SSPX expels Bishop Williamson; talks ongoing

SSPX expels Bishop Williamson, who opposed talks with Vatican

Traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson is seen in a church in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2008. (CNS file/Catholic Press Photo)

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The leadership of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has expelled British Bishop Richard Williamson from the society, saying he distanced himself from them and refused "to show due respect and obedience to his lawful superiors."

"This painful decision has become necessary by concern for the common good of the Society of St. Pius X and its good government," said a brief note posted on the group's website Oct. 24.

Bishop Williamson had been a harsh critic of the group's engagement in doctrinal discussions with the Vatican, which were aimed at bringing the society back into full communion with the Catholic Church.

In comments published Sept. 1 in a newsletter that Bishop Williamson emails to subscribers, he wrote that the SSPX had set out six conditions for reconciliation with Rome, which included: freedom "to teach the unchanging truth of Catholic tradition"; freedom to criticize "the errors" of the Second Vatican Council; freedom to celebrate only the extraordinary form of the Mass; the promise of at least one new bishop; and the independence of SSPX houses from the oversight of the local diocesan bishop.

In the September letter, Bishop Williamson said, the SSPX position was "no longer 'Rome must convert because truth is absolute,' but now merely 'the SSPX demands freedom for itself to tell the truth.' Instead of attacking the (Vatican II) conciliar treachery, the SSPX now wants the traitors to give it permission to tell the truth?"

The bishop concluded, "Unless the society's leadership is shaken out of its dream of peace with conciliar Rome ... then the last worldwide bastion of Catholic tradition risks being on its way to surrendering to the enemies of the faith."

The statement announcing the ouster of Bishop Williamson from the SSPX said the decision was made by the superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, and by members of the SSPX council. It said the SSPX leadership met Oct. 4 and gave Bishop Williamson a deadline of Oct. 23 "to declare his submission" to the SSPX leaders.

Instead, the statement said, Bishop Williamson sent a letter resigning from the group.

Even as the Vatican negotiated with the SSPX, Vatican officials said separate discussions would be required with Bishop Williamson, who not only criticized the dialogue, but has publicly denied the extent of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.

The bishop's Holocaust denials were included in an interview aired by a Swedish TV network on the same day in 2009 that the Vatican announced Pope Benedict XVI had lifted the excommunication of Bishop Williamson and three other of the society's bishops, ordained without papal permission in 1988.The pope later repudiated Bishop Williamson's remarks, saying he had been unaware of the bishop's views on the Holocaust. The pope met with Jewish leaders at the time to calm tensions over the incident.

Additionally, the Vatican told Bishop Williamson that he would not be welcomed into full communion in the church unless he disavowed his remarks about the Holocaust and publicly apologized.

After lifting the excommunications, Pope Benedict launched a new series of doctrinal discussions with the SSPX in 2009. As the discussions progressed, the Vatican asked SSPX leaders to sign a "doctrinal preamble,"' which outlines principles and criteria necessary to guarantee fidelity to the church and its teaching.

When it appeared Bishop Fellay was close to signing an agreement with the Vatican, internal tensions within the SSPX erupted. Bishop Williamson was excluded from the July general chapter meeting of the SSPX "due to his stand calling to rebellion and for continually repeated disobedience," according to a letter leaked to the press. Without Bishop Williamson present, SSPX leaders recovered their "profound unity," according to a public statement released after the July meeting.

In an early October interview with a German radio station, Archbishop Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, confirmed that the talks with the SSPX had broken down and that no further discussions had been scheduled.

END

LUTHERAN Ordinariates: Vatican cardinal opens door

Vatican cardinal opens door to Lutheran ordinariates

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CWN - October 30, 2012

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The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said in an interview that the Vatican would entertain a hypothetical proposal by Lutherans to establish ecclesial structures modeled on the ordinariates developed for Anglican communities that wish to enter into full communion with the Holy See.

"Anglicanorum coetibus was not an initiative of Rome, but came from the Anglican church," said Cardinal Kurt Koch, referring to the 2009 papal document that established the ordinariates. "The Holy Father then sought a solution and, in my opinion, found a very broad solution, in which the Anglicans' ecclesial and liturgical traditions were taken into ample consideration. If similar desires are expressed by the Lutherans, then we will have to reflect on them. However, the initiative is up to the Lutherans."

Cardinal Koch also said that both "'progressives and traditionalists suffer from the same ailment": a refusal to interpret the Second Vatican Council with a hermeneutic of "renewal in continuity."

"Both see the Council equally as a break, even if in a very different way," he said. "The Holy Father has questioned this understanding of the conciliar hermeneutics of the break and proposed the hermeneutics of reform, which unites continuity and renewal."

Additional sources for this story
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• 'Progressives and Traditionalists Suffer From the Same Ailment'(Zenit)

SSPX Calgary: Important Clarification re St. Dennis Church

News - Parishes

Important Clarification re St. Dennis Church
St. Michael's Catholic Church has moved and is now located at 800 - 85th Street SW. The building just off of Bow Trail and 45th Street, formerly known as St. Michael's, has been purchased by the St. Pius X Society and is named St. Dennis Catholic Church. However, St. Dennis is not a Catholic church and the fact that they are identifying themselves as a Catholic church is problematic and confusing for many people.
Historical Context:
I.  The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in order to perpetuate the Tridentine Mass. He did not reject Vatican II, or even the reform of the Mass (he voted for the Council document that called for it) but he did reject the current rites, promulgated in 1969, though he did not argue they were invalid. He started a seminary in Ecône, Switzerland, to train priests, which he then ordained. As a bishop who was not an Ordinary (bishop of a diocese) at the time, he was not permitted to ordain priests. Pope Paul VI suspended his priestly faculties, and those he ordained, for defiance of Church law. Time going on, the Lefebvre movement rejected ecumenism and the statements of the Council on religious liberty, as contrary to Tradition.
Within the Traditionalist movement, which is certainly dominated by the Society, other branches developed. For example, the SSPX uses the 1962 Missal, which includes changes made by John XXIII. Some in the movement reject any changes, and thus will use only the Missal from Pius XII's time. Others argue that the See of Peter is vacant since Pius XII (sedevacantists). Others have elected their own popes (there were, at last count, at least 3 antipopes).
In 1989, Archbishop Lefebvre, fearing that he would soon die and leave no one to ordain priests for the SSPX, sought an agreement with the Holy See for the lawful continuation of the Society. After first reaching one, with Cardinal Ratzinger acting for the Pope, Lefebvre reversed himself, and in an act which was ipso facto schismatic consecrated four bishops without a papal mandate and incurred an automatic excommunication, confirmed a few days later by Decree of the Holy See.
2. In these circumstances, some number of seminarians at Ecône and priests of the SSPX, not wanting to go into schism, sought an agreement with Rome, which concluded with the founding of the Priestly (Sacerdotal) Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). This immediate erection of the Fraternity by the Holy See, without all the preliminaries of time and formality usually required of time, was a tremendous charity by the Pope toward the former members of the SSPX, who have returned it with loyalty and faithfulness, as well as the devotion to the Tridentine rites which is their proper charism. On the other hand, the SSPX has gotten more strident over time, harboring sedevacantists and others with positions more extreme than Archbishop Lefebvre would have tolerated.
3. On January 21, 2009, the Congregation for Bishops remitted the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.
A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.
Practical Consequences:
1. According to Canon 300 - No association may call itself catholic except with the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.... St. Dennis Church does not have canonical status within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary.
2. Roman Catholics of the Diocese of Calgary should not attend St. Dennis Church, nor receive sacraments from any priest who is a member of the Society of Saint Pius X unless in dire emergency or danger of death.
3.  Roman Catholics of the Diocese of Calgary who wish to worship according to the Tridentine Rite are invited to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, approved by the Diocese, at St. Anthony's Parish, 5340 - 4th Street SW Calgary. A priest from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has been appointed Associate Pastor of St. Anthony's Parish.
September 21, 2012
Bishop Henry

SSPX / Vatican: Rome willing to wait for response from SSPX

Vatican willing to wait for response from SSPX

CWN - October 29, 2012

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The Vatican has indicated that it has not yet received a formal response from the Society of St. Pius X to an offer of reconciliation, and is willing to wait.

The Ecclesia Dei commission, which has been coordinating talks with the traditionalist group, announced on October 29 that the SSPX "had indicated that additional time for reflection and study is needed on their part as they prepare their response to the Holy See's latest initiatives."

Rumors have circulated during the month of October that the doctrinal discussions between the SSPX and the Vatican, aimed at bringing the traditionalist group back into full communion with the Holy See, had broken down irreparably. But the October 29 statement indicated that "the Holy See is awaiting the official response" of the SSPX to a concrete offer.

The Ecclesia Dei Commission indicated that there is no rush to conclude the talks. "After thirty years of separation, it is understandable that time is needed to absorb the significance of these recent developments," the October 29 statement observed. The Vatican statement suggested a willingness to allow SSPX leaders to deal with internal disputes before making a final answer to the Vatican offer.

The Vatican statement reiterated that Pope Benedict XVI is anxious to end the split with the SSPX. The Pope's approach, the statement said, is a "dramatic manifestation" of the Petrine office to serve the cause of unity within the Church, for which "patience, serenity, perseverance and trust are needed."

Additional sources for this story
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• Declaration of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"
• Vatican counsels patience for traditionalists (AP)
• Slim chances remaining for reconciliation of SSPX? (CWN, 10/1)

MISSION / Rome : Video on Islam's growth sparks debate at Synod

Video on Islam's growth sparks debate at Synod

CWN - October 15, 2012

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A controversy arose at the Synod of Bishops on October 13 when the participating bishops were shown a video that Vatican Radio described as a "fear-mongering presentation of statistics attempting to show how Islam is conquering Europe and the rest of the world."

The video--which was apparently screened by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace--emphasized the high birth rates among Muslims in Europe, in contrast with the falling fertility of native Europeans, and concluded that the continent would soon be predominantly Islamic.

"Why one of the Curial cardinal chose to show this piece of anti-Islamic propaganda is quite unclear," Vatican Radio reported. But the dramatic presentation did give rise to some energetic discussions, with some bishops criticizing the video while others chose to emphasize the need for more effective evangelization among the people of Europe.

Additional sources for this story
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• Inside the Synod: Europe and Islam (Vatican Radio)
• Cardinal causes uproar with "Muslim scare" video at Vatican (Reuters)

CHURCH / Europe : Growing religious discrimination in Bosnia-Herzegovina

European Council President receives Cardinal from Sarajevo
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
 

The Archbishop of Sarajevo, Vinko Cardinal Puljic, used his visit to Brussels to report to the President of the European Council, Hermann van Rompuy, on the growing discrimination against Catholics in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The half-hour long conversation took place in the context of a visit initiated by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The cardinal described how many of the faithful had emigrated from Bosnia-Herzegovina and the number of Catholics had almost halved since the war twenty years ago.
They now number some 440,000.
Cardinal Puljic went on to explain that the discrimination was also evident from the fact that the authorities routinely issues construction permits for mosques, whose number had risen by several dozen in Sarajevo alone over the past few decades, while he had been waiting for 13 years for a permit to erect a small church.
The cardinal also explained how when it came to the return of church buildings, the Church's efforts were stalled even though the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg had in one case passed a basic judgment in favor of the Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Dayton Agreement, which had ended the war, had not brought about stability and certainly not equal rights for all. He said that tens of thousands of refugees were still waiting for the opportunity to return.
But despite the discrimination practiced against the Catholic population, the Catholic Church was still working unceasingly for reconciliation with the two other groups, the Muslims and the Orthodox, the cardinal said.
European Council President van Rompuy thanked the Cardinal for his frank words. He believed that the "only way out of the crisis is a European perspective."
He stressed that this would result in greater rule of law, stability and the elimination of discrimination. To bring Bosnia-Herzegovina closer to the European Community and to enable it to attain candidate status, the country had to fulfill the minimum requirements of rule of law, human rights and democracy.
The Cardinal pointed out that the time available was not unlimited. He noted that a certain radicalization was in progress and this worried him. He recalled the pleas of the Bosnia's to the European powers in the Middle Ages for help against the Ottomans.
These pleas had not borne fruit and the Bosniaks had then been suppressed for centuries. Van Rompuy repeated, "one way or the other the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina lies in Europe, namely in its integration in the EU." This gave cause for hope, he thought.
The meeting with the European Council President was the start of a series of conversations with EU parliamentarians and high-ranking members of the EU Commission, with whom possibilities for providing aid to specific reconciliation projects were also discussed.
It was the third time that ACN had organized a program of visits for leading bishops from crisis areas to Brussels, the aim being to make European politicians aware through authentic eye-witness reports of the persecution of or discrimination against Christians.
In previous visits Bishops from Iraq and Pakistan had reported on their situation. This time an area within Europe itself was concerned.

With picture of Cardinal of Sarajevo Vinko Puljic (left) and President Herman Van Rompuy (right). © The Council of the European Union

MISSION: Leading prelates speak about mounting worldwide secularization

Leading prelates speak about mounting worldwide secularization

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CWN - October 09, 2012

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Addressing the afternoon session of the Synod of Bishops on October 8, the presidents of five continent-wide groups of episcopal conferences offered insight into the spread of secularization in their regions.

"Europe must be evangelized. It needs it," said Cardinal Péter Erdõ, president of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences. "De-Christianization is accompanied by repeated juridical, as well as physical, attacks against the visible presence of the manifestations of faith … The vast majority of cases of violence and of discrimination because of religious belief are acted out against Christians, especially Catholics, in Europe."

"In the majority of the continent, there is a spreading of ignorance about the Christian faith," he added. "Many of the mass-media broadcast a presentation of the Christian faith and history that is full of lies, misinforming the public as to the content of our faith as well as to what makes up the reality of the Church."

"Another challenging factor which New Evangelization in Africa must not overlook is the actuality of Islamic fundamentalism on the continent," said Tanzanian Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. "In regard to this, the evangelizers must face the difficulty of dialoguing with the vast majority of good Muslims who however, are mute and the small groups of fundamentalists who are not prepared to accept even objective truth which is opposed to their preconceived position."

In addition to the five leaders of continent-wide groups of episcopal conferences, three other prelates spoke, including Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals.

"The phrase 'for the transmission of the faith' does not seem entirely adequate, because as we well know, faith is not transmitted on our part, since it comes from the grace of God, as well as from the decision of man who welcomes such a gift," he said. "And it is precisely to invoke such grace that the Church constantly proposes to us the apostolate of prayer alongside the apostolate of action."

Recently having reread the Book of Revelation, Cardinal Sodano said he was "able to reflect on the reality of evil in the world, as on the mystery of man's freedom, who although he sees the light, sometimes prefers to remain in darkness. Similarly I wished to meditate on the pages of the Apocalypse that describe to us the devastating presence of Satan in human history. But it is always comforting to read in the same Book of Revelation how in the end it is the victorious power of Christ which shines over all human misery."

"We should all carry out our work of evangelization in great humility, knowing that we are not the first to work in the vineyard of the Lord nor will we be the last," he added. "We are not the first because others, for 2,000 years, preceded us in this pastoral undertaking. We are not even the last because others will come after us to continue this work, until the end of human history, when we will have a new heaven and new earth."

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• Bulletin of the Synod of Bishops No. 5

MISSION: New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith

Pope reflects on Gospel, confession of faith

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CWN - October 09, 2012

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A day after Pope Benedict inaugurated the Thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops with a solemn Mass and the declaration of two new doctors of the Church, the synod fathers opened their deliberations with the praying of Terce (Midmorning Prayer), during which Pope Benedict delivered a lengthy meditation.

The topic of the synod is "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith."

In his meditation, the Pontiff traced the history of the word evangelium (Gospel) from the Book of Isaiah to its use at the time of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. "'Gospel' means: God broke his silence, He spoke to us and entered into history," the Pope reflected. "This fact as such is salvation: God knows us, God loves us, has entered into history. Jesus is his Word, the God who showed that he loved us, who suffered with us even unto death, then rose again."

The Pope then reflected on Nunc, Sancte, nobis Spiritus, one of the two hymns for Terce in the Latin edition of the Liturgy of the Hours.

"We cannot make the Church; we can only make known what [God] did," he said. "The Church did not begin with our actions but with the actions and word of God … The fact, then, that each synodal assembly begins with prayer is no mere formality; rather, it is evidence of our awareness that the initiative is always God's: we may implore it, but the Church can only cooperate with God."

Pondering the meaning of the word confessio, which appears in the hymn, the Pope added that "the Christian confession includes essentially the willingness to suffer: this seems to me very important."

Additional sources for this story
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• Bulletin of the Synod of Bishops No. 6 (Italian)
• Transmitting The Passion For Christ To The World (VIS)
• The fire of the Gospel (L'Osservatore Romano)

SCIENCE / Ethics : Nobel Prize for medicine a triumph for ethics

Catholic leaders: Nobel Prize for medicine a triumph for ethics

By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- Catholic leaders in Europe hailed the decision to give a Nobel Prize to two pioneers of adult stem-cell research as a triumph for ethics.

A statement from the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, known as COMECE, said that awarding the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka represented an "important milestone" in recognizing the superior potential of adult stem-cell research over destructive experimentation on human embryonic stem cells.

The Anscombe Bioethics Centre, an institute serving the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland, also described the award as an "achievement of great ethical significance."

"This technique offers hope of progress in stem-cell research without relying on the unethical destruction of human embryos," said David Jones, director of the Anscombe center in Oxford, England.

"The past attempts to clone human embryos and the bizarre experiments to create admixed human-nonhuman embryos have delivered nothing," he said.

"In contrast, the transformation of adult cells into stem cells is making great progress," he continued. "This is science at its best: both beautiful and ethical."

The Nobel committee said England's Gurdon and Yamanaka of Japan had "revolutionized" science through their work.

"These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine," the committee said.

Both scientists were involved in research into changing mature cells into stem cells, which have the potential to become specialist organ cells and be harvested in the potential treatment of a variety of diseases.

Many hope such work may prepare the ground for therapies to repair heart tissue after heart attacks, for instance, or to reverse the progress of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Gurdon distinguished himself by using an intestinal sample to clone frogs, and Yamanaka pioneered a technique of reprogramming mature cells to become "pluripotent" by altering their DNA.

In an Oct. 8 statement, COMECE said the award should encourage European Union institutions to switch funding from "ethically problematic and scientifically and economically less-promising" embryonic stem-cell research to non-embryonic stem cell research, which held out greater potential.

"This is an important milestone in recognizing the key role that non-embryonic stem cells play in the development of new medical therapies as alternatives to human embryonic stem cells," the statement said.

"There have been continuing scientific advances in fields of research involving alternative stem cells ... (that) present better prospects for clinical applications; or have indeed already demonstrated widespread clinical results and do not raise any special ethical problems," it said.

"Today's Nobel Prize rewards such efforts to discover alternatives," the statement added.

END

SCIENCE: Pioneers in adult stem-cell research win Nobel Prize

Pioneers in adult stem-cell research win Nobel Prize

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CWN - October 09, 2012

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The Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, two scientists whose work has centered around adult stem-cell research, which does not involve the destruction of human embryos.

"This technique offers hope of progress in stem-cell research without relying on the unethical destruction of human embryos," said David Jones, director of the Anscombe center in Oxford. "The past attempts to clone human embryos and the bizarre experiments to create admixed human-nonhuman embryos have delivered nothing."

"This is an important milestone in recognizing the key role that non-embryonic stem cells play in the development of new, medical therapies, as alternatives to human embryonic stem cells," the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) said in a statement.

Additional sources for this story
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• Nobel awarded for stem cell, early cloning work (AP)
• COMECE welcomes today's announcement of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for research on alternatives to embryonic stem cells research (COMECE)
• Catholic leaders: Nobel Prize for medicine a triumph for ethics (CNS)

CELTIC Culture (Video): Spectacle danse / musique bretonne !!!

AMAZING MUSIC (turn up the volume) !!! :) Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNCcKEPZW-I&feature=related !!!

SCOTLAND: Unique dialect lost

Unique dialect lost in Scotland after last native speaker dies

Bobby Hogg / Image via dailyrecord.co.uk

 

Oct 05, 2012 Bobby Hogg, the last native speaker of a dialect originating from a remote fishing village in northern Scotland, has died -- and so has the dialect he spoke.
The death of the 92-year-old retired engineer means that the Scots dialect known as Cromarty fisherfolk is now consigned to a collection of brief, distorted audio clips.
It is the first unique dialect to be lost in Scotland, according to Robert Millar, a reader in linguistics at the School of Language and Literature at Aberdeen University.
"Usually minority dialects end up blending in with standard English to form a hybrid. However, this is a completely distinct dialect which has become extinct," he said.
Cromarty fisherfolk appears to be the only descendant from the Germanic linguistic world in which no "wh" pronunciation existed, Millar said.
"'What' would become 'at' and 'where' would just be 'ere'," he said.
It was also the Scots language's only dialect that dropped the "H" aspiration.
"The loss of Cromarty is symptomatic of a greater, general decline in the use of the Scots language," according to Director of Scottish Language Dictionaries Chris Robinson. "This should be a wake-up call to save other struggling dialects."
Ten miles down the coast from Cromarty is Avoch, another sleepy fishing village with the closest surviving dialect to Cromarty fisherfolk, one that may also be endangered, according to Robinson. "It looks more than likely that this will go the same way as the Cromarty dialect," he said.
The dialect of the peoples who originally resided on the shores of Cromarty -- which lies on the tip of Black Isle peninsula, a four-hour drive north of Edinburgh -- was directly linked to their traditional fishing methods.
However, during the industrialization of fishing in the 1950s, established working methods were lost and the connection between the way of life and the dialect eroded. In fewer than 30 years, much of the dialect became obsolete.
Millar argues that the decline in Scots language represents a wider global trend.
"Generally, in the literate world, local dialects are suffering. The highly mobile and technologically advanced areas of the world are worst affected," he said.
There are some 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world and it is estimated that they are disappearing at a rate of one every two weeks, according to Millar.
Some 96% of the world's population speak just 4% of the world's languages, he said. "Most languages are only spoken by a few hundred people," he added.
Why mourn the loss of a language? "At a banal level, it's a little bit of color in our lives is gone," he said. "Any time something dies, it's lost. Whether it be languages or species, we lose something. Everyone in the world loses something. Diversity surely is a good thing, and we've just lost a bit of it."
Greater communication and interdependence among communities is resulting in "dialect homogenization," Millar said.
And people tend to abandon their own languages for one of the larger languages for good reasons, according to Anthony Aristar, professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University and director of the school's Institute for Language Information and Technology.
"They want modern conveniences; they want their children to have decent jobs," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "All this requires being able to speak in the dominant language. So they see little use in preserving their languages."
But the loss of a language often results in the loss of the stories that were told in that language, and in the cultural knowledge they contained. "Even medical know-how," he said.
Robinson, of the Scottish Language Dictionaries, maintains that Scots minority dialects like Cromarty have faced other pressures.
"Educationally, English has been the language used in Scotland since the 18th century. Consequently, Scots speakers are not literate in their own language. Also, until recently, Scots has had a social stigma attached to it as a working-class or second-rate language."
Yet there are signs of improvement for the state of Scots minority dialects. More Scots books, especially children's books, are being published than ever before. In addition, since 2009, the Scottish government has provided funding for the Scottish Language Dictionaries, which has also given the language a status boost.
The support has been seen as a natural progression from the move by Westminster in 2002 to sign the European Union Charter of Minority and Regional Languages recognizing Scots, Gaelic and Welsh as languages separate from English.
Still, the rate of the worldwide loss of dialects and languages remains consistent.
Robinson said he would like to see more efforts taken to safeguard minority Scots dialects.
"Scots has an amazing literary history, yet it is completely ignored in our schools," he said. "The books must be made more widely available and read more in schools for the language to survive in the future."

Source: CNN

MISSION: Pope entrusts 'Year of Faith' to Mary

Pope, at Marian shrine, entrusts Year of Faith, synod to Mary

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass outside the Sanctuary of the Holy House in Loreto, Italy, Oct. 4. The small house inside the basilica is traditionally venerated as the house of Mary, miraculously transplanted from the Holy Land. (CNS/Paul Haring)

By Catholic News Service

LORETO, Italy (CNS) -- During a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto, Pope Benedict XVI formally entrusted to Mary the world Synod of Bishops and the Year of Faith.

The pope was marking the 50th anniversary of Blessed John XXIII's visit to the Marian shrine, about 175 miles northeast of Rome, when he entrusted to Mary's care the Second Vatican Council, which began Oct. 11, 1962.

"Fifty years on, having been called by divine providence to succeed that unforgettable pope to the See of Peter, I, too, have come on pilgrimage to entrust to the Mother of God two important ecclesial initiatives: the Year of Faith," which was to begin Oct. 11 and the Synod of Bishops, which was to open Oct. 7.

About 10,000 people gathered in the square outside the Loreto shrine for the pope's morning Mass. Most of the pilgrims stood in the shadow of the shrine, protected from the sun shining in a clear blue sky.

At the end of his homily, Pope Benedict turned to Our Lady of Loreto with several petitions.

"I wish to entrust to the Most Holy Mother of God all the difficulties affecting our world as it seeks serenity and peace," the pope said.

He prayed for Mary's intercession in responding to the "problems of the many families who look anxiously to the future" and for young people just starting to build their adult lives.

The pope prayed for the poor, lonely and suffering who are "awaiting signs or decisions of solidarity and love."

And, finally, he returned to the Year of Faith and the synod on new evangelization, saying, "I also wish to place in the hands of the Mother of God this special time of grace for the church, now opening up before us."

With the famous conical statue of Our Lady of Loreto near the altar, Pope Benedict's homily focused on Mary as the best possible example of following God's will and bringing Christ to the world.

"She placed her entire being at the disposal of God's will, becoming the 'place' of his presence, a 'place' of dwelling for the Son of God," the pope said.

When Blessed John visited Loreto 50 years ago, the pope said, he told people that the aim of the Second Vatican Council was to spread throughout the world the benefits and blessings of God having become human, suffering and dying to redeem humanity.

At a time when the world is struggling with a global financial crisis and crises in many spheres of social life, he said, "the incarnation of the Son of God speaks to us of how important man is to God, and God to man."

Without God and without faith-inspired values, he said, "man ultimately chooses selfishness over solidarity and love, material things over values, having over being. We must return to God so that man may return to being man."

Pope Benedict told the crowd that with faith, "even in difficult times or moments of crisis, there is always a horizon of hope: The Incarnation tells us that we are never alone, that God has come to humanity and that he accompanies us."

United in faith, he said, all men and women become brothers and sisters, caring for and supporting one another.

Often today, he said, people think making a faith commitment means giving up their freedom, when in reality God liberates people from the selfishness and thirst for power that can consume them and harm others.

Just as God wanted Mary to agree to carry his son, "God asks for mankind's 'yes.' He has created a free partner in dialogue, one from whom he requests a reply in complete liberty."

Pope Benedict traveled to and from Loreto by helicopter. After the Mass, he remained for lunch and a rest before a scheduled 5 p.m. return to the Vatican.

END

WOMEN / Faith: Hawaii ready for new Catholic saint !

Hawaii ready for new Catholic saint ! (again!)

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Carol Zimmermann

Tapestry of Blessed Marianne Cope (CNS photo from Reuters)

 
Three years ago the Hawaii Catholic Herald was on top of the canonization of one of Hawaii's own — St. Damien de Veuster, a Belgian priest who devoted his life to ministering on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, serving people with leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease. Once again the state is readying for the canonization of one of its own: Blessed Marianne Cope, who will be canonized Oct. 21. She succeeded St. Damien, spending the last 30 years of her life ministering on Molokai. She died on the island in 1918 at age 80. She was beatified in 2005.

This week's issue of the Hawaii Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Honolulu Diocese, has a special section about Mother Marianne that includes a tribute to the sister who directed her cause for decades and died last year, just days before the Vatican announced that the path for Mother Marianne's sainthood had been cleared.
The issue also features a timeline of Mother Marianne's path to sainthood, a preview of what Hawaii's pilgrims heading to Rome for the canonization can expect, and a story about the miracles attributed to her intercession.
The eight-page section also hightlights the six other saints to be canonized Oct. 21, including Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the "Lily of the Mohawks" and the first Native American to be beatified. It also describes how the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., will be celebrating the canonization. It is in that diocese that Mother Marianne's religious community, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, has a shrine and museum dedicated to the soon-to-be saint. The chapel at the motherhouse there has a reliquary containing her remains.
 

FAITH: Pope invites faithful to pray the Rosary

Pope invites faithful to pray the Rosary

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CWN - October 08, 2012

From Our Store: Liturgical Year 2011-2012, Vol. 6: Ordinary Time Completed (eBook)

Encouraging the faithful to "renew the prayer of the Rosary in the upcoming Year of Faith," Pope Benedict XVI devoted his October 7 Sunday Angelus address to the Rosary.

October 7 is the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.

"With the Rosary, we allow ourselves to be guided by Mary, model of faith, in meditating on the mysteries of Christ, and day after day we are helped to assimilate the Gospel, so that it shapes all our lives," Pope Benedict said. "Therefore, in the wake of my predecessors, especially Blessed John Paul II, who ten years ago gave us the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, I invite you to pray the Rosary personally, in the family and in the community, learning at the school of Mary***, which leads us to Christ, the living centre of our faith."

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• Angelus: Rediscovering the Rosary in the Year of Faith (Vatican Radio)
• Blessed John Paul II: Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002)

 
 

*** "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger & Von Balthasar | An excerpt from "Mary: The Church at the Source" Print-friendly version "From henceforth all generations will call me blessed"–these words of the Mother of Jesus handed on for us by Luke (Lk 1:48) are at once a prophecy and a charge laid upon the Church of all times. This phrase from the Magnificat, the spirit-filled prayer of praise that Mary addresses to the living God, is thus one of the principal foundations of Christian devotion to her. The Church invented nothing new of her own when she began to extol Mary; she did not plummet from the worship of the one God to the praise of man. The Church does what she must; she carries out the task assigned her from the beginning. At the time Luke was writing this text, the second generation of Christianity had already arrived, and the "family" of the Jews had been joined by that of the Gentiles, who had been incorporated into the Church of Jesus Christ. The expression "all generations, all families" was beginning to be filled with historical reality. The Evangelist would certainly not have transmitted Mary's prophecy if it had seemed to him an indifferent or obsolete item. He wished in his Gospel to record "with care" what "the eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Lk 1:2-3) had handed on from the beginning, in order to give the faith of Christianity, which was then striding onto the stage of world history, a reliable guide for its future course. Mary's prophecy numbered among those elements he had "carefully" ascertained and considered important enough to transmit to posterity. This fact assumes that Mary's words were guaranteed by reality: the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel give evidence of a sphere of tradition in which the remembrance of Mary was cultivated and the Mother of the Lord was loved and praised. They presuppose that the still somewhat naive exclamation of the unnamed woman, "blessed is the womb that bore you" (Lk 11:27), had not entirely ceased to resound but, as Jesus was more deeply understood, had likewise attained a purer form that more adequately expressed its content. They presuppose that Elizabeth's greeting, "blessed are you among women" (Lk 1:42), which Luke characterizes as words spoken in the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:4 1), had not been a once-only episode. The continued existence of such praise at least in one strand of early Christian tradition is the basis of Luke's infancy narrative. The recording of these words in the Gospel raises this veneration of Mary from historical fact to a commission laid upon the Church of all places and all times. The Church neglects one of the duties enjoined upon her when she does not praise Mary. She deviates from the word of the Bible when her Marian devotion falls silent. When this happens, in fact, the Church no longer even glorifies God as she ought. For though we do know God by means of his creation–"Ever since the creation of the world [God's] invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom 1:20)–we also know him, and know him more intimately, through the history he has shared with man. Just as the history of a man's life and the relationships he has formed reveal, what kind of person he is, God shows himself in a history, in men through whom his own character can be seen. This is so true that he can be "named" through them and identified in them: the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Through his relation with men, through the faces of men, God has made himself accessible and has shown his face. We cannot try to bypass these human faces in order to get to God alone, in his "pure form", as it were. This would lead us to a God of our own invention in place of the real God; it would be an arrogant purism that regards its own ideas as more important than God's deeds. The above cited verse of the Magnificat shows us that Mary is one of the human beings who in an altogether special way belong to the name of God, so much so, in fact, that we cannot praise him rightly if we leave her out of account. In doing so we forget something about him that must not be forgotten. What, exactly? Our first attempt at an answer could be his maternal side, which reveals itself more purely and more directly in the Son's Mother than anywhere else. But this is, of course, much too general. In order to praise Mary correctly and thus to glorify God correctly, we must listen to all that Scripture and tradition say concerning the Mother of the Lord and ponder it in our hearts. Thanks to the praise of "all generations" since the beginning, the abundant wealth of Mariology has become almost too vast to survey. In this brief meditation, I would like to help the reader reflect anew on just a few of the key words Saint Luke has placed in our hands in his inexhaustibly rich infancy narrative. Mary, Daughter Zion–Mother of Believers Let us begin with the angel's greeting to Mary. For Luke, this is the primordial cell of Mariology that God himself wished to present to us through his messenger, the Archangel Gabriel. Translated literally, the greeting reads thus: "Rejoice, full of grace. The Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28). "Rejoice": At first sight, this word appears to be no more than the formulaic greeting current in the Greek-speaking world, and tradition has consistently translated it as "hail". But looked at against the background of the Old Testament, this formula of greeting takes on a more profound significance. Consider, in fact, that the same word used by Luke appears four times in the Septuagint, where in each case it is an announcement of messianic joy (Zeph 3:14; Joel 2:21; Zech 9:9; Lam 4:21). This greeting marks the beginning of the Gospel in the strict sense; its first word is "joy", the new joy that comes from God and breaks through the world's ancient and interminable sadness. Mary is not merely greeted in some vague or indifferent way; that God greets her and, in her, greets expectant Israel and all of humanity is an invitation to rejoice from the innermost depth of our being. The reason for our sadness is the futility of our love, the overwhelming power of finitude, death, suffering, and falsehood. We are sad because we are left alone in a contradictory world where enigmatic signals of divine goodness pierce through the cracks yet are thrown in doubt by a power of darkness that is either God's responsibility or manifests his impotence. "Rejoice"–what reason does Mary have to rejoice in such a world? The answer is: "The Lord is with you." In order to grasp the sense of this announcement, we must return once more to the Old Testament texts upon which it is based, in particular to Zephaniah. These texts invariably contain a double promise to the personification of Israel, daughter Zion: God will come to save, and he will come to dwell in her. The angel's dialogue with Mary reprises this promise and in so doing makes it concrete in two ways. What in the prophecy is said to daughter Zion is now directed to Mary: She is identified with daughter Zion, she is daughter Zion in person. In a parallel manner, Jesus, whom Mary is permitted to bear, is identified with Yahweh, the living God. When Jesus comes, it is God himself who comes to dwell in her. He is the Savior–this is the meaning of the name Jesus, which thus becomes clear from the heart of the promise. René Laurentin has shown through painstaking textual analyses how Luke has used subtle word play to deepen the theme of God's indwelling. Even early traditions portray God as dwelling "in the womb" of Israel–in the Ark of the Covenant. This dwelling "in the womb" of Israel now becomes quite literally real in the Virgin of Nazareth. Mary herself thus becomes the true Ark of the Covenant in Israel, so that the symbol of the Ark gathers an incredibly realistic force: God in the flesh of a human being, which flesh now becomes his dwelling place in the midst of creation. The angel's greeting–the center of Mariology not invented by the human mind–has led us to the theological foundation of this Mariology. Mary is identified with daughter Zion, with the bridal people of God. Everything said about the ecclesia in the Bible is true of her, and vice versa: the Church learns concretely what she is and is meant to be by looking at Mary. Mary is her mirror, the pure measure of her being, because Mary is wholly within the measure of Christ and of God, is through and through his habitation. And what other reason could the ecclesia have for existing than to become a dwelling for God in the world? God does not deal with abstractions. He is a person, and the Church is a person. The more that each one of us becomes a person, person in the sense of a fit habitation for God, daughter Zion, the more we become one, the more we are the Church, and the more the Church is herself. The typological identification of Mary and Zion leads us, then, into the depths. This manner of connecting the Old and New Testaments is much more than an interesting historical construction by means of which the Evangelist links promise and fulfillment and reinterprets the Old Testament in the light of what has happened in Christ. Mary is Zion in person, which means that her life wholly embodies what is meant by "Zion". She does not construct a self-enclosed individuality whose principal concern is the originality of its own ego. She does not wish to be just this one human being who defends and protects her own ego. She does not regard life as a stock of goods of which everyone wants to get as much as possible for himself. Her life is such that she is transparent to God, "habitable" for him. Her life is such that she is a place for God. Her life sinks her into the common measure of sacred history, so that what appears in her is, not the narrow and constricted ego of an isolated individual, but the whole, true Israel. This "typological identification" is a spiritual reality; it is life lived out of the spirit of Sacred Scripture; it is rootedness in the faith of the Fathers and at the same time expansion into the height and breadth of the coming promises. We understand why the Bible time and again compares the just man to the tree whose roots drink from the living waters of eternity and whose crown catches and synthesizes the light of heaven. Let us return once more to the angel's greeting. Mary is called "full of grace". The Greek word for grace (charis) derives from the same root as the words joy and rejoice (chara, chairein). Thus, we see once more in a different form the same context to which we were led by our earlier comparison with the Old Testament. Joy comes from grace. One who is in the state of grace can rejoice with deep-going, constant joy. By the same token, grace is joy. What is grace? This question thrusts itself upon our text. Our religious mentality has reified this concept much too much; it regards grace as a supernatural something we carry about in our soul. And since we perceive very little of it, or nothing at all, it has gradually become irrelevant to us, an empty word belonging to Christian jargon, which seems to have lost any relationship to the lived reality of our everyday life. In reality, grace is a relational term: it does not predicate something about an I, but something about a connection between I and Thou, between God and man. "Full of grace" could therefore also be translated as: "You are full of the Holy Spirit; your life is intimately connected with God." Peter Lombard, the author of what was the universal theological manual for approximately three centuries during the Middle Ages, propounded the thesis that grace and love are identical but that love "is the Holy Spirit". Grace in the proper and deepest sense of the word is not some thing that comes from God; it is God himself. Redemption means that God, acting as God truly does, gives us nothing less than himself The gift of God is God–he who as the Holy Spirit is communion with us. "Full of grace" therefore means, once again, that Mary is a wholly open human being, one who has opened herself entirely, one who has placed herself in God's hands boldly, limitlessly, and without fear for her own fate. It means that she lives wholly by and in relation to God. She is a listener and a prayer, whose mind and soul are alive to the manifold ways in which the living God quietly calls to her. She is one who prays and stretches forth wholly to meet God; she is therefore a lover, who has the breadth and magnanimity of true love, but who has also its unerring powers of discernment and its readiness to suffer. Luke has flooded this fact with the light of yet another round of motifs. In his subtle way he constructs a parallel between Abraham, the father of believers, and Mary, the mother of believers. To be in a state of grace means: to be a believer. Faith includes steadfastness, confidence, and devotion, but also obscurity. When man's relation to God, the soul's open availability for him, is characterized as "faith", this word expresses the fact that the infinite distance between Creator and creature is not blurred in the relation of the human I to the divine Thou. It means that the model of "partnership", which has become so dear to us, breaks down when it comes to God, because it cannot sufficiently express the majesty of God and the hiddenness of his working. It is precisely the man who has been opened up entirely into God who comes to accept God's otherness and the hiddenness of his will, which can pierce our will like a sword. The parallel between Mary and Abraham begins in the joy of the promised son but continues apace until the dark hour when she must ascend Mount Moriah, that is, until the Crucifixion of Christ. Yet it does not end there; it also extends to the miracle of Isaac's rescue-the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Abraham, father of faith-this title describes the unique position of the patriarch in the piety of Israel and in the faith of the Church. But is it not wonderful that-without any revocation of the special status of Abraham–a "mother of believers" now stands at the beginning of the new people and that our faith again and again receives from her pure and high image its measure and its path? [Excerpted from the chapter "'Hail, Full of Grace': Elements of Marian Piety According to the Bible", from Mary: The Church at the Source by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar, pp. 61-69. Footnotes have been omitted.] Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles: • "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary" | Hans Urs von Balthasar • Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward • The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero • Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock • Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke • Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson • The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was for over two decades the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II. He is a renowned theologian and author of numerous books. A mini-bio and full listing of his books published by Ignatius Press are available on his IgnatiusInsight.com Author Page. If you'd like to receive the FREE IgnatiusInsight.com e-letter (about every 1 to 2 weeks), which includes regular updates about IgnatiusInsight.com articles, reviews, excerpts, and author appearances, please click here to sign-up today!

MISSION: New Evangelization synod opens; New doctors fo the Church

Pope opens synod on new evangelization, declares 2 new doctors of the Church

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CWN - October 08, 2012

From Our Store: Moral Issues (eBook)

Opening the Thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict emphasized that "the Church exists to evangelize" and formally proclaimed St. John of Avila (1500-69) and St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) doctors of the Church.

St. John of Avila, the Pope said during his homily at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, was a "profound expert on the sacred Scriptures, he was gifted with an ardent missionary spirit. He knew how to penetrate in a uniquely profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for humanity. A man of God, he united constant prayer to apostolic action. He dedicated himself to preaching and to the more frequent practice of the sacraments, concentrating his commitment on improving the formation of candidates for the priesthood, of religious and of lay people, with a view to a fruitful reform of the Church."

Pope Benedict added that St. Hildegard

offered her precious contribution to the growth of the Church of her time, employing the gifts received from God and showing herself to be a woman of brilliant intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority. The Lord granted her a prophetic spirit and fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times. Hildegard nurtured an evident love of creation, and was learned in medicine, poetry and music. Above all, she maintained a great and faithful love for Christ and his Church.

Discussing the synod's theme – "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith" – Pope Benedict preached that

the Church exists to evangelize. Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ's command, his disciples went out to the whole world to announce the Good News, spreading Christian communities everywhere. With time, these became well-organized churches with many faithful. At various times in history, divine providence has given birth to a renewed dynamism in the Church's evangelizing activity. We need only think of the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxon peoples or the Slavs, or the transmission of the faith on the continent of America, or the missionary undertakings among the peoples of Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Pope Benedict distinguished two "branches" of evangelization: "the Missio ad Gentes or announcement of the Gospel to those who do not yet know Jesus Christ and his message of salvation" and "the New Evangelization, directed principally at those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian life."

"The Synodal Assembly which opens today is dedicated to this new evangelization, to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone who fills our existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favor the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life," he continued.

Stating that "there is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage," the Pope added that "matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world."

"The fragility, even sin, of many Christians … is a great obstacle to evangelization and to recognizing the force of God that, in faith, meets human weakness," he continued. "Thus, we cannot speak about the new evangelization without a sincere desire for conversion. The best path to the new evangelization is to let ourselves be reconciled with God and with each other (cf. 2 Cor 5:20). Solemnly purified, Christians can regain a legitimate pride in their dignity as children of God, created in his image and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and they can experience his joy in order to share it with everyone, both near and far."

Additional sources for this story
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• 7 October 2012: Holy Mass for the opening of the Synod of Bishops and proclamation of St John of Avila and St Hildegard of Bingen as "Doctors of the Church" (Holy See)
• Pope opens Synod: The Church exists to evangelize (Vatican Radio)
• Pope names 2 church doctors at start of synod on re-spreading faith to areas where it's fallen (AP)
• Pope launches drive to reclaim lapsed Western Catholics (Reuters)

FAITH: New Woman Doctor of the Church

Pope Benedict creates two new Doctors of the Church

By David Kerr

Pope Benedict XVI at April 18 General Audience

 

Vatican City, Oct 7, 2012 / 10:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has named two new Doctors of the Church: the 16th century Spanish priest St. John of Avila and the 12th century German nun St. Hildegard of Bingen.
St. John of Avila was "a profound expert on the sacred scriptures, he was gifted with an ardent missionary spirit," said the Pope Oct. 7, "he knew how to penetrate in a uniquely profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for humanity."
St. John of Avila was a priest, mystic, preacher and scholar. Pope Benedict announced his intention to name him a Doctor of the Church at World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid last August, much to the delight of Spanish Catholics. Today's declaration took place in a brief ceremony prior to Mass in St. Peter's Square in Rome.
The Pope said St. John was "a man of God" who "united constant prayer to apostolic action."
"He dedicated himself to preaching and to the more frequent practice of the sacraments, concentrating his commitment on improving the formation of candidates for the priesthood, of religious and of lay people, with a view to a fruitful reform of the Church."
Turning to St. Hildegard of Bingen, Pope Benedict called her "an important female figure of the 12th century" who "offered her precious contribution to the growth of the Church of her time" by "employing the gifts received from God and showing herself to be a woman of brilliant intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority."
Among her vast array of talents, St. Hildegard was a writer, composer, philosopher and mystic, as well as an abbess and founder of several monasteries. In May 2012 Pope Benedict formally added her to the Church's roster of saints, extending her liturgical feast throughout the world.
"The Lord granted her a prophetic spirit and fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times," explained the Pope to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. St. Hildegard, he said, "nurtured an evident love of creation, and was learned in medicine, poetry and music" but "above all" she "maintained a great and faithful love for Christ and the Church."
The title of Doctor of the Church is bestowed upon a saint whose writings are deemed to be of universal importance to the Church. The Pope must also declare the individual to be of "eminent learning" and "great sanctity." Other Doctors of the Church include St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Catherine of Siena.

Tags:Saints, Pope Benedict XVI

SOCIETY: UN council approves resolution affirming family values

UN council approves Russian resolution affirming family values

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CWN - October 05, 2012

From Our Store: Moral Issues (eBook)

The UN's council on human rights has approved a resolution stating that an acceptance of traditional moral principles is important to the promotion of peace and the protection of human rights around the world.

The UN resolution—which echoes the themes put forward by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's Secretary for Relations with States, in an address to the General Assembly—was introduced by the Russian delegation. It was approved despite opposition from delegates from the US and western Europe, who argued that a defense of traditional moral principles could undermine the advances of the sexual revolution.

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• UN Human Rights Council Affirms Traditional Values (C-FAM)
• International problems reflect moral crisis, Vatican official tells UN (CWN, 10/2)

SOCIETY: "New San Francisco archbishop must advocate homosexual relationships"...

New San Francisco archbishop must accept homosexuals, says former Catholic Charities director

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CWN - October 05, 2012

From Our Store: Essays in Apologetics, Volume II (eBook)

On the day that Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was installed as the head of the San Francisco archdiocese, the former director of the archdiocesan office of Catholic Charities published an op-ed column warning that the incoming prelate should not stress Catholic teachings regarding the sanctity of marriage.

"No one expects him to be silent on church teaching, but he has a choice to make," wrote Brian Cahill in the San Francisco Chronicle) . He continued:

He can continue to be the aggressive, outspoken leader of the American Catholic bishops in their effort to prevent civil gay marriage, or he can be the shepherd of his flock. He can't be both, and if he tries, he will fail.

Cahill went on to say that Archbishop Cordileone should "not surround himself only with orthodox thinkers," but take counsel from people with other perspectives. In that category he included Archbishop John Quinn, who resigned his post as leader of the San Francisco archdiocese in 1995, at the relatively young age of 66, and has subsequently made several public calls for change in the Church.

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• Our ninth archbishop of San Francisco (San Francisco Chronicle)

CHURCH / USA: Episcopal leader calls Catholic teaching on marriage 'oppression'

In "welcome" to new Catholic archbishop, Episcopal leader calls Catholic teaching on marriage 'oppression'

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CWN - October 03, 2012

From Our Store: Essays in Apologetics, Volume II (eBook)

On the eve of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's installation in San Francisco, the Episcopal Church's bishop of California has written a letter to his faithful attacking the stand of the Catholic Church on marriage and inviting disaffected Catholics to join the Episcopal Church.

"Bishop Cordileone was an active supporter of Proposition 8, which I and the other Episcopal bishops throughout California opposed," writes the Episcopal Church Bishop Marc Andrus.

"We make no peace with oppression," he added. "The recognition of the dignity and rights, within civil society and the Church of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered people, and of women are as core to our proclamation of the Gospel as our solidarity with the poor, with victims of violence and political oppression, and with the Earth."

Archbishop Cordileone is chairman of the Subcommittee on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Some Catholics may find themselves less at home with Salvatore Cordileone's installation and they may come to The Episcopal Church," Bishop Andrus continued. "We should welcome them as our sisters and brothers. Even as we welcome those who may join us and look for ways to work with our Roman Catholic siblings in the faith, we will not be silenced in our proclamation of God's inclusion."

Additional sources for this story
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• Letter to the Diocese of California concerning the installation of Salvatore Cordileone as Archbishop of San Francisco (Bishop Marc)
• The Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco 'Welcomes' the Catholic Archbishop (Catholic World Report