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The Church - as we have seen - is a reality that surpasses mysteriously and infinitely, the sum of her members. In fact, in order to obtain Christ’s forgiveness, my sin was set over against the faith of his Church. Today this seems to have been forgotten by many theologians, priest, and laymen. It is not only the change from the I to the We, from personal to collective responsibility. One even gets the impression taht some, although unconsciously, may reverse the prayer by understanding it in this way: “Look not upon the sins of the Church but upon my faith…” Should this really happen, the consequences will be grave: the faults of individuals become the faults of the Church, and faith is reduced to a personal event, to my way of understanding and of accepting God and his demands.

I really fear that today this is a widespread manner of feeling and thinking. It is another sign of how greatly in many places the common Catholic consciousness has distanced itself from an authentic conception of the Church. “We must go back to saying to the Lord: “We sin, but the Church that is yours and the bearer of faith does not sin.” Faith is the answer of the Church to Christ. It is Church in the measure that it is an act of faith. This faith is not an individual, solitary act, a response of the individual. Faith means to believe together, with all the Church. We must always bear in mind that the Church is not ours but his.

Hence, the “reform”, the “renewals” - necessary as they may be - cannot exhaust themselves in structures. The most that can come from a work of this kind is a Church that is “ours”, to our measure, which might indeed be interesting but which, by itself, is nevertheless not the true Church, that which sustains us with faith and gives us life with the sacrament. I mean to say that what we can is infinitely inferior to him who does.

Hence, true “reform” does not mean to take great pains to erect new facades (contrary to what certain ecclesiologies think). Real “reform” is to strive to let what is ours disappear as much as possible so what belongs to Christ may become more visible. It is a truth well known to the saints. Saints, in fact, reformed the Church in depth, not by working up plans for new structures, but by reforming themselves. What the Church needs in order to respond to the needs of man in every age is holiness, not management.

From: The Ratzinger Report, pp. 52-53

Philippine bishops oppose anti-terror law
7/27/2007 | Source  |  Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

BARRA, Philippines  – The Ecumenical Bishops Forum (ESF) of Mindanao have joined Catholic bishops of the Philippines in opposing an anti-terrorism measure in a southern region of the Asian nation.

“The Mindanao is rich in natural resources and is a potential for the interest of foreign investors on mining industries and plantation of high value crops to feed profit-hungry multi-nationals,” said the 42 bishops and clergy of the forum’s education committee in a mid-July statement. “Thus militarization is rampant in the countryside and even the cities to give way to what the government calls development but in effect is an aggression to the populace which resulted to extrajudicial killings and abductions of peasant leaders, militant leaders, media practitioners, including church peoples.”

The Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA), also known as the Ant-Terror Law, on the political and economic situation in predominantly Muslim region of Mindanao.

Mindanao has active revolutionary movements, such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), seeking a separate Muslim state. These groups are currently in peace negotiations with the government.

The forum described the measure as “the oppressive, barbaric and demonic anti-terror law.”

Members of EBF include Iglesia Filipina Independiente, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Episcopal Church in the Philippines of South East Mindanao Jurisdiction and many Protestant churches/mission stations.

ESF echoed the concern of Catholic bishops regarding the law.

After the semiannual assembly, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines early this month called for the revision of the Human Security Act.

The Catholic bishops’ conference in a press conference on July 9 called on the Philippine government to revise a new anti-terrorism law which took effect on July 15, saying the unlimited powers it confers upon the army “could become a cause of gross injustice.”

Human-rights groups have also condemned it saying it could invade privacy, noting court-authorized wiretapping of suspects. Hundreds of left-wing activists urged the law’s repeal at a protest, vowing to question its legality in the Supreme Court.

According to Section 3 of the act, “terrorist activities” are all those actions “causing widespread and extraordinary fear and panic” and they may be punished by “up to 40 years in prison”. Further, Section 19 allows the “allows arbitrary detention of a suspect for more than three days, house arrest even if not upheld by a judge and a ban on all kinds of movement.”

“In the guise of running after the so-called terrorists and bandit groups in Mindanao, we believe that this law does not in any way be a solution to the Mindanao problems, but rather surely aggravates the already rotten political and economic situation,” the ESF said.

The HSA, the forum said, is based on the belief that “the state must be held above all else. The state must wield absolute power, using everything to control the territory and population of a country. This law however not only violates the 1987 Constitution but suffers from what is called a ‘fatal contextual infirmity.’

“With the HSA, the state has set itself up as the absolute power that determines what course people’s lives will take by putting forward a very vague definition of terrorism. By so doing, the state has usurped the functions that rightfully belong to God. By playing God, the state commits the highest form of sacrilege.”

IRAQ – VATICAN | Source
Benedict XVI expresses his sorrow and “heartfelt” condolences for the death of the Chaldean priest and three subdeacons. AsiaNews remembers a friend who died thinking until the end that peace was possible in his country. Fr Ragheed is a martyr for a free Iraq, witness to an unshakable faith, which bombs and threats could not weaken. Vatican City (AsiaNews) - “Deeply saddened” by yesterday’s “senseless killing of Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni and the subdeacons” in Mosul, the Pope expressed “his heartfelt condolences” in a telegram to the city’s bishop, Mgr Rahho, and the families of the deceased. In the message that was released today, Benedict XVI “joins the Christian community in Mosul in commending their souls to the infinite mercy of God our loving Father and in giving thanks for their selfless witness to the Gospel.” The Pontiff said he would pray for the “costly sacrifice [which] will inspire in the hearts of all men and women of good will a renewed resolve to reject the ways of hatred and violence [. . .] and to cooperate in hastening the dawn of reconciliation, justice and peace in Iraq.”AsiaNews joins his Holiness in expressing condolences and publishes an article in memory of Father Ragheed.

“Without Sunday, without the Eucharist the Christians in Iraq cannot survive”: that was how Fr Ragheed spoke of his community’s hope, a community that was used to facing death on a daily basis, that same death that yesterday afternoon faced him, on his way home from saying mass. After having fed his faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ, he gave his own blood, his own life for Iraq, for the future of his Church. This young priest had willingly, knowingly chosen to remain by the side of his parishioners from Holy Spirit parish in Mosul, judged the most dangerous, after Baghdad. His reasoning was simple: without him, without its pastor, his flock would have been lost. In the barbarity of suicide attacks and bombings, one thing at least was clear, and gave him the strength to resist: “Christ – Ragheed would say – challenger evil with his infinite love, he keeps us united and through the Eucharist he gifts us life, which the terrorists are trying to take away”.

He died yesterday, massacred by blind violence. Killed on his way home from Church, where his people, despite their decreasing numbers, bowed by fear and desperation, continued to come: “the young people – Ragheed told us just days ago – organized surveillance after the recent attacks against the parish, the kidnappings, the threats to religious; priests celebrate mass amidst the bombed out ruins; mothers worry as they see their children challenge danger to attend catechism with enthusiasm; the elderly come to entrust their fleeing families to God’s protection, they alone remain in their country where they have their roots and built their homes, refusing to flee. Exile for them is unimaginable”. Ragheed was one of them, a strong father figure who wanted to protect his children: “It is our duty not to give in to despair: God will listen to our prayers for peace in Iraq”:

In 2003 on finishing his studies in Rome, he decided to return to his country “that is where I belong, that is my place”. He also returned to help in the rebuilding of his nation, the rebuilding of a “free society”. He spoke of an Iraq full of hope with a captivating smile: “Saddam has fallen, we have elected a government, we have voted for a Constitution!” He organized theology courses for the lay faithful of Mosul; he worked with the young; he consoled disadvantaged families; this month he was in the grips of helping a small child with serious eye problems undergo surgery in Rome. Read more

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Address to Catechists and Religion Teachers
Jubilee of Catechists, 12 December 2000

Human life cannot be realized by itself. Our life is an open question, an incomplete project, still to be brought to fruition and realized. Each man’s fundamental question is: How will this be realized—becoming man? How does one learn the art of living? Which is the path toward happiness?

To evangelize means: to show this path—to teach the art of living. At the beginning of his public life Jesus says: I have come to evangelize the poor (Luke 4:18); this means: I have the response to your fundamental question; I will show you the path of life, the path toward happiness—rather: I am that path.

The deepest poverty is the inability of joy, the tediousness of a life considered absurd and contradictory. This poverty is widespread today, in very different forms in the materially rich as well as the poor countries. The inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice—all defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world.

This is why we are in need of a new evangelization—if the art of living remains an unknown, nothing else works. But this art is not the object of a science—this art can only be communicated by [one] who has life—he who is the Gospel personified.

The scribe in Mark’s Gospel (12:28-34) stands for all those who seek to know how to become truly human. He had listened to Jesus’ previous conversations with various groups and had thus found the courage to ask him what is most essential. What is most essential? How does it enter into my life and the lives of all of us? That is a faithful rendering of the question this scribe addresses to the Lord. Jesus does not answer by citing his own ideas on the subject. He has no ambition to become known as one who thinks what has never been thought before. He points the way to Holy Scripture and reveals it as the center from which every perplexity of interpretation is to be resolved. He points the way to the word of God, to the primordial words that are preserved in the third and fifth books of Moses -words about the love of God and neighbor.

When we hear these words, we observe first of all that they begin, not with a commandment, but with a profession of faith in something that is already known. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Mk 12:29). t is the core of Israel’s belief, and Jesus makes it the fundamental core of Christian belief as well. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Every one of these words is important.

Before doing comes hearing - comes acceptance of reality. Man is a being that answers. If we are to act rightly, our gaze must first be pure and our ear open. It is impossible to act rightly without truth. That is why the will to know the truth, to seek it humbly and with readiness to learn it, is the basic prerequisite of all morality. Where profit or success leads to the neglect of truth, the world is fragmented into interest groups because profit always depends on the viewpoint of the one acting. However well-meaning the question may be as to what is profitable, what is effective and progressive for society, if it is divorced from the standard of truth, from God, it imperceptibly establishes power as the primary standard of mankind. But truth is superior to human power; it must set the limit and be the standard of all power. Only if it does so can we become free and good. The fact that listening to the truth must precede all our actions means also that the will of God is superior to all our plans and projects.

In the words of Jesus, the primacy of God is made abundantly clear. The first commandment is truly first among the commandments. If, in view of something apparently more important, we push God to one side in order to give precedence above all else to the happiness of the human person, we do not thereby become more free to establish right order in the world, but rather lose the standard and eventually come to despise mankind. Only one who regards humanity from God’s perspective is capable of loving mankind - even the most wretched, the weakest, the defenseless, the battered, the unborn, the inept. That is why the “Hear, O Israel” stands irremovably at the beginning of all our ways.

From: Predigt aus Anlass des zehnjahrigen Pontifikatsjubilaums von Papst Johannes Paul II, Oct. 30, 1988, Rome, Deutsche Tagepost, November 5, 1988

INDONESIA | Source
by Benteng Reges

Some Muslim hardliners come in for harsh criticism for creating a false and violent image of Islam. Police is also strongly condemned for not intervening decisively. Carmelite spokeswoman says she and her sisters are not worrying; they are trying to play down the controversy.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police must protect everyone’s right to express their religious faith. It should have moved against the radical Muslims and stop their hostile actions against the Lembah Karmel Cikanyere, the Carmelite Prayer Centre in Cikanyere Hill, Cianjur Regency (West Java), this according to Syafi’i Maarif’s, who heads the Muhammadiyah (Indonesia’s second largest Muslim organisation). In no uncertain terms he condemned the recent protests by Muslim radicals.

“The [radicals’] rally has tarnished the good image of Islam. As Muslims, we know that Islam is a good, peaceful and loving religion,” he said.

There is no good “reason to use and abuse (Islam) in an effort to legitimate harmful actions against other religious beliefs, to express dislike about them or conduct any unfriendly gestures” to scare them (Catholics), said the eminent Muslim scholar.

Siti Musdah Mulia, who is the secretary of the Indonesian Conference for Religion and Peace, was equally critical. She chastised police for not nipping in the bud such “hostile actions”, but also other religious leaders for doing nothing to stop the violence.

Her criticism is especially harsh for those Muslim clerics who say nothing about the growing nightlife (which can attract young people) but are all up in arms if a new Christian church is built and even egg young people on to attack it because it was built without a permit. Read more

Source | 7/25/2007 | Catholic Online

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) – Young people are being called to be missionaries burning with the love of God to proclaim the good news of Jesus to their contemporaries in an increasingly secularized world, said Pope Benedict XVI in his message for World Youth Day 2008.

In a message released in English July 24 “to the young people of the world” in anticipation of the XXIII World Youth Day, Pope Benedict urged “my dear young friends” to prepare over the next year to welcome the Holy Spirit into their lives “as the guide of our souls, as the teacher of the interior life who introduces us to the mystery of the trinity.”

Pope Benedict will be present for the July 15-20 international celebration of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, which will focus on the theme of the Holy Sprit and mission.

Acknowledging the many questions about the future asked and the apprehension felt by youths, he urged them to see that “placing oneself at the service of the gospel is not an optional extra.”

The pope said that young people must pick up the burden “of the urgency of transmitting this good news” to other youths to whom adults have not been able to reach.

“The spirit of Jesus today is inviting you young people to be bearers of the good news of Jesus to your contemporaries,” the pope said. “The difficulty that adults undoubtedly find in approaching the sphere of youth in a comprehensible and convincing way could be a sign with which the spirit is urging you young people to take this task upon yourselves.” Read more

Source | It was in the home of Joachim and Ann where the Virgin Mary received her training to be the Mother of God. Thus, devotion to Ann and Joachim is an extension of the affection Christians have always professed toward our Blessed Mother. We, too, owe a debt of gratitude to our parents for their help in our Christian formation.

Before the reform of the General Roman Calendar, today was the feast of St. Ann; St. Joachim’s feast was celebrated on August 16.

Read more

Journalism is meaningful only when it helps us to learn the truth. It can be a genuine calling only when there is a truth that is good. Then it is right and necessary to help this truth to find its proper expression. The fundamental certainty that Good does exist and that we are created for it is not an obstacle to the work of the journalist, but rather makes it possible. It must be the first pillar of genuine journalistic ethics. Non-Christians, too, can find this fundamental certainty. We must admit, to our shame, that today it is often more alive and less impaired among non-Christians than in nations that were formerly Christian. But it finds its deepest foundation and its greatest affirmation in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is he who gives us a certainty. God loves us so much that he himself became one of us.

The ecce homo, which today shows primarily the dregs of humanity, receives from him its true meaning. Ecce homo- today, for the most part, that means: Behold, here is yet another specimen of this miserable humanity. Even Pilate, the sceptic, wanted to say something of this kind. But without intending it, he revealed to us something quite different: man is such that God’s presence among us shines always in this disfigured countenance. Hence we must always try to see humanity, not through the eyes of Pilate, but through the eyes of Jesus himself. Then we serve truth. Then we serve humanity, the humanness of man as such. Granted, we always stand in need of the courage to criticize abuses openly in order that they may be remedied. But today we have almost more need of the courage to make visible the goodness that resides in humanity and in the world. Only in that way can we restore to humanity the courage to be itself, the courage to exist, without which all other courage falls into a vacuum.

From: L’Osservatore Romano 14, no.6 (1984), p. 5

Dr. James Hitchcock  |  July 23, 2007

“It doesn’t make one iota’s difference.”

Possibly that saying has become obsolete, but for a long time it was used to dismiss something as trivial and unimportant. In its origins, however, it was anything but. It actually tore the Church apart.

For 200 years — roughly 300 to 500 — there were bitter theological quarrels over the identity of Jesus — was He only God, only man, or both? Numerous credal formulas were proposed in order to settle the question.

The heart of the issue at one point came down precisely to a single iota, the Greek equivalent of the letter “i.” Was Jesus “of the same nature” as the Father (”homoousios“) or merely “like” the Father (”homoiousios“)? All sides in the debate saw that fundamental truths were at stake, since the followers of Jesus had to know whom they were following.

Recently the Holy See has said that in the Eucharistic Prayers at Mass the Latin phrase “pro multis” should be translated accurately — as “for many” rather than as “for all,” as it now is in English and some other languages. Inevitably some people dismiss this as hair-splitting, as they would have done with the ancient “iota” controversy. But again much more is at stake than a pedantic concern for literal accuracy. Read more

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