He hugged me. He kissed me. He said don’t forget about the poor. And that’s how in my heart came the name Francis of Assisi.Pope Francis • Discussing the conversation he had with his close friend, Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, regarding the inspiration for his name, which came during this week’s conclave. Francis of Assisi is fitting for this naming approach, as he was known for his missionary work.
BREAKING NEWS: White smoke emerges from Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling new pope elected
Reblogging for the white smoke crew.
Because the media admiration from his North Korean basketball diplomacy trip was too much of a gift, first-class attention whore Dennis Rodman has arrived at The Vatican just in time for the election of a new pope. CHECK IT OUT.
AMERICA’S FINEST DIPLOMAT.
Dear friends, I’m happy to be with you, surrounded by the beauty of creation and your well-wishes which do me such good. Thank you for your friendship, and your affection. You know this day is different for me than the preceding ones: I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8 o’clock this evening and then no more.
I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this Earth. But I would still … thank you … I would still with my heart, with my love, with my prayers, with my reflection, and with all my inner strength, like to work for the common good and the good of the church and of humanity. I feel very supported by your sympathy.
Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the church and the world. Thank you, I now wholeheartedly impart my blessing. Blessed be God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Good night! Thank you all!
Off to the sunset he goes, the world’s only living former Pope.
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
Benedict’s resignation becomes official February 28—and a successor is likely to be chosen by Spring. He has been in the position for nearly eight years. The Catholic Church has been quick to emphasize that he is not resigning due to any scandal—though he certainly was beset by one, with child abuse controversies casting a pall over his papacy.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, who served as Archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until 2011, is embroiled in a furious scandal over his handling of reports of child sexual offenders amongst the ranks of his priesthood. The scandal broke open widely when a Los Angeles court ordered a trove of 12,000 pages of files, detailing the records of greater than 100 priest sexual predators, to be made public by the Archdiocese, following an exhaustive five-year legal struggle over the documents. The archdiocese complied, releasing the documents to their website, revealing shocking instances of Mahony prioritizing canonical infractions and violations above reports of abused children, both in tone and in practice. Of Father Jose Ugarte, for example, Mahony was pressured to take action not by reports that Ugarte was molesting children (as he’d been accused of, to no avail, twenty years earlier), but by the idea that he was improperly administering the sacrament of confession onto his victim. As a memo directed to Mahony from a cleric stated: “Given the seriousness of this abuse of the sacrament of penance… it is your responsibility to formally declare the existence of the excommunication and then refer the matter to Rome.” You can check out the files for yourself here. (Photo by maveric2003) source
The Pope tweets: So convinced he was going to start out with a Spotify link to a Smoking Popes song.
A Vatican official told CNN the pope will be composing the tweets for the new account himself. For the first tweet from the account, the pope will also press the button to send the tweet himself, but after that others will send the tweets on his behalf.
In June 2011 the pope sent his first tweet from the Twitter account for the Vatican news site, @news_va_en, to launch the new site www.news.va. He wrote, “Dear friends, I just launched News.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.”
His first tweet on the new account should be ”Just had an amazing mocha.” He’ll fit right in.
»Chris@SFB says: We received a comment on this post we wanted to be sure to address, regarding our use of the phrase “the Catholic Church’s woeful history” as relates to child sex predation. The commenter argues that the phrase is an unfair generalization — that it’s the clergy that suffers with these “issues,” not the Church, and that it’s improper to call it a “woeful history” because this wasn’t a problem that existed before Vatican II. On the first point, this seems both a distinction without a difference, as well as factually incomplete. In truth, child sex abuse committed by members of the Catholic clergy was reliably facilitated by Church officials and higher-ups, who aided in moving violators to different parishes and concealing their heinous crimes. As to the post-conciliar point, I’d only say that I’m unaware of any provable assertion that molestation and sex abuse only became issues for the Church after Vatican II, but even were that true, the past fifty years on their own rise to the level of a “woeful history,” temporally and semantically.
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» Paying the price: Philadelphia monsignor William Lynn will serve three to six years in prison, following sentencing today for covering up a priest’s pedophilic abuse in his diocese. Lynn was the secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and is the first Catholic Church official to be convicted for such a crime in the United States. Lynn’s conviction came over his failure to report now-imprisoned former priest Edward Avery, who is serving a two-and-a-half year to five-year sentence for sexually assaulting an altar boy in 1999. Lynn’s lawyers have sought leniency in their client’s case, arguing he shouldn’t have to serve more time than Avery himself.
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I honestly thought I was going to jail … I was wrong for what I did. I wanted to bring attention to the cause.California resident William Lynch • Discussing the verdict reached in his assault case, which involved him punching Jerold Lindner, a former priest whom Lynch says abused him as a child, in a 2010 incident. Lynch was acquitted of felony assault and elder abuse in the case, but the jury deadlocked on a misdemeanor assault charge. Jurors, speaking anonymously, said that they could not convict Lynch based on his dramatic testimony in court. Lindner, now in his late 60s, denies abusing Lynch.
» A modest throng of protesters have descended on Federal Plaza in Chicago today, rallying against the mandate in the Affordable Care Act dictating that employers must cover birth control in their employees’ health insurance plans. The original dustup on this issue came about because the law, while it did exempt churches from the mandate, did not have an exemption for other religiously-backed institutions (such as Catholic hospitals). The Obama administration thus compromised, tweaking the rules so that insurers themselves would have to foot the bill, not directly the religious institutions, but that hasn’t quelled a testy opposition.
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May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights. Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community.Pope Benedict XVI • Speaking during his Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican, specifically bringing up the Syrian conflict. The pope’s words may not be proving effective in Syria, after government officials said they would not lay down their weapons without written guarantees rebel groups would do the same.
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