World Day of Prayer For The Church In China

The Holy Father has called all Catholics to intercede for the Church in China on May 24th. He composed a prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan for the occasion.

Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother,
venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title "Help of Christians",
the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection.
We come before you today to implore your protection.
Look upon the People of God and, with a mother’s care, guide them
along the paths of truth and love, so that they may always be
a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens.

When you obediently said "yes" in the house of Nazareth,
you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb
and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption.
You willingly and generously cooperated in that work,
allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul,
until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary,
standing beside your Son, who died that we might live.

From that moment, you became, in a new way,
the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith
and choose to follow in his footsteps by taking up his Cross.
Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday you journeyed
with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter.
Grant that your children may discern at all times,
even those that are darkest, the signs of God’s loving presence.

Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China,
who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love.
May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world,
and of the world to Jesus.
In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high,
offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love.
Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love,
ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built.
Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever. Amen!

Read about the Basilica of Our Lady of Sheshan --China's sole basilica-- here. You can also read Asia News' coverage of how the Church in China is celebrating, and how the Chinese government has banned pilgrimages there.

        -Rebecca Teti

One Unreported Papal Story

The excellent Father James Martin, SJ, in the May 16 America magazine passes on "Three Unreported Papal Stories." They are beautiful stories, worth passing on, and he does them justice.

But the first one, about the meeting between Benedict and Cardinal Dulles, was, of course, not unreported. It was on the front page of the May 4 Register.

And the second one, about the Holy Father greeting the crowds at the N.Y. papal nunciature was well documented in the Register April 28, and right here, with video, before that.

"Third: Another priest friend serving as a secretary to one of the local bishops reported on a private dinner with the pope and a few bishops. At the end of the meal, Benedict asked those gathered together to pray for him. 'For what intention, Holy Father?' said one. 'That I may never get in the way of Jesus Christ.'"

Beautiful.

-- Tom Hoopes

The Encounter

We finally found a photo of Pope Benedict's meeting with Cardinal Dulles at Dunwoodie ... we searched high and low in papal photo archives for one.

Father Raymond J. de Souza wrote a great story for us about Pope Benedict XVI's "private, poignant encounter" with Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, on April 19 at New York’s St. Joseph’s Seminary.

Cardinal Dulles, suffering the effects of post-polio syndrome, now lives in the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University.

The encounter echoed the iconic embrace of Archbishop Fulton Sheen by Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in October 1979. Archbishop Sheen was growing increasingly frail — he would die two months later — but made a determined effort to be at St. Patrick’s when John Paul visited. The Holy Father gave him a warm embrace and, paraphrasing the vision of St. Thomas Aquinas, told Archbishop Sheen: “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the Church.”

As for this new encounter ...

“Eminenza, Eminenza, I recall the work you did for the International Theological Commission in the 1990s,” said the Holy Father as he greeted Cardinal Dulles with obvious enthusiasm. Cardinal Dulles kissed the papal ring and smiled back at Benedict.

Cardinal Dulles gave the Pope his newest book, "a splendid collection of the McGinley Lectures he has been delivering at Fordham for 20 years under the title Church and Society."

Benedict immediately took it in hand, read the inscription and began to look through the pages — as happy as any scholar is to get a new book by a respected friend. A touching moment occurred when Benedict took his leave, greeting all present, including Dominican Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse, Cardinal Dulles’ secretary for the past 20 years.

“Sister, thank you for all the work you do for Cardinal Dulles and for the Church,” Benedict said.

Sister Anne-Marie revealed later that 20 years ago, just before she went to work for then-Father Dulles, her only prayer was that she would find some way to put her theological training to work for the Church. That was now confirmed by the Church’s supreme pastor.

Read Father Raymond's whole story, which ends with his own most recent encounter with Cardinal Dulles, which is poignant and telling.

-- Tom Hoopes

Holy Father and President to Meet Again

President Bush is to meet the Holy Father again in a few weeks, according to the White House. The President will be dropping in at the Vatican while on a European tour June 9-16.

It will essentially be a courtesy call, and will come just a couple of months after the President played host to Benedict XVI at the White House. It’s not clear exactly when Mr. Bush will come here, but sources say the meeting is likely to take place on June 13 – almost exactly a year since the President last visited the Pope.

It will be the third time the two men have met officially, and Mr. Bush’s fifth visit to the Vatican. That’s naturally led to speculation that the President, a Methodist, is considering becoming a Catholic, although there is no hard evidence to suggest that that’s true.

What’s more probable is that the main purpose of his trip to Italy is to greet his old friend Silvio Berlusconi, who was elected back into power in April, and it would have appeared rude not to call in on the Pope while he was here. Though it does underline how close this administration is to the Vatican on many issues

The President's visit to Europe will also commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift. He’ll also be visiting Northern Ireland on the tour. That’s somewhere many people are hoping the Pope will also visit soon, though very unlikely in ‘08. John Paul II tried to do so in 1979, but couldn’t because of security concerns.

It would have been fascinating to have seen how the once virulent anti-Catholic Ian Paisley, the current First Minister of Northern Ireland, would have greeted the Pope, as he would be constitutionally obliged to do, but unfortunately the Protestant firebrand has announced he’s stepping down soon, so alas that won’t happen.

-- Edward Pentin

What's in the WYD Backpack?

Australia's The Age has the goods on some of what WYD pilgrims will find in their backpacks this July.

Backpacks are a WYD tradition. In Toronto, pilgrims received a red over-the-shoulder style pack. In Cologne, it was a blue backpack. Typically, the backpack features a pilgrim guidebook that includes the prayers and songs for the liturgical events, as well as maps; a WYD-cross of some type, a WYD candle for the Saturday evening vigil, a WYD pin (popular for trading), a rosary, a poncho in case of rain, a WYD handkerchief/bandana, and some snacks.

Among the usual goodies (WYD-cross and pilgrim guidebook), the Australia backpack is featuring some unique items. They include: a WYD heat-retaining foil blanket (for keeping warm on Saturday evening - remember that it will be winter in Australia), a torchlight, a discount card for McDonald's, and a WYD tattoo/transfer.

When I was in Australia last September, we were fortunate enough to see the volunteers who were making the WYD pilgrim crosses that will be included in each pilgrim's backpack. They're hand-made and hand-stamped, each and every one. I'll write more about them in an upcoming post, and post some photos as well.

-- Tim Drake

A Church Not Adrift

It has always surprised me the two negative reactions to the movements. On the one hand, the movements creep some people out, and they feel that they can unburden their hearts of all kinds of unfounded suspicions about them without giving a thought to their accuracy or their harm. On the other, the movements are simply ignored by dissenters who want to paint a bleak picture of the Church's future.

Of course there's a third reaction, which is the one you would expect: A lot of people welcome these groups that fire people up for the faith and get them working to spread it.

That's what the Holy Father thinks of them. He spoke to 100 bishops from 53 countries, who had come to Rome at the invitation of the Pontifical Council for the Laity May 15-17.

"The ecclesial movements and new communities are one of the most important new developments prompted by the Holy Spirit in the Church for the implementation of Vatican Council II . . . this development is still awaiting adequate comprehension in the light of God's plan and of the Church's mission in the context of our time."   

He spoke of "the unexpected eruption" following Vatican Council II of the "new lay realities that, in various and surprising forms, brought vitality, faith, and hope back to the entire Church".  Thanks to these, membership in the Church came to be viewed as a value, and not as a burden, reawakening "a vigorous missionary impulse, moved by the desire to communicate to all the precious experience of the encounter with Christ, understood and lived as the only adequate response to the profound thirst for truth and happiness in the human heart."

In this way, "many forms of prejudice, resistance, and attention have been overcome."

He warned that if movements have a parallel life, it won't be good for the Church or the movements.

"The authenticity of the new charisms is guaranteed by their willingness to submit to the discernment of ecclesiastical authority," the Holy Father said. When the groups approach them, he said, bishops should respond carefully and lovingly, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, their needs and their potential contributions to the Church.

-- Tom Hoopes

"I Would Not Speak In This Moment About ..."

Catholic News Service reports that on April 8, before his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI issued a clarification about homosexuals in seminaries. That explains what he said on April 15 aboard Shepherd One, traveling to the United States.

"I would not speak in this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, [which] is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry, this is absolutely incompatible."

Why did he say he wouldn't speak "in this moment" about homosexuality? Because he was following a long line of Holy See decisions on the problem, decisions he had reaffirmed the previous week.

In 2005, the Vatican's Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies distinguished between candidates with a "deep-seated homosexual tendency" and those who had experienced a "transitory problem," perhaps in adolescence. The Congregation for Catholic Education taught:

"In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.'"

In other words: Homosexual experimentation in your past doesn't bar you from being a priest. But if you are part of the gay scene, and self-identify as "gay" as part of who you are ... then the seminary's not for you.

This 2004 teaching was nothing new. In a 2002 speech, Pope John Paul II linked the abuse scandals with seminary instruction and called for the exclusion of seminary candidates with observable “deviations in their affections.” And, lest we forget, his words echoed a 1961 instruction to the superiors of religious communities on “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders.”

This Spring, "In a clarification approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican said its 2005 document prohibiting the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood applies to all types of seminaries," reports Catholic News Service.

"That includes houses of formation run by religious orders and those under the authority of the agencies dealing with missionary territories and Eastern churches, said a statement signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state.

"The two-sentence clarification was published May 17 by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. It came in response to 'numerous requests for clarification,' the Vatican said.

Now, all of this sounds terribly intolerant to our culture today, as I said here once before. But don't forget the February 2004 study commissioned by the bishops. After an exhaustive review of sex abuse in the priesthood, among the 2004 John Jay study's findings was the revelation that the majority of sexual abuse by clergy took place during the 1960s and ’70s, with 81% of the victims being males between the ages of 11 and 17.

National Review Board member Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, told the Register: “I'm amazed that this fundamental bombshell has not been the subject of greater interest and discussion. I'm astonished that people throughout America are not talking about it, thinking about it, and wondering about what the mechanisms were that set this alight.

“If you collect all of the seminary graduates between 1970 and 1973, 10-11% of them abused children,” said McHugh. “That's an amazing fact. This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth, yet it's not being discussed.”

Homosexuals, as the Catechism says, and as the Vatican has repeatedly said, deserve respect and acceptance. Homosexuals are certainly not all abusers -- far from it. But nearly all the abusers were homosexuals, and involvement in the homosexual scene lends itself to sexual excess and militates against sexual restraint, and the Church sees that, in honesty and justice, it must recognize that.

-- Tom Hoopes

A Future Pope Ate Here

There was a lot of buzz in the cultural world in Pittsburgh a couple of weekends ago. The new music director of the venerable Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra took up his baton May 9 and showed concert-goers what they have to look forward to when he moves in permanently in September.
Manfred Honeck is a former violist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra -- and a practicing Catholic.
The Register's Munich correspondent, Robert Rauhut, spoke to Honeck recently, and his interview with him will run soon in our print edition. Honeck's family has run a cafe in the country village of Nenzinger Himmel, Austria, for many years. A few months ago, Honeck was flipping through the cafe's guestbook and came across an entry written in 1979 by then-Archbishop of Munich Josef Ratzinger. He was accompanied on the visit by two deacons.
What did the future Pope write? Honeck recalls the entry thus: "Archbishop and deacons assembled in the kingdom of Heaven."
Why Heaven? The name of the rustic, Alpine village, Nenzinger Himmel, translates as "Nenzinger Heaven."
--John Burger

Pope Benedict will Visit Blessed Mary MacKillop Shrine

Among the sites that Pope Benedict XVI will visit during his trip to Australia, one will be the tomb (pictured at left) of Blessed Mary MacKillop. We've known this for some time, but it was officially confirmed by Vatican officials this week.

Papal Trips Organiser, Alberto Gasbarri, and Protocol Officer from the Papal Office, Paulo Corvini, arrived in Australia yesterday to approve the final stages of WYD08 preparations and approve elements of the Holy Father’s itinerary.

"Today we can confirm that the Holy Father will visit the tomb of Blessed Mary MacKillop, one of WYD08’s 10 patrons” said WYD08 Coordinator Bishop Fisher OP.

“Mary MacKillop’s story of serving the poor and the uneducated is inspiring to all Australians and we hope she will also inspire the youth of the world.”

The Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Guiseppe Lazzarotto, confirmed the Holy Father will pray at Mary MacKillop’s tomb in North Sydney during his stay.

“The Holy Father will be one of the thousands of pilgrims who will visit her shrine in July,” Archbishop Lazzarotto said.

“He will pray for Australia and the young pilgrims of the world so that they may be filled with the Holy Spirit and be witnesses to Christ.”

Pope Benedict won't be the first Pope to visit her shrine. A chair at the tomb marks the spot where Pope John Paul II sat and prayed during his visit to the continent. Pope John Paul II beatified Mary MacKillop in 1995.

-- Tim Drake

World Youth Day Videos

There are a number of preparatory World Youth Day videos online. Here's a sampling of a few of the better ones. Enjoy!

-- Tim Drake

This last one is the official World Youth Day theme song - "Receive the Power. "

Getting Ready Down Under

Well, sufficiently well rested and with a book under my belt, it's time to rev up for the biggest gathering the Church has ever seen in Australia, in fact - the largest gathering in Australia's history - World Youth Day. We're only 57 days away.

Preparations are being made for the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that organizers expect to attend. The Church and the city of Sydney are being readied.

The Age has this story, which shows that Randwick Racecourse is being prepared for the 300,000 expected for Saturday's vigil and Sunday's Mass. Another 200,000 or more will be accommodated at nearby Centennial Park. For the event, the two sites are being united with the common name The Southern Cross Precinct. Organizers have said that the Holy Father will wind his way through the Precinct leading up to the final Mass on July 20th.

In addition to the construction of 4,000 temporary toilets, workers are also installing 35 large video screens and more than 60 lighting towers for the event.

"For the evening vigil, we'll need to accommodate an overnight population bigger than the Northern Territory," a World Youth Day spokesman was quoted by the Daily Telegraph.

Numbers are also starting to pour in, as well as secular reports that the numbers are fewer than original expectations. That's misleading because many of the pilgrims do not register until the final weeks before the event.

This story, from Asia News, reports that 900 Vietnamese will be attending World Youth Day. This one, states that 4,000 New Zealanders are expected to take part. So far, 93,000 pilgrims from overseas and 30,000 from within Australia have registered for the event.

-- Tim Drake

Benedict's Blessing

At Trinity Sunday Mass in Genoa ...

Mass on Genoan Fields

The Trinity Sunday Mass at Piazza della Vittoria in Genoa.

Another Kind of Rain

At Genoa May 18, it was confetti that rained down ...

Raindrops

"Dear young people, unfortunately, the rain followed me in these days," said Pope Benedict XVI Sunday in Genoa, "but let us take it as a sign of blessing, fertility for the land, even as a symbol of the Holy Spirit who comes and renews the earth, the earth dry of our souls."

Nice.

Here's the Pope in the Savona rain on Saturday:

Apocalyptic Predictions From Novelists Notwithstanding ...

Bishop Anthony Fisher (an Australian Dominican who Tim Drake interviewed here) vigorously defended World Youth Day this week (he is the co-ordinator of the day).

He was replying to Australian Alan Gold, who wrote a scathing piece about WYD called "God's Day Out a Shambles."

"Novelist Alan Gold demonstrates his skill as a fiction writer in his recent opinion piece about World Youth Day 2008," begins the good bishop. He continues:

"While the Sydney Olympics ran like a well-oiled machine, he says, insecurity, top-level resignations and a growing 'sense of doom' have turned the organisation of WYD into a potential nightmare.

"Now let's be clear. There have been no top-level resignations from WYD, which is unusual given the size of the staff and the mammoth task involved.

"The reason for the extraordinary sticking power of our staff is that, far from a sense of doom, there are such good spirits and excitement among the leaders and staff, as there are among other Australians. The same cannot be said for some of those campaigning against World Youth Day with their dire predictions and constant carping about costs."

"Apocalyptic predictions from novelists notwithstanding ... it will be a magical time for all Sydney, and for all Australia, not just the Catholics, not just the youth. Ordinary people will join the pilgrims in big numbers and will have an emotionally and spiritually uplifting time. At least, that's been the experience in every previous host city."

Asks the bishop: "So what's going on here? Why the constant negativity in some quarters?"

Read the whole thing to find out Bishop Fisher's answer.

Vatican Lining Up Saints Against Abuse

Father Michael J. McGivney (1852-1890) is a saint for America today, particularly regarding immigration and the renewal of the priesthood after the abuse crisis.

So says Msgr. Robert Sarno, an official at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in an interview with the Register's Edward Pentin.

See the whole  interview next week at www.ncRegister.com, but this part  has some interesting news in it (and it wouldn't fit in the print edition).

Asks Pentin:

In a recent interview, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone made the connection between Father McGivney and the sexual abuse crisis. Do you think his cause is very timely, to elevate his example in light of these circumstances?

The answer:

Yes indeed — combining what Cardinal Bertone said together with what the Holy Father said about the holiness of the priest, that holiness is really what we’re all about.

We’re all called to be holy. That is a lifelong project, a whole life that we look at.

Holiness is not something you achieve and you have it in a box and you keep it there forever. It’s something that has to be constantly worked at, and so at this particular moment in the history of the American Church, Father McGivney offers to us an example of a holy priest who dedicated himself to the ministry and to service of God’s people and to its complete fullness and in dedication to Our Lord.

There are other figures, too, in the American Church who are also under study at the congregation that have given this kind of example.

I think, for example, of Father Nelson Baker (1842-1936) from the Diocese of Buffalo who is a Servant of God, or Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who dedicated his entire life in full and complete service to the Lord and the ministry, or Bishop [Alphonse] Gallegos (1931-1991), the auxiliary Bishop of Sacramento.

So there are other figures in the American Church who are now just coming to the fore.

Father McGivney is certainly the first and stands out because we are talking about someone who was active in the 19th century. He’s the first of a line and hopefully there will be many more coming.

 

Pope Benedict to Thank WYD Volunteers

World Youth Day Organizers say:

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will hold a special audience with the 8,000 people who volunteer for World Youth Day (WYD08) to thank them for their hard work and dedication. (It's not too late to volunteer. They're still looking for about 3,000 volunteers.)

Instead of holding a tickertape parade, all WYD08 volunteers will be invited to an exclusive event with Pope Benedict before he boards his return flight to Rome.

“This will be a wonderful way to thank the 8,000 people who will have devoted their time to become the face of World Youth Day,” said WYD08 Chief Operating Officer, Danny Casey.

“We are still remembered for the generosity and altruism that around 47,000 volunteers displayed during the Sydney 2000 Olympics,” Mr Hollway said.

WYD08 only has around 8,000 volunteer roles on offer and organisers have already received applications from 5,000 people.

Roles are available in:

• operations and crowd management
• customer service
• language and translations
• staffing,
• hospitality & catering
• accommodation
• production
• communications
• liturgy and evangelisation

“Volunteers will take away more than just unforgettable experiences and fond memories of their participation, but also the knowledge that they were part of something huge - a significant page in Australia’s history,” said WYD08 Chief Operating Officer Danny Casey.

Volunteers must be over the age of 18 and be able to work during the event week 15 – 20 July, and will receive a uniform, backpack and assistance with public transport costs and meals.

WYD08 is taking applications now. For more information and to apply, visit www.wyd2008.org/volunteer

-- Tim Drake

You Know You've Got Their Attention When ...

... every little thing you do is headlined.

Pro: An attentive audience is, generally speaking, a receptive audience. This even applies to the section reserved for the press. Maybe they'll receive the Gospel while they're salivating for a scoop.

Con: Those who see you primarily as a celebrity — and their numbers are legion today — will see your very humanness as fair game for silly sport ... and report on you accordingly.  

DP

Can Tim Drake Keep Up?

This weekend the Pope's jetting off to the Liguori region of Italy for a pastoral visit to Savona & Genoa. While there, he'll celebrate mass of course. He'll also meet with sick children and their families, youth, consecrated men and women, and the bishops of the region. Also scheduled: visits to two Marian shrines: Our Lady of Mercy in Savona and Our Lady of the Watch in Genoa. The former commemorates the appearance of Our Lady to a Shepherd, Bl. Antonio Botta, in 1536. At the time, the cities of Savona & Genoa were at war, and Our Lady urged both sides to practice "mercy, not justice." You can read the entire program for the weekend here.

The Vatican also recently confirmed the Pope will travel to Paris in September, followed by a visit  to Lourdes in honor of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions there. For someone who says he's too old to travel much and must conserve his energy, the Holy Father gets around.

    -Rebecca Teti

Make Like the Pope's Secretary, and ...

Pray the rosary with him!

Benedict XVI has a “profound Marian devotion," says his spokesman. "He prays the Rosary every day with his secretaries while walking, and thus he invites us to us this prayer: simple, humble, daily, which everyone can pray with devotion and which helps us also to meditate on the mysteries of the life of Christ together with Mary, who is obviously the person closest to Christ.”

Catholics will soon be able to pray the Rosary with Pope Benedict XVI thanks to Vatican Radio, which will release a 4-CD set with all 20 mysteries, reports Catholic News Agency.

Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See’s Press Office, said on Vatican Radio that the idea for the Rosary CDs came as a response to interest from listeners who were accustomed to praying the Rosary with the Servant of God Pope John Paul II.

“During his last years,” he continued, “Pope John Paul II was not able to pray the Rosary live, but since there were various recordings, the listeners, the faithful, could use their cassettes of the Rosary led by the Pope, thus facilitating their prayer and devotion.”

Father Lombardi said that “with the new pontificate, there was renewed interest in praying the Rosary with the Holy Father,” and the CDs are an effort to respond to that interest.

The Pope recorded the CDs in Latin because “we have received requests not only from Italy but from places such as Germany and other countries.  So we have used this language for the Rosary which everyone understands easily and because it is the universal language of the Church.”

Unity Is A Fruit Of Discipleship

Here's the text of the Holy Father's homily for Pentecost that Tom Hoopes promised a few posts ago.Of course read it in its entirety to grasp the fullness of his message, but I absolutely loved this:

At Pentecost the Church is not constituted by a human will, but by the power of the Spirit of God. And it immediately appears how this Spirit gives life to a community that is at the same time one and universal, thus overcoming the curse of Babel (cf. John 11:7-9). Only the Spirit, in fact, which creates unity in love and in the reciprocal acceptance of diversity, can liberate humanity from the constant tension of an earthly will-to-power that wants to dominate and make everything uniform.

Remember the ancient maxim, often attributed to Benedict’s patron, St. Augustine: “In essential things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity”? Benedict teaches that only the Holy Spirit is capable of bringing that ideal about. Left to ourselves, we have a tendency to fly off in one of two directions. Either we try to elevate our personal preferences into questions of morality (as if there were only one "Catholic" way to load a dishwasher); or, fed up, we break off into factions, unable to live with one another. It’s the Holy Spirit who is the author of true unity within diversity, allowing for the beautiful multiplicity of charisms and authentic Christian discipleship within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. It is not our place to establish this unity so much as to allow it to take shape in us through union with the Holy Spirit. And this we achieve through prayer, which the Holy Father says,

is the principal activity of the nascent Church.

Beautiful! And speaking of multiplicity of charisms, this weekend the Pontifical Council on the Laity is bringing 100 or so of the world's bishops together with representatives of 20 of the so-called "new movements" within the Church for a four-day seminar on the new movements as gifts of the Holy Spirit.

     -Rebecca Teti

Remembering May 13, 1981

We all remember the pictures of Pope John Paul II embracing Ali Agca in 1982, a few months after his assassination attempt. But remember when he embraced Agca's mother, in 1998?

Today is the anniversary of the Fatima-Day assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. A few years ago, we ran a first-person account of the day by Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisz. Here's Part ONE and here's Part TWO

And here's a picture of the statue that now has the assassin's bullet affixed on its crown. Here the statue is being brought to the scene of the crime in 2006:

Benedict Channels the Fathers

Our publisher, Father Owen Kearns, and I once had a conversation about the difficulty of writing headlines to Benedict stories. Something about the way Benedict writes and speaks is extraordinary. But it's a subtle thing. He speaks of Christian mysteries in  a straightforward way that seems very ordinary. But his insights are penetrating and deep.

He will say something like: "Christianity is friendship with Jesus," then give that phrase a depth and breadth that you never noticed was there, and you'll read it and grasp something new for the first time. But then you slap a headline on it like "Christianity is friendship with Jesus," and it looks like a We Gather workbook chapter head.

In an interview with the Catholic organization “Early Christians,” Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L’Osservatore Romano, got at this problem a little bit in discussing Benedict's audiences about the Christian Fathers:

Benedict is “so imbued with Christian tradition that he does not need to include many quotes; rather, he himself is so immersed that he speaks as a Father of the Church, what he says is understood, even though they are profound discourses. It is a way of drawing close to the Christian experience in a very lofty but understandable way.”

That's a nice way of putting it.

-- Tom Hoopes

Benedict on Humanae Vitae

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday praised the teaching against artificial contraception in a speech marking the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's 1968 "Humanae vitae" ("On Human Life"). Here are some quotes from the AP version.

"The teaching laid out in the 'Humanae vitae' encyclical isn't easy," Benedict said.

"What was true yesterday remains true even today. 'The truth expressed in 'Humane vitae' doesn't change; on the contrary, in the light of new scientific discoveries it is ever more up to date," the Pope added.

He also spoke about the Church's teaching against vitro fertilization:

"No mechanical technique can substitute the act of love that two married people exchange as a sign of a greater mystery," Benedict said in his speech.

Benedict expressed concern that human life risks losing its value in today's culture and worried that sex could "transform itself into a drug" that one partner had to have even against the will of the other.

(Update: Here's what he said, according to Zenit ... The Pontiff affirmed that "in a culture suffering from the prevalence of having over being, human life risks losing its value. If the practice of sexuality becomes a drug that seeks to enslave the partner to one's own desires and interests, without respecting the times of the beloved, then what must be defended is no longer just the concept of love but, primarily, the dignity of the person. As believers we could never allow the power of technology to invalidate the quality of love and the sacredness of life.")

Paul VI was said to have agonized over whether to allow artificial conception in preparing the encyclical. Benedict described Paul's decision as the fruit of much suffering and the document as "a significant gesture of courage."

"Forty years after its publication, that teaching not only shows itself to be unchanged in its truth, but it reveals the farsightedness with which the problem was tackled," Benedict said.

Rose Petals For Pentecost

Rebecca Teti here: I write the Faith & Culture column for the Register's sister publication, Faith & Family magazine. You owe yourself a look at Fr.John Zuhlsdorf's pictures of one of the coolest Roman Pentecost traditions --the dropping of millions of rose petals through the oculus of the Pantheon (which has been the Catholic church of St. Mary of the Martyrs for some time now). Fr. Z, as he's affectionately known to Catholic bloggers, has some photos of how it's done (firefighters, huge ladders), but best of all, some terrific photos too of the petals being released. They really look like tongues of fire.

Update: And here while it lasts is video of the same ceremony at the Benedictine Abbey in Padua. What riches we have in the Church! The Abbey's website (in Italian) speculates on the custom's origin and says "this simple gesture inserted into the solemn liturgy of Pentecost creates an extraordinary atmosphere of prayer and contemplation." Or anyway, I think that's what it says.

Benedict's Pentecost

Pope Benedict has been pushing Pentecost, hard, particularly praying for a new Pentecost in America, as we point out here.

The Vatican is supporting the boss with this collection of Pentecost texts. The Pope has been calling for a new Pentecost for the whole Church and explained what he means by it, here, to clergy:

it is Jesus himself who promises that he will ask the Father to send his Spirit, defined as "another Paraclete" (Jn 14: 16), a Greek word that is equivalent to the Latin "ad-vocatus", an advocate-defender. The first Paraclete is in fact the Incarnate Son who came to defend man from the accuser by antonomasia, who is Satan. At the moment when Christ, his mission fulfilled, returns to the Father, he sends the Spirit as Defender and Consoler to remain with believers for ever, dwelling within them. Thus, through the mediation of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, an intimate relationship of reciprocity is established between God the Father and the disciples: "I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you", Jesus says (Jn 14: 20).

As Hartford's Archdiocese's New Haven auxiliary Bishop Peter Rosazza put it yesterday to the confirmation class at St. Mary's in New Haven, "if you had the spirit of John Paul, you'd do the things John Paul did. If you had the spirit of Nelson Mandela, you would do the things he did. But you have the spirit of Christ."

We'll post Benedict's homily from yesterday once it's in English.

-- Tom Hoopes

High-Tech Benedict

Speaking of the Vatican going high-tech, as we do below, here's a look at a Pope Benedict XVI text message on a GSM cell phone. The pope will send daily text messages directly to pilgrims with GSM cell phones during World Youth Day July 15-20 in Sydney, Australia. (This hasn't happened yet, so this is a CNS illustration credited to Emily Thompson and Paul Haring.)

Surfer Cross

Surfers welcomed the World Youth Day cross and icon on Bell's Beach near Melbourne, Australia, May 8. The cross and icon have been carried thousands of miles through Australia in advance of World Youth Day in July.

 

Catholic News Service offered this Fiona Ba sile, Reuters photo. And this one, of the young people carrying the cross up the beach steps ...

New Vatican Latin Site

The Vatican's website, http://www.vatican.va, has a new Latin section. On the opening screen, it's listed right there beside German, Italia, English and the rest. Go direct to it here.

It looks like this:

The Vatican is getting more high-tech every day. In December, the Congregation for the Clergy unveiled a Web site offering the Bible in nine languages, the Code of Canon Law and commentary on Sunday liturgy.

The congregation's new site, www.bibliaclerus.org, is part of its www.clerus.org Web site geared toward serving the world's priests, deacons and catechists.

People accessing the new site will be able to read Scripture along with its interpretation in light of tradition, the teachings of the church and papal commentaries.

Biblical texts are available in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese.

Oceanic Sea Change?

John Allen has an excellent commentary piece in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning called (did it appear elsewhere? Google only mentions Australian papers, with this title anyway) "Chance to recast relations with Rome." He describes what Denver (the smallest World Youth Day to date, by the way) did for the U.S.:

"Denver was a runaway triumph. Measured against modest expectations, turnout was impressive. More to the point, the 500,000 youth who showed up were wildly enthusiastic. The city rolled out the red carpet, and American media coverage was both extensive and overwhelmingly positive.

"One can date a sea change in Vatican attitudes towards the US from that moment. Most importantly, the 1993 World Youth Day helped Rome to grasp that America's traditions of pluralism and church-state separation do not inhibit religion, but rather allow the faith to flourish. That is a theme Benedict XVI repeatedly stressed on his recent visit to Washington and New York.

He suggests the same will happen in Australia:

"As was once the case with the US, there is concern in Rome that Australia's egalitarian culture, with its emphasis on tolerance rather than truth, is not the best soil for Catholicism to flower. Lacking little direct contact with Australia, the perceptions of many Vatican officials are sometimes disproportionately shaped by media reports of conflict and the complaints that reach their offices from a handful of well-organised activists.

"Sydney's World Youth Day thus represents a chance for Australia to recast itself in a positive light. If all goes well, the event could not only showcase the best of Catholicism for the Australian public, but it could also usher in a new 'era of good feelings' with Rome."

Which raises the question: What will the 2008 U.S. visit do?

-- Tom Hoopes

Cooking for the Pope

Tom Hoopes here. There is still plenty to talk about in the Pope's visit to the United States. People will be quoting it and "unpacking" it for years.

But the Register will pause for a moment next week to look at it from this woman's point of view:

She is Lidia Bastianich, the PBS cooking personality of the show  "Lidia's Italy." She's a New York Catholic who, in mid April, could have renamed her show "Lidia's Vatican." She was in charge of cooking for the Pope, and she delighted in the experience, which she found profoundly moving.

More coming up in the Register (subscribe!), but for now, we'll whet yor appetite with this picture of the "motherly" Lidia guiding the Holy Father's hand as he cut his own papal anniversary cake at the U.N. observer's residence in Rome ... (click on it to make it larger)

Gus Lloyd XVI Again

Gus Lloyd is still recording the papal messages in his easy-to-understand accent. Here's the latest from his great new redesigned website:

 

 

How to Pray a Holy Hour

As we once put it in Faith & Family: To pray a holy hour, all you need is a tabernacle with a lit sanctuary lamp, a Bible (or Magnificat ), and a Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (available online  or through Amazon or any Catholic bookseller).

Three Rules
1. Be attentive: Don't rattle prayers or silently review stresses. Be silent exteriorly and interiorly.
2. Be alert: It's not a reading hour — readings should be brief intervals to jump-start your prayer.
3. Be awake: Sit, stand, or kneel respectfully. Draping your body, or resting your head in your arms on the pew can put you to sleep!

Minute by Minute
(Vary any or all of this to suit your needs!)

:00-:05
(5 Minutes)
Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you (perhaps the "Come Holy Spirit" in the Compendium's prayers section).
Make acts of faith, hope and charity. Tell God how much and why you believe in him, trust in him and love him. Or meditatively use the Acts of Faith, Hope and Charity in the Compendium's prayers section.
Ask for more faith, hope and charity.

:05-:15
(10 minutes)
Adore God (imagine sitting with Christ)
Pray: "Oh my God, I adore your divine greatness from the depths of my littleness, you are so great, and I am so small." or "Glory Be ..." Repeat as long as necessary.
Or use the Te Deum (in the Compendium prayers)
Or read Scripture (try John 1:1-18; Colossians 1:15-20; Philippians 2:6-11)

:15-:25
(10 minutes)
Contrition (imagine embracing Christ on the cross)
Pray: "Oh my Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner."
Examine your conscience using 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Colossians 3:5-10, or any examination of conscience.
Or pray one of the Penitential Psalms: 6, 32, 38,  51, 102

:25-:40
(15 minutes)
Meditate.
Pray: The Rosary or the Stations of the Cross.
Or read the Gospel of the day in your Magnificat, or a brief passage from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Or meditate on a doctrine in the compendium (Perhaps: Sun., Resurrection; Mon., Incarnation; Tues., Mercy/confession; Wed., Holy Spirit; Thurs, Eucharist; Fri., Passion; Sat., Mary).
Or meditate on one of the Formulas of Christian Doctrine (or one of the prayers) in the Compendium.

:40-:50
(10 minutes)
Give Thanks
Pray: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his mercy endures forever."
Thank him for (be specific): food, shelter, clothing, health, family, friends, coworkers, your job, car, material things, and most of all your spiritual gifts -- faith, hope, love, this time of prayer, the Catholic faith, and the "apostles" who reached you.
Thank God for answers to prayer and favorable circumstances. Thank him for crosses. Thank him for creating you and caring so much for you.

:50-:55
(5 minutes)
Pray: "Our Father ..."
Ask him for: the Church, the pope's intentions, for those who are suffering, for priests and bishops, for religious, for vocations, for your country, your family, for what you need most in the spiritual life.
Pray for peace and the protection of the institution of the family.
Pray for those who have asked for prayers.

:55-1:00
(5 minutes)
Make a resolution to act on a light of the Holy Spirit you received. Be specific and concrete.
Ask the Blessed Mother to help you, perhaps with Marian prayers from the Compendium.

Good luck!
-- Tom Hoopes

Adoration

At the National Shrine, the Pope recommended Eucharistic adoration to the bishops. the bishops:

"Time spent in prayer is never wasted, however urgent the duties that press upon us from every side. Adoration of Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament prolongs and intensifies the union with him that is established through the Eucharistic celebration."

Today, via his address to the general audience the religious sisters of the Order of Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, in Rome for the beatification of their founder.

He was celebrating the beatification of Blessed Maria Maddalena dell'Incarnazione (born Caterina Sordini) was beatified Saturday in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. He said:

"I encourage the increasing promotion of love for the Eucharist so that, alongside each of the order's convents, groups of 'adorers' spring up.

"In this way, the longing of your beloved founder will be fulfilled, [she] who loved to repeat, 'May Jesus be known, loved and adored by all, and be in every moment the receiver of thanksgiving in the most holy and most divine sacrament.'"

...

"Fascinated by the Eucharistic mystery," he continued, "her mission -- received from the Lord himself -- was that of proposing […] to the whole Church the experience of an adoration that is 'perpetual.' Just as Jesus stays in the sacrament after the [Eucharistic] celebration too, it is necessary for us to stay with him, [in an] adoration that is prolonged through time."

When was your last Holy Hour?

Media Badmouthing Revisited

Another topic that came up during last night's talk to the deacons was the mainstream media's coverage of the Pope's visit. They wanted to know what I thought of it, in general. That discussion bounced around pretty good. Then I shared the anecdote about the young reporter whose editor gave him the St. Patrick's Cathedral assignment even though he'd never seen a Catholic Mass before. Suggested this sort of halfhearted effort was emblematic of the superficial coverage we've come to expect from Big Media on all things Catholic.

Well and good, my point, but an elderly and wise deacon proposed another way to look at that episode.

"You can never tell what being exposed to the beauty of the Mass for the first time is going to do to someone," he gently pointed out before adding, in so many words, that beauty is truth. And truth attracts.

Touché, Deacon. The last word on the story is yours.

— DP

No Hard Feelings, Baran

CNS posted a photo of the Ukranian photographer whose spot on the railing I stole as the Pope landed at Andrews Air Force Base.

"Baran Oleksandr of Lviv, Ukraine, shows his media credential for the U.S. pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Washington April 15," says the Catholic News Service caption. "Oleksandr, a photographer with Itar Tass news agency, is among the thousands of journlists covering the pope's visit to Washington and New York." (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

In my defense, or as a salve to my conscience, it looks like he got some pretty good shots, including this one from that event:

How Do You Say 'Bravo' in Chinese?

Here's how Pope Benedict XVI translates it after enjoying a performance just for him by the China Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Music, and art in general, can serve as a privileged instrument for encounter and reciprocal knowledge and esteem between different populations and cultures. ...

In greeting you this evening, dear Chinese artists, the pope intends to reach out to your entire people, with a special thought for those of your fellow citizens who share faith in Jesus and are united through a particular spiritual bond with the Successor of Peter."

There's more to those last five words than meets the eye, of course. To Catholics in China loyal to the Holy Father, as opposed to the state-run "Catholic" church in China, there's a lot more. Here's hoping many members of the underground Church hear those words — and understand the phrase to signal that the Pope is praying for them. Probably with some real urgency.   

Meanwhile "one Vatican source familiar with the situation" is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. He's hopeful. The thinking is that warmer relations between the Pope and Beijing  might ease the Chinese persecution. 

"I don't think they (the communist government) are doing it out of love for the pope or love of the Holy See but it will be positive in the end."

Hope, of course, is one of the theological virtues. Realpolitik, not so much.

-- DP

'A Pope We Can Understand'

Last Tuesday a deacon at my parish asked me to speak to the deacons of his deanery and their wives. Last night I gave the talk. I wanted to recommend the Register. This I did but, at the Q&A session afterward, the group, 30 or so strong, seemed more interested in getting me to unpack the inner doings of the Legionaries of Christ. The latter is, of course, the publisher not only of the Register but also of Faith & Family magazine, Catholic.net, Circle Press and this blog.

I obliged. In a nutshell: Sorry to disappoint, folks, but I don't know much about the order's internal workings. I only know they've been a good employer to me these nearly nine years. They provide an ideal environment for reaping the rewards to be had doing real journalism, fair and balanced, in the service of the Church. They set direction but they don't micromanage. Ideal.

Next most-pressing question: What impact did I think the Pope's U.S. visit would have on ecumenism? (One deacon, evidently assuming the Register enjoys total, "Inside the Popemobile"-level access, asked for my impressions of Benedict's approach to ecumenism "based on your meetings with him." Hehe. I guess a little media mystique goes a long way.)

I said I thought the Holy Father does ecumenism right. He invites all our separated brothers and sisters in non-Catholic Christian communities to compare notes with us. Seems to me