On this historic Monday, unprecedented high-level theological discussions between representatives of the Society of St. Pius X and of the Holy See got underway to discuss “all the unresolved doctrinal questions” (”grandi temi dottrinali non risolti“) related to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), its implementation and interpretation.

The talks took place in the building once known as the “Holy Office of the Inquisition” and still called the Sant’Uffizio in Italian — the Holy Office.

On one side, representatives of the Society of St. Pius X, founded by the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (died 1991). From their founder, the members of the Society are often called “Lefebvrists.”

On the other, top theologians from the Vatican itself, men very close to Pope Benedict XVI, led by Mosignor Guido Pozzo, the head of gthe Ecclesia Dei commission.

The talks continued for three hours.

They went very well.

And they will continue.

Not only will they continue, they will continue at an almost frenetic pace for the Holy See, which generally “thinks in centuries”: there will be meeting every two weeks for as long as it takes to settle these questions.

Father Federico Lombardi noted this relative haste when he delivered a brief communique on the meeting this afternoon in the Vatican Press Office. “This is a rather rapid paste for the Holy See,” he said.

This is worth noting because it suggests that the Pope wants this dialogue on a “fast track,” not something that drags on interminably.

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What Is at Stake?

If one looks at these meetings in the context of recent events, the essential point is this: Benedict XVI, though now 82, is moving on many different fronts with great energy in a completely unexpected way, given his reputation as a man of thought, not of action. (We are going to have to revise our understanding of his pontificate.)

He is clearly reaching out to reunite with many Christian groups: the Lefebvrists, as these meetings show, but also Anglicans, the Orthodox, and others as well.

He seems to be trying to make Catholic Rome a center of communion for all Christians.

This activity, occurring at an accelerating speed over recent months, looks almost like a “rallying of the troops” before some final, decisive battle.

The activity is critically important, in this sense, for our current global “culture war,” especially our anthropology (can man be anything our technology can make him, or are their moral limits we should observe?), our sexuality and sexual behavior (how important is our sexual identity, how important are our gender roles?), and our traditional family structures (are these now outmoded, perhaps even to be completely discarded?).

Now, 44 years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, Benedict XVI evidently has committed some of his best men to seek unity with the most conservative wing of the Catholic Church, the Society of St. Pius X, and by extension, all so-called “Traditionalist” Catholics.

The plan is very ambitious: to go step by step through all of the great, controversial doctrinal issues of the post-conciliar period. This includes religious freedom, it includes ecumenism, it includes the Chruch’s teaching on Judaism and the Jews, it includes the new Mass vs. the old Mass and the role of the priest of the laity in the liturgy — all the great issues of the Council.

Benedict will be watched very closely here by progressives, who seem to be a bit off-balance, wondering what Benedict is really after.

And he will be watched by the Anglicans, some of whom are considering entering into communion with Rome, overcoming a schism which dates from the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, 500 years ago.

And he will be watched by the Orthodox, some of whom are also thinking of overcoming the “Great Schism” which dates to 1054, as they have stated in recent days.

And he will be watched very closely here by representatives of the world Jewish community, some of whom are wondering which direction Benedict and the Church he leads will take with regard to Catholic teaching regarding Judiasm and the Jewish people.

In short, many eyes are now on Benedict, wondering what he really intends here.

The answer seems simple enough: Benedict is trying energetically to “get his house in order.”

But which house?

On one level, it is the Christian Church — a Christian Church under considerable pressure in the highly secularized modern world.

In this “house,” this “ecclesia Dei” (”church of God” or “community of God”), dogmas and doctrines, formulated into very precise verbal statements, are held as true. These verbal formulas are professed in creeds. Benedict is seeking to overcome divisions over the content of these creeds, these doctrinal formulas, in order to bring about formal, public unity among separated Christians.

He is trying to find unity not only with the Lefebvrists (and all Traditionalists within the Church) but also, as we have seen in recent days, with the Anglicans and the Orthodox Churches.

So this dialogue with the Lefebvrists must be seen in the context of multiple dialogues, all occurring at once: Catholic Traditionalists, Protestant Anglicans, the Orthodox Churches.

One might almost say this pontificate is become one of “all dialogue, all the time.”

But on a second level, considering world events and the evolution of the world’s economy and culture, something else is also at stake.

Benedict is rallying his troops. He is trying to reunite all those factions and denominations and groups in the West that share common beliefs in the eternal destiny of human beings, in the sacredness of human life (since human beings are “in the image and likeness of God”), in the existence of a moral standard which is true at all times and in all places (against the relativism of the modern secular culture), in the need for justice in human affairs, for the rule of right, not might.

And so he is doing his best, in what seems perhaps to be the “twilight of the West,” to build an ark, centered in Rome, to which all those who share these beliefs about human dignity may repair.

And this means that what Benedict is doing in this dialogue which got underway today is also of importance to Jews, to Muslims, and to all men and women of goodwill. Mankind seems to be entering a new period, a period in which companies and governments may produce, even for profit, “designer humans,” a period of resource wars, a period of the complete rejection of the traditional family unit.

Benedict, from his high room in the Apostolic Palace, seems to be trying to rally the West in the twilight of an age, so that what was best in the West may be preserved, and shine forth again after the struggles of our time are past.

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Rupture, or Continuity?

What is the real, fundamental issue of these talks?

It is this: Did the Second Vatican Council teach new doctrines not in keeping with prior Church teaching, and so lead the Church into error (as the Society of St. Pius X, and other traditional Catholics, have often argued)?

Or did the Council develop doctrines based on what the Church has always taught, and so open up new, legitimate aspects of old doctrines?

To put it another way: Did a “new Church” come into being after Vatican II, a Church which broke with the “old Church” of the pre-conciliar period?

Or is it still the same Catholic Church of all time, which has simply been passing through a confusing period as it attempts to find a way to live in and bear witness to the modern world?

Benedict has been calling for a reinterpretation of Vatican II for almost 40 years. In book-length interviews when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, in major studies of the liturgy and in addresses as Pope, he has denounced interpretations of Vatican II which claim it as a rupture with the Catholic faith of all time.

The Lefebvrists have maintained that is is difficult, if not impossible, to interpret Vatican II as being in continuity with all prior Church tradition.

But Benedict has said he believes this interpretation can be made.

And he has sent his chosen men into this dialogue to show the Lefebvrists how it can be done.

The true drama of this dialogue is whether his men will succeed.

Because if his men succeed, the Traditionalists will come back into full union with the Church — and many conservative Anglicans and Orthodox will also feel more willing to enter into Rome’s embrace.

But this very success will mean a defeat for… many progressive theologians, who have argued that Vatican II is a clean break with many “negative” teachings of the “old Church.”

Therefore, if Benedict and his men succeed in this effort, the result will be to bring the Traditionalists over into a Church that rejects what they too have hitherto rejected, by defining certain teachings of Vatican II in a traditional way which will suddenly close off to progressives avenues of interpretation that they have freely exploited for four decades now.

So what is at stake in these discussions is far more than what happens to the Lefebvrists.

What is at stake is how the Church of the future will judge and interpret Vatican II.

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The Communique

“On Monday, 26 October, 2009, in the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio [Palace of the Holy Office], headquarters of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the study commission made up of experts of Ecclesia Dei and from the Society of St. Pius X hed its first meeting, with the aim of examining the doctrinal differences still outstanding between the Society and the Apostolic See,” said a Vatican Press Office Communique released just an hour ago.

“In a cordial, respectful and constructive climate, the main doctrinal questions were identified. These will be studied in the course of discussions to be held over coming months, probably twice a month. In particular, the questions due to be examined concern the concept of Tradition, the Missal of Paul VI, the interpretation of Vatican Council II in continuity with the Catholic doctrinal Tradition, the themes of the unity of the Church and the Catholic principles of ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and non-Christian religions, and religious freedom. The meeting also served to specify the method and organisation of work.”

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Brief Background to the New Dialogue between the Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See

This dialoge has been nine years in the preparation.

For a number of years after the 1988 consecrations, there was little if any dialogue between the Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See. This state of affairs ended when the Society led a large pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee in the year 2000.

A sympathetic Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, approached the SSPX bishops during the pilgrimage and, according to Bishop Fellay, told them that the Pope was prepared to grant them either a personal prelature (the status enjoyed by Opus Dei) or an apostolic administration (the status given to the traditionalist priests of Campos, Brazil). The SSPX leadership responded with distrust. They requested two preliminary “signs” before continuing negotiations: that the Holy See grant permission for all priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass; and that its statement that the 1988 consecrations had resulted in excommunication for the clerics involved be declared void.

In 2005, Benedict XVI became Pope. In August 2005, Benedict met with Bishop Fellay for 35 minutes, at the latter’s request.

In July 2007, the Pope issued Summorum Pontificum, which liberalised the restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine Mass.

In April 2008, Bishop Fellay issued Letter to Friends and Benefactors No. 72, informing the SSPX faithful that, in spite of both Summorum Pontificum and the recent Vatican documents on the true meaning of Lumen Gentium and evangelisation, the Society still could not sign an agreement with the Holy See.

By a decree of 21 January 2009 (Protocol Number 126/2009), which was issued in response to a renewed request dated 15 December 2008 that Bishop Fellay made on behalf of all four bishops whom Lefebvre had consecrated on 30 June 1988, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, by the power granted to him by Pope Benedict XVI, remitted the automatic excommunication that they had thereby incurred, and expressed the wish that this would be followed speedily by full communion of the whole of the Society of Saint Pius X with the Church.

A Note of the Secretariat of State issued on 4 February 2009 specified that, while the lifting of the excommunication freed the four bishops from a very grave canonical penalty, it made no change in the juridical situation of the Society of St. Pius X.

The note added that future recognition of the Society required full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and of the teaching of Popes John XIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Moreover, it repeated the assurance given in the decree of 21 January 2009 that the Holy See would study, along with those involved, the questions not yet settled, so as to reach a full satisfactory solution of the problems that had given rise to the split.

That is the study that has now begun.

“Where Is the Shame?”

I attended the Vatican press conference this morning which presented the final message.

Two paragraphs in the document stand out.

They are paragraphs 30 and 33.

Only in these two places do the bishops express the type of righteous wrath Christ displayed when he overturned the tables of the money-changers in the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem, saying that the money-changers had made the house of God into a “den of thieves.” (And note: it was just a few days later that Christ was condemned to death and nailed to a cross on the hill of Golgotha, just outside the city limits.)

The first paragraph, Paragraph 30, deals with the way the international community has carried out its humanitarian work in Africa.

“On the whole,” the paragraph begins, “the UN agencies are doing good work in Africa for development, peace keeping, defence of the just rights of women and the child, and combating poverty and diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and other issues. The Synod commends the good work that they are doing.

“However,” the paragraph continues, “we call on them to be more consistent and transparent in implementing their programmes. We urge the countries of Africa to carefully scrutinise the services being offered to our people, to ensure that they are good for us. In particular, the Synod denounces all surreptitious attempts to destroy and undermine the precious African values of family and human life (e.g. the obnoxious art. 14 of the Maputo Protocol and other similar proposals).”

The words that struck me here were “denounces” and “obnoxious.”

These are strong words, unequivocal.

The bishops are not being diplomatic.

They are saying that the international agencies, even when saying they are there to help Africa, sometimes in fact “destroy and undermine the precious African values of family and human life.”

This is remarkable.

The African bishops are saying that the very people who are in Africa supposedly to help them in fact sometimes “destroy” their traditional African family values.

People who should be friends and benefactors turn out to be enemies and destroyers.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

And the bishops in particular denounce “the obnoxious  art. 14 of the Maputo Protocol and other similar proposals.”

I note that he Italian text handed out to journalists this morning used the word “detestable” for “obnoxious.”

“Detestable” is a strong word.

It is something to be scorned, detested… hated.

Why do the bishops “detest” Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol?

To answer that questions, we need to understand first what the Maputo Protocol is. (In the following sentences, I am drawing from a document on the subject from human Life International, which I cite at the end.)

Maputo is the capital city of Mozambique, located in southeastern Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north,  Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest.

The Maputo Protocol, a type of international treaty binding on all countries that ratify it, was originally adopted by the “Assembly of the African Union” in Maputo on July 11, 2003.

The official document is titled “Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.”

The Maputo Protocol went into effect in November 2005, after the minimum 15 of the 53 African Union member countries ratified it.

As of mid-2007, 43 nations had signed it, and 21 had formally ratified it: (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Libya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Seychelles, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia).

Those who ratify the treaty are called “States Parties.”

Proponents of the Maputo Protocol generally present it as a method of combating female genital mutilation in Africa.

It is estimated that this practice is performed on approximately two million women a year worldwide, many in Africa.

Pro-Protocol forces often try to portray opponents of the Protocol as callous toward women’s rights, even though the Maputo Protocol is not principally aimed at eradicating female genital mutilation.

Rather, the Maputo Protocol is one part of a well thought-out, decades-long campaign by Western elites to change traditional social patterns of African family life.

The ultimate goal, many pro-life Catholic activists contend, is… continent-wide population control, first to limit the increase of the number of black Africans, then to slowly decrease that number.

The Maputo Protocol has been presented to Africa and the world as a method to combat female genital mutilation (FGM), but out of 23 pages, it mentions female gential mutilation in only one sentence.

Large sections of the Protocol are devoted to the radical feminist transformation of African society and the destruction of traditional African cultures.

Essential to the implementation of this “new society” is the elimination of all differences in social roles between men and women, insofar as that is possible.

To achieve this goal, abortion-on-demand is necessary, and the Maputo Protocol aims to legalize abortion-on-demand on the entire continent.

The Protocol calls for abortion for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, and wants abortion allowed for the physical and mental health of the mother. The mental health exception is interpreted in the United States and other Western countries as allowing abortion-on- demand because an abortionist can always claim a woman would have suffered distress if he had not performed the abortion.

Catholic leaders, including the Pope, African cardinals, and African bishops, have repeatedly denounced the pro-abortion provisions of the Maputo Protocol, which are primarily present in Article 14, “Health and Reproductive Rights,” which calls for the legalization of what would be in effect abortion-on-demand in Africa.

As typically interpreted by international jurists and Western courts, the language of the Maputo Protocol would legalize any abortion for any woman at any point in pregnancy, even in the ninth month.

All effective restrictions on abortion would be abolished by the Protocol.

It also demands that African governments promote other policies that Catholics and others believe to be immoral.

Here is Article 14 in its entirety:

1. States Parties shall ensure that the right to health of women, including sexual and reproductive health, is respected and promoted.

This includes:

a) the right to control their fertility;
b) the right to decide whether to have children, the num-
ber of children and the spacing of children;
c) the right to choose any method of contraception;
d) the right to self-protection and to be protected against
sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS;
e) the right to be informed on one’s health status and on the
health status of one’s partner, particularly if affected with
sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, in
accordance with internationally recognized standards and
best practices;
f) the right to have family planning education.

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to:

a) provide adequate, affordable and accessible health ser-
vices, including information, education and communica-
tion programmes to women especially those in rural ar-
eas;
b) establish and strengthen existing pre-natal, delivery and
post-natal health and nutritional services for women dur-
ing pregnancy and while they are breast-feeding;
c) protect the reproductive rights of women by authoriz-
ing medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, in-
cest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the
mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the
mother or the foetus.

This article 14 is what the final message of the African Synod explicitly, by name, denounced.

(Here is a link to the text of the Maputo Protocol: http://www.maputoprotocol.org/mp_english.pdf)

The second passage in the Synod message which is striking for its righteous anger is Paragraph 33.

Here is that paragraph in its entirety:

“33. Humanity has a lot to gain, if it listens to the wise counsel of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in veritate. A new and just world order is not only possible but necessary for the good of all humanity. A change is called for with regard to the debts burden against poor nations, which literally kills children. Multinationals have to stop their criminal devastation of the environment in their greedy exploitation of natural resources. It is short-sighted policy to foment wars in order to make fast gains from chaos, at the cost of human lives and blood. Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?”

Here, in the last line, the African bishops speak of “crimes against humanity.”

This is strong language.

It usually refers to horrible acts, like genocide, like ethnic cleansing, like wholesale murder of innocent people.

Who is committing such terrible crimes in Africa?

The text says “multinationals” are at least remotely responsible.

Here is the sentence again: “Multinationals have to stop their criminal devastation of the environment in their greedy exploitation of natural resources.”

And it is followed by: “It is short-sighted policy to foment wars in order to make fast gains from chaos, at the cost of human lives and blood.”

The implication is clear: the African bishops are saying, in their final message, that they believe the multinational corporations are fomenting wars in Africa to “make fast gains from chaos.”

In short, they are saying that Africa’s tribal wars are not just “Africa’s savage tribes” fighting between each other, but Africans goaded and prodded into war by wealthy companies which need to break down all state order in order to function in an area where disorder prevails, allowing natural resources to be obtained without any accounting to local governments, which augments profits enormously.

And here is the anguished cry of the bishops, once again: “Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?”

Doesn’t this sentence seem rather odd?

To whom are the bishops directing this cry?

Are they addressing the cry to Africa’s leaders?

Are they addressing the cry to the people of the world?

Are they addressing the cry to the International Court at the Hague in the Netherlands?

To whom are they speaking? Are they crying out, perhaps, like King David, from the depths of their souls, to God Himself?

All the text says is: “Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?”

But this much seems clear: the Africans are supporting a more just “world order,” something which the Pope also called for in his recent encyclical, not because they want a “one world government” which might be a prelude to a type of “anti-Christian” rule (the rule of anti-Christ), but precisely because there is already a “world mis-government” which allows enormous injustices to be perpetrated with impunity.

This leads to another thought: those who would encourage simple, good Catholics, and others, to fear that the Pope is calling for a dangerous, anti-Christian “new world order” are being duped.

The Pope knows that there already is a dangerous “world government” (or “mis-government”) which is busily implementing things like the Maputo Protocol, and allowing the rape of Africa, and even encouraging it.

So, those who are fanning the passions of the simple against any calls for a government which could restrain these excesses, are playing the devil’s game.

The type of “world governance” the Pope was calling for is the same type these bishops are calling for: a reasonable government, with reasonable laws, able and willing to impede and prosecute these crimes against humanity.

Until such a government is formed, to reign in the excesses already occurring, “anti-Christian” forces will continue to have their day, and simple people will continue to suffer.

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There was much else in this final message. There was a spiritual core to the text.

“We are convinced that the first and most specific contribution of the Church to the people of Africa is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ,” the bishops said.

They also called attention to the “good things” in Africa: the strength of religious belief, the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and the growth in the number of Catholics in Africa.

And they did not simply blame foreign multinationals for Africa’s problem.

The suffering of Africa, the message said, is due largely to “a tragic complicity and criminal conspiracy of local leaders and foreign interests.”

Africa’s own leaders bear responsibility, the bishops said: “Whatever may be the responsibility of foreign interests, there is always the shameful and tragic collusion of the local leaders: politicians who betray and sell out their nations, dirty business people who collude with rapacious multinationals, African arms dealers and traffickers who thrive on small arms that cause great havoc on human lives.”

The international community has for years called on Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who was raised a Catholic and educated by Jesuits, to step down, saying he had brought his once-prosperous country to its knees.

Another African leader who was raised a Catholic and has been accused of corruption is Angola’s President Eduardo dos Santos.

Both men deny any wrongdoing.

Rights groups and international agencies have accused Angola’s government of siphoning away billions in oil revenue. Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer but about two thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day. It ranks 158th on Transparency International’s 180-nation list, in which the country perceived as most corrupt is in last place.

And then the bishops ask: “What has happened to our traditional African sense of shame?”

And so the Synod message challenges African leaders to set new models for responsible public service, and asks government officials who have been guilty of corruption to “repent, or quit the public arena and stop causing havoc.”

“Africa needs saints in high political office,” the message said.

The Synod message warned Africans against the influence of Western development experts who sometimes undermine the traditional moral standards of the culture. “We alert you to be on your guard against some virulent ideological poisons from abroad, claiming to be modern’ culture,” the message said.

More specifically, the Synod Fathers endorsed the stand taken by Pope Benedict that the spread of AIDS “cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics.”

The message also endorsed efforts to promote cooperation with Muslims. But the Synod challenged African states — implicitly the continent’s Islamic states — to be respectful of religious freedom.

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My sense, after attending the press conference and read the message is that, on the political level, the African bishops have not developed a coherent strategy.

There is no pan-African Christian or Catholic-inspired party to stop corruption, support traditional values, and heal a wounded Africa.

No structure, or party, or alliance, has been announced to block the evils denounced.

And without such a pragmatic step, the evils will continue. Ofifcials will be corrupted, one by one. Governments will be divided and rendered ineffective or counter-productive.

So what now needs to be done?

The bishops need to work with other Africans, and foreigners, of good will, to put in place concrete structures to implement the vision set forth in this final Synod message.

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The Synod of Bishops was established by Pope Paul Vl by Motu Proprio “Apostolica sollicitudo” of September 15, 1965.

Pope Paul Vl gave the definition of the Synod of Bishops at the Sunday Angelus of September 22, 1974: “It is an ecclesiastic institution, which, on interrogating the signs of the times and as well as trying to provide a deeper interpretation of divine designs and the constitution of the Catholic Church, we set up after Vatican Council II in order to foster the unity and cooperation of bishops around the world with the Holy See. It does this by means of a common study concerning the conditions of the Church and a joint solution on matters concerning Her mission. It is neither a Council nor a Parliament but a special type of Synod.”

What this means is that the deliberations of the Synod on Africa will now go to Pope Benedict — who was present at most of the sessions — and he will decide what kind of document to write based on what he has heard and seen.

In the Pope’s document, there could be specific proposals to deal with Africa’s problems, including, perhaps, the creation of continent-wide structures to help implement the vision of a prosperous and peaceful Afrrica set forth by the Synod Fathers.

Turkson is not just any cardinal.

He is the youngest African cardinal.

And, as the “Relator,” or General Secretary, of the Synod on Africa currently taking place in Rome, he is  unquestionably one of the “top” African cardinals (as he is often termed in the press).

Indeed, some have gone so far as to speculate that Turkson may become… the first African Pope. (See: http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=506)

At an October 5 press conference to open the Synod, Turkson was asked whether he thought the time was right for a black Pope, particularly following the election of President Barack Obama.

Turkson replied: “Why not?”

He argued that every man who agrees to be ordained a priest has to be willing to be a Pope.

He noted that, with Obama and the previous U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, there have been several blacks in positions of global leadership.

He said, “If God would wish to see a black man also as Pope, thanks be to God.”

And his words put him in the headlines around the world.

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“He is my brother”

It was a beautiful, warm October evening as I walked up the cobblestones, past the Synod Hall, for our 7:30 pm dinner appointment inside the Vatican.

Next to me was my friend, Jesus Colina, the founder of the Zenit news agency. About nine other journalists were walking with us.

We reached a Vatican security checkpoint inside Vatican City (there are several of these). The guards checked our names on a list they had received the day before, and we were free to continue toward Casa Santa Marta, but we stood for a moment, waiting for two more journalists who were late.

An African prelate walked by, dressed very simply. From his clothes, he could have been an ordinary monsignor. But something about his greying hair and the shape of his head…

Jesus nudged me as the man walked by.

“I think that’s him,” he said to me.

“Who?”

“Cardinal Turkson…”

I hadn’t seen him well because he had walked past the far side of our little group, and now all I could see was the back of his head.

“What?” I asked. “You think so?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Come one,” I said.

So, while the other journalists waited at the checkpoint, we hastened after the African cardinal.

“Your Eminence…” I called out, from about 20 feet behind him. He turned and looked at us both quizzically.

“Yes?”

“Are you… Cardinal Turkson?”

A moment of silence.

“He is my brother.”

And then he laughed and indicated that we should come up to him and walk along with him the rest of the way.

It was Turkson.

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Roman Rumors

The dinner in Casa Santa Marta, where many of the Synod cardinals are staying — and where the cardinals reside in the case of a papal conclave, going back and forth from here to the Sistine Chapel — was delightful.

I sat just next to him on his right.

Turkson, a scripture scholar by training, was friendly, frank, thoughtful, and he didn’t duck any questions — except one, which Robert Mickens of the London Tablet asked: whether he would accept a post in Rome, in the Curia, if the Pope were to offer one to him.

Why that question?

Because there are rumors here that the Pope may soon call Turkson to Rome to succeed the retiring Italian Cardinal Renato Martino, 77, as the head of the Council for Justice and Peace.

For this reason, at the end of the evening, some of the Italian journalists, as they said their farewells to the cardinal, smiled and winked and said, “See you again soon…”

The veteran Vatican journalist John Allen has given some insight into the situation.

“The hold-up is apparently due to Turkson himself, who’s made it known that he doesn’t want the job, preferring to focus on his pastoral obligations in Ghana. Nonetheless, it’s more or less taken for granted, both in Africa and in Vatican circles, that Turkson will wind up in Rome.” (Source: http://ncronline.org/news/people/ghanaian-cardinal-destined-be-ecclesiastical-star)

(Note: Some still believe the Pope may choose instead, as Martino’s replacement, the African Archbishop Robert Sarah, 64, of Guinea, who since 2001 has been the Secretary of Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the former Propaganda Fide.)

Turkson seemed reluctant to answer at first, and the question had to be repeated.

Then, prompted just a bit by an official of the Press Office, who attended the dinner, Turkson responded: “I would respond just as I  responded to the Pope’s request that I become a bishop, and then a cardinal: I would obey, and accept.”

Our conversation was wide-ranging.

We learned about Turkson’s family — his father was a Catholic, his mother a Methodist who became a Catholic after marriage. He is the fourth of 10 children, and he now has 30 nephews and nieces, the children of eight of his brothers and sisters (one brother died in a plane crash some years ago).

He said that one of his sisters has married a Methodist and become a Methodist — as if in compensation for his mother’s leaving Methodism when she married his father.

We learned about his African name.

“My name is Monday,” he told us. “Kodwo — that means ‘Monday’ in my native language. It is our tradition to name each child by the day of the week he or she is born on. I was born on a Monday, so that is my first name, Kodwo. Peter was added later…”

A journalist asked how this could be. With 10 children in the family, how could they all be named with the days of the week, since there are only seven days…?

“There are two Fridays in my family,” Turkson replied, laughing. “And three Sundays. I am the only Monday.”

We all laughed.

Turkson expressed some concern about the rapid increase of Islam in Africa, often by means of questionable methods.

“Sometimes a person will take out a loan, and the person will have difficult paying it back, and the loan will be forgiven on one condition — that the person converts to Islam,” Turkson said. “There is definitely a strategy to increase the Muslim population in Ghana, and throughout Africa.”

When a journalist asked him what was one change he would make in the Church, he said: “More attention to priestly formation.”

He said he has ordained about 35 priests in recent years from his diocese, and that he allows each priest to take a “sabbatical year” after finishing his studies, but before ordination.

“We don’t follow them everywhere,” he told us. “But we do observe their lives from a distance. If a man says he wishes to be a priest and then during that year he stops attending Sunday Mass, then we have a question about the depth of his vocation…”

I had the sense that Turkson has built up his diocesan clergy in such a way, under his close supervision, that it would be understandable if he were reluctant to leave his diocese — he has built up a clerical “team” which tight-knit and effective.

Speaking of teams, he told us that he is a great fan of Ghana’s national soccer team.

When I said that Nigeria also has an excellent soccer team, he turned toward me and fixed his eyes on mine and said: “Perhaps that is so, but Ghana beats them every time they meet!”

Turkson studied for several years in Rome, and he speaks perfect Italian (he spoke Italian during our dinner).

And, coming from Ghana, he of course speaks perfect English.

But he also speaks American — he studied for four years in Albany, New York.

Coming from an African country near the Equator where it never, ever snows, Turkson remembers especially the upstate New York winters.

“Albany, that’s the Hudson River Valley,” he said to me during dinner. “It funnels the air right down from Canada.” He pursed his lips slightly, as if to imitate a fierce winde blowing. “Cold!”

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

Tomorrow, Turkson will prepare the final “propositions” to put before the Synod for voting on Friday.

The Synod will then end on Saturday, and the approved propositions will go to the Pope for his evaluation and reflection.

The Pope will then prepare a pontifical document, taking into account everything the bishops have said during this Synod, and publish it in a few months.

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

Genetically Modified Seeds

One thing I did not ask Turkson about was the controversial question of genetically modified seeds.

I didn’t raise the issue because I wanted some other journalist to raise it, but no one did.

So I let it go, a bit reluctantly.

I had thought I might get a perspective on the issue from Turkson, the highest possible Synod source, but I let the opportunity slip away.

Why had I wanted an authoritative perspective?

Because of something that happened 10 days ago.

I haven’t written anything in these newsflashes about the Synod on Africa, now nearing its close (it ends in three days, on Saturday, October 24).

But 10 days ago, I did write one piece on the Synod for the Zenit news agency. It was published on October 12.

In my article, I discussed the issue of genetically modified seeds, and I noted that some African bishops had concerns about possible negative consequences of using these seeds.

I noted that these bishops thought it might be wise to hold off for a moment on using these new seeds, and instead focus all of Africa’s attention on infrastructure improvements, like better roads, more irrigation systems, and better food storage, as the essential priorities to help Africans feed themselves.

I wrote this after reading an excellent interview with an African bishop done by John Allen earlier this year.

Allen interviewed Cameroon’s Archbishop George Nkuo in May after Nkuo attended at a “study week” in Rome from May 15-19 held by the Pontifical Academy for Sciences (which generally seems to favor the new seeds) to look at the entire problem of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Nkuo was the only African bishop, and one of the few non-scientists, who took part. The interview was published May 20, 2009.

“Objectively, if this technology really makes a plant more productive, if it’s accessible to the poor, and there are no obvious dangers to health or the environment, then I think there’s nothing wrong with it,” Nkuo told Allen after the meeting.

But, he added that he did not know whether all this — higher productivity, accessibility to the poor, no side-effects — is really true.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “That’s my problem. I don’t understand how the science can be so confused. I thought there was supposed to be objective evidence, but the science seems to be in conflict. I think it’s amazing how divergent the opinions are. The pro-GMO people say these plants are environmentally friendly and pose no threats to health. The anti-GMO people say they are dangerous and there’s a problem of safety. What am I to believe?”

And so I wrote: “If a bishop who spent a week at a recent pro-GMO gathering in Rome still does not know what to believe, then it seems the prudent course is to withhold judgment until the facts are clear.”

My piece sparked outrage in some quarters.

Letters of protest were written to the Zenit editors.

And, two days after my piece was published, a second Zenit piece appeared, strongly critical of my piece and strongly in favor of using genetically modified seeds wihtout any delay.

It was authored by two pro-GMO scientists, one Italian, one Swiss.

The authors said many people are uncertain about GMOs because they have been frightened by “myths” in the media.

“One of the myths circulating for more than a decade on these seeds reappeared recently in Zenit in an article by Robert Moynihan,” they wrote. “The myth is that seeds of crops produced through modern biotechnology are sterile. This is simply not true.”

I had written that GMO seeds are problematic because the following season, the seeds are sterile, meaning that a farmer cannot simply set a part of his harvest aside to plant the following year, as has been customary for thousands of years, but has to buy more seed from the seed company, which then creates a financial problem for subsistence farmers.

I had based this on articles like one in the Ottawa Citizen on June 13, 2007: “Environmentalists are raising the alarm about the latest development in genetically modified foods — ‘zombie seeds’ programmed to be sterile until treated with a special chemical. These and other ’sexually dysfunctional’ seeds are being developed by the biotech industry as a solution to the problem of genetically modified plants contaminating conventional crops.” http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=2afe4e12-461a-4831-8bf4-aed842488bb7

But my critics wrote: “No GE [genetically engineered] crop on sale to date has been made sterile to prevent farmers from reusing the seeds.”

So I began to wonder what the truth was.

And that brings me to a second unexpected meeting that occurred this evening.

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

Where Peter Died

As our group of journalists left the Casa Santa Marta and walked back toward the security checkpoint, I walked with Colina.

For some reason, as we came near to the checkpoint, we noticed scaffolding and drapes against the side of St. Peter’s Basilica. It is being cleaned. A high scaffold covered the whole wall of the basilica in front of us, and next to it, a white expanse had just been cleaned.

“Right over there is where St. Peter was crucified,” Jesus said to me. “There is a marker with an inscription on the exact spot where he died.”

“Really?” I said. “I’ve been here all these years and I’ve never seen that…”

“Come on,” he said,

So we walked across the cobblestones toward a narrow archway that leads to the back of the basilica.

There, fixed in the ground, a square of white marble is set into the black cobblestones.

In the dark — it was almost 10 pm now — we couldn’t make out the inscription. Then we realized that we were looking at it upside down, and shifted our position so we could slowly decipher the words: “On this spot stood the Vatican obelisk until 1586.” (For more on the Vatican obelisk, see: http://everything2.com/title/the+Vatican+Obelisk)

“I think this is it,” Jesus said. “Though I thought there was a reference to Peter’s crucifixion.” He paused, puzzled. “Anyway, this is where the obelisk was, the one is now in the middle of St. Peter’s Square. It was here because Nero’s circus was here, and the circus is where Peter was crucified upside down. And that is why the tomb is just over there…”

He gestured toward the basilica a few feet away, looming massive and grey in the night.

As I meditated on this, a dark figure began to walk toward us from across the cobblestones, coming from the sentry box.

He wore a black clerical soutane and a black beret, pulled down a bit over his forehead so that it was difficult to see his face. He seemed to be bent forward slightly, and he seemed to be carrying something in his hand.

I could see it was a Vatican monsignor, but I didn’t know who it was.

He passed by us in silence.

I thought that I recognized him, but wasn’t sure.

Then Jesus said, “Eccellenza, buona sera. Sono Jesus Colina, di Zenit.”

The monsignor stopped.

“Ah!” he said, recognizing Jesus. “Buona sera.”

He paused for a moment. “You know,” he said, “there has been some concern in the Synod about this question of genetically modified seeds… and about what’s appearing in Zenit…”

I froze. What was he going to say?

Then I realized suddenly, with surprise, who this man was: Archbishop Nikola Eterovi?.

Eterovi? is… the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops.

That means he is the Vatican official in charge of all Synods. He is the one who prepares the Synods, who oversees them, and who follows up after they are over. The top guy.

“Many of the bishops and even some of the observers at the Synod have expressed grave reservations on this issue,” he continued. “Africa needs to improve its infrastructure before anything else. Almost one-third of the food that is harvested is lost due to lack of adequate refrigeration and storage facilities….”

I heaved a sigh of relief…

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

And then…

We spoke with Eterovi? for a few minutes, then took our leave.

As we walked out of the Vatican, I said to Jesus, “Well, that was amazing. I was with you, and we had dinner with Turkson, and even though there was so much controversy over my Zenit piece, it didn’t come up — so, pazienza. And then, we were walking out and suddenly went to look for the plaque marking the spot where Peter died, and then, just there, Eterovi? comes walking by, and without me saying anything, he starts telling us that these genetically modified seeds are a major concern of the Synod. I mean, you couldn’t script this!”

“True,” Jesus said. “And did you notice what he had in his hand?”

“No,” I said. “What?”

“A rosary. As he came up to us, he slipped it into his pocket. He was praying the Rosary when we stopped him…”

And so, despite everything that has happened, in the Church and in the world, in recent decades, inside the Vatican you can still sometimes meet a high-ranking prelate who goes about humbly and alone, praying his rosary.

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

“[I]t should not frighten you that in the Church the bad are many and the good few. [Terrere ...vos non debet quod in Ecclesia et multi mali et pauci sunt boni] For the Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a figure of this Church, was wide below and narrow above, and at the summit measured but one cubit (Genesis vi, 16)… It was wide where the beasts were, narrow where men lived: for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal minded, narrow in those who are spiritual. For where she suffers the morals and beastly ways of men, there she enlarges her bosom. But where she has the care of those whose lives are founded on spiritual things, these she leads to the higher place; but since they are few, this part is narrow. Wide indeed is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction; and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate that leadeth to life; and few there are that find it! —Saint Gregory the Great, Homilia XXXVII

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

“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” —Blaise Pascal (French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and writer, 1623-1662)

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

A Talk by Dr. Robert Moynihan on CD

“The Motu Proprio: Why Latin Mass? Why Now?”

In order to understand the motu proprio one must understand the history of the Mass. Dr. Moynihan gives a 2000 year history of the Mass in 60 minutes, which is clear and easy to understand. Dr. Moynihan’s explanation covers many questions, like:

-  How does the motu proprio overcome some of the confusion since Vatican II?
-  Is this the start of the Benedictine Reform?
-  The mind of Pope Benedict: How can the Church restore the sense of the presence of God in the Liturgy?

Click here to order

In these worlds, appearance, not substance, is what one strives for, what one embraces, what one treasures.

What counts is what seems to be, not what is.

The surface of things, not their profound depths…

And, in so far as these worlds have been held up as models for all of us, even when we are far from Hollywood, our entire modern society has been tempted by, and succumbed to, an infatuation with the seeming, with the superficial and ultimately false world of appearance.

This is against the perennial teaching of Chirstianity.

In the mystical tradition of Christianity, all appearance is to be distrusted, for even the devil can clothe himself as an "angel of light" so as to deceive, on occasion, even the elect, and one must hold fast the deep things of the faith, even when they are no olnger visible to the eyes — especially when they are no longer visible to the eyes…

And so we have two ways set before us: the way of appearance, and the way of flight from appearance in order to embrace the true and the real beneath the deceptive surface.

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

I had a meeting inside the Vatican the morning, and as I was walking across the Cortile San Damaso under a perfect October sky, the air cool and fresh, I noticed that a red carpet was being rolled out over the cobblestones.

It wasn’t for me.

"Who is coming to see the Pope?" I asked one of the Swiss Guards.

"The Prince of Monaco, and the Prime Minister of Ukraine," he told me. "But you’ve got time. They won’t be here for an hour or more."

I will have occasion soon to write about Yulia Vlaimirovna Timoshenko (photo ), the lovely and intelligent Prime Minister of Ukraine who made a fortune as a successful businesswoman in the gas industry before entering politics, and also more to say about  Ukraine and its relations with Europe and its larger neighbor, Russia.

But now I would like to say something about Princess Grace of Monaco, who died in a car crash in 1982.

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

The Prince of Monaco [was] in Rome [for the opening of a] major exhibition on the life of Princess Grace (entitled "The Grace Kelly Years, Princess of Monaco," the exhibit will be Rome from October 16th 2009 until February 28th 2010).

Princess Grace was born Grace Patrica Kelly on November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).

When she died on September 14, 1982, she was still just 52.

From simple origins, she became was one of the top 10 or 15 Hollywood actresses of all time.

In the 1950s, in her early 20s, she starred in such films as Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, High Society , and The Country Girl , for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Then, in 1956, she abruptly left Hollywood to marry Rainier III, the Prince of Monaco. She was 26.

She became Princess Grace of Monaco — the second smallest in the world after the Vatican itself.

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

Princess Grace’s life, then, was divided precisely into two periods: one half before her marriage at the age of 26, the other half from her marriage to her death at the age of 52.

During the first half of her life, she became a Hollywood "star," an icon of external feminine beauty.

During the second half of her life, she was a wife and mother. (She had three children: Caroline, Albert, and Stéphanie.

The trajectory of her life is, in a certain sense, a trajectory from the superficial toward the more profound.

(I am not canonizing Princess Grace; neither am I the devil’s advocate; I am simply reflecting on a general pattern in her life which seems to me to contain a positive meaning.)

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

In his eulogy at her funeral Mass, the American actor James Stewart said: “You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I’ll miss her, we’ll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace. ”

The traditional wisdom of the Church taught us to disdain and despise all that is superficial, shallow, false, and artificial, and to embrace and defend all that is profound, deep, true and genuine.

We should return to that wisdom.

Our lives would be richer were we to embark on this journey.

"What has happened since the Second Vatican Council can, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, be described as a cultural revolution, considering the false zeal with which the churches were emptied of their traditional furnishings, and the way that clergy and religious orders put on a new face. That ‘rashness’ is already regretted by many, the cardinal contends. There was, he believes, a ‘widening gulf’ between the Council Fathers, who wanted aggiornamento , updating, and ‘those who saw reform in terms of discarding ballast, a more diluted faith rather than a more radical one…’" —The London Tablet, April 19, 1997, reviewing the book Salt of the Earth, a book-length interview with German writer Peter Seewald (conducted when Ratzinger was in his late 60s)

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the Pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an Ecumenical Council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the Pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The Pope’s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith…" —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy , 2000 (published when Ratzinger was 73 years old)

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

Pope Benedict XVI has just made a dramatic choice, one which will certainly be numbered among the major decisions of his pontificate.

He has decided, in effect, to reopen formal debate on the Second Vatican Council and its teaching.

The new dialogue, which will take place in Rome between the leaders of the Fraternity of St. Pius X (the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ) and Vatican experts will take place on October 26 at the Vatican, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi , the Vatican spokesman, said today.

(Here is a link to a full report on the announcement: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0904605.htm .)

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

For the Pope’s critics, the decision is unwise, as it seems likely to open a large can of worms.

These critics have argued that the lid on this can should be kept tightly closed. In essence, they have advised the Pope not to "dignify" the Society’s objections to certain conciliar teachings — or to the interpretations of those teachings — by granting such a formal dialogue.

But Benedict has decided to let the dialogue begin.

For the Pope’s supporters, the decision is an occasion for praise.

Why?

Because the Pope, almost five years into his pontificate, has finally decided to face head on and "bring into the open" the doctrinal problems "smoldering" (to cite his own words of 45 years ago) just beneath the surface of Church life throughout the entire post-conciliar period (1965 to the present, or 44 years).

So, with this decision to engage in a dialogue about the Council, a very significant phase of Benedict’s pontificate begins.

Because this dialogue will inevitably come to grips, more than a generation after the close of the Council, with profoundly important doctrinal issues — issues which seriously divided the Council Fathers at the time of the Council, and which eventually, and tragically, led:

(1) to a formal schism in the Church between those whom we may call "traditionalists" and "progressives" (though the two terms are woefully inadequate) when in 1988 the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists) were excommunicated, and

(2) to widespread confusion among the Catholic faithful, to many exaggerated and erroneous interpretations of Christian and Catholic identity, and even to the formal or de facto abandonment of the Catholic faith by many.

With Benedict’s decision, the Second Vatican Council is, in a certain sense, as it were, being called in "for further questioning" — for an new examination and cross-examination, like a witness in a trial, to determine what the Council actually said, and intended.

And this means that theology, the strong point of this "theologian-Pope" (his career before he was consecrated a bishop was as a professor of theology in Germany), is about to take center stage in Benedict’s pontificate.

And the goal in all this will be to arrive at clarity and a common understanding of the faith which will allow the reunion of the Lefbevrists with Rome, and so end of the only formal schism since Vatican II.

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

But we will not be able to observe this crucial theological debate. It  will take place behind closed doors.

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

The Announcement

Here is the official Vatican communique on the matter:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2009

DECLARATION OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE
HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE, FR. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, S.I.

The first meeting of the foreseen discussions with the Fraternity of Saint Pius X will take place on Monday, October 26, in the morning.

Those who will participate [in the meeting] will be, from the part of the Commission Ecclesia Dei, other than the Secretary of said Commission, Mons. Guido Pozzo , the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, H.E. Archbisop Luis F. Ladaria Ferrer , S.I., and the already named experts: Fr. Charles Morerod , O.P., Secretary of the International Theological Commission, consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Rev. Mons. Fernando Ocáriz , Vicar General of Opus Dei, consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the Rev. Fr. Karl Josef Becker , S.I., consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

The meeting will take place at the Palace of the Holy Office. The contents of the conversations, which regard open doctrinal questions, will remain strictly reserved.

At the end of the meeting, a communiqué will be released.

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

The Response

And here is the response of the Fraternity:

COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X

Bishop Bernard Fellay has named as representatives of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X for the theological discussions with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta , director of the Seminary Nuestra Señora Corredentora de La Reja (Argentina), Father Benoît de Jorna , director of the Séminaire International Saint-Pie X of Ecône (Switzerland), Father Jean-Michel Gleize , professor of Ecclesiology at the seminary of Ecône, and Father Patrick de La Rocque , prior of the Priory of Saint Louis in Nantes (France).

Bishop de Galarreta had already been the president of the commission which was in charge of the preparation of these discussions withon the Fraternity, after the month of April 2009.

The works will start in the second half of the month of October and will require the discretion needed for a serene exchange on difficult doctrinal questions.

Menzingen, October 15, 2009

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

Some Additional Background

In a recent interview granted to a Society magazine in South Africa and picked up by Reuters, Bishop Fellay spelled out his view of the issues to be raised during the upcoming dialogue.

“The solution to the crisis is a return to the past,” Fellay said.

He said Pope Benedict agrees with the SSPX on the need to maintain the Church’s links to the past, but still wants to keep some reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

“This is one of the most sensitive problems,” he said. “We hope the discussions will allow us to dispel the grave ambiguities that have spread through the Catholic Church since (the Council), as John Paul II himself recognised.”

Here is a fuller report on the interview, with some interesting comments attached .

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

One Issue: The "Subsistit" Clause

(Note: I draw most of the following material, which I condense and edit here, from an article by Anthony Grafton published in The New Yorker, July 25, 2005 , which may be found here . The point Grafton focuses on below will certainly be among the points discussed in the upcoming dialogue .)

In May, 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger summoned the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff to Rome.

At the time, Ratzinger was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

When Boff arrived, Ratzinger questioned him on relations between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.

Boff replied by citing Chapter 1, No. 8 of Lumen Gentium ("Light of the Nations"), one of the key documents of Vatican II, which sets forth the Church’s understanding of her own nature.

Lumen Gentium in one well-known passage of considerable importance for ecumenical dialogue with Protestant Christians, teaches that the true Church "subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines ."

Boff — like many others before him and after him — interpreted this passage as teaching that the traditional teaching that the Catholic Church is the "one true Church" founded by Jesus Christ had been qualified by the Council and so, in effect, slightly altered.

Did those who drafted the document have this view? That is a vexed question.

For the first two years of the Council, the draft document stated simply and directly that the mystical body of Christ "is " the Catholic Church.

But in the fall of 1964 the word "subsists " ("subsistit" in Latin) was added, along with the passage about elements of truth being present outside the Church.

The official commentary explained that the change was meant to make the text "more harmonious with the affirmation of ecclesial elements which are elsewhere."

The Dominican theologian Yves Congar seemed to interpret the passage the same way Boff did: "Vatican II acknowledges, in sum, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the mystical body."

Yet Cardinal Ratzinger read this text in a different way.

To understand the chapter, he said, one must bear in mind a noun – substantia — closely related to subsistit , the verb that the Council Fathers had used.

Substantia , meaning "substance," refers to the essence of a thing (as in "transubstantiation").

According to Ratzinger, when the Council used the verb "subsists," it was stating that the true Church "both is, and can only be, fully present" in the Roman Church, with all its hierarchies.

After Boff returned to Brazil, the Congregation published a formal critique of his work stating that Boff had drawn from Lumen Gentium "a thesis which is exactly the contrary to the authentic meaning of the Council text."

Considering this incident, it seems clear that the upcoming dialogue of Vatican officials with the representaives of the Lefebvrists, occurring in almost exactly the same spot as Boff’s encounter with Ratzinger, may have considerable importance for the future of ecumenism, that is, of efforts to reunite all Christians in one visible Church.

But we should keep in mind that a clarification of the actual intent of the Council Fathers when they drew up and approved the documents of Vatican II cannot in any case do harm to ecumenical dialogue: clarification of the truth of the Church’s teaching must always be viewed as positive and freeing, and as helping to lead, in the long run, to authentic progrtess toward that Church unity desired and prayed for by Christ himself on the night before he died.

And that is why Benedict is allowing this dialogue: because he wants to clarify the true teaching of the Council, in the face of many erroneous claims, and after decades of real hope, yet hope marred by real confusion.

On October 16, this process of clarification will formally begin.

I met him and spoke with him for about half an hour.

Years ago, Milingo became known in Africa and Italy for his dramatic exorcisms (he performed them though he was never an official Church exorcist, he told me [Thursday].

He also conducted very emotional faith healing services (I attended one in Rome a decade or so ago; some 4,000 people were present, and there was much singing, some uncanny screaming, and dozens of people falling limply to the floor.)

In 2001, despite being a Catholic archbishop, Milingo, then 71, married a 43-year-old Korean woman named Maria Sung in a group marriage ceremony organized by Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, in New York City.

Milingo was summoned immediately to the Vatican.

Under protest, he agreed to separate from Maria Sung. She went on a public hunger strike.

Milingo then spent a year in a Capuchin monastery in Argentina in penitential prayer.

After that, there was relative silence for several years.

Milingo emerged publicly again in 2006 as an advocate of allowing Latin rite priests to marry.

On September 24, 2006, came a fateful act: he consecrated four married Catholic men as bishops without the approval of the Pope, and was excommunicated latae sententiae. (The Church does not recognize the consecrations as valid.)

Milingo then took back Maria Sung, and she now lives with him, he told me.

The trajectory of Milingo’s life seems to mirror the confusions of our age.

In 1969, when Milingo was only 39, Pope Paul VI consecrated him as the bishop of the archdiocese of Lusaka, capital of Zambia.

He was one of the first and youngest native African bishops, one of the bright hopes for the future of the Church in Africa.

By 1983, he was asked to step down because he was performing exorcisms and faith healings unapproved by Church authorities. He came to Rome — and continued to attract thousands to his faith-healing gatherings.

In 2001 came his marriage, and in 2006 the consecrations and consequent excommunication.

It has been estimated that, since the Second Vatican Council, some 110,000 Roman Catholic priests worldwide have left the priesthood and been married.

In October 2007, Milingo’s Vatican passport was revoked, ending his status as a person with diplomatic protection from the Vatican City State.

Milingo is still seemingly in good health, and still claims to be fully Catholic in his beliefs (”I celebrate Mass daily,” he told me), but he seemed a sad a lonely figure as I left him.

A young Korean man told me he was traveling with Milingo and that they were flying [Thursday] to Korea.

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

I also had an interesting meeting [Thursday] with one of the most learned Vatican officials I have known, Father Peter Gumpel, S.J. (He once told me that that is not his real name).

Gumpel, now 86,  has been for many years the head of the Vatican’s investigation into the life of Pope Pius XII in support of his cause of sainthood.

We had a long discussion about the Second World War, and the role of Pope Pius XII during that war, including a detailed discussion of Pius’ attitude toward Hitler.

Gumpel knew Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, personally.

In fact, he met him when he was just six years old, in 1929, when Pacelli was the Vatican Nuncio in Germany.

“Whenever other people came to the house, and saw me, they always said to my parents, in order to flatter them and make them feel good, ‘Oh what a beautiful child!’” Gumpel told me. “But I could look in the mirror, and I knew it wasn’t really true. Pius XII was different. There was no flattery from him. When he visited our house, just before he left Germany, he spoke with me directly, even though I was a little child, and asked me serious questions. I appreciated that difference in him very much. It struck me at the time, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

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

Letter from a Reader about the Liturgy

I just received this letter from a reader:

Dear Dr. Moynihan,

Given some of the past (and somewhat unfinished) newsflashes, I was wondering if you had seen this, from Fr. Anthony Chadwick (TAC priest in France) on his Civitas Dei web site http://pagesperso-orange.fr/civitas.dei/reflections10.09.htm, translating from a French traditionalist email group:

(Note: here follows the text from the web site; the incident occurred in about 1974.)

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

October 3rd — Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus (Roman calendar and a local Saint here in Normandy)…

Father Louis Bouyer (photo): I wrote to the Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, to tender my resignation as member of the Commission charged with the Liturgical Reform. The Holy Father sent for me at once (and the following conversation ensued):

Paul VI: Father, you are an unquestionable and unquestioned authority by your deep knowledge of the Church’s liturgy and Tradition, and a specialist in this field. I do not understand why you have sent me your resignation, whilst your presence, is more than precious, it is indispensable!

Father Bouyer: Most Holy Father, if I am a specialist in this field, I tell you very simply that I resign because I do not agree with the reforms you are imposing! Why do you take no notice of the remarks we send you, and why do you do the opposite?

Paul VI: But I don’t understand: I’m not imposing anything. I have never imposed anything in this field. I have complete trust in your competence and your propositions. It is you who are sending me proposals. When Fr. Bugnini comes to see me, he says: “Here is what the experts are asking for.” And as you are an expert in this matter, I accept your judgement.

Father Bouyer: And meanwhile, when we have studied a question, and have chosen what we can propose to you, in conscience, Father Bugnini took our text, and, then said to us that, having consulted you: “The Holy Father wants you to introduce these changes into the liturgy.” And since I don’t agree with your propositions, because they break with the Tradition of the Church, then I tender my resignation.

Paul VI: But not at all, Father, believe me, Father Bugnini tells me exactly the contrary: I have never refused a single one of your proposals. Father Bugnini came to find me and said: “The experts of the Commission charged with the Liturgical Reform asked for this and that”. And since I am not a liturgical specialist, I tell you again, I have always accepted your judgement. I never said that to Monsignor Bugnini. I was deceived. Father Bugnini deceived me and deceived you.

Father Bouyer: That is, my dear friends, how the liturgical reform was done!

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

(The letter to me then continues):

Of course, this plays into the I think unfinished story you were recounting about Cardinal Gagnon’s investigation, and the aftermath. I must add that I saw on another traditionalist list group a few years back the comment from Prof. Luc Perrin (Strasbourg) that he himself had a typescript copy of Fr. Bouyer’s memoirs, which could not then be published due to family opposition or something of the sort, but that they contained bombshells…

Keep up the good work and all the best,

Woody Jones

woodyjones@mac.com

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

Here is the original French version of this early 1970s conversation between Father Bouyer and Pope Paul VI, which the English translator, Father Anthony Chadwick, says he found here:

http://www.leforumcatholique.org/message.php?num=508624:

« J’ai écrit au Saint-Père, le Pape Paul VI, pour lui présenter ma démission de membre de la Commission chargée de la Réforme Liturgique. Le Saint-Père m’a convoqué immédiatement » :

Paul VI : - « Mon Père, vous êtes une autorité incontestable et incontestée par votre connaissance profonde de la liturgie et de la Tradition de l’Eglise, et un spécialiste en ce domaine. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi vous me présentez votre démission, alors que votre présence, est plus que précieuse, indispensable ! »

Père Bouyer : - « Voilà mes chers amis, comment s’est faite la réforme liturgique ! »

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

However, the original source seems to be the following: http://www.hermas.info/article-36681786.html.

This is a web site and article authored by Monsignor Jacques Masson (photo), a traditional Catholic French priest.

Monsignor Masson writes that Father Louiss Bouyer, a priest of the Oratory, was a consultor at the Second Vatican Council, and a prominent figure in the litrugical movement prior to the Council.

After the Council, however, Masson says, Bouyer “denounced violently” the “deviations” in the implementation of the Church’s liturgical reform.

Masson then says the seminarians of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X, studying at Econe in Switzerland, once had a long conversation with Father Bouyer.

During that conversation, Bouyer recounted how he gave Pope Paul VI his resignation from the commission charged with implementing the liturgical reform, Masson tells us.

That is the source of the account he has given here, he says.

Here are Masson’s words in the original French:

Le Père Louis Bouyer, de l’Oratoire

Il a participé au concile Vatican II comme consulteur. Personnalité marquante du Mouvement liturgique (Le Mystère pascal, 1945) et promoteur de la réforme, il en dénonce violemment les déviations et les malfaçons dans les dérives postconciliaires (La Décomposition du catholicisme, 1968 ; Religieux et clercs contre Dieu, 1975) : « Ils ont alors en pratique substitué à la liturgie de l’Église et à la tradition vivante avec laquelle ils voulaient renouer une pseudo-liturgie quasiment fabriquée de toutes pièces (…) ». II fustige la perte du sens des origines, du sens du sacré, et le mépris des clercs pour les fidèles : « Même ce qu’il y avait de bon dans la réforme liturgique a été appliqué d’une manière qui ne l’était nullement. ». «  Jamais on n’a imposé aux laïcs d’une manière aussi impertinente la religion des prêtres ou leur absence de religion… ».

Les séminaristes sortis d’Ecône, et les séminaristes qui ne sont pas entrés dans les séminaires en France, et moi-même, avons eu l’occasion de rencontrer le Père Bouyer, qui nous témoignait son affection, et son approbation pour la maintien de la liturgie tridentine.

Lors d’une longue conversation, il nous raconta comment et pourquoi il avait donné sa démission de membre de la Commission chargée de la réforme liturgique…

========================================
Evidence and Truth

Is this interesting conversation between Father Bouyer and Paul VI, which Father Bouyer related to the seminarians, really authentic?

Are Father Bouyer’s words accurately reported by Monsignor Masson?

In other words, did Paul VI actually say these words about Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, the principle author of the new Mass, to Father Bouyer?

Monsignor Masson says yes, that this is precisely what Father Bouyer told him and the other Econe seminarians.

But, of course, this is still second-hand evidence.

Still, it does at least suggest that it might be important to seek out Father Bouyer’s notes and diaries, if he left any.

Today, 40 and more years after the fact, it is not easy to know the truth about the events during the Council and shortly after, whether in regard to the liturgy, or in regard to other matters, and as time goes on, it seems likely to become ever more difficult.

But before more time passes, we will make an effort to speak to those who lived through those times, and record their testimony for posterity.

What is the Pope doing? He is thinking, and writing, about Jesus…

Computer Assistance

My flight back to Rome was a bit like a scene out of a spy film.

As I walked down the passageway toward the plane, I was still talking to my assistant on my cell phone (I still use a cell phone even though I think it is beginning to make my ear ache a bit).

A voice spoke into my ear.

"Do you want me to see if there may be any empty seats on your flight so you can possibly have a little more room?" my assistant asked me.

"How can you do that?" I said into the phone.

"I’ll look up the flight seating chart on my computer, if it hasn’t been blocked yet, so close to flight time," she replied. "What’s your flight number?"

"But the flight is about to leave," I said. "Isn’t it too late to make a change?"

"Not to make a change!" she said. "Just to see what’s empty…"

I told her the flight number. Moments later, as I stepped from the passageway onto the plane, she said, "I’ve got the whole seating plan right here on my computer screen."

"You do?"

"Yes. What’s your seat number?"

"My ticket says… 31G. On the far aisle…"

By now I was on the plane, pulling my bag with one hand and cupping the cell phone to my ear with the ther.

"Hmmm," she said into my ear. "No luck. All the seats in that row are filled. But here’s something… Rows 17 and 18 are completely empty!"

I was down to row 10 by then, easing my way between the seats. I looked ahead. She was right. Rows 17 and 18 were empty.

"What do you think?" I said. Now I was whispering into my phone.

"Well, they are marked on my screen as open," she said. "I’d try it. You might get to lie down and sleep on the flight."

I went by 17. I hesitated, then sat down in 18, in the center section, one seat in.

"Anyone else sitting down near you?" she asked in my ear.

"Not yet," I whispered.

A minute later the stewardesses closed and locked the airplane doors. The last passengers took their seats. The two seats to my left and one to my right remained empty.

"Wow," I whispered into the phone. "You won’t believe this: I’ve got a whole row!"

"My gift to you," she said. "We call that ‘a poor person’s First Class.’ Have a good trip. Get some rest. And when you get to Rome, write!"
============================

Broken Doors

On the train coming in from Fiumicino, I noticed that four of the train doors were broken. I had to walk through two cars to get off.

My first impression: that Italy seems to be letting its trains run down a bit.

The weather is cool and clear, brilliant sun, perfect sky.

Yesterday, the taxi driver told me, it rained heavily. That cleared the air, rinsed it, left it pure — typical for October, the best month of the year in Rome.

In October in Rome, the air aches with the end of summer and the onset of a winter quickly growing closer, but not yet here…

I was able to charge my Italian cell phone, call a couple of friends in the Vatican — I dialed 06-6982, and that brought me to the Vatican switchboard, and the nuns patched me through to each of the monsignors I asked for — and I was able to set up some interesting meetings for the next few days.

I then dropped by the offices of H20 News and spoke with my old friend, Jesus Colina, a Spaniard from Burgos, who has become one of the leading Vatican journalists in the world.

"The Pope will be spending the next few months finishing his second book on Jesus," Jesus said.

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

A Book to Meditate On

On the airplane, I had begun to re-read the Pope’s first book about Jesus, published two years ago, in 2007 (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration ).

It is a profound, powerful book, and it came to me that I should read it carefully, and comment on it in these newsflashes.

After all, the true "center" of the Holy See, the true "heart" of the Vatican, what is truly "inside the Vatican," beyond all the human failings, and even betrayals, is Jesus.

That is the essential.

So I plan to give you a close commentary on the Pope’s book on Jesus in coming weeks, so that all of us will be more prepared to read the second volume when it comes out in the spring.

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

A No-Holds-Barred Meeting

I then met with my staff, a group of excellent writers, photographers, and graphic designers with whom I have been privileged to be associated for almost 18 years now.

We went over the main questions we want to be studying and writing about in coming issues of the magazine:

1) the Synod on Africa, occurring in Rome now (including the much-discussed possibility that the next Pope could possibly be from Africa)

2) the negotiations between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists), expected to get underway here in Rome in the next few days;

3) the theological discussion between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics (60 theologians, 30 from each side) which will be held during the second half of October on the island of Cyprus (October 16-23);

4) the direction the Vatican’s bank may take under its new leadership

5) the future of Catholic-Jewish relations in the context of some recent tensions, and the announcement that the Pope will soon visit the Synagogue of Rome, as Pope John Paul II did in 1986

6) the continuation of the Pope’s liturgical reform, his effort to restore a sense of the sacred in Catholic liturgical life

7) the possibility, widely rumored now, that the Vatican is preparing to issue a warning to the faithful regarding the nearly 30 years of claimed apparitions of Our Lady at Medjugorge

the reasons for the apparent appreciation by some in Rome of US President Barack Obama’s November 2008 election, and recent Nobel Peace Prize award, despite the concern expressed by many American Catholics about policies Obama supports which are opposed to Church teaching

We discussed each of these matters at length, and others besides, and we often disagreed quite strongly on particular points.

But we are free to disagree. Our editorial team wishes to get at the truth of these matters. It is our tradition to state our positions as forcefully as we can, and to give the evidence supporting our positions, so that we may set our editorial course as reasonably and accurately as possible.

It was a tiring meeting. I left feeling drained, but happy.

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

A Prophecy

As I headed back across St. Peter’s Square, a voice called out to me in the October evening darkness.

"Bob!" it called. I turned.

In the gloom, I could barely see that it was Paul Badde and his wife, Ellen, old friends and colleagues from Germany. Paul held a rosary in his hand.

We spoke of many matters, beneath the Pope’s window, enfolded by the colonnade, while bishops and cardinals exiting from the Synod Hall passed by us in the Square.

"Make no mistake, Bob," Paul said, at the end. "We will have our Pope (he gestured toward the Pope’s brightly lit window above us ) for many more years. He will match Leo XIII. You’ll see."

Pope Leo reigned for 25 years, from 1878 to 1903. He lived until the age of 93, making him the oldest Pope, and his reign was the third longest of all Popes, behind Pius IX (almost 32 years) and John Paul II (almost 27 years).

If Benedict were to reign for 25 years, he would live to be 103 and reign until the year 2030. It he lives to be as old as Pope Leo, he will reign until he is 93, or another 11 years, until 2020.

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

A Humble Ambassador

Back on the via delle Fornaci, I entered Pina’s sandwich shop to have a salad, pizza and orange juice for my evening meal.

Pina (short for Giuseppina) works from 10 to 10 every day, and everyone in this area of the city, from journalists to cardinals (Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne is a regular customer), knows her well.

"Bob!" she said. "Look at this!"

She stretched her arm across the counter and handed me a glossy photograph.

"Hmmm," I said. "That’s the new American ambassador to the Vatican, Michael Diaz. He’s been here?"

"Yes!" she said eagerly. "And his family! See? Look at his four beautiful children! And his beautiful wife! See how lovely she is? Diaz. Yes, that’s his name. What a well-educated person. No special airs at all! So humble! He says he enjoys the simple sandwiches I make. So I asked if I could take this photograph."

Ambassador Diaz, you have made a very good impression on at least one Roman — Pina of the via delle Fornaci sandwich shop. A good start to your mission for sure.

Sometimes you can takes a wrong turn… and end up in the right place.

And this is one deep reason, perhaps, that we should not entrust our entire lives to Global Tracking Devices, and similar technologies, existing or under development, which aim to ensure that we always know where we are, and reach the exact place we set out to reach.

For it is in going off course, and even getting lost, that we sometimes encounter an unexpected destiny, which otherwise we might never have found at all.

When I was a boy, my father’s brother, whose name was the same as mine, would visit our home every so often. He wore the brown robe and white cord of the Franciscan friar, a follower of St. Francis of Assisi. He died almost 30 years ago, at the friary on 31st Street in New York City. And the memory of that robed friar, whose name I also bore, lodged in my mind and formed part of my identity. And so I always felt, as if by adoption, one of the sons of St. Francis, the “little poor man,” the “troubador of God.”

Yesterday, I visited the “fighting nun,” Sister Margherita Marchione (photo left), at her convent in Morristown, New Jersey. She described her life to me: entering her order, the Religious Teachers Filippini, at the age of 13, in 1935, and we discussed her commitment to revealing the historical truth about the life and work of Pope Pius XII. She has written 61 books. She is 87 and a half years old. And she has the spirit of a nun of 20.

And then I made my way to New York City, and I was surprised when I turned a corner in Yonkers, to find myself in… Assisi.

I had expected to stay with a family in Brooklyn. But an illness made that problematic, so, after a last-minute phone call, I found unexpected hospitality with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, also known as CFRs, a new order of Franciscans founded by several Capuchin friars in the late 1980s under the guidance of Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, which has since grown more than 1,000% and now numbers about 130 friars in about 16 houses in America, England, Ireland, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

One of the founders was Father Benedict Groeschel, who several years ago was in a car accident near the Orlando, Florida, airport, which left him, according to all external signs, clinically dead for 15 minutes. The doctors took off their gloves and were leaving the operating room as the vital signs flatlined, when Father John Lynch called out to them, “Don’t leave! You need to keep trying! I know he will survive!” The doctors returned reluctantly to the bedside. After 12 more minutes, Father Groeschel’s heart began to beat again. This year he is celebrating the 50th year of his priestly ordination.

This evening, the friars at St. Leopold’s Friary in Yonkers, New York, prayed their usual evening prayer in their small, wood-paneled chapel.

The prayer for Tuesday, September 15, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (photo of icon in the Friary chapel, left), was prayed by 12 friars, but it was shared by hundreds and thousands of others across this city, and this country. and this world.

Sometimes we forget how powerful prayer can be.

It is healing.

In a time when, in America, the sole topic of conversation is the president’s health care plan, it is astonishing how little mention is made of prayer.

Yet, in the silence of chapels and churches, of convents and monasteries, of college Newman centers and FOCUS gatherings, in homes and hospitals, a common evening prayer rises.

What is this prayer like? What is its purpose? What is its meaning?

This prayer is like a murmur, an appeal, a cry.

Its purpose is to “connect” this world, which presses upon us, and surrounds us, with another world, which is available to us only if we collect ourselves, and turn ourselves toward it — an eternal world.

Its meaning is to communicate the reality and life of that eternal world to the incomplete reality and life of this passing world.

At no time in history have our minds, all of our minds, been so over-run with slogans and images made by others and transmitted to us via technologies which can reach us almost everywhere at every time. These slogans and images distract, intrigue, fascinate, and enfold us.

A retreat to silence is a tactical decision in the battle for our souls.

And this is the spiritual wisdom of the Church.

Tonight’s prayer was called a “Prayer in Distress,” and it was drawn from Psalm 143 — a psalm of King David. I must emphasize this: the Christians who pray the Breviary pray most often the words of King David, imbibe the poetry of King David, are fascinated and enfolded by the passion for God of King David.

“Lord, listen to my prayer,” it began.

Half the friars prayed, while the others waited. “Turn your ear to my appeal. You are faithful, you are just; give answer.”

I was struck by how familiar David is with God — and how this familiarity is inherited by the friars, by all who pray this office.

“Do not call your servant to judgment,” they continued, “for no one is just in your sight.”

This is the characteristic sentiment of the prayer: humility.

One who prays this Breviary evening prayer cannot imagine he is perfectly “righteous.”

The other friars respond:

“The enemy pursues my soul.” Their voices are solemn, compelling. there is drama in their words. “He has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead, long forgotten. Therefore my spirit fails; my heart is numb within me,”

The words are David’s. The words are also those of Brother Tobias Joseph, age 30 (formerly Bryan Holtz, of Jacksonville, Florida, once a high school quarterback) and Father Jacob Marie, ordained on May 9, 2009, by New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan (formerly Kevin Hausman, of Cleveland, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida).
And, by the strange destiny which has brought me here tonight, the words are also mine.

“Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will for you, O Lord, are my God… For your name’s sake, Lord, save my life; in your justice save my soul from distress.”

Then comes the reading, from the First Letter of St. Peter: “Stay sober and alert. your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith.”

After the night prayer, the friars sing the “Salve Regina” and turned out all the lights in the chapel, leaving only one candle to illuminate the icon of Our Lady of Sorrows (photo, in front of the altar), and one light to shine on an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of this community.

The friars then pray the rosary — the sorrowful mysteries.

The repeated Hail Marys (which are scriptural, echoing the words of the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation) ripple like lake waves across the room, together with others in other rooms throughout the world. But the major networks are not reporting this, though millions are engaged tonight in this prayer.

The friars pray the closing prayer of the rosary, “Hail, Holy Queen.” The words that rang in my ear were at the end, where the prayer says, “Turn then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile…”

“After this our exile.”

If we think we are at home in this world, and not in exile, we are mistaken, at least in part. Yes, the Incarnation signifies that this creation has been embraced, and saved, by God. But we are in exile here, not at home.

“O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary… Pray for us that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”

And then, the final prayer, the “Memorare”: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided…”

After the prayers, Father Jacob told me had just been ordained.

He then reminded me that the first blessings of a priest, during the first year after his ordination, are graced with a plenary indulgence — the remission of the temporal punishment attached to sins one has committed and repented of.

He then prayed and blessed me.

He prayed that the words I write in these messages in the future bring deeper faith and greater hope to many.

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

And after this, the friars studied, and slept, and the writer wrote.

The central topic of his reflection was the medieval monk, St. Peter Damian (1007-1072) — born almost exactly 1,000 years ago. (The Pope has been using these Wednesday audiences to give a brief overview of the lives and teachings of the great saints of the Catholic tradition.)

I found the talk interesting. I learned from it.

But I was also perplexed by it.

Why?

Because the Pope left something out.

(Note: The reflection which follows will contain some citations from, and links to, St. Peter Damian’s works, having to do with sexual sins, so I urge those of my readers who may take offense at the description of certain sins to consider not reading further.)

In fact, the Pope did not even mention the one thing that I thought I knew well about St. Peter Damian: the uncompromising stand Damian took against a vice which Damian says “defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things,” and “brings death to the body and destruction to the soul.”

Which vice was that?

The vice of sodomy.

When I began to read the Pope’s remarks about St. Peter Damian, I said to myself, “I wonder what Benedict will say about Damian’s greatest concern?”

And I was puzzled when the Pope said nothing about it at all.

Here is what the Pope said today , as reported by the Zenit news agency.

If we read the Pope’s words carefully, we can see that he has been reading the works of St. Peter Damian.

He begins with a brief chronology of his birth and vocation, citing Jean Leclercq, the famous French medievalist.

He then cites Sermon 18, and then Letter 9 (in the Pope’s text, he cites it as “Ep. 9″; “Ep.” stands for “Epistle” or “Letter).

So we may imagine that Pope Benedict picked up and thumbed through a book of Damian’s sermons and letters, reading them one by one, looking for material to reflect upon.

This seems more plausible when we see that, after Sermon 18, the Pope cites Sermon 48, Epistles 18 and 28, Sermon 40, Sermon 8, and then Letter 28.

Based on these sources, the Pope tells us about St. Peter Damian’s thought: his fascination with the salvific mystery of the cross of Christ, his promotion of strict monasticism as the fullness of Christian living, his mystical understanding of Scripture, and his theological insights into the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, our union with Christ, and the Church as a communion.

The Pope does say that Peter Damian “consumed himself, with lucid consistency and great severity, for the reform of the Church of his time.”

But he does not mention Letter 3

The most famous of all of St. Peter Damian’s letters…

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

When I finished reading the Pope’s remarks, I wondered if perhaps I had misremembered. Was it Peter Damian, I asked myself, who was the saint who directed so much of his intellectual and spiritual energy against the sin of sodomy, or was it someone else?

So I did a Google search, I typed in: “Peter Damian, vice.”

And the first article that came up was this one: St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah: a Moral Blueprint for Our Times.

Like every saint before him, and every saint that will ever come after him, St. Peter Damian exhorts the cleric caught in the vice of sodomy (emphasis added ) to repent and … www.ourladyswarriors.org/articles/damian1.htm .

When I went to the site, this is what I read: ”Among St. Peter Damian’s most famous writings is his lengthy treatise, Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah (Liber Gomorrhianus ), containing the most extensive treatment and condemnation by any Church Father of clerical pederasty and homosexual practices…

“Upon a first reading of the Book of Gomorrah I think the average Catholic would find himself in a state of shock at the severity of Damian’s condemnation of clerical sodomical practices as well as the severe penalties that he asks Pope Leo IX to attach to such practices…

“Leaving nothing to misinterpretation, Damian distinguishes between the various forms of sodomy and the stages of sodomical corruption…

“Then comes the bitterest blast of all reserved for those bishops who ‘commit these absolutely damnable acts with their spiritual sons’…

“Damian denounces as one of ‘the devil’s clever devices’ concocted in ‘his ancient laboratory of evil,’ by which confirmed clerical sodomites, experiencing a pricking conscience, ‘confess to one another lest their guilt come to the attention of others’…

“Later, Damian returns to this same theme and exclaims: ‘For God’s sake, why do you damnable sodomites pursue the heights of ecclesiastical dignity with such fiery ambition?’

“According to Damian, the vice of sodomy ’surpasses the enormity of all others,’ because: ‘Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind… It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise..’

[Note: The sentences that follow are all St. Peter Damian's own words in Letter 31.]

“It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity… It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things…

“This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church… it separates the soul from God to associate it with demons.

“This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God. She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice…

“She humiliates her slave in the church and condemns him in court; she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire (emphasis added )… this unfortunate man (he) is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind’s vision is darkened.

“Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I say more?’”

The second article that came up in my search led me to this:

 Peter Damian, St

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

So I had not misrembered.

The single most well-known work written by St. Peter Damian was his Letter 31, to Pope Leo IX, in 1049, against clerical homosexuality.

In that letter, Peter Damian writes: “One is nauseated with shame and embarrassment to speak of things so disgracefully foul, or even to mention them within earshot of Your Holiness. But if a physician is appalled by the contagion of the plague, who is likely to wield the cautery? … The befouling cancer of sodomy is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ, that for many of them it would be more salutary to be burdened with service to the world than, under the pretext of religion, to be enslaved too easily under the iron rule of satanic tyranny.”

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

Why did Pope Benedict make no reference to this aspect of St. Peter Damian’s thought and action?

Had he entrusted the preparation of this talk to an assistant, and had the assistant decided to leave out this aspect of Damian’s thought, and had the Pope read the remarks without previewing them?

That didn’t seem likely.

Had Benedict prepared the remarks himself, and intentionally decided to present to the world a “new” St. Peter Damian?

Perhaps…

Or had Benedict decided to leave out these passages from Peter Damian because he foresaw that someone like myself would be perplexed by the omission, and would write a reflection like this one, focusing more attention on the matter precisely because of the omission?

I don’t know the answer.

All I know is that Letter 31 was omitted. 

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

 Before leaving St. Peter Damian, I thought it might be useful to all of us to read about what Damian had to say to a friend, the abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, Desiderius, in the year 1061 — about 950 years ago. It is his Letter 86.

 I choose this letter because it sheds light on our own time.

 Damian begins by telling Desiderius that he and his monks should be grateful that they are out of touch with the “craziness” of the “modern world” (for their world, almost 1,000 years ago, was “modern” to them).

“You who are not unaware of the crimes that occur in this mad age would be wise to consider that, having left the world, you should be deeply grateful to God for having rescued you,” Damian begins.

“Decency and right living have all but disappeared and, as vigorous Church discipline gradually collapses, a pestilential flood of vice and depravity of every kind grows deeper day by day…

“For just as the shepherd rescues an only sheep from the ravenous jaws of the attacking beast if it has sunk its teeth into one of the weaklings in the flock, so too has Christ rescued you from the mouth of the cruel plunderer who sought to have you serve him as the world was falling apart.”

 (Click here for the complete text of this letter.)

The world was “falling apart” in the time of St. Peter Damian and Abbot Desiderius, and it seems to many that it is “falling apart” today.

But the promises of Christ remain.

And hope in those promises is not in vain.

Addendum

 Here are a few teachings from Church Fathers on the matter of homosexuality:

Tertullian, the great apologist of the Church in the second century, writes: “All other frenzies of lusts which exceed the laws of nature and are impious toward both bodies and the sexes we banish… from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.” (Tertullian, De pudicitia , IV)

Saint Basil of Caesarea , the fourth century Church Father who wrote the principal rule of the monks of the East, establishes this: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship… with young people.” (St. Basil of Caesarea, in St. Peter Damien, Liber Gomorrhianus , cols. 174f.)

Saint Augustine is categorical in the combat against sodomy and similar vices. The great Bishop of Hippo writes: “Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed.” (Rom. 1:26). (St. Augustine, Confessions , Book III, chap.

Saint John Chrysostom writes: “All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men… There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.” (St. John Chrysostom, In Epistulam ad Romanos IV)

Saint Peter Damian ’s Liber Gomorrhianus [Book of Gomorrah], addressed to Pope Leo IX, is considered the principal work against homosexuality. It reads: “Just as Saint Basil establishes that those who incur sins [against nature] … should be subjected not only to a hard penance but a public one, and Pope Siricius prohibits penitents from entering clerical orders, one can clearly deduce that he who corrupts himself with a man through the ignominious squalor of a filthy union does not deserve to exercise ecclesiastical functions, since those who were formerly given to vices … become unfit to administer the Sacraments.” (St. Peter Damian, Liber Gomorrhianus, cols. 174f)

Saint Thomas Aquinas , writing about sins against nature, explains: “However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas Sancti Pauli Ad Romanum I, 26, pp. 27f)

Saint Bernardine of Siena , a preacher of the fifteenth century, writes: “No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God….. Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything.  Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche volgari (Milan: Rizzoli, 1936), pp. 869f).