Black Smoke…

An intense day, which ended with black smoke…

The cardinals, after their first vote, now know some things clearly that they did not know before the vote: they know who are some of the actual, not theorized, candidates, and something about how much support they have…

So, this knowledge will have been affecting their thinking, perhaps, this evening — and it will affect their thinking tomorow, when four votes are scheduled…

The day began with sun, then hail, then rain and thunder, then a cold drizzle.

In late afternoon, I was invited to speak on Fox News. Here is a link to what I said:  TheMoynihanReport.com

It was a frustrating experience, in some ways. One would like to say many things, and there is only a small amount of time…

Anyway, this evening, I was not going to send out a letter, and then, reading the Italian press, I came across an odd little item, which caught my attention.

I am always interested in “little” details like this. As they say, “the devil is in the details.”

Ok, here is the story.

Below is a link to a website where I read a curious comment from a reader.

The reader says that the official text of the homily of Cardinal Sodano today is incorrect, in that it omits two words that Sodano actually spoke when he gave the homily.

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What were those two words? The commenter says they were: “world order” (“ordine mondiale“).

Here is the comment in Italian:

“Strano, il testo ufficiale dell` omelia del card. Sodano non corrisponde a ciò che ha detto in Basilica, e che ho ascoltato, le parole ‘ordine mondiale,’ che del resto mi avevano colpita e lasciata estereffatta, sono sparite.” ["Strange, the official text of the homily of Cardinal Sodano does not correspond to what he said in the Basilica, and what I myself heard, the words 'world order,' which moreover struck me and left me terrified, have disappeared."]

Link: http://paparatzinger6blograffaella.blogspot.it/2013/03/oggi-sodano-otto-anni-fa-ratzinger-i.html

Then, as I continued to read the Italian press, I came across an Italian journalist who also heard the same thing, and then published it this way:

“Gli ultimi Pontefici sono stati artefici di tante iniziative benefiche anche verso i popoli e la comunità internazionale, promovendo senza sosta la giustizia e la pace e l’ordine mondiale – ha proseguito Sodano – preghiamo perché il futuro Papa possa continuare quest’incessante opera a livello mondiale“.

In other words, writing his article, this journalist had quoted Sodano’s speech with those two words included — even though those words are not in the official text distributed by the Vatican. He did this, evidently, because he heard the words. Here is a link to that report: http://www.tmnews.it/web/sezioni/top10/20130312_120746.shtml

Curious, I wondered: Did Sodano use those words, or not?

Just a little question, really. What had he actually said?

So, I started looking at videos of the homily.

And I found that, yes, it was true. Sodano did use those words. Here is the video of the homily: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qxeanIVU2c

If you go to 10 minutes and 30 seconds, up to 10 minutes 45 seconds, you will hear the passage in question. Sodano says: “che gli ultimi pontifici sono stati artefici di tante iniziative di benefiche, verso i singoli, verso i popoli, verso la communita internazionale, promovendo la pace, la giustizia, l’ordine mondiale…” In English: “the last pontiffs have been artificers of very many beneficial initiatives, toward individuals, toward peoples, toward the international community, promoting peace, justice, the world order.”

But, in the official text as distributed by the Vatican, the words “world order” do not appear. Here is the official text published by the Vatican:

“…gli ultimi Pontefici sono stati artefici di tante iniziative benefiche anche verso i popoli e la comunità internazionale, promovendo senza sosta la giustizia e la pace. [Here is where the words are missing.] Preghiamo perché il futuro Papa possa continuare quest’incessante opera a livello mondiale.”

(Link: http://attualita.vatican.va/sala-stampa/bollettino/2013/03/12/news/30612.html)

In this video below, the English voice-over does not include “the world order” — evidently because the voice-over is based on the written text, not on the actual words spoken by Sodano. This suggests that the two words were added by Sodano “a braccio,” that is, on the spot, off the cuff, extemporaneously — they were not in his prepared text. This occurs at about 13:48 in the video. (Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbri4r9jZQU)

The same thing is true of the following video, with a German voice-over. Sodano uses the words at about 17:19 of the video, but the German translator does not translate them. Evidently he too was using the prepared text. Here is the link: http://it.gloria.tv/?media=412846

Brief notes

John Thavis of Catholic News Service has a nice piece tonight which sums up a few things about the conclave process. He writes:

“People often imagine a conclave as a political convention in red robes, where cardinals may pray to the Holy Spirit but do their real business in back-room maneuvers.

“Judging from my conversations with cardinals over the last two weeks, the ‘campaigning’ aspect of a conclave is exaggerated in popular imagination. But that doesn’t mean the cardinals don’t talk, lobby and carefully calculate the chances of their favorite candidate.

“From the moment it begins this evening, you could probably divide the conclave into ‘praying’ and ‘politicking’ moments.

“The praying takes place in the Sistine Chapel, where the voting procedure is so formal and so solemn that the cardinals don’t even talk to each other. There’s a reason the cardinals will file into the chapel in choir dress – they are, in a sense, participating in a liturgy…”

Here is a link to the rest of the story: http://www.johnthavis.com/conclave-day-1-praying-and-politicking

A summary of the Conclave dynamics from Euronews:

“Who will the 115 cardinals choose, once the conclave convenes, to replace the man who has bowed out after eight years in the Catholic Church’s hot seat? ”Two rival camps are reported to have developed, suggesting a power struggle within the Church’s hierarchy. ”Perhaps too simplistically, the election of Benedict’s successor has been described as a battle between traditionalists and reformers…”

Here is a link to the rest of the story: http://www.euronews.com/2013/03/11/the-complicated-choice-facing-the-vatican-conclave/

And the concerns of a mother of one of the possible candidates: 

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn’s elderly mother hopes he won’t become Pope because she fears she would never see him and that he would be overwhelmed by Vatican intrigues.

“The whole family is afraid that Christoph will be elected Pope,” Eleonore Schoenborn, 92, told the Kleine Zeitung newspaper in an interview printed on Tuesday as 115 Roman Catholic cardinals gathered in Rome to pick the new head of the Church.

Recalling Pope Benedict’s farewell speech, which made clear that Popes belonged entirely to the Church, she said her son’s elevation would mean “it is over for me. Then I will not see Christoph ever again because I no longer have the strength to travel to Rome.”

Here is a link to the complete story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/cardinal-schoenborns-mom-_n_2860225.html?1363101224&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008 

An efficient video summary of the events of the first day of the Conclave can be found here in video form from Salt and Light, the Canadian Catholic television station run by Father Tom Rosica, who is acting as the English-language spokesman at the Press Office during the Conclave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn1oqZdDqFs

What will tomorrow bring? Stay tuned…

(to be continued)

Sodano’s Homily

This morning, in the presence of the entire College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 85, the Dean of the College (he will not enter into the Conclave to vote, because he is past the age of 80), delivered the homily “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice” (“For the Electing of the Roman Pontiff”) in St. Peter’s Basilica — the last homily before the cardinals enter into Conclave to vote for a new Pope.

The essence of this homily is in the final four paragraphs.

Some of the passages in the homily are quite lovely. Sodano speaks of Christ’s last words to Peter, when he asked Peter to “Feed my lambs.”

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And Sodano emphasizes the fact that the role of the Pope, responding to this request of Christ to Peter, is “a service of love towards the Church and towards all humanity.”

This is true, and inspiring.

However, the core of the homily’s message, expressed in the last four paragraphs, seems to offer a vision of the Church’s role in the world with a slightly different emphasis than the vision Pope Benedict XVI has been expressing in recent weeks, and throughout his pontificate. And this is the case even though Sodano quotes Benedict in his homily, on precisely this point.

Benedict XVI has emphasized the centrality, not of action of any type, including an action of service, but rather of a personal encounter, the encounter with Jesus Christ and what this encounter means for the eternal destiny of a man — a being with an eternal soul.

One might say that Benedict’s emphasis has been “ontological,” that is, on what a man is, on man’s being, on what human beings are essentially, rather than on what a man does, what he produces, or makes… on man’s being, rather than his acting.

Sodano’s message seems to privilege acting rather than being.

Sodano, in particular, stresses the role of the Pope in supporting and carrying forward “good initiatives for people and for the international community.”

Sodano sums up his message to the cardinals with this sentence: “Let us pray that the future Pope may continue this unceasing work on the world level.”

This is the “signature phrase” in this homily.

Now, Sodano is the Dean of the College of Cardinals and a career Vatican diplomat. And the role of the Pope and the Church in working for peace and justice in the world is important.

But that role presupposes a prior experience: the experience of encountering the risen Christ, the Savior, an experience of repentance and conversion leading to a new life in Christ which transcends the life of man in this world, an experience which includes the life of the sacraments, and the path, through self-sacrifice, toward personal holiness.

The vision Sodano is sketching is of a role for the papacy and the Church as a partner with other governments and institutions in bringing about peace and justice in the world.

This vision is not wrong, but it is partial.

No homily can contain everything in a few brief minutes.

But in a homily only hours before the first vote of the Conclave, the lack of an emphasis on the mystical role of the Church in a process which leads ultimately (as Eastern Orthodox theology especially emphasizes) through union with Christ to the very “divinization” of man, the very sharing by man of the divine life, is a lack and a disappointment.

It is not that the homily contains anything that is wrong, but rather that it’s vision seems so focused on the temporal sphere, on actions in this world.

In this sense, it seems an opportunity missed.

Here is the homily that Joseph Ratzinger gave on a similar occasion almost eight years ago: http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html

It is quite remarkable beautiful.

Homily of the Mass pro eligendo Romano Pontifice – by the Dean of the College of Cardinals

By Cardinal Angelo Sodano

“Forever I will sing the mercies of the Lord” is the hymn that resounds once again near the tomb of the Apostle Peter in this important hour of the history of the Holy Church of Christ. These are the words of Psalm 88 that have flowed from our lips to adore, give thanks and beg the Father who is in heaven. “Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo” ["The mercies of the Lord unto eternity I will sing"] is the beautiful Latin text that has introduced us into contemplation of the One who always watches over his Church with love, sustaining her on her journey down through the ages, and giving her life through his Holy Spirit.

Such an interior attitude is ours today as we wish to offer ourselves with Christ to the Father who is in heaven, to thank him for the loving assistance that he always reserves for the Holy Church, and in particular for the brilliant Pontificate that he granted to us through the life and work of the 265th Successor of Peter, the beloved and venerable Pontiff Benedict XVI, to whom we renew in this moment all of our gratitude.

At the same time today, we implore the Lord, that through the pastoral sollicitude of the Cardinal Fathers, He may soon grant another Good Shepherd to his Holy Church. In this hour, faith in the promise of Christ sustains us in the indefectible character of the church. Indeed Jesus said to Peter: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.” (Mt. 16:18).

My brothers, the readings of the World of God that we have just heard can help us better understand the mission that Christ has entrusted to Peter and to his successors.

1. The Message of Love

The first reading has offered us once again a well-known messianic oracle from the second part of the book of Isaiah that is known as “the book of consolation” (Isaiah 40-66). It is a prophecy addressed to the people of Israel who are in exile in Babylon. Through this prophecy, God announces that he will send a Messiah full of mercy, a Messiah who would say: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me… he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the wounds of broken hearts, to proclaim liberty to captives, freedom to prisoners, and to announce a year of mercy of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:1-3).

The fulfilment of such a prophecy is fully realized in Jesus, who came into the world to make present the love of the Father for all people. It is a love which is especially felt in contact with suffering, injustice, poverty and all human frailty, both physical and moral. It is especially found in the well known encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, where we read: “It is precisely the mode and sphere in which love manifests itself that in biblical language is called ‘mercy’ (n. 3).”

This mission of mercy has been entrusted by Christ to the pastors of his Church. It is a mission that must be embraced by every priest and bishop, but is especially entrusted to the Bishop of Rome, Shepherd of the universal Church. It is infact to Peter that Jesus said: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?… Feed my lambs (John 21:15).” In his commentary on these words, St. Augustine wrote: “May it be therefore the task of love to feed the flock of the Lord” (In Iohannis Evangelium, 123, 5; PL 35, 1967).

It is indeed this love that urges the Pastors of the Church to undertake their mission of service of the people of every age, from immediate charitable work even to the highest form of service, that of offering to every person the light of the Gospel and the strength of grace.

This is what Benedict XVI wrote in his Lenten Message for this year (n. 3). “Sometimes we tend, in fact, to reduce the term ‘charity’ to solidarity or simply humanitarian aid. It is important, however, to remember that the greatest work of charity is evangelization, which is the ‘ministry of the word.’ There is no action more beneficial – and therefore more charitable – towards one’s neighbour than to break the bread of the word of God, to share with him the Good News of the Gospel, to introduce him to a relationship with God: evangelization is the highest and the most integral promotion of the human person. As the Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote in the Encyclical Populorum Progressio, “the proclamation of Christ is the first and principal contributor to development (cf. n. 16).”

2. The message of unity

The second reading is taken from the letter to the Ephesians., written by the Apostle Paul in this very city of Rome during his first imprisonment (62-63 A.D.)

It is a sublime letter in which Paul presents the mystery of Christ and his Church. While the first part is doctrinal (ch.1-3), the second part, from which today’s reading is taken, has a much more pastoral tone (ch. 4-6). In this part Paul teaches the practical consequences of the doctrine that was previously presented and begins with a strong appeal for Church unity: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Eph 4,1-3).

St. Paul then explains that in the unity of the Church, there is a diversity of gifts, according to the manifold grace of Christ, but this diversity is in function of the building up of the one body of Christ. “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (Eph 4:11-12).

It is for the very unity of His mystical body that Christ then has sent His Holy Spirit and, at the same time, He has established His apostles and among them Peter, who takes the lead as the visible foundation of the unity of the Church.

In our text, St. Paul teaches that each of us must work to build up the unity of the Church, so that “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Eph 4:16).” Each of us is therefore called to cooperate with the Successor of Peter, the visible foundation of such an ecclesial unity.

3. The Mission of the Pope

Brothers and sisters in Christ today’s Gospel takes us back to the Last Supper, when the Lord said to his Apostles: “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). The text is linked to the first reading from the Messiah’s actions in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, reminding us that the fundamental attitude of the Pastors of the Church is love. It is this love that urges us to offer our own lives for our brothers and sisters. Jesus himself tells us: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12).

The basic attitude of every Shepherd is therefore to lay down one’s life for his sheep (John 10:15). This also applies to the Successor of Peter, Pastor of the Universal Church. As high and universal the pastoral office, so much greater must be the charity of the Shepherd. In the heart of every Successor of Peter, the words spoken one day by the Divine Master to the humble fisherman of Galilee have resounded: “Diligis me plus his? Pasce agnos meos… pasce oves meas”; “Do you love me more than these? Feed my lambs… feed my sheep!” (John 21:15-17)

In the wake of this service of love toward the Church and towards all of humanity, the last Popes have been builders of so many good initiatives for people and for the international community, tirelessly promoting justice and peace. Let us pray that the future Pope may continue this unceasing work on the world level.

Moreover, this service of charity is part of the intimate nature of the Church. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us of this fact when he said: “The service of charity is also a constitutive element of the Church’s mission and an indispensable expression of her very being; (Apostolic Letter in the form of a Motu Proprio Intima Ecclesiae natura, November 11, 2012, introduction; cf. Deus caritas est, n. 25).

It is a mission of charity that is proper to the Church, and in a particular way is proper to the Church of Rome, that in the beautiful expression of St. Ignatius of Antioch, is the Church that “presides in charity” “praesidet caritati” (cf. Ad Romanos (preface).; Lumen Gentium, n. 13).

My brothers, let us pray that the Lord will grant us a Pontiff who will embrace this noble mission with a generous heart. We ask this of the Lord, through the intercession of Mary most holy, Queen of the Apostles and of all the Martyrs and Saints, who through the course of history, made this Church of Rome glorious through the ages. Amen.

Card. Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals

Missa pro eligendo Romano Pontifice – Vatican Basilica

March 12, 2013

 

(to be continued)

Alpha and Omega

“I am the alpha and the omega” (Koiné Greek: τὸ Α καὶ τὸ Ω) —the name of Jesus in the Book of Revelation (verses 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13). 

“I said to my soul, be still,

and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God…

 ”Old men ought to be explorers

Here or there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.”

—T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, East Coker

The Professor Who Became a General

“So you want to understand why Benedict resigned, and what will happen now,” my friend, an Italian woman whom I had not seen for a long time, asked me. I wrote about our meeting in Letter #40.

We had met by chance after Sunday evening Mass, at the entrance of the Church of the Holy Spirit, a few steps from the Vatican, in a light rain, and she had invited me to her home for a light dinner of leftovers. She asked her daughters to prepare something for us.

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“Yes,” I said. “I have known him well, but I haven’t been able to come to a conclusion about what he did, and why. I really wish I could speak with him, to have him explain it all in his own words. I’m actually hoping I will still be able to talk to him, someday, after some time passes, maybe over a cup of tea in the Vatican Gardens…”

“I think he gave us the key himself, three years ago,” she said. “In his interview with Peter Seewald, when Seewald asked him whether he was at the end or the beginning of his pontificate, he replied ‘Both.’

“Both at the end, and at the beginning. I think that was the key. But only now can we begin to see what he really meant.

“Look,” she said. “He was a professor, all his life. And he was a professor as Pope. A German professor, with all that that implies. Orderly, precise, meticulous. But also profound, compelling, illuminating.

“But at the end of his life, he became a General, and he began the battle,” she said. “He is the Professor who became a General.”

She smiled, pleased with the expression she had created.

“So you really think he is carrying out a plan?” I asked.

Benedict’s Plan

“Of course!” she said. “You know him. Do you have any doubt? Ratzinger is one of the greatest Pope-theologians of all time. And he is a holy man. He prayed deeply before doing what he did. I am confident that he knew exactly what he was doing. In fact, I have never in my life seen such a huge act of faith in our Lord as his. He believes that it is the Lord who guides the Church.”

“Well,” I said, “I wondered if his opponents in the Curia, those who opposed his efforts to bring about the purification of the Church, the things that he spoke of so powerfully before his election in 2005, those who opposed his promulgation of Summorum Pontificum granting greater access to the old Mass, his decision to investigate Father Maciel, his attempts to reconcile with the Lefebvrists, had…”

“You are right,” she said. “They never forgave him for those things.”

“So,” I said, “then came the Vatileaks affair, and his decision to step down… It looked like the Curia, or some elements of the Curia, had won…”

She nodded.

“Look,” she said. “Most of the monsignors who work in the Curia are very good men. They have committed their lives to the Church and the Pope. They are human, of course, and the typical miseries of human life are not alien to them. But to characterize them as demons and to bandy-about phrases like ‘gay lobbies’ is to draw attention away from the real issue, which is theological. The-o-log-i-cal.”

“Well,” I said, “I agree. The battle is theological, Christological, ecclesiological, liturgical, anthropological — whether man is capable of encountering the divine…”

“Precisely,” she said. “It is whether the Church is a type of philanthropic organization, a human organization like any other, or a spiritual organism, Christ’s living mystical body. It is a battle over the nature and mission of the Church, whether the Church will evangelize and so transform and redeem the world, or whether the world will transform and secularize the Church. And in this battle, Ratzinger has become, and I am convinced of this, the General. I think we should call him that from now on.

“Regarding the decision to step down, I have the feeling,” she continued, “that Benedict finally realized that, in the Curia there were simply too many who needed to be changed. The secret report of the three cardinals revealed a series of things that did not work. The report recognized that there are many in the Curia who are very good, but also a good-sized group with… various problems.

“The Pope found himself in a dramatic situation when he found that they had put someone in his own house who stole his documents. This was disconcerting. Some Germans went to visit him, and the Pope said to them, ‘Think about it, he was giving me my medicine, too.’

“In other words, he felt there might even have been a threat to his own life…

“Then, on a number of occasions, he was asked to approve appointments and transfers which he was not certain about. This troubled him deeply.

“Then, he meditated, and prayed. And he made his plan. And what did he do? In a single blow, they are all gone, the heads of every office in the entire Curia. Now a younger man will be able to come in and, over the coming years, completely reform the Roman Curia. He couldn’t have been more brilliant.”

“So what is happening now?” I asked. “Who will be able to be elected to carry out this plan? Won’t there be an attempt to thwart Benedict’s plan?”

“They may try,” she said. “There will be the various lobbies and groups. One is the group around Cardinal Sodano — Re, Ruini, Sardi, Sandri — they are sometimes called “Sodane con Maciel” for “Sodale con Maciel” (“in solidarity with Maciel”). They resisted Scicluna’s exposure, on Ratzinger’s orders, of the activities of Maciel. By the way, do you know that Ratzinger held back the last Conclave, in 2005, for several days so that Scicluna, who was traveling in the United States, could take depositions on the case and bring them back to Rome before the opening of the Conclave, so that Ratzinger would have the evidence he needed?”

“Well, what you are saying coincides with what many have been telling me,” I said. “Not only in these past few days and weeks, but for years. But you are pulling it all together. Please continue…”

“Well,” she said, “then there is the group some here call ‘arsenico e vecchi merletti‘ or ‘arsenic and old lace’ — the pious ones, generally liturgically conservative, including Piacenza, Guido Marini, and some Italian bishops, like Bagnasco and Moraglia.

“Then there are the ‘Bertoniani,’ the ones around Cardinal Bertone. Their common characteristic is their interest in ‘affari,’ doing business. This group includes Versaldi, Calcagno, De Paolis, and also Marco Simeon, the layman from Genoa.

“It was Sodano’s intent in 2005 to elect an old Pope who would have a brief pontificate, to systematize the chaos of the Curia left in the wake of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, and then pass away,” she said. “But Benedict was stronger than they expected, and he lived longer than they expected,” she continued. “So now we are in front of the choice: which direction?

“By stepping aside now, while still alive, Benedict has given the Church a chance to renew herself. But, the cardinals must take the opportunity. It is right in front of them. They simply have to reach out their hands and grasp it.”

“So who do you think they will choose?” I asked.

Three Days…

“You want to know who I think will win, or who I would like to win if I had my choice?”

“Both,” I said.

“Well, the Curia will propose one or two solutions, first Scherer, then someone else. But what the Church needs is someone who can unite Europe, North America and South America, and the sole solution is O’Malley. And you would be amazed at how much he is loved here in Italy. The Italians just love him. He reminds them of Padre Pio. He would be a fantastic choice for most Italians.

“There will be an effort made to elect Scola, and he also is a good man, but he doesn’t seem to me to be quite the right choice. I’m not sure whether the cardinals will unite in support of him. Even among the Italians there are a number of cardinals who are not enthusiastic about him. But if they choose an Italian, he is the most likely.”

“And then… your own favorite?”

She looked at me and her face broke into a big smile.

“Schoenborn!”

“Schoenborn?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Schoenborn.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because he has so many enemies!” she replied. “And because I know him personally. Sodano is against him, because Schoenborn criticized him. And Bertone too. Everyone is against him. But he is educated — he studied under Ratzinger, he was Ratzinger’s student — he is cultured, refined, eloquent, noble, handsome — especially handsome!”

“Look,” I said. “I know him too, and I like him as a person. He’s a friend. But his handling of that case…”

“The homsexual who was elected head of the parish council, and Schoenborn refused to remove him?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “That was troubling, no?”

“What do you know about the truth of that story? What does anyone know? Schoenborn met privately with the man. The man told Schoenborn that he does not present himself for communion. Schoenborn made the pastoral decision — he made a decision out of love. And that is Schoenborn’s greatest strength. He is not only humble, despite all of his gifts, but he has a great heart.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“He has been in this house, sitting in the same chair you are sitting in. And he hugged my son with such genuine love, that I understood…” She paused.

“Understood?”

“I understood who he is. You see, our son is severely handicapped. And so he has become my ‘litmus test.’ So many clerics come into my home, and they hug my son, but not eagerly. When Schoenborn hugged him, he passed the test. There was genuine love. And I love him for that. And for the fact that everyone is against him!”

“But,” I said, “he visited Medjugorge…”

“And that’s another reason they don’t like him, because it hasn’t yet been approved,” she said. “But he had the courage to go, to see for himself, unlike so many others, who go there incognito, wanting to see but afraid to be seen. Not Schoenborn…”

“Hmmm,” I said. “So… how long do you think the Conclave will take?”

“I think it will be Thursday,” she said. “On the third day.”

“And so you believe that this unusual period in the history of the Church will end well?”

“Bob, the Catholic people, as seen in recent weeks, has much more faith and serenity than we realize,” she said. “And Catholics are very much aware that Benedict, in his preaching and his actions, and especially this last action, has laid the basis for a new springtime in the Church.”

“So for you, it’s Schoenborn?”

“I love him,” she said. “What can I say? Do you know that many people who look at him say he looks like a young John Paul II? And do you know that we have a saying here in Italy, ‘not two without three’?”

“Not two without three?”

“Central Europe: Cracow, Wojtyla; Bavaria, Ratzinger; and now the third: Vienna, Schoenborn. Three Popes in a row from the heart of Europe, the old heart of Catholicism.”

 

“Ah,” I said. “Ok. I see… Well, now it’s late. You’re tired, and so am I. Thanks for a lovely evening.”

“Let’s hope things go well,” she said. “Buona notte.”

Mary

“Jesus’ repeated reference to the will of the Father shows the source of the community between Son and mother: the ‘fiat’ to the Father. The ‘fiat’ of the eternal Son is the very ground of his Incarnation; the ‘fiat’ of Mary is the ground of her divine motherhood. In this ‘fiat’ their hearts are united.” —Cardinal Christoph von Schoenborn, OP, on Mary’s role in the heart of the Church, from the book Mary, Heart of Theology, Theology of the Heart.

(to be continued)

“Pray for us”

Driving down a street near the Vatican about two hours ago, late Monday afternoon, as the shadows had just begun to lengthen, I saw someone I recognized, standing by a light, waiting to walk across the street.

A cardinal.

I knew him. We had spoken together on occasion in the past.

“I’ll get out and go up to him,” I said to myself. “Maybe he’ll talk to me.”

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“No,” I said to myself, “I’ll leave him alone. He has a right to his privacy. He’s going in to the Conclave tomorrow; there is no need to stalk him. I’ll just let him have his last quiet walk before the Conclave.”

“No,” I said, “there is a reason he is right here on the corner, just waiting for the light to change, just as I am here…”

“Ok,” I said, “but I won’t ask him anything, I’ll just say one thing to him. Just one thing, that’s all. I’ll say I loved Pope Benedict.”

I took my decision. I turned the steering wheel hard, pulled the car up onto the curb, turned off the key, jumped out of the car, slammed the door, hit the clicker to lock the vehicle, and jogged to the other side of the street so I could meet him as he came across. A motorcycle almost hit me as I ran.

I reached the other side, turned and looked back. The cardinal was still standing quietly on the other side of the street. Surrounding him now was a small group of young people who were visiting Rome on what seemed to be a school tour. He stood in the middle of them. They did not recognize him. He was dressed as a simple clergyman.

“Hmmm,” I thought, “now that I think of it, I’m not sure whether he is over 80, or under 80 — so either he will be going in to vote tomorrow, or maybe he won’t be. Maybe I can ask him that, too.”

The light changed and the whole group, about 20 young people with an old man in the middle, with a little space on each side of him, began to walk across the street.

About half-way across, he saw me, saw that I was looking at him. I tried to gauge whether he was in some way distrubed to see me, whether he was avoiding meeting my eyes, to signal that he just wanted to be left alone. But he met my eyes, directly.

“He recognizes me,” I thought. “It doesn’t mean he will discuss the Conclave with me — of course, he will keep the secret — but he will greet me.”

So I took three steps into the street and stretched out my hand. I still wondered if he would be cold toward me, and be unwilling to even begin a conversation. But I was surprised. He stretched out his hand.

“Your eminence,” I said.

In his eyes he was saying to me that he could not answer any questions.

But he was not excluding all conversation. And so I ventured…

“I only wanted to tell you one thing,” I said. “That I loved Pope Benedict.”

He stood still.

“I did too, and I do love him,” the cardinal said.

“And so I have been troubled and a bit off balance since February 11,” I said.

And then, as if filled with a sudden emotion, I saw the cardinal’s face grow dark and sad, and he said, forcefully: “I love him, but this should never have happened. He never should have left his office.”

I was silent.

“It is like a man and a woman, a husband and wife, a mother and father in relation to their children,” he said. “What do they say?” It seemed he was asking me the question.

I was silent.

“They say, ‘until death do us part!’ They stay together always.”

So I understood him to be saying that he felt a Successor of Peter should not step down from the throne, no matter how weary and tired, but continue until death.

I felt the words he was speaking were the words of an argument that may have been used even among the cardinals, but of course, that may not be the case.

But I felt that I was catching a glimpse of how at least one cardinal was thinking about the Pope’s renunciation.

“Your eminence,” I said, “I’ve forgotten. Are you already above age 80, or not?

“I am not yet 80,” he told me.

“So you will be voting tomorrow.”

He nodded, and a look passed over his eyes which seemed filled with shadows and concerns. I was surprised at his intensity. I was surprised by the whole conversation.

He squeezed my hand. “Is there anything else I can do?” I asked.

“Pray for us,” he said. “Pray for us.”

He turned as if he needed to go.

“I have to go.”

He took a step away from me, then turned again.

“It is a dangerous time. Pray for us.”

I think we should do as he asked.

And, God willing, I will be able to send out one more reflection later this evening, about the meaning of this Conclave at this time.

(to be continued)

 

Sunday Midnight

Today started with a bit of sun, then turned rainier toward mid-afternoon. There was even a bit of lightning, and thunder, but nothing like the lightning which struck St. Peter’s Dome one month ago. In the evening, it was cool and drizzly.

It was on February 11 that Pope Benedict announced his renunciation of the papal office — exactly one month ago.

(Left, a photo of the lightning bolt that struck St. Peter’s dome on February 11 at about 6 p.m., about 6 hours and 20 minutes after Benedict announced he would step down from the papal throne)

The time to the opening of the Conclave to elect his successor is now less than 40 hours, just a day and a half…

Most observers now are focused on who will become the next Pope. If I were asked right now who I think the next Pope will be, I would say I simply do not know.

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What does seem clear is that there is occurring a very silent, hidden battle to determine how closely the next pontificate follows the line of Ratzinger — the line of transparency — or how much it draws back from that line. That is what is being determined right now.

Today the cardinals spent the morning separately, celebrating Mass in their titular Roman churches. Each gave a homily, and these can be found on the internet.

Yet there still remains time to try to understand more fully the context of this election: Benedict’s unexpected decision to resign, the “lobbies” that exist, or do not exist, in the Roman Curia; the prelates who resisted Pope Benedict and his efforts to bring transparency and to “cleanse” the Church, and those who stood by him.

A few nights ago, I had a conversation with don Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, a 49-year-old Italian priest, born in Tuscany, who was ordained in Rome after a mid-life conversion at the age of 43. Don Ariel describes himself as “a student of Father Peter Gumpel, S.J.” (the postulator of the cause of Pope Pius XII), and he is the author of a book entitled E Satana si fece trino (“And Satan Made Himself Triune,” 2011).

His book is an indictment of what he sees as the three great ills undermining the Church in the 21st century: “relativism, individualism, disobedience.”

His book also makes the claim that there is a widespread network of homosexual priests in the Church. He argues that the cases of pedophilia have involved a very small number of priests, but that the cases of “psychological homosexuality” involve a much larger number. Here is a link to a review of the book, in Italian

However, there are no names in the book at all. No attributed citations. And the specific cases which don Ariel lists to bolster his claim — for example, a priest who lives in his rectory with a male Brazilian friend — are simply asserted, never given a time or a place, never made precise. So there is no checkable evidence in this book whatsoever to substantiate the existence of such a network.

I had been told that his book was the remote source of the article by Ignazio Ingrao in Panorama four weeks ago which spoke of a “gay lobby” in the Roman Curia, and which claimed that the secret report of the three cardinals, given to the Pope on December 17, contained information about this “lobby.” That claim was picked up in a La Repubblica article which suggested — without evidence — that Pope Benedict was stunned by what he learned from reading that report, and that what he learned contributed to his decision to resign.

What did don Ariel have to say about all this?

Well, he told me that he had, in fact, delivered a copy of his book to Ingrao about a week before Ingrao wrote his article.

He also told me that last fall, he sent copies of his book to a number of members of the Roman Curia, including Cardinal Julian Herranz, the head of the committee of three cardinals that investigated the “Vatileaks” affair, Cardinal Jozef Tomko and Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, the other two cardinals on that investigating committee.

He also told me that Herranz’s secretary had responded to the gift, thanking don Ariel for the book.

When I asked his for evidence of that response, he showed me a copy of the thank you note he received. I have a photograph of it.

He also showed me copies of a number of other thank you notes he received from other Curial officials to whom he had given the book.

He also told me that he had had a face-to-face meeting in October with Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran — the French cardinal who will announce the name of the new Pope once he is elected.

“Well,” I said, “you make some disturbing claims in your book, but in the end, where is your evidence?”

“I did prevalently an inquiry of a psychological type, based on my own experience here in Italy, and on conversations with many other priests and seminarians,” don Ariel said.

“But no one reading your book could gain any real insight into the actual membership and activity of these ‘lobbies’ that you claim exist, how important they are, what they do precisely,” I said.

“Rather than give names and statistics, I did a study of a method of operating,” don Ariel replied. “That is the more important point for me. I have experience in seminary where seven or eight out of 10 seminarians were gay, and the last two were kicked out for being too ‘orthodox’ and ‘normal.’ This is repeated in many seminaries. Those who advance are homosexuals. It is a sexual freemasonry, and it extends into the Vatican itself.

“If I say, along with Joseph Ratzinger in his famous meditations on Good Friday in 2005, that there is filth in the Church, and there is filth, I do not think I am lacking in charity,” don Ariel continued. “I think I am being charitable. I believe that charity passes by means of truth and justice.

“We must not forget that when Jesus picked up the whip in the Temple, he did so as an act of the highest charity. Not to see, not to cleanse, to sweep under the carpet, is not an act of charity.

“Already two years ago, when I wrote my book, I saw that we were at war. On one side, a very powerful evil. On the other, a very weak good.

“We need a warrior Pope, a Pope of tremendous energy and courage. Pope Benedict was a man of great orthodoxy, of great teaching, and we are all grateful to him. But for his whole life, he was a man of study. One does not become a man of government suddenly at the age of 78.

“Benedict has now grown old, and he realized that he could not carry out the needed cleansing,” don Ariel continued. “I fear the cardinals will choose a compromise figure. We do not need a compromise figure, but a strong, charismatic figure who will handle the situation.

“The priority, whoever is elected, must be a reform of the Roman Curia. For the past 40 years, it has become ever more autonomous from the Supreme Pontiff.”

I could not get any more detailed information from don Ariel. I paid the bill for our meal, and we parted.

Divine Mercy

This evening I went to the Santo Spirito in Sassia church, not far from the Vatican. The Church was dedicated in 1995 by Pope John Paul to the promotion of devotion to the Divine Mercy according to the insights of St. Faustina Kowalska.

The sermon was about the Prodigal Son, the Gospel for today. It was an eloquent sermon, preached by a Polish priest, don Giuseppe.

The tale of the Prodigal Son, who leaves his home and his family, spends his inheritance in wild living, only to end in misery, then decides to return home, where he is greeted by his father who embraces him because “my son who was lost is found,” applies to all of us, don Giuseppe said.

All of us must turn and return.

After the Mass, the crowd filed out of the church. I chatted for a moment with a priest from India, and just in that amount of time, a woman came out of the Church whom I had not seen in a long time. She is an expert in Vatican affairs, someone I trust.

“Hey,” I said.

“It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Yes.” There was a slight drizzle. The air was thick with humidity, and cool.

“I’ve been disoriented since February 11,” I said.

“We all have been,” she said.

“I simply don’t know what to believe,” I said. “Did Benedict leave because of old age alone, or was he in some way forced out? And who can replace him?”

“Your question is too black and white,” she said. “You’ve left out the nuances. Benedict took the time to assess the situation. He formed the commission of the three cardinals, and they took their time, and presented their report.

“In the meantime, Benedict’s health was declining. I saw him recently, and he reminded me of how my mother, who was 90, looked about two weeks before she died.

“Last fall, he had two small strokes. These did not incapacitate him, but they worried him. He feared he might experience a more serious stroke.

“So Benedict did what he does best: he went to prayer. And in deep prayer, he struggled to understand what the Lord was calling him to do, knowing also all of the problems that still remained for him to deal with. And eventually he came to clarity: his sight was going, his hearing was going, his memory was going, he was not sleeping at night, and he realized he could not give the service to the Church that the Church desperately needed.

“Rather than continue to decline, he made the decision to step aside and allow a younger and stronger man, chosen with the help of the Holy Spirit, and not by his own decision, to take up the work that needs to be done.”

“And these stories of a ‘gay lobby’ in the Curia?” I asked.

“Look,” she said. “It’s not just one. There are several groups. And it’s not simply about being gay. The concern is that these groups are in competition with one other. There are careers at stake. Promotions. In this environment, all types of information, including information about a person’s sexuality — even rumors or lies about a person’s sexuality — can be employed to introduce doubt about a person, or to gain an advantage. Careers can be blocked. Alliances can be formed to consolidate power. Agendas can be sabotaged — even the agenda of the Pope himself.”

“But the Pope entrusted the management of the Curia to someone he trusted, Cardinal Bertone,” I said. “How did it all go wrong?”

“That’s a long story,” she said. “Are you going to have supper? Why don’t you come over to the house for dinner? That will give us more time to talk.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Sounds wonderful.”

“It won’t be anything special,” she said. “Just some leftovers.”

“Perfect,” I said…

(to be continued)

48 Hours To Go

The 115 voting cardinals will begin to vote in about 48 hours from now, Sunday afternoon in Rome.

The Osservatore Romano issued a special supplement yesterday with all the photos of the 115 cardinals who will enter into Conclave. Here they are in two photos:

 

 

The Italian and world press are full of prognostications. Nearly all are wrong, although they may be useful to understand some of the “dynamics” of the election process. Only one will be right.

La Repubblica — which I turn to because it is Italy’s largest paper, not because everything written there is objective, or reliable; the paper “influences” the opinion of people in Italy, and, by osmosis, opinion worldwide — this morning suggested seven cardinals were the leading “papabili.”

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The paper also headlines “It will be a brief conclave,” echoing the words of the Vatican Press Director, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., who said yesterday that he presumed the cardinals would not have voted to enter into Conclave on Tuesday afternoon unless they felt they were ready to elect a Pope in a relatively brief time.

During the 20th century, the length of papal Conclaves has never exceeded 5 days. On the basis of this precedent, one would imagine that a Pope will be elected by Saturday, March 16. (However, precedents are being broken regularly in Rome in these recent weeks.)

Here is the history of the length of the last Conclaves:

1903 — 4 days, 7 votes (Pope Pius X elected)

1914 — 3 days, 10 votes (Pope Benedict XV elected)

1922 — 5 days, 14 votes (Pope Pius XI elected)

1939 — 2 days, 3 votes (Pope Pius XII elected)

1958 — 4 days, 11 votes (Pope John XXIII elected)

1963 — 3 days, 6 votes (Pope Paul VI elected)

1978 — 2 days, 4 votes (Pope John Paul I elected)

1978 — 3 days, 8 votes (Pope John Paul II elected)

2005 — 2 days, 4 votes (Pope Benedict XVI elected)

Here are the names of the cardinals La Repubblica puts “in the lead” right now — again, just their opinion, and possibly, in a way, their preference:

Under the heading “Curial Cardinals” (though Malcolm Ranjith is not a Curial cardinal, being in Sri Lanka — although he was in the Curia, in the early years of Pope Benedict’s pontificate)

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith

Each of these three is “teamed” with one of two Italians as the proposed new Secretary of State:

Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello

or

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza

Then, under the heading “Reformers” are listed:

Cardinal Angelo Scola

or

Cardinal Marc Ouellet

with those two “teamed” again with one of two Italians, neither of them cardinals, both from the Vatican diplomatic service (Ventura, a very capable man, is nuncio in Paris, and was for many years the personal secretary of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Secretary of State in the early years of Pope John Paul II) to be Secretary of State:

Luigi Ventura

or

Pedro Lopez Quitana

And then, under the heading of “Third Way” (whatever that means), is listed:

Cardinal Peter Erdo

while alongside Erdo is listed a highly respected French Vatican diplomat to be Secretary of State:

Dominique Mamberti.

What one can glean from this is that the election is now wide open, but that there is some serious “horse-trading” going on to build a consensus around a candidate who will undertake to provide continuity on the diplomatic front, while launching his papacy (again, in this schema) under either a “curial” or a “reforming” or a “third way” umbrella.

So what will likely happen?

A considerable importance must be attributed to the very first ballot. If one candidate surpasses about 40 votes, there is a strong chance that, immediately, the other cardinals will be compelled to make a decision: either to say “no” to that candidacy, and strive to form a “veto” block of 39 cardinals, so that the candidate cannot reach the 2/3s majority of 77, or to, over the next two, three or four votes, say “yes” to that candidacy, and send it over the top.

The candidate most likely to have about 40 votes is Angelo Scola, who is in many ways very close to Pope Benedict, and a student of Pope Benedict’s thought. But, if Scola seems to be impeded by the time he reaches 50 or 60 votes, the Conclave would open up to allow a number of other hypotheses, like the ones above — Sandri, Scherer, Ranjith, Ouellet, Erdo — but also many others, including the Americans, led by Dolan of New York, and then by O’Malley of Boston, but not counting out Wuerhl of Washington (who is respected in the Roman Curia) or even George of Chicago, who is regarded as a profound thinker and a man of moral courage. And there are others. At this point, it is harder to exclude a cardinal than to mention his name, as the “race” becomes wide open, and unpredictable. Something will have to happen to coalesce sentiment, and what that “something” will be is unable to be known today.

It is in this area of mystery, and the freedom of the human will, that the action of the Holy Spirit has and will have its place, imperceptible to human sense, and perhaps even to human reason, as the Spirit speaks to the mind, but even more, to the soul, where the final decision will have to be taken.

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

Then, here is a little something that I wrote yesterday, and did not send, but I decided, under the circumstances, to simply send it, without either supporting or condemning the thoughts expressed.

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

“All I can pray for and ask of the cardinal electors is: ‘Re-elect Ratzinger.’” — email from a reader

The other day, in my Letter #37, “A Living Stone,” I spoke of the fact that Benedict yet lives a few miles outside of Rome.

I ventured to wonder if some of the 115 cardinal electors who will enter into conclave on Tuesday afternoon might feel it was not right, perhaps for theological reasons, perhaps for practical reasons, to give their vote to any other man to become Pope, while Benedict XVI yet lives.

I did not propose that the cardinals vote to re-elect him.

I simply wondered what would happen if some cardinals abstained from voting, in this unprecedented situation.

However, I have since received a number of emails, like the one above, saying what I did not say: that the cardinals should vote to elect Benedict again.

Here is another of those emails:

“I have been reading your reports with thanks and a grateful heart. I too have wondered since Feb 11th about whether our leaving Benedict’s side while he yet lives is doable…. I refer you to the last sentence of # 83 of Universi Dominici Gregis. You should re-read it. Were the electors to take completely seriously this instruction I read this as a possibility, perhaps even a necessity, a compulsion, a duty, that the Bishop Emeritus of Rome could be/should be re-elected as Pope, being, in the electors’ eyes, the most qualified, most suited to govern the Universal Church even if he is currently outside the College.”

Here is Paragraph 83 of Universi Dominici Gregis, On the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff, the letter promulgated on February 22, 1996, by Pope John Paul II, which regulates papal conclaves, with two phrases italicized:

“With the same insistence shown by my Predecessors, I earnestly exhort the Cardinal electors not to allow themselves to be guided, in choosing the Pope, by friendship or aversion, or to be influenced by favour or personal relationships towards anyone, or to be constrained by the interference of persons in authority or by pressure groups, by the suggestions of the mass media, or by force, fear or the pursuit of popularity. Rather, having before their eyes solely the glory of God and the good of the Church, and having prayed for divine assistance, they shall give their vote to the person, even outside the College of Cardinals, who in their judgment is most suited to govern the universal Church in a fruitful and beneficial way.” (Paragraph #83)

And three paragraphs later, Pope John Paul II wrote the following:

“I also ask the one who is elected not to refuse, for fear of its weight, the office to which he has been called, but to submit humbly to the design of the divine will. God who imposes the burden will sustain him with his hand, so that he will be able to bear it. In conferring the heavy task upon him, God will also help him to accomplish it and, in giving him the dignity, he will grant him the strength not to be overwhelmed by the weight of his office.” (Paragraph #86)

Now, I too would have thought all of this a bit “far out”– yes, I am not completely out of touch with reality — as I was really expressing a deep feeling of solidarity with Benedict, and not proposing anything with regard to his re-election.

But this evening, I was reading a round-up of Vatican news reports, and I noticed one by the German journalist Paul Badde, who writes from Rome for the German newspaper Die Welt.

The title was: Konklave ab 12. März und der Traum einer Wiederwahl Benedikts XVI. (“Conclave from March 12 and the Dream of a Re-Election of Benedict XVI”).

It startled me because the author of the piece, Paul Badde, has known Joseph Ratzinger personally for decades, from the 1970s in Munich. It startled me because Badde is a long-time friend of the Emeritus Pope’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein. It startled me because Badde was the one who published a memorable article on the “Vatileaks” case last July which claimed that several people close to the Pope had been involved in the “Vatileaks” affair — an article which, a week later, after it was picked up in Italy by La Repubblica, was categorically denied by Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican Press Office, but an article which Badde says he stands by. And it startled me because Badde received communion from Benedict at the Ash Wednesday Mass, just after the Emeritus Pope announced that he would renounce the throne of Peter, which I mentioned at the time in my letter on that Mass.

The first part of the story was all about the cardinals’ decision to proceed to the conclave on Tuesday, March 12.

But the final paragraph read as follows:

“A high prelate from Lebanon has suggested in these days, that the best solution for the cardinals to vote for in this conclave would be simply to re-elect Benedict XVI one more time. Then the Church would immediately have a couple of fewer problems. This election Benedict just couldn’t refuse. He would have to return from Castel Gandolfo right away – (returning to Rome) like Peter, who in his flight out of a burning city of Rome met Jesus, who only asked him ‘Quo vadis?’ ‘Where are you going?’ Upon his return Benedict could rule as never before. With such a strong mandate as a re-election, the frail old man would become the most powerful Pope in the entire history of the Church.”

(Here is a link to the story in the original German: http://kath.net/detail.php?id=40452)

I emailed Badde to ask him about his story.

“Paul,” I wrote. “The Pope resigned. If he were re-elected, would he return? Or would he say ‘no, you didn’t understand me, I really am out of it all, I’m done’?”

Paul replied: “If the conclave would oblige him, he couldn’t say no. Because: it’s very important for him that he never refused — like Celestine, who did not refuse. He gave up when he couldn’t bear it anymore. It was a renunciation, not a refusal. That was very important for him, and he (Celestine) is something like a role model for B 16. Good nite.”

Of course, it still seems far-fetched to imagine that the cardinals might re-elect Benedict.

But is there really someone better suited than Benedict to govern the universal Church, if the criterion is the one set forth above: that the cardinals have before their eyes “solely the glory of God and the good of the Church?”

And what is the situation now of the Roman Curia? Every single head of every curial office has now been deposed, due to the see of Peter being vacant. So, if Benedict were recalled, he could appoint to posts in the Curia anyone he wished. He could effectively carry out the reform of the Curia which everyone is saying is so urgently needed.

(more later)

 

 

 

Conclave Begins Tuesday

The cardinals voted today to begin the Conclave on Tuesday, March 12.

There will be 115 electors.

The cardinals will move the Domus Santa Marta on Monday evening. On Tuesday morning, all cardinals will celebrate the Mass Pro Eligendo Pontefice (“For the Electing of a Pontiff”). They will then have lunch in the Domus Santa Marta and after lunch will go to the Sistine Chapel to begin the voting process.

(more later)

A Living Stone

“A righteous man falling down before the wicked [is as] a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring.” —Proverbs 25:26

“By concentrating our relationship with the Eucharistic Christ only on Mass we run the risk that the rest of time and space is emptied of His presence. Thus our perception of Jesus’ constant, real and close presence among us and with us is diminished… Christ did not abolish the sacred but brought it to fulfillment, inaugurating a new worship which is entirely spiritual but which nonetheless, as long as our journey in time continues, still uses signs and rites. These will only fall into disuse at the end, in the celestial Jerusalem where there will be no temple.”—Pope Benedict XVI, June 8, 2012, Feast of Corpus Christi

“Tu es Petrus.” (“You are Peter.”) —Jesus to Peter, the words the Catholic Church considers the basis for the Petrine office (Matthew 16:18) 

 

The Vacant See 

The days seem strange. They have since February 11, when Pope Benedict announced abruptly, without warning, that he would resign his office on February 28.

February 28 was one week ago. Only seven days have passed.

And yet it seems like seventy.

The days seem strange because it’s hard to know what’s going on. The cardinals are gathering, and have gathered, and are meeting, and are about to vote to set a date for a Conclave, where they intend to elect a new Pope, and 5,000 journalists have come to the city, to report on the election of a new Pope, and around the world, people are watching, praying, and yet, a few miles away… Pope Benedict yet lives.

Each time I see the lists of “papabili,” and hear how this cardinal is very simple, this one very strong, this one very charismatic, this one very learned, I think: “There are good men among…”

But my thoughts still turn to Benedict.

And then I think of the telegram sent to Benedict by the cardinals the other day: a brief text, not cold, not offensive, but formal, lukewarm.

As if Benedict were already history. No invitation to ask him for his wisdom at this moment in time.

Of course, he has expressed his will to live “hidden from the world,” and his wish should be respected. But perhaps he would be able and might be willing to offer some insight, after his years as the head of the Church. Perhaps he is so modest and humble that he would only consider such a thing if he were asked. Yes, he will be there, it appears, for the next Pope. But it seems almost as if the cardinals are “flopping around” like fish out of water, in need of guidance. It might be that Benedict would reject any such request, but there are no rules for this situation; together, the cardinals with Benedict could make whatever rules they wish, in a situation with no precedent.

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And then I play through the whole sequence of events again in my mind, going back a few years: the death of Pope John Paul II on April 2, 2005; the funeral, with lines of pilgrims moving through the streets of Rome around the clock for several days to view his casket; the quick conclave, the white smoke; the election of Joseph Ratzinger; the angry opposition to the choice; the unfolding of his papacy; his stunning homilies; his extraordinarily profound addresses, usually in September; the year-long stalemate over whether to release Summorum Pontificum, the document allowing wider use of the old liturgy; the Williamson affair; the “Vatileaks” affair; his three books on Jesus, in his own name… And then the images move more quickly: the announcement that he would renounce the papacy; the address to the priests of Rome on the Second Vatican Council; the next-to-last General Audience; the last Sunday Angelus; the last General Audience, where he drove off in his Popemobile, and Cardinal Mahony was the last cardinal to go out to the edge of the sagrato and watch him as he drove away; the last meeting with the cardinals the next morning, Cardinal Sodano’s remarks, citing the Apocalypse, and then Benedict’s reply, “among you is also the future Pope”… and then the white helicopter, lifting off from the Vatican gardens, sweeping toward the Janiculum, then back over the basilica, then out over the city toward Castel Gandolfo; the last words to the crowd from the balcony of the palace there: “I am a simple pilgrim who begins the last stage of his pilgrimage on this earth.”

And now, one week later, as they say, “out of sight, out of mind” — the cardinals gather, the media chatters, and Benedict, day by day, slips into the past, almost forgotten in just seven days’ time. And yet, he is not out of my mind.

Just a few miles away, in Castel Gandolfo, he yet lives.

And I think, what if the cardinals were to decide that, while Benedict lives, they will not vote? What if they were to decide that, while Benedict yet lives, he remains the Holy Father? What if they were to propose that Benedict appoint an “Apostolic Vicar” to run the daily affairs of the Vatican and the central government of the Church, while yet remaining “Peter”?

Am I serious? Look, I am just a writer, sitting in a room in Rome, well after midnight, writing a letter about a situation, and a man, and a time, of importance to me. I have no standing to propose anything. But I am a writer, and a writer writes what he thinks, and what he feels. And I think and feel that the theological implications of Benedict’s resignation, and of the election of a new Pope while he yet lives, and of carrying forward an election under the glaring floodlights of the media, which have a different agenda than the Church’s agenda, all cry out for further reflection, and clarification.

For what is the role of Peter, except to be in union with Christ, in prayer, in the liturgy, in the praise and worship of God? Does the Pope need to do anything more?

Where is the Church? Is it in the buildings of cement, and stone, and wood, where we gather? Or, is it in our hearts?

In recent days, journalists have spoken of the logic of a Pope from Asia, or Africa, where “the Church is young” and where a man from that region might “bring into the Church” perhaps “hundreds of millions” of Catholics.

They have spoken of the See of Peter as if it is a representative office, as if the See of Peter must “represent” the members of the Church, in a democratic sense.

But this is far from the logic of the Church.

Peter must do only one thing: he must walk out on the water.

In an age when the idea of man is being dissolved into a spoonful of chemicals and a nexus of biological urges and drives, in a time when the new financial and technological powers are recklessly disintegrating the last remnants of traditional human society, building a brave new “utilitarian” world, quicker, more powerful, more plastic and malleable than ever even imaginable up until now, what humanity needs is God.

What the Pope offers is God.

He who Is, and who ever will be, unto ages of ages.

Connected to this divine, man finds his meaning.

Severed from this divine, man loses his meaning, his logos, and descends into meaninglessness.

Man — and this is what Benedict taught us, and continues to teach us even in his silence — “does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Cardinal Sodano said, in his February 28 farewell remarks to the Pope, citing Luke’s account of the two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, but did not recognize him, “Did not our hearts burn within us as we walked with Him?”

Sodano said: “Holy Father, with deep love we have tried to accompany you on your journey, reliving the experience of the disciples of Emmaus who, after walking with Jesus for a good stretch of road, said to one another: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way?’ (Luke 24:32). Yes, Holy Father, know that our hearts, too, burned while we walked with you these past eight years.”

He spoke in the past tense, “burned.”

And this reminded me of a story I have now decided to recount.

In the spring of 1994, I had dinner in Rome with two tradition-minded Catholics, Eric de Saventhem and Michel Davies, both now deceased. It was April 11, 1994, a Monday. They told me they had had meetings that day with Cardinal Re and Cardinal Sodano, and had been informed that the Church had decided to approve the use of altar girls at Mass, and that the announcement was imminent. By chance, I had an interview scheduled for the next morning, April 12, with Cardinal Ratzinger. During the interview, I told the cardinal what the two men had told me. “That’s not possible,” he said to me. “The matter has not yet come across my desk, and it cannot be decided until it does.”

The next day, April 13, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls issued a communique saying that the Holy See had approved the use of altar girls. (The actual letter announcing the approval had been signed by the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship several weeks before.) Seven years later, another letter from the same Congregation said the approval could not “require that priests of the diocese would make use of female altar servers, since ‘it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar’ (Circular Letter to the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences, March 15, 1994, no. 2). Indeed, the obligation to support groups of altar boys will always remain, not least of all due to the well known assistance that such programs have provided since time immemorial in encouraging future priestly vocations (cf. ibid.).”

A few miles away, Benedict yet lives.

Perhaps we should continue to walk by his side, so that our hearts may continue to burn.

The road to Emmaus is a road we can walk on even now, together with Benedict.

Silence

Silence, of a sort, has descended over the meeting of the cardinals in the lead-up to the Conclave.

The American cardinals today canceled their scheduled press conference at the North American College — the NAC, as it is called, on the Janiculum Hill just above the Vatican.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Cardinal Francis George of Chicago had been scheduled to speak to journalists.

We are now being told there will be no further press conferences until after the Conclave — the date of which has still not been set.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, Director of Media Relations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, had organized quite unusual daily press conferences with two American cardinals each day in the College — and had provided exclusive access to American networks to some cardinals.

These were the only press conferences any cardinals were giving, so they were attracting a lot of attention from journalists.

Four Cardinals took part in the two press conferences that were held on Monday and Tuesday: Cardinals Donald Wuerl and Francis George on Monday, Cardinals Sean O’Malley and Daniel DiNardo on Tuesday — with Cardinal Dolan providing an exclusive interview to ABC News also on Tuesday.

Today, the conferences and interviews were canceled.

“Concern was expressed in the General Congregation [of the cardinals] about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers,” Sister Mary Ann Walsh said in a communique. “As a precaution, the cardinals have agreed not to do interviews.”

During his daily briefing today, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., the spokesman of the Holy See, answered with what seemed some annoyance repeated questions from journalists about why the press conferences of the US cardinals had been canceled.

“Ask them,” he said curtly.

Vatican Information Service adds:

 

“Regarding the cancelling of the press conferences that some of the American cardinals were giving in these days, Fr. Lombardi observed that ‘the Congregations are not a synod or a congress in which we try to report the most information possible, but a path toward arriving at the decision of electing the Roman Pontiff. In this sense, the tradition of this path is one of reservation in order to safeguard the freedom of reflection on the part of each of the members of the College of Cardinals who has to make such an important decision. It does not surprise me, therefore, that along this path there were, at the beginning, moments of openness and communication and that afterwards, in harmony with the rest of the College, it has been established whether and how to communicate.’”

So what is really happening here?

There are several strands to this story. It is complex.

The American cardinals have been the “open” ones, holding press conferences — but the Italians are the ones who have actually been talking to journalists, privately, not for attribution.

So, the Italian cardinals have been speaking in private — but their words fill the Italian press!

The Americans have been speaking in public, saying nothing of real substance about the proceedings — and they are being asked to stop doing so!

The Americans do seem a bit naive, holding press conferences with no real content in them, though the effort to provide some insight into what is happening in these days is to be applauded.

So, there is no real drama surrounding the ending the conferences — they contained nothing anyway. They were not important.

And it is true that the Conclave to elect a Pope, as well as the proceedings leading up to it, are “private” gatherings. So, to try to make it into something like an Iowa caucus, with press conferences and position statements — or to wish to do so — seems a case of cross-cultural lack of understanding and communication.

For the moment, the decision to end all press conferences seems to be a sort of victory for the “old guard” of the Vatican (led by the Dean of the College, Cardinal Angelo Sodano). The “old guard” has seemingly gotten back the “upper hand” and restored order, and secrecy.

But actually, the secrets will still come out — from the Italians.

The problem is, the Americans are all extraordinarily respectful and honest when compared to the Italians. The Americans took an oath not to speak on the proceedings, and they intend to keep it… even when holding press conferences. The Italians took the same oath… but they never took it that seriously (at least some of them).

In Italy, there is always a grey area, a space to maneuver.

As Emeritus Pope Benedict once said, famously, “We know the Italians.”

So where are we now? The cardinals must decide when to open the actual Conclave. They may vote on this soon.

And then the cardinals must discern who among them — or even outside of the College — could be a worthy successor of Benedict XVI.

The leading candidates right now — but this is all journalistic speculation — seem to be Odilo Scherer from Brazil (thought to be the candidate preferred by Cardinal Sodano), Angelo Scola from Milan (the Italian candidate thought to be most in keeping with the thought of Joseph Ratzinger), Marc Ouellet, the Canadian who is Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, who is seen as extraordinarily balanced and who has few enemies, and Leonardo Sandri, the Argentine-born Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, who is also very close to Cardinal Sodano and so would represent a return to a pre-Ratzingerian line with regard to the purification of the Church and the Curia.

Among the “outsiders,” the profiles of  three holy men are receiving quiet attention: the American Capuchin friar Sean O’Malley of Boston, who is seen as a holy man who speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese, and so could represent both the First World and the Third World; Peter Erdo of Budapest, Hungary, who speaks fluent Russian, is an eminent canon lawyer, and has a photographic memory; and Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka, who was very close to Pope Benedict’s line, as a lover of the old liturgy, but is also “modern” and “active” and “strong” enough to have brought about peace between warring factions in a civil war between Tamils and Singhelese in Sri Lanka, making him a remarkable choice to represent the explosive Christian faith of the Third World. Another cardinal who would be in line with Joseph Ratzinger and would not repres ent a return to the traditional policies of the Roman Curia would be Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.

Benedict’s Last Lesson on the Papacy

“And the cross may have very different forms, but no one can be Christian without following the Crucified One, without accepting the martyrological moment too.” —Pope Benedict XVI,speaking to the seminarians of Rome on February 8, three days before he announced his renunciation of the papacy (full text below)

Joseph Ratzinger Lesson

Petrus Apostolus: the Pope’s grand lectio on St. Peter and Rome

Shortly before the announcement of Pope Benedict’s resignation, on Friday, February 8, 2013, he gave a deeply Roman, Petrine, lesson in his meeting with the seminarians of Rome in the chapel of the Pontifical Roman Seminary.

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Three days later, in a morning meeting with his cardinals on Monday, February 11, he announced his decision to step down from the papacy.

So these were his last words as Pope on the first Bishop of Rome, and he surely knew quite well by then that it would be the last time that, as Pope, Peter would teach us about Peter, which makes it even more significant.

It also seems to us a great apologetic text to send to members of non-Catholic confessions who are considering joining the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The official translation has now been made available at the Holy See website, and we highlight excerpts below.

By Pope Benedict XVI

We have heard three verses from the First Letter of St Peter (cf. 1:3-5). Before going into this text it seems to me important to be aware of the fact that it is Peter who is speaking. The first two words of the Letter are “Petrus apostolus” (cf. v.1): he speaks and he speaks to the Churches in Asia and calls the faithful “chosen”, and “exiles of the Dispersion” (ibid.).

Let us reflect a little on this. Peter is speaking and — as we hear at the end of the Letter — he is speaking from Rome, which he called “Babylon” (cf. 5:13).

Peter speaks as if it were a first encyclical with which the first Apostle, Vicar of Christ, addresses the Church of all time.

Peter, an apostle: thus, the one who is speaking is the one who found the Messiah in Jesus Christ, who was the first to speak on behalf of the future Church: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (cf. Mt 16:16).

The one who introduced us to this faith is speaking, the one to whom the Lord said: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (cf. Mt 16:19), to whom he entrusted his flock after the Resurrection, saying to him three times: “Feed my lambs…Tend my sheep” (cf. Jn 21:15-17).

Painting by Reni Guido, Peter’s Repentance in the Hermitage Museum

And it is also the man who fell who is speaking, the man who denied Jesus three times and was granted the grace to see Jesus’ look, to feel deeply moved in his heart and to find forgiveness and a renewal of his mission.

However, above all it is important that this man, full of passion, full of longing for God, full of a desire for the Kingdom of God, for the Messiah, this man who has found Jesus, the Lord and the Messiah, is also the man who sinned, who fell; and yet he remained in God’s sight and in this way he remained responsible for the Lord’s Church, he remained the one assigned by Christ, he remained the messenger of Christ’s love.

Peter the Apostle is speaking, but the exegetes tell us: it is impossible for this Letter to have been written by Peter because the Greek is so good that it cannot be the Greek of a fisherman from the Sea of Galilee.

And it is not only the language — the syntax is excellent — but also the thought which is already quite mature, there are actual formulas in which the faith and the reflection of the Church are summed up. These exegetes say, therefore: it had already reached a degree of development that cannot be Peter’s.

How does one respond? There are two important positions: first, Peter himself — that is, the Letter — gives us a clue, for at the end of the writing he says I write to you: “By Silvanus… dia Silvanus”.

This “by” [dia] could mean various things. It may mean that he [Silvanus] brings or transmits; it may mean that Silvanus helped him write it; it may mean that in practice it was really Silvanus who wrote it. In any case, we may conclude that the Letter itself points out to us that Peter was not alone in writing this Letter but it expresses the faith of a Church, which is already on a journey of faith, a faith increasingly mature. He does not write alone, as an isolated individual; he writes with the assistance of the Church, of people who help him to deepen the faith, to enter into the depths of his thought, of his rationality, of his profundity.

And this is very important: Peter is not speaking as an individual, he is speaking ex persona Ecclesiae, he is speaking as a man of the Church, as an individual of course, with his personal responsibility, but also as a person who speaks on behalf of the Church; not only private and original ideas, not as a 19th-century genius who wished to express only personal and original ideas that no one else could have expressed first.

No.

He does not speak as an individualistic genius, but speaks, precisely, in the communion of the Church. In the Apocalypse, in the initial vision of Christ, it is said that Christ’s voice is like the sound of many waters (cf. Rev 1:15). This means: Christ’s voice gathers together all the waters of the world, bears within it all the living waters that give life to the world; he is a Person, but this is the very greatness of the Lord, that he bears within him all the rivers of the Old Testament, indeed, of the wisdom of peoples. …

I would like to say something more: St Peter writes from Rome.

This is important.

Here we already have the Bishop of Rome, we have the beginning of Succession, we already have the beginning of the actual Primacy located in Rome, not only granted by the Lord but placed here, in this city, in this world capital.

How did Peter come to Rome? This is a serious question. The Acts of the Apostles tell us that after his escape from Herod’s prison, he went to another place (cf. 12:17) — eis eteron topon. Where he went is not known; some say to Antioch, others, to Rome.

In any case, in this capital it should also be said that before fleeing he entrusted the Judaeo-Christian Church, the Church of Jerusalem, to James, and in entrusting her to James he nevertheless remained Primate of the universal Church, of the Church of the Gentiles but also of the Judaeo-Christian Church.

And here in Rome he found a great Judaeo-Christian community.

The liturgists tell us that in the Roman Canon there are traces of a characteristically Judaeo-Christian language.

Thus we see that in Rome both parts of the Church were to be found: the Judaeo-Christian and the pagan-Christian, united, an expression of the universal Church. And for Peter, moving from Jerusalem to Rome meant moving to the universality of the Church, moving to the Church of the Gentiles and of all the epochs, to the Church that also still belongs to the Jews.

And I think that in going to Rome St Peter not only thought of this transfer: Jerusalem/Rome, Judaeo-Christian Church/universal Church.

He certainly also remembered Jesus’ last words to him, recorded by St John: “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (cf. Jn 21:18).

It is a prophecy of the crucifixion.

Philologists show us that “stretch out your hands” is a precise, technical expression for the crucifixion. St Peter knew that his end would be martyrdom, would be the cross: that it would therefore be following Christ completely.

Consequently, in going to Rome there is no doubt that he was also going to martyrdom: martyrdom awaited him in Babylon.

The primacy, therefore, has this content of universality but it has a martyrological content as well.

The Crucifixion of St Peter, Caravaggio

Furthermore, Rome had been a place of martyrdom from the outset. In going to Rome, Peter once again accepts this word of the Lord: he heads for the cross and invites us too to accept the martyrological aspect of Christianity, which may have very different forms.

And the cross may have very different forms, but no one can be Christian without following the Crucified One, without accepting the martyrological moment too.

…

Perhaps today we are tempted to say: we do not want to rejoice at having been chosen, for this would be triumphalism.

It would be triumphalism to think that God had chosen me because I was so important. This would really be erroneous triumphalism.

However, being glad because God wanted me is not triumphalism. Rather, it is gratitude, and I think we should re-learn this joy: God wanted me to be born in this way, into a Catholic family, he wanted me to know Jesus from the first.

What a gift to be wanted by God so that I could know his face, so that I could know Jesus Christ, the human face of God, the human history of God in this world! Being joyful because he has chosen me to be a Catholic, to be in this Church of his, where subsistit Ecclesia unica; we should rejoice because God has given me this grace, this beauty of knowing the fullness of God’s truth, the joy of his love….

Christians are certainly not only foreigners; we are also Christian nations, we are proud of having contributed to the formation of culture; there is a healthy patriotism, a healthy joy of belonging to a nation that has a great history of culture and of faith.

Yet, as Christians, we are always also foreigners — the destiny of Abraham, described in the Letter to the Hebrews. As Christians we are, even today, also always foreigners.

In the work place, Christians are a minority, they find themselves in an extraneous situation; it is surprising that a person today can still believe and live like this. This is also part of our life: it is a form of being with the Crucified Christ; this being foreigners, not living in the way that everyone else lives, but living — or at least seeking to live — in accordance with his Word, very differently from what everyone says.

And it is precisely this that is characteristic of Christians. They all say: “But everyone does this, why don’t I?”

No, I don’t, because I want to live in accordance with God. St Augustine once said: “Christians are those who do not have their roots below, like trees, but have their roots above, and they do not live this gravity in the natural downwards gravitation.”

Let us pray the Lord that he help us to accept this mission of living as exiles, as a minority, in a certain sense, of living as foreigners and yet being responsible for others and, in this way, reinforcing the goodness in our world.

…

[I]nheritance. It is a very important word in the Old Testament, where Abraham is told that his seed will inherit the earth, and this was always the promise for his descendants.

You will have the earth, you will be heirs of the earth.

In the New Testament, this word becomes a word for us; we are heirs, not of a specific country, but of the land of God, of the future of God.

Inheritance is something of the future, and thus this word tells us above all that as Christians we have a future, the future is ours, the future is God’s.

Thus, being Christians, we know that the future is ours and the tree of the Church is not a tree that is dying but a tree that constantly puts out new shoots.

Therefore we have a reason not to let ourselves be upset, as Pope John said, by the prophets of doom who say: well, the Church is a tree that grew from the mustard seed, grew for 2,000 years, now she has time behind her, it is now time for her to die.

No.

The Church is ever renewed, she is always reborn. The future belongs to us.

Of course, there is a false optimism and a false pessimism. A false pessimism tells us that the epoch of Christianity is over.

No: it is beginning again!

The false optimism was the post-Council optimism, when convents closed, seminaries closed and they said “but… nothing, everything is fine!”….

No! Everything is not fine. There are also serious, dangerous omissions and we have to recognize with healthy realism that in this way things are not all right, it is not all right when errors are made.

However, we must also be certain at the same time that if, here and there, the Church is dying because of the sins of men and women, because of their non-belief, at the same time she is reborn.

The future really belongs to God: this is the great certainty of our life, the great, true optimism that we know. The Church is the tree of God that lives for ever and bears within her eternity and the true inheritance: eternal life.

…

And, lastly, “guarded through faith.” The New Testament text, from the Letter of St Peter, uses a rare word here, phrouroumenoi, which means: there are the “guards” and faith is like the guards who preserve the integrity of my being, of my faith.

This word interprets in particular “the guards” at the gates of a city, where they stand and keep watch over the city so that it is not invaded by destructive powers.

Thus faith is a “guard” of my being, of my life, of my inheritance.

We must be grateful for this vigilance of faith that protects us, helps us, guides us, gives us the security: God does not let me fall from his hands.

Benedict XVI

Address – Visit to the Pontifical Major Roman Seminary

February 8, 2013 

 

(to be continued…)

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Sistine Chapel Closed to Public

Sections of the Vatican Museums were closed today at 1 p.m. Rome time, about 60 minutes ago, to begin to prepare the Sistine Chapel for the upcoming papal conclave.

In 2005, it took seven days to prepare the Chapel for the Conclave after it was closed.

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By this measure, the Sistine Chapel should be ready for the Conclave on March 12.

However, the cardinals must vote to move the Conclave up from the March 15-20 time-frame foreseen by the regulations currently in effect. Such a vote would require the presence of all 115 voting cardinals.

In meetings this morning, there were 110 voting age cardinals present. Five voting age cardinals are still not present in Rome.

Here is a link to the Vatican Museum website containing this announcement of the closing today of the Sistine Chapel to visitors: http://mv.vatican.va/2_IT/pages/MV_Home.html

Here is the text in Italian:

Avviso 

Chiusura Cappella Sistina 

Per le esigenze del prossimo Conclave, dalle ore 13.00 di martedì 5 marzo la Cappella Sistina sarà chiusa al pubblico fino a data da destinarsi. Nel medesimo periodo non saranno visitabili, lungo il percorso espositivo dei Musei Vaticani, l’Appartamento Borgia e la Collezione di Arte Religiosa Moderna.

English translation:

Notice

Closing of the Sistine Chapel

For the needs of the upcoming Conclave, from the hour of 13 of Tuesday, March 5, the Sistine Chapel will be closed to the public until a date to be determined. During this same time, [these areas] will not be able to be visited, along the exposition route of the Vatican Museums: the Borgia Apartment and the Collection of Modern Religious Art.

(to be continued…)

Steady As She Goes

“Like a boat taking on water, we have betrayed you.” –Benedict XVI, addressing Christ, speaking for the members of the Church, Meditation on the Way of the Cross, 9th Station, March 25, 2005, almost 8 years ago 

“In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church.” –Ibid.

The world’s press may have to extend their reservations in their Roman lodgings.

Ten or twelve days ago, the conventional wisdom was that the cardinals, following the departure of Pope Benedict on February 28, would move quickly to elect a new Pope.

The thinking was that the cardinals would gather already before the end of February, would meet on March 4 and vote to “move up” the start of the Conclave to March 9, or 10, or 11, and elect a Pope by about March 15.

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But the signs now seem to point to a slower, more deliberate process. The watchword seems to be, in the midst of all the stunning developments in recent weeks, “Steady as she goes.”

Or maybe: “Haste makes waste.”

The cardinals did meet today. They took their seats, and then, one by one, took an oath of secrecy, not to reveal anything about their discussions. They pledged “rigorous secrecy with regard to all matters in any way related to the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

They did not take a vote to move up the date of the Conclave.

In fact, such a vote is not yet possible, because all 115 of the voting cardinals must be present before such a vote can be taken… and only 103 were present today. So, 12 cardinals are still not in Rome.

And this fits with what I have heard from cardinals in recent days — that they would prefer the process of assessing the situation of the Church, and the needs of the Church, and the men best suited to lead the Church, to unfold without haste.

As of today, the Vatican Museums have still not been closed to pilgrims and tourists. This is another sign.

The Sistine Chapel must be prepared with a riser over the entire floor, then a number of large tables for all the cardinals to sit at, and more than 100 chairs, and then the chapel must be carefully swept to clear it of all possible bugs and surveillance mechanisms.

The Chapel must be made ready for the Conclave.

Before the last Conclave in 2005, this process took seven days. If we are to imagine that the process will take the same amount of time this year, then the Conclave cannot begin until seven days after the Sistine Chapel is closed to the public. But the Sistine Chapel is still open.

It could close tomorrow. But, even if it does close tomorrow, March 5, the most reasonable date for the Conclave to start would be March 12.

So, all the early projections of a start on March 9, or 10, or 11, seem now likely to be proven wrong.

The full College of Cardinals must still gather. Only 103 of the voting cardinals were here this morning.

It is even possible that one or two are staying away to very quietly prevent the vote to move up the date of the Conclave from being taken.

Two other little pieces of news: (1) The cardinals today agreed they would write a letter to Pope Benedict XVI. When they do, the Pope could respond to that letter. It would be his first public statement since stepping down from the papacy. (2) The cardinals decided not to have afternoon sessions later this week, only morning sessions. This would suggest that they would like more time to speak informally with one another, during the afternoons and evenings.

Meanwhile, Ignazio Ingrao has done it again. In a 3-page article in the Italian weekly Panorama today (issue dated March 6) he claims that he has uncovered evidence of a massive campaign of surveillance inside the Vatican in recent months carrid out by the Vatican police.

This surveillance, he claims, has meant that all phone calls, all emails, and even all movements of Vatican officials and guests — even of bishops and cardinals — have been monitored by a special team of the Vatican gendarmes, under orders from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, and that this was approved by Pope Benedict XVI himself (“con il placet di Benedetto XVI“).

“One fact is certain,” Ingrao writes. “For months in the Sacred Palaces, no one is any longer willing to speak on the telephone or to express confidences via email… Lists of who comes in and out of the Vatican after 9 p.m. are being saved. Emails are being monitored with automatic (computerized) systems.”

Ingrao claims that in recent months, the Vatican gendarmes have actually followed Vatican prelates on foot to determine their habits, and their network of friendships (“I gendarmi sono stati coinvolti in azioni di pedinamento. In questi mesi sono state ricostruite le abitudine e le frequentazioni anche di prelati, si e cercato di comprendere quale fosse la rete delle loro amicizie e dei loro rapporti.”) (The words “pedinamento” means to follow on foot.)

I can confirm that, in recent months, I have occasionally had to sign in and out of the Vatican after 9 p.m. Still, by itself, this did not at the time, and does not now, seem peculiar; rather, it is something one would expect, if one is going in and out of any large enterprise, or government building, after working hours.

I do not know whether the claim that all Vatican email and telephone calls are being monitored has any real basis in fact.

Ingrao also returns to the story of the secret dossier gathered by the three cardinals, Herranz, Tomko and De Giorgi. He says that “Paoletto” (Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s unfaithful butler, who now works in a local hospital, where his job is to… run a photocopy machine), when he gave his testimony to the three cardinal investigators, mentioned other names of people he had been in contact with (“ha fatto altri nomi con i quali e stato in contatto“). And Ingrao adds that, on the basis of this testimony, along with other testimony that they gathered, the three cardinals asked to speak with Cardinals Paolo Sardi, Angelo Comastri, and also Angelo Sodano. Ingrao also claims that other cardinals of the Curia were questioned by the commission of three. He does not say how he was able to obtain this information, since the report is secret. He does not cite the report, and evidently has not seen the report.

Ingrao also writes that “it is not to be excluded” that the head of the Vatican gendarmes, Domenico Giani (), the man ultimately in charge of Vatican security, “may leave the Vatican after the election of the new Pope.” (“Non e escluso che lo stesso Giani possa lasciare il Vaticano dope l’elezione del nuovo Papa.”)

He further says that the Italian government in recent months has proposed Giani — who used to work for the Italian secret service — to the UN as… the supervisor of the security forces of the United Nations. (“Proprio nei mesi scorsi, il governo italiano lo ha candidato alla carica di supervisore alla sicurezza alle Nazioni Uniti.”)

The three cardinals (Herranz, Tomko, De Giorgi) who carried out their still secret investigation, parallel to the official investigation of the “Vatileaks” affair carried out by the Vatican gendarmes under the direction of Giani, are attending the sessions which all the cardinals are attending this week. Today was a day of “house-keeping,” of taking assigned seats, and of swearing an oath of secrecy, and of asking a few questions about procedural matters. It would seem logical that, during the next three or four days, some of the sessions of the cardinals’ meetings would be centered on the “Vatileaks” affair, and on the report of the three cardinals.

And it would seem plausible that the cardinals may not vote to enter into the Conclave until they have been given some clarity on these matters — matters which certainly caused great pain to Pope Benedict, as has been confirmed by those close to him, like his brother, Georg Ratzinger, 89 — matters which therefore may have played a not insignificant role in his decision to resign at this time…

Like “A Boat Taking On Water” — Cardinal Ratzinger on the Ninth Station of the Cross

Here is a report, and then the whole text, of the famous Good Friday meditation of Joseph Ratzinger on March 25 in 2005, eight years ago, just a week before Pope John Paul II died…

April 19, 2005 (CWNews.com) – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — offered a very somber picture of Church affairs less than one month ago, when he led the Stations of the Cross in the Roman Coliseum on Good Friday.

At the March 25 ceremony, as he mentioned the failings of contemporary Catholicism, the German cardinal provided some clear insights into the attitude that he will bring to the papacy.

The meditations included an unusually blunt and often grim appraisal of the Church’s problems, combined with a serene confidence that God’s help will allow faithful Catholics to overcome those problems.

During that Good Friday service, Cardinal Ratzinger prayed that Jesus would “help us to take up the Cross, and not to shun it”…

In perhaps the most striking passage of his meditations, the prelate who would soon become Benedict XVI did not shrink from describing the Catholic Church as “a boat about to sink, a boat taking on water on every side.”

He lamented the “soiled garments and face” of the Church in our day.

Explaining these harsh words, the meditations mentioned the abuses against the Eucharist, the deformation of Catholic teaching, and the failure to defend the dignity of human life. Because of these problems within the Church, he said in his prayer, “the face of God — your face — appears obscured, unrecognizable.”

Nevertheless, the memorable Good Friday meditations preached by the German prelate concluded with a message of reliance on God and trust in his Providence.

“At this present hour of history, we are living in God’s darkness,” he said. “And yet, on the Cross, you have revealed yourself. Precisely by being the one who suffers and loves, you are exalted. From the Cross on high you have triumphed.”

Here follows the text from that famous 9th Station of March 25, 2005. The words of the Meditation and Prayer are those spoken by Joseph Raztinger. The images below are all of Ratzinger…

 

NINTH STATION

Jesus falls for the third time 

V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.

R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

From the Book of Lamentations. 3:27-32

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust — there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

 

MEDITATION By Joseph Ratzinger

What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us?

We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church?

How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts!

How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there!

How often is his Word twisted and misused!

What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words!

How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!

How much pride, how much self-complacency!

What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall!

All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison ­ Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).

 PRAYER

Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side.

In your field we see more weeds than wheat.

The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion.

Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures.

Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall.

When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered.

But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up.

Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.

 

 

(to be continued…)

The Program, and the Sheriff

The Greek text of one of St. Paul’s letters from an early manuscript. This is a folio from Papyrus 46, containing the text of 2 Corinthians 11:33-12:9

 

 

“Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness…

“Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

—St. Paul, 1st Letter to the Corinthians, 10:5, 11-12, warning his readers not to desire “evil things,” lest they be “laid low” by God. The reading was the second reading today in Catholic Masses in Rome

 

 

 

Note to readers: This week we will launch a new website, TheMoynihanReport.com. Modeled on the Drudge Report, it is intended to be a site where readers can find useful information in 5 main areas: Culture Watch, Money Watch, Pope Watch, Science Watch and Vatican Watch. This new website is free and we hope that over time it will become a site that you will enjoy visiting regularly. The archive of the Moynihan Letters can be found at TheMoynihanLetters.com. (This site may be down for the next few days due to site updating.) I will continue to send my Letters via email.  If you would like to receive the Moynihan Letters in your inbox, you can sign up here. 

 

Cardinal O’Brien Will Not Attend Conclave

Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland (photo), who, if he would have participated, would have been the only voting cardinal from England or Scotland at the upcoming papal Conclave, will not attend the Conclave, he officially announced today.

He released the following communique today:

3 March 2013

Statement from Cardinal O’Brien

Cardinal O’Brien

In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.

However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.

To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness.

To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise.

I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

Notes to editors: 

1. This is the only statement, which Cardinal O’Brien will be issuing.

2. Cardinal O’Brien will not attend the Conclave to elect the new Pope.

3. Cardinal O’Brien is now out of the country and will not be available

for interview. 

[Source: Scottish Catholic Media Office]

Cardinal O’Brien was named Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh by Pope John Paul II in 1985.

An ex-priest and three current priests from the diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh complained to the Pope’s representative to Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, in early February about what they alleged had been inappropriate behavior towards them in the 1980s.

O’Brien had been due to retire later this month when he turned 75, but resigned last week.

Cardinal Mahony Will Attend Conclave

Cardinal Roger Mahony, emeritus archbishop of Los Angeles, California, will attend the Conclave — and says it was the Vatican which told him to attend.

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Francis X. Rocca, reporting for Catholic News Service, said Mahony expressed “amazement” at calls that he withdraw from the upcoming papal conclave because of his record on abuse, and said that the Vatican, acting through its ambassador to the United States, had instructed him to take part in the election of the next Pope.

“I’m here because the Holy Father appointed me a cardinal in 1991, and the primary job of a cardinal, the number one job, is actually the election of a new pope should a vacancy occur,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service February 28, two days after arriving in Rome.

“Without my even having to inquire, the nuncio in Washington phoned me a week or so ago and said, ‘I have had word from the highest folks in the Vatican: you are to come to Rome and you are to participate in the conclave’,” the cardinal said.

Here is a link to the complete story: http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/cardinal-mahony-says-vatican-told-him-to-attend-conclave/

Cardinal Sandri Seeks “Greater Role” For Women

One of the “old-line” Curial cardinals, Leonardo Sandri, 69 (photo), has given an interview to Reuters’ Vaticanist Philip Pullela in which he says that “the Roman Catholic Church must open itself up to women in the next pontificate, giving them more leadership positions in the Vatican and beyond.”

Sandri, closely associated with the former Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 85 — he served as Sodano’s deputy for a number of years prior to the pontificate of Pope Benedict — is regarded as a possible candidate to be the next Pope.

Sandri, born in Argentina, and so considered a Latin American — but considered by many as an Italian because he has spent so many years in the Curia — said the next Pope should not be chosen according to a geographic area but must be a “saintly man” capable of leading the Church.

Sandri told Reuters it was “only right” that women should have more key positions in the Vatican administration “where they can make a very important contribution because of their qualifications.”

He also said: “The Church is ready for a black Pope but maybe the world is not,” Sandri said. “We are open to anyone as long he is the best prepared, the best qualified, to face a time that is so difficult for the Church and the world.”

Here is a link to the complete interview: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/03/us-pope-succession-sandri-idUSBRE92208N20130303

Will the Cardinals Elect an “Anti-Pope”?

The widespread shock in Catholic circles about Pope Benedict’s February 11th decision to resign his office has begun to wear off for many, but not all.

Indeed, there are some Catholics who believe Benedict had no right to resign, even if he felt no longer capable of carrying out his ministry as Pope.

And this view has even taken the form of a call to the cardinals not to enter into Conclave, and not to vote for a new Pope.

This position was put forward by Enrico Maria Radaelli, an Italian Catholic writer, in an article posted on his website and on the website of Una Voce, the Catholic organization that supports the celebration of the the Mass according to the extraordinary form, that is, according to the pre-conciliar liturgical books.

The article is entitled: “Most Eminent Cardinals, do not gather in Conclave, you would be electing an anti-Pope.”

Here is that title:

EMINENTISSIMI CARDINALI,

NON RIUNITEVI IN CONCLAVE:

ELEGGERESTE UN ANTIPAPA

 

Radaelli’s central argument is that there is a special “nature” or “character” associated with being Pope which cannot be “given up” by the Pope, even if he would like to.

He writes: “Only a Pope, it is said, can have the authority to renounce his own ministry, but not even the Pope has that power, because it would be the exercise of an absolute power contrasting with the very essence of his own being, (it would be) to desire not to be what he is, and one will see below that the papal election confers a substantial, not accidental status, and that precisely for this reason is indestructible.” (“Solo un Papa, si dice, può avere il potere di rinunciare al proprio ministero, ma tale potere non l’ha neanche il Papa, perché sarebbe l’esercizio di un potere assoluto che contrasta con l’essere di se stesso medesimo, di voler non essere il proprio essere, di voler non essere quel che si è, e si vedrà fra poco che l’elezione papale conferisce uno status sostanziale, non accidentale, e che precisamente per ci&ogr! ave; è indistruttibile.”)

Here is a link to the entire article in Italian: http://www.unavox.it/ArtDiversi/DIV433_EMR_Non_riunitevi_in_Conclave.html

John Cornwell Back in the Saddle

In an article today in London’s Daily Mail, which is not regarded as the most authoritative journal in the world, British writer John Cornwell offers his version of the reasons for Pope Benedict’s resignation. The title is “… ‘The Filth’ corrupting the Vatican…and why the Pope REALLY quit.”

The subtitle is: “Sickened by moral corrosion in his own shadowy cabal, Benedict can only rid Rome of its malign influence by resigning… a leading Catholic writer’s explosive analysis”

However, it should be noted that Cornwell some years ago wrote a book with the title Hitler’s Pope, which caricatured Pope Pius XII, Hitler’s staunchest opponent in Europe during World War II (Pius evidently may even have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler), as Hitler’s willing accomplice and supporter.

Cornwell later retracted aspects of what he had written in that book.

So, it would not be unexpected were he later to retract aspects of what he wrote today about Pope Benedict and the reasons for his resignation.

If you go to the link to read the entire article, note that there is only one quotation in the entire piece, and that is of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus from about the year 1990. What does this mean? It means that there is no new, independent journalistic investigation whatsoever underlying this article. In short, we might consider it a comment, or an essay, or an opinon, but not a news report at all.

“Resignation isn’t in Benedict’s vocabulary,” Cornwell writes. “The real reason he has quit is far more spectacular.

“It is to save the Catholic Church from ignominy: he has voluntarily delivered himself up as a sacrificial lamb to purge the Church of what he calls ‘The Filth’. And it must have taken courage.

“Here is the remarkable thing you are seldom told about a papal death or resignation: every one of the senior office-holders in the Vatican – those at the highest level of its internal bureaucracy, called the Curia – loses his job.

“A report Benedict himself commissioned into the state of the Curia landed on his desk in January. It revealed that ‘The Filth’ – or more specifically, the paedophile priest scandal – had entered the bureaucracy…

“He is too old, and too implicated, to clean it up himself. He has resigned to make way for a younger, more dynamic successor, untainted by scandal…

“Benedict was not prepared to wait for his own death to sweep out the gang who run the place. In one extraordinary gesture, by resigning, he gets rid of the lot of them.

“So the Pope’s resignation could be just the beginning of a wave of resignations, and/or sackings, when the new Pope comes in.”

The sub-text of this argument is not simply that the Curia should be cleansed, but that the central power of the Roman Catholic Church should be reduced.

Of course, one result of this might be the slow or rapid disintegration of the global Catholic Church into regional or national Churches.

But Cornwell is arguing that the lessening of Rome’s authority to keep the Church united would be an unmitigated good.

“Bishops and lay Catholics throughout the world complain that the shift of authority away from Rome to the local churches has not happened,” Cornwell writes. “As a result, the absolute power of the Vatican has been corrupting absolutely.”

So, this is the battle: will the Church find a way to reform its central government without making that central government so weak that it will be unable to govern? This is the important question.

Cornwell, rightly, notes that “Benedict believes in strong central government.”

So Benedict himself would oppose the dismantling of the Curia, and of the central government of the Church. What Benedict wants is the purification of that government, not its elimination.

Cornwell concludes: “Benedict’s stunning self-sacrifice constitutes, in my view, the greatest gamble in the papacy’s 2,000-year history. If it works, the Church will begin to restore its besmirched reputation. If it fails, we Catholics are headed for calamitous conflict and fragmentation.

Click here for the link to Cornwell’s complete opinion piece

The Sheriff Back in Town?

The Italian press is filled with various hypotheses and scenarios for the election of the next Pope.

But what is missing in all the clamor is a clear idea of what the program of the new Pope ought to be, no matter who he is.

Clearly, there is a need for someone to govern the Roman Curia. However, that someone does not necessarily have to be the Pope himself. In fact, it would seem to make sense for the Pope to bring in an expert to handle that task. Some are saying that the best man for that task would be the man who was already trying to clean up the Curia two years ago, until his efforts sparked such resistance that he was removed.

That man is Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, 72, currently the papal nuncio (the word “nuncio” is the ecclesial term for “ambassador”) to the United States.

 

Then what is needed is a complete vision for what to do about the evident loss of faith in the teachings of the Church over the past two generations, despite the “new springtime” said to have been brought by the Second Vatican Council.

And here is needed a socio-cultural-historical-theological analysis of great complexity and many nuances — something totally different from a few scattered interviews with cardinals, here and there, which drop like pebbles into the ocean, send out ripples for a few seconds, and then are forgotten.

There is something surprisingly superficial about the way the cardinals are currently preparing to move from the shock of Pope Benedict’s February 28th resignation to the selection of his replacement on the See of Peter by mid-March.

In any business, in any enterprise, of any size whatsoever, the decision about who should be in charge of the business, or enterprise, who should have final decision-making power, would seemingly be taken only after a long, thorough evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise, and of what possible strategies can “increase the strengths” and “diminish the weaknesses.”

The cardinals are proposing to meet for three or four days this week — with no clear agenda prepared in advance of issues to address.

Then, evidently, after weighing various “alliances” of national groups or other mutual interests, the cardinals will, it appears, proceed to a vote on who will be the next Pope.

Would it not be wiser for the cardinals to ask fundamental questions about the issues facing the Church, and continue to meet until plausible answers to those key questions become clear to two-thirds of the College?

Would not the identity of the man who should lead the Church be clearer after the program he would need to implement was made clearer?

The Church is facing crises in many places, on many fronts.

Millions of Catholics have left the faith in recent decades. There is a crisis of vocations to the priesthood; many parishes will soon not have a priest. There is a crisis in family life, as families are placed under grave economic pressures in modern economies, despite the external appearance of wealth. There is a crisis in deciding the wisest way to engage with modern science. There is a scandalous lack of unity with separated Christians, especially the Orthodox, but also the Protestants, who profess a belief in the Gospel of Christ. The entire global culture is being de-Christianized, all traditional values are being vaporized, and the Church’s cardinals are heading into an unexpected, unimagined Conclave at high speed, apparently without any agenda or well-thought out program to propose to anyone, let alone a world waiting with interest to see if the Church has anything new to say.

Would it not be wiser to ask, and try to come to a consensus on, a program of action for the new pontiff to undertake?

Such a program might include the following points, offered here as merely a preliminary sketch.

Elements of a Possible Program of Action for the Church 

(1) Man. The great problem of our time is the question of man. The scientific discoveries of recent decades, and the developing movement of transhumanism, require a rethinking of the Church’s anthropology. Therefore, place the question of man at the center of Catholic studies and theological research, and invite contributions from all men and women of good will in the effort to construct a viable anthropology for the new millennium.

(2) The Curia. The Curia and the Church’s government should be dramatically restructured, but in order to make it work more effectively, not to render it impotent. Therefore, bring in lay professionals at all levels. Ordained and consecrated priests and bishops, and consecrated women religious, could have special oversight roles. Make Vigano Secretary of State.

(3) The Vatican bank and the global financial system. In the face of the global financial crisis and continuing uncertainty, revolutionize the functioning of the Vatican bank to make it a true service to the entire Church. Create a permanent high-level study group which would ensure bank transparency, assess global financial developments, and advise bishops, and eventually parishes, throughout the world on how best to handle their finances in a just and prudent way, as “good stewards.”

(4) Global banking support. Consider establishing a type of Church-linked bank or credit union system reaching every diocese in the world, with branches in every parish, to assist Church members to have access to capital for needed initiatives.

(5) Children and family. Radically increase the support given by the Pontifical Council for the Family to family-supporting intitiatives worldwide, including ways to mediate generous financial incentives to support every family which has or would like to have children.

(6) Education. Reform all Catholic educational institutions, removing all trendy, “politically correct” teaching and returning to fundamental studies in every field, especially history, philosophy, music, languages, and physical fitness.

(7) Seminaries. Reform all seminary instruction. (Make seminaries into quasi-boot camps, introducing some of the disciplines of military academies. Renew the Jesuits to their greatness.)

(8) Ecumenism. Make immediate peace with the Orthodox, and the Protestants, saying a “truce” now is needed in the face of the global secularizing agenda which wishes to eliminate, or even criminalize, Christian faith and traditional family values. Engage in common initiatives.

(10) Inter-religious solidarity. Extend invitations to all Orthodox and Conservative Jews, to Muslims, to Hindus, to Buddhists, and all men and women of good will, to work with the Church, in hopes of supporting a just and free global order where the sacredness of God and his moral law is respected.

(11) Worship. Give greater support for the old liturgy (the extraordinary form of the Mass) globally, allowing, however, that form of the Mass to be translated also into the vernacular. On solemn occasions, especially funerals and high feast days, use Latin and Gregorian chant, worldwide.

(12) Communications. Increase the ability of Catholics to communicate, assist and work with one another by developing new media connections globally.

Cardinal Meisner: “Holy Father, you have to dismiss Cardinal Bertone!”

In an interview published two weeks ago, but overlooked by many, Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Germany, a close friend of Pope Benedict, says he was stunned by the Pope’s resignation. Here are selections from that interview:

Your Eminence, you are considered to be a close confidant of the Pope. Were you kept in the picture about the resignation?   

Cardinal Joachim Meisner: I was absolutely surprised and thought that the news was a joke… To be honest, I’m shocked really.

Shocked?

Meisner: Such a step was beyond my imagination. Previously not even priests and bishops resigned. This has a very deep meaning: The ministry is indeed a kind of fatherhood. Father and one remains a father throughout life. Then, as the age limit for bishops and priests was introduced, I have for a long time thought: ! lucky that at least the Pope officiates for life. Then the continuity of this paternity is assured. However, I notice it in myself, that with the years I am more and more clinging to the ropes. And in as far as it makes sense, that you can also withdraw from matters. Not because you do not want to do anything any more. But one is freed from the “you must” and should instead say: “I can.”\

Did the Pope ever indicate anything to you?

Meisner: Never. And if so, then I would not have understood. Because I had never held an abdication possible. I have recently told my nieces and nephews when they asked me what things would be like at Christmas after my 80th birthday, “There are so many things that I no longer need to do. For example, I never have to go back into a Conclave. ”

What was your last meeting with the Pope like?

Meisner: I met him in November during the Synod of Bishops and spent an evening with h! im. He was wide-awake and on the mark. Also at the Synod he held at th e beginning of a 40-minute presentation – given without notes — without equal in spiritual and intellectual depth. That is for him the elixir of life. And yes, he once told me: “If there comes a time when I cannot go on…” Apparently he had at that moment a feeling of weakness.

In farming families, there is for the old farmers the farm outhouse in which after full time work they can enjoy the autumn of their days? Is the possibility of a resignation not a similar act of charity?

Meisner: From my viewpoint especially a thought went through my head: How will things move now? A Pope retired!

Reasonably considered, it is certainly appropriate that the Pope gives the office to another when he comes to the end: he can no longer continue with the necessary force. As a good father, he knows his responsibility to take care of his house. A building with a billion Catholics and endless stories to manage, is a burden that I do not wish to imagine. Especially when one is so smart and honest as the Pope who wants to think through everything important and is even more aware of the risks of his actions.

Are you haunted by the belief that he flees from office?

Meisner: Not for a second! The claim that the Lord of the Church makes on us, we cannot escape. The Pope tries to do justice to the claim of the Lord when he says now: I have to recognize my inability to perform well the service entrusted to my care.

You pushed in 2005 for the choice! of Joseph Ratzinger. Has he met your expectations?

Meisner: So, besides me there were also a few others who were for Ratzinger. What surprised me was his ability to grow into the new office. Shy as he is by nature. I found this on his first major trip back to Cologne for World Youth Day on the ship when I kept telling him: “Holy Father, you must now wave to the youngsters! And not only right, but also to the left, to all sides, “Until he once replied:” you constantly criticise me about it ” Yes, “I said,” until you have learned to be Pope “. The Pope tolerated such familiarity. He stayed really quite natural.

How does he go down in history?

Meisner: As a Pope who, with great intelligence, analysed the present and set the course for the future. I had actually hoped he would still write a great encyclical on the “human condition”, the problems of humanity in our time. No moralizing, but an unfolding of the Christian i! mage that is now often called into question.

Contrary to what you said to your nieces and nephews another conclave is upon you. What sort of Pope do you want to vote for with the other cardinals?

Meisner: For an answer, the news is still too fresh. First comes the 28th February, and I’m curious how this will happen in Rome: Will the Cardinals be there when the Pope leaves office? Is there a retirement party? But if I take a first look at this moment out into the future, the new pope would certainly a man of similar high education to Joseph Ratzinger, with great human experience, and – be of vital health – especially. No older than 70, I’d say. John Paul II once said to me in a face-to-face meeting: “The theological profile of my Pontificate I owe Joseph Ratzinger.” The two complemented each other wonderfully. So a mixture of Wojtyla and Ratzinger would not be bad. But I’ve made really no idea about an appropriate candidate.

Did Benedict XVI miss the counterpart, which he himself was for! his predecessor?

Meisner: The Cardinal Secretary of State did not secure this role. During the Williamson affair, I even once, on behalf of a number of cardinals, went to the Pope and said: “Holy Father, you have to dismiss Cardinal Bertone! He’s in charge — as would be the responsible minister in a secular government.” He looked at me and said,” Listen to me carefully! Bertone remains! Basta! Basta! Basta!” ["Enough! Enough! Enough!"]

After that I never brought up the subject again. Incidentally, this is typical: The Ratzingers are loyal. That makes life for them not always easy. The Pope has basically taken his closest collaborators from the CDF when he took over the new office, Cardinal Bertone as well as his secretary, the present Archbishop Gänswein. But the former prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Levada, did not play for Ratzinger a role in the way that he played for John Paul II. And the new prefect, Archbishop Müller of Regensburg, is only just in the office and must find out about his own role. He is a clever man, yet different to Ratzinger himself

The relationship of Germans to “their” Pope was very mixed. What is your assessment?

Meisner: It has always hurt me how dismissively, even maliciously the Pope was spoken about in Germany. What many lacked was a sense of self-! awareness, even of pride that for the first time in nearly 500 years, again a German held such an office with this global responsibility. This was completely ignored.

Link: http://cathcon.blogspot.it/2013/02/cardinal-meisner-holy-father-you-have.html

Correction: I wrote yesterday that five journalists would be chosen to form a pool to enter into the hall where the cardinals will be meeting and then report on what is discussed. This was incorrect. Five journalists will be chosen, but they will only have access to the entranceway, where the cardinals enter and leave the hall.

(to be continued)

 

 

The Next and the Last

Since Pope Benedict left the papacy on Thursday evening at 8 p.m., the Catholic Church is in a period in which the chair of Peter is vacant (“sede vacante“).

Cardinals will begin to meet in the Vatican on Monday morning, March 4, in less than 48 hours. A pool of five journalists will be able to attend the meetings, and to report on what occurs there.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of chatting going on in the press about what will happen, what could happen, what should happen.

Lists of “papabili” (the Italian word means simply “Pope-able,” that is, men who are considered qualified to become Pope, or likely to be considered by the other cardinals for election to the papacy) are being prepared and published.

In Italy, there is considerable support for the idea that the new Pope should be an Italian, after two foreign Popes, John Paul II (1978-2005) and Benedict XVI (2005-2013). In their theological outlook, the 28 Italian cardinals range from quite progressive to quite traditional. There is not yet one candidate among them who seems to have garnered a consensus.

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If there is no consenus about who the leading Italian candidate is, or should be, there is even less consensus about who a possible non-Italian cardinal who could succeed Joseph Ratzinger might be.

Four cardinals being “mentioned” often are pictured in the following photo:

The four men are Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri and Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola.

But if one goes to the influential La Stampa/Vatican Insider website, one finds a list of 21 cardinals with large photos and brief summaries about each man. Here is the link: http://cmsmultimedia.lastampa.it/multimedia/vatican-insider/lstp/181465/

(Note: The money behind La Stampa of Turin, Italy, comes from estate of the late Gianni Agnelli, the chief owner of the FIAT automobile company, one of the most influential men in Italy in the last century.)

Here is the list of “papabili” from La Stampa. Note that all four of the names on the list above are also on the list below. Note also the first cardinal mentioned, from Brazil, Odilo Scherer. Many in Rome right now are “mentioning” him, and he may very well be the “front-runner” right now, at least in the “conventional” wisdom. Again, you can see photos of all these men at the link just given.

1. Odilo Pedro Scherer, 63, archbishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil;

2. Marc Ouellet, 67, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops in the Vatican; formerly archbishop of Quebec, Canada;

3. Angelo Scola, 72, archbishop of Milan, Italy;

4. Luis Antonio Tagle, 56, archbishop of Manila, the Philippines;

5. Gianfranco Ravasi, 70, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture and formerly Prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan;

6. Angelo Bagnasco, 70, archbishop of Genoa, Italy;

7. Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, 56, head of the Council for Justice and Peace in the Vatican, formerly archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana;

8. Peter Erdo, 61, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary;

9. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 77, archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina;

10. Sean Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., archbishop Of Boston, Massachusetts, USA;

11. Timothy Dolan, 63, archbishop of New York, New York, USA;

12. Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, 74, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo;

13. Donald William Wuerl, 73, archbishop of Washington, D.C., USA;

14. Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, 70, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras;

15. Joao Braz de Aviz, 65, Prefect of the Congregation for Religious and the Institutes of Consecrated Life in the Vatican, from Brazil;

16. Francisco Robles Ortega, 63, archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico;

17. Tarcisio Bertone, 78, Secretary of State in the Vatican, formerly archbishop of Genoa, Italy;

18. Kurt Koch, 62, head of the Vatican’s Council for Christian Unity, formerly archbishop of Basel, Switzerland;

19. Christoph Schoenborn, 68, archbishop of Vienna, Austria;

20. Leonardo Sandri, 70, Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, born in Argentina;

21. Robert Sarah, 70, President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” formerly archbishop of Conakry, Guinea.

Now, clearly, if all these candidates receive votes, the Conclave will be split into 21 small groups. Moreover, there are likely to be other candidates not on this list. The result would be dozens of candidates, each with one, two, or a handful of votes.

Running the numbers, if each of these 21 candidates were to receive an equal number of votes from the expected 115 electors, they would each receive either five or six votes. If there were even more candidates, then each would average about four votes, or fewer.

So the real issue becomes: what will “coagulate” four or five votes into 10, then 10 into 20, 20 into 40, and 40 into the needed 77? (Two-thirds of 115 is 77, making 77 the “magic number” to clinch an election.)

One great vehicle of “coagulation” is to make some sort of an “agreement” about the office of Secretary of State, the “Number 2″ position in the Roman Curia after the Pope himself.

And many journalists are proposing scenarios in which a foreign candidate agrees to keep an Italian as the Secretary of State, and by making this agreement, gains the additional support of a number of votes.

Looking at the Conclave from the opposite perspective, if 77 votes are needed to elect a Pope, only 39 votes are needed to block the election of any candidate.

The Italians, with 28 votes, together with another 11 cardinals, could theoretically block the election of any candidate not to their liking.

These 28 Italian voters — the largest block of votes from a single country — may try to find some way to stay united. If they break up into seven groups of four votes each, they lose their possible influence over the outcome.

So the strategy of the Italians, presumably, will be to try to agree, in these coming days, on one candidate from the very outset, from the very first vote, in order to immediately project one candidate, with 20 or 22 or 24 votes, into a very powerful position, distancing him from all the others, who will only have four or five or six votes each.

But who will that candidate be?

No one knows.

Still, a lot of people are speculating.

The Rome-based La Repubblica today said the “new hypothesis” is of a Pope older than age 80, a strong man who will “clean up” the Roman Curia but who will not have a long pontificate. “To change the Curia, a veteran is needed,” the headline says. The paper ran the photos of five cardinals over age 80:

—Camillo Ruini, 82, formerly the Pope’s vicar for the diocese of Rome;

—Angelo Sodano, 86, presently the Dean of the College of Cardinals and formerly the Secretary of State;

—Jose Saraiva Martins, 81, emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, from Portugal;

—Jozef Tomko, 89, emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, from Slovakia; and

—Julian Herranz, 83, of Spain, the head of the special commission appointed by Pope Benedict to investigate the “Vatileaks” scandal, and formerly the head of the Vatican office for interpreting Church legal texts. He is also a member of the Prelature of Opus Dei. (Herranz was also mentioned as a possible candidate a few days ago in La Repubblica by Concita De Gregorio in the third of her series of articles on the Pope’s decision to resign.)

Here is a picture of the page in today’s La Repubblica, with the five cardinals and their photos at the top:

Clearly, if the cardinals start looking at candidate among the cardinals over age 80, like these five, the possible pool of candidates nearly doubles, making it more difficult still to predict who might emerge as the new Pope.

Salvatore Izzo of AGI yesterday wrote that the fact that a Pope, following Benedict’s example, may possibly resign after just a few years in office is now a factor in the thinking of many cardinals.

This is leading some cardinals to wonder, he writes, whether it may not be possible “to elect a Pope experienced in the ways of the Roman Curia, who might leave office after having realized the reform of the Vatican offices (in the direction of greater efficiency but also of greater morality).” A reform, he adds, “which Pope Benedict, on the evening of February 13, confided in private that he considered urgent, so much so that he called it his ‘principal regret’ that he did not complete the task before the end of his pontificate.”

And Izzo then writes that both Sariava Martins and Herranz would be cardinals who might fit this profile, but also Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, 75, a canonist who is the President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, who was the auxiliary bishop of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini in Milan.

Then Izzo adds an interesting hypothesis: that some cardinals think that the whole idea of choosing an “older-than-80 cardinal” is a type of “Trojan horse” to prepare the way for the cardinals to consider the quite old, but still powerful, present Dean of the College, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 86, who will not be among the voters, because over age 80, but, Izzo says, has very close allies in the Conclave, under age 80: Cardinals Sandri, Giovanni Lajolo, and Paolo Romeo. (“Qualcuno ritiene pero’ che queste candidature — oggettivamente deboli in quanto immaginate per un Pontificato breve — benche’ invocate da alcuni cardinali in perfetta buona fede possano rappresentare una sorta di “cavallo di Troia”, per un recupero in Conclave della figura forte e ingombrante dell’attuale decano Angelo Sodano, che restera’ fuori per eta’ ma puo’ contare nella Sistina su alcuni fedelissimi come i cardinali Sandri, Lajolo e Romeo.)

Then Izzo adds that the idea of a Pope resigning is also having a very different effect: it is increasing the chances of several younger cardinals, who once might have appeared “too young” because they would have remained Pope for 25 or 30 years, but now may be considered “just right” because they may become Pope at about age 60, then resign after 15 years, at age 75.

One of those Izzo names in this category is Cardinal Peter Erdo of Budapest, Hungary, 61. (Erdo, a brilliant canon lawyer and legal historian, has a photographic memory, and is, among all the cardinals, one of the very few who speaks fluent Russian; his Italian is also fluent, as is his German, French, Spanish, and English; he grew up during the communist time in Hungary, and was required by law to do service in the Hungarian military as a conscript.) (“Ma il fattore dimissioni favorisce al contempo anche candidati giovani come l’ungherese di 61 anni Peter Erdo, presidente dei vescovi europei e quindi oggettivamente in pol position.”)

Izzo also names the Dutch archbishop of Utrecht, Villem Jacobus Eijk, 59, who is rebuilding a Church nearly destroyed by secularization, and the Philippine, Luis Antonio Tagle, 55, a Church historian (student of the School of Bologna) and a possible bridge toward…China (Tagle’s mother was born in China).

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has told journalists what his plans are as he prepares for the Conclave: “First, gather information on the candidates; second, ask for information from those who know them; third, ask myself what is best for the Church.”

Meanwhile, an observation: Pope Benedict took his decision to step down from the Petrine office after weeks of prayer; in the end, as he said publicly, he felt the Lord was calling him to this decision.

Nevertheless, many, particularly tradition-minded Catholics, feel, and are saying and writing, that Benedict was mistaken, that his hearing of the Lord’s call was, or must have been, in some way wrong, or imperfect, or distorted.

But if Benedict’s hearing was true, and if his act was one of fidelity and courage, then the logical inference is that whatever happens now will be better than what would have happened had the Pope not taken this decision.

And that thought may give Catholics a certain sense of serenity in the midst of the events that are about to occur.

The Pope’s last flight

I thought it might be appropriate for readers to view the last images of the pontificate of Benedict XVI without any commentary, just a few words from the Pope himself.

Here is a link to those images, as presented by RAI, the Italian national television station: http://www.rainews24.rai.it/it/video.php?id=32725

There is also a very moving report on the Pope’s departure from the Apostolic Palace which shows Archbishop Georg Gaenswein in tears. I do not draw attention to this video out of any desire to intrude on the privacy of the archbishop, but to show how deeply moving the moment was, and to express our sympathy with him. It is a glimpse into the human feelings that many experienced in these last few days:

Link: http://video.repubblica.it/dossier/benedetto-xvi-abbandona-dimette-papa/dimissioni-papa-padre-georg-non-regge-l-emozione-e-scoppia-in-lacrime/120970?video

Influencing the Cardinals?

And now, a dose of needed scepticism about all journalists and their predictions about papal elections.

The Rorate Coeli website today publsihed an editorial, blasting Vatican journalists for their attempts to influence papal conclaves. I found the text interesting, and publish it here below. (Link: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/editorial-note-religious-correspondents.html)

(Prefatory note: the American journalist John Allen is a capable, hard-working journalist whose impressive body of work demands respect. “Even Homer nods,” it is said, and Allen evidently “nodded” when he, famously, did not place Ratzinger on his list of “papabili” in 2005. The editorial below criticizes Allen for this reason, but “Allen” in this article could stand for all journalists — myself included — who, in writing about important stories may overlook things that seem evident, or allow personal beliefs, emotions, preferences — even the wishes of our employers or audiences — to affect how we cover a story.)

“Religious correspondents,” “Vaticanists”: they really don’t know much more about the Conclave than the rest of us 

(What follows is the text of the editorial published today on the Rorate Coeli web site, linked above)

The 2005 Conclave is not exactly ancient history. In 2013, though, it has become a kind of non-debatable fact that Cardinal Ratzinger was obviously and the whole time the absolute favorite in the 2005 Conclave. Alas, maybe he always was among the electors, and we will never know how much his position in some outstanding events leading up to the Conclave (as writer of the 2005 Colosseum Via Crucis reflections, as Dean of the College of Cardinals and consequently main celebrant of the Funeral Mass of John Paul II and of the Missa pro eligendo Romano Pontifice immediately before the Conclave) led to a last-minute movement in his favor.

What we can say for sure was that the media, the same media filled with strange “papabile” suggestions today, and especially the Italian media, had no space whatsoever for Ratzinger as a credible papabile up to the day of the conclave. No wonder most of us, influenced by media reports, were (gladly) shocked when the Cardinal Protodeacon announced his name on April 19, 2005. It is true that, in hindsight, and considering the events above, historians can say, “there could have been no other outcome.” That was not exactly how things were reported at the time. We will not let their mistakes (true or made on purpose) be forgotten.

Who did extreme-”progressive” Rome correspondent for radical weekly NCR John Allen Jr. mention as the top papabili as soon as news of John Paul II’s death appeared? Remember: this was not a rookie taken by surprise; the state of Pope Wojtyla’s health had been no surprise for several months, so newsmakers such as Allen, who lived full-time in Rome at the time, had their lists ready. He included the following as his papabili:

Ennio Antonelli, 68, Italy; Francis Arinze, 72, Nigeria; Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 68, Argentina; Dario Castrillón Hoyos, 75, Colombia; Godfried Danneels, 71, Belgium; Julius Darmaatmadja, 70, Indonesia; Ivan Dias, 69, India; Claudio Hummes, 70, Brazil; Lubomyr Husar, 72, Ukraine; Walter Kasper, 72, Germany; Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, 68, Dominican Republic; Wilfrid Fox Napier, 64, South Africa; Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, 68, Cuba; Marc Ouellet, 60, Canada; Giovanni Battista Re, 71, Italy; Norberto Rivera Carrera, 62, Mexico; Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, 62, Honduras; Christoph Schönborn, 60, Austria; Angelo Scola, 63, Italy; Dionigi Tettamanzi, 71, Italy.

This was the “official” NCR list in the 2005 Conclave, posted soon after the death of Pope John Paul II: do you see one name missing there?… As we have often made clear here, Allen and “journalists” like him do not intend to report; their intention is always to try to influence events. Always. It is not for nothing Allen has remained faithful to NCR this whole time.

We can move a step higher in credibility and read another contemporary article by Sandro Magister. The 2005 Conclave was widely reported as an open conclave, and Magister also included a long list of plausible Popes; he did include Ratzinger, but hesitatingly: “the indication of Ratzinger as the next Pope is perhaps more symbolic than real.”

What is amazing is to see fellow Catholics falling once again before the same media hype about certain papabili in this 2013 conclave.

Could the “Vaticanists” be right? Of course they could, especially when dozens of names are mentioned each time, but what one must remember is that the secular media and the “progressive Catholic” media (the same secular and progressive media that crucified dear Pope Ratzinger again and again during his entire pontificate and that now that he is gone pretend to “admire” him) are not to be trusted. Trust in prayers and penance only: auxilium nostrum in nomine Domini. ["Our help is in the name of the Lord."]

(end Rorate Coeli editorial)

 

Allen and Cardinal George

Shortly after Rorate posted the above piece, with its critique of John Allen, John Allen himself posted an interesting interview he did this afternoon with Cardinal Francis George, 76, of Chicago, who has just arrived in Rome — showing once again how effective as a journalist Allen is.

“One could make a strong case that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago (photo) is the closest thing the United States has to an ‘American Ratzinger,’ meaning the leading intellectual light among the current crop of prelates,” Allen begins. “Also like Benedict XVI, George is contemplating retirement, having turned 76 and already submitted his letter of resignation.”

Allen adds: “One point that will be music to the ears of vaticanisti everywhere, meaning journalists specialized on the Vatican beat, is that George says the names of candidates currently showing up in the papers largely track with those figures the cardinals themselves are taking seriously. (In 2005, he said, that wasn’t always the case.)” [emphasis added]

Does that mean that the list of names given above contains the name of the next Pope?

Well, we will simply have to wait for a few days to see…

Allen continued: “George said the new Pope will have to lead a serious reform of the Roman Curia, streamlining its procedures so that people’s lives are not put on hold indefinitely, and restoring a sense of trust compromised by the Vatileaks affair.” [emphasis added]

Allen said that other highlights from the interview include:

—George acknowledged that the private pre-conclave discussions among cardinals sometimes can turn “very critical,” with a typical response to a candidate’s name being, “Yes, but …”

—George said that there are people “who think [papal] resignation under any circumstances is not a good idea,” and that Benedict’s decision has left the Church “weakened.” He stressed he doesn’t share that view.

—Right now George said he’s in the process of trying to “winnow down” the field of candidates to 12 or 10 names, and that the process of trying to broker consensus among the cardinals around a particular candidate hasn’t yet started.

—George said he hasn’t heard anybody talk about electing a Pope from outside the College of Cardinals, or from among the cardinals who are already over 80.

—George cited global vision, commitment to the New Evangelization, and a capacity to govern as the most important qualities in the next Pope. He said factors such as age and nationality are “secondary.” It’s also important, George said, that the next Pope be close to the poor.

Here is a link to the entire interview: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/ncr-interview-cardinal-francis-george

The Announcement of a New Pope

On the afternoon of the first day of voting — now expected sometime between March 11 and March 15, but the date is not at all sure — one ballot may be held.

If a ballot takes place on the afternoon of the first day and no-one is elected, or no ballot had taken place, four ballots are held on each successive day: two in each morning, and two in each afternoon.

Once a Pope is elected, and accepts his election, the senior Cardinal Deacon (the Cardinal Protodeacon, currently Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran) appears at the main balcony of the basilica’s façade to proclaim the new Pope with the Latin phrase (assuming the new Pope is a cardinal):

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum:

Habemus Papam!

Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum,

Dominum [forename],

Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem [surname],

qui sibi nomen imposuit [papal name].

 

 (“I announce to you a great joy:

We have a Pope!

The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord,

Lord [forename],

Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church [surname],

who takes to himself the name [papal name].”)

However, it is still possible — despite what Pope Benedict said to the cardinals the other day about the next Pope being “among the cardinals” — that the man chosen will not be a cardinal, and so not on the lists of “papabili” currently being prepared…

(to be continued)

 

Now, an in-between time…

“If we go under, we surrender to the tides that are breaking up families, decreasing the birth rate, the challenges of alcoholism and drugs and pornography. If we collapse or we wobble disastrously, it won’t be for the good of the western world at all.”–Australian Cardinal George Pell, explaining why Pope Benedict needs to be followed by an energetic Pope who will carry out the multifaceted reforms Benedict began, as reported by the Syndney Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/huge-job-but-pell-unlikely-to-be-pope/story-fndo317g-1226579395131

“Going under”?

We are not used to hearing a cardinal speaking of the Catholic Church “going under,” of “collapsing,” of “wobbling disastrously.”

But that is precisely what Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia said a few days ago. (He may well be the most physically “robust” of all the cardinals; he was a highly-rated rugby player as a youth, and still cuts an imposing figure at the age of 72.)

But these words are sufficient for us to sense what many of the cardinals, who are now being officially summoned to Rome, will be thinking as they meet, assess, and vote.

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They will be looking for a person who can help to build a strong protective wall against, as Pell put it, the tides that are breaking up families, decreasing the birth rate, spreading the use of drugs and alcohol and pornography.

Someone who can guide the barque of Peter with steadiness and courage through these unprecedented times.

The Pope’s First Hours After His Resignation

Father Lombardi: “Ratzinger slept well and will spend today praying”

Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence, is perched on the edge of a crater and overlooks a beautiful lake.

I have visited Castel Gandolfo a number of times, and stood often on the roof of the palace looking out over the lake — mostly because I am friends with the Jesuit astronomers who have an observatory on the roof of the castle, and who, until a few years ago, actually lived in the palace. One summer day more than 20 years ago, my older son, Christopher (whom Cardinal Ratzinger once picked up affectionately in St. Peter’s Square) who had recently learned to walk, was stumbling over the marble livingroom in the castle toward a large, color television set which rested unsteadily on a stand; he leaned against it; it began to rock back and forth; it started to tip over; I jumped over to him to snatch him away just in time; the tv set fell to the floor with an enormous boom which echoed throughout the palace; and we were relieved Chris wasn’t harmed. It was in the time of Pope John Paul II, but t he Pope was not in the palace at the time.

The air is usually fresh there, high up above the lake.

Nearby are the large Vatican Gardens of Castel Gandolfo, which end with an organic vegetable garden which supplies organic vegetables to the Pope’s table, and grazing cows who produce organic milk as well.

There is a massive domed hall built by the Emperor Domitian before the year 100 A.D., and there during the Second World War, hundreds of Italian Jews found refuge for many months.

You can still see the soot on the walls where small fires were burning wood for warmth or cooking food.

 

All was quiet in the palace today as the Pope spends the day resting and praying.

His room is apparently on the back side of the palace, looking out toward Rome, not on the front side, looking out over the lake.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, talked on the phone this morning with Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, the Pope’s secretary.

(These 3 photos are by Deborah McKinney)

Benedict “slept very well,” Lombardi said.

This was significant, because toward the end of 2012, the Pope was finding it very difficult to sleep, and sometimes stayed awake nearly all night.

Today, Benedict woke early and began his day began with a Mass at 7 a.m., Lombardi said.

This was followed, Lombardi said, by the Pope’s recitation of the Breviary, the lauds, and the office of readings.

Then came breakfast.

 

Lombardi then said: “He will spend today between prayer and reflection and he will see the messages that he has received. In the afternoon he may have his usual walk in the gardens to pray the rosary.”

When he left the Vatican, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI took with him to Castel Gandolfo a large number of letters, books and music recordings.

He also saw to it that his piano was brought from his Vatican apartment to the summer palace.

 

Benedict adapts the Church to the acceleration of history

It is still not possible to fully assess the decision Benedict has taken. Some Catholic theologians, and even some cardinals, have expressed perplexity, and even opposition, to the Pope’s decision to resign his office.

But there is much that we do not know.

Therefore, it seems wise to wait a bit before judging the Pope’s decision.

Clearly, the Pope took this decision after much thought and prayer. And he took it in the context of the challenges facing the Church today.

One of these challenges is a sudden acceleration of the pace of human events.

It does not take a prophet or a seer to see that something dramatic has occurred in the world over the past 200 years. Human technology has changed the way we live.

Communications technology — including this email, which means I can write in Rome in the evening, press a buttom, and be read around the world a few moments later — has annihilated space, and, in a sense, time.

With satellite technology and the internet, ideas and images are transmitted instantaneously worldwide.

Ideas, images, songs, slogans, are being transmitted now at nearly the speed of light. It is dizzying. Disorienting. Physically and psychologically exhausting. Spiritually exhausting.

This is so because the accumulated wisdom of humanity, and of the Church, is not able to be transmitted so effectively. The reception of this wisdom requires a slow process of maturation, formation, contemplation, face-to-face contact, a transmission person-to-person… heart to heart.

Something of this reality, of the change in the way humanity as a whole, and humn beings as individuals, are being formed, may be hidden within Benedict’s decision to step down from an office which was becoming at times just one more “media-mediated voice” in a cacaphony of voices.

Now Benedict has placed the Church in a position to respond in a new way to the challenge posed by a “modernity” characterize by glitz, packaging and spin, often without responsibility and without restraint.

A modernity to which, it would seem, nothing is sacred.

A modernity in which the word “sacred” has lost all meaning.

In front of a world seemingly fixated on rushing madly toward endless triviality, with no respect or affection for the previously nourishing traditions of the human race, Benedict XVI, a “humble servant” quite conscious of the grave limits of his own forces, has given the Church an historic chance to renew herself, and to return with even greater vigor and effect to the service of liberating truth.

In the face of a global challenge without precedent, the Pope himself has taken an unprecedented step.

In the face of an Enemy who seeks to destroy the human couple of Adam and Eve, distorting that couple and transforming their offspring into merchandise at the mercy of merciless laws and governments, the Church, supreme protectress of a free humanity, though attacked from without and betrayed from within, remains nevertheless the best, last hope humanity has to escape from the enslaving chains now being forged against our race.

Benedict’s decision to resign must be seen in this perspective, the perspective of a man who wishes to hand on, while he yet breathes, the weapons to fight a colossal battle.

The battle has not ended. Indeed, it is only now about to begin in earnest.

Toward the Conclave

All this means that the coming Conclave becomes a focus of spiritual battle.

And the world knows this as well as the cardinals do.

Sandro Magister, an old friend, today published an interesting analysis of this situation in L’Espresso, on newsstands here as of March 1.

Toward the Conclave. The Pressure on the Cardinals 

“The chair of Peter is empty,” Sandro writes. “Joseph Ratzinger has left it with a clean break, and has left the future governance of the Church to a successor who is unknown to him, just as he is still unknown to the very cardinals who will elect him. One cannot recall, in the last century, a previous conclave so much in the dark and so vulnerable to external and internal pressure.”

According to Sandro, it is the “fourth estate” — the media — that will have enormous influence in coming days.

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Sandro notes that three cardinals who were “on the crest of the wave” in 2005, and who all voted for the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan (at one point, the leading alternative in that Conclave to the final choice, Ratzinger), are either now out of the Conclave, or diminished in moral authority: Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien of Scotland, who has announced that he will not go to Rome for the election of the new pontiff; the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, censured by his own successor, José Horacio Gómez; and the former archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels.

Sandro writes: “For all three, the matters of accusation concern that ‘filth’ against which Pope Ratzinger fought his strenuous battle. Mahony and Danneels have so far resisted expulsion, but within the college of cardinals their authoritativeness is already practically nil.”

The Secret Dossier

Sandro continues: “In addition to external pressures, however, pressures from within the Church are also acting on the pre-conclave. The secret report that the three cardinals Julián Herranz, Jozef Tomko, and Salvatore De Giorgi delivered to Benedict XVI and only to him, and he in turn placed at the exclusive disposal of his successor, a report of which not even a line has been leaked out but is known to paint a worrying picture of the malfunctioning of the Roman curia, is weighing upon the conclave like a time bomb.”

Sandro thinks the selection of the new Pope will be influenced by the secret dossier, because the new Pope will be asked to carry out in short order “that reform of ‘governance’ which Benedict XVI left incomplete.”

But Sandro thinks the “clean-up” of the Roman Curia is only of temporary, partial importance.

The really important thing is to “clear the decks” in order to more effectively focus on the Church’s “ultimate and true mission” which is “to revive the Christian faith where it has been weakened and to bring it where it has not yet arrived.”

In fact, Sandro thinks the coming “clean-up” will take only… 100 days…

“In matters of governance,” he writes, “it will be enough that during the first hundred days he should begin a drastic reform of the Curia.”

And after that 100 days?

The new Pope, Sandro says, will have to “renew the essential mission of the Church”: to proclaim Christ, or to put it another way, to restore “all things” in Christ.

Will the new Pope be obeyed?

Pope Benedict has already told the College of Cardinals (speaking to them yesterday at noontime in his last meeting with them before leaving the Vatican) that he will give his “full reverence and obedience” to the new Pope.

In this regard, Benedict recently made a slight change in the ritual for the inauguration of the new Pope, called the Ordo rituum pro ministerii Petrini initio Romae episcopi.

When the newly-elected Pope takes solemn possession of the cathedral church of Rome, St. John Lateran, an “act of obedience” to the new pontiff will have to be publicly made by all the cardinals present, one by one, to give a “public dimension” to the gesture that the cardinals will already have made in the privacy of the Sistine Chapel immediately after the election.

Benedict XVI will not be in the Sistine Chapel, nor at St. John Lateran, and he will learn who is his successor in the same way everyone else will, watching the television as it reports from St. Peter’s Square on who comes out on the balcony of the basilica.

Thus, the Pope yesterday gave his oath of obedience in advance.

Because he made this statement in front of the College of Cardinals, seemingly not taking account of the possibility that a non-cardinal (an archbishop or bishop, or even a simple priest) might be elected (although that would be theoretically possible), observers here are arguing that Benedict believes exactly what he said in his talk yesterday: that the new Pope is “among the cardinals” who were sitting in front of him, and will not be a non-cardinal.

“Tra voi, tra il Collegio dei cardinali, c’è anche il futuro Papa,” Benedict said yesterday. (“Among you, among the College of Cardinals, there is also the future Pope.”)

He is taking it for granted that one of those cardinals will be the new Pope.

And Father Lombardi commented in his briefing: “Anche se sappiamo che canonicamente c’è la possibilità di elezione fuori, credo si possa realisticamente prevedere che il nuovo Pontefice farà parte del Collegio” (“Even if we know that canonically there is the possibility of the election of someone outside the college, I believe one can realistically foresee that the new pontiff will be part of the College.”)

The date of the conclave

On February 28, the official date of abdication, the majority of the cardinals were already in Rome for Benedict XVI’s last papal audience.

Today, they were officially summoned by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano (85 years old, and so a non-voting cardinal himself, but an important figure during the days up until the voting) in a letter signed by Sodano. Here is a copy of that letter:

 

The second paragraph says (in the text in bold-face), that the cardinal should come to Paul VI audience hall in the Vatican on Monday, March 4, at 9:30 a.m.

So, from March 4, Monday morning, the cardinals will begin to meet in “general congregations” or preparatory meetings. All cardinals, both electors and non-electors, that is, those over and those under age 80, may participate.

And the cardinals who are eligible to vote are expected to vote on which day the Conclave itself should begin.

The feeling here is that the Italian cardinals would like to vote to move the date of the Conclave up until either March 9, 10 or 11, instead of leaving it at March 15, or even as late as March 20.

But the feeling is also that some cardinals from abroad — as several have intimated also to me — feel they would like those extra days in order to assess the entire situation thoroughly.

As Jean-Marie Guenois, also a long-time colleague, points out in the February 25 issue of the French daily Le Figaro, “Some cardinals, especially the Italians, favor an accelerated process which would allow an election before Holy Week, the last week of March this year. Others, including Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois (the cardinal archbishop of Paris), and he is not alone, believe that on the contrary it would be best to take the time for ample reflection considering what is at stake.”

If the conclave were to open on Sunday, March 10, the election could be complete in three or four days. The new Pope could inaugurate his pontificate on the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, on March 19, and then prepare for the Holy Week ceremonies.

The world’s cardinals could return to their dioceses in time for Easter.

So the first indication of what direction the cardinals will be taking could be given by the date they choose to begin voting.

Among his books

Among the books Pope Benedict took with him to Castel Gandolfo, only one was named: the Theological Esthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Swiss theologian who was the co-founder, with Joseph Ratzinger and Henri de Lubac, of the journal Communio.

Here are excerpts from an excellent piece by the British Catholic writer Stratford Caldecott, also an old friend, which explains something of the mind of von Balthasar, the man whose work we know the Pope will be reading in the days ahead:

By Stratford Caldecott

In the mid 1930s, as a Jesuit novice, the young Hans Urs was studying Scholastic theology at Fourvière, just north of Lyons. He found St Thomas Aquinas interesting enough, but what his professors seemed to have done to St Thomas was so boring that he eventually resorted to stuffing his ears during lectures in order to read something much more thrilling: the writings of St Augustine and the early Church Fathers.

What had gone wrong with theology to make it so boring? Unlike many another who has found it a tedious waste of time, before and since, this particular Jesuit novice set out to discover why. In the course of answering that one simple question, he had practically to reinvent the whole subject.

Theology, Balthasar believed, is supposed to be the study of the fire and light that burn at the centre of the world.

Theologians had reduced it to the turning of pages in a dessicated catalogue of ideas – a kind of butterfly collection for the mind…

Modern man has lost his grip on morality partly because the deepest reasons for being good have been systematically denied him.

What Balthasar saw more clearly than anyone else was that the unity of Truth and Goodness in Beauty is evident above all in the very thing that ought to be the subject of theology, but which has been almost completely forgotten by the theologians: the Glory of God, which is incarnate in Jesus Christ…

Throughout his writings, Balthasar very clearly describes exactly what is wrong with the world, the culture, that we have grown up with. But at the same time he states the possibility of an alternative.

This alternative culture is based on the awakening of what he calls in the very first volume of the great series (with St Paul and, later, Clement of Alexandria) a “gnosis” or knowledge belonging to faith; the opening of an interior vision that “reads” the world in the light of love. (It was part of the intention of the international review Communio, of which Balthasar was the leading founder, to encourage this re-reading of the culture and the cosmos within the Church.)

Later in the series, in the five-volume Theo-Drama, he employs the eyes of faith to reveal the underlying dynamic of cosmic salvation history, culminating in the inevitable “Battle of the Logos” which drives evil into the open and onto the world stage.

It is this vision of the spiritual issues underlying the modern crisis of Christianity and culture that enables him to go beyond the shallow optimism of some of the Vatican II documents to a more profound critique of post-Enlightenment modernity…

It was a good thing, Balthasar believed, that the Church no longer wielded the temporal power that had once been claimed by the Popes, and that she had renounced forever the use of force and fear to achieve her ends.

Christendom was at times a noble experiment, but it had failed to give clear expression to many of the priorities of the Gospel. The disaster of the Crusades had shown how easily even the greatest of Christians (such as St Bernard of Clairvaux) could be deceived into confusing earthly with spiritual warfare.

What was needed now was a new non-violent chivalry, a new kind of consecration in the midst of secular life…

Love is at the heart of being, and its dynamism is at the heart of knowing: it is the “code” that enables us to read the meaning of things.

One more particular application of this insight might be mentioned: an application of relevance to contemporary feminism.

There is always a close integration in Balthasar’s thinking between seemingly abstract theological conclusions, cultural critique (thus social science) and spirituality. The tradition that God, being “pure act”, could contain no trace of passivity had become associated with the tendency in Christian thought to assign a lower place to woman and to the so-called “feminine” virtues.

In modern society, which increasingly values the hard, driving mechanisms of technological progress and economic competition, theology inevitably becomes entangled with the same attitude.

According to Balthasar, on the other hand, to receive something from another is not at all a weakness or imperfection, but intrinsic to the nature of what it is to love. If gentleness and openness to others, or “Receptivity”, is a feminine virtue, it is also an essential dimension of God.

This means that theology is free to revalue the feminine – and the spirit of childhood. Love Alone contains the following famous passage:

“But whenever the relationship between nature and grace is severed (as happens… where ‘faith’ and ‘knowledge’ are constructed as opposites), then the whole of worldly being falls under the dominion of ‘knowledge’, and the springs and forces of love immanent in the world are overpowered and finally suffocated by science, technology and cybernetics.

“The result is a world without women, without children, without reverence for love in poverty and humiliation – a world in which power and the profit-margin are the sole criteria, where the disinterested, the useless, the purposeless is despised, persecuted and in the end exterminated – a world in which art itself is forced to wear the mask and features of technique.”

[End of article by Stratford Caldecott]

The Ministry of Peter and the Ministry of John

Pope Benedict has stepped down from the ministry of Peter.

Still, he says he will continue to live “in the yard” of St. Peter.

As he lives there, he seems intent to carry of the ministry of… St. John.

It is as if he is moving from the ministry of Peter to… the ministry of John.

Pope Benedict has always appreciated this painting by Burnand.

And he has often mentioned the fact that Peter and John both “ran together” to the tomb, to see the evidence that Christ had risen.

John was not the “rock” upon whom Christ built his Church.

But John was one disciple who stayed with Jesus to the end, even remaining with him at the foot of the cross.

Interestingly, it is the Johannine vision of Christ that most intrigues Balthasar, the Pope’s old friend, the one whose book he is now reading.

That Johannine vision is the vision set forth by St. John in his Gospel.

In that Gospel, John writes: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father” (John 1:14).

As Joel Garver, a professor at La Salle University on Philadelphia has written:

“For John, the cross and the glorification of Christ are inseparable realities — coming from the Father, the Son’s whole life is one of glorifying the Father through obedience moving relentlessly toward his ‘hour’ of glorification in powerlessness upon the Cross.”

The Pope’s hour, at present, is the hour of his powerlessness…

Garver continues: “It is in the formless, the deformity (Ungestalt), of the Cross that the very form of God’s glory (Ubergestalt) is revealed as the boundless, self-giving love that characterizes the very life of the Trinity.

“This form of glory unseats all worldly aesthetics and all classical notions of beauty as proportion and harmony, making way for a new theological understanding of beauty in the Trinitarian dynamic of cruciform love seen by the eyes of faith. And that is the fundamental point that Balthasar expresses in his aesthetics.”

What Benedict is saying by his decision to divest himself completely of all power, and to live, powerless, “hidden from the the world,” a life of prayer and worship of God, is that there is a humble “Johannine mission” which can complement and complete the awesome “Petrine mission” he carried out with such devotion and suffering until yesterday evening…

(to be continued…)

Helicopter 

This evening, while the sun was still shining, Pope Benedict XVI left the Apostolic Palace inside Vatican City, accompanied by Cardinal Angelo Comastri and Cardinal Agostino Vallini.

At about 5 p.m., before getting in the car that would take him to the helicopter, he said goodbye to the staff at the Vatican, and to Cardinal Angelo Sodano and Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo.

At 5:05 p.m., as the bells at St. Peter’s Basilica rang out across the Square, the all-white helicopter took off towards Castel Gandolfo.

The flight first swept toward the Janiculum Hill, then turned and in a long arc passed back over St. Peter’s Basilica, then across the Tiber River and over the center of the Eternal City, above some of the major landmarks, like the Colosseum and the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Upon arriving at Castel Gandolfo, after about a 15-minute flight, the Pope was welcomed by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, the bishop of Albano, as well as the mayor of Castel Gandolfo.

A car took the Pope to the the Apostolic Palace at Castel Gandolfo at about 5:30 p.m. Hundreds of pilgrims were there to hear the last few words of Benedict XVI as Pope.

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The Pope entered the palace, then appeared at the window above the main portals.

The Pope’s words from the window of the palace:

“I am simply a pilgrim that begins his last phase on this Earth,” Benedict said.

“I would like to, with all my heart, my prayer and my reflection, with all the strength inside me, work for the common good and the good of the Church and humanity.

“I feel very supported by your sympathy.

“Lets move forward together, with the Lord, for the good of the Church and the world. Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the Church and the world. Thank you. I now wholeheartedly impart my blessing.”

After giving them his blessing, Benedict XVI said goodbye. It was his last appearance as Pope.

At 8 p.m., his pontificate ended, and the “sede vacante” began.

His light in the papal apartments was dark this evening. In the square below, small groups of faithful were praying quietly, or singing hymns, at 10 p.m. this evening.

During the period when there is no Pope, all Vatican department heads will temporarily lose their posts, until a new Pope is elected.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the “Camerlengo” or Chamberlain, sealed the empty Papal apartments to prevent anyone from entering or exiting until the new Pope is elected.

Tomorrow, March 1st, all cardinals will receive a letter from the Dean of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano. The letter will officially state that Benedict XVI has retired, calling on them to come to Rome to elect his successor.

It is still not clear when the actual Conclave will begin. The Italian cardinals seem to prefer having an early Conclave, beginning as early as March 9, but some of the non-Italian cardinals would seem to prefer a Conclave that begins later, on March 15, or even a few days later.

(to be continued…)