"Paradoxically, there have been many chatty theologians for many thousands of years, many noisy popes, many presumptuous, self-confident followers of the apostles. But the Church is unshakably established upon Peter, the rock, and Mount Golgotha. "
(Madrid) Pope's confidant as a censor? Madrid Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra forbade Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the faith of the Catholic Church, to present his latest book "Informe sobre la esperanza" (State of Hope) at the Catholic University of San Dámaso present in Madrid. The reasoning? Because it was "a book against the pope."
The renowned SpanishBiblioteca de Autores Cristianos(BAC), whose director is the priest Carlos Granados, led the interview with Cardinal Müller, on which the book was based, has invited the German cardinal for next week to Spain in order to present the interview book in Valencia, Madrid and Oviedo.
The book is about the situation of the Church.The title is a reference to the famous book, published 30 years ago this week by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Vittorio Messori "State of the faith". The content promises the same explosiveness. A German edition is already in preparation.
Archbishop of Madrid Prohibits Book Launch
"Informe sobre la esperanza" - The new book by Cardinal Müller
In Madrid, the Spanish capital, the presentation was to take place at the Archdiocesan University San Dámaso, which doubles as a seminary of the Archdiocese of Madrid. But Archbishop Osoro banned the book launch. He wanted "nothing to do with a book against the pope" said Infovaticana .
The presentation will now be at the University Francisco de Vitoria instead, a University of the Legionaries of Christ and of course without Archbishop Osoro, who had refused the invitation.
The unfriendly uninviting of the Cardinal Prefect and the repellent treatment by the Madrid Archbishop had been a prelude. In the Spring at the Plenary Assembly of the Spanish Bishops' Conference Osoro and other bishops close to him made the publication an issue. The group criticized that the BAC had published this book, "without asking". Osoro justified his criticism by saying that the book highlighted a "conflict" between Cardinal Müller and Pope Francis that it did not exist in reality.
As recent events show, Archbishop Osoro doesn't even believe his own thesis. It only served to exert pressure on the BAC, who did not back down and did not cancel the series of events at the book presentation. Thereupon the ban the book from the archdiocesan university was imposed as the next step.
Has Archbishop Osoror falsified his resume?
Catholic University of San Damaso in Madrid
Meanwhile, there is provided in Spain with increasing insistence on the question of why Archbishop Osoro "has lied to the Vatican," said Infovaticana .
Archbishop Osoro, born in 1945, was formerlythe Archbishop of Valencia. When Pope Francis made Madrid Archbishop Cardinal Antonio Maria Varela Ruoco an emeritus for reasons of age, it was left to him by the Congregation for Bishops, to propose as is usual, the selection of three candidates. Francis refused all and promoted instead, Osoro, from Valencia to Madrid. However, as the Archbishop of Valencia, he appointed Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, whom he removed from the office of Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.
Prior to his appointment to Madrid, Osoro had to send a resume to the Vatican, which was published in extracts with the appointment. Therein, Osoro claimed to have achieved four licentiates: in philosophy, theology, science and education.
In Daily Bulletin of the Vatican press office, which announced the appointment in 2014, it states:
Mons. Carlos Osoro Sierra è nato a Castañeda, provincia e diocesi di Santander, il 16 maggio 1945. Dopo aver studiato Magistero presso la Escuela Normal ed aver esercitato la docenza per un anno a Santander, è entrato nel seminario per le vocazioni adult Colegio Mayor El Salvador di Salamanca, ove ha frequentato i corsi di Filosofia e Teologia presso la Pontificia Università di quella città, ottenendo la licenza nelle due discipline . Ha pure conseguito la licenza in Scienze Esatte dell'Università Complutense di Madrid e in Pedagogiadell'Università di Salamanca. (Emphasis added by the editors)
In Spain, voices claiming publicly that Osoro have not acquired in reality one of the four Licentiates. In the Congregation for Bishops journalistic inquiry was excluded because of the secrecy of the proceedings of a bishop's appointment. Unofficially it was said, in the Congregation, the resume was not checked after Pope Francis rejected all of the tested and nominated candidates and had appointed Osoro instead.
Spanish observers do not rule out that there is a connection between the affront to Cardinal Müller and the rumors about the fake CV. "Osoro now needs a friend in Rome. A very high friend," said Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña.
Whatever may be the personal reasons for Archbishop Osoro: To deny access of a Cardinal Prefect of the CDF to a Catholic university to present his book, presents an unprecedented break in manners. The justification that the book is allegedly "against. the pope" is an affront that certainly has a very sharp point. "The book must be important," said Fernandez de la Cigoña, "if there are censorship attempts."
(Rome) "The decline in priestly vocations, which followed the Second Vatican Council, is attributable in no way the Council nor its partly dubious reception. It is necessary to recognize that the crisis had been that there were deeper and older roots” and that the conciliar reforms have likely curbed the destructive consequences. This was written by Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in the new book Presbytero Ordinis 50 years later. It is the first volume in a new series of books on the Council documents that the traditional Catholic publisher Cantagalli (Italy) has presented on the occasion of the 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
The Cardinal, again recovering, then takes up that contradiction between the "real" and "virtual" council, which Pope Benedict XVI. stressed shortly before his resignation. The real council as an expression of the church is tangible in the Council documents and only there, the virtual council, however, is in an artificial world of expectations, interpretations and projections of the people’s own thoughts of that time and the post-conciliar period. According to Cardinal Piacenza these parallel perceptions of the council have been made apparent during and after the Council, the crisis of the priesthood, of the tens of thousands of priests who abandoned their priesthood and by the continuing lack of vocations, whose causes then are already traced to the time before the council.
In a New Book Series Cardinals Conciliar Documents Before - start priests decree by Cardinal Piacenza
Each volume of the new series is dedicated to a document of the Council and is published by a cardinal. That of Cardinal Piacenza (216 pages) contains the conciliar document to the ordained priesthood in Latin and Italian, the comments to be presented by the editor. The series is not aimed at a specialist audience, but to a broad readership. The publisher writes that it "will look to the teachings of the Council documents themselves, by dispensing ideological or special interpretations" of it. It is hoped that the publisher "to help the youth" to discover the "big event, which had marked the history of the Church of the 20th century” and “without adopting a one sided treatment of its legacy.” In view of the "not so young", the publisher hopes that this “will renew the joy of experiencing new enthusiasm and missionary zeal of the conciliar years.”
As far as the publisher publisher. In its commentary on the Council document, which deals with the priesthood, Cardinal Piacenza writes: "If sociologists and religious historians stress that the loss of priests, and the decline in priestly vocations which followed the Ecumenical Vatican Council II, know nothing like this in the history of the Church, not even when you compare it with the Lutheran "Reformation", then this is not due to the council in any way, nor its partially ambiguous reception. "the roots of the crisis of vocations and thus the crisis of the priesthood are older. "The reforms of the Council and also Presbytero Ordinis have curbed the destructive impact," said the cardinal.
Conciliar decree "in full compliance with all the Church's tradition"
The Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy noted then that in an analysis of the Conciliar Decree it is clear "that the teaching there presented both the sacramental and from the pastoral point of view in full compliance with the entire tradition of the Church and with the dogmatically important councils, including that of Trent, and offered a profile of the priestly identity, which is completely rooted in the sacrament of Holy Orders and is entirely dependent on this, as also touches on the mission."
Piacenza writes in his analysis that “especially in the first decades immediately after the release of Presbytero Ordinis, new forms of exercise of the priestly office were sought, which would correspond more to the needs of contemporary culture and are more efficient from the missionary point of view. This search, however, had not a little one-sided result in the hearts and minds of those addressed that would allow that secular standards enter into the horizon of faith, and thereby took newly evangelized world again to recover with a completely secular faith, often entire communities. “
Toward every reform “the criterion must stand measured above all others: is the salvation of souls"
The cardinal affirmed that "every authentic renewal in the Church is not possible without the fundamental contribution of the priests. So it is true that the Holy Spirit is free to form the new face of the Bride of Christ in every era, especially as He gives saints, women and men who are fully satisfied by Christ and therefore are able through their own lives to evangelize and renew the Church and the world, so it does not apply equally, that the priests in their daily and concrete exercise modify their pastoral office for the holy people of God, which is the highest authority demonstrated by the universal Church and in Her as a way of necessary renewal. In this it is not an easy task, says Cardinal Piacenza, “the criterion being measured always above all others: is the salvation of souls. In any reform and its implementation, a key question must always be clear and decisive: Does it help the faith? Does it promote a greater attachment to Christ? “
And Cardinal Piacenza continued: "If this simple and direct criterion would always been applied, there would be neither dangerous, unfounded distortions of doctrine nor nostalgic hardening of questionable missionary benefit."
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Opus Dei
Translation: Tancred
A new book by Elena Maria Vida tells the story of the war against the Cathars.
The modern vampire fascination as with much else in Catharism also includes a radical connection to the dark and anarchic associations of witchcraft which have haunted Europe even before Simon Magus challenged St. Peter, the Priests of Baal tried to vie with Elija, or Moses set the power of God against the vain sorcery of Pharoh's priests. It's not suprising, as Tea at Trianon reports that there is a strange kind of fascination for the Cathars of the Languedoc who don't know the consolations of the Faith, but only the restless curiositas of frenetic modernity.
(Rome) "The decline in priestly vocations, which followed the Second Vatican Council, is attributable in no way the Council nor its partly dubious reception. It is necessary to recognize that the crisis had been that there were deeper and older roots” and that the conciliar reforms have likely curbed the destructive consequences. This was written by Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in the new book Presbytero Ordinis 50 years later. It is the first volume in a new series of books on the Council documents that the traditional Catholic publisher Cantagalli (Italy) has presented on the occasion of the 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
