IN BRIEF


Fighting erupts in Cairo Nine Coptic Christians were killed and 150 were wounded in clashes with Muslims near a monastery outside Cairo on Tuesday. According to the Assyrian International News Agency some 15,000 Muslims intercepted around 500 Copts who were en route to a large-scale protest over the burning of a church by a Muslim mob in a suburb of Cairo. Copts reportedly called in the army but Coptic eyewitnesses said that shortly after tanks arrived, troops started firing at them.


Pope breaks silence on North Africa Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his concern at the unrest in North Africa, especially Libya, “where recent clashes have provoked numerous deaths and a growing humanitarian crisis”, he said. He vowed to pray for those affected. He has refrained from public comment until now.


Apology for demolition of crosses Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of India’s western Maharashtra state, apologised to Catholics in the state capital, Mumbai, after municipal officials demolished four British-era roadside crosses last week. The officials said they were following a federal Supreme Court directive, but Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai, pointed out that it only applied to new religious roadside structures.


Italians start ‘living wills’ debate Italy’s Parliament has begun a debate over a proposed “living will” law backed by church leaders and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. If passed in its present form the law would deny patients the right to refuse artificial feeding and hydration and would allow doctors to overrule the patient’s will concerning the termination of other treatment.


Ortega’s re-nomination opposed Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio Baez, auxiliary in Managua, said the bishops consider it “illegal” for the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional party to nominate President Daniel Ortega to stand for a second consecutive term in November’s presidential elections, as this is barred by the country’s constitution. Bishop Baez said the country was close to a “form of totalitarianism”.


Bishop of Jerusalem refused visa The Palestinian-born Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Suheil Dawani, has launched legal action against the Israeli Government after it refused to renew his residency visa for the city over allegations of illegal land transactions.


For daily news updates visit www.thetablet.co.uk


Letter from Rome


That’s how the Milan daily Corriere della Sera this week described Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to take the unprecedented initiative, which is scheduled to air on Good Friday on Italian state television (RAI). The newspaper said the soon-to-be 84-year-old Pope would answer three pre-submitted questions about the Passion of Jesus. His responses are to be filmed beforehand, either in his chapel or study inside the Vatican, and then aired on the afternoon of 22 April. Italian papers hailed the plan as the


F


Pope’s desire to reach a wider audience. Still, Pope Benedict’s preferred form of communication remains the written word. And at his Ash Wednesday general audience he drew from his recently released Lenten message to encourage Christians to use the weeks leading up Easter as a time to renew “the grace and commitment of our baptism”. He said the readings for the Sundays during Lent were an invitation to “live a baptismal itinerary”, marked by the traditional practices of fasting, alms-giving and prayer. “And it is above all in the liturgy, by participating in the holy mysteries, that we are led to follow this journey with the Lord,” he said. Later that afternoon, the Pope celebrated


the first liturgy of Lent when he went to Rome’s Aventine Hill for Mass and the imposition of ashes at the ancient Basilica of Santa Sabina, headquarters of the Dominicans. According to custom, he first went to the nearby Abbey Church of Sant’Anselmo to pray with the Benedictine community and then processed with the monks, Dominican friars and Roman Curia officials to Santa Sabina for the Ash Wednesday Mass.


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ope Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia will begin a week- long Lenten retreat tomorrow inside


the Vatican. But the annual spiritual exercises, led this year by Discalced Carmelite Fr François-Marie Léthel, will help prepare the Vatican’s top brass for more than just the 40-day journey towards Easter. The retreat master says it will also be “an ideal preparation, in the spirit of Lenten conversion” for the huge celebration that will take place the Sunday after Easter in St Peter’s Square – the 1 May beatification of Pope John Paul II. The late Pope will be the special focus of the three daily conferences Fr Léthel will be preaching next week because the theme of the retreat is “John Paul II and the theology of the saints”. Papa Wojtyla made more saints and blesseds in his 27 years as Bishop of Rome than all of his predecessors combined. And the


or the first time, a pope will go on television and respond to questions put to him by “the simple faithful”.


Carmelite priest will be reflecting on the significance of some of those – especially lay people – whose official recognition John Paul encouraged. They include Concepción Cabrera de Armida, a Mexican wife and mother the late Pope declared “venerable” in 1999. Another is the Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, a young Focolare member who died of bone cancer in 1990. Fr Léthel will also look at the figure of Salesian Fr Giuseppe Quadrio (d. 1963) whom Pope Benedict recently declared venerable. And he will give talks on famous saints such as Catherine of Siena, Thérèse of Lisieux, Joan of Arc, St Anselm and St Thomas Aquinas. The retreat concludes next Saturday with the Feast of St Joseph, Papa Ratzinger’s feast day.


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he Vatican will soon direct bishops around the world to ensure that all seminarians are taught Latin and,


even more importantly, that they are trained to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. The provisions are evidently part of a new instruction that is to be issued next month by the Ecclesia Dei Commission. At least, that’s according to Andrea


Tornielli of the conservative Italian daily Il Giornale. Ecclesia Dei is the office Pope Benedict XVI charged with the correct implementation of his 2007 motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, his personal initiative that universalised use of the pre-Vatican II liturgy. According to Mr Tornielli, the new instruction will remind bishops that “the motu proprio is the universal law of the Church and that they are all held to apply it and guarantee that it is applied”. It has long been known that the president and secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission – Cardinal William Levada and Mgr Guido Pozzo – were preparing guidelines on implementing Summorum Pontificum. But, up to now, no details have emerged. Some neo-Tridentinists have been


fretting in the blogosphere that the instruction would actually curtail celebration of the old rite. But Mr Tornielli, known for close contact with the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, has allayed those fears. It’s surprising that anyone who has been following the resurrection of the Tridentine Rite could have arrived at any other conclusion. Benedict XVI, long before he became Pope, was one of the leading figures in the post-Vatican II era to work for the restoration of the pre-Vatican II Mass. An article in The Tablet on 25 April 2009,


“Return to the tradition”, clearly explained that. It would be strange if, after having carefully and single-handedly decreed that the old rite be made universally available, he would now allow a commission to limit it. Robert Mickens


12 March 2011 | THE TABLET | 35


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