Participants at the meeting say some progress has been made during the talks.

They say a possible model for the future is that of “sister churches” with separate hierarchies and liturgies, with the Orthodox accepting the Pope as their “titular” head.

The meeting ends on Sunday, September 26.

Dangers for the Faith?

Many traditional Catholics and Orthodox have a certain fear of talks such as these.

Some, in both Churches, are concerned that theological discussions like this may lead one or the other Church to “water down” essential doctrinal teachings for the sake of an external form of union.

In this specific case, some Orthodox may fear they will be asked to accept a type of “papal primacy” they do not in conscience believe in.

Likewise, some Catholics may feel that the Orthodox may be invited into a union with Rome without giving their assent to essential Catholic doctrines on the office of the Pope.

So there are fears on both sides.

And the fears have a certain basis.

For there is always a danger that some aspect or tenet of the deposit of the faith may be placed at risk in the process of such a theological dialogue.

On the Other Hand…

But there is another concern that must also be kept in mind.

Today, in our actual historical context, there is a danger that the enemies of the Church — and the chief enemy behind them — can exploit such fears to keep Christians divided against the wishes and the prayer of Christ himself.

Christ prayed on the night of the Last Supper that all of his followers would always remain “one” — united, not divided.

But divisions between Christians came.

Some argue that divisions are necessary to clarify truth.

Assertions of heretical doctrine do call forth from the defenders of orthodoxy a clear statement of doctrinal truth.

Pope Benedict once said precisely this, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, and the chief defender of doctrinal orthdoxy in the Church, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.

So, though the way is treacherous, it would seem a mistake to not at least try to set out upon this path, despite the dangers.

The Purpose of the Meeting

The purpose of this meeting is to examine key doctrinal questions dividing the Churches carefully, and calmly, and to see where the limits lie, from the perspective of each side.

And in this sense, it is a very positive sign that the meeting has been held at all, and that it hasn’t broken up in acrimony, but is continuing toward its conclusion.

For, in the end, the present state of the world counsels openness to such discussions.

In the West, a certain “post-Christian” secular vision is dominant.

At the same time, Islam is undoubtedly spreading its influence widely.

These developments seem to counsel those who profess belief in Christ as the savior of man and the Son of God — Christians, that is — make every possible effort, short of compromising the deposit of the faith, to draw closer together, first in common work and charity efforts, then, eventually, in some form of public Church unity.

Without this, not single tenets of the faith, but the faith itself, whole and entire, may find itself in danger in this world.

The Ultimate Victory

The Christian message offers an entirely new type of existence to men and women.

Preserving and defending the Church is to preserve and defend the vehicle, the means, of this message.

The theology of one of the participants at the Vienna meeting, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, has expressed this in a striking and powerful way.

Zizioulas, who studied under the Russian Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky, received his doctorate in 1965 from the University of Athens and has taught theology at the University of Edinburgh and then the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Zizioulas has argued that full humanity is achieved only as “person” so that one may participate (koinonia) in the personal Trinitarian life of God — participate in the life of the divinity.

He argues that man initially exists as a biological hypostasis (person), constrained as to the types of relationships such a being can have (biological) and doomed to the eventual end of this type of being — death.

He argues that Baptism constitutes an ontological change in the human, creating an ecclesial hypostasis, or person.

This rebirth “from above” gives new ontological freedom as it is not constrained by the limits of biological existence.

Such an ecclesial being is eschatological, meaning it lives in a paradoxical “now,” but “not yet.”

The completion of this rebirth from above is the day of resurrection when the body will no longer be subject to death.

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The Proceedings

The 12th Session of the Joint Theological Commission for Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches began its work on 22 September 2010 in Vienna.

The commission is co-chaired by Metropolitan John of Pergamon, Patriarchate of Constantinople, and Archbishop Kurt Koch, president of Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Each Local Orthodox Church is represented by two delegates. Representing the Moscow Patriarchate are Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, DECR chairman, and Prof. Archpriest Valentin Asmus, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Humanitarian University. Archimandrite Kirill Govorun, chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church’s education committee, participates in the meeting as consultant.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and Metropolitan Michael of Vienna, Patriarchate of Constantinople, welcomed the participants.

The first day was mainly devoted to the methods of further work on the theme “The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the First Millennium.” Participants exchanged views on the status to be given to the document on this theme, which was partly considered by the previous meeting of the Commission.

In the evening, Vienna Burgomaster Michael Haupl gave dinner in honour of the participants in the session.

The 12th session of the commission will work till September 26.

On September 22, 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, DECR chairman, met with the head of the Vienna archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.

Metropolitan Hilarion told the cardinal about today’s life of the Russian Orthodox Church, the trips made by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in Russia and far- and near-abroad countries, the Church’s missionary and educational work as well as the work of the Department for External Church Relations and some other Synodal institutions of the Moscow Patriarchate.

They discussed prospects for Orthodox-Catholic cooperation in Europe in general and a possibility for carrying out joint educational activities and youth events, in particular.

In conclusion of the talk, which was held in a warm and friendly atmosphere, Metropolitan Hilarion presented Cardinal Schoenborn with an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God.

(Here is a link to this information: http://byztex.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-ongoing-orthodox-catholic.html)

The action raises the spectre of another scandal, this time financial, in addition to years of scandal involving sexual abuse of young people by priests.

In short, it is a new, powerful blow against the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.

This is a real story, not simply a verbal accusation: the funds have actually been impounded — $30 million, a considerable sum.

Even more important, Italian finance officials now say they are pursuing “money laundering” allegations against the Pope’s top financial official, a prominent Italian Catholic banker and scholar of economics named Prof. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

Gotti Tedeschi was Pope Benedicts’s choice to lead the Vatican’s Istituto per le Opere di Religione (“Institute for Religious Works,” commonly known as the Vatican bank)

The Vatican Reaction

What is the Vatican’s reaction to this attack?

In a statement today, the Vatican said that it is “perplexed and surprised” by these events and has the “greatest trust” in the two men.

The statement also said the Vatican has already been working for greater transparency in its finances, to comply with new international banking regulations.

Further Questions, and Some Background

So why is this happening now? This is what is not clear.

Gotti Tedeschi, a devout Catholic and a member of the Prelature of Opus Dei, has taught financial ethics at the Catholic University of Milan. He is a close adviser to Italy’s Treasury Minister, Giulio Tremonti.

I have met and spoken with him at some length about the functions of the Vatican bank, and problems in the world economy. From my contacts with him, I judge him to be a man of considerable integrity and high ideals. This does not mean that the accusations made against him cannot be true, but it does mean that I would have to be persuaded by weighty evidence before drawing the conclusion that he had done something intentionally illegal.

He was a contributor in the drafting process of the Pope’s encyclical last summer on the economy, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), which was critical of the wild, unregulated excesses of the current international financial system, where capital can move, in size, with astonishing rapidity, improving or crushing the prospects for industries, and nations, literally overnight.

I have been in the offices of the IOR many times.

In fact, I knew Gotti Tedeschi’s predecessor, the late American Archbishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus , very well, and often spoke with him in his offices.

Marcinkus, too, was accused of financial crimes in the late 1970 and early 1980s, 30 years ago now.

And there has never been complete clarity on what actually happened on that occasion.

Some people swear that Marcinkus was involved in nefarious dealings; others swear the opposite, saying he was naive, or out of his depth, and so got caught up in affairs that he had never been trained to deal with.

(This much is true: he was not a trained banker or economist, as he himself told me, and this is part of the reason the Vatican has decided to have trained laymen in these delicate posts. “He had no experience of international banking prior to his appointment in 1971, his sole preparation for which had been a short crash course in banking at Harvard University,” David Willey of the BBC wrote at the time of his death. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4738134.stm)

The IOR principally manages funds for the Vatican and religious institutions around the world, such as charity organisations and religious orders of priests and nuns.

Yes, you can see many nuns in the offices of the Vatican bank, making deposits, and taking withdrawals.

The Church needs the ability to support missionary and other efforts around the world, through financial institutions, just as she needs access to visas to travel, or legal protection to found and build orphanages and schools.

The Church is “in” the world — though she should not be “of” the world.

This need for an institutional support network was famously summarized by Marcinkus in the perhaps somewhat scandalous phrase, for an archbishop: “You can’t run the Church on Hail Marys.”

But that phrase can be taken as a mark of healthy realism, the same type of realism expressed in the words of Christ’s himself when he said: “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s.”

In this world, a mechanism of exchange for goods and services (money) is a means members of the Church, like all others in society, often need to use.

So one point may be made about this latest development: it strikes directly at the Church’s ability to have the institutional banking structure that she needs to support her global mission.

And this blow comes just following the moment when Benedict seemed to have recovered a considerable moral capital for the Church with his quiet, eloquent, visit to the very heart of “the City” (London) — the most influential financial capital in the world, at least until recently.
Marcinkus. as head of the IOR, was involved in a worldwide scandal in 1982 when the IOR was entangled in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Milan’s Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest private bank.

The IOR held a small stake in the Ambrosiano, whose president, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge in June of that year. (A first investigation concluded that the death was a suicide, but a more recent investigation has concluded that it was a murder. No suspects in the killing have been named.)

Marcinkus, who died in Arizona in 2006, always maintained — also to me — that the Vatican had not been responsible for the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano.

Marcinkus told me he was opposed to making what the Vatican later called a “goodwill payment” of $242 million to compensate Ambrosiano creditors — Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, then Secretary of State, was the one who persuaded the Pope to make that payment, against Marcinkus’s strong objections, Marcinkus once told me.

And so the matter was settled, though a shadow remained against Marcinkus’ name.

(In 1990, Marcinkus told me, “Before I die, come talk to me. I will tell you things that will curl your hair.” He then retired to Sun City, Arizona. Early in 2006, I phoned him there. “Would it be the right time now for me to come talk to you?” I asked him. He said, “Not yet.” A week later, I called a second time — I felt it was about time to see him, as 16 years had passed since our last meeting. “Not yet, but soon,” he told me. A few days later, he died.)

Vatican Bank Tied to Money Laundering Scandal

Here is the report today of Rachel Donadio, reporter on Vatican and Italian affairs for the New York Times, on this latest story (link to the web posting: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/europe/22vatican.html)

ROME — Italian monetary authorities said Tuesday that they had impounded $30 million from the Vatican bank and placed its top two officers under investigation in connection with a money laundering inquiry. The announcement amounted to another potential storm confronting the papacy of Benedict XVI, who is struggling with the effects of a priestly abuse scandal.

In a statement, the Vatican expressed “perplexity and surprise” that the bank’s chairman, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and its director general, Paolo Cipriani, had been placed under investigation. It added that it had the “greatest trust” in the two men and had been working for greater transparency in its finances.

The investigation is the first into the Vatican bank since the early 1980’s, when it was implicated in the collapse of an Italian bank whose director, nicknamed “God’s banker,” was mysteriously found dead, hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London.

Italian authorities have historically shied away from investigating the Vatican’s finances — as much out of deference to the church as owing to the complex relationship between Italy and the Holy See, a sovereign state.

“The era of omertà is over,” said Gianluigi Nuzzi, the author of the 2009 bestseller “Vaticano S.P.A.,” using the Italian term for the code of silence. S.P.A. stands for limited liability corporation in Italian.

The investigation was undertaken because of a new directive by the Bank of Italy. Aimed at preventing financing of terrorist groups and money laundering, it now requires all foreign banks operating in Italy — including the Vatican Bank — to provide detailed information about the origins of the money it transfers.

Officials said that Mr. Gotti Tedeschi and Mr. Cipriani were under investigation for having failed adequately to explain the origins of funds transferred from one account held by the Vatican Bank to two others it holds. They said the seizure was preventive and neither man had been formally charged or placed under arrest. In the coming months, a judge is expected to rule on whether to proceed with the investigation.

The investigation could potentially blight the record of Mr. Gotti Tedeschi, a well-respected banker and a former head of operations in Italy for Spain’s Banco Santander who was brought in by the pope last year to help clean up the murky finances of the Vatican bank, a private bank formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR, which manages funds aimed at charitable activities.

The new investigation appeared more mundane but no less explosive.

Officials said they had opened the investigation on Monday after the Bank of Italy, adhering to anti-money-laundering directives, alerted them to two suspicious transfers on Sept. 6 from an account held by the Vatican bank at a Rome branch of Credito Artigiano S.P.A., a bank based in Northern Italy.

One transfer of $26 million was directed to an account held by the Vatican bank at a Frankfurt branch of the U.S. bank J.P. Morgan, and another of $4 million was directed at an account it held at a Rome branch of the Banca di Fucino.

Under Italian law, magistrates are required to open an investigation if there is a suspicion that a crime may have been committed. Magistrates in Rome opened the investigation because the accounts in question were in bank branches in Rome.

News reports last year said that the same magistrates had opened up a broader investigation last year into bank accounts held by Vatican officials and charitable entities in Rome banks.

In both cases, investigators bypassed the sovereignty of the Holy See by looking into Italian accounts that had received funds from the Vatican Bank.

In a statement, the Holy See said it expressed “perplexity and surprise at the initiative taken by the Rome court, considering that all the necessary data were already made available to the competent office at the Bank of Italy and similar operations are ongoing with other Italian credit institutions.”

It added that the funds were transfers originating within the Vatican bank itself, and that the bank was working to join the “white list” of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest ranking on its transparency charts.

In the early 1980’s, the Vatican bank was involved in a scandal at Italy’s Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans to companies in Latin America. The Vatican bank denied wrongdoing but paid $250 million to Banco Ambrosiano’s creditors.

The new investigation appeared to show a more aggressive stance by the Bank of Italy, a player in the complex power dynamics of contemporary Italy. “It has a central role, whereas before it had a subaltern role,” Mr. Nuzzi said.

A spokeswoman for the Bank of Italy said it had been acting under European Union directives.

(end of New York Times story)

===============================================

“European Union Directives”

It is the very last phrase of this article which catches my attention.

Here, in the final sentence of the story, we learn something that turns the entire story upside down, as it were.

Throughout the story, we are under the impression that someone at the Bank of Italy was responsible for this decision to sequester Vatican funds and open an investigation of the Vatican bank’s top two officials.

Then, here, at the end of the story, we learn that the Bank of Italy was “acting under European Union directives.”

We know that the European Union began — with considerable input from leading Catholic laymen, like Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman — as a political structure to try to ensure that Europeans would never again engage in a fratricidal civil war.

We know that Europe has become something different than what those three men envisioned: a place where the Christian roots of Europe are denied, and where many Christian moral beliefs have been cast aside.

What were the “European Union directives” which led to this action against the Vatican by the Bank of Italy. Who issued those directives, and for what reason?

These are open questions.

Day #4 of the Visit to Scotland and England

Today in Birmingham, England, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a Mass in which he raised to the honors of the altars the great 19th century British Catholic convert, Blessed John Henry Newman.

He declared Cardinal John Henry Newman blessed while celebrating an open-air Mass with 60,000 worshipers present in a Birmingham park on his fourth and final day in Great Britain.

There was a slight drizzle during the ceremony.

Here is a link to a video of the Mass, hosted on the website of the Catholic Herald in England: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/multimedia/2010/09/19/pope-beatifies-cardinal-john-henry-newman

Beatification brings Newman one step closer to becoming a saint.

Newman was an Anglican clergyman, scholar, educator, poet and leader of the Oxford Movement of the 1830s —which aimed to help the Church of England return to its Catholic roots — who converted to Catholicism in mid-life.

It was a wrenching experience, which turned Newman’s personal life upside down.

Before the Pope’s trip, many questioned whether the beatification of an Anglican convert would be a provocation.

But this visit has in fact highlighted the common ground between Anglicans and Catholics.

Today it was not Newman’s brilliant mind alone that Benedict wished to recall in his homily.

Rather, it was Newman’s humanity.

The fact that Newman was an ordinary man, not an angel.

Newman was a pastor of souls, the Pope said, who, because he was a simple, fallible man, was able to be compassionate toward fallible and sinful human beings, while all the time calling them to a better, higher way of life.

And Newman lived out during his life this “profoundly human vision of priestly ministry,” the Pope said.

Precisely this “profoundly human vision” of priestly ministry, Benedict suggested, makes Newman a model for the priests of our time, and of all time.

The key passage is this one from the Pope’s homily today:

“While it is John Henry Newman’s intellectual legacy that has understandably received most attention in the vast literature devoted to his life and work, I prefer on this occasion to conclude with a brief reflection on his life as a priest, a pastor of souls.

“The warmth and humanity underlying his appreciation of the pastoral ministry is beautifully expressed in another of his famous sermons: ‘Had Angels been your priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathized with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you’ (“Men, not Angels: the Priests of the Gospel”, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 3).

“He lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care for the people of Birmingham during the years that he spent at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial not half a mile from here.”

(Note: The word “condoled” above may seem to be a typo for “consoled,” but is not; it is an unusual verbal form of the word which is more familiar to us as “condolence” or “condolences,” meaning “sympathy for another in sorrow.” Newman, citing St. Paul here, is saying that priests, being men, not angels, can sympathize with other sorrowing sinners because they too are sinners.)

I include below, after the text of the Pope’s homily, the complete text of Newman’s original sermon, which is itself a marvelous summary of Newman’s teaching on the priesthood.

In both the Pope’s text and in Newman’s text, I bold-face the key words.

==========================================

HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI

MASS FOR THE BEATIFICATION

OF BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

COFTON PARK

BIRMINGHAM

19 SEPTEMBER 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This day that has brought us together here in Birmingham is a most auspicious one. In the first place, it is the Lord’s day, Sunday, the day when our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and changed the course of human history for ever, offering new life and hope to all who live in darkness and in the shadow of death. That is why Christians all over the world come together on this day to give praise and thanks to God for the great marvels he has worked for us. This particular Sunday also marks a significant moment in the life of the British nation, as it is the day chosen to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

For me as one who lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion, and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology. My thoughts go in particular to nearby Coventry, which suffered such heavy bombardment and massive loss of life in November 1940. Seventy years later, we recall with shame and horror the dreadful toll of death and destruction that war brings in its wake, and we renew our resolve to work for peace and reconciliation wherever the threat of conflict looms.

Yet there is another, more joyful reason why this is an auspicious day for Great Britain, for the Midlands, for Birmingham. It is the day that sees Cardinal John Henry Newman formally raised to the altars and declared Blessed.

I thank Archbishop Bernard Longley for his gracious welcome at the start of Mass this morning. I pay tribute to all who have worked so hard over many years to promote the cause of Cardinal Newman, including the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory and the members of the Spiritual Family Das Werk. And I greet everyone here from Great Britain, Ireland, and further afield; I thank you for your presence at this celebration, in which we give glory and praise to God for the heroic virtue of a saintly Englishman.

England has a long tradition of martyr saints, whose courageous witness has sustained and inspired the Catholic community here for centuries. Yet it is right and fitting that we should recognize today the holiness of a confessor, a son of this nation who, while not called to shed his blood for the Lord, nevertheless bore eloquent witness to him in the course of a long life devoted to the priestly ministry, and especially to preaching, teaching, and writing.

He is worthy to take his place in a long line of saints and scholars from these islands, Saint Bede, Saint Hilda, Saint Aelred, Blessed Duns Scotus, to name but a few.

In Blessed John Henry, that tradition of gentle scholarship, deep human wisdom and profound love for the Lord has borne rich fruit, as a sign of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit deep within the heart of God’s people, bringing forth abundant gifts of holiness.

Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or “Heart speaks unto heart”, gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God.

He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, “a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv, 230-231).

Today’s Gospel tells us that no one can be the servant of two masters (cf. Lk 16:13), and Blessed John Henry’s teaching on prayer explains how the faithful Christian is definitively taken into the service of the one true Master, who alone has a claim to our unconditional devotion (cf. Mt 23:10).

Newman helps us to understand what this means for our daily lives: he tells us that our divine Master has assigned a specific task to each one of us, a “definite service”, committed uniquely to every single person: “I have my mission”, he wrote, “I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place … if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling” (Meditations and Devotions, 301-2).

The definite service to which Blessed John Henry was called involved applying his keen intellect and his prolific pen to many of the most pressing “subjects of the day.”

His insights into the relationship between faith and reason, into the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society, and into the need for a broadly-based and wide-ranging approach to education were not only of profound importance for Victorian England, but continue today to inspire and enlighten many all over the world.

I would like to pay particular tribute to his vision for education, which has done so much to shape the ethos that is the driving force behind Catholic schools and colleges today.

Firmly opposed to any reductive or utilitarian approach, he sought to achieve an educational environment in which intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment would come together.

The project to found a Catholic University in Ireland provided him with an opportunity to develop his ideas on the subject, and the collection of discourses that he published as The Idea of a University holds up an ideal from which all those engaged in academic formation can continue to learn.

And indeed, what better goal could teachers of religion set themselves than Blessed John Henry’s famous appeal for an intelligent, well-instructed laity: “I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it” (The Present Position of Catholics in England, ix, 390).

On this day when the author of those words is raised to the altars, I pray that, through his intercession and example, all who are engaged in the task of teaching and catechesis will be inspired to greater effort by the vision he so clearly sets before us.

While it is John Henry Newman’s intellectual legacy that has understandably received most attention in the vast literature devoted to his life and work, I prefer on this occasion to conclude with a brief reflection on his life as a priest, a pastor of souls.

The warmth and humanity underlying his appreciation of the pastoral ministry is beautifully expressed in another of his famous sermons: “Had Angels been your priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathized with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you” (“Men, not Angels: the Priests of the Gospel“, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 3).

He lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care for the people of Birmingham during the years that he spent at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial not half a mile from here.

One hundred and twenty years later, great crowds have assembled once again to rejoice in the Church’s solemn recognition of the outstanding holiness of this much-loved father of souls.

What better way to express the joy of this moment than by turning to our heavenly Father in heartfelt thanksgiving, praying in the words that Blessed John Henry Newman placed on the lips of the choirs of angels in heaven:

Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise;
In all his words most wonderful,
Most sure in all his ways!

(The Dream of Gerontius).

(end of the Pope’s homily)

===================================

“Men, not Angels”

And now for a bit of literary detective work.

The source of the Pope’s key quotation from Newman is one of Newman’s discourses on the priesthood, entitled “Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel.”

The work was dedicated to a Catholic scholar and bishop, “the Right Rev. Nicholas Wiseman, D.D., Bishop of Melipotamus, and Vicar Apostolic of the London district.”

It was an essay by Wiseman, Newman says, which contributed to his conversion.

Newman writes, “I cannot forget that when, in the year 1839, a doubt first crossed my mind of the tenableness of the theological theory on which Anglicanism is based, it was caused in no slight degree by the perusal of a controversial paper, attributed to your Lordship, on the schism of the Donatists.”

Below, I bold-face the quotation from this essay that the Pope chose today for his homily.

But note also this: in the second half of Newman’s sentence (the Pope in today’s homily stopped his citation at the end of the first half of Newman’s rather long sentence), Newman says priests know very well both “the strength of the flesh” and “the wiles of the devil.”

But, Newman says, priests have learned to discern and overcome these diabolical “wiles.”

Priests, Newman says, have “baffled” the devil’s wiles, not succumbed to them.

This is the entire sentence in Newman’s original discourse:

“Had Angels been your Priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathised with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you [thus far the quotation used today by the Pope], who have been led on themselves as you are to be led, who know well your difficulties, who have had experience, at least of your temptations, who know the strength of the flesh and the wiles of the devil, even though they have baffled them, who are already disposed to take your part, and be indulgent towards you, and can advise you most practically, and warn you most seasonably and prudently.”

In a sense, Newman has a double emphasis: on the compassion of priests because they share the humanity of all those entrusted to their care, but also on their steadfastness in resisting the “wiles” of the devil.

On a separate matter, I note that Newman here, writing prior to 1849, and just a few years after his conversion from Anglicanism, sets forth as accepted truth the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, not proclaimed as dogma by Pope Pius IX until 1854, a few years later. (I bold-face these lines in the text below.)

This discourse may be found among the texts of Newman’s writings on the internet at “Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman,” posted by The National Institute for Newman Studies, here: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse3.html

Here is Newman’s text on the priesthood. It is admittedly rather long, but well worth reading in its entirety, especially on this day of his beatification:

Discourse 3. Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel

By Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman
{43} WHEN Christ, the great Prophet, the great Preacher, the great Missionary, came into the world, He came in a way the most holy, the most august, the most glorious. Though He came in humiliation, though He came to suffer, though He was born in a stable, though He was laid in a manger, yet He issued from the womb of an Immaculate Mother, and His infant form shone with heavenly light. Sanctity marked every lineament of His character and every circumstance of His mission. Gabriel announced His incarnation; a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, a Virgin suckled Him; His foster-father was the pure and saintly Joseph; Angels proclaimed His birth; a luminous star spread the news among the heathen; the austere Baptist went before His face; and a crowd of shriven penitents, clad in white garments and radiant with grace, followed Him wherever He went. As the sun in heaven shines through the clouds, and is reflected in the landscape, so the eternal Sun of justice, when He rose upon the earth, turned {44} night into day, and in His brightness made all things bright.

He came and He went; and, seeing that He came to introduce a new and final Dispensation into the world, He left behind Him preachers, teachers, and missionaries, in His stead. Well then, my brethren, you will say, since on His coming all about Him was so glorious, such as He was, such must His servants be, such His representatives, His ministers, in His absence; as He was without sin, they too must be without sin; as He was the Son of God, they must surely be Angels. Angels, you will say, must be appointed to this high office, Angels alone are fit to preach the birth, the sufferings, the death of God. They might indeed have to hide their brightness, as He before them, their Lord and Master, had put on a disguise; they might come, as they came under the Old Covenant, in the garb of men; but still men they could not be, if they were to be preachers of the everlasting Gospel, and dispensers of its divine mysteries. If they were to sacrifice, as He had sacrificed; to continue, repeat, apply, the very Sacrifice which He had offered; to take into their hands that very Victim which was He Himself; to bind and to loose, to bless and to ban, to receive the confessions of His people, and to give them absolution for their sins; to teach them the way of truth, and to guide them along the way of peace; who was sufficient for these things but an inhabitant of those blessed realms of which the Lord is the never-failing Light?

And yet, my brethren, so it is, He has sent forth {45} for the ministry of reconciliation, not Angels, but men; He has sent forth your brethren to you, not beings of some unknown nature and some strange blood, but of your own bone and your own flesh, to preach to you. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” Here is the royal style and tone in which Angels speak to men, even though these men be Apostles; it is the tone of those who, having never sinned, speak from their lofty eminence to those who have. But such is not the tone of those whom Christ has sent; for it is your brethren whom He has appointed, and none else,—sons of Adam, sons of your nature, the same by nature, differing only in grace,—men, like you, exposed to temptations, to the same temptations, to the same warfare within and without; with the same three deadly enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil; with the same human, the same wayward heart: differing only as the power of God has changed and rules it. So it is; we are not Angels from Heaven that speak to you, but men, whom grace, and grace alone, has made to differ from you. Listen to the Apostle:—When the barbarous Lycaonians, seeing his miracle, would have sacrificed to him and St. Barnabas, as to gods, he rushed in among them, crying out, “O men, why do ye this? we also are mortals, men like unto you;” or, as the words run more forcibly in the original Greek, “We are of like passions with you”. And again to the Corinthians he writes, “We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus. God, who {46} commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus: but we hold this treasure in earthen vessels.” And further, he says of himself most wonderfully, that, “lest he should be exalted by the greatness of the revelations,” there was given him “an angel of Satan” in his flesh “to buffet him”. Such are your Ministers, your Preachers, your Priests, O my brethren; not Angels, not Saints, not sinless, but those who would have lived and died in sin except for God’s grace, and who, though through God’s mercy they be in training for the fellowship of Saints hereafter, yet at present are in the midst of infirmity and temptation, and have no hope, except from the unmerited grace of God, of persevering unto the end.

What a strange, what a striking anomaly is this! All is perfect, all is heavenly, all is glorious, in the Dispensation which Christ has vouchsafed us, except the persons of His Ministers. He dwells on our altars Himself, the Most Holy, the Most High, in light inaccessible, and Angels fall down before Him there; and out of visible substances and forms He chooses what is choicest to represent and to hold Him. The finest wheat-flour, and the purest wine, are taken as His outward symbols; the most sacred and majestic words minister to the sacrificial rite; altar and sanctuary are adorned decently or splendidly, as our means allow; and the Priests perform their office in befitting vestments, lifting up chaste hearts and holy hands; yet those very Priests, so set apart, so consecrated, {47} they, with their girdle of celibacy and their maniple of sorrow, are sons of Adam, sons of sinners, of a fallen nature, which they have not put off, though it be renewed through grace, so that it is almost the definition of a Priest that he has sins of his own to offer for. “Every high Priest,” says the Apostle, “taken from among men, is appointed for men, in the things that appertain unto God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; who can condole with those who are in ignorance and error, because he also himself is compassed with infirmity. And therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.” And hence in the Mass, when he offers up the Host before consecration, he says, Suscipe, Sancte Pater, Omnipotens, æterne Deus, “Accept, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, this immaculate Host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer to Thee, my Living and True God, for mine innumerable sins, offences, and negligences, and for all who stand around, and for all faithful Christians, living and dead”.

Most strange is this in itself, my brethren, but not strange, when you consider it is the appointment of an all-merciful God; not strange in Him, because the Apostle gives the reason of it in the passage I have quoted. The priests of the New Law are men, in order that they may “condole with those who are in ignorance and error, because they too are compassed with infirmity”. Had Angels been your Priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathised with you, have had compassion on you, {48} felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you, who have been led on themselves as you are to be led, who know well your difficulties, who have had experience, at least of your temptations, who know the strength of the flesh and the wiles of the devil, even though they have baffled them, who are already disposed to take your part, and be indulgent towards you, and can advise you most practically, and warn you most seasonably and prudently. Therefore did He send you men to be the ministers of reconciliation and intercession; as He Himself, though He could not sin, yet even He, by becoming man, took on Him, as far as was possible to God, man’s burden of infirmity and trial in His own person. He could not be a sinner, but He could be a man, and He took to Himself a man’s heart that we might entrust our hearts to Him, and “was tempted in all things, like as we are, yet without sin”.

Ponder this truth well, my brethren, and let it be your comfort. Among the Preachers, among the Priests of the Gospel, there have been Apostles, there have been Martyrs, there have been Doctors;—Saints in plenty among them; yet out of them all, high as has been their sanctity, varied their graces, awful their gifts, there has not been one who did not begin with the old Adam; not one of them who was not hewn out of the same rock as the most obdurate of reprobates; not one of them who was not fashioned unto {49} honour out of the same clay which has been the material of the most polluted and vile of sinners; not one who was not by nature brother of those poor souls who have now commenced an eternal fellowship with the devil, and are lost in hell. Grace has vanquished nature; that is the whole history of the Saints. Salutary thought for those who are tempted to pride themselves in what they do, and what they are; wonderful news for those who sorrowfully recognise in their hearts the vast difference that exists between them and the Saints; and joyful news, when men hate sin, and wish to escape from its miserable yoke, yet are tempted to think it impossible!

Come, my brethren, let us look at this truth more narrowly, and lay it to heart. [Here follows Newman's statement of the Marian doctrine of the Immaculate conception.] First consider, that, since Adam fell, none of his seed but has been conceived in sin; none, save one. One exception there has been,—who is that one? not our Lord Jesus, for He was not conceived of man, but of the Holy Ghost; not our Lord, but I mean His Virgin Mother, who, though conceived and born of human parents, as others, yet was rescued by anticipation from the common condition of mankind, and never was partaker in fact of Adam’s transgression. She was conceived in the way of nature, she was conceived as others are; but grace interfered and was beforehand with sin; grace filled her soul from the first moment of her existence, so that the evil one breathed not on her, nor stained the work of God. Tota pulchra es, Maria; et macula originalis non est in te. “Thou art all fair, O Mary, and the stain original is not in thee.” But {50} putting aside the Most Blessed Mother of God, every one else, the most glorious Saint, and the most black and odious of sinners, I mean, the soul which, in the event, became the most glorious, and the soul which became the most devilish, were both born in one and the same original sin, both were children of wrath, both were unable to attain heaven by their natural powers, both had the prospect of meriting for themselves hell.

They were both born in sin; they both lay in sin; and the soul, which afterwards became a Saint, would have continued in sin, would have sinned wilfully, and would have been lost, but for the visitings of an unmerited supernatural influence upon it, which did for it what it could not do for itself. The poor infant, destined to be an heir of glory, lay feeble, sickly, fretful, wayward, and miserable; the child of sorrow; without hope, and without heavenly aid. So it lay for many a long and weary day ere it was born; and when at length it opened its eyes and saw the light, it shrank back, and wept aloud that it had seen it. But God heard its cry from heaven in this valley of tears, and He began that course of mercies towards it which led it from earth to heaven. He sent His Priest to administer to it the first sacrament, and to baptise it with His grace. Then a great change took place in it, for, instead of its being any more the thrall of Satan it forthwith became a child of God; and had it died that minute, and before it came to the age of reason, it would have been carried to heaven without delay by Angels, and been admitted into the presence of God. {51}

But it did not die; it came to the age of reason, and, oh, shall we dare to say, though in some blessed cases it may be said, shall we dare to say, that it did not misuse the great talent which had been given to it, profane the grace which dwelt in it, and fall into mortal sin? In some instances, praised be God! we dare affirm it; such seems to have been the case with my own dear father, St. Philip, who surely kept his baptismal robe unsullied from the day he was clad in it, never lost his state of grace, from the day he was put into it, and proceeded from strength to strength, and from merit to merit, and from glory to glory, through the whole course of his long life, till at the age of eighty he was summoned to his account, and went joyfully to meet it, and was carried across purgatory, without any scorching of its flames, straight to heaven.

Such certainly have sometimes been the dealings of God’s grace with the souls of His elect; but more commonly, as if more intimately to associate them with their brethren, and to make the fulness of His favours to them a ground of hope and an encouragement to the penitent sinner, those who have ended in being miracles of sanctity, and heroes in the Church, have passed a time in wilful disobedience, have thrown themselves out of the light of God’s countenance, have been led captive by this or that sin, by this or that religious error, till at length they were in various ways recovered, slowly or suddenly, and regained the state of grace, or rather a much higher state, than that which they had forfeited. Such was the blessed Magdalen, {52} who had lived a life of shame; so much so, that even to be touched by her was, according to the religious judgment of her day, a pollution. Happy in this world’s goods, young and passionate, she had given her heart to the creature, before the grace of God prevailed with her. Then she cut off her long hair, and put aside her gay apparel, and became so utterly what she had not been, that, had you known her before and after, you had said it was two persons you had seen, not one; for there was no trace of the sinner in the penitent, except the affectionate heart, now set on heaven and Christ; no trace besides, no memory of that glittering and seductive apparition, in the modest form, the serene countenance, the composed gait, and the gentle voice of her who in the garden sought and found her Risen Saviour. Such, too, was he who from a publican became an Apostle and an Evangelist; one who for filthy lucre scrupled not to enter the service of the heathen Romans, and to oppress his own people. Nor were the rest of the Apostles made of better clay than the other sons of Adam; they were by nature animal, carnal, ignorant; left to themselves, they would, like the brutes, have grovelled on the earth, and gazed upon the earth, and fed on the earth, had not the grace of God taken possession of them, and set them on their feet, and raised their faces heavenward. And such was the learned Pharisee, who came to Jesus by night, well satisfied with his station, jealous of his reputation, confident in his reason; but the time at length came, when, even though disciples fled, he remained to anoint the abandoned corpse of Him, whom {53} when living he had been ashamed to own. You see it was the grace of God that triumphed in Magdalen, in Matthew, and in Nicodemus; heavenly grace came down upon corrupt nature; it subdued impurity in the youthful woman, covetousness in the publican, fear of man in the Pharisee.

Let me speak of another celebrated conquest of God’s grace in an after age, and you will see how it pleases Him to make a Confessor, a Saint and Doctor of His Church, out of sin and heresy both together. It was not enough that the Father of the Western Schools, the author of a thousand works, the triumphant controversialist, the especial champion of grace, should have been once a poor slave of the flesh, but he was the victim of a perverted intellect also. He, who of all others, was to extol the grace of God, was left more than others to experience the helplessness of nature. The great St Augustine (I am not speaking of the holy missionary of the same name, who came to England and converted our pagan forefathers, and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, but of the great African Bishop, two centuries before him)—Augustine, I say, not being in earnest about his soul, not asking himself the question, how was sin to be washed away, but rather being desirous, while youth and strength lasted, to enjoy the flesh and the world, ambitious and sensual, judged of truth and falsehood by his private judgment and his private fancy; despised the Catholic Church because it spoke so much of faith and subjection, thought to make his own reason the measure of all things, and accordingly {54} joined a far-spread sect, which affected to be philosophical and enlightened, to take large views of things, and to correct the vulgar, that is the Catholic notions of God and Christ, of sin, and of the way to heaven. In this sect of his he remained for some years; yet what he was taught there did not satisfy him. It pleased him for a time, and then he found he had been eating as if food what had no nourishment in it; he became hungry and thirsty after something more substantial, he knew not what; he despised himself for being a slave to the flesh, and he found his religion did not help him to overcome it; thus he understood that he had not gained the truth, and he cried out, “O, who will tell me where to seek it, and who will bring me into it?”

Why did he not join the Catholic Church at once? I have told you why; he saw that truth was nowhere else; but he was not sure it was there. He thought there was something mean, narrow, irrational, in her system of doctrine; he lacked the gift of faith. Then a great conflict began within him,—the conflict of nature with grace; of nature and her children, the flesh and false reason, against conscience and the pleadings of the Divine Spirit, leading him to better things. Though he was still in a state of perdition, yet God was visiting him, and giving him the first fruits of those influences which were in the event to bring him out of it. Time went on; and looking at him, as his Guardian Angel might look at him, you would have said that, in spite of much perverseness, and many a successful struggle against his Almighty {55} Adversary, in spite of his still being, as before, in a state of wrath, nevertheless grace was making way in his soul,—he was advancing towards the Church. He did not know it himself, he could not recognise it himself; but an eager interest in him, and then a joy, was springing up in heaven among the Angels of God. At last he came within the range of a great Saint in a foreign country; and, though he pretended not to acknowledge him, his attention was arrested by him, and he could not help coming to sacred places to look at him again and again. He began to watch him and speculate about him, and wondered with himself whether he was happy. He found himself frequently in Church, listening to the holy preacher, and he once asked his advice how to find what he was seeking. And now a final conflict came on him with the flesh: it was hard, very hard, to part with the indulgences of years, it was hard to part and never to meet again. O, sin was so sweet, how could he bid it farewell? how could he tear himself away from its embrace, and betake himself to that lonely and dreary way which led heavenwards? But God’s grace was sweeter far, and it convinced him while it won him; it convinced his reason, and prevailed;—and he who without it would have lived and died a child of Satan, became, under its wonder-working power, an oracle of sanctity and truth.

And do you not think, my brethren, that he was better fitted than another to persuade his brethren as he had been persuaded, and to preach the holy doctrine which he had despised? Not that sin is better than {56} obedience, or the sinner than the just; but that God in His mercy makes use of sin against itself, that He turns past sin into a present benefit, that, while He washes away its guilt and subdues its power, He leaves it in the penitent in such sense as enables him, from his knowledge of its devices, to assault it more vigorously, and strike at it more truly, when it meets him in other men; that, while our Lord, by His omnipotent grace, can make the soul as clean as if it had never been unclean, He leaves it in possession of a tenderness and compassion for other sinners, an experience how to deal with them, greater than if it had never sinned; and again that, in those rare and special instances, of one of which I have been speaking, He holds up to us, for our instruction and our comfort, what He can do, even for the most guilty, if they sincerely come to Him for a pardon and a cure. There is no limit to be put to the bounty and power of God’s grace; and that we feel sorrow for our sins, and supplicate His mercy, is a sort of present pledge to us in our hearts, that He will grant us the good gifts we are seeking. He can do what He will with the soul of man. He is infinitely more powerful than the foul spirit to whom the sinner has sold himself, and can cast him out.

O my dear brethren, though your conscience witnesses against you, He can disburden it; whether you have sinned less or whether you have sinned more, He can make you as clean in His sight and as acceptable to Him as if you had never gone from Him. Gradually will He destroy your sinful habits, and at once will He restore you to His favour. Such is the power of the {57} Sacrament of Penance, that, be your load of guilt heavier or be it lighter, it removes it, whatever it is. It is as easy to Him to wash out the many sins as the few. Do you recollect in the Old Testament the history of the cure of Naaman the Syrian, by the prophet Eliseus? He had that dreadful, incurable disease called the leprosy, which was a white crust upon the skin, making the whole person hideous, and typifying the hideousness of sin. The prophet bade him bathe in the river Jordan, and the disease disappeared; “his flesh,” says the inspired writer, was “restored to him as the flesh of a little child”. Here, then, we have a representation not only of what sin is, but of what God’s grace is. It can undo the past, it can realise the hopeless. No sinner, ever so odious, but may become a Saint; no Saint, ever so exalted, but has been, or might have been, a sinner. Grace overcomes nature, and grace only overcomes it. Take that holy child, the blessed St. Agnes, who, at the age of thirteen, resolved to die rather than deny the faith, and stood enveloped in an atmosphere of purity, and diffused around her a heavenly influence, in the very home of evil spirits into which the heathen brought her; or consider the angelical Aloysius, of whom it hardly is left upon record that he committed even a venial sin; or St. Agatha, St. Juliana, St. Rose, St. Casimir, or St. Stanislas, to whom the very notion of any unbecoming imagination had been as death; well, there is not one of these seraphic souls but might have been a degraded, loathsome leper, except for God’s grace, an outcast from his kind; not one but might, or rather would, {58} have lived the life of a brute creature, and died the death of a reprobate, and lain down in hell eternally in the devil’s arms, had not God put a new heart and a new spirit within him, and made him what he could not make himself.

All good men are not Saints, my brethren—all converted souls do not become Saints. I will not promise, that, if you turn to God, you will reach that height of sanctity which the Saints have reached:—true; still, I am showing you that even the Saints are by nature no better than you; and so (much more) that the Priests, who have the charge of the faithful, whatever be their sanctity, are by nature no better than those whom they have to convert, whom they have to reform. It is God’s special mercy towards you that we by nature are no other than you; it is His consideration and compassion for you that He has made us, who are your brethren, His legates and ministers of reconciliation.

This is what the world cannot understand; not that it does not apprehend clearly enough that we are by nature of like passions with itself; but what it is so blind, so narrow-minded as not to comprehend, is, that, being so like itself by nature, we may be made so different by grace. Men of the world, my brethren, know the power of nature; they know not, experience not, believe not, the power of God’s grace; and since they are not themselves acquainted with any power that can overcome nature, they think that none exists, and therefore, consistently, they believe that every one, Priest or not, remains to the end such as nature made him, and they will not believe it possible that any one {59} can lead a supernatural life. Now, not Priest only, but every one who is in the grace of God, leads a supernatural life, more or less supernatural, according to his calling, and the measure of the gifts given him, and his faithfulness to them. This they know not, and admit not; and when they hear of the life which a Priest must lead by his profession from youth to age, they will not credit that he is what he professes to be. They know nothing of the presence of God, the merits of Christ, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; the virtue of recurring prayers, of frequent confession, of daily Masses; they are strangers to the transforming power of the Most Holy Sacrament, the Bread of Angels; they do not contemplate the efficacy of salutary rules, of holy companions, of long-enduring habit, of ready spontaneous vigilance, of abhorrence of sin and indignation at the tempter, to secure the soul from evil. They only know that when the tempter once has actually penetrated into the heart, he is irresistible; they only know that when the soul has exposed and surrendered itself to his malice, there is (so to speak) a necessity of sinning. They only know that when God has abandoned it, and good Angels are withdrawn, and all safeguards, and protections, and preventives are neglected, that then (which is their own case), when the victory is all but gained already, it is sure to be gained altogether. They themselves have ever, in their best estate, been all but beaten by the Evil One before they began to fight; this is the only state they have experienced: they know this, and they know nothing else. They {60} have never stood on vantage ground; they have never been within the walls of the strong city, about which the enemy prowls in vain, into which he cannot penetrate, and outside of which the faithful soul will be too wise to venture. They judge, I say, by their experience, and will not believe what they never knew.

If there be those here present, my dear brethren, who will not believe that grace is effectual within the Church, because it does little outside of it, to them I do not speak: I speak to those who do not narrow their belief to their experience; I speak to those who admit that grace can make human nature what it is not; and such persons, I think, will feel it, not a cause of jealousy and suspicion, but a great gain, a great mercy, that those are sent to preach to them, to receive their confessions, and to advise them, who can sympathise with their sins, even though they have not known them. Not a temptation, my brethren, can befall you, but what befalls all those who share your nature, though you may have yielded to it, and they may not have yielded. They can understand you, they can anticipate you, they can interpret you, though they have not kept pace with you in your course. They will be tender to you, they will “instruct you in the spirit of meekness,” as the Apostle says, “considering themselves lest they also be tempted”. Come then unto us, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls; come unto us, who now stand to you in Christ’s stead, and who speak in Christ’s name; for we too, like you, have been saved by Christ’s all-saving blood. We too, like {61} you, should be lost sinners, unless Christ had had mercy on us, unless His grace had cleansed us, unless His Church had received us, unless His saints had interceded for us. Be ye saved, as we have been saved; “come, listen, all ye that fear God, and we will tell you what He hath done for our souls”. Listen to our testimony; behold our joy of heart, and increase it by partaking in it yourselves. Choose that good part which we have chosen; join ye yourselves to our company; it will never repent you, take our word for it, who have a right to speak, it will never repent you to have sought pardon and peace from the Catholic Church, which alone has grace, which alone has power, which alone has Saints; it will never repent you, though you go through trouble, though you have to give up much for her sake. It will never repent you, to have passed from the shadows of sense and time, and the deceptions of human feeling and false reason, to the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

And O, my brethren, when you have taken the great step, and stand in your blessed lot, as sinners reconciled to the Father you have offended (for I will anticipate, what I surely trust will be fulfilled as regards many of you), O then forget not those who have been the ministers of your reconciliation; and as they now pray you to make your peace with God, so do you, when reconciled, pray for them, that they may gain the great gift of perseverance, that they may continue to stand in the grace in which they trust they stand now, even till the hour of death, lest, perchance, after they have preached to others, they themselves become reprobate.

(end of Newman’s discourse on the priesthood)

The Pope and the Archbishop both addressed the assembled Catholic and Anglcian bishops of England, Scotland, and Wales, meeting together.

Dr. Williams is, like the Pope, a brilliant scholar (among other things, Williams is one of the world’s leading authorities on the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and he speaks Russian fluently).

Here below are brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the Pope and Archbishop Williams, and then the important speech on politics that the Pope delivered just moments ago in Westminster.

Pope Benedict XVI this afternoon visited His Grace Archbishop Rowan Williams at the Archbishop’s London home, Lambeth Palace.

Together they addressed a meeting of Anglican and Roman Catholic diocesan bishops from England, Scotland and Wales in the Great Hall of the Archbishop’s Library.

In his address to the bishops (full text below), Dr Williams stressed the wider spiritual and missionary context in which ecumenical dialogue and growth in unity must take place. “Perhaps we shall not quickly overcome the remaining obstacles to full, restored communion; but no obstacles stand in the way of our seeking, as a matter of joyful obedience to the Lord, more ways in which to build up one another in holiness,” Dr Williams said.

But the essential point of the Pope’s reply to the Archbishop of Canterbury was that the Catholic Church cannot compromise on matters of fundamental doctrine out of a desire to be “inclusive.”

The Pope said: “In fidelity to the Lord’s will, as expressed in that passage from Saint Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, we recognize that the Church is called to be inclusive, yet never at the expense of Christian truth. Herein lies the dilemma facing all who are genuinely committed to the ecumenical journey.”

The meeting ended with Pope Benedict leading the bishops in the Lord’s Prayer and a concluding prayer.

The Archbishop and Mrs Jane Williams then welcomed Pope Benedict into their home, where the Archbishop and the Pope spent half an hour in private discussion.

This was the first time in history that a Pope had visited Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official London residence, Pope John Paul II having visited Archbishop Robert Runcie in Canterbury in 1982.

Here is the complete text of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s address today:

Address by Archbishop Rowam Williams to a Meeting of Anglican and Roman Catholic Diocesan Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales on the occasion of The Fraternal Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Great Hall, Lambeth Palace, 17 September 2010

Your Holiness, brother bishops, brothers and sisters in Christ:

It is a particular pleasure that on this historic occasion we are able to come together as bishops of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in this country to greet you, Your Holiness, during a visit which we all hope will be of significance both to the Church of Christ and to British society.

Your consistent and penetrating analysis of the state of European society in general has been a major contribution to public debate on the relations between Church and culture, and we gratefully acknowledge our debt in this respect.

Our task as bishops is to preach the Gospel and shepherd the flock of Christ; and this includes the responsibility not only to feed but also to protect it from harm. Today, this involves a readiness to respond to the various trends in our cultural environment that seek to present Christian faith as both an obstacle to human freedom and a scandal to human intellect. We need to be clear that the Gospel of the new creation in Jesus Christ is the door through which we enter into true liberty and true understanding: we are made free to be human as God intends us to be human; we are given the illumination that helps us see one another and all created things in the light of divine love and intelligence.

As you said in your Inaugural Mass in 2005, recalling your predecessor’s first words as Pope, Christ takes away nothing “that pertains to human freedom or dignity or to the building of a just society…. If we let Christ into our lives we lose absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. Only in his friendship is the great potential of human existence revealed.” [Inaugural Homily, Rome, 24 April 2005]

Our presence together as British bishops here today is a sign of the way in which, in this country, we see our task as one and indivisible. The International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission has set before us all the vital importance of our common calling as bishops to be agents of mission. Our fervent prayer is that this visit will give us fresh energy and vision for working together in this context in the name of what a great Roman Catholic thinker of the last century called ‘true humanism’ – a passionate commitment to the dignity of all human beings, from the beginning to the end of life, and to a resistance to every tyranny that threatens to stifle or deny the place of the transcendent in human affairs.

We do not as churches seek political power or control, or the dominance of Christian faith in the public sphere; but the opportunity to testify, to argue, sometimes to protest, sometimes to affirm – to play our part in the public debates of our societies. And we shall, of course, be effective not when we have mustered enough political leverage to get our way but when we have persuaded our neighbours that the life of faith is a life well lived and joyfully lived.

In other words, we shall be effective defenders or proclaimers of our faith when we can show what a holy life looks like, a life in which the joy of God is transparently present. And this means that our ministry together as bishops across the still-surviving boundaries of our confessions is not only a search for how we best act together in the public arena; it is a quest together for holiness and transparency to God, a search for ways in which we may help each other to grow in the life of the Holy Spirit. As you have said, Your Holiness, “a joint fundamental testimony of faith ought to be given before a world which is torn by doubts and shaken by fears.” [Luther and the Unity of the Churches, 1983]

In 1845, when John Henry Newman finally decided that he must follow his conscience and seek his future in serving God in communion with the See of Rome, one of his most intimate Anglican friends and allies, the priest Edward Bouverie Pusey, whose memory the Church of England marked in its liturgical calendar yesterday, wrote a moving meditation on this “parting of friends” in which he said of the separation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics: “it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart”.

That should not surprise us: holiness is at its simplest fellowship with Christ; and when that fellowship with Christ is brought to maturity, so is our fellowship with one another. As bishops, we are servants of the unity of Christ’s people, Christ’s one Body. And, meeting as we do as bishops of separated church communities, we must all feel that each of our own ministries is made less by the fact of our dividedness, a very real but imperfect communion. Perhaps we shall not quickly overcome the remaining obstacles to full, restored communion; but no obstacles stand in the way of our seeking, as a matter of joyful obedience to the Lord, more ways in which to build up one another in holiness by prayer and public celebration together, by closer friendship, and by growing together both in the challenging work of service for all whom Christ loves, and mission to all God has made.

May this historic visit be for all of us a special time of grace and of growth in our shared calling, as you, Your Holiness, bring us the word of the Gospel afresh.

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Here is the text of the Pope’s response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks:

ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
LAMBETH PALACE
LONDON
17 SEPTEMBER 2010

Your Grace,

It is a pleasure for me to be able to return the courtesy of the visits you have made to me in Rome by a fraternal visit to you here in your official residence. I thank you for your invitation and for the hospitality that you have so generously provided. I greet too the Anglican Bishops gathered here from different parts of the United Kingdom, my brother Bishops from the Catholic Dioceses of England, Wales and Scotland, and the ecumenical advisers who are present.

You have spoken, Your Grace, of the historic meeting that took place, almost thirty years ago, between two of our predecessors – Pope John Paul the Second and Archbishop Robert Runcie – in Canterbury Cathedral. There, in the very place where Saint Thomas of Canterbury bore witness to Christ by the shedding of his blood, they prayed together for the gift of unity among the followers of Christ. We continue today to pray for that gift, knowing that the unity Christ willed for his disciples will only come about in answer to prayer, through the action of the Holy Spirit, who ceaselessly renews the Church and guides her into the fullness of truth.

It is not my intention today to speak of the difficulties that the ecumenical path has encountered and continues to encounter. Those difficulties are well known to everyone here. Rather, I wish to join you in giving thanks for the deep friendship that has grown between us and for the remarkable progress that has been made in so many areas of dialogue during the forty years that have elapsed since the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission began its work. Let us entrust the fruits of that work to the Lord of the harvest, confident that he will bless our friendship with further significant growth.

The context in which dialogue takes place between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church has evolved in dramatic ways since the private meeting between Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher in 1960. On the one hand, the surrounding culture is growing ever more distant from its Christian roots, despite a deep and widespread hunger for spiritual nourishment. On the other hand, the increasingly multicultural dimension of society, particularly marked in this country, brings with it the opportunity to encounter other religions. For us Christians this opens up the possibility of exploring, together with members of other religious traditions, ways of bearing witness to the transcendent dimension of the human person and the universal call to holiness, leading to the practice of virtue in our personal and social lives. Ecumenical cooperation in this task remains essential, and will surely bear fruit in promoting peace and harmony in a world that so often seems at risk of fragmentation.

At the same time, we Christians must never hesitate to proclaim our faith in the uniqueness of the salvation won for us by Christ, and to explore together a deeper understanding of the means he has placed at our disposal for attaining that salvation. God “wants all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4), and that truth is nothing other than Jesus Christ, eternal Son of the Father, who has reconciled all things in himself by the power of his Cross. In fidelity to the Lord’s will, as expressed in that passage from Saint Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, we recognize that the Church is called to be inclusive, yet never at the expense of Christian truth. Herein lies the dilemma facing all who are genuinely committed to the ecumenical journey.

In the figure of John Henry Newman, who is to be beatified on Sunday, we celebrate a churchman whose ecclesial vision was nurtured by his Anglican background and matured during his many years of ordained ministry in the Church of England. He can teach us the virtues that ecumenism demands: on the one hand, he was moved to follow his conscience, even at great personal cost; and on the other hand, the warmth of his continued friendship with his former colleagues, led him to explore with them, in a truly eirenical spirit, the questions on which they differed, driven by a deep longing for unity in faith. Your Grace, in that same spirit of friendship, let us renew our determination to pursue the goal of unity in faith, hope, and love, in accordance with the will of our one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

With these sentiments, I take my leave of you. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor 13:13).

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Joint statement

Following the Pope’s departure from Lambeth, the following joint communiqué was issued:

Fifty years after the first meeting of a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times – that of Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, in December 1960 – Pope Benedict XVI paid a fraternal visit to Archbishop Rowan Williams.

In the first part of their meeting they both addressed the Anglican and Roman Catholic Diocesan Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, in the Great Hall of the Archbishop’s Library, before moving to a private meeting.

In the course of their private conversation, they addressed many of the issues of mutual concern to Anglicans and Roman Catholics. They affirmed the need to proclaim the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ, both in a reasoned and convincing way in the contemporary context of profound cultural and social transformation, and in lives of holiness and transparency to God. They agreed on the importance of improving ecumenical relations and continuing theological dialogue in the face of new challenges to unity from within the Christian community and beyond it.

The Holy Father and the Archbishop reaffirmed the importance of continuing theological dialogue on the notion of the Church as communion, local and universal, and the implications of this concept for the discernment of ethical teaching.

They reflected together on the serious and difficult situation of Christians in the Middle East, and called upon all Christians to pray for their brothers and sisters and support their continued peaceful witness in the Holy Land. In the light of their recent public interventions, they also discussed the need to promote a courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace, especially the needs of the poor, urging international leadership to fight hunger and disease.

Following their meeting they travelled together to the Palace of Westminster and to Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey.

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The Address to Politicians

Pope Benedict XVI then went to Westminster Hall, where he spoke to both houses of the British Parliament. It was a much-awaited speech, as it dealt with the obligations of politicians in pluralistic democracies.

The Pope’s essential point is that religious faith should not be excluded from the public discourse, or the public policy, of a secular democracy.

The Pope said: “I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization. Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation.”

And Benedict said that he is very concerned about the increasing attacks on religious belief and its expression in the Western democracies.

The Pope said: “In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance.

“There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere.

“There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.

“And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience.”

What does the Pope propose? He makes only a very modest request: that room be made for religious faith in public life: “I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.”

Here is the Pope’s speech.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO BRITISH SOCIETY
WESTMINSTER HALL
THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
LONDON

Mr Speaker,

Thank you for your words of welcome on behalf of this distinguished gathering. As I address you, I am conscious of the privilege afforded me to speak to the British people and their representatives in Westminster Hall, a building of unique significance in the civil and political history of the people of these islands. Allow me also to express my esteem for the Parliament which has existed on this site for centuries and which has had such a profound influence on the development of participative government among the nations, especially in the Commonwealth and the English-speaking world at large. Your common law tradition serves as the basis of legal systems in many parts of the world, and your particular vision of the respective rights and duties of the state and the individual, and of the separation of powers, remains an inspiration to many across the globe.

As I speak to you in this historic setting, I think of the countless men and women down the centuries who have played their part in the momentous events that have taken place within these walls and have shaped the lives of many generations of Britons, and others besides. In particular, I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose “good servant” he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process.

This country’s Parliamentary tradition owes much to the national instinct for moderation, to the desire to achieve a genuine balance between the legitimate claims of government and the rights of those subject to it. While decisive steps have been taken at several points in your history to place limits on the exercise of power, the nation’s political institutions have been able to evolve with a remarkable degree of stability. In the process, Britain has emerged as a pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of the individual’s rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before the law. While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good.

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident — herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as “every economic decision has a moral consequence” (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore. A positive illustration of this is found in one of the British Parliament’s particularly notable achievements – the abolition of the slave trade. The campaign that led to this landmark legislation was built upon firm ethical principles, rooted in the natural law, and it has made a contribution to civilization of which this nation may be justly proud.

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This “corrective” role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.

Your readiness to do so is already implied in the unprecedented invitation extended to me today. And it finds expression in the fields of concern in which your Government has been engaged with the Holy See. In the area of peace, there have been exchanges regarding the elaboration of an international arms trade treaty; regarding human rights, the Holy See and the United Kingdom have welcomed the spread of democracy, especially in the last sixty-five years; in the field of development, there has been collaboration on debt relief, fair trade and financing for development, particularly through the International Finance Facility, the International Immunization Bond, and the Advanced Market Commitment. The Holy See also looks forward to exploring with the United Kingdom new ways to promote environmental responsibility, to the benefit of all.

I also note that the present Government has committed the United Kingdom to devoting 0.7% of national income to development aid by 2013. In recent years it has been encouraging to witness the positive signs of a worldwide growth in solidarity towards the poor. But to turn this solidarity into effective action calls for fresh thinking that will improve life conditions in many important areas, such as food production, clean water, job creation, education, support to families, especially migrants, and basic healthcare. Where human lives are concerned, time is always short: yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed “too big to fail”. Surely the integral human development of the world’s peoples is no less important: here is an enterprise, worthy of the world’s attention, that is truly “too big to fail”.

This overview of recent cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Holy See illustrates well how much progress has been made, in the years that have passed since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations, in promoting throughout the world the many core values that we share. I hope and pray that this relationship will continue to bear fruit, and that it will be mirrored in a growing acceptance of the need for dialogue and respect at every level of society between the world of reason and the world of faith. I am convinced that, within this country too, there are many areas in which the Church and the public authorities can work together for the good of citizens, in harmony with Britain’s long-standing tradition. For such cooperation to be possible, religious bodies – including institutions linked to the Catholic Church – need to be free to act in accordance with their own principles and specific convictions based upon the faith and the official teaching of the Church. In this way, such basic rights as religious freedom, freedom of conscience and freedom of association are guaranteed. The angels looking down on us from the magnificent ceiling of this ancient Hall remind us of the long tradition from which British Parliamentary democracy has evolved. They remind us that God is constantly watching over us to guide and protect us. And they summon us to acknowledge the vital contribution that religious belief has made and can continue to make to the life of the nation.

Mr Speaker, I thank you once again for this opportunity briefly to address this distinguished audience. Let me assure you and the Lord Speaker of my continued good wishes and prayers for you and for the fruitful work of both Houses of this ancient Parliament. Thank you and God bless you all!

Here are brief summaries of the first two events.

To children: “Become holy”

The main point of the Pope’s talk to young people: that they should strive to be saints.

That they should strive for holiness.

The Pope said: “What God wants most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the best thing for you is to grow in holiness.”

To teachers: “Form the human person”

The main point of the Pope’s talk to teachers: that they should not reduce teaching to just one subject matter, but should consider the whole child, the formation of the entire person entrusted to their instruction.

The Pope said: “Education is not and must never be considered as purely utilitarian. It is about forming the human person, equipping him or her to live life to the full – in short it is about imparting wisdom.”

To representatives of other religions: “Seek the ultimate”

The main point of the Pope’s talk to representatives of other religions: that all human attempts to find the ultimate meaning of life are valuable, and can unite men and women in a common search to fulfill the deepest longings of the human heart.

The Pope said: “On the spiritual level, all of us, in our different ways, are personally engaged in a journey that grants an answer to the most important question of all – the question concerning the ultimate meaning of our human existence. The quest for the sacred is the search for the one thing necessary, which alone satisfies the longings of the human heart.”

He continued: “Genuine religious belief points us beyond present utility towards the transcendent. It reminds us of the possibility and the imperative of moral conversion, of the duty to live peaceably with our neighbour, of the importance of living a life of integrity. Properly understood, it brings enlightenment, it purifies our hearts and it inspires noble and generous action, to the benefit of the entire human family. It motivates us to cultivate the practice of virtue and to reach out towards one another in love, with the greatest respect for religious traditions different from our own.”

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Here is the text of the Pope’s address to Catholic students:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO SCHOOL PUPILS
ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TWICKENHAM

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Dear young friends,

First of all, I want to say how glad I am to be here with you today. I greet you most warmly, those who have come to Saint Mary’s University from Catholic schools and colleges across the United Kingdom, and all who are watching on television and via the internet.

I thank Bishop McMahon for his gracious welcome, I thank the choir and the band for the lovely music which began our celebration, and I thank Miss Bellot for her kind words on behalf of all the young people present. In view of London’s forthcoming Olympic Games, it has been a pleasure to inaugurate this Sports Foundation, named in honour of Pope John Paul II, and I pray that all who come here will give glory to God through their sporting activities, as well as bringing enjoyment to themselves and to others.

It is not often that a Pope, or indeed anyone else, has the opportunity to speak to the students of all the Catholic schools of England, Wales and Scotland at the same time. And since I have the chance now, there is something I very much want to say to you.

I hope that among those of you listening to me today there are some of the future saints of the twenty-first century.

What God wants most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the best thing for you is to grow in holiness.

Perhaps some of you have never thought about this before. Perhaps some of you think being a saint is not for you. Let me explain what I mean.

When we are young, we can usually think of people that we look up to, people we admire, people we want to be like. It could be someone we meet in our daily lives that we hold in great esteem. Or it could be someone famous. We live in a celebrity culture, and young people are often encouraged to model themselves on figures from the world of sport or entertainment.

My question for you is this: what are the qualities you see in others that you would most like to have yourselves? What kind of person would you really like to be?

When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal and ignore all the others.

Having money makes it possible to be generous and to do good in the world, but on its own, it is not enough to make us happy. Being highly skilled in some activity or profession is good, but it will not satisfy us unless we aim for something greater still. It might make us famous, but it will not make us happy.

Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple – true happiness is to be found in God. We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success, or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only he can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts.

Not only does God love us with a depth and an intensity that we can scarcely begin to comprehend, but he invites us to respond to that love.

You all know what it is like when you meet someone interesting and attractive, and you want to be that person’s friend. You always hope they will find you interesting and attractive, and want to be your friend. God wants your friendship.

And once you enter into friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change. As you come to know him better, you find you want to reflect something of his infinite goodness in your own life. You are attracted to the practice of virtue.

You begin to see greed and selfishness and all the other sins for what they really are, destructive and dangerous tendencies that cause deep suffering and do great damage, and you want to avoid falling into that trap yourselves.

You begin to feel compassion for people in difficulties and you are eager to do something to help them.

You want to come to the aid of the poor and the hungry, you want to comfort the sorrowful, you want to be kind and generous.

And once these things begin to matter to you, you are well on the way to becoming saints.

In your Catholic schools, there is always a bigger picture over and above the individual subjects you study, the different skills you learn. All the work you do is placed in the context of growing in friendship with God, and all that flows from that friendship. So you learn not just to be good students, but good citizens, good people.

As you move higher up the school, you have to make choices regarding the subjects you study, you begin to specialize with a view to what you are going to do later on in life. That is right and proper. But always remember that every subject you study is part of a bigger picture. Never allow yourselves to become narrow.

The world needs good scientists, but a scientific outlook becomes dangerously narrow if it ignores the religious or ethical dimension of life, just as religion becomes narrow if it rejects the legitimate contribution of science to our understanding of the world. We need good historians and philosophers and economists, but if the account they give of human life within their particular field is too narrowly focused, they can lead us seriously astray.

A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students to become saints.

I know that there are many non-Catholics studying in the Catholic schools in Great Britain, and I wish to include all of you in my words today. I pray that you too will feel encouraged to practise virtue and to grow in knowledge and friendship with God alongside your Catholic classmates. You are a reminder to them of the bigger picture that exists outside the school, and indeed, it is only right that respect and friendship for members of other religious traditions should be among the virtues learned in a Catholic school. I hope too that you will want to share with everyone you meet the values and insights you have learned through the Christian education you have received.

Dear friends, I thank you for your attention, I promise to pray for you, and I ask you to pray for me. I hope to see many of you next August, at the World Youth Day in Madrid. In the meantime, may God bless you all!

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Here is the text of the Pope’s address to Catholic teachers:
ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO TEACHERS
ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TWICKENHAM
17 SEPTEMBER 2010

Your Excellency the Secretary of State for Education,
Bishop Stack, Dr Naylor,
Reverend Fathers, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding contribution made by religious men and women in this land to the noble task of education. I thank the young people for their fine singing, and I thank Sister Teresa for her words. To her and to all the dedicated men and women who devote their lives to teaching the young, I want to express sentiments of deep appreciation. You form new generations not only in knowledge of the faith, but in every aspect of what it means to live as mature and responsible citizens in today’s world.

As you know, the task of a teacher is not simply to impart information or to provide training in skills intended to deliver some economic benefit to society; education is not and must never be considered as purely utilitarian. It is about forming the human person, equipping him or her to live life to the full – in short it is about imparting wisdom. And true wisdom is inseparable from knowledge of the Creator, for “both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts” (Wis 7:16).

This transcendent dimension of study and teaching was clearly grasped by the monks who contributed so much to the evangelization of these islands. I am thinking of the Benedictines who accompanied Saint Augustine on his mission to England, of the disciples of Saint Columba who spread the faith across Scotland and Northern England, of Saint David and his companions in Wales.

Since the search for God, which lies at the heart of the monastic vocation, requires active engagement with the means by which he makes himself known – his creation and his revealed word – it was only natural that the monastery should have a library and a school (cf. Address to representatives from the world of culture at the “Collège des Bernardins” in Paris, 12 September 2008). It was the monks’ dedication to learning as the path on which to encounter the Incarnate Word of God that was to lay the foundations of our Western culture and civilization.

Looking around me today, I see many apostolic religious whose charism includes the education of the young. This gives me an opportunity to give thanks to God for the life and work of the Venerable Mary Ward, a native of this land whose pioneering vision of apostolic religious life for women has borne so much fruit. I myself as a young boy was taught by the “English Ladies” and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Many of you belong to teaching orders that have carried the light of the Gospel to far-off lands as part of the Church’s great missionary work, and for this too I give thanks and praise to God. Often you laid the foundations of educational provision long before the State assumed a responsibility for this vital service to the individual and to society. As the relative roles of Church and State in the field of education continue to evolve, never forget that religious have a unique contribution to offer to this apostolate, above all through lives consecrated to God and through faithful, loving witness to Christ, the supreme Teacher.

Indeed, the presence of religious in Catholic schools is a powerful reminder of the much-discussed Catholic ethos that needs to inform every aspect of school life. This extends far beyond the self-evident requirement that the content of the teaching should always be in conformity with Church doctrine. It means that the life of faith needs to be the driving force behind every activity in the school, so that the Church’s mission may be served effectively, and the young people may discover the joy of entering into Christ’s “being for others” (Spe Salvi, 28).

Before I conclude, I wish to add a particular word of appreciation for those whose task it is to ensure that our schools provide a safe environment for children and young people. Our responsibility towards those entrusted to us for their Christian formation demands nothing less. Indeed, the life of faith can only be effectively nurtured when the prevailing atmosphere is one of respectful and affectionate trust. I pray that this may continue to be a hallmark of the Catholic schools in this country.

With these sentiments, dear Brothers and Sisters, I invite you now to stand and pray.

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Here is the text of the Pope’s address to representatives of other religions:

ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF OTHER RELIGIONS
ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TWICKENHAM
17 SEPTEMBER 2010

Distinguished guests, dear friends,

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to meet you, the representatives of the various religious communities in Great Britain. I greet both the ministers of religion present and those of you who are active in politics, business and industry. I am grateful to Dr Azzam and to Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks for the greetings which they have expressed on your behalf. As I salute you, let me also wish the Jewish community in Britain and throughout the world a happy and holy celebration of Yom Kippur.
I would like to begin my remarks by expressing the Catholic Church’s appreciation for the important witness that all of you bear as spiritual men and women living at a time when religious convictions are not always understood or appreciated. The presence of committed believers in various fields of social and economic life speaks eloquently of the fact that the spiritual dimension of our lives is fundamental to our identity as human beings, that man, in other words, does not live by bread alone (cf. Deut 8:3). As followers of different religious traditions working together for the good of the community at large, we attach great importance to this “side by side” dimension of our cooperation, which complements the “face to face” aspect of our continuing dialogue.

On the spiritual level, all of us, in our different ways, are personally engaged in a journey that grants an answer to the most important question of all – the question concerning the ultimate meaning of our human existence. The quest for the sacred is the search for the one thing necessary, which alone satisfies the longings of the human heart. In the fifth century, Saint Augustine described that search in these terms: “Lord, you have created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (Confessions, Book I, 1). As we embark on this adventure we come to realize more and more that the initiative lies not with us, but with the Lord: it is not so much we who are seeking him, but rather he who is seeking us, indeed it was he who placed that longing for him deep within our hearts.

Your presence and witness in the world points towards the fundamental importance for human life of this spiritual quest in which we are engaged. Within their own spheres of competence, the human and natural sciences provide us with an invaluable understanding of aspects of our existence and they deepen our grasp of the workings of the physical universe, which can then be harnessed in order to bring great benefit to the human family. Yet these disciplines do not and cannot answer the fundamental question, because they operate on another level altogether. They cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, they cannot fully explain to us our origin and our destiny, why and for what purpose we exist, nor indeed can they provide us with an exhaustive answer to the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

The quest for the sacred does not devalue other fields of human enquiry. On the contrary, it places them in a context which magnifies their importance, as ways of responsibly exercising our stewardship over creation. In the Bible, we read that, after the work of creation was completed, God blessed our first parents and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). He entrusted us with the task of exploring and harnessing the mysteries of nature in order to serve a higher good. What is that higher good? In the Christian faith, it is expressed as love for God and love for our neighbour. And so we engage with the world wholeheartedly and enthusiastically, but always with a view to serving that higher good, lest we disfigure the beauty of creation by exploiting it for selfish purposes.

So it is that genuine religious belief points us beyond present utility towards the transcendent. It reminds us of the possibility and the imperative of moral conversion, of the duty to live peaceably with our neighbour, of the importance of living a life of integrity. Properly understood, it brings enlightenment, it purifies our hearts and it inspires noble and generous action, to the benefit of the entire human family. It motivates us to cultivate the practice of virtue and to reach out towards one another in love, with the greatest respect for religious traditions different from our own.

Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has placed special emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation with the followers of other religions. In order to be fruitful, this requires reciprocity on the part of all partners in dialogue and the followers of other religions. I am thinking in particular of situations in some parts of the world, where cooperation and dialogue between religions calls for mutual respect, the freedom to practise one’s religion and to engage in acts of public worship, and the freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution, even after conversion from one religion to another. Once such a respect and openness has been established, peoples of all religions will work together effectively for peace and mutual understanding, and so give a convincing witness before the world.

This kind of dialogue needs to take place on a number of different levels, and should not be limited to formal discussions. The dialogue of life involves simply living alongside one another and learning from one another in such a way as to grow in mutual knowledge and respect. The dialogue of action brings us together in concrete forms of collaboration, as we apply our religious insights to the task of promoting integral human development, working for peace, justice and the stewardship of creation. Such a dialogue may include exploring together how to defend human life at every stage and how to ensure the non-exclusion of the religious dimension of individuals and communities in the life of society. Then at the level of formal conversations, there is a need not only for theological exchange, but also sharing our spiritual riches, speaking of our experience of prayer and contemplation, and expressing to one another the joy of our encounter with divine love. In this context I am pleased to note the many positive initiatives undertaken in this country to promote such dialogue at a variety of levels. As the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales noted in their recent document Meeting God in Friend and Stranger, the effort to reach out in friendship to followers of other religions is becoming a familiar part of the mission of the local Church (n. 228), a characteristic feature of the religious landscape in this country.

My dear friends, as I conclude my remarks, let me assure you that the Catholic Church follows the path of engagement and dialogue out of a genuine sense of respect for you and your beliefs. Catholics, both in Britain and throughout the world, will continue to work to build bridges of friendship to other religions, to heal past wrongs and to foster trust between individuals and communities. Let me reiterate my thanks for your welcome and my gratitude for this opportunity to offer you my encouragement for your dialogue with your Christian sisters and brothers. Upon all of you I invoke abundant divine blessings! Thank you very much.

In this regard, I feel it is important to make two points.

First, conflict.

Benedict is one of the most intelligent and eloquent and poetic defenders in the world today of a vision of human life in which there is a dimension which transcends the purely material, the purely utilitarian.

Great Britain is the home of utilitarianism, of a pragmatic, problem-solving, technological view of human affairs.

This would suggest that there could be a “clash of world views” during this visit.

And I hope it will be so.

I hope the Pope lays out, in the most intelligent, eloquent and poetic way, the case for a view of human affairs in which holiness plays a part, and not just profit, in which justice and generosity have a central space, not just a peripheral one, as if they were “secondary” to “the main business” of life, which, in the utilitarian view, is business.

So, I expect a conflict of world views, because I expect Benedict to express, eloquently, the Christian conviction that man has incalculable dignity — a dignity beyond financial calculation, a dignity which overturns all the calculations of every actuarial table humans can fashion.

Second, a surprising “cathartic moment.”

I expect this “conflict” to take Great Britain by surprise. I expect that the image of this small, white-haired man, preaching that human beings have a transcendent dignity, that they were made for love, not profit, will be so striking that some, unexpectedly, will be drawn to the message, and to the man presenting the message, in a way they do not anticipate now.

They may even find in this message something precious for their own lives, and for the life of the British nation: a call to return to ideals and beliefs that were once fervently held, and shaped the culture, customs and laws of the beautiful islands across the channel from France, but which are now increasingly being rejected.

And so I foresee a cathartic moment for Britain, when, amid all the shouting, all the vilification — and there may be a lot of this — Benedict’s words are heard, and are felt to be a reminder of what many in Britain, deep down, also believe, or wish they could believe.

And in this catharsis, true patriots, true lovers of Britain, may find that, in this little professor from Bavaria, via Rome, they hear a call to return to the beliefs and traditions and customs and laws that made England “great,” and also “merry.”

This is the background for the remarks that I have just published in the August-September “Special Issue” of Inside the Vatican previewing the Pope’s trip to Great Britain, as my editorial. Here below is that text. I would urge readers to order extra copies of this issue, especially in Great Britain, as I think it provides a balanced, comprehensive view of all the chief issues the Pope will confront during his visit. (To order extra copies, write: editor@insidethevatican.com)

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The following is the text of the editorial of the August-September “Special Issue” of Inside the Vatican, now at the printers.

Why Is Benedict XVI Going to England?

Benedict XVI is going to Great Britain to preach the Gospel, to call the British back to the faith which once shaped their culture, their law, their art and architecture, their hopes and aspirations — faith in Christ, and in his cross….

“Many might be tempted to ask why we Christians celebrate an instrument of torture, a sign of suffering, defeat and failure. It is true that the Cross expresses all these things. And yet, because of him who was lifted up on the Cross for our salvation, it also represents the definitive triumph of God’s love over all the evil in the world… The Cross, then, is something far greater and more mysterious than it at first appears.” —Pope Benedict XVI, June 5, 2010, Cyprus

There have been many surmises about why Benedict has chosen to visit Great Britain. Some of the analysis has been informed, much uninformed, and some motivated by plain bigotry. The media has exploited the confusion created by this mix to play its role of generating controversies, creating suspicions, finding villains, even to reporting Ian Paisley’s predictable indictment that the Pope is the Antichrist and should not be allowed to enter the country.

Benedict’s reasons for going to Great Britain are quite clear, though obscured by those unwilling to accept his word. His reasons are not only simple, but touch on the essence of his faith and the faith of the Church.

What is immediately clear is that he wishes personally to beatify the remarkable 19th century Christian scholar and convert to Catholicism, John Henry Cardinal Newman — a man he has studied and admired for nearly 60 years. And, around that beatification, he wishes to visit his Scottish and English flocks in hopes of strengthening them in their faith.

In the eyes of some observers, the legitimacy of these pastoral purposes is compromised by Benedict’s stated concern for those “high church” Anglicans who have openly asked to be received as a body into the Catholic Church.

How, these critics ask, will it be possible to maintain cordial relations between Rome and Canterbury if a large group of Anglicans, with the Pope’s encouragement, breaks away from the Church of England and enters the Catholic Church?

Benedict’s answer, in a sense, will be to encourage the conversion and simultaneously stress the common baptismal bond shared by all Christians. He will do this by a highly symbolic joint prayer service with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then there are the liberal Christians, accusatory secularists and militant atheists who have depicted Benedict as visiting England and Scotland to campaign against human rights, specifically, against new British laws that reject Christian teachings on marriage and promote same-sex relationships.

These accusers are so fired up at the prospect of the Pope’s presence in Great Britain that they have openly called for his arrest and deportation as a human rights offender and a man criminally responsible for the sexual crimes of priests. (British officials have taken steps to ensure that the militant secularists do publicly try to arrest and pillory Benedict.)

Such conflicting views of Benedict’s presence in Great Britain threaten to turn a religious pilgrimage into a political free-for-all.

Let’s state as clearly as possible what has moved Benedict to visit Scotland and England. Yes, Newman’s beatification, yes, the situation of British Catholics, yes, Anglicans longing to join the Catholic Church, yes, the hope of maintaining ties with Anglicanism.

But at the heart of Benedict’s journey is the belief that God is in charge of His world, that nothing happens without a purpose, that men can take part in God’s plan for the world.

Like his predecessors, he believes there are no accidents in history, only events we cannot fully grasp or  explain convincingly, but events God will one day allow us to understand.

Over and over Joseph Ratzinger has said that divine providence rules the world.

He believes that the Gospel’s encounter with Greek thought providentially determined the way the Church developed. He holds that, though we can never predict in advance how things will turn out, things which seem to be harmful to the spread of the Gospel may eventually be seen even as a blessing.

His initial attraction to Newman may have been to Newman’s theological writing, but his strongest attachment to him is surely to the man of faith, a man who could say of himself: “I understood… that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable, Scripture was an allegory, pagan literature, philosophy and mythology, properly understood, were but a preparation for the Gospel. The Greek poets and sages were, in a sense, prophets.”

Benedict wants to be in England not because theologians are of crucial importance, but because saints are absolutely essential to the growth, purification and existence of the Church.

Benedict wants to be in England because a new paganism has triumphed in Western society, articulately in England. In many ways he is motivated by what he said in God and the World: “Whenever a person or society refuses to take God’s business seriously, some way or the other, the fate of Gomorrah overtakes them again… Whenever any society turns away from fellowship with the living God, it cuts the root of its social cohesion. We see such retribution at work even today.”

He is in England to point out the “narrow way” that leads away from the dead end and desolation of “Gomorrah” — the “narrow way” taken by More, Fisher, Newman, and countless thousands of others.

The militant advocates of Sodom recognize the danger Benedict presents to their program, so they describe the Pope’s English visit as a mission to promote superstition and the implicit evil of traditional Christianity.

But it is something else altogether.

It is a mission to dispel superstition and lies, and to call the British back to the truth which many still recall, deep down: that men and women have an eternal destiny, that this fallen world has been redeemed, and that that redemption frees men from fear and frustration, even from their own self-loathing.

It is a message of hope, and he will preach it fearlessly, though the prophets of perdition would silence him and caricature his message as anything but what it is.

They will attempt to drown out his call, but he will issue it anyway, to all with ears to hear: that it is not too late to change course, that there is still time for a new direction, still time to embrace the path that leads not to death, but to life, and true joy.

Note: Pilgrimage with special meetings inside the Vatican. We are now beginning to take preliminary requests for our Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 pilgrimages, which will include visits to Assisi, Norcia, Rome and the Vatican. If you would like information about these trips, email us at: pilgrimage@insidethevatican.com

And so one period in history of our Church came to an end.

(Some would say that one winter, and that a severe one, came to an end.)

A new springtime had come.

The Pope had long hesitated. In the months before the official promulgation, when the text was known to be already finished, but the date for its publication had not yet been set, officials in Rome close to the Pope confirmed to me that the opposition to this document was intense, and that the Pope was hesitating.

“You must pray for him,” I was told.

And then, the Pope took his decision, and issued the document.

I still believe, three years later, that it was one of the most important moments of his pontificate thus far, perhaps the most important one.

Here, once again, is the text of that historic document.

SATURDAY, JULY 07, 2007

APOSTOLIC LETTER

SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM

OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF

BENEDICT XVI

GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO
On the extraordinary use
of the ancient form of the Roman Rite
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It has been the constant concern of the Supreme Pontiffs up to the present to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy worship to the Divine Majesty, “to the praise and glory of His name,” and “to the benefit of all His Holy Church.”

Since time immemorial it has been necessary — as it is also for the future — to maintain the principle according to which “each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church’s law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.” (1)

Among the pontiffs who showed that requisite concern, particularly outstanding is the name of St. Gregory the Great, who made every effort to ensure that the new peoples of Europe received both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship and culture that had been accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries. He commanded that the form of the sacred liturgy as celebrated in Rome (concerning both the Sacrifice of Mass and the Divine Office) be conserved. He took great concern to ensure the dissemination of monks and nuns who, following the Rule of St. Benedict, together with the announcement of the Gospel illustrated with their lives the wise provision of their Rule that ‘nothing should be placed before the work of God.’ In this way the sacred liturgy, celebrated according to the Roman use, enriched not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples. It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.

Many other Roman pontiffs, in the course of the centuries, showed particular solicitude in ensuring that the sacred liturgy accomplished this task more effectively. Outstanding among them is Saint Pius V who, sustained by great pastoral zeal and following the exhortations of the Council of Trent, renewed the entire liturgy of the Church, oversaw the publication of liturgical books amended and “renewed in accordance with the norms of the Fathers,” and provided them for the use of the Latin Church.

One of the liturgical books of the Roman rite is the Roman Missal, which developed in the city of Rome and, with the passing of the centuries, little by little took forms very similar to that it has had in recent times.

“It was towards this same goal that succeeding Roman Pontiffs directed their energies during the subsequent centuries in order to ensure that the rites and liturgical books were brought up to date and when necessary clarified. From the beginning of this century they undertook a more general reform.” (2) Thus acted also our predecessors Clement VIII, Urban VIII, Saint Pius X (3), Benedict XV, Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII.

In more recent times, Vatican Council II expressed a desire that the respectful reverence due to divine worship should be renewed and adapted to the needs of our time. Moved by this desire our predecessor, the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI, approved, in 1970, reformed and partly renewed liturgical books for the Latin Church. These, translated into the various languages of the world, were willingly accepted by bishops, priests and faithful. John Paul II amended the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus Roman pontiffs have operated to ensure that “this kind of liturgical edifice … should again appear resplendent for its dignity and harmony.” (4)

But in some regions, no small numbers of faithful adhered and continue to adhere with great love and affection to the earlier liturgical forms. These had so deeply marked their culture and their spirit that in 1984 the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, moved by a concern for the pastoral care of these faithful, with the special indult “Quattuor abhinc annos”, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted permission to use the Roman Missal published by Blessed John XXIII in the year 1962. Later, in the year 1988, John Paul II with the Apostolic Letter given Motu Proprio, “Ecclesia Dei”, exhorted bishops to make generous use of this power in favor of all the faithful who so desired.
Our predecessor John Paul II having already considered the insistent petitions of these faithful, having listened to the views of the Cardinal Fathers of the Consistory of 22 March 2006, having reflected deeply upon all aspects of the question, invoked the Holy Spirit and trusting in the help of God, with this Apostolic Letter We DECREE the following:

Art. 1 The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the Lex orandi [Law of prayer] of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same Lex orandi, and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s Lex credendi [Law of belief]. They are, in fact two uses of the one Roman rite.

It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as an extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The conditions for the use of this Missal as laid down by earlier documents “Quattuor abhinc annos” and “Ecclesia Dei”, are substituted as follows:

Art. 2 In Masses celebrated without the people, each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962, or the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, and may do so on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum. For such celebrations, with either one Missal or the other, the priest has no need for permission from the Apostolic See or from his Ordinary.

Art. 3 Communities of Institutes of consecrated life and of Societies of apostolic life, of either pontifical or diocesan right, wishing to celebrate Mass in accordance with the edition of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1962, for conventual or “community” celebration in their oratories, may do so. If an individual community or an entire Institute or Society wishes to undertake such celebrations often, habitually or permanently, the decision must be taken by the Superiors Major, in accordance with the law and following their own specific decrees and statutes.

Art. 4 Celebrations of Mass as mentioned above in art. 2 may – observing all the norms of law – also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted.

Art. 5 § 1 In parishes, where there is a group of faithful who stably adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, and ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.

§ 2 Celebration according to the Missal of Bl. John XXIII may take place on working days; while on Sundays and feast days one such celebration may also be held.

§ 3 For faithful and priests who request it, the pastor should also allow celebrations in this extraordinary form for special circumstances such as marriages, funerals or occasional celebrations, e.g. pilgrimages.

§ 4 Priests who use the Missal of Bl. John XXIII must be idoneous and not juridically impeded.

§ 5 In churches that are not parish or conventual churches, it is the duty of the Rector of the church to grant the above permission.

Art. 6 In Masses celebrated in the presence of the people in accordance with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII, the readings may be given in the vernacular, using editions recognised by the Apostolic See.

Art. 7 If a group of lay faithful, as mentioned in art. 5 § 1, has not obtained satisfaction to their requests from the pastor, they should inform the diocesan bishop. The bishop is strongly requested to satisfy their wishes. If he does not want to arrange for such celebration to take place, the matter should be referred to the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”.

Art. 8 A bishop who, desirous of satisfying such requests, but who for various reasons is unable to do so, may refer the problem to the Commission “Ecclesia Dei” to obtain counsel and assistance.
Art. 9 § 1 The pastor, having attentively examined all aspects, may also grant permission to use the earlier ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, if the good of souls would seem to require it.

§ 2 Ordinaries are given the right to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation using the earlier Roman Pontifical, if the good of souls would seem to require it.

§ 3 Clerics ordained “in sacris constitutis” may use the Roman Breviary promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962.
Art. 10 The ordinary of a particular place, if he feels it appropriate, may erect a personal parish in accordance with can. 518 for celebrations following the ancient form of the Roman rite, or appoint a chaplain, while observing all the norms of law.

Art. 11 The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (5) , erected by John Paul II in 1988, continues to exercise its function. Said Commission will have the form, duties and norms that the Roman Pontiff wishes to assign it.
Art. 12 This Commission, apart from the powers it enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See, supervising the observance and application of these dispositions.

We order that everything We have decreed with this Apostolic Letter given Motu Proprio be considered as having full and lasting force, and be observed from September 14 of this year, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on July 7, in the year of Our Lord 2007, the third of Our Pontificate.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 3rd ed., 2002, no. 397.

John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” 4 December 1988, 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899.

Ibid.

St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Motu propio data, “Abhinc duos annos,” 23 October 1913: AAS 5 (1913), 449-450; cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” no. 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899.

Cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Motu proprio data “Ecclesia Dei,” 2 July 1988, 6: AAS 80 (1988), 1498.

True, it would certainly be too much to say that Pope Benedict XVI wishes a return to Thomism as a way to help confront the grave crisis the Church is currently passing through — a crisis marked by a type of emotional, irrational thinking utterly foreign to the careful method and clear mind of St. Thomas Aquinas.

So I will not say (yet) that the Pope is attempting to “rehabilitate” Thomas as an antidote to the mental “muddiness,” of what passes for much of modern Catholic intellectual life.

That would be an exaggeration.

But it would be too little to overlook as ordinary, and so insignificant, the Pope’s three recent lectures on St. Thomas Aquinas at his Wednesday General Audiences.

The Pope has focused attention on St. Thomas during June — June 2, June 16 and today, June 23 — and his talks contain considerable material for reflection. Here are excerpts.

Of significance is the Pope’s reference to Thomas’s mystical experience toward the end of his life, when he felt he had been in direct contact with the divine, and so came to feel that all the words he had written were “as straw” in comparison with the reality he had experienced directly.

Such an experience reminds all of us that it is the divine life itself that is the end, not words or ideas or concepts or even doctrinal formulations about that life.

This, too, is the legacy of Thomas.

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The First Teaching of Benedict on St. Thomas (June 2)

The “great work” of St. Thomas Aquinas was to show not only that faith and reason are compatible, but also that there is “a natural harmony” between the two, Benedict XVI said at his general audience on June 2.

“The Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology,” Benedict said.

He noted that St. Thomas is called the Doctor Angelicus “perhaps because of his virtues, in particular the loftiness of his thought and purity of life.”

Thomas was born between 1224 and 1225 near Aquino, in present-day Lazio. In 1245, Thomas entered the Dominicans, and was sent to Paris to study theology under St. Albert the Great.
During his stay in Paris, St. Thomas “made contact with all of Aristotle’s works and with his Arab commentators,” the Pope explained, “which had been ignored for a long time. They were writings on the nature of knowledge, on the natural sciences, on metaphysics, on the soul and on ethics, rich in information and intuition that seemed valid and convincing,” he continued. “It was a whole complete vision of the world developed without and before Christ, with pure reason, and it seemed to impose itself on reason as ‘the’ vision itself.”

It was in this context that “two cultures met,” the Holy Father noted, “the pre-Christian culture of Aristotle, with his radical rationality, and the classic Christian culture.”

And it was also in this context, Benedict XVI added, that St. Thomas Aquinas “carried out an operation of fundamental importance for the history of philosophy and theology, I would say for the history of culture.”

The Pope explained that St. Thomas “studied Aristotle and his interpreters in depth,” he obtained improved translations from the original Greek texts, and no longer relying on the Arab commentators, he provided his own commentaries on “the Aristotelian works, distinguishing what was valid from what was doubtful or to be refuted all together.”

“In short,” the Holy Father said, “Thomas Aquinas showed that there is a natural harmony between Christian faith and reason.”

“This was the great work of Thomas,” he continued, “who in that moment of encounter between two cultures — that moment in which it seemed that faith should surrender before reason — showed that they go together, that what seemed to be reason incompatible with faith was not reason, and what seemed to be faith was not faith, in so far as it was opposed to true rationality; thus he created a new synthesis, which shaped the culture of the following centuries.”

The Pope noted as well that attributed to St. Thomas are the liturgical texts for the feast of Corpus Domini: “Thomas had an exquisitely Eucharistic soul. The very beautiful hymns that the liturgy of the Church sings to celebrate the mystery of the real presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Eucharist are attributed to his faith and his theological wisdom.”

Regarding his death, the Holy Father said that “the last months of Thomas’ earthly life remained surrounded by a particular atmosphere — I would say a mysterious atmosphere.”

“In December 1273,” Benedict continued, “[St. Thomas] called his friend and secretary Reginald to communicate to him the decision to interrupt all work because, during the celebration of Mass, he had understood, following a supernatural revelation, that all he had written up to then was only ‘a heap of straw.’

“It is a mysterious episode, which helps us to understand not only Thomas’ personal humility, but also the fact that all that we succeed in thinking and saying about the faith, no matter how lofty and pure, is infinitely exceeded by the grandeur and beauty of God, which will be revealed to us fully in Paradise.”

The saintly theologian died a few months later in 1274 while traveling to Lyon, where he was to participate in the Second Council of Lyon, convoked by Pope Gregory X.

“The life and teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas could be summarized in an episode handed down by the ancient biographers,” Benedict XVI concluded. “While the saint, as was his custom, was praying in the morning before the crucifix in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in Naples, the sacristan of the church, Domenico da Caserta, heard a dialogue unfolding.

“Thomas was asking, worried, if what he had written on the mysteries of the Christian faith was right. And the Crucifix responded: ‘You have spoken well of me, Thomas. What will be your recompense?’

(Image, St. Thomas Aquinas, by Fra Angelico. St. Thomas was only 49 when he died in 1274.)

“And the answer that Thomas gave is that which all of us, friends and disciples of Christ, would always wants to give: ‘Nothing other than You, Lord!’”

The Second Teaching of Benedict on St. Thomas (June 16)

The moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas is timely even today, Pope Benedict XVI said on June 16 in Rome, stressing the saint’s emphasis on natural law — that is, law that all human beings can assent to because they see it and understand it based on the faculty of human reason all human beings share.

The center of Benedict’s talk was reason — which, in Greek, is translated as logos — and human reason in particular. Both Aquinas, and this Pope, are persuaded that human reason, even if marred due to the Fall of man, and sin, is yet capable of grasping truth, of being in relationship with Truth.

The Pope explained that Thomas’s work was to show the “independence of philosophy and theology and, at the same time, their reciprocal rationality.”

“Reason can recognize [the natural law], considering what is good to do and what is good to avoid to obtain that happiness which is in each one’s heart, and which also imposes a responsibility toward others and, hence, the search for the common good,” he said. “In other words, the virtues of man, theological and moral, are rooted in human nature.

“Divine grace supports, sustains and drives the ethical commitment but, on their own, according to St. Thomas, all men, believers and non-believers, are called to recognize the exigencies of human nature expressed in natural law and to be inspired in it in the formulation of positive laws, that is, those issuing from the civil and political authorities to regulate human coexistence.”

Benedict XVI emphasized the importance of natural law and its responsibilities, saying that when these are denied, “the way is opened dramatically to ethical relativism on the individual plane and to the totalitarianism of the state on the political plane.”

The concept of human reason proposed by Thomas is “trustworthy,” Benedict said, “because human reason, above all if it accepts the inspirations of the Christian faith, is a promoter of a civilization that recognizes the dignity of the person, the intangibility of his rights and the strength of his duties.”

Benedict concluded, however, with a reminder that St. Thomas’ profound thought and teaching stemmed from his “lively faith and his fervent piety.

He was a thinker and a saint, the Pope recalled, who prayed to God in ways such as this: “Grant me, I pray, a will that seeks you, a wisdom that finds you, a life that pleases you, a perseverance that waits for you with trust and a trust that in the end succeeds in possessing you.”

The Third Teaching of Benedict on St. Thomas (June 23)

Today, the Pope took up the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas’s theological masterpiece.

During today’s general audience, celebrated in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope delivered the last in a series of three catecheses on the figure of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Holy Father explained how St. Thomas’ masterpiece, the “Summa Theologica“, contains 512 questions (“Quaestiones“) and 2,669 articles in which the saint “precisely, clearly and pertinently” outlines the truths of faith as they emerge from “the teachings of Holy Scripture and of the Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine.”

This exertion “of the human mind was always illuminated — as St. Thomas’ own life shows — by prayer, by the light that comes from on high.

“In his ‘Summa‘”, the Pope said, “St. Thomas starts from the fact that God exists in three different ways: God exists in Himself, He is the principle and end of all things, so all creatures come from and depend upon Him. Secondly, God is present through His Grace in the life and activity of Christians, of the saints. Finally, God is present in a very special way in the person of Christ, and in the Sacraments which derive from His work of redemption”.

“St. Thomas dedicates special attention to the mystery of the Eucharist, to which he was particularly devoted,” Benedict continued. He encouraged people “to follow the example of the saints and love this Sacrament. Let us participate devotedly in Mass in order to obtain its spiritual fruits; let us feed from the Body and Blood of the Lord that we may be incessantly nourished by divine Grace; let us pause willingly and often in the company of the Blessed Sacrament”.

Benedict continued: “What St. Thomas explained with academic rigour in his main theological works such as the ‘Summa Theologica‘ was also expressed in his preaching,” the content of which “corresponds almost in its entirety to the structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Indeed, in a time such as our own of renewed commitment to evangelisation, catechism and preaching must never lack the following fundamental themes: what we believe, i.e., the Creed; what we pray, i.e., the Our Father and the Ave Maria; and what we live as biblical revelation teaches us, i.e., the law of the love of God and neighbour and the Ten Commandments”.

“In his brief ‘Devotissima expositio super symbolum apostolorum‘, St. Thomas explains the importance of faith. Through it, he says, the soul is united to God… life is given a clear direction and we can easily overcome temptations. To those who object that faith is foolish because it makes us believe something that does not enter into the experience of the senses, St. Thomas offers a very detailed response, claiming that this is an inconsistent objection because human intelligence is limited and cannot know everything.

“Only if we were able to have perfect knowledge of all things visible and invisible would it be foolish to accept truth out of pure faith,” said the Pope. “Moreover, as St. Thomas observes, it is impossible to live without entrusting ourselves to the experience of others, when our personal knowledge does not extend far enough. Thus it is reasonable to have faith in God Who reveals Himself, and in the witness of the Apostles.”

Commenting on the article of the Creed concerning the incarnation of the Divine Word, St. Thomas teaches that “the Christian faith is reinforced in the light of the mystery of the Incarnation; hope emerges more trustingly at the thought that the Son of God came among us as one of us, to communicate His divinity to mankind; charity is revived because there is no more evident sign of God’s love for us than to see the Creator of the universe Himself become a creature,” Benedict said.

“St. Thomas, like all saints, was greatly devoted to the Blessed Virgin”, Pope Benedict concluded. “He gave her a stupendous title: ‘Triclinium totius Trinitatis‘; in other words, the place where the Trinity finds repose because, thanks to the Incarnation, the three divine persons dwell in her as in no other creature, and experience the delight and joy of living in her soul full of Grace. Through her intercession we can obtain any kind of help.”

“And then came the conferral of his mission: ‘Do not be afraid. Henceforth you will be catching men’ (Lk 5:1-11). Today too the Church and the successors of the Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel – to God, to Christ, to true life.” —Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Inaugural Mass, April 24, 2005

There have been five great “crises,” five defining moments of decision thus far in the first half-decade of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate (April 24, 2005-present). And we are now in the midst of the 5th moment of crisis.

The first defining crisis was on the inaugural day of the pontificate, April 24, 2005. Benedict, newly elected, came before the entire world, following the moving funeral of Pope John Paul II, to declare his proposed “program,” what he planned to do as Pope.

But instead of listing a series of specific goals (renewing religious life, or the liturgy, or reuniting with separated Christians), he did something profound. He pointed toward Christ, only toward Christ.

“My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history,” Benedict said.

Then the Pope spoke of two liturgical symbols used in the inaugural ceremony that day, the pallium and the fisherman’s ring.

He explained that the two symbols represented his two great tasks as Pope: to be a shepherd, and to be a fisherman, or rather, a “fisher of men.” And in his explanation of this task, he spoke powerful words.

“The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast,” Benedict said. “Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance…

“One of the basic characteristics of a shepherd must be to love the people entrusted to him, even as he loves Christ whom he serves. ‘Feed my sheep.’ says Christ to Peter, and now, at this moment, he says it to me as well.

“Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence, which he gives us in the Blessed Sacrament.”

And then the Pope asked for our prayers. “My dear friends,” he said, “at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.”

He then spoke about what it means to be a true fisherman.

“It is really true,” he said. “As we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God. It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.”

From that moment on, the center of Pope Benedict’s mission has been “to reveal God to men,” to focus all his effort on recalling a secularized world to the Risen Lord it has either never heard of, or, having once heard and believed, has forgotten or rejected.

The second “crisis” occurred on December 22, 2005. On that day, Benedict delivered perhaps the single most important speech of his pontiticate. Speaking to his Curia, he laid out his vision for interpreting the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar period back into the perennial tradition of the Church. We needed to view the Council and the post-conciliar period through a “hermeneutic of continuity,” not of “rupture,” he said. The Church did not begin in 1965, breaking with her past; she continued to be what she always has been, adapting to the conditions and challenges of a new age.

The third “crisis” was on September 12, 2006, when he gave his great and controversial “Regensburg Address.” Profoundly misunderstood, his speech aroused the ire of the world’s Muslims and secular humanists alike. But the address was not intended to be a reflection on Islam. Rather, it was directed to the West, to our increasingly secularized Western culture as a whole. It was a call to the West to remember the transcendent, not to negate the transcendent, a negation which is ultimately “unreasonable” and which leads mankind down the road to darkness, savagery, cruelty, injustice and death.

The fourth “crisis” was on July 7, 2007, when he promulgated, against the strong objections of many of his bishops, the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which restored access to the “old Mass” throughout the Church. This restoration of the “lex orandi” has barely begun, but it was initiated on that day.
The fifth “crisis” is the present one over cases of priestly sexual abuse of children, and the inadequate response of Church leaders to these sins and crimes. The crisis has been devastating, for the children harmed, for the Church, and for the Pope himself, and his mission.

The fact that the Pope spoke of this crisis during his recent trip to Fatima, Portugal, and connected this crisis, even if only obliquely, with the “Third Secret” of Fatima (see “Lead Story, p. 10), indicates how much this crisis is on the Pope’s mind, how seriously he regards it, and how committed he is to ensure that the abuse ends and that the Church’s priesthood is purified and restored to carry out its essential, critical task: to be shepherds to the faithful, and to be “fishers of men” to a world longing to be “caught” by an encounter with Christ.

The basilica was packed, but a kind Vatican official enabled our little group to have a place near the main altar.

Pope Benedict XVI was present throughout, and spoke a number of prayers in Latin, and unveiled the cross for veneration.

But he did not deliver the sermon.

He entrusted the sermon to the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, a Franciscan Capuchin friar.

Cantalamessa, regarded as one of the most profound and moving Catholic homilists in the world today, focused on the mystery of Christ’s priesthood and what it means for a mankind subject to mortality and sin.

The sermon was essentially a meditation on violence, and on how Jesus, through his life and death, overthrew the primordial “alliance between the sacred and violence” which prior to him was so common (animal and even human sacrifice, the use of a “scapegoat” to bear the sins of the people).

“Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself the victim of all violence,” Cantalamessa said.

Then towards the end, he spoke directly about the recent attacks on the Pope.

Noting that this year Easter falls in the same week as the Jewish Passover, Cantalamessa said he had received a letter recently from a Jewish friend. He then cited the letter.

It was a striking moment, rich in symbolic contrasts.

The words he was speaking were part of the official homily for the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica — a liturgy which contains the scriptural passages in which the Jewish crowds in Jerusalem call out “Crucify him!”

And the words he was speaking had to do with attacks on a German Pope — a Pope from the country where anti-Semitism was official state policy for 12 years two generations ago.

And the words the preacher was speaking, in support of the Pope, were written by a Jew.

Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend had written to him that some aspects of these recent attacks against the Pope and the Church, including “the use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt,” reminded his Jewish friend of “the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

As the word “antisemitismo” at the end of that sentence echoed out over the vast hall, over the silent throng, the battle over this Pope and this pontificate seemed to me to take on a new and deeper dimension.

Then, in a further irony, Cantalamessa ended his sermon, not with a citation from scripture, but with a citation from, of all people, the Rabbi Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul — words which he said had passed into the text of the Jewish Seder, and from there into “the most ancient Christian liturgy”(!).

“We Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover,” Cantalamessa said. “We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:

“He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia.”

And there the homily ended.

Just after the liturgy was over, I was able to speak with Father Raniero, who was seated a few feet away from me. I asked him for the text of his sermon, which he had delivered in Italian. He agreed to send it to me via email.

A few minutes ago, I received an email from him with the text in English. Here it is in its entirety.

“WE HAVE A GREAT HIGH PRIEST”

Homily on Good Friday 2010 in Saint Peter’s Basilica

by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap

“We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God”: thus begins the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard in the second reading. In the Year for Priests, the liturgy for Good Friday enables us to go back to the historical source of the Christian priesthood. It is the source of both the realizations of the priesthood: the ministerial, of bishops and presbyters, and the universal of all the faithful. This one also, in fact, is founded on the sacrifice of Christ that, Revelation says, “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Revelation 1:5-6). Hence, it is of vital importance to understand the nature of the sacrifice and of the priesthood of Christ because it is from them that priests and laity, in a different way, must bear the stamp and seek to live the exigencies.

The Letter to the Hebrews explains in what the novelty and uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood consists, not only in regard to the priesthood of the old Covenant, but as the history of religions teaches us today, in regard to every priestly institution also outside of the Bible. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come [...] he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:11-14).

Every other priest offers something outside of himself, Christ offered himself; every other priest offers victims, Christ offered himself victim! Saint Augustine enclosed in a famous formula this new kind of priesthood in which priest and victim are the same thing: “Ideo sacerdos, quia sacrificium“: priest because victim.”[1]

* * *

In 1972 a famous French thinker launched the thesis according to which “violence is the heart and secret spirit of the sacred.”[2] In fact, at the origin and center of every religion there is sacrifice, and sacrifice entails destruction and death. The newspaper “Le Monde” greeted the affirmation, saying that it made of that year “a year to mark with an asterisk in the annals of humanity.” However, before this date, that scholar had come close again to Christianity and at Easter of 1959 he made public his “conversion,” declaring himself a believer and returning to the Church.

This enabled him not to pause, in his subsequent studies, on the analysis of the mechanism of violence, but to point out also how to come out of it. Many, unfortunately, continue to quote René Girard as the one who denounced the alliance between the sacred and violence, but they do not speak of the Girard who pointed out in the paschal mystery of Christ the total and definitive break of such an alliance. According to him, Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself, the victim of all violence.

The process that leads to the birth of religion is reversed, in regard to the explanation that Freud had given. In Christ, it is God who makes himself victim, not the victim (in Freud, the primordial father) that, once sacrificed, is successively raised to divine dignity (the Father of the Heavens). It is no longer man that offers sacrifices to God, but God who “sacrifices” himself for man, consigning for him to death his Only-begotten Son (cf. John 3:16). Sacrifice no longer serves to “placate” the divinity, but rather to placate man and to make him desist from his hostility toward  God and his neighbor.

Christ did not come with another’s blood but with his own. He did not put his sins on the shoulders of others — men or animals –; he put others’ sins on his own shoulders: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

Can one, then, continue to speak of sacrifice in regard to the death of Christ and hence of the Mass? For a long time the scholar mentioned rejected this concept, holding it too marked by the idea of violence, but then ended by admitting the possibility, on condition of seeing, in that of Christ, a new kind of sacrifice, and of seeing in this change of meaning “the central fact in the religious history of humanity.”

* * *

Seen in this light, the sacrifice of Christ contains a formidable message for today’s world. It cries out to the world that violence is an archaic residue, a regression to primitive stages and surmounted by human history and — if it is a question of believers — a culpable and scandalous delay in becoming aware of the leap in quality operated by Christ.

It reminds also that violence is losing. In almost all ancient myths the victim is the defeated and the executioner the victor . [3] Jesus changed the sign of victory. He inaugurated a new kind of victory that does not consist in making victims, but in making himself victim. “Victor quia victima!”, victor because victim, thus Augustine describes the Jesus of the cross.[4]

The modern value of the defense of victims, of the weak and of threatened life is born on the terrain of Christianity, it is a later fruit of the revolution carried out by Christ. We have the counter-proof. As soon as the Christian vision is abandoned (as Nietzsche did) to bring the pagan back to life, this conquest is lost and one turns to exalt “the strong, the powerful, to its most exalted point, the superman,” and the Christian is described as “a morality of slaves,” fruit of the mean resentment of the weak against the strong.

Unfortunately, however, the same culture of today that condemns violence, on the other hand, favors and exalts it. Garments are torn in face of certain events of blood, but not being aware that the terrain is prepared for them with that which is shown in the next page of the newspaper or in the successive palimpsest of the television network. The pleasure with which one indulges in the description of violence and the competition of the one who is first and the most crude in describing it do no more than favor it. The result is not a catharsis of evil, but an incitement to it. It is disturbing that violence and blood have become one of the ingredients of greatest claim in films and video-games, that one is attracted to it and enjoys watching it.

The same scholar recalled above has unveiled the matrix that sparks the mechanism of violence: mimicry, that innate human inclination to consider desirable the things that others desire and, hence, to repeat the things that they see others do. The “heard” psychology is that which leads to the choice of the “scapegoat” to find, in the struggle against a common enemy — in general, the weakest element, the different one –, a proper artificial and momentous cohesion.

We have an example in the recurrent violence of youth in the stadium, in the bullying in schools and in certain square manifestations that leave behind  destruction and debris. A generation of youth that has had the very rare privilege of not knowing a real war and of never having been called to arms, amuses itself (because it is about a game, even if stupid and at times tragic) to invent little wars, driven by the same instinct that moved the primordial horde.

*   *  *

However there is a yet more grave and widespread violence than that of youth in stadiums and squares. I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here. I am speaking of violence to women. This is an occasion to make persons and institutions that fight against it understand that Christ is their best ally.

It is a violence all the more grave in as much as it is often carried out in the shelter of domestic walls, unknown to all, when it is not actually justified with pseudo-religious and cultural prejudices. The victims find themselves desperately alone and defenceless. Only today, thanks to the support and encouragement of so many associations and institutions, some find the strength to come out in the open and denounce the guilty.

Much of this violence has a sexual background. It is the male who thinks he can demonstrate his virility by inflicting himself on the woman, without realizing that he is only demonstrating his insecurity and baseness. Also in confrontations with the woman who has made a mistake, what a contrast between the conduct of Christ and that still going on in certain environments! Fanaticism calls for stoning; Christ responds to the men who have presented an adulteress to him saying: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Adultery is a sin that is always committed by two, but for which only one has always been (and, in some parts of the world, still is) punished.

Violence against woman is never so odious as when it nestles where mutual respect and love should reign, in the relationship between husband and wife. It is true that violence is not always and wholly on the part of one, that one can be violent also with the tongue and not only with the hands, but no one can deny that in the vast majority of cases the victim is the woman.

There are families where the man still believes himself authorized to raise his voice and hands on the women of the house. Wife and children at times live under the constant threat of “Daddy’s anger.” To such as these it is necessary to say courteously: dear men colleagues, by creating you male, God did not intend to give you the right to be angry and to bang your fist on the table for the least thing. The word addressed to Eve after the fault: “He (the man) shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16), was a bitter forecast, not an authorization.

John Paul II inaugurated the practice of the request for forgiveness for collective wrongs. One of these, among the most just and necessary, is the forgiveness that half of humanity must ask of the other half, men to women. It must not be generic or abstract. It must lead, especially in one who professes himself a Christian, to concrete gestures of conversion, to words of apology and reconciliation within families and in society.

* * *

The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard continues saying: “In the days of his flesh, with loud cries and with tears he offered prayers and supplications to Him who could save him from death.” Jesus felt in all its crudity the situation of the victims, the suffocated cries and silent tears. Truly, “we do not have a high priest who cannot suffer with us in our weaknesses.” In every victim of violence Christ relives mysteriously his earthly experience. Also in regard to every one of these he says: “you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it.

He said: “I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours are undoubtedly different, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter.”

And also we Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover. We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:

“He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia.”[5]

* * *

Notes

[1] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 43.

[2] Cf. R. Girard, La Violence et le Sacré, Grasset, Paris, 1972.

[3] Cf. R. Girard, Il sacrificio, Milano 2004, pp. 73 f.

[4] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 4.

[5] Pesachim, X, 5 e Meliton of Sardi, Easter Homily, 68 (SCh 123, p. 98).