Category: Benedict XVI

Folks are speculating that B16 will soon allow the former rite of Mass to be celebrated by priests of the Latin rite without special permission from their bishops.

In fact, folks have been speculating that for a while since Pre-16 was open in stating that he thought greater permission should be given for this.

What’s new is that Cambridge professor Eamonn Duffy has been speculating the same thing, in public, and with the addition of a timetable:

In remarks to the National Conference of Priests of Ireland, Eamonn Duffy said that he thought the Pope would make the policy change in October, during the meeting of the Synod of Bishops. The topic for Synod discussions is the Eucharist.

GET THE STORY.

I wonder if the good professor is being overly optimistic. I fully expect that B16 will make sure that the subject is discussed during the Synod, but I don’t know that he’s prepared to simply make the decision at this point if there is strong opposition to the proposal, much less do I think it’ll be announced during the Synod. That’ll take a while even if he carries through on the plan.

If he does, it could help facilitate a healing with the schismatic SSPX, which might then schism itself, with part coming back to the Church and part not.

Or so one might suppose from the comments of jerkboyrogue Bishop Richard Williamson, who’s already out spinning the issue.

GET THE OTHER STORY.

Catholic World News is reporting that B16 has approved the document from the Congregation for Catholic Education barring the ordination of homosexuals.

EXCERPTS:

The new document– which was prepared by the Congregation for Catholic Education, in response to a request made by the late Pope John Paul II in 1994– will be published soon. It will take the form of an "Instruction," signed by the prefect and secretary of the Congregation: Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and Archbishop Michael Miller.

The text, which was approved by Pope Benedict at the end of August, says that homosexual men should not be admitted to seminaries even if they are celibate, because their condition suggests a serious personality disorder which detracts from their ability to serve as ministers.

Priests who have already been ordained, if they suffer from homosexual impulses, are strongly urged to renew their dedication to chastity, and a manner of life appropriate to the priesthood.

Informed sources in Rome indicate that the Instruction probably will be made public after the Synod of Bishops, which meets in Rome from October 2 through 23.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

One thing I’d be careful about with the story: It says that John XXIII approved a policy to the same effect and that it remains in force. This appears to be inaccurate. There was such a policy approved for religious priests (as opposed to diocesan ones) during John XXIII’s reign, but (a) it was  not a policy for all priests and (b) it may well not be in effect at this point due to changes in Church law, which has been extensively renovated since that time.

This is a minor point, though, and should not detract from the heartening newsrumor that B16 has given his approval to the document.

GET THE STORY.

UPDATE: Sigh. Zenit has the most annoying and unprofessional habit of keeping a finite number of story pages and the changing the text on those pages, instead of generating a new page for each story. What is wrong with those people! In any event, they’ve now changed the text on the page I linked to something completely different.

Okay, so forget Zenit.

NOW, GET THE STORY.

Recently I was reading an article that compared JP2’s use of crowd-pleasing zingers to B16’s allegedly more reserved, shy style.

Not so fast!

The current pontiff may be more reserved by nature, but he’s able to deliver a killing joke if he wants to.

Consider the following opening from a recent speech he gave to an ecumenical gathering in Germany:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Permit me to remain seated after such a strenuous day. This does not mean I wish to speak "ex cathedra."

ZING! Man! What a great line! A joke only the pope can tell! (At least with the same punch.)

His next line is only a step down from this:

Also, excuse me for being late. Unfortunately, Vespers took longer than
foreseen and the traffic was slower moving than could be imagined.

Again, what great irony. B16 may not have meant this one to be humorous, but I can’t get over the irony of the successor of Peter complaining about traffic jams and using the phrase "slower . . . than could be imagined" regarding them.

But maybe that’s just me. His first line totally ROCKS, though.

As the discourse goes on, he gets into more serious territory, and it is here that he shows his humility. First, he says:

I do not intend here to outline a program for the immediate themes of
dialogue — this task belongs to theologians working alongside the
bishops: the theologians, on the basis of their knowledge of the
problem; the bishops from their knowledge of the concrete situation in
the Church in our country and in the world.

This is remarkable, and may indeed by different than what JP2 would have done. JP2 was a man of remarkable self-confidence, and this does contrast with B16’s free admissions of personal inadequacy. Here B16 publicly confesses that he is not the most informed person on a matter and that others are more expert in it than him. He holds himself back from using the power that is his as pope to set an agenda and leaves this to others who can do it better in his view. THAT is humility–to refrain from doing what you could in order to allow others to better promote the greatr good.

But he does have a contribution to make, and it’s a remarkable one. He goes on to say:

May I make a small comment: now, it is said that following the
clarification regarding the doctrine of justification, the elaboration
of ecclesiological issues and the questions concerning ministry are the
main obstacles still to be overcome. In short, this is true, but I must
also say that I dislike this terminology, which from a certain point of
view delimits the problem since it seems that we must now debate about
institutions instead of the Word of God, as though we had to place our
institutions in the center and fight for them. I think that in this way
the ecclesiological issue as well as that of the "Ministerium" are not
dealt with correctly.

The real question is the presence of the Word in the world. In the
second century the early Church primarily took a threefold decision:
first, to establish the canon, thereby stressing the sovereignty of the
Word and explaining that not only is the Old Testament "hai graphai" [Greek, "the Scriptures"],
but together with the New Testament constitutes a single Scripture
which is thus for us the master text.

However, at the same time the Church has formulated an apostolic
succession, the episcopal ministry, in the awareness that the Word and
the witness go together; that is, the Word is alive and present only
thanks to the witness, so to speak, and receives from the witness its
interpretation. But the witness is only such if he or she witnesses to
the Word.

Third and last, the Church has added the "regula fidei" [Latin, "the rule of faith"] as a key
for interpretation. I believe that this reciprocal compenetration
constitutes an object of dissent between us, even though we are
certainly united on fundamental things.

Therefore, when we speak of ecclesiology and of ministry we must
preferably speak in this combination of Word, witness and rule of
faith, and consider it as an ecclesiological matter, and therefore
together as a question of the Word of God, of his sovereignty and
humility inasmuch as the Lord entrusts his Word, and concedes its
interpretation, to witnesses which, however, must always be compared to
the "regula fidei" and the integrity of the Word.

This probably sent shockwaves through B16’s audience. He may have introduced it by calling it a "small comment," but that’s just him being humble again. What he did in these brief paragraphs was to completely recontextualize the ecumenical discussion–at least in Germany (though his remarks will have repercussions far beyond that nation).

The problem he’s commenting on is that ecumenists have focused on particular doctrines–like the organization of the Church and the nature of ministry–as if they were the things we need to talk about. B16 recognizes, though, that our positions on these issues fall out from our higher-level views on how we derive doctrine–in other words the question of "authority" as many Evangelicals in America put it. To solve these lower level issues, the pope is suggesting, we need to discuss them in the context of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium (though he refrains from using the latter two terms).

In other words, ecumenists need to stop talking about the symptom without talking about the cause of the symptom.

He then says:

Excuse me if I have
expressed a personal opinion; it seemed right to do so.

WOW! Again, what humility. He has just completely recontextualized the ecumenical dialogue in Germany,  but he says that this is just "a personal opinion." He refuses to use the power that is his as pope as an agenda-setter (something that even the Lutheran ecumenists in Germany recognize) to tell people that they must proceed on these terms.

He plops an insight of crucial importance onto the table and then refuses to use the power that is his to make others take it up. He leaves it to their judgment to recognize the importance of his opinon–or not; their choice.

It’s hard to imagine JP2 doing that. He identified himself and his opinions with the office of the papacy to a far greater degree.

JP2 was a great gift to the Church. So it B16.

But they’re not the same gift. And both are marvelous in different ways.

READ THE FULL TEXT OF B16’S ADDRESS.

CNS offers the following news brief:

Pope to meet with head of schismatic Lefebvrites

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The head of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, was scheduled to meet with Pope Benedict XVI in late August. A Vatican official who asked not to be identified told Catholic News Service Aug. 23 that the meeting between the pope and Bishop Fellay would take place Aug. 29 at Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence outside Rome. The Holy See press office would neither confirm nor deny the report. Bishop Fellay is one of four bishops ordained against papal orders by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988. He is the current head of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Lefebvre after he broke with Rome over liturgical reforms and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. On the society’s U.S. Web site, Bishop Fellay wrote that he felt the April 19 election of Pope Benedict offered "a gleam of hope" in resolving what he called a "profound crisis … shaking the Catholic Church"[ SOURCE.]

I don’t know if this will come to anything (or if the source is even accurate), but B16’s chances of healing the breach with the SSPX are far larger than JP2’s were.

Pre-16 was vocally supportive of the Tridentine rite of Mass, engaged in respectful dialogue with people in the Traditionalist movements, and he has a willingness to talk about and frankly acknowledge the crisis in the Church and in Western Civilization that JP2 didn’t (he tended to put a marked optimistic reading on matters).

All of that gives B16 advantages that his great predecessor didn’t have, but he also has another advantage, and it’s a big one: He ain’t the pope that declared the excommunications. That’s just gotta personalize things for you if you’ve been excommunicated by a pope, and one can see how it would make it hard to reconcile that THAT pope.

But with his successor comes a new start, and if the successor has already been sympathetic . . .

 

Now that you’ve missed it, Pope Benedict XVI has allowed The Curt Jester to lift the veil of secrecy on a parallel event to World Youth Day held in Bonn, Germany: World Misspent Youth Day!

"I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the first annual World Misspent-Youth Day that was held in Bonn, Germany. Our event was much more low-key than World Youth Day going on adjacently in Cologne and the Holy Father did not want WM-YD to upstage WYD. The above is the official logo for WM-YD which has St. Augustine pictured on it since he can truly be considered to be the patron saint of misspent-youth. World Misspent-Youth Day was open to those 35 and above who in their youth lead lives not exactly pious, which really means open to all of us 35 and above. This was the first year for this event and of course there were problems and other wrinkles (which only makes sense) that developed. In spite of that I believe it was fairly successful and that we will see future WM-YDs in the future."

GET THE PARODY.

The bad news is that I wasn’t also invited to relive my misspent youth with the Holy Father. The good news is that I’m still too young to attend this event.

Guestblogger Karen writes:

My husband Chris and I just got back from the pilgrimage to World
Youth Day–what we were able to do of it anyway.

We decided that Saturday would be our "practice finding a parking
place and getting around" day.  After having driven 6.5 hours just to
get there, we drove another few hours figuring out how to get the
closest to Marienfeld in Cologne.

Sure, there were designated parking areas and shuttle buses, but we
quickly found that we couldn’t access them.  It turned out that all
neighboring villages were being completely blocked off, allowing for
only the people who lived there to have access to the roads.

Now I haven’t measured exactly yet, but this left us at a perimeter
that was a 2-hour walk away from our destination, Marienfeld.  While
we were caught in traffic, we could see that we were near enough,
because pilgrims were being dropped off by buses in the same areas we
were scoping out.

They would walk by and wave to the cars stuck in the traffic with huge
smiles.  This made it impossible to be in a bad mood over the traffic.

We decided to park in a village called Quadrath-Ichendorf, and we
walked as briskly as we could to Marienfeld, just to get an idea of
how fast we could get there in case we came back Sunday (which was our
plan).  Like I said, this was a 2-hour walk.  When we went through the
village Horrem, pilgrims were everywhere–on bikes, marching down the
streets with guitars and drums and flags.

192 Countries

One of the first things that struck us was the high and friendly
spirit.  We walked by signs that said, "Welcome, Pilgrims".  Other
kid-pilgrims just kept smiling and waving.  Flags were everywhere.
Later I learned that 192 nations were represented.  I couldn’t believe
the corners of the Earth these people came from for this, but I was so
glad they did.

Some groups walked and sang their native hymns while a few strummed
their guitars, and the sound was fantastic.  I don’t mean those crummy
modern Church-Barney-the-dinosaur "I’m okay, you’re okay" crud songs
or anything pop-sounding.  They played serious music.

One group I thought must be from Spain, but they turned out to be from
Brooklyn.  They were singing an energetic Spanish-sounding song and
that’s the first time of many I felt just overcome with the magnitude
of this event and the spirit.

It was like I was seeing the whole world in one place, and The World
was HAPPY.  Koreans, Africans, Indians, Australians, Canadians, you
name it, they were there.  Later I came to know that one million
people were expected to pour in each day.

We followed the stream of people, which eventually (1.5 hours later)
led us to Marienfeld.  That’s when I realized what an incomprehensible
number 1 million was, at least when measuring people.  The aerial
views that I saw later on television just kept panning and panning,
but there was no end to the people.

Chris and I decided that since it took us so long to get there, we
would stay for the prayer vigil with Pope Benedict, starting at 8:30
PM.  It got noticeably darker, which made it difficult to get good
Pope Pics.  Also we were very far away, so I had to zoom the best I
could with my camera and be content with the pope looking like a
little blurry ant anyway.

We sat on our little spot while other pilgrims laid the foundation for
their tents (most stayed the night in that field) and ate what little
they could fit in their backpacks.   I would feel so sorry for some of
them–they were really roughing it, but they seemed to be having a
great time.

We took numerous videos and pictures–flags waving, nuns walking,
priest-leaders standing out on the road yelling into a cell phone and
waving to whoever in the distance got lost from their group.  There
was a side stage way off in the distance, where musicians played and
opera singers sang.  Speakers were set up everywhere so we could hear
comfortably.

We didn’t know at the time, but they would have the events for each
language translated on several different radio stations.  So if we
wanted to hear the prayers in English, we could have tuned to 95.5 FM
or whatever it was.  We did okay, though–knowing German and English
set us ahead of most pilgrims.

Finally about a half an hour beforehand, it was announced that the
Holy Father was on his way to Marienfeld.  I suspected he’d have been
on the helicopter above, but he actually arrived in the popemobile.  I
sensed he was there because of the crowd, and then saw him on one of
the large screens.

The crowd was WILD.  There was (I think) an original World Youth Day
musical composition being played, and everyone who had a flag was
waving them up high.  Thousands of flags everywhere.  You don’t see
something this powerful anywhere, not even at the Olympics.  Although
they waved different flags, they were waving as one people–Catholics.

The flags were more of a "Greetings from…", not a pride point.
Seeing something like this gave us a feeling of being transported into
some ideal world.  You just can’t imagine it from watching it on TV.

Papa Benedict blessed all of us, a familiar move, but it’s different
when you’re actually there receiving the blessing.  When you get
blessed like that, you feel as if that’s what you’ve wanted all your
life.

Then he went a little ways down the hill where they’d placed a large
bell, and he blessed it and dedicated it to Pope John Paul II, who was
palpably there with us in spirit.  I’d even say I felt Peter, the
first pope, there with us!  You look at this little dot-pope in front
of you and feel connected to the ages.

Chris and I did cheat a little and try just for a spell, to get
closer.  That didn’t help our pictures any, as it became quite dark by
then.

Benedict speaks German very clearly and understandably.  Much later I
heard him in English, and his accent is cute as can be.  He speaks
what you might call with a stereotypical German accent.  "You, zee
youss off zee Verld…" (You, the youth of the world).  I wanted to
hear him speak English, maybe because I knew it would be so charming.

One thing of note about Benedict–he smiles constantly.  He is as
charmed as you are by him.  He is one CUTE pope.  I could tell that he
was as overcome as I was.  How he still kept it together enough to get
on with things, I don’t know.

Chris and I, thinking that we’d get four hours of sleep and come back
for the Mass on Sunday (at 10:30 AM), decided to head out earlier than
we wanted to, and drive to Heinsberg.  We had another 2-hour walk
ahead of us just to get to the car.

About a mile and a half from our car, I, Karen, went completely lame.
I could have walked further if it hadn’t been for my feet, which felt
like knives were stabbing through the heels.  Chris had to part with
me at a gas station and go get the car, and pick me up.

Anyway we finally got back to Heinsberg and slept like rocks.  My cell
phone woke us up at 5 AM, but Chris and I ached all over.
Unfortunately, we did not make it to the Mass–I particularly was in
real pain and even three Ibuprofen didn’t dull it enough.  BUT, we
don’t dwell on this.  Not after what we did manage to do!

We watched the Mass on television.  With some imagination, we were
"there" again, at the Mass.  I had some more "wow" moments watching
it, and I knew that Cologne wasn’t far away anyway.

We packed up and left for home, still feeling somewhat like we only
had one foot on the ground.  We still feel like that!

FROM THE TIMES OF LONDON ABOUT B16 AT WYD.

It struck me while watching coverage of World Youth Day in Cologne that, as you look out over the vast crowd with flags flying from virtually every country on Earth, you are seeing the real United Nations. The Catholic church is truly catholic.
For the most part the United Nations that we all know from the newspapers is a group of mutually suspicious, grudging, scheming members united mainly in their desire to get a larger piece of the pie. They are united in the same way that hyenas are united around a carcass.

By contrast World Youth Day shows us a gathering of people who come together spontaneously, joyfully, with no greater desire than to demonstrate their love for Christ by showing love for one another. It is easy to sense, even through the satellite feed, that they are united in their love for their Papa and the One he represents.

I’m sure there are large numbers of people around the globe that find the scene somewhat alarming. Some of them call themselves Catholics. A Lifesite article relates that
Hans Kung has complained that World Youth Day is “triumphalistic”. To such people WYD is mysterious, and therefore dangerous.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jn. 3:8).

God bless everyone at World Youth Day, and long live Papa Ratzi!

When the new pope was announced, Catholic Answers staffers were crammed into the office’s conference room eagerly watching the television reports of the event (and nearly blew the roof off with cheers when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was announced as Pope). In the hubbub that followed, I exclaimed that the upcoming World Youth Day was being held in Cologne, Germany, and a coworker commented that perhaps a positive spirituality is developing around World Youth Day.

Well, Pope Benedict XVI is now in Cologne, Germany, and accounts of his first return to his homeland following his election are upbeat and joyful:

"Standing on the bow of the boat so all could see his white cassock from afar, [the Pope] sailed past crowds of young people lining the bank, many standing thigh-high in the river.

"’To all of you I appeal: open wide your hearts to God. Let yourselves be surprised by Christ! Let him have the right of free speech these days,’ he told them in an address from the boat as his white hair blew in the wind.

"Benedict is on his first foreign trip since he was elected and he appeared to have a successful first day of charming the young people, nearly all of whom had known no other Pope but his charismatic predecessor John Paul.

"He told his fellow countrymen he was happy ‘to be in my beloved homeland, in Germany.’

"The young people chanted ‘Benedetto’ in a football chant cadence as his boat sailed down Germany’s longest river in a snake-curve pattern so more could see him."

GET THE STORY.

Reading this account, I could almost hear a Polish-accented voice also chanting "Benedetto!" and picture John Paul the Great’s mile-wide grin.

As an aside, I loved Pope Benedict’s call for Christ to be allowed the right of free speech. In this politically-correct age, it seems that Christ and his followers are the only ones of whom it is doubted that they should be allowed to speak freely.