People in the News

RSS
Email

0 Kudo

Author	Comment
Benodette	Re: Pius XII as a "Righteous Gentile"	#21	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/12/06 06:15:59	From Zenit: Scholar Ronald Rychlak Defends Wartime Pope Despite what some modern critics say, Pope Pius XII launched a multifaceted response to the Nazi campaign against the Jews. So says, Ronald Rychlak, an adviser to the Holy See's delegation to the United Nations, University of Mississippi law professor and author of "Righteous Gentiles: How Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis" Rychlak shared with ZENIT some of the information he has amassed in defense of Pius XII and the Church, and how Catholics can respond to detractors. Q: How is this book different from those that have previously defended Pope Pius XII? What new information does it reveal? Rychlak: In "Righteous Gentiles" I directly respond to arguments made by the critics of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church during the Nazi era. I generally tried to avoid doing that in my last book -- "Hitler, the War, and the Pope" -- because I wanted to lay out the facts chronologically and just as they happened. Philosopher Michael Novak, author of the foreword to "Righteous Gentiles," pointed out that over the past five years there have been so many books and articles that set forth arguments against the Church that a book responding to them had become necessary. That's what I have tried to do with this book: address each and every argument that has been lodged against Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. www.zenit.org/english/
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	"Da Vinci Code" -- a Blessing for Opus Dei?	#22	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/14/06 22:39:44	Zenit interviewed Marc Carroggio, who oversees Opus Dei's relationship with the international media. This is their report: The forthcoming film "The Da Vinci Code" might not be so bad for Opus Dei after all. For the first time, in this interview, a representative of the "evil one of the film" -- the Opus Dei prelature -- offers his view on this production, which Sony-Columbia will release in May. Marc Carroggio, who oversees Opus Dei's relationship with the international media, told ZENIT that interest about the book and the film "is turning out to be a sort of indirect publicity for us." Carroggio added that, given the existence of the movie, there will be no fight against anyone. An effort is being made to take advantage of the great interest aroused to propose the figure of Jesus Christ, he stressed. Q: What do you most dislike about the book and now the movie? Carroggio: I realize that fiction has its own rules and you shouldn't take it too seriously, but like any Christian I dislike the frivolous way the book plays with the life of Jesus Christ. Moreover, scripts like this demonize a particular group. It presents the Catholic Church as a band of criminals who for 2,000 years has tried to hide a huge lie. Although the story is absurd and at times somewhat humorous, it produces a hateful image of the institution and it is well known that hateful images like this produce feelings of hatred in those who lack a critical sense. I don't think we need more caricatures of any religion. We should all be working for harmony, tolerance and understanding. You cannot be seeking peace with your left hand while you are beating people over the head with your right. www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=82688
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Re: John Allen on the plot to kill the Pope	#23	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/15/06 19:40:37	From Allen's Word from Rome: Perhaps the biggest "pope story" of the week came on Thursday, with the release from Turkish prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot John Paul II on May 13, 1981. He was serving time for the murder of a Turkish journalist before the attempt on the pope's life. He was freed from Italian prison in 2000, where he was serving a sentence for the attack on the pope, after John Paul II requested his release as part of a general appeal for clemency for prisoners during the Great Jubilee Year. Since Agca also evaded his mandatory term of military service in Turkey, he could be taken into custody anew by Turkish military officials. While most media outlets have focused on the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination attempt, especially the so-called "Bulgarian Connection" that many believed ultimately stretched back to Moscow, it's worth recalling that John Paul himself never expressed great curiosity about who else, if anyone, was behind the two shots Ali Agca fired that afternoon in St. Peter's Square. During a May 2002 visit to Sofia, in a meeting with Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, John Paul said, "I have never believed in the so-called 'Bulgarian connection,' out of respect for the Bulgarian people." In fact, John Paul was convinced he already knew the author of the assassination attempt, and in the final analysis it wasn't the KGB or Islamic extremists. It was the "powers of this world," the force of evil at work in history. He saw what happened to him as part of a vast cosmic drama, and in that connection he felt it was certainly no accident the attempt fell on May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. John Paul would later travel to Fatima to place the bullet doctors removed from his abdomen before the statue of the Virgin, in effect thanking her for altering the flight path of that bullet and saving his life. In a taped address four days after the attempt, John Paul invited prayers for Ali Agca and said he had already forgiven him. In 1983, he visited the would-be assassin in an Italian prison to extend that forgiveness in person. His former personal secretary, now Archbishop Stanislaw Dsizwsz of Cracow, later said that Ali Agca's main interest in that conversation was whether the Virgin of Fatima would seek vengeance. John Paul, according to Dziwisz, assured him that the Virgin was a gentle, compassionate mother www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word011306.htm#four
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Cardinal George of Chicago recalls the events of April 2005	#24	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/16/06 10:28:11	Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun Times talks to Cardinal Francis George about 'That month in Rome' not soon forgotten About once a year for the last six years, Cardinal Francis George, shepherd to 2.4 million Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and I sit down for a kind of spiritual-state-of-the-union chat. This past year, because I had been on a long sabbatical from the Chicago Sun-Times to write a book, the cardinal and I had a lot of catching up to do..... That's not gonna leave me quickly, that month in Rome," George, who turns 69 today, says a little wistfully as we begin our conversation in his office at the archdiocese's Pastoral Center. "It was really a very moving and important month for me -- probably one of the most important months of my life, in some ways, to be part of that." When I wonder aloud how the experiences of April 2005 at the Vatican, where he mourned and buried one pope, then elected and installed another, might have changed the way he does things back home in Chicago, he answers with typical nonchalance. They haven't really, at least not directly, he says. Well . . . maybe ... except for one thing: The power of television "I noticed when I got back, because it was so closely followed -- and because they had that shot of me on CNN that everyone seemed to have seen -- people seem to recognize me more now," George says laughing. He's talking about some famous footage of him, dressed in cardinal red, standing on one of the balconies of St. Peter's Basilica, after Pope Benedict XVI greeted the crowds in the square below for the first time. George lingered a long while -- he was perhaps the last cardinal to go back inside the basilica -- surveying the scene below him. Before he walked inside, the cardinal brushed his hands together in a sweeping motion, a gesture some observers believed was his way of saying "my work here is done." In reality, he was just knocking some dust from the balcony's stone railing off his hands. (Although, truth be told, one of his assistants has since informed me that it was pigeon droppings, not dust.) On Benedict "Necessarily when you are a bishop, you watch for signals from the pope, and he's been very deliberate, I think, in his actions. He hasn't done anything sudden. But that's consistent with his character. People who are looking for dramatic shifts, I think, are going to be watching for a long time. He's not going to govern that way," George says. "He has his own habits of life," George continues soberly. "Those are a gift, but they also do qualify the way he is present. As you know as well as I, he is a professor by training and he is good with small groups and one-on-one. He is not a man of crowds, but he has been able to manage the crowds. He did that very well in Cologne with the kids [at World Youth Day in August]. But he's not doing as much of that as John Paul did and he won't. He won't do as much traveling. He's much older." On the document on homosexuality "We asked them not not to publish it, but to delay it -- to wait -- otherwise it would color the visitations," George says. The problem, in his view, was that the document would be released in the midst of official Vatican "visitations" to U.S. seminaries to check, among other things, for "homosexual culture" on campus. "The document itself goes back almost 10 years. The visitations grew out of the discussions in April 2002 between the [American] cardinals and the [Vatican] curia," about the sexual abuse crisis in the United States. "We said, 'If you do this, it will be taken as a commentary on the visitations and we'll get into this whole business that the gay community is so sensitive to of, 'You're blaming us for the pedophilia.'" The Vatican's response to his pleas? Tough noogies, basically. "Their response was, 'Well, we're sorry about that, but this is a universal document. It's not directed at the United States. It's directed to the whole church. So we're gonna do it.' They have their own schedule," George says matter-of-factly. www.suntimes.com/output/falsani/cst-nws-cardinal16.html
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Agca's Release is a Wrong Decision	#25	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/18/06 17:25:27	Turkish Minister of Justice Cemil Cicek petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeals to appeal the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the killer of renowned Turkish journalist Abdi Ipekci and the would-be-assassin of Pope John Paul II. In the application sent to the Court of Appeals by the Office of the Attorney General, it was emphasized that the 20-year sentence Agca served in Italy for the Pope's assassination attempt should not count; he must be punished in Turkey for his domestic crime. The application reiterates even if this period is accepted, the period Agca stayed imprisoned in Italy was not 20 years but 19 years and 1 month, therefore the 11 month-sentence is lacking. Moreover, Agca must serve a sentence of at least 10 years for the murder of Ipekci, the early release is not satisfactory since he spent only six years of this condemnation in prison. Since Agca benefited from amnesty laws his capital punishment was reduced to a 10-year imprisonment, for this reason he cannot benefit from other laws. If the Appeal Court concludes in accord with the ministry's demand, Agca will be resent to prison and will remain there until 2017. www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20060118&hn=28764
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Re: Charitable efforts in focus at Vatican conference	#26	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/18/06 22:09:35	From CWN James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank, will be the keynote speaker at a Vatican conference on charity, organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, on January 23- 24. More than 200 invited guests-- including Church leaders, UN officials, ambassadors, and relief workers-- will participate in the conference, which will be held in the Synod Hall. Pope Benedict XVI will address the seminar at midday on January 23. The timing of the conference ensures extra attention to the subject. The Cor Unum seminar will take place on the two days before the release of Pope Benedict's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, which includes a lengthy section on the charitable efforts of the Catholic Church. Cor Unum helped the Pope in drafting the document, with a detailed reports on Church relief efforts. www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=41895
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
LOUISE BROWN	Re: Misleading reporting from London TIMES newspaper again!	#27	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 1510 01/20/06 07:04:57	It seems that lately the British press are getting things hopelessly wrong in some of their reports from the Vatican -both the Times and the Telegraph appear to be not doing their research enough and relying on 'second hand sources' for information as the following shows.................... A Drive to Clear Judas\' Name? Hardly, Says Official Monsignor Brandmller Calls Media Reports Baseless VATICAN CITY, JAN. 19, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See has not launched a campaign to rehabilitate Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, says a Vatican representative to whom the media have attributed words he never said. The question arose after the news that the Swiss-based Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art and U.S.-based National Geographic magazine intended to publish at Easter the content of a first-century manuscript, with the apocryphal gospel of Judas. Until now, knowledge of this writing came only from the second-century bishop, St. Irenaeus. The announced publication sparked a debate in Italy over the figure of Judas Iscariot. The Turin newspaper La Stampa, for instance, reported Jan. 11 that some sources said the apocryphal manuscript would lead to a favorable re-evaluation of Judas. In this connection, La Stampa quoted comments of writer Vittorio Messori and of Monsignor Walter Brandmller, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences. No foundation On Jan. 12 an article in the Times newspaper of London claimed that Monsignor Brandmller is leading a campaign from the Vatican to convince believers of Judas\' goodness. The Times also stated that some biblical scholars believe that the negative view of Judas has been influenced by anti-Semitic texts. But in statements to ZENIT, Monsignor Brandmller clarified that \"this news has no foundation.\" \"Reading the Times I discovered that a campaign exists to rehabilitate Judas and that I am the leader,\" the Vatican official said. \"I have not talked with the Times. I can\'t imagine where this idea came from. \"In regard to the manuscript, it must be emphasized that the apocryphal gospels belong in the main to a special literary genre, a sort of religious novel that cannot be considered as a documentary source for the historical figure of Judas.\" Monsignor Brandmller continued: \"We await the critical edition, which will certainly be interesting from the point of view of the history of ancient literature, but it is impossible to express judgments in advance.\" 2nd-century text He added: \"Around 180 A.D., Irenaeus of Lyon, [in] \'Against the Heretics,\' I,31,1, spoke of an alleged apocryphal gospel of Judas. Later, Epiphanius and a pseudo-Tertullian spoke of it. According to these sources, the apocryphal gospel of Judas was a Greek text of Gnostic origin, written by the Cainites\' sect, in the middle of the second century. \"The Gnostic sect of the Cainites attributed a positive value to all the negative figures of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, such as the tempter serpent, Cain -- hence their name -- Esau and Judas. In any case, the discovery of this manuscript is very interesting, from the point of view of knowledge of paleo-Christian literature.\" Some observers maintain that an eventual rehabilitation of Judas would favor the dialogue with Jews. Monsignor Brandmller responded: \"The dialogue between the Holy See and the Jews continues profitably on other bases, as Benedict XVI mentioned in his visit to the Synagogue of Cologne, in the summer of 2005 during World Youth Day, and as he stressed last Monday in his meeting with the chief rabbi of Rome.\"
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Cardinal Kaspar in Durham	#28	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/20/06 08:29:22	From CNS: Ethical approaches make unity appear distant, says Vatican official While many of the doctrinal differences that divided Christians for centuries are close to being resolved, different approaches to modern ethical questions are making Christian unity appear as distant as ever, said Cardinal Walter Kasper. "I am very sad we are not able to speak with one voice on these issues to a world that needs to hear," the cardinal said Jan. 13 at an international ecumenical conference at Ushaw College, a Catholic seminary in Durham. The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, received an honorary doctorate Jan. 12 from the University of Durham and delivered the keynote address Jan. 13 at the opening of an ecumenical conference organized by the university to discuss steps the Catholic Church and its dialogue partners should take at a time when full church unity seems distant. Cardinal Kasper told conference participants that believing Christians cannot give up hope for Christian unity because church division is "a sin before God and a scandal before the world." However, he acknowledged a sense that, after 40 years of what appeared to be major progress toward unity, ecumenical dialogue has come up against serious, unforeseen obstacles. Differences among Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants over issues such as homosexual activity, abortion, euthanasia and other moral questions "are not on the top of the hierarchy of truths" -- like the belief in Jesus as savior is -- "but they are very emotional and, therefore, very divisive," the cardinal said. www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0600225.htm Rocco palmo adds this: whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2006/01/happy-kasper-week.html
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Agca must return to jail-Turkish court	#29	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/20/06 10:37:11	(Reuters) - Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, must return to jail after Turkey's Supreme Court said on Friday it had overturned a decision to release him. The Justice Ministry had appealed against the move to release Agca from prison last week after he had served more than 25 years behind bars in Italy and Turkey. The 48-year-old former right-wing gangster had served 19 years in an Italian prison for the assassination attempt before being pardoned at the Pope's behest in 2000. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a separate sentence in an Istanbul jail for the 1979 murder of liberal newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci and charges dating from the 1970s. Under new Turkish laws, his time served in Italy was initially deducted from the 25 years left on his sentence in Turkey. But the Supreme Court ruled against the decision to make the deduction. His early release has triggered criticism in Turkey. Agca's motives in shooting the Pope in Rome's St Peter's Square remain a mystery, but some believe he was a hitman for Soviet-era East European security services alarmed by the Polish-born pontiff's fierce opposition to communism.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Italy Knew of Agcas Plans to Assassinate Pope	#30	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/20/06 10:49:15	Turkish Interpol warned member countries by issuing a red bulletin after Agca escaped from prison in 1979 where he was sentenced to life for murdering Abdi Ipekci, editor of the moderate left-wing newspaper Milliyet; however, the countries did not pay much heed to "the red bulletin" at first. After Agca's assassination attempt, Interpols Secretariat General thanked the Turkish Security Directorate and held Turkey as an example for other countries. Retired Security Director Selahattin Gultepe who worked at the Security Directorate Interpol Office during 1977-1986, said they informed all the Interpol members including Italy about Agca's assassination plan one year before the incident by issuing a red bulletin. Gultepe brought tens of outlaws back to Turkey, including Cevher Ozden (known as Banker Castello) who was extradited to Turkey from abroad following agreements signed between the countries. www.turks.us/article.php?story=20060120104138798&mode=print
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Novarro-Valls hopes for quick beatification of John Paul II	#31	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/21/06 16:29:07	CWN - Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the director of the Vatican press office, disclosed that he is hoping for the rapid beatification of Pope John Paul II. Speaking to an Italian television audience on Thursday night, the longtime spokesman for the late Pontiff said that "I am convinced of his holiness." Msgr. Slamowir Oder, the Polish cleric who is postulator of the cause for beatification of John Paul II, told the Roman news agency I Media that he, too, hopes for a quick conclusion of the process. However, the postulator declined to set any date for the end of the initial inquiry. "We have to do things in a scrupulous fashion," he said, noting that the results of the beatification inquiry must stand up to the tests of history. The process will include a careful consideration of any reasoned opposition to the late Pope's beatification, he said. Moreover, the inquiry is collecting a prodigious amount of testimony, which must be weighed carefully. Msgr. Oder disclosed that, in answer to a request for written testimony on the life and virtues of John Paul II, the beatification inquiry has received more than 2 million letters, from all around the world. www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=41949
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Re: Pope names new Vatican envoy to Israel	#32	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/22/06 23:38:51	Pope Benedict XVI has named a diplomat now serving in the Philippines to be the Holy See's envoy to Israel and Cyprus. The Vatican said on Saturday that Archbishop Antonio Franco would serve as nuncio in Jerusalem, replacing Archbishop Pietro Sambi who last month was named to Washington. Franco, 68, had been the nuncio in the Philippines since 1999. Benedict has been following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in trying to improve Jewish-Catholic relations. On Monday, Benedict expressed pain and worry over outbreaks of anti-Semitism in the world and called on Jews and Christians to wage a united battle against hate. His remarks came as he greeted Rome Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni and his delegation in an audience at the Vatican. www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1137605884440&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Agca Returns to Prison After 8 Days	#33	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/22/06 23:42:04	The Court of Appeals annulled a decree by Kartal High Criminal Court to release Mehmet Ali Agca, the would-be-assassin of Pope John Paul II and the killer of a Turkish journalist-writer Abdi Ipekci. The Court concluded Friday Agca was released on grounds of some miscalculation when the Court officials received a written decree from the Ministry of Justice to re-arrest Agca. The 20 years of prison that Agca served in Italy cannot be subtracted from the period he must serve in prison in Turkey, the court officials said. In addition, Agca can only take advantage of the law adopted in 1991 as one of the three "amnesty" laws, which reduced Agca's sentence to 10 years, same officials told. A police investigation was launched to find Agca's whereabouts immediately after the ruling. The police managed to arrest Agca in a Kartal house amid doubts that he might have fled. "I was expecting you," Agca said to police officers upon their arrival, according to reporters. He will be sentenced to four more years in prison. www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&hn=28878
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Agca Asks Police: Didn't I Stay Long Enough in Prison?	#34	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/22/06 23:46:51	Didn't I stay long enough in prison? asked Mehmet Ali Agca who was brought to Istanbul Security Directorate after the Turkish Court of Appeals repealed the decision for his release from prison last week. Police officials calmed him down after they recognized the trembling of Agcas hands. Agca explained he was surprised to see an army of journalists before him and became nervous. Speaking to the police officials, Those who shot Nihat Erim, were released. Erim was the prime minister of this country. Those who assassinated the attorney general were released. Turkey could not even bring the girl who shot Ozdemir Sabanci. Don't you think that I stayed long enough in prison? asked Agca. Reiterating the claims that he is the Messiah, Agca said that Satanist and Sabethaist powers were demanding his return to prison. He walked under the rain and watched the sea after he was released from prison, Agca told, and he disguised himself in the street, but those recognizing him asked for his signature. When asked for the reason of always wearing a blue shirt, Agca told, Blue is the color of the armies of the third World War. And I am the commander, he expressed. I never read the Quran. I do not pray. Why should I? These are things done for show. You will do them. But, I am a leader. I am the Messiah; the Messiah does not engage in these kinds of acts....... When asked how he understood that he was the Messiah, Agca remained silent for a while and replied, I first told it to the Pope that I was the Messiah. He did not say anything. He stroked my head. Do you know what this means. The Pope accepted that I am the Messiah. www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20060122&hn=28928
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Agca to be Released in January 2010	#35	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/23/06 09:03:30	Pope John Paul II's would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Agca will remain in prison until 18 January 2010. Kartal Chief Prosecution Office on Monday gave its decision regarding the remaining prison term to be served by Agca for the 1979 killing of editor in chief of Turkish daily Milliyet, Abdi Ipekci. According to the new decision, Agca will be released from jail on 18 January 2010. www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20060123&hn=28965
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Examining the writings of Pope John Paul II	#36	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/23/06 23:14:34	From the Tablet: When a Polish supplementary tribunal for John Paul IIs beatification began work in Krakow this November, a key task was to examine the late Popes pre-papal writings, for the light they threw on his firmness of faith and loyalty to Catholic doctrine. But there is uncertainty as to how objective the tribunal will be. Evidence exists that the young Karol Wojtyla nursed radical sympathies, and a passionate critique of capitalist injustices, that made him interested in Marxist ideals. Polands Catholic Church has discouraged interest in his unpublished texts, insisting they were not fully developed or intended for public consumption. Far from steeping himself in Marxist classics, church leaders insist, Wojtyla took his material from Catholic sources. Those who maintain this might consider a seemingly forgotten collection of Wojtylas lectures, bound in a limited typescript edition in the early 1950s. The two-volume Catholic Social Ethics has never been published and is not available at libraries in Poland. But it throws important light on the Popes background, and calls into question his image as a cradle anti-Communist. In his monumental biography, Witness to Hope (1999), the American George Weigel dismisses the 511-page work in a mere footnote, claiming Wojtyla had used course outlines from an older colleague, Professor Jan Piwowarczyk (1889-1959), whose own work was published with a similar title in London in 1958-60, and that Wojtyla could not therefore be regarded as the author. This contention is rejected by Polish experts on John Paul II. They insist that Catholic Social Ethics, although drawing on Piwowarczyk, is indeed Wojtylas work, and could significantly affect assessments of the future pontiffs philosophical development. Cesary Ritter, deputy director of the John Paul II Institute at Polands Catholic University of Lublin, sees the work as an academic sequel to Wojtylas enthusiastic early writings on worker priests in France and Belgium, as well as to his 1949 play, Brother of our God, with its agonised musings over the rights and wrongs of revolutionary violence. Theres no question that Karol Wojtyla is the author these lectures are distinctive and belong to the body of his work, Mr Ritter said in a statement on behalf of the institutes governing body. Theyre written in the ideological language of the 1950s, so they would need some explaining if published. But theres no reason why they shouldnt be, as a means of understanding the Popes intellectual path. www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-01129
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Re: Spanish Jesuit journal criticizes John Paul II	#37	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/24/06 22:36:08	CWN - A controversial editorial published in Mensajero, one of the official publications of the Jesuit order in Spain, has characterized the pontificate of John Paul II as raising suspicions about the Jesuits and of being incapable of resolving the breach between the faith and the modern world. The editorial remarked that a general congregation of the Society of Jesus is being planned for 2008, and will address important issues for the future of the order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Among the issues to be discussed are what kind of structural organization responds best to the challenges of globalization, which apostolic priorities should be focused upon, what type of formation todays Jesuit needs and how to incorporate the laity into the apostolic work of the Society. The editorial said the meeting would set the agenda for the Society for the first quarter of the 21st century. Under the leadership of Pedro Arrupe, the editorial states, Jesuits were enthusiastic fans of Vatican II. But the authors lament, Their very institution paid a heavy price because of it. Many members left the Society and the number of vocations dropped, especially in the consumerist and satiated North. This has led to a notable increase in the average age of todays Jesuits, the editorial notes. www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=42011
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Budwud	Re: Church and State	#38	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 350 01/25/06 11:52:17	An historic event that could shape the future of society in the United States for years to come is about to take place. I know that there are several American members of this forum and am very surprised that no one has mentioned it. What I am referring to is the almost certain induction of Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court Justice. Alito would become the fifth Roman Catholic sitting on the Court and for the first time in the history of the United States, a minority religion would have a majority vote. For a country that since its beginnings has had a fear and mistrust of Catholicism, as an outsider I find this a truly amazing occurance coming as it does with the issuance of Benedict XVI's first encyclical in which he speaks about the role of the Church and the State. Now, I understand that Supreme Court Justices are not allowed to cast an opinion based on religion or emotion but on the law. However, in the light of what Benedict says about that role, perhaps the United States will indeed become a model of Christian truth and charity. From Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict's thoughts on the roles of Church and State. ENCYCLICAL: STATE AND CHURCH HAVE DIFFERENT TASKS(AGI) - Vatican City, Jan. 25 - "The State cannot impose religion, but needs to guarantee the freedom and peace of believers of various religions; the Church as a social expression of the Christian faith, on its part, has its independence and lives on the base of the faith its communal form that the State needs to respect. Benedict XVI emphasised in his encyclical that faith an politics are "two distinct spheres, but always in reciprocal relationship" and that thus, "the right order of society and the State is the central task of politics". To his vision of Christianity belongs indeed, "the distinction between what is Caesar's and what is God's, or as Vatican Council II said, the autonomy of worldly realities." "The training of the right structures is not immediately the task of the Church, but it belongs to the political sphere, which is the ambit of self-responsible reason. In this, the task of the Church is mediated, in that it is expected to contributed to the purification of reason and the reawakening of moral forces, without which the right structures are not built, nor can these be operative in the long term." "The Church cannot and should never battle to create the most just society possible. It cannot and must not put itself in place of the State. But it cannot and should not either remain on the sidelines in the battle for justice. It needs to argue rationally and reawaken spiritual forces, without those such as justice, cannot prosper. The just society canot be the work of the Church but needs to be created by politics." According to the Pontiff, "the immediate task is to work for a just order in society, the job of laymen. As citizens they are called to take part in public life. They cannot therefore abdicate from the many and various economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural actions aimed at promoting the common good." The mission of Christians, concluded the Pope, "is therefore to shape social life in an upright fashion, respecting legitimate autonomy and cooperating with the other citizens according to respective skills and responsibly." Do any of you American members have any opinion on this subject?
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
mag6nideum	HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOZART!!	#39	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 1968 01/27/06 12:15:35	TODAY IS THE 250TH BIRTDAY OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, the favourite composer of Il Papa Hope Papa has some time to watch TV-programs from European cities, celebrating Mozart's memory and his eternally wonderful music.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote
Benodette	Re: Cardinal George of Chicago in hospital	#40	[url]	[-]
Member Posts: 8535 01/27/06 14:13:50	AP report in the Sun Times: Doctors ruled out stroke for cardinal Doctors have ruled out a stroke as the cause of dizziness that hospitalized Cardinal Francis George, a hospital spokeswoman said Friday. George, 69, was expected to be released Friday, one day after being admitted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood for medical tests, said hospital spokeswoman Gwen Smith. Smith said the hospital would not immediately release further details, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago declined to comment Friday. George, the head of the nation's third-largest Catholic diocese, had experienced "some continuing dizziness" before going on recent trips to New Zealand and Rome, Chancellor Jimmy Lago said in a statement Thursday. www.suntimes.com/output/news/27card_update.html
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Reply Quote

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Yuku free message boards

People in the News

Quick Reply


Homepage \| Biography \| Cardinal Ratzinger \| Pope Benedict XVI \| In Print \| Forum \| Shop \| Bookstore \| Blog \| In America \| In Israel & Holy Land