Vatican News
Goring someone else’s ox
So, according to the liberal media and various left-wing and Catholic-hostile punditry, if the Pope is supposed to excommunicate (or keep excommunicated) public figures who hold views that are antithetical to the Catholic faith (i.e. anti-Semitism), would those same journalists and pundits be consistent with others who hold views that are antithetical to the Catholic faith?
Like pro-abortion politicians?
Yeah, didn’t think so.
Debunk the conspiracy theories
This coming Tuesday, August 26, will mark the 30th anniversary of the election of Pope John Paul I, who brief reign lasted only one month before his untimely death. Yet for all the brevity of his papacy, the controversy surrounding his death has lived on in the intervening decades. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the pope either murdered or even committed suicide, all of which is nonsense. Nevertheless, that has not prevented hucksters from advancing their claims. The most prominent book on the subject is by David Yallop, called In God’s Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, first published in 1984 and released in a new edition in 2007. The infamous John Cornwall, author of the execrable Hitler’s Pope, has also weighed in with his tome.
Meanwhile, Lori Pieper, who blogs at “Lori’s Pilgrimage”, has been investigating John Paul I’s death for almost as long, even writing an as-yet unpublished manuscript. So now she is publishing her refutations of the conspiracy theories on her blog in time for the anniversary. The first part is online at Was Pope John Paul I Murdered? (Part I)
Many of the people who were close to Pope John Paul I have always been reluctant to talk about the controversy surrounding his death. This is not because they want to conceal anything, but rather because they are weary of being questioned on the subject. They wonder why there is so much interest in the theory that the Pope was murdered and so little in his life. They feel betrayed by those who have distorted the facts they have provided in order to write scandalous books, and angry because those who read these books seem to be more interested in sensationalism than they are in the truth. When I spoke with the Pope’s brother and sister-in-law and his secretaries, Father Lorenzi and Father Senigaglia, about his death back in 1985, they told me that they were afraid that attempting to refute these lies would only add to the furor, and that no one cared about the truth anyway.
It’s time to reclaim the truth about Pope John Paul I, né Albano Luciano, Servant of God who cause for beatification is ongoing. The life of holiness of the Pope should be what we remember, not this other silliness.
Photo is in the public domain. Via Wikimedia.
Xt3 – Official WYD Social Network
The Archdiocese of Sydney has launched its new World Youth Day social networking site called Xt3. Also, check out the cool 30-second spot on that page produced by Grassroots Films, creators of such fare as “The Human Experience”, “God in the Streets of New York”, and “Fishers of Men”.
As usual, it’s very cool. Those of you in the younger demographic will have to tell us old fogeys whether you like the site.
Portraits of Pope Benedict
Flickr.com user Christus Vincit has collected what he describes as the Best Pictures of Pope Benedict, a series of what look like mainly news photos of the Holy Father. (Sadly, these are unattributed to the photographers and probably reproduced without permission, so it may not be long before they are taken down.) There are some very nice shots among these 125 photos of Pope Benedict.
Anti-immigrant, anti-Pope
When Pope Benedict visited the US, he called on Americans to continue our great tradition of welcoming immigrants to our shores: “to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials and to help them flourish in their new home.”
Unfortunately, some Republicans have let their zeal for enforcement of the rule of law, including in the area of immigration with which I agree, become an unjust, un-Christian, and downright un-American animus against immigrants. Period. To wit, one Rep, Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, who took the occasion of the Pope’s remarks on hospitality to attack the Church.
The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, quotes Tancredo’s foolish remark:
Mr. Tancredo’s response was to accuse the pontiff of “faith-based marketing” and claim that “the pope’s immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church.”
Tancredo is no doubt referring to the Pew Forum study that found that the Catholic Church in the US is growing only because Catholic immigrants are flooding our shores. CNN anchor Lou Dobb’s shares Tancredo’s impulses and also attacked the Pope for “insulting” Americans: “I really don’t appreciate the bad manners of a guest telling me in this country and my fellow citizens what to do.”
The Pope simply lives up to the Gospel message that we are to be welcoming to the stranger in our midst and extols our American credo and history of welcoming the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and that’s bad manners and an insult? No, the bad manners comes from those who let themselves be blinded by ideology, insult a welcomed and honored guest, and twist an American value into something it is not.
To repeat: I agree we need to enforce the immigrations laws to secure our borders, to elevate the rule of law, and to end the exploitation of illegal aliens by criminals and unscrupulous employers that results. But a blanket anti-immigrant ideology harboring a deep well of anti-Catholicism is just unacceptable.
Lidia cooks for the Pope
Famed Italian chef, grandmother, cookbook author, restaurateur, and PBS cooking show host Lidia Bastianich was enlisted to cook not one, but three meals for Pope Benedict when he was in New York last week. When Lidia and her parents emigrated to the US forty years ago, they received a special Vatican stamp on their visas to allow them to come to America. And now she got to repay the favor with three amazing meals. Prior to the papal visit, she was not allowed to reveal the menu (lest terrorists spike every example of the ingredient in NYC?), but now it can be told.
Lunch on Saturday was apparently a light meal whipped up by Lidia and her assistants from what the nuns who serve the household of the Vatican’s observer to the UN had already gathered:
- “Italian cherry tomatoes with celery and grana Padana alongside some fresh mache
- “Asparagus soup thickened with boiled potato and sautéed asparagus
- “Baked monkfish Sicilian-style with seasoned breadcrumbs
- “Peach fruit tart that, according to Lidia, almost went directly from the oven to the table”
Dinner, meanwhile, was a more formal affair for 52 guests.
- “String bean salad with sheep’s milk ricotta and pickled shallots and toasted almonds
- “Ravioli with fresh pecorino and pears
- “Risotto with nettles, fava beans, and ramps
- “Whole roasted striped bass with boiled fingerling potatoes and a frisée salad
- “Apple strudel with honey vanilla ice cream (with honeycomb intact)”
She notes that while it seems like a lot of food, each course was presented separately. In the article this comes from there’s a lot of nonsense about not making the Pope appear gluttonous or that he’s supposed to be too focused on spiritual matters to be concerned about whether the food tastes good. Bunk! Catholics are not Manicheans who reject the material world as if we’re all spirits. The Pope enjoys a good meal as much as the next guy and he’s quite able to voice that opinion. It is as much a virtue to enjoy the fruits of God’s good earth and the labor of man or woman as it is to fast from such bounty, each at its appropriate time.
Anyway, the third meal was Sunday dinner for the smaller papal entourage of 24:
- “White and green asparagus salad with fresh 30-day pecorino, fava beans, and green chickpeas with lemon and olive oil
- “Agnolini (little flying-saucer-shaped pasta filled with roast meat that Lidia served because they look like hosts) in free-range chicken soup with grana Padana on the bottom of the bowl
- “Beef goulash made from Wagyu-style flat iron beef with a side of patate in tecia (pan-fried potatoes with bacon and onions that Lidia says remind her of hash browns) served with sauerkraut and sour cream
- “Chocolate-hazelnut cake with “Tu Es” inscribed on it, topped by a two-foot-high marzipan mitre made by Bruno Bakery owner Bruno Settepani
- “Apricot and ricotta crostata”
My favorite is probably the cake with “Tu es” and the mitre to form the image of “Tu es Pietro,” i.e. Christ’s message to St. Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.”
In the end, Lidia received the finest compliment possible from Pope Benedict after that last meal.
After the goulash, the pope said to Lidia, “These are my mother’s flavors.” Lidia said she almost cried when she heard this. All the wines, Lidia said, were selected by her son, Joe Bastianich, and came from the Bastianich vineyards in Italy.
One last tidbit: Joe Bastianich is Mario Batali’s partner in many of his New York restaurants and his wine shop.
Papal visit wrapup; how did the blogs affect your experience?
Texts of the Pope’s homilies and addresses as well as video and audio recordings of the various events are available at the USCCB Papal Visit Site.
So this was the first blogger-era papal visit to the US. Was it a different experience for folks, beyond watching the TV coverage? Did you have a different experience of the visit through what you read and saw online?
I’d love to hear people’s reflections.
Agent acts as means of boy’s “miraculous” meeting with the Pope
This is a heart-warming story about a wheelchair-bound boy, a Secret Service agent, and the Pope.
The 9-year-old boy and his mother traveled from Texas to New York without a hope of meeting the Pope, but coming anyway to St. Patrick’s Cathedra. But at the cathedral, a Secret Service agent intervened and brought them into the cathedral, where the Holy Father came to them after Mass for a blessing.
Beautiful.
Phil Lawler on why the Pope not coming to Boston was a good thing
Phil Lawler, my former boss and author of the new book “The Faithful Departed”, comments on the interesting spate of outrage among angry Catholics and media pundits in Boston that Pope Benedict didn’t put the city on his itinerary. I know we sometimes call it the “Hub of the Universe,” but I think some people are taking it too seriously.
First, people are angry that the Holy Father isn’t coming to Boston. Not just disappointed: outraged! They feel that he should have come to Boston, because he could… he could… he could…
Well, what could he have done to calm this anger? I can’t think of anything that he could say or do that would ease the sense of betrayal, frustration, and disillusion that so many people feel. One more apology? One more acknowledgment that Bad Things happened? That wouldn’t heal the wounds; that would only confirm what we already know too well.
Incidentally, Phil has set up this new blog to continue the conversation about topics brought up in his book as well as in various media appearances.
Why I’m not going to see the Pope
As you’re probably well aware if you’re reading this, Pope Benedict flew to the US today for his six-day visit. It culminates on Sunday with Mass in Yankee Stadium which 3,000 Boston pilgrims will attend.
I hate to admit it, considering how many people would love to go, but I could have had gone. Our office was coordinating the pilgrimage and if I’d wanted to go, I could have. So why didn’t I?
For one thing, there’s no way we could bring the girls. The buses leave their starting points at 5:45am on Sunday and don’t get back until 11:30 that night. And I couldn’t leave Melanie to deal with the girls by herself all day while I jaunt off the New York. In addition, my niece has her confirmation Mass on Sunday and we want to be there for that.
And I’ve been to papal mega-Masses before in both Rome and Paris for World Youth Days. Let’s just say that they’re not exactly conducive to prayerful meditation and worship and now that I’ve done it, I don’t feel the need to do it again.
I don’t intend to toss cold water on anyone else’s enthusiasm. By all means, if you’ve never seen the Pope or been to a papal Mass, you should if you get the chance, whatever the size of the crowd.
But for me, at this time, it’s not something we decided to do.
Party on the Pope’s Lanai
VATICAN BASILICA PATIO DEDICATED TO GREGORY ILLUMINATOR
VATICAN CITY, 22 FEB 2008 (VIS) - At noon, during a brief ceremony attended by His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX, Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholics, and a group of prelates of the Armenian Catholic Church, the Pope dedicated the north patio of the Vatican Basilica to St. Gregory the Illuminator.
Afterward they had a barbecue, cracked some brews, and kicked back to some Jimmy Buffett. Oh wait, it’s not that kind of patio?
Reckoning
From today’s Vatican Information Service bulletin:
VATICAN CITY, 21 FEB 2008 (VIS) - Today the Holy Father received in audience Renato Guarini, the rector of La Sapienza University in Rome.
Oooh, someone’s getting a talking to.
Italian profs used bad Wikipedia “facts” to attack the Pope
Remember that big kerfuffle in Rome a couple of weeks ago when Pope Benedict was scheduled to visit La Sapienza University? A bunch of professors and students protested the Pope, ostensibly for something he said in a speech years ago about faith and academia, but really we all know it was for the Church’s moral teachings.
We knew at the time that the quote they were hammering the Pope for was not actually his own words, but were actually of quote of someone else that he was disagreeing with in his speech. We all scratched our heads and wondered how they could be so wrong. Now we know. It turns out that professors relied on Wikipedia for their research and the article was inaccurate.
How ironic! They had accused the Pope of replacing reason with faith (when in fact the Holy Father would say they go hand in hand and are both necessary) and attacking academic study, when in fact they failed to do even the most primary source research, and let their “faith” in anti-Catholicism overcome the “reason” of actual intellectual discourse.
Hoist on their own petard!
“Each person is free to judge if this way of using reason is correct or if it is an act of disloyalty. The risk of reason folding to the pressure of interests and to the attractiveness of utility is exactly the risk which the Pope would have warned the staff of La Sapienza about had he been able to speak there,” the Vatican newspaper stated in conclusion.
Indeed.
Boston Catholics: Get tickets to see the Pope in New York!
If you’re a Catholic living in the Archdiocese of Boston and you want to attend the papal Mass in Yankee Stadium on April 20, you’re in luck. The Archdiocese has been allocated 3,000 tickets and you can put your name in the lottery by going to the Archdiocese’s Bicentennial web site and signing up.
Demand is expected to outstrip supply so make sure to get your name in. Tickets are free, but non-transferable (you won’t see them on eBay) and there is fee for transportation as well.
It looks like all the bicentennial dioceses are being allocated some tickets. Obviously Baltimore will get tickets to events in Washington, DC, but Boston, Philadelphia, and Lousville, Kentucky, will get tickets for New York.
This is a very big deal and a nice gesture since this will likely be the only chance we’ll get to see Pope Benedict in the US.
I doubt Melanie and I will be going. It’s a long day on a bus and in stadium seats and we’ll have six-week-old baby then. But I hope lots of you get a chance to go.
The Vatican’s awesome new reference web site
Check out this cool new web site from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy: Biblia Clerus. It looks to be an awesome resource for all Catholics.
There’s a searchable Biblical text with commentary from the early Church fathers, the Sunday lectionary readings cross-referenced to the homilies of the Church fathers, the principal texts of the Magisterium of the Church and Popes, and current and earlier versions of the Eastern and Latin Codes of Canon Law with commentary. Oh, and did I mention that you can download it all to your computer (if you’re running Windows, drat, but I do have the software to run Windows on my Mac).
And then it links to the rest of their web site at clerus.org with all kinds of other information, including their official mailing list for the Congregation’s documents.
Very cool!
