A saint in the family
When he packed his bag for a trip to Rome, Philadelphia Msgr. James T. McDonough brought along two advance copies of a book written by a relative. The copies were quickly given away, and his suitcase will be a little lighter going back home.
“My Cousin the Saint” was written by Justin Catanoso, who is the nephew of the spouse of the monsignor’s cousin — or something like that. The genealogy of it all was pretty complex for our passing conversation.
I stopped by Msgr. McDonough’s table Thursday evening at a dinner attended by about 150 members of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. They were on a once-every-five-year pilgrimage to Rome, and seemed to be having a great time.
Being handed an uncorrected proof of a book with the words, “A relative of mine wrote this,” does not always augur well. But I began paging through it after the dinner and today found myself reading big chunks of it at the office.
Essentially, it’s the story of what happens when Catanoso, an Italian-American journalist, discovers he has a saint in the family — his grandfather’s cousin, St. Gaetano Catanoso (left), a humble priest who built a reputation for holiness in a Calabrian village in southern Italy. He died in 1963, and was among the first group of saints canonized by Pope Benedict in 2005.
Justin Catanoso eventually went back to the Italian village and met the rest of his extended family, along the way trying to figure out what it takes to be a saint, and to be recognized as one. The story is all the more poignant because the author’s brother was dying of cancer at the time, and the family was hoping for a miracle.
“My Cousin the Saint” contains some not-to-be-missed accounts of the author’s meetings with the Vatican’s “saintmakers” (yes, yes, we know, the Vatican recognizes saints, it doesn’t make them.)
According to Amazon.com, the book’s due out in May.
Keeping the faith in Catholic charity
Faced with growing pressure to dilute their Christian message, some leaders of Catholic aid agencies that operate under the Caritas umbrella have been invited to attend a spiritual retreat in order to reaffirm the link between Christian faith and charitable activity.
Top officials for Caritas-affiliated agencies in North and South America have been invited to a retreat in Guadalajara, Mexico the first week of June to pray, reflect, and foster their own faith, according to Cardinal Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
He made the announcement after presenting Pope Benedict’s 2008 Lenten message during a Tuesday press conference.
“There is a difference between Caritas and the Red Cross,” he told journalists, “and this difference must be underlined.”
The retreat — which will be led by the preacher of the papal household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa – is meant to counteract ”a certain kind of secularism” that has been creeping into Catholic agencies, the cardinal said.
It is not the fault of the Catholic organizations, he emphasized, but rather it is something embedded “in the mentality of development.” By that he meant, sometimes donors — whether government or private – may tend to feel they should have some sway or control over the organization they’re contributing to.
Thanks to the generosity of funding from non-religious sources, he said, the church has been able to reach out to even more people in need. However, he warned this arrangement does “carry a risk that the spirit of the Catholic agency becomes secularized which means doing only what the donor has in mind.”
This problem looms large in Colorado, where Capuchin Archbishop Charles Chaput is fighting the introduction of a state bill that would, in his words, “greatly hinder any Catholic entity which receives state money from hiring or firing employees based on the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church.” You can read his commentary on House Bill 1080 here.
Although the bill was temporarily withdrawn from consideration last week, according to the Denver Archdiocese, it could still be reintroduced.
The debate spilled over into the Letters to the Editor section of the Denver Catholic Register this week. Read two sides of the issue the paper presented here and here.
Cardinal Cordes, meanwhile, praised Archbishop Chaput’s efforts saying “I think this bishop is doing the right thing.” ”Charitable activity or the faithful’s good deeds have always been tied to the proclamation of the word,” he said at the Tuesday press conference.
He said the bond between serving humanity and paying witness to the Gospel “is a link no one can break.”
“I think Catholic agencies must be very careful not to lose their freedom by taking money from donors who afterwards bring into the agency a mentality that does not correspond to (their) ecclesial mission,” he said.
PHOTO: Archbishop Paul Cordes delivers a message from Pope Benedict XVI at the cathedral in Baton Rouge, La., in this 2005 file photo. The German archbishop and president of the Vatican charity, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, had toured areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (CNS/Greg Tarczynski)
Martyrs hanging in there, silently
With a ban on fans’ decibel levels now in place, the North American College has slipped to a third-place tie in the rankings in Rome’s Clericus Cup soccer tournament.
Their 1-0 loss on Saturday to last year’s champs and soccer powerhouse, Redemptoris Mater, gives the NAC Martyrs six points in their division standings, tied with the Benedictine players of Rome’s St. Anselmo College.
“We had a tough time with injuries already this year,” said the team’s trainer/coach/star/co-captain Daniel O’Mullane, from Paterson, N.J. “But I’m confident that when we get our men back on the field, we have some time to gel, we’re going to be a force to reckon with,” he said in an informal press release yesterday.
With two wins and two losses under their belts, the NAC Martyrs have three more games to hold on tight if they’re to make it to the April quarterfinals. They’re up next against the Latin American College Feb. 9.
O’Mullane praised his team’s strong defense, which kept Redemptoris Mater – nicknamed Red Mat – from inflicting too much damage. Unfortunately in the first half, the Red Mat goalie punched O’Mullane’s free kick right over the crossbar and away from the net.
Clericus Cup organizers said they had to remind fans to keep their cheering down over the weekend because of neighbors’ complaints that the priestly soccer matches were a “disturbance of the peace.” (By the way, here’s a great photo from the Italian Sports Center, the Catholic association that organizes the soccer series, of a Redemptoris Mater fan taken during Saturday’s game against the NAC showing his silent protest of the recent fan-noise ban.)
When fans of the Pontifical Urbanian University (once famed for blasting out reggae music during games) got shushed for cheering, they resorted to praying the Hail Mary out loud and in Latin — sure they wouldn’t get in trouble for reciting the rosary.
And you think YOUR neighborhood is noisy!
We’ve been devotedly following the Clericus Cup soccer tournament, which features teams from Rome’s major seminaries in friendly matches with an international flavor. So we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss yesterday’s story about how Clericus Cup fans are being asked to hold down the noise because of complaints from the neighbors. It seems that the tambourines, megaphones and boomboxes were interfering with Roman siesta times, especially on Sunday afternoons. Only in Rome …
Easter’s coming early this year
At the Vatican Press Office today, Archbishop Claudio Celli’s inaugural press conference was followed by an informal rinfresco — pizza and spumante. The archbishop had one slice, but some of the journalists made lunch of it.
The dessert tray held those pre-Lenten Italian favorites: frappe, a sweet fried flat pastry, and castagnole, fried and sugared dough balls. As they quickly disappeared, someone remarked that we’d better enjoy them now because Ash Wednesday was less than two weeks away.
Is that possible?
Yes. Lent begins on Feb. 6, and Easter is March 23. That’s the earliest Easter since 1913, when it fell on the same date.
In 1913, however, Ash Wednesday came on Feb. 5, a day earlier than this year.
Is that possible?
Yes, because 2008 is a leap year, thus adding an extra day in the middle of the Lenten season.
The earliest Ash Wednesday possible is Feb. 4, and the earliest Easter is March 22. That last happened in 1818.
The fact that Easter is a moveable feast confuses many people, even in Rome. So is the fact that Catholics and Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter on different dates, because they follow different calendars. This year, for example, the Orthodox celebrate Easter on April 27 — more than a month after Catholics.
It’s not easy to explain in a sentence or two, but here’s how the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” puts it:
At the Council of Nicaea in 325, all the Churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon (14 Nisan) after the vernal equinox. Because of the different methods of calculating the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the date of Easter in the Western and Eastern churches is not always the same. For this reason, the churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord’s Resurrection on a common date.
Catholic and Orthodox leaders actually sat down several times in the late 1990s to try and resolve the problem of different Easter celebrations, but didn’t come up with an answer. At that time, the Vatican made it clear that the Catholic Church, following the lead of the Second Vatican Council, could accept the assigning of Easter to a specific Sunday agreed upon with other Christian churches.
One proposal was to celebrate Easter on the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. That sounded do-able. But, perhaps because old traditions die hard, it hasn’t happened yet.
PHOTO: Shown is some of the frappe and castagnole served up at a Vatican press conference Jan. 24. (John Thavis)
Portraits of the new Jesuit general in words and pixels
When the Jesuits announced Saturday that members of their General Congregation elected Father Adolfo Nicolas to be the new superior general, they put out a fairly bare-bones biography. Although not much was added to the biography, the Jesuits soon revamped the announcement into an election-day ”chronicle.”
Sunday evening’s Mass of Thanksgiving in the Church of the Gesu, where the order’s founder St. Ignatius is buried, gave the public an opportunity to form a first impression of new superior, who was born in Spain but has ministered in Asia for 40 years.
Little by little, Jesuits among the 217 electors are writing about the man they believe the Holy Spirit led them to elect. Several of the testimonials are on the Internet, including one by the Jesuit provincial of the Philippines, Father Daniel Patrick Huang, who has lived and worked with Father Nicolas.
Another portrait — a visual one — is being offered to news media and Web sites by Jesuit Father Don Doll. On the roof of the Jesuit headquarters, just a block from St. Peter’s Square, he also took a group photograph of all 225 participants in to the General Congregation. One Jesuit had said that getting all of the Jesuits on the roof and looking at the camera at the same time would be like “herding cats.”
The Jesuits thoughtfully have included photos of the heights Father Doll had to go to in order to get the shot.
PHOTO: Jesuit Father Adolfo Nicolas takes the oath of office as superior general of the Society of Jesus at the order’s 35th General Congregation Jan. 19 in Rome. (CNS/Don Doll, S.J.)
Tomb of the other apostle
The Vatican has announced a full slate of activities for the 2008-2009 jubilee year dedicated to St. Paul. But one thing NOT on the schedule is the re-opening of the apostle’s tomb.
At a Vatican press conference Monday, Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo said Pope Benedict personally decided not to attempt an invasive investigation of the sarcophagus believed to hold St. Paul’s remains — at least not during the Pauline year.
The main reason is that the marble sarcophagus lies buried beneath the main altar in the Rome Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, and unearthing it would require too much architectural destruction.
The tomb is enclosed by a wall, apparently built to protect the area from floods, and it would make excavation very difficult if not impossible.
For much the same reason, visitors during the Pauline year will be unable to imitate an ancient pilgrim practice of lowering pieces of cloth or other objects through a hole in the tomb, in order to create secondary relics.
Visitors will at least be able to see one side of the roughly cut sarcophagus, which lies beneath an inscription: “Paul Apostle Martyr.”
Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo said the sarcophagus has apparently remained sealed since it was placed there in the fourth century.
Strangely, the tomb was virtually ignored in recent centuries, but interest was rekindled during the great pilgrimages of Holy Year 2000.
After several years of research, Vatican archeologists announced in 2006 that this was, indeed, the tomb of St. Paul. They based their identification on historical and scientific evidence, and said it didn’t really matter whether or not the sarcophagus still holds the saint’s relics.
It seemed to matter a little bit, though, because they tried to X-ray the sarcophagus. That didn’t work — its marble walls were too thick.
In any case, Pope Benedict seems to have little doubt about the question. When he went to the basilica in 2007, he said that according to the common opinion of the experts and unopposed tradition, the sarcophagus holds the remains of St. Paul.
The Pauline year begins June 28. As the calendar of Rome events takes shape, check here and here for information (in Italian, but English is coming soon.)
PHOTO: Pope Benedict XVI looks at the crypt which church officials believe to be the tomb of St. Paul the Apostle during an ecumenical prayer service in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Jan. 25, 2007. The pope was accompanied by Cardinal Andrea Cor dero Lanza di Montezemolo, the archpriest of the basilica, seen pointing toward the crypt, and Benedictine Abbot Edmund Power of the Abbey of St. Paul’s, right. (CNS/L’Osservatore Romano)
The pope and academia: Recapping this week’s misunderstandings
Much has been written this week about the protests against — and subsequent cancellation of – Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at a Rome university on the importance of seeking truth, with much of the commentary aimed at the irony of a community which preaches academic freedom not wanting to hear from someone who members may disagree with.
If you’re still trying to figure this episode out, you shouldn’t miss today’s Vatican Letter by Rome bureau chief John Thavis, who points out that even academics are not immune from acting on misinformation. As John notes:
But as the commentary flowed in the wake of the pope’s university cancellation, it became apparent that many of the protesting professors had very little knowledge of what the pope has actually said or written.
John also notes that, even though students came to the pope’s Wednesday general audience to show their support and the Diocese of Rome organized a show of support in St. Peter’s Square, this week’s episode “suggests that Pope Benedict’s message about reason and faith is missing much of its target audience” even though “it’s a key issue in his pontificate.”
But in the long term, the pope wants to reach the people who are not in the square.
Read on for more of John’s analysis.
PHOTO: Students from Rome’s Sapienza University display a banner that reads, “If Benedict doesn’t come to La Sapienza, La Sapienza goes to Benedict” and “Students with the pope,” during Pope Benedict XVI’s weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican Jan. 16. (CNS/Reuters)