All three were sins against the life and unity of the community. They resulted in excommunication, separation from the community, until a penitential restoration of communion.

By the time, many centuries later, when I was learning the catechism, it seemed as if every transgression were mortal, and therefore cause for damnation, unless there were extenuating circumstances.

One of those mortal sins was violation of the church's rule of abstinence from meat on Fridays. In order to make a living, the hot dog vendor in my mostly Catholic neighborhood sold "Friday hot dogs" at a discounted price — buns with condiments, but no sausages in them.

That ended in 1966, when Pope Paul VI loosened the restrictions.

I recall seeing a cartoon at that time that showed two devils in hell.

One was asking the other, "What are we supposed to do with all the people who are here for eating meat on Friday?"

That devil comes to mind as I think of the upcoming canonization of Pope Paul VI.

That devil's concern was one that Paul shared. "If we change things, what will that mean for what we've said before and those who believed us?"

Pope Paul VI rightly deserves to be remembered with veneration as the pope who carried forward the work of the ecumenical council convened by Pope John XXIII, Vatican II.

Paul brought the council to its close and began the post-conciliar adaptation of the church to its new reality.

However, Pope Paul is probably most remembered for his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that barred the use of "artificial" methods of controlling birth.

In his encyclical, he went against the recommendations of the commission of experts he had convened to advise him on the issue.

Among those who encouraged him in this was the Polish bishop who later became Pope John Paul II.

Paul's reason for not changing the long-held teaching that various forms of contraception are sinful was concern for the image of the church.

His was the cartoon devil's concern: "If we change things, what will that mean for what we've said before and those who believed us?"

The pope felt that a change in the traditional discipline would undermine the trust people had in the magisterium, the teaching authority of the church.

And in his mind, that would be the same as undermining trust in the church.

As he soon learned, Pope Paul's move backfired.

People relied upon biological and social scientific facts and their own experience more than upon a papal say-so to justify ignoring his encyclical.

The pope's mistake was to over-identify the church with its teaching authority rather than with the People of God and Christ.

The result was a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences. Instead of confirming the authority of the centralized magisterium, Humanae Vitae initiated a period of questioning, defiance and, ultimately, marginalization of church authority.

We are in the midst of that period.

Ironically, the very situation that Pope Paul hoped to head off became the major result of his action.

After Pope Paul was gone, the response of Pope John Paul II to the erosion of respect for centralized Roman authority was to fight back by appointing bishops who would make loyalty to Humanae Vitae and the magisterium the hallmark of their ministry.

Once again, however, the law of unintended consequences went into effect and has provoked what is considered by many to be the worst crisis in the Western church since the Reformation that began half a millennium ago, the cover-up of sexual abuse by clergy.

Those "John Paul bishops" were so focused upon Rome and the magisterium that they failed to see the victims in front of them.

Rather, they engaged in cover-ups in order to protect the image, authority (and finances) of the church from further disrespect and attacks.

The only way out of this mess is to admit that Catholicism is not basically about popes and bishops, rules and teachings.

It is about Jesus Christ, the love of God incarnate in a human being. And the church itself is not an institution, but the People of God.

Like all people, we use institutions to regulate our lives, but the institution is not our definition.

Then, we have to live personally and communally as if we really believed that is who we are.

That will not magically heal the unintended consequences of leaders' actions in the past. It will take decades, maybe centuries, to undo the harm that well-intentioned men have inflicted upon the church.

I wonder if John Paul's refusal to recognize and deal with the abuse situation has angels asking one another what they should do with St. John Paul now that we know how much responsibility he bears for the mess we are in.

• Father William Grimm, MM, is the publisher of ucanews.com and is based in Tokyo.

As Humanae Vitae (on Human Life) was promulgated more than a year before my birth it is quite possible that I am a product of this most prophetic statement on marriage, life and love.

This has led me to ponder these main questions; what is God's plan for marriage?

• What is the meaning of human sexuality?
• Do us mere mortals get a say?
• What has the impact of contraception been on our society?

And many more.

I have come to understand that there is more to Humane Vitae than a mere cautionary tale about what could happen if Catholics embrace artificial contraception, though this is a particularly important aspect that needs to be revisited from time to time.

At its heart Humanae Vitae does not propose a list of prohibitions of certain practices but a loving response to God who created us freely and out of love.

He calls us into the vocation of marriage and gives us the power to imitate him as life-giving lovers.

In this context the sexual act is so powerful and so meaningful that in roughly nine months, all things being equal, a couple may need to give it a name!

Pope Francis reiterates this in his recent General Address when he said "And what leads man to refuse life?

They are the idols of this world: money - it is best to get rid of this, because it will cost us -, power, and success.

These are erroneous parameters for valuing life.

What is the only authentic measure of life?

It is love, the love with which God loves it! The love with which God loves life: this is the measure. The love with which God loves every human life."[1]

In the history of the Catholic Church there is not a single document that has been more hated, despised and rejected by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Like the disciples in John 6:60 we say ‘…this is a hard teaching, who can accept it?".

The GK Chesterton quote about the hard road that is Christianity could equally be applied to openness to life within marriage; ‘it has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.' [2]

Perhaps it is time, after 50 years of widespread rejection and ignorance of its contents, to rediscover this document in the light of the societal transformation that reproductive technologies have brought about.

Many young Catholic couples all over the world, eager to live their married lives according to God's plan, are now reclaiming as their patrimony the underlying truths espoused by Paul VI and restated by subsequent Popes, in particular Pope John Paul II in his ‘Theology of the Body' writings.

However you view the advent of artificial contraception, as an evil or as a good, you will most likely agree that it was a worldwide revolutionary technology that altered fundamentally the relationship dynamics of the sexes.

One fundamental question we need to ask ourselves if who did the pill actually benefit, who did it liberate?

The incontrovertible answer is men.

The contraceptive pill was developed ‘by men for men'.

Men do not have to deal with the side effects of these ‘medications' including a significant increase in depression rates, they can partake freely of sex with multiple partners without consequences and women have been reduced to mere objects and playthings available throughout the month.

I call that sexual inequity.

And we wonder why ‘respect' has become such an out-moded practice within relationships and the clamour for ‘consent' so urgent.

We have messed with the very essence of marriage - this is bound to have consequences for all of society.

Elevating friendship and love within marriage above all else has paved the way for the legalisation and widespread acceptance of same sex marriage.

It is high time for an examination of conscience in respect of our response to Humanae Vitae.

In God's plan, as revealed in scripture, married love is fruitful: "It is not confined wholly to the loving interchange of husband and wife; it also contrives to go beyond this to bring new life into being."

From the Second Vatican Council: "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and education of children.

"Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents". [3]

Fully human. Total. Faithful and exclusive. Fruitful.

In brief, the marriage act ought to be a true marriage act, a renewal of the marriage covenant, for better and for worse.

It should mirror God's love for us - and oddly enough that may entail an element of sacrifice. "Without the cross there is no Christian." [4]

Perhaps our Lord should have the last words here?

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me…" Luke 9:23.

Living according to God's plan for marriage is not a walk in the park - but it's so worth it!

[1] General Audience October 10 2018
[2] The original quote is ‘"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." ― G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
[3] Gaudium et Spes, No. 50
[4] Pope Francis 2014 Casa Sancta Marta

• Monica Devineis a wife and mother living in Wellington, New Zealand, she currently manages a family law practice.
• Image: Supplied

The encyclical is known for restating Church teaching against artificial contraception. But Humanae Vitae, whose 50th anniversary falls on July 25 this year, also helps us to answer the question: Who is man and what is his whole mission?

It was Humanae Vitae that succinctly described my dignity as a human being, that as a woman I was not a second-class citizen to man. The encyclical, which mentions early on "the dignity of woman and her place in society", stresses the reciprocity and complementarity of man and woman. A woman must be revered: artificial contraception encourages a man to "disregard…her physical and emotional equilibrium" and "reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires."

Paul VI's words told me that my body and mind, both together, were esteemed—that my reason and will are valuable. I learned that my entire being is a gift, and that "love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit." And finally, the encyclical showed me the depth of the moral order and the necessity that it be respected even within marriage.

True, all Church teaching touches on the question of man and his mission in life. But during this historical period when people en masse have bought the world's lie about love, marriage, and sexuality, Catholic doctrine on these matters has a special ability to draw us out of the darkness and towards God. I know I am not the only convert who has discovered in Humanae Vitae a means of grace, capable of pricking the conscience of the self-absorbed.

My tears on reading the encyclical were, I think, a sign of the unitive physical and spiritual response to truth. Our inner being always knows when we encounter it; it is part of our nature. As St Paul explained:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power, and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.

We know the truth when we see it; and the truth can bring us to conversion. When I was a physics student, I was fascinated by "phase transitions": the process by which, say, water becomes ice. Phase transitions always have a critical point where there is a definitive change from one phase to another; they also have a coexistence curve - a two-phase region where the matter is in both forms. What has always intrigued me is what happens inside these kinds of systems at the most fundamental level.

Conversion requires a change, a turning, and in my phase transition to Catholicism, it was Humanae Vitae that took me from one state of darkness to a state of less darkness. Continue reading

The top-secret letter on which many hypotheses were made but which no one had ever seen, clearly shows Pope Montini's unmistakable handwriting.

It bears the date of 2 May 1965 and was therefore handwritten by the Pontiff from Brescia when he was not old or ill, but only two years after his election, with the Council still open.

It represents the far-sighted gesture of a Pope who wants to protect the Church from a potential long incapacity: a letter of early renunciation, to be given to the cardinal dean so that he may disclose it to the other cardinals in declaring the pontiff fallen.

It is the most significant novelty of the book "The Boat of Paul" (St. Paul, pg. 240), edited by the Regent of the Papal Household, Father Leonardo Sapienza, author of numerous essays containing unpublished works by the Pope from Brescia.

The book, which will soon be in bookstores, is a treasure of documents, letters and messages of Paul VI, unknown until today.

The resignation letter - or rather the letters, because with the letter of resignation there along came a letter addressed to the Secretary of State - is certainly the most striking news.

It is well known that several Popes of the last century had thought of renunciation: Pius XII, whom Hitler had been planning to kidnap, John XXIII for he was sick, and then Paul VI.

But with Montini, we finally have a written document.

A document that has certainly been in the hands of John Paul II, who, although tried by Parkinson's disease, decided not to withdraw.

His successor Benedict XVI would be the first in two thousand years of Church history to resign because he no longer felt able to bear the weight of the pontificate.

The text of the main letter, "confidential" and addressed to the Dean of the Sacred College, on letterhead with the papal coat of arms, opens with a paragraph worthy of a Father of the Church.

"We Paul VI, through divine Providence Bishop of Rome and Pontiff of the universal Church, in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity Father, Son and Holy Spirit, - invoked the name of Jesus Christ, our Master, our Lord and our Saviour ...".

An entrustment to Mary and to Saint Joseph follows.

Then the wording of the actual renunciation, with all the details.

"We declare, in case of infirmity, that it is presumed to be incurable, or of long duration, and which prevents us from sufficiently exercising the functions of our apostolic ministry, or in the case of another serious and prolonged impediment equally representing an obstacle, to renounce our sacred and canonical office, as Bishop of Rome, as Head of the same Holy Catholic Church, in the hands of the Cardinal Dean... leaving to him, together at least with the Cardinals in charge of the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the Cardinal Vicar for the city of Rome ... the faculty to accept and make operative our resignations, that only the superior good of the Holy Church suggests us".

At the bottom of the page there is the handwritten signature and date, "St Peter's, on Good Shepherd's Sunday, II after Easter, II May 1965, II of our Pontificate".

It is interesting to note that Paul VI does not only refer to a disease, but also to the possibility of "another serious and prolonged impediment". Continue, to read Paul VI's letter

• Image: La Stampa

Hawking was an esteemed member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

St John Paul II named Hawking a member of the Academy in 1986. Its members are chosen on the basis of their academic credentials and professional expertise, not religious beliefs.

Hawking asserted that God had no role in creating the universe.

Yet his atheism did not keep him from engaging in dialogue and debate with the church.

The Vatican says the theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author helped foster a "fruitful dialogue" between science and faith.

"We are deeply saddened about the passing of our remarkable Academician Stephen Hawking who was so faithful to our Academy," tweeted the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Hawking was decorated by the Academy on 19 April 1975 with the Pius XI medal for his studies on "black holes".

He met four Popes in the course of his Academy work: Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

"He told the 4 Popes he met that he wanted to advance the relationship between Faith and Scientific Reason. We pray the Lord to welcome him in his glory," @CasinaPioIV, the Academy, tweeted last week.

The Vatican observatory, @SpecolaVaticana, also expressed its condolences to Hawking's family.

"We value the enormous scientific contribution he has made to quantum cosmology and the courage he had in facing illness," the Observatory tweeted in Italian.

Hawking was 76 when he died. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21.

His view on his illness and the way people should live may be summed up in the following statement he made:

"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.

"Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

"And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.

"It matters that you don't just give up."

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Zenit
• Catholic Herald
• The Boston Pilot
• Image: Catholic News Agency

I won't bore you with the details of the innumerable battles, disagreements, and ecclesial crises that followed upon this text.

Suffice it to say that this short, pithily argued letter became a watershed in the post-conciliar Catholic Church and one of the most significant points of contention between liberals and conservatives.

Its fundamental contention is that the moral integrity of the sexual act is a function of the coming together of its "procreative and unitive" dimensions.

That is to say, sexual intercourse is ethically upright only in the measure that it is expressive of love between married partners and remains open to the conception of a child.

When, through a conscious choice, the partners introduce an artificial block to procreation—when, in a word, they separate the unitive and procreative finalities of the sexual act—they do something which is contrary to God's will.

Again, within the context of this brief article I won't detail the arguments for and against this position.

But I would like to draw particular attention to a remarkable passage in Humanae Vitae, namely section 17, in which Paul VI plays the prophet and lays out, clearly and succinctly, what he foresees as consequences of turning away from the Church's classic teaching on sex.

Though he is convinced that artificial contraception is morally bad in itself, he's also persuaded that it would, in the long run, adversely affect general societal attitudes regarding sex.

Here is a first observation:

"Let them consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.

"Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law." Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report, article by Bishop Robert Barron, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
• Image:

As kindred spirits in Christ, they both knew the grave dangers facing humanity - dangers still staring us in the face. And they wrote and spoke with urgent appeal to a largely blind and deaf world.

In "The Development of Peoples" Pope Paul wrote, "God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should flow fairly to all. …

"All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation" (No. 22).

Blessed Pope Paul's emphasis on the priority of the common good over profit, free market completion and private ownership of production, led him to condemn these aspects of capitalism that have "given rise to hardships, unjust practices, and fratricidal conflicts that persist to this day" (No. 26).

While that was certainly true in 1967 - 50 years ago when Pope Paul wrote those words - it is even truer today.

According to a post at the Institute for Policy Studies (see: http://bit.ly/2o29Inc), the money handed out last year as bonuses on Wall Street was double the amount made by all U.S. minimum-wage workers combined. The poorest half of the population own 2.5 percent of American wealth, while the top 1 percent owns 35 percent of the wealth.

And globally it's even worse. The poorest half of the earth's population owns 1 percent of the earth's wealth, while the richest 1 percent owns 46 percent of world's wealth.

In response to the tremendous disparity of wealth between rich and poor, Pope Paul declared, "The superfluous goods of wealthier nations ought to be placed at the disposal of poorer nations." He asked world leaders to "set aside part of their military expenditures for a world fund to relieve the needs of impoverished peoples."

With prophetic words Blessed Paul declared, "We cannot approve a debilitating arms race. It is our solemn duty to speak out against them. If only world leaders would listen to us, before it is too late!"

Enter Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Remarkably, just 10 days after Pope Paul's landmark encyclical, Rev. King delivered his like-minded speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" (see: http://bit.ly/2nihVXe).

Dr. King lamented the U.S. war on poverty's surrender to the U.S. war in Vietnam. He said America would never make the needed investments to end poverty as long as wars like "Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube."

And to those who criticized his linking the evils of racism and poverty with the evils of war he responded, "Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What can I say to the Vietcong or Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?"

Good Friday lessons that lead to Easter joy, from two kindred spirits.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net

"In the situation I was then in, and in the context of theological thinking in which I stood, Humanae Vitae was a difficult text for me," Benedict says.

"It was certainly clear that what it said was essentially valid, but the reasoning, for us at that time, and for me too, was not satisfactory."

I was looking for a comprehensive anthropological viewpoint," he continues. "In fact, it was [Pope] John Paul II who was to complement the natural-law viewpoint of the encyclical with a personalistic vision.

Benedict expressed these views in a new book published in Italy last Friday,

The book, Last Testament: In His Own Words, will be published in the U.S. Nov. 3 by Bloomsbury

The book is based on conversations Benedict had with German journalist Peter Seewald, with whom he also published a book-length interview during his papacy.

In his introduction to the volume, Seewald says the interviews were conducted "shortly before and after" Benedict's 2013 resignation and that the retired pope was given final approval over the text.

Source

• ncronline.org
• Image: dw.com alliance/dpa/E Ferrari

It happened on May 10, 1978, the 38th anniversary of which is today.

The day before, on May 9, Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was executed by a left-wing Italian terrorist movement called the "Red Brigades." Moro was a close friend of Pope Paul VI, who had made great efforts to save him, and Paul was devastated by the loss.

Moro knew Pope Paul, now "Blessed Paul VI," from their days together in FUCI, the Federation of Catholic University Students. In the short run, Moro's murder sapped whatever strength Paul VI had left, arguably hastening his own death three months later.

Moro had been kidnapped 55 days earlier, while on his way to Parliament to savor what was to be his defining political achievement: the compromesso storico, a plan to bring Italy's Communist Party into a governing alliance with the Christian Democrats in order to promote national stability.

His policy of a cautious opening to the Communists tracked with Pope Paul's own policy of Ostpolitik, or dialogue with the Soviet bloc.

Paul's turmoil was clear from his public statements, both before and after his friend's death.

In a rare departure from what was then still the customary royal plural of the papacy, Paul VI had addressed a first-person appeal to the terrorists to free Moro on April 23, 1978. In a note in the pope's own handwriting published by Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, the pope wrote:

"I am writing to you, men of the Red Brigades … you, unknown and implacable adversaries of this deserving and innocent man, I pray to you on my knees, liberate Aldo Moro simply and without any conditions." Continue reading

Sources

• John L. Allen Jr. editor of Crux.
• Image: OSV Newsweekly

In a press conference aboard the papal flight to Rome from Mexico, Francis was asked if the grave nature of the virus - which is linked to serious birth defects - might make abortion a "lesser evil" for a mother faced with the choice of having a malformed child.

The Pope firmly rejected the use of abortion, saying it is not a "lesser evil", but is "a crime" and an "absolute evil".

But he said that avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil.

Francis said: "The great Paul VI in a difficult situation in Africa permitted sisters to use contraception for cases of violence."

"Do not confuse the evil of avoiding pregnancy in and of itself with abortion," he added.

"Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil," the Pope said.

"In certain cases, like in that which I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear."

The Pope did not indicate if the faithful who want to avoid pregnancies amid a Zika epidemic would have the Church's explicit blessing to do so.

But Francis urged the medical and scientific communities to do everything possible to find out more about the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, said the Pontiff had been talking about the possibility of having recourse to birth control only in "emergency cases".

"That does not mean that this recourse is accepted and can be used without discernment," Fr Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

But he noted it could be "the object of discernment in a serious case of conscience".

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith member Msgr Octavio Ruiz Arenas said: ""You don't change doctrine with off-the-cuff remarks."

Msgr Ruiz Arena said Humanae Vitae is the only teaching that counts on the subject.

The World Health Organisation said last week that the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly could take four to six months to prove.

Latin American bishops have urged believers to either abstain from sex if there is a risk of infection or use natural family planning to avoid a risky pregnancy.

Sources

• AFP
• National Catholic Reporter
• Reuters
• CBC
• Crux
• Full text of Pope's in-flight interview
• Image: Catholic Herald

El Comercio stated it would not publish any more articles by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who is Lima's archbishop.

The newspaper, described as the paper of record for the Peruvian establishment, deleted the articles from its website.

A Peruvian website, Utero.pe had accused the cardinal of including six paragraphs from the book Communio by Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) and parts of the Ecclesiam suam, an encyclical by Pope Paul VI, in two editorials for El Comercio.

In a letter to El Comercio, Cardinal Cirpriani stated the arguments in his columns were part of the "patrimony of the teachings of the Catholic Church" and as such they had no copyright.

But he did concede: "I regret that the brevity of space led me to omit these sources and I recognise the error."

The Independent reported that Cardinal Cipriani's explanation about space - one op-ed took up an entire page - was met with ridicule from El Comercio's main rival, centre-left paper La República.

Columnist Augusto Alvaro Rodrich wrote: "Not even the most sycophantic of his acolytes believes that."

Another writer, Raul Tola, added that even a "primary school student" would not get away with such an excuse.

Raul Leon, a commentator in La República stated: "Taking someone's work and passing it off as your own is pure and simple plagiary, as set out in article 219 of the Peruvian Penal Code."

The Telegraph reported that in July, 2014, Cardinal Cipriani stated that Peruvian media was being "blackmailed" by foreign organisations promoting gay rights and abortion rights at the expense of reporting on traditional Peruvian values.

"They fabricate stories of death and dramatic situations," said the cardinal, who is a member of Opus Dei.

"Where people wish to learn whether truth and justice are being served, they report nothing."

In June, Peruvian media published an investigation into the cardinal's shareholdings in controversial mines.

Sources

• BBC
• The Independent
• The Telegraph
• Image: Zimbio

The move by the Pontiff is a reversal of the "reform of the reform" instituted by Pope Benedict.

"The Rite of Canonisation introduced on October 21, 2012, by Pope Benedict XVI and which was largely based on the Rite of Canonisation before Pius XII is now gone," mourns the conservative blog Rorate Caeli.

The move by Pope Francis to change the rite of canonisation comes against a background of the Pontiff's appointment of Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea, as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Cardinal Sarah was listed by some as among the "Papabili" after the resignation of Pope Benedict XV.

Formally, little is known of Cardinal Sarah's view on liturgy, however Roman sources say that Sarah is "theologically conservative but socially and 'liturgically free,'" and, tweeting about the appointment Deacon Greg Kandra wrote, "There goes that crazy progressive pope again."

The National Catholic Register (NCR) calls Pope Francis' move to appoint Sarah as signalling a "decisive tone" in the reform of the curia.

NCR says that with his experience, Cardinal Sarah will re-balance the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Sarah, the former president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, will take over his new post whose ranks have changed since the previous prefect, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, was appointed archbishop of Valencia, Spain, in August.

Father Anthony Ward and Mons Miguel Anguel Ferrer, the two undersecretaries of the congregation, were released with immediate effect on 5 November.

NCR describes the removal of Father Ward and Mons Ferrer "as a shock."

Ward had worked for more than 15 years in the congregation's English section and Ferrer was a personal pick of previous prefect, with whom he shared a particular sensitivity for the traditional Latin Mass, NCR says.

Ward and Ferrer are replaced by recently promoted Father Corrado Maggioni, who is seen as a disciple of Archbishop Piero Marini, formerly the papal Master of Ceremonies of John Paul II.

Marini is known for being enthusiastic for innovative forms of the liturgy.

Sources

• Rorate Caeli
• National Catholic Register
• @DeaconsBench
• Image: Catholic Sun

The parallels between Francis and Paul, and the divisive issues both men confronted, are significant. Here are five things to know about Paul VI. Continue reading

Beatification puts Paul one step shy of formal sainthood.

The move might seem out of step with Francis' pastoral approach given that Paul's birth control ruling, in the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, set the stage for the culture wars that overtook Catholicism after Paul died in 1978.

A wide swath of Catholics, especially in the U.S. and Europe, were furious over Paul's decision.

They were convinced that the ban would be lifted and that Paul was shutting down the reforms that had begun a few years earlier with momentous changes adopted by the Second Vatican Council.

Many conservatives, on the other hand, hailed Humanae Vitae for reasserting traditional doctrine, and the division foreshadowed the deep splits that have played out even in this month's high-level synod in Rome—a polarization that Francis says he wants to overcome.

Yet Francis is trying to accomplish that goal by focusing not so much on Humanae Vitae but on Paul VI's many other groundbreaking, though often overlooked, contributions:

1. Refomer

Chief among them was Paul's call for a more missionary church that would be open to the world and one that would dialogue with other Christians and other believers, and with nonbelievers, too.

"For us, Paul VI was the great light," Francis said in an interview in June, referring to his years as a young priest.

In addition, like Francis, Paul was a vocal champion of the church's social justice teachings, and he sought to embed those concepts as foundation stones of Catholic doctrine.

He also implemented a system of regular meetings of bishops, called synods, to promote a more collaborative, horizontal church.

That's a legacy Francis built on this month when he convened a free-wheeling synod of bishops deliberately modeled on Paul's vision. Continue reading

Sources

• U.S.Catholic
• Image: Catholic in Brooklyn

The Vatican's Medical Commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said the healing of an unborn child is medically "unexplainable," and could serve as the miracle that allows Paul VI to be beatified. Continue reading

Recalling that Thursday was the 45th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae makes me cringe. In fact, I am pained whenever the 1968 papal decree comes up for discussion. I feel like a person who has witnessed a tragic event and made an intense effort to turn over a key piece of evidence — the "smoking gun" — that would make the truth known only to see lawyers either misplace the evidence or fail to use it effectively. I contend the evidence I am talking about would have been climactic — making it virtually impossible for Pope Paul to ignore changing the church's current birth control policy, or conversely, if used today, make it relatively easy for Pope Francis to correct the church's second "Galileo affair."

For readers not around 45 years ago when Pope Paul promulgated the decree that renewed the Catholic church's ban on all artificial forms of birth control, it may be helpful to offer a brief review of that history. Pope Pius XI first imposed the ban in 1930, six months after the Anglican Lambeth Conference allowed its church's married couples to decide the issue by themselves. In October 1964, several Catholic bishops raised the issue of birth control during a discussion of marriage and the family at the Second Vatican Council. Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Malines-Brussels pleaded with his brother bishops to study the issue and "avoid another Galileo affair. One [failure of the church to keep abreast of scientific advances] is enough." Continue reading

Sources

• Frank Maurovich in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Patheos

Frank Maurovich, founding editor of The Catholic Voice, left priestly ministry in 1977.

"Increasingly the institution of marriage is being replaced by simply living together, which has followed upon the sundering of the link between sex and fertility. This is not just a revolution in the area of moral norms; it reaches much deeper, into the very definition of man. If the drive which is innate in man as a physiological being conflicts with the optimum condition that we call a human way of life (sufficient food, good living conditions, women's rights), and therefore has to be cheated with the help of science, then the rest of our firmly held convictions about what is natural behaviour and what is unnatural fall by the wayside."

Milosz - who is buried in the basilica at Skalka in Krakow, traditionally held to be the site of the martyrdom of St. Stanislaus - had a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church. He was not a man who automatically accepted ecclesiastical dicta on the basis of religious authority. Thus his insight into the cultural consequences of cheap, effective and readily available contraception is all the more striking, in that it runs in close parallel to what Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae: an encyclical that was not so much rejected (pace the utterly predictable 45th-anniversary commentary) as it was unread, untaught, ill-considered - and thus unappreciated. Continue reading

Sources

• George Weigel in ABC Religion & Ethics
• Image: Letters to the Editor, etc

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.

In the late evening of Aug. 6, 1978, a heavy iron chain was pulled across the door of the papal summer palace. All the lights in the area were turned off, and the flag was set at half-mast. The fountain on the village square in front of the palace ran dry, and the bells of the nearby church began to ring. These symbolic signs marked the end of Pope Paul VI's term in office. He had died at his summer residence at 9:40 p.m., a few hours after having a massive heart attack.

Just like his predecessors, Pope Paul had withdrawn from the Vatican when the hot summer months began, heading to Castel Gandolfo to enjoy the cool climate and relax during long strolls through the gardens at the almost 400-year-old papal palace.

At 8 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2013, the third papacy in the history of the Catholic Church will come to an end at this history-rich location in the Alban Hills, where Pope Benedict XVI will go while a conclave is held to choose his successor. It's a striking place, and not just because of its long history. It was here that Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96) once ordered the bloody persecution of early Christians. Roman emperors had come to appreciate the climate it offered at 426 meters (1,400 feet) above sea level, and Domitian had a palace erected here. Around 1200, the Gandolfi family from Genoa, which Castel Gandolfi would later be named after, built a villa here. Since 1596, the main part of what is now the papal summer residence has been owned by the Vatican.

Italian Occupiers

Urban VIII (1623-1649) had the massive summer palace built and was the first pope to vacation here. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the town in 1787, while on his famous Italian journey, and gushingly praised its idyllic location on the deep-blue Lake Albano. The popes held it in equal esteem, and almost all of them would make annual pilgrimages to the site. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: Hello Daily News

Paul VI had gone as far as working out how the retirement would happen, sharing the process with his most trusted aide, Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, whom he was about to appoint as archbishop of Florence.

Of a Benedictine spirituality, his plans went as far as planning to live out his remaining days in the Benedictine monastery in Einseidein, Switzerland.

As well as being exhausted from ten turbulent years as Pontiff, Paul VI also wanted to follow his own requirement of cardinals in, "Ingravescentem Aetatem," which stated that they should leave their effective duties at aged 80, and leave the group of cardinals called on to elect the new pope as well.

However, according to the Vatican Insider, having named his trusted aide, Benelli, as Archbishop of Florence, other Vatican officials 'dissuaded' Paul VI from retiring.

Labelling the reasons for Paul VI's non-resignation as 'complex,' and 'imbued with humanity and entirely human calculations,' the Vatican Insider re-tells the event like a mystery thriller.

With Vatican strongman, Benelli, the real perpetrator of Paul VI's directions, gone to Florence, Mons Pasquale Macchi, special secretary, Cardinal Jean Villot, secretary of state and Don Virgillo Levi, vice director of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, thought it was time for them to have more of a say in Vatican affairs, and so they organised for the Paul VI's resignation decision to be withdrawn.

So all of sudden, out of the blue, on the front page of the L'Osservatore an article by Levi claimed that "malign voices" were talking of Paul VI's resignation, that these voices had 'no basis,' and that the rumours were not true because "one does not give up the Cross of Christ, and the universal fatherhood of the Successor of Peter..."

The world responded, and Paul VI received many messages urging him to continue as Pope and to carry the heavy weight of the cross of Christ on his shoulders.

Paul VI's died during his summer holiday at Castelgandolfo. It occurred less than a year after his 80th birthday.

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• L'Osservatore Romano
• Image: Mundabor's Blog