I knew I needed to do something to get back into regular blogging, and this is news I can’t not report: Our archbishop has just been named a cardinal!
At the end of his celebration of Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will be elevating 22 cardinals in a concistory on February 18. Among them is Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York! Abp. Dolan accepted in his usual folksy and humble fashion.
And just a bit more:
It’s delightful news, but really no surprise. The Archbishop of New York is always traditionally a cardinal, but Dolan hasn’t been made one in his almost three years in New York because he predecessor, Edward Cardinal Egan, is still under 80, the age at which cardinal usually “retires,” at least in the sense of losing his voting rights in a conclave. It’s not thought good to have two cardinals with voting rights from the same diocese. Abp. Dolan is rising to the rank of cardinal just a little before Egan’s 80th birthday in April, so Pope Benedict raised him the minute he was able to do so. Cardinal Dolan will now have the chance to advise the Pope in one or more of the Vatican’s congregrations and will almost certainly vote in the conclave to elect Pope Benedict’s successor.
Just another piece of Catholic history being made.
Yesterday, October 16, at Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI made a momentous announcement: the Church will be celebrating a “Year of Faith” that will kick off a year from now: it will begin on October 11, 2012, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and will last until November 24, 2013, the Feast of Christ the King. The Pope explained: “It will be a time of grace and commitment to an ever fuller conversion to God, to reinforce our faith in Him and to proclaim Him with joy to the men of our time.”
An interesting fact: the opening of the “Year of Faith will also coincide with the celebration of Papa Luciani’s 100th birthday on October 17, 2012.
The original “Year of Faith,” called by Paul VI in 1967 to mark the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter and Paul, was important to Albino Luciani, then bishop of Vittorio Veneto. He gave his priests a suggested program for it in September 1967. An excerpt:
. . . Try to have your faithful live the “Year of Faith” by speaking to them with enthusiasm about the Word of God, Jesus, and the Church more than about errors. And don’t be satisfied when your listeners are convinced: once they are convinced, they must act, they must act! Like Paul, strive so that “the word of God may make progress and be hailed by many others” (2 Thes. 3:1). Show by ardent words and actions, with a pure and charitable life, that you are “racing to grasp [Christ] since you have been grasped by Him” (cf. Phil. 3;12). When you talk about the Church, say that Christ loved her and “handed himself over for her. . . to sanctify her. . . in order to present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle. . . that she might be holy and without blemish” (cf. Eph. 5:25 27).
The Year of Faith also means shedding light on the faith. Now, faith is saying “yes” to God, clinging to Him with our whole spiritual being and making our own the truths which He has revealed to us and set before us by means of the Magisterium of the Church. Explain it to the faithful: this “yes” is an act of loving trust in God and at the same time an acceptance of His truths. We do not believe because we like these truths or because they are convenient to us, or because they are in agreement with scientific data or the fashion of the day, but because they have been revealed by Him who loves us and neither can nor will deceive us. If it were not for Him, we would not believe.
The Apostles and their successors, Pope and bishops, willed by Christ as official teachers of the Faith, are not in that position as masters, but simply as servants of the Word of God; they safeguard it and explain it without adding or taking away anything from it. Accepting and venerating their teaching is the means ordinarily necessary to arrive at the true Faith and the best way to be members of the Church. (Opera, vol. 4)
Still a wonderful program, more than 40 years later. I will also note that Papa Luciani wrote this letter to his priests in answer to a request from some of them that he expound on the errors that were rampant in the Church after the Council. Luciani did write about some of these errors, but stressed throughout that the best exposition of the faith was a positive one. I may have more about this little work, which he called “Something Less than a Syllabus,” later on. It is a really fascinating exposition, with a great deal of good advice for priests on how to handle teaching sensitive subjects in the faith.
Today is also Papa Luciani’s birthday - he would be 99 if alive now. This is a great time to announce that along with several other people I am planning some special events here in New York in connection with his centenary next year. I will be more specific later on. So keep checking for updates.
We were overtaken by a new world. Our old world changed forever. Ten years later, we still seem to be at a standstill. Many of us will want to stay here and despair. Or we can try to move forward. Perhaps still another world awaits us.
Pope Benedict says it so much better than I can.
Today, the mayor of New York, many politicians, and most news broadcasters would love to keep the memorial of 9/11 free of such disreputable things as religious faith. Perhaps it’s indifference. Perhaps it’s an attempt to differentiate themselves from political enemies whose faith they dislike and envy. Perhaps they are caught up in the fear that faith breeds hate — the type of hate that brought the Twin Towers down. They cannot grasp the positive side of faith.
This man can show them how it’s done.
Pope Benedict XVI’s Prayer at Ground Zero, 20 April 2008
O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths
and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.
We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here—
the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and
Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.
We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives
with courage and hope.
We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon and in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.
God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.
I have thought the same thing myself. Papa Luciani’s words on the day of his death “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God…. he is the king of the new world; he is the secret of history; he is the key to our destiny” is a true foreunner to the papacy of John Paul II, who took up the challenge in his magnificent homily on the day of his papal inauguration: “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.”
But this isn’t the only reason for thinking that Papa Luciani was a proponent of the new evangelization before the word even existed. He often had occasion to lament, both as a priest and as bishop in the 1960’s that the traditional faith of the people the Veneto often lacked serious roots. Only too often it was mere convention, not based on a living and life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ.
This conviction has very deep roots in his life. In May 1946, right at the end of WWII, he wrote this in the diocesan newspaper, L’Amico del Popolo:
. . . for how many people these days does Christ hold out his arms in vain?
Directly , over this world persuaded by hatred and discord, he preaches love. Over the ruins, over the destruction of what once was, he cries, “I, I alone am the Resurrection and the Life. Come!”
But how many will come? How many will reconcile themselves with him, making a firm pact of friendship? The Easter pact? How many, on the other hand, will pass by him without recognizing him? They will look for reconstruction in a political party, in a man, in a program, in everything except in Him.
This is the tremendous drama that is experienced especially at Easter: People who live in the midst of Christianity, but without living Christianity and without knowing it!
Because of this conviction, Luciani stressed evangelization all during his time as a bishop. In Vittorio Veneto, not long after he arrived, he told the priests that the level of understanding of the Gospel was so low that they would have to give up other subjects for their homilies and concentrate on the basics, because most adults didn’t understand their faith.
Luciani once told a Capuchin friar in Venice that he had been criticized before the Council for his insistence on the Word of God as well as the sacraments: “Some people had judged me an innovator (perhaps a dangerous one), but the Council, with Dei Verbum, showed that I was right”. He explained that it is the word of God, when heard and assimilated, that generates and strengthens faith; this faith, in turn, makes reception of the sacrament effective and fruitful. How much more will people obey the precept of the Church to attend Mass when they understand what the Mass is and love it! They can’t be made to do so just by repeating that it is a sin to disobey a precet of the Church (Humilitas Italian ed., April 1997).
Unfortunately, the traditional faith in Venice was often not able to stand the gale force winds of secularization and relativism, but was all too often uprooted, to Luciani’’s distress.
Obviously as Pope he was planning to hold the banner of evangelization high! When he fell, his successor took it up, and as deacon Bob says, carried on the battle, which is yet to be won.
Let’s all pray for Pope Benedict XVI and the success of the new Evangelization!
I have been somewhat absent in the last weeks while the final push is on for the St. Elizabeth documentary. Just yesterday I was able to send an DVD that was almost complete (except for the final sound editing and music) to a Franciscan sister in Italy who is going to show it to a large formation group on May 21. It will be great publicity, I hope.
This means that I neglected to write anything about an events of great interest in the Catholic world — the first ever confab between the Vatican and bloggers! It was held in the afternoon of Monday May 2 (my birthday!), after the thanksgiving Mass for the beaitifcation of John Paul II. In all, 150 bloggers from all over the world attended. May of those I like reading most including The American Papist (Thomas Peters), The Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia) and Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia were in attendence.
This was a get-together in which the bloggers spoke first and the Vatican responded. Thomas Peters urged the Vatican to give accredidation to bloggers and to offer them advance information about developments in the Church so they can comment before the mainstream media has a chance to mangle the story. The Vatican put forward some plans for its new website and imporovements to its media communication. Then there is the question of the need for Christian charity among bloggers (a sore point), well handled by Scalia, who quoted Pope Benedict. There is more, much more.
The Ancoress has put up a lot of links. Reading them is an inspiration! A really good example of taking Christ to the marketplace of modern culture, one of the reasons I started my blog to begin with.
Of coure, I feel left out, but maybe i’ll be invited to the next one. . .
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
