Orders: Void... Mitres: Valid

Given that it's only been 113 years since Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void," a quick read of the "complementary norms" for Anglicanorum coetibus reveals what is, quite possibly, the most extraordinary concession of all:

Former Anglican Bishops

Article 11...

§3. A [married] former Anglican Bishop [ordained a Catholic priest -- not a bishop] who belongs to the Ordinariate may be invited to participate in the meetings of the Bishops’ Conference of the respective territory, with the equivalent status of a retired bishop.

§4. A former Anglican Bishop who belongs to the Ordinariate and who has not been ordained as a bishop in the Catholic Church, may request permission from the Holy See to use the insignia of the episcopal office. [emphasis added]

To reiterate: this is envisioned in the case of a (married) former Anglican bishop who hasn't been appointed ordinary in his respective jurisdiction and is, in Catholic terms, a simple priest.

Long story short: B16 wants Anglican bishops -- high-hats, wives and all.

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Quote of the Day

“The Church, a people gathered into the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, as "a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all people." Every division among the baptized in Jesus Christ wounds that which the Church is and that for which the Church exists; in fact, "such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching the Gospel to every creature." Precisely for this reason, before shedding his blood for the salvation of the world, the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father for the unity of his disciples.

It is the Holy Spirit, the principle of unity, which establishes the Church as a communion. He is the principle of the unity of the faithful in the teaching of the Apostles, in the breaking of the bread and in prayer. The Church, however, analogous to the mystery of the Incarnate Word, is not only an invisible spiritual communion, but is also visible; in fact, "the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, the visible society and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly riches, are not to be thought of as two realities. On the contrary, they form one complex reality formed from a two-fold element, human and divine." The communion of the baptized in the teaching of the Apostles and in the breaking of the eucharistic bread is visibly manifested in the bonds of the profession of the faith in its entirety, of the celebration of all of the sacraments instituted by Christ, and of the governance of the College of Bishops united with its head, the Roman Pontiff.

This single Church of Christ, which we profess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic "subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.... Since these are gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity."”

--Pope Benedict XVI
Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus
4 November 2009

Sure, the lines above referred to a specific case... but in the big picture, they ring truer still.

PHOTO: Franco Origlia/Getty

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Anglicanorum Coetibus

Three weeks after the Vatican announced a canonical framework to integrate groups of disaffected Anglicans seeking to swim the Tiber into the Roman fold, the full context of the plan came into view this morning with the release of Anglicanorum coetibus ("Groups of Anglicans"), the apostolic constitution on the "personal ordinariates" that will be provided for as needed, creating a de facto "Anglican rite" within the Catholic church.

Along with the principal text, the Holy See published additional norms, a press release and canonical commentary, all of which is viewable through the provided links to the Vatican's website.

* * *

On a programming note, barring especially significant developments (like the above), expect the next week to be a fairly quiet one 'round these parts; with the beginning of the US bishops' November Meeting in Baltimore a week from today, there's a good bit of last-minute prepping to do, not to mention simply resting up before four 16-hour days of input overload.

Beyond that, a week before her 93rd, the Boss was rushed to the hospital late in the weekend, so the most important front of all needs tending to these next couple days.

As always, stay tuned... but 'til the next thing breaks, please keep a place for us in your prayers, and all thanks to that end.

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On Health Care, Drawing the Line... One More Time

With the House of Representatives looking to vote on a health-care reform plan as soon as tomorrow, yet with the church's standard on a package still unmet, the three US bishops charged with leading the body's response sent an "urgent message" to all 435 Congresspeople earlier today with renewed calls for a ban on abortion funding and support for conscience protections, coverage for immigrants irrespective of their legal status and a plea against a "closed rule" review of a bill that would not allow new amendments to be added to it.

Here below is the fulltext of the letter (all emphases original), signed by the USCCB chairs for Pro-Life Activities, Domestic Policy and Migration -- respectively, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Bishops William Murphy of Rockville Centre and John Wester of Salt Lake City:

The last-minute Hill push follows last weekend's nationwide effort to mobilize parishioners to contact their representatives and urge them to "fix these bills" with the bishops' favored pro-life changes.

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Beato? Sì. Subito? No.

The other day, a reader note asked about rumors that Pope John Paul II was to be beatified early next year, around the fifth anniversary of his death.

As the traditional investigatory report on the candidate's life had only recently been completed, the requisite miracle had yet to be presented (let alone examined and approved), not to mention the usual six to eight month time-lag between the Pope's green-light and the Beatification Mass itself, the time-frame seemed unfeasible on its face. Then again, after learning that the rumors had been drawn from reports in the Italian press -- where Vatican reporting is often eerily akin to "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" -- the question seemed much more understandable.

Anyways, the reports were shot down by no less than the Holy See's #2; at an impromptu press conference on Wednesday outside Rome's childrens' hospital, Italian wire reports said that the Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB deemed any reports of Papa Wojtyla reaching the penultimate step to sainthood in 2010 as "unfounded," reaffirming that the process was not being accelerated for the late, beloved Polish Pope.

The denials were subsequently echoed by the lead Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, who likewise underscored that, while its outcome was little in doubt, the standard process will run its usual course.

For a bit of perspective, it might be useful to recall the timeframes on two other high-profile causes that have garnered a degree of Vatican fast-tracking.

For one, while rumblings of Cardinal John Henry Newman's "imminent" beatification swirled from as far back as 2006, the miracle attributed to the famed convert's intercession wasn't approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints until late last April and accepted by Pope Benedict -- a keen Newman devotee -- only in early July, with the final ceremony itself expected to take place on the pontiff's UK trip next fall.

And for another, it was August 2007 when Bertone -- in Nashville for the 125th anniversary of the Knights of Columbus -- pledged to "personally work" for the elevation of Fr Michael McGivney (1852-90), the founder of the global church's largest lay group, that the Connecticut priest's day "will arrive soon."

While McGivney's decree of heroic virtue -- granting him the title "Venerable" -- was approved by B16 seven months later, a reported miracle remains under investigation in Rome, with additional information on it sent over just in the last six weeks.

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Pope Engineers TO Church

Almost three years after Archbishop Thomas Collins took the helm of Canada's largest local church, this morning Pope Benedict named the cardinal-in-waiting's first two auxiliaries for the nearly 2 million-member Toronto archdiocese.

Canada's first Asian prelate, Bishop-elect Vincent Nguyen, 43, left his native Vietnam at 18, was ordained in 1998, completed a licentiate in canon law last year and, just last month, was named TO's moderator of the curia. Notably, in its announcement this morning, the Holy See said that one of Nguyen's great-grandfathers was among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs, who were collectively canonized in 1988 by John Paul II.

The second pick, 50 year-old Fr William McGrattan, has served until today as rector of St Peter's Seminary in London, Ontario -- in which post he succeeded Collins on the archbishop's 1997 appointment as bishop of St Paul in Alberta. Ordained a priest in 1987, the bishop-elect served along the way in parish work and as a vocation director.

Notably, both appointees came to the priesthood from backgrounds in engineering; McGrattan earned his bachelor's in chemical, working both in the field and as a research assistant until his ordination, while Nguyen picked up his degree in electrical, entering a discernment house a year after graduation.

No ordination date has yet emerged for the duo -- and, per Northern custom, no Appointment Day presser takes place.

* * *

The appointments are Canada's first since mid-September's shocking resignation of Bishop Raymond Lahey of Antigonish following the prelate's arrest on charges of possessing child pornography.

While a successor at the helm of the 150,000-member Nova Scotia diocese is said to be quickly in the offing, the scandal's fallout led the president of the Northern bench to dub the mood an "annus horribilis" at the Canadian bishops' recent plenary, while -- following reports that suspicions over Lahey's behavior were raised as far back as the late 1980s and never acted upon -- TC recently used his annual turn at Toronto's Cardinal's Dinner fundraiser to speak of the need for discernment:

Anyone who has participated in the awesome rites of ordination is conscious of the majesty of the priesthood of Christ, which He has chosen to share with frail humans, "vessels of clay" as St. Paul calls them, so that He might work through them in a sacramental way. I celebrate several ordinations each year, and every time I am filled with awe. When I place my hands upon the head of the candidate at the moment of ordination, I silently pray in my heart: "Lord, may this man be a faithful and holy priest all the days of his life."

To me, as a bishop, the pain of any priestly scandal is a sharp personal reminder that I need to do all that I can to be sure that those who are ordained, for all their inescapable human frailty, are living their vocation with integrity.

In our seminaries, over the long period of preparation for the priesthood, we continually strive to improve our procedures for solid human, intellectual, pastoral, and spiritual formation, so that only those candidates who are suited for the priesthood will proceed to ordination.

As for the choice of bishops, the process is extremely thorough, with detailed letters of reference from dozens of men and women. A thorough process, but not perfect. If no one in that extensive reference net is aware of a problem, it will be missed.

Those entrusted with discerning who should be ordained as priest or bishop need to be diligent, and to pray for wisdom, always aware that they might fail to spot an unsuitable candidate, especially if the problem is deep seated and hidden from everyone behind a splendid exterior.

As for improper behaviour by those already ordained, I and all of us who exercise authority in the Church have a solemn obligation to God and to the people we serve, especially to the most vulnerable, to act clearly and effectively if a problem is discovered, although also with great care that injustice not be done to an innocent person, whose name and life can be destroyed be a false accusation.

The basic reality is that in the sacrament of Holy Orders God works through frail humans, and always has done so, and always will. In the twelve apostles we see the whole range of raw material from the beloved disciple to Judas. As long as the human heart is susceptible to iniquity, we will face scandals among the apostles.

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A True Champion

For the record, the following isn't bandwagon-jumping -- just giving praise where it's due.

Less than three hours after taking the 27th championship he eyed from day one, Yankee skipper Joe Giardi didn't let the title get to his head.

The Westchester Journal-News tells the story:

On his way home from winning the World Series, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi stopped to help a woman who had lost control of her car on the Cross County Parkway and crashed into a wall.

“The guy wins the World Series, what does he do? He stops to help,” said Westchester County police officer Kathleen Cristiano, who was among the first to arrive at the accident scene. “It was totally surreal.”...

The crash happened at 2:25 a.m. today on the eastbound lanes along a long blind curve where the Cross County meets the Hutchinson River Parkway prior to the New Rochelle Road exit, police said.

Police were in the area conducting a driving while intoxicated checkpoint on the parkway. In fact, about 15 minutes earlier, Girardi had passed through a driving while intoxicated checkpoint on the parkway. Cristiano, who was working the checkpoint, congratulated him on his first win as a manager and waved him through....

“He came through with a smile,” Cristiano said.

Cristiano, a self-described huge Yankees fan, said she hadn’t expect to see either one of then again. But then a 911 call came through about a car accident a short distance away, and so officers suspended the checkpoint and responded to the crash. As she came upon the accident scene, in an area where the parkway’s two lanes turn into three and cars speed by the curve that takes them to the Hutchinson Parkway, Cristiano spotted Girardi.

“He was jumping up and down, trying to flag me down,” she said. “You don’t expect him standing by a car accident trying to help.”

Cristiano said by the time she arrived, the driver, Marie Henry, 27, of Stratford, Conn., was able to get out of the crashed vehicle and declined to be taken to the hospital.

Girardi, who was dressed in a casual T-shirt and jeans, then told them he “had to get going.”

Cristiano and Henry both thanked him and watched as he ran across traffic again to reach his car.

“The driver didn’t know it was him until after I told her,” Cristiano said.

The area is notorious for its blind spots, and Girardi, who had parked his car along the right side of the parkway, and then run across the traffic to get to the injured motorist, put his life at risk, police said.

“He could have gotten killed,” county Sgt. Thomas McGurn said, adding that responding police units take extra precaution in that area because of the blind curve and speeding cars. “Traffic goes by at 80 mph.”

(Via Gary Stern.)

Regardless of what team we love, gang, that's what really makes a champion in this life.

On an added note, the Illinois-born skip is a product of the now-closed Spalding Institute in Peoria -- the same high school that produced none other than the great Fulton Sheen, who journeyed to his TV studio in the sky 30 years ago next month.

PHOTO: AP

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Rodé: "Feminism" Drove Visitation

Following up on his Tuesday clarification concerning the Apostolic Visitation of US womens' communities, the Vatican's Religious Czar amplified his thought-process on the evaluation yesterday in an interview with Vatican Radio.

Shown above greeting sisters of a more traditional stripe on a March visit to an Italian seminary specializing in the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, Cardinal Franc Rodé's significant points were summarized by The Tablet's Rome correspondent, Robert Mickens, in a dispatch e.mailed around earlier today:

The official that initiated the Vatican's investigation of women religious in the United States admitted this week that the enquiry was fueled by concerns that American nuns had become overly secularized and influenced by feminism.

Cardinal Franc Rodé told Vatican Radio on Wednesday that his office decided to launch the investigation -- officially called an apostolic visitation -- after hearing "critical voices from the United States". The cardinal, who is prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, indicated that "an important representative of the Church in the United States" was among the critics.

He said the representative -- whose identity was not revealed -- had "alerted" him "to some irregularities or deficiencies" in the way the religious sisters were living. "Above all, you could speak of a certain secularist mentality that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain 'feminist' spirit," the cardinal said.

Cardinal Rodé's comments, which were given in an Italian radio interview, were sharper than a more carefully written English-language statement he issued a day earlier as a response to the "many news reports" that have criticized the Vatican visitation. In that text he never mentioned secularism or feminism. He said the purpose of the investigation was to "to identify the signs of hope, as well as concerns, within religious congregations in the United States".

Cardinal Rodé on Wednesday said the final decision to hold an apostolic visitation was taken in September 2008 during a symposium on religious life at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. Nearly 600 people attended that event, including some bishops, priests, lay people and religious. Many of the speakers were critical of develops that have appeared in religious orders in the forty some years since the Second Vatican Council.

"There a desire was expressed to look for a remedy to this situation [of women's religious life], which many say is is not as good as that of past decades," the cardinal said in this week's interview.

While we're at it, not to be missed is Mickens' keen profile of the global church's new "Justice Minister" -- Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson -- which ran in last week's edition of the London-based mag.

Along the way, the Ohio-born scribe scooped the Italians, revealing that -- fresh off the mini-storm over the creation of "personal ordinariates" for disaffected Anglicans -- Pope Benedict will receive the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on the morning of 21 November.

The meeting had been scheduled in advance of last month's bombshell announcement, which reportedly struck the Anglican primate off-guard.

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Quote of the Day

“Even a casual observer can easily see that in our time, thanks to the most modern technologies, a true and proper revolution is underway in the field of social communications, of which the Church is becoming ever more responsibly aware. These technologies, in fact, make rapid and pervasive communication possible, with an ample sharing of ideas and opinions. They transmit information and news, making them easily accessible to all....

The great social changes that have occurred in the last 20 years have demanded and continue to demand an attentive analysis of the presence and the action of the Church in this field. The Servant of God John Paul II recalled that: "Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel. There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media". And he added, therefore "it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the 'new culture' created by modern communications".... All this constitutes a challenge for the Church called to proclaim the Gospel to men and women of the Third Millennium, maintaining the content unchanged, but rendering it comprehensible also thanks to means and methods that are in keeping with today's mentality and culture....

For believers, the necessary evaluation of the new media technologies must always be sustained by a constant vision of faith, in the knowledge that, beyond the means employed, the effectiveness of the Gospel proclamation depends in the first place on the action of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church and the journey of humanity.”

--Pope Benedict XVI
Address to the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications
Vatican City, 29 October 2009

* * *

For the first time under its new president -- Italian Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli -- the Roman dicastery responsible for interacting with the media world met in its full-fledged form last week. Atop the plenary's agenda was a look toward updating Aetatis Novae, the 1992 pastoral instruction on communication in the life of the church.

Still no sighting of the Pope at a computer, but hope springs eternal.

CNS' Cindy Wooden has a full wrap-up, including an assessment of the blogosphere by one of the PCCS' members, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.

"I have been appalled by some of the things I've seen," the LA prelate said. "Of course, I've been the object of some of them."

Sad to say, by no means has he been alone in that.

PHOTOS: Reuters(1); Pontifical Council for Social Communications(2)

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At Summer's End

Sure, there's still an election post -- and tons else -- to get to... but first, as some folks out there have probably been waiting all morning for a concession of a different sort, here goes:

Congrats to Yankee Nation -- for the 27th time, World Champions of Baseball.

Clearly, the papal magic from the old House rubbed off on the new one.... But to all the Phils fans out there, old and new, no need to despair -- we're blessed to be living in a golden era for the Phightins, the likes of which this team and this town has never before seen.

No, it wasn't enough to get us over the top again, but when your team is the losingest franchise in the history of professional sport, a years-long run like this -- three division pennants, two NL titles and a World Series win -- can't be considered anything but a taste of Heaven.

We'll be back next year... but in the meantime, to everyone up the Turnpike, enjoy the feeling and the tickertape... and, well, how bout them Birds?

Indeed, gang, there's always something to be happy about.

PHOTO: Reuters

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Dancing With the Saints

On the liturgical calendar, today sees the celebration of St Martin de Porres (1579-1639), the Peruvian-born Dominican canonized in 1962, becoming the first Black American to reach the honors of the altar.

Praised with parades and fiestas of all sorts, Martin's cult is still well alive in Latin America, where feast-day revelers perform a traditional dance with his statue.

Viz.:



And that's not all -- having broken the OPs' color barrier, St Martin is honored on these shores as a special patron by the nation's 3 million African-American Catholics.

Still, this is just a prelude -- we're just over four weeks away from the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the "queen of Mexico" whose 12 December commemoration has become Catholicism's biggest night of all on the American continent... indeed, even bigger than Christmas itself.

* * *

And speaking of the saints, Sunday's feast of the Host saw a milestone for their best-selling chronicler of our time.

After 21 years in the Company, Jesuit Fr Jim Martin finally became a "made man" (his term) in the Society of Jesus on professing his final vows (right) at the community's flagship church in New York, St Ignatius of Loyola on Park Avenue.

A fellow son of: 1. an Italian mother, 2. Phillies' Nation, 3. public schools and 4. the Red and Blue -- and longtime friend of these pages, to boot -- Jim's posted the text of his homily, a sweet reflection on the "path to God"... and, of course, those who've shown how best to keep on it.

On a old-school note, with Homecoming close at hand, lest any fellow Quakers be reading out there, the Penn crowd would most revere Martin (W'82) not for the media work that's made him near-omnipresent in church coverage over recent years, but as the quiet hand behind our alma mater's perennial top-selling t-shirt, which (so he says) Jim drew up and Punch Bowl had printed for the 1979 Final Four Run.

If only he kept the rights to it.

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On Sisters' Visitation, Vatican Responds to Dowd

Three days after debuting a new push-back strategy on media reports it's deemed inaccurate or unfair, this morning the Vatican Press Office released a statement from the church's lead overseer of religious men and women, who aimed to defend the underway Apostolic Visitation of US womens' communities, which has been barraged with an increasing tide of bad press over recent months.

Having garnered a flood of attention since its January announcement -- arguably becoming Stateside Catholicism's most-covered story of 2009 in the national press -- the most prominent hit to date on the three-year process ran last week, when New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd panned the visitation in her high-visibility Sunday piece.

Released solely in English, here below is the statement beamed around 2pm Rome time (8am Eastern) today by the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé, who Pope Benedict tapped to oversee the inquest last December:

Since the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious was first announced in January 2009, there has been great interest in the study that the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) has undertaken to look into the fundamental aspects of women religious in the United States. This Apostolic Visitation hopes to encourage vocations and assure a better future for women religious. Having read many news accounts and received various inquiries, I offer the following in response.

For many years this dicastery had been listening to concerns expressed by American Catholics – religious, laity, clergy and hierarchy – about the welfare of religious women and consecrated life in general, and had been considering an Apostolic Visitation as a means to assess and constructively address these concerns.

The multitude and complexity of these issues were made clear by speakers and participants at the Symposium on Religious Life at Stonehill College in September 2008. This helped me understand that such an evaluation of the challenges facing individual religious and their congregations could benefit the Church at-large as well as the sisters and institutes involved. My hope is that the Apostolic Visitation will not only provide the Holy See with a thorough analysis of the condition of religious life in the United States, but also be a realistic and graced opportunity for personal and community introspection, as major superiors and sisters cooperate with this study.

I am pleased with the voluntary response reported in Phase One of the Apostolic Visitation, during which more than three-fourths of the superiors general communicated their hopes and concerns directly to Mother Mary Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., the Apostolic Visitator. Shortly thereafter, the Instrumentum Laboris was sent to all major superiors requesting that it be given to each sister for her prayerful consideration, study and open discussion with other sisters.

Now, during Phase Two, the major superiors in the United States are responding to a questionnaire that will present a comprehensive profile of each institute’s present reality and future outlook. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University is cooperating in the collection of information and will prepare a composite analytical report of the standard, objective data contained in Part A of the questionnaire. This report will be made public and should provide important information regarding likely future trends of religious life in the United States.

It is the practice of the Holy See that an Apostolic Visitation be conducted ad inquirendum et referendum (i.e., studied and referred). Therefore, this dicastery will formulate no conclusions or plan of action, if any, until the final report of the Visitator has been evaluated.

To date, I am encouraged by the efforts to identify the signs of hope, as well as concerns, within religious congregations in the United States, which are also likely to have implications elsewhere in the world. I ask all people of good will to unite in prayer for the fruitful outcome of this effort to promote the Catholic identity and vibrancy of life of women religious.

Conspicuous by its absence, of course, is any mention of the "doctrinal assessment" ordered into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella-group representing some 95 per cent of the nation's 60,000 sisters.

While most mainstream outlets have erroneously conflated the study of the communities with the separate process looking into LCWR, the latter is being conducted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in concert with the US bishops' Doctrine Committee.

On a related note, while the CICLSAL head had asked the American bench to chip in toward the visitation's estimated $1.1 million tab, the National Catholic Reporter recently found that relatively few dioceses were willing to take Rodé up on it... at least, on the record.

PHOTO: Reuters

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Pray for New Orleans... Twice

As veteran readers will recall, history was made in the Crescent City over the summer, when New Orleans became the first known local church to boast four living archbishops (above).

The latest of the bunch and the first native son ever to hold the post, Archbishop Greg Aymond noted "the big question" at his raucous August installation (fullvideo) -- "Who's really in charge?" -- before declining to answer it.

As the crowd roared, the line was taken as an affectionate nod to the eldest of the group, Philip Hannan (1965-88), revered all-around as NOLA's "first citizen," whose continuing plate of interviews, Masses, media ministry and the like has, at 96, kept him busier than most active clerics.

In recent days, both Hannan and his successor, 82 year-old Archbishop Francis Schulte (1988-2002), have experienced setbacks of health... and local media had to note that Hannan -- who had been scheduled to celebrate an outdoor Mass on All Saints' Day -- wasn't yet up for visitors:

Hannan was twice hospitalized in St. Tammany Parish last week with low blood pressure and a series of mini-strokes, spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said. However, he is at his home in Covington now, "eating well and walking on his own."

Companions remain in residence with him to monitor his well-being, she said.

Meanwhile, Schulte, who after Hurricane Katrina began spending more and more time in his native Philadelphia, recently suffered two falls there and is resting at an assisted-living facility there.

Whether it's the water or the city's famous cooking, NOLA's prelates have long shown a knack for length of days; the last Crescent City archbishop to depart for the Quarter in the Sky was the legendary Joseph Francis Rummel, who served from 1935 until his 1964 passing at age 88. (The retirement age of 75 for bishops was instituted in 1966.)

Prayers have been asked for both ailing archbishops... and as Schulte always asks of his River City crew, "Pray for Mother New Orleans."

PHOTO: Frank J. Methe/Clarion Herald

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Requiem aeternam....

Merciful Father,
hear our prayer and console us....

...As we renew our faith in Your Son,
whom You raised from the dead...

...strengthen our hope that all our departed brothers and sisters will share in His resurrection...

...who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever....

Amen.

--Opening Prayer
Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls' Day)

Text/translation.

PHOTOS: Reuters(1); AFP/Getty(2,3,4)

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On Anglican Deal, Vatican Busts "Celibacy" Chatter

We interrupt this weekend breather for a Halloween treat from the Holy See.

Over recent days, the Italian press ran with speculation (quickly picked up by Anglophone media) that the delay in the Apostolic Constitution which'll set up "personal ordinariates" for Tiber-swimming Anglicans owed itself to a "debate" regarding how the celibacy requirement would be handled for married converts who wished to enter formation for the Catholic priesthood.

This morning, in further evidence of a significant shift for its traditionally above-the-fray communications strategy, the Vatican Press Office released the following response to the now-widespread buzz, which included the relevant part of the still-hidden document, whose name likewise remains unknown. While several outlets ran with the story, the statement specifically (and, to be candid, astoundingly) called out one reporter -- the highly-regarded Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale, who's racked up a reputation over the last several years as the most reliable of the Vatican's "court scribes."

Notably, the clarification was published solely in English.

Here it is in full; emphases original:

CLARIFICATION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE, FR. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, S.I., ON SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE CELIBACY ISSUE IN THE ANNOUNCED APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION REGARDING PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICAN ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

There has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian correspondent Andrea Tornielli, that the delay in publication of the Apostolic Constitution regarding Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, announced on October 20, 2009, by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is due to more than "technical" reasons. According to this speculation, there is a serious substantial issue at the basis of the delay, namely, disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy of the Provision.

Cardinal Levada offered the following comments on this speculation: "Had I been asked I would happily have clarified any doubt about my remarks at the press conference. There is no substance to such speculation. No one at the Vatican has mentioned any such issue to me. The delay is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references. The translation issues are secondary; the decision not to delay publication in order to wait for the ‘official’ Latin text to be published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis was made some time ago.

The drafts prepared by the working group, and submitted for study and approval through the usual process followed by the Congregation, have all included the following statement, currently Article VI of the Constitution:

§1 Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement "In June" are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.

§2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

This article is to be understood as consistent with the current practice of the Church, in which married former Anglican ministers may be admitted to priestly ministry in the Catholic Church on a case by case basis. With regard to future seminarians, it was considered purely speculative whether there might be some cases in which a dispensation from the celibacy rule might be petitioned. For this reason, objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed jointly by the Personal Ordinariate and the Episcopal Conference, and submitted for approval of the Holy See."

Cardinal Levada said he anticipates the technical work on the Constitution and Norms will be completed by the end of the first week of November.

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Saints and Souls

This weekend, November kicks off with one of the church's great "two-fer" moments -- All Saints' Day on Sunday, followed as ever by Monday's commemoration of the faithful departed, All Souls' Day.

To better reflect on both, here below you'll find English translations of the twin catecheses B16 gave on the days last year.

First, the Pope's reflection on Ognissanti -- All Saints...

Dear brothers and sisters!

With great joy, we celebrate today the feast of All Saints. Visiting a nursery garden, one remains taken aback at the variety of plants and flowers, and spontaneously begins to think of the Creator's fantasy that made the earth a marvelous garden. These same sentiments come to us when we consider the spectacle of holiness: the world appears to us as a "garden," where the Spirit of God has sustained with remarkable wonder a multitude of saints, male and female, from every age and social condition, of every tongue, people and culture. Each is different from the others, with the uniqueness of their own personality and their own spiritual charism. All, however, were marked by the "seal" of Jesus, the imprint of his love, witnessed upon the Cross. All now are at joy, in a feast without end as, like Jesus, they reached this goal across toil and trial, each one encountering their share of sacrifice to participate in the glory of the resurrection.

The solemnity of All Saints became recognized in the course of the first Christian millenium as a collective celebration of the martyrs. Already, in 609, Pope Boniface IV had consecrated the Pantheon in honor of the Virgin Mary and All the Martyrs. But this martyrdom could be interpreted in a wider sense, that of loving Christ without reserve, a love expressed in the total gift of oneself to God and one's brothers and sisters. This spiritual measure, to which all the baptized are called, is accomplished in following the way of the evangelical beatitudes, that the liturgy offers to us on today's solemnity. It's the same path traced by Jesus and that the saints pushed themselves to follow, always aware of their human limits. In their earthly existence, in fact, they were poor in spirit, pained by their sins, myths, starved of and thirsting for justice, merciful, pure of heart, peacemakers, persecuted for righteousness' sake. And God himself gave them a share in his own happiness: previewed in this world and, in the hereafter, enjoyed in its fullness. They are now consoled, have inherited the earth, are sated, pardoned, see the God whose children they are. In a word: "theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:3,10).

On this day let us revive in ourselves an attraction toward Heaven that calls us to carry on in our earthly pilgrimage. Let us lift in our hearts the desire to always unite ourselves to the family of the saints, of which we already have the grace to be a part. As a celebrated "spiritual" song says: "When the saints go marching in, oh how I'd want, Lord, to be in their number!" May this beautiful aspiration burn in all Christians and help them to surpass every difficulty, every fear, every tribulation! Let us place, dear friends, our hand in the maternal one of Mary, Queen of All Saints, and let ourselves be led by her toward our heavenly homeland, in the company of the blessed spirits "of every nation, people and language." And let us unite ourselves in prayer already recalling our dear departed ones who we'll commemorate tomorrow.

(The above photos are, of course, taken from John Nava's celebrated tapestries of the Communion of Saints which line the nave of LA's Cathedral of Our lady of the Angels.)

...and the meditation for All Souls:

Dear brothers and sisters!

Yesterday, on All Saints' Day, we dwelt upon "the heavenly city, Jerusalem, our mother" (Preface of All Saints). And today, our souls turn again to these last things as we commemorate all the faithful departed, those "who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and sleep in peace." It's very important for us Christians to live our relationship with the dead in the truth of faith, and to look at death and the afterlife in the light of Revelation. Already the Apostle Paul, writing to the first communities, exhorted the faithful to "not be downhearted, like the others who have no hope." "If in fact" he wrote, "we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also God, by means of Jesus, will gather up with him all those who have died" (1 Thes 4:13-14). It's necessary even today to spread the message of the reality of death and eternal life -- a reality particularly subject to superstitious and syncretic beliefs, for the Christian truth cannot risk itself to be mixed up with mythologies of various sorts.

In my encyclical on Christian hope, I myself investigated the mystery of eternal life. I asked: even for the men and women of today, the Christian faith is a hope that can transform and sustain their lives? Even more radically: the men and women of our time likewise desire eternal life? Or maybe their earthly existence has become their only horizon? In reality, as St Augustine already observed, everyone wants the "blessed life," that happiness. We don't know what it is or what it's like, but we feel ourselves attracted toward it. This is a universal hope, shared by people of all times and places. The expression "eternal life" gives a name to this insuppressible expectation: not a progression without end, but the immersion of oneself in the ocean of infinite love, where time, the beginning and end exist no more. A fullness of life and of joy: it's this for which we hope and await from our being with Christ.

Let us today renew our hope in eternal life, one really drawn in the death and resurrection of Christ. "I am risen and now I am always with you," the Lord tells us, and my hand sustains you. Wherever you might fall, you will fall in my hands and I will be present even at the gate of death. Where none can accompany you any longer and where you can bring nothing, there I await you to transform for you darkness into light. Christian hope is never something merely individual, it's always a hope for others. Our lives are deeply linked, one to another, and the good and bad each one does always impacts the rest. So the prayer of a pilgrim soul in the world can help another soul that continues purifying itself after death. And for this, today the church invites us to pray for our beloved dead and to spend time at their tombs in the cemeteries. Mary, star of hope, make stronger and more authentic our faith in eternal life and sustain our prayer of suffrage for our departed brothers.

As both All Saints and All Souls are observed as Vatican holidays -- and to catch up on some back-office work and a bit of rest -- expect a lull in posting 'til Tuesday... and more on that in a bit.

PHOTOS: Archdiocese of Los Angeles(1,2)/L'Osservatore Romano(3)

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