model for new evangelization" and "Circus entertains Pope and pilgrims at audience"

From Catholic News Service, "Priests must live what they preach, avoid careerism, pope says"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope: The temptation of power even among men of the Church
February 3, 2010

Source: British government backs down on ‘Equality Bill’ following Pope’s comments

2010-02-03T13:01:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 03, 2010

A British government source has told the Daily Telegraph that following Pope Benedict’s recent comments to the bishops of England and Wales, the government will withdraw the controversial provisions of the “Equality Bill” that threaten to undermine religious freedom.

“We are clear that these parts of the Equality Bill should not go forward,” said the source. “The Pope's intervention has been noted.”

Pope Benedict had told the bishops on February 1:

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth. Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel’s right to be heard?

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Victory for religious groups as Labour gives up on Equality Bill clause condemned by Pope (Daily Telegraph)

British Catholic politician slams Pope following ‘Equality Bill’ comments (CWN, 2/2)

Address to the Bishops of England and Wales (Holy See)

Pius XII feared outcry against atrocities would worsen situation

2010-02-02T22:57:00.002-05:00

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Pius XII wanted to speak out against Nazi atrocities, but was advised not to for fear of worsening the wartime situation, said the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

"If the pope was silent, it was not out of fright or self-interest, but concern for worsening the situation of those oppressed" by the Nazi regime, it said.

With continuing criticism of Pope Pius' wartime activities, especially given the advancement of his sainthood cause, the newspaper Feb. 2 republished an article that had first appeared in a special June 28, 1964, edition of the Vatican's weekly periodical, L'Osservatore della Domenica.

The article, written by the late Jesuit Cardinal Paolo Dezza, gave a firsthand account of the cardinal's conversations with Pope Pius during the war. Cardinal Dezza, who was rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome at the time, conducted spiritual exercises for Popes Pius XII and John Paul I.

During a lengthy audience with Pope Pius in December 1942, the cardinal said the pontiff was pained by the Nazi atrocities unfolding in Germany and was distressed by criticisms that he was not speaking out publicly against them.

The pope had recently sent letters to three bishops in Poland in which he deplored the Nazi's criminal acts, but the bishops had written back, first thanking the pope for his concern, but adding that they would not make the letters public "because it would worsen the situation," according to the late cardinal.

"If I speak out, I will do them harm," the pope said, according to Cardinal Dezza.

The cardinal said the pope told him, "People lament that the pope doesn't speak out. But the pope can't speak out. If he did it would be worse."

When the Germans occupied Rome in 1943, the late Italian cardinal said Pope Pius encouraged him to use the pontifical university as a refuge for "civilians, Jews and the persecuted."

Pope Benedict to observe World Day for Consecrated Life

2010-02-02T22:50:00.004-05:00

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2010 / 11:29 am (CNA).- Today the Church is celebrating the World Day for Consecrated Life simultaneously with the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. Pope Benedict XVI will observe the two celebrations by presiding over Vespers in St. Peter's Basilica this evening.

The World Day for Consecrated Life was inaugurated in 1997 by Pope John Paul II as an initiative for the entire Christian community to celebrate the mission of the consecrated life in the present and the future of the Church.

It was founded by the Holy Father for three reasons: to praise the Lord more solemnly and give thanks to him for the gift of the consecrated life, to promote knowledge of and esteem for the consecrated life by the entire People of God and to give consecrated persons an opportunity to return to the sources of their vocation.
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See also from Catholic News Service, "Pope honors religious; Vatican preparing documents on prayer, brothers."

Vatican newspaper again defends Pope Pius XII

2010-02-02T08:45:00.008-05:00

February 02, 2010

Two weeks after L’Osservatore Romano reprinted an article by Bernard-Henri Lévy blasting media caricatures of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Pius XII, the Vatican newspaper has reprinted an article by New York-based writer Dimitri Cavalli defending the wartime Pontiff. The article originally appeared in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper.

“The campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure because his detractors cannot sustain their main charges against him-- that he was silent, pro-Nazi, and did little or nothing to help the Jews-- with evidence,” writes Cavalli. “Perhaps only in a backward world such as ours would the one man who did more than any other wartime leader to help Jews and other Nazi victims receive the greatest condemnation.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Dimitri Cavalli: E i vescovi americani spiegarono ai cattolici l'alleanza con i russi: I nazisti lo conoscevano bene e per questo lo temevano (L’Osservatore Romano)

Dimitri Cavalli: Much-maligned pontiff (Haaretz)

Jewish writer blasts media treatment of Benedict XVI, Pius XII (CWN, 1/21)

See also:

From Zenit, "Pius XII Defended in Israeli Newspaper" and "Nothing Novel Seen in New Pius XII Documents"

The encyclical, drafted by Cardinal Pacelli---the future Pope Pius XII---from Catholic Culture-Library, "Mit Brennender Sorge (On the Church and German Reich): Pius XI (March 14, 1937)"

British Catholic politician slams Pope following ‘Equality Bill’ comments

2010-02-02T08:34:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 02, 2010

A day after Pope Benedict praised the British bishops for opposing an Equality Bill that threatens religious freedom, Stephen Hughes, a Catholic member of the European Parliament, offered public criticism of the Pontiff, as did representatives of various activist organizations.

“As a Catholic, I am appalled by the attitude of the Pope. Religious leaders should be trying to eradicate inequality, not perpetuate it,” said Hughes.

“Inequality is at the root of many social problems,” he added. “Instead of criticizing the UK's plans to improve its legislation, the Pope should ensure that existing EU legislation is properly applied in the Vatican.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Pope challenged over equality law (UKPA)

Anger as Pope slams UK equality law (UKPA)

Pope confirms travel plans in blunt speech to British bishops (CWN, 2/1)

In victory for religious liberty, House of Lords blocks Equality Bill provisions (CWN, 1/26)

See also from CWN on February 1, 2010, "Church has right to bring Gospel values to public debate, pope says."

Pope to Bishops of England: Stay Faithful. Be Courageous. Welcome Anglicans.

2010-02-02T08:11:00.006-05:00

2/2/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

‘It is important to recognize dissent for what it is.... It is the truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free.'

(Pope Benedict XVI) 'If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice.'

ROME (Catholic Online) - On Monday, February 1, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI received the Bishops of England and Wales at the end of their Ad Limina visit. In a frank and important address he confirmed his visit to Great Britain.

He called the Bishops to stand firm against encroachments of the freedom of the Church, stay faithful to the teaching of the Magisterium and encourage the faithful to do so as well. He encouraged priestly vocations by recognizing the great example of Cardinal Newman. He told the Bishops to welcome the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibu as a gift of the Holy Spirit, making sure to welcome the new Anglican groups into the full communion of the Church by giving them a “warm and open-hearted welcome.” The Holy Father insisted that “such groups will be a blessing for the entire Church.”

We set forth the full text of the Pope’s address to all of the Bishops below:

******

Dear Brother Bishops,

I welcome all of you on your ad Limina visit to Rome, where you have come to venerate the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. I thank you for the kind words that Archbishop Vincent Nichols has addressed to me on your behalf, and I offer you my warmest good wishes and prayers for yourselves and all the faithful of England and Wales entrusted to your pastoral care. Your visit to Rome strengthens the bonds of communion between the Catholic community in your country and the Apostolic See, a communion that sustained your people’s faith for centuries, and today provides fresh energies for renewal and evangelization.
more...

See also:

Here Come the Anglicans: Opening Chapter

Pope to Bishops: Fight Relativism with Truth

Pope: Anglican Catholics a Blessing for Church

Pope pays Sunday visit to local museum

2010-02-01T15:41:00.005-05:00

A work by Albrecht Alterdorfer on display at the exhibit "Power and Grace. The Holy Patrons of Europe."

Rome, Italy, Feb 1, 2010 / 03:28 pm (CNA).- On Sunday evening, Pope Benedict XVI slipped out of the Vatican to visit an art exhibit titled "Power and Grace. The Holy Patrons of Europe." Benedict XVI spent over 30 minutes "admiring the masterpieces," which offered a cross-section of the rapport between Church and government through the ages.

According to L'Osservatore Romano, the collection was displayed to "tell the story of the evolution of the relationship between faith and culture, holiness and power, Church and political community on the continent through the centuries."

Among the 120 pieces on exhibit were works from Leonardo, Van Eyck, El Greco and Caravaggio, which had been on loan to the Palace of Venice from major museums, such as the Louvre, since Oct. 8. Sunday was the show's final day.

The Holy Father had been invited to see the exhibit by the secretary of Italy's Council of Ministers, Gianni Letta, during the presentation of the book "The Travels of Benedict XVI in Italy" on Jan. 21.

Besides Letta, among those accompanying Pope Benedict on the the visit were his personal secretary Monsignor Georg Ganswein, members of the Memores Domini of the Papal Household, Italy's ambassador to the Holy See, organizers of the exhibit and its curator.

During the tour, the secretary of the Council of Ministers took the opportunity to verbalize the continued relationship between the Church and the government when he confirmed to the Pope that "will of the Italian government is to reaffirm the existence of the strength of the Christian roots of Europe."

See also from CNS Blog, "Pope sneaks out of Vatican to visit exhibit."

Pope confirms travel plans in blunt speech to British bishops

2010-02-01T15:11:00.006-05:00

Catholic World News
February 01, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI confirmed plans for his visit to Great Britain in September-- and offered some unusually blunt reflections on the situation facing the Church there-- in a February 1 address to a group of visiting British bishops.

The Pope told the bishops, who were in Rome for their ad limina visit, that he looked forward to his trip to their country. Although he did not mention specific dates, informed Catholic sources in London have confirmed that the trip will take place in September.

The Pontiff went on to say that the Church leadership in England and Wales "needs to speak with a united voice." His words appeared to be a reference to the friction within the episcopal conference, and the willingness of some British prelates to countenance open dissent from Catholic teaching. In an even more evident reference to that problem, the Pope went on to say:

In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.

Later in his address the Pope prodded the English bishops to be prepared to receive Anglicans entering the Catholic Church under the terms of the new apostolic constitution. In the past many English bishops have resisted pleas from Anglicans looking for corporate reunion with the Holy See. The Holy Father tacitly acknowledged that resistance, saying: "I would ask you to be generous in implementing the provisions of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, so as to assist those groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. I am convinced that, if given a warm and open-hearted welcome, such groups will be a blessing for the entire Church."

Pope Benedict voiced his strong support for the bishops of England and Wales in their stand against an "Equality Bill" that would have threatened sanctions against the Church for failing to ordain women as priests and for resisting same-sex marriage. " In some respects," the Pontiff said, the legislation-- which encountered defeat in the House of Lords-- "actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed." A headline in the Guardian reported that the Pope "condemns gay equality laws." The Times, with the flagrant bias that characterizes that paper's treatment of Catholic affairs, made the sensationalistic claim that the Pope had "attacked Britain's move towards equal rights in its secular democracy."

The Vatican traditionally does not formally announce plans for a papal trip until a few weeks before it occurs. But Pope Benedict has now, on several occasions, spoken openly about plans for foreign travel before the "official" announcement is made.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Pope Speaks of Forthcoming Apostolic Trip to Great Britain (VIS)

Pope Confirms Great Britain Trip (Vatican Radio)

Pope Benedict confirms first papal UK visit since 1982 (BBC)

Pope Benedict XVI confirms first state visit to UK (Times)

Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit (Guardian)

Pope tells English and Welsh bishops to get their act together (Telegraph)

Pope to Visit UK; Urges Church to Accept Anglicans (AP)

See also:

From CNA, "Pope tells English bishops to fight relativism with truth" and "Anglicans are a 'blessing for the entire Church,' states Pope Benedict"

From Catholic News Service, "Church has right to bring Gospel values to public debate, pope says"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: Church must participate in life of society
February 1, 2010

Pope's February prayer intentions

2010-02-01T15:04:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
February 01, 2010

The Vatican has announced the prayer intentions of Pope Benedict for February 2010.

The Holy Father's general intention is: "That by means of sincere search for the truth scholars and intellectuals may arrive at an understanding of the one true God." His missionary intention is: "That the Church, aware of her own missionary identity, may strive to follow Christ faithfully and to proclaim His Gospel to all peoples."

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for February (VIS)

Fr. Dwight Longenecker: What Shall We Do with the Convert Clergy?

2010-02-01T14:52:00.005-05:00

By Fr Dwight Longenecker
2/1/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The Anglican Ordinariate may well help to solve the vocations crisis.These priests will also be authorized to celebrate Mass according to the Latin rite.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

GREENVILLE (Catholic Online) - Some time ago I attended a conference for Catholic priests. As a married, former Anglican priest, I felt honored and humbled to be numbered among them. The topic of our conference was the vocations crisis, and I could not help but notice that I was one of the younger priests, and I am in my early fifties. It is not enough to look forward and say that in a few years we will have a crisis in vocations. We already have a crisis in vocations.

Where will we get the priests we need to serve the American church? One of the solutions is to bring priests in from other countries. Already priests are helping us from Africa, India, Poland and South America. But is it really fair to take priests from the developing world? In his book Future Church, John Allen points out that while the seminaries are full in countries like Nigeria, they still are not producing enough priests for the exploding Catholic population in their own country.

Many observers feel that we have turned the corner. The seminaries and houses of religious formation are experiencing a new influx of young men with vocations. Ordinations are slowly on the increase. However, even with a large influx of young men, it will take more time than we have to train them and for them to get enough experience to become parish pastors. The vocations crisis is already here. Where will we get the priests we need?

I believe there is a pool of well trained men already waiting in the wings. However to tap into this hidden mine of talent the church will need to think and act creatively. A few risks will need to be taken and the wave-walking attitude of St Peter will have to be re-discovered.

The group of men I am thinking of are convert clergy. It is often imagined that the only Protestants who convert to the Catholic church are Episcopal and Lutheran ministers. Not so. Jim Anderson, of The Coming Home Network International points out that their special apostolate to assist convert clergy have men from the whole range of different denominations on their books. These are men who between them bring a vast wealth of education and experience into the Catholic Church.

Only some of them may go forward to ordination as Catholic priests. If the convert clergyman is unmarried, and feels called to the Catholic priesthood he will usually fit rather quickly into the mainstream of Catholic seminary life. If the convert clergyman is married the path is more difficult. If he is from the Anglican tradition he may be ordained under the special Pastoral Provision. Through this process a bishop applies to Rome for a dispensation from the vow of celibacy allowing the married former Anglican to be ordained. Men from the Lutheran tradition (and a few others) have also been ordained through a similar process on a case by case basis.
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Pope: Charity is "the badge of a Christian"

2010-01-31T15:17:00.005-05:00

» 01/31/2010 13:01
VATICAN

Angelus, Benedict XVI invites prayers for peace in the Holy Land and thoughts for those who have lost their jobs in the economic crisis. World Day of Leprosy Suffers.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - An invitation to join in prayer for peace in the Holy Land and some thoughts on how many are losing their jobs because of the economic crisis, in the words of Benedict XVI to twenty thousand people present in St Peter's Square, despite the rainy day, after the midday Angelus prayer, before the recital of which the pope spoke of charity, as "the badge of Christianity."

Taking a cue from the passage of St Paul in this Sunday’s liturgy, the so-called "hymn of charity”, the Pope stressed that "Paul shows us the 'path' to perfection. This - he says - does not consist in possessing exceptional qualities: speaking new languages, knowing all mysteries, having wonderful faith or carrying out heroic gestures. Rather it consists in charity - agape - that is in true love, what God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Charity is the ‘greatest gift’, which gives value to everything else, but it 'does not boast, it is not swollen with pride,' indeed, it 'rejoices in the truth' and the good of others. Who really loves 'does not seek his own interests', he 'takes no account of evil received', he 'bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things' (cf. 1 Cor 13:4-7). Eventually, when we meet face to face with God, all the other gifts will be less; the only one that will remain forever is charity, because God is love and we shall be like Him, in perfect communion with Him."

"For now - he continued - while we are in this world, charity is the badge of a Christian. It is the synthesis of his whole life for what he believes and what he does. For this reason, at the beginning of my pontificate, I wanted to dedicate my first Encyclical to the theme of love: Deus Caritas Est. As you recall, this encyclical is composed of two parts, which correspond to the two aspects of love: its meaning, and therefore its implementation. Love is the essence of God himself, it is the sense of creation and history, it is the light that gives goodness and beauty to every human existence. At the same time, love is, so to speak, the 'style' of God and he who believes, it is the behaviour of those who, responding to the love of God, lays down his own life as a gift of self to God and to neighbour. In Jesus Christ these two aspects form a perfect unity: He is Love Incarnate. This love is revealed to us fully in Christ crucified."
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See also:

From CNA, "Love is the ‘greatest gift,’ Pope Benedict declares at Angelus" and "Caravan for Peace' descends on St. Peter's Square for Angelus"

From MSNBC, "Pope urges ‘responsibility’ during tough times"

From Zenit, "On 1 of the Most Beautiful Passages of the Bible": Charity Is the Christian Difference"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope: "Love is the style of God and the believer"
January 31, 2010

Pope on crisis: "Decent Work for All
January 31, 2010

Pondering Roman collars, the Latin Mass and 'holy ignorance'

2010-01-30T17:44:00.003-05:00

National Catholic Reporter
by John L Allen Jr on Jan. 30, 2010
The Future Church

In The Future Church I identify “evangelical Catholicism” as a key trend, defined as a strong reassertion of traditional Catholic identity coupled with an impulse to express that identity in the public realm. At a purely descriptive level that claim is a no-brainer, because the evidence is crystal clear – from revival of the old Latin Mass, to new demands that pro-choice Catholic politicians be brought to heel.

The $64,000 question isn’t whether the trend exists, but what to make of it.

In that regard, a recent book from the famed French sociologist Olivier Roy, widely considered one of Europe’s leading experts on Islam, offers two perspectives worth pondering. One’s empirical in nature and the other analytical – which is to say, one’s essentially a fact of life, the other a debatable line of interpretation.

The book is titled La Sainte ignorance: Le temps de la religion sans culture, published by Editions du Seuil in 2008. An English translation is scheduled for May 2010 from Columbia University Press, under the title Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Diverge.

First, Roy’s empirical point: It’s not just Catholics passing through an evangelical phase. In fact, the revival of traditional identity and the push to proclaim that identity in public is a defining feature of religion generally in the early 21st century.

In Europe, Roy points to the vigorous defense of the public display of crucifixes by Catholics, the insistence of Muslim women upon wearing veils, and a trend among younger Jewish men to wear the kippah at school and in the workplace. On the Christian side of the ledger, he also includes the massive crowds drawn by the World Youth Days instituted under Pope John Paul II, and the more recent “Christian Pride” festivals organized in some European cities as a self-conscious response to “Gay Pride” rallies. Globally, Roy notes the explosive growth of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of Christianity, the success of Salafism, Tablighi Jamaat and neo-Sufism within Islam, the comeback of the Lubavich movement inside Judaism, as well as the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the popularity of Sri Lankan theravada Buddhism.

Though highly distinct, Roy argues that these evangelical strains within the world’s major religions share certain defining features: “The individualization of faith, anti‐intellectualism, a stress on salvation and realization of the self, [and] rejection of the surrounding culture as pagan.”

One can debate the merits of certain items on that list, but in the main Roy’s observation is indisputable: The reassertion of traditional markers of religious identity, interpreted in a personal and evangelical key, is part of the physiognomy of our times far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church.
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Queen's adviser meets Archbishop of Westminster after Pope's offer to Anglicans

2010-01-30T16:41:00.008-05:00

A senior adviser to the Queen has met secretly with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales to express concern over the Pope's offer for disaffected Anglicans to convert to Rome.

Daily Telegraph
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 9:00PM GMT 30 Jan 2010

Archbishop Nichols, pictured, attempted to allay fears over the motivation behind the papal decree when he talked privately with the Lord Chamberlain Photo: GEOFF PUGH

In a highly unusual step, Earl Peel, the Lord Chamberlain, asked Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, to meet him following Pope Benedict XVI's decree.

The Vatican's announcement last year shocked the Church of England and was widely seen as an act of aggression, designed to poach Anglican clergy.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that at the time that it had been viewed as "a dawn raid on the Anglican communion".

The Queen, who is the Church's Supreme Governor, was not warned of the move, which has paved the way for priests to enter into full communion with the Holy See.

However, Archbishop Nichols attempted to allay fears over the motivation behind the papal decree when he talked privately with the Lord Chamberlain, who is the most senior official of the Royal Household.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that they met at Archbishop's House in Westminster in November, a fortnight after the Pope's offer was made.

The Archbishop reassured Lord Peel that Pope Benedict had only issued the decree in response to the requests of traditionalist Anglicans disillusioned with the liberal direction of their Church.
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See also from Catholic World News, "Conservative Anglican group moving toward union with Rome."

Exclusive: Susan Boyle wants to sing for Pope Benedict XVI when he's in Scotland

2010-01-29T20:41:00.003-05:00

The Daily Record
Jan 29 2010 By Heather Greenaway

SINGING sensation Susan Boyle wants to perform for the Pope when he visits Scotland.

The Britain's Got Talent winner, a devout Catholic, hopes organisers can make her dream come true when Benedict XVI arrives in September.

Simon Cowel l's brother and confidante Tony revealed her dream last night.

Tony, 59, who has worked closely with SuBo on the Everybody Hurts charity single for Haiti, said: "As Scotland's first lady, she is the obvious first choice.

"It would be a dream come true for her and I know she would drop everything if she was asked to perform for the Pope."

Susan, 48, has worshipped at Our Lady of Lourdes in Blackburn, West Lothian, since she was a child.

She still attends Mass at the church when her busy schedule allows. Parish priest Father Ryszard Holuka said it would be a great honour for the chart topper.

He said: "She is so busy but I'm sure she would love to sing for the Pope."

The Record yesterday broke the news of the first papal visit to Scotland since Pope John Paul II's historic Mass at Glasgow's Bellahouston Park in 1982.

Benedict XVI is expected to address thousands of worshippers at an open-air event at Glasgow Green, during his trip on September 16 and 17.
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Vatican archives for WWII era may be opened by 2015

2010-01-29T20:30:00.002-05:00

Catholic World News
January 29, 2010

The Vatican’s secret archives for the period of World War II and the papacy of Pius XII should be fully organized and ready for researchers with 5 years, according to the Vatican archivist. Bishop Sergio Pagan told the Italian daily Il Messaggero that only “technical” problems stand in the way of opening the entire collection—involving 16 million documents—to interested scholars.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Secret Archives from Pius XII's time to be organized by 2015 (CNA)

Language lessons: New media test Vatican's digital fluency

2010-01-29T17:44:00.003-05:00

Screen capture of the homepage of the Vatican's Web site for young people, www.pope2you.net. (CNS/Vatican)

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI recently urged the world's priests to make better use of new media, but in his own backyard the digital revolution is still seen as a mixed blessing.

The Vatican Web site remains largely a repository of printed texts, displayed on pages designed to look like parchment. And despite more than a decade of discussion about making the site interactive, www.vatican.va continues to provide information in one direction only: from them to you.

Some Vatican agencies have embraced the digital possibilities, notably Vatican Radio, which offers online broadcasts, podcasts and RSS feeds along with photos and print versions of major stories.

Other departments prefer to fly below the radar. The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, for example, has posted exactly one new piece of information on its Web page over the last three years.

The impression that the Vatican is slow on the draw when it comes to Internet possibilities was confirmed recently when a "Vatican" Twitter feed turned out to be someone impersonating the Vatican. It was a fairly innocent case of Twitterjacking, but begged the question: Why doesn't the Vatican have a real Twitter feed?

Among the few Vatican officials willing to tackle these issues head-on is Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. He met with reporters to present the pope's World Communications Day message Jan. 23, which called for better use of new media, and said it held lessons for everyone engaged in church ministry.

"The risk is that our sites will merely be places where information is posted, and not a real meeting ground," he said.

Archbishop Celli has helped prod the Vatican toward more interactivity. Last year, his council designed and launched a special Vatican Web site, www.pope2you.net, to bring the pope closer to a younger audience. It includes iPhone and Facebook applications, and visitors have used the site to send nearly 300,000 e-cards to their friends, each bearing a snippet of Pope Benedict's teaching.

Last Christmas, pope2you.net invited people to send personal photo-and-text Christmas greetings to the pope, which were then posted to a linked Flickr account. The response was overwhelming, with messages from believers and nonbelievers all over the world. In January, Archbishop Celli was busy putting together a representative selection in dossier form for the pope.
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Reject easy annulments, Pope tells Vatican tribunal

2010-01-29T17:14:00.005-05:00

Catholic World News
January 29, 2010

Granting easy access to marriage annulments is an offense against both justice and charity, said Pope Benedict XVI on January 29.

The Pope’s message has a particular resonance in the US, whose Catholic Church tribunals account for more than half of the world’s annulment decrees. Pope Benedict, like Pope John Paul II before him, has repeatedly argued for a more vigorous defense of the marital bond.

In an address to the Church’s highest tribunal for marriage cases, the Holy Father warned against “the tendency—widespread and well-rooted though not always obvious—to contrast justice with charity, almost as if the one excluded the other.” He reminded the tribunal’s judges and advocated that the marriage laws of the Church are oriented toward the spiritual welfare of the individuals, and applying those laws properly is itself a work of charity. Ultimately, he reminded them, “the Church's juridical activity has as its goal the salvation of souls.”

“Without truth charity slides into sentimentalism,” the Pope told officials of the Roman Rota, at the opening of its judicial term. “Love becomes an empty shell to be filled arbitrarily. This is the fatal risk of love in a culture without truth.”

Pope Benedict acknowledged that a marriage tribunal comes under pressure to announce the nullity of a marriage, due to “the desires and expectations of the parties involved, or to the conditioning of the social environment.” But he argued strenuously against lowering the standards of canon law in order to “achieve a declaration of nullity at any cost.” He decried the use of pseudo-psychological theories that see any marital problems as evidence of nullity, observing that this approach has the deleterious effect of “transforming all conjugal difficulties into a symptom of a failed union whose essential nucleus of justice-- the indissoluble bond-- is thus effectively denied.”

The Pope went so far as to suggest that tribunals should do their best to save marriages intact whenever that is possible. In most American dioceses, couples are required to file for a civil divorce before submitting an annulment application. But the Pontiff suggest that “effective efforts be made, whenever there seems to be hope of a successful outcome, to encourage the spouses to convalidate their marriage and restore conjugal cohabitation.”

Recognizing that some Catholics who have divorced and remarried want to obtain annulments in order to resume their active membership in the Church, and regain access to the sacraments, the Pope expressed sympathy for their goals but cautioned against offering a “false advantage.” If the first marriage was valid, he reasoned, then the remarried couple is living an objectively immoral situation. Under those circumstances, he said, it is wrong for a tribunal “to ease the way towards receiving the Sacraments, at the risk of causing people to live in objective contrast with the truth of their own individual state.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Justice, Charity and Truth Must Guide the Roman Rota (VIS)

Pope Urges Church to Focus on Saving Marriages (AP)

See also:

From Zenit, "Marriages Should Be Assumed Valid, Says Pope" and "Annulment Isn't a Quick Fix, Says Dean of Rota"

From Catholic News Service, "Pope cautions tribunals against granting annulments too easily"

From "the inside blog," "Pope tells tribunals to get tough on annulments"

From CNA, "Charity, truth and justice must guide Vatican court, states Pope Benedict"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: Marriage is indissoluable
January 29, 2010

'Why He is a Saint': Postulator's Book Reveals Details of Venerable John Paul II

2010-01-29T17:05:00.006-05:00

1/29/2010
Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org)

'Why He Is a Saint: The True John Paul II Explained by the Postulator of the Cause of Beatification' includes 114 testimonies of the life and holiness of the beloved Pope.

Pope John Paul II was the same in public and in private: 'transparent, sincere, integral,' according to the postulator of his canonization cause.

ROME (Zenit.org) - Pope John Paul II was the same in public and in private: "transparent, sincere, integral," according to the postulator of his canonization cause.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder made this reflection Tuesday when he presented a volume that he has written in collaboration with Saverio Gaeta. It presents more than 100 testimonies related to the Polish Pontiff's cause for canonization.

"Why He Is a Saint: The True John Paul II Explained by the Postulator of the Cause of Beatification" was presented in Rome with a presentation from the leader of the Vatican's saint congregation, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins.

The details in the book that grabbed international attention are regarding the Holy Father's practices of mortification, including flagellation and sleeping on the floor.

Cardinal Saraiva Martins, however, highlighted the depth of the Pontiff's prayer. He confessed how overwhelmed he was by the profundity of the Pope's recollection when he invited someone to dine and the visit began with a silent prayer in the private chapel.

"He was as though absorbed in God," the cardinal said. "He was a man of God and his intense prayer was a true evangelization."

The prelate also pointed out the Pope's profound devotion to Mary and mentioned the "joy," the "happiness" that John Paul II felt in the year 2000, after the beatification of the shepherds of Fatima, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, on May 13.

A witness stated that when asked, "Do you see the Virgin?" the Pope answered, "No, but I hear her." Another witness, though, said John Paul II confided that he "saw" her.

The book notes that the Holy Father had a sweet tooth and has other insights into the Pope's personality: He once answered a religious who expressed her "concern" for "Your Holiness": "I am also concerned about my holiness!"

Monsignor Oder highlighted the Pope's "humanity" and his ability to perceive in all persons "the imprint of God."

And Cardinal Saraiva Martins noted that humanity and holiness are one thing: The more holy one is, the more "human" one is.

A cure

Though John Paul II has already been proclaimed venerable -- Benedict XVI approved the recognition of his heroic virtues in December -- a miracle still needs to be confirmed before his beatification.
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See also:

"Pope John Paul on Path to Canonization"

"Vatican Expert’s Book Supports Beatification"

"Santo Subito! John Paul II Will Be Beatified"

Here Come the Anglicans: Opening Chapter in the Coming Reunion of the Church

2010-01-29T15:07:00.007-05:00

By Deacon Keith Fournier
1/29/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

This is only the first chapter in the coming reunion of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Archbishop John Hepworth in Africa where the Traditional Anglican Communion is strong.

CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) – In a beautifully written, theologically astute, historically significant and warmly pastoral letter written to the faithful of the Traditional Anglican Communion, Archbishop John Hepworth invites them to enter into full communion by following the Apostolic Constitution and Norms offered by the Holy See. He concludes his letter (which we reprint in its entirety as a related story below) with this stirring summons:

“I believe with all my heart that this is a work of God and an act of great generosity by Pope Benedict. The Anglican tradition that we treasure will only survive, I believe, across the generations yet to come if it discovers the protection of apostolic authority. It is my cherished wish that each of us can stand at the altar with our fellow Christians and receive the same Eucharistic Christ. That is the ultimate test of unity. In the centuries since the church in the West became fractured there has been no offer such as the one that is now before us.”

When history records this moment, Archbishop John Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion will be a vital part of the story. Men of prophetic stature are never perfect, they are humble and holy. They simply show a willingness to be perfected by the Lord whom they love. They allow the mistakes and difficulties of life to become the tutors of time. They respond in their brokenness to the invitation of history being written by the One who broke into history to transform it from within. Archbishop Hepworth has done that throughout this historic process.

I have followed the formal request of the Traditional Anglican Communion for full communion with the Catholic Church from the very beginning. I persisted in covering it after many news sources, including Catholic ones, dismissed the possibility that it would ever bring a positive response from Rome. We are dedicated to an authentically Catholic vision of ecumenism which recognizes the need for visible unity, with legitimate diversity, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Well, the overture received more than a favorable response; it opened up the front door of the House. Such a welcome surprised many observers. Reading Archbishop Hepworth’s letter provides insights into why the Holy Father, inspired by the Holy Spirit, responded in such an historic manner. The original petition to Rome for full communion has never been released. It has now been made available by the Archbishop. We include the full text as a related article below this story. The petition was a work of the Holy Spirit, an example of humility and an act of love for the Lord and His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church by these Christians of the Traditional Anglican Communion.
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See also:

"Full Text of Archbishop Hepworths Letter"

"Apostolic Constitution: 'Anglicanorum Coetibus'"

"Norms for the Apostolic Constitution"

Mary, the 'Woman' of the Bible, Calls all Women to Follow Jesus

2010-01-28T23:10:00.004-05:00

By Sonja Corbitt
1/28/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

What I found in the Catholic Church was the unique dignity of 'woman' for she is personified in 'The Woman', Mary, the Mother of the Lord.

When I converted - or as we are encouraged to say, came into the full communion of the Catholic Church - I was bombarded by well-meaning Protestant wives who rebuked me for stepping out from under my “husband’s authority” and following my conscience into the Catholic Church.

BETHPAGE, TN (Catholic Online) - May I say that I am utterly disgusted with inane TV sitcoms that habitually present men as dazed, beer guzzling, bosom scrutinizing oafs who can hardly string two intelligent sentences together, and “progressive” female politicians who claim to speak and “fight” for me as a woman?

Granted, I’ve had my “feminist” difficulties with religion and church, my insecurities stemming from male domination in childhood. I understand that baby boomer women have an inherent suspicion of some authority structures and the men who crafted them. I get that.

I appreciate their tirelessness in providing me with the luxury of the vote, the sight of the horizon above the glass ceiling, a job that earns my own money and an education consisting of more than the minutiae of home economics. I celebrate those accomplishments on my behalf and try not to take them for granted.

Woman Oppressed

I remember the perceived insult of what is sometimes called the “Scriptural idea” that woman was somehow a creative afterthought to man. The claim was that I seemed to exist to assuage his lonely fear and to merely help him while he alone has the capability and right to do all the doing that gets done.

Its proponents misquote this verse from the first book of the Bible, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Gen. 2:18). I remember wondering why I must always be a “helper” rather than a “doer” in my own right.

Additionally, when teaching the Galatians about one of the most important events in salvation history, St. Paul called the mother of Jesus “woman” rather than by her name, "Mary." "When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of woman" (Gal. 4:4). This once bothered me. I thought he was only following Jesus’ example: “When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me?" (Jn. 2:3-4). This sounded like marginalization of women to my sensitive ear.

I heard the argument that the Catholic Church oppressed women all the time. As a convert to that Catholic Church the only response I have ever been able to manage to that is simply “What?!” However, I knew from my own experience that there are strains of Protestantism that are simply archaic by comparison to the Church.

When I converted - or as we are encouraged to say, came into the full communion of the Catholic Church - I was bombarded by well-meaning Protestant wives who rebuked me for stepping out from under my “husband’s authority” and following my conscience into the Catholic Church. Paul’s exhortation, intended to deal with a pastoral problem in Ephesus, was misused as a weapon against me. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:22) In fact it was wielded against me like a club until I was sorely bruised.

As a Protestant teacher, I had been constantly reprimanded by curious men who found themselves in my religion classes for the very fact that I was teaching the Bible, until one precious pastor defended me. After all, some evangelical Protestants claim that women can only teach other women or children, should not voice opinions in church, and when they want to know something about God they should ask their husbands.

Woman Raised

Conversely, what I found in the Catholic Church was the unique dignity of “woman,” for she is personified in “The Woman”, Mary, the Mother of the Lord. The previous examples from St. Paul and Jesus echo Genesis 3:15 where “the woman” is first seen at the center of salvation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

The God who previously “spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days has spoken to us by a Son" (Heb. 1:1-2), fulfills the prophecy and comes as a man "born of woman," a final, eternal, saving revelation. The final Word, came from a woman.

“This is the eternal and definitive Covenant in Christ, in his body and blood, in his Cross and Resurrection. Precisely because this Covenant is to be fulfilled "in flesh and blood" its beginning is in the Mother” (Mulieris Dignitatem, “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”, John Paul II).
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Pope encourages pontifical academies to address cultural problems

2010-01-28T13:25:00.001-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 28, 2010 / 11:34 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI met with members of the Pontifical Academies in the Clementine Hall on Thursday morning, following their 14th annual public session a day earlier. Reminding them of the importance of keeping up to date with the contemporary culture and maintaining a degree of "originality" in their research, he called for them to look to the figure of St. Thomas Aquinas for inspiration.

Addressing the 300 members present from seven academies, the Holy Father congratulated them on their "glorious past" and then pointed out that at the present time "contemporary culture, and even more so believers themselves, continually petition the Church to concentrate her reflections and actions in those fields in which new problems emerge.”

Members of the academies, the Pope reminded, "are called to offer a qualified, competent and passionate contribution, so that all the Church... can offer occasions, language and of adequate means to dialogue with contemporary culture and respond effectively to the question and to the challenges that face her in the different areas of knowledge and human experience."

Pontifical academies approach questions concerning everything from philosophical and theological research to reflection on the figure of Mary, the heritage of the Christian witness and artistic creativity.

"As I have said before," continued Pope Benedict, "today's culture is strongly influenced by a vision dominated by relativism and subjectivism and by methods and attitudes that are sometimes superficial and even banal." These, he said, "damage the seriousness of study and reflection and, consequently, also dialogue, exchange and interpersonal communications."
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Ordinary Time: January 28th

2010-01-28T12:46:00.007-05:00

Catholic Culture
Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor
Old Calendar: St. Peter Nolasco, confessor

Daily Readings for:
January 28, 2010
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us to grow in wisdom by his teaching, and in holiness by imitating his faith. Grant 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.

St. Thomas Aquinas is the Dominican order's greatest glory. He taught philosophy and theology with such genius that he is considered one of the leading Christian thinkers. His innocence, on a par with his genius, earned for him the title of "Angelic Doctor".

According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, St. Thomas' feast was celebrated on March 7.

Today is the feast of St. Peter Nolasco, who was born in southern France. After the death of his wealthy parents, he spent his inheritance in Barcelona to rescue Christians enslaved by the Moors. He formed a lay confraternity, which later developed into the religious order of the Mercedarians, and led his fellow workers into Moorish territory to purchase the freedom of Christian captives, and to make numerous conversions among the non-Christians. Later Peter's Mercedarians labored among the Indians of the far-flung Spanish American Empire.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas ranks among the greatest writers and theologians of all time. His most important work, the Summa Theologiae, an explanation and summary of the entire body of Catholic teaching, has been standard for centuries, even to our own day. At the Council of Trent it was consulted after the Bible.

To a deeply speculative mind, he joined a remarkable life of prayer, a precious memento of which has been left to us in the Office of Corpus Christi. Reputed as great already in life, he nevertheless remained modest, a perfect model of childlike simplicity and goodness. He was mild in word and kind in deed. He believed everyone was as innocent as he himself was. When someone sinned through weakness, Thomas bemoaned the sin as if it were his own. The goodness of his heart shone in his face, no one could look upon him and remain disconsolate. How he suffered with the poor and the needy was most inspiring. Whatever clothing or other items he could give away, he gladly did. He kept nothing superfluous in his efforts to alleviate the needs of others.

After he died his lifelong companion and confessor testified, "I have always known him to be as innocent as a five-year-old child. Never did a carnal temptation soil his soul, never did he consent to a mortal sin." He cherished a most tender devotion to St. Agnes, constantly carrying relics of this virgin martyr on his person. He died in 1274, at the age of fifty, in the abbey of Fossa Nuova. He is the patron saint of schools and of sacred theology.
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See also from the National Catholic Reporter, "Jan. 28, St. Thomas Aquinas."

Pope marks Holocaust Remembrance Day

2010-01-27T17:35:00.004-05:00

Catholic World News
January 27, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI called attention to Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, recalling the “unprecedented cruelty” of the Nazi extermination campaign and praying during his regular weekly audience that “such tragedies never happen again.” Speaking on the anniversary of the day in 1945 when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated, the Holy Father said that “the tragedy of the Shoah has struck the Jewish people,” and the “countless victims of a blind racial and religious hatred” should today bear witness to the need to respect every human person.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Pope denounces 'horror' of Holocaust on Remembrance Day (AP)

Pope Remembers the Victims of the Holocaust (VIS)

Pope remembers victims of the Holocaust and those who risked their lives to defend Jews

2010-01-27T15:58:00.006-05:00

» 01/27/2010 13:19
VATICAN

In his General Audience Benedict XVI illustrated the figure of St. Francis, an icon of Christ, a model of dialogue with Muslims, who acted in union with the Church. "The sense of universal brotherhood and love of creation." Even peace building is linked to respect for nature.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Today, Holocaust Memorial Day, we remember "the horror of crimes of unprecedented cruelty, committed in the extermination camps established by Nazi Germany," especially the planned annihilation of the Jews "and also how many" risked their lives, to protect the persecuted, opposing the murderous folly. " The "innumerable victims of blind racial and religious, hatred who suffered deportation, imprisonment, death in those aberrant and inhuman places " were remembered today by Benedict XVI who prayed that "the memory of these facts, particularly the tragedy of the Holocaust that affected the Jewish people, will inspire an increasingly convinced respect for the dignity of every person, that all men perceive themselves to be one great family. Almighty God enlighten hearts and minds, so that such tragedies never happen again. "

In remembering the Holocaust the Pope concluded his general audience today, during which he highlighted the life and legacy of St. Francis, a "giant of holiness," "truly living icon of Christ," who "continues to fascinate people of faith and those without" and who still today is an example of how dialogue with Muslims should be conducted, "in truth, in mutual respect and mutual understanding. Not only, St Francis is also " a model for priests and the precursor of just love for Creation”.

Francis, recalled Benedict XVI, was born in 1181 in Assisi, to a rich family. He enjoyed a "light-hearted adolescence and youth, spent nurturing the chivalrous ideals of time" and he also took part in a war. His capture by the enemy was the beginning of a "slow process of spiritual renewal " that led him to abandon his previous life. Recalling in particular the episode of the crucifix in the church of Saint Damien which spoke to him three times, saying, 'Go and repair my house which, as you see, is in ruins ", Benedict XVI spoke of "deep symbolism. Initially Francis was called to repair that little church, a dramatic symbol of the state of the Church of the thirteenth century which did not believe and did not form life”. The inner destruction of the Church was also the unity destroyed by heretical movements. However in that ruined church the crucifix stands in the middle, saying to Francis "renew the Church of Christ with his radical faith and his love for the Gospel."
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See also:

From Catholic Culture, "Pope offers St. Francis as model for spiritual renewal"

From CNA, "Pope holds up St. Francis as model for Christian-Muslim dialogue" and "Pope Benedict remembers Holocaust victims"

From Catholic News Service, "St. Francis is model of dialogue, respect for creation, pope says"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

"St. Francis: Innovator with and not against the Pope"
January 27, 2010

Pope: Remember the Shoah and respect every person
January 27, 2010

Benedict's Revolution: The Return of the Old Latin Mass

2010-01-27T15:43:00.005-05:00

Inside Catholic
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
1/26/10

When the secular media suddenly start talking about Catholic liturgy, something is afoot in the life of the Church. By the second year of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate, that's exactly what happened. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report -- the subject was everywhere.

The reason for all this attention was the pope's long-awaited motu proprio that would make the traditional Latin Mass of the pre-conciliar Church (or the 1962 Missal) more widely available. That used to be considered a dangerous idea. It's now mainstream.

The consensus today -- which echoes the conclusion of a blue-ribbon commission of cardinals in 1986 -- is that although Pope Paul VI had devoutly wished that the new missal would supplant the old, no action officially suppressing the traditional liturgy was ever taken, and thus the old missal, even if largely eclipsed in practice, has continued to be a living part of the Church these past four decades.

This is the view of -- among other Vatican officials -- Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission and former prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and Jorge Cardinal Medina Estévez, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. It also happens to be the view of Benedict, who noted in his letter to bishops that "this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted." The 1986 Commission added that any priest ought to be able to choose which missal he wanted to use. Initially sympathetic, Pope John Paul II ultimately shelved the idea.

What We Lost

With the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the idea of freedom for the old missal -- and not just the Mass but all the sacraments, and even the old Breviary -- is back.

The secular media, so often wrongheaded and hostile when it comes to the Church, were correct to sense that Benedict's desire to bring back the traditional liturgy was something momentous. Still, some managed to get the issue entirely wrong: Some people want "Mass in English," they report, but others want "Mass in Latin." But the issue at stake has never been merely one of language. It is a question of two different liturgical books and two different ways of saying Mass.

Benedict's move is an act of generosity, justice, and simple common sense. When the Church possesses something of priceless worth like the Missal of St. Pius V -- which is itself the consummation of centuries of gradual development -- and when some of her faithful seek to nourish their souls at its copious font of grace, who could be so petty as to deny it to them?

Countless figures of prominence recognized what the Church was losing in the old rite. When nearly four decades ago it seemed as if the traditional Latin Mass would never be heard from again, a group of British intellectuals, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, issued a protest to the pope urging him not to carry out such a terrible offense against Europe's cultural patrimony. Signatories included Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, and Malcolm Muggeridge. It read, in part:

If some senseless decree were to order the total or partial destruction of basilicas or cathedrals, then obviously it would be the educated -- whatever their personal beliefs -- who would rise up in horror to oppose such a possibility. Now the fact is that basilicas and cathedrals were built so as to celebrate a rite which, until a few months ago, constituted a living tradition. We are referring to the Roman Catholic Mass. Yet, according to the latest information in Rome, there is a plan to obliterate that Mass by the end of the current year . . . . The rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has also inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts -- not only mystical works, but works by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians.
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'The Pope Is the First Among the Patriarchs.' Orthodox/Catholic Dialogue Advances?

2010-01-27T15:27:00.007-05:00

By Sandro Magister
1/27/2010
Chiesa (chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it)

Have the Orthodox agreed to discuss the primacy of the bishop of Rome according to the model of the first millennium?

Relations with the Orthodox Churches have never been so promising as they have since Joseph Ratzinger has been Pope.

ROME (Chiesa) – On Monday evening, January 25, 2010, with vespers in the basilica of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls, Benedict XVI closed the week of prayer for Christian unity.

There are some who say that ecumenism has entered a phase of retreat and chill. But as soon as one that looks to the East, the facts say the opposite. Relations with the Orthodox Churches have never been so promising as they have since Joseph Ratzinger has been pope.

The dates speak for themselves. A period of chill in the theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches of Byzantine tradition began in 1990, when the two sides clashed over so-called "uniatism," meaning the ways in which Catholic communities of the Eastern rites duplicate in everything the parallel Orthodox communities, differing only by their obedience to the Church of Rome.

In Balamond, in Lebanon, the dialogue came to a halt. It hit an even bigger obstacle on the Russian side, where the patriarchate of Moscow could not tolerate seeing itself "invaded" by Catholic missionaries sent there by Pope John Paul II, who were all the more suspect because they were of Polish nationality, historically a rival.

The dialogue remained frozen until, in 2005, the German Joseph Ratzinger ascended to the throne of Peter, a pope highly appreciated in the East for the same reason he prompts criticisms in the West: for his attachment to the great Tradition.

First in Belgrade in 2006, and then in Ravenna in 2007, the international mixed commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches started meeting again.
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Pope John Paul II considered and rejected resignation, postulator reports

2010-01-26T21:49:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
January 26, 2010

Pope John Paul II once told his doctor that “there is no place in the Church for a ‘Pope Emeritus,’” according to the Polish priest. Msgr. Slavomir Oder, the postulator of the cause for beatification of the late Polish Pope, told the Italian ASCA news agency that Pope John Paul had studied the question of resignation, and concluded that he could not step down.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Wojtyla: Postulatore, Malato Aveva Gia Firmato Lettera Dimissioni (ASCA)

“There is no place in the Church for a Pope Emeritus” (Translation by Father Z)

Pope John Paul practiced self-mortification, postulator confirms

2010-01-26T21:41:00.004-05:00

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
Jan-26-2010

Msgr. Slawomir Oder, postulator for the sainthood cause of Pope John Paul II, presents his new book on the late pope in Rome Jan. 26. (CNS/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II always took penitence seriously, spending entire nights lying with his arms outstretched on the bare floor, fasting before ordaining priests or bishops and flagellating himself, said the promoter of his sainthood cause.

Msgr. Slawomir Oder, postulator of the late pope's cause, said Pope John Paul used self-mortification "both to affirm the primacy of God and as an instrument for perfecting himself."

The monsignor spoke to reporters Jan. 26 at the launch of his book, "Why He's a Saint: The Real John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification Cause."

Earlier in the day, two Italian news Web sites reported that an October date had been set for Pope John Paul's beatification, but Msgr. Oder said nothing could be confirmed until physicians, theologians and cardinals at the Congregation for Saints' Causes accept a miracle credited to the late pope's intercession and Pope Benedict formally signs a decree recognizing it.
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All Christians obligated to work toward unity, Pope stresses

2010-01-26T18:08:00.004-05:00

Catholic World News
January 26, 2010

At an ecumenical prayer service closing the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on January 25, Pope Benedict XI said that the pursuit of full union among Christ’s followers “is not just a task for the few.” He exhorted all Christians to be mindful constantly of the need for unity, which is “a gift to be implored from God.”

The Church’s task of evangelization is hampered, the Pope said, by “the contradiction of division” among the faithful. True unity, he said, is “a particularly important prerequisite for a more credible and effective witness.” That witness is particularly needed today, he continued, "in a world characterized by religious indifference and even by a growing aversion towards the Christian faith.”

Acknowledging that theological disputes still separate Christians, the Pope said that a commitment to prayer and dialogue is needed to overcome those obstacles. Meanwhile, he said, the faithful can join in proclaiming “a content of Christ's message that we can announce together: the paternity of God, Christ's victory over sin and death with His cross and resurrection, and trust in the transforming action of the Spirit.”

Christians can and should also work together on matters of public interest, the Pope said, citing “protecting creation, promoting peace and the common good, defending the centrality of the human person, and the commitment to defeat the poverties of our time such as hunger, indigence, illiteracy and the unequal distribution of wealth.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Commitment to Christian Unity Is a Task for Everyone (VIS)

See also:

From CNA, "Pope asks for constant prayers for Christian unity" and "Pope invites Christians to join in 'new, intense evangelization'"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

May we all be one so that the world may believe
January 26, 2010

Benedict XVI Defended Against Media Falsehoods

2010-01-25T17:25:00.004-05:00

Bernard-Henri Lévy Decries Spread of Disinformation

NEW YORK, JAN. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A leading French philosopher and writer published a defense of Benedict XVI in the Huffington Post, affirming that much of the media has been spreading disinformation about the Pope.

"It is time to put an end to the disingenuousness -- the bias, in a word -- and the disinformation concerning Benedict XVI," said Bernard-Henri Lévy in his article, published Sunday.

The writer, of Jewish decent, stated that "texts have been quite simply distorted, regarding his trip to Auschwitz in 2006, for example, where it was asserted […] that he paid homage to the 6 million Polish dead, victims of a mere 'band of criminals' without mentioning that half of them were Jews."

"The falsehood is downright staggering," Lévy asserted, "considering that, on that day, Benedict XVI plainly spoke of the attempt of the 'powerful of the 3rd Reich' to 'eliminate the Jewish people' from the 'ranks of the nations of the earth.'"

The writer addressed the topic of the Pontiff's recent visit to the Synagogue of Rome, and the "chorus of disinformers" who reported negatively on this event.

He acknowledged the Holy Father's gestures and words as he paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and underlined the Church's commitment to build relations with the Jews.

Lévy also defended the role of Pope Pius XII in standing up for Jews against the Nazis. He stated, "We owe it to historical accuracy to point out that, before engaging in clandestine action, opening -- without saying so -- his convents to Roman Jews hunted by the fascist bullies, the 'silent' Pius XII made a number of speeches broadcast by radio."

"It's especially surprising," the writer noted, "that we place the entire weight of responsibility for the deafening silence concerning the Shoah that echoed throughout the world, or nearly all, upon the shoulders of a Sovereign of the time who had neither cannons nor aircraft at his disposal" who "went to great lengths, most historians tell us, to share with others who were informed the knowledge available to him" and "who in fact saved a great many of those he was morally responsible for, in Rome, but elsewhere as well."

Lévy concluded that "one can be both Pope and scapegoat."

Who’s tweeting for the Vatican?

2010-01-25T16:49:00.005-05:00

CNS Blog
Posted on January 25, 2010 by John Thavis

VATICAN CITY — Over the weekend some media announced that the Vatican had opened a Twitter feed. Intrigued, I quickly went to @vatican_va on Twitter. At first glance, it looked like the Vatican — there was the Vatican coat of arms, the Vatican flag and a link to the Vatican Web site. And hundreds of tweets in many languages, linking to Vatican Radio stories.

Then I e-mailed Father Federico Lombardi, who heads both the Vatican press office and Vatican Radio. I got a response rather quickly, and a surprising one. He said the Twitter feed was news to him, and that neither the press office nor Vatican Radio was doing the tweeting. A call to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications elicited a similar response: it wasn’t them, and they didn’t know who it was.

Hmmm. This was beginning to look more and more like online impersonation. Perhaps not the first, either: I knew there was already a @vaticanen Twitter feed that also identified itself as “Vatican” without, as far as I knew, any authorization.

A few more calls around the Vatican this morning elicited more surprise and some concern. I have the impression that Vatican Radio may be seriously considering a Twitter feed, and doesn’t like being hijacked like this.

At this point, no one I’ve spoken with here has any idea who’s tweeting for the Vatican. More as it develops…

See also from the Catholic Key Blog, "Vatican Twitter Feed Looks Like Computer Generated Hoax."

Pope decries 'aversion' to Christians

2010-01-25T15:20:00.008-05:00

Pope Benedict XVI, left, walks in procession upon his arrival at St. Paul Outside the Walls' Basilica in Rome, Monday, Jan. 25, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI says the world is marked by religious indifference and is decrying what he calls a "growing aversion" to Christians. The pontiff is also urging Christians to overcome their differences through dialogue so that they can unite their efforts to influence debates in society on ethical issues like abortion, euthanasia and the limits of science and technology. Benedict was leading a Vespers service Monday evening in Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. The occasion drew to a close a week that the Vatican each year dedicates to prayers for Christian unity. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Boston Globe
January 25, 2010

ROME—Pope Benedict XVI decried Monday what he called "growing aversion" to the Christian faith in the world.

The pontiff in his homily in a Rome basilica didn't single out any geographic area, but his worry about the plight of the Christian minority in the Middle East will shape discussions Mideast bishops will hold later this year at a special meeting at the Vatican.

The Vatican has repeatedly expressed concern about the flight of Christians from the overwhelmingly Muslim region as well as about the religious discrimination that many of those who remain are suffering.

Benedict urged Christians to invigorate efforts to spread their faith's message despite what he described as the unfriendly climate to Christianity in parts of the world.

'"In a world marked by religious indifference and even by a growing aversion toward the Christian faith, a new, intense activity of evangelization is necessary," the pope said.

He urged Christians to overcome their differences through dialogue so that they can unite their efforts to influence debates in society on ethical issues like abortion, euthanasia and the limits of science and technology.

Benedict was leading a Vespers service in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to mark the end of a week that the Vatican each year dedicates to prayers for Christian unity.

The pontiff has made better relations among Christians an important aim of his papacy.

Despite that goal, relations with Anglicans were strained last year when Benedict made it easier for the conversion to Roman Catholicism by traditionalist Anglicans who are disillusioned by their own church's embrace of gay priests, blessing of same-sex marriages and women clergy.

See also from Catholic News Service, "Christians must unite in bringing Gospel values to world, pope says."

Pope Benedict's 'Travels' released

2010-01-25T11:18:00.002-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2010 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- The book, “The Travels of Benedict XVI in Italy,” was released on Thursday evening in a reception at the Italian Embassy in Vatican City. During the presentation of the volume, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco referred to it as the representation of the "untiring pastoral mission of Pope Benedict XVI."

The edition follows the Holy Father on his 16 pastoral visits to 20 cities around Italy, while it also documents his travels to important sites within the city of Rome.

"The Travels of Benedict XVI in Italy" includes pictures from each of the visits and addresses, including homilies, given by the Pope and others in welcoming him on such occasions.

According to the Italian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the volume seeks to "witness the very particular rapport between the Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy with our Country, as well as the work of all those who institutionally collaborate in the organization of the visits."
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Letter #2, 2010

2010-01-25T11:13:00.002-05:00

insidethevatican - Jan 25, 2010

A Leader Emerges

In America, the annual March for Life has become an international event. At the dinner following the march, the keynote address was delivered by a powerful new voice on the American scene. But first, Haiti...

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from America

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

Tragedy in Haiti

Benedict XVI has written to Haitians to say the Church will do everything possible to contribute to the country's reconstruction following the terrible January 12 earthquake.

The Pope wrote to Haiti's president, René Préval, and the head of the country's bishops' conference, Archbishop Louis Kébreau of Cap-Haitien.

Both messages, released Saturday by the Vatican press office, affirmed the Pope's sorrow for the quake victims and his nearness to the survivors.

The Haitian authorities have reported 111,500 people have died thus far, with another 193,891 injured, and some 3 million people displaced.

"I pray that the spirit of solidarity will live in the hearts of all and that calm will reign in the streets," Benedict wrote, "so that the generous aid that is arriving from all countries will bring relief to all and the people who today have lost everything will be comforted in knowing that the entire international community is taking care of them in concrete ways."

In Haiti yesterday, January 23, a funeral Mass was celebrated for Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince, who died when the impact of the quake hurled him from a balcony. Also remembered was Msgr. Charles Benoit, the vicar general, whose body was pulled lifeless from the cathedral debris.

In a message, Chicago Cardinal Francis George, the US bishops' conference president, told Haitians, "The Church in the United States stands with you. In our prayer, we recall that Jesus, too, wept before the tomb of one whom he loved. With you, we recall in trust that He is the resurrection and the life, offering Himself to us and calling us to Himself, even in our darkest hour."

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

Huge Pro-Life March in Washington DC Ignored By Media

It was a dramatic sight: tens of thousands of Americans -- and foreigners -- marching peacefully through the streets of Washington DC on behalf of life on Friday, January 22.

It took about two hours for all the marchers to make the hike from the center of the Mall to the Supreme Court building, about 50 abreast across the main avenues of Washington. Some think there were half a million people present.

In America, the annual January 22 "March for Life" in Washington has become well known for two things.

First, it is big -- of the largest public gatherings in the country, year after year, with crowds numbering at least 200,000.

Second, it is ignored -- the country's mainstream media consistently downplay the size and significance of the March. Sometimes they don't mention it at all. Or, if they do mention it, they give "equal time" to the 250,000 marchers and a group of 40 or 60 opponents of the March for Life who also turn out each year.

But media silence cannot fully blot out reality.

And the reality is that, despite inadequate reports of its existence, one of the largest mass movements in America is continuing, and even growing, after 37 years.
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Pope Calls His Priests to the Internet

2010-01-25T11:02:00.005-05:00

By Randy Sly
1/25/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Pope Benedict has called his pastors to actively use the new communications media to preach the gospel.

'Who better than a priest, as a man of God....can develop and put into practice, by his competence in current digital technology, a pastoral outreach capable of making God concretely present in today’s world'

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – In preparation for the 44th World Communication Day in May, Pope Benedict XVI officially released his message entitled, “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word,” on Sunday, January 24, the Feast of St. Francis de Sales.

Using the Feast of the Patron Saint for writers and journalists, the Holy Father has called his pastors to become “leaders of communities” online in the new digital marketplace.

“Who better than a priest, as a man of God,” the Pope said, “can develop and put into practice, by his competence in current digital technology, a pastoral outreach capable of making God concretely present in today’s world and presenting the religious wisdom of the past as a treasure which can inspire our efforts to live in the present with dignity while building a better future?”

Pope Benedict has long recognized the importance of technology. For World Communication Day in 2008, he wrote, “We must ask, therefore, whether it is wise to allow the instruments of social communication to be exploited for indiscriminate “self-promotion” or to end up in the hands of those who use them to manipulate consciences.

“Should it not be a priority to ensure that they remain at the service of the person and of the common good, and that they foster ‘man’s ethical formation … man’s inner growth’?

“Their extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and on society is widely acknowledged, yet today it is necessary to stress the radical shift, one might even say the complete change of role, that they are currently undergoing.”

This year’s message underscored the understanding that today’s marketplace in found on the World Wide Web. Just as his pastors have been called to walk the streets of God’s cities, they are now being deployed to the virtual communities of the Internet.

The Pope stated, “Thanks to the new communications media, the Lord can walk the streets of our cities and, stopping before the threshold of our homes and our hearts, say once more: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.’ (Rev 3:20).

This call may be received by some pastors with a sense of horror. Many have seen avoidance of social media and technology as a badge of honor. “I believe moderation is still the key for people – especially our youth – when it comes to involvement with technology,” one pastor stated. “I believe God has called us to use this medium, however, as a tool for evangelism.”

The Pontiff’s message underscored this perspective. “Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”
more...

See also:

Popes Letter Telling Priests to Go Online

Internet 2009 in numbers

A New Missionary Age

Christian unity makes Gospel proclamation more credible and effective, says Pope

2010-01-24T13:52:00.007-05:00

» 01/24/2010 13:04
VATICAN

Benedict XVI recalls tomorrow celebration of Vespers in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, along with representatives of Christian Churches of Rome, concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of journalists and his message for World Day for Social Communications.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The communion of Christians ... makes the proclamation of the Gospel more credible and effective, as Jesus himself said praying to the Father on the eve of his death:" That we may be one ... so that the world may believe " (John 17:21) ": This is how Benedict XVI explained the meaning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated this week (18-25 January). Speaking to pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square for the Angelus, the pope recalled that the week will conclude tomorrow with the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and as tradition, he will preside at Vespers in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in the company of representatives Christian Churches of Rome. "Invoking God - he said - the gift of full unity of all Christ's disciples and, in particular, under this year’s theme, renewing the commitment to witness together to the crucified and risen Lord (cf. Lk 24 48)”.

On the theme of unity, Benedict XVI had previously paused to comment on today’s reading of St. Paul to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. 12, 12-31), in which Paul likens the Church to the human body . "The Church - explained the pope - is conceived as a body of which Christ is the head, and which is one in Him. However what the Apostle wants to communicate is the idea of unity in the multiplicity of charisms, which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to them, the Church presents itself as a rich and vital organization, not a uniform one, fruit of the Spirit which leads us all to a profound unity, assuming diversity without abolishing it and creating of it a harmonious whole. The charisms and ministries spread throughout the community extend the risen Lord's presence into history, particularly through the sacraments and the Word of God. Therefore, it is in Christ and the Spirit that the Church is one and holy, that is, an intimate communion that transcends human capacities and supports them”.

In his reflection, Benedict XVI also recalled that today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales. "Born in Savoy in 1567 - concluded the pope - he studied law in Padua and Paris, called by the Lord, he became a priest. He devoted himself with great fruit to preaching and spiritual formation of believers, teaching that the call to holiness is for everyone and that everyone - as St. Paul with the comparison of the body - has a place in the Church. St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists and the Catholic press. To his spiritual care I entrust the message for World Day for Social Communications, who I sign each year on this occasion and which was presented yesterday at the Vatican [See: 23/01/2010 Pope: Internet, an instrument for the proclamation of Christ]. May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, enable us to keep progressing in communion, to convey the beauty of being one in the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

See also:

From CNA, "Church is ‘rich and vital organism’ in its unity, remarks Pope at Angelus" and "Benedict XVI remembers life of St. Francis de Sales"

From Zenit, "On Christian Unity: "The Call to Holiness Is for All"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: The Church is One and Holy
January 24, 2010

Holy Father encourages online priestly ministry

2010-01-23T11:24:00.004-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 23, 2010 / 10:24 am (CNA).- In his message for the 44th World Day for Social Communications, Pope Benedict calls for priests to "make astute use" of available technology in becoming a presence as community leaders on the web. However, he urges them to remain "less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart."

The 2010 World Day for Social Communications will take place on May 16 under the theme "The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word." The Holy Father’s message was released today.

The aim of this year's message is to draw attention to the possibilities for priestly ministry offered within the "important and sensitive pastoral area of digital communications."

For every priest, states the Holy Father in the message, fulfilling the fundamental priority of building up God's communion "necessarily involves using new communications technologies."

"Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by putting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word."

Pope Benedict emphasizes that "broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis" can be opened up in cyberspace with the presence of priests, living out their traditional role as community leaders in the world of digital communication.
more...

See also:

From Catholic News Service, "Pope asks priests to get online, spread the Gospel"

From Asia News, "Pope: Internet, an instrument for the proclamation of Christ"

From New York Daily News, "Pope Benedict to priests: For God's sake, blog!"

From the Daily Telegraph, "Pope tells priests to get blogging"

From ABC News, "Pope to Priests: Go Forth and Blog"

From Yahoo!Xtra News, "Pope urges priests to make 'astute' use of Internet"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: New Technologies Are a Resource for the Faith
January 23, 2010

Free "Prayers for Haiti" Book Offered Online

2010-01-22T21:57:00.003-05:00

BOSTON, Massachusetts, JAN. 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Daughters of St. Paul are offering a free book of prayers for victims of the Haitian earthquake that struck Jan. 12.

The book, "A World on Its Knees: Praying for and With Our Brothers and Sisters in Haiti" was compiled by Sister Kathryn James Hermes, Franciscan Sister of Peace.

It includes prayers such as "Calm the Shaking of the Earth," "Solidarity of the Human Family," "A Prayer of a Rescue Worker," and "God, What's Going On?"

The book was produced by Pauline Books and Media, the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul.

It offers a "useful way to focus intentions and be in spirit with those who need us most," the organization's Web site affirmed.

It continued, "Let's get this into the hands of millions of people around the world who can't go to Haiti in person but can pray."

The prayers are offered for use "in bulletins, prayer groups, parishes or in the silence of your own heart."

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Prayer book: http://www.pauline.org/FreeEbookofPrayersforHaiti/tabid/375/Default.aspx

See also below:

Benedict XVI to Receive Copy of Pauline Codex

2010-01-22T21:49:00.004-05:00

At Closing of Prayer Week for Christian Unity

ROME, JAN. 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A 424-page "Codex Pauli" that honors the Apostle to the Gentiles with illustrations and writings in the spirit of the ancient monastic codices, will be presented to Benedict XVI.

Benedictine Abbot Edmund Power will present the volume to the Pope on Monday at the closing vespers of the Jan. 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which will be held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The "Codex Pauli" includes original contributions from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I; Patriarch Kirill of Moscow; Gregorios III Laham, patriarch of Antioch for the Greek Melkite Church; and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams.

In his contribution, Bartholomew I wrote: "For St. Paul, unity on the one hand, and ecumenism on the other, are at the same time either virtues to which we should aspire, or gifts that come from on high.

"Moreover, the concepts of unity and ecumenism are not simply metaphorical, but ontological in content."

For Patriarch Kirill, "making himself imitator of the Apostle to the Gentiles, the Christian is called to be a living image of the Lord and thus help the modern world to receive with faith and hope the Word of God."
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The Culture of Death: The Fruit of False Intellectual Ideals

2010-01-22T21:22:00.004-05:00

The American Catholic
January 22, 2010

In his encyclical Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo XIII sought to advance the restoration of Christian philosophy against the modern trends of secular philosophy, emerging from Enlightenment rationalism. The critique of modern intellectual errors and the way in which such false thinking manifests itself in the world has deeply shaded my personal reflection on the tragedy of legal abortion.

In the dawn of each new year, pro-life Americans pause to mourn the loss of innocent unborn human life. Every year on January 22nd—the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton to impose unrestricted legal abortion—the pro-life movement recommits itself to the reversal of this tragic Supreme Court decision.

In 1970, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee decided to file a lawsuit to attempt to reform Texas abortion laws; at the time there was no formulaic strategy for liberal lawyers. The ultimate aim was to have the law struck down in its entirety, so the two chose not to base the case on Norma McCorvey’s report that she had been raped. The rape would have been difficult to prove given that there was no police report filed. Even if the Supreme Court ruled in their favor with an emphasis on the rape, at best they could hope to win legal abortion for women in the circumstances of rape.

Weddington and Coffee filed a class action suit on behalf of “Jane Roe” and all other women “similarly situated” (that is, pregnant and seeking an abortion) and they challenged the constitutionality of Texas abortion laws on the broadest possible grounds. This lawsuit, of course, is the infamous Jane Roe et al. v. Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County.

The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court after the state of Texas appealed its previous loss in a U.S. district court in Dallas. Weddington who argued the national case was aided by a number of liberal lawyers, including lawyers from Planned Parenthood who regarded Roe as the appropriate sequel to Griswold (The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger who opposed abortion was already deceased).

Weddington argued that “pregnancy to a woman can completely disrupt her life.” Many schools in Texas required that a teacher resign if she became pregnant. Employers often forced women to leave their jobs early in pregnancy, and the state provided no unemployment compensation or welfare for them. So Weddington concluded “pregnancy to a woman is perhaps…the most determinative aspect of her life…[and] is a matter which is of such fundamental and basic conern to the woman involved, that she should be allowed to make the choice as to whether to continue or to terminate her pregnancy.”

Weddington added, “The Constitution, as I see it, gives protection to people after birth.”

Jay Floyd defending the Texas law asserted “there is life from the moment of impregnation.” To which, Justice Thurgood Marshall asked, “…do you have scientific data to support that?” Floyd replied that his legal brief began with the development of the human embryo from about seven to nine days after conception.

Marshall, then asked, “Well, what about six days?…This statue clearly goes back to one hour.” It is evident that Marshall saw no basis for the claim that a fetus had full constitutional rights.

In fact, what to any reasonable mind is the most central question was nonchalantly dismissed. There was no “need” to “resolve the difficult question of when life begins…we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake.” The state’s interest in protecting “potential” life was not “compelling” until the so-called vague point of “viability.” After that point, the state could prohibit abortion except under the circumstances in which the life or “health” of the mother were in danger. It was within this framework, so to say, that abortion was legalized throughout the nine months of pregnancy.

An understanding of the deeply flawed thinking that created this travesty, I think, is essential for pro-life Americans to convince a majority of their brothers and sisters of the incoherence of supporting abortion as well as its innate injustice. The “right” to legal abortion was advocated behind the smokescreen of a “right to privacy.” Yet one of the most striking things about the “right to privacy” is that no one has a clear idea of what it is. Is this “right” absolute? Surely it cannot be. It would be unreasonable to assert that immoral acts—especially murder—should be legally permitted, or even advocated, so long as they are done in private.
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See also from Catholic Culture: Library, Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, "Aeterni Patris (On The Restoration Of Christian Philosophy)."

Pro-lifers brave DC rain to join in March for Life

2010-01-22T19:44:00.009-05:00

Catholic World News
January 22, 2010

Tens of thousands of American pro-life activists joined in the annual March for Life in Washington on January 22, marking the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. The marchers crowded the city's streets and thronged over the Mall. Yet in another annual occurrence, major media outlets virtually ignore the massive rally-- or, if they reported on it, gave roughly equal time to the few dozen counter-protestors.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Abortion opponents attend march in D.C. (Washington Times)

Abortion activists mark Roe vs. Wade (UPI)

Slide show from March for Life (Washington Times)

See also:

From LifeSiteNews.com,

"Vigil Mass for Life: 45 Bishops, 350 Priests, 65 Deacons, 550 Seminarians"

"Sarah Palin Promotes March for Life, Joins Virtual March"

"U.S. Congressmen Decry Abortion on Anniversary of Roe v. Wade"

From CNA, "Pro-life marchers flood D.C. in protest of legalized abortion"

From Catholic Online, "Weather Doesn’t Dampen Pro-Life Spirit: No Exception, No Compromise!"

From Catholic News Service, "Participants at annual March for Life urged to keep up their efforts"

From Zenit,

"300,000 March for Life in US Capital"

"Abortion Judged Morally Wrong by US Majority"

Pope's second book on Jesus of Nazareth is finished

2010-01-21T21:43:00.005-05:00

Rabbi Jacob Neusner / Pope Benedict XVI

Vatican City, Jan 20, 2010 / 09:12 pm (CNA).- After meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in a private audience, American Rabbi Jacob Neusner, prolific writer, professor and expert in Judaism, told L'Osservatore Romano newspaper about his history with the Pope. He also mentioned that the Holy Father confided to him that the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth is complete.

The two met privately on Monday at the Vatican for 20 minutes, which the Rabbi Neusner called a "great gift" and said was "time enough for a nice meeting between two professors." During this encounter, the Pope chose to reveal to him that the second volume on Jesus is ready for the press.

The American rabbi was in Rome to take part in Catholic-Jewish dialogues following the Pope's visit to the Synagogue of Rome. He's no stranger to the environment, having dedicated his life to the scholarly study of Judaism, including how it interacts with Christianity and Islam.

Rabbi Neusner has written various treatises addressing inter-religious subjects. In fact, so impressive was his 1993 treatise "A Rabbi talks with Jesus" that then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that it was "the most important novelty in the last decade for Jewish-Christian dialogue," a review which the Rabbi published on the inside cover of the book.

The next contact between the two came in 2007 when Pope Benedict XVI dedicated several pages in his first volume on Jesus of Nazareth to the Rabbi's treatise, which concerns Christ's teaching of the beatitudes on the mount.

Jewish writer blasts media treatment of Benedict XVI, Pius XII

2010-01-21T14:23:00.008-05:00

Catholic World News
January 21, 2010

The Vatican newspaper has reprinted a January 20 Corriere della Sera article blasting media caricatures of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Pius XII in their dealings with Jews. The article was written by the French Jewish intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, who discussed how the words and deeds of the two popes belied the media caricatures.

Mr. Lévy also drew attention to the little-known fact that Rolf Hochhuth, whose 1963 play The Deputy created the ‘black legend’ surrounding Pope Pius XII, defended Holocaust denier David Irving in a 2005 interview with a German publication Junge Freiheit.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Quando i capri espiatori si chiamano Pio e Benedetto: Malafede e disinformazione (L’Osservatore Romano)

"Die Würde des Ortes respektieren" (2005) (Junge Freiheit)

Bernard-Henri Lévy (Wikipedia)

Rolf Hochhuth (Wikipedia)

See also from the Catholic League, "Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust."

And some documents from EWTN's document library:

"EWTN - LIBRARY DOCUMENTS ON PIUS XII"

"Jewish Recognition of Pope Pius XII's Support"

"Pius XII and the Jews - Fact Sheet"

"Saviour of the Jews"

"THE MYTH IN THE LIGHT OF THE ARCHIVES: The recurring accusations against Pope Pius XII"

"THE GOOD SAMARITAN: Jewish Praise for Pope Pius XII"

"A 'Righteous Gentile' Defends Pius XII"

Pope blesses lambs, renewing Vatican tradition

2010-01-21T14:03:00.006-05:00

Catholic World News
January 21, 2010

In keeping with an ancient tradition, Pope Benedict XVI blessed two lambs on January 21, the feast of St. Agnes. The wool from those lambs will be used to make the palliums that are conferred upon new metropolitan archbishops.

The pallium, a white woolen vestment, is worn by archbishops during liturgical celebrations. Every year on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Pope presents the pallium to each prelate who has been named as an archbishop during the preceding year. The presentation of the pallium is a symbol of the communion among the metropolitan churches around the world.

The blessing of the lambs is traditionally done on January 21, the feast of St. Agnes-- a 4th-century martyr whose symbol is a lamb. The lambs are raised by Trappist monks, and when they are shorn their wool is woven into the white vestments.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Blessing of the Lambs for the Feast of St. Agnes (VIS)

See also from CNA, "Pope blesses lambs on feast of St. Agnes."

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope blesses lambs for the pallium
January 21, 2010

Ordinary Time: January 21st; Memorial of St. Agnes, virgin and martyr

2010-01-21T13:52:00.005-05:00

Daily Readings for:
January 21, 2010
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: Almighty, eternal God, you chose what the world considers weak to put the worldly power to shame. May we who celebrate the birth of St. Agnes into eternal joy be loyal to the faith she professed. Grant 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.

Old Calendar: St. Agnes

St. Agnes (c. 304) like St. Cecilia, is to be numbered among the most famous martyrs of Rome. When the Diocletian persecution was at its height, and when priests as well as laymen were apostatizing from the faith, Agnes, a girl of twelve, freely chose to die for Christ. When she was commanded to offer incense to false gods, she raised her hand to Christ and made the Sign of the Cross. When the heathens threatened to bind her hand and foot, she herself hastened to the place of torture as a bride to her wedding feast. Pain had no terror for her—although the fetters slipped from her small hands while even the pagan bystanders were moved to tears.

When the son of the Roman prefect offered to marry her, she replied: "The one to whom I am betrothed is Christ Whom the angels serve." When the executioner, who was to behead her, hesitated, she encouraged him with the words: "Strike, without fear, for the bride does her Spouse an injury if she makes Him wait". The name of "Agnes" means "lamb-life," and hence the lamb is the symbol of the modesty and innocence of the virgin-martyr.
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Vatican and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel praise solidarity for Haiti

2010-01-20T18:48:00.004-05:00

» 01/20/2010 13:28
VATICAN-JEWS-HAITI

The Bilateral Commission, in its final declaration states that the environmental crisis that is affecting the world must be addressed on the basis of binding respect for the transcendent dimension of creation, because "not everything that is technically feasible is ethically acceptable." The Synagogue of Rome, Benedict XVI "has categorically reaffirmed the commitment of the Catholic Church and its desire to deepen dialogue and brotherhood with Judaism."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The victims of the earthquake in Haiti, where even today there was a new violent tremor, but where there are also signs of rescue "miracles" (see photo) of some survivors, were recalled by the bilateral commission between the Vatican and Rabbinate of Israel. The final statement at the end of its ninth meeting, held at the Vatican, states that "the committee members have expressed their prayers for the victims and for the recovery of the survivors and applauded the international rescue and aid for the reconstruction of Haiti".

The protection of creation was the focus of the meeting and in relation to this, the document states that "Humankind today faces a unique environmental crisis which is substantially the product of unbridled material and technological exploitation. While this challenge must obviously be addressed through the necessary technical means as well as self restraint, humility and discipline", the commission "emphasized the essential need for society to recognize the transcendent dimension of Creation that is critical to ensure sustainable development and progress in an ethically responsible manner. Not everything that is technically feasible is morally acceptable. It is this consciousness that ensures that every aspect of human advancement promotes the wellbeing of future generations and sanctifies the Divine Name, just as its absence leads to destructive consequences for humanity and environment and profanes the Divine Name".

Referring finally to "historic visit" of Benedict XVI to the synagogue in Rome, the statement underlines that on that occasion the Pope reaffirmed his "unequivocal condemnation of anti-Semitism and" and "categorically confirmed the commitment of the Catholic Church and its will to deepen dialogue and fraternity with Judaism and the Jewish People in accordance with Nostra Aetate, the subsequent teachings of the Magisterium".

See also from Zenit, "Catholic-Jewish Commission: Science Needs Religion" and "Statement of Catholic-Jewish Commission: "Not Everything That Is Technically Feasible Is Morally Acceptable."

Pope asks for prayer to achieve visible unity of all Christians

2010-01-20T16:09:00.004-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 20, 2010 / 03:29 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict developed his catechesis at the general audience on Wednesday around the theme of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The Pope spoke of the importance of "visible unity between Christians," inviting the faithful to invoke the Lord's assistance to "develop fraternal relations and promote dialogue."

This year's Week focuses on the Bible verse, "you are witnesses of these things," which Benedict XVI meditated on through two questions: the first, "What are these things?" and the second, "How can we be witnesses of these things?"

"The mystery of the Passion and the gift of the Resurrection" are the answers to the first question, explained the Pope, who added that "by knowing Christ we know the face of God" and "in Christ, the distant becomes close."

We can be witnesses to "these things," he continued, "by knowing Him personally, ... and truly meeting Him in our life of faith, and thus we can contribute to the novelty of the world, to eternal life."
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See also from Asia News, "Pope: ecumenism has made "great progress", even if there are new problems."

Scott Brown Wins Big in Massachusetts: The Emergence of the Independent Voter

2010-01-20T13:36:00.006-05:00

By Deacon Keith A. Fournier
1/20/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Boston Tea Party. The emergence of the Independent voter in the two Commonwealth States of Virginia and Massachusetts will become the story of the campaigns of 2010 and 2012.

The election in Massachusetts signals a major shift in the sentiment of US voters. It is not a sign of a new partisan movement, but a movement away from many of the big government approaches of the current administration.

BOSTON, MASS (Catholic Online) – In what only weeks ago would have been considered an impossible outcome, Scott Brown, the Republican candidate in the contest to fill the seat held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy for a half a century, has soundly defeated Democrat Martha Coakley. The major networks waited until almost 70% of the votes were in to call the election. Martha Coakley conceded when 75% of the votes were tallied.

Many of the pundits seemed almost flabbergasted at the substantive victory of a Republican candidate in what is always referred to as “liberal” Massachusetts. All throughout the coverage of the last few days, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was called “the bluest of blue States.” After all, it has not elected a Republican Senator in a very long time.

Senator-Elect Brown pledged to use his place as the 41st Republican in the 100 member US Senate to block the current version of health care reform. He campaigned against big government solutions, excessive taxation and Washington politics. His demeanor and his message drew support from Republicans and Democrats in Massachusetts. But the real story is how he captured the large base of Independent voters.

Democrats were counting on a victory by Martha Coakley to thwart any filibusters by the Republicans over the current Health Care Legislation. Clearly, the results of this election were not only disappointing to the White House but have set the National Democratic leadership into a tailspin. There is a frenzy of analysis and planning underway as to how to respond to this devastating defeat.

As someone born and raised in Massachusetts, I was not surprised. Many observers fail to understand that over 50% of Massachusetts voters are Independents. Growing up my parents prided themselves on being “independent”, though they usually voted for the Democratic candidate. That was back when “liberal” meant something entirely different than what it has now become. Back then the late Senator Ted Kennedy opposed the taking of the lives of children in the womb by abortion. Any compassionate liberal did…back then.

This devastating loss to the Democratic Party is a direct reflection on the serious discontent and disillusionment among many former supporters of the President. It shows a growing rejection of several of the policies of the Obama administration. The President campaigned aggressively for Martha Coakley over the weekend in the Bay State. That now makes him “0 for 2” in his efforts to prevent what appears to be a backlash against his policies.

Just this past weekend I attended the inauguration of Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia. The President personally campaigned for the Governors' opponent, Democrat Creigh Deeds, in the gubernatorial race. Governor McDonnell went on to win that election by one of the largest percentages in Virginia history.

Once again, it was the vote of Independents in Virginia who responded to Governor McDonnell’s message of economic opportunity and bottom up governance. Independents appear to be emerging as the most important group of voters in the electorate as the Nation moves toward the 2010 midterm elections. The election in Massachusetts clearly sends a signal that they have turned against the policies of the Obama Administration.

Catholics and other Christians were furious with Martha Coakley, a professing Catholic. She overtly opposed conscience rights for Pro-Life health care professionals. She espoused the kind of “anti-Catholic” rhetoric that has come to characterize the scandalous posture taken by too many Catholics in public life.
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See also:

Scott Brown Wins Massachusetts Senate Seat

Coakley Denies Freedom of Conscience

Coakley Says Catholics Need Not Apply

Amid warm welcome at synagogue, Pope mourns victims of Holocaust

2010-01-19T16:52:00.005-05:00

Catholic World News
January 19, 2010

Twenty-four years after Pope John Paul II made history by visiting the Great Synagogue of Rome, Pope Benedict-- welcomed by shouts of “Viva il Papa!”-- visited the synagogue late in the afternoon of January 17.

In an address that was interrupted by applause several times, Pope Benedict noted that “when he came among you for the first time, as a Christian and as Pope, my Venerable Predecessor John Paul II, almost 24 years ago, wanted to make a decisive contribution to strengthening the good relations between our two communities, so as to overcome every misconception and prejudice. My visit forms a part of the journey already begun, to confirm and deepen it.”

Affirming the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and recalling his visits to synagogues in Cologne and New York, Pope Benedict noted that “the Church has not failed to deplore the failings of her sons and daughters, begging forgiveness for all that could in any way have contributed to the scourge of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism.”

The Pontiff then mourned the victims of the Holocaust:

The passage of time allows us to recognize in the twentieth century a truly tragic period for humanity: ferocious wars that sowed destruction, death and suffering like never before; frightening ideologies, rooted in the idolatry of man, of race, and of the State, which led to brother killing brother. The singular and deeply disturbing drama of the Shoah represents, as it were, the most extreme point on the path of hatred that begins when man forgets his Creator and places himself at the center of the universe. As I noted during my visit of 28 May 2006 to the Auschwitz Concentration camp, which is still profoundly impressed upon my memory, "the rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people," and, essentially, "by wiping out this people, they intended to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that remain eternally valid."

Here in this place, how could we not remember the Roman Jews who were snatched from their homes, before these very walls, and who with tremendous brutality were killed at Auschwitz? How could one ever forget their faces, their names, their tears, the desperation faced by these men, women and children? The extermination of the people of the Covenant of Moses, at first announced, then systematically programmed and put into practice in Europe under the Nazi regime, on that day tragically reached as far as Rome. Unfortunately, many remained indifferent, but many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude. The Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way. The memory of these events compels us to strengthen the bonds that unite us so that our mutual understanding, respect and acceptance may always increase.

Calling Sacred Scripture is the “most stable and lasting foundation” of fraternal relations between Jews and Christians, Pope Benedict said the Decalogue offers “several possible areas of cooperation and witness,” three of which “are especially important for our time”:

The "Ten Commandments" require that we recognize the one Lord, against the temptation to construct other idols, to make golden calves. In our world there are many who do not know God or who consider him superfluous, without relevance for their lives; hence, other new gods have been fabricated to whom man bows down. Reawakening in our society openness to the transcendent dimension, witnessing to the one God, is a precious service which Jews and Christians can offer together.

The "Ten Commandments" call us to respect life and to protect it against every injustice and abuse, recognizing the worth of each human person, created in the image and likeness of God. How often, in every part of the world, near and far, the dignity, the freedom and the rights of human beings are trampled upon! Bearing witness together to the supreme value of life against all selfishness, is an important contribution to a new world where justice and peace reign, a world marked by that "shalom" which the lawgivers, the prophets and the sages of Israel longed to see.

The "Ten Commandments" call us to preserve and to promote the sanctity of the family, in which the personal and reciprocal, faithful and definitive "Yes" of man and woman makes room for the future, for the authentic humanity of each, and makes them open, at the same time, to the gift of new life. To witness that the family continues to be the essential cell of society and the basic environment in which human virtues are learned and practiced is a precious service offered in the construction of a world with a more human face.

In his remarks before the papal address, Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome’s Jewish community, said that “the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah, still hurts because something should have been done.”

He added, “Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Visita Del Pontefice Benedetto XVI Alla Comunità Ebraica Di Roma (scroll down for English) (Holy See)

Pope seeks to mend ties in synagogue visit (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Pope Tries to Soothe Tensions With Jews (New York Times)

Elizabeth Lev: At Pope's Trip to Rome Synagogue, Press Misses the Story (Politics Daily)

Israel Envoy: Synagogue Visit Brought Nice Surprise (Zenit)

Rome's Jewish leader confronts pope on Holocaust "silence" (Deutsche Welle)

Card Kasper: New Atmosphere of Mutual Understanding (Vatican Radio)

Details of possible Pius XII miracle emerge

2010-01-19T13:17:00.004-05:00

Venerables John Paul II and Pius XII

Rome, Italy, Jan 19, 2010 / 12:21 pm (CNA).- Some details of the case under investigation regarding a possible miracle attributed to Venerable Pope Pius XII have been made public. The story features not just one former Pontiff, but two.

On Tuesday morning, Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli published an article in Il Giornale describing at length the situation which "mysteriously involves" John Paul II.

Tornielli reported that this case was brought to the attention of Benedict XVI shortly before he approved a measure on Dec. 19, 2009 venerating Pope Pius XII's life of "heroic virtue," whose cause had been on-hold for the previous two years.

In 2005, a teacher of 31 years of age was expecting her third child in the city of Castellammare di Stabia. She began to have strong pains, which after many tests and a biopsy, signaled the presence of Burkitt's lymphoma. The condition is typified by swollen lymph nodes, often starting in the abdominal region, and the cancer can spread to bone marrow and spinal fluid. Not only was her health in danger, but that of her unborn child was also threatened.

The woman's husband first prayed for the intercession Pope John Paul II, who was then only recently buried in the crypt of St. Peter's. It wasn't long before the Holy Father appeared to the woman's husband in a dream. The spouse described to Tornielli what he saw that night, "He had a serious face. He said to me, 'I can't do anything, you must pray to this other priest...' He showed me the image of a thin, tall, lean priest. I didn't recognize him; I didn't know who he might be."

Several days passed before he, "by chance," came across a picture of Pope Pius XII in a magazine and recognized him as the man John Paul II had shown him in the dream.

The man wasted no time in bombarding Pius XII with prayers for his wife's healing and following her very first treatments she was declared free of the cancer, the tumor had disappeared. In fact, she was cured so quickly that her doctors pondered the notion that they may have originally misdiagnosed the pathology.
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Israel asks Vatican to open wartime archives

2010-01-18T16:08:00.001-05:00

Catholic World News
January 18, 2010

Echoing previous statements of Jewish leaders, a senior Israeli government official has asked the Holy See to open the Vatican archives to research on Pope Pius XII’s activity during World War II.

“I asked the Pope to find a way to make it possible to open the archives in the Vatican in order to give some details of the papacy of Pius XII in order to ease tensions between the Jewish people and Catholics,” said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom after the Pontiff’s January 17 visit to the Roman synagogue.

“In this specific case it is comprehensible that there should be a request to have open access to all possibilities of research on the documents,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi last month. “Yet for the complete opening of the archives-- as has been said on a number of occasions in the past-- it is necessary to organize and catalogue an enormous mass of documentation, something which still requires a number of years' work.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Israel asks pope to open up WWII archives (Reuters)

Note Concerning Decree on the Heroic Virtues of Pius XII

Honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Defending the Right to Life

2010-01-18T15:57:00.004-05:00

By Deacon Keith Fournier
1/17/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

On this day when we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we must continue his real work and not the counterfeits which seek to leech upon his memory.

On this day when we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we must continue his real work and not the counterfeits which seek to leech upon his memory. There is no doubt that any positive or civil law which protects the killing of our youngest neighbor, the child in the womb, is an unjust law. It must be opposed and resisted.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - On 16 April 1963 one of our greatest Americans, a Christian man who understood the fundamental truth that all men and women are endowed by God the Creator with inalienable rights, Dr. Martin Luther King, wrote what is one of my favorite of his writings.

Entitled after the fact a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” it was addressed to “My Fellow Clergymen.” It reads as a manifesto for every Christian, and especially Clergy, who understand the obligation we have to stand for authentic Social Justice. As a Clergyman, a Deacon of the Catholic Church, I prayerfully read it every year during this important American holiday.

Even the salutation speaks volumes. He wrote to “My Fellow Clergymen”. He engaged in this work because he was called by God. Reverend Dr. King was unjustly imprisoned at the time of the writing of this letter for defending the fundamental human rights of every single human person. I say HUMAN rights because these rights have their source in our identity as human persons created in the Image of God. The Government did not grant them and cannot take them away.

Without any fear of being considered “too religious”, he defended his position with a vibrant Christian witness. Because we are all human persons, we have human rights. The source of those rights is God the Creator, in whose Image we have been fashioned. Civil Rights, as important as they may be, are the domain of the State. And, as is obvious from Dr. King’s imprisonment, are not always justly enforced or protected. It is Human Rights which were the subject of his heroism. They are ours because we have received them from God.The first among them is the right to life itself.

He wrote this jailhouse letter when he was the President of a CHRISTIAN group: “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.”

It was his Christian faith, as a follower of Jesus Christ whom St Paul called the “New Man”, that Dr. King wrote this letter. It was because of his faith in Jesus Christ that he had the courage to live his heroic life and suffer his martyr’s death.
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The pope in Rome's synagogue: Praise the Lord for the gift of coming together

2010-01-17T14:52:00.010-05:00

» 01/17/2010 19:35
VATICAN - JEWS

In an emotionally charged atmosphere of brotherhood, Benedict XVI met with the Jewish community of Rome. A tribute to the victims of the Shoah and terrorism. Only a slight hint of controversy about Pius XII. The urgent need to work and witness together the Ten Commandments, "a 'great code' of ethics for all humanity.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Benedict XVI's visit to the Jewish community of Rome was held in an atmosphere of brotherhood and emotion. In his speech before the community gathered in the synagogue, the pope emphasized that "the most authentic spiritual attitude to experience this special and happy moment of grace [is] to praise the Lord .... for granting us this opportunity to come together to strengthen the bonds which unite us. "

In the days preceding the visit, there was strong debate within the Italian Jewish community on whether or not attend the meeting with the pope. The controversy is linked to the figure of Pius XII, for whom Benedict XVI has approved the "heroic virtues" opening the door to his beatification. For many Jews, Pacelli is accused of remaining "silent" in front of the Nazi extermination. The Vatican at the time stated that recognizing the heroic virtues of Pope does not include historical analysis on the life of Pius XII, which will only become possible with increased historical acquisitions. Because of differences in opinion, some Italian rabbis decided not to attend today's meeting with the pontiff.

This controversy was given some evidence in the speeches today, mostly in that of Riccardo Pacifici, president of the Jewish community of Rome, who, while thanking the many Catholics who helped Jews during the murder, described the silence of Pius XII as "too painful".

Riccardo di Segni, Chief Rabbi of Rome, was more discreet and remembering the victims of the Holocaust, said that "the silence of God" is an incomprehensible mystery", but "the silence of men" is something that must be judged.

Benedict XVI’s speech did not give way to controversy, he spoke of "many remained indifferent, but many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude". He added: "Even the Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way”. The Pope arrived around 16.30 (Rome time) in the area which once the Jewish ghetto was located and where today the synagogue stands, known as the Great Temple. First he honoured the plaque, near the Octavian Portico, that commemorates the deportation of 16 October 1943, placing a wreath in tribute to victims of the Holocaust.
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See also:

From CNS Blog, "Pope at Rome synagogue: ‘May these wounds be healed forever!’"

From NPR, "Pope: Vatican Helped Jews During World War II"

From CNA, "Pope's synagogue visit marked by mutual respect"

From Zenit, "Papal Address at Synagogue of Rome"

From Boston Herald, "Pope defends Pius against Jewish critics"

From Times Online, "Anger over wartime pontiff Pius XII overshadows Pope’s synagogue visit"

And also from Yahoo! News:

Associated Press Sun Jan 17, 3:02 PM ET
Enlarge photo...

In this photo released by the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano newspaper, Pope Benedict XVI is seen during his visit to Rome's synagogue Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. (AP Photo/ Osservatore Romano, Ho)

Rabbi Rosen: Israel’s treatment of the Vatican outrageous

2010-01-17T13:56:00.006-05:00

» 01/17/2010 16:04
ISRAEL - VATICAN

A few hours ahead of the meeting between Benedict XVI and the Jewish community of Rome, David Rosen accuses the state of Israel of not honouring the agreements made with the Vatican in '94, at the launch of diplomatic ties. He also accuses "xenophobes" of spreading false rumours against the Vatican.

Rome (AsiaNews) – Israel’s attitude to the Vatican is "outrageous". This is Rabbi David Rosen’s view of relations between Israel and the Holy See. In an article written by Cnaani Liphshiz, that appeared in today’s on-line English edition of Haaretz, the most influential Israeli newspaper, Rosen says that "any [other] country would have threatened to withdraw its ambassador long ago over Israel's failure to honor agreements "(See: Rabbi calls Israel's treatment of Vatican 'outrageous' - Haaretz - Israel News).

UK born Rosen, is currently international director for interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

Today, Rosen and other members of the Rabbinate of Israel will meet with Benedict XVI during a visit by a pontiff to the Jewish community of Rome. The Pope's visit was preceded by controversy centred on the Benedict XVI’s decision to proclaim the "heroic virtues" of Pius XII, opening the door to his possible beatification. Some Italian personalities and others from the Jewish international world are opposed because they accuse Pius XII of "silence" on the Holocaust. Many Jewish groups praised Pius XII for his work, which saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from extermination (See AsiaNews.it, 21/12/2009 Pius XII, the Pope who opposed Hitler).

In relations between the Vatican and the Jewish world, Rosen seems to give more importance to Tel Aviv’s delay in implementing of the Fundamental Agreement between Holy See and Israel.

David Rosen is one of the promoters of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel signed in 1994, when "Israel pledged to recognize the legal status of Catholic institutions in Israel and exempt Vatican property in Israel from taxes".

"The process was to take two years - says Rosen - Fifteen years later, the state has not ratified an agreement recognizing the church's legal status".

Last month, during the plenary meeting held at the Vatican between representatives of Israel and the Holy See, Daniel Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, spoke of a "broken" dialogue that was in "crisis". Several media in Israel attributed this situation to rumors that the Vatican requested the annexation of Mount Zion from Israel. Rosen believes these claims to be "falsehoods" propagated by "xenophobes".

See also, "Rabbi David Rosen Home Page."

Pope: Let us entrust to Mary our brother migrants, dialogue with the Jews, the Christian unity

2010-01-17T11:36:00.007-05:00

» 01/17/2010 12:45
VATICAN

Benedict XVI prays also for the "dear people of Haiti”, hit by the earthquake, of whose plight he is being kept "fully informed ". This afternoon, the pope will meet with Jewish community in the synagogue in Rome. “Despite problems and difficulties” there is a growing respect and dialogue between Christians and Jews. Migrant children "regardless of nationality or skin colour" are "people, the image of God" to be "protected against marginalization and exploitation."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Three intentions" entrusted "to the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church" for "our brother migrants and refugees, religious dialogue with Jews and the unity of Christians”. This is how Benedict XVI concluded his reflection today before the Angelus with the pilgrims in St Peter's Square. At the end of the Marian prayer he once again recalled "the dear population of Haiti" affected by the earthquake, of whose situation he is being kept "fully informed" by the Apostolic Nuncio to the island nation. He also expressed encouragement for "the efforts of many charitable organizations to address the immense needs of the country".

Recalling the "blessed Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and ... Saint Francesca Cabrini," Apostles of migrants, the pope recalled the "constant" commitment of the Church to help migrants and refugees, especially migrant and refugee children. This aspect is also the theme of Day for Migrants celebrated this Sunday in Italy. "The child - said the pontiff - irrespective of nationality and skin colour, should be seen first and foremost and always as a person, the image of God, to be promoted and protected against marginalization and exploitation. In particular, we should make every effort so that children who are living in a foreign country may have legal guarantees and above all be accompanied in the countless problems they face."

Benedict XVI then recalled that at around 4 pm this afternoon, he will travel to meet the Jewish community in the Synagogue of Rome (the so-called “Great Temple"), 24 years after the historic visit made by Pope John Paul II. "Despite problems and difficulties - said the pope – there is an atmosphere of great respect and dialogue between believers of both religions, a sign of how relations have matured and the common commitment to enhance what unites us: faith in God, first and foremost, but also the protection of life and family, the aspiration to social justice and peace".

"Finally I would also like to remember, - said the pontiff - that tomorrow sees the beginning of the traditional Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Each year it is, for those who believe in Christ, a propitious time to revive the spirit of ecumenism, to meet, learn, pray and reflect together. The biblical theme, taken from the Gospel of Saint Luke, echoing the words of the risen Jesus to the Apostles: "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48). Our proclamation of the Gospel of Christ will be all the more credible and effective the more we will be united in His love, as true brothers. I therefore call on the parishes, religious communities, associations and ecclesial movements to pray incessantly, especially during Eucharistic celebrations, for the full unity of Christians. "

Before the greetings in different languages, Benedict XVI spoke of his "heartfelt prayer" for "the dear population of Haiti." "The Papal Nuncio - added the pope - who thank God is well, is keeping me fully informed, so I learned the painful death of the archbishop, as well as many priests, religious and seminarians. I follow and encourage the efforts of many charitable organizations, who are attempting to address the immense needs of the country. I pray for the wounded, the homeless, and for those who tragically lost their lives".

See also:

From CNA, "Pope calls for protection for migrant and refugee children"

From CNS Blog, "Pope: Synagogue visit shows climate of respect, dialogue"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope: Migrant Children Should Be Legally Protected
January 17, 2010

Benedict XVI named honorary citizen of Freising, Germany

2010-01-16T20:14:00.005-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 16, 2010 / 12:33 pm (CNA).- A delegation from the German city of Freising met with Pope Benedict XVI just after noon on Saturday to confer honorary citizenship on him. The Pope accepted the gesture and used the occasion to reaffirm the role of the Church in today's society.

The Holy Father addressed the delegation, in his mother tongue of German. "Tu es Petrus", an Italian website, provided an early translation of the Pope's words.

As he accepted the honor, the Pope reflected on the Church which, much like the structure of the cathedral of Freising in the Bavarian landscape, has a "firm place in our society, in our history and in our culture which we cannot dismiss."
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See also:

From Fox News,"Pope Says End of Nazi Rule in Germany Freed Him"

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Pope Benedict Receives Honorary citizenship from Freising
January 16, 2010

Pope Benedict thanks CDF for bioethics contributions

2010-01-15T16:19:00.006-05:00

Vatican City, Jan 15, 2010 / 12:13 pm (CNA).- Speaking with the members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on Friday, Pope Benedict expressed gratefulness for their work, particularly focusing on their efforts to apply Christians ethics to in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene therapy. The Pope first highlighted the 2008 Instruction "Dignitas Personae," which dealt with the morality of in vitro fertilization, new forms of contraception, freezing embryos, cloning, the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos, genetic screening and gene therapy, among other biomedical processes.

“Dignitas Personae” represents "a new milestone in the announcement of the Gospel, in full continuity with the Instruction 'Donum vitae' published by the dicastery in 1987,” the Holy Father said.
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See also from Catholic World News, "True doctrine serves Church unity, Pope tells CDF."

And from YouTube-Vatican's Channel:

Benedict XVI: Share the Christian moral perspective
January 15, 2010

Pope's 3-Month Agenda: Lent Retreat, Easter, Malta

2010-01-15T15:35:00.003-05:00

5th Anniversary of John Paul II's Death Falls on Good Friday

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The calendar of liturgies over which Benedict XVI will preside from February through April was published today, including the agenda of Lent and Holy Week celebrations and a mention of his trip to Malta.

The Pope will begin February with a celebration on the 2nd for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day of Consecrated Life. At 5.30 p.m. in St. Peter's Basilica, he will lead vespers with members of institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life.

The Holy Father will mark the beginning of Lent on Feb. 17 with a penitential procession at 4:30 p.m. and the blessing and imposition of ashes at 5.

On Feb. 19, there will be a consistory for certain causes of canonization.
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CRS distributes food from Haitian warehouses, Dominican Republic

2010-01-15T13:32:00.004-05:00

By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
January 15, 2010

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although getting basic supplies such as food and water to the hundreds of thousands left homeless by Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake has been a Herculean task, aid workers were finding ways around traffic blockades, crowds of people and the country's lack of infrastructure.

Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services, which is coordinating the church's relief and recovery efforts in Haiti, was able to get a jump-start on distributing aid because it already had warehouses filled with supplies in Haiti set up after the 2008 hurricanes in the region.

After it distributed plastic sheeting, water storage containers, mosquito nets, and hygiene kits from the Port-au-Prince warehouse Jan 14, the agency began distributing supplies from one of its other warehouses in Les Cayes, about 90 miles from Port-au-Prince.

CRS volunteers and staff in the Dominican Republic were purchasing and assembling boxes of food, including sardines and peanut butter, to deliver to Port-au-Prince. The ultimate goal was to have enough boxes of prepared food to feed 50,000.

Bill Canny, CRS' director of emergency operations, spoke to Catholic News Service while traveling from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. He said some of the relief efforts were still a work in progress, for instance, distribution of food from the U.S. government that arrived in Port-au-Prince via ship Jan. 15.

"We're waiting to see how that develops," he said.

The agency was sending additional supplies from the Dominican Republic: water storage containers and water purification tablets for 2,000 families; and plastic sheeting, water storage containers, mosquito nets and hygiene kits to serve an additional 500 families.
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Caritas aid reaching Haiti; US parishes to take up special collection

2010-01-14T19:05:00.003-05:00

Catholic World News
January 14, 2010

Caritas, the international consortium of Catholic relief agencies, is offering first aid and distributing tents and blankets to the victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti. “The immediate needs are for tents for provisional shelters, covers, clothing, clean water, food, psychological support, first aid materials, drugs, flashlights and batteries,” said Caritas Haiti Head of Emergencies Joseph Jonidès Villarson. “The streets and public places are filled with people who do not know where to go. We fear violence if the situation continues. Looting has already broken out. There is very little visible presence of the police.”

Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, board chairman of Catholic Relief Services, have asked US priests to take up a second collection in parishes this weekend to “respond to immediate emergency needs for such necessities as water, food, shelter and medical care, as well as to the long term need to rebuild after widespread destruction, and to the pastoral and reconstruction needs of the Church in Haiti.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

Caritas aid reaching Haiti quake survivors as Cardinal Rodriguez calls for support (Caritas)

U.S. Bishops Mourn Devastation in Haiti, Urge Special Collection January 16-17 to Support Efforts of USCCB, CRS (USCCB)

Haiti Lies in Ruins; Grim Search for Untold Dead (New York Times)

World scrambles to help quake-hit Haiti (AFP)

Pope pleads for emergency help for devastated Haiti (CWN, 1/13)

Letter #1, 2010

2010-01-14T08:34:00.011-05:00

insidethevatican - Jan 14, 2010

Tragedy and Hope

In Haiti, a January 12 earthquake kills thousands. In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI prepares to visit the city's Jewish synagogue on January 17. Will the visit spark controversy?

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from America

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

Tragedy in Haiti

We begin with sorrow.

We mourn the dead and injured in the terrible Haitian earthquake of Tuesday afternoon, January 12, and try to grasp the full dimensions of the tragedy which has left so many thousands dead and injured.

In coming days, we will be publishing Pope Benedict XVI's and the Vatican's reactions to the shocking suffering and loss of life in Haiti, and news of what the Church is doing in that country.

Meanwhile, we have for some time been reflecting on the issues surrounding the significant visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Jewish synagogue of Rome coming this Sunday, January 17.

We had been preparing to publish those reflections this week, prior to the visit, and do so below, even as the Haitian earthquake seems to set all other matters in a rather different and less important light.

Regarding Haiti, in response to those who ask -- as we ourselves ask -- how the tragedy and loss of innocent life can be reconciled with the goodness of God, we draw on a phrase we found on the First Things website: "Some will say 'where is God in all of this?' The answer, of course, is that God is in the response."

Here is a link to reports about the Haitian tragedy, and Catholic relief efforts in Haiti, including some reliable addresses where readers can send donations to help: News of tragedy in Haiti, and Catholic relief efforts.-- The Editor

Storm Clouds Over Benedict

Increasing clouds have been gathering for days over Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome on January 17th, casting a shadow on what was planned as a meeting to improve Catholic-Jewish understanding.

John Paul II (1978-2005) had initiated this gesture of reconciliation in 1986, being the first pontiff to visit a synagogue since the time of the apostles.

When Benedict was invited by Rome’s rabbis to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps, he clearly accepted in hopes of raising the often tense relationship to a higher level of discourse.

But since December 19th, when Benedict signed a decree advancing Pope Pius XII’s cause for beatification, and ultimately canonization, there has been a carefully programmed media campaign against him.

Sadly, this campaign is based largely upon myth, historical amnesia, and anti-papal propaganda. We have gone over this material many times in recent years, but since the same charges keep being raised against Pope Pius, despite the evidence, we feel it necessary to present the evidence yet again.

Petition and Response

On January 11th, Reuters reported that a group of American Jews attending a "Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants" planned this week to petition Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, to use the opportunity of Benedict's January 17 visit to Rome's synagogue to decry Benedict’s December 19 decision to declare Pope Pius XII "Venerable" and set him on the road to canonization as a Catholic saint.

(Here is the complete Reuters story as it appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1142031.html)

The group wishes to have Di Segni, or one of his representatives, convey their concerns to Pope Benedict during the visit. The petition reads in part: “The group appeals to you to convey our pain and emotion to Pope Benedict when he is received by you at the main synagogue on Sunday... Truth and memory must be vigorously affirmed. The historical record of Pius’s silence during the period of Nazi barbarism against the Jewish people is a signal of moral failure. Our repeated pleas that Vatican assertions that Pius acted to save Jewish lives be documented through the opening of relevant archives have been met with silence.”

At this time, it is unclear whether Rabbi Di Segni will mention this petition.

But we feel the petitioners, even if in good faith, hold inaccurate and distorted views both on the Holy See's statements about Pius and his pontificate, and on the historical truth about Pius' response to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Hence, this brief report to clarify the facts.

The petitioning organization, which does not claim to represent all Holocaust survivors, misrepresents Pius XII’s actual record of constant help for the victims of the Third Reich’s murderous racial policies.

And this was well known at the time, and not just by Catholics, but by many Jews and their representatives.

On November 29, 1945, a large group of Jewish survivors came to the Vatican, specifically "to thank His Holiness personally for the extraordinary generosity which he had shown them when they were persecuted during the frightful period of Nazi-Fascism.”

Pius XII embraced them, saying: “The Holy See, faithful to the eternal principles, never has agreed, not even in the most hazardous moments, with concepts which the history of civilization will range among the most deplorable and ignominious aberrations of human thinking and feeling. Your presence here is meant to be an expression of gratitude from men and women who have experienced that in the exercise of charity, the Catholic Church and her real children know how to rise above the narrow and arbitrary limits drawn by human selfishness and race hatred.” (Angelic Shepherd: the Life of Pope Pius XII, by Jan Olav Smit, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1950, p. 154)
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Opinion: Speaker Pelosi’s Bishop Corrects Her Once Again. Call to Catholic Action.

2010-01-14T06:53:00.007-05:00

By Deacon Keith Fournier
1/14/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Do not let Speaker Nancy Pelosi continue to confuse you. Pray for the Speaker but resist her lies and oppose evil.

Archbishop George H. Niederauer in a well written piece entitled “Free Will, Conscience and Moral Choice: What Catholics believe” has once again corrected the Speaker, a member of his flock.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - One of the great scandals of our age is the leadership of some of our fellow Catholics in public life who are unfaithful to the teaching of our Church and betray their public trust. Sadly, they demonstrate the danger warned of in the last great ecumenical council of our Church, Vatican II.

The Council Fathers in their document on the Christian mission - Lumen Gentium, “Light to the Nations - used a phrase which has been repeated many times since then in numerous teachings from the contemporary Popes and is a favorite of our own U.S. Bishops. They warned of the “separation between faith and life.” They called it one of the “greatest errors of our age”. And, so it truly is... advanced with the help of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some other Catholics in public life.

In his prophetic Encyclical Letter entitled “The Gospel of Life" John Paul II wrote concerning a “perverse idea of freedom" as a raw power over others. He reaffirmed the "essential link" between freedom and truth. This connection is the beating heart of morality and common sense. In "The Splendor of Truth" he proclaimed that "freedom itself needs to be set free" from the lie of the current age. He exposed the counterfeit notions of freedom, the rotted fruit of the new paganism, materialism and nihilism which calls itself “progressivism” when it it is actually regressivism.

Authentic faithful Christians - and especially Catholic Christians who have the wealth of the teaching office of the “Social Magisterium” of the Church - must now become the champions of freedom in this age. Millions are depending upon our courage to resist the lies of this current deluded age and rebuild the Western vision of a free society.

We must insist upon the essential connection between freedom, truth and responsibility to prevent the continued descent of the West into a new paganism masquerading as “freedom.” The horrors which will be unleashed in the name of a “freedom” which is a lie are evident in the blood of all those killed through procured abortions since Roe. Let’s cut to the chase, killing our first neighbors in the womb in the name of “choice” is evil, sick and unlawful.

It also violates the Natural Law even if the current positive law allows it. It is barbarism. As Christians we agree that humans are “free” to choose. However we insist that some choices are always wrong. Perhaps the most obvious example is the lie that a nation can treat an entire class of human persons as property to be used – and killed- rather than a gift to be received and recognized as our neighbors, and still claim to be free and just.

As Catholic Christians who are citizens in this experiment in ordered liberty called the United States of America, we have been able to flourish. That is because the founding documents of this Nation, (even if it took centuries to understand their implications in certain areas), articulated truths derived from the classical Natural Law thinking of Western Christendom.

These truths were set forth in the great philosophical tradition of the Latin Church in St. Thomas Aquinas, but they find their origin in the teachings of the early Fathers of the “Patristic” age of the Church. They are the fruit of the tree of real liberty whose roots are sunk deeply in the Biblical texts, Old and New Testament.

For example, the American founders insistence upon the existence of “unalienable rights” which are “endowed by a Creator” on every human person was inspired. The Declaration is the Birth Certificate of the American Republic. Our acceptance of the existence of universally recognized rights, truths and obligations has informed the foundation for the Western understanding of the Rule of Law. It is also the source of of our true liberties.

The insistence that fundamental human rights are not conferred by Civil Government but endowed by God is what made Western Civilization flourish. It still serves as a beacon of hope for the entire world. There is a “Natural Law” which is written on our conscience. That Natural Law is a participation in God’s law. It is knowable through the exercise of reason by all men and women, whether they acknowledge God's existence or not. It is that Natural Law which is the measuring stick for any truly just “positive” or “civil” law. When we fail to recognize this we lose our way and we lose our freedom. Our history attests to this.

The substitution of license for liberty is what John Paul II had in mind when he warned of "a notion of freedom, which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them." As he prophetically cautioned, it results from the "eclipse of the sense of God and of man typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism." That is what has infected our beloved Nation.
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See also:

Archbishop Corrects Pelosi on Moral Choice

Pelosi Defends Abortion and Catholic Faith?

Contend for the Future by Setting Freedom Free

Earthquake in Haiti: Hundreds, perhaps thousands of dead. Taiwan ready with aid

2010-01-13T10:33:00.015-05:00

» 01/13/2010 10:55
TAIWAN - HAITI

"Total chaos" in the capital Port-au-Prince. Thousands of survivors roam the city in search of help. Haiti is the poorest country in the northern hemisphere. 78% live on less than $ 2 per day. In Taipei a team of 140 firefighters and 8 dogs, specializing in emergencies is ready.

Taipei (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A magnitude 7 earthquake struck the island of Haiti overnight, the poorest nation in the northern hemisphere, destroying entire buildings and leaving hundreds and perhaps thousands dead. Haiti is one of the countries of Central America that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Foreign Office in Taipei has already expressed willingness to send teams specialized in emergency aid and earthquakes.

In Haiti all communication is down and the only news so far is via satellite. According to eye witness accounts from workers on the ground in a Catholic NGO, Port-au-Prince, the capital is "total chaos" smoke and dust rising from the ruins, survivors and injured people who go around seeking help, people who are still under the rubble. Thousands of people wander the streets crying, which shows, each step revealing new destruction.

The UN, which has 7 thousand peacekeeping soldiers and 2 thousand policemen on the island, said that a building of its headquarters was damaged, and "a large number of its staff scattered”. The UN has been present on the island since 2004, when the then President of Haiti, Bertrand Aristide went into exile.

Haiti, with a population of approximately 9.6 million inhabitants, was recovering from various natural disasters - 4 tropical storms or hurricanes - which killed 800 people in 2008.
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See also:

From Asia News, "Pope urges international solidarity for Haiti"

From Catholic News Agency, "Pope makes appeal for earthquake victims in Haiti"

VIS-Press release, "Papal Appeal following Earthquake in Haiti"

From Catholic News Service, "Pope prays for victims of Haiti quake, urges generous relief effort," "Pope prays for victims of Haiti quake; archbishop's body found" and "CRS rep expects 'thousands and thousands' of dead, injured in Haiti"

From Vail Daily, "Red Cross: Up to 3 million affected by Haiti quake"

From New Kerala, "Pope: Show generosity to Haiti quake victims"

From Fox News, "Haiti Archbishop Killed in Quake as Churches, Cathedral Reduced to Rubble," and "Homes Toppled, Bodies Piled in Streets After Devastating Haiti Quake"

From MSNBC, "Earthquake leaves Haiti ‘worse than a war zone’"