Benedict XVI – Page 3

Pope Benedict on the Mystery of “John the Presbyter”

Questionmark — Early Christian writers speak of a mysterious, 1st century figure called “John the Presbyter.” Who was he, and why is he significant?

Recently we looked at the claim that Mark derived the information in his Gospel from St. Peter.

This claim dates to a first century source: a figure called “John the Presbyter,” who was a disciple of Jesus.

According to some in the early Church–and according to Pope Benedict–we may have already met this mysterious figure in a surprising way.

Here’s the story . . .

A John By Any Other Name

As we saw previously (CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1), John the Presbyter was a figure apparently distinct from John the Apostle.

He also goes by different names in English, since the Greek word for “presbyter”–presbuteros–can be translated “elder.”

Thus sometimes we read of him as “John the Elder” or “the Presbyter John” or “the Elder John.” It’s all the same in Greek.

He has often been conflated with John the Apostle, for several reasons.

One is that they were both, apparently, disciples of Jesus, though the presbyter was not an apostle.

Another is that, in later years, they both apparently lived at Ephesus.

But they may be related in another way . . .

John the Presbyter and Scripture

There is some reason to think that John the Presbyter–like St. Mark–may have been one of those companions of the apostles who ended up playing a role in writing the New Testament.

You’ll note that 2 John and 3 John are both addressed as being from “the Presbyter”/”the Elder”:

2 John 1: ” The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth . . . “

3 John 1: “The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.”

Thus St. Jerome reports:

He [John the Apostle] wrote also one Epistle which begins as follows That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes and our hands handled concerning the word of life [i.e., 1 John] which is esteemed of by all men who are interested in the church or in learning.

The other two of which the first is The elder to the elect lady and her children [i.e., 2 John] and the other The elder unto Gaius the beloved whom I love in truth, [i.e., 3 John] are said to be the work of John the presbyter to the memory of whom another sepulchre is shown at Ephesus to the present day, though some think that there are two memorials of this same John the evangelist [Lives of Illustrious Men 9].

Commening on the list of people Papias did research on, St. Jerome remarks:

It appears through this catalogue of names that the John who is placed among the disciples is not the same as the elder John whom he places after Aristion in his enumeration. This we say moreover because of the opinion mentioned above, where we record that it is declared by many that the last two epistles of John are the work not of the apostle but of the presbyter [ibid. 18]

Pope Benedict Weighs In

Over the centuries, the distinction between John the Apostle and John the Presbyter was obscured, but it has received new attention in recent years.

In Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, Pope Benedict writes:

This information is very remarkable indeed: When combined with related pieces of evidence, it suggests that in Ephesus there was something like a Johannine school, which traced its origins to Jesus’ favorite disciple himself, but in which a certain “Presbyter John” presided as the ultimate authority.

This “presbyter” John appears as the sender and author of the Second and Third Letters of John (in each case in the first verse of the first chapter) simply under the title “the presbyter” (without reference to the name John).

He is evidently not the same as the Apostle, which means that here in the canonical text we encounter expressly the mysterious figure of the presbyter.

He must have been closely connected with the Apostle; perhaps he had even been acquainted with Jesus himself.

After the death of the Apostle, he was identified wholly as the bearer of the latter’s heritage, and in the collective memory, the two figures were increasingly fused.

At any rate, there seem to be grounds for ascribing to “Presbyter John” an essential role in the definitive shaping of the Gospel [of John], though he must always have regarded himself as the trustee of the tradition he had received from the son of Zebedee.

I entirely concur with the conclusion that Peter Stuhlmacher has drawn from the above data. He holds “that the contents of the Gospel go back to the disciple whom Jesus (especially) loved. The presbyter understood himself as his transmitter and mouthpiece” (Biblische Theologie, II, p. 206). In a similar vein Stuhlmacher cites E. Ruckstuhl and P. Dschullnigg to the effect that “the author of the Gospel of John is, as it were, the literary executor of the favorite disciple” (ibid., p. 207) [Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, pp. 226-227].

Pope Benedict thus sees John the Presbyter as the author of 2 and 3 John and as having helped with the writing of the Gospel of John, based on the memories of John the Apostle.

Not an Act of the Magisterium

As Pope Benedict famously said in the preface to Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, the work is not an act of the Magisterium, and “everyone is free, then, to contradict me.”

One might thus hold that John the Presbyter had no hand in writing the New Testament.

Or one might hold that the early Church writers are confused and that John the Presbyter is identical with John the Apostle.

New Testament Author Describes History of New Testament?

But what we have read raises the intriguing possibility that we have more than just a first century tradition regarding how Mark’s Gospel was written.

We may, in fact, have a case of another New Testament author telling us about the origin of Mark’s Gospel.

That wouldn’t be the case if John the Presbyter had no hand in writing the New Testament. In that case, he would be merely a first century voice telling us about the origin of Mark’s Gospel (which is exciting enough).

But it would be the case if Pope Benedict (and St. Jerome, and others) is correct that John the Presbyter is a distinct figure who had a hand in writing the New Testament.

And it also would be the case if John the Presbyter is identical with John the Apostle.

Either way, we would have the origin of St. Mark’s Gospel revealed by one of the other authors of the New Testament.

Fascinating.

Why Did Joseph Plan to Divorce Mary?

dream-of-st-joseph — God sent an angel to convince St. Joseph not to divorce Mary. But why was he planning to divorce her in the first place?

Matthew tells us that when “Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.”

Why did Joseph intend to divorce Mary?

The view that suggests itself to most people is that Joseph thought Mary had been unfaithful to him.

But there is another theory: that Joseph knew the Child had been conceived “of the Holy Spirit” and so Joseph was afraid to take Mary as his wife.

What are we to make of this issue?

And what does Pope Benedict have to say in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives?

What Did Joseph Know & When Did He Know It?

The idea that Joseph did not think Mary had been unfaithful to him may be suggested by the fact that Matthew mentions the miraculous conception of Jesus before he introduces Joseph’s idea of divorce.

He says: “before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.”

Found by whom? Who knew that the Holy Spirit was responsible for the pregnancy?

Presumably, Joseph would have been one of the first to be told.

If he believed this then one could understand why he would be afraid to take Mary as his wife.

Who wouldn’t hesitate to take to wife someone who, in later centuries, would be called “the spouse of the Holy Spirit”?

Thus, as a “just man” he might seek to quietly sever the legal bond between them and would need the assurance of the angel telling him “do not fear to take Mary your wife.”

On the Other Hand . . .

KEEP READING.

Pope’s Twitter Handle: What Does “Pontifex” Mean, Anyway?

August_Labicana_Massimo_Inv56230 — The Emperor Augustus was a "pontifex maximus." So how did that become a term for the pope?

Recently it was announced that Pope Benedict’s new Twitter handle is @pontifex.

Why did he pick this name, and what does it mean, anyway?

The word’s origin is more surprising than you might think!

Other Possible Names

Pope Benedict might have picked other names. Some plausible ones include:

@pope
@popebenedict
@popebenedictxvi
@benedictxvi
@popebenedict16

Why didn’t he pick any of these?

I would suggest two reasons.

Some May Already Be Taken

People have already been using some of the plausible papal Twitter handles, and Twitter does not easily reassign such names.

That’s why my own Twitter handle is @JimmyAkin3000 (Click here to follow me). Someone was already using my preferred handle, and they don’t easily reassign them.

Still, for the pope they might make an exception.

In fact, for all I know, they may have made an exception. Somebody may have already been using @pontifex.

But I think there’s another, even more practical reason.

Pope Benedict Is Thinking Ahead

While I hope that Pope Benedict reigns for many more years, he is not planning on being pope forever.

In thus think the main reason that he chose the handle he did is because he’s thinking ahead and didn’t want to make everyone have to sign up to get the next pope’s tweets–at whatever time there is a new pope.

In other words, he’s leaving future popes a ready-built Twitter platform that they can use to get their message out.

He thus didn’t include anything specific to him–no variation of “Benedict” or “XVI” in the handle.

That leaves us with generic words for pope–like “pope” and “pontifex.”

Why Not “Pope”?

KEEP READING.

What Can St. Catherine Teach Us About Purgatory?

As someone who came to the Catholic faith from Evangelicalism, one of the doctrines that I had to deal with was purgatory.

Upon starting work as an apologist, I had to dig even deeper into the subject, and I discovered that over the course of time it has been understood in different ways.

One of my early helps in understanding the doctrine was the thought of St. Catherine of Genoa, whose thought on the subject as presented in the Treatise on Purgatory and the Dialogues Between the Body and the Soul have proved increasingly influential over time. In particular, elements of it have played a role in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger (back before he was pope) and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I was therefore delighted when I read Pope Benedict’s general audience on St. Catherine of Genoa, in which he touches on her contribution to this subject.

He begins by noting that, although she did have a profound mystical experience connected with her conversion, she did not have revelations about the souls in purgatory. He states:

It is important to note that Catherine, in her mystical experience, never received specific revelations on purgatory or on the souls being purified there. Yet, in the writings inspired by our Saint, purgatory is a central element and the description of it has characteristics that were original in her time [General Audience, Jan. 12, 2011].

One of the original things about St. Catherine’s thought on purgatory concerned the way it tended to be envisioned as a place:

The first original passage concerns the “place” of the purification of souls. In her day it was depicted mainly using images linked to space: a certain space was conceived of in which purgatory was supposed to be located.

Catherine, however, did not see purgatory as a scene in the bowels of the earth: for her it is not an exterior but rather an interior fire. This is purgatory: an inner fire.

She also understood the fire of purgatory differently than some other:

The Saint speaks of the Soul’s journey of purification on the way to full communion with God, starting from her own experience of profound sorrow for the sins committed, in comparison with God’s infinite love (cf. Vita Mirabile, 171v).

We heard of the moment of conversion when Catherine suddenly became aware of God’s goodness, of the infinite distance of her own life from this goodness and of a burning fire within her. And this is the fire that purifies, the interior fire of purgatory. Here too is an original feature in comparison with the thought of her time.

Furthermore:

In fact, she does not start with the afterlife in order to recount the torments of purgatory — as was the custom in her time and perhaps still is today — and then to point out the way to purification or conversion. Rather our Saint begins with the inner experience of her own life on the way to Eternity.

“The soul”, Catherine says, “presents itself to God still bound to the desires and suffering that derive from sin and this makes it impossible for it to enjoy the beatific vision of God”. Catherine asserts that God is so pure and holy that a soul stained by sin cannot be in the presence of the divine majesty (cf. Vita Mirabile, 177r).

Pope Benedict then makes an observation that goes straight to the heart:

We too feel how distant we are, how full we are of so many things that we cannot see God. The soul is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God and consequently suffers for having failed to respond in a correct and perfect way to this love; and love for God itself becomes a flame, love itself cleanses it from the residue of sin.

Pope Benedict has more to say about St. Catherine’s teaching on purgatory, and on her life in general, but I’ll let you read that for yourself.

In summary, he says:

With her life St Catherine teaches us that the more we love God and enter into intimacy with him in prayer the more he makes himself known to us, setting our hearts on fire with his love.

I’ve been working on a special mailing for the Secret Information Club where I “interview” John Paul II on the subject of purgatory. In the interview, I pose questions, and the answers are taken from his writing. Current Secret Club members will get it automatically.

Purgatory is a controversial subject that Catholics are often attacked over, so if you’d like to receive the special interview with John Paul II on purgatory, just sign up for the Secret Information Club by the end of Friday, June 29th, and you’ll have it in your inbox on Saturday morning.

You should sign up using this handy sign up form:

If you have any difficulty, just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.

“To Be Absent from the Body Is to be Present with the Lord”?

There is a common argument used against the idea of purgatory in some circles which goes like this: “St. Paul says that ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:8). It’s that simple: If you’re a Christian and you aren’t in your body then you are with Jesus in heaven. There is no room for purgatory in St. Paul’s view. Purgatory is just a Catholic fable–a ‘man made tradition.'”

Is this true?

It turns out that if you examine what St. Paul really said, the whole argument is based on a misquotation. St. Paul said nothing of the kind.

Furthermore, if you look elsewhere in St. Paul’s writings–to the very same church he was addressing in his “absent from the body” passage–you find strong evidence for purgatory.

Far from being a Catholic fable, purgatory is rooted in the thought of the Apostle Paul himself–as I show in the following video.

I’ve also been working on a special mailing for the Secret Information Club where I “interview” John Paul II on the subject of purgatory. In the interview, I pose questions, and the answers are taken from his writing. Current Secret Club members will get it automatically.

Purgatory is a controversial subject that Catholics are often attacked over, so if you’d like to receive the special interview with John Paul II on purgatory, just sign up for the Secret Information Club by Friday, June 29th, and you’ll have it in your inbox on Saturday morning.

You should sign up using this handy sign up form:

If you have any difficulty, just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.

If you’re reading this by email, click here to view the video.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Praying for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

A reader writes:

I know that it is always good to pray for the souls in Purgatory. Otherwise, the souls won’t make it to Heaven. However, is it O.K. to pray that all of the souls in Purgatory be released and allowed to go to Heaven. In fact, the moment all souls would be released (if God wants to do this), then a new batch would come into Purgatory and take their place. Am I correct in this? Or, are we only supposed to pray for people we know that have died? Let me know (if you would). Thank you so much. Happy Advent (it’s still not Christmas yet).

Thank you for the questions! And Happy Advent to you as well (good point about it not being Christmas yet!).

Allow me to go through the query a bit at a time:

I know that it is always good to pray for the souls in Purgatory.

Yes! Absolutely! Always a good thing to do!

Otherwise, the souls won’t make it to Heaven.

Actually, they will. Purgatory is the final stage of purification for those who die in God’s friendship but who aren’t yet completely freed from the consequences of sin. Because they die in God’s friendship, they will—without any exceptions at all—make it to heaven.

Our prayers, therefore, do not affect whether they make it to heaven. Instead, they affect how they make it to heaven. Specifically, they make the transition to heaven easier.

What “easier” means in this context is something that we don’t have a lot of information about, because God hasn’t revealed that much to us. It may be that they make the transition easier in the sense of shortening the time (however time works in the afterlife) that it takes the souls to make the transition, or it may be that it eases the transition in some other way (e.g., it involves less discomfort).

What we do know is that it helps the holy souls somehow. There is even biblical warrant for this, as illustrated by the prayers offered by Judah Maccabee and his men for those who had died in battle defending the cause of Israel but still tainted by wearing superstitious charms (2 Maccabees 12).

You might think of the situation as rather like praying for a friend who is at boot camp at the beginning of his military service. Boot camp is designed to take people from a certain physical and mental level and toughen them up so that they will be ready for full military service. You might pray for your friend while he is in boot camp so that the experience goes well with him, is easier on him, but if he completes boot camp at all, he will be brought up to the right level.

We have the assurance that those who experience purgatory will be brought up to the level needed for heaven, but our prayers can still help with that transition.

However, is it O.K. to pray that all of the souls in Purgatory be released and allowed to go to Heaven.

As we said, it’s not that the souls will be allowed to go to heaven, but we can pray for all the souls in purgatory that their final purification will go more easily (in terms of time or difficulty).

In fact, the moment all souls would be released (if God wants to do this), then a new batch would come into Purgatory and take their place. Am I correct in this?

This is possible—at least in our age—depending on how time works in the afterlife.

We don’t really know how time works in the afterlife, though there are clear indications in Scripture that there is some kind of sequentiality that departed souls experience (death, particular judgment, purgatory, heaven, resurrection, final judgment, eternal order). They don’t have the kind of timeless eternity that God does. The trouble is that we don’t know how this sequentiality maps on to time as we experience it. There have been different theories about this over the course of the centuries.

It’s certainly true, though, that if God chose to instantly free all the souls in purgatory at a single moment in time (as we experience it) in the present age of the world then new souls would quickly appear in purgatory as people pass into the afterlife.

It may even be that this happens regularly, since purgatory may not take time as we know it. In a book that he wrote on eschatology (the study of the last things) before he was Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger wrote that purgatory may have an “existential” duration rather than the kind of extended-through-time duration we experience. If so then souls might pop into purgatory for an existential moment, be purified and transitioned to heaven, and then be replaced by new souls continuously.

That wouldn’t affect our prayers for them, though, since God is not bound by time at all (he is truly outside of it altogether) and so can apply our prayers—no matter when in time we make them—to a person at the point (existential or temporal) when they are being purified.

Or, are we only supposed to pray for people we know that have died?

It’s definite not the case that we should only pray for those who we personally know. We are most welcome, and even encouraged, to pray for all the souls in purgatory, whether we knew them in this life or not.

That’s why the Church has designated November 2 as All Souls Day. It is the liturgical commemoration of all the holy souls in purgatory, in which the Church (and we as members of the Church) pray for all who have died in God’s friendship but who still need purification.

Incidentally, I’ve devoted a particular installment of my Secret Information Club mailings to Pope Benedict’s teaching on purgatory, so if you’d like to know more about what Pope Benedict has said on this subject, I’d encourage you to join the Jimmy Akin Secret Information Club (www.SecretInfoClub.com), and one of the (hopefully) fascinating things that you’ll receive in your email inbox will be devoted to this very subject!

I hope this helps!

What do you think?

Secret, Closed-Door Vatican Smackdown?

Back on November 10, well-respected Vaticanista Sandro Magister reported:

Precisely when the G20 summit in Cannes was coming to its weak and uncertain conclusion, on that same Friday, November 4 at the Vatican, a smaller summit convened in the secretariat of state was doing damage control on the latest of many moments of confusion in the Roman curia.

In the hot seat was the document on the global financial crisis released ten days earlier by the pontifical council for justice and peace. A document that had disturbed many, inside and outside of the Vatican.

The secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, complained that he had not known about it until the last moment. And precisely for this reason he had called that meeting in the secretariat of state.

The conclusion of the summit was that this binding order would be transmitted to all of the offices of the curia: from that point on, nothing in writing would be released unless it had been inspected and authorized by the secretariat of state.

The PCJP document was indeed a subject of controversy. For example, some, such as the astute Mark Brumley, pointed out the difficulties that would be involved in implementing its proposals.

In anticipation of and in response to the controversy, I tried to provide some perspective to help people situate it in the overall scheme of things, including whether or not it represented an act of the Magisterium.

Magister’s piece on the document was widely hailed in the blogosphere and viewed as an indication that the document had caused a secret, closed-door Vatican smackdown.

I thought about blogging on the topic at the time, but I wanted to wait and see how the story matured.

Sandro Magister is a well-respected Vaticanista, and I always take what he has to say seriously, but it’s notoriously difficult to get accurate behind-the-scenes information on what’s going on at the Vatican, particularly in the fever swamp of Italian journalism. (N.B. ours is even worse when it comes to getting Vatican stories right!)

I wasn’t surprised, then, when John Thavis of Catholic News Service, provided a different take on the story, writing:

Then in mid-November, an Italian blogger reported that the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, had been blindsided by the text and had ordered that, from now on, all such documents must have the prior approval of his office.

Wait. Actually, I was surprised by that. “An Italian blogger?” I have great respect for bloggers (I am one), but Magister’s accomplishments go beyond merely having a WordPress account. He’s a well-respected Vaticanista. (Did I mention he’s a well-respected Vaticanista?)

And what’s with this referring to an individual public source but not giving his name? That’s just bad journalism—especially in the Internet age, when people expect not just the name of the person you’re responding to but a link directly to the piece you’re responding to. Even if Catholic News Service policy prohibits links in online stories for some foolish reason, you should at least give the name of the person you’re responding to so people can Google him, see what he said, and make up their own minds what the merits of his account versus yours are.

It’s one thing to grant anonymity to a non-public source (Magister did that, and I don’t blame Thavis for it, either), but when you’re responding to someone who has put his remarks on the public record, not giving his name is wrong.

“An Italian blogger” is wholly inadequate.

But on with the story. According to Thavis:

The real back story was far different, according to informed sources. Months ago, in view of the upcoming G-20 meeting in France Nov. 3-4, Vatican officials discussed how to make a contribution to the discussion on international monetary reform.

Three years earlier, the Vatican had been invited to a U.N.-sponsored International Conference on Financing for Development in Qatar, and the Vatican delegation had published a position paper on financial abuses. That paper was prepared by the justice and peace council, but it was presented as an official statement of the Holy See.

This year, however, because the Vatican is not a member of the G-20 and had not been invited to its meeting, Vatican officials decided that a statement on financial reform should come in the form of a “note” by the justice and peace council, rather than a formal statement of the Holy See.

The important thing was that the council’s members and consultants worked with the Secretariat of State throughout the drafting process. The “Second Section” of the Secretariat of State, which deals with foreign affairs, not only discussed the document’s approach but reviewed and “adjusted” its content before publication, sources said.

So the idea that Cardinal Peter Turkson’s justice and peace council had pulled a fast one on Vatican higher-ups was baseless. But the story got legs because of a misunderstanding that occurred about the same time.

Every year, Pope Benedict XVI—like his predecessor—issues a message for the World Day for Migrants and Refugees. The message is prepared by the pontifical council that deals with migration issues, and receives final approval by the Secretariat of State.

This year, however, extensive excerpts of the pope’s migration message were inadvertently published five days early on the website of the Vatican Information Service. The text was removed after several hours, but there was enough embarrassment to prompt action by Cardinal Bertone. He issued instructions that all documents bearing the pope’s signature must be released through the Secretariat of State, and not circulated ahead of time by other Vatican agencies.

That led some to mistakenly conclude that Cardinal Bertone was reacting to the document on financial reform, and reining in radical Roman Curia elements at the justice and peace council. On the contrary, Vatican sources said, no document on sensitive global economic issues would ever be published without the “nulla osta” of the Secretariat of State.

Thavis’s story, like Bertone’s, is based on anonymous sources, which is par for the course at the Vatican (and, these days, seemingly everywhere). It thus provides an interesting counter-portrait, though one should be aware that Thavis’s anonymous sources are not necessarily any more reliable than Magister’s. And they may both have distinct spins they want put on the basic facts.

For example, Thavis states that the idea that the PCJP had “pulled a fast one on Vatican higher-ups” was unsubstantiated. But did Magister claim that a “fast one” had been pulled?

What he said was that Bertone “complained that he had not known about it until the last moment.” That’s not saying that the PCJP was responsible for this or that it tried to pull a fast one. They may well, as Thavis states, have been in touch with the Secretariate of State all along and yet, for whatever reason, Bertone did not learn of the document until relatively late in the game—at least late enough that he wished he had known about it earlier.

So I’m not seeing Thavis’s facts and Magister’s facts as conflicting on this point.

That being said, do they conflict on others? Would Magister revise his account in any way in light of further developments?

In his latest piece, Magister writes:

With respect what www.chiesa originally reported, it should be noted that the requirement of advance review by the secretariat of state applies exclusively to texts that bear the signature of the pope, and not to those simply signed by the heads of one of the offices of the Roman curia.

The memo therefore cannot refer, strictly speaking, to the document from the pontifical council for justice and peace presented at the Vatican press office on October 24, entitled “Towards reforming the international financial and monetary systems in the context of global public authority.” A document not signed by Benedict XVI, but only by the heads of that dicastery.

It is likely, instead – as reported by the agency of the United States bishops, “Catholic News Service,” in an article on November 17 – that the memo in question was prompted by a mishap that took place with Benedict XVI’s message for the 98th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, presented at the Vatican press office on October 25.

In effect, large sections of this pontifical document had been released by the “Vatican Information Service,” the online agency of the Holy See, five days before the date set for its publication.

This does not change the fact that at the summit held at the secretariat of state on November 4, to address such incidents, there was also talk of the document on the international financial system issued autonomously by the pontifical council for justice and peace, the object of strong criticism after its publication, inside and outside of the Vatican.

From this summit came the authoritative statement from the archbishop substitute, who in the Vatican chain of command comes right after the pope and the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

So it seems like Magister is in part modifying his original story but in part sticking with it.

He then does what so few news sources do, and for which he deserves much applause, which is to reprint the actual document he’s talking about—the memo that came out of the Secretariate of State’s meeting.

I’ve always been a believer in showing what the actual documents say, as it allows people to make up their own minds in a much more informed way than if they aren’t simply relying on somebody’s summary of an unseen text.

So be sure and check out Magister’s latest post for the text of the document.

It makes for a fascinating glimpse into inner workings of the world of Vatican documents.

What do you think?

Sinead O’Connor Laughs Off Pope-Killing Fantasies, Blames Own Twitter Followers

According to FOX News:

Irish songstress Sinead O’Connor came under fire a few weeks ago when she took to Twitter to announce that she would perform a “bloodbath” if Pope Benedict XVI visited Ireland.

“Young people of Ireland I love u’ said Sinead as she pulled the [f**king] trigger,” the artist tweeted, referencing the famous words of John Paul II, which he uttered in his 1979 pilgrimage to Ireland.

Okay, the offense meter just maxed out the scale.

But O’Connor is changing her tune, insisting that her words were all in innocent humor.

I’ll bet she is. I’ve got one word for you, Sinead: “NOT FUNNY.”

“That was just nonsense. Come on! See, that’s the trouble with Twitter, you know, people take it too seriously and they say, ‘Oh, you’re looking for attention,’ . . .

Ding! Ding! Ding!

. . . but it’s them following you and you didn’t ask them to follow you,” she told FOX411’S Pop Tarts column at amfAR’s Inspiration Gala Los Angeles, a celebration of men’s style, to benefit the Foundation’s AIDS research programs.

So . . . O’Connor is blaming her own Twitter followers for being concerned about her publicly expressing fantasies about killing the pope?

What’s with this “I didn’t ask them to follow me on Twitter” schtick? You’re a pop celeb. You create a Twitter account. You say stuff on it. You’re kinda inviting people to follow you. This is Publicity 101 in the 21st century.

“So it just got to a joke between me and my mate … I was joking about how I’d meet him at the airport with my AK but obviously I wouldn’t or couldn’t.”

Oh, of course. That explains it then. Everyone publicly jokes with their pals about murdering prominent world leaders at airports with AK-47s and creating a “bloodbath,” right? No reason anybody would think there was anything amiss there.

Yet, this isn’t the first time the outspoken rocker who has vented her ill feelings towards the Pope and openly criticized the Catholic church over its sex abuses cases involving the clergy. In 1992 she sparked outrage on “SNL” following an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War” when she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II with the proclamation: “Fight the real enemy!”

Yeah, I remember that.

In recent months, O’Connor has also raised eyebrows with several odd remarks on her personal blog and on Twitter – ranging from her suicidal thoughts to her desperate need for a sexual partner.

Violent gun fantasies coupled with suicidal thoughts aren’t going to help one get a sexual partner—marital or otherwise.

Miss O’Connor needs serious help.

O’Connor did, however, recently delete her Twitter account.

That’s actually a good start. Stop ideating these things in public and GET HELP.

“It was quite tiring keeping up with it really,” she explained. “I had great fun though, but all things must pass. I might start it up again, you never know.”

Right.

Interestingly, the FOX News piece didn’t mention the fact that Sinead O’Connor had herself ordained as a woman priest back in the 1990s.

MORE.

What a mess.

What do you think?