Pope Francis said Sunday he would not be taking part in a planned six-day spiritual retreat south of Rome after coming down with a “cold”.

The 83-year-old pontiff suffered two coughing spells that forced him to turn away from the crowd and cover his mouth with his fist on a windy and cloudy day on Saint Peter’s Square.

“Unfortunately, a cold forced me not to take part this year,” he said after reciting the traditional Angelus Prayer and addressing the unfolding migrant crisis on Turkey’s border with Greece.

The annual retreat will still start Sunday but only include members of the Roman Curia administration team of the Holy See.

The pope will be staying home while the rest of Italy battles Europe’s worst outbreak of the novel coronavirus that has spread from China to every continent except for Antarctica.

The number of cases in Italy surpassed 1,000 on Saturday and the toll continues to mount.

There have been 29 confirmed deaths and 105 people were receiving intensive care treatment in hospital — all of them in three adjacent northern regions near Milan.

The Vatican quickly shot down speculation that the pope himself had come down with COVID-19.

“There is no evidence to suggest a diagnosis of anything other than a slight ailment,” a Vatican spokesman told AFP Sunday.

The pope himself looked relatively strong on Sunday despite the coughing fits.

He smiled a few times and addressed a range of theological issues before turning his attention to the plight of thousands of migrants from Turkey who have been blocked at the rugged frontier with Greece.

“I am a little saddened by the news coming from many displaced people, so many men, women and children chased because of war,” Francis said.

The pontiff asked the faithful to share a prayer for “so many migrants who seek refuge in the world — and help”.

– Italy shuts down –

Concerns about the pope’s health have been mounting for days in a country where mass closures of public institutions and businesses due to the coronavirus are affecting the lives of millions.

He first looked like he might be sick on Wednesday and lightened his workload for the rest of the week.

The Vatican used the “mild ailment” term for the first time on Thursday to explain why the pope was spending his day around his Saint Martha’s guest house in the Vatican.

But he still continued celebrating the morning mass and receiving visitors even as football matches were being cancelled and businesses were telling their employees to work from home.

He met with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church head Sviatoslav Shevchuk on Saturday and spent almost 15 minutes speaking on Sunday from his Vatican window.

The Argentine-born pontiff has enjoyed a life of good health despite losing part of a lung as a young man and suffered from sciatica — a nerve condition that causes pain in his hip.

Yet he rarely cancels appointments and normally takes extra time to mingle with supporters and the faithful.

Source: AFP

Pope Francis declined Wednesday to approve the ordination of married men to address a shortage of priests in the Amazon, sidestepping a fraught issue that has dominated debate in the Catholic Church and even involved retired Pope Benedict XVI. 

Francis, in an eagerly awaited document, did not refer to the recommendations by Amazonian bishops to consider the ordination of married men or women deacons. Rather, the pope urged bishops to pray for more priestly vocations and to send missionaries to a region where faithful Catholics in remote areas can go months or even years without Mass.

The papal dodge disappointed progressives, who had hoped he would at the very least put both questions to further study. It outraged liberal Catholic women’s groups. And it relieved conservatives who have used the debate over priestly celibacy to heighten opposition to the pope, whose strongest conservative critics have accused of heresy. 

Francis’ document, “Beloved Amazon,” is instead a love letter to the Amazonian rain forest and its indigenous peoples, penned by history’s first Latin American pope. Francis has long been concerned about the violent exploitation of the Amazon’s land, its crucial importance to the global ecosystem and the injustices committed against its peoples.

Pope Francis✔@Pontifex

I dream of Christian communities capable of generous commitment, incarnate in the Amazon region, and giving the Church new faces with Amazonian features.

Quoting poetry as frequently as past papal teachings, Francis addressed the document to all peoples of the world “to help awaken their affection and concern for that land which is also ours and to invite them to value it and acknowledge it as a sacred mystery.”

“Beloved Amazon” is in many ways a synthesized and focused version of Francis’ 2015 landmark environmental encyclical, “Praised Be,” in which he blasted wealthy countries and multinational corporations for destroying the world’s natural resources and impoverishing the poor for their own profit.

Francis said he has four dreams for the Amazon: that the rights of the poor are respected, that their cultural riches are celebrated, that the Amazon’s natural beauty and life are preserved, and that its Christian communities show Amazonian features.

Francis had convened bishops from the Amazon’s nine countries for a three-week meeting in October to debate the ways the church can help preserve the delicate ecosystem from global warming and better minister to the region’s people, many of whom live in isolated communities or in poverty in cities. 

The Argentine Jesuit has long been sensitive to the plight of the Amazon, where Protestant and Pentecostal churches are wooing away Catholic souls in the absence of vibrant Catholic communities where the Eucharist can be regularly celebrated.

In their final document at the end of the October synod, the majority of bishops called for the establishment of criteria so that “respected” married men in their communities who have already served as permanent deacons be ordained as priests. 

In addition, the bishops called for the Vatican to reopen a study commission on ordaining women as deacons, a type of ministry in the church that allows for preaching, celebrating weddings and baptisms, but not consecrating the Eucharist. Francis had created such a commission in 2016 at the insistence of religious sisters who want more say and roles in church governance and ministry, but the group ended its work without reaching consensus. 

Francis didn’t mention either proposal in “Beloved Amazon” and didn’t cite the synod’s final document in his text or in a single footnote. But he did say in his introduction that he wanted to “officially present” the synod’s work and urged the faithful to read it in full, suggesting that he at least valued the input.

Francis did echo many of the synod’s recommendations, calling for greater lay participation in the life of the church and saying the training of priests in the Amazon must be overhauled so they are more able to minister to indigenous peoples. He said “every effort should be made” to give the faithful access to the Eucharist. 

“This urgent need leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America, not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region,” he wrote.

Francis dismissed suggestions that ordaining women to any ministry would serve them or the church. While agreeing that women should have greater decision-making and governance roles, Francis argued that they must find “other forms of service and charisms that are proper to women.”

Groups that advocate for women’s ordination and giving women greater roles in the Catholic Church blasted the document. Francis justified his refusal to consider ordained ministry for women as sparing them the risk of being “clericalized,” or placed on a pedestal. 

“This is a dereliction of his duty as a leader with the power to make positive change and challenge discrimination,” said Miriam Duignan of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, a British-based progressive Catholic think tank.

Kate McElwee, executive director of Women’s Ordination Conference, said the document betrayed women in the Amazon and elsewhere who perform the lion’s share of the church’s work, pass the faith from generation to generation, and yet enjoy no official recognition or authority.

“Recognizing women’s work with diaconal ordination would be the first, most basic step towards righting the wrong of institutional sexism that hobbles our church as it attempts to respond to the moral crises of our time,” McElwee said in a statement.

The Catholic Church retains the priesthood for men, arguing that Christ and his apostles were male. While Eastern rite branches have married priests, and Anglican and Protestant priest converts can be married, the Roman rite church has had a tradition of priestly celibacy since the 11th century, imposed in part for financial reasons to ensure that priests’ assets pass to the church, not to heirs.

In the weeks leading up to the document’s release, the question of a celibate priesthood made headlines after the publication of a book penned by the retired pope, Benedict, and a conservative Vatican official, Cardinal Robert Sarah, reaffirmed the “necessity” of a celibate priesthood.

Benedict’s participation in the book sparked controversy, since it appeared the retired pope was trying to influence the thinking of the current one, despite his promises to remain “hidden from the world” when he resigned seven years ago. 

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni noted that Francis finished the document in December, before the book came out, making clear the pope wasn’t swayed by Benedict’s intervention.

Francis avoided the issue altogether, dedicating instead the entire first half of the document to the “injustice and crime” committed against the Amazonian peoples and their environment by local governments, foreign corporate interests, and illegal mining and extraction industries.

“We cannot allow globalization to become a new version of colonialism,” he wrote. 

He said the church in the Amazon must have social justice at the forefront of its spirituality, saying ministry that focuses excessively on discipline and rules will turn people away when in fact they need “understanding, comfort and acceptance.” 

The traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli, which has been highly critical of Francis, said that by closing the door to a married priesthood and female deacons, the document was “the best possible document we could have hoped for in the current pontificate and in the current age.”

Clare Dixon, Latin America chief for the British Catholic aid agency CAFOD, focused on the environmental good it might do in the global debate about how to fight climate change.

“But Francis is also imploring us to listen to the wisdom of the people of the Amazon, insisting that we learn from the way they live with the environment rather than in competition with it,” she said.

Francis called for the church to incorporate indigenous traditions and cultures into its ministry, including song and dance, myth and festivals, and urged patience when confronted with apparently pagan practices and symbols. 

It was a reference to the controversy that punctuated the synod over the appearance in the Vatican of wooden statues of a pregnant woman that critics said were pagan idols. At one point, a conservative activist stole the statues from a Vatican-area church and threw them in the Tiber River in a videotaped stunt that galvanized traditionalist opposition to Francis and the synod itself.

(AP)

Boko Haram insurgents beheaded a Christian leader in their captivity on Monday, according to Ahmad Salkida, a Nigerian journalist closely covering the crisis in Nigeria and across the Lake Chad region.

The journalist in a tweet said Reverend Lawan Andimi along with a soldier were were killed by the the terrorists at the same time. They released a video which the journalist described as “appalling executions.”

Local media reports said the reverend belong to the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN. He was a local leader of CAN in the Michika Local Government Area in northeastern Adamawa State.

It is now clear that Christians are not protected by the government. We don’t feel like we have a government.

The CAN leadership in the state confirmed the execution adding that negotiations for ransom payments were well underway. The reverend was abducted early this year when the insurgents stormed Michika, they were repelled by the military but made away with the reverend as they fled.

Adamawa State CAN chairman, Stephen Mamza, deplored the circumstances leading to the murder, he said the insurgents had asked for £2 million but they had been able to raise only 50 million naira which was flatly rejected.

The insurgents had told the deceased’s wife that they will execute him last Saturday but waited till Monday to undertake the act. Mamza spoke about how another clergyman was killed on Monday.

“It is now clear that Christians are not protected by the government. We don’t feel like we have a government,” he is quoted to have said. The State governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, also condemned the incident as has Amnesty International’s local branch.

On the subject of attacks on Christians, the CAN leader echoes a sentiment that is gaining currency but has routinely been rejected as untrue. Boko Haram violence does not discriminate be it age, sex, religion or social standing.

One case that stands out in their abductions is of Leah Sharibu, a sole Christian abductee, in the 2018 Dapchi Girls swoop. Whiles all her colleagues were released, Leah was held because she reportedly refused to disavow her Christian faith.

Source: Africa News

Pope Francis has appointed Francesca Di Giovanni to be the new undersecretary for multilateral affairs in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

It is a first at the Vatican for a woman.

Di Giovanni said she did not expect the appointment, but was looking forward to advance a “feminine point of view” in her new role.

The Pope “surprised us, as he often does, with this decision”, Di Giovanni said.

Speaking to local media on Wednesday, she said she had not yet had the chance to speak with the Pope since her appointment, but that she intents to write to him.

AP

They met. They wrote to each other. Precisely while “the world rumbled with the uproar created by a strange synod of the media that took the place of the real synod,” that of the Amazon.

And they decided to break the silence: “It was our sacred duty to recall the truth of the Catholic priesthood. In these difficult times, everyone must be afraid that one day God will address to him this harsh reproof: ‘Cursed are you, who did not say anything’.” An invective, this latter, taken from Saint Catherine of Siena, a tremendous flogger of popes.

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI and Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah sent this book of theirs to the presses shortly before Christmas, and here it is coming out in France in mid-January, published by Fayard with the title: “From the depth of our hearts,” and thus even before Pope Francis has dictated the conclusions of that Amazonian synod which in reality, more than on rivers and forests, was a furious discussion on the future of the Catholic priesthood, if celibate or not, and if open in the future to women.

It will be a serious problem, in fact, for Francis to make an opening for the married priesthood and the female diaconate after his predecessor and a cardinal of profound doctrine and of radiant holiness of life like Sarah have taken such a clear and powerfully argued position in support of priestly celibacy, addressing themselves to the reigning pope almost in the words of an ultimatum, through the pen of the one but with the full agreement of the other:

“There is an ontological-sacramental bond between the priesthood and celibacy. Any curtailment of this bond would mean calling into question the magisterium of the council and of the popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. I humbly beg Pope Francis to protect us definitively from such an eventuality, setting his veto against any weakening of the law of priestly celibacy, even if limited to one region or another.”

The book, 180 pages long, after a preface by editor Nicolas Diat, is divided into four chapters.

The first, entitled “What are you afraid of?”, is an introduction signed jointly by the two authors, dated September 2019.

The second is by Joseph Ratzinger, is of a biblical and theological slant and has the title: “The Catholic priesthood.” It bears the date of September 17, before the synod began.

The third is by Cardinal Sarah and is entitled: “To love right up to the end. An ecclesiological and pastoral look at priestly celibacy.” It has the date of November 25, one month after the end of the synod, in which the author participated assiduously.

The fourth is the joint conclusion of the two authors, with the title: “In the shadow of the cross,” and with the date of December 3.

In the chapter that he signed, Ratzinger mainly intends to bring to light “the profound unity between the two Testaments, through the passage from the Temple of stone to the Temple that is the body of Christ.”

And he applies this hermeneutic to three biblical texts, from which he derives the Christian notion of celibate priesthood.

The first is a passage from Psalm 16: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup…”

The third is these words of Jesus in the gospel of John 17:17: “Sanctify them in truth, your word is truth.”

While the second is two passages from Deuteronomy (10:8 and 18:5-8) incorporated into Eucharistic prayer II: “We give you thanks admitting us into your presence to perform the priestly service.”

To illustrate the meaning of these words, Ratzinger cites almost in its entirety the homily he gave at Saint Peter’s on the morning of March 20 2008, Holy Thursday, during the Mass of the sacred chrism with which priests are ordained.

A homily reproduced below, as a sample of the whole book and of its pages directly dedicated to the question of celibacy.

*

“We do not invent the Church as we would like it to be”

by Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI

Holy Thursday is an occasion for us to ask ourselves over and over again: to what did we say our “yes”? What does this “being a priest of Jesus Christ” mean? The Second Canon of our Missal, which was probably compiled in Rome already at the end of the second century, describes the essence of the priestly ministry with the words with which, in the Book of Deuteronomy (18: 5, 7), the essence of the Old Testament priesthood is described: astare coram te et tibi ministrare [“to stand and minister in the name of the Lord”]. There are therefore two duties that define the essence of the priestly ministry: in the first place, “to stand in his [the Lord’s] presence”.

In the Book of Deuteronomy this is read in the context of the preceding disposition, according to which priests do not receive any portion of land in the Holy Land – they live of God and for God. They did not attend to the usual work necessary to sustain daily life. Their profession was to “stand in the Lord’s presence” – to look to him, to be there for him. Hence, ultimately, the word indicated a life in God’s presence, and with this also a ministry of representing others. As the others cultivated the land, from which the priest also lived, so he kept the world open to God, he had to live with his gaze on him.

Now if this word is found in the Canon of the Mass immediately after the consecration of the gifts, after the entrance of the Lord in the assembly of prayer, then for us this points to being before the Lord present, that is, it indicates the Eucharist as the centre of priestly life. But here too, the meaning is deeper. During Lent the hymn that introduces the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours – the Office that monks once recited during the night vigil before God and for humanity – one of the duties of Lent is described with the imperative: arctius perstemus in custodia – we must be even more intensely alert. In the tradition of Syrian monasticism, monks were qualified as “those who remained standing”. This standing was an expression of vigilance.

What was considered here as a duty of the monks, we can rightly see also as an expression of the priestly mission and as a correct interpretation of the word of Deuteronomy: the priest must be on the watch. He must be on his guard in the face of the imminent powers of evil. He must keep the world awake for God. He must be the one who remains standing: upright before the trends of time. Upright in truth. Upright in the commitment for good. Being before the Lord must always also include, at its depths, responsibility for humanity to the Lord, who in his turn takes on the burden of all of us to the Father. And it must be a taking on of him, of Christ, of his word, his truth, his love. The priest must be upright, fearless and prepared to sustain even offences for the Lord, as referred to in the Acts of the Apostles: they were “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name” (5: 41) of Jesus.

Now let us move on to the second word that the Second Canon repeats from the Old Testament text – “to stand in your presence and serve you”. The priest must be an upright person, vigilant, a person who remains standing. Service is then added to all this.

In the Old Testament text this word has an essentially ritualistic meaning: all acts of worship foreseen by the Law are the priests’ duty. But this action, according to the rite, was classified as service, as a duty of service, and thus it explains in what spirit this activity must take place.

With the assumption of the word “serve” in the Canon, the liturgical meaning of this term was adopted in a certain way – to conform with the novelty of the Christian cult. What the priest does at that moment, in the Eucharistic celebration, is to serve, to fulfil a service to God and a service to humanity. The cult that Christ rendered to the Father was the giving of himself to the end for humanity. Into this cult, this service, the priest must insert himself.

Thus, the word “serve” contains many dimensions. In the first place, part of it is certainly the correct celebration of the liturgy and of the sacraments in general, accomplished through interior participation. We must learn to increasingly understand the sacred liturgy in all its essence, to develop a living familiarity with it, so that it becomes the soul of our daily life. It is then that we celebrate in the correct way; it is then that the ars celebrandi, the art of celebrating, emerges by itself. In this art there must be nothing artificial.

If the liturgy is the central duty of the priest, this also means that prayer must be a primary reality, to be learned ever anew and ever more deeply at the school of Christ and of the Saints of all the ages. Since the Christian liturgy by its nature is also always a proclamation, we must be people who are familiar with the Word of God, love it and live by it: only then can we explain it in an adequate way. “To serve the Lord” – priestly service precisely also means to learn to know the Lord in his Word and to make it known to all those he entrusts to us.

Lastly, two other aspects are part of service. No one is closer to his master than the servant who has access to the most private dimensions of his life. In this sense “to serve” means closeness, it requires familiarity. This familiarity also bears a danger: when we continually encounter the sacred it risks becoming habitual for us.

In this way, reverential fear is extinguished. Conditioned by all our habits we no longer perceive the great, new and surprising fact that he himself is present, speaks to us, gives himself to us. We must ceaselessly struggle against this becoming accustomed to the extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart, always recognizing our insufficiency anew and the grace that there is in the fact that he consigned himself into our hands. To serve means to draw near, but above all it also means obedience.

The servant is under the word: “not my will, but thine, be done” (Lk 22: 42). With this word Jesus, in the Garden of Olives, has resolved the decisive battle against sin, against the rebellion of the sinful heart. Adam’s sin consisted precisely in the fact that he wanted to accomplish his own will and not God’s. Humanity’s temptation is always to want to be totally autonomous, to follow its own will alone and to maintain that only in this way will we be free; that only thanks to a similarly unlimited freedom would man be completely man. But this is precisely how we pit ourselves against the truth. Because the truth is that we must share our freedom with others and we can be free only in communion with them.

This shared freedom can be true freedom only if we enter into what constitutes the very measure of freedom, if we enter into God’s will. This fundamental obedience that is part of the human being – a person cannot be merely for and by himself – becomes still more concrete in the priest: we do not preach ourselves, but him and his Word, which we could not have invented ourselves. We proclaim the Word of Christ in the correct way only in communion with his Body.

Our obedience is a believing with the Church, a thinking and speaking with the Church, serving through her. What Jesus predicted to Peter also always applies: “You will be taken where you do not want to go”. This letting oneself be guided where one does not want to be led is an essential dimension of our service, and it is exactly what makes us free. In this being guided, which can be contrary to our ideas and plans, we experience something new – the wealth of God’s love.

“To stand in his presence and serve him”: Jesus Christ as the true High Priest of the world has conferred to these words a previously unimaginable depth. He, who as Son was and is the Lord, has willed to become that Servant of God which the vision of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah had foreseen. He has willed to be the Servant of all. He has portrayed the whole of his high priesthood in the gesture of the washing of the feet.

With the gesture of love to the end he washes our dirty feet, with the humility of his service he purifies us from the illness of our pride. Thus, he makes us able to become partakers of God’s banquet. He has descended, and the true ascent of man is now accomplished in our descending with him and toward him. His elevation is the Cross. It is the deepest descent and, as love pushed to the end, it is at the same time the culmination of the ascent, the true “elevation” of humanity.

“To stand in his presence and serve him”: this now means to enter into his call to serve God. The Eucharist as the presence of the descent and ascent of Christ thus always recalls, beyond itself, the many ways of service through love of neighbour. Let us ask the Lord on this day for the gift to be able to say again in this sense our “yes” to his call: “Here am I! Send me” (Is 6: 8). Amen.

Culled from L’Espresso

Pope Francis’s attempt to wrest himself from the grasp of an ardent follower this week have left some asking — where was the pontiff’s security detail?

Often dubbed the “People’s Pope,” Francis’s ability to engage with crowds — and his apparent relish in doing so — puts him in close proximity with the throngs who gather to greet him.

Whether taking selfies with the faithful, shaking hands, or blessing children, the head of 1.3 billion Catholics around the world is protected by bodyguards from a special corps charged with the pope’s security.

But on New Year’s Eve in Saint Peter’s Square, televised images showed a woman behind a barricade grabbing Francis’s hand, while three men in black can be seen in the background.

The Pope swats at the woman’s hand to free himself, before one of the men is seen restraining her hands. Francis later apologised for setting a “bad example.”

By Thursday, after the images circulated online, some people took to Twitter to question how the incident could have happened.

“The guy has a literal army to protect him and has to do his own slapping?” asked one Twitter user.

Another commented: “The Pope has a very lax security detail.”

The Vatican’s security department declined to comment.

One security expert however said bodyguards should have intervened earlier.

“It’s the Pope’s security team who should be apologising,” said the founder of Italy’s elite special police interventions unit, whose identity is protected but who goes by the name Commandant Alfa.

“The lady wouldn’t let go of the Pope’s hand, and he was forced to slap her hand a little bit in order to get out of the way,” Alfa told the AGI news agency. “But it shouldn’t have gotten to that point.”

The pope’s chief bodyguard and head of Vatican security, Domenico Giani, resigned in October after an internal security memo related to a Vatican financial probe was leaked to the press.

– Personal style –

Papal security became a top priority at the Vatican after the 1981 assassination attempt of pope Jean Paul II by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk, in Saint Peter’s Square. Heightened security measures that followed included making the Popemobile bulletproof and the addition of metal detectors on entering the square.

But even overly enthusiastic fans have posed security risks. In 2009, before a Christmas Eve Mass given by then pope Benedict XVI, a woman who later said she wanted to give the pontiff a hug jumped over a barricade and grabbed his robes, pulling the 82-year-old to the ground. Benedict was not injured but a French cardinal broke his leg in the melee.

When Francis became pope in 2013, his low-key style and desire to bring the Roman Catholic Church closer to the people posed new headaches for the Vatican’s elaborate security team, whose colourful Swiss Guards are the most visible members.

“You have to respect the personal style of each pope,” said Francis’s spokesman at the time, Federico Lombardi.

“It’s not for the heads of security to decide these things.”

Source: AFP

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was unable to hold Christmas Eve Mass for the first time in more than 200 years — after a fire ravaged its structure in April.

With heavy hearts, French Catholics instead gathered at the nearby church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a few hundred metres away, for a service celebrated by the cathedral’s rector Patrick Chauvet.

“It isn’t the same feeling but it’s still a Christmas Mass,” said 16-year-old Juliette, who had made the 700-kilometre trip from Aix with her family. “There will be a thought for Notre-Dame tonight, that’s for sure.”

“We have been crying since April 15, and today even more,” said Danielle, a Parisian, who attended last year’s mass at the Paris landmark. However, she was lifted by the choir of Notre-Dame, who performed at the mass.

Meanwhile, workers continue to repair and rebuild the cherished cathedral.

Notre-Dame, part of a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the River Seine lost its gothic spire, roof and many precious artefacts in the fire, which was watched by huge crowds.

President Emmanuel Macron has set a timetable of five years to completely repair the eight-centuries-old structure, which remains shrouded in scaffolding with a vast crane looming over it.

Paris prosecutors suspect criminal negligence and opened an investigation in June, suggesting a stray cigarette butt or an electrical fault could be the culprit.

The culture ministry said in October that nearly one billion euros ($1.1 billion) had been pledged or raised for the reconstruction.

Source: AFP

Pope Francis ushered in Christmas celebrations for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics on Tuesday, saying the celebration of Jesus’s birth reminded humanity how “God continues to love us all, even the worst of us”.

The pontiff told crowds gathered at the Vatican for his Christmas Eve Mass: “You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you.”

Pilgrims from around the world had gathered earlier on Tuesday in the biblical town of Bethlehem, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus.

Thousands of Palestinians and foreigners converged on the “little town” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with Christmas Eve festivities taking place in and around the Church of the Nativity.

The Middle East’s most senior Roman Catholic, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, arrived from Jerusalem at the head of a procession.

Pizzaballa, who had to cross Israel’s separation barrier to get to Bethlehem, said after his arrival that it was a difficult time but there was reason for hope.

“We see in this period the weakness of politics, enormous economic problems, unemployment, problems in families,” he said.

“On the other side, when I visit families, parishes, communities, I see a lot of commitment… for the future. Christmas is for us to celebrate the hope.”

In the square outside the church, a few thousand people watched in the winter sun as Palestinian scouts paraded in front of a giant Christmas tree.

(AFP)

Christian pilgrims from around the world have gathered in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, as local Palestinians suffer from decades of Israeli occupation.

Thousands of Palestinians and foreigners began converging early Tuesday morning on the “little town” in Bethlehem, as the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ, to hold Christmas Eve festivities in and around the Church of the Nativity.

Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the most senior Roman Catholic official in the Middle East, who traveled from the holy city to Bethlehem, is scheduled to lead midnight mass at the church in the presence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Pizzaballa said although it was a difficult time, there was reason for “hope.”

“We see in this period the weakness of politics, enormous economic problems, unemployment, problems in families — so when we look at this reality, we could say that there is nothing to hope for,” he said.

“On the other side, when I visit families, parishes, communities, I see a lot of commitment… for the future. Christmas is for us to celebrate the hope,” he added.

Rula Maaya, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities of the Palestinian Authority, said the number of foreign tourists visiting the West Bank increased from three million in 2018 to 3.5 million in 2019.

She added that at least 15,000 pilgrims were staying overnight in Bethlehem for Christmas, adding, “All hotels in the city are full today.”

Tourists queued in the morning to visit the grotto inside the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the exact site where Jesus was born.

Fewer Christians from the Gaza Strip were in attendance due to the Israel regime’s restrictions on issuing permits.

Israel granted permits to just around 200 of the roughly 900 people who applied, Wadie Abunassar, an adviser to church leaders in the Holy Land, told the AFP.

Bethlehem is close to Jerusalem al-Quds, but cut off from the holy city by Israel’s separation wall. Israel began building the barrier in 2002 which runs through the West Bank, separating Israeli Jews from Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

Source: Presstv

 A Panoramic Synthesis

I. Introduction: As I See It

From October 17^th to 19^th, the Center for Scriptural Exegesis, Philosophy and Doctrine at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake, Mundelein hosted an academic conference on the theme, “Ratzinger and the Future of African Theology,” co-sponsored by the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa. The planners and facilitators of the conference were Dr. Matthew Levering and Fr. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai. There were over 30 participants at the conference comprising professors and graduate students. Thanks to Fr. Thomas Baima, who, immediately after the conference put out a summary of the events of the conference with a list of participants.[1] What I intend to do in these few pages is to present my reflections on, and a panoramic synthesis of the theological discussions at the conference, while the publication of the papers that were presented is awaited next year.

There is often an air of curiosity and suspicion that surrounds discussions on topics like “Joseph Ratzinger and the Future of African Theology” – bringing together two seemingly incompatible realities: Christianity and the African culture. This suspicion is paralleled in that ancient question asked by the African theologian, Tertullian, albeit in a different context, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? … After Jesus we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research.” At the heart of this question was the debate regarding the relevance of theological speculations and, to sound anachronistic, the relevance of inculturation in the enterprise of theology. For one thing, the question of philosophy’s relevance in/to theology was considerably put to rest by scholasticism’s espousal of Petrus Damiani’s (1007-1072) dictum, philosophia ancilla theologiae. Since the turn of the twentieth century, however, there emerged a renewed interest in the question of culture and context in the study of theology. This was championed in the works of the Chinese theologian Shoki Coe (1914-1988), amongst others. He is known for the coinage, “contextualizing theology.”[2] This has been carried forward in the works of Stephan Bevans and Robert Schreiter, amongst others.

A remarkable ecclesial moment that signaled the urgency and relevance of “contextual theology” was the Second Vatican Council, which, more than ever before acknowledged the Church’s openness to the world and to cultures, and recognizing theseminaverbi in indigenous cultures.[3] In fact, there is today a growing appreciation of the fact that every theology in the strict sense of the word is “contextual theology,” that is, arising from within a culture and seeking to make sense of the Gospel message in and through the cultural symbols and heritage. This was true of the Greek culture that informed Patristic theology, as it was true of the German culture that informed the theology of the most part of the twentieth century, as it is true today of the African culture, which is increasingly becoming a partner in the knowledge production and meaning making process in theology.

The future of African theology rests on the fidelity of African theologians to the mission entrusted to them, in the words of John Paul II, in Ecclesia in Africa, “It is earnestly to be hoped that theologians in Africa will work out the theology of the Church as Family with all the riches contained in this concept, showing its complementarity with other images of the Church.”[4] This was re-iterated by Benedict XVI (Ratzinger), who reminded Africa’s scholars of their task of studying important theological and social questions for the benefit of the Church and for “developing an African theology.”[5]He further noted, “I express my trust that (African) theologians will continue to probe the depths of the trinitarian mystery and its meaning for everyday African life.”[6]

The foregoing gives us a vivid picture of the motivation of the over 30 scholars who gathered to discuss “The Future of African Theology” in dialogue with the theology of Joseph Ratzinger. With this background, we can fully appreciate the conference discussions, with exciting midpoints, such as the significance of culture and context both for Ratzinger and for African Theologians. Before delving into these discussions, there is one more thing to be cleared. Someone once asked me, “Are you interested in the theology of Ratzinger the theologian or Benedict XVI the pope?” When pushed to extremes, this question betrays the tendency of what I call a “theology without faith commitment.” On the contrary, in Ratzinger, we find a theology that springs from a personal encounter with the saving Logos. Little wonder, prayer plays a heuristic role in his theology, akin to the Eastern hesychast (Palamite) tradition. His method is largely exegetical; and the Fathers, liturgy, the saints, and the magisterium are significant hermeneutical prisms informing his philosophical personalist reflection on the Christian mystery.[7]

II. Presentations and Discussions: Panoramic Synthesis

 Rather than follow chronology, I have rearranged the presentations such that they fit in together around particular themes. For a sequence of how the papers were presented, see the following footnote.[8]

The keynote address delivered by Paulinus Odozor was titled, “One and the Same?: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and African Theologians on God and God Language in African Christian Theology.”An important nuance clarified here, which shaped all the papers of the conference is that “African Theology” here referred to is in fact “African Christian Theology”.  At the core of Odozor’s argument is the claim that there is a continuity between Christianity and its conception of God and the African tradition and its conceptions of God, analogous to the continuity between Christianity and traditional Judaism. The point here is not thatAfrican Traditional Religions (ATR) could hypothetically replace the Old Testament, but that ATR as well as every other indigenous religion (ancient Judaism inclusive, though privileged) share the same God of creation,who discloses himself progressively throughout history. The height of this revelation is Christ Jesus. The “God of Jesus Christ,” that is, the idea of God as revealed by and in Jesus Christ is uniquely new to every culture. [This is strikingly Ratzingerian]. The tensions in the New Testament between Jesus’ idea of God and those of his contemporaries attest to this. Thus understood, ATR,ancient Judaism – despite its privileged place amongst cultures – and every other culture stand in need of God’s unique revelation in Jesus Christ in much the same way. In the light of Christ, every culture/tradition experiences its insufficiency and its need for perfection. Therefore, though the God of ATR is notforeign to the Christian God, yet, the African theologian’s task is to present to the African a clearer picture of the “God of Jesus Christ” in his uniqueness, and how this can influence his/her daily life. Within this framework, Christianity cannot be termed a “European or Western religion”: it stands over and above every culture. The greatest failure of Christianity, therefore, is when it transmits a culture rather than Christ.

Emery de Gaal’s presentation cues in well with the above, as he highlights the Ratzingerian Christo-centrism. He presented on the theme, “Ratzinger on Christ and In/Enculturation.”While tracing the historical development of the Ratzingerian usage of the terms “inculturation” and “interculturality,”de Gaal argues for the indispensable co-relation of culture, Christian mission, and inculturation. For instance, in the Greco-Roman world, by the help of the Holy Spirit, theologians were able to distinguish between philosophical wisdom (adapted into patristic theology) and paganism (which was rejected). I would say, this has become a veritable model for African theologians as they engage the African culture. Culture, de Gaal argues,reveals the human aspiration for the transcendent, though no culture can attain this on its own. Christ is universale concretum et personale, that is, he is the Idea made concrete, personal, and historical.This means Christ is the universally valid in the here and now, the one in whom all persons, cultures, and history participate and find meaning and perfection. Christ does not impact a culture by cancelling it out. Rather, in him a new beginning, a new centre of being is met. In all these shines forth Ratzinger’s Christo-centrism, which further highlights Odozor’s perception of the “Christo-centric” task of the African Theologian’s project.

Paul Adaja’s presentation zoomed in on the primacy of the Logos:“Catholic Theology in 21^st Century Africa in the Light of the Primacy of the Logos in the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger.” According to Adaja, in Ratzinger, one finds a personalization of the Heraclitean and Stoic logos. Logos wasunderstood by the stoics as the cosmic principle of intelligence and design. Ratzinger resources this stoic logos and a Johannine appropriation of it. Therefore, for Ratzinger, the logosis at one and the same time the rational principle of creation [reason] and the second divine person of the Trinity, incarnated in Jesus Christ [faith]. Adaja argues that one of the biggest problems of Christianity in Africa is the subtle separation of reason and faith, and he located this problem especially in fanatical Pentecostalism. At the heart of this problem he insists is an anthropological crisis. As a corrective, he proposes that African theologians should focus on the question, “Who is the human person?” while at the same time paying closer attention to the expressions of the human spirit in music, fiction, and other artistic works emerging from Africa. Inferring from Adaja’s claims, it feels safe to conclude that he proposes the logos – principle of reason and faith – incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth as the anthropological paradigm for the African person and humanity at large.

Another presentation that pointing to the anthropological crisis in Africa was that of Joseph Ogbonnaya, on the topic, “Caritas in Veritate and the Challenges to Political Economy of Africa: The Case of Nigeria.”According to Ogboyanna, the anthropological crisis in Africa accounts for the political and economic meltdown in the continent. Enumerating a number of examples from the Nigerian context, he argues that this crisis thrives on a reductionist notion of humanity, which ends up reducing development to the mere accumulation of wealth. Devoid in this process is an ethics of politics or economics. Some fundamental principles of Ratzinger’s Caritas in Veritate, he argues, could provide a corrective. Viz., relationality as key to humanization, the principles of reciprocity and gratuity, solidarity and subsidiarity.

Tegha A. Nji and Valery Akoh’s paper on solidarity could be a good sequel to the above. They presented on the topic, “The African Understanding of Solidarity and the Ratzingerian Concept of Pro-existence.”Hinged on what they call an African communitarian personalism, solidarity for them is characterized by anawareness of that common humanity, the sense of mutual and participative belonging and a shared responsibility towards the welfare of all with whom one belongs, and an esteemed value of sacrificial existence for others.This understanding of solidarity is expressed in the notions of ubuntu and ujamaa, in the African reality of the family and the firstborn son, in the palaver tree model of conflict resolution, and in socio-cultural preverbal and proverbial expressions. While the African ideal understanding of solidarity could be paradigmatic and universally valid, the existential reality in Africa is less perfect than the ideal. They argue that it is only in Christ that the ideal and the praxis of solidarity coincide. This they term the “Christification of solidarity”. This becomes the organizing principle of the dialogue between Ratzinger’s pro-existence – Christ’s solidarity (co-existence) with humanity and existence for humanity even to the point of death – and the African culture – a culture that understands the meaning of existence as being for others. As such, the African understanding of solidarity is a great testament to the seminaverbi found in every culture that Christianity encounters and enriches.

Mary Reginald Anibueze’s presentation espoused the theme of solidarity, in the context of the Eucharist. She presented on the topic, “Benedict XVI and Socio-Communitarian Eucharistic Exigencies: Impact on African and Global Catholicism”Participating in the liturgy, Anibueze argues, should transformthe participants into what they celebrate. In her reading of Ratzinger, she further notes that in the liturgy, especially at communion Christ unifies the faithful to himself and to one another. This underscores the need for actualized liturgical celebrations accustomed to different cultures, which will in turn facilitate full, active, and conscious participation, according to the demands of Sacrosanctum Concilium.She expresses a reservation on how, in praxis, Ratzinger was open to the inculturation of the liturgy, quoting his reluctance to approve local liturgical rites or to participate in them, a case in point being the Zairian rite. This signals more work for African liturgists and theologians, she posits. The social implication of a well celebrated liturgy, according to her, is the transformation of the society: tearing down walls of injustice, hatred, terrorism, corruption, and fostering justice, love, unity, and peace. In the end, the practical question facing Africa and its theologians is this, “What is the appropriate response to poverty, violence and other social ills based on a Eucharistic framework?”

The Liturgy is by far the most exploited area of (African) theology in terms of inculturation. There was another presentation on the liturgy from Joseph Lugalambi, on the topic, “Lex Orandi Lex Credendi: Ratzinger on African Liturgy.”Central to Lugalambi’s reading of Ratzinger vis-à-vis liturgical inculturation is the prescription that the task of inculturation oughtto appreciate the fact that liturgy is indeed true liturgy when it is beyond the manipulation of those engaged in it. He insists on the revealed nature of liturgy as opposed to a human invention. We can fittingly worship God, he paraphrases Ratzinger, only how he reveals himself to be worshipped. In Lugalambi’s reading, Ratzinger likens most post-Vatican II creativity in the liturgy to the Israelites’ apostasy (worship of the molten calf). The problem here, he adds, is the exaggerated quest to make God intelligible that ends up in idolatry. A humanly created liturgy does not draw man up to God but seeks to draw God down to man. For Lugalambi, the challenge facing African theologians, especially liturgists, is to remain docile to the prompting of the Holy Spirit who is the principal agent of inculturation. For the telos of the liturgy is the worship of God and not the glorification of man.

 Away from liturgical inculturation,there was a presentation by Dennis Kasule that touched on the political implications of evangelization in Africa. He presented on the topic, “Benedict XVI and the New Evangelization in Africa.” Kasule brings together in a paradoxical tension two images of Africa in the thought of Benedict XVI, viz., Africa as the spiritual lung for humanity in a crisis of faith and hope, and Africa as the Victim of robbers abandoned to suffer. In addition to explicating the implications of the above tension, he summed up Ratzinger’s proposal to Africa’s evangelizers and theologians as follows: to preach Christ and not to get entangled in political and social strives. The basis of this recommendation is Christ himself, whose was not a political revolution but a revolution of love. In the final analysis, from a Ugandan background, Kasuleseeks to answer the question, “Does Benedict XVI’s prescription for a revolution of love answer Africa’s challenges vis-à-vis the inculturation of the Gospel in its socio-political framework?” He leaves this as an open-ended question, with divergent views on either side of the debate.

This question is taken up in profound depth in the paper that was presented by Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai, on the topic,“Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Reading of Political Power: Relevance for the Continent of Africa in the 21^st Century.”In this reading of the political landscape of Africa, Agbaw-Ebai presents Africa as the victim of political and economic injustice both of the West and of her own corrupt political stooges. The poverty of Africa has its roots in a politics separated from truth.Agbaw-Ebai affirms Ratzinger’s stance that the Church’s role is not to dictate political systems to political powers.Christianity has never sought to establish a theocracy, maintains Ratzinger. On the contrary, Christianity, with the initial rapprochement that it found with Greek philosophy, has always pointed to Natural Law and Reason as the basis for political engagement. Christianity takes this path, conscious of the inherent openness of Natural Law to Divine Law. At the heart of what I may call Ratzinger’s “political theology,”therefore,  is, in Agbaw-Ebai’s reading of Ratzinger, the claim that good politics and governance is rooted in reason and natural law. Wisdom, therefore, after the example of King Solomon’s prayer, becomes the paradigm for good politics. Ratzinger warns against political messianism, striving on the false hopes that political powers or systems could satisfy the deepest longings of the human person, whereas in fact, God alone can. Recognizing that political ethnicism which promotes and breeds on a perverted notion of solidarity, on individualism and clique-interest, Ebai proposes Ratzinger’s ecclesiology of communion as a corrective.

In the face of the challenges facing Africa and the arduous task of the African theologian, Christopher Collins’ presentation offers a what I may call a Ratzingerian optimism. He presented on the topic, “Joseph Ratzinger’s Confidence in Salvation History.” Collins highlights Ratzinger’s own lived experience of violence in Nazi Germany and his more recent resignation from the papacy as respectively a formation ground and an instantiation of his confidence in a God who works in history. Ratzinger’s thoughts are shaped by a strong confidence in history as the unfolding of God’s plan and the salvific action of the Holy Spirit in that history. For Ratzinger, humanity is invited into a history that is ongoing and living, the history of salvation, the history of God’s word taking flesh in culture. Borrowing from John Allen, Collins articulates Benedict’s liberation theology in terms of the supernatural ground as the deepest and greatest level of existence and the precedence of individual transformation over social transformation. Consequential of this is the fact that a choice between supernatural happiness and present happiness in this world is a false dichotomy, for if meaning does not come from outside of us, it does not ground us.

This note of optimism is re-echoed in Jacob Philips’ paper. He presented on the topic, “Ratzinger’s Interculturality and Cardinal Sarah.”Philips remarks about the spirit of the liturgy shared by both theologians. According to Philips, however, there exists a nuance in perspectives between the two theologians. For instance, in the context of appealing to the non-believers, Ratzinger apologetically reverses the axiom of the Enlightenment – “to live by only those truths that would be true even if God did not exist” – to argue that even one who does not belief in God’s existence ought to try to live as though God did indeed exist (velutisi Deus daretur). Robert Cardinal Sarah critiques this, for according to him God cannot simply be a working hypothesis: we live because God exists. Generally, Sarah is weary of a rationalism that denies God or makes him second place. According to him, Africa’s proverbial wisdom is more theocentric and better than the ‘enlightenment’ that denies God. Quoting from Paul VI he affirms that Africa is the new home of the Church/faith for the world.

Despite the progress made thus far by African theologians, Aaron Pidel’s presentation, “Cross-Cultural Biblical Ethics: Ratzinger on the Indissolubility of Marriage”offers a challenge to African theologians, to more generously engage the bible in the process of contextualization in African Theology. Ratzinger’s cross-cultural hermeneutics, he argues, shines a light on how this can be accomplished. Referencing Ratzinger’s response to the text Farewell to the Devil and other texts, he articulates the following principles of Ratzingerian cross-cultural exegesis: pay attention to the culturally conditioned aspects and those that transcend culture, the intertestamental approach, relevance to faith experience, and compatibility with reason. Applying these to the question of divorce and remarriage in the Gospels (Mk 10:1-12; Mt 19:3-12; Mt 5:31-32; Luke 16:18) he demonstrates Ratzinger’s stance on the indissolubility of marriage. Monogamy, for Ratzinger is a fulfilled realization of Christ’s covenantal/spousal relation to the Church.    

III. Conclusion

The converging tendency in all the presentations is that of seeking common grounds of dialogue between Ratzinger’s theology and aspects of the African culture in general and African theology specifically. In these endeavours, I find as recurrent theme,the Christ factor. Mathematically, a factor is that number in terms of which another number can be perfectly expressed, without a remainder. In Balthazarian terminology – referenced above by Emery de Gaal, and echoed in Odozor’s keynote address – this amounts to Christ as the universale concretum et personale. All the authors present Christ as he in whom the African culture (and culture in general) and its aspirations reaches fulfilment and perfection. The subject of Christ is therefore the commonfactor in terms of which both African theology and culture come into dialogue with Ratzinger’s theology, in the search for a synthesis of meaning. The goal of this synthesis is to make the Gospel intelligible and meaningful in the given context of concern, as the above papers clearly demonstrated: Christ’s revelation of God is unique; Christ is at the center of Biblical exegesis; Christ is he who draws us to himself and to one another in the liturgy; Christ gives history a definitive direction, hence our confidence in history as salvific; Christthe incarnate and crucified Lord is the personification of solidarity par excellence; Christ is the goal and center of all cultures; Christ’s revolution of love is central to evangelization; Christ (as God) is ground for our existence; Christ, not politics or culture or power is the fulfilment of our deepest human aspirations, yet, this same Christ does not cancel out culture but seeks to be incarnated in each and every culture. Making meaning of this incarnation in the African culture/context is the task of the African theologian.

[1] For details on the event and list of participants,check the linkhttps://usml.edu/joseph-ratzinger-and-the-future-of-african-theology/.

[2]Cf. Ray Wheeler, “The Legacy of Shoki Coe,”in International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 26, 2 (April 2002): 77–80.

[3]Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Nostra Aetate, and Gaudium et Spes are chief amongst the texts that affirm this reality.

[4] John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa(Sept. 14, 1995),no. 63.

[5] Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus(Nov. 19, 2011),no. 136.

[6]Ibid.,no. 172.

[7] See Ratzinger’s Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millennium- An Interview with Peter Seewald, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1997) for a synthetic portrait of Ratzinger the theologian and Benedict XVI the Pope, in his own words. Also see Aidan Nichols, The Thought of Pope Benedict XVI: An Introduction to the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger (New York: Burns & Oates, 2007).

[8]Original sequence of presentation according to names of authors: 1. Paulinus Odozor (keynote address). 2.Paul Adaja. 3. Aaron Pidel, SJ. 4. Mary Reginald Anibueze. 5. Christopher Collins. 6. Tegha A. Nji and Valery Akoh. 7. Emery de Gaal. 8. Dennis Kasule. 9. Joseph Lugalambi. 10. Joseph Ogbonnaya. 11. Jacob Philips. 12. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai.

(Authored by Tegha Afuhwi Nji)