“The Holy Feast of Christmas is almost upon us”—Pope Benedict XVI this morning in Rome

Message to the Roman Curia

This morning in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI delivered his annual Christmas address to the members of Roman Curia, his closest collaborators. Each year, he takes this occasion to reflect on the chief events of the past year.

The most important line in the address (reprinted below) is this: “The essence of the crisis of the Church in Europe – as I argued in Freiburg – is the crisis of faith.” (The Pope spoke in Freiburg during his visit to Germany in September.)

The Pope says this crisis is evident: “Not only faithful believers but also outside observers are noticing with concern that regular churchgoers are growing older all the time and that their number is constantly diminishing; that recruitment of priests is stagnating; that scepticism and unbelief are growing. What, then, are we to do?”

The Pope’s central message, his prescription, for Europe and the world, is to return to the faith.

Benedict uses the term “faith fatigue” to refer to the present crisis of the faith. He says: “If faith does not take on new life, deep conviction and real strength from the encounter with Jesus Christ, then all other reforms will remain ineffective.”

He then notes that on his trip to Africa in November,  and also at World Youth Day in Madrid in August, there was considerable evidence of vibrant faith, of “joyful passion for faith.”

Concerning Africa: “None of the faith fatigue that is so prevalent here, none of the oft-encountered sense of having had enough of Christianity, was detectable there. Amid all the problems, sufferings and trials that Africa clearly experiences, one could still sense the people’s joy in being Christian, buoyed up by inner happiness at knowing Christ and belonging to his Church.”

Concerning World Youth Day: the young people attending were filled with a genuine love of doing good, a genuine love of Christ, and this gave him great hope, he said.

“They were not looking round for themselves”

“And here something fundamental became clear to me,” Benedict continued. “These young people (thousands of youth volunteers in Madrid) had given a part of their lives in faith, not because it was asked of them, not in order to attain Heaven, nor in order to escape the danger of Hell. They did not do it in order to find fulfilment. They were not looking round for themselves.

“There came into my mind the image of Lot’s wife, who by looking round was turned into a pillar of salt. How often the life of Christians is determined by the fact that first and foremost they look out for themselves, they do good, so to speak, for themselves. And how great is the temptation of all people to be concerned primarily for themselves; to look round for themselves and in the process to become inwardly empty, to become ‘pillars of salt.’

“Simply because it is a wonderful thing to do”

“But here it was not a matter of seeking fulfilment or wanting to live one’s life for oneself,” Benedict continued. “These young people did good, even at a cost, even if it demanded sacrifice, simply because it is a wonderful thing to do good, to be there for others. All it needs is the courage to make the leap.”

The “leap” is sparked by an encounter with Christ, Benedict said. In essence, he is saying that meeting Christ, learning about Christ, spending time alone in prayer with Christ, sets hearts on fire.

“Prior to all of this (the work the young people committed themselves to carry out) is the encounter with Jesus Christ, inflaming us with love for God and for others, and freeing us from seeking our own ego. In the words of a prayer attributed to Saint Francis Xavier: ‘I do good, not that I may come to Heaven thereby and not because otherwise you could cast me into Hell. I do it because of you, my King and my Lord.’”

“Adoration of primarily an act of faith”

The Pope then reflected on two particular moments from the summer: the time of eucharistic adoration and the reception by thousands of the sacrament of confession during the week-long World Youth Day gathering in Spain.

His remarks included a strikingly concise summary of the entire meaning of “theology,” that is, the science of God, or the knowledge of God.

God, he said, is in his essential nature a being to be adored, to be worshiped.

“Adoration is primarily an act of faith – the act of faith as such,” the Pope said. “God is not just some possible or impossible hypothesis concerning the origin of all things. He is present. And if he is present, then I bow down before him. Then my intellect and will and heart open up towards him and from him.”

And Benedict went on, referring to confession, in a reflection on sin, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, the Pope uses the word “my” when he says “my soul is tarnished” by the pull toward sin present in all men, known as original sin. Benedict is emphasizing his own participation in the human contion, in fallen human nature.

“Openness to love is present in man, implanted in him by the Creator, together with the capacity to respond to God in faith,” Benedict said. “But also present, in consequence of man’s sinful history (Church teaching speaks of original sin) is the tendency that is opposed to love – the tendency towards selfishness, towards becoming closed in on oneself, in fact towards evil. Again and again my soul is tarnished by this downward gravitational pull that is present within me. Therefore we need the humility that constantly asks God for forgiveness, that seeks purification and awakens in us the counterforce, the positive force of the Creator, to draw us upwards.”

Toward the end of his address, the Pope spoke about the widespread joyfulness that he observed at World Youth Day, and reflected on the deep source of this joy. That source, he told the Curia, was faith: faith in God’s existence, faith in God’s love for us. And he cites the great German theologian, Joseph Pieper, whose works Benedict has recommended on numerous occasions.

“Certainly, there are many factors at work here,” the Pope said. “But in my view, the crucial one is this certainty, based on faith: I am wanted; I have a task; I am accepted, I am loved. Joseph Pieper, in his book on love, has shown that man can only accept himself if he is accepted by another. He needs the other’s presence, saying to him, with more than words: ‘It is good that you exist.’ Only from the You can the I come into itself. Only if it is accepted, can it accept itself.

“Those who are unloved cannot even love themselves,” Benedict continued. “This sense of being accepted comes in the first instance from other human beings.”

And then Benedict added a passage which shows his particular depth, something characteristic of his thought: he compared the partial and changeable love of human beings with the total and unchangeable love of God.

“But all human acceptance is fragile,” he said. “Ultimately we need a sense of being accepted unconditionally. Only if God accepts me, and I become convinced of this, do I know definitively: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being.

“If ever man’s sense of being accepted and loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question whether to be a human being is good at all,” the Pope said. “Doubt concerning human existence becomes more and more insurmountable. Where doubt over God becomes prevalent, then doubt over humanity follows inevitably.

“We see how widely this doubt is spreading”

“We see today how widely this doubt is spreading,” the Pope continued. “We see it in the joylessness, in the inner sadness, that can be read on so many human faces today. Only faith gives me the conviction: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being, even in hard times. Faith makes one happy from deep within.”

The last line bears repeating: “Faith makes one happy from deep within.”

And so, in essence, the Pope’s address to the Curia is a call for the renewal of faith, particularly in the West, where it has seemingly grown cold, or “fatigued,” so that, through this renewal, human life can be more authentic, more joyful, more filled with love, more filled with meaning, not meaningless, not empty, not sad.

The Pope then quickly ended his talk. His last words were: “I wish all of you the joy that God wanted to bestow upon us through the incarnation of his Son. A blessed Christmas to you all!”

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Full text of the Popes’ address today

The Pope’s Address to the Roman Curia

By POPE BENEDICT XVI

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Dear Cardinals, Brother Bishops and Priests, dear Brothers and Sisters,

The occasion that brings us together today is always particularly moving. The holy feast of Christmas is almost upon us and it prompts the great family of the Roman Curia to come together for a gracious exchange of greetings, as we wish one another a joyful and spiritually fruitful celebration of this feast of the God who became flesh and established his dwelling in our midst (cf. Jn 1:14).

For me, this is an occasion not only to offer you my personal good wishes, but also to express my gratitude and that of the Church to each one of you for your generous service; I ask you to convey this to all the co-workers of our extended family.

I offer particular thanks to the Dean of the College, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who has given voice to the sentiments of all present and of all who work in the various offices of the Curia and the Governorate, including those whose apostolate is carried out in the Pontifical Representations throughout the world. All of us are committed to spreading throughout the world the resounding message that the angels proclaimed that night in Bethlehem, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will” (Lk 2:14), so as to bring joy and hope to our world.

As this year draws to a close, Europe is undergoing an economic and financial crisis, which is ultimately based on the ethical crisis looming over the Old Continent. Even if such values as solidarity, commitment to one’s neighbour and responsibility towards the poor and suffering are largely uncontroversial, still the motivation is often lacking for individuals and large sectors of society to practise renunciation and make sacrifices. Perception and will do not necessarily go hand in hand. In defending personal interests, the will obscures perception, and perception thus weakened is unable to stiffen the will. In this sense, some quite fundamental questions emerge from this crisis: where is the light that is capable of illuminating our perception not merely with general ideas, but with concrete imperatives? Where is the force that draws the will upwards? These are questions that must be answered by our proclamation of the Gospel, by the new evangelization, so that message may become event, so that proclamation may lead to life.

The key theme of this year, and of the years ahead, is this: how do we proclaim the Gospel today? How can faith as a living force become a reality today? The ecclesial events of the outgoing year were all ultimately related to this theme. There were the journeys to Croatia, to the World Youth Day in Spain, to my home country of Germany, and finally to Africa – Benin – for the consignment of the Post-Synodal document on justice, peace and reconciliation, which should now lead to concrete results in the various local churches. Equally memorable were the journeys to Venice, to San Marino, to the Eucharistic Congress in Ancona, and to Calabria. And finally there was the important day of encounter in Assisi for religions and for people who in whatever way are searching for truth and peace, representing a new step forward in the pilgrimage towards truth and peace. The establishment of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization is at the same time a pointer towards next year’s Synod on the same theme. The Year of Faith, commemorating the beginning of the Council fifty years ago, also belongs in this context. Each of these events had its own particular characteristics. In Germany, where the Reformation began, the ecumenical question, with all its trials and hopes, naturally assumed particular importance. Intimately linked to this, at the focal point of the debate, the question that arises repeatedly is this: what is reform of the Church? How does it take place? What are its paths and its goals? Not only faithful believers but also outside observers are noticing with concern that regular churchgoers are growing older all the time and that their number is constantly diminishing; that recruitment of priests is stagnating; that scepticism and unbelief are growing. What, then, are we to do? There are endless debates over what must be done in order to reverse the trend. There is no doubt that a variety of things need to be done. But action alone fails to resolve the matter. The essence of the crisis of the Church in Europe – as I argued in Freiburg – is the crisis of faith. If we find no answer to this, if faith does not take on new life, deep conviction and real strength from the encounter with Jesus Christ, then all other reforms will remain ineffective.

On this point, the encounter with Africa’s joyful passion for faith brought great encouragement. None of the faith fatigue that is so prevalent here, none of the oft-encountered sense of having had enough of Christianity was detectable there. Amid all the problems, sufferings and trials that Africa clearly experiences, one could still sense the people’s joy in being Christian, buoyed up by inner happiness at knowing Christ and belonging to his Church. From this joy comes also the strength to serve Christ in hard-pressed situations of human suffering, the strength to put oneself at his disposal, without looking round for one’s own advantage. Encountering this faith that is so ready to sacrifice and so full of happiness is a powerful remedy against fatigue with Christianity such as we are experiencing in Europe today.

A further remedy against faith fatigue was the wonderful experience of World Youth Day in Madrid. This was new evangelization put into practice. Again and again at World Youth Days, a new, more youthful form of Christianity can be seen, something I would describe under five headings.

Firstly, there is a new experience of catholicity, of the Church’s universality. This is what struck the young people and all the participants quite directly: we come from every continent, but although we have never met one another, we know one another. We speak different languages, we have different ways of life and different cultural backgrounds, yet we are immediately united as one great family. Outward separation and difference is relativized. We are all moved by the one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom true humanity and at the same time the face of God himself is revealed to us. We pray in the same way. The same inner encounter with Jesus Christ has stamped us deep within with the same structure of intellect, will and heart. And finally, our common liturgy speaks to our hearts and unites us in a vast family. In this setting, to say that all humanity are brothers and sisters is not merely an idea: it becomes a real shared experience, generating joy. And so we have also understood quite concretely: despite all trials and times of darkness, it is a wonderful thing to belong to the worldwide Church that the Lord has given to us.

From this derives a new way of living our humanity, our Christianity. For me, one of the most important experiences of those days was the meeting with the World Youth Day volunteers: about 20,000 young people, all of whom devoted weeks or months of their lives to working on the technical, organizational and material preparations for World Youth Day, and who thus made it possible for the whole event to run smoothly. Those who give their time always give a part of their lives. At the end of the day, these young people were visibly and tangibly filled with a great sense of happiness: their time had meaning; in giving of their time and labour, they had found time, they had found life. And here something fundamental became clear to me: these young people had given a part of their lives in faith, not because it was asked of them, not in order to attain Heaven, nor in order to escape the danger of Hell. They did not do it in order to find fulfilment. They were not looking round for themselves. There came into my mind the image of Lot’s wife, who by looking round was turned into a pillar of salt. How often the life of Christians is determined by the fact that first and foremost they look out for themselves, they do good, so to speak, for themselves. And how great is the temptation of all people to be concerned primarily for themselves; to look round for themselves and in the process to become inwardly empty, to become “pillars of salt”. But here it was not a matter of seeking fulfilment or wanting to live one’s life for oneself. These young people did good, even at a cost, even if it demanded sacrifice, simply because it is a wonderful thing to do good, to be there for others. All it needs is the courage to make the leap. Prior to all of this is the encounter with Jesus Christ, inflaming us with love for God and for others, and freeing us from seeking our own ego. In the words of a prayer attributed to Saint Francis Xavier: I do good, not that I may come to Heaven thereby and not because otherwise you could cast me into Hell. I do it because of you, my King and my Lord. I came across this same attitude in Africa too, for example among the Sisters of Mother Teresa, who devote themselves to abandoned, sick, poor and suffering children, without asking anything for themselves, thus becoming inwardly rich and free. This is the genuinely Christian attitude. Equally unforgettable for me was the encounter with handicapped young people in the Saint Joseph Centre in Madrid, where I encountered the same readiness to put oneself at the disposal of others – a readiness that is ultimately derived from encounter with Christ, who gave himself for us.

A third element, that has an increasingly natural and central place in World Youth Days and in the spirituality that arises from them, is adoration. I still look back to that unforgettable moment during my visit to the United Kingdom, when tens of thousands of predominantly young people in Hyde Park responded in eloquent silence to the Lord’s sacramental presence, in adoration. The same thing happened again on a smaller scale in Zagreb and then again in Madrid, after the thunderstorm which almost ruined the whole night vigil through the failure of the microphones. God is indeed ever-present. But again, the physical presence of the risen Christ is something different, something new. The risen Lord enters into our midst. And then we can do no other than say, with Saint Thomas: my Lord and my God! Adoration is primarily an act of faith – the act of faith as such. God is not just some possible or impossible hypothesis concerning the origin of all things. He is present. And if he is present, then I bow down before him. Then my intellect and will and heart open up towards him and from him. In the risen Christ, the incarnate God is present, who suffered for us because he loves us. We enter this certainty of God’s tangible love for us with love in our own hearts. This is adoration, and this then determines my life. Only thus can I celebrate the Eucharist correctly and receive the body of the Lord rightly.

A further important element of the World Youth Days is the sacrament of Confession, which is increasingly coming to be seen as an integral part of the experience. Here we recognize that we need forgiveness over and over again, and that forgiveness brings responsibility. Openness to love is present in man, implanted in him by the Creator, together with the capacity to respond to God in faith. But also present, in consequence of man’s sinful history (Church teaching speaks of original sin) is the tendency that is opposed to love – the tendency towards selfishness, towards becoming closed in on oneself, in fact towards evil. Again and again my soul is tarnished by this downward gravitational pull that is present within me. Therefore we need the humility that constantly asks God for forgiveness, that seeks purification and awakens in us the counterforce, the positive force of the Creator, to draw us upwards.

Finally, I would like to speak of one last feature, not to be overlooked, of the spirituality of World Youth Days, namely joy. Where does it come from? How is it to be explained? Certainly, there are many factors at work here. But in my view, the crucial one is this certainty, based on faith: I am wanted; I have a task; I am accepted, I am loved. Joseph Pieper, in his book on love, has shown that man can only accept himself if he is accepted by another. He needs the other’s presence, saying to him, with more than words: it is good that you exist. Only from the You can the I come into itself. Only if it is accepted, can it accept itself. Those who are unloved cannot even love themselves. This sense of being accepted comes in the first instance from other human beings. But all human acceptance is fragile. Ultimately we need a sense of being accepted unconditionally. Only if God accepts me, and I become convinced of this, do I know definitively: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being. If ever man’s sense of being accepted and loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question whether to be a human being is good at all. Doubt concerning human existence becomes more and more insurmountable. Where doubt over God becomes prevalent, then doubt over humanity follows inevitably. We see today how widely this doubt is spreading. We see it in the joylessness, in the inner sadness, that can be read on so many human faces today. Only faith gives me the conviction: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being, even in hard times. Faith makes one happy from deep within. That is one of the wonderful experiences of World Youth Days.

It would take too long now to go into detail concerning the encounter in Assisi, as the significance of the event would warrant. Let us simply thank God, that as representatives of the world’s religions and as representatives of thinking in search of truth, we were able to meet that day in a climate of friendship and mutual respect, in love for the truth and in shared responsibility for peace. So let us hope that, from this encounter, a new willingness to serve peace, reconciliation and justice has emerged.

As I conclude, I would like to thank all of you from my heart for shouldering the common mission that the Lord has given us as witnesses to his truth, and I wish all of you the joy that God wanted to bestow upon us through the incarnation of his Son. A blessed Christmas to you all!

 

“Before I let that steam drill beat me, I’ll die with my hammer in my hand.” —John Henry

I have not been sending out newsflashes for several weeks; I have been working on a book and developing plans for a comprehensive email news service to accompany these occasional letters. We intend to unveil the new service in 2012.

Meanwhile, the situation of print publications — magazines — is flashing critical. Even powerful publishing houses, like Ignatius Press in San Francisco, are ceasing to print their magazines due to the competition of the internet and the high cost of printing and postage for a physical product like a magazine.

We intend to keep publishing Inside the Vatican.

Still, in saying that, I feel a bit as John Henry must have felt. John Henry is the American folk hero who was born a slave and became a superb, powerful driller who worked for railroad companies to cut through mountains to make tunnels for trains. Then a steam drill was created. John Henry competed against the steam drill to see who could cut through more rock in a day. And he won the competition. But then he died of the strain.

Below, I am offering the text of an essay I just wrote which has appeared in Catholic World Report‘s December 2011 issue — the last print issue of that magazine. The essay speaks for itself. It is, essentially, is a brief overview of the story of the making of three magazines: 30 Days, Catholic World Report and Inside the Vatican.

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ESSAY

A Tale of Three Magazines
The story of the launch of Catholic World Report in 1991, and its relationship with 30 Days and with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI

by Robert Moynihan

From the publisher: As we announced in our October issue, this December 2011 issue will be CWR’s last as a print magazine. Starting in January 2012, CWR will be published exclusively online, at www.catholicworldreport.com, with our content free to all readers. We’ve heard from many of you who are sorrowful about the end of the print edition of CWR. And we are sympathetic—but nemo dat quod non habet ["no one gives what he does not have"] and we can’t afford what we can’t afford. (Governments need to learn this, even though some of them can print money when needed.) We are very grateful for your faithful readership and support. We hope that you will continue to enjoy and benefit from our content once we move online.

We also heard from an old friend and the first editor of Catholic World Report, Bob Moynihan. He has his own magazine, Inside the Vatican, which, as the story he relates below explains, is a kind of daughter publication of CWR. The two magazines— as part of the same family—have much in common. Bob suggested making a special offer to those of you who would like to consider Inside the Vatican as a replacement for the print edition of CWR. I encourage you to read Bob’s story of our common history.
—Father Joseph Fessio, SJ

A few weeks ago, I received news in an email from Father Joseph Fessio that Catholic World Report would become a purely Internet publication after its December 2011 issue, thus ceasing to appear in print after more than 20 years of continuous publication.

The news struck me in a personal way, since as its first editor I had helped launch the magazine in the fall of 1991.

I wrote an email to Father Fessio and told him I felt “just a slight twinge of sadness” that CWR is going “out of print,” and he invited me to recall those days when—despite many difficulties, problems and cross-currents—we conceived the magazine and brought it to birth.

The story is actually a tale of three magazines, all of them monthly, and all of them closely related to one another: 30 Days, Catholic World Report, and Inside the Vatican, the magazine I now edit.
But the story also touches on the vision of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for a “re-evangelization” of the West and a renewed proclamation of the Gospel in our time, an age that seems increasingly antagonistic to the Christian faith.

The story begins in 1984. I was a graduate student, and I went to Rome planning to spend only that one summer working in the Vatican Library, reading manuscripts related to the early history of the Franciscan Order.
At the end of the summer, I realized I would need more time to improve my Latin, learn Italian, and read all the manuscripts I needed to read. So a summer turned into a year.

I wrote articles and taught English to survive, then was awarded the “Rome Prize” to spend a year at the American Academy in Rome (1985-86). So one year turned into two.

But already in September of 1984, three months after my arrival, I had had an extraordinary meeting which was to affect my whole life. The Brazilian Franciscan theologian, Father Leonardo Boff, had been summoned to Rome for a meeting with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

I watched the reports on Italian television, and I recognized the name “Ratzinger,” because I had been reading his book entitled The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure—a book I had found fascinating and very useful for my own research.

Just a few days after that, one morning just before 9 am, walking across St. Peter’s Square toward the Vatican Library, I saw the same man I had seen on television. I stopped.

“Are you Cardinal Ratzinger?” I asked, as politely as possible.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“Well, hello,” I said. “I’m a student here in Rome, working on my dissertation, and I’ve been reading your book, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, and appreciating it very much.”

“Ah!” he said, laughing. “Well, you are the only one in Rome who has read that book of mine.”

And we spoke for another few moments. He wished me good luck in my research and encouraged me to send my thesis to him when I was finished, and we parted.

At about the same time, I purchased and read the book-length interview Ratzinger gave to Italian writer Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report (published in English by Ignatius Press). That book startled me. It contained such a mixture of truth-telling about the problems in the Church since the Council, hope for an eventual return to a more balanced perspective on our faith, and a profound and serene trust that we would find the right path, aided by the insights and sacrifices of all who have gone before us in the Church, that I felt moved to become more involved in the struggle to keep the Church and her message strong and present in our own time. From that moment on, I grew less interested in the debates and conflicts of the 1200s I had been studying.

In the fall of 1985, the “Extraordinary Synod” occurred, and my life changed. A little newspaper called the International Courier had sprung up in Rome under the direction of Christopher Winner, an American. I had gone to him to ask if I could write articles. “On what?” he had asked me. “The Vatican,” I said. “You’ve got it,” he agreed. And so I became a Vatican reporter.

During that synod, I met people like the late Peter Hebblethwaite of The Tablet, Wilton Wynn of Time, Victor Simpson of Associated Press, Eugene Dionne of the New York Times, and so many of the great Italian vaticanisti— Luigi Accatoli, Domenico del Rio, Alceste Santini, Benny Lai, Max Bergere, Father Joseph Vandrisse, Father Robert Graham [an American Jesuit, but so "Romanized" that he seemed Italian!], and many more.

I wrote every day, twice a day. And I was “noticed.”

Just before Christmas I received a phone call from America. Fran Maier, at that time the editor of the National Catholic Register, wanted to know if I would write two articles a month for him. I hesitated, since I was still working on my dissertation. I knew writing about the Vatican would delay my doctorate. But I accepted, and in so doing, sealed my fate. I did not realize it then, but in fact, I would become a “Vaticanist” myself, and not an academic as I had originally intended.

Fran was adamant on one point: that there was a group of young Italian journalists who were breaking new ground in covering Vatican affairs. They were not the musty old vaticanisti I had just begun to get to know; they were the brash, bold, energetic young men and women of the Italian Communion and Liberation movement who were putting out the weekly Il Sabato and the monthly 30 Giorni nella Chiesa e nel Mondo (30 Days in the Church and World). I went to see them. I was impressed They knew all the players—the curial cardinals, the Italian politicians, the European opinion-makers. A new world opened up for me. It was a world many Americans never saw—it was “inside (Vatican) baseball,” Italian-style.

In October of 1987, Father Fessio made a fateful decision. He flew to Rome to meet with these Italians, to hammer out an agreement to publish their monthly, 30 Giorni, in English, as 30 Days. Antonia Willemsen, from the German Catholic charity Kirche in Not (Aid to the Church in Need), also came to Rome for the meeting, in support of the Brazilian edition (in Portuguese). I was at that meeting—the Italians invited me. They thought I might be the right person to be the editor and translator of the English edition, and proposed me as such to Father Fessio. He agreed.

In the winter of 1987-88, I retreated for three months to finish writing my long-delayed dissertation. I finished the work on March 1, 1988, and began to work preparing the first issue of 30 Days the very next day. (I took a copy of the dissertation to Cardinal Ratzinger, and he leafed through it with interest, and said he would read it.) My thesis was accepted, and I received my Ph.D. from Yale that spring—but I could not go to the commencement ceremony because by then we were closing the third issue of 30 Days.

Those were some of the most difficult days of my life. Father Fessio wanted to be sure the magazine was in good English. And I, even though I had been in Italy for almost four years, still had considerable difficulty with Italian. (Those of you who have tried to learn Italian will understand.) Every word in that magazine was typed by me—the headlines, the subtitles, the photo captions, even the texts of the ads. I did not sleep for three nights as we closed that first issue. I translated about 200 type-written pages a month for the next two-and-a-half years.
In America, Father Fessio was concerned that the content of the magazine not be “too Italian.” But the Italian editors wanted the English edition to follow the Italian as faithfully as possible. This led to disputes. I remember one case clearly, an article about the Italian politician Ciriaco De Mita, national secretary of Italy’s Christian Democratic Party. The Italians said they wished to put pressure on De Mita “in America” by publishing an article in the English edition, but Father Fessio thought the entire piece irrelevant for Americans. I do not even remember now whether the piece went in or not, but I do re- member the Italians saying, “Put it in,” and Father Fessio saying, “Leave it out, put something else in its place.”

That was a difficult spot for me to be in.

It is important to note that, in the 1980s, we did not yet have the Internet. We hardly had computers. The first issues of 30 Days were impaginated with long strips of text that were cut into columns and placed on the page by a pleasant Italian fellow named Fortunato, who, unfortunately, was eventually to suffer from a curved back from leaning over the light table hour after hour, pasting columns first for the Italian edition, then the Spanish, then the French, then the English, then the Portuguese… he was heroic.

They would shoot the pasted pages onto film, and wrap 80 pages of thick black film in a heavy package, which they would hand to me at about 10 in the evening, and I would rush out to my car and drive out to Fiumicino Airport, knowing that the TWA overnight shipping office would close at 11 pm. Once or twice in those years, the magazine was finished at 10:15 or 10:20, and I would arrive at Fiumicino at 11:05 and be unable to ship the package, which would mean a delay of at least a day, and sometimes more, in the printing of the magazine. When that happened, Father Fessio was unhappy.

It was nothing like today, when you can click a button and send a magazine from one end of the world to the other instantaneously, in one large computer file.

This also meant that all the corrections to those issues of 30 Days had to be done by fax. And the problem with this was that the fax line would drop after about 45 seconds. So I would go to the office, fax the translation of an article to California, and take 30 minutes for each article, dialing and redialing, sometimes until three or four in the morning. And then the corrected pages would come back via fax, and I would insert the corrections into my text and hand it in for impagination. During those four years, from 1987 through 1990, I spoke to Father Fessio on the phone almost every day, and sometimes several times a day. In any case, I had intended to be a
writer and scholar, but now I had become a craftsman with a very precise craft, like making shoes or making cheese: I had learned to “make magazines,” from choosing the photos, to writing the headlines, to translating articles, to cutting problematic text.

But all the work seemed worth it. We had a voice, a weight, in the cultural-theological war that was so intense at that time in the United States and in the world. Remember, that was before the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.

For me, however, the strain became too great. I left 30 Giorni at the end of the summer of 1990, after two-and-a-half years and 27 issues. I was hired as an assistant professor of medieval history in an American university on a one-year contract.

In the months that followed, tensions between the Italians in Rome and Ignatius Press in San Francisco grew, and in the spring of 1991, at the time of the first Gulf War, the relationship broke down.
And so we come, by this long and winding road, to the birth of Catholic World Report.

In the spring of 1991, I received a call from Father Fessio. “Bob,” he said, “I have a proposal for you. I have closed down 30 Days. I would like you to go back to Rome and start a magazine to replace it. You may not be the only one who could do it, but I think you would be the best person, since you did 30 Days.”

I hesitated. I felt I might love the chance to do a magazine just as good as 30 Days ever was, but without the problems. But I was uncertain whether we could ever really do it, whether it would really be as good a publication. At 30 Giorni, we had had 15 journalists to follow and cover every aspect of Vat- ican affairs. In this new job, it seemed, I would be alone.

But in the end the chance to edit a new magazine seemed too attractive to pass up. I accepted.
We did not know at first what we would even name the publication: “The Report” was one idea; “The Catholic World” was another; “The World Catholic Report” was another (playing a bit off of The National Catholic Reporter). Finally we settled on The Catholic World Report, with a slight ambiguity about whether we were focused on “the Catholic world” or on “the world as seen by Catholics.” But we knew we wanted the word “Report” emphasized, because we knew we wanted the charism of the pub- lication to be evangelical, a “report,” not just hearsay or speculation or chit-chat, but a clear, reliable “report” on what was happening in Rome and around the world—a report that would concern the Catholic Church, but also the entire world the Church is “in but not of.”

I made a trip to California, and over several days, we worked out the rubrics of the magazine. We looked at various type fonts and chose the ones we want- ed to use. The new magazine was coming to life.
I then began making calls—to Phil Lawler, to Father Richard Neuhaus, to David Schindler, to Deal Hudson, to Stratford Caldecott, and to many others. I was seeking insight into what people thought was needed. What message would The Catholic World Report proclaim? I knew I did not want it to be superficial or knee-jerk; I wanted it to be profound, provocative, and fearless, looking at the world from a thoroughly Catholic perspective.
One great concern I had was that we would be “too American.” I did not want the magazine to reflect just the American perspective on issues in the Church and the world. (I did not at all want it to be “The American Catholic World Report.”) And I was worried that, by myself, I would be unable to build the type of international “team” which had existed at 30 Giorni.

Then Father Fessio explained that we would not be alone, but together with some French and Spanish edi- tors in a group which would be called “I.Media,” short for “International Media.” The French would be financed by Vincent Montagne’s publishing group, Media-Participations, the largest Catholic publisher in France, and the Spanish by the Legionaries of Christ. I agreed that we would be better off by having an international team, but I still felt that we would be lacking the Italian component. After all, no one knows Rome like the Italians; it is their home.

I decided to try again to edit a magazine in Rome.

I arrived in Rome in the first days of September 1991, found an apartment, and then went down to the office on via Sforza Pallavicini, not far from the end of Borgo Pio. There I met Jean-Marie Guenois from Paris, and a very young Jesús Colina, from Burgos, Spain, later the founder of the Zenit news agency. The first day we were in the office together was September 11, 1991. The next day, Blandine Becheras, from Lyons, France, a member of the Emmanuel Community centered in Paris, joined us as the office secretary. So we were four.

The first issue came out five weeks later with “Quo Vadis, Europa?” on the cover (“Europe, Where Are You Going?”). We were all very proud that what had just been an idea was now beginning to be a reality.
However, there were a few clouds on the horizon. First, though we were four, only I spoke and wrote in English, so the production of the magazine fell almost entirely on my shoulders. Second, Cardinal Ratzinger. When I met with him and explained the new situation, he seemed distressed. “I am sorry there had to be this division” (between 30 Giorni and Catholic World Report), he said. Third, the subscribers. In the spring, 30 Days had boasted more than 30,000 subscribers. Now we were going to send them a different magazine. Would they like it? Would they unsubscribe? Our promotions manager, Roger McCaffrey, who later went on to found The Latin Mass magazine, thought that maybe we were not keeping as many subscribers as we might.

By Christmas of 1991, we had successfully launched the magazine, and we had managed to retain about 20,000 subscribers. I felt rather pleased. Father Fessio, however, had problems I knew little about. He had originally made an agreement to be a one-third owner of I.Media, but in a meeting not long after we opened the office, the French investor, Vincent Montagne, told Father Fessio and the Legionaries that he would take back the 33 percent offer, and own 100 percent of I.Media himself. It was a fait accompli.

Father Fessio moved my contract over to I.Media, and I suddenly found myself working for the French. During 1992, there were several small editorial conflicts, one involving an advertisement for the traditional Mass, another concerning an interview with a cardinal about the beatification of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. And as 1993 began, the number of subscriptions had declined a bit more, toward 18,000 and then 17,000.
On March 24, 1993, after one-and-a- half years and 15 issues of the magazine, I was replaced as editor by Phil Lawler, who then continued in that post for many very successful years.

In the days that followed, I decided to try to take all the experience I had acquired during five years of “making magazines” and create a third publication. I did not know what to call it. I thought of “Vatican Insider” and “The Rome Report” (but I did not want to use the word “Report” again). So finally I settled on Inside the Vatican.

I called my friend Grzegorz Galazka, a Polish photographer, and the graphic designer of 30 Giorni, Giuseppe Sabatelli, and asked them to help me with the new magazine.

And so, with the help of these two friends, I launched Inside the Vatican with a “Zero issue” in April of 1993. The launch cost: $4,760. (David Schindler helped by letting me send copies to all the subscribers to Communio.)
I took copies of the “Zero issue” to Father Stanislaw Dsiwisz, the Pope’s secretary, to Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Pope’s spokesman, and to Cardinal Ratzinger.

The first two were pleasant and encouraged me. Cardinal Ratzinger was encouraging, but also per- plexed. “It seems there is a multiplication of magazines here,” he said. “First, 30 Days of the Italians, then, the 30 Days of Father Fessio (Catholic World Report), and now, the 30 Days of Robert Moynihan. Could you not all work together?”

Many years passed. Father Fessio and I did not see each other or speak to each other. But, just after the year 2000, we met, by chance, at the main entrance of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, on the occasion of the National March for Life.

“Bob,” he said, then paused, as if reflecting. “You know, there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. You are bringing out a great magazine.” He paused again. “Is there some way we could work together?”

I thanked him for those words. “As for collaboration, how about taking out an ad in my magazine?” I said. He nodded.

And from that time on, Ignatius Press has been taking out not just one ad, but two, in each issue of Inside the Vatican, and that has been a great support to our balance sheet.

Since 1988, I have been making magazines. Twenty-seven issues of 30 Days, 15 issues of Catholic World Report, and now 183 issues of Inside the Vatican over the past 18 years—225 magazines in 23 years.

And despite all of these years, the challenges just keep increasing. Father Fessio, in his letter to CWR readers, wrote: “For several years now, Ignatius Press has been subsidizing these two magazines [Catholic World Report and Homiletic & Pastoral Review], and the loss has been in the $200,000-range each year. We have continued to subsidize them because we believed—and still believe—they have provided an important service to the Church. However, it doesn’t take any prophetic gifts to see what is happening to print magazines. The rapid growth of electronic sources of news and opinion has led to the demise of many magazines, and this is clearly a trend that is going to continue.”

When I read that Catholic World Report was going out of print, I wondered if some of the magazine’s readers, because they might still like a paper magazine, might like to subscribe to Inside the Vatican. So I wrote to Father Fessio to ask if he would let his readers know that Inside the Vatican still exists, and is going to try to keep publishing. And he said, “Why don’t you tell the whole story, and we’ll put it in the last printed edition of the magazine, in December?”

So that is what I have done. I have told the story.

And I think Pope Benedict would be pleased that some of us are now working together again ad ma- joram Dei gloriam (“for the greater glory of God”), after so many divisions in the past.

Thus, as someone who devoted a part of my life, with great passion, to the launch of Catholic World Report, I wish well to all those associated with the online initiative, and invite all those who would like to have a paper copy of a magazine that also covers Church and world affairs to consider subscribing to Inside the Vatican magazine, which is, in a sense, the child of Catholic World Report. If we have accomplished any good thing, it is little in comparison to what we wished and hoped to accomplish.

ROBERT MOYNIHAN, PH.D. is editor of Inside the Vatican magazine (1993-present), and the first editor of Catholic World Report (1991-1993).

Download PDF of print version of essay here.