New Cardinals: Princes of a Higher Kingdom

As was widely reported, Pope Benedict created six new non-European cardinals on eve of the Solemnity of Christ the King.

New Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila wipes away tears after being
made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI during a consistory
in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Nov. 24. (CNS)

The Pope concluded his homily last Sunday:

To you, dear and venerable Brother Cardinals – I think in particular of those created yesterday – is is entrusted this demanding responsibility: to bear witness to the kingdom of God, to the truth. This means working to bring out ever more clearly the priority of God and his will over the interests of the world and its powers. Become imitators of Jesus, who, before Pilate, in the humiliating scene described by the Gospel, manifested his glory: that of loving to the utmost, giving his own life for those whom he loves. This is the revelation of the kingdom of Jesus. And for this reason, with one heart and one soul, let us pray: Adveniat regnum tuum – Thy kingdom come. Amen.

Cardinal Dolan - Presidnet Obama's affirmation of homosexual marriage "deeply saddening"

Cardinal Dolan has issued the following comments on President Obama's assertion that people of the same sex have the right to marry:

President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic Bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.

Source: USCCB.

Austrian Priest resigns after Cardinal Schonborn overrules him on homosexual parish council member

LifeSiteNews reports the resignation of Father Gerhard Swierzek, the pastor of a parish in the Archdiocese of Vienna, who refused to allow an active homosexual, Florian Stangl, who is living in a legal registered partnership with another man, to sit on the parish council in the town of Stützenhofen. Stangl had received 96 out of 142 votes in the parish council elections.

Eminent canonist and blogger Dr Ed Peters wrote about the affair a little while ago in Sorting out the latest from Vienna.

Here's a little summary of the Canon Law on Parish Pastoral Councils.

Can. 536 §1. If the diocesan bishop judges it opportune after he has heard the presbyteral council, a pastoral council is to be established in each parish, over which the pastor presides and in which the Christian faithful, together with those who share in pastoral care by virtue of their office in the parish, assist in fostering pastoral activity.
               §2. A pastoral council possesses a consultative vote only and is governed by the norms established by the diocesan bishop.

That's all the Code of Canon Law says.

Some points to note.

1. Parish Pastoral Councils are not mandated by the Code but need only be established if the diocesan bishop judges it opportune.
2. The Pastor presides over the Council. He is in charge. This is not something that anyone - even the bishop - can change. No meetings can be held, no decisions taken, without the presence and approval of the Pastor.
3. The role of the members of the Council is to foster pastoral activity. In other words, they are to facilitate the work of shepherding the souls in the parish which is the exclusive and proper role of the Pastor. If they are not assisting him, they are not effective members of the Pastoral Council.
4. The Pastoral Council makes no decisions. It advises - that's what is meant by possesing a consultative vote. The Pastor consults the members, they make their advice known to the Pastor, even by voting on a subject, and then the Pastor prays about it and accepts or rejects the advice. If the members are faithful Catholics with a clear love for God and the Church, their advice should be taken very seriously.
5. But here is the difficult part: the Pastoral Council is governed by the norms establish by the diocesan bishop. "Norms" implies law. How binding are these norms? Obviously, they cannot contradict the universal law of the Church, but can the diocesan bishop mandate the establishment of parish pastoral councils? Can he establish norms concerning appointment, election, etc? Can the bishop confer membership of a parish pastoral council on any of the faithful? Can the bishop overrule a pastor who decides that a particular person is unsuitable for membership of a parish council? I very much doubt it.
6. Accodring to Dr Peters, membership of a Pastoral Council constitutes the holding of an Ecclesiastical Office (see Title IX of Book I of the Code of Canon Law). To hold ecclesiastical office one must be in communion with the Church as well as "suitable". Being in a sinful state does not, of itself, rupture communion with the Church, but it might well make one unsuitable if this state is publicly known.

One way to make a pastoral council ineffective is for the pastor not to attend. The council has no authority and without the pastor presiding it is rendered ineffective.

I am writing from a position of ignorance concerning the facts of this particular case but with my own experience of parish pastoral councils which has been altogether positive. I have never held elections and always appointed members. I have also asked members whom I did not consider helpful in fostering my pastoral work to stand down.

I hope Fr Swierzek had/has a good canon lawyer to advise him. On the basis of the very little known to me about this case, given that the Cardinal Archbishop had overruled his decision, I would probably advise him to simply insist that Stangl's election to the pastoral council had not been ratified by him. Since he as Pastor presides over the Council, Stangl could not therefore be considered as having been appointed as a member. The ball would then be in the Cardinal's court to either insist on Stangl's appointment or to accept the Pastor's decision. If the Cardinal were to take action against the pastor, there would be options available, from throwing in the towel (one doesn't want to spend one's priestly life fighting battles and one would hesitate before entering into a conflict with one's Cardinal Archbishop) and resigning, to having recourse against any decisions made by the Cardinal.

As Dr Peters rightly says, Pastoral Councils are new in the Church and so it will take some time to develop the law in this area.

In the meantime, I am praying for Fr Swierzek and for the Church in Austria which is in dire need of prayers. (See Pope Benedict's Chrism Mass homily in which he explicitly refers to rebellious priests in Austria.) None of us likes battles and it could be that Fr Swierzek just doesn't want to fight this one. He may have found the parish to be ungovernable.

Cardinal Burke: Employers who pay for health insurance providing contraceptive etc services co-operating in evil

LifeSiteNews carries this news about an interview with Cardinal Burke to be broadcase on EWTN tomorrow at 2:30pm EST and Wednesday at 9:00pm EST. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin…the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”
Cardinal Burke: “This is correct.  It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

Jenn Giroux of LifeSiteNews comments:

There are many liberal Catholics and Obama supporters who are trying to divide and confuse the faithful on the issues surrounding this attack on religious liberty and the impending mandatory requirement for employers to provide insurance plans which provide free contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization.  Still others that oppose the mandate are advocating that the issue of contraception should be separated from the discussion of religious liberty all together.  The reality is that these issues are quite inseparable as it relates to the practice of Catholicism and the moral burden that is placed upon the conscience of employers who provide contraceptive services.  Only those who understand the grave moral evil of contraception and abortion understand that the Catholic Church will never compromise on these issues because to do so would lead to eternal ramifications for those involved.

Cardinal Elect Timothy Dolan - a nice, fun TV interview

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Cardinal Foley dies

From News.va:

Cardinal John Patrick Foley, former Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem died today. He was 76. The Cardinal had been suffering from Leukaemia and had returned to Philadelphia in the US.

In his comments to Vatican Radios Italian service, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi said “everyone who had ever met Cardinal Foley admired and loved him for his kindness and for his spirituality.”
Father Lombardi also recalled the Cardinal’s work in the field of communication as President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications saying, he was always well prepared and very competent.
He added, that he had just received in the last few days a letter from Cardinal Foley thanking him for a copy of the newly published book on the History of Vatican Radio.

May he rest in peace.

Pontificale Hoogmis met Kard. Burke (or Pontifical High Mass with Cardinal Burke)

I received a Facebook invitation to this event which will take place on September 17th, 10am, at

St. Agneskerk

Amstelveenseweg 163

Amsterdam, Netherlands

More information here. (Use Google translator if you can't understand the Dutch.)

Cardinal Burke denounces "Catholic in name only" Colleges

This new from the Cardinal Newman Society:

Too many "Catholic in name only" colleges and universities have embraced today's "secularist dictatorship" instead of fighting it, warned one of the Vatican's top-ranking Americans in a frank assessment of Catholic higher education.

"[T]he Catholic university which is true to her identity will help students to be strong in giving an account of their faith in their vocation in life," said Cardinal Raymond Burke.

He said that students should be prepared to confront "the secularist dictatorship which would exclude all religious discourse from the professions and from public life in general."

Cardinal Burke is Prefect of the Vatican's highest court and Ecclesiastical Advisor to The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of The Cardinal Newman Society.

[Click here to support the Society's fight against secularism in Catholic universities.]

His address was delivered on December 4 at The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, a faithfully Catholic college in New Hampshire that is recommended in The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College. Cardinal Burke lauded the college for its "noble and critical efforts to promote authentic Catholic higher education in our nation."

You can watch or read Cardinal Burke's complete address at The Cardinal Newman Society website here.

"In a society which is marked by a virulent secularism," Cardinal Burke said, "...the service of the Catholic university is more needed than ever.

"How tragic that the very secularism which the Catholic university should be helping its students to battle and overcome has entered into several Catholic universities, leading to the grievous compromise of their high mission."

Cardinal Burke said that the true Catholic university will teach students "to overcome the prevalent and utterly destructive error of our time that somehow faith is contradicted by reason."

But any Catholic college or university "at which Jesus Christ alive in His Church is not taught, encountered in the Sacred Liturgy and its extension through prayer and devotion, and followed in a life of virtue is not worthy of the name."

"According to the ancient canonical wisdom, corruptio optimi pessima est, 'the corruption of the best is the worst,'" Cardinal Burke said. "Sadly, we have witnessed the truth of the axiom in so many Catholic colleges and universities in our nation, which once gave pride of place to their Catholic identity and the Catholic life of the campus but now are Catholic in name only, usually qualifying their Catholic identity by another name, for example, calling themselves a Catholic university in the Franciscan or Jesuit tradition."

I wonder which universities the Cardinal might have in mind?

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From the Consistory

Father Daniel Moll from the diocese of Marquette sent me this picture of him greeting Cardinal Burke after Saturday's consistory. Father Moll is in his first year of Licentiate Studies in Canon Law at the Santa Croce Pontifical University in Rome.

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24 New Cardinals Named

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 20, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI announced the names of 24 prelates who will be created cardinals, 20 of whom qualify as electors in the case of a conclave for a Papal election.

The Pope made the announcement today at the end of the general audience. The cardinals will be created in a consistory on Nov. 20, the eve of the Solemnity of Christ the King.

This will be the third consistory of Benedict XVI's pontificate, after two celebrated on March 24, 2006 and Nov. 24, 2007.

In his address, the Holy Father stated that cardinals "have the task of helping Peter's Successor carry out his mission as permanent and visible source and foundation of the Church's unity of faith and communion."

The majority of the new cardinals are European (15), with 10 coming from Italy. In the group, four are from the Americas, another four are from Africa, and one is from Asia.

After this consistory, the total number of cardinals will be 203, of which 121 are electors (less than 80 years old).

The new cardinals who qualify as electors are:

-- Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes

-- Patriarch Antonios Naguib of Alexandria of the Copts, Egypt

-- Archbishop Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum

-- Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, archpriest of the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

-- Archbishop Fortunato Baldelli, major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary

-- Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature

-- Archbishop Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

-- Archbishop Paolo Sardi, vice chamberlain of Apostolic Chamber

-- Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy

-- Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See

-- Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture

-- Archbishop Medardo Joseph Mazombwe, retired archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia

-- Archbishop Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga, retired archbishop of Quito, Ecuador

-- Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

-- Archbishop Paolo Romeo of Palermo, Italy

-- Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington

-- Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil

-- Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw, Poland

-- Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don of Colombo, Sri Lanka

-- Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany

As well, the Pontiff elevated to the dignity of cardinal two prelates and two priests, who are over the age of 80 and are thus non-electors, for their "generosity and dedication in the service of the Church." These include:

-- Archbishop José Manuel Estepa Llaurens, retired archbishop of Spain's military

-- Bishop Elio Sgreccia, former president of the Pontifical Academy for Life

-- Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences

-- Monsignor Domenico Bartolucci, former director of the Pontifical Choir

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