Inside the Vatican magazine October 2020

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INSIDE

OCTOBER 2020 $5 / EUR 5 / £3.30

THE

VATICAN

THE CONTESTED POPE

This pen and ink drawing was kept by Mother Pascalina Lehnert, Pope Pius XII’s housekeeper. She said it was the Pope’s favorite portrait of himself. The artist was a German named Eberhard Tarke

PIUS XII AND HIS TIMES

THE THE HIDDEN HIDDEN HISTORY HISTORY OF OF THE THE CATHOLIC CATHOLIC CHURCH CHURCH FROM FROM THE THE SECOND SECOND WORLD WORLD WAR WAR TO TO VATICAN VATICAN IIII

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03 EDITORIAL Oct20-corr1_B. EDITORIAL December, 08, p. 4 copy 10/2/20 1:20 PM Page 1

EDITORIAL

by Robert Moynihan

“Finding Viganò”

A year ago, I went in search of the “archbishop in hiding,” Carlo Maria Viganò. I found him, and we spoke over many days. A book based on our conversations went to press on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel

September 29, Feast of St. Michael the Archangel A year ago, I went in search of the “archbishop in hiding,” Carlo Maria Viganò, and found him.

We spoke over many days. Our conversations were recorded. I then transcribed the tapes and started the work of preparing a book for publication. Our conversations then continued to the present.

Events I did not anticipate delayed the project. Then the coronavirus appeared, and in the early spring my father fell ill and passed away.

The passage of a year meant that the archbishop continued to reflect. During the summer of 2020, I was able to reduce more than 2,000 pages of text to 400 pages, presenting what I felt was essential.

I finished the book, sending it to press this morning, September 29, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel.

I wished in my research, interviewing and writing to contribute in some way to a clarification of issues. The goal of the book is to accurately present the heart and mind of the archbishop. The archbishop has seen the text, and has told me he appreciates the work I carried out “con tutto il tuo cuore e la tua mente” (“with all your heart and mind”).

The composition of this work was my own, the choice of what to include and leave out was my own, and the limitations in the work — and I am well aware that there are many — are my own responsibility.

The book will be published by TAN Books, publishers of many wonderful, traditional Catholic books. I wish to thank my editor, John Moorehouse, for his great support, and his wife, Robin, for reading the book before publication.

Printed copies should be available in about six weeks’ time. (Of course, all who pre-ordered the book several months ago will automatically receive it as soon as it is published.) The book is dedicated to my father. May his soul rest in peace, and may eternal light shine upon him.

The text below appears on the book’s dust jacket: FINDING VIGANÒ: In Search of the Man Whose Testimony Shook the Church and the World In 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released an eleven-page testimony that rocked the world. In it, he called out the corruption of the Church, especially with regards to its handling of the sexual abuse crisis—addressing most specifically the case of disgraced now exCardinal Theodore McCarrick—and stunningly called for the resignation of Pope Francis. And then he was gone... at least physically.

In these pages, longtime Vatican journalist Robert Moynihan, publisher of Inside the Vatican magazine, brings to bear his vast experience in the corridors of power in Rome as well as his long-standing friendship with Viganò to produce a book that provides both an incisive look at the content of the “Testimony” itself and, through interviews conducted in-person with the archbishop at undisclosed locations, a personal look at the man whose conscience compelled him to speak out about the corruption in which the Church he loves, and to

which he has given his life, has been mired for years.

I would like to invite every one of my readers to consider buying one or more copies of this book, which retails for $29.95. Order as many copies as you like at a 33% discount—from Inside the Vatican only—a $10 savings off the cover price. (Offer good until Dec. 31st. Think Christmas gifts! Must mention this offer to receive the discount.)

Also, for anyone who takes out a 3-year subscription (or subscription renewal) for himself or as a gift, at the special discounted price of $99.95 (equivalent to $33.32 per year), we will send a FREE copy of the book to you (if you would like to receive it) or to the gift subscription recipient, whichever you prefer. Let us know when you subscribe.

(Offer good till Dec. 31st.)

I believe the book is interesting and fair, and may help to put the present crisis in the Church into perspective.

To order a copy, either go to our website, insidethevatican.com, or, call our offices in New Hope, Kentucky on our toll-free line, 1-800789-9494, and speak to one of our operators.

Also, in honor of my late father and of my many “spiritual fathers” in the Church, I would like to announce today the launch of a new project of Urbi et Orbi Communications, the non-profit publisher of this magazine, to try to “build bridges” between separated Christians through “common projects.”

We will follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi (11811226), who at the age of 24 in 1205 heard the cross of San Damiano speak to him saying, “Francis, go, rebuild my Church, which as you can see is falling into ruins.”

The new project, entitled, “Go, rebuild my Church,” will be a type of “School of Formation” centered in Assisi, Italy, but reaching out to the entire world through the internet and virtual conferences and pilgrimages.

The project will be placed at the service of the bishop of Assisi, Domenico Sorrentino, under the patronage of Blessed Carlo Acutis, a young Italian computer programmer who died at the age of 15 in 2006. His beatification in Assisi is scheduled for October 10 (see pp.

20-21 in this issue).

We are looking for a group of “Elders” who will become members and supporters of this project, which seeks to “Go, rebuild my Church” through seeking unity (unitas in Latin): unity between the Catholic and the Orthodox, unity between us in our time and those who came before us and will come after us in the faith, unity within our own souls between ourselves and God, in a project of ever-deepening reform and renewal of interior life.

In light of the coronavirus, the lockdowns, the closing of our churches, and the beatification in Assisi of Acutis — who reached out to young people around the world via the internet — we believe the time is now to launch this project. For more information, please call 202-536-4555.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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OCTOBER 2020

CONTENTS

Year 28, #8

LEAD STORY From Pius XII to Vatican II: The Hidden History of a Key Church Epoch

by Kevin Symonds, Special Correspondent for ITV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 NEWS ITALY/October Beatification in Assisi of Servant of God Carlo Acutis OCTOBER 2020 Year 28, #8

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christina Deardurff CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Giuseppe Rusconi, Dr. Jan Bentz WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, William D. Doino, Jr., David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini, Father Vincent Twomey PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel: 202-536-4555, ext.303 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

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EDITORIAL OFFICES FOR MAIL: US: 14 West Main St. Front Royal, VA 22630 USA Rome: Inside the Vatican via delle Mura Aurelie 7c, Rome 00165, Italy Tel: 39-06-3938-7471 Fax: 39-06-638-1316 POSTMASTER: send address changes to Inside the Vatican c/o St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA Tel: 800-789-9494 Fax: 270-325-3091 Subscriptions (USA): Inside the Vatican PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA www.insidethevatican.com Tel: 800-789-9494

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INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $ 49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published monthly except July and September with occasional special supplements.

Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 57, New Hope, Kentucky, 40052, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy.

Periodicals Postage PAID at New Haven, Kentucky and additional mailing offices.

Copyright 2020 Robert Moynihan

4 INSIDE THE VATICAN

OCTOBER 2020

by Meg Hunter-Kilmer (reprinted from Our Sunday Visitor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 HISTORY/Prejudices to be debunked: Pius XII and the Secret Archives

by Prof. Matteo Luigi Napolitano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 ITALY/The Pope and”Slow Food”/New encyclical

by Hannah Brockhaus(CNA)/Vatican News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 VATICAN/”Human dignity has political implications”

by Courtney Mares (CNA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 UNITED STATES/“Put not your faith in princes”: On the US elections

by Robert Royal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 CULTURE DEBATE/”We have to stop being afraid”

by Stefanie Stark, Special Correspondent for ITV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 CRY OF THE AFFLICTED/America’s “Abortion King” and the “Catholic Strategy”

by Terry T. Beatley with Clare Ruff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 ECONOMY/

by Michael D. Greaney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 PRAYER/

by Rev. Thomas K. Murphy, OFM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 SCRIPTURE/

by Prof. Anthony Esolen, Magdalen College, New Hampshire, USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 EDUCATION/A very special school teaches trades to young Catholic men

by President Brian Black, Harmel Academy, Grand Rapids, Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 SANCTITY/

by Barbara Middleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/

by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 East-West Watch/

by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 News from the East:

by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 FEATURES Latin/Priestly Blessing of a great Latinist: Cardinal Antonio Bacci (1885-1971)

by John Byron Kuhner, Paideia Institute, Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Art/Caravaggio and his admirer, Robert Longhi

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Book/Selection from Lord of the World (originally published in 1907)

by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A day-by-day chronicle of Vatican events: July, August, September

by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/

by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/At Last, Rome’s “Il Tuo Vissani”

by Mother Martha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

INSIDE THE VATICAN welcomes letters but cannot reply to all. Each is read and considered carefully. Printed letters may be edited for clarity. You may email us at editor@insidethevatican.com

ON VATICAN II From Dr. Cavadini’s essay (ITV, August-September, 2020, p. 26-27), I found this way of expression true to the Vatican II documents and very, to me, short-sighted, but definitely “safe” as far as any persecution that might arise when one insists that Jesus Christ is God: “Is it the fault of Nostra Aetate, not even a ‘dogmatic constitution,’ that theologians (like myself!) have been content to allow the relativism of post-modern culture to operate as an implicit default mode? To emphasize Nostra Aetate’s (true!) claim that there is truth in other religions without working equally hard to articulate at the same time how Jesus Christ is the unsurpassable seal on revelation? How would one even recognize truth in other religions if we did not already in our own have the fullness of truth whereby to be able to recognize it elsewhere?”

See John 6:66, for the answer: “And he went on to say, ‘That is what I meant when I told you that nobody can come to me unless he has received the gift from my Father.’”

And the gift is Faith in Jesus Christ.

There was truth in Judaism at the time of Jesus on the earth, but He insisted on

Himself being believed... that He is the Son of God... no religion other than true Christianity is built upon that Rock.

There is some truth in Islam and in other religions, but those religions are built upon sand and they will, and do, wholly fail their adherents, and we Christians fail those adherents when we do not teach them that only Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Rather, take the Cross of Christianity, and speak the words of Jesus Christ and become a laborer in God’s harvest, for soon enough angels will come and do the separating of the tares and of the wheat, at Christ’s command.

Claudia Person personcm@comcast.net

Dr. Cavadini responds: Thanks!

Though it’s definitely not safe to say to a Muslim persecutor (since she brings up persecution) that Jesus Christ is the fullness of divine revelation and can’t be surpassed, since that is precisely the Muslim claim.

Nor would a Hindu nationalist appreciate the exclusivity. So I am not sure who ideal persecutors are. If they are Communists, just saying you are a Christian is enough. In any event, it’s a red herring since the

@

documents of Vatican II are unambiguous about the divinity of Jesus and I picked this passage because I was working with Dei Verbum anyway. —JC

Where can I find a list of hymns Dr. Cavadini mentioned that have doctrinal errors? Thank you for your help. I have enjoyed your letters for years.

Margaret Mason m31jmj@charter.net

Dr. Cavadini responds: Here is an example of what I mean: The hymn, All Are Welcome, contained in various hymnals, says in Verse 3: “Let us build a house where love is found in water, wine and wheat; A banquet hall on holy ground where peace and justice meet…” This makes the Eucharist seem like an ordinary banquet where one drinks water and wine and eats wheat bread. The Eucharist does not consist of water, wine and wheat at all, since the consecrated species has only the appearance of bread (not “wheat”) and wine. Water is not even on the same level as bread and wine as matter for the Eucharist, and to list them in sequence therefore only increases the implication that we are at a banquet eating ordinary

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INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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food together. There is nothing else in the hymn to mitigate this impression. You would never know we as Catholics believe the Eucharist can be adored or worshipped (Catechism of the Catholic Church ##1378-1381). The hymn is objectionable throughout on ecclesiological grounds as well, since it repeats the phrase “Let us build a house…” as though our actions make the Church. This hymn shows the relationship between faulty Eucharistic theology and faulty ecclesiology. As the Catechism says, “The Eucharist makes the Church.” There is also the issue of the many hymns that are orthodox, but so emphasize the “table” fellowship of the Eucharist at the expense of the “sacrificial” character of the Eucharist that, in effect, that Catholics are de-sensitized to the fact that the Eucharist is the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ in unbloody form.

(Please note that these are private analyses of mine, not official doctrinal assessments by anyone in authority!) —JC God bless you for publishing this Dossier of Vatican II! I admit, I was very discouraged after reading Viganò’s letter and the essay by Dr. Esolen. Fr. Weinandy has expressed exactly how I feel (much more eloquently than I could have). A

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simple summary — if I may be so presumptuous: I was present at University of Dallas in 2018, when Scott Hahn spoke.

During Q&A following the talk, in response to a question about his expectations when he came into the Church 30 years previously, Dr. Hahn said he never imagined anything like this — he never imagined 30 years ago that things could possibly be as bad as they are today, and, at the same time, he never imagined 30 years ago the wonderful things he is seeing today! It can only be the work of the Holy Spirit. In all things, Thank God. Mark Drogin droginmark@yahoo.com Fr. Weinandy’s essay (ITV, AugustSeptember, pp. 30-33) has touched on some sacred things that Christ himself imparted to us. We are the beneficiaries of His love, not due to our great achievements, tooting our horn, so to speak. He loved us so much and continues to love us despite our wretched ways of representing Him. One thing: there was a reason why great men left the active priesthood, not the priesthood. They will always remain priests and hopefully one day the Canonical Laws will change and allow these men to bring back so much of Christ with them and heal the souls that are troubled and disappointed. Some fell in love and married; they were the honest ones who decided to make a clean break from pastoral work and follow their conscience rather than staying on and continuing to live a dual life. Of course, they were judged harshly as traipsing off into the world of sin. It is well-known that some clergy are living a dual life, and worse, are sexual predators, while performing their pastoral duties. It seems that behavior is condoned but certainly swept under the rug. I also applaud the wonderful dedicated men who are priests in my own neighborhood and in religious life who keep that hope alive in all of us. They are true followers of Christ.

There we all go but for the Grace of God! Please pray for us the sheep! kilkenny67 courcey6star@gmail.com

RESTORING THE LAST GOSPEL AT EVERY MASS (Re: Letter #16: Dossier Vatican II, #4, Prof. Esolen replies) Great idea. Restore

it. Plus everything that comes before it starting with “Introibo ad altare Dei.” Bill Schuetter Orland Park, IL, USA Before I read any further than the opening to Dr. Esolen’s reply, where he proposed that the Last Gospel be restored at the end of every Mass, I said: “YES, YES, YES!” Thank you, Dr. Esolen! I am too soon turning 90 and so I recall poignantly the closure to our every Sunday Masses with “In the beginning… ” from St. John. I love praying it and have often questioned and wished it had NEVER been eliminated. Many parishes of my diocese have reinstated the conclusion prayer to St. Michael for every Mass. Thank you, Lord! We must reinstate these beautiful and efficacious prayers to our services. We Catholics are depriving ourselves of too much of our God’s leading us in “the way.” Perhaps we must read and contemplate from the beginning when He asks Adam and Eve: “Where are you?”

Jacqueline Hamilton jaqlnh@gmail.com

The Vintage Catholic – Sacred Art & Antiques –

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred....” Pope Benedict XVI

www.thevintagecatholic.com OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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FROM PIUS XII TO VATICAN II THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF A KEY CHURCH EPOCH FR. CHARLES THEODORE MURR, IN THIS INTERVIEW

MOTHER PASCALINA LEHNERT, CONCERNING HIS BOOK

ON

UNVEILS THE MYSTERIES

OF THE PEOPLE AND EVENTS IN THE

CHURCH IN THE MID-1900S n BY KEVIN SYMONDS

I

n this interview, Inside the Vatican talks with Fr. Charles Theodore Murr, author of The Godmother: Mother Pascalina: A Feminine Tour de Force (2017).

Fr. Murr is a former secretary to Edouard Cardinal Gagnon and worked at the Vatican in the 1970s. During this time, Murr befriended Mother Pascalina Lehnert, the housekeeper of Pope Pius XII for 41 years, from his time as Papal Nuncio in Germany to his death as Pope in 1958. The Godmother recounts many of their encounters in the 1970s, with topics ranging from serious Church news and issues to a lighthearted and humorous attending of a stage performance of The Pirates of Penzance.

Fr. Murr sits with Inside the Vatican and gives us a look into his life, the life of Mother Pascalina, and a bird’s-eye view of events that happened inside the Vatican.

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The Godmother: Mother Pascalina, A Feminine Tour de Force

by Fr. Charles Theodore Murr, is available through Amazon. It was also recently translated into Italian and Spanish. Those editions are also available on Amazon

Fr. Murr, thank you for sitting with Inside the Vatican for this interview about your book The Godmother: Mother Pascalina: A Feminine Tour de Force. Before going into the book, would you mind telling us a little about yourself?

FR. CHARLES THEODORE MURR: Saint Paul, Minnesota is my birthplace. I was born in 1950, the eldest of seven children. I attended grammar schools and high school in Minnesota and college in Wisconsin, majoring in Romance languages.

When did you enter the seminary and who would you say was your biggest influence in getting you to consider the priesthood?

MURR: The rector of the Pontifical Mexican College in Rome admitted me

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Below, Mother Pascalina at the ordination of Father Murr on May 13, 1977

as a lay student in 1972, when I was 22. I was in Rome to study classical philosophy, especially Aristotelian logic, and Latin and Italian, and to absorb every bit of European culture I could manage to take in.

It was Don Mario Marini, a minutante [a kind of secretary] of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, who invited me to become a priest. This great personal mentor and outstanding example of a priest made it very clear, late one evening in 1975, that he was calling me to become a priest. I answered positively. Archbishop Francisco Javier Nuno y Guerrero of Guadalajara, the first bishop of San Juan de los Lagos, invited me to be ordained a priest for San Juan. I continued my studies at the Gregorian University and I was ordained in Rome on May 13, 1977, in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, Monte Celio.

Later, I worked in the Archdiocese of New York at the invitation of Cardinal O’Connor.1 How much of an influence were your studies in Rome upon you and your priesthood?

MURR: Rome had a tremendous influence on me. Long before I was formally introduced to Rome at 17 years of age, the Eternal City was an integral part of me. I was an educated and proud-to-be-Roman Catholic.

With French, Bavarian and Irish roots, Catholic was often used as a distinguishing adjective. When I later walked the streets of Rome and, after college, returned to study at 21, I took in everything I could, quickly made Roman friends, and learned Italian.

When you were studying in Rome, who were some of the most notable people that you came to know or befriend?

MURR: Among the most notable personages were, of course, Monsignor Mario Marini, and then-Cardinals Edouard Gagnon and Giovanni Benelli. Gagnon was from Montreal, Canada and the Rector of the Canadian College.2 Benelli was from Tuscany and worked in the Secretariat of State as sostituto (substitute).3 Then there was Mother Pascalina Lehnert, CSC. She was the most impressive woman I ever met during those ten years.

We both esteemed greatly a most impressive person: Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII. Yes, let us talk now about Mother Pascalina. How did you come to know her?

MURR: My first meeting with Mother Pascalina was in the fall of 1974, in Rome. I was 24. It was in the chaotic aftermath of [my] having been attacked by

“Wolf,” her German shepherd. She immediately felt sorry for me. In spite of a badly torn cassock — perhaps because of it — our friendship was off to a very positive start.

Please tell us a little about her life and person.

MURR: Josefine was her baptismal name. She was born August 25, 1894, on the family farm in Ebersberg, Bavaria, the seventh of Georg and Maria Lehnert’s 12 children. Women religious “of yore” took their vocations most seriously. The “call” was Christ’s personal invitation to be His completely; to be joined to Him in

a spiritual marriage. When a young woman entered religious life, or, as they say, “joined the convent” — which Josefine did at age 15 — she left the world behind, was given a new name — if you will, a new identity in Christ Jesus — and, rarely, if ever, made reference to her past life again. As a novice in the Congregation of the Holy Cross, Josefine Lehnert would now be known as Sister Pascalina (from the Latin for Easter: Pascha). As for her personality, she was a no-nonsense woman. Straightforward — most of the time. She would not tolerate lies or false criticisms of Pope Pius XII such as that he “hated the Jews,” or that he “secretly sided with the Nazis in WWII.” She became indignant and would rush to the Pope’s defense with facts and figures. Even in old age, she remained a sharp and clear thinker. In our 8-year friendship, I always found her loving, maternal, unselfish, concerned for others, pious, a woman of true, deep faith, Catholic to the core.

Some people refer to Sister Pascalina as “Mother” Pascalina — which form is correct, or are they both accurate?

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irony of ironies — her humility would make Officially, it is and has always been “Sister.” her “proud” to endure another insult in Unofficially, however — yet absolutely true to defense of her saintly friend.

Roman form, called Romanità — when Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in The late journalist Paul Murphy pub1939, his personal secretary, Sister M. Pascalilished the 1983 book La Popessa about Sisna Lehnert, was immediately “promoted” to ter Pascalina. Dr. Martha Schad, Sister “Reverenda Madre” by most of the Vatican’s Pascalina’s biographer, thought that La Popessa was a lurid “fairy tale.” What is Curia members. It was a very Latin, very Royour opinion on this matter? man, mark of respect. When she protested the impropriety of her new title MURR: To categorize Paul to Pope Pius, he laughed and joked Murphy’s book, La Popessa, as a that she should consider it the closest “lurid fairy tale” shows a great thing the Church (or he) could do to degree of restraint and kindness — making her a Monsignor! even mercy — on the part of Dr. Schad. In 1983, I was in JFK AirSister Pascalina is mentioned, and port on my way to Rome when I portrayed unfavorably, in John entered a newsstand. Right in front Cornwell’s notorious polemic, of me were stacks of books with Hitler’s Pope. Have you read this book, and what would Mother say in Some works on Pius XII: Rolf Hochhuth’s Mother Pascalina’s photo on them! response, to both its portrait of her and play The Deputy, Hitler’s Pope by John Mother Pascalina, the very woman I its no-holds-barred attack against Cornwell, and The Myth of Hitler’s Pope would be sitting with and visiting

by David Dalin soon after I got to Rome! Naturally, I Venerable Pius XII? bought a copy and, though it was MURR: It doesn’t surprise me in the some of the worst fiction I had ever read, I finished it least to learn of Mr. Cornwell’s unfavorable portrayal before we landed at Leonardo Da Vinci. Two days later of Sister Pascalina Lehnert in his book. I believe anyI met Mother at Pastor Angelicus. She asked me: “Have one low enough to call the one man on earth who did you seen my book? It was just released!” I remember more than anyone else in all of human history to save being shocked. “You’re pleased with that book?” I the Jewish people from extermination, “Hitler’s Pope,” asked, “I read it on the plane and...” would be shameless enough to hold God Himself in She knew at once, by the expression on my face and contempt. I willingly admit to never having read Mr. the tone in my voice, that we were not talking about the Cornwell’s book, nor do I ever intend same book. “No, no, no,” she exclaimed, “the book I reading it. I have, however, read The have been working on for years; about the Holy Myth of Hitler’s Pope by David Dalin, Father!” and, without missing a and therefore have a good idea what it beat she gave a wave of her hand is Cornwell alleges in his own book. and said, “Not that garbage I’ve heard every criticism of Pope Pius XII since Hochhuth’s play The [book]!” She explained that some Deputy came out in 1964, to just recentmonths before, Mr. Murphy had asked to see her under false prely, when another malcontent had the Above, William Doino Jr, temerity to share “the well-known a Pius XII expert, and tenses. When, after a few awkward the cover of Mother fact” that, as a young man, Eugenio minutes, she figured this out, she Pascalina’s book His Humble Servant Pacelli cheated at polo! I try to keep dismissed him unceremoniously. in mind Fulton J. Sheen’s caveat: Mother then proceeded to tell me how elated she was with Ich durfte “What a man says is not as important as why he says it.”

In time, perhaps Cornwell’s truer, more personal ihm dienen: Erinnerungen an Papst Pius XII, her new motives for slandering Pope Pius XII will become evibook! dent — that is, besides his obvious anti-Catholicism.

William Doino Jr., a Pius XII expert, wrote a What would Sister Pascalina say about Cornwell’s review of Sister Pascalina’s memoirs entitled “La opinion of her? Not a word. Maybe a slight roll of the Popessa Speaks.”4 Have you read either her memeyes, but not a word. Part of the “secret of her success” oirs, Doino’s article, or both? was her humility. True humility lets you know the truth MURR: Doino gives a splendid presentation of Mothof yourself and once you know that, you’ve practically er Pascalina’s book His Humble Servant. For those got it made. In fact, in the case of Mother Pascalina — whose German is not quite up to snuff — myself among 12

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insurmountable challenges he took on daily, and the them — this long-awaited English translation of the unsung accomplishments he won for humanity — not [1983] German memoirs is remarkable both in content the least of which was the saving of hundreds of thouand style. I don’t know if Mr. Doino ever had the opporsands of Jewish lives — would hold such an ignorant tunity to meet Mother in person, but he certainly seems opinion of him.” to know and represent her well.

What did Sister Pascalina tell you about Pope In The Godmother, Mother Pascalina is a humble Pius XII that most people do not know? We know yet very knowledgeable woman—one very attuned she was interviewed by those responsible for Pius to the times. Could you tell us further about this XII’s Cause and she supaspect of her life? ported his canonization.

MURR: In that “scientia est What would she say in potentia,”5 Pascalina Lehnert response to those who say was powerfully knowledgehe was a deeply flawed able. It was her humility — Pope, and no saint or hero? true humility, knowing one’s Did she ever reveal to you self honestly — that kept her any concrete actions Pius balanced. So rarely do you XII took to rescue persefind a powerful man or cuted Jews? woman who is, at the same time, authentically humble MURR: Simply put: to that, when you do, you know know Mother Pascalina was you’ve discovered an inesto know His Holiness, Pope timable treasure. Why? Pius XII. The admiration in the tone of her voice as she Above, a young Father Murr with Pope Paul VI (1963-1978). Below, a Because, overwhelmingly, slightly older Fr. Murr with Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) power and humility cancel recounted this or that story each other out. When, howabout him; the sparkle in her ever, an individual accepts eyes as she described his the goal of power to be serkindnesses and virtues; the vice, and the goal of humility smile on her face when she to see truth, and incorporates shared one of his many wittithem both, that individual is cisms and humorous anecwell on the way to becoming dotes, and the love and a saint. What’s more, these respect for him that she mantwo goals, power and humilifested when, on more than ity, are never completely at one occasion, she shared her peace with one another; they photograph collection of the never stop pestering each pontiff — particularly photos other. That on-going tension of him smiling. What a warm between them generates an and inviting smile the Pope had; enough to melt the heart impetus, a dynamic one that of an atheist. What I’m trying to say is that Mother Pasmakes this spiritual “balancing act” virtuous. calina’s love and admiration of Pope Pius “softened” As I say, it is extremely rare to find those who can the rather strict, all-business image I had of him. Her balance power and humility. Pope Pius XII was one authentic love and devotion to him “humanized” him such individual; Mother Pascalina was another. Even for me — made him more accessible to me, especially when communicating a very strongly held conviction, in prayer. The saints, after all, are God’s friends and our Mother Pascalina expressed it with certainty and with friends; they are with us to bring us closer to God, the calm. When you’re right, you’re right; what need is beginning and end of all friendship and all love. there for shouting? Fortiter in re; suaviter in modo.6 To those who would dismiss Pope Pius XII as Fr. Murr, The Godmother attributes some very “deeply flawed and no saint or hero,” Mother Pascalina strong statements to Mother Pascalina about the would almost certainly respond (with words similar to leadership in the Church. What were her views on these): “Only someone who did not know the Holy Pope Sts. John XXIII, Paul VI, and the Second VatFather at all; someone who obstinately refused to see ican Council? Would she agree with St. John Paul the brilliance of his pontificate, examine the almost II and Benedict XVI that Vatican II remains valid OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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— rather than what the Council actually said. Did she and authoritative, and we need only recapture and think Pope Pius’ idea of a Second Vatican Council revive its original intent, in line with tradition, would have been different than what Roncalli and albeit a developed tradition faithful to the Sacred Montini realized? Most certainly — just as Roncalli’s Deposit of Faith? vision of the Council differed from Montini’s. Roncalli MURR: Mother lamented that Pope Pius XII had not originally wanted a Council that would begin and end called the Second Vatican Council as he had been planin three months’ time and he hoped to close it with the ning to do for years. The results of a Council led by the beatification of Papa Mastai-Ferretti (Pius IX of VatiHoly Ghost and Pacelli, she knew, would have been can I)! Obviously, Montini had something very differmuch different than the chaos in which the Church ent in mind. found herself in the 1960s (and far after her death).

Was she happy with Vatican II? To be perfectly canApropos of Vatican II and the two men responsible did: Not particularly. Did she condemn it? Never. for it, I remember Mother telling me of Konrad AdeWhat did Sister think of the Ordinary Form of nauer’s visit to her immediately after his private audithe Roman Liturgy, as opposed to the Extraordience with John XXIII: “We have a clown sitting on the nary Form? Did she accept throne of Saint Peter!” he told the former as valid? her with tears in his eyes. “A MURR: Mother Pascalina clown,” he repeated. Mother loved the Latin Mass, but by no seemed not to disagree with the means did she reject the Novus German Chancellor. On another Ordo Missae altogether. She occasion, she mentioned the was quite perturbed when I very unorthodox manner in informed her that I could not which Nuncio Roncalli [later use Pope Pius’ own missal for John XXIII] rebuilt the Nunciamy first Mass (in the Borgese ture in Bulgaria after the war.

Chapel of Saint Mary Major No, Mother Pascalina had very Basilica, on the same altar that little time for Roncalli.

Father Eugenio Pacelli offered As for Giovanni Battista his own first Mass in 1899). An Montini [Paul VI], out of reofficial at the Congregation for spect for his office, until 1978 Divine Worship — I believe she remained tight-lipped. After (but could not swear to it right 1978, she had very little positive now) it was Mons. Virgilio Noe to say about him. “Weak” and — said that using the Triden“disappointing” were words she tine Missal of Pius XII for the used to describe him. When Roman Canon (even adding St. John Paul II was elected — the Mother Pascalina with St. John Paul II Joseph’s name to the list of last bishop to have been created saints) could render the Mass

by Pope Pius XII — she was invalid. “Invalid!” she repeated, and asked rhetorically elated with the electors’ choice. With his election, she how in the world the Canon from the Mass of the Censeemed to have regained hope, though later, she turies, that had spiritually sustained and nourished expressed concern that he was not home long enough saints and doctors of the Church, could possibly be to take care of his household. She, and a growing numinvalid! It was all she could do to say no more. ber of others with her, was concerned about Sebastiano Did she ever speak to you about Archbishop MarCardinal Baggio still remaining as Prefect of the cel Lefebvre and the Traditionalists? Was she conSacred Congregation for Bishops. cerned about them possibly being schismatic?

In the many conversations Mother Pascalina and I MURR: She was of the opinion that Lefebvre was a had, never did she (altogether) dismiss the Second Vatsaintly and intelligent man. That the “Old Mass,” the ican Council, nor did she ever question its “validity.” If Tridentine Mass, could no longer be offered (i.e., that I may play the psychologist for a moment, I believe Paul VI had outlawed it) was absolutely absurd. what bothered her most was that Pius XII was never In The Godmother, you relate that Msgr. Marini given credit even for the idea of a Second Vatican was concerned about putting you into contact with Council — even though (only after St. Thomas Mother Pascalina. Why was he so concerned?

Aquinas) Pius XII is the man most quoted in the CounMURR: Because he, Msgr. Mario Marini, was a cil documents themselves. And secondly, the “spirit” of “minutante” [secretary] in the Vatican Secretariat of the Council was being followed — whatever that meant 14

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asked by Pope Paul VI to act as a consultant on various State. Those were pre-Google times. To find the answer Church matters. to a question such as “whatever happened to Mother Pascalina, Pius XII’s secretary,” you had to ask someWas there a particular project that Gagnon was one. In those times, in the Vatican, and particularly in working on for the Vatican? the Secretariat of State, to make any inquiry pertaining MURR: Yes, he was working on a full-time investigato Pope Pius XII was to slight the reigning pontiff, Pope tion, a Papal Visitation, of the Roman Curia at the Paul VI (the relationship between Pacelli and Montini behest of Pope Paul VI. I lived next door to Gagnon for did not end on a happy note). Pius XII was “pre-Vatican nearly two years at the Lebanese Residence for Priests II,” finished, washed up, ancient on Monteverde Vecchio — a history. Mario Marini was keenly stone’s throw from the Janiculum. aware of these things. He often Mario Marini introduced me to reminded me that there were cerhim in 1974. In the fall of 1977, tain things in the clerical world Gagnon moved in with Mario that I — not being Italian — Marini and me because of his would never fully understand. friendship with us and because That is why he was cautious even the locale provided him the nearto ask if Mother Pascalina was total privacy he required to bring still alive or not. the investigation to a healthy end.

For those two years, I drove him to You call Mother Pascalina any number of appointments and your “godmother.” How was helped him, on occasion, to orgashe your godmother? nize the written information and MURR: Latins — Italians, documents he received relating to Spaniards, Portuguese, etc. — the Apostolic Visitation. He had have certain cultural-religious traboxes full and he read every single ditions that non-Latins do not.

One of the most sacred of these Fr. Murr’s ordination day. Above, with Marini, and below, word of every single document. with Gagnon traditions is the godparent/godThe Godmother goes into child relationship. One has godsome detail about the Papal Visparents not only in Baptism, but itation. What was this Visitation for every other important occaabout, for context? sion in life: Confirmations, First MURR: A Papal Visitation, Communion, marriage, graduamore properly, an Apostolic Visition from grade school, high tation, is an official investigation school, university, and, should a of a situation or of an individual, a candidate for the priesthood so group of individuals, or of an desire, Holy Orders. I so desired, entire institution, conducted in the and when I asked Mother PascaliPope’s own name, by the Pope’s na to be my godmother, she quite personally chosen and appointed willingly agreed. representative. This representative of the Pope is called an AposYou mentioned earlier that you knew Cardinal Gagnon. tolic Visitor, or simply, “the VisiPlease tell us a little about him. tor.” When we speak of the “Roman Curia,” we are referring MURR: Edouard Cardinal Gagto those (mostly) prelates and non was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. He entered the Sulclerics who make up the central picians and trained to become a government of the Catholic seminary professor of philosophy and theology. He Church with offices in or near the Vatican. was also a canon lawyer. Gagnon was a very intelligent, In 1975, toward the end of his pontificate, Pope Paul extremely hard working and seriously pious and VI seemed convinced, finally and thoroughly, of what prayerful man with a great sense of humor. He had a he himself declared in 1972, that “the smoke of Satan good voice and loved music. He loved everything about had entered the Church.”7 Some of the most high rankColombia! He taught there for years and worked in ing members of the College of Cardinals — the Pope’s parishes on weekends. He was appointed Rector of the closest advisors — had gone to him personally and levCanadian College in the early 1970’s and was soon eled some very damning accusations against key memOCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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bers of his own central government, that is, the Roman then to what Bugnini was. Nothing of any consequence Curia. Very damning accusations — the consequences was mentioned about Monsignor Bugnini until the of which are still with us today. The Pope was so shaken mid-1960s. Only after Pius XII’s death (and John by these accusations that he ordered an in-depth invesXXIII’s) did Bugnini show his true colors. When Paul tigation, top to bottom, of the entire Roman Curia. He VI made him a bishop in 1972, people knew — or chose Gagnon for this assignment and it lasted three thought they knew — that he was in the Curia to stay. full years.

Fr. Murr, if Archbishop Bugnini was somehow Who were the Cardinals who made these accusainvolved with Freemasonry, what can we say, then, tions? about Bugnini and the Conciliar liturgical reforms?

MURR: Cardinals Dino Staffa, Silvio Oddi and ArchMURR: I think it is better to ask whether “Freemasonic bishop Giovanni Benelli. designs” had something to do Staffa was a very powerful with the liturgical reforms that Curia official. At the time, Bugnini decided the Second he was Prefect of the AposVatican Council desired. Were tolica Signatura — more or Bugnini’s reforms concerned less, the “Chief Justice” of with a more perfect adoration Catholicism’s Supreme and worship of God, or with Court.8 Silvio Cardinal celebrating the Freemasonic Oddi was another powerconcept of the brotherhood of house. He later became the man? When certain Council Prefect of the Congregation Fathers insisted that not one for the Clergy in 1979.9 word of the 1600-year-old The Godmother seems Roman Canon be touched, to record some informaby any stretch of the imagition about these accusanation, could that be taken to Pope Paul VI with Monsignor Annibale Bugnini. tions. For instance, you mean they wanted to concoct Below, top to bottom, Cardinals Dino Staffa and Silvio Oddi, and state that Mother PascaliArchbishop Giovanni Benelli entirely new canons?10 When na Lehnert believed ArchArchbishop Carlo Maria bishop Annibale Bugnini was a Viganò recently suggested that the Second Vatican Freemason. Bugnini was the secCouncil be “reconsidered” [my own word], I sighed in retary of the Consilium, and, full agreement.11 arguably, the key person tasked Fr. Murr, the famous liturgist, with implementing the liturgical Fr. Louis Bouyer, wrote that he once reforms desired by the Second spoke with Paul VI.12 During the Vatican Council. Could you tell us a conversation, the two discovered little about why she believed this? that Bugnini was “running interMURR: Bugnini stood seriously accused by Staffa, ference” between the Consilium — Oddi and Benelli (photos right) of being a the group tasked with the impleFreemason and carrying out Freemasonmentation of the liturgical reforms of ic designs against the Church. Bishop Vatican II — and the Holy Father. Once Gagnon and Don Mario Marini also Bugnini’s shenanigans were discovered, why knew about the matter. For her part, wouldn’t Paul VI “reverse course” on the liturgical Mother Pascalina — as with most of reforms? the “older and wiser” personages I MURR: To your question, I can only offer an educatknew — was on the Vatican’s inside ed guess. Freemasonic influences were hard at work in track. She was close to [Cardinals] Ottathe Vatican during those critical post-conciliar years viani, Siri, Spellman and to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, (and continue to be). This explanation, however, is etc., as well as to many others around the world and in insufficient to describe the present malaise within the the Roman Curia. She knew Montini very well and Church because it is not balanced with the reality of sin deeply mistrusted him. I believe, but couldn’t swear to and human frailty. The latter have real consequences it, that she suspected Montini of being a Bugnini profor the Church when it comes to hierarchs. Paul VI is a moter and defender, even before Pius XII died. Not saint, according to Holy Mother Church, but that does until sometime after the Second Vatican Council did not put him beyond respectful criticism. people start waking up to what Bugnini was doing and There are plenty of people who have written about

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Paul VI simply retreated further into himself, not wantthe character of Paul VI and there is some debate on that ing to be involved any further in the conflict. front. For my part, I find Paul VI’s fascination with all things French to be a notable factor in both his philoIf Paul VI did not “reverse course” on Bugnini’s sophical foundations as well as in more practical matwork with the reforms, then why didn’t the Holy ters such as his personnel decisions. Paul VI liked to put Father excommunicate or “fire” Bugnini? opposite personalities together such as the Frenchman MURR: Paul VI was a lifelong career diplomat. In the Jean Cardinal Villot13 as his Secretary of State with Vatican, where international diplomacy was created (along with all the rules), a bishop and member of the Archbishop Benelli as the sostituto. I suspect it was Roman Curia is never “fired” — evidently, even when because Paul hoped that the path of virtue or a via that bishop is a Freemason. Bishops are off limits. Prior media would emerge from the subsequent conflicts. to the defrocking of Theodore Some good research can and McCarrick, this was a fundashould be done in this area, mental rule of Vatican diplobut I wonder if a Hegelian macy. Moreover, if the Holy dialectic (thesis-antithesisFather had excommunicated synthesis) was playing itself or even “fired” Bugnini, that out and which (unwittingly would raise questions with to Paul VI) engendered diviBugnini’s work. Paul VI was sion. unwilling to do this.

Paul VI did not like conflict and tried to avoid it. To How then did Paul VI his credit, Paul took some handle the situation with notable stands with his Bugnini?

Credo of the People of God MURR: The merger of those two congregations was and Humanae Vitae. Regretthe answer. It was announced fully, the backlash Paul in 1975 along with Bugnini’s faced in response to Paul VI during a session of Vatican II and, below, “promotion” as Vatican NunHumanae Vitae shocked him John Paul II receives in audience Cardinal Edouard Gagnon cio to Iran. Iran: a Muslim so terribly that he never and Fr. Murr theocracy with 18,000 tolerwrote another encyclical. He ated Roman Catholics. tried to speak to everyone and I guess Paul VI concluded to pacify different factions that Bugnini could do the within the Church, most least amount of harm under notably the so-called “prothose rather stringent condigressives” and “conservations. Toward the end of his tives.” How successful he life, Père Louis Bouyer, a was in this endeavor will be renowned liturgist who debated by historians and worked under Bugnini for theologians.

The fact years, described his former remains, however, that the character of Paul VI demonboss in rather unflattering strated a weakness of will and terms: “A man as bereft of this goes to the heart of your culture as much as he was of question. basic honesty.”14 Archbishop Benelli finally Archbishop Bugnini convinced the Holy Father to denied to his dying breath “deal with” the Bugnini affair. Benelli had the idea to that he was a Freemason. If he was a Freemason, combine two Vatican Congregations — Divine Worwhy do you think that he would directly lie about it? ship and Rites — into one: The Congregation for MURR: Why do I think that Bugnini would directly Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. Villie about being a Freemason? If that’s the question the lot arranged for Bugnini to be named Nuncio to Iran as answer is simple: because he was a Freemason! well as acted upon Benelli’s idea of combining the two Would you like to add anything about Bugnini? liturgical dicasteries. Villot, however, continued to MURR: Yes, it was Benelli and Marini, not Gagnon, defend Bugnini’s “reforms.” Instead, then, of dealing who played a major role in Bugnini’s “promotion” to with the obvious shadows cast upon Bugnini’s work, Apostolic Nuncio to Tehran. Too many prelates and OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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LEAD STORY

HIDDEN HISTORY OF AN EPOCH

ing asked her more about Fátima. Mother chose the Church officials — very much including Virgilio Noe 1977 date for my ordination, May 13, because it was (who had the Pope’s ear daily and who stood next in both the 60th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparition at line for Bugnini’s position, “should ever there be an Fátima and the 60th anniversary of Eugenio Pacelli’s opening”) — complained unashamedly about Bugnini episcopal consecration. Can you believe that on the to Paul VI. The Pope was pressured into taking action, very same day Our Lady appeared in Fátima, Eugenio and sending Bugnini into exile took much of the blame Pacelli was made a bishop in the Sistine Chapel?! You for many liturgical anomalies off himself. know, today many people overuse, misuse, and end up Also, there was some sort of a “last straw” when banalizing the word “awesome.” That these amazing, thousands of newly-printed Roman Missals had to be “futuristic” events took place on the same day, May 13, recalled (and destroyed) due to Bugnini’s “additions,” 1917 — that, in my opinion, is awesome! some unauthorized. This happened during Christmas vacation (while his supporters were away on vacation), The Godmother discusses Pope Pius XII’s wit1975-76. nessing the Fátima “Miracle of the Sun” in the Vatican Gardens. You revealed that Earlier, you mentioned CarPius XII stated one word after dinal Baggio. During an interthis experience. What was this view in January 2019, you word? claimed that Baggio was a Freemason.15 Could you tell us MURR: Mother relayed this great a little bit about this matter? event in the life of Pope Pius XII many times, and in much greater MURR: Yes. Besides troubles detail, to Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J.17 mounting inside the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (a.k.a., the However, the first time she Vatican Bank) — troubles that described it to me, her excited would later result in the near-sucexpression, and, in fact, the sort of cessful 1982 Freemasonic demo“light” from her face, gave her lition of the Vatican treasury and words an undeniable, almost solfinances — the most serious alleemn veracity. She relayed the story gations that caused Pope Paul VI as if it happened yesterday. I could to order the Curia Investigation easily imagine His Holiness, Pope were those leveled against the Pius, himself, describing to her man in charge of creating and what he had just experienced. I sustaining the world’s Catholic remember perfectly well that omibishops: Sebastiano Cardinal nous concluding word to an otherBaggio;16 the charge against wise Herrlichkeit event: “Apostasy.” him: being an active member of Pius XII in the Vatican Gardens experiences a vision of What did Mother Pascalina the “Miracle of the Sun” Italian Freemasonry. think about this event? Also, would you have a personal comment about it as Who accused Baggio and how was his involvewell? ment with Freemasonry discovered?

MURR: It was the earlier-mentioned Cardinals Staffa MURR: In the 1970s, there were more than a few and Oddi. They carried with them a dossier of damning indications that all was not well with the Church Unicorroborating evidence to Paul VI. Gagnon and Marini versal. Those of us who saw these negatives plainly and talked about this story freely (that is, among ourselves). clearly were very much in the minority. In the air, a Thinking back on that conversation, it was most likely strange Vatican II optimism — perhaps “hope” would Benelli who informed them of this story. The three of be a better word — lingered and, with the election of them were very close allies in the war against Baggio Pope John Paul II, that hope seemed even reasonable. and Freemasonry.

I remember how content, how truly happy and hopeful Mother Pascalina was when the last man made bishLately, the third part of the secret of Fátima has been in the news. Mother Pascalina had shown the op by Pius XII was elected Pope! Her enthusiasm French journalist Robert Serrou the location of the waned, however, with every announcement of another famous envelope containing the third part of the trip the pontiff was planning to take. Each one of those secret. Did Mother Pascalina ever speak to you trips took months of preparation; months of precious about this famous text? time that needed to be spent elsewhere. She knew what Gagnon knew (now that he had concluded his three MURR: I wish I could tell you that she did but, as far year investigation of the Roman Curia): this was no as I can remember, she did not. I deeply regret not hav18

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time to travel the world. “It was time,” she said, as The Godmother portrays Pope Leo XIII as a bit sometimes she did, with her index finger tapping the crafty in how he ordered the funeral procession and tabletop for emphasis, “to start some long overdue burying of Pope Bl. Pius IX. The Freemasons and cleaning of the papal household!” other agitators were looking to disrupt the procesAs for the term “apostasy,” the sole word Pius XII sion and throw Pius’ body into the Tiber. Do you see took with him from his Vatican Garden vision of the any parallels between this and current events?

Dancing Sun I think that only today are we beginning MURR: Maybe. At the very beginning of his pontifito see its meaning. Was there ever a more fitting applicate, instead of facing the social unrest of his times cation of the Latin maxim, intelligenti pauca?18 directly, instead of “taking the bull by the horns” and Fr. Murr, a fascinating story in The Godmother squelching the “highly organized chaos” of the is the recovery of Pope Bl. Pius IX’s coffin. You put Freemasons, Marxists, Communists and anarchists, a very interesting detail into this story coming from Pius IX thought he could sit down with them and talk; Mother Pascalina. You say that she went to Pius XII sit down and dialogue with them; reason with them. and told him not just of Pius IX’s incorrupt body, That was his first major mistake. No, I take that back. but also that his hair and fingernails had grown.

His first mistake was being a liberal himself. His secThis assertion contradicts the opinion of many ond mistake was to think he could reason with liberals medical professionals. of another bent. Two misWhat comment, if any, takes he would long live to would you have about this regret. matter?

Of course, living when he MURR: This was precisely did, Pius IX couldn’t benefit my response to Mother when from Saul Alinsky’s Rules she had finished telling me For Radicals. He had to the whole amazing story. Her leave that for one of his more answer was that it didn’t mat“enlightened” successors. ter what all the medical docThe most basic “rule” is to tors and scientists in the destroy the existing order by world had to say on the matcreating complete societal ter: “I’m telling you what I chaos, by any means. Create Mother Pascalina with her two assistants, Sister Maria Corrada and saw with my own eyes and Sister Erwaldis, praying before Pope Pius XII's corpse just after his death an insurmountable problem, touched with my own and when you’ve whipped hands,” she said. If memory serves me correctly, she up enough panic among the general populace and the said something along the lines of: I cut the man’s hair powers that be, present a solution to your problem; call with scissors, shaved his beard with a razor, and off the dogs of war and give people a false sense of trimmed his long fingernails with clippers, all before relief, so that they begin to believe you are the answer redressing him in the Pope’s [Pius XII] own white casto all societal ills — that, of course, you yourself caused sock for reburial. Don’t tell me his hair, his beard and artificially — and you’ve won! Do I see any parallels to nails stopped growing when he died. what’s happening today? Don’t you?

At any rate, from then on, I never again attempted to As we wrap up this interview, could you tell us tell Mother Pascalina that what she saw and touched, what, if any, is your next writing project? cut, shaved and clipped, was imaginary.

I’m in the middle of writing a book about Cardinal No, it was for real. Our dear Reverend Mother was Baggio and Pope John Paul I. It is based upon convernot a woman given to fibs or exaggeration. She was presations to which I was privy with Gagnon, Marini and cise.

Benelli.m NOTES

<http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1985.htm#Oconnor>. <http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1985.htm#Gagnon>. <http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1977.htm#Benelli>. <https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/la-popessaspeaks>.

5 Knowledge is power.

6 Resolute in execution; gentle in manner.

7 Homily of June 29, 1972. For an English translation, see Kevin J. Symonds, Pope Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael (Boonville, New York: Preserving Christian Publications, 2018), 213ff.

8 <http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1967.htm#Staffa>.

9 <https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_oddi_s.html>.

10 <https://adoremus.org/1996/09/15/from-one-eucharistic-prayer-to1 2 3 4

many-how-it-happened-and-why/> <https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/abp-vigano-on-the-roots-ofdeviation-of-vatican-ii-and-how-francis-was-chosen-to-revolutionizethe-church>.

12 Louis Bouyer and John Pepino (tran.), The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer (Kettering, Ohio: Angelico Press, 2015), 225.

13 <http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1965.htm#Villot>.

14 Bouyer and Pepino, 219.

15 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Giu5LX4-LU&feature=youtu.be&t=7239>.

16 <http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1969.htm#Baggio>.

17 At the time, Gumpel was the postulator for the beatification cause of Pius XII. 18 “Few words suffice for him who understands.”

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NEWS ITALY

OCTOBER BEATIFICATION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMER CARLO ACUTIS THIS ORDINARY YOUNG ITALIAN WAS FILLED WITH THE LOVE OF GOD. HE WILL BE BEATIFIED ON OCTOBER 10 n BY MEG HUNTER-KILMER

Above, Carlo Acutis, who died unexpectedly at age 15 in 2006. He hiked, played soccer, went to daily Mass and was filled with the love of God. He will be beatified in Assisi, where he is buried, on October 10. Above right, two Franciscans praying at his tomb

ope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to Carlo Acutis, paving the way for his beatification, which will take place on October 10 in Assisi, where he is buried. Carlo was in many ways an ordinary young man. He had a PlayStation. He made awkward videos with his friends. His favorite cartoon was “Pokémon.” But now, on October 10, he becomes “Blessed Carlo Acutis.”

It was announced February 22 that Pope Francis had approved a miracle attributed to Acutis, paving the way for his beatification in Assisi, where he is buried. Acutis’ intercession reportedly helped to heal a Brazilian child suffering from a rare condition of the pancreas in 2013.

Acutis’ mother, Antonia, doesn’t know how Carlo came to love Jesus.

He’d been baptized as a baby, but the family didn’t practice the Faith. Perhaps it was their Polish nanny who told Carlo about Jesus. Regardless of the source,

P

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Carlo had a deep love for Jesus even as a preschooler, asking his bemused mother if they could stop in to see Jesus when they walked past churches in their Milan neighborhood — and even insisting on taking flowers to place at the feet of the Blessed Mother.

Antonia wasn’t sure what to do with this piety in her young son, and she wasn’t prepared to answer his many questions. But as he asked, she began to wonder as well. His curiosity eventually prompted her to take theology classes; beyond just being back at Mass, Antonia was diving into her faith, and all because of Carlo. “He was like a little savior for me,” she said in an interview published last year on the website Aleteia.

FOSTERING A LOVE OF THE FAITH

Carlo’s longing for the Eucharist drove him to ask permission to receive earlier than was customary. At 7, Carlo received his First Communion and never

missed Mass again. Not just Sunday Mass, either. Every day of his life, Carlo went to Mass. Every day, he stole a few minutes to pray in silence before the tabernacle. And while his parents sometimes went with him, Carlo often went alone. When they traveled, Carlo’s first order of business was to find a church and figure out Mass times. Whether or not his parents joined him, Carlo would be there.

Every day.

And they traveled quite a bit. Carlo’s deep love of Mary (whom he called “the only woman in my life”) led the family to Marian apparition sites all over Europe.

But their pilgrimages became more intentional when Carlo was 11 and got an idea.

After receiving his First Communion, Carlo had begun to lament the many, many people who don’t go to Mass.

“They’ll stand in line for hours to go to a concert,” he would say, “but won’t stay even a moment before the tabernacle.”

Eager to do something to draw souls to

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Jesus, young Carlo began to research Eucharistic miracles. He was convinced that people wouldn’t be able to stay away from the Holy Mass if they knew about the miracles of Lanciano and Poznan and the dozens of others recognized by the Church. So Carlo began to research, dragging his parents from one shrine to another in order to take pictures for the website he was building.

This was only 2002, but Carlo was something of a prodigy when it came to technology. When he was only 8 or 9, he had gotten a hold of a universitylevel computer science textbook, using it to teach himself to code. From there, he moved into animation and video editing, making videos with his friends and dubbing voice-overs on videos of his dogs. Carlo had the tech savvy, the information and the drive — the resulting website documenting nearly 150 miracles eventually developed into an exhibit that has traveled the world.

wealthy, Carlo had no patience for excess.

He saved up his pocket money to buy a sleeping bag for a homeless friend, and when his mother suggested they buy Carlo such “luxuries” as a second pair of shoes, he revolted. Technology, though, wasn’t a luxury. It was an important part of his apostolate, and Carlo had no qualms about using three computers when building his website.

Through all this, every day: Mass, the

The website designed by Carlo. He gathered information and photographs of all the Eucharistic miracles in the world

CARING FOR THOSE AROUND HIM

But Carlo was no computer geek closeted in a back bedroom. For all his technological skill, Carlo was a friendly, outgoing kid. He was so friendly that his family was reluctant to go on walks with him; Carlo knew everybody, it seemed, and couldn’t help but stop to talk to every person he passed. He had a sensitive heart and was always looking out for those who were suffering: classmates whose parents were going through a divorce, kids who were being bullied.

Carlo’s approach was always friendship. And through that friendship, people were always drawn to Jesus. As pure and as pious as he was, nobody felt judged by the young saint. His uncle says that being with Carlo filled your heart. And that joy left people seeking and wondering, as Carlo’s mother had years before. A young Hindu man who worked for Carlo’s family was baptized as a direct result of his friendship with Carlo, while many others returned to the Faith.

Carlo was particularly close to the homeless people in his neighborhood, packing up food most days to take out to his friends on the street. Though his family was

Rosary, silent time before the tabernacle.

Carlo insisted that holiness was impossible otherwise. “The Eucharist is my highway to heaven,” he would say, and nothing could get between him and his daily appointment with the Lord. “The more we receive the Eucharist, the more we will become like Jesus,” Carlo said.

“I CAN DIE HAPPY”

How did he have the time in between teaching himself to code, playing soccer, riding his bike around Milan to visit the poor, teaching himself the saxophone, patiently explaining technology to his older relatives and making one movie after another? According to his mother, Carlo didn’t waste time on useless things. He limited himself to an hour a week of video games (because, he said, he didn’t want to become a slave to them) and focused the rest of his

time on things that were valuable. But that didn’t exclude silly animations or videos of his dogs — Carlo knew that something doesn’t need to be catechetical to be valuable, and he enjoyed leisure all the more because its greatest value was in being fun.

Carlo hungered for heaven. “We have always been awaited in heaven,” he said, and throughout his life his eyes were fixed on eternity. So when, at 15, he went to the hospital with the flu and was diagnosed instead with an acute and untreatable leukemia, Carlo wasn’t upset. He was ready to go home. “I can die happy,” he told his mother, “because I haven’t wasted even a minute on things that aren’t pleasing to God.” Within three days, Carlo Acutis was dead.

He was a remarkable young man, but he was an ordinary man. He had no visions. He didn’t levitate when he prayed. He just lived like heaven was real. He was completely himself, video games and computer programming and all, but entirely Christ’s.

On his website, Carlo wrote a list of instructions for becoming holy, encouraging people to go to Mass daily and confession weekly. But his very first rule for becoming holy was this: “You must want it with all your heart.”

This is the legacy of Venerable Carlo Acutis: an ordinary, modern kid who watched cartoons and used the internet and wanted holiness with all his heart. This is why the world loves him. Because he shows us that holiness is possible. For every one of us. Even if you have an Instagram account.

Even if you’re a gamer.

Carlo Acutis was born in 1991. That fact alone is a testimony: holiness is possible.

For you. Right now.

But you have to want it.

With a Miracle Approved, Beatification Awaits Computer Programmer Carlo Acutis by Meg Hunter-Kilmer from Our Sunday Visitor, February 24, 2020. © Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.

1-800-348-2440. www.osv.com Used by permission. No other use of this material is authorized. To subscribe visit osvnews.com.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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HISTORY

PREJUDICES TO BE DEBUNKED DESPITE THE OPENING OF HIS ARCHIVES, SOME DETRACTORS OF PIUS XII CONTINUE TO PEDDLE MISINFORMATION ABOUT HIM

n BY MATTEO LUIGI NAPOLITANO*

In Rome in the early 1900s: an image from daily life at the Fountain of the Tartarughe (Turtles) in the historic Jewish ghetto area.

To the right, the round-up by German soldiers of the Jews in Rome on October 16, 1943

O

ver a year ago, scholars welcomed with satisfaction the decision of Pope Francis to open, on March 2, 2020, the archives on the pontificate of Pius XII, who governed the Church in an unrepeatable period of the twentieth century, marked by the Second World War, the Shoah and reconstruction, from new European hopes to the Cold War. Francis’ intent was the determination to open a new season of studies on the subject. But as we know, the pandemic closure nipped research in the bud after only five days, until mid-June, when the Vatican archives reopened – and then closed again for the summer. At the moment, therefore, the actual time worked by researchers on the newly available papers of Pius XII is estimated at about forty days.

Nevertheless, some scholars presented the results of their research early: one of these, even after only five days, came before the blockade from COVID. David Kertzer has just published in The Atlantic magazine an article entitled The Pope, the Above, David I. Kertzer Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives the 2015 Pulitzer which anticipates a longer essay in winner ofwith The Pope and Mussolini. He surprised preparation. Among the topics covmany when he drew ered: the situation of the Jews in conclusions after only a 1943 and the case of the Finaly few days of study 22

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brothers, the two Jewish orphans baptized by a French Catholic.

For Kertzer, the silence of Pius XII determined the sad fate of the Jews in the camps, condemning Pacelli to a damnatio memoriae in the times to come. According to the scholar, the new Vatican papers confirm the “silence” of Pius XII during the Shoah, the anti-Semitism of the Church and “the role it played in making possible the mass extermination of European Jews perpetrated by the Nazis.”

These are strong but unproven claims. If this roadmap is to prove the weary thesis of Pope Pius’s silence and antiSemitism, why open the archives? Why engage in long and interesting years of investigation?

A second thesis of Kertzer is that the series published by the Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège rélatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale (ADSS), first gathered in 1965 after the first controversies about Pius XII, reveals the malicious omissions of the curators (the four Jesuit Fathers Pierre Blet, Robert Graham, Angelo Martini and Burkhart Schneider). Such omissions would be clear in the ninth volume, which concerns the victims of war in 1943 and, in particular, of the raid on the Ghetto of Rome.

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Rome, 1994. Father Robert Graham, S.J. (wearing the white priest’s collar), one of the four scholars who published the 12 volumes of the Acts of the Holy See during World War II, speaking with other Vatican journalists (left to right): Domenico Del Rio, Dominik Morawski and Robert Moynihan.

Right, a view of the Vatican Secret Archives

anti-Semitic language in preparing its official documents.

The weakness of this thesis is obvious. The ADSS saw The reference is in particular to Monsignor Angelo Delthe light in full Vatican “archival chaos,” to respond to the l’Acqua, minutante of the Secretariat of State, then Secrefirst controversies about the “silence” of Pius XII. The curatary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical tors had to give the scholars “the other bell” of the story of Affairs and, finally, Bishop and Cardinal Vicar of Rome.

Pius XII. The situation of 1965 is therefore not even For Kertzer it was Dell’Acqua who persuaded the Pope not remotely comparable to that of 2020. Today the Vatican to protest against the Germans after the deportation of the archives allow us to find the desired papers immediately; no Roman Jews, as instead asked by Father Tacchi Venturi, the one would have achieved this in the 1960s. Consequently, Jesuit known for negotiating the Lateran Pacts. Kertzer there is no malicious intent in the Vatican collection, but cites two unpublished notes, reproduced in the appendix to only the classic limit that is encountered in archives that are his article. One dates back to mid-December 1943, by not yet organized, a situation that is not rare. In Italy, for Father Tacchi Venturi; the other, by Monsignor Angelo Delexample, it was necessary to wait until the end of the eightl’Acqua, is dated December 20, 1943. ies for the main archive of “Mussolini’s diplomacy” to be Tacchi Venturi had prepared a verbal note on the Jewish reorganized once it was discovered in a Roman noble situation in Italy, which, according to him, was palace. not as serious as in other nations, both for the limBut the decisive denial of Kertzer’s thesis ited number of Jews present in the Kingdom, and comes from a very important source: the diary of for the large number of mixed marriages. In short, one of the four ADSS curators, Father Robert there was no “real feeling of distrust of the Jews.”

Graham, which we retraced at the time in the There was not “an Aryan milieu that was decidUnited States. On October 20, 1973, we read: edly hostile to the Jewish milieu.” Many Jews had “At this moment I have the drafts of Volume VIII in the past reached “very high positions,” though on humanitarian aid in 1943 [the volume which now lost; several had been Senators; others were would later become the IX]. Schneider says I related to large families “of pure Aryan lineage.” should now prepare the introduction, which will Monsignor Angelo Others had fought for Italy, from the Risorgihave to be very good, due to the nature of the Dell’Acqua and Father mento to the march on Rome. This is why the documentation, of course on the Jewish ques- Tacchi Venturi prepared, in tion and the relief work in Rome. I said that 1943, a verbal note on the Italians detested German practices “against Jews Jewish situation in Italy born in Italy and provided with Italian citizenthere is the entire documentation of the letters ship.” From this Tacchi Venturi observed that the sent to the Pope after October 16 (none of which Church could not remain silent “without failing indicated a knowledge of what was being prein its divine mission.” pared). And then there is the whole list of The text by Tacchi Venturi (prot. 7769/43) was appeals [for] brothers arrested in the fall of given on December 19, 1943 by Secretary of 1943.” Are these very private notes by Graham State Maglione to Tardini during an audience (the compatible with the thesis according to which acronym “EAE” in the accompanying sheet the ninth volume of the ADSS is full of malimeans “Ex audientia Eminentissimi “; and not cious omissions?

“Eadem,” as Kertzer reports in the appendix). TarWe now come to a corollary of Kertzer’s thedini entrusted it to Dell’Acqua with the following sis. He claims that the Vatican always adopted OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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HISTORY PREJUDICES TO BE DEBUNKED

comment: “It seems to me that in this Verbal Note, there are verbosity and out of tune notes!”

Dell’Acqua studied the document and made some remarks. “One thing is the persecution of the Jews which the Holy See rightly deplores, especially when it is carried out with certain methods; and it is quite another thing to be wary of the influence of the Jews: this can be very opportune.” It was therefore necessary to distinguish: distrusting the Jews did not mean keeping silent about the Nazi persecutions. Was this perhaps an anti-Semitic attitude? Dell’Acqua then wondered why he would limit himself to protesting Jews of Italian citizenship. And the foreigners, many of whom were Catholics, who had also lived in part in Italy?

Dell’Acqua then asked whether it was right to speak openly in an official note about the mistreatment inflicted on the Jews by the Germans, and their shameful ways, as Tacchi Venturi suggested. From this Kertzer draws proof of Dell’Acqua’s anti-Semitism and of the “silence of the Church.” But the truth is read immediately afterwards: “I don’t think expressions of this kind can serve to achieve the purpose.” And what was the purpose, two months after October 16, 1943? To not compromise the network of aid that had been activated throughout Rome to ensure that Jews and wanted people of all kinds escaped arrest and deportation. It does not seem that Kertzer takes this into account.

Dell’Acqua also observed that on several occasions Pius XII had mentioned the “racial question” in messages and speeches. But was it appropriate to threaten a new intervention? “Won’t it achieve the opposite effect?” If we go back to the “Nazi Rome” of 1943, the meaning of this question will be better understood. The aim was ad maiora mala vitanda – avoid worse evils – two months after the “black Saturday” at the Ghetto in Rome. One word too many, and the relief network in Rome would be broken forever. We know that on the morning of October 16, 1943, Secretary of State Maglione had summoned the German ambassador Ernst von Weizsäcker, asking him to stop the raiding of the Ghetto and other districts of Rome. The ambassador warned that the order came from very high places, and asked Maglione what the Holy See would do if the raid continued. Maglione’s response was the following: “The Holy See must not be forced to protest: if the Holy See were obliged to do so, it would rely, for the consequences, on Divine Providence.”

Kertzer then forgets that the aired Vatican protest is reflected in the English archives. On October 31, 1943, in fact, the British minister in the Vatican, Osborne, wrote: “As soon as he heard of the arrests of Jews in Rome, the Car24

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dinal Secretary of State directed and formulated a [ sort?

The phrase is illegible] of protest. The Ambassador moved immediately ... “ Kertzer does not even take into account the diary of the Slovakian ambassador, Karl Sidor (published by Peter Slepčan and Róbert Letz); this diary has an important page on the date of October 31, 1943. Sidor noted: “Fr. Prešeren [one of Father General Ledóchowski’s assistants for the Slavic provinces of the Society of Jesus] made known a very interesting thing. On the orders of the Holy Father, more than one hundred Jews and Italian officers are hidden in the Jesuit Generalate. Likewise, Jews with their entire families are hidden in every convent. The Holy Father provides for their nourishment. Money and food arrive from the Vatican. This is very important news. This is the way the Vatican is dealing with the Jews. The Germans know this and it cannot be ruled out that it is done with the awareness of some complacent Germans. Not only that, all of Rome knows it, and also where they are hidden. The Germans

have not yet decided to attack the convents and will not even have the courage to do so. The world would rebel not so much in defense of the Jews as of the convents.” As you can see, by broadening the gaze synoptically to other archives and documents, less narrow landscapes are discovered.

It should then be added that Monsignor Dell’Acqua also “rejected” Tacchi Venturi’s proposal for another reason: the Vatican had already written twice in confidence to the German ambassador to the Holy See on the “racial question.”

A first letter requested information on the Jews deported from Rome; a second asked not to proceed with the arrest and confiscation of the properties of the Jews of Venezia Giulia (operational area controlled by Hitler). About these two confidential letters Kertzer is silent; but there are ample traces of them in the aforementioned ninth volume of the ADSS. Dell’Acqua therefore thought it appropriate to write again to the German ambassador to the Vatican on the tragic situation of the Jews; and he suggested (as Kertzer does not mention) that some influential person be approached by Marshal Graziani (Minister of War of the Italian Social Republic), to advise Mussolini to act with caution on the

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Below, Pope Pius XII. There are many testimonies that he ordered Rome’s monasteries and convents opened to allow Jews to find refuge

Jewish question. “But we should also let the Jewish Lords know to speak a little less and to act with great prudence.”

This last sentence of Dell’Acqua is, for Kertzer, a contemptuous proof of anti-Semitism. But it is not such if we keep in mind the lines that immediately precede it. Lastly, the unpublished documentation demonstrates that Tacchi Venturi’s note never reached the Pope’s table.

On the Finaly case, that of the two orphaned Jewish brothers, baptized by Catholic guardians and taken to Spain to escape the French justice system that had assigned them to an Israeli aunt, Kertzer highlights the supposed insensitivity of the Catholic Church, whose relationship with Jews would change only with John XXIII, and later with Paul VI and Nostra Aetate.

Things are obviously much more complex if we look at the Jewish sources. We know from them that the bishop of Grenoble and the archbishop of Lyons collaborated with the judicial authority for the tracing of the Finaly brothers in Spain. A secret JewishCatholic agreement was then concluded on March 6, 1953. And the Jewish sources narrate that “the French clergy have already intervened with the Spanish clergy and that they are on the point of taking the children home.” From the same sources we know of a double register of French Judaism in the Finaly Affair: the Rabbinate wanted to maintain dialogue with the Vatican, while other organizations would have moved toward a clash, to be exploited on the media level.

Such a witness as Vittorio Segre, press officer at the Israeli Embassy in Paris at the time of the events, proves that the picture is much more complex: “It is logical to assume that there was support from the Vatican for the initiative implemented by Cardinal Gerlier through Miss Ribière, former secretary of De Gaulle, charged with tracing the Finalys. The story had a very strong impact in the press.” And in this case there was never “a conflict between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community.” In fact, says Segre, “Miss Ribière worked in complete freedom, without encountering obstacles in the hierarchies. There were difficulties, but they came from a much lower level.”

Another observation on Kertzer’s essay concerns the “newly available Vatican documents reported here for the first time.” Tacchi Venturi’s document, Kertzer knows, was partially published in the ninth volume of the ADSS. In the unpublished dossier, there is also an integral version in German – a sign that Tacchi Venturi was sure that the Vatican would approve it in whole or in part, to the point

of preparing a version ready for Berlin. It is very strange that Kertzer does not inform us of this, since this document is found just one page after Dell’Acqua’s memo. And the examples could continue: from the note of Monsignor Pizzardo of January 23, 1953 (published for the first time in French in 1998, and in Italian in 2005) to the documents known for some time on the events of the Jewish children of 1945-46.

But there is more. Monsignor Dell’Acqua was a close collaborator of Monsignor Roncalli [later Pope John XXIII] in Turkey for some months. After entering the Secretariat of State, he was one of Pius XII’s most faithful collaborators. Once elected, John XXIII consecrated him bishop in Saint Peter’s on December 27, 1958. Dell’Acqua would remain with Pope Roncalli, “faithful executor of his will,” assisting him in the reform of the Roman Curia. John XXIII also thwarted the attempt of the “most refractory curial circles” to remove Dell’Acqua by making him nuncio to Paris (thus Enrico Galavotti). Is it ever conceivable that the “good Pope” would have raised Dell’Acqua to the episcopal dignity if he had the slightest suspicion that he had anti-Semitic inclinations? It is ever conceivable that Paul VI, author of Nostra Aetate, would have elevated an antiSemite to the purple on June 26, 1967, assigning him to the important function of Cardinal Vicar of Rome? These are logical discrepancies that Kertzer does not resolve. But history, like nature, does not allow for leaps.

Regarding Pius XII, we are at the dawn of a new season of studies that we hope will be long and fruitful. The efficiency with which the Vatican archives are accessible to scholars will certainly help. Think of it as a “digital democracy” now experienced in the historical archive of the Secretariat of State, where every scholar accesses all the papers on Pius XII in real time from his terminal, thus cutting the request and waiting times for dossiers and hence optimizing his or her job. It is not just rare, but unique, and a model for other important archives in the world. If the prospects for this new season of studies are what we hope for, a new “historiographic democracy” will spring from “digital democracy” which will make the debate ever richer and more articulate. *Matteo Luigi Napolitano is a Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Molise, Italy.

His article originally appeared in Italian in L’Osservatore Romano.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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26 FRANCIS SLOW FOOD CORR1_Culture 10/1/20 4:26 PM Page 26

NEWS ITALY

FRANCIS PRAISES DIALOGUE IN CONVERSATIONS WITH AGNOSTIC “SLOW FOOD” FOUNDER book publishing conversations between Pope Francis and Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food organization, highlights the Pope’s emphasis on dialogue with others.

Petrini, 71, is a well-known Italian gastronomist, agnostic, and exCommunist who started Slow Food in 1989 to safeguard local food culture. It is in this context that the author introduces the three “dialogues” on integral ecology he had with Pope Francis between May 2018 and July 2020.

Petrini, also known by the name “Carlin,” notes in the book’s introduction that he and Pope Francis are “two people with extremely different stories and lives.”

TerraFutura (“FutureEarth”), which came out September 9 in Italian, recounts these three conversations, an impetus for which was Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’.

The dialogues make up the first 67 pages of the book. The second part is

A

Petrini’s personal reflections on the themes of biodiversity, economy, community, migration, and education.

The book also includes selected papal speeches and excerpts from the apostolic exhortations Querida Amazonia and Evangelii Gaudium.

“This book is important not only for the content, but for the method,” Fr. Antonio Spadaro, director of Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, said.

“I didn’t read this book as three interviews,” he added, “but as three conversations, three exchanges.”

Francis called Petrini a “pious agnostic.” He added: “You have piety for

nature and this is a noble attitude.”

In the first conversation with the Pope, Petrini suggests that certain messages, such as that of Laudato si’, remain completely in the “hand of the Catholic world, and us nonbelievers fail to understand the cultural and political potential of this message.”

Pope Francis said that “dialogue is very important. Laudato si’ is a common point of both sides, because it was written for everyone.”

“Even believers, those who are open to the transcendent, must understand agnostic humanism, which is a reality. It is on that level of understanding that we can dialogue,” he observed.

The Pope denounced the idea, inherited from the Enlightenment, that faith and reason are two irreconcilable worlds.

Petrini was also a participant in the October 2019 Amazon synod, which he called “one of the most beautiful moments of my life.”

—Hannah Brockhaus (CNA)

“ALL BROTHERS”: SIGNING NEW ENCYCLICAL IN ASSISI

P

ope Francis visited the Italian town of Assisi on October 3 to sign a new encyclical.

In a statement released this summer, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, said the encyclical is entitled Fratelli tutti or “All Brothers,” and is on fraternity and social friendship.

The title, whose official English-language version has not yet been released, is a reference to the writings of St. Francis: “Let us all, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who to save His sheep bore the suffering of the Cross” (Admonitions, 6, 1: FF155).

The Pope arrived in Assisi in the afternoon and celebrated Holy Mass at the tomb of St. Francis before signing the encyclical.

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INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

The visit took place in private, without the participation of the faithful.

In a statement, the bishop of Assisi, Domenico Sorrentino, said, “While the world is suffering a pandemic that makes so many people’s lives difficult, and makes us feel for brothers in pain, we cannot but feel the need to become above all brothers in love.”

“This gesture of Pope Francis,” concluded the bishop, “gives us new courage and strength to ‘restart’ in the name of the fraternity that unites us all.”

The title of the Pope’s new encyclical recalls a central theme of his magisterium. On the evening of his election to the papacy on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis first greeted the world with the word “brothers.”

—Vatican News

27 NEWS Human dignity and ELECTION CORR1_Culture 10/1/20 4:27 PM Page 27

NEWS VATICAN

POPE FRANCIS: HUMAN DIGNITY HAS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OUR “INALIENABLE DIGNITY” IS THE “FOUNDATION OF ALL SOCIAL LIFE” n BY COURTNEY MARES (CNA)

Pope Francis has praised the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a powerful defense of the principle of the inalienable dignity of the human person. In the photo, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a promoter of the Declaration, which was approved by the UN on December 10, 1948

P

ope Francis told an August 12 general audience that Christian faith demands conversion from individualism and a commitment to defending the inherent dignity of every person.

“While we work for the cure of a virus that affects everyone without distinction, faith urges us to work seriously and actively to fight indifference in the face of violations of human dignity,” Pope Francis said.

“We want to recognize the human dignity in every person, whatever his or her race, language or condition might be,” the pope said at his general audience.

Speaking via livestream from the library of the Vatican’s apostolic palace, Pope Francis emphasized that this “renewed awareness of the dignity of every human being has serious social, economic and political implications.”

He said that the pandemic has “shed light on broader social ills,” including “a distorted view of the person” that ignores human dignity and “fosters an individualistic and aggressive throwaway culture, which transforms the human being into a consumer good.”

“In the light of faith we know, instead, that God looks at a man and a woman in another manner. He created us not as objects but as people loved and capable of loving; He has created us in His image and likeness. In this way He has given us a unique dignity, calling us to live in communion with Him, in communion with our sisters and our brothers, with respect for all

creation,” Pope Francis said.

“The pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected we all are. If we do not take care of each other, starting with the least, with those who are most affected, including creation, we cannot heal the world,” he said.

Following the general audience, Pope Francis met with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the Vatican.

In recent months, Bachelet, the former president of Chile, has spoken out about child marriage in Somalia, human rights violations in Yemen, and the Iranian government’s repression of civil society.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ spokesperson has also expressed concern over the application of China’s National Security Law in Hong Kong and Lebanon’s socio-economic crisis. The Vatican has not released further details of the content of the pope’s meeting with Bachelet.

Pope Francis had said at his gener-

al audience that humans have “inalienable dignity” because humanity was created in the image of God, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution, Gaudium et Spes. He said that this lies at “the foundation of all social life and determines its operative principles.”

“In modern culture, the closest reference to the principle of the inalienable dignity of the person is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Saint John Paul II defined as a ‘milestone on the long and difficult path of the human race’ and as ‘one of the highest expressions of the human conscience,’” Pope Francis said.

“Rights are not only individual, but also social; they are of peoples, nations. The human being, indeed, in his or her personal dignity, is a social being, created in the image of God, One and Triune,” he said. “We are social beings; we need to live in this social harmony, but when there is selfishness, our outlook does not reach others, the community, but focuses on ourselves, and this makes us ugly, nasty and selfish, destroying harmony.”

The pope’s reflection on human dignity is part of a weekly series of catechesis on Catholic social teaching, which he began the previous week.

Pope Francis said that he wants to “tackle together the pressing issues that the pandemic has highlighted, especially social diseases.”m INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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28-29 NEWS Human dignity and ELECTION CORR1_Culture 10/1/20 4:28 PM Page 28

NEWS UNITED STATES

“PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES” STARK CHOICES LIE BEFORE US. NO MATTER THE OUTCOME, THE PENULTIMATE STRUGGLE HAS ALREADY BEEN WON BY CHRIST n BY ROBERT ROYAL

Top, President Donald Trump. Below, Democratic challenger Joseph Biden with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders

P

ut not your trust in princes.” We quote it all the time. And as a general rule about not expecting much from politicians or public authorities—whether they have to appeal to voters to retain power or not—it’s simple moral and spiritual realism.

But our current moment reminds us of something further: not only are worldly leaders unreliable. On many burning questions, they are also quite often powerless. If there has been a moment in recent memory when that has been clearer, it’s hard to think of one.

We will have to make some stark choices in coming months, and no conceivable political outcome is likely to resolve the deepest challenges we face. But as we have been warned on the Highest Authority, the things that are Caesar’s are limited anyway. And the larger spiritual struggles with “principalities and powers,” active in our world, has already been won

by Christ on the Cross.

He allows us to suffer many trials so that good, ultimately, will come out of them. It’s useful, therefore, to recognize precisely what those trials are in our time.

Until the first few months of this year, we all thought that the 2020 elections presented unusual, but relatively clear alternatives. A con-

“

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INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

troversial sitting president with a strong economic record and enthusiastic supporters would be challenged by an opposition party that believes his every deed, beginning from before his election—even before his entry into politics—is self-serving, corrupt, or darkly conspiratorial.

Donald Trump became only the third U.S. president to be impeached (none has been removed from office and Trump was acquitted by the Senate in early 2020).

His impeachment had little effect on his overall popularity, and the race continued much as it had earlier—an acrimonious clash of two differing visions of past, present, and future.

That was the situation when

COVID-19 struck. The political divide immediately asserted itself once again, with the president’s supporters seeing his efforts as well managed. The opposition, as was to be expected, believed the opposite. Everyone began to say that the way the virus was handled would determine the election.

For the record— though there are various ways to analyze the figures—among the countries whose statistics are fairly reliable, America has comparatively high rates of infection (partly, perhaps, a reflection of the massive numbers of tests done compared to any other country). But it has quite low fatality rates among the infected, lower than Germany’s, the European leader, but higher than the top performing countries such as South Korea.

In sum, and given the many factors that make comparisons between countries difficult, America has done reasonably well, though it might have done even better if our social life just now were more cooperative and less troubled.

The strangest thing about our current moment is that all this may now mean virtually nothing. The May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody—and the subsequent protests, riots, looting, and deaths that have marked the past several months—seem to be

28-29 NEWS Human dignity and ELECTION CORR1_Culture 10/1/20 4:28 PM Page 29

NEWS UNITED STATES turning popular opinion away from concerns about the virus and towards the president.

When a quiet Midwestern town like Kenosha, Wisconsin—let alone New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, St. Louis, Washington DC, and Seattle, among many other locales—experiences riots and looting, random violence and public intimidation, people seem to start asking themselves, who’s safe anymore?

Jeff Bezos, the multi-billionaire owner of Amazon and of the militantly anti-Trump Washington Post had a guillotine built in front of his Washington home, presumably on the principle that very rich people— however liberal—deserve to die.

Another guillotine was set up by what appeared to be the same middle-class white twenty-somethings in front of the White House, this one with an effigy of the president with his head on the chopping block.

Are we back in the days of the French Revolution?

Rightly or wrongly, people around the country increasingly see Trump as more likely to restore law and order—and things we all took for granted just months ago: that we can safely walk city streets and that our homes and businesses will be secure.

We certainly need a strong hand.

National Public Radio (public, as in partly paid for by tax dollars) interviewed a writer—a trans activist—who has written a book In Defense of Looting, as if it were just one more point of view in the wonderful rainbow of social opinions in a diverse America.

But while Trump is clearly the law-and-order candidate and the Democrats have been much less forthright and hardly persistent in decrying violence, it’s not at all clear that either party now can heal the divisions that have given rise to the violence—or police the large numbers of

organized agitators driving each case.

Buildings in Washington, DC are being boarded up again in anticipation of further disorder. Right after the Republican National Convention events at the White House, people were accosted in the streets of the nation’s capital by mobs that didn’t even know whom they were harassing.

There are rumors that groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa are planning to stage a “fifty-day siege” around the White House. We know how the June protests in Lafayette Park wound up, with a fire set in a historic Episcopal

church and “mostly peaceful” protesters being driven back by tear gas and rubber bullets.

You would have to be very naïve to think that all that will come to an end on Election Day, November 3.

It’s extremely likely that mail-in balloting will leave the results undetermined for weeks, perhaps months. Will an already seething public square be tranquil as the nation goes through the procedural chaos and legal challenges that will spring up in many places? Or after we have some kind of result?

All this comes at the expense of debate over some real issues. President Trump has been a staunch defender of the unborn and of religious liberty, two crucial questions that deserved serious debate this year. For many, including the present writer, that alone makes him the better choice.

By contrast, it’s a moral certain-

ty that a Democratic administration would seek to make killing unborn babies a right. Former VP Biden has also made it clear that his White House would continue to pursue groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have so far won legal protections for a right not to have to do things contrary to their beliefs as Catholics. The whole Democratic Party has become so radicalized by pressures from the extreme Left that it threatens not only religious liberty, but also basic freedoms in education, economics, and public expression that is not “woke.”

President Trump has been dealt a tough hand, but he’s made it tougher with his seeming inability to ignore slights without harsh responses. He has not, despite what Democrats say, created the civil discord that is so clearly now the main feature of our public life.

Decades of corrupt public education, family dissolution, and cultural decline have played a far greater role. But he hasn’t much helped heal public divisions either.

In sum, as we head into November, the year 2020 has produced an unusual amount of political conflict, a global pandemic, racial conflicts, widespread rioting and looting, an economic crisis, a political crisis, a cultural crisis, all perhaps without precedent in America. And now NASA predicts that a rather large asteroid will probably hit the earth at one of three locations (it won’t reveal which) on November 2, i.e., one day before the presidential election.

Oh, and a devastating hurricane.

Did I mention the suicide of virtually every sport over race? And who knows what else 2020 may have in store by the time this article appears? A journalist friend in Louisiana reports that his elderly momma said as Hurricane Laura approached, “We in Revelations.”

True, ma’am. Very true. m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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DEBATE

“WE HAVE TO STOP BEING AFRAID”

VETERAN RESEARCHER SAYS VACCINES, AS CURRENTLY FORMULATED, ARE OFTEN A RESPONSE TO FEAR, AND NOT THE WAY TO TRUE HEALTH - PART 2

n BY STEFANIE STARK, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT TO INSIDE THE VATICAN

“I AM CATHOLIC, BUT MY OPPOSITION TO THE USE OF

FRESH MATERIAL FROM THE BODIES OF ABORTED BABIES IS NOT JUST A

CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE AND DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE A RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE”

I

n part one of this two-part interview with Dr. Theresa Deisher, Ph.D., Catholic researcher, founder of the AVM Biotechnology research company and director of the nonprofit Soundchoice Pharmaceutical Institute, she discusses with Stefanie Stark both the scientific and ethical defects in current vaccine development.

Stefanie Stark: The media generally maintain that it has been proven that vaccines do not cause autism in children. Do you think they are getting it wrong?

Dr. Theresa Deisher: (Laughs) That has not been proven.

They’ll do studies, and there are five vaccines that children are getting that contain human fetal DNA. They’ll look at studies where kids got only four of the vaccines versus five, and there’s no difference in autism rates. But they’re not addressing the fetal DNA issue. They’re just addressing MMR [mumps-measles-rubella vaccine]. So they’ll say, “These kids didn’t get the MMR, but they still have the same rate of autism.” Well, did they get Hep[atitis] A? Did they get chickenpox? There is no information on that. It’s like if you have five smelly fish in your refrigerator and you throw one out, the smell is still there. It’s not going to go down. These are just fatally flawed studies and fatally flawed conclusions.

The one good study that they all like to reference that shows no relationship [between vaccines and Autism] was not a fetal-manufactured vaccine. It was a Japanese vaccine that was used back in the 1980’s and it’s made from animal cells.

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Dr. Theresa Deisher obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University School of Medicine. She is an expert in cellular technologies

In that study, there is no relationship between the animal-manufactured MMR and autism. And what that shows and what that proves is that animal-manufactured MMR does not cause autism. It points to the human.

And there are other studies. The scientific experts all like to claim that autism is a genetic problem. Well, first of all, genetic diseases do not rise at the rates that autism has risen.

That’s just an absurd comment. It is basic 101 that genetic diseases increase in the population because we have children, and that takes decades. So they try to insist that it’s genetics.

Well, Duke University did a study where they took children who had their own umbilical cord blood saved at birth. And these were kids with autism. They later gave them an infusion of their own umbilical cord blood, and 65% of the children had an improvement, some of them had a dramatic improvement.

The authors of the study, because they had blinders on, didn’t realize the implications of that. What that means is that if your own umbilical cord blood can help you overcome a disease, you could not possibly have been born with that disease.

Impossible. Umbilical cord blood from a child with Down Syndrome is not going to help their Down Syndrome. They were born with it. What that study proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the majority of children are not born with autism.

I recall an interview I did with you nearly a decade ago. Can you talk about a large grant you received and your discovery in that study regarding change point

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years? Talk to us about your studies around the world Deisher: They will pose the same risks that the other abortthat correlate the introduction of vaccines in other ed fetal DNA-containing vaccines do. The risks will be dracountries with those countries’ dramatic rise in childmatically higher in children because the concentrations are hood epidemics? higher and their blood volume is less than an adult. But depending on the level of DNA contamination, they could be Deisher: It was actually a grant from the M.J. Murdoch dangerous for an adult.

Charitable Trust. We used EPA methodology that they had established. If you want to correlate the introduction of an Organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundaenvironmental factor to a disease you have to prove all of these tion and GAVI Alliance are focused on vaccine creation points. So, for instance, if a pesticide is introduced that was and administering vaccines. What are your thoughts on not there before, and suddenly people started getting hiccups, “Big Philanthropy,” versus scientists and the medical you have to show that it wasn’t there before. You have to show community, pushing a global health agenda to tackle that there is a physiological connection between the environCOVID 19? ment and the irritant and the end Deisher: First of all, COVID-19 is result. And then you need to show a a coronavirus, and there are many of dose effect. them. No vaccine has ever successfulIf you look at dates when autism ly been made against a coronavirus. takes a steep rise, those are called So that’s a high hurdle to overcome. “change points.” Across the world, All of their focus is on the H2 receptor they are all associated with the introin these vaccines, when they are focusduction of a new aborted fetal-celling on the spike protein, they’re manufactured vaccine. And there is “IF YOU GO AROUND THE WORLD AND focused on the H2 receptor which was indeed a dose-dependent increase in the receptor for SARS-CoV-1. Now the rate of the rise of autism that can be VACCINATE ALL THESE CHILDREN, THAT SARS-CoV-2 can bind the H2 recepDOESN’T REALLY HELP IF THEY NEED directly associated with the number of tor; however, it doesn’t look like that’s children who get the vaccines. the receptor it actually uses in the FOOD AND FRESH WATER” Because vaccine uptake is slow. The human body because the symptoms first year it’s introduced, it might be are totally different. If it used H2 just 10%. And it builds up. You can show a direct correlation like SARS-CoV-1, we would have the same symptoms. It between increasing vaccination rates and autism diagnosis. doesn’t. Everyone made those assumptions. I mean, they didn’t have a lot of time to think about this. And hindsight is We are getting a lot of international support from vaccine 20/20 vision. But they treated these patients like they treated experts about the dangers of this now. They didn’t know all SARS-CoV-1, put them on mechanical ventilators, which for of the dangers when they did it. The things that they did, the most part is what caused the deaths. It’s a different disease. most of the people involved did not know this information.

The vaccines that are going after the Spike 2 protein we don’t And now that they do, they’re starting to put it in their prebelieve are focused on the right receptor. sentations and pushing to get away from this. It just was And there has never been a vaccine successfully generated something they didn’t know at the time. And the regulatory against a coronavirus. The coronaviruses do mutate, so even agencies approved it. if you could create a vaccine, you’d have to create a new one Are we using 1960’s technology for vaccine production every year. There are just much better approaches to this to create health and immunity in 2020? effort. Obviously for influenza, which is an annual pandemic, Deisher: Yes, sure we are. But even more important than we have vaccines. But we still have hundreds of thousands of that, there’s too much emphasis on the easy way out, which is deaths every year, even though we have the vaccines. The vaca shot or a jab and not the emphasis on health and nutrition. cines typically are not effective. The most effective one is only And we’re not a healthy population. More than 24% of US 44% effective. And then you have to make new vaccines, children have chronic illnesses, chronic disease. If you look because you have to guess at what strain is going to come the worldwide at the vaccination efforts, go around the world and next season. Sometimes they guess well and sometimes they vaccinate all these children. But that doesn’t really help if they don’t guess as well. A vaccine is not the answer. need food and fresh water. It’s not providing for their health People like Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others in and their needs. It’s a lot easier to fly vaccines around and stick public health say every single person on the planet should them in kids’ arms. It’s harder to get them set up in communiget the COVID vaccine in order to stop its spread. Would ties that are sustainable, where they have healthy food and that work? If not, are there alternative therapies that clean water and safety. would be better?

Now we come to the COVID-19 vaccines and the Deisher: Well, Bill Gates thinks that every person on the human trials that are happening. I have read that as many planet needs to use Microsoft software, too, and he has really as five probable vaccines are created using aborted fetal tried to establish a monopoly there, right? He’s a very aggrescells; what dangers, if any, do they pose?

Below left, Bill Gates. Below right, Dr. Anthony Fauci. They and others argue that every single person on the planet should get the COVID vaccine

OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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DEBATE VACCINES sive businessman. I don’t listen to Bill Gates about health. And he has blinders on about vaccines. First of all, it’s unlikely that they are going to have a successful vaccine, and a safe one.

And if they do, it’s going to be years down the road. It’s not going to be a vaccine rushed through the clinic — that’s not the answer. And the vaccine would have to be redone every year.

So what about the next pandemic? Boosting our natural immune system is the way to fight these. I’d like to see Bill Gates distributing Vitamin C around the world. And food. A vaccine for everybody? If their own immune system isn’t healthy, a vaccine isn’t going to do them any good. You rely on that person’s immune system and if they don’t have clean water, they don’t have food, and they don’t have vitamins, they do not have a good immune system. So the vaccine is absolutely worthless.

What are the ethical implications for Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Jews and Muslims, and people who care in general about health freedom, if they are forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine against their will in order to return to their “normal” daily lives?

Deisher: My opinion is it’s not just people of religion, it’s anyone. Good people who value autonomy and freedom, who do for themselves before they ask other people to give...

Forced vaccinations? Absolutely not. Since when — and we accept it with the quasi-mandatory childhood vaccinations — but you can stand up against people and you can say, “No.”

The problem is people are afraid to say no. Say, “No, I’m not going to take the vaccine. I don’t want my family taking the vaccine. There’s no evidence of safety or of efficacy.” So to be forced to do that… I look around, and there is fear driving people right now. Fear destroys your immune system. We have to stop being afraid.

Would you like to make any other points?

Deisher: I pray that everyone’s eyes will open to what’s been going on. And not only the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines, the daily use of the bodies of aborted babies for biomedical research, and then the equally horrific trafficking of children.

As Catholics, we share the goals of promoting good health for children, families, and individuals. But we must reject accepting vaccines which include aborted fetal cell lines.

These vaccines harm our physical health and violate our religious freedoms. In good conscience, we cannot agree to have governments mandate vaccinations that contain aborted fetal cell DNA. It is time that we demand that those involved in the research, development, and promotion of vaccines — especially those who stand to benefit financially from production of the new COVID-19 vaccines — abide by basic ethical and moral standards. And while many people may be divided in their opinions about the current pandemic, we are united against religious discrimination which goes against our sincerely held beliefs.m

You’re You ree Invited!

In d!

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Join us for a LIV E “ Wr iter’s Chat ” inter v iew w ith one of IT V ’s fe feat u red w r iters and questions fr from on l ine pa r ticipants.

Visit ou r webpage, Insidet heVat ica n.com /w r iterschat, to see ou r upcoming ffeeat u red w r iters and schedu le. Reg ister there to pa r ticipate in ou r on l ine ZOOM meeting and even submit y o u r o w n q u e s t ion !

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INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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THE CRY OF THE AFFLICTED

AMERICA’S “ABORTION KING” (DR. BERNARD NATHANSON) AND THE “CATHOLIC STRATEGY”

DECADES OF POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR ABORTION BEGAN WITH THIS SOPHISTICATED PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN

n BY TERRY T. BEATLEY WITH CLARE RUFF

A

he was the same man who spent t a prayer vigil in his final 35 years working tireNovember 2009, I dislessly to undo what he had cerned the Lord asking regrettably unleashed upon me to interview Dr. Bernard America: deceiving the courts, Nathanson, the last surviving maligning clergy, manipulating co-founder of NARAL — the the media, training doctors and National Association for the crushing the souls of millions of Repeal of Abortion Laws (late mothers and fathers by stopping renamed NARAL Pro-Choice the beating hearts of their America). In the late 1960’s, unborn children.

Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Lader crafted what they called the “Catholic Strategy,” WHAT CHANGED? later called “the most brilliant In 1973, just a few months political strategy of all time.” It after celebrating the Roe v Dr. Nathanson meets US President Ronald Reagan. was a stealthy and effective Wade decision, Dr. Nathanson Below, the co-founder of NARAL, Lawrence Lade scheme to destroy America’s witnessed for the first time a historical protection of unborn life by undermining the new technology: real-time ultrasound. He observed an spiritual authority of Divine Law and marginalizing the unborn child in the womb — smiling, stretching, and moral authority of the Catholic Church. As co-founders wiggling her toes. He told me, “Real-time ultrasound of NARAL, these two atheists deployed their Catholic was the bomb. It made everything come alive.” Science Strategy with tactical precision and great efficacy. They revealed the beauty, goodness and truth of life in this were the pioneers of the sinister industry of abortion, sacred space, demanding intellectual honesty from Dr. which depended on political victory to deceive and Nathanson; he had to acknowledge that abortion kills an destroy. And then a miracle of sorts happened, and existing human life, and admit that what he had been Bernard Nathanson became immovably pro-life. doing was morally wrong. In that moment, he realized I was daunted by the prospect of interviewing Dr. he had two patients: the mother and her child. His job Nathanson, and even doubted its possibility, but I felt I was to protect and save them both. In that moment, Dr. was supposed to try. Tracking down his phone number Nathanson’s pro-life journey began. via a pro-life attorney, I dialed with trepidation. His wife He spent two years persuading NARAL that realanswered and explained that her 83-year-old husband time ultrasound exposed a major ethical and moral was very frail from terminal cancer and had not granted dilemma, but the organization cared little and would not an interview in over a year. But she instructed me to fax alter its position. my letter of request, and promised to present it to her Dr. Nathanson resigned from NARAL on the second husband. anniversary of Roe v Wade. In his resignation letter, A few days later she called to inform me addressed to Lawrence Lader, he wrote: “The that, much to her surprise, Dr. Nathanson had judgements of the Supreme Court were never agreed to my request. On December 1, 2009, I meant to be infallible or eternal. And what if flew to New York City to interview the man we’ve been wrong – if the Court should soon who trained Planned Parenthood how to kill reverse itself on the abortion issue in the light children in the womb and who worked as Medof changing times and/or new scientific eviical Director for the largest abortion center in dence? What an incalculable injustice will the world, the Center for Reproductive and have been perpetrated. What an immeasurable, Sexual Health (CRASH). These credentials irretrievable loss will have been suffered. The earned him the title “The Abortion King.” Yet, annual dues to NARAL are ten dollars a year 34

INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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bied for the overturn of a 140-year-old New York law which protected infants from abortion. When Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed liberal pro-abortion legislation into law in April 1970, New York City became the nation’s abortion epicenter. Only nine months later, NARAL’s Executive Committee assembled for an emergency meeting to discuss a grave risk to their blossoming abortion crusade. An increasing number of infants were born alive following second-trimester saline abortions.

Executive Director Lawrence Lader showed no empathy for these salt-burned infants. He expressed just the opposite. Dr. Nathanson described Lader’s response in his post-conversion book, The Abortion Papers: Inside the Abortion Mentality (1983): “[He] saw these abortion survivors as an embarrassment to NARAL and was concerned that the press had made much of them and that the opposition elements were seizing upon them as a tactic in the abortion Dr. Nathanson meets St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. wars.”(p. 177) Below, a copy of the magazine of Margaret Sanger, the founder

and the hubris of certainty. I can no longer afford those dues.”

By 1979, the father of America’s abortion industry had become 100% pro-life – without exceptions. The industry, in his words, grew “fecklessly out of control.”

And fueling it was NARAL’s Catholic Strategy.

Following his defection from the abortion industry, Dr. Nathanson suffered nearly a decade of depression, frequently contemplating suicide, until he crossed paths with a priest who introduced him to the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. On December 8, 1996, America’s “Abortion King” was baptized at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and was made new in Christ as a Child of Light.

BACKGROUND: MY PROMISE As I sat beside Dr. Bernard Nathanson in the interview he had granted me, listening to his great remorse for orchestrating and leading the war on America’s unborn children, I felt a deep sense of empathy. He was too ill to get his message out of the Birth Control Federation of America anymore, which compelled me to make him an offer: if he had a message for America, WHO WAS THE MOST FEARED “OPPOSITION I would deliver it across the country until it became comELEMENT”? THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH mon knowledge – or until Roe v Wade was overturned.

The Catholic Church was NARAL’s primary opposiIn a thin, raspy voice weakened by his illness, but tion due to its long-standing, uncompromising doctrine coupled with a slight twinkle of hope in his eyes, he regarding the sanctity of human life. While the Anglican responded, “Yes, yes…Continue teaching about the Church reversed its position on contraception at the strategy I used to deceive America, but also deliver this 1930 Lambeth Conference and other Protestant denomspecial message. Tell America that the co-founder of inations followed, Rome held its position against contraNARAL says to ‘Love one another. Abortion is not ception and abortion as destructive moral evils against love. Stop the killing. The world needs more love. I’m God’s gift of life. all about love now.’” I reached over and shook his feeble For a deeper understanding of the genesis of hand, promising that one day America would hear his NARAL’s response to Catholic opposition, look to story — and his important message.

Lawrence Lader’s 1966 book Abortion, where he idenThe non-profit pro-life organization I founded, tifies the Catholic hierarchy as “a force inimical” to what named Hosea Initiative, is committed to revealing this he called “legalized abortion — the final freedom.” vital piece of American history to the public. Our inforNathanson says Lader shows his true colors and the level mal polling shows that more than 90% of our predomiof his vitriol against the Catholic Church in the sequel, nantly pro-life, Catholic audience lacks Abortion II: Making the Revolution. In it, awareness of Bernard N. Nathanson’s “SaulLader names individuals with their religious to-Paul” conversion or NARAL’s Catholic affiliation (most Catholic) only if they did not Strategy. This is essential information for support his agenda. (Interestingly, the current Catholics walking into the voting booth this “cancel culture” phenomenon mirrors tactics November 3. from NARAL’s playbook.)

THE “OPPOSITION ELEMENT” NARAL successfully united a fractured pro-abortion movement and aggressively lob-

NARAL’S RELIGIOUS WAR Together, Lader and Nathanson executed an all-out, anti-Catholic religious war: OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

35

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THE CRY OF THE AFFLICTED

thanson described the tactics as morally detestable, with Anti-Catholic warp was a central strategy, a keyno modern parallel. He was convinced that “there has stone of the abortion movement. It was, in a sense, the been, then, no social change in American history as self-fulfilling prophecy: knowing that the Catholic sweeping, as potent in American family life, or as heavChurch would vigorously oppose abortion, we laced ily dependent upon an anti-religious bias for its success the campaign with generous dollops of anti-Catholias the abortion movement.” (Ibid., p. 197) cism, and once the monster was lured out of the cave in The efficacy of NARAL’s Catholic Strategy helps response to the abortion challenge and the nakedly explain why the vast majority of current U.S. Senators biased line, we could make the Catholic Church the who identify as Roman Catholics consider themselves point man of the opposition. The more vigorously the “pro-choice” and voted against the “Twenty-week Fetal church opposed, the stronger the appeal of the antiPain Bill,” which would have banned abortions from 20 Catholic line became to the liberal media, to the northweeks gestation onward, as well as the “Abortion Sureastern political establishment, to the leftist elements vivor Infant Protection Act,” of the Protestant Church, and which would have guaranto the Catholic intellectuals teed, by law, healthcare to themselves. (The Abortion babies who survive attemptPapers, p.196) ed abortion.

Lader also modeled his anti-Catholic bigotry after the queen of racism and eugenics, THE CATHOLIC STRATEGY Margaret Sanger, the founder Like wartime strategists, of the Birth Control FederaNARAL’s Executive Comtion of America (later remittee stealthily devised named Planned Parenthood). four primary points of attack She started her dirty deeds against their leading opposiin 1916 as a fallen-away tion, the Catholic Church.

Catholic whose socialist faFIRST: Blame and ther taught her to despise the Accuse the Hierarchy Church. In the early 1920s, Cardinals, bishops and she strategically pitted Protclergymen were targeted estants against Catholics over relentlessly by the NARAL Dr. Nathanson meets Pope John Paul II.. the issue of contraception. team. Every time a woman Below, the Time magazine cover devoted to Pope Paul VI on the publication of his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae By 1939, she launched the was maimed or died from “Negro Project,” an aggressive plan to reduce the black complications of illegal abortion, NARAL never race by pushing birth control and sterilization onto accused the physician of malpractice, but blamed the minority communities under the guise of women’s hierarchy and Church opposition to legal abortion. healthcare. In the late 1950s, she led the charge for a litEvery press conference, editorial, or published article tle white pill which fueled an era of unfettered promislinked the name of a clergyman with social ills or cuity and out-of-wedlock births. Then, she passed the women’s woes. baton of abhorrence of the Catholic Church to Lader, her The blame game included an endless indictment of biographer and admirer, who soon thereafter partnered Church leaders for starting a religious war, abusing taxwith Nathanson to form NARAL. exempt status and even attempting to overturn the Bill of Dr. Nathanson explained that NARAL braced itself Rights! for a response, especially from the Catholic hierarchy.

Nathanson explained: “The anti-Catholic tactic But none came. And it only fueled NARAL’s was… central to the maintenance of unity withconfidence and purpose. in the High Command of the movement. In proWhat continually surprised us in the planviding a palpable, visible opposition it allowed ning sessions and strategy meetings at those of us setting policy and devising strategy NARAL was not only the comparatively mild to occupy ourselves with the enemy. We were quality of the organized Catholic opposition, kept too busy to contemplate in any critical way but also the virtual absence of response to the quintessential brutality of permissive aborwhat was blatantly an anti-Catholic camtion. There was always another bishop to paign. (Ibid., p.190) denounce, another pastoral letter to be rebutted, Later, writing with a heavy heart, Naanother cardinal to excoriate.” (Ibid., p. 197) 36

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AMERICA’S ABORTION KING AND THE “CATHOLIC STRATEGY”

and Richard Cardinal Cushing.” (Ibid., p. 177) SECOND: Support and Campaign for Catholic “To maintain their appearance as enlightened and Pro-abortion Candidates progressive while still retaining their bona fides as NARAL recognized and praised Catholic politicians Catholics, we provided [Kennedy Catholics] with the who publicly expressed a softened stance on abortion. It now classic ‘straddle’ for Catholics in public positions: assisted legislators with election campaigns, grassroots abortion is personally abhorrent, but everyone must be efforts, and financial support, regardless of party affilifree to make their own choice. Now we were ready to use ation. As long as the candidate embraced legalized aborthem to call over the more traditional, less trendy tion, s/he was a candidate for NARAL’s backing. Using Catholics to our cause.” (Ibid., p.181) the complicit media, NARAL made it appear times Of course, substitute “slavery” for were changing, and “pro-choice” politi“abortion” and few would agree that one cians were the new majority. NARAL person can find slavery personally abhorunderstood the power of perception. rent while others are free to choose THIRD: Split and Set Catholics whether or not to own slaves.Yet, it’s a Against Each Other refrain we’ve heard for decades in poliNARAL recognized that John and tics. Dr. Nathanson prophetically warned Jacqueline Kennedy were models of the that, as long as abortion is legal, there modern, enlightened twentieth-century would be increased violence, increased Catholic, thinking for themselves “without obeisance to church dogma.” The logo of the Hosea Initiative and, public turmoil and the disintegration of below, the book by Terry T. Beatley, NARAL’s strategists, formed mostly of What If We’ve Been Wrong? Keeping the American family. These bitter fruits atheists and former Jews, recognized My Promise to America’s “Abortion are everywhere apparent.

King” I believe the abortion ethic is fatally two categories of Catholic faithful: the and forever flawed by the immorality of the well-educated, fashionable “Kennedy means of its victory. A political victory achieved Catholics,” and blue-collar, conservative by such odious tactics is at best an unstable Catholics, only one generation removed from tyranny spawned by an unscrupulous and immigration. NARAL fueled divisiveness unprincipled minority. At the very least this diswithin the Catholic Church, pitting liberal closure of those odious tactics should compel against conservative Catholics. As Dr. Nathose who are uneasy with permissive abortion thanson recounted it, everything was in place to re-examine the issue. I believe that an Amer“for the portrayal of the Catholic Church as a ica which permits a junta of moral thugs to foist political force, for the use of anti-Catholicism as an evil of incalculable dimensions upon it, and a political instrument, and for the manipulation continues to permit that evil to flower, creates for itself of Catholics themselves by splitting them and setting a deadly legacy: a millennium of shame. (Ibid., p. 209) them against each other.” (Ibid., p. 181) This powerful quote of Dr. Nathanson’s is one of my Let it be said: The Church helped us in NARAL. The favorites. It reveals how intimately he understood the papal encyclical of 1968 [Humane Vitae] denying both diabolic industry. Abortion does not simply “happen” as abortion and contraception to Catholics was a bonanza civilizations evolve; it is created with evil intent. Dr. for us at NARAL at precisely the correct moment in hisNathanson wanted every bishop, priest and Catholic lay tory. By linking abortion and contraception in the person to know how they were deliberately exploited, encyclical, the Vatican made it impossible for those and be motivated to act in defense of their Faith and the Catholics who were using birth control to split off the sanctity of every human life. It’s time to challenge the abortion issue, therefore leaving them to pick their own anti-Catholic bias which marginalizes the prophetic way through the confusing ethical and theological landvoice of the Church. Pivotal in this effort is the courage scape.” (Ibid., p. 189) to elect pro-life leaders with the power to reverse The leap from practicing contraception to supporting the ebbing tide of pro-life legislation. It’s time legalized abortion proved an easy one. to abort our “millennium of shame.”

FOURTH: Execute the Straddle Perhaps the most common and effective tool in the NARAL strategy toolbox was ‘the Straddle’: a sepa* Terry T. Beatley is President of the ration of religious conviction from legislative Hosea Initiative and author of What If We’ve judgement.

Been Wrong? Keeping My Promise to America’s Nathanson wrote that it was first proposed to “Abortion King.” Clare Ruff is Hosea Initiative’s the Board by “such notables as Robert Drinan, SJ, Vice-President of Events and Outreach.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

37

ECONOMY

SOCIALISM, MODERNISM AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE THE CHURCH’S SOCIAL TEACHINGS SUGGEST A “JUST THIRD WAY” — AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM THAT RESPECTS THE DIGNITY OF THE PERSON

n BY MICHAEL D. GREANEY* Right, Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) during a Corpus Christi procession along the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.

Left, Félicité de Lamennais, considered by some as founder of liberal Catholicism.

Below, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), the longestreigning Pope in history.

Opposite: Pope Leo XIII (1886-1903), the Pope who published the great encyclical Rerum Novarum on social issues in 1891, and, below him, Pope Pius XI (1922-1939), who reigned between the two terrible world wars of the 20th century

F

ollowing the financial, industrial, and political revolutions of the eighteenth century, changes in the way people could be productive and participate in society called age-old ways of life into question. As the nineteenth century dawned, what would be called socialism and modernism gained a new foothold.

As Msgr. Ronald Knox explained in his magnum opus, Enthusiasm (1950) — defining enthusiasm or “ultrasupernaturalism” as an excess of charity causing disunity — the fundamental principle of socialism and modernism has existed from the beginning of time.

Essentially the belief that the end justifies the means, it allows anyone who believes something strongly enough to accept contradictions between what reason demonstrates and what is held by faith. This creates what G.K. Chesterton called “the double mind of man.”

It is, however, never permissible to redefine natural law derived from reason or religious doctrine held by faith, even to gain what seems to be the “greatest good.” Contradictions put faith and reason in conflict, instead of allowing one to guide and illuminate the other.

Capitalism (defined here as con38

INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

centrated capital ownership) helped create the conditions that led to socialism. Socialism, however, was first proposed after the French Revolution as a replacement, not for capitalism, but for Christianity, particularly Catholicism, as explained in Henri de Saint-Simon’s 1825 book, Le Nouveau Christianisme. As la démocratie religieuse — “the Democratic Religion” — socialism was intended to supplant all traditional political, domestic, and religious arrangements.

The goal was to abolish government, marriage and family, and religion, merging everything into “the Kingdom of God on Earth.” Under various labels, e.g., “the New Christianity,” “Neo-Catholicism,” “the Religion of Humanity,” the idea, according to Chesterton, was to invent a new religion under the name of Christianity.

Orestes Brownson claimed that socialism, by adopting Christianity’s outward forms and language, was a heresy so subtle it could “deceive the very elect, so that no flesh should be saved.”

In 1832, Pope Gregory XVI issued the first social encyclical, Mirari Vos, condemning the heresy.

In 1834 he issued Singulari Nos, describing the heresy as rerum no-

varum — “new things.” Chief among the new things was “the theory of certitude” of a renegade priest, Félicité de Lamennais, considered by some as the founder of liberal Catholicism, who said that reason resides in the collective, instead of in individual human persons. It can only be discerned by the Pope, who is infallible in faith, morals, philosophy, and theology.

Outraged at the condemnation his ideas received, de Lamennais repudiated his priesthood, renounced Christianity, and founded his own religion of humanity.

Gregory XVI also sponsored the revival of Thomism, the rigorous philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to educate people in the truths of religion and philosophy. In the 1840s, Msgr. Aloysius Taparelli first applied the term “social justice” in a Thomist sense.

Taparelli’s concept of social justice was not a right that society has by nature – something impossible in Thomism.

Society is a human construct, so that any rights society has must come from human persons. God built rights into human nature, not into the abstraction of “humanity.” Abstractions are made by man, not by God. Human beings “abstract” (generalize) because we are imperfect and lack direct, “practical” knowledge of everything. God is omniscient, and does not abstract.

According to Taparelli, social justice is the practice of virtue by individuals within the confines of natural law as defined by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

All that does not violate the natural law, especially the natural rights of life, liberty, and private property, should be done to benefit individuals directly, and society indirectly.

Pope Pius IX issued social encyclicals, but also attempted to reform the political system. Radicals who wanted to abolish the Church, and reactionaries who wanted to return to a mythical past, both thwarted his efforts, leading to the loss of the Papal States.

As a religion, socialism requires acceptance of modernist doctrine. Recognizing this, Pius IX called the First Vatican Council, which defined two authentic Catholic doctrines, both directed against de Lamennais’s theory of certitude, but also at socialism and modernism as a whole. These were papal infallibility and the primacy of reason.

Infallibility was defined not to expand the scope of the doctrine, but rather to limit it to faith and morals, and then only under certain conditions. Defining the primacy of reason — that knowledge of God’s existence and of the natural law can be known by human reason alone — made it clear that nothing held by faith can contradict reason, any more than reason can contradict faith.

For more than a decade after his election, Pope Leo XIII continued Pius IX’s program, but something was missing. Doctrinal definitions and political reforms did nothing to improve people’s daily lives. The Church lost ground to the new things that promised a Heaven on Earth if only Christianity was transformed or abolished and socialism instituted.

In 1891, however, Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, a new type of social encyclical proposing a specific program to counter socialism and modernism. He declared the conflict created by socialism can only be resolved by empowering “as many as possible of the people” with capital ownership.

Based on his practical experience as governor of Benevento and Perugia, Leo XIII recognized that a just society and spiritual growth and development require material needs be met in a manner consistent with natural law and befitting the demands of individual human dignity. This is not by making people dependent on the State or a capitalist élite for their material needs (except as an expedient in an emergency), but by making it possible for people to meet their own needs through their own efforts, which can ordinarily be done only by owning capital.

There was no flaw in the pope’s principles in Rerum Novarum, but there was a serious problem with the practical program he outlined. The only means Leo XIII mentioned by which people could acquire ownership were inheritance and saving out of increased wages. Inheritance doesn’t work if there is nothing to inherit, and raising wages without a corresponding increase in productivity raises the price level, making saving even more difficult.

As a result, capitalists dismissed expanded ownership as a prudential suggestion, while socialists claimed the encyclical endorsed socialism by redefining private property. Both confused the principle of private property OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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ECONOMY with the suggested means to acquire ownership. Socialists touted Rerum Novarum as “the living wage encyclical” and a new manifesto for Christian or democratic socialism.

Pope Pius XI posited “the Reign of Christ the King” to oppose the socialist “Kingdom of God on Earth.” He defined social justice as a particular virtue by means of which organized human persons restructure the institutions of the common good to conform to the demands of human dignity. He also stressed the importance of expanded capital ownership, but again in a way that allowed both capitalists and socialists to ignore it.

Neither Leo XIII nor Pius XI was aware that relying on cutting consumption to finance new capital creates an “economic dilemma.” If enough money is saved to finance new capital, there is insufficient demand to justify the capital financially. If there is demand for additional production, there is not enough saved to finance it.

In 1958 in The Capitalist Manifesto, Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler resolved the problem by proposing to make everyone a capital owner by using “future savings,” i.e., capital that pays for itself out of its own earnings.

Instead of cutting consumption in the past to generate investment funds, increase production in the future. The rich invented commercial and central banks to do this.

Kelso and Adler proposed that this system be used to benefit everyone instead of just the rich (capitalism) or the State (socialism) — a just, third way of economic personalism to replace capitalism and socialism.

As refined by the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ, www.cesj.org), what we call the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism is based on the three principles of economic justice derived from natural law: • Participative Justice, the input principle, “from each according to his productive contributions through his labor and capital,” • Distributive Justice, the out-take principle, “to each according to his labor and capital contributions,” and • Social Justice, the feedback and corrective principle that repairs the institutional environment whenever anyone is denied equal opportunity to contribute to production through his labor and/or capital, or from receiving his just due according to his contributions.

The three principles of economic justice must be understood as integrated elements of a system if they are to be effective. Applying these principles gives the four policy pillars of a just market economy: • Widespread direct capital ownership, individually or in free association with others (the “fatal omission” from the major schools of economics today), • A limited economic role for the State, so that economic power resides in all the citizens and the State 40

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remains economically dependent on its citizens, • Free, open, and non-monopolistic markets, within a strong juridical order as the best means of determining just wages, just prices, and just profits, and • Restoration of the rights of private property, especially in corporate equity.

The four policy pillars provide the fundamental guidelines for establishing laws and practical measures to create a truly personalist economy. Guided by the natural law principles of Catholic social teaching, the Just Third Way has the potential to restructure the social order in a way that respects the dignity of every human person.

Ironically, the Second Vatican Council was called to continue the work of Vatican I and settle the problems caused by the new things. Evelyn Waugh believed that Cardinal Roncalli chose the name John XXIII to emphasize his opposition to the New Christianity.

Modernist attitudes (if not explicit modernism), however, permeated the Council deliberations. The language of the Council documents, while orthodox, could be — and was — given unorthodox interpretations. This opened the floodgates to abuses too numerous to list.

By identifying the real problem — bad ideas embodied in socialism and modernism — and recognizing the potential of the Just Third Way to restore respect for human dignity through individual empowerment, the way may be open to achieve the goal of Catholic social teaching: the just restructuring of the social order in a way that respects the dignity of the human person. Pope Francis might want to consider a new encyclical on economic personalism, and even convene another council to deal with the new things in a more effective way.

*A graduate of Notre Dame, Michael D. Greaney is co-author with Dawn K. Brohawn of Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person (2020) published by Justice University Press. As Director of Research for the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice in Arlington, Virginia, he participated in a Vatican seminar on the importance of widespread capital ownership in combating global poverty, and co-edited the compendium, Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994). Among other books, he has written So Much Generosity (2013) about the fiction of Cardinals Wiseman and Newman and Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, Easter Witness (2016) about the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, and Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know (2018) from St. Benedict Press.

He has appeared on EWTN Live with Father Mitch Pacwa and EWTN Bookmark with Doug Keck. A member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, he sings in the Washington Men’s Camerata and the St. Thomas More Cathedral Choir in Arlington, Virginia.m

PRAYER

PRAYING THE PSALMS FOR LAY PEOPLE A NEW ARRANGEMENT MAKES IT EASIER – AND MORE UNDERSTANDABLE n BY REV. THOMAS K. MURPHY, OFM* In the illustration, King David, to whom tradition attributes the authorship of the Psalms

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n 1969, after a three-and-a-half year stint as a U.S. Army chaplain, I studied pastoral counseling while assigned part-time to St. Anne Church in Fairlawn, N. J., a Franciscan parish of Holy Name Province. It was the time of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. There was a parish prayer group, and very soon some of the members came to me, demanding Bible classes.

Catholic seminaries are not known to specialize in biblical studies. For centuries, seminaries had presented the faith in terms of systematic theology: great theologians like Thomas Aquinas had mastered all the Scriptures and presented the truths of the faith in clear, highly reasoned treatises. Where was I to begin teaching the 73 books of the Holy Bible?

I called a bright young Franciscan friar whom I had taught at Timon High School in Buffalo, N.Y. After joining the Franciscans, he had studied Scripture. Wisely, he counseled, “Start with the Psalms.”

That is what I did. Around that time, Biblical scholars were writing about the Psalms in terms of categories. (A good example of this kind of scholarship is in the book, The Psalms, by Leopold Sabourin, S.J. ) So, I began teaching the prayer group about the Psalms according to the different categories, i.e., Hymns of Praise and Thanksgiving, Royal Psalms, Wisdom Psalms, Penitential Psalms, Laments, etc.

To my amazement, I discovered that seven categories of Psalms could easily be matched with seven phrases of the Lord’s Prayer, and both Biblical forms of prayer could be presented on the seven days of the week, as in the following chart: Sunday - Our Father Who Art In Heaven 12 Confidence Psalms Monday - Hallowed Be Thy Name 35 Hymns of Praise and Thanksgiving Psalms Tuesday - Thy Kingdom Come 23 Royal Psalms Wednesday - Thy Will Be Done 22 Wisdom Psalms Thursday - Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread 10 Supplication Psalms (Laments) Friday - And Forgive Us Our Trespasses 10 Penitential Psalms (Laments) Saturday - . . . And Deliver Us From Evil 38 Deliverance Psalms (Laments)

Jesus Himself had summarized the main ideas in the Psalms into a brief prayer! In turn, this raised prayer to a new, and wonderful, level.

Later on, in 1991, I began to work with the Secular Franciscan Order (formerly the Third Order of St. Francis).

In 1993, to help the members who were attempting to pray daily the Liturgy of the Hours, we self-published a book, Sing to the Lord a New Song: Praying the Psalms in the Light of the Lord’s Prayer. It contained only 75 of the easier Psalms, but they were arranged as described above. At the time, I promised that we would try to publish another book containing all the Psalms.

In 2017 we self-published that book, A Pater Noster Psalter: Praying the Psalms in the Light of the Lord’s Prayer. As far as we know, it was the first time in Church history that a complete Pater Noster Psalter has been made available.

In our day most Catholics are not familiar with the Book of Psalms. The Liturgy of the Hours in its present four-week cycle of Psalms presents, each day of the week, six or seven different categories of Psalms; one must constantly skip from one category to another — an arrangement that tends to inhibit a better understanding of the Psalms.

In our book, each day of the week contains only one category of Psalms. Praying the Psalms this way will increase one’s familiarity with the Psalms of each category and make them easier to understand.

In the course of each week, those praying the Psalms will also be praying the whole of the Lord’s Prayer along with the Church. *** To order a copy of A Pater Noster Psalter: Praying the Psalms in the Light of the Lord’s Prayer, contact The Franciscan Store, www.franciscanstore.org, and search “Pater Noster Psalter” in Books and Booklets. All proceeds go toward making more books available to all Christians.

Father Thomas K. Murphy, O.F.M. served as the Regional Spiritual Assistant for more than 800 members of the Secular Franciscan Order in Florida, South Georgia, and Lower Alabama from 1991 through 2013.m INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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SCRIPTURE

“THE TONGUE IS A FIRE” The evil of lighting fires of destruction with the tongue — and the keyboard n BY PROF. ANTHONY ESOLEN

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he tongue is a fire,” says Saint James. “The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell” (3:6). The poet Spenser must have been reading those verses when he asked himself what kind of creature would be most inimical to justice and courtesy, making it impossible for people to live together. He came up with the Blatant Beast, coining the adjective from Latin blatire, to babble.

Set on by the hags Envy and Detraction, the Blatant Beast is a monster of a thousand tongues of sundry kinds and sundry quality: Some were of dogs, that barked day and night, And some of cats, that wrawling still did cry: And some of bears, that groaned continually, And some of tigers, that did seem to grin And snarl at all, that ever passed by; But most of them were tongues of mortal men That spake reproachfully, not caring where nor when.

The Beast spits out his venom against man and woman, low and high, priest and lay, nor are good people safe from him. Detraction makes sure of that: For whatsoever good by any said Or done she heard, she would straightway invent How to deprave, or slanderously upbraid, Or to misconstrue of a man’s intent, And turn to ill the thing that well was meant.

Of course, when James wrote his epistle, the worst that the ordinary ill-bridled tongue could do was to make miserable the lives of his neighbors. When Spenser wrote, the fire could spread to a cache of gunpowder, for the printing press had been invented, and lies could go round the literate of a country before the truth, meek and hesitant, had put his shoes on. And now, when lies can circle the earth with near instantaneity and reach billions, it is as if the world

“

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Highlight from the troubling Christ Carrying the Cross, attributed to a follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium

of men were soaked in gasoline and everyone with a keyboard and a taste for sowing discord could toss torches left and right, day after day: vandals against the peace.

Only now, when I am growing full of years, and I have seen the harm that a vicious lie can do, have I come to understand the cry of the embittered psalmist: “They make their tongue sharp as a serpent’s, and under their lips is the poison of vipers” (Ps. 140:3). I had thought of persecution, too, only in terms of physical violence, or of pillage and destruction, but now I feel the power of the Lord’s words as he places himself and his followers on the side of the slandered: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:12). For the commandment forbids us more than speaking what happens not to be the case: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). We break the commandment whenever we set ourselves in enmity against anyone by the falseness of the tongue, and that includes, in Catholic moral theology, the sins of rash judgment, exaggeration of evils, suppression of considerations that weigh in the victim’s favor, and detraction, in some ways the worst of all. For the victim of detraction cannot defend himself by denying the charge.

Notice that Saint James does not condemn the tongue simply because people tell lies. We can be false in more ways than one. Man has tamed every creature, says the apostle, but he has not learned to tame the tongue, “a restless evil, full of deadly poison,” for “from the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (3:8, 10). Echoing the words of the Lord, James asks whether we can expect fresh water – the Greek idiom is sweet water – from the same well that bubbles up with what is brackish and foul (11).

But what inclines us to speak ill? What tempts us to break charity with others, charity which “does not

rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor. 13:6), so that we are happy to hear something bad about a political opponent, or about someone from the wrong party or the wrong sex or the wrong race, but are disappointed when we learn that the person has not been so bad after all? James lays the blame on “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition” (James 3:14). Latin ambitio has to do with ceaseless and unseemly political action: the homo ambitiosus is the man making the rounds, canvassing for votes. But the Greek eritheia here has to do with quarrelsomeness, rivalry, strife. If it is hard to imagine political life without ambition, quarrelsomeness, rivalry, and strife, then all the more should we strive to cordon off the most important areas of our lives from the evil influence. Yet how can we do that, if we spend all day soaking ourselves in strife, wagging the tongue and bending the ear, lighting fires and then roaring with delight when one reputation after another comes crashing down?

Again, I am not talking only about lies. A man may tell the facts about a sinner and damn himself for doing so, “for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (3:16). We must always remember that our Lord, the merciful advocate on our part, will put the best construction on our feeble charity that it can bear, while casting our more obvious enmity in a merciful light.

“Father,” said he of the mob who slandered him and nailed him to the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). James surely has the manner and the words of Jesus in mind. The wildfire of the tongue is beholden to an evil wisdom, “earthly, unspiritual, devilish” (James 3:15). But “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity” (17).

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” says Jesus, a verse often cited by Christians who doubt that any war can ever be justified (Matthew 5:9). I am not a pacifist in that sense. It is easy to say, “I oppose this war,” but not so easy to refrain from the everyday wars of human life: vituperation, backbiting, harmful gossip, and obstinacy. Here too the tongue is like fire.

Once you have said a thing, it is hard to retract it and impossible to unsay it. Indeed, you may grow perverse; you insist upon it. You burn one field, and rather than admit your folly and help to put out the fire, you fling torches to burn down nine more fields as well. You are at war. But, says the apostle, “the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18).m

AN EXTRAORDINARY BLESSING FOR A SUFFERING WORLD FROM

POPE FRANCIS NEW

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

—Mark 4:40 As he calmed the storm at sea, Jesus reproached the apostles for their lack of faith. On March 27, 2020, Pope Francis used the Gospel passage as a sign of God’s blessing, forgiveness, and healing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Holy Father offered hope to the world with an Extraordinary Urbi et Orbi Blessing from an empty St. Peter’s Square.

Christ in the Storm gathers color photos, readings, the pope’s homily and blessing, and also provides explanation of the symbolism and history throughout the event to create a powerful reminder that Jesus is always with us and that God’s love never fails.

104 pages, $19.95 (Hardcover)

Look for this title wherever books and eBooks are sold.

For more information, visit avemariapress.com.

OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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EDUCATION

A VERY SPECIAL SCHOOL TEACHES TRADES TO YOUNG CATHOLIC MEN THE SCHOOL’S PRESIDENT, BRIAN BLACK, TELLS THE STORY OF A SCHOOL WHICH COMBINES MUCH-NEEDED TECHNICAL TRAINING WITH CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY n BY BRIAN BLACK*

Center, Harmel Academy, hosted on the beautiful campus of Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Harmel students live in dedicated dormitory floors, and receive instruction in dedicated classrooms and labs

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everal years ago, a friend and I began an extended conversation built around a simple question: why is it that an aspiring nurse can find a college to form her in both a career and the spiritual life, but an aspiring machinist cannot? Or to put it in other words, why does Catholic higher education blend spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and career preparation for only certain types of careers?

If you are interested in medicine, law, advertising or the sciences, there are plenty of Catholic institutions you can choose from which will, through excellent programming and faithful professors, wed the specifics of those fields to the life of holiness. But what if you were gifted with a mechanical genius? Or what if you were called to a life working as an electrician, a welder, a manufacturing technician, or a plumber? Because such fields require the skilled use of your hands as well as a disciplined use of your mind, are they somehow removed from the call to holiness?

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Dining, sports, recreation, library and other areas are shared with Kuyper students.

The campus is 15 minutes from the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, and is near both parks and premium retail and restaurants.

To put it bluntly: why aren’t Catholic schools educating young people in the skilled trades?

The question takes on a new significance when you remember that Our Lord himself spent most of his life on earth working as a skilled craftsman, laboring away in a sweaty workshop and serving his neighbors in what could otherwise have been a life of humble, but fruitful, obscurity. Since Our Lord himself was a working man, it seems obvious that the Church should not only hold the skilled trades in especially high esteem, but that she ought to make it a priority to provide training, spiritual formation and intellectual formation for workers.

However, as far as we could tell, there was no place where such training and formation were offered side-byside. At best, a young person would have to find work or an apprenticeship, but if he wanted spiritual and intellectual formation to go along with it, he was largely on his own. “Why is no one doing this?” It was a question we could not escape.

Below, Brian Black, President of Harmel Academy of the Trades, with the school logo containing the cross

We soon realized that the persistence of the question itself was God’s way of asking us to create a new school — in fact, a new type of school — to train skilled tradesmen in craft, intellect and holiness. And finally, earlier this year, Harmel Academy of the Trades was born.

As I write this, Harmel Academy of the Trades is mere days away from welcoming its founding class, a small group of impressive, creative young men who have discerned that the “normal” modes of education simply are not for them.

Some of these men are coming from liberal arts schools. Some of them are coming from Catholic highschools. Some are coming from homeschools.

One is coming from the National Guard.

But all of them have this in common: they could not find a place that could satisfy their desire to be spiritually formed in a faithful Catholic community while at the same time helping them develop their God-given gifts in the skilled trades.

There are many reasons — practical, financial, social, pedagogical — why a school such as Harmel hasn’t existed yet, at least in the form it has taken here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But never has there been a time when such an enterprise is more needed.

For one thing, the skilled trades in America are themselves in something of a crisis.

After spending an entire generation convincing young people that careers in the trades were somehow “less” than a career that required a college degree, the American economy is facing critical shortages in skilled labor. As the previous generation of skilled workers retires, the crisis is growing.

But more importantly, no matter the field or career, there exists an even deeper crisis, a philosophical and spiritual problem: we have forgotten how to work and what work is for.

It may seem odd to say that forgetting what work is for is a philosophical and spiritual problem. But it is so in the same way that misunderstanding human sexuality is a philosophical and spiritual problem.

In recent decades, the Church has helped Catholics meet the problems of sexuality in the modern world, most notably through the Theology of the Body developed and proposed by Pope Saint John Paul II. Confusion about sexuality was rooted in a type of forgetfulness of, or an inability to read, the language of our bodies. John Paul, by reading this language in the light of the Gospel, clarified for our generation, and all to come, the deeper meaning of human sexuality.

Similarly, our forgetfulness about work — what it is, how to do it, why to do it — is rooted in an inability to

read the same language of the body, but with a different point of emphasis. The Theology of the Body has given us new insight into the conjugal nature of our human being, and its telos — its end — as divine communion.

But there can also be, and I believe should be, a theology of the body for human work — one that will, once examined, help us rediscover work’s telos as divine cooperation.

John Paul himself laid the groundwork for the clarification of human work by reading the language of the body through the Gospel, most notably in his encyclical Laborem Exercens. In a nutshell, John Paul teaches that any recovery of human work — any just system of economics, any program of social responsibility — must be built not simply on an understanding of the science of work and economics. It must, before all things, be built on a recognition of the subjective nature of work.

In other words, the proper focus of any attempt to understand work is not work, per se, but rather the man working. The most essential truth is that when man exercises his intellect and his body in the intentional formation of the material world — in other words, when he works — it is not only, and not even primarily, the material world that is being formed. In working, man forms himself. Or, more accurately, man collaborates with God in his own formation.

With such an important calling, how is it possible that, as Catholic educators, we have neglected to provide a formation in the high and holy calling of human work?

We should not be too hard on ourselves.

The reason we have overlooked it is the same reason you overlook anything intensely familiar. Work is so close to our everyday experience, we simply don’t see it.

But the time has come to see it, and to see it in a new and fresh way, because there is a generation of young people who will be called to meet a social question that has become so complicated and so challenging that, unless they are prepared to meet it, they may be crushed by it.

Work is the key to the social question. Just as our namesake, Leon Harmel, was committed to addressing the social challenges of the Industrial Revolution through a focus on the formation of the Catholic family and the Catholic worker, so too is Harmel Academy of the Trades dedicated to helping the Church clarify the challenge and opportunity of work for the coming generation.

*Brian Black is president of Harmel Academy of the Trades, a new Catholic residential trade school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. For more information, visit HarmelAcademy.org.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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SANCTITY

A YOUNG POLISH PRIEST, MURDERED 36 YEARS AGO, IS REMEMBERED FR. JERZY POPIELUSZKO, THE CHAPLAIN OF THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT, IS ON THE PATH TO SAINTHOOD n BY BARBARA MIDDLETON

Above, an image of Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko. Above right, his mother, Marianna, attends the beatification ceremonies of her son on June 6, 2010.

Below, in April 1987 in Warsaw, Pope John Paul II leaves flowers on Popieluszko’s tomb (Photo Grzegorz Galazka)

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arlier this year, Barbara Middleton interviewed Marek Popieluszko, nephew of Blessed Father Jerzy Popieluszko, who was in the 1980s the unofficial chaplain to the Solidarity labor movement in Poland. Solidarity defied Poland’s Communist government and its witness, aided by the Polish Pope, St. John Paul II, helped lead to the regime’s downfall. Here Middleton recounts Marek’s recollections of his uncle in that interview, which took place at the cloistered Monastery of the Visitation in Toledo, Ohio.

On September 14, 1947, Jerzy Popieluszko was born to Marianna and Wladyslaw Popieluszko on a farm in the village of Okopy, Poland. Marek Popieluszko, his nephew, relates that Jerzy’s mother, Marianna, stopped breathing twice during her labor. Her grandmother, the midwife, started her breathing again, but Marianna lost her vision temporarily and could not attend the baptism of the fragile 46

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child who was actually named Alphons. According to the website dedicated to Blessed Jerzy’s canonization, popieluszko.net.pl, “The climate of deep religious life in his family home, permeated with Marian devotion, formed in him from an early age traits of strong spirituality, which over time led him to a deep, mature faith and extraordinary pastoral service.”

The adult Jerzy entered the seminary in Warsaw under Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski in 1965. He chose Warsaw, said Marek, because of its closeness to the monastery of St. Maximillian Kolbe, a favorite saint of his. However, the Communists were annoyed that the cardinal didn’t stop the seminarians from praying publicly, and for punishment they forced the seminarians to join the army for two years.

Jerzy was accordingly drafted, and they hoped to indoctrinate him so that he would lose his vocation. Thus began a period of persecution, of which Marek gave examples. Jerzy was not allowed to leave the com-

pound for two years, except people, he received repeated once, for a wedding anniversary threats on his life by the police. of his parents. The Communists On October 19, 1984, they also wanted Jerzy to remove his finally acted. Fr. Jerzy’s car was medal of the Blessed Mother and stopped near the village of his rosary ring. He refused, and Tourn by officers of the state was punished for it: he was security service. They forced forced to wear a gas mask and his driver (Waldemar Chrosbackpack during exercise. He towski) into the back of the car; was made to stand on an uncomhe later escaped and is still alive. fortable floor without shoes for They repeatedly beat Fr. Jerzy hours; he had to clean the bathand tied a rope around his neck, rooms; he was pushed into a pool down his back and to his legs, (he couldn’t swim and he was bent so that if he tried to move afraid of water) and was drownhe would choke. ing, but they pulled him out at Then he was thrown into the the last minute. He was placed in trunk. solitary confinement and He managed to escape the endured beatings, all for love of trunk once but they caught him Jesus and Our Lady. and beat him again. Then they Coming home from the army took him to the Vistula Water very sick and weak, he was adReservoir near Wloclawek and mitted to the hospital for blood dropped him in the water with transfusions.

Marianna Popieluszko, the mother of the murdered priest, views weights tied around his ankles. a commemorative crucifix which includes instruments of Bl. Finally returning to the semiThe water’s current is usualJerzy’s murder. Below, Barbara Middleton, the author of this nary, Jerzy was ordained on May ly very strong but during that piece, center, with Fr. Czeslaw Banaszkiewicz from 28, 1972. His name was changed St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Warsaw, Poland (left) and Marek particular season it was moving Popieluszko (right) at the Monastery of the Visitation, Toledo, from Alphons to Jerzy by Cardi- Ohio, USA, where the interview took place. Bl. Jerzy lived in the more slowly; otherwise there rectory with Fr. Czeslaw. nal Wyszynski. A year later he would not even have been a was transferred to his last parish, St. Stanislaus Kostka in body to bury.

Warsaw. He lived in the rectory with Fr. Czeslaw It was, in fact, Marek’s own dad who went to identify Banaszkiewicz, the pastor, for six years. Fr. Czeslaw the body of his brother Jerzy, who was just 37 at the time attested that Fr. Jerzy loved his people, loved everybody. of his death. Even without internet and cell phones, hunMarek remarks that Fr. Czeslaw was a courageous priest dreds of thousands showed up for Fr. Jerzy’s November who wasn’t afraid of the Communist system; perhaps Fr. 3, 1984, funeral, including Lech Walesa, the founder of Jerzy gained some of his resolve from the beloved pastor.

Solidarity. The Communists, concluded Marek, had Marek remembers going on a vacation to visit his hated Fr. Jerzy and the Catholic Church because they uncle, living 20 miles from the Russian border, in August, were afraid of the Truth.

1984, just months before he was killed. Fr. Jerzy, he said, On June 6, 2010, Fr. Jerzy was beatified by Pope Benewas a normal man; he went shopping and out for ice dict XVI. His mother, Marianna, who died in 2013 at 93, cream and to the train station to see the “moving stairs” was able to attend the beatification ceremony. (an escalator appeared for the first time in Warsaw).

What happened to the men who murdered Fr. Jerzy?

Marek was 14 years old at the time of his uncle’s murder.

Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pękala, Waldemar When Solidarity met in the sumChmielewski and Colonel Adam mer of 1980, Fr. Jerzy was made the Pietruszka, who gave the order, chaplain and sent to counsel the were arrested, convicted and jailed, striking workers. yet all were released not long after His sermons at his monthly as part of a wide amnesty.

Masses for the workers inspired Lech Walesa, eventually to them. (In fact, they were routinely become Poland’s first democraticarried on Radio Free Europe.) cally-elected president in 1990, Because of his intimate coopersaid at Fr. Jerzy’s funeral: “Solidaration with Solidarity, a grave threat ity lives because Popieluszko shed to the Communists’ control of the his blood for it.”m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESNER

T

THE CIRCUMCISION OF THE LORD

he Circumcision of Jesus is a feast rather under-celebrated by both the Western and the Eastern Churches. Even Scripture gives short shrift to the event, since it is mentioned only in Luke 2:21, one short verse in the Gospels. This is odd, because there is a tremendous significance to this feast which deserves a much closer look.

The icon of the feast is perhaps a little misleading at first glance. A priest is clearly approaching the Infant Jesus with knife poised to perform the operation on the eighth day after the Nativity. Actually, it was generally the custom that the fathers of sons would do the circumcision; therefore, it is likely that Joseph carried out this ritual, rather than a priest who, in any event, would be unlikely to be available in Bethlehem. But the presence of the priest in the icon nonetheless conveys an important point, as will become clear.

Circumcision served as the initiation into the ancestral Judaic faith, the ancient equivalent of Christian Baptism. The operation was as ancient as Abraham’s Covenant with God, a sacred act setting the Jews apart from all other nations and marking them as the special preserve of divine blessing. The custom also was to reserve the naming of a new-born son until this ritual on the eighth day. On that momentous occasion, the spiritual life of a male Jew began, prefiguring to some extent the celebration of the Resurrection on the day after God rested from Creation. The eighth day represents a new creation, a creation transcending and fulfilling the first forming of the world, a re-Creation of a new universe healed from the disfiguring effects of Adam’s sin.

Of course, there was blood shed during circumcision. This was the first shedding of the blood of the

Messiah, in fulfillment of the ancient covenant formed with Abraham. Jesus was fully initiated into the Old Covenant, a necessary step in His mission to renew and fulfill God’s relationship with humanity. He was, as St. Paul points out, born under the Law, the precepts of Torah, and thus a bearer Himself of God’s promise to redeem Creation. The priest in the icon, however historically inaccurate he might be, is a representative of the Old Law, a witness to the inauguration of a new era. His order will become obsolete, but he does represent the passing of a torch, so to speak, a final act of the Levitical priesthood before being replaced by the new priesthood in the order of Melchisedek, a priesthood of kings.

Some 30 years after His circumcision, Jesus submits to the Baptism of John. The kings of Israel were always anointed to their post by a priest.

John was himself a Levite, the son of a priest, and thus qualified to initiate Jesus into the kingly state, another step in the progression toward a new covenant.

Kings in Israel were also qualified to exercise some priestly functions; witness David dancing before the Ark wearing the ephod, a priestly garment. A baptism of repentance was not necessary for the Sinless One Himself, but He assumed the burden of all humanity’s sin. He took the place of the scapegoat, sacrificed each year to atone for the sins of Israel. Jesus Himself referred to His coming crucifixion as a baptism, another initiation. This second shedding of His blood inaugurated the new and everlasting covenant, not just with the Jews, but with all humanity. His blood shed as initiation into the Old Law served as well as the initiation into the new dispensation, thus completing the transition from Old Law to New.m

INSIDE THE VATICAN PILGRIMAGES made a special pilgrimage to Russia, as well as Rome, to take part in the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the murder of Tsar Nicholas and his wife and five children in 1918. Contact us at insidethevaticanpilgrimages.com or call 1-800-789-9494 for information about joining us for upcoming special pilgrimages like this one. page 48

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East-West Watch

BY PETER ANDERSON

CAN DISEASE BE TRANSMITTED THROUGH COMMUNION?

F

or the Catholic Church, the method of distributing Communion in most locations has been modified during the time of the COVID pandemic. With the reopening of churches, the general practice of dioceses in the United States has been to allow only the distribution of Communion in the hand, and not on the tongue, and to forego the distribution of the Precious Blood completely during the continuation of the pandemic. These restrictions have also been adopted in many other countries, including Vatican City. For most Catholics, these restrictions have been accepted without great resistance as a precaution to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

However, the Orthodox Church has a different perspective. At a service on August 9, 2020, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stated: “I congratulate you for coming to receive Holy Communion, the most important Sacrament. You already know that there has been a debate lately about Holy Communion. We firmly believe that there is no danger of contracting the coronavirus in receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord. That is why we, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, have not changed the way Holy Communion is being offered.”

The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate had previously issued a statement in June that “it is impossible that through this Mystery of Mysteries any disease might be communicated to those who partake.” This view is also shared by other Local Orthodox Churches. Although this view is based primarily on theological reasoning, it is buttressed by the assertion that through the centuries there has been no known case of a person actually contracting a disease through the Eucharist.

During the pandemic, governmental health authorities in various countries have been particularly concerned about the distribution of Communion by the Orthodox Church because it involves the use of

a common spoon. For Communion of the Orthodox faithful, the consecrated leavened bread is placed in the chalice with the Precious Blood. The priest then uses a liturgical spoon to place a particle of the Body of Our Lord together with the Precious Blood into the mouth of the communicant. The same spoon is used by the priest for all communicants, and the communicants will generally close their lips on the spoon.

The origin of the use of the common spoon is not entirely clear, but it appears to have been in use in the Byzantine Empire in the eleventh century. According to one theory, the practice allowed a single priest to distribute both species simultaneously. The spoon also prevented the loss of fragments from the consecrated leavened bread. Now, for a least a millennium, the common spoon has been the method used by the Orthodox to distribute Communion.

Nevertheless, during the present pandemic, there have been some Orthodox who have health concerns about the common spoon. For many Orthodox hierarchs, these are individuals who are weak in their faith and need to be educated that the Eucharist can never be the source of illness. A few hierarchs support an exception. For example, Greek Orthodox Archbishops Elpidophoros and Sotirios in North America have suggested the possibility of using a different liturgical spoon for each communicant during the pandemic. However, they remain minority voices.

For Catholics, the modification of Communion practices to satisfy health authorities is easier because of the Catholic belief that Communion is complete if only the host is received. For the Orthodox, Communion must be given under both species, and this makes it more difficult to reach an agreement with health authorities. In any future negotiations with authorities, it is very unlikely that the Orthodox will abandon the common spoon.m

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page 49

C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y

NEWS from the EAST

BY BECKY DERKS

CATHOLIC BISHOPS JOIN ORTHODOX IN “DAY OF MOURNING” FOR HAGIA SOPHIA

Catholic bishops across the United States have issued joint statements with their Greek Orthodox counterparts expressing sorrow at the reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque.

July 24, was declared a “Day of Mourning” as the former Byzantine cathedral opened for formal Islamic Friday prayers for the first time in more than 80 years on July 24.

Hagia Sophia had been a museum since Turkey’s establishment as a secular state. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a decree July 10 converting it into a mosque following a ruling by the Council of State, Turkey’s highest administrative court, earlier that day which declared unlawful an 80-year old government decree converting the building from a mosque into a museum.

Religious leaders around the world, including Pope Francis, decried the move, with the Pope saying it caused him “great sadness.” On July 21, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that July 24 would be observed as a “Day of Mourning” and that Catholics would join the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America “in offering our prayers for the restoration of Hagia Sophia as a place of prayer and reflection for all peoples.” In Boston, Metropolitan Methodios and Cardinal Seán O’Malley issued statements critical of the change. (Catholic News Agency) CHURCHES AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS MIRACULOUSLY SAVED DURING BEIRUT EXPLOSION

On Tuesday, August 4, a massive explosion in the port of Beirut shook the Lebanese capital, killing hundreds and wounding thousands, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and damaging churches.

There were, however some happy stories amidst all the horror; reports emerged of Orthodox Christians and churches which were saved by nothing less than a miracle, when they would have otherwise been completely buried under rubble.

On August 5, 2020, the rector of the Representation Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Beirut, Archimandrite Philip (Vasiltsev), reported that none of his regular parishioners died during the explosion, or received life-threatening injuries. Beirut has a Russian-speaking diaspora of around 50,000 people. Sadly, their homes were not so lucky. “Unfortunately, several families of our parishioners, who live in Achrafieh (also called Ashrafia, an Orthodox district of the page 50

city, located not far from the port), have lost their homes and they now have no shelter. Therefore, we will have to think very seriously about how to financially support these people, who find themselves on the street,” Father Philip said.

Still, he was happy to share reports of miraculous interventions, which some families experienced. “[There were some situations in which people] should not have survived, but the Lord saved them. One family was directly near the port in their apartment, and saw this explosion. Their house was completely destroyed, but the family members survived and received very minor physical injuries.” His Metochion Church of St. John the Baptist itself was practically undamaged by the explosion, he said, noting that the Russian Embassy located in the immediate vicinity of the church was significantly damaged.

Father Youil Nassif of Saint Dimitrios Orthodox Church described what he also regarded as a miracle, saying, “I left the church with my children 12 minutes before the explosion…we reached home [and when] I went back to the church to see what happened, I was shocked.”

As a dramatic video shows, the nave of the church itself was seriously damaged, but when Fr. Youil reached the altar, he was amazed. “When I entered the altar, I was surprised. the altar was untouched! The Holy Chalice was intact, you can see the Holy Bible and the holy lamp didn’t move, the relics of the saints… even the glass was not broken! So, you know in times of crisis, we search for signs, for light in the darkness. I felt that this was a sign. But we need prayers, not just our church, every citizen in Lebanon — we need prayers.” (OrthoChristian) DOSTOYEVSKY’S TOMBSTONE REPAIRED IN ST. PETERSBURG

The tombstone of the world-famous Russian author Feodor Dostoyevsky at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg has undergone a thorough restoration, in time for next year’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth. His grave is located in the Necropolis of the Masters of the Arts just outside the Lavra walls.

Work on the tombstone began in the spring of this year.

In all, the cast-iron fence was restored, lost pieces of the tombstone were replaced, the foundation was strengthened, the granite part of the monument was cleaned and polished, and the bronze bust of Dostoyevsky was washed and treated with a protective compound, reports the St. Petersburg

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Metropolis. The inscriptions were also updated with gold paint, including Dostoyevsky’s favorite Gospel verse: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:24).

(OrthoChristian) ARCHBISHOP KONDRUSIEWICZ: “ONLY IN TRUTH WILL WE BE FREE”

On August 16, Catholic Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz visited Valkalata in Belarus (Vitebsk diocese, Dokšycy deanery), where he celebrated a solemn Holy Mass for of the 600th anniversary of the parish of St. John the Baptist and the 150th anniversary of the parish shrine.

The date was chosen not by chance — the feast of St. Roch, the guardian against infectious diseases, which is celebrated on this day, is a holiday in the parish of Valkala — particularly appropriate during the coronavirus epidemic.

The chairman of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus prayed in a special way for the Belarusian people.

At the beginning of the Eucharist, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz noted that today we ask God through the intercession of St. Roch not only for liberation from the coronavirus epidemic; now Belarus is also suffering from a spiritual and social epidemic — an epidemic of sin, as well as an epidemic of division and untruth, which led to the socio-political crisis that arose in the country after the presidential election.

“Our freedom is under threat, our homeland is divided.

Saint Roch, Saint John the Baptist, ask God for the grace of unity in our people, the grace of understanding that only in truth will we be free,” said the archbishop. (Catholic.by) MONTENEGRIN OPPOSITION LEADER IMMEDIATELY WENT TO ASK METROPOLITAN AMFILOHIJE’S BLESSING AFTER ELECTION RESULTS

The August 30th elections were a breath of fresh air for the Orthodox faithful of Montenegro, with the opposition coalition taking a majority of seats for the first time in 30 years and wresting power from President Milo Đukanović’s Democratic Party of Socialists.

While Đukanović and his government openly persecuted the Serbian Orthodox Church in favor of the “Montenegrin Orthodox Church,” consisting of a handful of parishes throughout the nation, the first thing that opposition leader Zdravko Krivokapi did after learning of the election results was to go to church to thank God. He later stated that the new ruling coalition’s first order of business would be to repeal the “Law on Religious Freedom” that aimed to deprive the Serbian Orthodox Church of its historical properties.

(OrthoChristian) HILARION HONORED: 25 YEARS OF WORK

On September 12, 2020, after the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Trinity in St. Daniel Stauropegial Monastery, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Primate congratulated Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the DECR, on the 25th anniversary of his work at this synodal department and wished him God’s help in his further work. Greeting those present, His Holiness said, “Brothers, I am very glad to meet with you especially in these walls which I hold so dear.”

His Holiness noted that he crossed the threshold of the department with a very special feeling because he had worked in it as its chairman for almost 20 years.

Metropolitan Hilarion, in his turn, thanked His Holiness on behalf of those present. “I would like to assure Your Holiness that the Department for External Church Relations are people faithful to you and faithful to the Church’s cause,” he said.

(DECR Communication Service)m

The Christian Churches, the communities of the disciples of Christ, were intended to be united as one; Pope John Paul II proclaimed, “The Church must breathe with Her two lungs!” Unfortunately, the Churches are not united.

This is a great scandal, an impediment to the witness of the Church. Since unity was desired by Christ Himself, we must work to end this disunity and accomplish the will of the Lord.

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page 51

LATIN

PRIESTLY BLESSING: THE LATIN WORKS OF THE LATE ANTONIO CARDINAL BACCI BACCI DESCRIBED HUMAN LIFE IN AN ANCIENT, SACRED LANGUAGE – AND THEN BLESSED IT n BY JOHN BYRON KUHNER*

I

n my last Latin column, I wrote about the late Antonio Cardinal Bacci, who served as one of the two papal Latin secretaries from 1931 until his elevation to the cardinalate in 1960. Bacci’s love of his cardinalatial regalia drew the ire of a 1960s critic who wrote on his Vatican-issued Mercedes-Benz (the preferred vehicle of cardinals) “RECEPISTI MERCEDEM TUAM.” It’s one of the greatest puns in Latin history. On the face of it, the line means “you have received your Mercedes,” but it can also mean “you have received your reward,” the warning Jesus gives when he tells the rich not to expect anything good in the next life. If any of us found that soaped onto our cars, we’d do well to take it as a sober reminder of God’s majesty, compared with which none of our good deeds can ever seem impressive. But I would feel remiss if the only account I gave of the great papal Latinist was the time he was on the receiving end of a perfectly executed pasquinade. Bacci was a remarkable Latinist, and careful examination of his Latin works shows him to be a generous, thoughtful, and humane man — one whose example is well worth contemplating.

Many of the highlights of Bacci’s Latin career can be found in his Inscriptiones Orationes Epistulae (1944), a collection of his inscriptions, speeches, and letters. Its dry title does not sound very promising, and I can’t say it ever became a bestseller, but it went through three editions in 11 years after its first publication in 1944 by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, a respectable showing for a book entirely in Latin.

Why did it find any readers? Well, for one thing, the book comes from inside the Vatican, where history is made.

Bacci gave the ellogium, the funeral oration containing a summary of the pontiff’s life and career, spoken over the body of the dead Pope and placed inside his coffin, for Pius XI (and later for Pius XII). You can also find his speech to the College of Cardinals just before the 1939 conclave, when Italy, Germany, and Japan had invaded multiple countries already and were agitating for more bloodshed. Countless 52

INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

inscriptions belong to the actual war years, and so they show how the Church positioned herself, as the Second World War actually progressed, as a public opponent of war and bloodshed, which are consistently described as horrors. Bacci composed the public inscriptions of the later years of Pius XII’s pontificate, when the Church was growing and confident. These are valuable historical documents.

But most remarkable is the humanity that Bacci’s inscriptions capture.

There is an inscription for a tiny brother of his, an infant who died an hour after birth, and for a sister who left this world at the age of 17, dum ex autumnalibus arboribus stillantia folia cadebant, “as the dropping leaves fell from the autumn trees.”

There are epitaphs for his father and mother and for friends, including one for his eye doctor, praising his neardivine gift of improving people’s vision.

There are inscriptions celebrating gyms and motorbikes and the Vatican radio tower. There are several which celebrate matrimony in elegant terms. I might well consider putting this one up in my home: AMOENA HAEC VILLULA HILARO CIRCUMSAEPTA VIRIDARIO IVCVNDA NOBIS SEDES ESTO EX EADEMQVE VELVTI GARRVLAE EX NIDVLO AVES PVELLVLI ALIQVANDO EGREDIANTVR QVI LAETITIAM CVMVLENT NOSTRAM “May this pleasant little retreat, enclosed in a lovely garden, be a happy seat for us, and from the same, like peeping birds from their little nest, may little children someday come forth to add to our happiness.”

Bacci seemed to want to stick Latin onto just about everything. There is an inscription for a wallet: NVMMATVM QVO FRVERIS

MARSVPIVM SIT NVMQVAM EGENTIBVS CLAVSVM MEMENTO NON TE PECVNIAE SED PECVNIAM TVI ESSE MANCIPIVM AC SORDIDIS AVARIS NIHIL VALERE AVRVM “May this monied wallet you enjoy never be closed to the needy. Remember that money is not your master but your servant, and that gold profits the dirty miser not at all.”

Bacci’s work reads like a series of Latin poems, much like the Roman poet Martial, who wrote epigrams on a wide variety of topics at the height of Roman Imperial days.

But while Martial was a ferocious satirist out to mock people — for their greed, their sexual proclivities, or their baldness — Bacci’s work seems fundamentally priestly: his task is, through the medium of an ancient, sacred language, first to describe and understand human life, and then to bless it.

He knows that many aspects of human life can be, unless connected to a deeper pattern of divine meaning, disappointing, but that does not hinder his blessing.

Such is another of his inscriptions about marriage: AMORE DVLCITER TEMPVS ELABITVR TEMPORE

PEDETEMPTIM DILABITVR AMOR SED DIVINA CARITAS QVAE NOSTRVM SACRAVIT CONIVGIVM PERPETVO MANET MAGISQVE COTIDIE EVEHITVR “With love time slips sweetly by; with time love slowly slips away; but the divine charity which has sanctified our marriage remains forever, and each day grows even more.”

It is amazing how many topics Bacci manages to touch on in his book: there is a prose-poem about the glories and comforts of indoor plumbing, and one about Pius XII’s restoration of the Loggia painted by Raphael at the Vatican; information about the mid-20th century strengthening of Michelangelo’s dome in St. Peter’s and a celebration of a literal henhouse (gallinaria). There are records of buildings destroyed by bombs during the war and an appreciation of his own little home library, with its books and chairs.

For those who know Latin, Bacci’s little volume of inscriptions is a real delight: it is a quiet testimonial to the man’s deep appreciation for God’s creation, and a statement of his profound belief that only God can truly redeem it. *John Byron Kuhner is the editor of the Paideia Institute’s online journal In Medias Res, and is working on a biography of the great papal Latinist Fr. Reginald Foster.m

OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

53

Of Books, Art and People

CARAVAGGIO AND HIS ADMIRER, ROBERTO LONGHI n BY LUCY GORDAN

P

and were deeply inrolonged through January 10, fluenced by his style 2021 at Rome’s Capitoline and subject matter.”

Museums, is the temporary exhibition, Il Tempo di CaravagInstead, this curgio: Capolavori della collezione di rent exhibition is Roberto Longhi, or The Times of dedicated to CaravagCaravaggio: Masterpieces from the gio, the painters who inArt Collection of Roberto Longhi. fluenced his work, and I’ve already written three articles those in Rome and later in Naples for ITV about Caravaggio, this hotwhom his works influenced. The tempered, violent genius, born near works, 45 paintings and a charcoal Milan, who lived in Rome on and drawing, are all on loan from the off from 1593-1606 before having Roberto Longhi Foundation in Floto flee from justice and spend the rence to commemorate the 50th last four years of his life on the run. anniversary of this great art historiMy articles were: “The Genius of an/collector’s death on June 3, Caravaggio: The Father of Modern 1970. The painters collected by Painting” (April 2010), “Rome at Longhi included the Neapolitan the Time of Caravaggio” (January Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, 2012), and “He was Sentenced to nicknamed “Battistello”; the Death So Caravaggio Escaped…to Spaniard Jusepe De Ribera; the Above, Boy Bitten by a Lizard by Caravaggio. In the circle, Naples” (February 2020). The first probably Neapolitan “Master of the Roberto Longhi, Florentine art historian and collector. concerned a monographic, blockAnunciation to the Shepherds”; and Bottom, The Denial of Peter by Valentin de Boulogne buster exhibition, the first since the Calabrian Mattia Preti, considWorld War II, held at the Quirinal’s Scuderie to mark the ered the last of Caravaggio’s followers, all known as “Car400th anniversary of Caravaggio death in 1610; the second, avaggeschi.” another blockbuster, held at Palazzo Venezia, covered the Born on December 28, 1890 in Alba (in Piemonte) to many artists from all over Europe who were painting in parents of Emilian origin, both of whom were teachers, Rome during Caravaggio’s sojourn and soon thereafter; and Roberto Longhi from an early age loved painting, particuthe third at the Palazzo Prelarly two works: Barnaba da torio in the off-the-beatenModena’s Madonna in his track town of Prato in Tusparish church, and Mattia cany: “After Caravaggio: Preti’s Concertino in Alba’s 17th-Century Neapolitan town hall. Beginning with Art Exhibition in Prato.” As his thesis at the University I wrote: “This title clearly of Turin (1911), however, states the exhibition is not his research and writings foabout Caravaggio, but cused on Caravaggio after a about the painters, his trip to Rome a year earlier. contemporaries and others As the exhibition’s first wall of the next two generapanel tells us: “The choice tions, who lived in Naples, was a ground-breaking instudied his Neapolitan, and sight for the time, since Carsometimes Roman works, avaggio was one of the 54 INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

translations of French, British, and American literature. In ‘least known of Italian artists’… Nonetheless, pioneer 1939 they settled in Florence and bought their historically Longhi immediately understood the revolutionary impact important home, parts of which date to the Renaissance, of Caravaggio’s painting and considered him to be the ‘night porter’ or last great Renaissance artist and the first Villa Il Tasso, also known as “Villa Ficalbo” at Via modern painter.”

Benedetto Fortini 30, in the Gavinana neighborhood of In 1912, Longhi moved to Rome for his doctorate and a Florence. high school teaching job and wrote for the magazine Longhi collected a considerable number of artworks by L’Arte. That same year his career masters of all artistic periods, from took off when he contacted the the 13th to the 20th century, and VilLithuanian-born naturalized Amerila Il Tasso offered him a peaceful can art historian Bernard Berenson, refuge for his research. The core of offering to translate into Italian his his collection includes a work or book Italian Painters of the Renaismaybe two by Caravaggio and many sance, and they became lifelong

by Caravaggio’s inspirers and folfriends. lowers.

Over the years, besides L’Arte, Here the Fondazione di Studi di Longhi wrote for Vita Artistica and Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi was in 1950 founded Paragone. He was founded in 1971 by Longhi’s last also a professor of art history at the will and testament. Having no chilAnnunciation of the birth of Samson to Manoach University of Bologna, where he dren, he left his art collection and his and His Wife by Mattias Strom taught the poet Attilio Bertolucci, libraries of books and photographs the father of film directors Bernardo “to the benefit of future generaand Giuseppe, as well as the poet, tions.” Since 1971 up to now the writer, and film director Pier Paolo Foundation has awarded grants to Pasolini (for, besides painting, Lonover 400 young scholars from all ghi loved the theater, cinema, and litover the world for a year of study in erature), and later at the University Florence to carry out their own perof Florence, where the Tuscan sonal project in the field of art histowriter, art critic, and feminist Carla ry. At her death in 1985, his widow Lonzi was one of his students. left the Villa itself and all its furnishLonghi’s lifetime ambition was ings to the Foundation. the artistic re-evaluation of longThe Times of Caravaggio opens Adoration of the Shepherds neglected and often-disparaged with four small panels by Venetian

by Maestro dell'Annuncio ai Pastori Caravaggio and his importance to Lorenzo Lotto who inspired Car17th-century Baroque painting. avaggio’s interest in bright light, and He reached his goal by curating Bolognese Bartolomeo Passarotti’s two mega-exhibitions in Milan: Carcanvas of a market scene, which posavaggio e i caravaggeschi in 1951, sibly triggered his obsession for still and I pittori della realtà in Lombarlifes and portraits of “low-class” dia in 1953. Besides Caravaggio, people. Of particular interest in this Longhi also put Piero della Franfirst of five rooms is Longhi’s canvas cesca on the world map. Among the A Boy Peeling Fruit. There are three other artists he wrote about were: other copies of this early work all Cimabue, Masolino, Massaccio, dating to 1592-93, all believed by Correggio, Carpaccio, Artemisia many scholars including Longhi, who The Deposition of Christ by Battistello Carracciolo Gentileschi, the Futurists, the Roincluded it in the 1951 exhibition, to man School, and Giorgio Morandi. be Caravaggio’s earliest work painted upon his arrival in Not only was Longhi the most prominent Italian art hisRome. Besides Longhi’s, one version is at Hampton Court, torian of his time, but, like his friend Berenson, he was also another in London’s Dickinson Group and the fourth in a an important collector. In 1924, he’d married his student, private collection in Switzerland. Later, however, Longhi Lucia Lopresti, who, using the pseudonym Anna Banti, came to understand that all four are copies of a lost original. wrote prolifically: historical novels including a “biograNonetheless, originals or copies, from this work we can phy” of Artemisia, short stories, and essays, as well as date Caravaggio’s arrival in Rome.m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 55

THE END EXCERPTS FROM LORD OF THE WORLD

“All languages seem the same to him” MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BENSON FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST... n BY ITV STAFF Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… predicting the

LORD OF THE WORLD

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907) BOOK II-THE ENCOUNTER CHAPTER I I Oliver Brand was seated at his desk, on the evening of the next day, reading the leading article of the New People, evening edition. ***** “We have had time,” he read, “to recover ourselves a little from the intoxication of last night. Before embarking on prophecy, it will be as well to recall the facts. Up to yesterday evening our anxiety with regard to the Eastern crisis continued; and when twenty-one o’clock struck there were not more than forty persons in London— the English delegates, that is to say—who knew positively that the danger was over. Between that moment and half-an-hour later the Government took a few discreet steps: a select number of persons were informed; the police were called out, with half-a-dozen regiments, to preserve order; Paul’s House was cleared; the railroad companies were warned; and at the half hour precisely the announcement was made by means of the electric placards in every quarter of London, as well as in all large provincial towns. We have not space now to adequately describe the admirable manner in which the public authorities did their duty; it is enough to say that not more than seventy fatalities took place in the whole of London; nor is it our business to criticise the action of the Government, in choosing this mode of making the announcement.

“By twenty-two o’clock Paul’s House was filled in every corner, the Old Choir was reserved for members of Parliament and public officials, the quarter-dome galleries were filled with ladies, and to the rest of the floor the public was freely admitted. The volor-police also inform us now that for about the distance of one mile in every direction round this centre every thoroughfare was blocked with pedestrians, and, two hours later, as we all know, practically all the main streets of the whole of London were in the same condition.

“It was an excellent choice by which Mr. OLIVER BRAND was selected as the first speaker. His arm was still in bandages; and 56

INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth, up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited Benson’s book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we are printing selections from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

the appeal of his figure as well as his passionate words struck the first explicit note of the evening. A report of his words will be found in another column. In their turns, the PRIME MINISTER, Mr. SNOWFORD, the FIRST MINISTER OF THE ADMIRALTY, THE SECRETARY FOR EASTERN AFFAIRS, and LORD PEMBERTON, all spoke a few words, corroborating the extraordinary news. At a quarter before twentythree, the noise of cheering outside announced the arrival of the American delegates from Paris, and one by one these ascended the platform by the south gates of the Old Choir. Each spoke in turn.

It is impossible to appreciate words spoken at such a moment as this; but perhaps it is not invidious to name Mr. MARKHAM as the orator who above all others appealed to those who were privileged to hear him. It was he, too, who told us explicitly what others had merely mentioned, to the effect that the success of the American efforts was entirely due to Mr. JULIAN FELSENBURGH. As yet Mr. FELSENBURGH had not arrived; but in answer to a roar of inquiry, Mr. MARKHAM announced that this gentleman would be amongst them in a few minutes. He then proceeded to describe to us, so far as was possible in a few sentences, the methods by which Mr. FELSENBURGH had accomplished what is probably the most astonishing task known to history.

It seems from his words that Mr. FELSENBURGH (whose biography, so far as it is known, we give in another column) is probably the greatest orator that the world has ever known—we use these words deliberately. All languages seem the same to him; he delivered speeches during the eight months through which the Eastern Convention lasted, in no less than fifteen tongues. Of his manner in speaking we shall have a few remarks to make presently.

He showed also, Mr. MARKHAM told us, the most astonishing knowledge, not only of human nature, but of every trait under which that divine thing manifests itself. He appeared acquainted with the history, the prejudices, the fears, the hopes, the expectations of all the innumerable sects and castes of the East to whom it was his business to speak. In fact, as Mr. MARKHAM said, he is probably the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has laboured throughout its history. In no less than nine places—Damascus, Irkutsk, Constantinople, Calcutta,

God as seen by William Blake as the Architect of the world, in Ancient of Days, held in the British Museum, London

Benares, Nanking, among them—he was hailed as Messiah by a Mohammedan mob. Finally, in America, where this extraordinary figure has arisen, all speak well of him. He has been guilty of none of those crimes—there is not one that convicts him of sin—those crimes of the Yellow Press, of corruption, of commercial or political bullying which have so stained the past of all those old politicians who made the sister continent what she has become.

Mr. FELSENBURGH has not even formed a party. He, and not his underlings, have conquered. Those who were present in Paul’s House on this occasion will understand us when we say that the effect of those words was indescribable.

“When Mr. MARKHAM sat down, there was a silence; then, in order to quiet the rising excitement, the organist struck the first chords of the Masonic Hymn; the words were taken up, and presently not only the whole interior of the building rang with it, but outside, too, the people responded, and the city of London for a few moments became indeed a temple of the Lord.

“Now indeed we come to the most difficult part of our task, and it is better to confess at once that anything resembling journalistic descriptiveness must be resolutely laid aside. The greatest things are best told in the simplest words.

“Towards the close of the fourth verse, a figure in a plain dark suit was observed ascending the steps of the platform. For a moment this attracted no attention, but when it was seen that a sudden movement had broken out among the delegates, the singing began to falter; and it ceased altogether as the figure, after a slight inclination to right and left, passed up the further steps that led to the rostrum. Then occurred a curious incident. The organist aloft at first did not seem to understand, and continued playing, but a sound broke out from the crowd resembling a kind of groan, and instantly he ceased. But no cheering followed. Instead a profound silence dominated in an instant the huge throng; this, by some strange magnetism, communicated itself to those without the building, and when Mr. FELSENBURGH uttered his first words, it was in a stillness that was like a living thing. We leave the explanation of this phenomenon to the expert in psychology.

“Of his actual words we have nothing to say. So far as we are aware no reporter made notes at the moment; but the speech, delivered in Esperanto, was a very simple one, and very short. It consisted of a brief announcement of the great fact of Universal Brotherhood, a congratulation to all who were yet alive to witness this consummation of history; and, at the end, an ascription of praise to that Spirit of the World whose incarnation was now accomplished.

“So much we can say; but we can say nothing as to the impression of the personality who stood there. In appearance the man seemed to be about thirty-three years of age, clean-shaven, upright, with white hair and dark eyes and brows; he stood motionless with his hands on the rail, he made but one gesture that drew a kind of sob from the crowd, he spoke these words slowly, distinctly, and in a clear voice; then he stood waiting.

“There was no response but a sigh which sounded in the ears of at least one who heard it as if the whole world drew breath for the first time; and then that strange heart-shaking silence fell again.

Many were weeping silently, the lips of thousands moved without a sound, and all faces were turned to that simple figure, as if the hope of every soul were centred there. So, if we may believe it, the eyes of many, centuries ago, were turned on one known now to history as JESUS OF NAZARETH. “Mr. FELSENBURGH stood so a moment longer, then he turned down the steps, passed across the platform and disappeared.

“Of what took place outside we have received the following account from an eye-witness. The white volor, so well known now to all who were in London that night, had remained stationary outside the little south door of the Old Choir aisle, poised about twenty feet above the ground. Gradually it became known to the crowd, in those few minutes, who it was who had arrived in it, and upon Mr. FELSENBURGH’S reappearance that same strange groan sounded through the whole length of Paul’s Churchyard, followed by the same silence. The volor descended; the master stepped on board, and once more the vessel rose to a height of twenty feet. It was thought at first that some speech would be made, but none was necessary; and after a moment’s pause, the volor began that wonderful parade which London will never forget. Four times during the night Mr. FELSENBURGH went round the enormous metropolis, speaking no word; and everywhere the groan preceded and followed him, while silence accompanied his actual passage. Two hours after sunrise the white ship rose over Hampstead and disappeared towards the North; and since then he, whom we call, in truth, the Saviour of the world, has not been seen.

“And now what remains to be said?

“Comment is useless. It is enough to say in one short sentence that the new era has begun, to which prophets and kings, and the suffering, the dying, all who labour and are heavy-laden, have aspired in vain. Not only has intercontinental rivalry ceased to exist, but the strife of home dissensions has ceased also. Of him who has been the herald of its inauguration we have nothing more to say. Time alone can show what is yet left for him to do.

“But what has been done is as follows. The Eastern peril has been for ever dissipated. It is understood now, by fanatic barbarians as well as by civilised nations, that the reign of War is ended. ‘Not peace but a sword,’ said CHRIST; and bitterly true have those words proved to be. ‘Not a sword but peace’ is the retort, articulate at last, from those who have renounced CHRIST’S claims or have never accepted them. The principle of love and union learned however falteringly in the West during the last century, has been taken up in the East as well. There shall be no more an appeal to arms, but to justice; no longer a crying after a God Who hides Himself, but to Man who has learned his own Divinity. The Supernatural is dead; rather, we know now that it never yet has been alive.

(End, 1st part, Book II, The Encounter. To be continued)m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

57

VATICAN WATCH

By Becky Derks with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

JULY MONDAY 20

VATICAN CRITICIZES LACK OF PROSECUTIONS FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING The dignity and rights of trafficking victims require the international community to do more to prosecute and bring down traffickers, a representative of the Holy See said this week.

Fr. Joseph Grech of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the International Organizations in Vienna, addressed an international conference July 20-22 on the prosecution of traffickers.

There are large discrepancies in the numbers of victims of human trafficking and the number of traffickers prosecuted each year. The 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report estimated there are 25 million trafficking victims around the world, but fewer than 12,000 traffickers were prosecuted in 2018.

These statistics “should make us indignant,” Grech said in one of four panel interventions.

“We must wonder if, as an international community, we have done everything possible to reduce the discrepancy between the high number of estimated victims and the low numbers of court proceedings and convictions,” he said.

MONDAY 27

VATICAN DICASTERY LAUNCHES “SEND A HUG” CAMPAIGN FOR ELDERLY ISOLATED BY PANDEMIC The Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life launched a new campaign urging young people to “send a hug” to elderly people isolated by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a press statement dated July 27, the dicastery said it was inspired to launch the campaign, called “The elderly are your grandparents,” by Pope Francis’ comments after Sunday’s Angelus.

“In memory of Saints Joachim and Anne, the grandparents of Jesus, I would like to invite young people to make a gesture of tenderness towards the elderly, especially the most lonely ones in homes and residences, those who have not seen their loved ones for many months,” Pope Francis said after the Angelus prayer July 26.

Pope Francis encouraged youngsters to use the “inventiveness of love” to “send a hug” to an elderly person in their community by making a phone or video call, sending a card, or visiting where safety measures permit it.

ONE MILLION PEOPLE HELPED IN UKRAINE BY POPE FRANCIS’ CHARITABLE PROJECT Pope Francis’ charitable project for Ukraine, started in 58 INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

2016, has helped nearly 1 million people in the war-torn country, according to the auxiliary bishop of Leopoli.

Bishop Eduard Kava told Vatican News July 27 that in four years the project has used around 15 million euros ($17.5 million) to help an estimated 980,000 people, including the poor, the sick, the elderly, and families.

“The Pope for Ukraine” was started in June 2016, at Francis’ request, to help victims of conflict in the Eastern European country.

Kava said the project was now winding down, and the last program to finish would be the funding of medical equipment for a hospital under construction.

AUGUST FRIDAY 7

POPE FRANCIS BAPTIZES CONJOINED TWINS SEPARATED IN ROME Pope Francis baptized twins who were born conjoined at the head and were separated at the Vatican’s pediatric hospital.

The twins’ mother had said at a press conference following the successful surgery at the Bambino Gesù Hospital on June 5 that she wanted the twins to be baptized by the Pope.

“If we had stayed in Africa I don’t know what fate they would have had. Now that they are separate and well, I would like them to be baptized by Pope Francis who has always taken care of the children of Bangui,” said the girls’ mother Ermine, who came with the twins from the Central African Republic for the surgery on July 7.

Antoinette Montaigne, a Central African politician, posted a photo on Twitter of Pope Francis with the twins in their baptismal gowns on August 7, writing that the Pope had baptized the separated twins the day prior.

SATURDAY 8

POPE FRANCIS CAN NO LONGER BE SILENT ON UYGHUR GENOCIDE IN WESTERN CHINA On August 8, some 76 faith leaders from around the world issued a powerful statement calling for action to stop atrocities against the Uyghurs and other Muslims in China that they describe as “one of the most egregious human tragedies since the Holocaust.”

Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, and Indonesia’s Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo were among the senior figures calling for an investigation into grave human rights violations against the Uyghurs.

Opposite page, a photo on Twitter of Pope Francis with conjoined twins in their baptismal gowns on August 7, after an operation to separate them.

Below, the bishop of northern Mozambique, Luiz Fernando Lisboa. Center, the Cortile San Damaso. The first general audience of Pope Francis after the long break due to the coronavirus pandemic was held here September 2, in the presence of a small group of faithful in masks (Grzegorz Galazka photo)

While the Uyghurs have faced repression for many years, a campaign of persecution has intensified in the past few years, with evidence to suggest that the Chinese Communist Party regime is aiming to eradicate the Uyghur cultural and religious identity.

At least a million — perhaps as many as three million — Uyghurs are incarcerated in prison camps, where they face systematic and severe torture, sexual violence and slave labor.

Outside the camps, the Chinese regime has established an Orwellian surveillance state, with artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, cameras on every block and Chinese agents living with Uyghur families to monitor them 24 hours a day. (Union of Catholic Asian News) WEDNESDAY 19

POPE FRANCIS CALLS MOZAMBIQUE BISHOP AFTER ISLAMIST MILITANTS SEIZE PORT CITY Pope Francis made an unexpected phone call August 19 to a bishop in northern Mozambique, where militants linked to the Islamic State have seized control of the port city of Mocimboa da Praia.

“Today ... to my surprise and joy, I received a call from His Holiness Pope Francis who comforted me greatly. He said that he … is following events in our province with great concern and that he has been praying for us. He also said to me that if there was anything else that he could do, we should not hesitate to ask him,” Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa wrote on a diocesan webpage.

THURSDAY 20

POPE FRANCIS SUPPORTS PROJECT TO “FREE” VIRGIN MARY FROM MAFIA EXPLOITATION IN ITALY Pope Francis has praised a new initiative aimed at countering the abuse of Marian devotions by Mafia organizations, who use her figure to wield power and exert control.

“Freeing Mary from the Mafia and from criminal powers” is an ad hoc department of the Pontifical International Marian Academy (PAMI). The academy’s president, Fr. Stefano Cecchin, OFM, told CNA August 20 that the Blessed Virgin Mary does not teach submission to evil, but freedom from it.

Cecchin explained that Mary’s “submission” to the will of God had become distorted to imply not servanthood, but “slavery” characterized by “absolute obedience to superiors.”

“In the Mafia framework, this is what the figure of Mary has become,” he said, “the figure of a human being who must be submissive, therefore a slave, accepting the will of God, the will of the bosses, the will of the Mafia leader…”

SEPTEMBER TUESDAY 1

POPE FRANCIS SAYS PANDEMIC IS “A WAKE-UP CALL” TO CARE FOR CREATION Pope Francis released a message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in which he called for repentance for humanity’s broken bonds with God’s creation and with others.

“Today we hear the voice of creation admonishing us to return to our rightful place in the natural created order — to remember that we are part of this interconnected web of life, not its masters.” Pope Francis wrote in the message published September 1. “The disintegration of biodiversity, spiralling climate disasters, and unjust impact of the current pandemic on the poor and vulnerable: all these are a wake-up call in the face of our rampant greed and consumption.”

WEDNESDAY 2

POPE FRANCIS CALLS FOR SOLIDARITY AT FIRST AUDIENCE WITH PILGRIMS AFTER LOCKDOWN In his first Wednesday audience with pilgrims since Italy’s lockdown, Pope Francis called for solidarity to reawaken unity and bring God’s love to a suffering world.

“In the midst of crises and storms, the Lord challenges us and invites us to reawaken and activate this solidarity capable of giving solidity, support and meaning to these hours in which everything seems to be wrecked,” Pope Francis said September 2 in the San Damaso Courtyard within the Vatican’s apostolic palace.

“A solidarity guided by faith enables us to translate the love of God in our globalized culture, not by building towers or walls — and how many walls are being built today — that divide and then crumble, but by interweaving communities and sustaining processes of growth that are truly human and solid,” the Pope told the pilgrims.

MONDAY 14

The Vatican expects to renew its interim deal with China on the appointment of bishops, due to expire in October, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said.

“With China, our current interest is to normalize the life of the Church as much as possible, to ensure that the Church can live a normal life, which for the Catholic Church is also to have relations with the Holy See and with the Pope,” Parolin said on September 14, according to Italian news agency AgenSIR. Parolin noted that this goal should also take place “against a backdrop of peaceful coexistence, the search for peace and overcoming tensions.”

“Is there the same intention on their part too? I think and hope so,” he said, calling the results of the two-year provisional agreement “not particularly exciting.”n OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

59

PEOPLE B

Y

BECKY DERKS with G. Galazka, CNA and CNS photos

n CARDINAL: PANDEMIC MAY HAVE ACCELERATED SECULARIZATION OF EUROPE BY 10 YEARS

In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano September 2, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg said he believed the number of Catholics going to church would decrease as a result of COVID-19.

Asked whether he thought the Church in Europe would emerge stronger or weaker from the pandemic, he said: “I think about my country: we will be reduced in number. Because all those who no longer came to Mass, because they came only for cultural reasons, these ‘cultural Catholics,’ left and right, no longer come.”

He added: “But it’s not a complaint on my part. We would have had this process even without a pandemic. Perhaps it would have taken us 10 years longer.”

PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR DETAILS FR. ROSICA’S PLAGIARISM WHILE GHOSTWRITING FOR CARDINAL Fr. Thomas Rosica resigned as CEO of the Toronto-based Salt and Light Media Foundation in June 2019, four months after reports emerged that he had plagiarized sections of texts in lectures, op-eds, scholarly articles, and other writings.

In a chapter of Disguised Academic Plagiarism, published in July, Dr. M. V. Dougherty argued that Fr. Rosica (identified as “R.” in the text) was the ghostwriter for several plagiaristic texts of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, while the latter was Archbishop of Quebec.

“The apparent devotion to the same very narrow subset of source texts in the plagiarizing works of R. and Ouellet’s ghostwriter is only because R. publishes some of his compilations under his own name and offers some of his other compilations to prelates,” Dougherty wrote in the “Magisterial Plagiarism” chapter of his book. “Considering the evidence... the ghostwriter for Cardinal Ouellet is none other than R.,” he concluded.

The Vatican Secretary of State highlighted both the “spiritual consonance of the two popes and the diversity of their style of communication.”

n CARDINAL PAROLIN STRESSES “SPIRITUAL CONSONANCE” BETWEEN POPE FRANCIS AND BENEDICT XVI

n ABBOT: MONKS ARE LEAVING HISTORIC BENEDICTINE ABBEY IN “VERY POSITIVE SPIRIT”

Cardinal Pietro Parolin has written an introduction to a book describing the continuity between Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The book, published on September 1, is entitled Una Sola Chiesa, meaning “Only One Church.” It is a compilation of papal catecheses that places the words of Pope Francis and Benedict XVI side by side on more than 10 different topics, including faith, sanctity, and marriage.

“In the case of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, the natural continuity of the papal magisterium has a unique feature: the presence of a pope emeritus in prayer next to his successor,” Parolin wrote in the introduction.

Abbot Nicholas Wetz told CNA September 1 that the Benedictine monks of historic Downside Abbey in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, voted unanimously to leave the abbey, but that it was “an incredibly difficult decision.”

He said: “The community spent many months trying to discern what to do and where the Holy Spirit was leading them, and, in the end, took the unanimous decision after much prayer and many, many meetings.

“There was a deep desire to focus on what was truly important to them as Benedictine monks. While it was a very hard decision, they made it in a very positive spirit because they see it as an opportunity to return to some of those monastic principles.”

60 INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

n HONG KONG CARDINAL WARNS PRIESTS TO “WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE” IN HOMILIES

The leader of the diocese of Hong Kong has instructed priests to avoid politics in homilies and admonished them for “offensive” and “provocative” preaching. The warning comes amid a crackdown on free expression in Hong Kong, after the implementation of the new National Security Law in July.

A letter, obtained by CNA, was sent from Cardinal John Tong Hon, the former Bishop of Hong Kong and current administrator of the diocese.

“The homily is not meant to convey the preacher’s personal views (such as his own view on a social or political issue) but God’s message,” the cardinal wrote.

“A reference to or brief analysis of current social issues would often be helpful and sometimes even necessary for a homily” with the aim of “encouraging the faithful… to bear Christian witness in social life and in social transformation,” he added.

“However, slandering and offensive expressions insinuating or instigating hatred and social disorder are unchristian and inappropriate for the liturgy.” n POPE FRANCIS APPOINTS SPANISH LAYMAN AS SECRETARY GENERAL OF VATICAN’S ECONOMY OFFICE

Pope Francis appointed Maximino Caballero Ledo, 60, from Merida, Spain, as secretary general of the Vatican’s economy office. He has lived in the United States since 2007, where he is vice president of international finance at Baxter Healthcare, Inc. Caballero joins prefect Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero, SJ, who has led the Vatican’s economy office since January.

Guerrero and Caballero are childhood friends who grew up in the same city in Spain, were close friends through university and have remained in contact.

Caballero has degrees in economics and business administration,

and has worked for businesses in Spain and the United States in positions of international finance. n FR. PAUL V. MANKOWSKI, SJ, CELEBRATED SCHOLAR AND COMMENTATOR, HAS DIED

Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, PhD, noted scholar in residence at the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago since 2009, died suddenly on September 3 of a brain aneurysm at age 66.

Following graduation from the University of Chicago in 1976, Mankowski entered the Society of Jesus in Berkely, Michigan. In 1987 he was ordained to the priesthood and in 2012 professed his final vows.

He earned an MA in classics at University of Oxford in 1983, a Master of Divinity and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from Weston Jesuit School of Theology in 1987, and he completed a PhD in comparative Semitic philology in 1997 at Harvard.

Catholic journalist Phil Lawler said of Fr. Mankowski: “That he was a prodigious intellect is beyond dispute. He earned advanced degrees at Harvard and Oxford. He was fluent in multiple languages. He advised

PRO-LIFE STUDENT GROUP SENDS LETTER TO POPE FRANCIS CONCERNING SOUTH KOREAN ABORTION LAW A pro-life association of university students is asking Pope Francis for support as the South Korean government decides the future of its national abortion law.

The Association of Pro-Life Students in Korea and a delegation of priests and religious met with Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, Apostolic Nuncio to Korea, who promised that their message would be delivered to the Pope that week.

During the meeting August 21, Anna Choo Hee-Jin, 26, president of the association, gave the apostolic nuncio a letter for Pope Francis on behalf of students from six universities in South Korea.

“I’m out on the street with pro-life college students with signs advocating for life. Unfortunately the current Korean government, pressured by the feminist claim of ‘right to choose,’ is not in favor of protecting the newborn,” she wrote in the letter.

Vatican prelates, and more than once I detected a familiar style of prose in an official document from the Holy See. He taught Biblical languages at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

He maintained a lively correspondence with philosophers and political leaders. And if you have read The Tragedy of Macdeth, which he wrote just for fun under a pseudonym, you know that you are not dealing with an ordinary mind.”

Fr. Mankowski was renowned for his orthodoxy as well as his intellect. Fr. Jerry Pokorski of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, noted on The Catholic Thing website, ”His relative obscurity resulted from his religious vows. He was satisfied that he could accomplish great things for the Church through obedience to his Jesuit superiors – who were often hostile to his orthodoxy.”

He was devoted to his family and was beloved as a visiting priest by several parishes and many communities of women religious. Paul was deeply loved and respected by the community of scholars involved in the Lumen Christi Institute, and his death will leave a huge void. Paul’s deep love of the Church, the Society of Jesus, and his Jesuit vocation was the bedrock of his life. n CARDINAL PAROLIN: CHURCH FINANCIAL SCANDALS “MUST NOT BE COVERED UP”

In an interview, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, spoke about uncovering financial scandal to the Italian cultural association Ripartelitalia August 27. “Mistakes must make us grow in humility and push us to convert and improve... errors and scandals must not be covered up, but recognized and corrected or sanctioned, in the economic field as in others.”

He added: “We know well that the attempt to hide the truth does not lead to healing the evil, but to increase and entrench it.”m OCTOBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Stefano Navarrini illustration

n BY MOTHER MARTHA

E

ccentric and bombastic Italian chef Gianfranco Vissani was “to the kitchen born.” His father, Mario Vissani, was the owner and chief chef of a country-style restaurant in his tiny medieval hometown of Civitella del Lago near Orvieto in Umbria, in the very heart of Italy. Mario’s customers were local fishermen and Sunday tippers. Gianfranco started working there at age 13. Then after graduating from hotel school in 1967, he worked for six years in the kitchens of the Excelsior Hotel in Venice, the Miramonti Majestic in Cortina D’Ampezzo, The Grand Hotel in Florence, and Zì Teresa in Naples, before returning home in 1973.

That year Gianfranco demonstrated his skills in an airless, whitewashed open kitchen adjacent to his father’s premises. I was among his first guests; each of his several courses was inspired by a different period of classical music played chronologically in the background. The meal was a crescendo — each unique dish more bizarre than the one before!

A year later Gianfranco took over his father’s restaurant and renamed it Casa Vissani because his parents, his wife Eleonora, and his pastrychef sister Lucia all collaborated.

From then on, his career as a chef, writer, food critic and television personality took off, and it is still going full blast. The year 1982 was particularly crucial: the magazine L’Espresso voted him Italy’s best chef with 20 out of 20 possible points — along with Heinz Beck of La Pergola in Rome and Annie Féolde of Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence — a rating Gianfranco kept for more than 20 years. (Presently he dips in at 19/20.)

His notoriety grew during the 1990s thanks to regular television appearances, and continued into this millennium.

He wrote several popular books: La tradizione regionale nella cucina di Vissani (“Regional Tradition in the Vissani Cuisine,” 1998), I segreti di un grande cuoco (“The Secrets of a Great Cook,” 1999), Gianfranco Vissani a casa tua (“Gianfranco Vissani at Your Home,” 2007), and La Solitudine dei Primi (“The Loneliness of First Courses,” 2010).

His culinary brilliance was also awarded one Michelin star in 1998, another in 1999, and in 2012 the Gambero Rosso (“Red Lobster”) guide judged him the best chef in

Italy with 95 out of 100 points. The next year, since “Casa Vissani” has steep prices ranging from 120 euros per person for 4 dishes to 250 euros for the “pacchetto completo,” both without beverages, he opened three more moderately-priced restaurants, all named “L’Altro Vissani” (“The Other Vissani”), in Orvieto, Cortina, and the island of Capri.

Last but certainly not least is Vissani’s recent venture, “Il Tuo Vissani” (“Your Vissani”), which he opened in Rome on February 27, 2020 — just before the virus broke out — with his son Luca, long the restaurant’s maître d’ and business manager, and also with Calabrian dairy product entrepreneur and luxury hotelier Domenico Iozzi. Located on two floors plus the basement wine cellar (of 400 labels) available for tastings and private parties, at Piazza San Pantaleo 4, a two-minute walk from Piazza Navona, it’s like no other restaurant in the world because it offers every possible gastronomic desire nonstop from noon on. Here Vissani’s aim is to relinquish the limelight, making instead his strictly Italian ingredients from small producers and his guests the protagonists.

At the entrance is a mural of St. Pantaleon, born a Greek doctor, here dressed as a chef supposedly with the face of Camillo Negroni, the inventor of the Negroni cocktail, but to me a portrait of Luca. The atmosphere is homey and the prices accessible. Take-out and home delivery offered. Closed Tuesday. The menus include: “VissaniLive” (12-14:30 PM): a pasta and dessert (18 euros not including beverage). You can add an “extra” charcuterie board of ham, salami and cheese (16 euros) or a main dish of meat or fish (25 euros). Wine 8 euros a glass.

Merenda (3-5:30PM): toasts, sandwiches and charcuterie boards (8-12 euros), sweets (ice cream, cookies and pastries, 5-8 euros) with freshly made juices, tea, or coffee.

OredOro or “Happy Hour (6-8PM): six cicchetti (Venetian-style bite-sized snacks) with a surprise seventh, plus a cocktail or glass of wine (25 euros).

From 8:30 PM, Vissani Smart (55 euros): antipasto plus a pasta and dessert; VissaniSmart Plus (70 euros): antipasto, two pastas or a second dish of your choice, and dessert.

InFamily, Sunday brunch, free choice from buffet, with a pasta, main dish, and dessert served at table (50 euros).

Children’s menu: 25 euros.m

AT LAST ROME’S “IL TUO VISSANI”

Restaurant entrance with mural. Luca and Gianfranco Vissani with Domenico Iozzi. The three with the Team. Fried vegetables, a typical Roman dish (Alberto Blasetti photos)

62 INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020

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