Cardinal Newman’s Cause Advances

Birmingham, Apr. 25, 2008 (CWNews.com) – An official spokesman for the cause of beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman has confirmed that the Vatican has given preliminary approval to the authenticity of a miracle attributed to Cardinal Newman’s intercession.

Final approval of the miracle would clear the way for the beatification of the Cardinal Newman, a towering figure in English Catholicism in the 19th century.

Peter Jennings, press secretary to the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory for the cause of Cardinal Newman, announced on April 24 that the postulator for the cause, Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, had authorized him to reveal that medical consultants in Rome had certified that the cure of Jack Sullivan, a Catholic deacon from Massachusetts, could not be attributed to natural causes.

The apparently miraculous healing of Sullivan from a debilitating spinal ailment–which took place on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 2001– will now be studied by theologians for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. If the theologians give their approval, the case will go to the full Congregation for approval.

Seminary Inquiries Up

Yonkers, NY, Apr 26, 2008 / 03:45 am (CNA).- St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, New York, has received dozens of applications following Pope Benedict’s visit, the New York Daily News reports.

“It’s been like a tsunami, a good tsunami of interest,” said Father Luke Sweeney, the Archdiocese of New York’s vocations director. “I’ve been meeting people all week and have a lot of e-mails I haven’t had the chance yet to respond to. It has been incredible.”

For the first time in 108 years, the seminary had been preparing for a year with no students. Only 23 seminarians are expected to be ordained for New York City over the next four years. A study carried out by Catholic World Report claims the archdiocese’s ratio of priests to congregation members is among the worst in the country.

Currently there are only 648 diocesan priests for the Archdiocese of New York, which has 2.5 million Catholics.

“We are facing a severe shortage,” Father Sweeney said. The vocations director recently launched a recruitment campaign that uses the slogans “The World Needs Heroes” and “You Have To Be a Real Man If You Want to Become a Priest.”

“We were hoping the Pope would convince many who were considering the priesthood to make the next step. It looks like he did,” he said.

The Pope spoke to a rally of 25,000 young people on the seminary’s grounds last Saturday, April 19.

Father Sweeney described how the Pope’s words affected one new applicant.

“One said he came, saw the crowd, heard what the Pope said and then called us,” the priest said. “He said his questions and concerns were answered when he heard him speak.”

Get the Matches

Irreconcilable With the Catholic Faith | California Catholic Daily

Call to Action, the dissident Catholic group described by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re as “causing damage to the Church of Christ,” began a three-day regional conference this morning in San Jose.

Call to Action dissents from Church teaching on, among other things, homosexuality, women’s ordination, priestly celibacy, and contraception.

The “10th Annual West Coast Regional Call to Action Conference,” with the theme “Rebuild My Church – Responding Creatively to Injustice,” is being held at the Wyndham Hotel. It is scheduled to conclude on Sunday, April 27. According to a program announcement, the conference will feature various dissidents from Church teaching, including several so-called “women priests.”…

Good Friday in the East

Today is Good Friday in the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Easter must be celebrated after the Jewish Passover which began last Saturday.

Music Instills Hope

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI, second left, his older brother Georg Ratzinger, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, second right, and his wife Clio, look on during a concert to celebrate the third year of Benedict’s pontificate, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2008.

Concert Marks 3rd Anniversary of Pontificate

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- There is a kinship between music and hope, between song and eternal life, said Benedict XVI at the end of a concert offered in his honor today.

The concert was a gift from the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, to mark the third anniversary of Benedict XVI’s pontificate. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected April 19, 2005, and began his petrine ministry April 24.

The Holy Father attended the concert, held in Paul VI Hall, accompanied by the president. The Pope’s older brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, was also there.

Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi orchestra and symphonic choir, directed by Oleg Caetani and Erina Gambarini, respectively, interpreted musical compositions from Luciano Berio, Luigi Boccherini, Brahms and Beethoven.

In an address after the concert, the Pope referred to the “spiritual value of musical art, called in a particular way to instill hope in the human spirit wounded by the earthly experience.”

According to the Pontiff, there is “a kinship between music and hope, between song and eternal life,” and for this reason, “the Christian tradition represents the souls of the blessed in a choir.”

Benedict XVI said he thinks that new generations can find new inspiration by approaching the “universal value of the artistic patrimony,” thus making it easier to build a society “open to the values of the spirit.”

Before the concert, the Pope and the president had a meeting in the study of Paul VI Hall.

Fundraiser gone terribly wrong

Brazil Air Forces Halts Search | by STAN LEHMAN  | Associated Press

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s air force on Thursday suspended its search for a Roman Catholic priest who vanished after sailing into the air under a cluster of colorful balloons. The cleric’s family chartered a private plane to continue the hunt.

The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli has been missing since Sunday, when he lifted off from the port city of Paranagua strapped to 1,000 balloons and wearing a helmet, an aluminum thermal flight suit, waterproof coveralls and a parachute.

A spokesman for the Defense Ministry, who declined to be named in line with departmental regulations, said the air force halted its search in the early morning.

“Over the past few days, air force planes flew over 5,000 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) of land and sea and found no trace of the priest,” the spokesman said.

But the navy continued to search using a helicopter and two boats, he said.

Denise Gallas, the treasurer of de Carli’s parish, said his family chartered a twin-engine plane after several parishioners said they had “premonitions” he had landed near a small town called Barra Velha on the coast of Santa Catarina state.

“We remain as confident as ever that he is still alive,” she said. “Our faith is unshakable.”

Jose Carlos Bom, a member of de Carli’s technical support team, said if the 41-year-old priest descended on land and was not badly injured, “he has a better than average chance of being alive because he has taken jungle-survival courses and is in excellent physical condition.

“However, if he is still out in the ocean somewhere, I am afraid the chances that he is alive are almost zero.”

According to Gallas, the priest hoped his flight would help raise money for a center where truck drivers could stop “to rest and receive the gospel.”

Padre Pio

Padre Pio’s Body Venerated

The exhumed body of the mystic saint Padre Pio lies in a glass sepulchre 40 years after his death, in the crypt of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo, southern Italy April 24, 2008.

A silicon hand-painted bearded mask of the face of Padre Pio, an Italian saint, is seen on his body laying in repose inside a crystal casket in the crypt of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo. The body of Padre Pio, a hugely popular Italian saint, was put on public display Thursday, and thousands of people gathered to pray to the mystic monk who many Catholic faithful believe suffered wounds similar to those of Jesus’ crucifixion.

An elderly woman who says she was cured of a fatal disease by Padre Pio walks in front of his Capucchin monastery at the San Giovanni Rotondo village in southern Italy.

End Communion in the Hand

Historical Argument Favors Communion on the Tongue

Apr. 22, 2008 (CWNews.com) – The American magazine Catholic Response has published an English translation of a provocative article, originally published in the official Vatican newspaper, calling for an end to the practice of receiving Communion in the hand.

The article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, originally printed in L’Osservatore Romano, examines the historical record of Catholic practice, concluding that the early Church quickly developed the practice in which lay people Communion on the tongue while kneeling. Only ordained ministers were allowed to touch the consecrated Host with their hands.

By the 6th century, Bishop Schneider writes, the Church had formed a consensus that Communion should be received on the tongue, of reverence for the Eucharistic Lord. Pope Gregory the Great chastised priests who resisted that consensus, and it was become an “almost universal practice” in the early Church, the author says.

Kneeling to receive Communion was also a pattern established early in Church history, Bishop Schneider reports. That posture, too, was seen as a means of expressing reverence for Jesus in the Eucharist, and “the most typical gesture of adoration is the biblical one of kneeling.”

By administering Communion on the tongue, priests were able to foster greater devotion to the Eucharist; Bishop Schneider remarks that that form is “an impressive sign of the profession of faith the in the Real Presence.”

He adds the argument that this form of distributing Communion can prevent accidents. The author cites St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who exhorted priests to use extra caution “so that no even a crumb of the Lord’s Body could fall to the ground.”

The article published in L’Osservatore Romano, and now translated in Catholic Response, summarizes the more complete argument that Bishop Schneider put forward in his book, Dominus Est. That book, released in Italy earlier this year, drew special notice for two reasons. It was published by the official Vatican press, and a preface was contributed by Archbishop Macolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, who said it was “high time to review” the policy of allowing laymen to receive Communion in the hand.

What a bunch of [fill in here]!

“O Madge, I love your purple Alleluia scarf. Did you get that at Ross?”