Pope Benedict XVI Roundup!

Benedict XVI's First Year

On April 27, 2006, Pope Benedict used his Wednesday general audience as an opportunity to reflect on the first anniversary of his pontificate:

How quickly time passes! A year has already elapsed since the cardinals gathered in conclave and, in a way I found absolutely unexpected and surprising, desired to choose my poor self to succeed the late and beloved Servant of God, the great Pope John Paul II. I remember with emotion my first impact with the faithful gathered in this same square, from the central loggia of the basilica, immediately after my election.

That meeting is still impressed upon my mind and heart. It was followed by many others that have given me an opportunity to experience the deep truth of my words at the solemn concelebration with which I formally began to exercise my Petrine ministry: "I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone" (L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, April 27, 2005, p. 2).

And I feel more and more that alone I could not carry out this task, this mission. But I also feel that you are carrying it with me: Thus, I am in a great communion and together we can go ahead with the Lord's mission. The heavenly protection of God and of the saints is an irreplaceable support to me and I am comforted by your closeness, dear friends, who do not let me do without the gift of your indulgence and your love. I offer very warm thanks to all those who in various ways support me from close at hand or follow me from afar in spirit with their affection and their prayers. I ask each one to continue to support me, praying to God to grant that I may be a gentle and firm Pastor of his Church. . . .

Courtesy of the Vatican, you can watch video of Pope John Paul II's funeral, the Conclave, and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. . . . Ratzenfreude, anyone?

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Catholic bloggers, pundits and the world continue to assess the one-year anniversary of Benedict XVI's pontificate and his election on April 19, 2005.

In our April 2006 Benedict Roundup, we took a look at some rather mediocre (hence, disappointing) reviews by the likes of Stephen Crittenden, John Cornwell and Hans Kung -- with USA Today's Eric Lyman distinguishing himself by being able to mention JPII and B16 in the same paragraph without succumbing to the urge to lambast John Paul II's teaching on sexuality. This time around we'll see what some of our Catholic pundits and members of St. Blog's Parish have to say.

• Is B16 nasty enough?, by Michael Liccione (Sacramentum Vitae April 20, 2006):

  The Pope appears unlikely to clean house by showing the door to unruly family members. As I've often suggested before, demographics are at least as likely to winnow the chaff as juridical measures and would be far less costly. Instead, Benedict proposes the true, the good, and the beautiful; he calls the false, the evil, and the ugly by their right names; and he invites all, by example as well as word, to conversion of heart. Unlike some of my fellow conservative Catholics, I've come to believe that, for the moment at least, that's about as nasty as he needs to be.

• One year later, by Amy Welborn (Open Book April 19, 2006):

  That day a year ago is impossible to forget. It was thrilling and mystifying. Why were we all so fascinated, even the secular media? I was watching one of the nets and an anchor said, "I'm getting chills" - it's sobering, really, to think about it - that the election of a Pope could produce so much interest in what we thought was such a cynical world. . . .

  Great recollections of that amazing day, together with some great memories from her readers.

• Remarking on the tendency of many pundits to note that the Pope turned out to be not what they had expected -- which is to say, a far cry from his former incarnation as "God's Rottweiler," Guy Selvester (Shouts in the Piazza) wonders "Who is different?"

• " Pope and Abbot", by Christopher Ruddy. America Vol. 194 No. 19. May 29, 2006:

  . . . If his pontificate remains embryonic, a clear portrait of the man has begun to emerge: Pope Benedict the abbot. If John Paul II was above all a witness, carrying the truth about Christ and humanity to all peoples and places, I suggest that Benedict can be summed up as an abbot concerned with leading his community to a deeper encounter with God through prayer and service. Where John Paul was a “sender,” concerned primarily with the church’s mission, Benedict is a “gatherer,” concerned primarily with its communion.

• Pope Benedict made it into Time Magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World", with contributions by Jeff Israely (The Pope's First Year: How He Simplified His Role) and Peggy Noonan (Pope Benedict XVI: The New Pontiff Finds His Voice):

  This is God's Rottweiler? John Paul's enforcer? The man who bluntly told the Cardinals last year that they must clean the stables of the "filth" that had entered the church? According to those who have followed the work and life of Joseph Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict—this is the real him: the teacher, the thinker, the ponderer of deepest meanings.

  See also Time's impressive Photo Essay: The Pope's First Year.

• Benedict XVI, One Year Later: What’s New, by Sandro Magister. L'Espresso April 18, 2006:

  Among the novelties he has introduced during his first year as pope – which comes to completion this Easter week – there is one that Joseph Ratzinger has a special fondness for. So much so that has repeated it several times.

  It is the practice of public discussions in question and answer format. Benedict XVI arrives and greets those present, but doesn’t speak from a prepared text. He simply fields questions. And he responds to each of them, spontaneously. . . .

  Magister posts the text of five answers to the five questions posed to him by the young people in St. Peter’s Square on April 6, and links to other "spontaneous Q&A sessions" -- with priests of the diocese of Rome, on March 3, 2006; children who had received first communion, in St. Peter’s Square on October 5, 2005; and priests of the diocese of Aosta, July 25, 2005.

• Zenit News Service has published numerous interviews with various members of the clergy and the press, on their impressions of the Pope's first year, including journalist Marco Tosatti of the Italian newspaper La Stampa, on "Benedict XVI's Analytical-Rational Style" April 24, 2006; Salesian Sister Marcellina Farina of the Educational Sciences Auxilium on "Benedict XVI and the Dignity of Women" (April 25, 2006) and Bishop Luigi Negri on "Benedict XVI's Greatest Strength" (May 7, 2006).

• Habemus Papam! - a nice photo presentation from Argent by the Tiber.

• Pope Benedict XVI's Rookie Year?, by Mark Brumley (Insight Scoop ) -- a convenient roundup of "the deluge of articles" from the mainstream media.

• Assessing the first year of Pope Benedict XVI - ReligionLink.org provides a helpful "cheat sheet" for pundits covering the issue, with an overview of the major events and issues in B16's first year, a list of the books on Benedict XVI published during his first year, and a contact list of Catholic pundits and talking heads.

• Finally, an appraisal of Benedict's First Twelve Months by Lee Hudson Teslik of the Council on Foreign Relations turns out to be (unintentionally) amusing/disturbing, assessing Benedict's pontificate with chief attention given to the Church's stance on contraception and condom-use in Africa.

In Other News . . .

• By way of the Houston Catholic Worker, May-June 2006 issue comes Benedict's Deus Caritas Est: The Way of Love in the Church's Mission to the World, by David Schindler, Dean and Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology, Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family (Catholic University of America).

  

• From the March 2006 issue of 30 Giorni [30 Days], Tradition and freedom: the lectures of the young Joseph, by Gianni Valente, on "the first years of Professor Ratzinger’s teaching in Bonn and Münster, as remembered by his students":

  In his autobiography Ratzinger depicts the first months of teaching in Bonn as "a feast of first love". All his students from that time well remember the undergraduate grapevine that made them crowd to the lessons of the enfant prodige theologian. The scholar of Judaism Peter Kuhn, who was to become assistant lecturer under Professor Ratzinger in the years of teaching at Tubingen, says:

  "I was then a twenty-year-old Lutheran. I was attending the Evangelical Theological Faculty, after following the lessons of Karl Barth in Basle. I knew the Bavarian Vinzenz Pfnür, who had followed Ratzinger straight from Freising. He told me: listen, we have an interesting professor, he’s worth the trouble of listening to, even if you are a Protestant. At the first seminar, I thought immediately: this man is really not like the other Catholic teachers I know."

  In his manuscript Horst Ferdinand goes on:

  "The lectures were prepared down to the millimeter. He gave them by paraphrasing the text that he’d prepared with formulations that at times seemed to fit together like a mosaic, with a wealth of images that reminded me of Romano Guardini. In some lectures, as in the pauses in a concert, you could have heard a pin drop"

  The Redemptorist Viktor Hahn, who was the first student to “doctor” himself with Ratzinger, adds:

  "The room was always packed, the students adored him. He had a beautiful and simple language. The language of a believer".

  What was it that so gripped the students in those lessons given out in a soft, concentrated tone, without theatrical gestures? It’s clear that what the young professor had to say was not of his making. That he was not the protagonist. "I have never sought," Ratzinger himself explains in the book-interview The Salt of the Earth, "to create a system of my own, my own particular theology. If one really wants to speak of specificity, it’s a matter simply of the fact that I set myself to think together with the faith of the Church, and that means thinking above all with the great thinkers of the faith."

• The March 2006 issue of the Communion & Liberation periodical Traces includes a special section on Deus Caritas Est, reprinting the encyclical in full along with several supplements: "The Splendor of Charity", commentary on the second part of the encyclical by Massimo Camisasca (see also his commentary on part I: "The Humanity of Faith"); "Gratuitousness in action", a collection of comments from C&L members inspired by the encyclical; From Evangelization to Education, by Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. (Thanks to Fred of Deep Furrows).

• Vocation in the mystery of the Church, May 7, 2006. A Penitent Blogger posts the Message of the Holy Father for the 43rd World Day of Prayer for Vocations, accompanied by some appropriate and moving images.

• Pope Benedict XVI, Mozart and the Quest of Beauty, AD2000 Vol 19 No 3 (April 2006). "His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence." Mark Freer, organist and choirmaster for the Latin Mass at Holy Name Church in Adelaide, Australia, discusses the classical composer held in mutual esteem by Benedict XVI, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Benedict's brother Georg.

  This past April, a "visibly happy" Pope had the opportunity to enjoy a Saturday evening concert featuring music by his favorite composer, courtesy of the mayor of Rome. The program featured arias from Le nozze di Figaro and Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail, after which the Pope spoke briefly on the subject. Kath.net reported the story, and Closed Cafeteria's Gerald Augustinus provides a translation.

• Benedict XVI and Islam, by Samir Khalil Samir, SJ. AsiaNews.it April 26, 2006:

  While the Pope is asking Islam for dialogue based on culture, human rights, the refusal of violence, he is asking the West, at the same time, to go back to a vision of human nature and rationality in which the religious dimension is not excluded. In this way – and perhaps only in this way – a clash of civilizations can be avoided, transforming it instead into a dialogue between civilizations.

  

• "Everyone needs love. Everyone desires love. But not everyone understands love. In fact, love is probably the most misunderstood subject in history. . . ." Thanks to Ignatius Press, this problem can be remedied by the publication of a Deluxe Hardcover Collectors' Edition of Deus Caritas Est.

  Why a deluxe HARDCOVER edition of the encyclical? -- American Papist has the answer.

• German Pope having an impact on his native land Catholic World News. April 27, 2006. Passauer Neue Presse interviewed German journalist Peter Seewald (best known for his book-length interviews with the Pope, Salt of the Earth and God and the World). The article was published on Kath.net and CWNews provides a translation for those of us ignorant of our Holy Father's native language. =)

  Seewald shares his thoughts on Benedict XVI's teaching style:

  Ratzinger has found a quite distinctive, very subtle style. Reserved, calm, almost shy, and yet he very firmly goes his own way. There is an air of meekness that you recognize from the Gospels. The new Pope makes himself little-- and gives the impression of being that much greater, and as a result his office is all the more accessible. In a certain way Benedict is a born teacher, and what he has started with his new school of faith may be the greatest catechesis since the time of the apostles.

  and goes on to comment on the Pope's effect on Germany, including the Protestant reaction. See also: Germany Sees Benedict XVI Differently Now Zenit News, May 4, 2006. (On a humorous note, Gerald Augustinus posts some photos of Pope Benedict sweets, made in Marktl am Inn, his birthplace).

• Canonization and the emerging Benedict XVI, by Dr. Edward Peters. In The Light of the Law April 27, 2006:

  Benedict XVI's letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints seems to me to be one of the most important things he's done to date. It certainly shows the clearest difference between him and John Paul II to emerge so far. Benedict XVI could have communicated his concerns about the beatification and canonization process in a simple telephone call; instead he wrote a short treatise on the topic. The world was meant to take notice. . . .

• This year marks the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, and the 500th anniversary of the births of his closest companions, St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Faber. On April 22nd, 2006 -- "the feast of Mary, Mother of the Society, marking the day in 1541 when the three saints and the other original members of the Jesuits took their solemn vows in Rome" -- members of "The Company of Jesus" gathered in St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the historical event. [Source: Catholic News Service April 19, 2006]. Mark Mossas, SJ (You Duped Me, Lord) posts the text of Benedict's address to the Jesuits following the Mass.

• Bilder : Bildergalerie Pontifikalamt 1999 in Weimar mit Kard. Ratzinger (heute Papst Benedikt XVI.) Participation of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger at a Tridentine Mass in Weimar. 1999.

And on a Lighter Note . . .

• Dancing IPope Commercial. In the words of American Papist: "It had to happen."

• Vatican official warns against people posing as pope's organist, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. May 19, 2006. Consider yourself warned.

Pope Benedict XVI on 'Church and State'

The relationship between church and state and their proper jurisdictions have figured heavily in the remarks of Pope Benedict in the first year of his pontificate, as well as in his very first encyclical Deus Caritas Est. The Holy Father has advocated "a healthy secularism of the state," yet he has defended the legitimate role of religion in the moral and cultural development of the nation and the Church's role as a voice of moral conscience, reminding the state of its obligations to the common good.

Writing in his former capacity as Cardinal, the Pope has stated "the Christian is always Someone who seeks to maintain the state in the sense that he or she does the positive, the good, that holds states together." At the same time, in a lesson rooted in his childhood experience of National Socialism, he has commented on the dangers of a totalitarian state -- a state which presumes itself to be "the whole of human existence [and] the whole of human hope," insisting that "the first service that Christian faith performs for politics is that it liberates men and women from the irrationality of the political myths that are the real threat of our time."

What follows is a brief compilation of some of our Holy Father's remarks on this pertinent issue:

Pope Benedict and Alexis de Tocqueville

A Tocquevillian in the Vatican, by Dr. Samuel Gregg.^* According to Dr. Gregg, the publication of Deus Caritas Est reveals not only the influence of St. Augustine upon Benedict, but that of the nineteenth-century French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville:

Upon being inducted into the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France in 1992, then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.”

Describing Tocqueville as “le grand penseur politique,” the context of these remarks was Ratzinger’s insistence that free societies cannot sustain themselves, as Tocqueville observed, without widespread adherence to “des convictions éthiques communes.” Ratzinger then underlined Tocqueville’s appreciation of Protestant Christianity’s role in providing these underpinnings in the United States. In more recent years, Ratzinger expressed admiration for the manner in which church-state relations were arranged in America, using words suggesting he had absorbed Tocqueville’s insights into this matter.

What has this to do with Deus Caritas Est? The answer is that Benedict XVI has taken to heart Tocqueville’s warnings about “soft-despotism.”

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Recently added to the archives of Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club we find two earlier writings of Cardinal Ratzinger:

• Biblical Aspects of the Question of Faith and Politics A homily that was delivered on 26 November 1981 in the course of a service for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface) in Bonn. (LewRockwell.com):

  Christian faith has destroyed the myth of the divine state, the myth of the state as paradise and a society without domination. In its place it has put the objectivity of reason. But this does not mean that it has produced a value-free objectivity, the objectivity of statistics and a certain kind of sociology. To the true objectivity of men and women belongs humanity, and to humanity belongs God. To genuine human reason belongs the morality that is fed by God’s commandments. This morality is not some private affair; it has public significance. Without the good of being and doing good there can be no good politics. What the persecuted Church laid down for the Christian as the core of its political ethos must also be the core of any active Christian politics; it is only when good is done and recognized as good that a good human social existence can thrive. To bring to public acceptance as valid the standing of morality, the standing of God’s commandments, must be the core of responsible political activity.

• Why Church and State Must Be Separate excerpt from "Theology and the Church’s Political Stance" in Church, Ecumenism and Politics (NY, Crossroads, 1987). Ratzinger notes that "the origin and the permanent foundation of the Western idea of freedom" lies in the "separation of the authority of the state and sacral authority":

  From now on there were two societies related to each other but not identical with each other, neither of which had this character of totality. The state is no longer itself the bearer of a religious authority that reaches into the ultimate depths of conscience, but for its moral basis refers beyond itself to another community. This community in its turn, the Church, understands itself as a final moral authority which however depends on voluntary adherence and is entitled only to spiritual but not to civil penalties, precisely because it does not have the status the state has of being accepted by all as something given in advance.

  Thus each of these communities is circumscribed in its radius, and on the balance of this relation depends freedom. . . .

  Benedict goes on to suggest something which might be brought to bear on the recent attempt to establish constitutional democracy in the Middle East and the necessity of preserving the Christian foundations of Europe:

  The modern idea of freedom is thus a legitimate product of the Christian environment; it could not have developed anywhere else. Indeed, one must add that it cannot be separated from this Christian environment and transplanted into any other system, as is shown very clearly today in the renaissance of Islam; the attempt to graft on to Islamic societies what are termed western standards cut loose from their Christian foundations misunderstands the internal logic of Islam as well as the historical logic to which these western standards belong, and hence this attempt was condemned to fail in this form. The construction of society in Islam is theocratic, and therefore monist and not dualist; dualism, which is the precondition for freedom, presupposes for its part the logic of the Christian thing. In practice this means that it is only where the duality of Church and state, of the sacral and the political authority, remains maintained in some form or another that the fundamental pre-condition exists for freedom.

  Where the Church itself becomes the state freedom becomes lost. But also when the Church is done away with as a public and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane post-Christian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of a sacral authority but as an ideological authority – that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it once again becomes total itself. The ideological state is totalitarian; it must become ideological if it is not balanced by a free but publicly recognized authority of conscience. When this kind of duality does not exist the totalitarian system is unavoidable.

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Some Remarks in the First Year of Pope Benedict XVI's Pontificate

• Back in September 17, 2005, Zenit News Service published an article on Benedict XVI on Religion and Public Life, which included his June 2005 remarks to Italian President Carlo Ciampi on church-state relations.

• On October 17, 2005, in a letter to the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera (with whom he co-authored Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam), Pope Benedict expressed his support for a "healthy secularity of the state" -- or that which guarantees "to each citizen the right to live his own religious faith with genuine freedom, including in the public realm" and includes "a commitment to guarantee to all, individuals and groups, respect for the exigencies of the common good, [and] the possibility to live and to express one own religious convictions."

  The full text of the letter can be found here.

• On November 19, 2005, Benedict XVI conveyed the Catholic Church's respect for civil authority:

  Benedict XVI explained to the bishops of the Czech Republic that in her work of evangelization, the Church doesn't seek to meddle in the sphere of public authority.

  "The Christian community is a grouping of people with their own rules, a living body that, in Jesus, exists in the world to bear witness to the strength of the Gospel," the Holy Father told the bishops in Rome for their five-yearly visit.

  "It is, therefore, a group of brothers and sisters who have no goals of power or selfish interest, but who joyfully live the charity of God, which is Love," he added.

  "In such a context, the state should have no difficulty in recognizing in the Church a counterpart that in no way prejudices its own function at the service of citizens."

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Dr. Samuel Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family within the Pontifical Lateran University. He is author of several books on Catholic social doctrine including Challenging the Modern World: Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the Development of Catholic Social Teaching (2003) and On Ordered Liberty (2003), a critique of 'the liberal tradition' in its many forms.

Pope Benedict Roundup - Easter 2006, a Birthday and a One Year Anniversary

An occasional roundup of news, articles and commentary on Pope Benedict XVI

On April 16, 2006, Pope Benedict celebrated Easter services in Rome, marking the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:

• From the Vatican website, a recap of Holy Week 2006 -- including the Holy Saturday homily of Pope Benedict XVI, in which he discusses the question: "Of what exactly does this "rising" consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world and the whole of history?"

  The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an "I" closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely united with him as to form one person with him. . . . His own life was not just his own, it was an existential communion with God, a "being taken up" into God, and hence it could not in reality be taken away from him. Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by doing so he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the definitiveness of life was present. He was one single reality with indestructible life, in such a way that it burst forth anew through death. . . . His death was an act of love. At the Last Supper he anticipated death and transformed it into self-giving. His existential communion with God was concretely an existential communion with God’s love, and this love is the real power against death, it is stronger than death. The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love which dissolved the hitherto indissoluble compenetration of "dying and becoming". It ushered in a new dimension of being, a new dimension of life in which, in a transformed way, matter too was integrated and through which a new world emerges.

  Benedict described the Resurrection as "a qualitative leap in the history of 'evolution' and of life in general," pointing the way toward a new life in Christ that is already "continuously permeating this world of ours, transforming it and drawing it to itself."

  This event manifests itself in the sacrament of Baptism, which is more than an act of "ecclesial socialization," of receiving people into the Church."It is also more than a simple washing, more than a kind of purification and beautification of the soul," said Benedict: "It is truly death and resurrection, rebirth, transformation to a new life":

  But what then happens with us? Paul answers: You have become one in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28). Not just one thing, but one, one only, one single new subject. This liberation of our "I" from its isolation, this finding oneself in a new subject means finding oneself within the vastness of God and being drawn into a life which has now moved out of the context of "dying and becoming". The great explosion of the Resurrection has seized us in Baptism so as to draw us on. Thus we are associated with a new dimension of life into which, amid the tribulations of our day, we are already in some way introduced. To live one’s own life as a continual entry into this open space: this is the meaning of being baptized, of being Christian. This is the joy of the Easter Vigil. The Resurrection is not a thing of the past, the Resurrection has reached us and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another’s hands, and we become one single subject, not just one thing. I, but no longer I: this is the formula of Christian life rooted in Baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer I: if we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a programme opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and possession.

• At morning Mass in St Peter's Square, Benedict XVI returned to the ancient rite of the Resurrexit, used by Popes since the 1100s but only recently (and sporadically) restored; the ritual reinforces Peter's role as witness of the resurrection. [-- "Benedict, Witness of the Resurrection", Rocco Palmo, Whispers in the Loggia]

• Pictures from Rome, Good Friday 2006, courtesy of American Papist.

  

• Also from the Vatican website is Pope Benedict's Urbi Et Orbi Message ["to the city of Rome and the world"], in which the Holy Father reiterated his call to peace with specific attention to Darfur, Iraq, Israel and Palestine -- with respect to the latter, he affirmed both Israel's just right to exist in peace and expressed wishes that the international community would assist the Palestinian people . . . to build their future, moving towards the constitution of a state that is truly their own."

  Also, in a somewhat veiled statement that might allude to Iran's pursuit of nuclear power (and persistent threats made by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Israel and Britain), the Holy Father also drew attention to "international crises linked to nuclear power":

  . . . may an honourable solution be found for all parties, through serious and honest negotiations, and may the leaders of nations and of International Organizations be strengthened in their will to achieve peaceful coexistence among different races, cultures and religions, in order to remove the threat of terrorism.

  Benedict closed his message with a call to all nations to attend to that which is (or ought to be) the sum of every life:

  May the Risen Lord grant that the strength of his life, peace and freedom be experienced everywhere. Today the words with which the Angel reassured the frightened hearts of the women on Easter morning are addressed to all: “Do not be afraid! ... He is not here; he is risen (Mt 28:5-6)”. Jesus is risen, and he gives us peace; he himself is peace. For this reason the Church repeats insistently: “Christ is risen - Christós anésti.” Let the people of the third millennium not be afraid to open their hearts to him. His Gospel totally quenches the thirst for peace and happiness that is found in every human heart. Christ is now alive and he walks with us. What an immense mystery of love! Christus resurrexit, quia Deus caritas est! Alleluia!

• The Risen SON: Easter Sunday - a timely quote from Ratzinger's Behold, The Pierced One, courtesy of the blog Eagle & Elephant; also, from pazdziernik, an excerpt from God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life on Tearing of the Temple Veil, from a talk at the Chrism Mass April 2,1980 in Munich.

• The Pope's Easter, by Daniel Henninger. Wall Street Journal April 14, 2006. The WSJ editor reflects on the Holy Father's stance against "the excesses of secularization and radical Islam.":

  If we still hold that the news reflects reality, we would be led to believe that Christians enter these final three days of Holy Week preoccupied with whether to credit the new Gospel of Judas that the hallowed National Geographic Society delivered unto the world this month, and whether to attend the imminent film version of "The Da Vinci Code,". . . My guess is that on this Easter Pope Benedict XVI, the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, feels he has larger fish to fry.

Happy Birthday, Pope Benedict XVI!

Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006 also marked the 79th Birthday of our Holy Father.

• Blogger 'New Catholic (Rorate Cali) posts Canon Georg Ratzinger's birthday message to his brother.

• And according to IOL.com, Pope got a chocolate surprise for his birthday as well:

  Pope Benedict XVI received a piano-shaped chocolate cake on Monday, prepared by students of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei for his 79th birthday on April 16, reporters witnessed.

  Benedict's fondness for the piano was noted when he had one installed in his quarters in the Vatican after becoming pope last April 19.

• Send Pope Benedict a birthday e-card, courtesy of William H. Sadlier, Inc. (Via Argent by the Tiber.

The Pontificate of Benedict XVI - 1st Year Anniversary

Also this week, the media turned its attention to the one-year anniversary of the Holy Father's pontificate, providing the opportunity for many a "talking head" and respective "men in Rome" to, er, do a little pontificating themselves.

• John Allen, Jr.: "The Last 12 Months" of Benedict XVI "Word from Rome" National Catholic Reporter March 31, 2006. As Allen wisely notes,

  Benedict is a supple thinker, and unpacking his approach on any given question requires nuance. Because his points of departure are the 2,000-year tradition of the church, coupled with his own judgments about the character of people under consideration, rather than the ideological categories of secular politics, his decisions will sometimes strike the outside world as surprising and out of character. Nor has his direction over the first year been entirely uniform, as if one can generalize from a single document or papal act to explain everything else.

  All this, however, constitutes an "insider" perspective, crafted from the point of view of devotees of the papacy and of Vatican politics. Generally speaking, that's not what secular media outlets are after. What they want to know is, in the "biggest picture" sense possible, what are the most striking or surprising aspects of Benedict XVI's first year, and what do they teach us about where things are going?

  It is in response to the latter inquiry that Mr. Allen directs his attention, organizing his reflections under five headings: "What Hasn't Happened" (a draconian crackdown on heresy along the lines of The Inquisition - "one would hear a great flushing sound across the Catholic world as all the dissidents and liberals were washed out of the system"); "Who's Paying Attention?" ("Papal aficionados", yes; "average Catholics", no); The Dictatorship of Relativism:("The beating heart of his pontificate can be expressed in three core concepts: truth, freedom and love. Truth, as the pope sees it, is the doorway a human person must walk through in order to be really free, meaning free to realize one's full human potential; and love is both the ultimate aim of freedom, and the motive for which the church talks about truth and freedom in the first place; Tough Love (with Islam, that is -- "Benedict XVI clearly wants good relations with Islam . . . yet he will not purse that relationship at the expense of what he considers to be the truth"); Benedict the Teacher ("Benedict is shaping up as a great teacher . . . [with] a remarkable capacity to express complex theological ideas with clarity and simplicity").

  Reaction to Allen's column from the ecumenical blog Mere Comments.

• Vatican vetter: The Benedict XVI File, in his own words Kansas City Star April 15, 2006. Bill Tammeus also interviewed John Allen Jr., in which the journalist repeated some of his earlier appraisal as well as some observations about the state of the Catholic Church in America:

  I think sociologically there is no Catholic Church in the United States. What you have are multiple Catholicisms. And the question really facing Benedict, as far as the American church is concerned, is how do you bring those tribes into conversation"

  and interreligious relations

  "Benedict clearly is committed to continuing the dialogue with other religions. On the other hand, I would say that Islam is actually one of the few areas of contrasts between Benedict and John Paul"

  and -- on a sadly comical-but-true note, the prospects of schism:

  The schism in the Catholic left is a multiphase process. First there’s an internal schism, where you just walk around cursing people and (ticked) off at authority, even though you’re going to church on Sunday.

  Then you self-select to be in a “progressive” parish, therefore reinforcing you in that choice, and you become even more alienated. Then what a lot of these people do is to spin off into another religious community, like becoming an Episcopalian.

  The Catholic right, when it goes into schism, it announces it. It finds a bishop.

  

• Faithful to the core, by Stephen Crittenden. The Australian April 15, 2006. According to Crittenden,

  "Benedict appears to have slammed on the brakes and even to be swerving off in a different direction entirely from his predecessor. . . . Anybody who thinks Benedict is a continuation of John Paul II is completely wrong. The former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is a proper conservative. John Paul was neither a liberal nor a conservative but a revolutionary. And somehow, despite the biggest crowds and the biggest funeral in history, he has left the church exhausted and prostrate.

  Crittenden sticks to the same tortured hermeneutic of his February 2006 reading of Deus Caritas Est, proposing that Benedict is in part cleaning up the "damage" of Pope John Paul II's heavy-handed enforcement of the Church's moral teachings (see (Stephen Crittenden, Charles Curran, Rocco Palmo on 'Deus Caritas Est' Against The Grain February 2, 2006). As he did then, Crittenden again proposes that in Benedict's penning of Deus Caritas Est, "that soft splash you just heard at the back of the boat was Theology of the Body being tossed overboard, when just 12 months ago it was the focus of an entire Catholic academic industry."

  Crittenden goes on to speculate that Benedict's election was the result of a "deal" brokered with the progressive bloc "that [Benedict] would undertake to rule from the centre in a renewed spirit of collegiality with his brother bishops . . . In short, that he would bring to a close the age of Karol Wojtyla and an end to revolutionary Catholicism," -- a deal reflected in Benedict's cracking down on ecumenical movements close to his predecessor (ex. the Neo-Catechumenical Way). Crittenden suggests that Benedict's commitment to collegiality and unity will inevitably bring him into conflict with "the U.S. Catholic Right":

  The Wojtyla papacy thrived on . . . division, and the American Catholic Right supplied the venom and neurosis. John Paul II was their definite champion and they were able to zoom off to Rome to get whatever they wanted, especially in the later years. They always considered Ratzinger to be one of their supporters and they cheered at his election. But it is by no means certain that his view of the church and the world is the same as theirs.

  

• Challenging Crittenden's portrayal on B16's pontificate as one inherently in conflict with his predecessor is Edward Stourton, who evaluates Ratzinger's career as Prefect, "John Paul’s trump card" The Tablet January 4, 2006:

  John Paul made the most significant appointment of his pontificate in late November 1981, as political storm clouds were gathering in Poland. The rapport established between Karol Wojtyla and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the conclaves of 1978 had flourished following John Paul’s election, and in early 1980 we find the then Archbishop of Munich expressing admiration for the new pope’s championship of traditional Catholic teaching.

  It was not, he explained during a radio interview, within the pope’s power to change what had been handed down to him: “It is the pope’s duty”, he said, “to preserve the faith intact for our time, and to criticise the ills of Western society.”

  According to Stourton, John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger

  "came to know one another’s minds very well indeed; for more than 20 years the two men would meet each Friday in private to discuss the CDF’s work, and there were regular Thursday lunches at which the conversation ranged more widely over a variety of topics in a freewheeling manner."

  One may wonder if a Prefect who collaborated so closely with his Pope would, in the words of Crittenden, "bring to a close the age of Karol Wojtyla"? -- While we can certainly expect differences in their approach, I don't believe it will be a radical de-emphasization of orthodoxy (and obedience to the Magisterium) that Crittenden and co. anticipate, nor a wholesale abandonment of John Paul II's catechesis in theology of the body.

  

• Likewise, it would appear that Ernesto Cardenal begs to differ as well. The 81 year old former Sandinista Minister of Culture (and ex-priest) gave two talks in Austria, in which he issued the warning:

  Pope Benedict XVI is continuing the course of his predecessor, who already was a disaster for the Church and turned back the clock 100 years. The current Pope was the main force behind the pontifical politics of his predecessor. I think, he will be the same, or even worse.

  (Via "Look what the cat dragged in" The Cafeteria Is Closed March 17, 2006).

• Behind the throne of the iPod pope, by John Cornwell. The Sunday Times April 16, 2006. Cornwell examines "the ultra-orthodox Bavarian theologian, known for two decades as 'God’s rottweiler' and once a member of the Hitler Youth . . . [who] rallied his brother cardinals to choose him at the conclave," pauses to mention papal right-hand Msgr. Ganswein's stint at an Opus Dei university ("the self-flagellating extreme conservative Catholic group"), gives a shout-out to Rocco Palmo ("for a taste of Georg-fever and pin-up pics"), adopts Crittenden's thank-God-he-hasn't-booted-the-liberals approach with a jab at Fr. Neuhaus ("an influential and vociferous hardline Catholic conservative . . . who pontificates like an alternative pope from the pages of First Things"); notes the "expansive girths" of Benedict's "kitchen cabinet" (Angelo Scola, William Levada and Christoph Schonborn -- "like Caesar, Benedict does not favour 'lean and hungry' prelates about him"), chastises Benedict for failing to meet the call of his own encyclical ("despite Benedict’s almsgiving rhetoric he has gone silent on the issue") but ends with cautious praise for his inclusive approach ("by concentrating on unconditional love in his first encyclical, he appears to be invoking an image of the church as a big tent with room for all perspectives"). Yick.

• Of course, when it comes to acerbic commentary about the Pope, Cornwell has some competition. Amy Welborn posts evaluations of Benedict XVI's pontificate from Hans Kung and Charles Curran, with appropriate responses from the Commentariat. From the Swiss theologian,

  "Benedict must choose between an eventual retreat to the pre-modern, pre-Reformation world of the Middle Ages, or a forward-looking long view which will take the Church into the post-modern universe that the rest of the world entered for quite some time."

  God help us all if Kung's wish is granted. A reader of Open Book responds:

  The thing about Kung and Curran (and this would apply to hundreds of other "thinkers") is the absolute predictability of what they are going to say. I mean, not only the substance, but the almost word-for-word nature of what is produced. This was especially striking about Kung's "effort." The man is crowding 80 (!) and he's happy to put out this standing still vs. moving forward vs. return to pre-Reformatiion days garbage. "Und I am tired today [he's addressing his secretary] zo, lizzen, just rrrrelease article number 4 to ze press, okay, Helga?"

• Blessings all round from the iPod Pope, by "leading Catholic writer" Peter Stanford. The Guardian April 16, 2006.

  At this point I have to say every appraisal of Benedict's pontificate by the Mainstream Media (with the exception of John Allen, Jr.) seems to me a repetitive copy of its neighbor: as before, Benedict's "inclusivity" is heralded, and used as a bludgeon against "the divisive policies on matters of personal and sexual morality" by John Paul II and conservative / traditionalist Catholics (Fr. Neuhaus, again).

  Stanford coos(?) over Benedict's fashion sense ("the hem . . . hovered somewhere just below his knee, exposing his dainty feet in white plimsolls and making him look more like a mincing Hercule Poirot than Supreme Roman Pontiff") and Msgr. Ganswein ("Known to Vatican colleagues at 'Don Georgio', to the Italian media as 'the Black Forest Adonis'") . . . and finally gets around to pondering "but does this new style papacy have any substance?" -- he questions some of "the monsignori [in] the bars and restaurants that surround the Vatican" and concludes:

  "There remains undisturbed that fundamental antipathy to change in Catholicism, a reluctance at the highest level to tailor the ideals it preaches for human behaviour with a corresponding understanding that individuals' lives usually fall short of moral perfection."

  "Is there any substance to the papacy"? -- How about reading some of Benedict's writings? For starters, he could review the recently compiled collection of B16's World Youth Day addresses (God's Revolution Ignatius Press, 2006).

  Suffice to say there's little here that differentiates The Guardian's take on Benedict's pontificate from that of Crittenden, Cornwell and Crossan. Although, between Stanford and Cornwell, I have to wonder if "iPod Pope" was purely coincidental? plagiarization? collaboration? -- Or maybe they got it from Rocco.

• Writing for USA Today, Eric J. Lyman believes "Benedict's appeal moves beyond 'caricature'", confounding the stereotypes of both the right and the left and inviting a new type of "fan base":

  Benedict's popularity differs from that of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who was accorded almost rock star status by the legions of banner-waving young fans who turned out to see him. By contrast, Benedict's admirers seem to be older, quieter and more introspective.

  "I loved John Paul and I love Benedict, but the personality of each man appeals to different sides of the faithful," says Carlo Angelo Sanzio, 43, a worker at a coffee bar who says he has attended most of the Sunday Masses at the Vatican over the past 10 years. "The people here now are less likely to shout and cheer (than those who came to see John Paul) and are more likely to pray and reflect. My friends say you would come to experience John Paul, and you come to listen to and learn from Benedict."

  People have been coming to listen to Benedict in large numbers. The crowd at the pope's Easter celebration Sunday — held under clear skies and in cool temperatures — was an estimated 100,000, according to the Carabinieri, one of the police units that provide security at Vatican events. Even Benedict's routine Sunday Masses attract crowds of about 25,000 in good weather, which is similar to the numbers that came to see John Paul before he became ill in the final years of his life. . . .

  "To the extent that the pope's popularity can be judged by straight numbers, the numbers have been growing," police Sgt. Antonio Caldaroni says.

  Benedict's meeting with Hans Kung is mentioned, but without the typical fawning adulation accorded to the latter; likewise, congrats to Lyman for contrasting JPII with B16 without succumbing to the urge to lambast John Paul II's Catholic teaching on sexuality.

• Benedict’s surprising first year, by Kieron Wood. Sunday Business Post (Ireland). April 16, 2006.

• One year on, Pope Benedict confounds critics, by Philip Puella. Boston Globe April 17, 2006.

• Assessing Benedict XVI's First Year, Zenit News Service interviews Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican-watcher for the newspaper Il Giornale, and author of Benedict XVI, Custodian of the Faith.

• Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: One-Year Anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI - PBS Television's March 22, 2006 interview with (who else, but) John Allen Jr. [Extended version here].

In Other News

• On April 3, 2006, Benedict celebrated the first anniversary mass for Pope John Paul II, and in a homily recalled the great faith and witness of his predecessor:

  It was faith, of course, that was at the root of this total offering of himself. In the Second Reading that we have just heard, St Peter too uses the image of the gold tested by fire and applies it to faith (cf. I Pt 1: 7). In fact, in life's difficulties it is especially the quality of the faith of each one of us that is tried and tested: its firmness, its purity, its consistency with life. Well, the late Pontiff, whom God had endowed with multiple human and spiritual gifts, in passing through the crucible of apostolic labours and sickness, appeared more and more as a "rock" of faith.

  To those who had the opportunity to be close to him, that firm and forthright faith was almost tangible. If it impressed the circle of his collaborators, it did not fail during his long Pontificate to spread its beneficial influence throughout the Church in a crescendo that reached its highest point in the last months and days of his life.

  It was a convinced, strong and authentic faith - free of the fears and compromises that have infected the hearts of so many people -, thanks partly to his many Apostolic Pilgrimages in every part of the world, and especially thanks to that last "journey", his agony and his death.

• April 2006 saw the english publication of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict XVI presented back in June 2005. Amy Welborn gives her first impressions of the Compendium:

  The interest and the yes, dare we say excitement, are totally justified. It is strikingly organic and deeply rooted. It is totally focused on the task at hand: communicating the fundamentals of the Catholic faith in a way that is completely accessible, comfortably confident. There is an ease about it, clarity and simplicty that is the essence of good teaching.

  Jimmy Akin gives his first thoughts as well, illustrating its merits with some comparisons of the Compedium and the original Catechism's treatment of the doctrine of original sin.

  See also A Catechism for the Culture of the Image, by Sandro Magister (L'Espresso May 7, 2005).

• Consistory 2006 Summary complete list of American Papist [blog] posts on the 2006 consistory. March 2006. (See also the listing of 15 new cardinals created by Pope Benedict Vatican Information Service. March 24, 2006.

  On March 24, 2006, Pope Benedict reminded the Cardinals of their calling:

  May the scarlet that you now wear always express the caritas Christi, inspiring you to a passionate love for Christ, for his Church and for all humanity. You now have an additional motive to seek to rekindle in yourselves those same sentiments that led the incarnate Son of God to pour out his blood in atonement for the sins of the whole world. I am counting on you, venerable Brothers, I am counting on the entire College into which you are being incorporated, to proclaim to the world that “Deus caritas est"

• On March 15, 2006, Pope Benedict initiated a new round of Wednesday catechesis, focusing on the relationship between Christ and His Church. Via Amy Welborn. The text of the Holy Father's Wednesday audiences are available at the Vatican website.

• Reorganization begins in Roman Curia Catholic World News. March 11, 2006. Benedict XVI made his first major changes in the organization of the Roman Curia, with two mergers of existing pontifical councils. According to Catholic World News:

  The Pontifical Council for Migrants and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace have been temporarily merged into one unit, to be headed by Cardinal Renato Martino.

  Similarly the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue has been temporarily merged with the Pontifical Council for Culture, with Cardinal Paul Poupard, the current head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, to head the combined effort.

  With the mergers, two top positions in the Roman Curia are eliminated. Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Cardinal Stephen Fumio Hamao, who had been president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who had been president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, had already received a new assignment in February as apostolic nuncio to Egypt.

  Rorate Caeli relays some speculation from the European press on motives behind a promotion:

  Both Korazym and Andrea Tornielli in today's edition of Il Giornale remind their readers that Fitzgerald was the highest authority in that scandalous interreligious meeting in Fatima, in 2003, whose star was none other than Jacques Dupuis, SJ, highly praised by Fitzgerald at the time as the man who had provided the "theological basis" for interreligious dialogue. Dupuis, as is well remembered, was condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2001) and was the most important individual theologian who forced the same Congregation to issue one of the most important documents of the previous pontificate, the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000). Il Foglio also regards this as the overwhelming motive for the promotion of Fitzgerald.

• T.S. O'Rama of Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor expresses his gratitude for a Pope:

  Personally, we “have a history” - I read his books seven or eight years ago and in his very familiarity it was like the ascension of a family member to the throne of St. Peter. A father became the Holy Father.

  He seemed to me the realist to Pope John Paul II’s dreamliness and his frankness allowed me to trust. He wasn’t afraid to be controversial in that Age Before Controversy, the era before blogs and polarization. :-)

  But the primary appeal is that he is a Scripture scholar and that is charismatic in and of itself since Scripture = Christ = charisma. Scott Hahn’s ministry prepared the ground for American Catholics to appreciate Pope Benedict, giving us a craving for the experience of scripture and catechesis that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, is uniquely gifted to satisfy.

• Cardinal Ratzinger, Biblical Exegesis, and the Church, by Stephen Hand (Traditional Catholic Reflections & Reports - TCRNews.com):

  On January 27, 1988, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dropped something of a large bomb on the neo-modernist Biblical establishment. The Cardinal, theoretically the second most powerful man in the Church, delivered the Erasmus lecture for that year in New York City (1) , sponsored by the Rockford Institute Center on Religion & Society [directed in the 1980's by Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus], entitled Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today. Needless to say, any lecture given by the head of what was formerly known as The Holy Office and which promised to be examining and critiquing the very “foundations” of modern exegesis (which today is completely identified with the so-called historical-critical method) was bound to raise eyebrows and cause no little commotion.

  The Cardinal did not disappoint. Surrounded by both friends and foes (including the American exegete Raymond Brown) the Cardinal delivered the most trenchant critique of the erring philosophical and theological presuppositions which lay behind the historical-critical method since the early days of the Pontifical Biblical Institute founded by Pope Leo XIII. . . .

  The full text of the address "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today" is available online, courtesy of the site Christendom Awake.

• Responding to the case of a man in Afghanistan facing the death penalty for convertion to Christianity, retired diplomat Peter Laurie delivered a blistering broadside against "right wing fundamentalism" of all stripes (Nation News April 2, 2006). One of the targets of his criticism was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, for having defended fundamentalism as "eminently reasonable" in his homily to the college of cardinals in his famous homily a year before.

  In If you're going to call Pope Benedict a "fundamentalist"..., Carl Olson of Insight Scoop demonstrates the value of understanding what you're talking about.

And on a lighter note . . .

• Cambio. Guy Sylvester (Shouts in the Piazza) discusses "a time honored tradition of the Vatican":

  Namely, getting the Pope to exchange the zuchetto on his head for the one you have presented to him. This used to be a frequent occurrence at Papal audiences. In fact, in the days of Pope Pius XII (of happy memory) some zuchetti barely stayed on his head for a few seconds before being switched again with yet another being held up by an enthusiastic member of the faithful.

  Eventually, the custom waned and for much of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II hopeful zuchettos-switchers were politely told no. . . .

  A friend of Sylvester's managed to celebrate the tradition, with the assistance of Mons. Ganswein and a photograph to document the occasion.

• "He looks like the nicest guy you'd never want to get on the wrong side of." - The Many Faces of Benedict XVI Shrine of the Holy Whapping April 16, 2006.

• In honor of the World Youth Day planning meetings being held in Rome this week, Pope Benedict decided to opt for a more contemporary hair style . . . -- PPOTD! (Papist-Picture-of-the-Day) American Papist April 5, 2006.

Pope Benedict XVI Roundup!

An occasional roundup of news, articles and commentary on Pope Benedict XVI

Lent - 2006

• The 2006 Message for Lent, Pope Benedict XVI returns to many themes addressed in his first encyclical. He protests what his predecessor described as the "gradual secularization of salvation" -- the superficial reduction of Christianity to a purely moral humanism, concentrating on the temporal welfare of man to the exclusion of our souls:

  We cannot ignore the fact that many mistakes have been made in the course of history by those who claimed to be disciples of Jesus. Very often, when having to address grave problems, they have thought that they should first improve this world and only afterwards turn their minds to the next. The temptation was to believe that, in the face of urgent needs, the first imperative was to change external structures. The consequence, for some, was that Christianity became a kind of moralism, ‘believing’ was replaced with ‘doing’. Rightly, therefore, my Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, observed: “The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world, a ‘gradual secularization of salvation’ has taken place, so that people strive for the good of man, but man who is truncated…We know, however, that Jesus came to bring integral salvation” (Redemptoris Missio, 11).

  Domenico Bettinelli discusses the Pope's reference to "integral salvation" and its meaning in the writing of John Paul II.

• "A Propitious Moment to Be Converted to Love" - translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered during the general audience today, Ash Wednesday, in St. Peter's Square. March 1, 2006:

  The life of a Christian is a life of faith, founded on the Word of God and nourished by it. In the trials of life and in each temptation, the secret of victory consists in listening to the Word of truth and rejecting with determination the lie of evil.

  This is the authentic and central program of the Lenten Season: to listen to the Word of truth, to live, speak and do the truth, to reject lies that poison humanity and are the door to all evils. It is urgent, therefore, during these 40 days, to again listen to the Gospel, the Lord's Word, Word of truth, so that in every Christian, in each one of us, the awareness be reinforced of the truth that has been given, that he has given us, to live it and be his witnesses.

• "Memento, Ruini, Quia Pulvis es...." - Rocco Palmo has photos of the Holy Father receiving the imposition of ashes.

• From the Philipines, Fr. Odon de Castro has devoted his blog, Gloria Oliva, "to promote the messages of Pope Benedict XVI and harness small monastic Benedictine communities in his and the service of the Church." [Update According to one reader, the community to which this blogger belongs is presently in schism, a legal document noting in part:

  "Unfortunately, the Caryana Movement was denied canonical recognition and its spiritual director [Fr. Odon de Castro] was himself expelled from the Benedictine order and stripped of his priestly functions by the Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin."

  For further details, see this discussion from Vita Brevis (January 12, 2006)].

  I thank our reader for their word of caution. I guess one can never too be careful. It looks to be a promising blog -- as Vita Brevis noted, there is a certain irony in a schismatic who blogs in support of the Pope. The least we can do is pray for de Castro's reunion with Mother Rome.

Relenquishing of Title "Patriarch of the West"

• The motivation for dropping of the title 'Patriarch of the West' by Benedict XVI has prompted a great deal of speculation and commentary by Catholic bloggers including Domenico Bettinelli, Jr. and Rocco Palmo Whispers in the Loggia.

  This week's "Word from Rome" by Vatican correspondent John Allen Jr. provides an excellent roundup of perspectives on the subject, including Jesuit Fr. Robert Taft, an expert on Eastern Christianity at Rome's Oriental Institute, and Msgr. Michael Magee, an American who recently defended a dissertation on the institution of patriarchs at Rome's Gregorian University.

  According to John Allen Jr., "While initial speculation construed the move as a gesture of ecumenical sensitivity to the Orthodox, most experts say the real logic was almost certainly the exact reverse - a rejection of attempts to impose Eastern concepts upon the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church."

  Also discussed by Allen is the proposition "by theologians who favor greater collegiality . . . that Western Christianity create new patriarchates as a way of assigning greater autonomy and authority to local churches." Allen notes that the very idea was floated by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger in a 1969 essay "Primacy and Episcopacy," which appeared in the book Das neue Volk Gottes -- a translation of which appears here courtesy of Fr. Joseph A. Komonchak. The key passage cited:

  "The image of a centralized state which the Catholic church presented right up to the council does not flow only from the Petrine office, but from its strict amalgamation with the patriarchal function which grew ever stronger in the course of history and which fell to the bishop of Rome for the whole of Latin Christendom. The uniform canon law, the uniform liturgy, the uniform appointment of bishops by the Roman center: all these are things which are not necessarily part of the primacy but result from the close union of the two offices. For that reason, the task to consider for the future will be to distinguish again and more clearly between the proper function of the successor of Peter and the patriarchal office and, where necessary, to create new patriarchates and to detach them from the Latin church. To embrace unity with the pope would then no longer mean being incorporated into a uniform administration, but only being inserted into a unity of faith and communion, in which the pope is acknowledged to have the power to give binding interpretations of the revelation given in Christ, whose authority is accepted whenever it is given in definitive form."

  Ratzinger concluded at the time: "In the not too distant future one could consider whether the churches of Asia and Africa, like those of the East, should not present their own forms as autonomous 'patriarchates' or 'great churches' or whatever such ecclesiae in the Ecclesia might be called in the future."

  Catholic World News also reported this week that Bishop Hilarion of Vienna, spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church, was not impressed by the gesture complaining that it did not advance ecumenical prospects.

Pope Benedict in Print

• Interested in Lenten reading from Pope Benedict XVI? - Pauline Books and Media have published Benedict XVI's The Way of the Cross, presenting the Stations which Cardinal Ratzinger gave for Lent 2005 at the request of his predecessor. (The stations can be found on the Vatican website as well.

  Also appropriate for this season is Journey to Easter : Spiritual Reflections for the Lenten Season, The Crossroad Publishing Company - featuring Cardinal Ratzinger's Lenten meditations for Pope John Paul in 1983. (A brief excerpt of which is available at Gerald Augustinus' The Cafeteria is Closed).

• Book Review: Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, by Jay at Living Catholicism, on the published lectures by Pope Benedict XVI and Marcello Pera, a philosopher of science and present of the Italian senate, with an introduction by George Weigel:

  Mr. Pera holds his own in the initial discussion. He does an excellent job pointing out the problems of relativism and why they must be avoided going forward. He also goes a little further in talking about the Church. Mr. Pera refers to the “relativism of the theologians” and points out that religious dialogue has become ecumenism, a “inclusiveness often associated with . . . the Second Vatican Council.” This, he says, inhibits us from really dealing with Islam, since we don’t feel correct in saying that Christianity is the better religion – we use ecumenism, rather than apologetics.

  That’s a point I’ve been pondering since reading the book and will probably continue to think about in order to really grasp the significance of his points. Mr. Pera does get a little crazy in his letter to Ratzinger when he actually suggests a new state-version of Christianity, which provides some insight into how he sees the Church. You’ll have to read the book to hear Cardinal Ratzinger’s rebuttal.

  Without Roots arrived in the mail this week and I'm just getting around to reading it. Thanks to Jay it sounds like provocative reading and I'm looking forward to tackling it this week.

Further Commentary on Deus Caritas Est

• The Secret of Love, According to Benedict XVI, Zenit News Service. Feb. 7, 2006. Breaking with tradition, Benedict XVI decided to present personally his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" to readers of Famiglia Cristiana, the biggest weekly magazine in Italy.

  According to the Holy Father, "I only wished to respond to a couple of very concrete questions for Christian life" -- concerning the first part: Is it possible to love God? Can we really love our "neighbor" when he is strange or even disagreeable? With her commandments and prohibitions, does not the Church embitter the joy of "eros," of feeling ourselves loved, which pushes us toward the other and seeks to be transformed into union?

  And concerning the second: Can the Church leave this service to other philanthropic organizations? Would it not be better to promote an order of justice in which there are no needy, and charity would become something superfluous? -- A good introduction from the Holy Father.

• Philosophy Behind "Deus Caritas Est" - Zenit News Service interviews one of my personal favorites, Monsignor Robert Sokolowski, philosophy professor at Catholic University of America and author of Introduction to Phenomenology (highly recommended) and the soon to be published Christian Faith And Human Understanding: Studies on the Eucharist, Trinity, And the Human Person. Here's a little taste of the interview:

  Q: Why did Benedict XVI mention the philosophers Descartes and Nietzsche in an encyclical about love, both human and divine?

  Monsignor Sokolowski: He also mentions Plato and Aristotle later in the encyclical.

  Descartes is alluded to only in an anecdote, but Nietzsche is mentioned right at the beginning, as saying that Christianity has poisoned "eros." He is mentioned here to provide the counter-position to what the Pope wishes to show -- that Christianity does not neglect the deepest wants and needs of human beings.

  The love that God reveals to us is not gnostic; it reaches into, heals and elevates all our desires, including those involved in sustenance and procreation.

  The Pope uses Nietzsche in the way that St. Thomas Aquinas uses adversaries at the beginning of his treatment of a question: He presents the opposing view fairly as the sharp contrast to what he wants to show. Nietzsche is fundamentally unsound, of course, but he raises very good questions and is always a good foil for philosophical reflection.

  Q: Does Benedict XVI adhere to a particular philosophical tradition in the way the Pope John Paul II was known as a Thomist and personalist?

  Monsignor Sokolowski: I think that the work of Benedict XVI could be said to resemble the Christian Platonism one finds in the Fathers of the Church.

  Also, his extensive and thoughtful survey of the various uses of words, in both current and historical texts and discourse, makes one think of Aristotle's and Heidegger's way of looking for philosophical phenomena in the way people speak about things.

• Pope Benedict featured in America. According to Mark Mossaj, SJ (blogging at You Duped Me, Lord), the March 13 issue of America will focus on Benedict's encyclical Deus Caritas Est. Mossaj posts some excerpts from articles, including this from Fr. Richard Ryscavage, S.J.:

  In the minds of various Catholic social activists, justice should always trump charity. Pope Benedict XVI disagrees. He uses the strongest teaching instrument of the papacy to affirm the intrinsic salience of the Catholic Church’s charitable work.

  , and Fr. Robert Imbelli:

  ". . . the transformation of eros in agape entails the transformation of the subject, the lover. Encounter with the living Christ, especially in the Eucharist, if it takes place in Spirit and in truth, transforms the disciple so that she or he becomes a new self, a eucharistic self.

  Sounds like a good issue, watch for it.

• The Love Behind The Rules, by Mary Beth Bonacci, on Pope Benedict's choice of love as the subject of his encyclical:

  It was my theory that this wonderful, loving, pastoral man is saying "Finally!" Finally he has the opportunity to go beyond the "rules," to explore the heart of the Christian message, which is the Heart of God — love. "Deus Caritas Est" is Latin for "God is Love." That simple truth — the subject of all of those collages we made in CCD back in the ‘70’s — is the guiding principle behind all of those rules. And without understanding the love behind the rules we are, as St. Paul said, no more than "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

Other News and Commentary

Via American Papist Source: AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano

• Benedict XVI's Letter on Monsignor Giussani - On February 21, 2006, Benedict XVI sent a letter to the president of Communion and Liberation, to mark the first anniversary of the death of Monsignor Luigi Giussani, founder of the ecclesial movement. Monsignor Giussani died Feb. 22, 2005, in Milan, at age 82.

  David Jones of "La Nouvelle Theologie"; Steven of Being & Nothingness also reflect.

• Benedict XVI, Live. Fifteen Questions, and As Many Responses, by Sandro Magister. L'Espresso. On March 2nd, the priests of the diocese of Rome met their bishop, Benedict XVI, and his cardinal vicar, Camillo Ruini. for a little Q&A:

  For the occasion, the pope did not read from a text prepared ahead of time, but responded spontaneously to the questions that the priests posed to him. He did the same thing last July 25 with the priests of the diocese of Aosta, during his vacation in the Alps. In both cases, the conversation took place behind closed doors, without journalists being present.

  As back then, so also this time the question and answer session brought out the pope’s viewpoints with the freedom typical of an open conversation.

  The complete transcript of the conversation was published by L'Osservatore Romano in Italian, an extract of which appears courtesy of Sandro Magister -- with topics ranging from topics ranging from the Bible and the Qur'an to Pope Pius XVII ("Pius XII was the pope of my youth. We all venerated him. As has rightly been said, he loved the German people very much") to women's participation in the governance of the Church to the relationship between creation and history.

• In 2004, Cardinal Ratzinger visited the cemetary of La Cambe to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy (D-Day). Not much was published about the event, but Timothy Ryback used it in a recent story for the New Yorker. The article is not available online, but you can get the gist of it from a post by Daniel Sauerwein (How Cardinal Ratzinger Dealt with Germany’s Past History News Network, February 13, 2006):

  The pope’s membership in the Hitler Youth when he was a young man became an issue upon his elevation to the papacy. Ryback observes, however, that the pope was enrolled in the group, which may mean that his membership was involuntary. But Ryback argues that the pope was reluctant to reflect critically on his own past (unlike many post-war Germans). This received little media attention, he notes.

  Before he became pope, Benedict served in many capacities. Ryback takes particular interest in his service as archbishop of Munich. Ryback mentions that the Dachau concentration camp was located near Munich and that some people criticized the pope for not visiting the site often while archbishop. However supporters note that the pope was only archbishop for five years, during which there were no notable anniversaries or events that might have warranted a major visit.

  As Mr. goes on to explain, "Ryback's main focus is not the pope, but the relationship between the Vatican and the Nazi state."

  In Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!, Professor Scott Carlson (The Examined Life) takes issue with Ryback, likening his hermeneutic to that used by Daniel Goldhagen in his collective indictment of the German people in Hitler's Willing Executioners (Random House, 1996):

  The upshot of the essay, which runs from page 66 to page 73 with only one large photo and a few cartoons to break the pace, appears to be that Ratzinger/Benedict was morally amiss to say as little as he did about, not Nazi attrocities, but the guilt of the entire German people for allowing those Nazi attrocities. . . .

  Ryback's rant does not foam at the mouth as Goldhagen does, but it labors mighty hard to work up a lather over statements and actions that, upon reflection, seem perfectly harmless and, upon closer inspection still, are evidently benign.

  Carlson sees in both Goldhagen and Ryback a tendency "to conflate individuals and institutions", a "reification of institutional structures" which is unfortunately all too prevalent in our time.

  Cardinal Ratzinger's address was originally published, and later appeared in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; a translation was later published in the journal Logos: In Search of Freedom; Against Reason Fallen Ill and Religion Abused.

• A Clear and Coherent Direction in the Beginning of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate - Mid February, Italian columnist Sandro Magister (L'Espresso) gave an interview to Catholic leaders in Washington on the first ten months of Benedict XVI's pontificate. The event was sponsored by the Athanasius Conferences -an iniciative of the Morley Institute- and Catholic News Agency. Magister made the case that "it is possible to identify a clear and coherent direction in the beginning of Pope Benedict’s pontificate." The full text of Magister's interview is available here.

• Ratzinger Studies 101, by Joseph Pronechen. National Catholic Register Feb. 12-18, 2006:

  Not even a year has passed since the last wisp of white smoke rose over Rome, and already courses on the thinking of the Holy Father formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have begun springing up.

  And they’re attracting students by the classful. . . .

On a lighter note . . .

• On March 3, 2006, the Holy Father visited the headquarters of Vatican Radio, which was celebrating it's 75th anniversary. The full text of the Pope's address is available in translation from Zenit News Service (A "Great Family Which Has No Borders").

  The employees of Vatican Radio presented the Pope with an I-Pod Nano:

  Hundreds of radio journalists, sound engineers and support staff lined the radio's hallways to greet the pope and present him with gifts, . . .

  "We don't have a huge gift to give to the pope, but we do have small signs of our work" to give him, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican Radio's general director, told Catholic News Service.

  Though the white iPod nano is tiny, it still made an impression on the pope. When the head of the radio's technical and computer support department, Mauro Milita, identified himself and handed the pope the boxed iPod, the pope was said to have replied, "Computer technology is the future."

  The pope's new 2-gigabyte digital audio player already was loaded with a sampling of the radio's programming in English, Italian and German and musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. The stainless steel back was engraved with the words "To His Holiness, Benedict XVI" in Italian. . . .

  The iPod also contains an English-language radio drama on the life of St. Thomas a Becket and a 10-minute feature on the creation of Vatican Radio, with original sound clips of the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, and Vatican Radio's founder, Pope Pius XI.

  As reported by Ananova, the Holy Father has taken a liking to his new toy:

  He has been spotted around the Vatican using his iPod and distinctive white earphones.

  According to The Sun a spokesman said: “He is very pleased with the iPod. The Holy Father likes to unwind listening to it and is of the opinion that this sort of technology is the future.”

  The Queen, President Bush and Tony Blair all own an iPod.

• The House of Benedict, by Rocco Palmo. Whispers in the Loggia educates us in ecclesial fashion and dress -- an expanded version of an article in the New York Times.