A Church for China

From Atlantic Online:

In 1577, the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci left Italy on a mission to bring the Christian faith to Ming dynasty China. He was neither the first Christian, nor the first Catholic, to arrive in the Middle Kingdom. But his arrival marked the beginnings of a Jesuit presence that would survive erratically in China for nearly four centuries.

Everything changed in 1949 when the Communists came to power. Western religion—along with all else foreign—was unwelcome welcome in the PRC. Although Pope Pius XII had established an official independent hierarchy for China’s Church back in 1946 (making the China Jesuit Mission null and void), European bishops still retained control over more than 80 percent of the country’s dioceses. In 1951, the Communist Party expelled all missionaries and severed diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Chinese priests tried to convince the Communist government that the country’s Catholic Church could operate independently, but by 1955, Chinese Catholics had become targets as well, and over the course of two weeks that fall, more than 1,200 Catholic priests, nuns, and laypeople were arrested and detained.

Read the rest

Woman Jumps the Fence at Papal Audience

From Asia News Italy:

Before the beginning of the audience, while Benedict XVI was travelling the square in his open topped popemobile to greet the faithful, a woman climbed over the barriers in an attempt to near the Pope, but was stopped by security.

New Books Coming Out This Summer and Fall

Book Expo of America--People Spotted

The BEA (Book Expo of America) is widely attended by people in the publishing industry and you never quite know who you are going to run into, like this fellow (no introduction needed) ...



who of course is an avid reader and believer in God or this guy who doesn't believe in much including buttoning up his shirt (Christopher Hitchens)...



Sometimes you run into movie stars or a person who once played one on Gilligan's Island (Tina Louise who now writes children's books)...



A current day movie star (Juliann Moore)...



Or a famous New Yorker having a bite...

Franz Jagerstatter to be Declared a Martyr

Excellent, excellent, excellent!!!

I've used his story in some of my books and have always thought that his resistence is the example that needed to be praised publicly. Pope Benedict has authorized the promulgation of his cause. From Vatican Information Service:

- Servant of God Frank Jagerstatter , Austrian layman, born 1907 and killed in Berlin, Germany in 1943.

His story by Robert Royal at the Catholic Education:

Austrian Farmer Franz Jagerstatter ROBERT ROYAL

"That might (have been) our worst game of the year,"

...said Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

I once taught Lou's son Derek, and have met him a few times back then.

But I am a Florida Marlins fan and so I was happy to be at Wrigley Field to witness what Lou calls "their worst game of the year!"

There is no better place to watch a baseball game, then Wrigley. The fans are into baseball, there is electricity to the place. There is no video scoreboard or much of anything else to distract you from the game.

I sat a few seats away from where Bartman sat when he became the billy(scape) goat for the Cubs losing to the Marlins the last time that the Marlins ultimately won their second World Series Championship.

A pleasant visit if you are like me, one of the very few faithful Florida Marlin's fans!

Motu Proprio This Week?

I know we've heard this before, but this actually makes sense--to link it to the Letter to China as an outreach to the traditionalist church there...

Father Z has the goods:

Der Spiegel: Motu Proprio THIS WEEK

Back to Ordinary Time (8th Week)

But not so in the old days, as Father Mark points out, in an excellent post on the "suppression" of the "Octave of Pentecost" (similar to the Octave of Christmas and Easter) that was celebrated up unto 1969, He includes this anectdote:

The story goes that on the Monday after Pentecost in 1970 His Holiness Pope Paul VI rose early and went to his chapel for Holy Mass. Instead of the red vestments he expected, green ones were laid out for him. He asked the Master of Ceremonies, "What on earth are these for? This is the Octave of Pentecost! Where are the red vestments?" "Your Holiness," replied the Master of Ceremonies, "this is now The Time Throughout the Year. It is green, now. The Octave of Pentecost is abolished." "Green? That cannot be," said the Pope, "Who did that?" "Your Holiness, you did." And Paul VI wept.

Paul VI did not weep alone. Many wept with him. It was reported that Catherine de Hueck Doherty of Madonna House was inconsolable. Faithful the world over were speechless at the brutal removal of one of the Church Year’s most cherished moments. In some countries the hierarchy were frightfully embarrassed: the civil calendar had retained the Monday and Tuesday after Pentecost as holidays, while the Church had erased them from hers. Little by little, the voices of those seeking the restoration of the Pentecost came to be heard in high places.

The Pope's New Book

Our Sunday Visitor will release the new book--The Apostles: The Origin of the Church and Their Co-Workers sometime this summer (July or August). It takes up where Jesus of Nazareth leaves off, but unlike that book which the Pope did not want to be considered part of his magisterial office--this one is and contains some of the same teachings as well as many others concerning the origins of the church and the Apostles. It will please any reader of Jesus of Nazareth. The cover of the book has a tie in with this week's feast. Here is the image that is used:

Solemnity of Pentecost

From Vultus Christi

Those lacking in understanding

find themselves standing under tongues of fire.

Those once dark are illumined from within;

the flame over every head dances its way into every heart

and faces once abashed shine as they have never shone before.

Unveiled now, they “behold the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18)

and in every mouth there is the taste of new wine

and the sound of a new song: “Alleluia!”

Pentecost at the Pantheon in Rome

Red roses fall from the sky!

Father Z has the details and pictures:

There is a tradition in Rome on Pentecost Sunday. At the Church S. Maria ad Martyres, the Pantheon, at the end of Mass red rose petals are let fall in great abundance through the oculus, the dome’s "eye" which is completely open to the sky. Fireman from Rome’s fire department scale the exterior of the dome and let the petals fall.

Open Book/Annunciation's Bestseller's List

For May 2007

(as of May 27, 2007)

What Books People who Read Amy's Open Book blog and Michael's Annunciation blog are buying this month.

1. Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

2. The DVD: Into Great Silence (Two-Disc Set)

3.A Pocket Guide to the Mass (A Pocket Guide to)

4. An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order

5. The Feast of Corpus Christi

Pope's Regina Coeli Message for Pentecost

From Asia News Italy:

“In this extraordinray event – he continued – we find the essential and qualifying characteristics of the Church: the Church is one, as was the community of Pentecost gathered in prayer and 'agreement': ‘the community of believers was of one heart and mind' (Acts; 4,32). The Church is holy, not because of its own merits, but because it is animated by the Holy Spirit, it keeps its gaze fixed on Christ, so as to become one with Him and his love. The Church is Catholic, because the Gospel is destined for all peoples, thus from the very begining, the Holy Spirit makes it so it is announced in all tongues. The Church is apostolic, because it has been built upon the cornerstone of the Apostles, and is the faithful custodian of their teachings down through the unbroken line of episcopal succession”.

Moreover, the “Catholic” characteristic of the Church, capable of reaching out to all peoples in all languages, also renders it “missionary”. “The Church – continued the pontiff – is in its very nature a missionary Church, and since the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit has ceaselessly propelled it and continues to guide it along the world's paths, to the very edges of the earth and the end of all time”.

The pope then added a further, “essential point”: the Church is also “Roman”, not in the context of geographical limitations, but as an expression of its catholic and missionary nature : “In the Acts of the Apostles - explained the pope - … the passage of the Gospel from the Jews to the pagans, from Jerusalem to Rome is described. Rome represents the pagan world, thus all of the nations of people who are beyond the circle of God's ancient people. In fact, the Acts conclude with the arrival of the Gospel in Rome. Thus we can say that Rome is synonymous of Catholicism and Mission, it expresses faithfulness to the origins, to the Church of all times, to a Church which speaks all languages and to all cultures”.

Mary and the Muslims

From the National Rosary Crusade, written many years ago by the Servant of God Bishop Fulton Sheen:

MARY
The Qu'ran, which is the Bible for the Muslims, has many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin. First of all, the Qu'ran believes in her Immaculate Conception, and also in her Virgin Birth. The third chapter of the Qu'ran places the history of Mary's family in a genealogy which goes back through Abraham, Noah, and Adam. When one compares the Qu'ran's description of the birth of Mary with the apocryphal Gospel of the birth of Mary, one is tempted to believe that Mohammed very much depended upon the latter. Both books describe the old age and the definite sterility of the mother of Mary. When, however, she conceives, the mother of Mary is made to say in the Qu'ran: "O Lord, I vow and I consecrate to you what is already within me. Accept it from me."

When Mary is born, the mother says: And I consecrate her with all of her posterity under thy protection, O Lord, against Satan!"

The Qu'ran passes over Joseph in the life of Mary, but the Muslim tradition knows his name and has some familiarity with him. In this tradition, Joseph is made to speak to Mary, who is a virgin. As he inquired how she conceived Jesus without a father, Mary answered:

Do you not know that God, when he created the wheat had no need of seed, and that God by his power made the trees grow without the help of rain? All that God had to do was to say, 'So be it, and it was done.'

The Qu'ran was also verses on the Annunciation, Visitation, and Nativity. Angels are pictured as accompanying the Blessed Mother and saying: "Oh, Mary, God has chosen you and purified you, and elected you above all the women of the earth." In the nineteenth chapter of the Qu'ran there are 41 verses on Jesus and Mary. There is such a strong defense of the virginity of Mary here that the Qu'ran, in the fourth book, attributed the condemnation of the Jews to their monstrous calumny against the Virgin Mary.

FATIMA
Mary, then, is for the Muslims the true Sayyida, or Lady. The only possible serious rival to her in their creed would be Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed himself. But after the death of Fatima, Mohammed wrote: "Thou shalt be the most blessed of all women in Paradise, after Mary." In a variation of the text, Fatima is made to say, "I surpass all the women, except Mary."

This brings us to our second point: namely, why the Blessed Mother, in the 20th century, should have revealed herself in the insignificant little village of Fatima, so that to all future generations she would be known as "Our Lady of Fatima." Since nothing ever happens out of Heaven except with a finesse of all details, I believe that the blessed Virgin chose to be known as "Our Lady of Fatima" as a pledge and a sign of hope to the Muslim people, and as an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day accept her divine Son too.

Evidence to support these views is found in the historical fact that the Muslims occupied Portugal for centuries. At the time when they were finally driven out, the last Muslim chief had a beautiful daughter by the name of Fatima. A Catholic boy fell in love with her, and for him she not only stayed behind when the Muslims left, but even embraced the faith. The young husband was so much in love with her that he changed the name of the town where he lived to Fatima. Thus, the very place where our lady appeared in 1917 bears a historical connection to Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.

The final evidence of the relationship of Fatima to the Muslims is the enthusiastic reception which the Muslims in Africa, India, and elsewhere gave to the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Muslims attended the church services in honor of our Lady, they allowed religious processions and even prayers before their mosques; and in Mozambique, the Muslims who were unconverted, began to be Christian as soon as the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was erected.

Cardinal Martini Praises Pope's Jesus of Nazareth

From Catholic World News:

Cardinal Martini, an influential and outspoken prelate who has sometimes clashed with the Vatican because of his liberal views, described Jesus of Nazareth as "a great and ardent testimony to Jesus of Nazareth and his significance for the history of mankind."

Noting that the Pope had asked readers to consider his book "in a spirit of freedom" rather than as an authoritative teaching, Cardinal Martini observed that the book is not the work of a Scripture scholar, and has "little faults." But he balanced that criticism by saying that the Pope writes as a theologian "who moves easily through the exegetical literature of his time." Cardinal Martini pointed to what he saw as three strengths in the Pope's work: a willingness to examine the life of Jesus in the context of all human history; a determined effort to "anchor the Christian faith in its Jewish roots;" and a skepticism about the historical-critical approach to Scripture, which in turn means "rejecting any contradiction between faith and history."

Quote from the Pope's Jesus of Nazareth

In a word, the true morality of Christianity is love, an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself. (page 99...emphasis mine)

This quote occurs in the section on the Sermon on the Mount. I thought the play on the word "exodus" was brilliant and much needed in a time when the meaning of love (the subject of Deus Caritas Est)is so self-absorbed that it often rings hollow to the modern audience.

Atheist Wilson Gives $22.5 Million for Catholic Fund

From Bloomberg:

Wilson, 80, said in a phone interview today that although he is an atheist, he has no problem donating money to a fund linked to Catholic schools.

``Let's face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,'' Wilson said. ``Shunning religious organizations would be abhorrent. Keep in mind, I'm helping to pay tuition. The money isn't going directly to the schools.''

Bishop Testifies Immigration Reform 'Crucial'

Orlando's Bishop Wenski, from the Orlado Sentinel:

Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, representing the U.S. Catholic Church and its immigrant tradition, testified to a House committee today that reform of the system is crucial.

Wenski appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration as the topic gathered momentum and the Senate debated a compromise bill negotiated in part by Sen. Mel Martinez, R- Fla.

"As providers of pastoral and social services to immigrants throughout the nation, we in the Catholic Church witness the human consequences of a broken immigrant system every day in our parishes, social services programs, hospitals and schools," Wenski said in written testimony. "Families are divided, migrant workers are exploited and abused, and human beings unnecessarily die in the American desert."

Pope Recalls Injustices Done to Indigenous Peoples

In his weekly audience, from Asia News Italy, (I actually watched this audience live this morning on EWTN without any commentary--which was like being there and even though I know next to no Italian, I knew from the words that he was addressing this issue):

In his address, Benedict XVI re-evoked various highlights of his journey, during which he said he aimed to impress the theme of the relationship between faith and culture, which in the Latin American continent has created history, life experiences and art. But, he added, “Memories of the glorious past cannot ignore the shadows which accompany the history of evangelization. We cannot ignore the suffering and injustices imposed on the indigenous populations”, as already condemned, he recalled, by theologians such as Bartholomew de Las Casas. Thus within the continent the Gospel became “has expressed and continues to express the identity of the peoples in this region and provides inspiration to address the challenges of our globalize era”. “The Catholic identity is the most adequate because it is animated by the principals of the Churches Social Doctrine” and the Church in order to contribute to resolving socio-economic problems, “must mobilize all of its strength to converge with others who work for the common good”. In fact, “Brazil is an example for other countries of this new model for development” and “Christian culture can animate ‘reconciliation’ between mankind and creation, starting from a recovery of human dignity in relation to God the Father”.

The Pope's Answer to Islam: Quotes from Jesus of Nazareth

It is in Jesus that the promise of the new prophet is fulfilled. What was true of Moses only in a fragmentary form is now fully realized in the person of Jesus.: He lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father.(page 6)

Ultimately the Introduction of the pope's book is an apologetic to make this point that Jesus is the prophesied prophet of Deuteronomy 18:18-19 and he comes back to this point throughout the book.

I was mentioning this to a friend, who on hearing this said that this struck him as a direct response to Islam that often uses this passage, as well as Jesus' prophesies of sending the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) as pointing to "the Prophet" meaning Muhammad. There are number of examples of this on the internet, I quote from one of them...From the Islamic Voice, which has a detailed apologetic for Muhammad being the prophesied prophet(I qoute only the beginning, go to the web site for the fuller treatment):

An clear cut biblical prophecy for Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) is found in the fifth Book of Moses. Though much has been written about it, always useful to mention it whenever the subject occurs. The prophecy (in the words of New International Version) reads as follows:

"I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brothers: I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the Prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account." (Devt. 18:18-19)

The following points of the prophecy are worth elaborations with the point of view of comparative religious study, as the Christian brethren are led to be believe that the above prophecy was for Jesus Christ.

I will raise for them: Raising up "is the exact terminology Qur'an has repeatedly used for a prophet: The Arabic equivalent is 'Ba-asa'. Nowhere in the new Testament these words have been used for 'Jesus Christ'.