Pope supports U.S. ‘day of prayer’ for peace conference
Pope Benedict expressed hope for progress at the upcoming international peace conference in Annapolis, Md., saying Palestinians and Israelis must find a way to reach a “just and definitive solution.”
The pope endorsed the U.S. bishops’ call for today’s “day of prayer” for the success of the conference. He said prayers were needed so that negotiators are granted the wisdom and courage to make real steps toward peace.
The pope said the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “for 60 years has been bloodying the Holy Land, causing “so many tears and so much suffering among the two peoples.”
The pope made the remarks Sunday on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of a Mass that he concelebrated with 23 new cardinals.
In a recent letter, Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged U.S. bishops to call parishes and individuals to pray for peace, especially on the Sunday before the peace conference.
The U.S.-sponsored conference opens on Tuesday, and participants include representatives from a number of Arab states.
Cardinals meet the crowds in the Apostolic Palace
It’s sometimes dubbed the world’s most exclusive club, but on Saturday the College of Cardinals threw a party with an open invitation.
The courtesy visits in the Apostolic Palace are a consistory’s most democratic moment, as international pilgrims and curious Romans line up by the thousands to meet and greet the newly inducted cardinals.
They were 20 abreast in a solid wall of humanity at 4:30 p.m., when Swiss Guards began letting people through the ceremonial Bronze Doors.
The Apostolic Palace is the pope’s house, among other things, and the cardinals were distributed throughout the ornate rooms and hallways that are rarely opened to the public.
Cardinal John P. Foley, as one of the most senior of the new cardinals, got a prime spot in the frescoed Sala Regia. He sat in a chair and greeted well-wishers with typical good humor, even though he still wasn’t feeling 100 percent after being under the weather all week.
The Polish superior general of the Felician Sisters who staff the Villa Stritch, where Cardinal Foley lives, was among the first people to greet him. She gave the cardinal a bouquet of red roses to match his new robes.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston stood in the Benediction Hall, shaking hands, chatting and answering questions. When one Italian asked if he had heard from President Bush, Cardinal DiNardo said yes, the president had called him three weeks ago. “He said`Congratulations.’ I said, `Thank you,’” the cardinal said.
Nearby, other neo-cardinals from Argentina, India, Iraq, Nigeria and Senegal were also holding court.
The visitors included ambassadors, church officials and politicians, along with lots of ordinary folk who marveled at the sumptuous setting.
Several people found themselves facing a window in the center of the Benediction Hall, peering through sheer curtains onto St. Peter’s Square. They realized with a start that this was the central balcony above the basilica, where Pope Benedict first appeared to the world after his election. One pilgrim stood there and held out his arms — just to see how it feels.
Sandra and Michael Effler of Houston had someone take a souvenir photo of themselves in front of a carved door that led to the Pauline Chapel. They were thrilled to be here, but said standing in the crowded line outside was not a pleasant experience. How bad was it? “It was worse than Mardi Gras down there,” said Sandra.
Among those congratulating the new cardinals were the old cardinals. Italian Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, 84 years old and long retired from a number of Vatican positions, had to introduce himself to Nigerian neo-Cardinal John Njue.
I chatted with Cardinal Silvestrini afterward and he acknowledged that with a record 201 members in the College of Cardinals, not everyone knows each other. “We’re working on it,” he said, and walked slowly toward the next cardinal’s station.
At the end of the Benediction Hall, Iraqi Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly was a much sought-out figure, accepting congratulations and many promises of prayer for his country. The prayer card he handed out to well-wishers quoted the Psalms: “I will rejoice and be glad of your kindness, when you have seen my affliction.”
Cardinal Delly told one visitor he had been moved by Pope Benedict’s appeal for Iraqi Christians during the consistory earlier in the day. “He spoke the truth,” the cardinal said.
I took a look at Cardinal Delly’s distinctive round red hat, which the pope had placed on his head during the consistory. Up close, it looked like someone had simply sewn a red band of cloth around his standard Chaldean patriarch’s black hat — an elegant and creative touch.
I asked Father Philip Najim, the Chaldean procurator in Rome, if my hunch was correct. He nodded. “I did it, in Lebanon,” he said. I told him that it looked wonderful.
Elevation of new Iraqi cardinal draws attention to country’s plight
Not to be missed in today’s coverage of the consistory to create new cardinals is the fact that the elevation of Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad should help focus the world’s attention on the plight of Christians in Iraq.
Our story by Carol Glatz of our Rome bureau details the sad history of one Iraqi priest who came to the Vatican for the celebration:
Chaldean Father Basel Yaldo, 37, was among those who came to Rome to see his patriarch elevated. Father Yaldo was kidnapped for three days in September 2006, just after Pope Benedict’s controversial remarks about Islam in Regensburg, Germany, inflamed part of the Muslim world. Death threats against the priest were so serious that he was transferred from Baghdad to a parish in Michigan.
Jerry Yono, a Chaldean businessman in Southfield, Mich., said Father Yaldo had been beaten so badly by his captors that he was unable to walk properly for a long time.
“He’s only just now back to normal,” Yono said.
Speaking to CNS through a translator, Father Yaldo said Nov. 23 that he had not been kidnapped for money, but that his abductors instead “had some conditions.”
Yono said one of the conditions was to tell Cardinal Delly that all Christians were to leave Iraq.
Father Yaldo said his and his family’s lives had been threatened and that it was still too dangerous for him to return to Iraq, where his family remains.
“They cannot afford to leave, they can’t get visas, and if they leave their house will be taken away” by Muslims, he said.
Cardinal Delly said he would stay in Iraq and continue to lobby political and religious leaders to work together to create peace and improve security in the country.
There’s more further on in the story about the debate among Iraqi Christians over whether they can someday return home and what Iraq’s nascent government is trying to do to help people live in harmony once the current strife subsides.
The least we can do, now that the pope has highlighted their struggles, is to keep them in our prayers, as the U.S. bishops suggested at their general meeting in Baltimore earlier this month.
Another podcast by Salt Lake bishop
Our friends at the Intermountain Catholic in Salt Lake City are continuing their rather unique practice of posting podcasts with their bishop. The latest by Bishop John C. Wester is on vocations, including, according to the IC, ”vocational discernment, our seminarians, priests from out-of-country and a little bit about when Bishop Wester decided to become a priest.”
Opening bell at the cardinals’ meeting with Pope Benedict
With different modes of transportation, cardinals from around the world arrived for a meeting with Pope Benedict on Friday, the day before a consistory to create 23 new cardinals.
A pool of journalists watched as cardinals entered the Synod Hall building one by one. Some came by foot, some were chauffeured and one — 75-year-old Dutch Cardinal Adrianus Simonis — rode a bicycle to the meeting hall.
Cardinal-designate John P. Foley stepped out of his car and began chatting with reporters on the other side of the press pen. Within seconds he looked up, a bit surprised, to see a cluster of fuzzy boom mikes overhead. “I guess my every word is being recorded,” he remarked.
The Philadelphia native had been feeling under the weather all week, but he wasn’t about to miss this meeting. Like the others being made a cardinal Saturday, he wore his bishop’s purple today.
“The red goes on tomorrow,” he said.
Near the building’s entrance, a vehicle dropped off Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, who went directly inside. Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice, energetic as always, jumped out of his car before it even stopped moving and began conferring with fellow Italians in the parking lot.
Those who walked were sometimes intercepted. Down near St. Peter’s Square, Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican’s saintmaking office, was sidelined by a stamp collector who asked him to autograph a recent commemorative series.
Inside the atrium of the hall, each cardinal was handed a red folder, which presumably contained a program and the text of the day’s main address on ecumenism by Cardinal Walter Kasper.
Old friends and colleagues greeted each other: Cardinal William J. Levada, the Vatican’s doctrinal chief and the former archbishop of San Francisco, conversed with Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.
Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow was warmly welcomed by everyone in his path. I asked Cardinal Dziwisz how it felt to come back to the Vatican, where he had spent more than 26 years as secretary to Pope John Paul II. He paused a moment and said, “So many memories,” and then moved into the Synod Hall.
We counted 143 cardinals in the hall at the opening bell. Pope Benedict entered the room to applause and bowed his head for morning prayer. When it was over, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, read a greeting to the pontiff and our reporting pool was ushered out. The business part of this assembly was closed-door.
Before leaving I took a last glance at the room. The pope sat in the center of the dais, at a place that was furnished with a microphone, three monitors, a telephone, a water bottle and his own red folder.
Up against one wall, the translators were already working in their booths.
To the pope’s left, the cardinals-to-be were seated in a group. I noticed that Cardinal-designate Foley was in the front row.
It’s official: Pope to sign second encyclical Nov. 30
CNS Rome bureau chief John Thavis reports that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, made the announcement today. As we reported in October, the pope’s new encyclical is on Christian hope.
Update: Catholic press meeting with Cardinal Levada
Update: Here’s a photo of the Catholic press meeting at the Vatican with Cardinal William J. Levada taken by Chris Gunty of the Florida Catholic:
Inside the doctrinal congregation: Catholic journalists meet Cardinal Levada
It’s not every day that a group of reporters can sit around the conference table in the doctrinal congregation’s inner sanctum and toss questions at its cardinal-prefect.
U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, named to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2005, generously gave time during a busy week to a delegation of Catholic journalists. They were in Rome for Saturday’s consistory, on a trip sponsored by the Catholic Press Association.
The setting alone was impressive. Cardinal Levada hosted the reporters in the “Sala di Consulta,” where three times a month about 30 consulters — mostly professors at Rome pontifical universities — meet to offer perspectives on whatever the congregation considers the pressing issues of the day.
Sometimes these discussions are the breeding ground of new documents; sometimes they’re just interesting exchanges of opinions. Participants sit at a large oval table outfitted with microphones. On the wall are portraits of Pope Pius V, a former prefect of the congregation and now its patron saint, and Pope Benedict XVI, who presided here for 24 years before becoming pope.
At the same table, the cardinal and bishop members of the congregation meet once a month — always on a Wednesday — to review issues and make decisions.
With the Catholic journalists, Cardinal Levada fielded questions ranging from ecumenism to excommunication. This was mostly a background conversation, but a few things can be disclosed:
– The cardinal doesn’t anticipate another Vatican document on politics and Communion as the U.S. election campaign gets into full swing over the coming year.
– The congregation is pressing ahead with a global study of “natural law theories for moral theology,” which could turn into a bigger project.
– The cardinal’s weekly meetings with Pope Benedict are not pro forma. As one might guess, the pope still takes a keen interest in the details of doctrinal affairs.