Pope Benedict XVI is an inspiration for future priests

New York, June 21,2008 - For the New York Archdiocese, one positive affect of the April visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the Big Apple could be a turnaround in the dwindling number of men who are choosing to become priests.

The Rev. Robert Bubel, who is one of the archdiocese's six newly ordained priests, played a major role as a deacon during the April 19 papal Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Bubel, whose formative religious years were spent in St. Columba parish in Hopewell Junction, said celebrating Mass for Pope Benedict affirmed his own decision to give his life to God.

"It certainly motivates me as a priest in wanting to give my entire life to the service of God and his people," he said. "I see a man like Pope Benedict who is so talented and given so many gifts by God. And he's given all of this to God and this is so important to him. His faith is so strong and a desire to spread that faith to the youth of America essentially is absolutely inspiring. It's such a powerful affirmation of what I'm giving my entire life to."

Bubel attended St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. He was among the seminarians who greeted the pope at a youth rally and prayer service there.

"It was very, very special because the seminary is our home," he said. "To welcome the pope into our home meant a lot. We're a bunch of young guys, too. We're hooting and hollering. ... It really was a powerful, powerful moment."

The pope's visit, Bubel said, ignited an interest in young men keen to study at the seminary to become a priest.

"Rumors that I've heard is that the phone was ringing off the hook following his visit," he said. "Unfortunately, you can never really know until September 1, the day when people show up."

One of the people who is still experiencing the papal visit, in a sense, is the Rev. Luke Sweeney, director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York.

Normally, he receives a couple of inquires each week from young men considering the priesthood. But during the last three weeks, he has received dozens. Some of them are quite serious and come from men who say Pope Benedict 's visit has inspired them to consider taking a step they have avoided.

This was the hope. The Archdiocese faces a worsening shortage of priests and is in great need of seminarians. The archdiocese has about 470 active diocesan priests - compared to 1,200 four decades ago - and about 40 percent are between 65 and 75.

At St. Patrick's Cathedral in May, Cardinal Edward Egan ordained six diocesan priests, including Bubel and the Rev. Ronald Perez, who has been assigned to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha parish in the Town of LaGrange. The main or upper seminary at St. Joseph's will train fewer than 20 men next fall.

"It's always been my gut feeling and belief that there are guys out there thinking about it," Sweeney said referring to the priesthood. "The idea has been kicking around for a while, maybe years, but for whatever reason - work, fear, simply pushing it out of their minds - they can't take the step. My hope was the Holy Father's visit would knock some people off the fence and give us the shot in the arm we need.

"It seems to be happening," said Sweeney, who talks about the priesthood at high schools, colleges and parishes.

He is excited, but cautiously so. Of the men who have contacted him, some will get cold feet right away. Others will need to finish college or to take a few years to consider their vocation or get up their courage. Others will prove to be a poor fit for the priesthood.

"We want to avoid flash-in-the-pan conversions," Sweeney said. "We really monitor applications. But I want to talk to them as soon as possible to get a sense of their vocation, of whether they are a promising candidate."

Taking a step

Sweeney believes at least several young men may be ready to enter St. Joseph's minor seminary this fall, where students study philosophy and other subjects before entering the main seminary to study theology.

The true impact of the papal visit, though, won't be known for more than a decade, Sweeney said. The hope is that men who enter the seminary years from now will look back on the papal visit as a formative experience - and a counter to the sex-abuse crisis that has certainly weighed on the minds of young Catholic men in recent years.

"I'm hopeful that in the coming years, young men will say, 'That's the first time I thought about the priesthood, when the pope was in New York,' " Sweeney said.

Bubel, 30, celebrated his first Mass on May 11 at St. Columba Church with his family and friends in attendance.

"It was so intimate and warm and happy," he said. "It was a joyous, joyous occasion."

He has been assigned to St. Stephen's parish in Warwick in Orange County.

Bubel said what led to his becoming a priest were parents that were oriented to attending Mass every Sunday and providing him with a Catholic education. He attended grade school at St. Columba School and Our Lady of Lourdes High School in Poughkeepsie.

"First and foremost, it really does start in the family," Bubel said. "Also my parish priests who served as role models for me, were people I wanted to be like."

Add Pope Benedict to that list of role models.

"One thing I recognized was how reverent he was - the way he celebrated Mass, the way he took time before Mass began to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament and say his prayers," Bubel said. "A real inspiration of a priest."

Reach John Davis at jpdavis@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4807. Reach Gary Stern at gstern@lohud.com or 1-914-694-3513.

Poughkeepsiejournal

Pope Benedict XVI met with administrators of Catholic radio stations

Vatican, Jun. 21, 2008  - Pope Benedict XVI met on June 20 with administrators of Catholic radio stations from around the world, and told them: "The words that you broadcast each day are an echo of that eternal Word which became flesh."

The Holy Father spoke to participants in a conference at the Pontifical Urban University, organized by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, under the leadership of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. He told the 130 broadcasting executives, representing stations in 50 different countries, that they should recognize the importance of their work in the evangelizing mission of the Church.

Pope Benedict told the radio executives that he could understand how they might feel "completely lost amid the competition of other noisy and more powerful mass media." But he urged them not to become discouraged, reminding them that Jesus was born into humble surroundings, isolated from the "noisy imperial cities of antiquity," so that the climactic even in of human history, the Incarnation, nearly escaped public notice.

Nevertheless the Word of God has been preached all around the world, the Pope continued. Catholic radio stations, he observed, transmit the Gospel message to untold numbers of people, reaching thousands who may be hearing the Good News at a propitious time. "This work of patient sowing, carried on day after day, hour after hour, is your way of cooperating in the apostolic mission," he told the broadcasters.

Radio personnel might never meet those who are touched by their words, the Pope said, and yet "your can be a small but real echo in the world of the network of friendship that the presence of the risen Christ, the God-with-us, inaugurated between heaven and earth and among mankind of all continents and epochs."

CWNews.com

Belarus' authoritarian president invited Pope Benedict XVI

MINSK, Belarus, June 21,2008 — Belarus' authoritarian president invited Pope Benedict XVI to the mostly Orthodox former Soviet republic, the presidential press service said in a statement Friday.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the offer the same day he met with Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is in the country to preside at the weekend consecration of the first Catholic church to be built in the capital city, Minsk, since 1910.

The Orthodox church, which includes about 80 percent of the population, wields significant clout in Belarus through a 2003 agreement it signed with the government.

But the Vatican under Benedict has been pursuing a goal of outreach to the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians. A trip to Belarus by Benedict could move the Vatican and Russian Orthodox Church one step closer to a meeting — and the ultimate goal of healing the nearly 1,000-year schism between the two main branches of Christianity.

Lukashenko is also desperate to boost his reputation ahead of September's parliamentary elections — including hiring a British public relations firm in March to package his policies in for Western consumption.

Lukashenko met Friday with Bertone, the Holy See's secretary of state, when the president indicated approval of an agreement between Belarus and the Holy See that would give the Catholic Church the legal right to work with government institutions in promoting its values.

"Our co-operation answers all the demands of our society, its values and orientations," Lukashenko said, according to Friday's statement from the presidential press service. It was unclear when the agreement would be signed.

Bertone said the Vatican would help Belarus "find its place in the world."

"The Catholic Church will try to ensure that Belarus has a significant place in the international arena," Bertone said Friday in comments shown on state TV.

Bertone is the Vatican's highest-ranked official ever to visit Belarus.

Minsk-based political analyst Yaroslav Romanchuk said Friday's developments were the upshot of successful bargaining.

"The Vatican is realizing a long-held strategy of expanding throughout Belarus and getting access to state structures," Romanchuk said.

Lukashenko, for his part, will use the Vatican to "lobby for his type of politics" using its sway within the European Union and the United States, he said. Furthermore, the Vatican will uphold the sovereignty of Belarus, which Lukashenko fears may eventually fall into Russia's hands, Romanchuk said.

Catholic-Orthodox relations in the former Soviet Union have been particularly thorny following the demise of the Soviet Union, with the Orthodox accusing the Vatican of trying to poach for converts. The Vatican insists it is just looking after the welfare of its tiny flock there.

The tensions have prevented a meeting between the Russian Patriarch Alexy II and the pope.

Property disputes have aggravated attempts to improve relations between Catholics and Orthodox in the former Soviet Union, and were one of the reasons John Paul II, a Slav, never realized his dream of making a papal pilgrimage to Russia.

AP

WYD:14 Australians confirmed by Pope Benedict

FOURTEEN Australians will join a select group confirmed by Pope Benedict during the Catholic leader's visit to Sydney for World Youth Day (WYD)

The Pope will anoint each confirmation candidate with holy oil during the final mass on July 20 of the six-day WYD event, expected to be attended by some 500,000 people.

The candidates will also receive holy communion from Pope Benedict .

The 14 people, drawn from all Australia's states and territories, will be aged between 16 and 43.

Ten international visitors will join them to "receive the sacrament that marks the completion of baptismal grace", organisers say.

"It's not every day that one is confirmed by the global leader of the Catholic Church before hundreds of thousands of people," WYD coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher said in a statement released today.

"The sacrament is life-changing and to receive the sacrament in this way will prove an unforgettable experience, one that they will each carry with them for the rest of their lives.

"The candidates have been selected as representatives of their regions by bishops across Australia and we are absolutely delighted to be able to present them to the Pope for this momentous occasion."

The 10 international confirmation candidates are yet to be chosen.

Organised by the Catholic Church, WYD runs from July 15-20 and marks the first visit to Australia by Pope Benedict XVI.

AFP

Pope Benedict XVI praised the work of the Catholic Church in southern Italy

SANTA MARIA DI LEUCA, Italy — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday praised the work of the Roman Catholic Church in southern Italy as he began a two-day visit to the impoverished Apulia region.

Tradition holds that it was here that Saint Peter, the disciple of Jesus considered the founder of the Christian Church, arrived from Palestine and headed to Rome to begin the evangelisation of Europe.

"This promontory between Europe and the Mediterranean, between West and East, reminds us that the Church has no borders, that it is universal," said the 81-year-old pontiff.

Benedict also hailed the "generosity" of the port city of Brindisi that for years took in thousands of refugees from the former Yugoslavia and Albania.

The German-born pope celebrated an open-air mass attended by several thousand people under a hot sun at a sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin Mary overlooking the sea in this town at the tip of the heel of Italy's "boot."

"Here as in all of southern Italy, Church communities are places where the young generation can learn hope, not as a Utopia but as the tenacious confidence in the force of good," the pope said.

"For the Church, geographical, cultural, ethnic and even religious borders are an invitation to evangelisation," he said.

Local Bishop Vito De Grisantis, greeting the pope, stressed the "need for rapid social, civil and economic development" in southern Italy, "especially to help families and young people for whom unemployment is an ever more serious problem."

The pope replied: "In a context in which individualism is more and more encouraged ... the first service of the Church is to educate in the social sense, towards paying attention to those around you, to solidarity and sharing."

He added: "The Church can have a positive influence, especially on the social level," because it fosters "open and constructive human relationships, respectful of the service of the humblest and the weakest."

Later Saturday, at a vigil with young people in nearby Brindisi, the pope warned against "the temptation of easy profits."

The Church and several humanitarian groups offered "refuge and help, despite the economic difficulties that continue to affect this region in particular," he said.

The pontiff was set to celebrate another open-air mass in Brindisi on Sunday.

AFP

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