Pope Benedict Roundup!

News

• 7/28/11 - Pope Benedict has appointed Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan. Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 77, retired for reasons of age. (Zenit). From Inside the Vatican, an extensive interview with the Cardinal, beginning with the following profile:

  A scholar and pastor, Cardinal Angelo Scola, has been a close friend of Pope Benedict XVI for over four decades, and is considered by many in Rome as the Italian front runner to succeed the German Pope, were a conclave to be held in the near future.
  This intellectual, son of a Socialist truck driver and a Catholic mother, he was for many years an active member of the Communion and Liberation Movement which he credits with fostering his vocation to the priesthood.
  
  A brilliant student, he gained doctorates in philosophy from the Catholic University of Milan and in theology from Fribourg University, Switzerland, where he also taught. Appointed by John Paul II as Rector of the Lateran University in 1995, he is credited with raising its academic standing during his six years’ tenure there.
  
  In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Danielou and Joseph Ratzinger in the prestigious international Catholic journal “Communio”, of which he was editor for many years. A polyglot and author of many books and countless articles, he is considered the foremost intellectual in the Italian hierarchy.
  
  With 14 years of pastoral experience governing two dioceses, this original, creative pastor and thinker is also a man of dialogue. As Patriarch of Venice he has worked hard to build bridges to the Orthodox Churches and the Muslim world, in the latter case by launching the Oasis project in 2004. This highly articulate religious leader has often spoken out fearlessly in defense of fundamental human rights, the Church, the family and moral values.

  and "The Vatican Insider" (La Stampa), on the question: why Scola:

  "The main reason is the esteem that Ratzinger has for this theologian who worked with him in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Pope trusts Scola, his capabilities, his preparation. He believes he is the right man for Milan at this moment, even if his episcopate will not be as long as that of his predecessors."
  
  

  7/28/11 - Pope Benedict launched news.va, a portal providing the Vatican's perspective on world news, with a tweet from the Holy Father himself:Rocco Palmo (Whispers in the Loggia) has further details on the Vatican's latest endeavor in altmedia, and Commonweal has a caption contest.
  

  
  
  

  7/20/11 - The Vatican has announced Pope Benedict XVI's schedule for his apostolic trip to Germany in September (Catholic News Agency).
  

  
  
  

  7/14/11 - To mark Benedict XVI's 60 years of priestly ordination, the Vatican Publishing House has printed two volumes that bring together a number texts from his vast teaching Fabio Mastrofini reports for the "Vatican Insider" (La Stampa):

  The first volume is a collection (with commentary) of three of the many speeches made by the Pope, addressing the world of culture: the famous speech at Regensburg on the relationship between intolerance and fanaticism, and the rationality of faith; the one during the trip to France at the College des Bernardins on the role of Christianity in European culture; the one at Westminster Hall on the relationship between state and church and on the secular state.
  The second volume is a guide to reading the three encyclicals published by Pope Benedict XVI. The two volumes are aimed at helping readers grasp the main aspects the Pope's thinking. This, on the one hand makes them extremely valuable but on the other shows their limits, in that they lack a critical perspective.

  
  
  

  6/15/11 - The new evangelization is the theme of this year's meeting of the "Ratzinger Schulerkreis," a group of the Pope's former students. Benedict XVI will preside at a Mass with the group.. (Zenit).
  

  
  
  

  6/14/11 - The Vatican has announced the first three winners of "The Ratzinger Price" (Catholic News Agency):

  The prize was established last year to promote theological study on the writings of Pope Benedict XVI and has been referred to as “the Nobel Prize for Theology.” [...] The two scholars chosen for the prize are Professor Manlio Simonetti, an 85-year-old expert on the Church Fathers who used to teach at Rome’s La Sapienza University, and Professor Olegario González de Cardedal, a 77-year-old specialist in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain.

  
  
  

  6/13/11 - Security was considerably increased in the Vatican yesterday after direct threats against the Holy Father were made in a recently-released video by a member of an extreme Islamist group identifying the Pope as an "easy target.".
  

  
  
  

  6/03/11 - U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden met with Pope Benedict XVI in an unannounced visit to the Vatican, June 3. Both sides have been tight-lipped as to what was discussed. (Catholic News Agency).

Commentary

• The Pope and the Papal Tiara's symbolic power, by Andrea Tornielli. "Vatican Insider" La Stampa Sunday 24 July 2011. "Although its liturgical use has ceased and Benedict XVI has removed it from his personal coat of arms substituting it with the mitre (despite it too being three tiered), the tiara and crossed keys remain in the Vatican City's coat of arms."

• Aidan Nichols: The Ordinariates, the Pope, and the Liturgy (Part I) | (Part II) - Fr. Aidan Nichols' address to the Anglicanorum Coetibus conference in Canada (March 24-26, 2011). Via Rorate Caeli:

  Nichols characterizes the Pope's reach-out to four specific groups -- conservative "Catholic" Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, the Society of St. Pius X, and Anglo-Catholics -- as an invitation to them to board the "Noah's Ark" that is the Catholic Church in the face of the flood of relativism, secularism and militant Islam.

• Living Water: Reading Scripture in the Body of Christ with Benedict XVI, by Adrian J. Walker. Communio Fall 2010.

• Pope Benedict’s Patristic Perspective by Father David Vincent Meconi, S.J. Catholic World Report April 18, 2010.

• The Assisi gathering and “Ratzingarian” fears, by Andrea Tornielli. "Vatican Insider" (La Stampa July 12, 2011):

  The convocation of world religious leaders decided by Pope Benedict XVI in Assisi on October 27th, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first gathering by Pope John Paul II, must be causing a certain amount of worry for some of the Pope’s collaborators. For days now, the columns of L'Osservatore Romano, are rattling off a series of authoritative interventions all aimed at providing the correct interpretation of the Pope’s gesture. ...

• Potpourri of Popery, Corpus Christi Edition - Wheat & Weeds' helpful roundup covers the Holy Father's Corpus Christi homily and journeys to the Republic of San Marino and Croatia.

• The Pope told by his brother His childhood, the war, his vocation, his passion for music, his faith: Joseph Ratzinger's life told through the eyes of his brother Georg Ratzinger. "Vatican Insider" (La Stampa).

• David Gibson on "the evolutionary Resurrection of Benedict XVI". (Commonweal June 2, 2011).

• Benedict XVI: In No One's Shadow (The American Specator May 6, 2011). Dr. Samuel Gregg responds to The Economist's criticism of Benedict's pontificate.

• Kris McGregor of DiscerningHearts.com interviewed Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.Introduction to Christianity, first published in German in 1968 and published in 1990 by Ignatius Press, with a second edition (featuring a new Preface) published in 2004.
  

On a lighter note

• "The Odor of Sanctity" - "Benedictus", a fragrance in honor of the 60th anniversary of the pope's ordination to the priesthood.

  "Doctor Frederick Hass, founder of Excelsis, created this fragrance appropriately with linden blossom from Benedict’s native Germany, frankincense from the Holy Land and bergamot from Italy."