Sentire Cum Ecclesia

This is a case of journalistic “chinese whispers” if ever there was one.

I was surprised to read this in The Age this morning:

Pope blasts star names
Rome January 12, 2011
The Pope has warned parents against giving children celebrity-inspired names and urged them to turn to the Bible for inspiration.

While names such as Sienna and Scarlett have become fashionable, Pope Benedict XVI called for a return to tradition. During Mass at the Sistine Chapel, he described a name as being akin to an ”indelible seal” that set children on a lifelong ”journey of religious faith”.

Celebrity names such as Ashton – after actor Ashton Kutcher – and Lily – after singer Lily Allen – have been growing in popularity. In Italy, children are often named after saints considered to be a guiding force in their life, but the tradition is increasingly under threat.

“Really?”, I thought? Did the Pope, whose voice is always gentle even when he DOES blast (as he did on Religious Freedom to the Vatican diplomats – why didn’t they pick up that story?), really say anything about this?

So I checked the homily in the Sistine Chapel, and not a word about Christian names. He does speak about the “indelible spiritual seal” which we receive in baptism but this “seal” is “the “character” that marks forever their belonging to the Lord and makes them living members of his mystical body, which is the Church.”

So I did a bit of a google search, and found 21 articles on the same lines.

The Herald Sun has:

THE Pope has backed people who despair at the craze of giving children names such as Brooklyn, Apple and Princess Tiaamii.
The Pope has weighed into the debate with a plea to parents to give their children traditional first names.
Benedict XVI told a Vatican baptismal ceremony that the Christian name is an “indelible sign from the Holy Spirit”.
He said Christian names protect family life, which is “being threatened”.
The Pope said baptism with a strong name was “the start of spiritual life”.
A priest can refuse to baptise a child if the name given is not recognised.

Again, nothing like that is in the Homily at the Sistine Chapel baptismal ceremony.

The Chicago Tribune runs the story, blaming the Daily Telegraph as the “source”. The Daily Telegraph story reads:

Pope rails against rise of un-Christian names

The Pope has warned parents against giving children celebrity-inspired names and urged them to turn to the Bible for inspiration instead.

While names such as Sienna and Scarlett have become fashionable in recent years, Pope Benedict XVI called for a return to tradition.

During Mass at the Sistine Chapel, he said: “Every baptised child acquires the character of the son of God, beginning with their Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit causes man to be born anew in the womb of the Church.” He added that a name was an “indelible seal” that set children off on a lifelong “journey of religious faith”.

Even Catholic Culture ran the story – but there I finally got a clue as to where all this was coming from.

The journalists have muddied the waters by confusing the Homily in the Sistine Chapel with the Pope’s Sunday Angelus comments. There he did indeed say the words that the Daily Telegraph quotes above – but nothing else at all along the lines that the news stories are claiming he said.

And I would contend that they even got THAT wrong. So far the Vatican Website only lists the Italian for this address (so it will be interesting to see what their official translation into English is), but here is the Zenit translation:

It is not by chance, in fact, that every baptized person acquires the character of son from the name Christian, indisputable sign that the Holy Spirit brings man to be born “again” from the womb of the Church.

It all depends on how you interpret the Italian phrase “nome cristiano” which the Pope used. Does it mean “Christian name” (as the Daily Telegraph took it) or “the name ‘Christian'”, as Zenit translated it. My Italian is not good enough to decide that on a grammatical ground, but theologically, it seems to me the Pope indeed meant the latter. He was talking about the name we all receive in bapism, ie. the name “Christian”. This is the name that is the “indisputable sign that the Holy Spirit brings man to be born “again” from the womb of the Church”.

As for “blasting” and “railing” against “non-Christian” names? No such thing was ever said by Pope Benedict last Sunday.

Occasionally the pope makes a comment on something which, while not hugely important in the schemes of things (ie. not needing a special definition or encyclical), we still need to be reminded about.

In his homily for the feast of the Baptism of our Lord this year, he included this reminder:

According to the story of the Evangelist Matthew (3:13-17), Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John; in fact, all of Palestine flocked to hear the preaching of this great prophet, the announcement of the advent of the Kingdom of God, and to receive baptism, that is, to submit themselves to this sign that called to conversion from sin. Although it is called “baptism,” it did not have the sacramental value of the rite that we celebrate today; as you well know, it is in fact by his death and resurrection that Jesus instituted the sacraments and brings about the birth of the Church. [The baptism] administered by John was rather a penitential act, a gesture that invited people to humility before God, for a new beginning: Plunging into the water, the penitent acknowledged having sinned, he implored God to purify him of his sins and he was sent forth to change his erroneous behavior.

That “as you well know” is one of the Holy Father’s little tricks he probably learned as a professor. It is a way of saying to students “You SHOULD know this well, but I am quite aware that you probably don’t, and so I am trying to remind you without making you feel stupid.”

Thank you, Holy Father. I knew it, and so do all readers of this ‘ere blog, but we do need little reminders every now and again.

This is the latest “hit” on Youtube doing the rounds. I sympathise with (the One) Ronnie. I’m trying to work out mobile phones right at this moment…

Amid the other serious issues that the Pope addressed in his speech to the Vatican diplomats was this little gem. It is as we have been saying all along here at SCE.

At the same time, there is a need to reject the dangerous notion of a conflict between the right to religious freedom and other human rights, thus disregarding or denying the central role of respect for religious freedom in the defence and protection of fundamental human dignity. Even less justifiable are attempts to counter the right of religious freedom with other alleged new rights which, while actively promoted by certain sectors of society and inserted in national legislation or in international directives, are nonetheless merely the expression of selfish desires lacking a foundation in authentic human nature.

But do the Greens pay attention to anything that the Pope says?

>From Reuters.

By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -| Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:41am EST

Pope Benedict called on Monday for Pakistan to repeal its anti-blasphemy law and demanded that governments in predominantly Muslim countries do much more to protect minority Christians from violent attacks.

Speaking in his annual address to diplomats days after a senior Pakistani politician who opposed the legislation was assassinated by his own bodyguard, the pope said the Pakistani law was a pretext for violence against religious minorities.

The pope, who has used many of his addresses in recent weeks to demand religious freedom, renewed his condemnation of attacks on churches that left dozens dead in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria.

He also called for called for religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, where Christians cannot worship in public, and communist China, which forces Catholics to join an official church.

“The particular influence of a given religion in a nation ought never to mean that citizens of another religion can be subject to discrimination in social life or, even worse, that violence against them can be tolerated,” he told the envoys.

The Vatican is particularly worried about Christians in the Middle East, where continuing attacks, combined with severe restrictions, are fuelling a Christian exodus from the region.

In his address to diplomats representing some 170 countries, the pope said recent attacks in Egypt and Iraq showed the need to urgently adopt effective measures for the protection of religious minorities.

RARE SINGLING OUT

It is rare for a pope to use a public speech to specifically ask a country to change one of its laws but the pope urged Pakistan “to abrogate that (anti-blasphemy) law, all the more so because it is clear that it serves as a pretext for acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities”.

He made reference to last week’s murder of Salman Taseer, the Muslim governor of Punjab province and an outspoken liberal, who was gunned down for opposing the law, which imposes a death sentence for those who insult the Prophet Mohammad.

Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since November when a court sentenced to death a Christian mother of four, Asia Bibi, in a case that has exposed deep rifts in the troubled Muslim nation of more than 170 million people.

While liberal Pakistanis and rights groups believe the law to be dangerously discriminatory against the country’s tiny minority groups, Asia Bibi’s case has become a lightning rod for the country’s Muslim religious right.

On Jan 1, Benedict, worried by increasing inter-religious violence in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, announced that he would host a summit of world religious leaders in Assisi in October to discuss how they can better promote peace.

The Assisi meeting will take place on the 25th anniversary of a similar encounter hosted by the late Pope John Paul in 1986 in the birthplace of St Francis. It was attended by Muslim and Jewish leaders and heads of other religions, including the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Last month the pope said Christians were today’s most persecuted religious group and that it was unacceptable that many had to risk their lives to practise their faith.

Click here for John Allen Jnr’s anaylsis.

It was truly shocking to see the reports on television about the flash flooding in Toowoomba. Pastor Mark is a resident of that fair city and has been in the middle of it. Please pray for them, and for all Queenslanders affected by these terrible floods.

I thought you might be interested in the following statement I received from the Istituto Tevere in Rome. The Instituto was set up by Fr Dan Madigan SJ for Muslim students to do post-doctoral work in Christianity at the Gregorian University. It is a very well run foundation with worthwhile outcomes. I had the pleasure of meeting and dining with the sender of this letter, Cenap, several times while in Rome. Note that the Honourable Tim will be their guest in a few days.

Dear friends,

First of all, we wish you a Happy New Year. May 2011 bring peace, justice and prosperity to the world.

Unfortunately we have all been shocked with the terrible news arrived from Alexandria, Egypt at the very beginning of this year.

As Istituto Tevere, we severely condemn the brutal attack on innocent Egyptians in the Saints Church in Alexandria. We would like to express our deepest sorrows and condolences for the families of the victims and for the wounded. We wish a a speedy recovery for the latter.

Once again, the ugly face of terrorism has appeared to destroy the peaceful coexistence among people of different religions. Christians and Muslims in Alexandria and elsewhere are called again to cooperate closely to stand up against the acts of terrorism and to promote more and more dialogue among people of different faiths and religious freedom for everybody.

As Holy Father Benedict XVI has mentioned in his message for the World Day of Peace, the realization of religious freedom is an absolute path for Peace. In this regard, we join his following prayer from this message : “May all men and women, and societies at every level and in every part of the earth, soon be able to experience religious freedom, the path to peace!”

I would like remind again our next event at Istituto Tevere. Please find attached our first invitation of this year. We are very honored to have our first guest speaker His Excellency Tim Fischer, the Ambassador of Australia to the Holy See. The lecture will take place on Tuesday,11th of January at 18:30. You are kindly invited to RSVP. If you have already replied, please ignore this reminder.

With our best regards,

Mustafa Cenap Aydin
Project Coordinator

Bishop Prowse, Mustafa Cenap and Me in 2009 in Rome

On the feast of St John, my family and I travelled to South Australia, but to a relatively new location for me, to a place that I had not been for about 35 years: Mt Gambier. Yes, Mt Gambier is an “extinct” volcano, but that’s not the one the title refers to. I’ll get to that one soon.

The Blue Lake – in the crater of Mt Gambier – is famous for the odd fact that in summer months it turns from its usual grey-green to a beautiful cobalt blue. (The reason for this that might interest some of you – see here.)

Me and my girl at the Blue Lake

My younger brother Gary and his wife Michelle and their two sons (the same age as my daughters) shifted there some time ago so that Michelle could take up a position as a teacher. They’ve been living in town, but as we were visiting they were in the process of shifting to a new home about fifteen minutes drive south of town on the edge of another “extinct” volcano, Mt Schank.

My Brother's "new" house with Mt Schank in the background

Their “new” house was built about 100 years ago and is on 20 acres that run up the slopes of the mountain. From the outside, Mt Schank is noticeable, but not astonishing. It is when you climb up to the top and look into the crater that you see a truly magnificent sight.

The crater is actually deeper inside than the outside ground level. There’s no water in it because the bottom is not below the water line as the Blue Lake crater is. None of my photos do the full view justice. It is huge. Here is a collage of a couple of photos pasted together:

We went for a walk around the crater – Mia went charging on ahead. This is a picture of her taken from the other side of the crater on 10x zoom!

You can also walk down to the bottom, which we didn’t do, but will save that for our next visit.

The whole area is a geologists dream. I am in fact assured by one of our commentators here at the table that the volcanoes of the Limestone Coast (as it is known) are not really “extinct” – they have just been dormant for a very long time. Gary reckons that at the first sign of smoke, he’s “out’a here”. A bushfire in the crater would give them a bit of a scare…

While we were so close, we took the opportunity on one day to do a day trip up to Penola, where St Mary of the Cross MacKillop entered the religious life and established her first school. Penola actually has a very good – and much more interesting and time absorbing than expected – centre dedicated to Saint Mary and to the co-founder of the Josephite Order, Fr Julian Tennison-Woods.

Entering the School House

Inside St Mary's School House

We spent so long there, that I had to postpone to a future time any visits to any of the Coonawarra wineries north of Penola (sigh…). We went through Coonawarra towards Naracoorte in order to visit the Naracoorte Caves.

I’m just going to write a bit here for the sake of anyone who has found this post via Google looking for information on the Caves. Choosing to go to the Naracoorte caves rather than to the nearer Princess Margaret Rose Cave was difficult as the latter were cheaper and, we were told, “prettier”. But a childhood memory told me that the Naracoorte system had something special to offer, and since we were already going to Penola, we decided to go the extra distance. I’m glad we did in the end. We spent three hours there, having chosen their “Cave Tour – Double Unit: Family” package for $71. They really have too many choices for the casual visitor, but this gave us two guided tours, one to Alexandra Cave and one to the Victorian Fossil Cave. Thrown in was an unguided walk in your own time to the “Wet Cave”. You must arrive in time for either the 9:30am or 1:30pm Alexandra Cave tour, and the Fossil Cave tour follows on directly after this (a short drive away). We had very well informed and friendly local tour guides on both our tours. Our girls had never been in any caves before and were over awed by the experience. Alexandra Cave has enough “pretty” formations, and you also learn a lot about how the caves formed. Some reviews I found on the web said that they found the Fossil Cave “boring” – but to reach such a conclusion you would have to have absolutely no interest whatsoever in fossils. My girls loved it. Personally, I found the three hours quite enough – I was foot sore afterwards.

Inside the Alexandra Cave

A "pretty" feature inside Alexandra Cave

Inside the Victoria Fossil Cave

On the road side on the way back to Penola, there is a park consecrated by Archbishop Wilson with carved figures of Fr Woods and St Mary

On New Year’s Eve – which wasn’t as hot in Mt Gambier as it got else where that day, but still a good day to get out of the sun – I took the girls and their cousins to see “Gulliver’s Travels” starring Jack Black. An extended review would be unnecessary. Suffice it to say that it was perfectly designed for 10-12 year olds (I groaned when they laughed), and surprisingly kept a good amount of the original story.

On the way home from South Australia we “did” the Great Ocean Road. Victorians will be familiar with this area, but it actually takes a bit of time to stop and look at all the attractions – as we did.

It took us two days to travel home along this route. We stopped every now and again for a swim. One real treat was a swim at Cape Bridgewater, which I reckon is one of the best beaches in Victoria. Cooler than Queensland, but the sands were just as white and the water just as blue! At this stage of the journey – still in the far west of Victoria, the crowds were pretty thin, but they increased as we moved further east (it was the New Year weekend) and by the time we made it to the Twelve Apostles, the crowds were very thick indeed. At that stage, I would happily have driven straight(ish) back to Melbourne, but Maddy wanted to see the cliff-hugging section of road between Apollo Bay and Anglesea, so we went that way, stopping for dinner in Lorne. It is the slow way home, but very beautiful.

For those of you have never travelled along this road, here are some of the breath-taking scenes.

Exposed old caves at Cape Bridgewater

The beach at Cape Bridgewater

At "The Grotto"

Loch Ard Gorge

The other end of the Loch Ard Gorge

"London Bridge" - and yes, it is falling down... The "Bridge" used to be connected to the shore not so long ago

"The Arch"

Cathy on the beach

Surveying the Twelve Apostles (also in the process of falling down - perhaps the one pile of rocks in the foreground was Judas? It fell down only recently)

Two other "Apostles"

The sun sets on our holiday!

Christopher Pearson, in his article in The Australian, hoped that in 2011,

a grand coalition of the major faiths, assisted by some heavy-weight moral philosophers, will see the campaign against euthanasia as one they can’t afford to lose.

Certainly it is a campaign that we cannot simply leave up to “public opinion”. I know that sounds very anti-democratic of me, but sometimes just deciding an important legal and moral issue on the basis of “opinion polls” is very dangerous and can lead to very bad laws.

This point was driven home with a (somewhat triumphalistic) article in today’s edition of The Age, which trumpeted “Euthanasia wins 75% support”. Aside from the veracity or reliability of the poll itself, which was conducted by the Australian Institute (we could, for example, ask about the exact question put to the survey participants), we need to ask if this is the way we want law to be developed in Australia.

By coincidence, I have just been listening to an old podcast of an ABC National Radio Sunday Night program on this very issue. The issue of the roll of public opinion was raised in that discussion. One of the points raised by the program is that the death penalty also consistently attracts a majority support in Australia too, but for many reasons our governments have judged that this would not be a good thing to reintroduce.

Interestingly the first person to call into the program was a man who said he supported Euthanasia, and then went on to demonstrate that he really didn’t know what Euthanasia was and was not. This level of ignorance of the issues involved (which is very high in our community) means that polls like these are misleading. Did the poll participants, for instance, know that the bill proposed by the Greens for NSW included a clause about mandatory referal similar to that which is in the Victorian abortion law?

Mr Pearson is quite right. This is a debate in which all people in Australia must become thoroughly informed, and we need the contributions of people of faith and philosophers, as well as people who work in medicine, nursing and palliative care, so that our laws continue to be made on solid ground.

I came out of an ecclesial community in which everything was decided “democratically”, ie. by majority opinion. It sounds good as an idea to those for whom democracy is the highest form of good government, but when translated into questions about what is right and good can lead to very bad decisions.

In case you haven’t seen it, this document from the latest round of the US Catholic Lutheran dialogue “The Hope of Eternal Life” was released on All Saints Day (appropriately) last year. I haven’t read it all yet, but it does address a number of issues that come up regularly on this ‘ere blog. I commend it too you.