Vatican Cardinal Burke: ‘We’re well on the way’ to Christian persecution in the U.S.

BY JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
Mon Nov 28, 2011

VATICAN, November 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agency that he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.”

Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested for their faith he replied, “I can see it happening, yes.”

In his remarks to several U.S. Bishops meeting with him Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI made similarly emphatic warnings about the U.S. The pope told the bishops that “the seriousness of the challenges which the Church in America, under your leadership, is called to confront in the near future cannot be underestimated.”

He added: “The obstacles to Christian faith and practice raised by a secularized culture also affect the lives of believers.”

In the interview published today, Cardinal Burke declared that “it is a war” and “critical at this time that Christians stand up for the natural moral law.” Should they not, he warned, “secularization will in fact predominate and it will destroy us.”

Pope Benedict too urged the bishops of the United States to speak out in defense of morality. “The present moment can thus be seen, in positive terms, as a summons to exercise the prophetic dimension of your episcopal ministry by speaking out, humbly yet insistently, in defense of moral truth, and offering a word of hope, capable of opening hearts and minds to the truth that sets us free,” he said.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue told LifeSiteNews that Cardinal Burke’s remarks were accurate and not exaggerations. “Secularism has become militant,” he said. “Many elites are taking an aggressive secular approach. They have lined up against the Catholic Church and other Christian churches particularly for their stand on moral values.”

Donohue pointed to New York where gay ‘marriage’ was passed without debate or exemptions for clerks who objected to having to grant such licenses. He also noted the closing of Catholic adoption and foster care agencies since they were unable to comply with laws forcing homosexual adoptions.

“The real big one,” he added, “is the HHS of the Obama Administration.” The forcing of abortifacient and contraceptive coverage in private health care plans under penalty of fines was described by the Catholic League President as the Obama Administration “on a full court press to shove its values down the throats of the Catholic Church.”

See the full interview with Cardinal Burke with Catholic News Agency

Link to story: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-cardinal-burke-were-well-on-the-way-to-christian-persecution-in-the

Italy arrests six suspected Moroccan militants

Justice and Charity movement activists arrested for planning to "punish" Pope Benedict XVI for converting a Muslim journalist to Catholicism.


Middle East Online - http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=44602

ROME - Italian police said Friday they had arrested six suspected Moroccan militants, with one report saying they wanted to "punish" Pope Benedict XVI for converting a Muslim journalist to Catholicism in 2008.

They "are accused of setting up a group that aimed to incite discrimination, racial and religious hatred, violence and jihad against Christians and Jews," police in the northern city of Brescia said in a statement.

Five of the Moroccans have been put under house arrest, while the sixth is in jail. The six are all suspected of belonging to an Islamist fundamentalist movement called Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity), the statement said.

ANSA news agency reported that a note had been found on one of the Moroccans that called for revenge against the pope for converting Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, a former columnist for Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Allam, who condemned Islam for being a "violent" and "conflictual" religion was baptised by the pope in March 2008. The comment against the pope was found in a notebook hidden inside a jacket, the report said.

Holy See Blasts China for "Intransigent Intolerance"

Laments Forced Participation in National Church Meeting

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 17, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See today responded to China's decision to force participation in the 8th Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, saying the convention manifested a "repressive attitude" and that China has a "persistent desire to control the most intimate area of citizens’ lives."

The Vatican communiqué expressed "profound sorrow" because of the Dec. 7-9 meeting, held in Beijing.

The assembly was convened to elect leaders for two organizations that direct China's national Catholic church, both without papal approval. One is the assembly of Chinese bishops; the other is the Patriotic Association, the group which approves all religious practice in the country. Catholics who do not abide by the Patriotic Association have formed the "underground" or "clandestine" Church, faithful to the Bishop of Rome.

Today's communiqué noted how participation in the Beijing assembly was "imposed on numerous bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful."

"The manner in which it was convoked and its unfolding manifest a repressive attitude with regard to the exercise of religious liberty, which it was hoped had been consigned to the past in present-day China," the Holy See statement said. "The persistent desire to control the most intimate area of citizens’ lives, namely their conscience, and to interfere in the internal life of the Catholic Church does no credit to China.

"On the contrary, it seems to be a sign of fear and weakness rather than of strength; of intransigent intolerance rather than of openness to freedom and to effective respect both of human dignity and of a correct distinction between the civil and religious spheres."

Responsible before God

The Holy See recalled how it had let it be known, primarily to the bishops, but also to the faithful, that they should not participate in the Beijing assembly.

"Each one of those who were present knows to what extent he or she is responsible before God and the Church," the communiqué stated. "The bishops in particular and the priests will also have to face the expectations of their respective communities, who look to their own pastor and have a right to receive from him sure guidance in the faith and in the moral life."

The Holy See affirmed its condemnation of the forced participation, calling it a "grave violation of [the participants'] human rights, particularly their freedom of religion and of conscience."

On the other hand, it expressed "deepest esteem for those who, in different ways, have borne witness to their faith with courage."

Steadfast and patient

The Church sent a word for the faithful "whose hearts are full of dismay and profound suffering, those who are wondering how it is possible that their own bishop or their own priests should have taken part in the assembly."

The Holy See encouraged them to "remain steadfast and patient in the faith; it invites them to take account of the pressures experienced by many of their pastors and to pray for them; it exhorts them to continue courageously supporting them in the face of the unjust impositions that they encounter in the exercise of their ministry."

Deplorable

The Holy See reiterated that neither the "so-called Episcopal Conference" nor the Patriotic Association have Church approval.

It explained: "In particular, the present College of Catholic Bishops of China cannot be recognized as an Episcopal Conference by the Apostolic See: the 'clandestine' bishops, those not recognized by the government but in communion with the Pope, are not part of it; it includes bishops who are still illegitimate, and it is governed by statutes that contain elements incompatible with Catholic doctrine. It is deeply deplorable that an illegitimate bishop has been appointed as its president."

"Furthermore, regarding the declared purpose to implement the principles of independence and autonomy, self-management and democratic administration of the Church, it should be remembered that this is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, which from the time of the ancient Creeds professes the Church to be 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic.' It is therefore lamentable also that a legitimate bishop has been appointed president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association."

Not the path

The Holy See lamented that this month's assembly "rendered more difficult the path of reconciliation between Catholics of the 'clandestine communities' and those of the 'official communities.'"

It said a "deep wound" was inflicted, not only upon the Church in China but also upon the universal Church.

The Holy See called China a "great and noble nation" but said it is following the wrong path.

And it deplored that the assembly as well as a recent episcopal ordination without papal mandate "have unilaterally damaged the dialogue and the climate of trust that had been established in its relations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China."

"The Holy See, while reaffirming its own wish to dialogue honestly, feels bound to state that unacceptable and hostile acts such as those just mentioned provoke among the faithful, both in China and elsewhere, a grave loss of the trust that is necessary for overcoming the difficulties and building a correct relationship with the Church, for the sake of the common good," the communiqué stated.

The Holy See statement concluded by reiterating an appeal to prayer: "In the light of what has happened, the Holy Father’s invitation -- addressed on Dec. 1, 2010, to all the Catholics of the world to pray for the Church in China which is going through a particularly difficult time -- remains pressing."

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On ZENIT's Web page:

Full text: www.zenit.org/article-31268?l=english

Scholars Decry Distortion of Pius XII Quotation

Explain Context of Pacelli's Words

ROME, SEPT. 21, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The latest attempt to discredit Pope Pius XII is based on a manufactured quote that distorts his words, assert two authors.

Ronald Rychlak, author of "Hitler, the War, and the Pope," stated this in an article written with William Doino, Jr., contributor to "The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII."

Their article, "Pius XII and the Distorting Ellipsis," pointed out that "as charge after charge that Pope Pius XII failed to resist the Germans or even that he was indeed 'Hitler's Pope' has been refuted, the critics have advanced new and more remote accusations."

"First," it noted, "critics attacked him for what he said or did -- or failed to say or do -- during the war. When those accusations were proved to be without merit, they charged him with failures after the war."

"When those were refuted," the scholars said, "they shifted to the Pope's actions before he was Pope."

They explained, "The current charge claims that in a presentation Pius XII gave at an International Eucharistic Congress in Hungary in 1938 -- when he was still Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican secretary of state -- he referred to Jews as enemies of Christ and the Catholic Church."

Misquoted

The article reported: "The critics claim that on May 25, 1938, just after the Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria), but before the Shoah or even the outbreak of World War II, Pacelli said: 'Jesus conquers! He who so often was the recipient of the rage of his enemies, he who suffered the persecutions of those of whom he was one, he shall be triumphant in the future as well … As opposed to the foes of Jesus, who cried out to his face, 'Crucify him!' we sing him hymns of our loyalty and our love. We act in this fashion, not out of bitterness, not out of a sense of superiority, not out of arrogance toward those whose lips curse him and whose hearts reject him even today.'"

The scholars noted that "one major critic of Pius, Moshe Y. Herczl, claimed that Pacelli was clearly assailing Jews." This claim was echoed by critics Michael Phayer and John Cornwell.

However, the authors said, "there is reason to be suspicious of this quotation, and the anti-Semitic interpretation applied to it."

They continued: "First, no one at the time thought that Pacelli was speaking of Jews. He spoke of the 'military godless' and those who wanted to 'impose a new Christianity,' statements applicable only to the Communists and Nazis."

"Second, look at the quotation the papal critics use," the scholars pointed out. "One has to wonder what the ellipsis is replacing."

They added, "Despite the importance of this quotation to the argument of many Papal critics, it seems that none of them traced it back to its origin."

Original source

The scholars reported: "With the assistance of Vatican historian (and relator of Pope Pius XII's sainthood cause) Father Peter Gumpel, we reviewed the text of the speech as it was published in "Discorsi e Panegirici." The quote as given by the critics does not appear therein.

"The ellipsis was used to link very diverse passages from different pages of Pacelli's speech, producing a complete distortion of Pacelli's words. (To be certain that we were not overlooking anything, we reviewed transcripts from all seven of the talks he gave in Hungary)."

The article explained that "early in the talk, Pacelli spoke about biblical history. He recalled the Passion of Christ, and he mentioned the defiance of disciples, the solitude of Gethsemane, the crowning of thorns, the cynicism of Herod, and the opportunism of Pilate."

It noted that "he referred to the masses that called for the Crucifixion and said they had been 'deceived and excited by propaganda, lies, insults and imprecations at the foot of the Cross.'

The article affirmed: "Those identified as enemies of Christ included Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Roman soldiers, the Sanhedrin, and their followers. He did not call out 'all Jews' or 'the Jews.'"

"About two pages later in the manuscript," the scholars reported, "Pacelli referred to those who were persecuting the Church at that time by doing things like expelling religion and perverting Christianity."

Nazi persecution

"Jews were not doing this, but Nazi Germany certainly was," they asserted. "The future Pope was clearly equating the Nazis, not Jews, to those who persecuted the Church at earlier times."

The article continued: "Pacelli then returned to the theme of Christ's sufferings during the Passion which were being repeated against the Mystical Body of Christ in modern times, contrasting them with the Church's offering of love: 'Let us replace the cry of 'Crucify' made by Christ's enemies, with the 'Hosanna' of our fidelity and our love.'

"Pacelli was rebuking the totalitarians of his day, not the Jews of earlier times."

"Nowhere in the address did he mention or single out Jews as the specific, much less sole, enemies of Jesus Christ, past or present," it asserted. "There is no legitimate way to argue that Pacelli was blaming Jews when he spoke about the enemies of Christ."

The article asked, "Where did the distorted quotation come from?"

It added that "Herczl was not present at the speech and did not even look at Pacelli's script" or "even the Italian version that appeared in the Vatican newspaper."

The scholars noted that "in his book, he cited a Hungarian newspaper, Nemzeti Ujsag (National Journal), with a long and controversial history as a political outlet."

Anti-Semitic

They continued: "As its name implies and as numerous articles in the newspaper itself attest, Nemzeti Ujsag was a political journal, not a religious one.

"It was, at least in the relevant years, overtly anti-Semitic and truly despicable. Randolph L. Braham, a noted scholar in the field, called it a voice of National Socialism."

The authors posited: "It is likely that the newspaper manufactured the quotation to support its anti-Semitic position.

"Pacelli, after all, was criticizing the exact political position the paper held. Then as now, Vatican support was a very useful thing to claim."

"Herczl and those who followed him should have been skeptical of this source," they asserted. "Neither he nor anyone else would have accepted what that paper said about Jews, yet with several other reliable sources available, why did he turn to an unreliable source for this crucial information about Pacelli?"

"More importantly," the authors added, "why have critics like Phayer and Cornwell simply repeated the charge, relying upon this English translation of a Hebrew translation from a Hungarian translation of a speech originally made in French by a native Italian speaker?"

"The manufactured quotation blatantly distorted the words of the future Pope," the article stated.

It continued: "Inasmuch that quote was inconsistent with so much other evidence of Pacelli's character, it should have been strictly scrutinized.

"Instead it was readily accepted and insufficiently analyzed by critics eager to discredit the papacy and the Catholic Church. They should be ashamed."

ZE10092107 - 2010-09-21
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-30442?l=english

Christian Churches, Schools Burned in India

17 Killed in Police-Protestors Clash

SRINAGAR, India, SEPT. 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Various schools and churches were burned in another wave of anti-Christian violence in India and Pakistan.

Vatican Radio reported that these attacks, as well as other demonstrations in Indonesia and Afghanistan over the weekend, were a reaction to a U.S. man's proposal to hold a "Qur'an Burning Day" on Saturday.

Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, proposed publicly burning a Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, on Saturday's anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists.

Church and political leaders worldwide vehemently denounced the plan. Thus, Jones backed off from his proposal and decided not to burn the book.

Muslim extremists have nonetheless commenced their attacks on Christian buildings and communities.

Not enough

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said Monday that "stopping the Qur'an burning plan […] is not enough and the American government should be responsible and take pre-emptive measures," Reuters reported.

Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi, an Iranian Islamic leader, said that Muslims would not be satisfied "with only condemnations" of the plan, Isna news agency reported.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the "incident had nothing to do with Church and Christianity." He added, "We Muslims will never act this same way with the sanctities of other religions."

However, AsiaNews reported today that a Catholic school near Srinagar, India was burned Monday evening, and two other Protestant schools were attacked. That morning, another Protestant school and a church were burned.

The authorities attempted to intervene, but the clashes between police and demonstrators turned violent, killing at least 17 and wounding 80 more.

Peace

Bishop Peter Celestine of Jammu-Srinagar said: "I am deeply saddened by this mob-incited violence. We are a micro minority community [0.0014% of the population], which is peaceful and tolerant.

"Additionally, we give good witness through our schools. And this school was targeted last night, yesterday the Christian Mission Society School, in Tangmarg, was completely burnt down, and the resulting violence led to many deaths."

"Peace must be restored," the prelate said. "We religious leaders have a responsibility to lead peace and tolerance and coexistence."

The bishop said that the small Catholic community has always had "cordial relations with our Muslim brothers and with the authorities."

He called on all Muslims, therefore, "to protect members of minorities and their religious sites."

"We must maintain at all costs the ancient brotherhood and harmony between communities, for which Kashmir is known throughout the world," Bishop Celestine said.

Pakistan

In neighboring Pakistan, a grenade was exploded in a Lutheran church. Two policemen and a watchman were injured, UCA News reported.

Father Amir Yaqub, the pastor of Holy Name Catholic Church in Nowshera, Pakistan, said: "Christians in the vicinity have fled the area. The protest diminished at midnight.

"Police has also warned us to be careful, [saying] 'We can stop people, but can't stop a possible rocket attack.'"

The priest added, "People here don't calm down only until there is a loss of life and property."

ZE10091405 - 2010-09-14
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-30342?l=english

Mexican Bishops Protest Same-Sex "Marriage"

Appeal for Rights of Children to a Father and Mother

MEXICO CITY, AUG. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- After two Mexican cardinals were criticized for speaking out against the legalization of same-sex "marriage," the rest of the bishops in that country rose to the defense of free speech.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop of Mexico City, and Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop of Guadalajara, were accused of "intolerance" for having spoken out against same-sex "marriage" and adoptions by homosexual couples.

In response, the Conference of the Mexican Episcopate published a communiqué Tuesday, stating, "We lament that on expressing these concepts in public opinion, there are those who recriminate and threaten, warning of intolerance, when tolerance is the possibility that we all express our opinion and positions."

In addition to warning about attacks on the liberty of expression, the bishops reiterated their opposition to the process carried out in Mexico to legalize same-sex "marriage" and adoption by homosexual couples.

They asserted that the assembly of the Federal District approved it "hastily, without the necessary consultations of the different social authors and without paying attention to the consensus of the majorities, which disagreed with such unions and especially the adoption of children."

Lawmakers legalized same-sex "marriage" in Mexico City a few months ago. Earlier this month, the Mexican Supreme Court decided that these unions must be recognized in the entire country. On Monday, the court upheld the decision to permit homosexual couples to adopt children.

The decision essentially puts Mexico among the most liberal nations with regard to same-sex "marriage." In July, Argentina became the 10th nation to pass a law allowing same-sex marriage, preceded by the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Iceland. In the United States, same-sex "marriage" is recognized in only five states and Washington, D.C.

Disrespectful

The bishops' conference stated that the Supreme Court's decision was carried out "without going to the bottom of the matter."

The conference affirmed its "total disagreement with the ruling."

"We believe that equating these unions with the name of marriage is a lack of respect, both of the very essence of marriage between a woman and a man, expressed in Article 4 of the country's Constitution, as well as of the customs and culture itself that have governed us for centuries," the bishops affirmed.

They continued, "The Church, of which all of us baptized form part, watches over the rights of those who cannot defend themselves, and in this case, the weakest of whom are infants."

The communiqué noted that "the increasing ecological awareness of so many supporters to safeguard the different species by respecting their natural processes must include the human species, the most worthy and aware of its own development."

"Because of this," it added, "in nature itself the Church discovers the dignity of marriage between a man and a woman. This encourages us to promote the dignity of the couple and their offspring appealing to natural and moral values."

The episcopate expressed its "solidarity" and heartfelt support to the cardinals and affirmed that "the moment Mexico is living through requires a lofty debate that unites us and in which all the members of society as a whole resolve the many problems that afflict us."

Finally, the prelates invited the faithful to pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe "for the decisions of political leaders and for all children who do not have a voice but do have the right to a family that is for them an example of virtues."

The archbishopric of Guadalajara also published a communiqué, in which it warned that the American Psychological Association has indicated that children who grow up with parents who are in a homosexual relationship have three times as much risk of suffering from depression.

It appealed that the rights of children be respected, noting that they "deserve the best opportunity to be incorporated in society," taking into account that "all currents of psychology in the world acknowledge that a father and a mother are the best environment for them."

"The minors were born from the union of a man and a woman," the communiqué affirmed. "No one has ever been born from the union of two persons of the same sex."

"Hence," it concluded, "their development is intimately linked to their origin, and this is their right, which has now been transgressed by the nation's Supreme Court of Justice."

ZE10081803 - 2010-08-18
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-30086?l=english

An Out-of-Touch Ogre?

The media’s mau-mauing of Bishop Thomas Olmsted
By George Neumayr | July 2010
Catholic World Report

In the past, bishops sparked shocked headlines in newspapers by betraying Church teaching. Now a brave few make headlines by upholding it. Consider the case of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has likened him to a member of the hierarchy during the “cruel and debauched days of the Borgias in the Renaissance.”

That sounds pretty bad. What, exactly, has Olmsted done? Shown corrupt indifference to the protection of children? Profited off the abuse of them? No, it turns out his cruel sin in the eyes of Kristof and company is that he wants to protect children, including the forgotten unborn ones often killed under the worldly logic of false compassion.

In May, it came out that Bishop Olmsted had upheld canon law after learning, to his alarm, that a nun at a Catholic hospital in the diocese of Phoenix, several months earlier, formally cooperated in the killing of an unborn child from a patient’s difficult pregnancy.

Olmsted had quietly, conscientiously, and properly followed Church teaching and discipline in the matter (under canon law, Mercy Sister Margaret McBride incurred “automatic excommunication” through her action; he simply informed her of that, and she lost her executive position at the hospital).

But the media, hungry for stories that pit “progressive” nuns against “reactionary” bishops, publicized it, at which point Olmsted issued a laudably straightforward comment:

I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese. I am further concerned by the hospital’s statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother’s underlying medical condition.

An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.

Every Catholic institution is obliged to defend human life at all its stages; from conception to natural death. This obligation is also placed upon every Catholic individual. If a Catholic formally cooperates in the procurement of an abortion, they are automatically excommunicated by that action. The Catholic Church will continue to defend life and proclaim the evil of abortion without compromise, and must act to correct even her own members if they fail in this duty….

St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, where the abortion took place, also made a statement, though considerably more vague, saying that in “this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother’s life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy,” and that its “ethics” committee signed off on it.

Just the “termination of an 11-week pregnancy”? No, an unborn child was terminated too. But it is easier to say a “pregnancy” was terminated than an innocent unborn child suctioned to death. Showing no interest in that victim, the media’s ensuing coverage cast Sister McBride as the big-hearted “saintly” nun and Bishop Olmsted as the out-of-touch ogre.

Yet he is the only figure in the controversy in touch with what actually happened: an unborn child was killed at a Catholic hospital with a nun’s formal cooperation and help, and he is not about to let that happen again. At a time when derelict bishops are justly criticized for ignoring canon law to the detriment of children, the media’s treatment of the conscientious Bishop Olmsted looks even more outrageous and perverse.

It always comes as a rude surprise to the media these days when an American bishop turns out to be a believing Catholic and displays a willingness to govern his diocese according to Church norms. The Fifth-Column newspaper National Catholic Reporter finds his conduct very puzzling indeed, breaking the news, through one troubled source, that Olmsted is “very much governed by canon law and obedience and fidelity to church teaching and the magisterium….” How odd. This makes him, in NCR’s telling, a “strict constructionist” and a backwoods simpleton. “It helps to know that he grew up on a Kansas farm near the Nebraska border and attended a one-room rural school,” observed another of the paper’s sources.

But, wait, Olmsted is also like a pampered Borgia-era bishop. One of Nicholas Kristof’s sources hissed, “True Christians, like Sister Margaret, understand that real life is full of difficult moral decisions and pray that they make the right decision in the context of Christ’s teachings. Only a group of detached, pampered men in gilded robes on a balcony high above the rest of us could deny these dilemmas.”

It apparently doesn’t occur to commentators like Kristof that the very modernist scorn of canon law they demand from Olmsted is what got decadent bishops into the abuse scandal and exposure of children to harm, both spiritual and physical, in the first place. Kristof speaks of the “cruel and debauched days of the Borgias in the Renaissance” while oblivious to the cruel and debauched days of modern liberalism. Both came through the infidelity of soft and corrupt bishops to canon law and orthodox teaching.

Olmsted, needless to say, is the antithesis of a Borgia-era bishop. He has risked his comfort for the sake of thankless duty. He deserves praise for resisting the media’s mau-mauing and the Catholic left’s claimed monopoly on “compassion,” which never extends to the unborn child torn limb from limb.

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report.

Venezuelan Cardinal Denounces Marxist Socialism

Responds to Criticisms of President Chávez

ROME, JULY 9, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela, is denouncing the government's attempts to install a Marxist Socialist regime through "unconstitutional" and "illegal" methods violating the rights and will of the people.

Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino underlined the need to speak publicly, to voice "my conscience as a Venezuelan and as archbishop of Caracas, given the reality that we are experiencing."

He wrote a statement, issued Wednesday, denouncing "the danger that is threatening our beloved homeland."

"Going beyond the national constitution," the cardinal wrote, President Hugo Chávez "and his government want to lead the country on the path of Marxist Socialism, which monopolizes all spaces, is totalitarian, and leads to a dictatorship, not even of the proletariat, but of the leadership that governs."

"Going against the popular will, which on Dec. 2, 2007, rejected the proposal of nationalizing and the socialist reform of the national constitution, through unconstitutional laws, there is an attempt to implant in Venezuela a Marxist regime, as the president has openly proclaimed on repeated occasions," the prelate stated.

He asserted that "such conduct is unconstitutional and illegal but, above all, it attempts against the human, civil and political rights of Venezuelans."

"The failure of Marxist Socialism in other countries is more than evident," Cardinal Urosa noted.

Economic concerns

He continued, "Moreover, the pretension to monopolize all productive activities through, for example, the progressive monopolization of importation, distribution and commercialization of foods, is in the line of dismantling the national productive apparatus so that we will all depend on the government even to eat."

Chávez has progressively nationalized many major national companies in various industries: oil, telephone, electric, steel, and cement. In addition, he has taken over supermarkets and large areas of farmland. This nationalization, along with government-issued price controls and other factors, has contributed to a rapid decrease in food production in the country. Thus Venezuela currently imports around two-thirds of its food needs.

The cardinal pointed out that this will not benefit "the Venezuelan producers, peasants and workers, but those of other countries."

"Together with the progressive indebtedness of the country," he added, it will lead "to the ruin of our economy as well as to a foreign dependence, totally contrary to the necessary food sovereignty."

"Concerned about installing a Marxist Socialist system, the government neglects its primary constitutional tasks: to protect the security of the people hit especially in the poorest sectors by violence and delinquency; to promote better care in the field of health, to build and maintain the infrastructure of highways and means of transport," among other things, Cardinal Urosa stated.

Attacks

The prelate, who wrote the statement while on a scheduled trip to Rome for various meetings, published these words after Chávez leveled attacks against the cardinal himself and the entire Venezuelan episcopate.

During a national assembly on Monday, the day his nation celebrates its independence, the Venezuelan president called the archbishop of Caracas a "troglodyte" for trying to "scare people about communism."

"This gentleman is unworthy of calling himself cardinal," Chávez said, and asked the papal nuncio to Argentina, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, to tell Benedict XVI to send a replacement.

Cardinal Urosa said in response, "The president does not have license to insult, defame or abuse any Venezuelan."

"He has attacked me verbally on several occasions, exposing me unjustly to public ridicule," the prelate stated. "I totally reject these aggressions, which are unbecoming to the one who does them."

"The appointment of all the bishops of Venezuela and of the world is in the hands of the Church," he emphasized, "not in the hands of politicians."

The cardinal affirmed that all the bishops are builders of peace, and thus "without pretending to assume quotas of power or becoming political operators, we claim our right to pronounce ourselves on everything that has to do with the life and future of the Venezuelan people."

"We want the good, coexistence and progress of Venezuela," he affirmed, "with opportunities for all, without exclusions or injustices or intolerance, with longings for unity, well-being, progress and peace."

Cardinal Urosa encouraged "all men and women of good will to work ceaselessly and fearlessly, in the framework of the national constitution, so that fraternity and solidarity, liberty, justice and peace will reign in Venezuela."

He affirmed, "We Venezuelan bishops are solidly united in the task of serving the people as witnesses and ambassadors of Jesus Christ, and pastors of the People of God in Venezuela."

Solidarity

Several Church entities have expressed support and solidarity for Cardinal Urosa.

The semi-official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, stated its Thursday edition, "The Catholic Church in Venezuela firmly rejects the indescribable verbal aggression of which the cardinal archbishop of Caracas has been the object."

It added that the president took "advantage of the celebrations of the bicentenary of national independence," to pour "gasoline on the fire of Church-state relations."

The secretary-general of the Venezuelan episcopal conference, Auxiliary Bishop Jesús González de Zárate Salas of Caracas, also publicly rejected the accusations.

The council of priests of the Archdiocese of Caracas issued a communiqué, in which it stated that, "as a Venezuelan citizen, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino has the full right and duty to opine and contribute to the common good."

It added, "As archbishop of Caracas he has the full right, more than that, he has the sacred duty to guide Catholics on religious and moral principles and values that are at stake in the present social and political situation of our country."

Manuel Arcaya, president of the National Council of the Laity of Venezuela, said in a communiqué Wednesday, on behalf of the laypeople, movements and diocesan councils, "We categorically reject the adjectives and insults" brought against the cardinal.

Arcaya said he shares "with His Eminence the very grave concern that the country is being led to a Cuban style Communism."

"The objective of the government's campaign of despair is to generate sadness and passivity, sentiments that are foreign to our faith," he said.

This electoral year, Arcaya affirmed, "is an opportunity for us to be involved in the problems that afflict the country and to revise the basic proposals that the candidates of the various political parties offer us because our active and conscious participation will have consequences in the immediate future."

ZE10070910 - 2010-07-09
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-29851?l=english

Chávez Launches Attack Against Cardinal Urosa

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-29825?l=english
ZE10070707 - 2010-07-07



Venezuelan President Asks Pope for Replacement

CARACAS, Venezuela, JULY 7, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is playing with fire, says the semi-official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

The newspaper reported this in reference to the insults the Venezuelan president leveled Monday against Cardinal Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, the archbishop of Caracas, calling him a "troglodyte" for trying to "scare people about communism."

“We don’t deserve a cardinal like [Urosa],” Chávez said during a national assembly on the day his nation celebrates its independence. “This gentleman is unworthy of calling himself cardinal.”

He asked the papal nuncio to Argentina, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, to tell Benedict XVI to replace the current cardinal with Bishop Mario del Valle Moronta of San Cristobal.

L'Osservatore Romano says the president took "advantage of the celebrations of the bicentenary of national independence," to pour "gasoline on the fire of Church-state relations."

"Addressing the National Assembly in a solemn commemorative session, Chávez directed very harsh insults to the cardinal, who recently criticized the closing of many of the opposition media and invited the government to respect the democratic rights recognized by the Constitution, insults also repeated in a television broadcast," reports the Vatican newspaper.

"The Catholic Church in Venezuela firmly rejects the indescribable verbal aggression of which the cardinal archbishop of Caracas has been the object," states the article, which will appear Thursday in the Italian edition.

In an interview with Globovision network, the secretary-general of the Venezuelan episcopal conference, Auxiliary Bishop Jesús González de Zárate Salas of Caracas, rejected the accusations. He has become the spokesman of the manifestations of solidarity that the cardinal has received from the whole country.

Right and duty

In the same line, the council of priests of the archdiocese of Caracas issued a communiqué, in which it states that, "as a Venezuelan citizen, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino has the full right and duty to opine and contribute to the common good, in keeping with his ample cultural preparation and his personal convictions."

The note continued: "As archbishop of Caracas he has the full right, more than that, he has the sacred duty to guide Catholics on religious and moral principles and values that are at stake in the present social and political situation of our country. This is a part of his office that he cannot give up as principal pastor of our Caracas Church and eminent member of the Venezuelan episcopate.

"In this connection it should be pointed out that all the public statements on topics that affect the collectivity and, hence, the common good, have been very pointed and specific and have been made from the plane of the great principles of the Gospel, and from the systematic application of the latter in the field of social topics, that is, from the Social Doctrine of the Church."

The council also stated that it rejected Chavez's attempt to interfer with the internal decision s of the Church by telling the Pope who he should name as archbishop of Venezuela. "The Holy Father, as Universal Pastor of the Catholic Church, enjoys total autonomy and liberty to appoint the bishops for the different diocesan sees in the whole world and to institute the members of the College of Cardinals.

"The clergy of the archdiocese, together with their faithful, reiterate their unbreakable communion with the archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, our legitimate pastor."

Christianophobia at Work in "Crucifix Trial," Says Cardinal

Roundtable Event Held in Rome Ahead of Public Hearing

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The decision of the European Court of Human Rights to ban the crucifix from Italian classrooms is a result of the encroachment of "secularist fundamentalism" and "Christianophobia," says the former president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

Cardinal Julián Herranz Casado said this today in Rome at a round table event organized by the Christian Humanism Association, with the sponsorship of the office of Italy's prime minister. The title of the event was "Values and Rights: The Value of the Crucifix."

In November, the human rights court ruled in favor of an Italian citizen of Finnish origin who complained in 2002 that the state school where her two children studied violated their freedom by displaying crucifixes.

Italy launched an appeal in January, contending that the crucifix is part of Italian cultural patrimony. Since then, 10 other member states have joined Italy's appeal as third parties. At stake is not only the crucifix ban, but also the limits of the jurisdiction of the human rights court.

The court's Grand Chamber will hold a public hearing on June 30, and the final judgment on the case is expected by the end of the year.

Cardinal Herranz explained that the ruling is a result of a growing "secularist fundamentalism" that seeks to "relegate the Christian faith and religion in general to the mere private realms of personal conscience, excluding all signs, symbols or external manifestation of the faith in public places and civil institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.)."

Errors

The 80-year-old cardinal said the erroneous reasoning behind the court's decision asserts that the presence of the crucifix in classrooms is "contrary to the right of parents to educate their children in line with their own convictions, and to the right of children to religious liberty," as the atmosphere of the school would be "marked by a specific religion."

The court, he continued, also wrongly affirmed that the presence of the crucifix might be "emotionally disturbing," and that its display might not "foment critical thought in pupils" or the "educational pluralism" that is essential to preserve a "democratic society."

"This decision," the Spanish cardinal responded, "makes reference without a motive -- because the mere display of the crucifix does not have an imperative or discriminatory character -- to the religious liberty of non-Christian pupils, while it does not respect Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affects Christian pupils of Italian schools and the 'patria potestas' of their parents."

"This norm," Cardinal Herranz stressed, "guarantees the right of religious liberty, which includes among other things: 'the liberty to manifest one's religion or belief, individually and collectively, both in public as well as in private, by teaching, practice, worship and observance.'"

In second place, the cardinal indicated that "secularism certainly represents a constitutive principle of democratic states," but noted that the court ignores the rights of states to "determine in each case their concrete forms of application, in the light of the different circumstances and local traditions."

Secularism, he insisted, "is not an ideological principle that must be imposed on society violating the traditions, feelings and religious beliefs of the citizens."

Anti-confessional

Cardinal Herranz said that the Strasbourg Court confuses the meaning of "the neutrality or a-confessionality of the state" with the idea that "the state must be 'anti-confessional,' that is, opposed to the presence in public institutions of any religious sign or symbol."

"This attitude of rejection of religion would make of atheism a sort of ideology or state religion," he stressed.

Moreover, the Opus Dei cardinal continued, "it seems that the court has exceeded illegitimately the limits of its own competence, pronouncing itself on a question that affects the legitimate and due safeguarding on the part of the state of the national traditions and culture, as well as the commitments assumed with concordats or particular conventions with the Catholic Church and eventually with other religious confessions."

He spoke of "strong media powers and some political groups that for a long time have supported the ideology of secularist fundamentalism" and who hope for a law of religious liberty that would prohibit "crucifixes and other religious signs [...] in public institutions and official ceremonies (schools, courts, hospitals, state funerals, etc.)."

And they do this, the cardinal added, knowing that "the majority of citizens, if consulted in a referendum, would vote against this."

ZE10062306 - 2010-06-23
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-29688?l=english

NO! Empire State Building refuses to light up in honor of Mother Teresa

It is sad that it doesn't surprise me that this is happening....


BY Adam Lisberg
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Wednesday, June 9th 2010, 2:06 PM

The Empire State Building has a message to Mother Teresa - you don't deserve to be honored in lights.

The building has colored its famous lighting in the past for Mariah Carey, stock car driver Jimmie Johnson and drug-loving musicians the Grateful Dead, but its owner said Wednesday that Mother Teresa doesn't qualify.

"As a privately owned building, ESB has a specific policy against any other lighting for religious figures or requests by religions and religious organizations," said Anthony Malkin, head of the family company that owns the building.

The firm "no" comes after the Catholic League and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn both urged the city's tallest tower to turn its lights blue and white on Aug. 26 for what would have been her 100th birthday.

Quinn said she spoke to Malkin on Tuesday and hoped he would change his mind.

"He said he would reflect on it," Quinn said today. "It's a really wrong-headed decision that he has made. It's his private building, and he has the right to make it, but I think it's a hugely lost opportunity for the city."

Catholic League President Bill Donohue said the tower was lit red and white when Cardinal O'Connor died in 2000, and the lights were extinguished to mark the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

"Malkin has made his decision to stiff Catholics," said Donohue, who now plans an Aug. 26 demonstration outside the building. "His decision to double down at this juncture - in the face of massive support for our request - is something he will regret for the rest of his life."

Archbishop Timothy Dolan is monitoring the situation, a spokesman said. He earlier said he was stumped why a nun who devoted her life to helping the suffering was not deserving of the honor.

"I kind of shrug my shoulders with everybody else," Dolan said in March. "I guess there must be a reason. It'd be tough for me to understand a credible one, but I wish they'd kind of tell us. It's tough to be against Mother Teresa?"

The City Council is scheduled to consider a resolution Wednesday calling on the skyscraper to change its mind.

Malkin said the building lights itself up for religious holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah and Id al-Fitr, but not individuals.

"We try to use the lighting to celebrate everybody who thinks highly of the building," he told the New York Times last year. "We do important Western holidays, we have fun with the Mets versus the Yankees or the Jets versus the Giants."

The decision outraged tourists lining up to tour the building's 86th-floor observation deck today, who saw no earthly reason not to honor a heavenly nun.

"She's not just a Catholic figure - she's an inspiration to everybody," said Mary Shull, 54, visiting from northeast Tennessee.

Added Wesley Dessert, a 28-year-old social worker from Brooklyn: "It's an iconic building in New York, and she's an icon too. It's special to honor her 100th birthday. It's a milestone."



With Frank Lombardi and Samantha Shirley

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/09/2010-06-09_no_empire_state_building_refuses_to_light_up_in_honor_of_mother_teresa.html#ixzz0qNrFam6Z

Why Time Magazine Misses the Point

Benedict XVI's Pontificate Is Marked by Reform and Renewal

By Gregory Erlandson

HUNGTINGTON, Indiana, JUNE 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- It would probably be too much to ask that Time magazine run a cover story on the bold statements and concrete actions that Benedict XVI has taken to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

No self-respecting journalistic enterprise wants to be separated from the pack when it comes to covering a controversial news story, which means it must always follow the herd, even when the evidence points elsewhere.

But the Time magazine June 7 cover story is a particularly frustrating example of a media enterprise playing to prejudices with half-truths even to the point of severely misrepresenting the story.

"Why Being Pope Means Never having To Say You’re Sorry: The Sex Abuse Scandal and the Limits of Atonement" is the provocative headline splashed across the most recent Time cover, which also features an image of the back of Benedict XVI's mitered head.

Lest we have any doubts where this is heading, the lead sentence of the story manages to drag in the Inquisition: "How do you atone for something terrible, like the Inquisition?"

The gist of the story is that as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he wasn't so up to apologizing for the Inquisition, and he isn’t really doing enough to apologize for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, either. Time magazine wants the Pope to offer a personal mea culpa, particularly for his handling of a case in Germany when he was archbishop of Munich, and more generally for the fact that he "was very much part of a system that had badly underestimated and in some cases enabled the rot of clergy abuse that spread through the Church in the past half-century."

The target

The story, written by Jeff Israely (reporting from Rome) and Howard Chua-Eoan, while appearing to be about the sexual abuse crisis, is really a subtly written assault on the papacy itself, making the following case:

1. For the past two centuries, the Vatican has centralized power and authority over the Church, including the declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council.

2. This centralization is how it has managed to control its docile flock even as it has lost temporal power.

3. At stake in the sexual abuse crisis is the prestige and power of the papacy and the Church’s own authority.

4. There needs to be some sort of acceptance of personal guilt on the part of Pope Benedict for his actions, despite all he has done to address the crisis.

5. Such an admission of guilt and apology would call into question, however, the "theological impregnability of the papacy" and hasten other changes in the Church that will diminish its size and authority.

The provocative headline of the article -- "Why Being Pope Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry" -- makes more sense in this narrative because it yokes the claim of infallibility to the current crisis, making the papacy the center of the abuse story.

The fact that the Pope has apologized repeatedly thus becomes irrelevant for Time magazine -- despite the obvious contradiction of the headline -- because the apologies are just a public relations strategy to head off a greater challenge.

In laying out this political analysis of the last 200 years of Church history, the article also serves to bolster the case of those lawyers seeking damages from the Vatican for sexual abuse cases that occurred in the United States. Since the Vatican was so centralized and domineering, the question of its liability for the handling of individual local cases becomes more plausible.

Infalibility

Thus, after recounting the many positive steps the Pope has taken, Time still concludes that he is hedging: "He assigned wrongdoing not to the Church but to its servants." This, the magazine suggests, is to protect the Church from legal liability. "The consequences of sin are subject to divine salvation, but the consequences of crime lie within the purview of human judges and entail courts of law, prison, public humiliation and the loss of property."

Time quotes an Irish theologian: "This very centralized Church [tightly managed out of Rome] has only really been the case since the end of the 19th century." Here it ties everything back to the First Vatican Council and its statement on papal infallibility. In keeping with the heavy editorializing of the entire story, it sums up Vatican I as a "stage-managed" council that used a "suspect majority of bishops" to approve infallibility, thus allowing the Roman Curia to become "ever more centralized and domineering."

While the article dismisses "a purportedly impromptu crowd of 150,000 people" who showed up to cheer the Pope one Sunday (although no one claims it was impromptu), it lauds plans for a "Reformation Day" in October being organized by victims of clergy sexual abuse to "pressure the Vatican to act" and to "take back" the Church.

The story gets so many details wrong, that defenders of Benedict XVI in some ways don't know where to start.

Papal authority

Infallibility has nothing to do with the story of sexual abuse. The centralization of authority is more stereotype than truth, as witnessed by the diversity of Catholic voices, the independent actions of many bishops, the rise of the national bishops' conferences and on and on. If anything, what is frustrating to many Catholics and puzzling to non-Catholics who hold a simplistic view of papal authority is that the Pope cannot just rule by arbitrary decree. (It is ironic that this same misunderstanding permeates the controversy surrounding Pope Pius XII and the struggle with Nazism.)

The real story is this: Benedict XVI is aware of the scale and the scope of the crisis worldwide. He has taken decisive actions (such as the removal of the founder of the Legion of Christ). He has intervened strongly in Ireland, with a remarkably honest and plain-spoken letter to the Irish Catholics, a visitation of top prelates to study the root causes of the crisis and how it was handled, the acceptance of several resignations by bishops, and a high-level meeting with Irish prelates at the Vatican. He has quite clearly led the way in encouraging local bishops’ conferences to address their scandals head on, and he has laid out the language for understanding the crisis: Endorsing the search for truth, calling for penance, not blaming the media or enemies outside the Church, but pointing to the enemies within.

Mistakes have been made. Grievous mistakes. Mistakes were made by bishops, by priests, by psychiatrists and police and judges and yes, even by well-intentioned and grief-stricken relatives. The cost of these mistakes is very high, and the Church will have to pay these costs. But efforts to make Benedict XVI part of the problem rather than part of the solution would be an even bigger mistake, for it is he who is providing real leadership on this issue.

It is Benedict XVI who is refusing to circle the wagons and understands the spiritual as well as the canonical and civil issues at stake. It is Benedict XVI who is championing the necessary reform and renewal that the scandals demand.

* * *

Greg Erlandson is the president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, and co-author of the newly released "Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal" (2010, Our Sunday Visitor).

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-29530?l=english

Charles Curran, martyr for the life-destroying gospel of the "modern life"

By Carl Olson
IgnatiusInsight.com

I have a big deadline Monday, am behind on that and other projects, but I simply can't let this one pass by: A Re-Declaration of Victim Status by Charles Curran, titled, "Banned By the Pope," and written for Newsweak's "My Turn" column. Tssk, tssk; fisk, fisk:

I knew that the letter—approved by Pope John Paul II and issued by then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—was unlikely to be good news.

Because, for one thing, Curran had been openly undermining, scoffing at, rejecting, and attacking key moral teachings of the Church since the mid-1960s. (Quick note: the Summer 2009 issue of Nova et Vetera has a great essay, "The Cultural and Ecclesial Situation 1964 to 1967: Paving the Way for Dissent From Church Teaching on Contraception", by Dr. William E. May, which provides a lot of helpful information and context.) Note how long the process of evaluating and dealing with dissenters takes—a loooong time. And yet the common (mis)perception is that "the Vatican" or the CDF deals in a knee-jerk, off-the-cuff, reactionary manner. False. Completely false. This priest was publicly rejecting the Church's moral teachings for almost twenty years before he was finally stripped of his ability to teach theology at a Catholic school.

It was 1986, and for the previous seven years, Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the office charged with safeguarding official theology—had been investigating my work.

Seven. Years. That's. A. Long. Time. See point above.

As a professor at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., I lectured and wrote about traditional church teachings.

"About." Well, how to say this? It's a rather meaningless word in this case; in fact, it's something of a weasel word. As in: Arius spoke and sang about the Logos. Nestorius wrote and spoke about the Theotokos. Hans Küng has written volumes and volumes about Christianity. What Curran doesn't make clear here is that as far back as 1966 or 1967 he was already contradicting Church teaching on contraception. A sympathetic (to Curran) September/October 1989 article in Academe (PDF format) states:

In articles and in his first book, Christian Morality Today, published in 1966, Professor Curran established himself as a scholar who subjected accepted views, including noninfallible teachings of the Church, to careful scrutiny and did not hesitate to publicize his conclusions. An interest in sexual ethics led him specifically to dissenting views on such subjects as abortion, birth control, and homosexuality.

TIME magazine reported in an April 1967 article: "Curran had been fired by the trustees, without a hearing, largely because of his unconventional teaching on doctrinal issues — most notably, approval of birth control." Curran, you see, had been fired by Catholic University of America for holding and teaching positions directly contrary to clear Church teaching. But, it being the late 1960s, all it took were some student protests and threats, and CUA caved. (Hey, it was all the rage back then.) And so Curran continued to lecture and teach "about" traditional Church teachings. And:

But I also pointed out areas where I believed Catholicism and modern life were misaligned, including Rome’s opposition to birth control for married couples; its stance on homosexuality, divorce, and remarriage; and the status of women in the church.

Hmmm. "Misaligned." That's a nifty way of putting it. First, a weasel word. Now a slithery word. But note what Curran is saying, plain as day: he, as a young Catholic priest (he was 33 in 1967), was solidly and publicly on the side of "modern life" over against Catholicism and Rome. He was opposed to the Church's teaching on homosexuality, divorce, contraceptives, women's ordination, masturbation, euthanasia, and sterilization (goodness, what's left??). And so he as ever been.

The Vatican had finally had enough. “One who dissents from the Magisterium as you do,” the letter said, “is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology.”
Despite that rebuke, I remain a committed Catholic, a priest in good standing, and a professor of Catholic theology (albeit at a Methodist institution).

I bet good money that a Methodist would do a better job of accurately and fairly teaching Catholic theology than Curran, but I digress. Curran, who is something of an American Hans Küng (a dissenter who whines in the press, mocks or openly attacks the pope and Church teaching, but insists on being a "Catholic theologian" despite denying nearly every point of Catholic doctrine), likes to have it both ways, as most dissenters do. He wants to be recognized and known for rejecting the Church, but then complains that he is a victim, a martyr, when the Church says, "Uh, we have a problem..." He's been employing this stunt routine for over forty years, a routine that Jeremy Lott reported about in the October 2006 issue of Catholic World Report:

In response to the [1986] Vatican condemnation, [Curran] insisted to reporters that "I neither denied nor disagreed with the core elements of the Catholic faith." Rather, he had "dissented from noninfallible church teachings on a few moral issues . . . far removed from the core beliefs of the Catholic faith."

So what, exactly, were all those peripheral issues that the Vatican was making such a fuss about? "I was asked to reconsider and retract my positions on contraception and sterilization, abortion and euthanasia, masturbation, premarital sexuality, and the indissolubility of marriage," he writes. In other words, by the mid-1980s, he had come to disagree with the Vatican on pretty much every moral issue in the catechism.

And this from a man who had, as Lott notes, "wrote, edited, contributed to, or was the subject of Dissent in and for the Church, The Responsibility of Dissent, Dissent in the Church, Faithful Dissent, Vatican Authority and American Catholic Dissent, and now we have Loyal Dissent. The subtitle is 'Memoir of a Catholic Theologian.'" Curran, in other words, is not only a one-trick pony, he is the poster boy for Catholics who want to be "Catholic" without actually being Catholic (the ponies and the posers go well together, actually). And, of course, he is constantly trying to justify his legless position:

I also continue to care deeply about the church, which I believe is facing a crisis that predates the sex-abuse scandal of recent years. Today, about a third of people who were raised Catholic have left the church; no other major religion in the United States has experienced a larger net loss in followers in the last 30 years.

Ah, the last thirty years. Say, isn't that the same era during which the many wonders and joys of "modern life" finally came to full fruition, with the sexual revolution in bloom, contraceptives as common as candy, divorce rates skyrocketing, cohabitation likewise, etc., etc., and so forth? What, then, is Curran's point? Is he suggesting that if the Church had embraced and endorsed divorce, contraceptives, premarital sex, abortion, et al, that those Catholics would not have left the Church/stopped going to Mass? You have to either be smoking crack or be a full-blown, hyper-committed believer in The Glories of Modern Life to believe such rot. You either have to be quite stupid or quite arrogant to go for that line of argumentation:

Many of the issues that troubled me decades ago have contributed to this decline. Some, like those related to contraception, homosexuality, and family life, are considered matters of divine or natural law—the will of God—and, therefore, are immutable. I disagree, and I’m not alone, but we have been unable to persuade the church to make changes.

Arrogant it is.

Other matters are considered a product of human law, which is alterable if the church thinks that doing so is in its best interest. The vow of priestly celibacy is one such statute: none, I believe, would be easier to change or, quite possibly, is more important to the short-term health of the church.

Because, of course, what motivates Curran is his love for the Church—the same Church whose consistent and credible teachings on sexuality and morality he has spent his entire adult life rejecting, undermining, and dismissing. Please. This is like a five-time divorcee explaining, with nary a hint of irony or cynicism, that he not only loves the institution of marriage, he is a completely devoted husband who is so in love with wife #5. Spare us.

Lifting the ban might help address the pedophilia crisis—which, at least in the popular mind, was caused in part by the frustrations of celibacy.

Is that...an argument?

More important, it would reverse a damaging shortage of clergy. Between 1975 and today, the number of Catholic priests in the United States has slid from nearly 60,000 to about 40,000. Protestant churches, which allow their minsters to have families, have suffered no such struggles. I can only conclude that celibacy laws are to blame.

Right. And the rapid rise of the divorce rate from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s wouldn't have happened if all of those darned marriage laws hadn't made spouses feel so constricted, misunderstood, tied down, and otherwise obligated to fulfill their marriage vows. Why has divorce increased so much in the past forty years? I can only conclude that marriage laws were to blame!

The shortage has created related problems. For example, the church has tried to make up for the shortfall by using foreign priests. Without strong English skills or a knowledge of American culture, however, some of these substitutes struggle to connect with their followers.

Which is completely different from having an American priest who rejects most or all of Catholic teaching trying to pastor a parish where the majority of the parishioners accept and adhere to Catholic teaching. Right? Besides, this sounds more than a little xenophobic, even rather racist, doesn't it?

Some parishes are closing because no one can be found to lead them, while others remain open but no longer offer the eucharistic liturgy—the heart of Catholic faith and life—because there’s no priest to preside at it.

Again, Curran's concern for the health of the Catholic Church is so...unbelievable. It's like the aforementioned divorcee complaining that married couples just don't get enough quality time together because of all the obligations that come with marriage and family life. Perhaps Curran hasn't figured out that when the Catholic laity see priests denounce or disregard Church teaching and thumb their noses at the pope and the Magisterium, they get the message: "Do whatever you want. The Church has no meaningful or real authority. Why bother being here if it isn't true?" Need I point out that many Catholics have gotten that message over the past forty years and have acted on it?

(Catholic bishops have had to devise alternative services for those communities.) In essence, by mandating celibacy, the church contributes to a dilution of Catholicism.

Because, as everyone knows, clerical celibacy has been dragging down the Church for centuries! Of course, if celibacy were the real problem, the Church would have gone away in the early medieval era, or earlier. Curran continues to implicitly argue that the problem is that the Church hasn't embraced "modern life" enough, when a big part of the problem is that many Catholics have, in fact, embraced "modern life" with life-killing gusto over the past several decades.

Now, I’m not wholly at peace with would-be reformers placing all the emphasis on the celibacy issue.

Oh man, I just spewed coffee all over my computer. (Not really, but close.) Well, if anyone knows something about "would-be reformers," it would be Curran. Would-be, has-been, and who-cares?, all rolled into one.

Women, whom the church treats as second-class citizens, are hurting most today;

Yes, yawn. Which is why approximately 85% of those working for the Catholic Church in the U.S. are women. (Which is not, by the way, a criticism, just a factual observation.) Oh, wait, I think he's referring to priestettes:

changing the laws that forbid male clergy from marrying will do nothing to speed women’s path to the priesthood. We should treat rewriting the celibacy laws as an initial edit—a change on the way to redressing the multitude of other needed reforms. Even at the risk, I’d argue, of getting an unfriendly letter one day from Rome.

Ooh, he's soooo courageous, trying to turn the Catholic Church into a branch of the Episcopalians! And, as we all know, the Episcopalians—who support everything Curran does while also rejecting the Magisterium—are thriving, bursting at the seams! Turning down seminarians! Sending out missionaries to all of the world! Building new churches! Uh, no, not really. (Had you going there, didn't I?)

But Curran, who misread the "signs of the times" back in the mid-60s, is still madly trying to remake the times, even though time is now against him. The young Catholics who are filling the pews across the U.S. and throughout the world not only reject Curran's religious devotion to the "modern life," many of them are sick of much that "modern life" brings, and most of them have never heard of Curran. He and his fight to Episcopalinize the Church is quickly becoming a matter of ancient history, even while the ancient teachings and moral stances of the Church are as life-affirming and vibrant as ever.

Roman Catholic bishop stabbed to death in Turkey

By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer Suzan Fraser

Via Yahoo News

ANKARA, Turkey – A Roman Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southern Turkey on Thursday, a day before he was scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the pope, officials and reports said.

Luigi Padovese, 63, the apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun. The killing was not believed to be politically motivated.

Dogan news agency video footage of the scene showed the bishop lying dead in front of a building.

Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz, the governor for the province of Hatay, said police immediately caught the suspected killer. He said the man, identified only as Murat A., was Padovese's driver for the last four and a half years and was mentally unstable.

"The initial investigation shows that the incident is not politically motivated," Lekesiz said. "We have learned that the suspect had psychological problems and was receiving treatment."

Padovese, who is the equivalent of the bishop for the Anatolia region, was scheduled to leave for Cyprus on Friday to meet with the pope, who is visiting the island, and fellow bishops from around the region to prepare for a synod of Roman Catholic bishops in the Middle East. The synod is scheduled for October.

The Vatican-affiliated Asia News agency cited unnamed witnesses as saying the driver appeared to be "depressed, violent and threatening," in recent days.

No one answered phones at his church in Iskenderun.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press in Rome that the Vatican felt "immense pain, consternation, (and) bewilderment" over the death and noted that it showed the "difficult conditions" of the Catholic community in the region.

He said the pope's upcoming visit to Cyprus and the upcoming synod of bishops on the Middle East showed "how the universal church is in solidarity with this community."

The killing is the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.

In 2007, a Roman Catholic priest in the western city of Izmir, Adriano Franchini, was stabbed and slightly wounded in the stomach by a 19-year-old man after Sunday Mass. The man was arrested.

The same year, a group of men entered a Bible-publishing house in the central Anatolian city of Malatya and killed three Christians, including a German national. The five alleged killers are now standing trial for murder.

The killings — in which the victims were tied up and had their throats slit — drew international condemnation and added to Western concerns about whether Turkey can protect its religious minorities.

In 2006, amid widespread anger in Islamic countries over the publication in European newspapers of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, a 16-year-old boy shot dead a Catholic priest, Father Andrea Santoro, as he prayed in his church in the Black Sea city of Trabzon. The boy was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Padovese was appointed to his post in 2004.

Mustafa Sinanoglu, the mufti or top Muslim cleric for Hatay province, told the Anatolia news agency that he and Padovese had been working together toward establishing closer dialogue between their faiths.

"I have been deeply affected by the death of a colleague with whom I had been working together on projects for the region, Turkey and world peace," he said.

"These kinds of incidents are damaging our country's image," he added.

Asia News said the Bishop was also involved in work for the unity of the Christian church and to revive the tiny Christian community in Turkey.

Turkey's Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay paid tribute to Padovese saying he had "made important contributions to the culture of tolerance through his services in Hatay."

The Foreign Ministry said the death of Padovese was an "important loss from a religious and scholarly point of view," adding that the Bishop had written extensively on Turkey.

In a 2006 telephone interview with the AP, following another knife attack that injured another priest, Padovese expressed concern over the safety of Catholics priests in Turkey.

"The climate has changed," he said. "It is the Catholic priests that are being targeted."

Blair Saw Catholic Ban as "Ridiculous"

Comments on Requirement for UK Envoy to Holy See

LONDON, FEB. 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Tony Blair overturned British government policy to ban Catholics from representing the nation to the Holy See because he considered the ban "the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

This is what the former prime minister -- now himself a Catholic -- reveals on a documentary to be aired Wednesday by the BBC Northern Ireland.

In the documentary, titled "Our Man in the Vatican," Blair recounts his surprise at learning in 2005 of the policy, when the ambassador post became vacant.

"I said, 'It's the Vatican, the Pope, he's a Catholic. You mean we actually as a matter of policy ... say you can't have a Catholic?' I said, 'What is this? It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,'" Blair said, as reported by the BBC.

"Can you imagine we say for years and years and years the one category of person we shouldn't have as ambassador to the Holy See is someone who shares their faith?" he added. "I don't think that is very sensible -- not in this day.

"Quite apart from being discriminatory, how stupid is it?"

Formal diplomatic links between England and the Holy See were first established in 1479; in fact, the ambassador position before the Holy See is the oldest in the United Kingdom's diplomatic service.

However, when England's relationship with the Vatican went sour under Henry VIII, ties were broken and were not restored until 1914.

Rational

The BBC noted how in 1917, a Foreign Office memorandum stated Britain's Holy See representative "should not be filled with unreasoning awe of the Pope."

The Blair administration's selection of Francis Campbell, still the British ambassador, finally broke that trend.

Now, the embassy is considered a "vital part of the UK’s overseas network," as explained on the embassy's site. "The mission works jointly with the Holy See on international development, interfaith and climate change. But those examples are replicated many times over in ecumenism, conflict prevention, disarmament and human rights, not to mention the value of the Holy See as a global listening post.

"In an era when religion has once more emerged in international relations, the Vatican is key to the continuing policy debate on the proper boundary between faith and politics. The Vatican is a key stabilizing influence in the global faith/politics debate and helps keep discussion rational."

Faith and politics

Campbell's role as ambassador will be unique this year as he prepares for Benedict XVI's trip to Great Britain in September.

The Holy Father already caused a stir in England when he told the nation's bishops Feb. 1 that some legislation designed to protect equality imposes "unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs," and sometimes "actually violates the natural law."

British government is considering the Equality Bill, defended as protection from discrimination due to sex or sexual orientation.

Critics caution that it could restrict the Church from selecting staff or even priests who live according to Church teaching and morality.

Source

Vatican Secret Archives Documents Going Online

Pave the Way Foundation Proposal Approved


By Jesús Colina

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See is planning to publish on the Internet, free of charge, several documents from the Vatican Secret Archives in relation to World War II.

The initiatives is partially in response to a petition from Pave the Way Foundation, an organization dedicated to bridging gaps between religions.

The foundation proposed making digital files of, and later publicizing, some 5125 descriptions and copies of documents from the closed section of the Vatican archives, from the period of March 1939 to May 1945.

Gary Krupp, the foundation's president and founder, told ZENIT that "the 'Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale [Acts and Documents of the Holy See relative to the Second World War],'" which were "previously published and mostly ignored," will "shortly be available for worldwide scrutiny and study online, free of charge."

He explained that these documents will be available on the Web site of his foundation as well as that of the Vatican.

This project is part of the mission of the foundation, a non-sectarian organization that works to remove obstacles between religions, foster cooperation and to end the misuse of religion for private agendas.

The organization's president, who is from New York but of Jewish decent, stated, "In the furtherance of our mission we have recognized the papacy of the war time Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) as a source of friction impacting over one billion people."

A plot

"Controversy abounds on whether he did enough to prevent the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis," Krupp affirmed.

He continued: "Our research has revealed that five years after Pius XII's death, the KGB hatched a plot to discredit their enemy, the Roman Catholic Church, called 'Seat 12.'

"A dirty trick, which condemned Pope Pius XII for his 'silence' during the Holocaust in the form of Rolf Hochhuth's fictitious 1963 play 'The Deputy.' The result was the worst character assassination of the twentieth century."

Based on his foundation's research, Krupp stated that in 1964, Pope Paul VI asked a team of three Jesuit historians, Father Pierre Blet, Father Burkhart Schneider, and Father Angelo Martini, to "conduct intensive research to identify relevant documents from the war years from the closed section of the Vatican Secret Archives."

He added: "A few years later Father Robert Graham joined the group. The first volume was published in 1965, the last in 1981."

Krupp explained that in 1999, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, at that time the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, called for a special commission of Jewish and Catholic scholars to come together to study these documents.

"This positive advance unfortunately ended July 21, 2001 in failure," he added, "partly because the scholars simply did not read the languages of the collection."

"They issued a list of 47 questions and demanded the opening of the yet un-catalogued archives" from the 1939-1958 period, the foundation president said.

He stated that his foundation "sought to gain permission to digitize this collection, making it broadly available for study" so as to further "our mission to publicly disclose as many documents as possible to help to move this obstacle between Jews and Catholics into the light of documented truth."

Black legend

Krupp explained that "this effort is simply to show clear evidence of Pope Pius XII's efforts to mitigate suffering during the war and that the 'black legend,' which besmirched his name, is simply not true."

He added that this initiative is "not meant to be a substitute for the full access" to the archives, "but will absolutely show the unique efforts of Pope Pius XII and the dangers he was forced to operate under a direct threat from the Nazi regime."

"Ironically," he said "the Vatican Secret Archives [from the period prior] to 1939 were opened over two years ago," and they showed that "65% of Pacelli's ministry has simply been ignored by the critics who call for the war years to be opened."

On behalf of the foundation, the president expressed gratitude to the Pope's Secretary of State and the Libreria Editrice Vaticana "for their confidence in us by allowing us this unprecedented privilege."

He continued: "We sincerely hope that international historians will carefully scrutinize these records. We expect the digitization process of over 9000 pages will take about four weeks to complete [at which time] we will announce their posting on Internet."

In the meantime, the foundation already has thousands of documents and eyewitness videos available on their Web site for study.

Krupp concluded by requesting that "French, Italian and German scholars consider helping us by translating documents into English and forward this work to Pave the Way Foundation so that we can make the information available to more scholars for research."

He added, "We also would like to receive any comments, positive or negative, relative to the content of these documents."

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Pave the Way Foundation: http://www.ptwf.org

The BBC and Anti-Catholic Bias

Director Mark Thompson Defends Its "Rounded" Approach


By Edward Pentin
www.Zenit.com

ROME, FEB. 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is not known to be one of the Catholic Church's closest friends.

Although it has a worldwide reputation for high quality programming, the vast state-funded broadcaster has often been accused of treating the Church and the Catholic faith unfairly at best, and maliciously at worst.

Many examples back up this accusation, beginning with a number programmes over the past 10 years that have been blasphemous and highly offensive to Catholics.

In 2003, the BBC broadcast -- to a large international audience -- a documentary entitled "Sex and the Holy City," which intentionally misrepresented the Church and its teaching on condoms and AIDS. Two years later, it aired "Jerry Springer the Opera," a blasphemous and very offensive programme that ridiculed Jesus and the faith in general. Earlier, the BBC had spent £2 million ($3.13 million) on a program called "Popetown" -- an animated series set in the Vatican that mocked the Church and included plotlines about bestiality. Due to protests, it was banned in Britain but broadcast overseas and sold in Britain on DVD.

The BBC has also been accused of failing in other areas when it comes to Catholicism. The persecution of Catholics in the Middle East or Asia is rarely covered or warranted adequate attention; the immense good work that Catholic priests, religious and laity do around the world is generally passed over; and the Church's invaluable contribution to Western culture tends to be disparaged in favour of focusing on the sins of Church members in the past.

The BBC has also been blamed for more subtle instances of anti-Catholic bias. Discussion panels, news reports and web articles tend to focus on the sensational; they also often comprise contributions from secular figures or dissenting Catholics but hardly ever from orthodox Catholics who will properly convey the Church's teaching.

The corporation's treatment of clergy not infrequently involves interrogations by disparaging and dismissive presenters who seem to view them as guilty until proven innocent. Stephen Glover, a non-Catholic British newspaper columnist, wrote how a BBC television interviewer, quizzing English Archbishop Vincent Nichols in 2007, "treated him like a member of some extreme sect, interrupting him continually, and sneering at him as though he were a half-wit."

Bias

Most of this bias is attributed to a predominantly secular mindset in the corporation that embraces, or is sympathetic to, the culture of death, whether it be abortion, radical feminism, the homosexual agenda, euthanasia, or unethical science such as embryonic stem cell research. "The BBC," Glover once wrote, "represents a materialist, mechanistic consensus which has rejected God, and deludes itself that science is capable of providing a complete explanation of existence."

Even one of the BBC's most accomplished journalists, Andrew Marr, admitted the difficulty the corporation has in offering unbiased coverage. "The BBC is not impartial or neutral," he told a secret summit of BBC executives in 2006. "It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

At that same meeting, one veteran BBC executive was reported in the British press as saying there was "widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness" and that much of this mentality is "so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it." It was also reported that "nearly everyone" at the summit agreed the Bible could be thrown into the bin on a comedy show, but not the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

Denial

The BBC's managers are, of course, quick to publicly reject most allegations of anti-Catholic bias. Last week, Mark Thompson, the corporation's director-general -- essentially its editor-in-chief -- gave a speech at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross on the theme "Broadcasting and Civil Society." Disappointingly and perhaps revealingly his speech didn't specifically mention religion at all but rather focused on how well the BBC is performing as an independent state broadcaster, and how a forthcoming review promises to deliver better quality programmes.

But during the question and answer session afterward, he admitted some anti-Catholic bias "may be the case" in relation to news coverage, although as far as the corporation's religious broadcasting was concerned, he said the BBC tries and generally succeeds in giving "a rounded picture."

He then gave examples of BBC documentaries and live coverage of the Church, from the funeral of Cardinal Basil Hume, the former archbishop of Westminster, to the exposition in Britain of the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux. Asked if he believed the BBC tends to favour an ideology at odds with the Church's teaching, he replied: "No, I really don't," and recalled another programme, this time on the Passion shown at Easter in 2008.

Mother's advice

This wasn't the first time he'd had to confront such criticism. Speaking on the theme of religious broadcasting at a London lecture in 2008, Thompson, who is a Catholic, recalled how his mother shook her head when told her son had been appointed director-general. "The BBC is anti-Catholic and anti-God," she told him in no uncertain terms.

But such anti-God labels, he explained to the audience in London, were "not just too sweeping; they are not even directionally true." He said that naturally, inside the BBC are many people "who take a strongly sceptical view of religion," but you'd also find "thousands of people for whom religion plays a central role in their lives." He accepted that coverage of religion as "faith and lived experience" rather than as a story or controversy was "unusual" but noted there is more interest in "high profile" religious affairs programming than there was 25 years ago.

And yet on his watch, BBC television coverage of religious affairs has fallen, from 177 hours in 1987-88 to 155 hours in 2007-08. This week the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod, is debating whether the BBC marginalises Christianity, treating it like a "freak show" or a "rare species" to be studied on a nature programme.

Marginalization

At last week's lecture, Thompson said he didn't address religion specifically because he didn't want to put it into a special category, preferring instead to include religion in his comments on history, knowledge and culture. Yet such a vision risks sidelining it further, and is perhaps one reason why the BBC rarely airs programmes aimed at a particular faith but instead lumps them together into a relativist muddle.

As one priest asked after hearing Thompson's speech: Why not have programmes dedicated to each religion, for example one made up of a group of Catholic theologians discussing the role of works in justification, or another of Muslim scholars debating the interpretation of the Koran?

Speaking with Thompson later on, he appeared open to having an honest dialogue with the Church and to listening to ideas on how to improve coverage. The main purpose of his visit was to meet the Holy Father and Vatican officials to discuss the Pope's visit to Britain later this year.

A hopeful sign, though how genuinely serious BBC management takes the Church remains very much open to doubt.

Should any reader wish to propose ideas to Mark Thompson on how to improve coverage of the Church on the BBC, e-mail me and I'll send you details on how you can drop him a line.