September 2010 Print

Europe: The Council of Europe Asks Switzerland to Repeal Its Ban on Minarets

On June 23 the Council of Europe asked Switzerland to repeal its ban on minarets “as soon as possible,” claiming that this article of the Constitution “discriminates against Muslim communities.”  This legislation, however, had been adopted on November 29, 2009, by 57.5 percent of voters in a popular referendum. At the conclusion of a debate on “Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia in Europe” the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to make this recommendation, which was approved by 89 votes without opposition, explaining that “the construction of minarets must be possible, on the same grounds as the construction of bell towers, while respecting the conditions of public safety and urban planning.”  Last May a Muslim association had filed a complaint of discrimination with the European Court of Human Rights, which has not yet taken a position. 

(Source:  DICI)

 

Quebec: A Catholic High School Wins a Court Battle

According to a decision handed down on June 18 by the Quebec Superior Court, Jesuit Loyola High School of Montreal will be dispensed from teaching “the  Ethics and Religious Culture course” imposed by the Quebec Ministry of Education in the fall of 2008.

The Jesuit school administration asserts that the course’s contents conflict with the institution’s Catholic values. According to statements reported on the Radio Canada website (www.radio-canada.ca), headmaster Paul Donovan stated that Catholic values must be present in every discipline, not only in religion classes, but in the other subjects such as English or Physical Education. The parent of one student remarked in a report posted on the same site that “in the name of diversity they go against diversity.” The school is not against the whole idea of a course on ethics and religious culture, but merely wishes to adapt it to the Christian principles inculcated in the school, an adaptation rejected by the government, which through its lawyer’s voice denounced it as a “confessional program” that does not elicit the students’ questioning and does not present things in a neutral fashion.

The decision finally proved that the administration of this secondary Catholic school, located west of Montreal, was right. The ruling explained that by obliging the institution to give the course from a secular perspective, the Ministry of Education violated the right to religious liberty. For the Quebec judge, “Canada’s democratic society is based on principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the primacy of law, which enjoy constitutional protection,” reported the local press quoted by Apic. The decision ruled that by obliging this Catholic school to give the course from a secular perspective, the Ministry of Education was employing a method “essentially equivalent to the Inquisition….” In his decision, he characterized the obligation imposed on the high school as totalitarian.

Since 2008 when the course was introduced, the Ministry has received about 2,000 exemption requests. Till now, they have all been refused.

(Source: DICI)

Thomas Molnar, R.I.P.

Thomas Steven Molnar passed away on July 20, 2010. A Hungarian by birth, he was one of the leading traditional Catholic intellectuals in America, especially during the turbulent decades of the 1960’s and ’70’s. After having been arrested by the Nazis and surviving a stint in Dachau, he eventually fled to America after the Communists took over in Hungary. A prolific philosopher and historian, he wrote over 40 books, not all of which have been translated into English. He can be found quoted in the early issues of The Angelus as well as in journals such as National Review and Triumph. Some of his more well-known works in English include Utopia: The Perennial Heresy and The Church: Pilgrim of Centuries.

(Source: Angelus Press)

 

Poland: Fewer and Fewer Catholics Practicing

Statistics collected over all of Polish territory in all the parishes during the last three months of 2009 reveal a slow revival of frequenting the Mass in 2009, going from 40.5 percent of the country’s 38 million  inhabitants in 2008 to 41.5 percent in 2009.  However, they confirm “a slow but steady decline” in assistance at Mass in the country’s 44 dioceses over the last decade, a decline that is as high as 9.2 percent in certain regions.  Fr. Witold Zdaniewicz, director of the Polish Institute of Statistics, has specified that between 43 percent and 46 percent of Polish Catholics went to church regularly during the period from 1991–2007, adding that if he guesses right the present tendency to drop will continue.

“Observing the studies made over the last thirty years, we must give in to the evidence: fewer and fewer people go to church,” Fr. Wojciech Sadlon, of the Institute of Statistics of the Catholic Church, told the agency ENI.  On May 13, in a press conference at the Secretariat of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Fr. Sadlon mentioned to the Polish Catholic press agency KAI that the sociologists of religions have identified several causes explaining the decline in the frequenting of churches, especially the cultural and social changes, as well as the problems in the Church’s pastoral work. He emphasized that Polish religiosity remains mostly rooted in the countryside and less in the cities, adding however that the “pessimistic outlook” of a sudden drop in the frequenting of churches has not yet been confirmed.

This observation follows that of the drop in priestly and monastic vocations in this country, which is for the most part Catholic. By the end of 2009, 687 Poles had entered the seminary, that is, 5 percent less than in 2008. In 2000, Poland had 4,773 seminarians, compared to 3,732 in 2009. The number of women wishing to enter into religious orders has dropped by half in 10 years; only 300 of them began studies in the prenovitiate in 2009, compared to 723 a decade earlier.  During the year, 28 convents closed down.  A logical consequence of the diminution of the number of candidates to the priesthood in Poland, is that the Polish Catholic Church will send fewer priests abroad in the future, declared Msgr. Jozef Henryk Muszynski, Primate Emeritus of Poland, on June 7 to the press agency KNA.  At present, a quarter of European seminaries are Polish.

(Source: DICI) 

Turkey: Murder of the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia

The President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Turkey, Bishop Luigi Padovese, aged 63, was murdered with a knife on Thursday, June 3, 2010, by his driver.  Within 24 hours the latter, aged 26, had been arrested and imprisoned after confessing to the crime.

The Italian prelate, who was also the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, was in [the yard of] his summer house located on the outskirts of Iskenderun in southern Turkey when he was discovered lifeless. Although the first official version described it as an isolated act by a mentally deranged man who had converted four years ago to Catholicism, several subsequent revelations quickly called that version of the facts into question. After being stabbed repeatedly, Bishop Padovese is said to have succeeded in going outdoors to call for help before being decapitated—an act that is strongly reminiscent of Muslim ritual sacrifice. According to witnesses quoted by AsiaNews agency, the murderer afterward shouted from the rooftop, “I killed the great Satan!  Allah Akbar [God is great]!”

The day after the assassination, while meeting with journalists on the airplane that was taking him to Cyprus, Benedict XVI expressed the hope that this murder would not be attributed to “Turkey or the Turkish people....What is certain is that it was not a religious or political assassination; it was a personal issue,” the Pope insisted, while admitting that he had “very little information about the facts” of the case. “We are still waiting for a full explanation of events,” he added, “but we do not want this tragic situation to become mixed up with the dialogue with Islam.”

However, what is still the unofficial version of the facts, corroborated by the newspaper investigation made for AsiaNews, seems to contradict the explanation given by the Holy Father. For Archbishop Ruggero Franceschini of Smyrna, temporary successor to Bishop Padovese, there is almost no doubt: the motives for this assassination can only be of a religious nature. On June 12, in an interview granted to the Italian daily Il Foglio, the cleric who celebrated Bishop Padovese’s funeral in Turkey judged in particular that Benedict XVI had received “bad counsel” before speaking about this sensitive subject.

In the Vatican as well, Benedict XVI’s conclusions seemed puzzling. A high-ranking prelate, contacted by the (press) agency I.Media on the 9th of last June, clearly stated that the Pope would have done better not to intervene so early on this delicate question. He also confided that Bishop Padovese’s chauffeur, whom he had had the opportunity to meet, was far from being “the mental case” immediately portrayed by the Turkish authorities, nor even a convert to Christianity! Lastly, this ecclesiastic recalled that in the Islamic religion, decapitation was reserved for “sheep and infidels.” Another Roman priest, also quoted by I.Media, confided that it is “at the very least strange that all murderers of Christians in Turkey are presented as mad.” He further noted that Bishop Padovese’s chauffeur was “of too weak a constitution to attack the Bishop alone,” the Bishop being a particularly “sturdy” man. Finally, this contact in the Vatican indicated that the Italian prelate apparently confided that he had received several death threats.

Another element corroborates the hypothesis of a religious motive for the crime.  According to Father Filippo di Giacomo, an Italian priest and well-known Vatican specialist, Bishop Padovese was scheduled to leave for Cyprus in order to participate in the Sovereign Pontiff’s visit there. But he supposedly cancelled this project because he feared for his safety and …that of the Pope! Indeed, Turkish government sources are said to have warned him that his chauffeur was an Islamic fundamentalist infiltrator. Again according to Father di Giacomo, cited by the Spanish daily El Pais in its June 9th edition, the president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Turkey was particularly fearful that his chauffeur might try to assassinate the Pope.

This dark story is unfortunately not the first in Turkey. In the last four years, several Christian religious have been attacked. In February 2006, a priest, also Italian, Andrea Santoro, was assassinated with bullets in the city of Trabzon, in the northeastern region of the country. His young assailant, 16 years of age, was condemned to  a prison term of nearly 19 years. In 2007, a priest of Izmir, Adriano Franchini, was slightly wounded in the stomach by a young man of 19 at the end of Sunday Mass. In the same year, a “commando” burst into the publishing house where Bibles were being printed, in Malatya, Anatolia, and killed three Christians, one of whom was a German missionary. The five attackers who cut the throats of their victims are soon to be sentenced. In this situation, particularly tense for Christians who represent less than one percent of the Turkish population, out of 72 million inhabitants, Benedict XVI hailed in a message read on the 14th of June, on the occasion of the funeral of the assassinated prelate in Milan, “the resolute commitment for dialogue and reconciliation that characterized the priestly life and episcopal ministry” of Bishop Luigi Padovese.

(Source: DICI)

Austria: Bishops Claim That the Vatican Should Debate Celibacy

Assembled for a three-day congress around Ascension Thursday, the Austrian bishops opined that the Vatican should allow a debate on priestly celibacy. As cited by the French Press Agency (AFP), the Ordinary of Carinthia in the southern part of the country, Bishop Alois Schwarz, declared that “As bishops we hear talk about it and we are telling Rome that we have this problem.”  He also underscored that this debate should not be ignored but rather “amplified” in the Catholic Church throughout the world.

Without explicitly mentioning the pedophilia scandals that are spattering the Church, the Austrian bishops called during their meeting for “major reforms” within the Church, in particular emphasizing the need to speak about the role of women.  Several days earlier, in an interview with the daily Die Presse, the Ordinary of Eisenstadt, Bishop Paul Iby, had said that he was in favor of abolishing priestly celibacy “so as to deal with the lack of vocations.” 

(Source: DICI)

Italy: The Holy Shroud of Turin Venerated by More Than Two Million Pilgrims

The exposition of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin has drawn more than 2.1 million pilgrims since April 10, 2010.  Most of the pilgrims have come from Italy, with 130,000 others from neighboring countries, especially from France, Cardinal Severino Poletto, Archbishop of Turin, noted in a press conference on May 22.

“This event has revived the faith at a moment of spiritual confusion and muddle,” the Cardinal declared.  “I am very happy about the arrival of more than two million pilgrims, but also about their spiritual participation, which is much more recollected than ten years ago during the exposition in 2000.”  He mentioned also Sunday, May 2, the day of the pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Turin, the Mass on the Piazza San Carlo for a congregation of 25,000 (with another 25,000 attending the Mass through giant television screens installed for the occasion) and the Holy Father’s meeting with young people.

The exposition ended on Sunday, May 23, at 2:00 p.m. Cardinal Poletto celebrated a Solemn Mass preceded by the reading of a letter from the Pope, and he announced that the next public expositions of the Shroud would be of more limited duration because of the risks that the cloth might deteriorate.

(Source: DICI)

Switzerland: Canon from the Abbey of St. Maurice Joins the SSPX

 

A canon of the Abbey of St. Maurice in Valais since 1996, Canon Yannick Escher, 36 years of age, left his monastery on June 29, Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul and the day of the ordinations at Ecône.  He joined the Priestly Society of St. Pius X after discovering the Tridentine Mass and studying at great length the writings and conferences of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

A professor, students’ chaplain, master of ceremonies, correspondant for the Bulletin Paroisses Vivantes and of the paper Le Nouvelliste, “Canon Escher had deployed a great zeal in his numerous activities,” reveals the Abbot of St. Maurice, Josesh Roduit in a sad statement.–The Swiss religious is presently in one of the houses of the Society of St. Pius X.

Italy: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the Bookstores

Two books have appeared in Italy that make known to readers the life and work of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. A translation of the work Priestly Sanctity, published in 2008 by Clovis, is being published by the well-known Milanese editor Marietti under the title Santità e Sacerdozio.  A translation of the work The Mass of All Time, published by Clovis in 2005 [available from Angelus Press], should likewise be edited by Marietti towards the end of this year.

Sugarco Editions, in Milan, which last year published journalists Alessandro Gnocchi’s and Mario Palmaro’s book Tradizione, il vero volto (The true face of Tradition), dedicated to the “heirs of Archbishop Lefebvre,” published a biography of the founder of Ecône: Mons. Marcel Lefebvre, nel nome della Verità (Bishop Lefebvre, in the name of Truth). Its author, Cristina Siccardi, shows that he whom one was pleased to call “the rebel bishop” has in reality shown us that “it is in Tradition, in the Catholic doctrine, in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all time, and in priestly sanctity that the answers can be found to the problems of a world lost to pride and consumed with vainglory.”

Official Letter from the District of South America on the Legalization of “Homosexual Marriage” in Argentina

Letter from Fr. Christian Bouchacourt to the priests of the District of South America of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, on the passage of a law authorizing “homosexual marriage” in Argentina on July 15, 2010. (Official Translation FSSPX – MG)

 

+ Martinez, 15 de julio de 2010

 

Fraternidad Sacerdotal San Pio X Distrito América del Sur

El Superior

 

Estimados Padres,

This 15th of July 2010 is a day of mourning and of great sorrow for Argentina. Indeed, in approving the bill in favor of “homosexual marriage”, the senators and all those who voted in favor of the bill have committed a grave sin of impiety towards God that comes back to the whole nation that they are supposed to represent.

The Argentinian episcopate carries a heavy responsibility as well in this grave defeat. Desiring to please the world, and to give up denouncing error and proclaiming the truth, the bishops have become inaudible and have let the wolves into the flock. Why did they not launch a Crusade of Masses, prayers and sacrifices as a barrage against this abomination? May God have mercy on them. They will have to answer to Him for their suicidal failure to take responsibility.

In reaction to this insult to God, I ask that a Mass of reparation be celebrated in each of our priories in Argentina and all our missions in which it is possible. We will say the votive Mass “pro remissione peccatorum”.

May our faithful assist in great numbers at these Masses and may they receive communion to implore God to have mercy on Argentina and turn away His anger from our nation.

May Our Lady of Lujan have mercy on us and save Argentina.

Parce Domine, parce populo tuo.

 

Padre Christian BOUCHACOURT

(Source: DICI, No. 219, July 24, 2010)