CSVF Blog

During yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI concluded his brief examination of the priest’s exercise of the tria munera Christi—the three offices of Christ—by focusing on the pastor’s duty to govern the portion of the Christian flock entrusted to him.  Like many of the texts he composes, the Pope’s reflection is worth a slow and deliberate reading.  His remarks yesterday offer the Church yet another penetrating reflection on priestly life and ministry that cuts through contemporary controversy and sees clearly to the essence of Christ’s priestly grace and its exercise in the Church.  Step by step, the Holy Father carefully leads his reader to a proper understanding of the reason and purpose of the Church’s hierarchical structure, a mystery too often misunderstood today.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 26, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Year for Priests is coming to an end; that is why in the last catecheses I began to speak about the essential tasks of the priest, namely: to teach, to sanctify and to govern. I have already given two catecheses, one on the ministry of sanctification, above all the sacraments, and one on teaching. Hence, it remains for me today to speak about the mission of the priest to govern, to guide — with the authority of Christ, not his own — the portion of the people that God has entrusted to him.

In contemporary culture, how can such a dimension be understood, involving as it does the concept of authority and with its origin in the Lord’s own mandate to feed his flock? What is authority really for us Christians? The cultural, political and historical experiences of the recent past, above all the dictatorships in Eastern and Western Europe in the 20th century, made contemporary man suspicious in addressing this concept. A suspicion that, not rarely, is expressed in upholding as necessary an abandonment of all authority that does not come exclusively from men and is subject to them, controlled by them. But precisely a glance at the regimes that in the past century sowed terror and death, reminds us forcefully that authority, in every realm, if it is exercised without reference to the Transcendent, if it does away with the supreme Authority, which is God, ends inevitably by turning against man.

Hence, it is important to recognize that human authority is never an end, but always and only a means and that, necessarily and in every age, the end is always the person, created by God with his own intangible dignity and called to relationship with the Creator himself, in the earthly journey of existence and in eternal life. It is an authority exercised in responsibility before God, before the Creator. An authority thus understood, which has as its only objective to serve the true good of persons and to lucidity to the only Supreme Good that is God, not only is not foreign to men but, on the contrary, is a precious help in the journey toward full realization in Christ, toward salvation.

The Church is called and is committed to exercise this type of authority that is service, and she exercises it not in her own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ, who received from the Father all power in heaven and on earth (cf. Matthew 28:18). In fact, Christ feeds his flock through the pastors of the Church: It is he who guides it, protects it, corrects it, because he loves it profoundly.

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At yesterday’s General Audience in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on his recent pilgrimage to Portugal.  Below is the full text of his remarks and a small collection of images from his trip.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 19, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I wish to go over with you the various stages of the apostolic journey I undertook in recent days to Portugal, moved especially by a sentiment of gratitude to the Virgin Mary, who in Fatima transmitted to her visionaries and to pilgrims an intense love for the Successor of Peter. I thank God who gave me the possibility to pay homage to that people, to its long and glorious history of faith and Christian witness. Hence, as I requested you to accompany me on this pastoral visit with prayer, I now ask you to join me in thanking the Lord for its happy development and conclusion. I entrust to him the fruits that it has brought and will bring to the Portuguese ecclesial community and to the whole population.

I renew the expression of my gratitude to the president of the republic, Mr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and to the other authorities of the state, who received me with so much courtesy and planned everything so that all would unfold in the best way. With intense affection, I think of my brother bishops of the Portuguese dioceses, whom I had the joy to embrace in their land and I thank them fraternally for all that they did for the spiritual and organizational preparation of my visit, and for a notable profuse diligence in its fulfillment. I direct a particular thought to the patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, to the bishops of Leiria-Fatima, António Augusto dos Santos Marto, and of Porto, Manuel Macário do Nascimento Clemente, and to their respective collaborators, as well as to the various organizations of the episcopal conference led by Archbishop Jorge Ortiga.

Throughout the whole trip, which occurred on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the little shepherds Jacinta and Francisco, I felt sustained spiritually by my beloved predecessor, the Venerable John Paul II, who went three times to Fatima, thanking that “invisible hand” that delivered him from death in the attack of the 13th of May, here in St. Peter’s Square.

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In celebration of his 83rd birthday, Pope Benedict XVI was presented a cake earlier today by a group of American pilgrims visiting Rome.  Members of the Papal Foundation, led by Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, serenaded the Holy Father and offered him their prayers and heartfelt support.

On Monday, Pope Benedict will celebrate his fifth anniversary as Bishop of Rome.

Father,
we pray for your protection and guidance
over our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.
Give him strength and wisdom to stand as a prophet for our times.
May he be a light in darkness around which we gather in hope.
We ask you to bring about reconciliation
through his faithful teaching of peace and justice.
Grant him compassion and care to live the gospel
in love and service to all people.
Let him follow in the path of Peter and Paul who, filled with the Holy Spirit,
preached that the Lord saves all who call upon his name.  Amen.

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Collected below are the homilies and addresses Pope Benedict XVI delivered over the course of this year’s Paschal Triduum.

HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
Mass of the Lord’s Supper
April 1, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his Gospel, Saint John, more fully than the other three evangelists, reports in his own distinctive way the farewell discourses of Jesus; they appear as his testament and a synthesis of the core of his message. They are introduced by the washing of feet, in which Jesus’ redemptive ministry on behalf of a humanity needing purification is summed up in a gesture of humility. Jesus’ words end as a prayer, his priestly prayer, whose background exegetes have traced to the ritual of the Jewish feast of atonement. The significance of that feast and its rituals – the world’s purification and reconciliation with God – is fulfilled in Jesus’ prayer, a prayer which anticipates his Passion and transforms it into a prayer. The priestly prayer thus makes uniquely evident the perpetual mystery of Holy Thursday: the new priesthood of Jesus Christ and its prolongation in the consecration of the Apostles, in the incorporation of the disciples into the Lord’s priesthood. From this inexhaustibly profound text, I would like to select three sayings of Jesus which can lead us more fully into the mystery of Holy Thursday.

First, there are the words: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). Everyone wants to have life. We long for a life which is authentic, complete, worthwhile, full of joy. This yearning for life coexists with a resistance to death, which nonetheless remains unescapable. When Jesus speaks about eternal life, he is referring to real and true life, a life worthy of being lived. He is not simply speaking about life after death. He is talking about authentic life, a life fully alive and thus not subject to death, yet one which can already, and indeed must, begin in this world. Only if we learn even now how to live authentically, if we learn how to live the life which death cannot take away, does the promise of eternity become meaningful. But how does this happen? What is this true and eternal life which death cannot touch? We have heard Jesus’ answer: this is eternal life, that they may know you – God – and the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. Much to our surprise, we are told that life is knowledge. This means first of all that life is relationship. No one has life from himself and only for himself. We have it from others and in a relationship with others. If it is a relationship in truth and love, a giving and receiving, it gives fullness to life and makes it beautiful. But for that very reason, the destruction of that relationship by death can be especially painful, it can put life itself in question. Only a relationship with the One who is himself Life can preserve my life beyond the floodwaters of death, can bring me through them alive. Already in Greek philosophy we encounter the idea that man can find eternal life if he clings to what is indestructible – to truth, which is eternal. He needs, as it were, to be full of truth in order to bear within himself the stuff of eternity. But only if truth is a Person, can it lead me through the night of death. We cling to God – to Jesus Christ the Risen One. And thus we are led by the One who is himself Life. In this relationship we too live by passing through death, since we are not forsaken by the One who is himself Life.

But let us return to Jesus’s words – this is eternal life: that they know you and the One whom you have sent. Knowledge of God becomes eternal life. Clearly “knowledge” here means something more than mere factual knowledge, as, for example, when we know that a famous person has died or a discovery was made. Knowing, in the language of sacred Scripture, is an interior becoming one with the other. Knowing God, knowing Christ, always means loving him, becoming, in a sense, one with him by virtue of that knowledge and love. Our life becomes authentic and true life, and thus eternal life, when we know the One who is the source of all being and all life. And so Jesus’ words become a summons: let us become friends of Jesus, let us try to know him all the more! Let us live in dialogue with him! Let us learn from him how to live aright, let us be his witnesses! Then we become people who love and then we act aright. Then we are truly alive.

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At the end of Palm Sunday Mass this morning at St. Patrick Cathedral, Archbishop Dolan made the following statement:

May I ask your patience a couple of minutes longer in what has already been a lengthy — yet hopefully uplifting —Sunday Mass?

The somberness of Holy Week is intensified for Catholics this year.

The recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests, this time in Ireland, Germany, and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin, has knocked us to our knees once again.

Anytime this horror, vicious sin, and nauseating crime is reported, as it needs to be, victims and their families are wounded again, the vast majority of faithful priests bow their heads in shame anew, and sincere Catholics experience another dose of shock, sorrow, and even anger.

What deepens the sadness now is the unrelenting insinuations against the Holy Father himself, as certain sources seem frenzied to implicate the man who, perhaps more than anyone else has been the leader in purification, reform, and renewal that the Church so needs.

Sunday Mass is hardly the place to document the inaccuracy, bias, and hyperbole of such aspersions.

But, Sunday Mass is indeed the time for Catholics to pray for “ . . . Benedict our Pope.”

And Palm Sunday Mass is sure a fitting place for us to express our love and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob, and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus.

No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Pope Benedict XVI. The dramatic progress that the Catholic Church in the United States has made — — documented again just last week by the report made by independent forensic auditors — — could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.

Does the Church and her Pastor, Pope Benedict XVI, need intense scrutiny and just criticism for tragic horrors long past?

Yes! He himself has asked for it, encouraging complete honesty, at the same time expressing contrition, and urging a thorough cleansing.

All we ask is that it be fair, and that the Catholic Church not be singled-out for a horror that has cursed every culture, religion, organization, institution, school, agency, and family in the world.

Sorry to bring this up … but, then again, the Eucharist is the Sunday meal of the spiritual family we call the Church. At Sunday dinner we share both joys and sorrows. The father of our family, il papa, needs our love, support, and prayers.

For video of the archbishop reading his statement, click here (and scroll down to link).  You can keep up with the latest commentary offered by Archbishop Dolan by reading his blog.  Other up-to-the minute commentary can be found here.

Click below for other helpful responses:

Fr. Raymond de Souza

George Weigel 1

George Weigel 2

John Allen

Sean Murphy

Elizabeth Lev

Elizabeth Scalia

(h/t: Whispers in the Loggia)

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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the life and doctrine of St. Albert the Great, an early teacher of the Dominican Order who had the privilege of tutoring St. Thomas Aquinas.  As the Pope explains, it was St. Albert who inspired St. Thomas to dedicate his intellectual life to reconciling the truths of Aristotle’s philosophy with the divine truths revealed to us by Christ.  Thus in the 13th century, the Pope notes, were faith and reason brought together to develop one true theology, or as St. Albert called it, an “affective science.” Below is the full text of the Holy Father’s address.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 24, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

One of the greatest teachers of Medieval theology is St. Albert the Great. The title “great” (magnus) with which he has passed into history, indicates the vastness and depth of his doctrine, which he coupled with holiness of life. But already his contemporaries did not hesitate to attribute excellent titles to him; one of his disciples, Ulrich of Strasbourg, described him as “wonder and miracle of our age.”

Born in Germany at the beginning of the 13th century, he was still young when he went to Italy, to Padua, seat of one of the most famous universities of the Middle Ages. He dedicated himself to the study of the so-called liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, that is, of the general culture, manifesting that typical interest for the natural sciences, which would soon become the favorite field of his specialization. During his stay in Padua, he frequented the church of the Dominicans, whom he later joined with the profession of religious vows. The hagiographic sources lead one to understand that Albert matured this decision gradually. The intense relationship with God, the example of holiness of the Dominican Friars, the listening of sermons of Blessed Giordano of Saxony, successor of St. Dominic in the leadership of the Order of Preachers, were the decisive factors that helped him to overcome every doubt, overcoming also family resistance. Often, in the years of youth, God speaks to us and indicates the plan of our life. As for Albert, so for all of us, personal prayer nourished by the Word of the Lord, the frequenting of the sacraments and the spiritual guidance of enlightened men are the means to discover and follow the voice of God. He received the religious habit from Blessed Giordano of Saxony.

After his priestly ordination, the superiors sent him to teach in several centers of theological study adjacent to monasteries of the Dominican Fathers. His brilliant intellectual qualities enabled him to perfect the study of theology in the most famous university of the time, that of Paris. From then on St. Albert undertook that extraordinary activity of writer, which he would then follow for his whole life.

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In response to today’s front page story in the New York Times, the Vatican has released the following statement:

Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., questioned by journalists concerning a new New York Times article, which appeared on 26 March and concerns the period in which Cardinal Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich, referred them to this morning’s public denial in a communique published by the archdiocese of Munich, which reads:

“The article in the New York Times contains no new information beyond that which the archdiocese has already communicated concerning the then archbishop’s knowledge of the situation of Father H.”

Thus the archdiocese confirms the position, according to which the then archbishop had no knowledge of the decision to reassign Father H. to pastoral activities in a parish.

It rejects any other version of events as mere speculation.

The then vicar general, Msgr. Gerhard Gruber, has assumed full responsibility for his own erroneous decision to reassign Father H. to pastoral activity.

For a thorough response to these and other allegations being lodged against the Holy Father, click here.

UPDATE: Kathryn Jean Lopez offers helpful analysis here at National Review Online.

UPDATE II: Fr. Raymond de Souza outlines the facts of the “Murphy Case” here.

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Earlier today, the Holy See released the full statement given by Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, director of the Vatican’s press office, to the New York Times for its article on the “Murphy Case,” which appeared on today’s front page.  Because the article selectively edited Fr. Lombardi’s statement and left obscure certain facts of the case, the Holy See has made the full statement available to the general public.

The following is the full text of the statement given to the New York Times on March 24, 2010:

The tragic case of Father Lawrence Murphy, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, involved particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from what he did. By sexually abusing children who were hearing-impaired, Father Murphy violated the law and, more importantly, the sacred trust that his victims had placed in him.

During the mid-1970s, some of Father Murphy’s victims reported his abuse to civil authorities, who investigated him at that time; however, according to news reports, that investigation was dropped. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not informed of the matter until some twenty years later.

It has been suggested that a relationship exists between the application of Crimen sollicitationis and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither Crimen nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities.

In the late 1990s, after over two decades had passed since the abuse had been reported to diocesan officials and the police, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was presented for the first time with the question of how to treat the Murphy case canonically. The Congregation was informed of the matter because it involved solicitation in the confessional, which is a violation of the Sacrament of Penance. It is important to note that the canonical question presented to the Congregation was unrelated to any potential civil or criminal proceedings against Father Murphy.

In such cases, the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties, but recommends that a judgment be made not excluding even the greatest ecclesiastical penalty of dismissal from the clerical state (cf. Canon 1395, no. 2). In light of the facts that Father Murphy was elderly and in very poor health, and that he was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested that the Archbishop of Milwaukee give consideration to addressing the situation by, for example, restricting Father Murphy’s public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts. Father Murphy died approximately four months later, without further incident.

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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his series on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages by comparing and contrasting the theological projects of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. While teaching in Paris, the Angelic Doctor and the Seraphic Doctor often joined forces to argue a particular theological point, though their differing takes on the usefulness of Aristotle’s philosophy in Christian theology caused their overall projects to diverge. While some can exaggerate the resulting differences between the two, the Pope certainly evaluates them mildly when he says that Thomas and Bonaventure spoke with “different accents in an essentially shared vision.”

Below is the full text of Pope Benedict’s address.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 17, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

This morning, continuing last Wednesday’s reflection, I would like to reflect further with you on other aspects of the doctrine of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. He is an eminent theologian, who merits being placed next to another very great thinker, his contemporary, St. Thomas Aquinas. Both scrutinized the mysteries of revelation, valuing the resources of human reason in the fruitful dialogue between faith and reason that characterized the Christian Middle Ages, making it a period of great intellectual liveliness, as well as of faith and of ecclesial renewal, often not sufficiently noted. Other similarities associate them: Both Bonaventure, a Franciscan, and Thomas, a Dominican, belonged to the Mendicant Orders that, with their spiritual freshness — as I mentioned in preceding catecheses — renewed the whole Church in the 13th century and attracted so many followers. Both served the Church with diligence, passion and love, to the point that they were invited to take part in the Ecumenical Council of Lyon in 1274, the same year in which they died: Thomas while he was going to Lyon; Bonaventure during the course of that same council. Also in St. Peter’s Square the statues of the two saints are parallel, placed in fact at the beginning of the Colonnade starting from the facade of the Vatican Basilica: one in the left wing and the other in the right wing. Despite all these aspects, we can see in these two great saints two different approaches to philosophical and theological research, which show each one’s originality and depth of thought. I would like to refer to some of these differences.

A first difference concerns the concept of theology. Both doctors asked themselves if theology is a practical or a theoretical, speculative science. St. Thomas reflects on two possible contrasting answers. The first says: theology is reflection on faith and the aim of faith is that man become good, that he live according to the will of God. Hence, the aim of theology should be to guide man on the just and good way; consequently it is, fundamentally, a practical science. The other position says: theology seeks to know God. We are the work of God; God is above our action. God operates just action in us. Hence it is essentially not of our doing, but of knowing God, not of our working. St. Thomas’ conclusion is: theology entails both aspects: it is theoretical, it seeks to know God ever more, and it is practical: it seeks to orient our life to the good. But there is a primacy of knowledge: we must above all know God, then follows action according to God (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 1, art.4). This primacy of knowledge in comparison with practice is significant for St. Thomas’ essential orientation.

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PASTORAL LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND

1. Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.

As you know, I recently invited the Irish bishops to a meeting here in Rome to give an account of their handling of these matters in the past and to outline the steps they have taken to respond to this grave situation. Together with senior officials of the Roman Curia, I listened to what they had to say, both individually and as a group, as they offered an analysis of mistakes made and lessons learned, and a description of the programmes and protocols now in place. Our discussions were frank and constructive. I am confident that, as a result, the bishops will now be in a stronger position to carry forward the work of repairing past injustices and confronting the broader issues associated with the abuse of minors in a way consonant with the demands of justice and the teachings of the Gospel.

2. For my part, considering the gravity of these offences, and the often inadequate response to them on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities in your country, I have decided to write this Pastoral Letter to express my closeness to you and to propose a path of healing, renewal and reparation.

It is true, as many in your country have pointed out, that the problem of child abuse is peculiar neither to Ireland nor to the Church. Nevertheless, the task you now face is to address the problem of abuse that has occurred within the Irish Catholic community, and to do so with courage and determination. No one imagines that this painful situation will be resolved swiftly. Real progress has been made, yet much more remains to be done. Perseverance and prayer are needed, with great trust in the healing power of God’s grace.

At the same time, I must also express my conviction that, in order to recover from this grievous wound, the Church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children. Such an acknowledgement, accompanied by sincere sorrow for the damage caused to these victims and their families, must lead to a concerted effort to ensure the protection of children from similar crimes in the future.

As you take up the challenges of this hour, I ask you to remember “the rock from which you were hewn” (Is 51:1). Reflect upon the generous, often heroic, contributions made by past generations of Irish men and women to the Church and to humanity as a whole, and let this provide the impetus for honest self-examination and a committed programme of ecclesial and individual renewal. It is my prayer that, assisted by the intercession of her many saints and purified through penance, the Church in Ireland will overcome the present crisis and become once more a convincing witness to the truth and the goodness of Almighty God, made manifest in his Son Jesus Christ.

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Question: How much does Pope Benedict XVI like St. Bonaventure?

Answer: A lot.

Those familiar with the Holy Father’s theological interests will know that St. Bonaventure has long served as one of his intellectual guides.  Half a century ago, the young Father Raztinger wrote his habilitation paper (to become a university professor) on the thirteenth-century Franciscan’s understanding of history and revelation.  And throughout his many years of academic and pastoral service, Pope Benedict has repeatedly turned to this medieval Doctor of the Church for insights into faith and reason that, for him, illuminate contemporary problems.

Manifesting his affection for St. Bonaventure, the Holy Father dedicated the last two General Audience addresses to exploring the scholarly friar’s life and thought. Both talks are reproduced below.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 3, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to speak about St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. I confide to you that on proposing this theme I feel a certain nostalgia because I remember the research that, as a young scholar, I carried out precisely on this author, whom I particularly esteem. His knowledge has been of no small influence in my formation. With great joy I went on pilgrimage a few months ago to his birthplace, Bagnoregio, a small Italian city, in Latium, which venerates his memory.

Born probably in 1217, he died in 1274; he lived in the 13th century, an age in which the Christian faith, profoundly permeating the culture and society of Europe, inspired immortal works in the field of literature, visual arts, philosophy and theology. Striking among the great Christian figures who contributed to the composition of this harmony between faith and culture is, precisely, Bonaventure, man of action and of contemplation, of profound piety and of prudence in governing.

He was called John of Fidanza. An incident that occurred when he was still a boy profoundly marked his life, as he himself relates. He had been affected by a serious illness and not even his father, who was a doctor, hoped to save him from death. His mother appealed then to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, canonized a short time earlier. And John was cured. The figure of the Poverello of Assisi became even more familiar a year later, when he was in Paris, where he had gone for his studies. He had obtained the diploma of Master of Arts, which we could compare to that of a prestigious secondary school of our time. At that point, as so many young people of the past and also of today, John asked himself a crucial question: “What must I do with my life?” Fascinated by the witness of fervor and evangelical radicalism of the Friars Minor, who had arrived in Paris in 1219, John knocked on the doors of the Franciscan monastery of that city, and asked to be received in the great family of the disciples of St. Francis.

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PAPAL HOMILY FOR ASH WEDNESDAY
Basilica of Santa Sabina, Rome
February 17, 2010

“You love all creatures, Lord,
And do not loath anything you have made;
You forget the sins of those who convert and forgive them,
Because you are the Lord our God” (Entrance Antiphon)

Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

With this moving invocation, taken from the Book of Wisdom (cf 11:23-26), the liturgy introduces the Eucharistic celebration of Ash Wednesday. They are words that, in some way, open the whole Lenten journey, placing as their foundation the omnipotence of the love of God, his absolute lordship over every creature, which is translated in infinite indulgence, animated by a constant and universal will to live. In fact, to forgive someone is equivalent to saying: I do not want you to die, but that you live; I always and only want your good.

This absolute certainty sustained Jesus during the 40 days transpired in the desert of Judea, after the baptism received from John in the Jordan. This long time of silence and fasting was for him a complete abandonment to the Father and to his plan of love; it was a “baptism,” that is, an “immersion” in his will, and in this sense, an anticipation of the Passion and the Cross. To go into the desert and to stay there a long time, alone, meant to be willingly exposed to the assaults of the enemy, the tempter who made Adam fall and through whose envy death entered the world (cf Wisdom 2:24); it meant engaging in open battle with him, defying him with no other weapons than limitless confidence in the omnipotent love of the Father. Your love suffices me, my food is to do your will (cf John 4:34): This conviction dwelt in the mind and heart of Jesus during that “Lent” of his. It was not an act of pride, a titanic enterprise, but a decision of humility, consistent with the Incarnation and the Baptism in the Jordan, in the same line of obedience to the merciful love of the Father, who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).

The Lord did all this for us. He did it to save us and, at the same time, to show us the way to follow him. Salvation, in fact, is a gift, it is God’s grace, but to have effect in my existence it requires my consent, an acceptance demonstrated in deeds, that is, in the will to live like Jesus, to walk after him. To follow Jesus in the Lenten desert is, hence, the condition necessary to participate in his Easter, in his “exodus.” Adam was expelled from the earthly Paradise, symbol of communion with God; now, to return to that communion and, therefore, to true life, it is necessary to traverse the desert, the test of faith. Not alone, but with Jesus! He — as always — has preceded us and has already conquered in the battle against the spirit of evil. This is the meaning of Lent, liturgical time that every year invites us to renew the choice to follow Christ on the path of humility to participate in his victory over sin and death.

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During his General Audience address on February 10, Pope Benedict reflected on the life and witness of one of the Church’s most popular saints, the thirteenth-century Franciscan Anthony of Padua.  Posted below are the Holy Father’s remarks.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 10, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

After presenting two weeks ago the figure of Francis of Assisi, this morning I would like to speak about another saint belonging to the first generation of Friars Minor: Anthony of Padua or, as he is also called, of Lisbon, referring to his native city. He is one of the most popular saints in the whole Catholic Church, venerated not only in Padua, where a splendid basilica was built, which houses his mortal remains, but in the whole world. Dear to the faithful are images and statues that represent him with the lily, symbol of purity, or with the Child Jesus in his arms, in memory of a miraculous apparition mentioned in some literary sources.

Anthony contributed in a significant way to the development of Franciscan spirituality, with his outstanding gifts of intelligence, balance, apostolic zeal and, mainly, mystical fervor.

He was born in Lisbon of a noble family around 1195 and was baptized with the name Fernando. He entered the canons who followed the monastic rule of St. Augustine, first in the monastery of St. Vincent in Lisbon, and subsequently in that of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, renown cultural center of Portugal. He dedicated himself with interest and solicitude to the study of the Bible and of the Fathers of the Church, acquiring that theological science that he made fructify in the activities of teaching and preaching.

The episode that marked a decisive change in his life took place in Coimbra: In 1220 the relics were exposed there of the first five Franciscan missionaries who had gone to Morocco, where they met with martyrdom. Their case aroused in young Fernando the desire to imitate them and to advance in the way of Christian perfection: He then asked to leave the Augustinian canons and become a Friar Minor. His request was accepted and, taking the name Anthony, he also left for Morocco, but Divine Providence willed otherwise. As the consequence of an illness, he was obliged to return to Italy and, in 1221, he took part in the famous “Chapter of the mats” in Assisi, where he also met St. Francis. Subsequently, he lived for a time totally hidden in a convent near Forli, in the north of Italy, where the Lord called him to another mission. Invited, by totally accidental circumstances, to preach on the occasion of a priestly ordination, he showed he was gifted with such learning and eloquence that the superiors destined him to preaching. Thus he began in Italy and France such an intense and effective apostolic activity that he induced not a few persons who had separated from the Church to retrace their steps. He was also among the first teachers of theology of the Friars Minor, if not even the first. He began his teaching in Bologna, with Francis’ blessing who, recognizing Anthony’s virtues, sent him a brief letter with these words: “I would like you to teach theology to the friars.” Anthony set the foundations of Franciscan theology that, cultivated by other famous figures of thinkers, came to its zenith with St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Blessed Duns Scotus.

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During last Wednesday’s General Audience in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI continued his ongoing exposition of medieval Christian culture by remembering the life and witness of our Holy Father Dominic. He celebrated fact that, early in the thirteenth century, St. Dominic brought authentic renewal and reform to the Church by uniting in the life of his friar preacher-theologian (that’s the Pope’s term) the evangelical thirst for the salvation of souls and the assiduous study of sacred doctrine. As a result, the Holy Father observed, Dominican preaching, rooted as it is in contemplative study and prayer, offers the world a presentation of Gospel truth that is fully conscious of its power to turn minds, convert hearts, and hence build among members of the human family a Christian culture centered on the Word of God.

Below is the full text of the Holy Father’s catechesis.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 3, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last week I presented the luminous figure of Francis of Assisi; today I would like to speak to you of another saint who, in the same period, made an essential contribution to the renewal of the Church of his time. It is St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, known also as the Dominican Friars.

His successor in the leadership of the order, Blessed Giordano di Saxony, gives a complete portrait of St. Dominic in the text of a famous prayer: “Inflamed by zeal for God and supernatural ardor, by your limitless charity and the fervor of a vehement spirit, you consecrated yourself wholly with the vow of perpetual poverty to apostolic observance and to evangelical preaching.” It is in fact this essential feature of Dominic’s witness that is underlined: He always spoke with God and about God. In the life of saints, love of the Lord and of neighbor, the seeking of God’s glory and the salvation of souls always go together.

Dominic was born in Spain, in Caleruega, around 1170. He belonged to a noble family of Old Castille and, supported by an uncle priest, he was educated in a famous school of Palencia. He was distinguished immediately for his interest in the study of sacred Scripture and for his love of the poor, to the point of selling books, which in his time constituted a good of great value, to help victims of famine with what he collected.

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At last Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his reflection on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages by focusing on the life and virtues of St. Francis of Assisi.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 27, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

In a recent catechesis, I already illustrated the providential role that the Order of Friars Minor and the Order of Preachers, founded respectively by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic Guzmán, had in the renewal of the Church of their time. Today I would like to present to you the figure of Francis, an authentic “giant” of holiness, who continues to fascinate very many people of every age and every religion.

“A son is born to the world.” With these words, in the Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto XI), the greatest Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, alludes to Francis’ birth, which occurred at the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182, in Assisi. Belonging to a wealthy family — his father was a textile merchant — Francis enjoyed a carefree adolescence and youth, cultivating the chivalrous ideals of the time. When he was 20 he took part in a military campaign, and was taken prisoner. He became ill and was released. After his return to Assisi, a slow process of spiritual conversion began in him, which led him to abandon gradually the worldly lifestyle he had practiced until then.

Striking at this time are the famous episodes of the meeting with the leper — to whom Francis, getting off his horse, gave the kiss of peace; and the message of the Crucifix in the little church of San Damiano. Three times the crucified Christ came to life and said to him: “Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins.” This simple event of the Word of the Lord heard in the church of San Damiano hides a profound symbolism. Immediately, St. Francis is called to repair this little church, but the ruinous state of this building is a symbol of the tragic and disturbing situation of the Church itself at that time, with a superficial faith that does not form and transform life, with a clergy lacking in zeal, with the cooling off of love; an interior destruction of the Church that also implied a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements.

However, at the center of this Church in ruins is the Crucified and he speaks: he calls to renewal, he calls Francis to manual labor to repair concretely the little church of San Damiano, symbol of the more profound call to renew the Church of Christ itself, with his radical faith and his enthusiastic love for Christ.

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Tomorrow’s celebration of the Conversion of St. Paul ends the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address to reflecting on Christ’s desire for visible unity among his disciples, and the progress the Catholic Church has made over the last century in promoting fraternal relations with the Churches and ecclesial communities separated from her.  Just within the past few years, the Holy Father observed, these relations have born fruit.  Lately, a number of discernible steps have been taken toward real reconciliation with our separated brothers and sisters, including the Orthodox, the Lutherans, and the Anglicans.  The Pope concluded his remarks by asking the faithful to remember the Church’s ecumenical efforts in their prayers.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 20, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an ecumenical initiative, which has been in the making now for more than a century, and which every year attracts attention to a topic: that of the visible unity between Christians, which calls to consciences and stimulates to commitment for all those who believe in Christ. And it does so above all with the invitation to prayer, in imitation of Jesus himself, who prays to the Father for his disciples: “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (John 17:21).

The persistent call to prayer for full communion among the followers of the Lord manifests the most authentic and profound orientation of the whole ecumenical quest, because unity, before anything else, is a gift of God. In fact, as the Second Vatican Council affirms: “Human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective — the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 24). Hence, what is necessary, beyond our effort to carry out fraternal relations and to promote dialogue to clarify and resolve the differences that separate the Churches and ecclesial communities, is confident and concordant invocation of the Lord.

The theme of this year is taken from the Gospel of St. Luke, from the last words of the Risen One to his disciples: “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48). The proposal of the theme was requested by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in agreement with the Faith and Order Commission of the Ecumenical [World] Council of Churches, from an ecumenical group of Scotland. A century ago, the World Mission Conference for the consideration of problems in reference to the non-Christian world took place in fact in Edinburgh, in Scotland, June 13-24, 1910.

Among the problems discussed then was that of the objective difficulty of Christians divided among themselves credibly proposing the evangelical proclamation to the non-Christian world. If Christians present themselves disunited, moreover, often in opposition, will the proclamation of Christ as the only Savior of the world and our peace be credible to a world that does not know Christ or that has distanced itself from him, or that appears indifferent to the Gospel?

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI continued his study of Christian history by focusing on the contributions of the Mendicant Orders—the Dominicans and Franciscans—to the renewal of the Church and Christian society in the Middle Ages.  In his address, the Holy Father explained how the espousal of mendicant poverty and itineracy enabled the Friars Minor and the Preaching Friars to become the spiritual leaders par excellence of the medieval city.  No mere relic of the past, however, the mendicant quality of religious life continues to benefit the Church’s life, especially, as Pope Benedict notes, through the Dominican and Franciscan “third orders.”

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 13, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At the beginning of the new year, we look at the history of Christianity, to see how a history develops and how it can be renewed. In it we can see that it is the saints, guided by the light of God, who are the genuine reformers of the life of the Church and of society. Teachers by their word and witnesses with their example, they know how to promote a stable and profound ecclesial renewal, because they themselves are profoundly renewed, they are in contact with the true novelty: the presence of God in the world.

Such a consoling reality — that in every generation saints are born and bear the creativity of renewal — constantly accompanies the history of the Church in the midst of the sorrows and the negative aspects of her journey. We also see come forth, century by century, the forces of reform and of renewal, because the novelty of God is inexorable and always gives new strength to go forward.

This was what happened in the 13th century, with the birth and the extraordinary development of the Mendicant Orders: a model of great renewal in a new historic period. They were called thus because of their characteristic of “begging,” namely, of going to the people humbly for economic support to live the vow of poverty and to carry out their evangelizing mission. Of the Mendicant Orders that arose in that period, the most notable and most important are the Friars Minor and the Preaching Friars, known as Franciscans and Dominicans. They have these names because of their founders, Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzmán, respectively. These two great saints had the capacity to wisely read “the signs of the times,” intuiting the challenges that the Church of their time had to face.

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CHRISTMAS “URBI ET ORBI” BLESSING
December 24, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world, and all men and women, whom the Lord loves!

“Lux fulgebit hodie super nos,
quia natus est nobis Dominus.”

“A light will shine on us this day,
the Lord is born for us.”

(Roman Missal, Christmas, Entrance Antiphon for the Mass at Dawn)

The liturgy of the Mass at Dawn reminded us that the night is now past, the day has begun; the light radiating from the cave of Bethlehem shines upon us.

The Bible and the Liturgy do not, however, speak to us about a natural light, but a different, special light, which is somehow directed to and focused upon “us”, the same “us” for whom the Child of Bethlehem “is born”. This “us” is the Church, the great universal family of those who believe in Christ, who have awaited in hope the new birth of the Saviour, and who today celebrate in mystery the perennial significance of this event.

At first, beside the manger in Bethlehem, that “us” was almost imperceptible to human eyes. As the Gospel of Saint Luke recounts, it included, in addition to Mary and Joseph, a few lowly shepherds who came to the cave after hearing the message of the Angels. The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night. All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light “that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). And yet all this took place in simplicity and hiddenness, in the way that God works in all of salvation history. God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces. Truth, and Love, which are its content, are kindled wherever the light is welcomed; they then radiate in concentric circles, as if by contact, in the hearts and minds of all those who, by opening themselves freely to its splendour, themselves become sources of light. Such is the history of the Church: she began her journey in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries she has become a People and a source of light for humanity. Today too, in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the “sign” of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the “us” of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind.

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HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
Christmas Vigil
December 24, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“A child is born for us, a son is given to us” (Is 9:5). What Isaiah prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light streams forth: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11). The Lord is here. From this moment, God is truly “God with us”. No longer is he the distant God who can in some way be perceived from afar, in creation and in our own consciousness. He has entered the world. He is close to us. The words of the risen Christ to his followers are addressed also to us: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel announced to the shepherds. It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there. The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God’s incarnation have to tell us?

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch — they could hear the message precisely because they were awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His “self” is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others. To wake up means to leave that private world of one’s own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people. Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.

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On December 23, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address to exploring the historical origin of the Solemnity of Christmas.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
December 23, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

With the Christmas novena that we are celebrating in these days, the Church invites us to live intensely and profoundly the preparation for the birth of the Savior, which is nearly upon us.

The desire that all of us have in our hearts is that, in the midst of the frenetic activity of our days, the coming feast of Christmas gives us serene and profound joy to enable us to touch the goodness of our God with our hands and to fill us with new energy.

To better understand the meaning of the birth of the Lord, I would like to briefly refer to the historical origin of this solemnity. In fact, the liturgical year of the Church did not initially develop beginning with the birth of Christ, but rather from faith in the Resurrection. Because of this the most ancient feast of Christianity is not Christmas, but Easter: The resurrection of Christ is at the base of Christian faith; it is at the base of the proclamation of the Gospel and gives birth to the Church. Therefore to be Christians means to live in the mode of Easter, connecting ourselves to the dynamic that comes from baptism, which brings death to sin to live with God (cf. Romans 6:4).

The first one to clearly affirm that Jesus was born on Dec. 25 was Hippolytus of Rome in his commentary on the Book of the prophet Daniel, written around 204. One exegete observes, moreover, that on this day was celebrated the Dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem, instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 164 B.C.. The concurrence of dates would come to mean that with Jesus, appearing as light of God in the night, advent of God to this earth, the consecration of the temple is truly fulfilled.

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Continuing his series on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address today to the life and work of John of Salisbury, a twelfth-century scholar who served as secretary to the archbishops of Canterbury, including St. Thomas Becket, before his own election as Bishop of Chartres.  John’s scholarship reveals his high regard for the powers of human reason, especially its ability to discern the contours of the natural law in creation. As the Holy Father notes, appreciation of reason’s competence remains as vital as ever.   For example, within the political sphere, reason’s view of the natural law can act to safeguard human law from the “dictatorship of relativism.”

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
December 16, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today we will meet the figure of John of Salisbury, who belonged to one of the most important philosophical and theological schools of the Middle Ages, that of the cathedral of Chartres, in France. John, too, like the theologians about whom I’ve spoken over the past weeks, helps us to understand how faith, in harmony with the just aspirations of reason, pushes thought toward revealed truth, in which the true good of man is found.

John was born in England, in Salisbury, between the year 1100 and 1120. Reading his works, and above all, his rich epistles, we discover the most important events of his life. For 12 years, between 1136 and 1148, he dedicated himself to study, availing of the most qualified schools of the epoch, where he heard lectures from famous teachers.

He headed to Paris and then to Chartres, the environment that particularly marked his formation and from which he assimilated his great cultural openness, his interest for speculative problems, and his appreciation of literature. As often happened in that time, the most brilliant students were picked by prelates and sovereigns, to be their closest collaborators. This also happened to John of Salisbury, who was presented by a great friend of his, Bernard of Claraval, to Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury — the primary see of England — who happily took him in among his clergy.

For 11 years, from 1150 to 1161, John was the secretary and chaplain of the elderly archbishop. With tireless zeal, despite continuing his studies, he carried out an intense regimen of diplomatic activities, traveling 10 times to Italy with the specific objective of nourishing the relationship of the kingdom of England and the Church there with the Roman Pontiff.

Among other things, during those years, the Pope was Adrian IV, an Englishman who was a close friend of John of Salisbury. In the years following the 1159 death of Adrian IV, a situation of serious tension was created in England between the Church and the kingdom. The king, Henry II, aimed to wield authority over the internal life of the Church, limiting its liberty. This endeavor brought about a reaction from John of Salisbury, and above all, valiant resistance from Theobald’s successor in the episcopal see of Canterbury, St. Thomas Becket. St. Thomas went to exile in France because of this. John of Salisbury accompanied him and remained at his service, always working for reconciliation. In 1170, when both John and Thomas Becket had returned to England, Thomas was attacked and killed in the cathedral. He died as a martyr and was immediately venerated as such by the people.

John continued faithfully serving the successor of Thomas as well, until he was elected bishop of Chartres, where he stayed from 1176 to 1180, the year of his death.

I would like to point out two of John of Salisbury’s works, which are considered his masterpieces and which are elegantly named with the Greek titles of “Metalogicon” (In Defense of Logic) and “Policraticus” (The Man of Government).

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Last Saturday evening in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI observed the opening of the new liturgical year by presiding over the celebration of First Vespers for the First Sunday of Advent.  Below you can read the homily he preached to the assembled faithful.

FIRST VESPERS FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
November 28, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

With this evening celebration we enter the liturgical time of Advent. In the biblical reading we just heard, taken from the First Letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul invites us to prepare for the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:23), keeping ourselves irreproachable, with the grace of God. Paul uses, in fact, the word “coming,” in Latin adventus, from whence comes the term Advent.

Let us reflect briefly on the meaning of this word, which can be translated as “presence,” “arrival,” “coming.” In the language of the ancient world it was a technical term used to indicate the arrival of a functionary or the visit of a king or emperor to a province. But it could also indicate the coming of the divinity, which goes out of concealment to manifest itself with power, or which is celebrated as present in worship. Christians adopted the word “advent” to express their relationship with Jesus Christ: Jesus is King, who has entered into this poor “province” called earth to visit everyone; he brings to participate in his advent those who believe in him, all those who believe in his presence in the liturgical assembly. With the word adventus an attempt was made essentially to say: God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world, he has not left us alone. Although we cannot see or touch him, as is the case with tangible realities, he is here and comes to visit us in multiple ways.

The meaning of the expression “advent” includes therefore also that of visitatio, which means simply and properly “visit”; in this case it is a visit of God: He enters my life and wants to address me. We all experience in daily life having little time for the Lord and little time for ourselves. We end up by being absorbed in “doing.” Is it not true that often activity possesses us, that society with its many interests monopolizes our attention? Is it not true that we dedicate much time to amusements and leisure of different kinds? Sometimes things “trap” us.

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At last week’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his survey of medieval Christian culture by turning our attention to the twelfth-century theological school of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Victor in Paris.  As one of the academic forerunners of the University of Paris, St. Victor produced some of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages, including Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, and his disciple, Richard of St. Victor.  All three composed theological works of immense depth and skill.  Their writings on the Trinity and on the sacraments especially helped to prepare the stage for the great flourishing of theology in Paris in the thirteenth century, when figures such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure took center stage.  In Wednesday’s audience, the Holy Father focused on the work of Hugh and Richard specifically.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
November 25, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

During these Wednesday audiences, I have been presenting some exemplary figures of believers who have been determined to show the harmony between reason and faith, and to witness with their life the proclamation of the Gospel.

Today I would like to speak to you about Hugh and Richard of St. Victor. Both are among those notable philosophers and theologians known by the name of Victorines, because they lived in the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, founded at the beginning of the 12th century by William of Champeaux. William himself was a renowned teacher, who was able to give his abbey a solid cultural identity. In fact, inaugurated in St. Victor was a school for the formation of monks, open also to outside students, where a happy synthesis was made between the two forms of doing theology, of which I have already spoken in previous catecheses: namely, monastic theology, mainly oriented to the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith in Scripture, and scholastic theology, which used reason to attempt to scrutinize these mysteries with innovative methods, to create a theological system.

We know little about the life of Hugh of St. Victor. The date and place of his birth are uncertain: perhaps in Saxony or in Flanders. It is known that he arrived in Paris — the European capital of culture at the time — and spent the rest of his years in the abbey of St. Victor, where he was first a disciple and then a teacher. Already before his death, which occurred in 1141, he achieved great notoriety and esteem, to the point of being called a “second St. Augustine”: Like Augustine, in fact, he meditated much on the relation between faith and reason, between profane sciences and theology.

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Last Saturday, Pope Benedict welcomed over 250 artists from around the world to the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, where he led his guests in a reflection on beauty and the service rendered it by the artistic community.  Assembled beneath Michelangelo’s famous ceiling were painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and architects, including Bono, Andrea Bocelli, Arvo Part, and Ennio Morricone.  The Pope encouraged his listeners to enter into dialogue with believers in their quest for beauty, and then in their arts to strive not only to communicate beauty but to communicate in and with beauty.

The meeting marked the tenth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Artists, and the forty-fifth anniversary of a similar meeting Pope Paul VI held with the artistic community of his day.

For press coverage of last Saturday’s meeting, click here and here.

MEETING WITH ARTISTS
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Sistine Chapel
Saturday, 21 November 2009

Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to express and renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art, a friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of salvation. This friendship must be continually promoted and supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations. Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the various distinguished personalities present. I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their contribution to this gathering. Today’s event is focused on you, dear and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.

Some significant anniversaries occur around this time. It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time, on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, “are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty”. Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, forty-five years ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express wish of Pope Paul VI, to confirm the friendship between the Church and the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our minds. “We need you,” he said. “We need your collaboration in order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity … you are masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms – making them accessible.” So great was Paul VI’s esteem for artists that he was moved to use daring expressions. “And if we were deprived of your assistance,” he added, “our ministry would become faltering and uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with art.” On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to “re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists”, and he invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship, and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately, for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in order to arrive at an authentic “renaissance” of art in the context of a new humanism.

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This morning’s Daily News carries the following op-ed piece by Kathryn Jean Lopez, the editor of National Review Online. In it, Lopez mentions the public forum held here last week on Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, and she explains its importance to contemporary political debates.

Click here to read the article on the Daily News website.

THE ISSUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IS FAR BIGGER THAN THE ABORTION DEBATE

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Wednesday, September 2nd 2009

On Saturday, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who supported legal abortion, was hailed as “a beacon for social justice” at a Catholic church in Boston. On Friday, The New York Times reported on Catholic bishops speaking out against anti-life provisions in various versions of the proposed health care reform in Washington: “The bishops’ backlash reflects a struggle within the church over how heavily to weigh opposition to abortion against concerns about social justice.”

An expert confirmed: “It is the great tension in Catholic thought right now,” said Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Notre Dame.

The fights exist. But reports of a “great tension” are exaggerated. Fundamentally, what is social justice if it does not include the very right to life?

The New York Times and every Catholic politician who follows the Ted Kennedy beacon missed a primer on just this issue. Manhattan’s St. Vincent Ferrer Church recently hosted a workshop headlined by Archbishop Timothy Dolan on Pope Benedict’s third encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate,” or “Love in Truth.”

The event stood in contrast to much of the media coverage following the encyclical’s release. Many conservatives immediately groaned about its expressed need for “a true world political authority.” Liberals celebrated the same. Many are missing the soul of it. The Pope described “charity in truth” as the “principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and all humanity” and the “heart of the church’s social doctrine.”

“Social justice doctrine” doesn’t belong to any one political party or ideology. Rather, it poses challenges to all of us.

Lack of harmony, Dolan argued, is not in the social doctrine of the church, but in “somewhat of a rift that has taken place in the social justice activity of the church throughout the world.” He pointed to a “cleavage” between “the economic social justice people and the pro-life social justice people,” who are at an unnecessary “loggerheads.”

Dolan presented the continuum with a fourfold focus on the innate dignity of the human person (“every man and woman is made in the image and likeness of God”), the common good (“everything we do has a social implication”; “an economic decision is also a moral decision), solidarity (“we’re in this together”; “we are social beings . . . brothers and sisters of a common Father”; “always be aware of the implications”), and subsidiarity (“apprehension of big, huge, massive bureaucracy, especially when it comes to the protection of the basic unit of human life, the family”).

The integrated message of focusing on these fundamentals is: Be not confused. In this way, though, the forum was very different from most of the media coverage immediately following the release of the Holy See’s latest contribution to the church’s social justice canon and some of the misleading messages stemming from Kennedy’s Catholic sendoff.

The encyclical states, unsurprisingly: “When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.” This underscores a great shame of our current political discussions involving Catholicism: They’re always focused on abortion because of the endless game we’re subjected to by Catholic politicians pretending that they can advocate for legal abortion with right reason and clear conscience.

While we listen to the Gospel According to Nancy Pelosi and ignore the Kennedy contributions to cementing a culture of death, we are deprived of an even deeper conversation about just what social justice is, how exactly to best serve the common good. It doesn’t necessarily mean “government gives.” It’s a lot more complicated. And the political conversation could benefit from some shepherding from a position of love and truth. Unfortunately, at the moment we’re still focused on just trying to stay alive.

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The parish is honored that Archbishop Dolan has agreed to participate in the forum.  This will be his first visit to St. Vincent’s.

The evening will include a Q & A session with the speakers.  Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, call the Parish Office.

For an English translation of Caritas in Veritate, click here.

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The Holy Father has published his third encyclical.  Entitled Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), it reflects on authentic human development and the Church’s social doctrine in light of the current economic situation.

Click here for the official English translation of the text.

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A safe and happy Fourth of July to all!

As our nation celebrates the 233nd anniversary of its independence, we are reminded of the place patriotism holds in the Christian life.  In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas observes that patriotism is the just piety we owe to our country.  Piety here is taken in its widest sense, meaning the honor and gratitude we owe to those who provide for our well-being.  Hence, Aquinas sees patriotism as a third form of piety following that which we owe first to God and then to our parents.

St. Thomas writes in Question 101 of the secunda-secundae (the second part of the second section of the Summa):

Indebtedness to others arises in a variety of ways matching their own superiority and the diverse benefits received from them.  On both counts God holds the first place; he is both absolutely supreme and the first source of our existence and progress through life.  Next, on the basis of birth and upbringing, parents and country are the closest sources of our existence and development; as a consequence everyone is indebted first of all under God to his parents and his fatherland.

Therefore, as it is for the virtue of religion to pay homage to God, so on the next level, it is up to piety to render its own kind of homage to parents and country.

Note that in its meaning homage to parents extends to blood relatives as well, i.e. to those so called because, as Aristotle notes, they share our lineage; and homage towards country includes what we should show to all fellow citizens and well-wishers. This is the full range of piety.

The Fourth of July can also remind us of the necessary place freedom holds in the Christian life.  St. Paul writes to the Galatians (5:1): “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”  This Gospel freedom described by Paul should not be confused with political freedom, which is what our nation rightly celebrates today.  The freedom enjoyed in Christ’s truth and love is a nobler freedom that necessarily guides political freedom to its good and perfective end.  For many Americans today, it can seem contradictory to say that political freedom must be guided by a higher law.  How can freedom be free if it is subject to a higher authority?  When in New York just over a year ago, Pope Benedict XVI addressed this very problem in the homily he delivered in Yankee Stadium.

“Authority” … “obedience”. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a “stumbling stone” for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ – “the way and the truth and the life” – we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. “In his will is our peace”.

Real freedom, then, is God’s gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality. When we put on “the mind of Christ” (cf. Phil 2:5), new horizons open before us! In the light of faith, within the communion of the Church, we also find the inspiration and strength to become a leaven of the Gospel in the world. We become the light of the world, the salt of the earth (cf. Mt 5:13-14), entrusted with the “apostolate” of making our own lives, and the world in which we live, conform ever more fully to God’s saving plan.

As we celebrate with family and friends today, may we take to heart the Holy Father’s gentle reminder, that the freedom of political independence carries with it responsibilities to higher and nobler ends.

God our Father, Giver of life,
we entrust the United States of America to Your loving care.

You are the rock on which this nation was founded.
You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Reclaim this land for Your glory and dwell among Your people.

Send Your Spirit to touch the hearts of our nation´s leaders.
Open their minds to the great worth of human life
and the responsibilities that accompany human freedom.
Remind Your people that true happiness is rooted in seeking and doing Your will.

Through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, Patroness of our land,
grant us the courage to reject the “culture of death.”
Lead us into a new millennium of life.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord.   Amen.

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