IN BRIEF
Church leaders in Pyongyang Religious leaders from South Korea have made their first official visit to the Communist-ruled North, more than half a century after all Churches and faith com- munities were liquidated after the Korean War. “We know Pyongyang will use our visit for its own aims, but we wish only to renew contacts and give a positive signal to the society of North Korea,” Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jong of Kwangju said in a statement, before flying with the 24- member delegation to China and crossing the border.
Anti-human trafficking Mass Argentina’s
Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, celebrated Mass in the country’s capital on 23 September for victims of human trafficking. It was on this date in 1913, in Argentina, that the world’s first law against child prostitution was enacted. Argentina is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.
Drina martyrs beatified Five Catholic nuns have been beatified as martyrs in Bosnia, 68 years after being murdered while resisting rape by Serb Chetniks, or nationalist partisans, during the Second World War. The nuns were abducted from their house at Pale and shot in December 1941. They became known as the “Martyrs from the Drina” because their bodies were thrown in the local river.
Typhoon paralyses Manila Entire neighbourhoods of Manila were under water this week after a powerful typhoon unleashed flood waters and fierce wind that killed at least 20 people. Fr Edwin Gariguez, director of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference national secretariat for social action, stressed the need “to be proactive in protecting the environment, in saving our remaining forest to prevent humanly induced disasters”.
In line for red hat Bishop Giuseppe Versaldi, who served as Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s vicar general when the Secretary of State was still Archbishop of Vercelli, has been named president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. As head of the Vatican comptroller’s office, the now-Archbishop Versaldi, 68, is all but assured of becoming a cardinal. He replaces Cardinal Velasio De Paolis CS, who continues to be commissar of the Legionaries of Christ.
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34 | THE TABLET | 1 October 2011
Letter from Germany
Luther, are known as the Land of the Reformation. But today all Christians – both Protestants and Catholics – consider it “the diaspora”, according to Dr Nikolaus Schneider, head of the council of Germany’s Lutheran Church. The 63-year-old theologian is not shy to speak his mind, as we found out at the press conference following the ecumenical prayer service he and his community hosted for the papal visit.
T
Among the several people who joined Dr Schneider in the packed press hall was the Vatican’s top ecumenical officer – also outspoken – Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch. The two men showed that there is still a long road to travel before Lutherans and Catholics will be able to gather round the altar and break eucharistic bread together. Dr Schneider was adamant that, especially in the case of mixed marriages, it “should be possible for a free sort of eucharistic Communion”. He admitted that his insistence on this point had caused “quite a stir”. And Cardinal Koch, 61, proved him right. “We don’t want a Communion of the Last
Supper,” he shot back. That was a not so subtle way of reminding the Lutheran that, from Rome’s standpoint, the Lutherans have a deficient notion of the Eucharist. Dr Schneider jumped in: “In addition to dogma – an issue that is important – the actual life situation of the faithful has to be considered as theological. It must be the driving force of the doctrine and not the other way around,” he insisted. And, for good measure, he said that this should seem more than reasonable to anyone who puts “life issues” at the heart of everything.
is) expect people to do things their way not only in the Eternal City, but always and everywhere. “They believe everything has to be done
G
like it is done at the Vatican,” said Fr Hans Langendörfer SJ, Secretary General of the German Bishops’ Conference and chief local organiser of the Pope’s visit. He told me that it took a number of
meetings with Vatican officials and much compromise, for example, to plan the papal liturgies. “We insisted that the Eucharistic Prayer (EP) be in German,” he said. “We had to finally tell them, ‘Look, the Pope is German. And everyone here is German’,” he continued. So the Vatican relented and allowed for a German EP at the final Mass last Sunday in Freiburg.
erman organisers of the papal visit discovered very quickly that many Romans (of the Curia variety, that
he city of Erfurt and its surrounding region of Thüringen, because of being wedded historically to Martin
It was the first time in more than two and a half years that Pope Benedict had prayed the canon of the Mass in anything but Latin. During his March 2009 visit to Angola, he used a Portuguese EP. Since then he has been using only Latin – at the Vatican, at parish visits in Italy and on his trips abroad. The Germans apparently reached another compromise on the format of last Saturday’s prayer vigil for young people. In place of eucharistic adoration, an element that has become standard in the pontificate, there was celebration of light focusing on the Easter Candle. And the music … The Romans ensured there was Latin chant at almost every liturgy, but the Germans managed to keep the celebrations representative of how they pray. There was much contemporary music – including guitars, drums and, yes, even saxophones. And the Rhine flowed into the Tiber.
P
ope Benedict XVI said the speech he delivered at the Bundestag in Berlin was “one of the most important” of
his four-day visit to Germany. Though it was a serious reflection on the
“foundations for a free state of law”, it also provided one of the most light-hearted moments of the trip. Parliamentarians applauded loudly when the Pope acknowledged that the “emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s was and continues to be a cry for fresh air”, adding that it “must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it seems to be irrational”. Then he quipped: “In saying this, I am
clearly not promoting any political party – nothing could be further from my mind.” Laughter erupted in the assembly, evidently because many of the 100 or so lawmakers who had stayed away from the hall to protest against the Pope’s visit were members of the Green Party. My colleague from Deutsche Welle Radio said that the Germans found this highly amusing. “The Pope gives a backhanded compliment to the very people who did not want him to speak,” he said. “They loved it.” It was a scripted remark that was written
many days before its delivery. In fact, Pope Benedict stuck very carefully to the prepared text of the homilies and addresses he delivered in public. And with very few exceptions: the only time he spoke extemporaneously was at a gathering in Freiburg with seminarians. Journalists with little facility in German were grateful for this. We cannot forget how challenging it was to cover Pope John Paul II on his visits to Poland. He never stopped speaking off the cuff in his native tongue. Robert Mickens
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