“In hope we are saved…” The Pope’s Encyclical

A snippet:

Christians likewise can and must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that is contained in God’s first commandment (cf. Ex 20:4). The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the similarity that may be established between Creator and creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater.³² In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would like, by saying “no” to both theses—theism and atheism. God has given himself an “image”: in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man’s God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh.³³ There is justice.³⁴ There is an “undoing” of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgement is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ’s return and for new life become fully convincing.

“L’Osservatore Romano” Has Been Remodeled

From Sandro Magister:

Fewer pages, and more text. The number of pages fell to 8, from their former 12 or 16, while the text increased by 10 percent. The page design is sober and elegant, and will be even more so with a graphic redesign that is in development. Gone are the enormous headlines and the full-page photos of recent years.

The layout is better organized: on the first and last pages are the words of the pope and the major Vatican events, with a brief commentary and the official statements. The second and third pages present international politics, Italy included. Culture is on the fourth and fifth pages. On the sixth and seventh is news about the Catholic Church around the world, about the other Christian confessions, and about the other religions.

The previous regular contributions and features have been eliminated, and the outside commentators have changed. Not all of them are Catholic. Anna Foa, for example, who is Jewish and a history teacher at Rome’s “La Sapienza” university, wrote on a burning issue, the reason why hundreds of thousands of Arabs abandoned the land occupied by Israel in the first war of 1948.

Another new development is that women are writing front page commentaries: the jurist Patrizia Clementi, the non-Catholic feminist Eugenia Roccella, the historian Lucetta Scaraffia. In a lucky stroke of foresight, Scaraffia wrote an article highlighting the ideas of a teacher of international law at Harvard, Mary Ann Glendon, who was designated a few days later as the new United States ambassador to the Holy See.

The stated goal of the new director Vian is to bring to the pages of “L’Osservatore Romano” intellectuals of the highest caliber, “who know how to prompt thought and discussion even beyond the perimeter of the Church.”

The biblicist Gianfranco Ravasi, the new president of the pontifical council for culture, is one of these. Then there is the great specialist in ancient Christian literature Manlio Simonetti, a worldwide authority on questions like the relationship between the canonical Gospels and the apocryphal and Gnostic writings, which today have returned dangerously into fashion. Then there is Inos Biffi, an unparalleled expert in medieval theology. Then there are the rising stars of the pro-Ratzinger curia: Nicola Bux and the Anglo-German Uwe Michael Lang. Then there is Valentino Miserarchs Grau, head of the pontifical institute of sacred music, one of whose indictments against modern musical disasters and in defense of Gregosian chant occupied an entire page of “L’Osservatore.”

The frequent use of interviews is another novelty introduced by Vian. One that made an impact was the interview with Metropolitan Cyril, the second in command of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was unusually gracious toward the Church of Rome. Also surprising was the first page commentary entrusted to the French Protestant Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European Churches, on the eve of the consistory of cardinals on the very topic of ecumenism. Other articles have been written by representatives of the Orthodox Churches. And the honor of the front page has gone even to one ecumenical personality: Brother Alois Loser, prior of the community of Taizé.

The secretariat of state provides “L’Osservatore” with the official statements and the pope’s texts. In this, the journal has authority: an appointment, for example, becomes official when it is printed. But otherwise “L’Osservatore” lives autonomously. The person responsible for the articles is the director, who is not at all required to have them inspected before they are printed.

But the established practice is that the secretariat of state has a say in the articles that deal with sensitive topics: the Middle East, nuclear weapons, China, Islam. It can happen that texts are blocked or rewritten. One result of this collective effort has been, for example, the way in which “L’Osservatore” covered the visit of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to the Vatican. Next to the photo of the king with the pope, beneath the title “Under the banner of dialogue and collaboration,” the dominant article on the front page dealt with the request of the Vatican’s representative at the UN for “a new resolution on religious freedom,” with a title stretching across four columns: “The credibility of the United Nations depends on tangible respect for human rights.” He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Pullman Thinks Pete Vere is a Nitwit Too

Peter responds

Pullman Calls Donohue a “Nitwit”

How does he know Mr. Pullman? Your own words accuse you, that’s why!

Join the boycott of The Golden Compass as the saga heats up…from Entertainment Online UK:

The British author Philip Pullman has attacked leading American Catholics as “nitwits” after they called for a boycott of The Golden Compass, which has its world premiere in London tonight.

In an escalation of the religious row over the film adaptation of the first of the Pullman trilogy, the north American Catholic League claimed that the movie is being used to pursue his “atheist agenda” and should be banned.

Bill Donohoe, the league’s President, added that the production, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, could prompt parents to buy the books for their children unaware that the trilogy climaxes with an epic battle to “destroy God”.

The film is due to be launched in the US on December 7, but the Catholic League says parents should refuse to see it. Its world premiere takes place at Leicester Square tonight.

However, Mr Pullman hit back with a furious counter-attack on his detractors, denying that his agenda was anything other than attracting readers and urging people to be allowed to make up their own mind.

“To regard it as this Donohue man has said – that I’m a militant atheist, and my intention is to convert people – how the hell does he know that?” he said, in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

“Why don’t we trust readers? Why don’t we trust filmgoers? Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world.”

Then this, from the same piece:

Meanwhile, the archdiocese in Philadelphia has urged parents not to take their children to the film when it is released.

Suspicions over Mr Pullman’s agenda appear to have partly been prompted by his past comments on religion to American newspapers. In particular, he told the Washington Post that one of his key goals was to “undermine the basis” of Christian belief.

How does he know Mr. Pullman? Your own words accuse you, that’s why!

Amy in the USA Today

Bloggers keep the faith, contentiously:

 Among Catholics, the blogosphere is like looking at a big parish. Everything looms somewhere in the conversations,” says Amy Welborn, 47, of Fort Wayne, Ind. Welborn, author of numerous books and a columnist for Catholic Newspapers, wrote one of the best-known Catholic blogs, Open Book. It explored the intersections of Catholic intellectual life and contemporary culture and politics.

Last summer, Welborn abruptly closed the Book to concentrate on writing fiction.

“I want to do good, and I want to do lasting good — the kind of good that people carry around, share, put on their bookshelves and reflect on — rather than the kind of good that sparks a momentary flash until we surf to the next website and the next and the next,” she told blog readers.

Yet blogging proved too compelling to quit. She started a new blog (amywelborn.wordpress.com) engaging readers in Catholic ideas. She posts faithfully.

Pope Benedict’s Homily on Christ the King

“Jesus’s death on the Cross is the greatest act of love in all history.”

An excerpt:

On Calvary, two opposite attitudes confronted each other. Some persons at the foot of the Cross, and even one of the two thieves, addressed the Crucified One with contempt: If you are Christ, the Mesiah and King – they said – save yourself and come down from the scaffold.

Jesus instead reveals his glory by staying there, on the Cross, as the sacrificed Lamb. The other thief unexpectedly takes his side, implicitly acknowledging the kingliness of the justly innocent, and implores: “Remember me when you enter into your kingdom: (Lk 23,42).

St. Cyril of Alexandria commented: “You see him crucified and call him King. You believe that he who undergoes mockery and suffering will reach divine glory” (Comment on Luke, homily 153).

According to the evangelist John, divine glory is already present although hidden by the disfigurement of the Cross. But even in the language of Luke, the future is already anticipated in the present when Jesus promises the good thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23,43).

St. Ambrose observed: “This man prayed that the Lord remember him when he reached his Kingdom, but the Lord answered him: ‘In truth, in truth, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’. Life is to be with Christ, because where Christ is, there is the Kingdom” (Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, 10,121).

The attribution “This is the King of the Jews”, written on a tablet nailed above the head of Jesus, thus becomes a proclamation of the truth. St. Ambrose notes further: “The writing is properly at the top of the Cross, because although the Lord jesus Christ is on the Cross, he nevertheless shines above it with regal majesty” (ivi, 10,113).

The Crucifixion scene, in the four Gospels, constitutes the moment of truth, when the ‘veil of the Temple’ is rent to reveal the Holy of Holies. Jesus crucified is the maximum possible revelation of God in this world, because God is Love, and Jesus’s death on the Cross is the greatest act of love in all history.

Encyclical “Spe salvi” to be Released Next Friday

This blog will dedicate the Season of Advent to a careful reading of the Second Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, check back daily beginning on the First Sunday of Advent until Christmas!

The First Thanksgiving

Wasn’t in Plymouth, but in Saint Augustine, FL…on September 8th 1565!!! Read about a teacher’s attempt to recapture the forgotten history of the beginnings of the United States in USA Today:

Robyn Gioia doesn’t look like a troublemaker. Far from it.

Gioia is a wife, mother and teacher, and her green eyes twinkle when she talks about her fifth-grade students at the Bolles School just north of here in Ponte Vedra.

But Gioia, 53, has written a children’s book, and just the title is enough to peeve any Pilgrim: America’s REAL First Thanksgiving.

“It was the publisher who put real in capital letters,” she says, “but I think it’s great.”

What does REAL mean? Well, she’s not talking turkey and cranberry sauce. She’s talking a Spanish explorer who landed here on Sept. 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with Timucua Indians. They dined on bean soup.

 

 

 

How to Paint a Homily

New book uses art as a commentary on the Scripture readings for Cycle A, from Sandro Magister:

And now, just before the first Sunday of Advent, a book has been published in Italy that gives new life to this tradition. It is a commentary on the lectionary of the Sunday and feast day Masses of year A – the volumes for years B and C will follow – made up of images from great Christian art. Images more eloquent than many words.

The author is Timothy Verdon, a priest and art historian, professor at Stanford University and the director of Florence’s diocesan office for catechesis through art. He is also the author of important books on Christian art and on the role of art in the Church’s life.

The idea of this book came to Verdon from the synod of bishops on the Eucharist in 2005, at which he participated as an expert consultant, at the invitation of Benedict XVI.

In the post-synodal exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis,” pope Joseph Ratzinger dedicated one paragraph, number 41, to religious iconography, which, he writes, “should be directed to sacramental mystagogy,” toward initiation into the Christian mystery through the liturgy.

The book is a direct response to this summons. For every Sunday and feast day of the liturgical year, Verdon selects a masterpiece of Christian art related to the Gospel of the day. It is art as the guide to entry within the mystery that is proclaimed and celebrated.

To present this book to the public in Florence just a few days ago, Verdon enlisted a priest who is in complete agreement with this approach: theologian Massimo Naro, the rector of the seminary of the diocese of Caltanissetta and the younger brother of Cataldo Naro, bishop of Monreale until his untimely death one year ago.

The cathedral of Monreale, in Sicily, with its interior completely covered with twelfth century mosaics, is an absolute masterpiece of Christian art. The Christ Pantokrator reproduced above dominates the apse.

But Christian art lives within the liturgy, and for the liturgy. And its language is visual inspection, contemplation. This is what the Italian-German theologian Romano Guardini, one of the current pope’s great mentors, understood in visiting the cathedral of Monreale during Holy Week of 1929.

Guardini wrote an account of this visit. Observing the men and women crowding the cathedral of Monreale and participating in the Easter liturgy, he wrote:

“All were living in the gaze [original German: Alle lebten im Blick], all were rapt in contemplation.”

Bishop Cataldo Naro reproduced the entire page of Guardini’s account in his last pastoral letter to the faithful, to guide them to contemplate and love the Church.

And his brother Massimo cited it again while presenting Verdon’s book to the public, in this section of his remarks:

“One must not only believe, confess, profess; one must also ‘look upon’ the faith. Jesus is the one who has ‘seen and heard’ his Father. In him is the union of word and image; he is Logos and Eikon (cf. Colossians 1:15). It is no accident that, since the fourth or fifth century, the legend grew in the ancient Church that the evangelist Luke had also been a painter. To this legend may be added the anathema of the second council of Nicaea, according to which ‘If anyone does not accept the artistic representation of scenes from the Gospel, let him be excommunicated.’ Painting the face of Christ, of Mary, of the saints is another way of writing the Gospel, and thus also of passing it on, proclaiming it, permitting it to be read, meditated upon, and understood by the faithful. In Nicaea, in 787, Church teaching incorporated the legend and gave it the dignity of doctrine, including within the deposit of tradition not only written and oral tradition, but artistic tradition as well; not only the writings of the Old and New Testament and the books of the Church Fathers, but also the images that translate into full color the black ink of the sacred writers.”

The works of art selected by Verdon to illustrate the Mass readings of year A are found in churches and museums all over the world. Many of them are in Italy, and a few in Florence, so Florentine priests have a special incentive to make use of this commentary.

But the important thing is the method, which is valid for everyone. Verdon’s book teaches an “artistic” interpretation of the biblical texts used in the liturgy. It restores to priests and faithful the fruits of a “preaching through images” developed in the Church over a millennium and a half, and today in danger of withering away.

Because there is an unbreakable bond among Christian art, theology, and liturgy. Just as the cross and the resurrection are the foundation for the composition of the Gospels and the New Testament, and just as Easter is the keystone of the entire liturgical year, so also the Crucified and Risen Jesus is at the genesis of Christian art.

Indiana Bishop New Bishop of Great Falls-Billings Montana

 Bishop Michael W. Warfel, a native of Elkhart, IN.

 A bishop friend of mine, also from Indiana (actually born in Cuba) mentioned him to me a month ago and thought he might be the next bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend. But as it turns out, no.

A Poem by Blessed Antonio Rosmini

Beatified yesterday, long condemned up until the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II when then Cardinal Ratzinger annulled the previous rulings, the poem:

How delightful it is to speak with God,
To talk of God,
To be satisfied with God alone;
To recall, desire, understand, know, and love God;
To seek and find God in God,
Giving oneself wholly to God.
To leave for the sake of God even the delights of God;
To think, to speak, to work for God;
To hope only in God, delight only in God;
To keep one’s mind always intent on God;
To do all things with God in God,
Dedicated and consecrated to God,
Pleasing God alone, suffering for God,
Rejoicing solely in God;
To desire God alone,
To abide with God for ever,
To exult with God in times of joy, in times of pain;
To see, touch, taste God,
To live, die and abide in God,
And then, rapt and translated into God,
With God and in God, to offer God to God
For God’s eternal honour and glory.
O God, what joy, what sweetness there is in God,
God, O God!; God, O God!; God, O God!; God, O God!; God, O God!

 And the Five Wounds of the Church according to Rosmini:

1. The division between the clergy and people in public worship

2. The insufficent education of the clergy

3. The disunion of bishops

4. The nomination of bishops is given up to political powers (true in some European Countries)

5. The infringement of ecclesial property

Pope’s Homily for Yesterday

Face life with faith in the Lord…from the Papa Ratzinger Forum:

In today’s Gospel, St. Luke re-proposes for our reflection the Biblical vision of history, referring to the words of Jesus, who invites his disciples not to be afraid, but to face difficulties, incomprehension and even persecutions with confidence, persevering in their faith in him.

“When you hear of wars and insurrections,” the Lord says, “do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end” (Lk 21,9).

Mindful of this admonition, the Church, from the beginning, lives in the prayerful expectation of the return of its Lord, scrutinizing the signs of the times and warning the faithful against recurring Messianisms, which from time to time announce that the end of the world is imminent.

In fact, history must run its ourse, which includes human tragedies and natural calamities. Within it is situated the plan of salvation which Jesus fulfilled in his incarnation, death and resurrection.

It is this mystery that the Church continues to announce and to actualize in its preaching, in the celebration of the Sacraments, and in the testimony of charity.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us accept Christ’s invitation to face the events of every day, trusting in his providential love. Let us not fear for the future, even when it appears dark to us, because the God of Jesus Christ, entered history in order to open it to transcendent fulfillment, of which he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end (cfr Ap 1,8).

He guarantees us that in every small but genuine act of love, is found all the sense of the universe, and that he who does not hesitate to lose his own life for Christ, will find it back in fullness (cfr Mt 16,25).

Benedict’s Revolution

From The Telegraph which begins with a section on the revolt against the pope and then takes off what the future might hold:

This month, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a senior Vatican official close to Benedict, declared that “bishops and even cardinals” who misrepresented Summorum Pontificum were “in rebellion against the Pope”.

Ranjith is tipped to become the next Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, in charge of regulating worldwide liturgy. That makes sense: if Benedict is moving into a higher gear, then he needs street fighters in high office.

He may also have to reform an entire department, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which spends most of its time promoting the sort of ecumenical waffle that Benedict abhors.

This is a sensitive moment. Last month, the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a network of 400,000 breakaway Anglo-Catholics based mainly in America and the Commonwealth, wrote to Rome asking for “full, corporate, sacramental union”.

Their letter was drafted with the help of the Vatican. Benedict is overseeing the negotiations. Unlike John Paul II, he admires the Anglo-Catholic tradition. He is thinking of making special pastoral arrangements for Anglican converts walking away from the car wreck of the Anglican Communion.

This would mean that they could worship together, free from bullying by local bishops who dislike the newcomers’ conservatism and would rather “dialogue” with Anglicans than receive them into the Church.

The liberation of the Latin liturgy, the rapprochement with Eastern Orthodoxy, the absorption of former Anglicans – all these ambitions reflect Benedict’s conviction that the Catholic Church must rediscover the liturgical treasure of Christian history to perform its most important task: worshipping God.

This conviction is shared by growing numbers of young Catholics, but not by the church politicians who have dominated the hierarchies of Europe for too long.

By failing to welcome the latest papal initiatives – or even to display any interest in them, beyond the narrow question of how their power is affected – the bishops of England and Wales have confirmed Benedict’s low opinion of them.

Now he should replace them. If the Catholic reformation is to start anywhere, it might as well be here.

Feast of Saint Albert the Great

Bishop of Regensburg, which we all know for something else now.

Pope Benedict on St. Jerome

Continuation of his catechesis on the Fathers, from Asia News Italy:

 The figure of St Jerome, was instead at the centre of his discourse to over 20 thousand pilgrims in St Peter’s square, despite the cold and threat of rain.  Today the Pope underlined the instead of education to responsibility, central to the teachings and example of the Saint, declared “eminent doctor of the Church” by Benedict XV, for his interpretations of scripture. An education to responsibility “before God and before man is the true condition for progress, peace and reconciliation and as a result the exclusion of violence”.

Love for Sacred scripture, the need for coherence between life and faith, especially for “preachers” so that they may not become like “that master who with a full stomach preaches of fasting”, the need for personal formation, from early childhood and for communion with the pope.  These are just some of the factors which St Jerome urged – to whom pope Benedict already dedicated last weeks catechesis – together with “the importance of a broad and disciplined Christian education for the young, including women”- quite unexpected in ancient times.

For St. Jerome “familiarising oneself with biblical texts above all the New Testament is essential for the believer, because ignoring the Sacred Scripture means ignoring Christ”. “Truly enamoured with the Word of God he would ask how one could live without the scriptures”, without the Bible “which is the source of  Christian life, for every person in every situation”.  It means “conversing with God”.  Its study and meditation “makes man wise and serene”.

At the same time it is our duty to  “unite our lives with the Word of God”.  Coherence “is necessary for each and every Christian and particularly for those who preach so that their actions do not undermine their words or embarrass them”.  As is the case with “that master who with a full stomach preaches of fasting”.