I am still waiting for a full English translation of his homily and angleus that Pope Benedict gave yesterday on his pastoral visit to Cagliari . These words toward the end have created quite a stir:
May she (Mary) help you to be capable of evangelizing the world of work, of the economy, of politics, which needs a new generation of committed lay Christians who are able, with competence and moral rigor, to find solutions for sustainable development.
It appears to me that his Angelus also created a stir and was related. As soon as both are translated I will post them
Of course many say he is attacking the current Italian Government which appears to be false. I think these two articles relating to this are interest because it also applies to American Catholics and politics.
'Politics needs a new generation of committed Christians'
by Alberto Bobbio Translated from Sept. 8, 2008
Translated from L'ECO DI BERGAMO
The Pope is concerned about it [the involvement of Catholics in public life]. He spoke to Sardinia but he also spoke to all of Italy. He insists on the need for evangelization, a pastoral strategy of the Church for the whole nation.
He spoke on his usual themes: family, formation, the educative emergency. Yesterday in Cagliari, Benedict XVI once again spoke with passion of the Gospel, saying that families today "more than ever need confidence and support, on both the spiritual and social levels". The Pope looks at Italy during a difficult period, re-stating his call for a new evangelization in "the world of work, of the economy, of politics", adding that politics "needs a new generation of committed lay Christians who are able, with competence and moral rigor, to find solutions for sustainable development."
There is a profound analysis of the present situation in Italy, in the words which Benedict XVI said yesterday in the course of a homily at the Mass he celebrated at the top of the theatrical staircase leading from the sea to the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria. More than 150,000 attentive faithful were present. In the first row, besides the Governor of Sardinia, Renato Boru, was the President of the Council of Ministers, Silvio Berlusconi, and the undersecretary of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, Gianni Letta.
The words of the Pope took the form of an appeal similar to the "liberi e forti" (free and strong) appeal of Don Luigi Sturzo. [Sicilian priest, 1871-1959, considered one of the founders of Christian democracy in postwar Italy]. He did not cal for 'new Catholic politicians' as many Internet sites and news agencies reported right away, manipulating his words. He was addressing himself to all laymen, with the premise that politics is a good thing for whoever thinks it worthwhile to be involved in - but with responsibility and rigor, and above all, without forgetting the problems of the people, which today have to do with precarious employment, and an economy that ignores the poorest.
Rather, that politicians must concern themselves with 'sustainable development' that does not compromise human dignity. It is the same appeal that Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops conference, made in an interview with the magazine Tracce [organ of Comunione e Liberazione, C&L) before last month's Meeting at Rimini (sponsored by C&L). But this is a theme that Benedict XVI has constantly woven into his pastoral preaching in Italy.
He said it at the decennial convention of the Italian Church in Verona in 2006, and he has repeated them during his pastoral visits to the Italian dioceses of Pavia, Genoa and Brindisi. He also spoke about the need to protect the family in his Angelus message yesterday, in almost poetic words, when he said that 'every mother on earth' must be protected - "those who, together with their husbands, educate their children in a harmonious familial context, and those who, for various reasons, find themselves facing this arduous task alone". He was not referring only to single mothers, but even to widows or those who have been separated for reasons that are often traumatic. The family was also at the center of the Pope's propositions to the youth he met before going back to Rome. He asked them to defend 'family values' to be "guarded like an antique and sacred legacy", even if "a different mentality prevails in reality."
The Pope pointed out, in this context, that today "other forms of living together have become acceptable" and that "often, the term family is used for unions which are, in fact, not a family at all". Papa Ratzinger observed that "the ability of spouses to defend the nuclear family even at the cost of great sacrifice has been greatly diminished". And so, he practically implored the young people: "
Take back for yourselves the value of family, love your family not merely out of tradition, but out of your mature and conscious choice." He then asked them to prepare themselves to love that family "which with God's help, you too will form" because "true love cannot be improvident."
The Pope spoke clearly to the young people. He asked them to watch out for those who look down on "intellectual and moral formation" because "they do not wish you well". He said that "the crisis of a society starts when it no longer knows how to transmit its cultural patrimony and its values to the new generations". He made clear he was not referring only to the scholastic system: "The question is much wider."
He spoke of the 'educative emergency', which "in order to be met, requires parents and educators capable of sharing the good and the true that they themselves have experienced and felt deeply at first hand." He then took up another key theme of his Pontificate, disputing those who maintain that "there is no truth, opening the way for disposing of the concepts of good and evil, making them interchangeable". "When the sense of God's presence is lost, everything is flattened out... (and) things and persons are of interest only to the degree that they satisfy needs and not for and in themselves".
Benedict XVI also spoke of the Church of Sardinia and its great Marian devotion. His trip commemorated the centenary of the dedication of Sardinia to Our Lady of Bonaria, patroness of the island. And when the Pope said in the Sard language the words about Mary taken from the Sard 'hail Mary" - «Sa Mama, Fiza, Isposa de su Segnore» - not just applause but a triumphal roar erupted from his audience of 150,000 Sardinians.
It was the first time a Pope had spoken their language. NB: L'Eco di Bergamo is an influential regional newspaper (for northern Italy) published in Bergamo, hometown of Blessed John XXIII. It was the first newspaper - and so far, the only one - to carry the Sunday edition of L'Osservatore Romano as a supplement to its own Sunday issue. Alberto Bobbio, its Vatican correspondent, is also one of the editors of the national magazine Famiglia Cristiana[/C]
I thought this was a intriguing interview in La Stampa. Note the translators words are in italics
Interview with Vittorio Messori: '
Don't tug the Pope to the right or the left' by Giacomo Galeazzi
"Don't tug him to the left or the right. The Pope has no intention of reconstituting the DE [I gather these are the Italian initials for a political grouping - I have not been able to figure it out so far] but to block the way in Italy for (Spanish Prime Minister) Zapatero's anti-clerical model of government."
"The solution would be to have committed Christian politicians in all the political parties". Vittorio Messori, who wrote the 1984 interview-book Rapporto sulla Fede with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, attributes the Pope's call for a new generation of Catholic politicians the merit of "overcoming provincial disputes between believers of the right and left by calling for an innovative program of action".
Is the Pontiff expressing nostalgia for political unity among Catholics?
No. He wants a fresh start in order to extend the Catholic presence in politics and other social spheres. It is significant that he singled out two emergencies: support for families, and intellectual and moral formation through the school system. Benedict XVI is indicating the priority tasks for a generation of politicians who are both competent and morally rigorous. It is not an invitation to create new parties faithful to the Church.
The proposal for a euthanasia law by the previous democratic coalition [Prodi's government] did good because it roused believers across the entire constitutional and political spectrum. At this time, the Pontiff intends to redefine the public position gained (by the Church in Italy) in the past 15 years and to overcome the degeneration of the political system in order to return to the 'young and strong' spirit of Sturzo [See preceding article by Bobbio] and the impeccable rigor of De Gasperi [1881-1954, Italian statesman who was one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union along with Germany's Konrad Adenauer and France's Robert Schumann; he was Italy's first President when the present Republic was constituted in 1946 and served eight years as Prime Minister and head of the now defunct Christian Democratic party, which was often sympathetic to the positions of the Catholic Church].
The DE is history - it would be fanciful to resuscitate a midget. Better to renew everything and 'distribute' serious, well-prepared young people in various political and social levels.
What about the rupture between Romano Prodi's 'adult Catholics' and 'theo-cons' like Marcello Pera?
St. Josemaria Escriva, who founded Opus Dei, taught that there are no dogmas in politics, therefore one can do good whether one is on the left, center or right. The Pope does not lead any single nation or church and is above and beyond these Italian counter-positions. His words cannot be used by one side or the other as the political parties have been trying to do in seeking to 'impoverish' the words of the president of the Italian bishops conference. Political choices are not choices of faith, so it is legitimate for believers to make different choices.
But Benedict XVI made it clear that the new Catholic politicians to be sent forth and dispersed must be capable of defending non-negotiable values like the sacredness of life, the centrality of the family, and educative freedom. In short, these are no longer the times of Sturzo's Partito Popolare or De Gasperi's Christian Democrats. The way proposed by Papa Ratzinger is for our post-modern times.
And this way is...?
Benedict knows that in Italy, unlike in France or Spain, anti-clericalism, can be abjured simply by the widespread presence of Catholics. No Italian party would ever take on Zapatero's anti-clerical program because its Catholic components would never accept such a secular drift. The Pope has focused on transmitting to the youth a patrimony of culture and values that does not take shortcuts, and he entrusts the future to the intellectual and moral formation of persons who will be the yeast of society. In this sense, a generation of free politicians who are committed to the truth is the only adequate Catholic response to the serious crises of society.
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