Saturday, April 17, 2010

Pope Benedict's Apostolic Journey to Malta

Pope Benedict XVI is making his apostolic journey to Malta April 17-18, 2010. This post will be continuously updated with news, commentary and resources pertaining to his visit.


From the Vatican

Schedule of Events / Prepared Texts by Pope Benedict

Special News Portals

From John Allen, Jr. (National Catholic Reporter)

From Anna Arco (Catholic Herald)

Zenit News Service (coverage by Serena Sartini)

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Happy Birthday, Pope Benedict XVI

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Scandal-Free Pope Benedict Roundup!

[There has been so much chatter in the news of the recent scandals in the Church that -- as a momentary respite from the frenzied media storm -- I'd like to take a moment and round up some news, articles and commentary on other doings by our beloved pontiff. Enjoy! ~ Christopher]
  • The Catholic Herald's Michael White takes us behind the scenes of a papal concert and hails the Pope's efforts to raise musical standards at the Vatican:
    This Pope is deeply musical and always has been - with conservative tastes (Mozart, Haydn, Bach) that are nonetheless expressed in surprisingly heartfelt terms. Stefan von Kempis, a senior figure in Vatican Radio, recalls a time when John Paul II was Pope and Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) organised a Vatican performance of Beethoven's Ninth to mark some special occasion.

    "This was when he was at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," says von Kempis, "and his reputation was very much a hard-liner: the clenched fist behind a charismatic Pontiff. Not so many people knew about his love for music. So when he got up and made an insightful as well as emotionally committed speech introducing the symphony, people were taken aback that he could be so sensitive. So engaging.

    "Most certainly he loves to talk music and to play it, which he does a lot. One of the cardinals here, Cardinal Kaspar, used to be his Vatican room-neighbour and says proudly that every day he heard the piano coming through the wall and never complained. This is Christian spirit because one has to admit of the Holy Father that he doesn't play so well. His brother always says he's 'not too bad but still an amateur'. Perhaps you've seen the YouTube clip?"

    There is indeed a YouTube clip of Benedict playing the piano - shakily, and with mistakes so bad he has to stop and start again. It's quite endearing. And especially endearing given all the papal history that lies behind it. ...

  • Catholic News Service' John Thavis renders his appraisal of Pope Benedict's pontificate as it nears its five year mark, citing "two key objectives" of the Holy Father: creating space for religion in the public sphere and space for God in private lives.

  • "The Political Side of Benedict XVI" - Father John Flynn, LC reviews The Social and Political Thought of Benedict XVI by Thomas R. Rourke, which analyzes the Pope's record on such matters before and after his election to the Chair of Peter.

  • Pope Benedict XVI will waive his own rules by beatifying Cardinal John Henry Newman himself during his four-day visit to England and Scotland this September (Catholic Herald March 19, 2010). The announcement of Pope Benedict's decision to beatify Cardinal Newman himself was welcomed by Father Richard Duffield, provost of the Birmingham Oratory:
    "The Holy Father's lifelong devotion to Newman has made a profound contribution to understanding the depth and significance of our founder's legacy," he said in a March 16 statement. "His decision to beatify Newman in person confers a unique blessing upon the English oratories and all who have drawn inspiration from Newman's life and work."

  • Apropos of the United State's recent debate and legislation on health care reform, here is Pope Benedict XVI on (HT: Fr. Jeffrey Steele):
    Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human. [Deus Caritas Est]
  • On March 16, the bishops of England and Wales released a joint statement on Pope Benedict's visit to England and Scotland. (Further info can be found at thepapalvisit.org.uk).

  • "Come All Ye Faithful" - William S. Lind accesses Pope Benedict's "counter-Reformation" (The American Conservative February 1, 2010):
    From the abandonment of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer to the introduction of priestesses in the 1970s and the ongoing election of homosexual bishops, the Episcopal Church forsook traditional Christian doctrine in favor of its own invented religion. Not surprisingly, this apostasy fractured both the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion. The upshot has been a variety of continuing churches that maintain historic ties to Anglicanism, multiple movements within the Episcopal Church to restore orthodoxy, and the breaking away of many Anglican churches in the Third World, where most Anglicans now live.

    On Oct. 20, Rome parachuted into this dogfight like a division of Fallschirmjager. In a move that stunned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicanism’s titular leader, Pope Benedict XVI, opened the Roman Catholic Church’s door to Anglicans as Anglicans. He invited them to move in—individuals, parishes, whole dioceses—while retaining their Anglican identity. They could keep their Book of Common Prayer, their liturgies, their priests—even married ones.

    On March 6, 2010, William Joseph Cardinal Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered an address at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Titled, "Five Hundred Years After St. John Fisher: Pope Benedict's Initiatives Regarding the Anglican Communion," the address recounted the background to the Holy Father's recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus and discussed hopes and prospects for uniting Anglican groups with the Catholic Church. In his talk, Levada reaffirmed that "union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism," properly understood. (HT: Rorate Caeli).

  • Benedict XVI's unexpected acceptance of invitations to visit Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in Spain this year reveals something about his goals, says Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi (Zenit).

  • Celebrating mass at the San Giovanni della Croce in Colle Salario on March 7, 2010, Pope Benedict reminded parishioners that the laity are not merely "‘collaborators’ of the clergy, but rather truly ‘co-responsible’ for the being and action of the Church. (Full text here).

  • The Pope has expressed his wish to spend his summer vacation resting and studying at Castel Gandolfo in July, declining an invitation to return to the Northern Italian Alps.

From the periodicals

  • "A new page in the relationship between Jews and Christians" "It is not the first time that Benedict XVI has been a guest in a synagogue, but one cannot escape the fact that what happened on 17 January, in that small corner on the bank of the Tiber which houses a Jewish community bearer of a profound and considerable history is not simply a Roman happening." (30 Giorni "30 Days" January 2010).
  • “I, a Jew, Explain the Pope’s Outstretched Hand”, by Joseph Weiler. (Traces No. 2, 2010 [Communion & Liberation] ). "One of the protagonists of the Jewish world discusses the bond with “our elder brothers,”explaining the wounds and the steps, such as the bishop who denied the reality of the Holocaust, the cause for beatification ofPius XII, John Paul’s apology, and the recent encounter with Benedict XVI. He speaks of a relationship that requires “time and patience” but offers many signs of hope, beginning with the Holy Father’s gestures."

On a lighter note

Coming in May 2010

Church Fathers and Teachers: From Leo the Great to Peter Lombard

Ignatius Press (May 10, 2010)

After meditating on the Apostles and then on the Fathers of the early Church, as seen in his earlier works Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church and Church Fathers, Pope Benedict XVI devoted his attention to the most influential Christian men from the fifth through the twelfth centuries.

In his first book, The Church Fathers, Benedict began with Clement of Rome and ended with Saint Augustine. In this volume, the Holy Father reflects on some of the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages: Benedict, Anselm, Bernard, and Gregory the Great, to name just a few. By exploring both the lives and the ideas of the great popes, abbots, scholars and missionaries who lived during the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christendom, Pope Benedict XVI highlights the key elements of Catholic dogma and practice that remain the foundation stones not only of the Roman Catholic Church but of Christian society itself.

This book is a wonderful way to get to know these later Church Fathers and Teachers and the tremendous spiritually rich patrimony they have bequeathed to us.


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Support the Pope!

Dear Holy Father,
We, the undersigned, want you to know that you are not alone in your pledge to fight injustice and the ailments in the Church. We want you to know that we trust you in your role as the leader of the Church. We want you to know that we forgive the sins of other members of the Church as we are forgiven. We are praying for you; for your courage, conviction, perseverance, and resolve.
We love you Papa Benedicto XVI!
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Pope Benedict XVI ~ Urbi et Orbi ~ Easter 2010

I bring you the Easter proclamation in these words of the Liturgy, which echo the ancient hymn of praise sung by the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea. It is recounted in the Book of Exodus (cf 15:19-21) that when they had crossed the sea on dry land, and saw the Egyptians submerged by the waters, Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and the other women sang and danced to this song of joy: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed wonderfully: horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!” Christians throughout the world repeat this canticle at the Easter Vigil, and a special prayer explains its meaning; a prayer that now, in the full light of the resurrection, we joyfully make our own: “Father, even today we see the wonders of the miracles you worked long ago. You once saved a single nation from slavery, and now you offer that salvation to all through baptism. May the peoples of the world become true sons of Abraham and prove worthy of the heritage of Israel.”

The Gospel has revealed to us the fulfilment of the ancient figures: in his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has freed us from the radical slavery of sin and opened for us the way towards the promised land, the Kingdom of God, the universal Kingdom of justice, love and peace. This “exodus” takes place first of all within man himself, and it consists in a new birth in the Holy Spirit, the effect of the baptism that Christ has given us in his Paschal Mystery. The old man yields his place to the new man; the old life is left behind, and a new life can begin (cf. Rom 6:4). But this spiritual “exodus” is the beginning of an integral liberation, capable of renewing us in every dimension – human, personal and social.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, Easter is the true salvation of humanity! If Christ – the Lamb of God – had not poured out his blood for us, we would be without hope, our destiny and the destiny of the whole world would inevitably be death. But Easter has reversed that trend: Christ’s resurrection is a new creation, like a graft that can regenerate the whole plant. It is an event that has profoundly changed the course of history, tipping the scales once and for all on the side of good, of life, of pardon. We are free, we are saved! Hence from deep within our hearts we cry out: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious his triumph!”

The Christian people, having emerged from the waters of baptism, is sent out to the whole world to bear witness to this salvation, to bring to all people the fruit of Easter, which consists in a new life, freed from sin and restored to its original beauty, to its goodness and truth. Continually, in the course of two thousand years, Christians – especially saints – have made history fruitful with their lived experience of Easter. The Church is the people of the Exodus, because she constantly lives the Paschal Mystery and disseminates its renewing power in every time and place. In our days too, humanity needs an “exodus”, not just superficial adjustment, but a spiritual and moral conversion. It needs the salvation of the Gospel, so as to emerge from a profound crisis, one which requires deep change, beginning with consciences. [...]

Dear brothers and sisters, Easter does not work magic. Just as the Israelites found the desert awaiting them on the far side of the Red Sea, so the Church, after the resurrection, always finds history filled with joy and hope, grief and anguish. And yet, this history is changed, it is marked by a new and eternal covenant, it is truly open to the future. For this reason, saved by hope, let us continue our pilgrimage, bearing in our hearts the song that is ancient and yet ever new: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious his triumph!”

~ Pope Benedict XVI

"Urbi et Orbi" - Easter 2010
[English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish]

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Knights of Columbus - A Novena for Pope Benedict XVI

Knights of Columbus are asked to pray a novena for Pope Benedict, beginning on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11, and concluding on Monday, April 19, the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father’s election.
Following is the text of the Novena:
Prayer for Pope Benedict XVI
Lord, source of eternal life and truth,
give to your shepherd, Benedict, a spirit
of courage and right judgment, a spirit
of knowledge and love. By governing
with fidelity those entrusted to his care,
may he, as successor to the Apostle
Peter and Vicar of Christ, build your
Church into a sacrament of unity, love
and peace for all the world. Amen.

V/ Let us pray for Benedict, the pope.
R/ May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and not hand him over to the power of his enemies.
V/ May your hand be upon your holy servant.
R/ And upon your son, whom you have anointed.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory Be…
Resources
(HT: Salt & Light TV)
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Friday, April 02, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI kneels during a service in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Friday, April 2, 2010. Source: Associated Press
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

FROM THE VATICAN: Holy Week 2010



Holy Week 2010

Way of the Cross 2010
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BREAKING! - "Turkish man who shot Pope says Benedict should resign!"

We now interrupt you for this breaking news of the most fundamental importance from the Associated Press, in what might very well be the culmination of the media's campaign against the Pope:
ANKARA, Turkey — The Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II says Pope Benedict XVI should resign over the Catholic Church's handling of clerical sex abuse cases.

Mehmet Ali Agca, who emerged from prison in January nearly 29 years after wounding Pope John Paul II in Rome, has declared himself a messenger from God.

Agca told journalists in Istanbul on Monday that "I want the pope to resign not arrested," as he waved a Turkish newspaper reporting calls for the arrest of the pope. The press conference marked his first public comments since his release.

The article also mentions "There are questions about Agca's mental health."
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Pope Benedict, the Catholic Church and the sexual abuse crisis [Roundup]

The press of late has been dominated by coverage of the Church and the sexual abuse crisis. Much of this reporting has been sketchy on the facts and/or downright slanderous, the work of those who would exploit this tragedy to advance their vendetta against the Holy Father. Following is a roundup of news and commentary.


Prior Roundups

Further Commentary

  • "Keeping the record straight on Benedict and the crisis" National Catholic Reporter John Allen Jr. finds that
    the first casualty of any crisis is perspective. There are at least three aspects of Benedict's record on the sexual abuse crisis which are being misconstrued, or at least sloppily characterized, in today's discussion. Bringing clarity to these points is not a matter of excusing the pope, but rather of trying to understand accurately how we got where we are. [more]
  • "Pope's critics must get their facts straight" George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, schools Christopher Hitchens on the merits of accurate reporting.

  • “A step comparable to a parent who denounces his or her own child”: A different perspective David Schütz (Sentire Cum Ecclesia):
    There has been a lot of confusion about the so-called “policy of secrecy” in the Catholic Church regarding the offences we are discussing. I thought it would be helpful to include here a few paragraphs from an interview by Italian journalist Gianni Cardinale with Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ...
  • Thomas Plante, PhD., ABPP, notes that "there are a lot more myths than facts bantered around" by the press and would like us to know Six important points about clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (Psychology Today March 24, 2010).

  • Ross Douthat reviews the pattern of priestly sex abuse which lends credence to the claim that "something in the moral/cultural/theological climate of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged a spike in sexual abuse." (On that note, see also Mary Eberstad's "Elephant in the Sacristy" Weekly Standard June 17, 2002).

  • John Allen Jr. has an op-ed in the New York Times, in which he points out "For anyone who knows the Vatican’s history on this issue, Benedict XVI isn’t just part of the problem. He’s also a major chapter in the solution":
    To understand that, it’s necessary to wind the clock back a decade. Before then, no Vatican office had clear responsibility for cases of priests accused of sexual abuse, which instead were usually handled — and often ignored — at the diocesan level. In 2001, however, Pope John Paul II assigned responsibility to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s all-important doctrinal office, which was headed by Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal.

    As a result, bishops were required to send their case files to Cardinal Ratzinger’s office. By all accounts, he studied them with care, making him one of the few churchmen anywhere in the world to have read the documentation on virtually every Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse. The experience gave him a familiarity with the pervasiveness of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic Church can claim. And driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as “filth” in the church, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have undergone a transformation. From that point forward, he and his staff were determined to get something done.

  • Archbishop Dolan of New York City, blogging on the scandals:
    What causes us Catholics to bristle is not only the latest revelations of sickening sexual abuse by priests, and blindness on the part of some who wrongly reassigned them — such stories, unending though they appear to be, are fair enough, — but also that the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone.

    That, of course, is malarkey. Because, as we now sadly realize, nobody, nowhere, no time, no way, no how knew the extent, depth, or horror of this scourge, nor how to adequately address it.

    The sexual abuse of our young people is an international, cultural, societal horror. It affects every religion, country, family, job, profession, vocation, and ethnic group.

    We Catholics have for a decade apologized, cried, reached out, shouted mea culpa, and engaged in a comprehensive reform that has met with widespread acclaim. We’ve got a long way to go, and the reform still has to continue.

    But it is fair to say that, just as the Catholic Church may have been a bleak example of how not to respond to this tragedy in the past, the Church is now a model of what to do. As the National Review Online observes, “. . . the Church’s efforts to come to grips with this problem within the household of faith — more far reaching than in any other institution or sector of society — have led others to look to the Catholic Church for guidance on how to address what is, in fact, a global plague.”

    See also Archbishop Dolan's latest column on the "a well-oiled campaign against Pope Benedict."

Challenging the critics

  • "Why can't the media treat the Pope fairly?" asks the Telegraph's Andrew M. Brown:
    I read the coverage of the Pope every day in the newspapers and listen to the BBC news and as a Catholic and a journalist I feel like crying out pathetically: “This is not fair!” And it isn’t fair, or reasonable. Intelligent journalists who are normally capable of mental subtlety and of coping with complexities have abandoned their critical faculties. There is an atmosphere of unreason.

    I cannot help feeling that a lot of it is down to sheer, blind hatred. It amounts to the demonisation of a whole institution and its leader. We have come to a stage where nothing good whatever, no good faith can be assumed of anybody involved in the Church – however senior, however greatly respected, loved, admired, including the Pope.

  • Diogenes (Off The Record) notices the appearance of "the usual suspects":
    Desperate for new witnesses who will join in the calls for the Pope's resignation, the media have rediscovered Hans Küng, who-- having honed his skills through decades of complaints that his old faculty colleague is responsible for all the world's ills-- sure, enough, thinks the Pope should resign.

    In other news, the sun rose in the east again this morning.

  • Speaking of the usual suspects, the dour, unhinged, and factless, Maureen Dowd seeks papal whipping boy (Carl Olson, Insight Scoop).

  • George Weigel and Rev. Jay Scott Newman respond to Sinead O'Connor (National Review):
    f Irish singer Sinead O’Connor wishes to denounce her mother publicly as an abusive parent, that is her privilege. If Ms. O’Connor wishes to shred a photograph of Pope John Paul II on stage, as she did almost two decades ago, she is, one supposes, within the boundaries of “performance art.” If Ms. O’Connor wishes to “separate” the God she believes in from the Catholic Church in which she was raised, as she put it in a March 28 article in the “Outlook” section of the Washington Post, she is free to do so.

    What Sinead O’Connor is not free to do is to misrepresent the teaching and law of the Catholic Church in the Post in order to buttress her claim that the Church is an “abusive organization” and that the Church threatens with excommunication those who would blow the whistle on clerical sexual abusers. That is utterly false. If Ms. O’Connor is aware of that falsehood, she has lied.

  • Creative Minority Report points out "the worst headline ever".

  • The Telegraph's Damien Thompson responds to the high priest of atheism, Richard Dawkins:
    [Dawkin's] article conjures up the image of a nasty old man who’s losing his marbles. It’s not very nice about the Pope, either.

  • Fr. John Zuhlsdorf takes apart Fr. Richard McBrien's Newsweek screed ("I think McBrien is pissed off that Hans Kung got press on this issue before he did").

See also

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