Latin & Gregorian Chant to Make Comeback

Exciting news: details from the working version of "The Eucharist: source and summit of the life and mission of the church." From Yahoo! News:

[The paper] suggests, for example, that Latin be used during international liturgical gatherings so all priests involved can understand the proceedings, and it suggests that parishes consider using more Gregorian chants to prevent more "profane" types of music from being played.

It calls for priests not to be "showmen" who draw attention to themselves and says lay people can have an important but "minimal" presence in Masses. It says the tabernacle — which holds the bread and wine held by Catholics to be the body and blood of Christ — should have a prominent place in the church and not be shunted off to a corner.

Excellent! Read more: Vatican Criticizes Catholics on Communion

Uganda-CAN

I suppose that Boney owes loyal Pope Blog readers an explanation as to the low volume of posts lately. I can tell you it's mainly due to two things:

-His recent relocation to Cincinnati to work for Text Link Ads
-His time commitment to a movement called the Uganda Conflict Action Network

Uganda-CAN is a campaign of ordinary, outraged citizens working together to combat the unnecessary human suffering of the 19-year-old war in northern Uganda and contribute to healing and renewal in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Boney's role: he's helping to develop the Web site and get it lots of traffic.

Friends, if you could, please check out the Uganda-CAN Web site, and if you approve of our mission, a link to our site from your blog would be much appreciated!

Pope: Sunday Mass a "Need and Joy" for Catholics

At today's Angelus, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the crowd in Vatican City by speaking to them about Sunday Mass. The Holy Father said that participation in Sunday Mass should not be seen by Catholics as an imposition or weight, "but as a need and joy." According to Zenit via Catholic Online:

Pope John Paul II had convoked the Year of the Eucharist "to reawaken ever more, in the consciences of believers, wonder toward this great Sacrament," said Benedict XVI, eliciting applause from his listeners several times.

"In this singular Eucharistic time, one of the recurring topics is Sunday, the Day of the Lord, a topic that was also at the center of the recent Italian Eucharistic Congress, held in Bari," he said.

Read more: Sunday Mass Should Be Seen as a Joy, Says Pope

Happy birthday, Pope Blog!

Pope Benedict XVI Urges for Reconciliation in Rwanda

From AP (via Yahoo! News):

Pope Benedict XVI met with bishops from Rwanda on Saturday and called for peace and reconciliation in the African country.

The pope, in an audience with the bishops, recalled the 1994 Rwandan genocide and urged priests and faithful to "remain firm in the faith, to persevere in hope" and to overcome "all temptations of discouragement."

..."Work restlessly so that the gospel can penetrate more and more deeply in the hearts and lives of the believers, inviting the faithful to take on their responsibilities in society, especially in the fields of economy and politics," Benedict told the bishops.

Read more: Pope Calls for Reconciliation in Rwanda

And if you haven't yet seen Hotel Rwanda, I suggest that you do.

Benedict XVI Condemns Nazism and Atheist Communism

VATICAN CITY (VIS) - Yesterday evening, the Holy Father attended a showing of the film: "Karol un uomo diventato Papa" (Karol, A Man Who Became Pope) which was screened in the Paul VI Hall in the presence of several thousand people. Based on a script written by Italian journalist Gian Franco Svidercoschi, the film covers the life of John Paul II until his election as bishop of Rome.

In an address following the showing, the Pope pointed out how the first half of the film "highlighted what happened in Poland under Nazi occupation," and he referred to the "repression of the Polish people and the genocide of the Jews. These were atrocious crimes which demonstrate all the evil contained in Nazi ideology. Shaken by so much pain and so much violence, the young Karol decided to transform his own life, responding to the divine call to the priesthood."

Benedict XVI indicated that the film contained scenes that, "in their crudity, give rise to an instinctive feeling of horror in viewers, bringing them to reflect on the depths of iniquity that can be hidden in the human soul. At the same time, evoking such aberrations cannot but give rise in all right-thinking people to a commitment to do all they can to ensure that such acts of inhuman barbarity are never repeated again."

"May 8, 1945 marked the end of that immense tragedy that sowed destruction and death in Europe and the world at a level never known before. ... Every time a totalitarian ideology crushes man underfoot, all humanity is seriously threatened.

"Memories must not pale with the passing of time," said the Pope, "rather they should remain as a strict lesson for our own and future generations. We have the duty to remind ourselves and others, especially the young, what forms of unprecedented violence can be reached by scorn for human beings and violation of their rights."

How, Benedict asked, can we not see "a providential divine plan in the fact that on the Chair of Peter a Polish Pope was succeeded by a citizen of Germany, where the Nazi regime affirmed itself with particular virulence, before attacking its neighbors, in particular Poland? Both these Popes in their youth - though on different sides and in different situations - were forced to experience the barbarism of the Second World War and the senseless violence of man against man, of peoples against peoples."

The Pope stressed how "nothing can improve in the world, if evil is not overcome; and evil can be overcome only through forgiveness. May the shared and sincere condemnation of Nazism and of atheist Communism serve as a commitment for everyone in building reconciliation and peace on the basis of forgiveness."

Prior to the screening of the film, Pope Benedict had participated in a ceremony in which his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, was decorated by Helmut Turk, Austrian ambassador to the Holy See, with the "Osterreichisches Ehrenkreuz fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, Erste Klasse" (Austrian First Class Cross of Honor for Science and Art). The medal was assigned to him on December 7, 2004 by Heinz Fischer, president of Austria, for his close cultural and priestly ties with the Republic of Austria.

Benedict Names Levada Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith

Last Friday, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop William Joseph Levada of San Francisco, California as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that Ratzinger held before being elected Pope last month. A biography of Levada is available here.