One More Big Catholic post before I do some political posts hat I am sure will makes some folks upset.
Pope Says- Knowing God created them makes humans great, pope says-
First Pope Benedict did aother excellent talk on a Early Church Father today. That is St. Gregory Nazianzene. I really wish there was a way we could be getting out these wonderful homilies he is doing on this subject out to everyday Catholics and other Christians more. There are reasons why there have been a 20 percent increase in attendance at these talks since he became Bishop of Rome. From this news article we can gleam some great stuff such as :
For St Gregory "theology was not a purely human reflection and even less only the fruit of complicated speculation, but derived from a life of prayer and holiness, from an assiduous dialogue with God." and "let us also be moved by the love conveyed in his poetry.". Elsewhere Pope Benedict said St. Gregory wrote constantly of the primacy of God, a truth that helps human beings recognize their place and purpose in the world."Without God, man loses his greatness," he said. "Without God there is no true humanism. So, let us listen to his voice and try to know the face of God."
The entire text has been translate here just a short time ago at the Ratiznger Forum. It is the post second from the top and is a great read.
Bush Praises Pope-
The Italian media is follwing the Vatican Secretary's of State trip to the USA. They picked up it appears the statements of President Bush that were videotaped for the the Knights of Columbus Convention At the always resourceful Ratzinger Forum where they translate all this Italian stuff .They have picked up on a piece in the Italian Newspaper Avvenire(which I think is a Italian Catholic Paper) has this story
Unusually, the President also addressed a greeting to Cardinal Bertone and words of praise for Pope Benedict XVI, whom he called "a brilliant thinker and a man of love", recalling their meeting last June and in particular, the role that the USA could play in Africa. Bush thanked the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic lay organization, for its commitment to "protecting life", referring to the organization's role in fighting abortion, and reiterating his own commitment to veto any law that would authorize government spending for embryonic stem-cell research.
I hope Catholics in the United States realize that there is a good chance this is not the senitments of just some speech writer. I really think that President Bush takes what Pope Benedict says seriously. In June when Bush visited the Pope he mention that he had read some of the Holy Father's books!! Which ones you might ask? Well we don't know because no silly journalist thought to ask that question. That would have been interesting to know.
Anyway Bush's remarks on video can be found here.
Major Changes At the Vatican Newspaper-
When I was looking for the translation of the Holy Father's remarks today at the Ratiznger Forum , I ran across this very interesting piece I want to highlight.
This piece is located here at the Forum and is the fourth post down and is entitled: WILL THE VATICAN NEWSPAPER BE LESS PROVINCIAL NOW.
That post is a full translation from the Italian paper, Corriere della Sera, and involves the offical Vatican Newspaper Osservatore Romano. I recently posted my thoughts on how the Vatican can do better on communications.. Osservatore Romaino can be accessed at the Vatican City State Web site that is my links. Again a resource that I feel is not meeting a lot of its potential. From the news article let me quote this encouraging news:
VATICAN CITY - On September 1, it will be 23 years since Pope John Paul II entrusted the editorship of Osservatore Romano to Mario Agnes. Now it's time for a change. On that day, the new editor will be Giovanni (Gian) Maria Vian, 55, lecturer in Patristic Philology at Rome's La Sapienza University, who has been an outstanding editorialist for both Osservatore Romano, the official publication of the Vatican, and Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference. The appointment of Vian completes the Vatican communications team of Pope Benedict XVI, who last year named Fr Federico Lombardi - already director of Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center - to be the director of the Vatican Press Office [after the retirement of John Paul's spokesman for 22 years, Joaquin Navarro-Valls]. Last June, the Pope named Archbishop Claudio Celli to be the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the organism which is charged with supervision and coordination of all Vatican media. Archbishop Celli was the Pope's envoy to Beijing last year for meetings with Chinese officials and was primarily in charge of the research and investigations in preparation for the Pope's letter to the Catholics of China. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, recently said that the Osservatore Romano should be transformed into a 'cultural laboratory' of world-class caliber for the Catholic world.
There is more at the above link. Hopefully the changes we seem to be seeing at the Vatican as to Communications will occur here also.
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