Notizie varie-dal sito di Corpus

Traduzione di Stefania Salomone


Gantin se n’è andato

Il cardinale Bernardin Gantin, nativo del Benin, diventato uno dei prelati più influenti dell’Africa nella storia moderna della chiesa, è morto questo pomeriggio in un ospedale di Parigi.

 

Il decano emerito del Collegio dei Cardinali, collaboratore ed alleato di vecchia data di papa Benedetto, aveva 86 anni.

Ordinato vescovo a 35 anni e promosso all’arcivescovado della sua regione nativa Cotonou ad ovest dell’Africa tre anni dopo, Gantin fu portato a Roma da Paolo VI, che lo nominò n. 2 di Propaganda Fide, il dicastero Vaticano che coordina le attività delle missioni. Sei anni dopo, nel concistoro conclusivo, papa Montini gli conferì la veste cardinalizia e la co-direzione del reparto umanitario e di giustizia sociale della Santa Sede, il Consiglio Pontificio per la Giustizia e la Pace, nonché di Cor Unum.

Nel 1984, Giovanni Paolo II incluse Gantin nelle altissime sfere della Curia nominandolo capo della Congregazione dei Vescovi, una carica che procurò al maestoso e riservato prelato, un posto in prima linea nell’episcopato da ricostituire ad immagine e somiglianza di Wojtyla, e che, secondo I tipici legami dei vescovi con la Commissione Pontificia per l’America Latina, includeva la responsabilità di fungere da legame con Roma per tutti gli affari a sud della linea di confine.

Nei giusti tempi, ciascuno dei suoi vice divenne cardinale, e due di questi gli successero nel ruolo di prefetto: dapprima il brasiliano domenicano Lucas Moreira Neves, poi l’italiano Giovanni Battista Re, cardinale ancora molto influente tra i berretti rossi. Dopo il suo arrivo nella congregazione, Gantin prese ben volentieri sotto la sua ala un giovane segretario di Pittsburgh il quale, alla fine dell’anno scorso, è diventato il primo cardinale del Sud America.

Mentre il cardinale finì per essere l’ultimo assistente del pontefice nella scelta dei vescovi, fino alle dimissioni del 1998, Gantin continuò a fare carriera, dapprima diventando il promo prelate africano eletto "primo fra i pari" del senato papale – una posizione che lo ha visto presiedere sull’organizzazione dei funerali di Giovanni Paolo e al successivo conclave. Dato l’obbligo del decano di risiedere a Roma, comunque, il cardinale chiese al papa di allora di essere dimesso dalla carica per poter tornare in Benin, richiesta che Giovanni Paolo accettò poco prima che Gantin compisse 80 anni, nel 2002. Alla successione i sei cardinali e vescovi – esperti curiali a capo delle diocese sufraganee intorno a Roma – elessero l’allora Cardinale Joseph Ratzinger, suo compagno di classed al "concistoro Benelli" del 1977, il cui operato in qualità di decano durante l’interregno del 2005 ha fugato ogni dubbio tra i membri del collegio che già lo sostenevano come prossimo pontefice.

In una famosa dichiarazione rilasciata poco prima di dimettersi, poi spesso citata,  Gantin attaccò violentemente ciò che definiva "l’ambizione di carriera" che contraddistingueva molti prelati, alcuni dei quali avevano fatto "enormi pressioni per la promozione" sul prefetto.

La richiesta dei cardinali di un ritorno alle antiche tradizioni per cui un vescovo restasse legato alla diocesi di appartenenza fu subito ripresa dall’allora prefetto della CDF – il quale "tristemente" ammise "io stesso non sono stato fedele al mio primo incarico episcopale". Alla fine, gli anni che seguirono non hanno visto un rafforzamento della politica "del legame episcopale" come segno distintivo per decidere le promozioni … in poche parole, sebbene in via ufficiosa, la fedeltà prevale.

Il consueto telegramma di condoglianze di papa Benedetto sarà inviato questa mattina. Secondo le prime notizie, il funerale del cardinale si terrà in Benin.


SVILUPPO: Nelle dichiarazioni rilasciate al giornale La Croix, il portavoce della Santa Sede, Fr Federico Lombardi SJ ha detto che a Roma "siamo molto addolorati".

Il direttore dell’Ufficio Stampa della Santa Sede ha definite Gantin "un uomo straordinario, una grande figura, molto amata in Curia", che ha utilizzato il suo ministero per "lavorare per l’Africa".

"Ci ha lasciato una bellissima testimonianza" ha aggiunto Lombardi,


E’ la stagione

Come di consueto, a maggio e giugno si concentra il grosso delle ordinazioni presbiterali, e quest’anno non farà eccezione.

Tra gli altri, sette della diocese di Toronto, cinque di Detroit e sabato sei sia per New York che per Miami; Chicago avrà 11 nuovi preti il prossimo week-end e entro il prossimo mese Rockford, Boston e DC conteranno ciascuna sette nuovi ordinandi; Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Knoxville, Santa Fe e Paterso, rispettivamente 3 ciascuna, quatto per Saginaw, nove a Rockville Centre e altri ancora…

In totale, il rapporto ufficiale annuale del CARA (Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate) ha riscontrato che circa un terzo degli ordinandi statunitensi sono stranieri, solo un terzo è sui vent’anni e il 9% è costituito da religiosi convertiti (3 dal giudaismo); il più anziano ha 76 anni (uno dei cinque over 60).
L’età media del gruppo si attesta sui 37 anni.

Riflettendo sulla situazione delle comunità Filippine o Vietnamite nel reclutamento dei preti della Chiesa Irlandese, gli ordinandi dell’Asia Pacifica comprendono il 12% di statunitensi, quattro volte la grandezza delle comunità dei 70 milioni di cattolici americani. Per contro, sebbene i cattolici ispanici rappresentino più di un terzo dei fedeli della nazione, molti meno compaiono tra le fila dei candidate all’ordinazione.  Così anche il Messico equipara il Vietnam quanto a candidati stranieri nelle diocesi americane.

Per almeno un altro anno vige lo slogan  "persone, non parole" – il CARA riferisce che "relativamente pochi ordinandi affermano che la TV, la radio o la pubblicità, o gli appelli di altre denominazioni siano state strumentali nel loro processo di discernimento" (I mezzi con maggiore presa sono ovviamente i siti web, ma solo per il 14% di loro). Mantenendo l’adagio che "la migliore pubblicità per le vocazioni sono preti felici", quattro su cinque hanno dichiarato di aver risposto all’invito di un altro prete per decidere di iniziare la formazione o almeno per pensarci su, con "la loro testimonianza personale, preti, frati e altri seminaristi" figurano tra i fattori più citati che spingono al discernimento. Inoltre il 44% dei candidate afferma di essere stato impegnato in parrocchia prima del seminario e uno su cinque di aver partecipate alle Giornate Mondiali della Gioventù.

Collegato a questo la stessa Conferenza Episcopale Statunitense ha lavorato molto per le vocazioni, e lo stesso ha fatto Mons.
Ed Burns prima di tornare a Pittsburgh … dove da sette mesi, il vescovo David Zubick sta portando avanti una energica battaglia, sembra suscitando molto interesse:

Più di 80 tra ragazzi giovani e adulti nella diocesi di Pittsburgh hanno partecipato ad un incontro di orientamento giovedì scorso, organizzato per coloro che hanno interesse per il presbiterato, seguito da un’oretta di preghiera per le vocazioni.

"Lo spirito si sta muovendo", ha detto Zubik.


I partecipanti, che sono intervenuti ad un pranzo all’aperto nel Seminairio di St. Paul a East Carnegie, hanno fatto una visita del seminario e parlato singolarmente col vescovo riguardo il senso del presbiterato. La loro età spaziava dagli studenti di scuola superiore fino a uomini più adulti già impegnati nel lavoro, tra cui il più anziano raggiungeva i 51 anni.. Poi hanno raggiunto le 600 persone di tutta la diocesi già riunite in preghiera per le vocazioni, stipate oltre la capienza dell’auditorium, fin nel corridoio.

"Non ho mai visto l’auditorium così pieno", ha detto il vescovo Zubik, da poco dimesso da vescovo di Squirrel Hill e diventato vescovo di Pittsburgh, per andare a vivere a St. Paul a contatto con i seminaristi.

Infine, dato che il paradigma vocazionale – come ogni altra cosa – si sta spostando verso sud, il Seminario della Santa Trinità di Dallas ha nominato il nuovo rettore al posto del vescovo Mike Duca, trasferito alla diocesi di Shreveport il 31 marzo.

Fino ad oggi pastore e vicario generale della sua diocesi di Fort Worth, Fr. Michael Olson è un ex-studente della Catholic University of America, grazie alla prestigiosa Borsa di Studio Basselin. Specialista di bioetica, Olson, ordinato nel 1994, sta seguendo un dottorato in teologia morale all’Università Alfonsiana di Roma.

Mentre Duca prepara la sua ordinazione di lunedì in Louisiana, il suo successore ha già svolto la prima visita al seminario dell’Irving Campus presto questa mattina. Luogo di formazione di 28 studenti delle diocese Texane, Olson assume il rettorato della Santa Trinità a partire dal 1 luglio.


75 anni, ancora "in pellegrinaggio"

 

Nel week-end, il 75° anniversario della fondazione dei Lavoratori Cattolici commemorato alla sede del Washington Post …

 

Cinque famiglie senza tetto vivono nella casa di 13 stanze aperta nel 1981. Il giovedì pomeriggio, la comunità distribuisce il cibo nelle piazze McPherson e Lafayette. Il lunedì mattina, si svolge la consueta veglia contro la Guerra davanti al Pentagono che viene replicata a mezzogiorno del venerdì davanti alla Casa Bianca.


Come la Day, i Lavoratori Cattolici di Washington sono pacifisti. Come lei, sono poveri per scelta e fedeli ai sacramenti cattolici. E quando gli Stati Uniti scendono in guerra, vengono arrestati durante manifestazioni non violente, accusati di disobbedienza civile.  

Era il 1 maggio del 1933 quando Dorothy Day, allora 36enne, si recò ad un incontro comunista nella Union Square di New York. Lavorava in tempo di depressione, distribuendo il suo giornale di otto pagine, il Catholic Worker. C’erano articoli sulla povertà, la disoccupazione e l’ingiustizia inclusi di solito nel suo editoriale che spiegava l’obiettivo della pubblicazione: "… per coloro che sono stipati negli scaffali cercando di fuggire dalla pioggia. Per coloro che pensano che non ci sia più speranza per il future, nessun riconoscimento del loro dolore – a queste persone è rivolto il giornale. Viene stampato per richiamare la loro attenzione sul fatto che la chiesa cattolica ha un programma sociale, per far loro sapere che ci sono uomini di Dio che lavorano non solo per il loro benessere spirituale, ma anche per quello materiale".

Dalla data della morte della Day, nel 1980, quando aveva 83 anni, a Manhattan Lower East Side, dove ha vissuto mezzo secolo con i poveri e gli ultimo, è nata una speculazione tale che il suo movimento poteva facilmente svanire senza l’energia della fondatrice.
Ma è successo il contrario. La casa di Rock Creek Church e le altre case di accoglienza dei 184 Lavoratori Cattolici  stanno portando avanti il servizio di carità in tutti gli Stati Uniti. Non accettano denaro federale e non chiedono esenzioni dalle tasse.

Dopo tre anni dalla prima stampa del giornale dei Lavoratori Cattolici, la tiratura da 2.500 copie arrivò a più di 150.000. Sempre otto pagine mensili, con una diffusione attuale di 25.000 copie, è il solo giornale di questo secolo che può vantare di aver mantenuto la stessa linea editoriale, lo stesso aspetto tipografico e lo stesso prezzo, un centesimo a copia.

Nella sua colonna dedicate "In pellegrinaggio", la Day spaziava dai reportage sulla mensa, dove si distribuiva minestra e pane, fino alla critica alla gerarchia ecclesiastica. Negli anni ’60, quando un cardinale andò alla Casa Bianca per una pregare con Richard Nixon e un altro cardinale andò in Vietnam per benedire gli aerie da Guerra statunitensi, la Day scrisse: "Quanta confusione dobbiamo sopportare quando un prelate cristiano spruzza acqua benedetta su ferraglia militare che lancia bombe contro i Santi Innocenti, la Nostra Signora della Misericordia; che benedice un uomo che sta per premere un bottone che lancia morte su 50.000 esseri umani, inclusi bambini, ragazzi, malati, anziani… "

Nei successive 50 anni, andò a messa tutti i giorni, pregò la liturgia delle ore, diede riparo a migliaia di disoccupati e senza tetto, scrisse otto libri, venne pedinata dall’FBI, accusata dai sindacati, imprigionata per disubbidienza civile (tanto spesso che una prigione di New York aveva una cella chiamata "la suite di Dorothy Day"), distribuì il suo giornale, non accettò compromessi nel suo impegno a favore della non-violenza, fu invitata da Eunice Kennedy Shriver a passare del tempo nella sua tenuta a Hyannisport per riposare un po’…
Alla sua morte il 29 novembre 1980, nessun vescovo pertecipò al rito funebre. Anni dopo, quando non poteva più dare fastidio con le sue accuse agli uomini di chiesa di favorire la guerra, si può tranquillamente crearla santa, Santa Dorothy. Promotore della sua causa di canonizzazione è il Cardinale John O’Connor di New York, di fronte al quale, cioè alla Cattedrale di St. Patrick dove era assegnato, sia la Day che i compagni Lavoratori Cattolici protestarono contro la guerra del Vietnam che sia il cardinale che i vicario cappellano militare statunitense avevano sostenuto.

Se la Day sarà mai canonizzata, potrà essere in qualità di patrona della "Santa Incongruenza".

(Correggendo un errore nell’articolo del Post, l’allora cardinale Terence Cooke, già Servo di Dio, per il quale è aperta una causa di canonizzazione – era presente al funerale della Day per salutare e benedire la salma dopo l’esposizione alla cappella della Visitazione di Manhattan).

… mentre CNS (Catholic News Service) ha pagato il suo tributo all’avvicinarsi dell’anniversario del movimento il 1° maggio:

75° anniversario o no, il pranzo deve essere servito alla Maryhouse, la casa di accoglienza dei Lavoratori Cattolici. Gente affamata sta aspettando, come ogni giorno.

Jane Sammon conosce la routine: ospitalità, pasti, colloqui, disponibilità per ogni esigenza delle persone. E’ stata a Maryhouse per quasi 36 anni dove arrive nell’estate del 1972 da Cleveland per vivere una vita di povertà e sacrificio personale impegnato nella carità. E’ uno stile di vita da ammirare, ma pochi se la sentono.

Maryhouse è un posto dove si cerca di rendere "poco a poco" migliore il mondo, come diceva spesso la fondatrice Dorothy Day, rifacendosi all’esempio di S. Teresa, il fiorellino di Gesù. E’ un luogo dove la gente è subito accolta nel rispetto della dignità personale. La Day voleva un posto dove Cristo si sarebbe sentito a casa.

"E’ una cosa sconvolgente che ha poco a che fare con noi", ha detto la Sammon, 60enne.
"E’ la grazia di Dio che ci manda avanti".

Ad oggi le case dei Lavoratori Cattolici sono tanto diverse quanto le persone che le gestiscono. Ogni casa è autonoma, senza regole formali a patto quella di portare avanti il lavoro con carità: saziare gli affamati, dare riparo ai senza tetto, curare gli ammalati, seppellire i morti.

Anche i tempi della preghiera variano. Alcuni membri delle comunità vanno di pari passo con gli insegnamenti della chiesa cattolica, mentre come dice Forest "altri attraversano la strada per non ricevere la benedizione del papa". La stragrande maggioranza è nel mezzo.

L’ospitalità assume diverse forme, da piccolo locali su strada, a case confortevoli per accogliere le persone di notte. Alcune comunità accolgono i sieropositivi. Altre accettano ragazze madri con i loro bambini o senza tetto con malattie mentali.

A Stillwater, Minn. La Solanus Casey House accoglie le madri senza tetto con i loro figli in due case restaurate del XIX secolo. "E’ una cosa del tutto ordinaria che noi facciamo", ha dichiarato il fondatore della casa Tom Loom in occasione della  National Catholic Prayer Breakfast di Washington lo scorso 18 aprile. "Si chiama cristianesimo. Non è una cosa originale ciò che facciamo, almeno speriamo che non sia tale".

Come già sottolineato, i diari mai pubblicati di Dorothy Day, la cui causa di canonizzazione va avanti speditamente – sono stati recentemente resi noti.



 

Il papa elogia il documento del 1968 contro la contraccezione



Papa Benedetto XVI, sabato scorso, ha detto che gli insegnamenti della chiesa cattolica romana sul controllo delle nascite sono complessi ma che il documento del 1968 che condannava la contraccezione è lodevole, così riporta il AP/International Herald Tribune. Benedetto si è così espresso durante un discorso per il 40° anniversario dell’Enciclica del 1968 di papa Paolo VI "Humanae Vitae" – un documento che vieta ai cattolici di utilizzare "metodi di controllo delle nascite".

Benedetto ha detto che gli insegnamenti cattolici contenuti nel documento "non sono facili", ma ha aggiunto "la verità espressa nella Humanae Vitae non cambia; al contrario, alla luce delle recenti scoperte scientifiche sembra sempre più attuale. Nessun mezzo artificiale può sostituire un atto d’amore che due persone unite in matrimonio si scambiano come segno di un grande mistero". Il papa ha detto di coltivare la speranza che i giovani "siano in grado di imparare il ero senso dell’amore e prepararsi ad esso con una adeguata educazione sessuale".

Benedetto ha inoltre messo in guardia contro il sesso che sta diventando una droga e il corpo umano un oggetto, riporta la Agence France-Presse. Perdendo di vista il legame tra corpo e anima significa "perdere il valore di una persona, cadendo preda del un grave pericolo di considerare in corpo come un oggetto che può essere comprato e venduto", ha aggiunto il papa.
(Agence France-Presse, 10 maggio).


Verità Difficili -
i ricordi
di Honor Moore.



Già molta gente, che abbia o meno letto il libro "The Bishop’s Daughter" (la figlia del vescovo), sa che si tratta di un testo in cui Honor Moore svela il nome del suo famoso padre, celebrato con tutti gli onori, esempio di virtù, un prete il cui abito sembrava porlo in disparte dalle passioni che angosciano un uomo qualunque. Ma la bisessualità di Paul Moore Jr – un fatto a conoscenza della famiglia e di pochi intimi – era un aspetto importante e non sublimato della sua persona. Non c’è modo di scrivere un libro su di lui o sul fatto di essere sua figlia che possa omettere tale sua caratteristica e il relativo impatto sulla famiglia.


"Ho capito finalmente", dice la Moore verso la fine del suo scritto "che il mio stesso sviluppo sessuale era inestricabilmente legato alle complicazioni della vita erotica di mio padre". Anche una scrittrice che possa supporre una lettura obiettiva rispetto alle sue confessioni, necessita coraggio e fiducia nell’accettare le proprie profonde interrelazioni sessuali – anche se non improprie, quindi psichiche e non fisiche – tra genitori e figli. Quando il padre in questione è anche un uomo di Dio, il concetto della sua purezza sessuale è più difficile da affrontare.

 

Testo originale

Traduzione di Stefania Salomone


Gantin Gone

Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, the Benin native who rose to become the most influential African prelate in the church’s modern history, died this afternoon in a Paris hospital.

The dean-emeritus of the College of Cardinals, long a close ally and collaborator of Pope Benedict, was 86.

Ordained a bishop at 35 and promoted to the archbishopric of his native Cotonou in the West African country three years later, Gantin was brought to Rome by Pope Paul VI, who named him in 1971 as #2 of the Propaganda Fide, the Vatican dicastery that supervises the activities of the missions. Six years later, at his final consistory, Papa Montini gave him the red hat and the merged leadership of the Holy See’s humanitarian and social-justice arms, the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace, and Cor Unum.

In 1984, John Paul II thrust Gantin into the Curia’s top rank by naming him prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, an appointment that put the reserved, stately prelate in the driver’s seat as the global episcopate was gradually remade in Wojtyla’s image and, given the traditional coupling of Bishops with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, included the responsibility of serving as Rome’s top liaison for affairs south of the border.

In time, each of his deputies at Bishops became cardinals, two of whom would succeed him as prefect: first the Brazilian Dominican Lucas Moreira Neves, then the Italian Giovanni Battista Re, the high-hat shop’s current head. Shortly after arriving at the congregation, Gantin likewise took under his wing a young minutante from Pittsburgh who, late last year, became the first cardinal of the American South.

While the cardinal served as the late pontiff’s lead bishop-maker until his retirement in 1998, Gantin made further history five years earlier by becoming the first African prelate elected as the "first among equals" of the papal senate -- a post which would’ve seen him preside over John Paul’s funeral and the subsequent conclave. Given the dean’s obligation to live in Rome, however, the cardinal had petitioned the then-Pope to be released from the task that he might return to Benin, a request John Paul acceded to shortly after Gantin’s 80th birthday in 2002. To succeed him, the six cardinal-bishops -- the senior curialists who serve as titular heads of the suffragan dioceses surrounding Rome -- elected then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, his "classmate" from the "Benelli consistory" of 1977, whose performance as dean during the 2005 interregnum arguably soothed many doubts among the college that wound up electing him to the papacy.

In an oft-cited quote made shortly after his retirement from Bishops, Gantin lashed out at what he called the "amazing careerism" he saw on the part of some prelates, some of whom had even placed a "definite pressure for advancement" on the prefect.

The cardinal’s call for a marked return to the ancient tradition of a bishop being wedded to his first diocese was subsequently backed up by the then-prefect of the CDF -- who "sadly" admitted that "I myself have not remained faithful" to his first episcopal assignment. In the end, the years since haven’t so much seen a reinforcement of policy on the "matrimonial bond" of bishops to their charges as a distinct change of profile among those getting the promotions... in a word, albeit in a more muted form, fidelity’s still won out.

Pope Benedict’s customary condolence telegrams will appear in the morning. According to early reports, the cardinal’s funeral will take place in Benin.

SVILUPPO: In comments to La Croix, the Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ said that, in Rome, "we are very sad."

The director of the Holy See Press Office called Gantin "an extraordinary man, a great figure" who was "much loved in the Curia" and used his Roman service to "work for Africa."

"He left us all with wonderful memories," Lombardi said.

’Tis the Season

Of course, May and June see the bulk of priestly ordinations ’round these parts, and this year is no exception.

Among others, Toronto added seven, Detroit five and, as previously noted, New York and Miami six to their respective long black lines on Saturday; Chicago’ll have eleven new priests come this weekend, and over the next month Rockford, Boston and DC will each commission seven ordinandi; Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Knoxville, Santa Fe and Paterson, three; four for Saginaw, nine in Rockville Centre, and on and on it goes....

In sum, the annual CARA report found that nearly a third of the US class of 400-plus new priests are foreign-born, only a third are in their twenties, and 9% are adult converts (including three from Judaism); the oldest of the class is 76 (one of five candidates 65 or older), the group’s average age is 37, median 32.

Reflecting the status of the Filipino and Vietnamese communities as the "new Irish" in priestly recruitment, Asian/Pacific ordinands comprise 12% of the Stateside group, four times the community’s size in the 70 million-member American Catholic fold. Conversely, though Hispanic Catholics comprise over a third of the national church’s membership, less than half that strength is reflected among this year’s ordination candidates. Even so, Mexico still tops Vietnam as the most-cited native country of the new crop’s foreign-born contingent.

For yet another year, "people, not paper" won the day -- CARA reports that "relatively few ordinands say that TV, radio, billboards, or other vocational advertising were instrumental in their discernment." (Most influential media, however: websites... but only for 14%.) Yet again proving the adage that "the best advertisement for priestly vocations is... a happy priest," four out of five responded that it was a priest’s invite to consider entering formation that got ’em thinking, with "personal witness of priests, brothers, and other seminarians" ranked first among the group’s most-cited factors toward discernment. In addition, forty-four percent of the group had participated in parish youth ministry prior to the seminary, and one in five had attended a World Youth Day pre-sem.

On a related note, the USCCB’s longtime lead hand on vocations work Msgr Ed Burns is returning home to Pittsburgh... where, seven months in, Bishop David Zubik’s energized outreach is already reaping a spike of interest:
More than 80 men and boys from the Diocese of Pittsburgh attended an inquiry meeting Thursday for those who think they might be interested in priesthood. It was followed by a standing-room-only hour of prayer for vocations.

"The spirit is moving," Bishop Zubik said.

The inquirers, who attended a cookout at St. Paul Seminary in East Carnegie, got a tour and a talk from the bishop on what priesthood is about. They ranged in age from older grade school students to professionals, the oldest of whom was 51. Then they joined nearly 600 other people from across the diocese to pray for more priests, with people standing five rows deep in the back and spilling out of the auditorium door to fill the lobby.

"I have never seen the seminary auditorium so packed," said Bishop Zubik, who gave up the traditional bishop’s mansion in Squirrel Hill when he became bishop of Pittsburgh last year to live at St. Paul with the seminarians.
..and finally, as -- like everything else -- the vocational map’s demographic center tilts increasingly toward the South, Dallas’ Holy Trinity Seminary has named its new rector in succession to Bishop-elect Mike Duca, who was named to the diocese of Shreveport on 31 March.

Until now a pastor and vicar-general in his home diocese of Fort Worth, Fr Michael Olson is an alum of the Catholic University of America’s prestigious Basselin Scholarship in philosophy. Long a specialist in bioethics, Olson -- ordained in 1994 -- is up for his STD in moral theology from the Alfonsiana in Rome.

As Duca wraps up his packing in advance of his Monday ordination in Louisiana, his successor-in-waiting made his first visit the seminary’s Irving campus earlier today. Home to 28 students in formation for dioceses across Texas, Olson formally assumes Holy Trinity’s rectorship on July 1st.

Keeping Shop... and the Office

It’s no secret that one of the more daunting -- but just as rewarding -- disciplines in ecclesial life is that of the Liturgy of the Hours, the church’s official daily prayer, which covers the 150 Psalms and a host of readings every month spread over a minimum of five daily "offices," four of which correspond to the time of day.

A mandatory practice for the professed and ordained, the structure of the Hours is a bit more flexible these days -- the pre-Conciliar Roman Breviary stipulated that Night Prayer was to be said before midnight, a rule which led some to pull over and read it from the glow of a headlight amid a late drive home. Even so, keeping the requirement can still seem daunting enough that, as he exhorted his priests to stay faithful to the "Divine Office" in his most recent Chrism Mass homily, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley OFM Cap. made a crack about the "breviary adjustment service."

"For a very reasonable fee of $25," O’Malley said that "the service provides that within hours after your death someone will go to your rectory and place the ribbons in your breviary in the proper corresponding places," adding that "there is a special supplementary service offered for Bishops.

"If the Bishop expires while reading the minutes of the presbyteral council they will come and put the Imitation of Christ in his hands," he said.

"It is what the Irish call cleaning up the obituary."

In recent decades, the Hours have become an ever-more popular option among the laity, reflected by a growing number of parishes returning to the practice of Sunday Vespers, with some places even turning to the Office before Daily Mass.

Among its devotees: an Arizona convenience store owner... whose one-volume breviary’s literally falling to pieces:
Abraham Samandar was born and raised in Jerusalem, and he has read and reread the "old stories" from in and around his historic hometown.

"I have read the Bible more than 10 times," he said.

A devout Roman Catholic, Samandar blends long hours of shopkeeping with adhering to strict traditional readings of the "Libro de las Horas" (Book of the Hours), which some observant Catholics read or recite at the canonical hours. Between customers at J&M Market in Mesa, he gathers up that tattered and mended book, along with his Bible. He dutifully reads the lengthy liturgies assigned for 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m.
?When he has no customers in the store, and that can be an hour at a time, Samandar may chant the words in that day’s liturgy.

"Sometimes they are two hours, sometimes an hour, but no less than a half-hour," he says of the readings.

Samandar may walk through the store aisles for exercise, or even around the parking lot in front of his shop, as he reads the Spanish texts.

He has owned the convenience store for nine years, but has no help. It means a 14-hour day — a long period away from his wife and six children ages 10 to 17. He says he calls the market "J&M" for two of his children, Joseph and Mary, solid biblical names. But, then, the previous owner also called it "J&M," and that owner had told Samandar he, too, had named it for his children, Joseph and Mary.

The anemic economy shows in his business. There are a lot of one- or two-item shoppers, mostly getting cigarettes, lottery tickets, beer and snacks....

He laments that he cannot carry on the same work in Arizona because of the demands of running his store. "It’s a different life here," he said. "Over there (Puerto Rico), you can close your store on Sunday, or you can take two or three days, but over here, you can’t. It’s not like there."

Once a week, Samandar has worked things out so that his wife of 21 years, Sawsan, comes from their Chandler home and watches the store, so he can attend Mass at St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church. After Mass, he’s back at the market.

The storekeeper had an uncle in Jerusalem who became a priest. "Once I thought about being a priest, but I can’t now because I am married," he said. "I wished God gave me another job so I could …" Samandar’s voice trailed off. "Maybe he is preparing me for something. I don’t know."...

Prayer sustains Samandar.

He finds comfort in the strict rigors of the Liturgy of the Hours, a practice and obligation that has been part of the Catholic Church tradition from its early centuries. Through time, the church has added or subtracted the number of canonical hours. For example there were eight before Vatican II (1962-65), but the "prime," or early morning prayer (6 a.m.) was "suppressed," or set aside. That left the matins (during the night), lauds at dawn, terce at 9 a.m., sext at noon, none (or midafternoon) prayer at 3 p.m., vespers, or evening prayer at the "lighting of the lamps" and compline, or night prayer before retiring.

According to church history, St. Benedict of Nursia (480 to 543) set up the Liturgy of the Hours as a monastic practice. The church says canon law requires priests to pray the full liturgy each day, and deacons are to pray during the morning and evening hours.

Out of Vatican II came the call to Christian lay people to carry out the practice to deepen their faith.

Typically at the start of each of the hours, one recites, "God come to my assistance. Lord make haste to help me."

Samandar’s hours book, given to him in 1995 by a Spanish priest in Puerto Rico, barely hangs together with cellophane tape, white string and the man’s firm clutch. "I’ve used it so much. That is why you see it like this," he said.

Some days he will start his readings at 9 a.m. and not finish until 11:30 p.m. His customers and the public see him walking with his book in the store and parking lot and engages him about his faith.

His dream is that his children grow up, study earnestly and find good jobs. "I am 63. Maybe I can work five years like this, but no more," he said.

Samandar said some customers ask what he is reading, talk to him about his religion and sometimes tell him they admire the example he sets.

"I need help from God," he explains. "I want to pray. We have the best when we pray to him. … He is our love."
Tip to the Bench.

75 Years, Still "On Pilgrimage"

Over the weekend, this month’s 75th anniversary of the founding of Catholic Worker was commemorated in the Washington Post...
Five ho
meless families live at the 13-room Worker house that opened in 1981. Thursday afternoons, the community distributes food at McPherson and Lafayette squares. On Monday mornings, it stages an antiwar vigil at the Pentagon, with another one at noon Fridays at the White House.

Like Day, Washington’s Catholic Workers are pacifists. Like her, they live in voluntary poverty and are loyal sacramental Catholics. And when the United States goes to war, they are often jailed on nonviolent protest, civil disobedience charges.

It was on May 1, 1933, when Dorothy Day, then 36, went to a Communist Party rally in New York’s Union Square. She worked the Depression-era crowd, handing out her eight-page newspaper, the Catholic Worker. Included with articles about poverty, unemployment and injustice was Day’s editorial laying out the paper’s mission: " . . . For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain. For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight -- this little paper is addressed. It is printed to call their attention to the fact the Catholic Church has a social program, to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual but for their material welfare."

Upon Day’s death in 1980 at age 83 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where she had lived a half-century with the Bowery’s lost and lonely, speculation arose that the communal movement would soon vanish without its founder’s energy. The opposite has happened. The Rock Creek Church Road house and the other 184 Catholic Wor ker houses of hospitality are carrying on the works of mercy and rescue in all parts of the United States. They accept no federal money and seek no tax exemption.

Three years after the first issue of the Catholic Worker newspaper, circulation rose from 2,500 copies to more than 150,000. Still eight pages published monthly, now with a circulation of 25,000, it is the country’s only paper that can rightly claim that it has held to one editorial line, one typographical layout and one price: a penny a copy.

In her column, "On Pilgrimage," Day ranged from reportage on the doings at the Worker’s soup and bread lines to criticism of the church hierarchy. In the 1960s, when a Catholic cardinal went to the White House for a prayer service with Richard Nixon and when another cardinal was in Vietnam blessing U.S. warplanes, Day unloaded: "What a confusion we have gotten into when Christian prelates sprinkle holy water on scrap metal to be used for obliteration bombing and name bombers for the Holy Innocents, for Our Lady of Mercy; who bless a man about to press a button which releases death to 50,000 human beings, including little babies, children, the sick, the aged . . "...

During the next 50 years, she would attend daily Mass, pray the monastic hours, feed and house uncounted thousands of jobless and homeless, write eight books, be hounded by the FBI, bond with labor unions, be imprisoned on civil disobedience charges (so often that a New York jail had a "Dorothy Day suite"), get the paper out, be uncompromising in her commitment to nonviolence and be invited by Eunice Kennedy Shriver to spend time in Hyannisport to take a break from all the frenzy....

After Day died Nov. 29, 1980, no Catholic bishop attended her Requiem Mass. Years later, when she was not around to rebuke churchmen for their just-war theories, it was safe to call on the Vatican to create Saint Dorothy. One promoter for sainthood was Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, in front of whose St. Patrick’s Cathedral Day and fellow Catholic Workers had often protested the Vietnam War that the cardinal, as the U.S. church’s military vicar, backed.

If Day ever is canonized, it might be as the patron saint of holy irony.
[Correcting an error in the Post piece, the late Cardinal Terence Cooke -- himself a Servant of God whose cause for canonization is open -- was present at Day’s funeral to greet and bless the body on its reception at Manhattan’s Visitation church.]

..while CNS paid its tribute as the movement’s 1 May anniversary approached:
Seventy-fifth anniversary or not, lunch still must be served at the New York Catholic Worker’s Maryhouse. Hungry people will be waiting, as they are every day.

Jane Sammon knows the routine: hospitality, meals, conversation, responding in whatever way possible to people in need. She’s been at Maryhouse for nearly 36 years, arriving in the summer of 1972 from Cleveland to live a life of voluntary poverty and personal sacrifice with a deep commitment to the works of mercy. It’s a way of life many admire but few venture to try.

Maryhouse is a place where the world is made better for people "little by little," as Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day often would say, recalling the example of St. Therese, the Little Flower of Jesus. It’s a place where people are readily welcomed and their human dignity is uplifted. Day wanted a place where Christ would feel at home.

"It’s an amazing thing that really has very little to do with us," said Sammon, 60. "It’s the grace of God that keeps us going."...

Today, Catholic Worker houses are as diverse as the people running them. Each house is autonomous with no formal rules except to carry out the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, burying the dead.

The depth of prayer and spirituality varies as well. Some community members walk in lock step with the Catholic Church while, as Forest said, "others would cross the street to not be blessed by the pope." The vast majority are somewhere in the middle.

Hospitality takes many forms, from storefront drop-in centers to comfortable places for people to lay their heads at night. Some communities welcome people with AIDS or HIV. Others accept single mothers and their children or homeless men, many facing addictions or mental illness.

In Stillwater, Minn., Solanus Casey House welcomes homeless mothers and their children in two restored 19th-century houses. "It’s an utterly ordinary thing we do," house founder Tom Loome told the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington April 18. "It is called Christianity. It is not original what we do. At least we hope it’s not original."
As previously noted, the once-sealed diaries of Dorothy Day -- whose cause for canonization continues apace -- were recently published.


Pope Praises 1968 Document Condemning Contraception
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/107228.php



Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday said that the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on birth control are complicated but that the church’s 1968 document that condemned contraception use is laudable, the AP/International Herald Tribune reports. Benedict was giving a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 "Humanae vitae," which translates to "On Human Life" -- a document that prohibits Catholics from using "artificial birth control" -- according to the AP/Herald Tribune.

Benedict said that teaching Catholics about the document "isn’t easy" but added, "The truth expressed in ’Humanae vitae’ doesn’t change; on the contrary, in the light of new scientific discoveries it is ever more up to date." He said, "No mechanical technique can substitute for the act of love that two married people exchange as a sign of greater mystery" (D’Emilio, AP/International Herald Tribune, 5/10). The pope said he hopes young people will be "able to learn the true meaning of love and prepare for it with proper sex education."

Benedict also warned against sex becoming a drug and the human body being seen only as an object, Agence France-Presse reports. Losing sight of the connection between body and soul could mean "losing the value of a person and falling prey to the serious danger of seeing the body as an object that can be bought and sold," the pope said (Agence France-Presse, 5/10).


Failing miserably at being poor for two days
By Jay Tokasz
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/342525.html


County Legislator Maria Whyte couldn’t do it. Nor could Common Council Member Michael Lo- Curto, United Way President Arlene F. Kaukus or the Rev. Ronald P. Sajdak of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church.

Challenged to spend no more than $9.25 a day, as part of a two-day exercise calling attention to area poverty, they all admitted failing miserably.

"You have to be 100 percent perfect, 100 percent of the time to make that budget," Whyte said.

The "poverty challenge" was put forward by the Homeless Alliance of Western New York, which earlier in the week called on community leaders and lawmakers to join in solidarity with the 30 percent of Buffalo residents who live at or below the federal poverty line of $866 (or $1,466 for a family of three) in income per month.

More than two dozen people, including religious leaders, heads of human service agencies and lawmakers, accepted the unusual invitation.

Sajdak, a Catholic priest, figured he would have less difficulty with the assignment than most people. "I did accept the challenge, and I found myself flunking it terribly," he said.

The alliance arrived at the $9.25 daily allotment by subtracting the cost of fair market rent in Buffalo, including utilities and repairs, as well as clothing costs.

Fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Buffalo is $513, according to the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Clothing is $76 per month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That leaves $277 for the month or, divided by 30 days, about $9.25 per day.


McCain Backer Regrets Comments on Catholics
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/14/us/politics/14hagee.html&tntemail1=y



The Rev. John C. Hagee, whose anti-Catholic remarks created a controversy when Senator John McCain received his endorsement for the Republican presidential nomination with fanfare, has issued a letter expressing regret for "any comments that Catholics have found hurtful."


The letter was issued after weeks of conversations between Mr. Hagee and Roman Catholic Republicans about repairing the damage to Mr. McCain’s campaign and the alliance built over many years between conservative Catholics and evangelicals.

Mr. McCain said Tuesday that he had not been involved in brokering the apology letter from Mr. Hagee, a megachurch pastor in San Antonio who broadcasts to 200 countries, but that he found it "a laudable thing."

Mr. McCain’s pursuit of Mr. Hagee’s endorsement came under renewed scrutiny recently as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, was embroiled in controversy over incendiary remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.



Difficult Truths
A Memoir.
By Honor Moore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/books/review/Harrison-t.html



Already many people, whether or not they’ve read "The Bishop’s Daughter," know it as the book in which Honor Moore outs her famous father, a man celebrated as a paragon of virtue, a priest whose vestments seemed to set him apart from passions that sully ordinary men. But Paul Moore Jr.’s bisexuality — a fact previously known only to family and a few friends — was an important and decidedly not sublimated aspect of his essential self. There is no way to write a book about him, or about being his daughter, that fails to consider its place in his life and its impact on his family.

"I came to understand," Moore reflects toward the end of her memoir, "that my own sexual development was inextricably tied up with my father’s complicated erotic life." Even a writer who can assume a readership inured to every possible confession requires courage and the confidence of knowing and accepting her deepest self to acknowledge a sexual interrelation — although one that is not improper, psychic rather than physical — between parent and child. When the father in question is also a man of God, the conceit of his sexual purity is all the more difficult to challenge.


A Womb Without a Woman
 by William Saletan
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/default.aspx



Today I’ve been reading up on the trans-Atlantic news about a genetically modified human embryo. I’ll have some thoughts on that shortly. In the meantime, while reading Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as part of my research, I noticed what might be a loophole. I’ll point it out here, since the bill is being debated by the British parliament right now.

The bill proposes to lift previous restrictions on tinkering with human embryos. To reassure critics and the public, it promises to prevent altered embryos from growing into people. Here’s the relevant legislative language:

No person shall place in a woman—

(a) an embryo other than a permitted embryo (as defined by section 3ZA), or

(b) any gametes other than permitted eggs or permitted sperm (as so defined). ..

No person shall place in a woman—

(a) a human admixed embryo,

(b) any other embryo that is not a human embryo, or

(c) any gametes other than human gametes.

 


Human Liquid
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/2008/05/12/human-liquid.aspx



If you’ve been thinking lately about how to dispose of your corpse—and I know I have—there’s good news. You may soon have a new option: being dissolved in lye. Well, let’s not call it that. Let’s call it "alkaline hydrolysis." According to AP reporter Norma Love (what a byline!), the process leaves a "brownish, syrupy residue":

It uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in big stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers. ... In addition to the liquid, the process leaves a dry bone residue similar in appearance and volume to cremated remains. It could be returned to the family in an urn or buried in a cemetery. The coffee-colored liquid has the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell. But proponents say it is sterile and can, in most cases, be safely poured down the drain, provided the operation has the necessary permits.

I know it sounds bad. Lye is what we use to dissolve dead animals, and. over the years, mass-murdering dictators have given it a bad name, using it to torture people and get rid of bodies. But think of the benefits: "Alkaline hydrolysis doesn’t take up as much space in cemeteries as burial. And the process could ease concerns about crematorium emissions, including carbon dioxide as well as mercury from silver dental fillings."



Giovedì, 15 maggio 2008