Osama Bin Laden challenges Pope Benedict in latest missive

The New York Police Department says it has been working closely with the Secret Service to provide the highest level of protection possible:

Pope Benedict XVI has been mentioned in a new Osama bin Laden message. The pontiff is due to speak next month at the United Nations, pray at the World Trade Center site and celebrate Mass in Yankee Stadium.

Bin Laden says the pope has played a large role in a "new Crusade" against Islam.

In an audio message posted Wednesday on a Web site bin Laden condemns the Danish publication of drawings he calls insulting to the Prophet Muhammad. He warns Europeans of a "severe" reaction to come.

Back in December 2007, Al Qaeda expressed its dismay at the prospect of the Pope seeking to "dialogue" with Islam in a spirit of peace (Zenit News. December 18, 2007):

Al-Qaida is worried by Benedict XVI's efforts to dialogue with Muslims, says a Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi affirmed this today when commenting on a one-hour 37-minute video from al-Qaida's second-in-command, who criticized Benedict XVI's Nov. 6 meeting with Saudi Arabian King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

The video from Ayman al-Zawahri was posted Sunday on the Internet. The al-Qaida leader said the Pope's meeting with King Abdallah, the first ever between a Pontiff and a Saudi monarch, was offensive to Islam and Muslims.

Update

• Vatican dismisses bin Laden's charges of pope's anti-Islam campaign, by John Thavis. Catholic News Service:

  VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican spokesman dismissed Osama bin Laden's accusations of an anti-Islam campaign by Pope Benedict XVI, noting the pope's efforts to dialogue with Muslims.

  Bin Laden, citing the controversy over cartoons ridiculing the prophet Mohammed, said the pope was part of a "new crusade" against Islam.

  "The content of the accusations makes no sense," Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service March 20.

  "But these kinds of allegations are not new," Father Lombardi added. The Vatican responded to similar accusations by al-Qaida's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, last December.

  The Vatican spokesman said it was not surprising for bin Laden to name the pope among his many "perceived enemies," but said the more moderate Muslim world knows the pope's commitment to good interreligious relations.

[Crossposted to Benedict in America]

Christ Our Hope: A Parish Study Guide To Pope Benedict XVI's Second Encyclical, "Spe Salvi"

Christ Our Hope: A Parish Study Guide To Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Letter, On Christian Hope (Spe salvi) - "A Catechetical Resource of the Archdiocese of Washington, in preparation for the Apostolic Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Washington, DC April 15 – 17, 2008." Complete Study Guide (51 page PDF document) Introduction Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5 Session 6 Session 7 The study guide was prepared for the Archdiocese of Washington by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D., professor in the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., where she teaches courses on Catholic Education and the Documents of Vatican II. [Courtesy of the Dominican Friars]

Pope Benedict to "Rehabilitate Luther"?

• WHAT THE PRESS REPORTED: That Martin Luther? He wasn’t so bad, says Pope, by Richard Owen in Rome. London Times Online March 6, 2008:

  Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices.

  Pope Benedict will issue his findings on Luther (1483-1546) in September after discussing him at his annual seminar of 40 fellow theologians — known as the Ratzinger Schülerkreis — at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence. According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic.

  Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help to promote ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. It is also designed to counteract the impact of July's papal statement describing the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as defective and “not proper Churches”.

  The move to re-evaluate Luther is part of a drive to soften Pope Benedict's image as an arch conservative hardliner as he approaches the third anniversary of his election next month.

• ANY BASIS IN THE TRUTH?: Vatican spokesman calls rumors of rehabilitation of Luther groundless, by Carol Glatz. Catholic News Service. March 10, 2008:

  VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Rumors that the Vatican is set to rehabilitate Martin Luther, the 16th-century leader of the Protestant Reformation, are groundless, said the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi. [...]

  News reports in early March alleged that Pope Benedict XVI was dedicating a planned September symposium with former doctoral students to re-evaluating Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy.

  The story "does not have any foundation, insofar as no rehabilitation of Luther is foreseen," Father Lombardi told the Italian news agency ANSA March 8.

  Vatican officials said the topic of the pope's annual summer gathering of former students this year has not yet been decided. Of the two topics under consideration, Luther is not one of them, one official told Catholic News Service.

WHAT BENEDICT THINKS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Carl Olson at Insight Scoop offers some suggestions:

• Read Luther and the unity of the churches: an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Communio Fall 1984.

• "Consider getting a copy of Ratzinger's Principles of Catholic Theology (Ignatius, 1987, 1989), which contains a major section on ecumenical dialogue, including a section on "Luther's protest" and the Council of Trent's response to certain teachings of Luther and Co."

• Also see Fr. Aidan Nichols', The Theology of Joseph Ratzinger (T&T Clark, 1988):

  Ratzinger "finds two figures within the Wittenberg Reformer. First, there is the Luther of the Catechisms, the hymns and the liturgical reforms: and this Luther can be received by Catholics whose own biblical and liturgical revivals in this century reproduce many of Luther's own criticisms of the late medieval Church. But besides this Luther there is also another: the radical theologian and polemicist whose particular version of the doctrine of justification by faith is incompatible with the Catholic understanding of faith as a co-believing with the whole Church, within a Christian existence composed equally of faith, hope, and charity" (p. 276).