Italy Shocked, Mobilized After Pope’s Speech is Cancelled

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January 18th, 2008
CE Webmaster

Dear Mrs. Kochan,

This small news item appeared yesterday on Catholic Exchange:

"'Pope Cancels Trip in Rome Over Security' –Source: Telegraph"

I don't know what further coverage it was given in America but it caused an explosive situation here in Italy like nothing I've ever seen before. And I write because I do believe that it is very important for Catholics around the world to know what is happening in Rome–but I especially care that my fellow Americans know!

It was a great blow for all Italians, Catholic and non-Catholic alike that Pope Benedict was forced to cancel his talk at the Roman university, La Sapienza. So, Cardinal Ruini has called all the faithful to fill St. Peter's square for the Angelus on Sunday (12:00pm Italy time) and it seems that all of Italy is mobilizing so as to partecipate one way or another in this call for a show of love and support for the Pope.

Without a doubt, the call to fill St. Peter's square is also meant to be a crushing sign for the many priests and bishops in Italy who have been openly defying the Pope since–well, I was about to say since the motu proprio and then I thought, no, since the speech at Regensburg, but it's even before that–it's been ever since he became Pope. I certainly wish to underline that this is not an issue which concerns only the faithful in Italy (goodness no! and it becomes clearer and clearer to me that whatever happens in Italy is always pertinent to the universal Church and to faithful across the globe).

I invite everyone who can to tune in–I don't know if EWTN or other US Catholic networks have a habit of presenting the Sunday Angelus from Rome. I hope so! But if they don't I would invite them to be there for this Angelus. It has already been announced that even many well known atheists will come in support of the Pope. One of them, the newspaper editor, Vittorio Feltri, declared today that he would suspend his atheism for a day, however much it might cost him, and go to St. Peter's with his Baptismal certificate in hand–to show that though he professes atheism, the Baptismal certificate still means everything to him.

Much of the government will be present. Various regional government heads have already announced that they will be there–and I have a feeling that Ruini's call went well beyond the borders of Italy and that people will be coming from other countries as well.

I hope American Catholics will be able to tune-in to what promises to be a magnificent family get-together in support of our much loved Father!

Best wishes,

Mrs. Catherine Zeppa Di Matteo

_____________________

Dear Mrs. Di Matteo

Thank you so very much for your email giving us an at-the-scene understanding of what the situation in Rome is like. Coverage here has been scant due to focus on our election primaries, so your news is very welcome and I will be sure to share this with our readers.

Blessings,

Mary Kochan, Senior Editor, Catholic Exchange

Comments

Guest

Any time you are in St Peter's Square is a blessing. The spirit of love and communion toward the pope overwhelms the faithful, uniting them in a wave of brotherhood and communion.

I can only imagine the power of Sunday's Angelus. The Holy Spirit certainly works in mysterious ways!

Praise God!

Thanks for running the letter, Mary.
Guest

Thank you Mrs. Di Matteo – I'll use my extensive email list to send your article around the globe – AndyP/Doria2
Guest

Thank you Catherine and Mary for keeping this news a couple of days longer. As horrible as it is, it needs to sink into our heads how much animosity there is towards Christ and his Church everywhere in the world. We Christians know that the freedom to sin is no freedom at all but the democratic world thinks the opposite.

The following statement of the article says it all about the convoluted a twisted logic that free thinkers subscribe to: "Vittorio Feltri, declared today that he would suspend his atheism for a day, however much it might cost him, and go to St. Peter's with his Baptismal certificate in hand–to show that though he professes atheism, the Baptismal certificate still means everything to him."

Hypocrites! You will disintegrate with that piece of paper, and then what???
Guest

The news coverage in America is pitiful.

Unless the pope was blown up or tripped over Britney Spears, the DriveByMedia didn't even acknowledge it.

Madeline
Guest

Goral! That's grace — don't you see ?
Guest

We say the Angelus every day in our home. We will unite our prayers withour Dear Holy Father's prayers.

Madeline
Guest

Mkochan, I don't see. What kind of grace is it that sits in a drawer but does not translate into living grace? If a one day suspension of denial is the best this grace can do then it is to be pitied. Europe is chock-full of this kind of grace. A faithless tradition gives them some semblance of comfort.

If by that you mean that there is a spark still there then I'll go along with it reluctantly. Didn't the Pharisees have the same spark?
Guest

Goral:

Maybe it is the kind of grace that goes by the name of nostalgia/but "I'm not willing to pay the price of discipleship".

This scenario makes me think of divorced couples spending Christmas dinner together "for the sake of the kids" and then going back to their respective lovers.

God works in mysterious ways, however. Perhaps this event will rejuvenate the passion of some Italians for the Pope and Mother Church. Sometimes you only realize the splendor of a sunset as it fades. This could be a sunrise…… One can only hope, for the specter of Italy as a mothballed museum reminds me of Jesus' words to the women of Jerusalem, "Don't weep over me, weep for yourselves."
Guest

I don't know that what some of you expect is rationale. In most cases that I have seen conversion is a slow ongoing challenging process. All journeys begin with a simple first step. We stumble many times and it is rarely that I witness a complete conversion that occurs in an instant. We should be praying for all the atheists that will be attending, indeed the Holy Spirit has already moved them on this journey. They may not fit your standard of perfection but it is not up to us to judge their hearts. I for one will be supporting them with my prayers and hoping that the Holy Spirit will deliver some words of inspiration through the pope that will eventually bring them into full union with the Church. We have a wonderful opportunity to help some people along by our prayers and witness and instead we pass judgment because we don't trust their motives? Let's leave the reading of their hearts to God who alone is capable of knowing them and judging them. I will just be hoping that someday they will be joining us along our journey to eventually see God face to face.

God Bless,

Rygel XVI
Guest

It is said that 90% of life is just showing up. By his mere presence the soldier who pierced Christ's side was healed and converted. There certainly will be ample Grace at this coming event to change the lives of many non-believers. Perhaps this will be Vittorio's day of victory over the demon in his life.

My disgust is not with him or other sinners like me but with the overall landscape in once Christian Europe which has a Baptismal certificate in safe keeping while living as a practical atheist.

Fr. Euteneuer makes this statement in todays pro-life article: "They are worse than false prophets; they are frauds who perpetuate the notion that we can adopt the values of the devil while still serving God. Vote pro-life, not pro-some-life."

We can apply this statement to Western Europe which is entering the dark ages. All the while the non-judgementalism of the interested and the disinterested is paving their way.

Spare me the threadbare charity which says that I need to read a statement like "though he professes atheism, the Baptismal certificate still means everything to him." and not see the insanity in it.

The Holy Spirit will act regardless of my interpretation but my interpretation is still sound.
Guest

I wish to say how grateful I am that this article has and will inspire so much prayer and I am delighted that Vittorio Feltri will receive many prayers as well. In fact I feel rather obliged to come to his aid since I'm the one who got him in to this mess (so to speak), although he would certainly enjoy defending his unalienable right to be a baptised atheist. Anyway, I wish to say this, that his newspaper, "Libero", together with the other newspaper, "il Foglio", mentioned by Marcello Pera in the interview, which is run by another "atheist", Giuliano Ferrara (I write "atheist" with quotation marks because I feel I can say on their behalf that neither of them are atheists by choice, which is to say, that if they had the gift of faith, they would renounce atheism), these two newspapers have done much in support of the Pope and of the Christian values promoted by the Church and it is thanks largely to them that the Pope has been far more accessible to the public at large–believers and non-believers alike. And to think that Giuliano Ferrara used to be a card-carrying member of the Communist party! And just recently he did something extraordinary and it seems to have accomplished no small miracle: he fasted from Christmas day to January 1st and invited others to join him; he did this so as (to begin) to vanquish the monstrous abortion/euthanasia/embryos-for-research mentality which has held Europe in it's grip for so many years. And something very surprising seems to be happening, but that's another story–and anyway, the effects will be seen only over the course of some months.

Now, as I was writing this, a friend brought me the morning paper, "il Giornale" –it is a secular paper (maybe this is something incomprehensible to us Americans, this difference between secularism and religiosity, and what it means with regard to the press since we do things quite differently in the States). Anyway, this is another paper which gives quite a lot of space to the Pope and it even has a tiny "Saint of the Day" column (instead of horoscopes!). And so as I usually do I went straight to the Saint of the Day–well, after looking at the pages and pages of photos and articles on what is about to happen here in half an hour's time in St. Peter's square. And low and behold, the "Saint" of the Day is a big surprise, and this translation is for Goral!:

"Our Lady of Rome"

On January 20th, 1842 the Virgin appeared to Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne and it was an event that created a big sensation. The person in question was a lawyer from Strasbourg, son of a well-known Jewish banker. He was engaged to a woman of the same religion as he, but personally he believed in nothing. His brother Theodore instead had become a Catholic priest who prayed, together with a group of friends, for the conversion of Alphonse: that day (20 Jan.) they had convinced him to keep a Miraculous Medal in his pocket on a dare, and he went along with the game. He was waiting in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte for a Baron, an acquaintance of his, when in the church it grew dark save for a side altar. Upon that altar he saw the Blessed Virgin appear as She is seen on the Miraculous Medal. He fell upon his knees and could not raise his head. Afterwards he was not able to say for how long he had remained thus. When he came out of the church, he was fully converted to Catholicism. It is said that he had been given to understand in a flash all the truths of the Christian religion. Ten days later he was baptised in the same church, and before the year was out he entered the Jesuit Order, where in 1848 he was ordained a priest. [...] .

Rino Cammilleri"

best wishes to you all and now we shall soon be united by the Angelus and by the Father we all have in common! (to say nothing of our good Lord and Father in heaven, but He knows I mean him too!)

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