Coutts, who is a doctor of philosophy, is the second Pakistani to become a cardinal. The late Joseph Cordeiro was made a cardinal in 1973.

Coutts is known for his services for interfaith relations, human rights and minorities in Pakistan.

He has a deep communion with Muslim, Hindu and Sikh scholars and with the common people and has helped build bridges among different faiths in Pakistan.

The Shalom Prize, which is awarded to those who promote peace in the world by the Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt in Germany, went to Coutts in 2017.

It rewarded his dedicated service to human rights and interfaith dialogue in Pakistan.

In a joint statement, Pakistan Catholics Bishops' Conference President and National Commission of Justice & Peace Chairman (NCJP) Joseph Arshad, Reverend Emmanuel Yousaf and NCJP Executive Director Cecil Shane Chaudhry praised Coutts.

They said his selection as a cardinal is truly a historic and a great moment of pride for the Catholic community and the entire nation.

"We have very optimistic feelings regarding this decision. Archbishop Coutts is a visionary with immense knowledge and in-depth understanding of political matters," they said.

Yousaf said the issues of human rights in Pakistan will now carry more weight and people will have a stronger voice internationally.

"We believe his [Coutts's] leadership will boost our morale and Archbishop Coutts will be a reason for progress of the local church."

Priests as well as students from the Oblate Community of Lahore are delighted with the news.

"Finally we get recognition on a wider scale," said seminary professor Father Cecil Paul.

"Now we shall have direct representation in the Vatican, just like neighbouring India who have four red hats."

Father Paul hoped the incoming cardinal would develop diplomatic relationships with foreign representatives as well as top military and political leaders in Pakistan.

Two and a half million Christians in Pakistan have faced increased discrimination and violence since the government enacted anti-blasphemy laws in the 1980s that have been used by some hard-line Islamic groups to target other faiths.

Source

• La Croix
• UCA News
• Daily Times
• Image: UCAN Directory

Cardinal Jean Daniélou was a Prince of the Church who had spent the first part of his priestly life seeking to renew and restore an authentic understanding of the riches of the Church Fathers and the need for a return to these sources of theology.

He was part of the ressourcement group - with Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the young Joseph Ratzinger - who had a profound and valuable influence at the Second Vatican Council.

The older among them, including Daniélou, had suffered considerably in earlier years, as their exploration of the writings of the early Fathers challenged the standard Neo-Thomism of the day.

Absolutely orthodox in their beliefs, they were regarded by some as dangerous Modernists and by others simply as tiresome individuals whose call for a fresh sense of mission and evangelisation was surely unnecessary.

Publishing patristic texts in a series, Sources Chrétiennes, in the 1940s, Daniélou and de Lubac opened up the Church Fathers to a new generation, an approach to theology offering a rediscovery of treasures.

Joseph Ratzinger, a peritus (adviser) at Vatican II 20 years later, described the sense of vigour and hope that accompanied the debates in Rome: a recognition of the Church's glorious truths for which the world was aching.

But then came the betrayal, of which Daniélou spoke in a Vatican Radio interview in 1972: "A false interpretation of Vatican II … secularisation, a false conception of freedom", and a collapse of authentic religious life, with priests abandoning their vows, a whole vision of consecrated life at risk.

The Jesuits of his own community were caught up in this: his superior would in due course leave the priesthood and dedicate his life to legalising abortion in France. Continue reading

• Joanna Bogle in Catholic Herald

Joanna Bogle is a British Catholic journalist, writer and broadcaster.

As such, he joins a list of 23 other cardinals who have lost this position from the 15th century onwards. The list of legitimate and illegitimate cardinals who for various reasons lost their rights and powers as cardinals between 1440 and today was published by Italian religious news blog Il Sismografo and is based on documentation provided by Salvador Miranda.

The pseudo-cardinals, the monk and the Duke of Valentinois

The list begins with the names of four former cardinals who lived in the 15th century: Johann Grünwalder, Otón de Moncada y de Luna, Wincenty Kotz Dębna and Bartolomeo Vitelleschi.

They are considered "pseudo-cardinals" because they were all elevated to the Cardinalate between 1440 and 1449 by the Antipope Felix V. The case of young Ardicino Della Porta, who was created cardinal in March 1489, was quite different.

Three years later he retired to a Camaldolese monastery with the Pope's permission. He was summoned back to Rome to take part in the Conclave that elected Rodrigo Borgia Pope Alexander VI. He fell ill and died a short while later.

The list of former cardinals that lived in this century ends with one of Alexander VI's illegitimate sons, Cesare. His father had him appointed bishop, archbishop and then cardinal in 1493. Five years later he asked his father for permission to withdraw from ecclesiastical life, which he obtained, resigning from the cardinalate. Continue reading

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Image: aleteia

"Then he'll die as my secretary," replied the future pope, now known as Blessed John XXIII.

Today, at age 98, now-Archbishop Capovilla has outlived his employer by half a century and remains an indefatigable custodian of his legacy, running a small museum dedicated to Blessed John's memory in the late pope's native town of Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII, about 25 miles northeast of Milan.

On Feb. 22, Pope Francis is scheduled to make the archbishop the world's oldest living cardinal. Continue reading.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: Cardinal-elect Capovilla in the museum dedicated to Blessed John XXIII in Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII, Italy, in February 2012 CNS/Paul Haring

In making his selection, the first of his pontificate, Pope Francis has chosen only 6 Europeans (including 4 Italians). Other cardinal electors come from, Latin American (5), African (2), Asia (2) and one from Canada.

Of the sixteen, five cardinals come from parts of the world that suffer from poverty, diseases, violence, natural disasters, and for whom life is a daily struggle.

Significantly, twelve of sixteen are residential bishops that currently govern a diocese.

It is considered traditional that the heads of the nine major Italian dioceses should be cardinals, however Pope Francis has further surprised in by-passing the Turin and Venice archdioceses.

Instead of Turin and Venice, he has given a red hat to the archbishop of Perugia, Gualtiero Bassetti, vice president of the Italian bishop's conference.

A pastoral bishop, Archbishop Bassetti is considered meek and prayerful man, the qualities the Pope likes in a bishop and whom, recently, he appointed to the Congregation of Bishops

In keeping the European electors to a minimum Pope Francis 'had' to appoint four who hold senior positions in the Vatican; Parolin (Secretary of State), Baldisseri (Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops), Muller (Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), and Stella (Head of the Congregation for Clergy).

The other European is Archbishop Nichols of Westminster (England), who like Bassetti was recently appointed to the Congregation for Bishops.

After making the announcement, Pope Francis wrote to each new cardinal reminding them the position should not be seen as a promotion and that it is neither an honour nor a decoration.

He reminded the new cardinals of their role of service, one that requires them to look further and to love more universally and with greater intensity than before.

Pope Francis asked the cardinals to receive the designation with a simple and contrite heart.

Those under 80 years old and eligible to enter a conclave to elect the next pope are:

• Pietro Parolin, Titular Archbishop of Acquapendente, Secretary of State
• Lorenzo Baldisseri, Titular Archbishop of Diocleziana, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops.
• Gerhard Ludwig Műller, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Regensburg, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
• Beniamino Stella, Titular Archbishop of Midila, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.
• Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster (Great Britain).
• Leopoldo Jose Brenes Solorzano, Archbishop of Managua (Nicaragua).
• Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec (Canada).
• Jean-Pierre Kutwa, Archbishop of Abidjan (Ivory Coast).
• Orani Joao Tempesta, O.Cist., Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
• Gualtiero Bassetti, Archbishop of Perugia-Citta della Pieve (Italy).
• Mario Aurelio Poli, Archbishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
• Andrew Yeom Soo jung, Archbishop of Seoul (Korea).
• Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, S.D.B., Archbishop of Santiago del Cile (Chile).
• Philippe Nakellentuba Ouedraogo, Archbishop of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso).
• Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I., Archbishop of Cotabato (Philippines).
• Chibly Langlois, Bishop of Les Cayes (Haiti).

Those over 80 and therefore are not eligible to elect a new pope:

• Loris Francesco Capovilla, Titular Archbishop of Mesembria.
• Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, C.M.F., Archbishop emeritus of Pamplona.
• Kelvin Edward Felix, Archbishop emeritus of Castries.

Sources

• Clerical Whispers
• Vatican
• Vatican Insider

Journalist and historian Mario Dal Bello drew on documents from the Vatican Secret Archive to write his new book, I Borgia: La leggenda nera (The Borgias: The Black Legend).

He doesn't set out to "rehabilitate" the Borgias, but rather give a more "fair account" of this family that produced two popes, cardinals, poets and warriors.

The Borgias were certainly "no saints", he says, but they weren't that much different from other powerful families of the time.

In 15th century Italy, resorting to murdering one's political opponents — as Rodrigo Borgia, who became the second Borgia pope with the name of Alexander VI, did — wasn't that unusual.

Neither was keeping mistresses, even while rising through the ranks of the Catholic Church, or appointing sons and nephews to become cardinals.

But the Borgias were also accused of many criminal activities, including adultery, simony, theft, rape, bribery, incest and murder (especially by arsenic poisoning).

The reason the Borgias have gone down in history as a synonym for "abject crime and depravity", Dal Bello says, is that they were victims of an historic case of "bad press".

"They were foreigners and they were hated for this," he says.

According to Dal Bello, the difference between the legend and the truth is particularly vast in the case of Lucretia Borgia, one of the eight children of Pope Alexander VI.

She was accused of incest and poisoning — but she never did those things, he says. Rather, when she died in 1519 she was a devout woman beloved by the people of Ferrara, where she lived.

Dal Bello says her last words, when she died of complications from childbirth, were: "I belong to God forever... I rejoice in what he rejoices in."

Sources:

Religion News Service

Wikipedia

Image: Fanpop

The 55-year-old Archbishop of Manila, who will receive his red hat from Pope Benedict XVI on November 24, has a Facebook page with 100,000 fans and his YouTube commentaries on the Sunday readings go viral each week.

Continue reading

"As Buddhists you pass on to young people the wisdom regarding the need to refrain from harming others and to live lives of generosity and compassion," said Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican's head of inter-religious dialogue.

He said this aspect of Buddhist education was "a precious gift to society".

"Today, in more and more classrooms all over the world, students belonging to various religions and beliefs sit side-by-side," he said.

The cardinal called for "deeper reflection" on the need "to be ready to join hands with those of other religions to resolve conflicts." Read more