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Tidings
Selected Catholic news items
In Britain's Catholic Herald, Dr Alcuin Reid discusses the new cri de coeur by former papal Master of Ceremonies Piero Marini, "an act of filial homage by Marini to his mentor, [Vatican II grey eminence Annibale] Bugnini."
Cardinal George Pell, of Sydney, discusses his concerns about certain radical proponents of global warming.
Three traditional parishes of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland have requested full communion with the Holy See.
A warning to mischievous bishops and to anyone else who would try and thwart Summorum Pontificum's implementation: Sri Lanka's Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith lays down the law in tough, fierce language.
After so many months of delay, disappointment, and false rumour, Benedict XVI's motu proprio has been released. Click here for a website specifically devoted to commentary and news items concerning the document. Click here for a feature article by Dr Alcuin Reid, familiar to Oriens readers. Click here for a PDF document giving twenty questions about the motu proprio, and their answers.
Martin Mosebach, the German traditional Catholic author best known for his book The Heresy of Formlessness, has just won his country's most prestigious literary award: the Georg Buechner Prize.
A review in Britain's longest-established Catholic magazine, The Tablet, of the present Pontiff's recently published tome Jesus of Nazareth: from the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration.
A speech by the Ecclesia Dei Commission's president, given at Aparecida (Brazil), on the wish of the Holy Father to extend the preconciliar liturgy's application and availability. A Mexican news agency's article, based on an interview with this cardinal, is discussed here. The original Spanish-language version of the article is here.
Some good news on the pro-life front, for a change, after so much bad news (Portugal, Mexico). Former Nicaraguan leftist dictator Daniel Ortega, of Sandinista 1980s ill-fame, recently supported the banning of abortion in his country. This ban went ahead by a parliamentary margin of 52-0.
The Holy Father's sermons for Holy Week and the days of Easter, as supplied by that indefatigable Italian journalist Sandro Magister.
"Nothing of Justice demands that God raise up a new group of saints and heroes and geniuses to fix everything as a matter of course." A powerful meditation on the nature of Satan and of the Church Suffering.
Fr Daniel Johnson (who has just died, aged 77) served as priest at Huntingdon Beach in southern California. There, he proved a doughty and seemingly tireless fighter for the Latin Mass's splendours. An obituary from The Los Angeles Times.
Odorado Focherini, born a century ago this year at Carpi (northern Italy), was a Catholic journalist who died in a German concentration camp. Until the Nazis arrested him, he managed to rescue 105 Jews and to obtain for them safety in Switzerland. Currently he is a candidate for beatification.
An altarpiece constructed in Spain by 85 craftsmen, and weighing 16 US tons, now occupies a place of honour in the basilica of San Juan Capistrano, California. The Los Angeles Times has the story.
An interview with the President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, who clarifies what schism is and is not; quotes St Jerome on schism; and mentions recent negotiations between the Vatican and the Society of St Pius X. The original Italian-language text can be found here.
The Bishop of Cheyenne (Wyoming) has now told a lesbian couple that they cannot receive Communion while they remain in, and while they openly defend, their public sin.
Founded in the 1960s, the Neocatechumenal Way is a lay organisation (20,000 communities throughout the world, particularly active in the Middle East) that has been under increasing official scrutiny during recent years. Now both the Pope and, a few days later, bishops in the Holy Land have issued courteous but firm warnings to it. Celebrated Italian religious journalist Sandro Magister discusses the subject.
Released by the Vatican on 12 March 2007, Sacramentum Caritatis is the Holy Father's exhortation following the Eucharistic Synod of October 2005. Sections 42, 61 and 62 are of particular note as regards the liturgy. Further information about the document, supplied by The Sydney Morning Herald and dealing specially with liturgical matters, can be found here. Sandro Magister's discussion of the document is here.
The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, has explicitly condemned homosexual behaviour in his country's armed forces.
According to Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, Catholic publishers in Rome are now preparing new editions of the 1962 Latin Missal, in expectation of a formal pronouncement by Pope Benedict freeing up the traditional Mass's use.
That's the question emerging from a recent article – 9 March – in the USA about Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, and about Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro (Una Voce America's Rome-based consultant).
The Portuguese Parliament has now approved pro-abortion legislation, which now awaits only the signature of Prime Minister Socrates.
Monsignor Michael Schmitz, US Provincial Superior of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, discusses the Motu Proprio and, more generally, the traditional rite.
He used to run gigantically successful designer-clothing and music production operations in – of all unlikely places for religious conversion – Las Vegas. Now, though, Iranian-born Fred Nassiri wants to become a Franciscan, and give up all his worldly goods for the poor.
Basing his utterances upon the teachings of Russian theologian V. S. Solovyov (1853-1900), Cardinal Giacomo Biffi of Bologna has argued (at the Lenten retreat which Benedict XVI is attending) that "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist, and ecumenist."
So far, information from secret police files indicates that Poles resisted Communist terror much better than East Germans, for instance, did. But this Chicago Tribune article – dealing with a heroic priest whom the regime tortured – shows that in the wake of the Wielgus scandal, evidence of betrayal is disturbingly present.
Ever since Earl Warren in the 1950s (and more especially since Roe versus Wade in 1973 struck down anti-abortion laws), the US Supreme Court has been blatant in its social engineering. Will a new-found strict-constitutionalist majority among the Court's judges in 2007 improve the situation?
So the Catholic Church has banned Masonic membership for Catholics ever since the eighteenth century? Ban, schman! This Italian priest is utterly unembarrassed about joining a Lodge and boasting of it.
Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, discusses with an Inside the Vatican reporter the much-mooted Motu Proprio, and liturgical practices more generally.
Alabama's Southern Poverty Law Center, ever more desperate in its search for "hate speech" to sniff out, has now found it in (would you believe) traditional Catholicism.
Melbourne's Eureka Street magazine comments on the wider possible implications of the ostensibly imminent Motu Proprio liberating use of the traditional Latin Mass.
The recent Portuguese referendum (imposed by Prime Minister Socrates) on abortion resulted in an almost 60% "yes" vote, among those who cast ballots at all. But the fact that 59% of the electorate abstained means that the referendum is not legally binding. So far.
Carmelite friar Fr Reginald Foster, appointed Papal Latinist in 1969, tells Britain's Daily Telegraph: "I'm not optimistic about Latin. The young priests and bishops are not studying it." Still, he has recently launched a new Latin Academy.
And still the petitions come: this one appeared on 6 January 2007 in America's Catholic World News. The signatories include several authors well known to Oriens readers.
Piergiorgio Welby, the Italian poet and advocate of euthanasia who died in December 2006, has been forbidden a funeral according to the rites of the Catholic Church.
After the manner of Italian and French intellectuals' petitions (see below), a group of prominent figures in Polish life – such as Marek Jurek, speaker of the country's Parliament – seeks a wider use for the Mass of All Time. (For those who can read Polish, the original document is here).
Distinguished figures from the world of Italian culture, including internationally celebrated film director Franco Zeffirelli, have signed a manifesto in the Milan newspaper Il Foglio. They plead that the traditional Latin Mass be made more freely available. A separate open letter, urging the same thing, appeared on the same day – 16 December 2006 – in Paris's Le Figaro. Signatories of the latter include the Académie Française's René Girard. The original French-language version of the Figaro document is here.
A school in Zaragoza has announced that it will cancel its Yuletide celebrations "so as not to offend children who are not Christians."
In July 2006 Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior-General of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), requested a million rosaries, that he might present these to the Pope for the freedom of the traditional Latin Mass everywhere. Instead of a million rosaries, there were 2.5 million.
Museum director: "perhaps St-Martin-in-the-Fields has been a sacred site for far, far, far longer than we previously thought."
Catholic Portugal has Europe's strictest pro-life legislation. Well, obviously, that can't be allowed to continue, can it? The country's socialist regime, under Prime Minister José Socrates, has successfully demanded a referendum to make abortion legal.
On one of the sorest points of the New Mass – the use by the priest of the words "for all" at the consecration – Rome at last acts. The relevant document can be found here.
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