What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

The Pope is heading to the cusp of Asia and Europe.  There are delicate political and religious issues at stake.  Meanwhile, at the other end of Asia…. there are delicate political and religious issues at stake.  The Chinese are at it again and hopes of better relations with the PRC are shakier.  Here excerpts from an AsiaNews story (emphasis mine).

27 November, 2006    

Rome (AsiaNews) – An illicit episcopal ordination, i.e. without the Holy See’s approval, will take place in the city of Xuzhou (in the Jiangsu region of eastern-central China) next November 30.  It would seem that this new ordination puts an end to the “truce” established a few months ago between China and the Vatican.

Local sources of Xuzhou have confirmed to AsiaNews that on November 30 at 8 a.m., Fr Wang Renlei, Vicar General of the diocese, will be ordained bishop in a ceremony led by the diocese’s current bishop, Monsignor Qian Yurong.  This is one of the few bishops of the official Church who has not sought reconciliation with the Pope and is thus not in communion with the Holy See; he is well known for his pro-government positions.  The episcopal candidate, Fr Wang, was ordained to the priesthood in 1996 and is known as an easy-going person who is very timid toward the government.

AsiaNews sources say that Wang was elected more than a week ago according to the “democratic method”, in a meeting which took place in one of the city’s hotels.  The 8 priests of the diocese would have opted for a priest who is more determined and courageous in defending Church freedom, but “everything had already be decided beforehand by the officials of the Religious Affairs Bureau.”

Yesterday, Sunday, during mass at the Cathedral, Catholics of Xuzhou were invited to the illicit ordination.  All those who want to take part in the rite must register as room is limited to about 500 people.

Unverified rumours say that two other bishops will arrive “from Beijing” to take part in the ceremony.  Also according to rumours, government authorities have promised to give the diocese 6 million yuan (about 600,000 euros) to cover costs for the ordination.  This considerable sum – enormous for a diocese of 20,000 members – will perhaps be used for other expenses in the diocese.

Vatican figures are “dismayed” by the news, which risks becoming a fatal blow to dialogue between the Holy See and China.

....

You should be checking out AsiaNews regularly. 

Somebody PLEASE wake me up!

Biretta tip to Mark Shea

o{]:¬)

I walk everywhere in Rome.  I get on a bus about three times a year,.. if I must. 

I walk to work.  That includes the Press Office of the Holy See.  No, I don’t work for the Press Office, so don’t blame me, I just work at the Office sometimes, depending on what’s up.. which is usually not very much.  More often I am around the library of the Augustinianum, which is right next to the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.  So, if you looking for me….

Here are a few shots from the walk today.  Just another autumn day on my usual trudge, mp3 plugged in and dodging the tourists and junk peddlers.

I really like autumn and I am getting it twice this year.  Alas, Rome doesn’t have the colors you see at the Sabine Farm.

Moving off the bridge over the Tiber and along the embankment the plane trees form arches over the walkway.

You can almost smell the roasted chestnuts from the vendor.  Alas most of the venders are from who knows what country of Asia, but this fellow is a home boy.   The old Roman call of "caldarosti!" is now almost gone, at least with the Roman accent.  But you can still hear it from this guy.

More photos of Fr. Z’s routine another time. 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent has an interesting paragraph suggesting that we not over complicate the situation:

Article 3
6. How To Think and Pray About Christ’s Virginal Conception

These points of teaching comprise the substance of what appeared to us to demand explanation regarding the admirable mystery of Christ’s conception.  To reap from them abundant fruit of salvation, the faithful should particularly recall in their prayer, and frequently reflect upon three points, first, that it is God who assumed human flesh.  Secondly, that they manner of its assumption transcends the limits of our comprehension, let alone our powers of expression.  And thirdly, that he vouchsafed to become man in order that we mortal human beings may be born again as children of God  When they have given mature consideration to these teaching, let them, in the humility of faith, believe and adore all the mysteries contain in this Article, without indulging a curious inquisitiveness by investigating and scrutinizing them.  An attempt of this sort is scarcely ever devoid of danger.

We have had a lot of spooky fog at night this last couple weeks. Here’s an interesting shot last night from (different) window looking toward St. Agnes in the P.za Navona.

In the new movie "The Nativity Story" which premiered yesterday at the Vatican, the Blessed Virgin is depicted as having pain from labor and childbirth. It must be granted that the pain she is depicted as having was not has severe as that depicted in the film by Elizabeth at the birth of John the Baptist.

Some folks are commenting on this issue in the entry I posted on this film,which does not surprise me at all, given the penchant of some to focus on one issue and thus seemingly lose sight of the whole.

Still, it caused me to dig around a little and find out if the Church has anything clear about this matter which might invite us to a consent of mind and will. Here is something.

“To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain.”

(Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests, Trans., John A. McHugh, O.P., Charles J. Callan, O.P., South Bend, Ind., Marian Publications, 1972, p. 4).

If you don’t check out Diogenes every day on Off the Record... well… start.  I posted a blurb on the WSJ article, but Diogenes today says what I think and prevent myself from writing.  Here it is (my emphasis):

I’ve read no small amount of comment about Joseph Ratzinger suggesting that he was traumatized by the student unrest at the University of Tübingen in the late 1960s and that this resulted in a profound temperamental change toward conservatism. There is not one crumb of evidence for this thesis—beyond the fact that Ratzinger didn’t follow the trajectory common to his generation of academics, viz., by giving in to pressure and becoming a squishy Leftist. Compare Ratzinger’s writing with that of his contemporaries, pre- and post-1968, and the conclusion is pure Kipling: it was Ratzinger who kept his head when all about him were losing theirs.

Some men of the time (including clergyman-scholars) did become true reactionaries; they were psychologically overwhelmed by the turmoil of those years and so retreated into cloisters or rectories to lick their wounds. They typically developed strange crotchets in dress and mannerism. They ceased any patient engagement with their contemporaries, either withdrawing entirely from the academy or lurching into violent polemics. To put Ratzinger in this category is stupid.

I don’t believe, though, that the people who claim Ratzinger to be reactionary are themselves stupid. Most are, or were, harlots—harlots precisely in the sense that Pope Benedict describes above: they made careers for themselves by seeking applause and telling people what they wanted to hear, and in so doing they put up for sale what ought not to be sold. Those who are conspicuously successful don’t like to be reminded of the way they got started ("I was young and needed the money…") and their distinguished professorships make them forgetful of the metaphorical Hershey bars for which they first swapped their virtue. For such persons the existence of a Ratzinger is like a slap on a sunburned back. Small wonder if stung pride tries to make him out to be the weakling.

Jesus displayed forbearance and mercy toward prostitutes, however, and his present vicar has likewise shown a remarkable clemency in this regard. Doubtless he remembers how fierce were the pressures to succumb. Nor, to be honest, can your Uncle Di acquit himself of a strain of pharisaism here ("This man welcomes Swiss theologians and eats with them!"). Yet Pope Benedict is not a controversialist out to do down his adversaries, but a pastor of souls. It’s easy to get impatient with the sheep that won’t hear his voice, but there’s not much doubt about whom Benedict is listening to.

This is brilliant stuff.  I gratitude for this piece alone you ought to subscribe to CWN.

Over at Idle Speculations we find the BBC’s (gak) list of 200 books for your Christmas vacation.  It might be fun to see just how many of them we have read. 

The Top 200 were (those I’ve recal reading are in bold):

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

I am not quite sure how this "meme" thing works, but if I got the concept right, I am supposed to "tag" some other blgos now and they are supposed to do this too, right?  If that is the case, then I tag…..  

Dappled Things
open book
Valle Adurni

And for the record, I really think that both The Hobbit and Master and Commander ought to be much higher on the list. I would be interested to see what books you think should have been on the list, but weren’t.  Shall we start with a decent poet, such as Shakespeare?  Shall we forget the Iliad or the Odyssey?  At least one book of the Bible might have been important?