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December 29, 2010 to January 4, 2011
r5,50 (incl VaT rSa) reg no. 1920/002058/06
Visions of Mary: Why the Vatican is always on guard
Walking where Jesus actually walked
How to become a PRISON MINISTER
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no 4710
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Pope: Church must repent By Carol GlaTz
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Pope Benedict and prelates applaud as the Pellegrini Brothers, a circus act, perform a balancing act during a general audience in Paul Vi hall at the Vatican. (Photo: Paul haring/CnS)
Electronic rosary launched By Sarah Delaney
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N Italian company has launched an electronic rosary with the voice of Pope John Paul II leading the prayers. The Prex Co, based in Loreto, said in a press release that the device, complete with headphones, “was conceived to promote greater use of prayers in daily life”. Electronic rosaries have been on the market for some time, but this year’s novelty is the voice of the late pope reciting in Italian the traditional rosary prayers as well as the luminous mysteries of the rosary, which he added in 2002, the company said. A recording that follows the rosary calendar for each day of the week can be turned
on with a simple click, the press release said. The electronic rosary comes in various colours and models and a choice of images including those from Our Lady of Lourdes and other Marian shrines. One model is in the shape of a heart; a red light pulses like a heartbeat when it is turned on. All are light and fit in a pocket. The makers said the electronic rosaries can be particularly useful for people who are not mobile, for example the elderly, to help them feel “less alone”. It is also a good tool for teaching children prayers, the company said on its website. The rosaries are currently offered with texts in English, French and Spanish, and others will be added, the company said.—CNS
N response to the “unimaginable” scandal of clerical sex abuse against minors, the Church must reflect, repent, and do everything possible to rectify the injustices suffered by victims as it works to prevent such abuse from ever happening again, Pope Benedict has told the Roman curia. The pope said he and others were “dismayed” when, during a year dedicated to the world’s priests, further cases of clerical sex abuse came to light “to a degree we could not have imagined”. “We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal. Only the truth saves,” the pope said in his annual address to the Roman curia and cardinals who reside in Rome. In his seven-page reflection on the past year, the pope dedicated a large part of his speech to the impact of sex abuse by priests. He said priests who committed such scandals “twist” the sacrament of ordination into its “antithesis” when they, “under the mantle of the sacred, profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime”. The face of the Church is soiled and her clothes torn “because of the sins of priests”, the pope said, referring to the writings of the 12th-century German mystic, St Hildegard of Bingen, who had visions of a Church wounded and sullied because of abuses by clergy evident in her day. He listed a number of “musts” that the Church needs to attend to. “We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen,” the pope said. The Church must find “a new resoluteness in faith and doing good”, it must be capable of penance, and it must strive to do everything possible in preparing future priests “to prevent anything of the kind from happening again”. Amid the “great tribulations” the Church has faced during the last year, the Advent prayer, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come that you may save us”, often has been “on my mind and on my lips”, he said. Rather than beg Christ to wake up and deliver his disciples from a storm, it is the disciples themselves who must reawaken their own faith that has “grown tired”.
He said what needs to be restored is a faith that has “the power to move mountains, that is, to order justly the affairs of the world”. As the Church works to address the sex abuse crisis within its own walls, it must also tackle the larger problems of child pornography and child sex tourism in society, the pope said. “The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times,” he said, as he lamented how child pornography is considered “more and more normal by society”. Insatiable desire and “the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart, and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines human freedom and ultimately destroys it”. The pope called on pastoral leaders to renew “the great rational tradition of Christian ethos” and to replace the modern day notion of relative or pragmatic morality with “the essential and permanent foundations of moral actions”. In his address, the pope also spoke about the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in October and lamented that “Christians are the most oppressed and tormented minority” in the region. “The tradition of peaceful coexistence has been shattered and tensions and divisions have grown” in many parts of the region, he said. He expressed his gratitude for “voices of reason” such as Muslim leaders who speak up against violence against Christians. However, those voices “are too weak”, and Christians are “up against an unholy alliance between greed for profit and ideological blindness”. The pope urged all political and religious leaders to put an end to “Christianophobia” and to defend refugees and those who suffer as well as revitalise the spirit of dialogue and reconciliation. Finally, the pope offered a reflection on his trip in September to Britain and the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman. Blessed Newman’s spiritual conversion is an important model of “a path of obedience to the truth” that gradually opens up to a person, the pope said. It is a path of conscience, which is the human capacity to recognise the truth, and therefore seek it out and freely submit to it, he said.—CNS
The Priests and the Pogue drum up peace on earth By Cian Molloy
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HE Irish trio of clerical classical singers The Priests has teamed up with former hellion and Irish punk and folk singer Shane MacGowan for a recording of “The Little Drummer Boy”. The track was always going to be included on The Priests’ third album, Noel, but mindful of the success of the 1977 recording by Catholic crooner Bing Crosby and glam-rock star David Bowie, for which the countermelody “Peace on Earth” was written, the clergymen thought a collaboration with another singer might provide a counterpoint to their classically trained voices. “Our management told us Shane was available and we were
delighted by the idea,” said Fr Eugene O’Hagan, one of The Priests. A gifted songwriter, MacGowan, former lead singer with The Pogues and later a band named The Popes, became widely known for his alcoholic binges both on and off stage. His song “Fairytale of New York”, recorded in 1987 with the late Kirsty MacColl, is the Christmas song most requested and played on radio in Ireland and Britain. “It was a pleasure working with Shane,” Fr O’Hagan said. “After the recording, Shane asked if we could pray together and he asked for our blessing. It was a lovely moment.” The three priests from the Down and Connor diocese, brothers Eugene and Martin O’Hagan
and David Delargy, started singing together as youngsters at St MacNissi’s College, an elementary school in Northern Ireland. They continued to study together at the diocesan seminary at St Malachy’s in Belfast and while at the Irish College in Rome, where they regularly sang for Pope John Paul II. Their 2008 debut album, The Priests, went platinum in Ireland, Britain, Norway and Sweden and went gold in Canada and New Zealand. Album sales benefit The Priests Charitable Trust, which has sent nearly R1,5 million to education projects in Cambodia, Uganda and Thailand; a youth choir at St Peter’s cathedral, Belfast; and the care of retired priests of the Down and Connor diocese.
Former Pogues singer Shane MacGowan (with sunglasses) harmonised with the clerical trio The Priests on a new version of “little Drummer Boy”, a remake of the1977 hit recorded by David Bowie and Bing Crosby.