pope benedict xvi

[Kollyvas]

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.j ... pope14.xml

Mystery of Pope's night-time visits to his old haunts
By Hilary Clarke in Rome
(Filed: 14/01/2006)

The Vatican, citadel of secrets and intrigue, has thrown up another little mystery: what has the Pope been doing on a spate of night-time missions to his old cardinal lodgings?

Over the past few weeks, the German pontiff has been seen sneaking back to his old room outside the Vatican walls three times, La Stampa reported yesterday.

The Pope in plain garb when he was a cardinal
At about 9pm a plain, dark car carrying 78-year-old Pope Benedict and his private secretary, Don Georg Gaenswein, swirls out of a side door of Vatican city. It then doubles round in the back streets before arriving at 1 Piazza Citta Leonina, a hall of residence for senior Church figures and the Pope's home as a cardinal for almost 24 years.

A Vatican security guard is always waiting in front of the apartments in a pedestrian zone tucked behind St Peter's Square. The Pope gets out of the car disguised in the plain black priest's robes he wore when he was the Catholic Church's senior theologian.

Wearing a black hat and with his head down, he opens the wooden door himself, as he did for all those years, and tiptoes inside followed by Don Georg.

"Its is not a question of just dashing in for a few minutes to grab a bag or a book," La Stampa said. "He spends at least a couple of hours there."

Nine months after moving into the spacious papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace overlooking St Peter's Square, Pope Benedict appears to be hankering after his old, reflective life as a cardinal and a theologian in a bedsit.

"We shouldn't be surprised " wrote Marco Tossati, La Stampa's Vatican correspondent. "The calm existence he had before, and the most certainly more weighty one he has now are separated by just a few hundred metres; maybe the temptation is just too much even for the strong but delicate personality of Benedict XVI."

The Pope in the red, fur-lined hat he wore at Christmas
The Pope is already starting to gain a reputation for slightly eccentric behaviour and a penchant for disguise. At Christmas he delighted crowds by turning out in a red, fur-lined hat that used to be worn by popes in the Middle Ages to keep their heads warm. He has also been seen wearing red Prada shoes and pricey Serengeti sunglasses.

Discretion seems to be the catchword for the Pope's recent evening visits to the security of his old home. He does not even stop for a chat with his former room-mates, who La Stampa said, would be relieved that he no longer indulges in his old habit of playing Bach and Mozart a little too loudly.

[CorpusChristi]

this is almost scary, but hopely he is visiting old cardinals or Priests at this old place of his....or maybe there is a hidden Pope and Benedict is a decoy......

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6765

Monsignor Georg Ratzinger Pope's brother yearns for old days

'We were no good at cooking so we ate canned food' (ANSA) - Rome, January 16 - The pope's brother is nostalgic for the days when he and his sibling used to play Bach to each other, eat food out of cans and wash up together afterwards .

Monsignor Georg Ratzinger has fond memories of when he and his younger brother used to spend spare hours in a house in Pentling, a small Bavarian village which Benedict XVI is said to still consider home .

"We were never great cooks, which is why we often ate canned food," Ratzinger senior admitted in an interview with Corriere della Sera's magazine supplement Style .

Speaking of his initial shock over his brother's election as pope, Msgr Georg said he had now resigned himself to visiting Rome three or four times a year and staying in the grand papal residence .

"I know he's always happy when he sees people he's known for years," he said, referring to the freedom his brother has lost when it comes to seeing people .

Since 1969, when he arrived at Regensburg University to teach, Pope Benedict has owned a house in Pentling. His brother directed the Regensburg choir for 30 years and so the two were often in town at the same time .

Even as a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger managed to visit Regensburg four or five times a year to see friends and family .

But since April 19, things have changed forever, Msgr Georg said .

He noted the difference between old eating habits and those he has become accustomed to in the Apostolic Palace, where two of his brother's personal secretaries, a room servant and several nuns are always present. "Everyone speaks Italian. I'm the only one who speaks Bavarian. After we've eaten we go for a little walk on the terrace of the Apostolic Palace. Then we talk about old things, our past and our memories."

[Kollyvas]

...Pope Benedict's first encyclical could prove a profitable source of income for the Vatican. The leaking of its contents coincide with news that the Vatican is to transfer copyright on papal texts to its own publishing house, which will then charge others wishing to publish them.

The introduction of Vatican publishing rights is one of the new Pope's first important administrative acts. A major source of controversy between the Vatican and publishers wishing to reprint papal texts will be the Vatican's desire to charge rights retroactively on any papal texts of the past 50 years.

The last pope published 2,770 titles under his name in English, 1,000 in Spanish and 330 in Italian, plus titles in other languages.

When Pope Benedict was still a cardinal, he published hundreds of texts, especially in his native Germany, with publishers having already acquired the rights. They could now face demands for hefty back-payments.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.j ... pope18.xml

[Kollyvas]

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3281

The Pope and the Koran
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
January 17, 2006
French version of this item
German version of this item
Italian version of this item

[NY Sun title: "The Pope and the Interpretation of the Koran"]

Islam and Muslims are expected to be a priority for Pope Benedict XVI, but he has been publicly quite muted on these topics during his first nine months in office. One report, however, provides important clues to his current thinking.

Father Joseph D. Fessio, SJ, recounted on the Hugh Hewitt Show the details of a seminar he attended with the pope in September 2005 on Islam. Participants heard about the ideas of a Pakistani-born liberal theologian, Fazlur Rahman (1919-88), who held that if Muslims thoroughly reinterpret the Koran, Islam can modernize. He urged a focus on the principles behind Koranic legislation such as jihad, cutting off thieves' hands, or permitting polygyny, in order to modify these customs to fit today's needs. When Muslims do this, he concluded, they can prosper and live harmoniously with non-Muslims.

Pope Benedict reacted strongly to this argument. He has been leading such annual seminars since 1977 but always lets others speak first, waiting until the end to comment. But hearing about Fazlur Rahman's analysis, Father Fessio recalled with surprise, the pope could not contain himself:

This is the first time I recall where he made an immediate statement. And I'm still struck by it, how powerful it was. … the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that [analysis] because, he said, in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Muhammad, but it's an eternal word. It's not Muhammad's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it.

This basic difference, Pope Benedict continued, makes Islam unlike Christianity and Judaism. In the latter two religions, "God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world." Jews and Christians "can take what's good" in their traditions and mold it. There is, in other words, "an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations."

Whereas the Bible is, for Benedict, the "word of God that comes through a human community," he understands the Koran as "something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied." This immutability has vast consequences: it means "Islam is stuck. It's stuck with a text that cannot be adapted."

Father Fessio's striking account prompts two reactions. First, these comments were made at a private seminar with former students, not in public. As "Spengler" of Asia Times points out, even the pope "must whisper" when discussing Islam. It's a sign of the times.

Second, I must register my respectful disagreement. The Koran indeed can be interpreted. Indeed, Muslims interpret the Koran no less than Jews and Christians interpret the Bible, and those interpretations have changed no less over time. The Koran, like the Bible, has a history.

For one indication of this, note the original thinking of the Sudanese theologian Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1909-85). Taha built his interpretation on the conventional division of the Koran into two. The initial verses came down when Muhammad was a powerless prophet living in Mecca, and tend to be cosmological. Later verses came down when Muhammad was the ruler of Medina, and include many specific rulings. These commands eventually served as the basis for the Shari'a, or Islamic law.

Taha argued that specific Koranic rulings applied only to Medina, not to other times and places. He hoped modern-day Muslims would set these aside and live by the general principles delivered at Mecca. Were Taha's ideas accepted, most of the Shari'a would disappear, including outdated provisions concerning warfare, theft, and women. Muslims could then more readily modernize.

Even without accepting a grand schema such as Taha proposed, Muslims are already making small moves in the same direction. Islamic courts in reactionary Iran, for example, have broken with Islamic tradition and now permit women the right to sue for divorce and grant a murdered Christian equal recompense with that of a murdered Muslim.

As this suggests, Islam is not stuck. But huge efforts are needed to get it moving again.

[Kollyvas]

pics!

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6778

Joint prayer is basis for ecumenism, Pope says

Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges the crowd at the end of his weekly general audience at the Vatican January 18, 2006. Pope Benedict said on Wednesday his long-awaited first encyclical will be published next week and that he hopes it can show Christians the proper relationship between erotic love and spiritual love. REUTERS/Chris Helgren
Vatican, Jan. 18 (CWNews.com) - Opening the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Benedict XVI said that the event reflects "the shared commitment to re-establish the full communion of all Christians."

The Holy Father told his regular weekly public audience that prayer is the key to Christian unity. All Christians should be involved, he said, in "raising a common prayer to God." And the Pontiff added that this prayer should include not only a plea for unity but also "thanksgiving for the new situation painstakingly created through ecumenical relations."

The papal audience on January 18 opened with a surprise announcement, as the Pope disclosed that his long-awaited encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, would be released on January 25. The audience closed on a much lighter note, after acrobatic performances by circus troupes in the Paul VI auditorium.

The annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an occasion for reflection on the divisions within Christianity, the Pope said. It is also a time to acknowledge the shared faith that makes common prayer possible, he continued. All baptized Christians share a fellowship that enables them to pray together in Jesus' name, he said. "This distinguishes the ecumenical movement from all other initiatives of dialogue and contact with other religions and ideologies."

Pope Benedict recalled the work of Pope John Paul II, who "did and suffered so much for the ecumenical cause." He cited the words of his predecessor's encyclical on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint: "An appreciation of how much God has already given is the condition which disposes us to receive those gifts still indispensable for bringing to completion the ecumenical work of unity."

[Kollyvas]

pics...

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=5800

A shiny new BMW for Benedict XVI
Rome, Oct. 05 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI is the owner of a shiny new BMW X5, compliments of the Bavarian sports-car manufacturer.

Pope gets BMW SUV
Rome, Oct. 05 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI is the owner of a shiny new BMW X5, compliments of the Bavarian sports-car manufacturer.

At the conclusion of his regular weekly public audience on October 5, the Holy Father was presented with the car, an all-terrain vehicle that ranges in price from $60,000 to $100,000 depending on optional equipment. Michael Ganal, the marketing director for BMW, said that the firm was proud to add another car to the Vatican fleet, which already includes several BMW models donated previously.

Informed sources said that the X5 would probably be turned over to the Vatican police force.

When he travels by car, Pope Benedict uses the same vehicle that was donated to Pope John Paul II. In 2002, Daimler-Chrysler offered Pope John Paul a new "popemobile"-- a gray Mercedes sedan, armored and specially equipped; it remains in use today.

But several European car manufacturers-- notably BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen-- have vied for the publicity that they receive by donating newer vehicles to the Pope. During the World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne in August of this year, Volkswagen made new cars available without charge to many Catholic leaders.

In 2001, BMW donated several cars, in the white-and-yellow colors of the Holy See; they are now used by Vatican employees. More recently, Daimler-Chrysler donated several vehicles, including a mini-bus that is now used by the Swiss Guard.

The first pontifical automobile was presented to the Vatican in 1909, but never used by a Roman Pontiff. In 1929, after the signing of the Lateran Accords, the Italian manufacturer Fiat offered a car to Pope Pius X, inviting him to use the vehicle to "visit" Rome, now that the Vatican was a separate city-state. In 1930, Daimler-Chrysler offered a limousine to Pope Pius XI, and it was used regularly by his successor, Pius XII-- most notably when he traveled to Castel Gandolfo to avoid the bombing of Rome during World War II. That vehicle, a Nurburg 460, is now on display in a museum dedicated specifically to pontifical cars. Also on view are the cars-- including a Bianchi, Fiat, Graham-Paige, and Citroën-- donated to various other Pontiffs.

Since the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963, the Vatican has used various customized vehicles-- such as a Toyota Land Cruiser-- to allow the Pope to be seen by the crowds during papal audiences. Pope John Paul II was riding in one such vehicle, an open Fiat Campagnola, when he was shot in St. Peter's Square in May 1981.

In donating the latest vehicle to Pope Benedict, the BMW cited a list of associations with the current Pontiff. The manufacturer's headquarters are in Munich, where the Pope was once Archbishop; a major plant is in Ratisbon, where the Pontiff taught from 1969 to 1977. During World War II, when he was drafted into a German air-defense team along with his seminary class, the young Joseph Ratzinger was trained for an assignment protecting a BMW plant-- then manufacturing airplane motors-- north of Munich.