Grazie, Signore, per il dono dell vita eterna, e i fiori che dacci un segno del Tuo amore misericordioso condividato in Cristo Risorto. Amen.
The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."
"Jesus goes ahead of us, and he goes up to what is above. He leads us to what is great, pure, he leads us to the healthy air of the heights: to life according to truth; to the courage that does not let itself be intimidated by the gossip of dominant opinions; to the patience that stands up for and supports the other. He leads us to availability to the suffering, to the abandoned; to the loyalty that stands with the other even when the situation makes it difficult.He leads us to availability to bring help; to the goodness that does not let itself be disarmed not even by ingratitude. He leads us to love -- he leads us to God."
CELEBRAZIONE DELLA DOMENICA DELLE PALME
E DELLA PASSIONE DEL SIGNORE
OMELIA DEL SANTO PADRE BENEDETTO XVI
Piazza San Pietro
XXV Giornata Mondiale della Gioventù
Domenica, 28 marzo 2010
Photo: VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - MARCH 28: Pope Benedict XVI, Palm Sunday Mass on March 28, 2010 in Vatican City, Vatican. Getty Images.
"Surely He has borne our sorrows.""The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame."
-- Is 50:4-7
Art: Caravaggio, Ecce Homo.
Intense scrutiny is being devoted these days to Pope Benedict XVI's history on the sex abuse crisis. Revelations from Germany have put his five years as a diocesan bishop under a spotlight, and a piece on Thursday in The New York Times, on the case of Fr. Lawrence Murphy of Milwaukee, also called into question his Vatican years as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Despite complaints in some quarters that all this is about wounding the pope and/or the church, raising these questions is entirely legitimate. Anyone involved in church leadership at the most senior levels for as long as Benedict XVI inevitably bears some responsibility for the present mess. My newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, today called editorially for full disclosure about the pope's record, and it now seems abundantly clear that only such transparency can resolve the hard questions facing Benedict.
Yet as always, the first casualty of any crisis is perspective. There are at least three aspects of Benedict's record on the sexual abuse crisis which are being misconstrued, or at least sloppily characterized, in today's discussion. Bringing clarity to these points is not a matter of excusing the pope, but rather of trying to understand accurately how we got where we are.
Read the rest of John L. Allen's excellent analysis here.
At last – Archbishop Vincent Nichols, writing in The Times, has explained how far-reaching the former Cardinal Ratzinger’s reforms of Vatican procedures were after he took over responsibility for dealing with abuse allegations in 2001. More should have been done, and much earlier. But, although his record was not perfect, Ratzinger was part of the solution, not the problem. And we need to bear that in mind when we listen to commentators like the monumentally pompous ex-Jesuit Michael Walsh scoring points against their old enemy. Oh, and if anyone is under the impression that veteran BBC Rome correspondent David Willey doesn’t have an axe to grind, let me put you right on that one.
Here’s the quote from Archbishop Nichols. He may not be on quite the same liturgical wavelength as the Pope, but he can recognise a hit job when he sees one:Both contained expressions of solidarity toward Benedict for his handling of abuse cases.
Abuse victims from the United States to Europe have been demanding that Benedict take responsibility for what he did or didn't do, both in his tenure in Germany and as the director of a Vatican policy that centralized the cases in Rome under a cloak of confidentiality.
French bishops said in their letter to Benedict that they are ashamed of priests who molested and raped children. The bishops said these “abominable acts” had “disfigured the church, wounded Christian communities and cast suspicion on all the members of the clergy.”Statement of the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See , P. Federico Lombardi, SJ, in regard to an article in the "New York Times"/DICHIARAZIONE DEL DIRETTORE DELLA SALA STAMPA DELLA SANTA SEDE, P. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, S.I., A PROPOSITO DI UN ARTICOLO DEL "NEW YORK TIMES"
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.
[00421-02.01] [Original text: Italian]
[B0179-XX.02]
Source at Daily Bulletin of the Holy See website here.
Click here for New York Times article "Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Transfer" to which Fr Lombardi refers in Vatican press release.
Using an evident understanding of Catholic theology and Church life, EJ Dionne's fairly balanced editorial in the Post today is critical of Church response to abuse in some cases and calls for changes to institute true reform. It's not easy for anyone to face criticism but authentic followers of Christ are called to acknowledge their own sinfulness or failures and take responsibility which includes a "firm purpose of amendment" as Dionne writes.How in the name of God can the Roman Catholic Church put the pedophilia scandal behind it?
I do not invoke God's name lightly. The church's problem is, above all, theological and religious. Its core difficulty is that rather than drawing on its Christian resources, the church has acted almost entirely on the basis of this world's imperatives and standards.
It has worried about lawsuits. It has worried about its image. It has worried about itself as an institution and about protecting its leaders from public scandal. In so doing, it has made millions of Catholics righteously furious and aggravated every one of its problems.
So instead of going away, the scandal keeps coming back, lately in a form that seems to challenge Pope Benedict XVI himself. It was sickening to read Thursday's New York Times story reporting that Vatican officials "did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church."
The priest, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, worked at a Wisconsin school for deaf boys from 1950 to 1974. He died in 1998.
In Germany, the pope's home country, more than 300 victims have come forward in recent weeks, and Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose party has Catholic roots, called the scandal "a major challenge for our society."
In the case of Murphy, the Vatican did what every institution does in a scandal: It issued a statement putting the best face on its decisions.
"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 Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said, "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." Murphy, he noted, "died approximately four months later without further incident." The statement is representative of what's wrong with the church's response. It is bureaucratic and self-exculpatory, even asking us to feel for this priest because he was "elderly" and "in very poor health."
The spokesman called the case "tragic," but tragic does not do justice to the outrage here. Yes, the statement included an acknowledgement of the "particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from what [Murphy] did," and that he had violated his "sacred trust." Is this the best Father Lombardi could do?
During his visit to the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict started moving toward a better approach. He seemed genuinely pained and angered by the scandal. He repeatedly apologized and said he was "deeply ashamed" of the abusive priests who had "betrayed" their ministry.
But while this was a step in the right direction, apologizing for the misbehavior of individual priests will never be enough. The church has been reluctant to speak plainly about the heart of its problem: In handling these cases, it put institutional self-protection first.
The church needs to show it understands the flaws of its own internal culture by examining its own conscience, its own practices, its own reflexives when faced with challenge. As the church rightly teaches, acknowledging the true nature of our sin is the one and only path to redemption and forgiveness.
Of course, this will not be easy. Enemies of the church will use this scandal to discredit the institution no matter what the Vatican does. Many in the hierarchy thought they were doing the right thing, however wrong their decisions were. And the church is not alone in facing problems of this sort.
But defensiveness and institutional self-protection are not Gospel values. "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."
The church needs to cast aside the lawyers, the PR specialists and its own worst instincts, which are human instincts. Benedict could go down as one of the greatest popes in history if he were willing to risk all in the name of institutional self-examination, painful but liberating public honesty, and true contrition.
And then comes something even harder: Especially during Lent, the church teaches that forgiveness requires Catholics to have "a firm purpose of amendment." The church will have to show not only that it has learned from this scandal, but also that it's truly willing to transform itself.
Photo: Pope Benedict XVI speaks at a youth gathering outside the Vatican on Thursday. (Gregorio Borgia/associated Press)
Applaud efforts to expand health care to all
Emphasize need to guarantee federal money does not go to abortion
Need to address flaws in health reform plan just passed
WASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops called on Congress and people in the Catholic community to make sure promises are kept that new health care legislation will not expand abortions in the United States.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, made the call March 23, moments after president Barack Obama signed the Senate version of health care reform legislation approved by the House of Representatives by a slim margin, March 21. The statement was approved unanimously by the 32-member Administrative Committee of the USCCB.
“We applaud the effort to expand health care to all,” Cardinal George said.
He noted concerns about the legislation, including that “the statute forces all those who choose federally subsidized plans that cover abortion to pay for other people’s abortions with their own funds.”
Thanks to Matt Archbold and all large families for reminding us of God on a daily basis.
Benedict XVI is facing the biggest crisis of his reign as pope.
Photograph: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP
Under an all-but-full moon on the opening evening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, tens of thousands of Romans poured into St Peter's Square in a torchlight procession. Called to the window of his study by the multitude, John XXIII, the man Italians called "the good pope" (a term that speaks volumes about their view of the previous 260), delivered one of the great speeches of an eloquent decade. Its emotional high point came when he told the crowd: "Returning home, you'll find the children. Give your children a caress and say: 'This is the caress of the pope.'"
Forty-three years later, on the night Benedict XVI was elected, a text message hurtled between mobiles as the crowds dispersed from that same square. "Returning home, you'll find the children", it read. "Give them a belt round the ear and say: 'That's a belt round the ear from the pope.'"
In the five years since, it has become clear that the daunting reputation the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger brought into office as "God's rottweiler" was, in many respects, misleading. A man less likely to cuff a child would be hard to imagine – although, as the latest and biggest scandal to rock his papacy has revealed, his choirmaster brother was not above cuffing choristers.
Read the rest of the article by clicking here.
Comments 143 | Comment on this article
After a week of disastrous publicity for the Roman Catholic Church, it's a fair bet that if you conducted a word-association test in the average British high street, the results would be as follows:
Catholic priest? "Paedophile."
Pope? "Nazi."
The reputation of the Church internationally has never been lower. On Wednesday, St Patrick's Day, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, apologised for helping to persuade two boys – aged 10 and 14 – to sign letters agreeing not to tell the police that a priest, Brendan Smyth, had abused them.
This was 35 years ago: Brady was just one priest involved in the internal church process, and the story has been in the public domain for years. But what difference does that make? Smyth, now dead, went on to be exposed as a notorious sexual predator. Cardinal Brady said last December that he would resign if he was implicated in decisions that led children to be abused. Now he says he'll go only if the Holy Father orders him to.
Pope Benedict XVI will have to make up his mind what to do about Cardinal Brady. But it won't be easy to find the time, because clerical child-abuse scandals – previously mainly confined to the English-speaking world – are bursting out all over Europe. And sections of the media are doing their best to implicate the Pope in one of them.
Did Joseph Ratzinger, when he was Archbishop of Munich in 1980, enable a priest already facing allegations to work in a parish and subsequently abuse boys? A headline in The Times on Saturday left readers in no doubt: "Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry."
The story was explosive, and not just because it directly implicated the spiritual leader of a billion Catholics. The Pope is visiting England and Scotland in September. He will meet the Queen at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, and beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the great English theologian, at a public Mass in Coventry. And he will offer "guidance on the great moral issues of our day", according to Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Church in Scotland.
Moral guidance? From a man who (according to The Times) knew a priest was a paedophile but allowed him to continue in ministry? If that were true, no wonder 28,000 people have signed a petition to the Prime Minister objecting to state funding of Benedict's visit.
At which point, everyone needs to take a deep breath. Because a narrative is being formed in the public imagination that is horrifying, packed with salacious detail and very neat, in that it describes a Catholic conspiracy to hush up child abuse stretching right to the very top. The problem is that it's partly fiction.
Many Catholics – and I am one of them – believe that the Pope has been stitched up over this Munich case. The then-Archbishop Ratzinger did not allow a priest he knew to be a paedophile to continue in ministry. He gave permission for the priest – a revolting pervert called Peter Hullermann, who was accused (but not convicted) of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform a sex act on him – to receive counselling in Munich while suspended from priestly duties.
Without Archbishop Ratzinger's knowledge, Hullermann was later transferred to parish duties. By the time he was convicted of sex offences, the archbishop had become Cardinal Ratzinger and had been working in the Vatican for several years. So the Times headline was, in the words of the leading Catholic commentator Philip Lawler, "grossly misleading, downright irresponsible".
The future Pontiff could have been more vigilant, but to bracket his delegation of decisions with Cardinal Brady's complicity in a cover-up is unfair. As unfair, indeed, as branding an elderly Bavarian cleric a "former Nazi" because he was drafted into the Hitler youth and served briefly in the German army during the war.
The fact is that sections of the media will not be happy until they have implicated the Pope in sex-abuse scandals – and if the dots don't quite join up, never mind: it makes good copy and the Successor of Peter isn't going to sue, is he? One Guardian columnist welcomed the news of the Pope's visit with the claim that he had "colluded" in the deaths of millions of Africans. "Don't tread on the corpses," she sneered.
Mgr Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's ancient older brother, has also been dragged into the spotlight. As head of the Regensburg choir school, he was innocent of any abuse that took place there before his time. But he admitted slapping the occasional wayward choirboy, so naturally he has been thrown to the wolves.
Yet there are also Catholics – and, again, I'm one of them – who are furious that a culture of secrecy has enabled a small minority of clergy to assault children: generations of children, in some cases, their crimes consistently hushed up by lazy slugs in diocesan offices who would rather expose young people to assault than damage "the good name of the Church".
As a journalist working in the Catholic media, I've encountered again and again a level of deceit reminiscent of the flunkeys of
a tinpot dictator. Charles Chaput, the current Archbishop of Denver, a lonely campaigner against episcopal back-slapping, has condemned the "clericalism, excessive secrecy, 'happy talk' and spin control" that enabled the establishment to move abusers around parishes like pieces on a Monopoly board.
Russell Shaw, the former director of communications for America's Catholic bishops, has written about the "stifling, deadening misuse of secrecy that does immense harm to the Church". But Shaw also raises the unfashionable topic of "legitimate secrecy of the kind required to protect confidential records and people's reputations".
Let me give an example. A priest I know slightly was accused of a sexual crime that he didn't commit. He was removed from his parish so quietly that his parishioners didn't know what was going on. He returned, months later, equally surreptitiously, having been cleared by police. Some of his flock resented the "secrecy". Yet it saved the career and reputation of an innocent man.
When he was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer, Cardinal Ratzinger defended and enforced this legitimate secrecy. In 2001, he demanded to be sent bishops' files on accused clergy, because he did not believe the cases were being handled with sufficient rigour. He cited a 1962 document which stressed the need for confidentiality. But – and this point is crucial – Ratzinger used his new jurisdiction to act far more harshly against sex abusers than had their useless local bishops. From that point forward, writes John Allen, an American Catholic journalist, "he and his staff seemed driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess".
What are non-Catholics to make of all this? I'd argue that, like Catholics, they need to resist sweeping conclusions and try to reconcile two truths. The first is that many Catholic bishops, especially in Ireland and America, betrayed children, families and their own good priests by covering up for abusers. The crimes may have reached their peak as long ago as the 1970s, but the culture that enveloped them has yet to be fully dismantled.
The second is that secularists who despise Catholicism are manipulating tragedies to marginalise Catholics and blacken the name of a Pope, Benedict XVI, who has done far more than his predecessor to root out what he calls the "filth" of sexual abuse. Unfortunately for the Pope, his enemies inside the Church, who include members of the College of Cardinals, are happy for him to take the rap. Ratzinger was never "one of the boys", the "magic circle" of bishops who covered for each other, and now he is paying for it. Expect some judicious leaking of scandals to sympathetic journalists just in time for his visit.
Ultimately, only the Pope himself can resolve the tension between guilt and innocence, and he needs to act fast. The "Rottweiler" nickname was always misleading, given his personal gentleness, but it would be no bad thing if he launched a ferocious attack on sexual predators and their hand-wringing accomplices in the higher ranks of the clergy
Source: Damian Thompson, The Telegraph.
For Immediate Release
March 19, 2010U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced three airports in northern Michigan have received grants totaling $726,409 for airport maintenance and improvements. The funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration.
“This federal funding will help these airports better provide critical services to communities in northern Michigan,” Stupak said. “I am pleased the FAA has made this investment in our local airports and the individuals and businesses they serve.”
The following has been released by the ACLJ:
Thanks be to God for these courageous and strong women who define "Pro Life" as God does: no exceptions. Every life is sacred.
Prayer for the Church in Ireland
God of our fathers,
renew us in the faith which is our life and salvation,
the hope which promises forgiveness and interior renewal,
the charity which purifies and opens our hearts
to love you, and in you, each of our brothers and sisters.
Lord Jesus Christ,
may the Church in Ireland renew her age-old commitment
to the education of our young people in the way of truth and goodness, holiness and generous service to society.
Holy Spirit, comforter, advocate and guide,
inspire a new springtime of holiness and apostolic zeal
for the Church in Ireland.
May our sorrow and our tears,
our sincere effort to redress past wrongs,
and our firm purpose of amendment
bear an abundant harvest of grace
for the deepening of the faith
in our families, parishes, schools and communities,
for the spiritual progress of Irish society,
and the growth of charity, justice, joy and peace
within the whole human family.
To you, Triune God,
confident in the loving protection of Mary,
Queen of Ireland, our Mother,
and of Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid and all the saints,
do we entrust ourselves, our children,
and the needs of the Church in Ireland.
Amen.
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.
For the full text of the letter, click here.
Keep our pro-lifers young, old and of all ages in your prayers as they stand up for the voiceless and powerless unborn. Children, whose only fault is that they reside in the womb, are threatened every day by legalized killing and the voracious evil of the abortion industry backed by corporations with harmless sounding names like Planned Parenthood. The only kind of parenthood these blood-thirsty killers understand is "banned" parenthood, where parents of aborted children spend the rest of their lives trying to heal from the evil of participating in the senseless and unnecessary murder of their own children.
"...that faith is life's most durable commodity."
-- Archbishop Dolan, homily, 2010 Saint Patrick's Day Mass, New York City
Thank you for visiting APL and a Blessed Saint Patrick's Day to all!
Mugs, t-shirts, buttons, hoodies, water bottles. It's the latest Spring fashion. Get yours now before they sell out.
"Further, the Senate bill authorizes and appropriates billions of dollars in new funding outside the scope of the appropriations bills covered by the Hyde amendment and similar provisions. As the bill is written, the new funds it appropriates over the next five years, for Community Health Centers for example (Sec. 10503), will be available by statute for elective abortions, even though the present regulations do conform to the Hyde amendment. Regulations, however, can be changed at will, unless they are governed by statute.
"Additionally, no provision in the Senate bill incorporates the longstanding and widely supported protection for conscience regarding abortion as found in the Hyde/Weldon amendment. Moreover, neither the House nor Senate bill contains meaningful conscience protection outside the abortion context. Any final bill, to be fair to all, must retain the accommodation of the full range of religious and moral objections in the provision of health insurance and services that are contained in current law, for both individuals and institutions.
"This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association. They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote. Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke."
Read the whole Statement by Cardinal Francis George, OMI, "The Cost is too High; the Loss is too Great", here.
Through His mercy we "get up" from the pit and mire of sin,
and back to His house with open arms the Father welcomes us in.
For more: Laetare Sunday, "We must celebrate and rejoice".
-- ((((..))))
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "NCHLA" <info@nchla.org>
Date: Mar 12, 2010 6:35 PM
Subject: URGENT: Health Care Reform Action
To: "Kevin Cusick" <mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com>
Call To Action
Dear Friend,
Congress again is preparing to vote on health care reform. At this stage, it is difficult to predict how votes might unfold. It is very important that the language in the House-passed bill preventing abortion funding—the Stupak-Pitts Amendment—be incorporated in its essential features as a part of any final bill.Votes could occur at any time. Please click on the link below to send a message to House and Senate Members! Act now!
What has happened up to this point in the health care reform debate? The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have passed different bills. On the question of preventing abortion funding, the House language is good, the Senate language is unacceptable. Outside the abortion context, neither bill has adequate conscience protection for health care providers, plans or employers.
What's next? The two chambers need to agree on a final bill. It is not clear how this will be achieved. There is discussion of using a reconciliation bill, a budget measure that in the Senate cannot be filibustered and needs only 51 votes to pass.
Analyses of the House and Senate-passed bills can be found on our website at: www.nchla.org/issues.asp?ID=51.
Thank you for all you do in support of life!Sincerely,Michael TaylorExecutive DirectorNCHLA
Click the link below to log in and send your message:
http://actions.nchla.org/link/target/nchla/c4WGQR37.aspx
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Father Bill Breslin courageously defends Church teaching and the authentic good of the families in his church and school. Read about Father Breslin by clicking here.
