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Nov
29
Says It Participates in International Community as Guardian of Man
By Marta Lago
ROME, NOV. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The human being has dignity and a transcendent dimension, and this is why an independent moral authority, such as the Holy See, has a role to play in international organizations, says an official at the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Monsignor Pietro Parolin, undersecretary for relations with states, affirmed this in a conference delivered Nov. 21 to a group of ambassadors and members of diplomatic corps gathered in the Argentinian Embassy to the Holy See. The gathering marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and that nation.
“The Catholic Church is the only religious institution that can enter into diplomatic relations and that interests itself in international rights, acting through the Holy See, an international sovereign subject of singular characteristics,” Monsignor Parolin said.
He explained that an adequate understanding of the Holy See, as such, requires two distinctions. First, one must bear in mind that the Holy See cannot simply be identified with the Church, as a community of believers. And second, it cannot be identified with Vatican City State, a geographical place that assures the freedom of the Roman Pontiff.
“The Holy See is the Holy Father himself inasmuch as he is an independent, universal, spiritual authority, together with the organizations of the Roman Curia that collaborate with his mission,” he defined.
The Holy See thus requires a particular status, such as that given by the definition of “subject ‘sui juris,’” meaning the Holy See defines for itself its juridical organization and does not receive it from outside, and as such, can enter into relationship with other states.
The Holy See currently has diplomatic relations with 176 states. It has a presence at the United Nations as an observer state, membership in seven organizations or agencies within the U.N. system, and is an observer in another eight. The Holy See also has observer status in five regional organizations.
Objective
The “tenacious” assertion of its own international personality and the petition of the Holy See to intervene in international policy debates in order to offer its contribution is far from an interest in safeguarding its own independence, underlined Monsignor Parolin.
If the Holy See wishes to place itself as “an independent interlocutor of the states and to express an authorized judgment about the problems that affect lives,” it is because “it thinks that it represents a dimension of man that, although decisive in the life of the societies, is not fully under the jurisdiction of the states, nor does it end in them,” he said.
“There exists,” the monsignor affirmed, “something that goes above and beyond the material element.”
The key, he explained, is the dignity of man, which is prior to the existence of the state. Respect for this dignity is the thermometer of the legitimacy and justice of any legal norm. And “this dignity of the individual has as an essential element the transcendent dimension [of man],” he said.
“If man did not transcend the material dimension, there would not be sufficient reason for the respect of his dignity to be over and above national interests,” observed Monsignor Parolin. “This pre-existence and independence of the dignity of the individual, and more concretely, his transcendent dimension, is the ultimate justification for the existence of a sovereign moral authority independent of the states.”
“As a consequence, the Holy See, in its international activity, without interfering in the realms and responsibilities proper to the states, proposes itself as guardian of the human person and religious liberty,” Monsignor Parolin continued.
Action
The Vatican official said that working in the Secretariat of State, especially in the section for relations with states, implies having the advantage of a unique watchtower from which to observe and know the international reality, given that one is privy to a constant overall vision formed in part by an almost daily contact with the diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
And guiding the activities of the Holy See in the international realm is what Monsignor Parolin called “the binomial of person-truth.”
The Holy See, he said, “attempts to emphasize these concepts, making use of the very tools provided by the international community, such as the manifesto of the United Nations, which solemnly declares that the organization was established in order to save future generations from the scourge of war, in order to reaffirm the faith — a key word — in the fundamental rights of man, in the dignity of the human person, in order to ensure the respect for international rights and to promote social progress.”
The significant use of the term “faith” in the cited context, enabled the Holy See, in the last U.N. debate, to observe “that the existence of a universal, transcendent truth about man and his intrinsic dignity was affirmed, [a truth] that is not simply a historic creation, but is rather a reality that precedes and determines all political activity,” such that “no ideology of power can suppress such truth,” the monsignor recalled.
And it is this dignity of the human being, he added, “that determines the just balance of national interests, which can never consider themselves absolute,” and whose defense “should contribute to promoting the common good of all men.”
“The Holy See emphasizes constantly that respect for the dignity of man, therefore, is the deepest ethical foundation for the search for peace and in the building of international relations,” Monsignor Parolin affirmed. “The lack of, contempt for, or partial adhesion to this principle is the origin of conflicts, of environmental degradation and of injustices.”
© Innovative Media, Inc.
Nov
29
ZE07112810 - 2007-11-28 | Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-21141?l=english
Church’s Roots Aren’t European, Says Pope
Comments on Syriac Poet-Theologian
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Christianity didn’t originate in Europe, but rather has its roots in the Middle Eastern world of the Old Testament, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this today during the general audience in Paul VI Hall, which he dedicated to the figure of St. Ephrem the Syrian, a fourth-century theologian, poet and musician.
He said the reflection continued along the lines of his commentary last week on the fourth-century Syriac Christian Aphraates, which also showed the cultural diversity of the early Christians.
“According to general opinion,” said the Pontiff, “Christianity is a European religion that has exported the culture of this Continent to other countries. The reality, though, is a lot more complex, as the root of the Christian religion is found in the Old Testament, and therefore in Jerusalem and the Semitic world.”
The Holy Father continued: “Its expansion during the first centuries was both westward — toward the Greek-Latin world, where it then inspired the European culture — and eastward to Persia and India, thus contributing to stimulate a specific culture, in Semitic languages, with its own identity.”
St. Ephrem, said Benedict XIV, “was the most important representative of Syriac Christianity, and succeeded in a unique way to reconcile the vocation of the theologian with that of the poet.”
A deacon
Ephram was born in 306 in Nisibis, in what is modern-day Turkey, and died of the plague in 373 in Edessa, in what is modern-day Greece. The Pope said that while not much is known of his life, it is commonly held that he was a deacon and lived a life of celibacy and poverty.
The Holy Father said the deacon, “a rich and captivating author,” also “left us a large written theological inheritance.”
“The specific character of his work is that theology meets poetry,” continued the Pontiff. “If we want to get closer to his doctrine, we need to acknowledge that he studied theology through poetry.
“Poetry allowed him to deepen his theological reflections through paradoxes and images. His theology became both liturgy and music at the same time: He was indeed a great composer and musician.”
Benedict XVI quoted several of Ephrem’s hymns, as examples of the saint’s “poetic theology.”
In his hymn “On Christ’s Nativity,” Ephrem reflected on the figure of the Virgin Mary: “The Lord came to her to make himself a servant. The Word came to her to keep silence in her womb. The lightning came to her to not make any noise.”
Pearl of faith
In another hymn, “On the Pearl,” St. Ephrem talks of faith: “My brothers, I put (the pearl) in the palm of my hand, to be able to look at it closely.
“I observed it from one side and then the other: It had only one appearance from all sides.
“(Such) is the search for the Son, inscrutable, for he is luminous.”
Commenting on the hymns of the fourth-century poet-theologian, Benedict XVI said, “His theological reflection is expressed with images and symbols taken from nature, from daily life and from the Bible.”
The Pope also noted the deacon’s writings on women: “To Ephrem the role of the woman is a relevant one. The way he wrote about women was always prompted by sensibility and respect: The fact that Jesus dwelt in the womb of Mary has enormously raised the woman’s dignity.
“For Ephrem there is no redemption without Jesus, just as there could be no incarnation without Mary.”
Nov
29
Book bound in skin of executed Jesuit to be auctioned in England
Filed Under News & Current Events | Leave a Comment
By Simon Caldwell | Catholic News Service
LONDON (CNS) — A book bound in the skin of an executed Jesuit priest was to be auctioned in England.
The macabre, 17th-century book tells the story of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and is covered in the hide of Father Henry Garnet.
The priest, at the time the head of the Jesuits in England, was executed May 3, 1606, outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for his alleged role in a Catholic plot to detonate 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath the British Parliament, an act that would have killed the Protestant King James I and other government leaders.
The book, “A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings Against the Late Most Barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and His Confederates,” contains accounts of speeches and evidence from the trials. It measures about 6 inches by 4 inches, comes in a wooden box and will be auctioned Dec. 2 by Wilkinson’s Auctioneers in Doncaster, England.
Sid Wilkinson, the auctioneer, said: “The front cover is rather spooky because where the skin has mottled or crinkled there looks to be a bearded face. Read more
Nov
29
Today, we are all well aware that the word “heaven” does not designate a place beyond the stars but something much greater and more difficult to express, namely, that God has a place for us and that God gives us eternity. We have already experienced in our own lives the fact that one who dies continues somehow to live in the memory of those who have known and loved him. They keep a part of him alive. Admittedly, it is only a part, as it were, only a shadow, of him, and one day those who remember him will also die, and that continuance of life that their love was able to give him will come to an end.
But God never passes away, and we all exist because he loves us, because he brought us into existence by his creative act. His love is the foundation of our eternity. One whom God loves never passes away. It is not just a shadow of ourselves that lives on in him, in his thought, and in his love; rather, it is in him, in his creative love, that we are preserved forever immortal in the totality and truth of our being. It is his love that makes us immortal, and this immortality, this abiding love, is what we call “heaven”.
Heaven, then, is none other than the certainty that God is great enough to have room even for us insignificant mortals. Nothing that we treasure or value will be destroyed. As we ponder all this, let us ask the Lord on this day to open our eyes ever more fully to it; to make us not only people of faith but also people of hope, who do not look to the past but rather build for today and tomorrow a world that is open to God. Let us ask him to make us who believe happy individuals who, amid the stress of the daily living, catch a glimpse of the beauty of the world to come and who live, believe, and hope in this certainty.
From: Dogma und Verkundigung, pp. 418ff
Nov
29
Cathechism on The Relationship Between Tradition & Sacred Scripture
Filed Under Catechism | Leave a Comment
II. The Relationship Between Tradition and Sacred Scripture
One common source. . .
80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.” Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.41
. . . two distinct modes of transmission
81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”
“and [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”
82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”
Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions
83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. the first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.
Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.
41: Mt 28:20
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
Nov
29
St. John Vianney
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
Can the life of a good Christian be anything other than that of a man nailed to the Cross with Jesus Christ?
– St. John Vianney
Nov
29
Mark 10: 17 - 21
Filed Under Today's Gospel | Leave a Comment
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
19 You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”
20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.”
21 And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Nov
28
It’s Perfectly Inappropriate
Filed Under Quotes & Excerpts | Leave a Comment
from Michael Hichborn of all.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “How can anyone claim that this book is appropriate for 10 year olds?” asked Jim Sedlak, vice-president for American Life League. “First, pixilated images and excerpts of the book were rejected by a state prison, and now video-streaming sites are censoring the content of a video containing those pixilated images as well.”
Sedlak was referring to the Planned Parenthood endorsed book, It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris. A few months ago, a Washington State Prison rejected a letter that included censored images from the book for being “sexually explicit” and “obscene.” Last week American Life League posted a video report on several streaming-video sites exposing the content of the book, which is aimed at 10 year old children. The video report was removed from vidilife.com, sharkle.com, and hi5.com for “inappropriate content,” and flagged on metacafe.com for viewers over 18.“What an irony that censored content from a book intended for 10-year-old children is rejected by a prison, removed from video-streaming sites, and flagged for viewers over the age of 18,” said Sedlak. “We actually have no objection to the actions of the online sites and the prison. We agree that this is not appropriate content.” “We are calling for libraries, schools and parents all across the country to take similar action,” Sedlak concluded, “Planned Parenthood should be denied access to our children at all times. The material it promotes is totally inappropriate and could be harmful.”
American Life League’s video report can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
Nov
28
American Life League releases video report on children’s sex book
Filed Under Announcement | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON, D.C. · November 19, 2007 / PRNewswire / – “Parents need to know what Planned Parenthood has in store for their children and this report is an excellent starting point,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League. “The book ‘It’s Perfectly Normal’ is obscene and offensive to Christians.”
American Life League’s second video report exposes the contents of the book “It’s Perfectly Normal.” Recently, a Washington State Prison rejected a fundraising letter that included censored images from the book for being “sexually explicit” and “obscene.”
American Life League released the report as a part of its continuing effort to educate the public on Planned Parenthood’s activities.
“This video report is just the beginning,” said Sedlak. “We will continue to use this new media to expose the nation’s largest abortion chain and we call on Christians across the nation to join us in putting a stop to tax payer funds for Planned Parenthood.”
For the truth about Planned Parenthood, check out these related links:
Protect Your Children - exposing Planned Parenthood’s war on childhood innocence:
http://www.clmagazine.org/backissues/2006mayjune_30-33protectyourchildren.pdf
Sign our petition to end tax funding for Planned Parenthood:
http://www.stopplannedparenthoodtaxfunding.com/
Get the Wednesday STOPP Report:
http://www.all.org/stopp/report.htm
Help us continue with these releases:
https://secure.entango.com/donate/L28th6e4EnB
See the ad information that a Washington State Prison rejected:
http://www.all.org/db_file/1050.pdf
Nov
28
GOING FORWARD BEGINS WITH A DESIRE
+G.B. Rosales
(Homily delivered by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales at the Mass at the 2nd Manila Archdiocesan General Pastoral Assembly on October 20, 2007 at the La Salle Greenhills Gym at 8:30 a.m.)
Your excellencies Bishops Bernard Cortez, Bishop Broderick Pabillo, Auxiliary bishops in the Arch of Manila, Rev. Monsignori, My dear brother priests, my dear religious brothers and sisters, and the many, many, delegates coming from parishes, institutions all part of the local Church of God in Manila.
Magandang umaga po sa inyong lahat.
Before anything, well allow me first to invite you to include in this Eucharist the victims of that terrorist, whatever it is, attack in Makati yesterday. Let’s pray for the souls of the departed, and in our way in prayers and kindness assist in consoling and praying for the families of the wounded victims.
We meet today in this De La Salle gym coliseum and even as we start allow me in your name and the Archdiocese to thank the La Salle brothers and the De La Salle Greenhills for allowing us again and again to use the De La Salle Greenhills gym coliseum free of charge. Brother Felipe Villeza you must be around please accept our thanks and let Brother Dodo Fernandez your provincial superior together with the rest of the La Salle Brothers Community and Family accept our thanks and gratitude. You truly make yourselves part and parcel of the Local Church. Salamat Po.
Everything is grace from God. Who would ever thought that now MAGPAS, the Manila Archdiocesan General Pastoral Assembly, is now two years old. And who would ever think that coming back after two years we will then on be able to hold on to, I don’t say it’s a piece of paper, but something that is slowly becoming part of yourself and myself. The Church is slowly becoming alive in you. Not out there in the crowds of people but in each and every one of us. Two years afterwards, we are now here more than 3000 they said, at least convinced, if not totally believing that there is that vision we can hold on to and this is the reason why this morning we are going together to make a reflection on our two-year old articulated, and now being assimilated, vision.
Talaga bang kailangan ang pananaw na ito? Talaga bagang kailangan? Do we really need a vision? And I start the reflection with you. And I entitled this reflection as, “Going Forward Begins with a Desire.” Kung ikaw ay maglalakbay, kung gusto mong sumulong kapatid, magsimula ka sa pagnananasa. Read more
