Tag Archives: Pope

Will Benedict Still Be ‘Pope’? | Daily News | NCRegister.com

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Will Benedict Still Be ‘Pope’? | Daily News | NCRegister.com.

In his letter, Pope Benedict announced that he would step down from “the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, entrusted to me by the cardinals on April 19, 2005, in such a way, that as from Feb. 28, 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff …”

The Pope signed his letter of resignation “BENEDICTUS PP. XVI,” and Bishop Paprocki noted that it “simply means that he is the sixteenth pope by the name ‘Benedict.’ That is a historical fact that will never change.”

Term of Endearment

Bishop Paprocki then suggested that Catholics should view the word “pope” as “an honorific, even a term of endearment (‘papa’ in Italian). It is not the title of an ecclesiastical office.”

Thus, just as Catholics continue to call a priest “Father,” even though “he has resigned from the office of pastor,” so Italians probably “will continue to call Pope Benedict Papa Benedetto even after he leaves office as the Bishop of Rome,” predicted the bishop, who lived in Rome for three and a half years while studying canon law.

“I don’t think people will have a hard time wrapping their minds around having a pope who is no longer the Roman pontiff, bishop of Rome, etc. Certainly, in direct address, one would never address him as anything but ‘Your Holiness.’”

That said, Bishop Paprocki added that it “would be best to know what Pope Benedict himself wants to be called after February 28, and I hope he will tell us.”

While some experts have said that the Pope should be called “Cardinal Ratzinger” after he formally resigns, Bishop Paprocki did not think term seemed “correct.”

“If he had resigned before reaching the age of 80, after which a cardinal may no longer vote in a papal conclave, I do not think he would have, should have or could have donned a red cassock and entered the conclave in the Sistine Chapel to vote for his successor.

“Instead, at 8pm Rome time on Feb. 28, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI will have a new identity to which we will have to become accustomed: His Holiness, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, former Roman/supreme pontiff, bishop emeritus of Rome.”

Read more: National Catholic Register

For the Pope – Longest Round of Applause in History

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Group to honor Pope Benedict with longest round of applause in history

Whispers in the Loggia: At B16’s Window, A Big “Thank You”… While Behind the Walls, The “Showcase” Begins

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Whispers in the Loggia: At B16’s Window, A Big “Thank You”… While Behind the Walls, The “Showcase” Begins.

Drawing a crowd at least four or five times its normal size, a throng estimated at well over 100,000 people swarmed St Peter’s Square today for the Pope’s noontime Angelus – the next-to-last Sunday greeting from B16 before his resignation takes effect in 11 days.

Unlike the Wednesday Audience, no tickets are required for the pontiff’s weekly appearance at his study window. It was reported yesterday that the lone remaining mid-week gathering – on the 27th – has already seen 35,000 requests for tickets, and will be moved into the Square from its usual winter venue inside the 7,000-seat Paul VI Hall.

(On-demand video of the gathering is available through the Holy See’s streaming HD player.)

Keeping his usual focus on the day’s Gospel, the departing Popespoke of this First Sunday of Lent’s traditional account of Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the desert.

Quoting his favorite saint – Augustine, the subject of his doctoral dissertation in theology as a young priest, and a figure on whom he’s sought to model himself – Benedict reminded the crowd that “Jesus took our temptations on himself to give us his victory over them.”read more………..

The War of the Two Councils: The True and the False

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by Sandro Magister

ROME, February 15, 3103 – To the priests of his diocese, with whom he met yesterday for the last time before leaving, Benedict XVI wanted to deliver “a little chat on Vatican Council II, as I have seen it.”

In reality, the “little chat” lasted for almost 40 minutes, with the audience very much attentive throughout.

Joseph Ratzinger spoke off the cuff, without ever looking at any notes.

He proceeded according to major chapter divisions, each of them dedicated to the main questions faced one after another by the Council: the liturgy, the Church, revelation, ecumenism, religious freedom, the relationship with Judaism and the other religions.

For each of these themes he said what was at stake and recounted how the conciliar fathers addressed it. With passages of great interest on the concept of the People of God and on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition.

But to everything he added an introduction and a conclusion that particularly impressed those present.

THE INTRODUCTION

Benedict XVI began with an anecdote, telling about when Cardinal Frings had invited him, a young theologian, to write him an outline for a conference that he would have to give in Genoa, at the request of Cardinal Siri, on the topic of “the Council and modern thought.”

The outline pleased the cardinal, who read it just as the young Ratzinger had written it for him. But the best part came afterward:

“A little while later Pope John called Frings, and he was full of trepidation that he may have said something incorrect, something false, and that he had been called upon for a rebuke, perhaps even to have the scarlet taken away.

Among the bishops of the whole world, those who had the most definite intentions from the start were the episcopates of France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, what was called the “Rhenish alliance.” In the first part of the Council “they were therefore the ones who pointed out the way, but the activity was quickly widened and everyone participated more and more in the creativity of the assembly.”” read more…

 

 

THE CONCLUSION

 

 

At the conclusion of the conversation, Benedict XVI instead subjected to criticism the relationship that has been established between the “true Council” and the “Council of the media,” between the real Council and the virtual one.

 

Here it is best to consult the literal and complete transcription of his words:

 

“I would now like to add another point: there was the Council of the fathers – the true Council – but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a Council unto itself, and the world perceived the Council through these, through the media.

 

“Therefore the Council that immediately and efficiently arrived to the people was that of the media, not that of the fathers. And while the Council of the fathers was realized within the faith, and was a Council of the faith that seeks ‘intellectus,’ that seeks to understand itself and seeks to understand the signs of God at that moment, that seeks to respond to the challenge of God at that moment and to find in the word of God the word for today and tomorrow, while the whole Council – as I have said – was moving within the faith, as ”fides quaerens intellectum,’ the Council of the journalists was not realized, naturally, within the faith, but within the categories of today’s media, meaning outside of the faith, with a different hermeneutic.

 

“It was a political hermeneutic. For the media, the Council was a political struggle, a power struggle between different currents in the Church. It was obvious that the media were taking sides with that part which seemed to them to have the most in common with their world. There were those who were seeking the decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the expression “people of God,” the power of the people, of the laity. There was this threefold question: the power of the pope, then transferred to the power of the bishops and to the power of all, popular sovereignty. Naturally, for them this was the side to approve of, to promulgate, to favor.

 

“And so also for the liturgy: the liturgy was not of interest as an act of faith, but as a matter where understandable things are done, a matter of community activity, a profane matter. And we know that there was a tendency, that was also founded historically, to say: sacrality is a pagan thing, perhaps even in the Old Testament, but in the New all that matters is that Christ died outside: that is, outside of the gates, meaning in the profane world. A sacrality therefore to be brought to an end, profanity of worship as well: worship is not worship but an act of the whole, of common participation, and thus also participation as activity.

 

“These translations, trivializations of the idea of the Council were virulent in the praxis of the application of liturgical reform; they were born in a vision of the Council outside of its proper key, that of faith. And thus also in the question of Scripture: Scripture is a book, historical, to be treated historically and nothing else, and so on.

 

“We know how this Council of the media was accessible to all. Therefore, this was the dominant, more efficient one, and has created so much calamity, so many problems, really so much misery: seminaries closed, convents closed, liturgy trivialized. . . . And the true Council had difficulty in becoming concrete, in realizing itself; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council.

 

“But the real power of the Council was present and, little by little, is realizing itself more and more and becomes the true power that then is also true reform, true renewal of the Church. It seems to me that, fifty years after the Council, we see how this virtual Council is breaking up, is becoming lost, and the true Council is appearing with all of its spiritual power. And it is our task, precisely in this Year of Faith, beginning from this Year of Faith, to work in order that the true Council, with its power of the Holy Spirit, may be realized and that the Church may really be renewed. Let us hope that the Lord may help us. I, retired with my prayer, will always be with you, and together we will go forward with the Lord. In the certainty: the Lord triumphs!”

. . . Yes, when his secretary was dressing him for the audience with the pope he said: ‘Perhaps now I am wearing this robe for the last time.’ Then he went in. Pope John came to meet him, embraced him and said: ‘Thank you, Your Eminence, you have said the things that I wanted to say, but could not find the words.’ In this way the cardinal knew that he was on the right path, and he invited me to go with him to the Council, first as his personal expert and then also as an official peritus.”

Benedict XVI then continued:

“We went to the Council not only with joy, but with enthusiasm. The anticipation was incredible. We were hoping that everything would be renewed, that a new Pentecost would come, a new era of the Church, because the Church was still robust enough at that time, but it seemed more a reality of the past than of the future. And so we were hoping that this would change, that the Church would once again be strength for tomorrow and strength for today.” read more…

Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival

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It’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another.  Join us to read and contribute if you like. To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival, and leave a link to your  snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing. Here are my contributions from the past week:

Lenten Springtime

Lent

Suddenly in Time

Proof of Fasting

No Nobel Prize, BUT Remember THIS WOMAN

Pope Tweeted

New Pope by Easter?

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It is being said that a Conclave will be held in mid-March.  Living in interesting times is indeed a challenge.  Are we up to it? Jesus Christ would say, as He does always: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) Yes, we are up to any challenge in Christ Jesus, and He hasn’t and will never resign.  He is alive and well and reigning at the right hand of the Father and present in the power of His Holy Spirit with us now and forever.

And the People of God say, “AMEN”

Perhaps, Easter will see us welcoming a new pope to the Chair of Peter. If we are called to wait longer, our great strength is our faith  We will wait in hope and great expectation during the Easter season as Christ reigns now and forever.
Catechism of the Catholic ChurchL

857     The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles, in three ways:

  • she was and remains built on “the foundation of the Apostles,” the witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself;
  • with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching, the “good deposit,” the salutary words she has heard from the apostles;
  • she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ’s return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops, “assisted by priests, in union with the successor of Peter, the Church’s supreme pastor”:You are the eternal Shepherd
    who never leaves his flock untended.
    Through the apostles
    you watch over us and protect us always.
    You made them shepherds of the flock
    to share in the work of your Son. …

The Apostles’ mission

858     Jesus is the Father’s Emissary. From the beginning of his ministry, he “called to him those whom he desired; . … And he appointed twelve, whom also he named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach.” From then on, they would also be his “emissaries” (Greek apostoloi). In them, Christ continues his own mission: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” The apostles’ ministry is the continuation of his mission; Jesus said to the Twelve: “he who receives you receives me.”

859     Jesus unites them to the mission he received from the Father. As “the Son can do nothing of his own accord,” but receives everything from the Father who sent him, so those whom Jesus sends can do nothing apart from him, from whom they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out. Christ’s apostles knew that they were called by God as “ministers of a new covenant,” “servants of God,” “ambassadors for Christ,” “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

860     In the office of the apostles there is one aspect that cannot be transmitted: to be the chosen witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church. But their office also has a permanent aspect. Christ promised to remain with them always. The divine mission entrusted by Jesus to them “will continue to the end of time, since the Gospel they handed on is the lasting source of all life for the Church. Therefore, … the apostles took care to appoint successors.”

The bishops — successors of the apostles

861     “In order that the mission entrusted to them might be continued after their death, [the apostles] consigned, by will and testament, as it were, to their immediate collaborators the duty of completing and consolidating the work they had begun, urging them to tend to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had appointed them to shepherd the Church of God. They accordingly designated such men and then made the ruling that likewise on their death other proven men should take over their ministry.”

862     “Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops.” Hence the Church teaches that “the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ.”

 
Let Us Pray. -
O God!
our refuge and our strength,
look down with favour on Thy people who cry to Thee;
and through the intercession of the glorious
and Immaculate Virgin Mary,
Mother of God,
of Saint Joseph her Spouse,
of Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul,
and of all the Saints,
in mercy and goodness 
hear our prayers for the conversion of sinners,
and for the liberty and exaltation 
of our holy Mother the Church.
Through the same Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Holy Michael Archangel,
defend us in the hour of conflict;
be our safeguard against the wickedness
and snares of the devil. -
May God restrain him,
we humbly pray;
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell,
and with him the other wicked spirits,
who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Amen.