Holy Father Benedict XVI appointed seven Cardinals as his Special Envoys
Vatican City, April 29, 2009 – On the occasion of the close of the Year dedicated to the Apostle Saint Paul, which will take place simultaneously on June 29, 2009 in various “Pauline sites,” the Holy Father Benedict XVI appointed seven Cardinal s as his Special Envoys, for each of the celebrations. In the Holy Land, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; in Malta, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family; in Cyprus, Cardinal Renato R. Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; in Greece, Cardinal Jozef Tomko, Emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; in Syria, Cardinal Antonio M. Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid; in Lebanon, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris.
-Agenzia Fides
Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints
Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints and said their dedication to the Eucharist, the poor and the world of work made them models for today's Christians in an era of economic crisis.
By orienting their lives to Christ, the five men and women showed that "it is possible to lay the foundations for construction of a society open to justice and solidarity, overcoming that economic and cultural imbalance that continues to exist in a great part of our planet," the pope said.
The pope celebrated the canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square April 26, joined by tens of thousands of pilgrims who held up photos or drawings of the saints. Four of the new saints were Italian and one was Portuguese.
Dressed in bright gold vestments, the 82-year-old pontiff listened as biographies of the five were read aloud, and then pronounced the canonization formula, drawing applause from the crowd. Afterward, relics of the new saints were brought to the altar.
In his homily, the pope said the saints' life stories hold valuable lessons for modern Christians. Each of the newly canonized had a special devotion to the Eucharist, and each transformed that spiritual power into social action, he said.
The five new saints are:
-- St. Arcangelo Tadini, a parish priest from the northern Italian area of Brescia, who preached strongly in defense of workers' rights during the industrialization period of the late 1800s. He organized an association to help factory workers, established a spinning mill to give young girls of the area gainful employment, and eventually founded a religious order of sisters who worked alongside women in the factories.
Pope Benedict said his Gospel-inspired social activity was "prophetic" and is particularly relevant in the current economic crisis. He said the saint taught people that a deep personal relationship with Christ is the key to bringing Christian values into the workplace.
-- St. Bernardo Tolomei, who, inspired by his love for prayer and for manual labor, founded a unique Benedict ine monastic movement in Italy in the 14th century. Born in Siena, he was forced by an onset of blindness to give up a public career, and he decided to found a small hermitic community. He later founded the monastery of Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and died in 1348 of the plague while helping victims of the disease; his burial place, in a common pit, has never been found.
The pope called him "an authentic martyr of charity" and said his service to others was an inspiration to all.
-- St. Nuno de Santa Maria Alvares Pereira, a Portuguese army hero in the late 1300s, who, after the death of his wife, abandoned his military career and gave up his wealth to enter a Carmelite monastery. In particular he helped the poor, distributing food to the needy. He was totally dedicated to Marian prayer, and fasted in Mary's honor three days of the week.
The pope said he was happy to canonize a person whose faith grew while in the military, a context generally viewed as unfavorable to holiness. It demonstrates that the values and principles of the Gospel can be realized in any situation, especially when they are employed for the common good, he said.
-- St. Geltrude Comensoli, born in the mid-19th century in the Brescia area, who established a religious institute dedicated to the adoration of the Eucharist. In approving the institute in 1880, Pope Leo XIII asked her to include as part of its mission the education of young female factory workers.
Pope Benedict said this connection of contemplative charity with "lived charity" was particularly important "in a society that is lost and often wounded like our own." He said the saint's life shows that adoration takes precedence over acts of charity, because "from love for Christ died and resurrected, and truly present in the Eucharist, comes that evangelical charity that pushes us to consider all men as brothers."
-- St. Caterina Volpicelli, who founded a community of sisters centered on Eucharistic adoration and service to the poor, especially young orphans, in the slums of Naples in the mid-1800s.
The pope said she correctly saw that in order to bring the Gospel to bear on society it was necessary to "liberate God from the prisons in which man has confined him."
Banners depicting the newly canonized were hung on the faOade of St. Peter's Basilica, and fluttered in the breeze during the two-hour liturgy. At the end of the Mass, the pope greeted pilgrims in several languages and said he hoped the new saints would inspire people to witness the Gospel courageously in their daily lives.
-CNS
Benedict XVI at the General Audience, speaking on Ambrose Autpert
Vatican City, April 23, 2009 – In his Wednesday Audiences, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has been for some time now reflecting on “people from whom we can learn what the Church is.” On April 22, he reflected on Ambrose Autpert, a relatively unknown author of whom little definite information is known, although “careful reading of the works that critics gradually recognized as his authorship allows for the discovery in his teaching of a theological and spiritual treasure precious also for our times.”
Born in Provence, Ambrose Autpert entered the court of the King of the Franks, Pepin the Short, where he was also given the role of tutor of the future emperor Charlemagne. Traveling to Italy, he visited the famous Benedict ine abbey of St. Vincent, located at the source of the Volturno, in the Duchy of Benevento, and not long afterwards, he decided to take up religious life and entered the monastery, where he could train in an appropriate manner, especially in matters of theology and spirituality. Around the year 761 he was ordained a priest and on October 4, 777, he was elected abbot with the support of the French monks and despite the opposition of some monks in favor of Lombard Potone. The tension due to nationalistic divisions did not quiet in the months ahead, and as a result, Autpert, a year later in 778, intended to step down and retire with some French monks to Spoleto. some years later, when the abbot who succeeded Autpert died and Lombard Potone was elected as successor (a. 782), the conflict flared up again, which eventually lead to the denunciation of the new abbot to Charlemagne. The contenders were referred to the court of the Pope, who summoned them to Rome. Autpert was also called as a witness, but suddenly died during the trip, perhaps killed, January 30, 784.
“Ambrose Autpert was a monk and abbot in an age marked by strong political tension, tensions which also had repercussions on life inside the monasteries. Of this we have frequent and concerned echoes in his writings,” the Pope explained. “He denounces, for example, the contradiction between the beautiful outer appearance of the monasteries and the monks' lukewarmness.” With his works, especially a small ascetic treatise on the conflict between vice and virtue, “Ambrose Autpert intended to train the monks specifically on how to address the spiritual battle on a daily basis.”
He contrasts greed and contempt of the world, which “is not a contempt of creation, beauty and goodness of creation and the Creator, but a contempt of the false vision of the world presented and insinuated to us by our own greed...Autpert notes that the desire for profit of the rich and powerful in the society of his time also exists within the souls of the monks and because of this he wrote a treatise titled 'De cupiditate' [On Greed], in which, with the Apostle Paul, he denounces from the outset the vice of greed as the root of all evil.” The Pope highlighted the relevance of this lesson “in light of this global economic crisis...from this very root of greed this crisis is born.” Not only for the monk, “but even for the man in this world, even for the rich it is necessary to fight against greed, against the desire to possess, to appear, against the false notion of freedom as the right to dispose of everything according to one's own will. Even the rich must find the authentic path of truth, of love and in this way the path of moral rectitude.”
The most important work of Ambrose Autpert is his commentary on the 10 books of the Apocalypse, fruit of long hours of work. “Autpert is interested not so much in the second coming of Christ at the end of time, but in the consequences for the Church of his first coming, the Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It tells us something very important: In reality, Christ, 'must daily be born, die, and rise in us who are his body.' In the context of the mystical dimension that surrounds every Christian, he looks to Mary as a model of the Church, a model for us all, because also in us and between us Christ must be born...His great reverence, and his deep love for the Mother of God at times inspired formulations that somehow anticipate those of St. Bernard and the Franciscan spirit, but without diverging toward questionable forms of sentimentalism, because he never separated the mystery of the Church from Mary.”
Concluding his catechesis, the Holy Father mentioned how Ambrose Autpert lived “lived in a time of intense political exploitation of the Church, in which nationalism and tribalism had disfigured the face of the Church. But he, in the midst of all these difficulties that we also experience, was able to discover the true face of the Church in Mary, in the saints. And so he was able to understand what it means to be Catholic, Christian, to live the Word of God...And with all his theological experience, the depth of his knowledge, Autpert understood that with mere theological research God can not be known as he really is. Only love can reach him. Let us listen to this message and ask the Lord to help us live the mystery of the Church today, in this our time.”
After greeting pilgrimages in various languages, he addressed the youth from the “San Lorenzo International Youth Center,” who celebrated the the 25th anniversary of the delivery of the Cross of the Holy Year to the youth of the world.
Benedict XVI recalled that “ since then, the cross was accepted in the International Youth Center of San Lorenzo, and from there began to travel to the continents, opening the hearts of many young men and women to Christ the Redeemer. This its pilgrimage continues still, especially in preparation for World Youth Day, so much so as to be known now as "the World Youth Day Cross." Dear friends, I entrust this cross to you again! Continue to carry it to every corner of the earth, so that the next generation may also discover the mercy of God and have the hope in Christ crucified and risen renewed in their hearts!”
-Agenzia Fides
Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to celebrate Mass in a new amphitheater in Nazareth
NAZARETH, Israel, April 21, 2009 - With just over three weeks to go before Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to celebrate Mass in a new municipal amphitheater in Nazareth, bulldozers were working around the clock.
Nizar Muammar, a Catholic and one of the project architects, said April 20 that the site will be ready: It will include a stage, 7,000 permanent seats and more than 30,000 temporary chairs set up on what is becoming a terraced hillside.
The covered stage, which will serve as the platform for the altar with seating for 500 cardinals, bishops and priests, was still a hole with concrete forms and reinforced beams sticking up.
The only Mass Pope Benedict is scheduled to celebrate in northern Israel during his May 8-15 pilgrimage to the Holy Land is the May 14 Mass in the amphitheater on Mount Precipice in Nazareth.
Muammar said there are three access roads to the site; there will be two big parking lots for pilgrim buses and seating for more than 40,000 people.
He said he was hoping Catholic officials would give final approval to his design for the stage, altar and papal throne.
With the roar of big machinery in the background, Muammar surveyed the site, pointed out what would go where, but he refused to reveal details about his design.
"Our motif was the story of the Annunciation and the town of Nazareth, the home of the Holy Family," he said.
He seemed to be joking when he said designers were working on getting an angel to appear, and he refused to say if the carpenters would leave their tools behind to evoke St. Joseph's trade.
The amphitheater project, funded by the city of Nazareth and the Israeli government, is creating "hundreds of jobs," he said. "We have a very tough schedule to meet, and are working around the clock."
Pope Benedict XVI underlined the importance of the conference on racism
Italy, April 20, 2009 - Pope Benedict XVI underlined the importance of a U.N.-sponsored international conference on racism and urged participants to take concrete steps to combat discrimination and intolerance around the world.
The conference, which opened in Geneva April 20, was being boycotted by the United States and several other Western countries because of fears that it would provide a platform to critics of Israel.
The pope, speaking at a noon blessing at his villa outside Rome April 19, said the conference was important because, despite the lessons of history, racist attitudes and actions are still present in contemporary society.
He encouraged participants to take "firm and concrete action, at the national and international levels, to prevent and eliminate every form of racism and intolerance." Above all, he said, a vast educational effort is needed so that human dignity and fundamental human rights are better understood and respected.
"For its part, the church teaches that only recognition of the dignity of man, created in the image and likeness of God, is able to constitute a sure reference point in this commitment," he said.
"I sincerely encourage all delegates present at the Geneva conference to work together in a spirit of mutual dialogue and acceptance in order to put an end to every form of racism, discrimination and intolerance," he said.
The Vatican sent a delegation to the Geneva conference, which was convened to examine the statement adopted in 2001 at the U.N.'s first conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa. The United States and Israel left the 2001 conference when some Arab representatives argued that Zionism was equivalent to racism.
Shortly after the pope's remarks, Germany became the latest country to announce it would not attend the Geneva conference, joining the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Italy.
Critics of the conference were especially concerned that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a myth, was scheduled to address the assembly in its opening session.
In a statement released April 18, the U.S. State Department said the text under consideration at the Geneva conference "singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians."
The statement said the United States also has serious concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding "incitement" to religious hatred that run counter to the U.S. commitment to unfettered free speech. Unfortunately, the U.S. statement said, it appeared that those concerns would not be addressed at the Geneva conference.
Some Muslim countries have pressed for a ban on language considered insulting to Islam.
President Barack Obama said the United States would not participate because the Geneva conference risked a repeat of the Durban experience of 2001, when "folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive."
The text under consideration in Geneva has been revised in recent months, and the latest draft does not include references to Israel or Zionism.
Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said she was shocked and disappointed at the U.S. decision not to attend the conference. She said the boycott by several countries undercuts the global effort to fight racism and intolerance.