Major Worldwide Catholic Meeting is under the 'sign of Ratzinger'

I posted earlier here how United States Supreme Court Justice is going to be a headliner on a panel at the huge Communion and Liberation conference in Italy.

I also wanted to post this News Article that has been translated at this section of the English Fan section at the Ratizinger forum.

In the past 28 years, the annual weeklong convention of the movement Comunione e Liberazione in the Adriatic coastal resort of Rimini has become a political rite of summer in Italy. They have been marked by the high-profile participation of Italian and European politicians in well-covered discussions on social and political issues. There's a notable difference this year, as this report shows.

Rimini 2007: A meeting under the 'sign of Ratzinger' By GIACOMO GALEAZZI

This will be known as the 'Meeting of Benedict XVI'. If last year's annual convention of Communione e Liberazione was considered the 'most political' in 27 years - because of the heated confrontations among Berlusconi, opposition politicians and the so-called theo-dem Catholic politician Paola Binetti - the 2007 CL kermesse is a record event for its very high ecclesiastical profile and its alignment with the policies of this Pontificate.

Not too long ago, such a primacy and alignment were considered unthinkable for the CL which began as a rather unorthodox church movement, barely in tune with the Vatican hierarchy. In 28 years, this is the first time that a Vatican Secretary of State has taken part in the Rimini convention. Neither Cardinal Casaroli or Cardinal Sodano ever accepted an invitation to these conventions from the organization founded by Don Luigi Giussani. But today, the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Bertone telecast direct by RAI opens a convention that appears focused on the Magisterium of Papa Ratzinger.

The most important items on the program are speeches and discussions in the name of Benedict XVI. The theme of the convention itself - "The truth is the fact for which we are all destined" - comes from a speech given by the Pope at the Pontifical Lateran University last year. He said then: "In fact, if we drop the question of truth and the concrete possibility that every person is capable of reaching it, life becomes reduced to a spectrum of hypotheses without any sure reference points."

Bertone's homily was about truth and what it demands of believers. It was the first of major speeches scheduled by the "Ratzinger boys' at the various discussions and workshops. Mons. Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University and a theological consultant at the Vatican, was to talk about the spiritual journey of the late Oriana Fallaci and her advocacy of Benedict's teachings. Professor Schindler, editor of the German edition of Communio (the theological journal co-founded by Joseph Ratzinger with Hans Urs von Balthasar and like-minded theologians after Vatican-II), and Mons. Luigi Negri, bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, will discuss various elements of Benedict's Magisterium based on his encyclical Deus caritas est.

Two hot issues of this Papacy (the Middle East and dialog with the Orthodox Church) have been assigned to two key Vatican liaison men, Franciscan friar Pierbattista Pizzaballa, custodian of the Holy Land, and Fr. Romano Scalfi, an expert on Russian Orthotodxy. The Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, Diarmuid Martin, another 'Ratzinger old faithful', will discuss how Christians should behave in crisis situations.

But the thematic center of Rimini 2007 is the Pope's Regensburg lecture given less than a year ago, as the launching point for discussing the Ratzingerian ideas on faith and reason. German philosopher Robert Spaemann, a longtime friend of Joseph Ratzinger, will lead discussions on prospects for inter-religious dialog that have been unexpectedly opened by the Regensburg lecture. Fr. Ambrogio Pisani, theologian from Catholic University, has been assigned to directly face leaders from other faiths in inter-religious discussions. Framing this 'Ratzinger Meeting' is a lecture by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice and a CL member, and another by Massimo Camisasca, Superior-General of the Fraternity of San Carlo, and CL's most popular personality for mobilization. Not to mention the new Bishop of Rimini, Francesco Lambiasi, who, in his work at Catholic Action, has favored rapport between them and CL.

La Stampa, 19 agosto 2007