From Catholic News Agency:
"In addition to visiting Germany in August for the 2005 World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI may also travel to the Polish city of Krakow and the Fatima Shrine in Portugal.
A few days ago the Holy Father confirmed he would be present at World Youth Day in his country of origin and on Sunday he promised Governor Edmund Stoiber of Bavaria that he wishes to visit the German state where he was born "soon."
According the Italian press, a visit to Krakow, where Pope John Paul II was archbishop, on the way to Cologne is under consideration. For his part the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, suggested that the Pontiff could visit Fatima in 2006 to canonize Marian visionaries Francisco and Jacinta Marto."
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Father Benedict on Pope Benedict
From Fr. Benedict's Letter:
"I hope that you will pray fervently for our new Pope in the days ahead. The day after his election our friars and sisters had a deeply prayerful Mass for him and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit upon him in these difficult times. He has taken for his patron St. Benedict, who is the patron of Europe. People wondered why he took that name. He also was born on the feast of my patron St. Benedict Joseph Labre April 16th.
God has chosen a faithful and hard working totally dedicated servant, who had every reason to expect that he could retire to a life of prayer and writing. Now he must become the shepherd of the flock. In my recent thank you note to Cardinal Ratzinger I mentioned a saying that the old German Capuchins used to have ?we get too soon old and too late smart. I said Your Eminence if I may say so, only the first part is true of you.'"
"I hope that you will pray fervently for our new Pope in the days ahead. The day after his election our friars and sisters had a deeply prayerful Mass for him and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit upon him in these difficult times. He has taken for his patron St. Benedict, who is the patron of Europe. People wondered why he took that name. He also was born on the feast of my patron St. Benedict Joseph Labre April 16th.
God has chosen a faithful and hard working totally dedicated servant, who had every reason to expect that he could retire to a life of prayer and writing. Now he must become the shepherd of the flock. In my recent thank you note to Cardinal Ratzinger I mentioned a saying that the old German Capuchins used to have ?we get too soon old and too late smart. I said Your Eminence if I may say so, only the first part is true of you.'"
Monday, April 25, 2005
Benedikt Gott Geschickt.
"Benedict sent from God" the German audience chants...
From Yahoo! News - Benedict Says He Prayed Not to Be Elected:
Benedict played to the crowd, telling them: "My roots are in Bavaria and I'm still Bavarian as bishop of Rome."
At the start of the audience, Benedict apologized to the crowds for arriving late, explaining that a meeting with religious leaders who attended his inauguration Mass ran long.
"The Germans are used to punctuality," he joked. "I'm already very Italian."
From Yahoo! News - Benedict Says He Prayed Not to Be Elected:
Benedict played to the crowd, telling them: "My roots are in Bavaria and I'm still Bavarian as bishop of Rome."
At the start of the audience, Benedict apologized to the crowds for arriving late, explaining that a meeting with religious leaders who attended his inauguration Mass ran long.
"The Germans are used to punctuality," he joked. "I'm already very Italian."
Michael Novak on Benedict
From Michael Novak on Cardinal Ratzinger on National Review Online:
"In his most formative years, Ratzinger heard Nazi propaganda shouting that there is no truth, no justice, there is only the will of the people (enunciated by its leader). As its necessary precondition, Nazism depended on the debunking of objective truth and objective morality. Truth had to be derided as irrelevant, and naked will had to be exalted.
To anybody who said: "But that's false!" the Nazi shouted, "That's just your opinion, and who are you, compared to Der Fuehrer?"
To anybody who said, "But what you are doing is unjust!" the Nazi shouted louder, "Says you, swine."
Relativism means this: Power trumps.
Ratzinger experienced another set of loud shouters in the 1968 student revolution at Tubingen University, this time in the name of Marxist rather than Nazi will. Marxism as much as Nazism (though in a different way) depended on the relativization of all previous notions of ethics and morality and truth " "bourgeois" ideas, these were called. People who were called upon by the party to kill in the party's name had to develop a relativist's conscience.
In today's liberal democracies, Ratzinger has observed, the move to atheism is not, as it was in the 19th century, a move toward the objective world of the scientific rationalist. That was the "modern" way, and it is now being rejected, in favor of a new "post-modern" way. The new way is not toward objectivity, but toward subjectivism; not toward truth as its criterion, but toward power. This, Ratzinger fears, is a move back toward the justification of murder in the name of "tolerance" and subjective choice.
Along with that move, he has observed (haven't we all?), comes a dictatorial impulse, to treat anyone who has a different view as "
"In his most formative years, Ratzinger heard Nazi propaganda shouting that there is no truth, no justice, there is only the will of the people (enunciated by its leader). As its necessary precondition, Nazism depended on the debunking of objective truth and objective morality. Truth had to be derided as irrelevant, and naked will had to be exalted.
To anybody who said: "But that's false!" the Nazi shouted, "That's just your opinion, and who are you, compared to Der Fuehrer?"
To anybody who said, "But what you are doing is unjust!" the Nazi shouted louder, "Says you, swine."
Relativism means this: Power trumps.
Ratzinger experienced another set of loud shouters in the 1968 student revolution at Tubingen University, this time in the name of Marxist rather than Nazi will. Marxism as much as Nazism (though in a different way) depended on the relativization of all previous notions of ethics and morality and truth " "bourgeois" ideas, these were called. People who were called upon by the party to kill in the party's name had to develop a relativist's conscience.
In today's liberal democracies, Ratzinger has observed, the move to atheism is not, as it was in the 19th century, a move toward the objective world of the scientific rationalist. That was the "modern" way, and it is now being rejected, in favor of a new "post-modern" way. The new way is not toward objectivity, but toward subjectivism; not toward truth as its criterion, but toward power. This, Ratzinger fears, is a move back toward the justification of murder in the name of "tolerance" and subjective choice.
Along with that move, he has observed (haven't we all?), comes a dictatorial impulse, to treat anyone who has a different view as "
Sunday, April 24, 2005
The Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club: Homepage
The Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club: Homepage
I guess I should have known there would be a diferent URL...
I guess I should have known there would be a diferent URL...
Pope's Homily
I especially liked this part of the homily...
From the Vatican Information Service:
The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, Himself became a lamb, He stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how He reveals Himself to be the true shepherd: 'I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep,' Jesus says of Himself (Jn 10:14ff). It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God's sign: He Himself is love. How often we wish that God would make show Himself stronger, that He would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God's patience. And yet, we need His patience. God, Who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified Him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.
From the Vatican Information Service:
The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, Himself became a lamb, He stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how He reveals Himself to be the true shepherd: 'I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep,' Jesus says of Himself (Jn 10:14ff). It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God's sign: He Himself is love. How often we wish that God would make show Himself stronger, that He would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God's patience. And yet, we need His patience. God, Who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified Him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.
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