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On January 19, Pope Benedict addressed bishops from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, and the Virgin Islands. These U.S. bishops were in Rome for their periodic “ad limina” visits, which included meetings with the pope and Vatican officials, covering a wide range of pastoral matters.His words provide some sober reflection for us. As is usually the case, I would like to provide excerpts of the Pope’s remarks from a CNS News Article and then present my own comments in red.Pope Benedict XVI warned visiting U.S. bishops that “radical secularism”...

As reported on his blog and on numerous other blogs and websites, David Domet of Vox Cantoris has been threatened by Fr. Thomas Rosica CSB, CEO of Salt and Light TV and the English-language "Assistant" to Fr. Federico Lombardi, with legal action due to Mr. Domet's posts versus some of Rosica's statements relating to the Synod on the Family. It is important to note that Vox Cantoris' posts and analyses of Fr. Rosica's statements have all been limited to criticizing the latter's words of support for "pastoral" changes that undermine Catholic doctrine (the spiritual attitude Cardinal Sarah, Prefect for Divine...

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the modern struggles and disagreements over the Liturgy, there tends to be a list of friends and opponents depending on one’s stance. For those of us with a more traditional leaning, Pope St. Pius X looms large as a friend and an image of tradition. He is usually seen as a defender of the tradition and a great proponent of what is called today the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)—so much so that the Society of...

How to Save the World, God’s Way – A Reflection on a Liturgical Teaching of Pope Benedict By: Msgr. Charles Pope Whenever I write on liturgy, I usually get a lot of comments. Many people obviously care deeply about it.Yet I also get comments that decry my “preoccupation” with liturgy, saying that it is of minor importance compared to the issues of poverty, abortion, etc. Some on the left will say, “Who cares if the Pope washes certain feet or doesn’t wear a fanon! Get out there and take care of the poor and show compassion. Frankly, your elaborate and expensive liturgies are...

This article is my take on the impact of the latest scandal caused by the latest papal press conference at the back of an airplane: the one during the flight from Manila to Rome, reported around the world under the eminently predictable headline: “Pope Francis: Catholics Don’t Have to Breed Like Rabbits.” Objectors need not pester me or this newspaper with complaints about “bad translation” or the “whole context” of the Pope’s remarks, nor with such quibbles as “the Pope said be like rabbits, not breed like rabbits.” I have watched the entire interview in Italian and compared it with...

“The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints” — Joseph Ratzinger, 1969.Forty–six years ago, Father Joseph Ratzinger gave a series of conferences that were later published in book form under the title Faith and the Future (Ignatius Press). What was the future in 1969 has become the present. Joseph Ratzinger’s words are stunningly prophetic. Read them. The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing...

- Ethics and Public Policy Centre Eight years later, the Regensburg Lecture looks a lot different. Indeed, those who actually read it in 2006 understood that, far from making a “gaffe,” Benedict XVI was exploring with scholarly precision two key questions, the answers to which would profoundly influence the civil war raging within Islam—a war whose outcome will determine whether 21st-century Islam is safe for its own adherents and safe for the world.

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2006, my wife and I were dining in Cracow with Polish friends when an agitated Italian Vaticanista (pardon the redundancy in adjectives) called, demanding to know what I thought of “Zees crazee speech of zee pope about zee Muslims.” That was my first hint that the herd of independent minds in the world press was about to go ballistic on the subject of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture: a “gaffe”-bone on which the media continued to gnaw until the end of Benedict’s pontificate. Eight years later, the Regensburg Lecture looks a lot different. Indeed, those...

Pope Benedict XVI lectured on faith and reason at the University of Regensburg in Germany in this Sept. 12, 2006, file photo. A quotation from a Byzantine emperor that the pope used in this talk provoked outrage in the Muslim world. Eight years ago this Friday, Sept. 12, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria in which he seemed to diagnose Islam as a religion inherently flawed by fanaticism. It was an undiplomatic assertion, to say the least — especially coming a day after the 9/11 anniversary — and it sparked an enormous...

For the first time since the Marxist revolution, a new Roman Catholic church is being erected in Cuba.The BBC reports: Its attitude to religion has softened since the fall of the Soviet Union, but this is the first Catholic church to be built for more than 50 years. Cuban seminarians The island nation has been communist since the overthrow of Fulgenico Batista in the Marxist revolution of 1959. (From that time until 1992, Cuba’s constitution said that the country was officially atheist.) Revolutionaries under Fidel Castro entered into a power struggle with the Catholic Church–accusing the clergy of defending the...

A document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for molesting children. The statistics for 2011-12 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received. The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in...

(Vienna) in Austria in 2013, there were more than leaving the church than in 2012. Nearly 55,000 Catholics have left the Catholic Church as a corporate body under public law. Thus more Austrians left the Church in the first year of the pontificate of Pope Francis, than in the last year of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. The church leaders wonder about this phenomenon, which they had not expected. "We would have expected better numbers," said the Bishop of Linz Vicar William Viehböck. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. there was relief heard from not a few official...

Pope Benedict Defends Religious Liberty   PoliticsFebruary 23rd, 2012 Rebecca Ryskind Teti Bishops from the dioceses of Baltimore, Washington and Military Services were in Rome this month, making their requisite ad limina visit to Rome to pray at the tomb of St. Peter and renew their allegiance to his successor.It was a religious duty they were observing, but the Pope chose to speak to them not of prayer or sacraments, but about threats to religious liberty, the proper relations between Church and State and the role of the Catholic citizen in a secular nation.His appeal to all Catholics to defend...

I often think we haven’t done a very good job in setting forth the doctrine of Eternal Life. For most people the concept seems a rather flat one, namely, that we shall live for ever and ever and ever…. And frankly for many such a concept seems rather unappealing even if the place of it is heaven. Heaven too is often poorly understood. It is reduced to a rather egocentric notion of a place where I will be happy. I’ll have a mansion, I’ll see my mother again, I won’t suffer…. But most moderns in their description never get around...

Cardinal Wuerl shared with the priests of this Archdiocese (at the Chrism Mass last month) the full remarks of Pope Benedict that were given during the ad limina visit by bishops of this region. I had seen excerpts, but never the full set of remarks. They are powerful and ought to receive careful consideration by us all.To that end, I would like to share substantial excerpts and offer a few reflections of my own. As is usual the original text is in bold, black italic text. My own comments are in red plain text.For her part, the Church in the...

Along with many of you, I am reading Pope Benedict’s latest book, volume 3 of Jesus of Nazareth, on the infancy narratives. I was very moved at a very brief reflection that he made on Mary, as the Angel Gabriel left her. His remarks consider on her faith in a very touching manner. I must say that I have always been moved by the faith of the Blessed Mother and intrigued too, for she is a woman wrapped in silence. The Pope’s words capture both her faith and the mystery of her. Here is what the Pope says:I consider it...

Stephen Hawking is wrong, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday - God did create the universe.The pope didn't actually mention the world-famous scientist, who argues in a book published last month that the laws of physics show there is no need for a supreme being to have brought the world into existence.In fact, Benedict specifically praised - and blessed - science and scientists in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.But he also made clear that part of the role of science is to reveal God in the universe."Scientists do not create the world; they learn about it and...

Nov19, 2010 Getting Personal With the Word of God – A powerful reflection by Pope Benedict on the true Reality of the Word of GodBy: Msgr. Charles Pope Many people think of the Word of God as an “it” when in fact, the Word of God is a person, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come merely to give us information and exhortation. He came to give us his very self. He is the “Word made Flesh.” Pope Benedict makes this point in his most recent document, the Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini. I want to give an excerpt and...

I’ve been asked by a few readers of this blog to record a few thoughts about the events surrounding the resignation of Pope Benedict. Over the weekend especially, many rumors circulated, regarding a seedy backstory to the resignation.I am not surprised to read of such rumors in secular media sources, but I must admit I was surprised to read some of these things reported in Catholic sources.As for me, it remains a rumor, and rumors are best unrepeated.I prefer simply to take Pope Benedict at his word. He indicates that, given the effects of age, he thinks is best step...

An important letter, from Pope Francis to Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, has just been published. It includes the following: “With these lines I wish to be close to you and join myself to the act of presentation of the book 'Pontifical primacy and epicopate: from the first millennium to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.' [The book is a collection of essays, some by Archbishop Marchetto, in his honour]. I beg you to consider myself spiritually present [there]… “You have made your love for the Church manifest in many ways… above all it is manifest in all your purity in the...