Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Vatican website now features Latin texts

The Vatican home page now has a section titled, "Sancta Sedes (Latine)," which leads to numerous Church texts in Latin, including writings by the last four popes and Pope Benedict XVI, the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, documents of Vatican II, the Code of Canon Law, and more.

A BBC News piece about the addition of Latin to the Vatican site has this humorous bit:

But Father Reginald Foster, an American priest who is the Pope's official Latinist, praises the virtues and the clarity of the Latin language.

"You have to say something and move on," he says.

"It's not like French and some of these philosophical languages where you can write a whole page and say nothing - in Latin you can't do that!''

Fr Foster has a weekly programme on Vatican Radio called The Latin Lover, in which he explains the historical and contemporary uses of the language.

Here's more about Fr. Foster and "The Latin Lover."

"Joseph and Chico" is a great introduction to Joseph Ratzinger...

... for children, writes Nathaniel Peters on the First Things site:

Joseph and Chico is by an Italian journalist living in Bavaria. You can tell that she’s not usually the author of children’s books, and there’s an excess of cutesy cat jokes for my taste. But where else are you going to read about B16’s favorite Christmas teddy bear, or the time he fell into the fish pond and was rescued by his siblings? The book is a great introduction to Joseph Ratzinger for children, and shows the humble background from which he came. It also has an introduction from the pope’s private secretary, Fr. Georg Gänswein, who, among other things, summarizes the life and work of Benedict in four sentences: “To begin with, I agree with the fact that the Holy Father is a special person, but it is above all because he is a real friend of Jesus. This is important! Here is the secret of his life: only by becoming a true friend of Jesus can we learn to open our hearts to the people we meet and to all the people of the world. . . . Precisely because he is filled with trust in Jesus, the Pope is not discouraged by difficulties and never gets tired of loving everyone.” That much was clear when he came to America. If you know any young children who’d like to get to know the pope better, Joseph and Chico might be a good way to make an introduction.

• Order Joseph and Chico
• Visit the Joseph and Chico website

Fr. Joseph Fessio: The Pope is just being who he really is

From a May 8th ZENIT interview with Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.:

While many Americans have a new take on the personality of Benedict XVI after his U.S. trip, Father Joseph Fessio says the Pope revealed nothing new. ...

The Jesuit, who is also the founder and editor in chief of Ignatius Press, the Pope's primary English-language publisher, explained that the Holy Father "is transparent, so what you see is who he is. His many concrete acts of thoughtfulness and generosity are unknown to most people, but would not be a surprise to those who have now had the chance to see and hear him."

There has been speculation that the Pope sometimes was negatively portrayed by the press simply because of his many years leading the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, coupled with his shyness.

Father Fessio agrees that these have been factors, "[b]ut the largest factor is that the secular media and dissenting Catholics will always project a negative image of anyone who upholds the teaching of the Catholic Church on the controversial, neuralgic issues of our time. Most are related to gender: contraception, abortion, homosexuality, ordination of women, married priests."

"Once the tide of enthusiasm recedes," the priest speculated, "the Holy Father will be portrayed as a hard-line conservative who is behind the times."

Read the entire interview.

Flash back to April 2005, shortly after the election of Benedict XVI, to this Ignatius Insight interview with Fr. Fessio:

What is Pope Benedict XVI like as a person? What about his reputation as an “enforcer” ?
 
Father Fessio: As a person, Pope Benedict is courteous, kind, gracious, soft-spoken, with an ever-present sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye. I’ve never heard him express anger or raise his voice. He listens very attentively to people and while clear and firm in his expression of the truths of the Catholic Faith, he always speaks or writes with profound courtesy and respect. He has a reputation as an enforcer because he had that task assigned to him. Even in treating dissident theologians, he was always open and fair, thorough and objective. Although there are still lingering complaints about the “secrecy” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, there is simply no basis for that. The Congregation has worked with complete transparency. I can’t think of anyone in the Vatican who has been more open to being interviewed or being questioned on any topic than Cardinal Ratzinger. Of course, when he is obliged to tell someone who considers himself a Catholic of good standing that what that person is teaching or advocating is incompatible with Catholic truth, that is often not well received. In trying to explain the hostility toward Cardinal Ratzinger, I can only think that it is a projection of the anger of those who are being corrected upon the one who has to administer the correction.

• The Theological Genius of Joseph Ratzinger | An Interview with Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D., author of Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait)
• The Courage To Be Imperfect | The Introduction to Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait) | D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.
• Benedict XVI's Theological Vision: An Introduction | Monsignor Joseph Murphy | From the introduction to Christ Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI              

"Imagine Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a Bishop."

I'm fairly confident this gentleman from Wisconsin could get a job writing for ABC News or USA Today if he wanted to...

"Introduction to Christianity": Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

"Introduction to Christianity": Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | Preface to the Second Edition (2004) of Introduction To Christianity              

Since this work was first published, more than thirty years have passed, in which world history has moved along at a brisk pace. In retrospect, two years seem to be particularly important milestones in the final decades of the millennium that has just come to an end: 1968 and 1989. The year 1968 marked the rebellion of a new generation, which not only considered post-war reconstruction in Europe as inadequate, full of injustice, full of selfishness and greed, but also viewed the entire course of history since the triumph of Christianity as a mistake and a failure. These young people wanted to improve things at last, to bring about freedom, equality, and justice, and they were convinced that they had found the way to this better world in the mainstream of Marxist thought. The year 1989 brought the surprising collapse of the socialist regimes in Europe, which left behind a sorry legacy of ruined land and ruined souls. Anyone who expected that   the hour had come again for the Christian message was disappointed. Although the number of believing Christians throughout the world is not small, Christianity failed at that historical moment to make itself heard as an epoch making alternative. Basically, the Marxist doctrine of salvation (in several differently orchestrated variations, of course) had taken a stand as the sole ethically motivated guide to the future that was at the same time consistent with a scientific worldview. Therefore, even after the shock of 1989, it did not simply abdicate. We need only to recall how little was said about the horrors of the Communist gulag, how isolated Solzhenitsyn's voice remained: no one speaks about any of that. A sort of shame forbids it; even Pol Pot's murderous regime is mentioned only occasionally in passing. But there were still disappointment and a deep-seated perplexity. People no longer trust grand moral promises, and after all, that is what Marxism had understood itself to be. It was about justice for all, about peace, about doing away with unfair master-servant relationships, and so on. Marxism believed that it had to dispense with ethical principles for the time being and that it was allowed to use terror as a beneficial means to these noble ends. Once the resulting human devastation became visible, even for a moment, the former ideologues preferred to retreat to a pragmatic position or else declared quite openly their contempt for ethics. We can observe a tragic example of this in Colombia, where a campaign was started, under the Marxist banner at first, to liberate the small farmers who had been downtrodden by the wealthy financiers. Today, instead, a rebel republic has developed, beyond governmental control, which quite openly depends on drug trafficking and no longer seeks any moral justification for this, especially since it thereby satisfies a demand in wealthy nations and at the same time gives bread to people who would otherwise not be able to expect much of anything from the world economy. In such a perplexing situation, shouldn't Christianity try very seriously to rediscover its voice, so as to "introduce" the new millennium to its message, and to make it comprehensible as a general guide for the future?

Read the entire preface...

Conversation with the Pope's brother

National Catholic Register has published a two-part interview, conducted by Robert Rauhut, with Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Pope Benedict XVI. From part one (April 20-26):

But is it possible for you to distinguish your “little brother” from your Holy Father?

Certainly I have respect for him and one has to distinguish between the general human aspect, him being my brother, and the ecclesial one, that he is my superior in that regard. And there he also enjoys my particular admiration.

But in our personal conversation we are just the same as ever.

Do you talk about theology and ecclesial politics?

Hardly. Our conversation is everyday talk, but also remembrances. On ecclesial politics very little, because I generally do not want to interfere in his job and I do not want to influence him in any way.

Issues that are known generally are sometimes taken into the discussion, but generally little.

And theology?

I like reading his works, but talking about it is something different. Sometimes when I have read something, I will ask him about it so that he can explain it to me. But we … are together in a human way and talk about everyday human life.

He asks about people he knows from Regensburg and other places. He wants to know how they’re doing and what they’re up to.

Read part one. And here is part two, just published (May 11-17).

• The Pope's Childhood: In His Own Words | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | An excerpt from Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millennium.

TIME magazine asks: "Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?"

TIME reporter David van Biema thinks the answer is basically "Yes, it is":

He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

<snip>

To some extent, liberal Catholicism has been a victim of its own success. Its positions on sex and gender issues have become commonplace in the American Church, diminishing the distinctiveness of the progressives. More importantly, they failed to transform the main body of the Church: John Paul II, a charismatic  conservative, enjoyed the third-longest papacy in church history, and refused to budge on  the left's demands; instead, he eventually swept away liberal bishops. The heads at Call to Action grayed, and by the late 1990s, Vatican II progressivism began to look like a self-limited Boomer moment.

Then, the movement received a monstrous reprieve. The priest sex abuse scandal implicated not only the predators, but the superiors who shielded them.  John Paul remained mostly silent. A new reform group, Voice of the Faithful, arose; the old anger returned, crystallizing around the battle-cry "They just don't get it."

Benedict's visit, however, changed the dynamic. And that's a problem for progressives. Says Fr. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center whom Benedict famously removed from his previous job as editor of America, "Reform movements need an enemy to organize against. As most bishops have gotten their acts together on sex abuse, they have looked less like the enemy and more like part of the solution. Enthusiasm for reform declined. With the Pope's forthright response, it will decline even more."

That's nice to hear, although history indicates that dissenters, heretics, "reformers," and people with a dislike for any and all authority will always be among us. Congratulations, by the way, to Fr. Reese for finally making a reasonable remark in the media that avoids sniping at the Pope. How timely.

ABC News = "All Benedict Clichés"

This May 2nd ABC News piece goes looking for the "softer" and "gentler" Pope Benedict XVI, breaks out some burnt out clichés, and produces a vague "story" about how the media responds when the subject of a media-created stereotype fails to go along with that stereotype:

During his recent visit, Benedict showed a side the public had never seen before. He became the first pope to visit an American synagogue and noticeably doted on babies.

Benedict has, however, visited a synagogue in Germany (in 2005), and he has apparently doted on non-American children. If by "the public" is meant the "American public", then this makes some sense. But since this was Benedict's first visit to the U.S., I'm inclined to conclude that nearly everything would be a "first": Benedict takes his first step on U.S. soil. Benedict breathes his first breath of U.S. air. Benedict makes first visit to the White House. Benedict says his first Mass at Yankee Stadium. And so forth.

He's been pontiff for three years, but for many Americans, Benedict was still best known as the pope who followed John Paul II.

Hey, are Americans smart or what? (Raucous laughter.) I bet most Americans also know that Benedict is quite likely the pope who comes prior to the pope who follows him. This is very good stuff!

He seemed to be the very opposite of Paul, who was something of a rock star among Catholics and chipped away at the Iron Curtain and won over the hearts of Catholic youth with his very public warmth.

Seemed to be. Why? To whom? Really now, shouldn't a journalist be interested in getting past stupid caricatures that don't help explain, clarify, or demonstrate anything? Why, I can think of quite a few similarities between the two men: Catholic priests, intellectually gifted, well-educated, theological experts at Vatican II, dialogued with Jews and others, addressed secularism and relativism and numerous related problems, worked closely together for over 20 years, and so forth and so on.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- as Benedict used to be known -- was considered to be a stern hard-liner. He served John Paul II as "defender of the faith," responsible for protecting Catholic orthodoxy, earning the nickname of "God's Rottweiler."

Again, why? Seriously: who was it that labeled Ratzinger as "a stern hard-liner" and named him "God's Rottweiler"? Who is it who comes up with all of the negative, often infantile, nicknames? Who has promoted those nicknames heavily? And honestly, did anyone in the MSM really think that John Paul II wasn't a "hard-liner" who upheld Church teaching? Anyone?

But Benedict's first visit to the United States was one that portrayed him as cuddly and soft. This has led some to question whether the pope so many had written off as a tough guy is really a teddy bear in disguise.

What is this: a news report or a note in a high school yearbook? "hi jimmy. i'm so glad u and i got to no each other this year. at first i thought u were stuck on yerself. but yer actually really cool. yer like a teddy bare! yer friend. xxx ooo, beth." And how, I must ask, does a visit "portray" someone?

Now, however, the world stage has seen this warmer side. Many are watching and waiting, to see whether the soft side of the pope will emerge more frequently, particularly during his trip to Australia this summer -- now that he's seen how well it went over in the states.

What is this: a piece of journalism or a gossip column for People magazine? "The in-demand actor is considered warm and approachable, a spring personality with a summer wardrobe, whose presence melts hearts and brings smiles to the most hardened industry veterans. The emergence of his effusive, sunny side has been a welcome surprise, especially since it was only three years ago that he, in a fit of drunken rage, stormed off of the 'Tonight Show' after being asked if he still tortured small animals and listened to Rush Limbaugh."

Well, enough fun for now. The ABC piece was apparently the print version of a "report" given by reporter Claire Shipman. NewBusters.org has the full story, including audio and a transcript, of Shipman's shipwreck of a report.

Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | In Appreciation of Tracey Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

"Benedict believes that the Mass is a Holy Sacrifice, offered ritually as worship, not a fellowship meal, that those who attend do so for the purpose of Divine Worship, that music which is based on most contemporary popular musical forms is completely unworthy, and that everything that is related to the Mass and other liturgies of the Church should be marked by beauty. Beauty is not an optional extra or something contrary to a preferential option for the poor. It is not a scandal to clothe sacred words in silken garments. Catholics are not tone deaf philistines who will be intellectually challenged by the use of a liturgical language or put off by changeless ritual forms." — Tracey Rowland, Ratzinger's Faith

"From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the 'Logos', as the religion according to reason. In the first place, it has not identified its precursors in the other religions, but in the philosophical enlightenment which has cleared the path of tradition to turn to the search of the truth and towards the good, toward the one God who is above all gods." — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "The Subiaco Address"

I.

The reading of what is billed as a "theology" book on a pope, of all things, will not seem to be what this book surely is to read, namely, a distinct pleasure. Aristotle warned us that if we do not take proper delight in all things, especially in the things   of the mind, we will not know the highest pleasures that are in store for us when we seek to use that given faculty we call intellect. Well, that is not an exact citation from Aristotle, but pretty close. Clearly the highest pleasures follow from our knowing the highest truths and the reality in which they are founded. The central point of this book is this: "What is the Christian understanding of God?" And what is the relation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the God of the Philosophers? No doubt our best current guide to the answer to these fundamental questions lies in the work and pontificate of Benedict XVI.

This slim volume by Tracey Rowland is introduced by George Cardinal Pell. He remarks, "It is a sign of the times and a portent of the future that this excellent volume was written by a young, married woman" well on her way to "becoming Australia's leading theologian" (x). Tracey Rowland is from the Brisbane area, currently the head of the John Paul Institute in Melbourne, where her husband Stuart is a lawyer. She earned a Master's Degree in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne and her doctorate at Cambridge University in England.

Read the entire essay...

"In Europe and in Italy, such questions are not even raised."

So writes Italian journalist Sandro Magister of Chiesa in reporting on the controversy about certain politicians receiving Communion at the Papal Mass in Washington, D.C.:

A loud and unexpected backlash erupted in the United States one week after the pope's return to Rome.

The cause was the reception of Eucharistic communion during the papal Masses by some important "pro-choice" Catholic politicians, supporters of the free right to abortion.

In Washington, at the Mass in Nationals Park, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the senators John Kerry, Edward Kennedy, and Christopher Dodd received communion, while in New York, at the Mass in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, former city mayor Rudolph Giuliani received communion. Their actions were highlighted by the media in part because some of them had announced it beforehand.

<snip>

In early June of 2004, from Rome, then-cardinal Ratzinger sent to cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington and head of the "domestic policy" commission of the United States bishops' conference, a note with precise indications on the question.

The note was private, but www.chiesa released the complete text.

That note from Ratzinger is again reproduced below. Its point is unequivocal: no Eucharistic communion for Catholic politicians who systematically campaign for abortion.

But the bishops of the United States, meeting in general assembly, decided by majority that it is up to each individual bishop whether or not to give communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Ratzinger did not oppose this way of applying the norm. On the contrary, he wrote that he thought this was "very much in harmony" with his guidelines.

When George W. Bush was reelected to the White House, the question faded into the background again. And it had not reemerged during the current campaign for the new presidential election, since none of the candidates is Catholic.

But now that it has exploded once again, the impression is that a more strict approach is taking hold among the bishops of the United States. It was striking that cardinal Egan did not limit himself to recalling general principles, but directly criticized a famous political figure, and moreover accused him of violating a private agreement made with him.

In Europe and in Italy, such questions are not even raised. The fact that "pro-choice" politicians should receive communion does not raise any particular reactions. Their decision is left to their personal conscience.

The fact that in the United States, on the other hand, this question is so inflammatory is another sign of the differences in the political-religious landscapes on either side of the Atlantic: a diversity repeatedly emphasized by Benedict XVI during his visit and in the concluding audience on Wednesday, April 30.

In the United States, religion is a public reality to a much greater extent and in a different way than in Europe. With the consequences that follow from this.

This helps explain, I suppose, why politicians such as Kerry and Co. think the U.S. would be much better off if it were more like Europe.

Read the entire piece, which includes the 2004 statement by Cardinal Ratzinger.