AND ALL THE WORLD WONDERED AFTER THE BEAST.

Much of the christian world is surprised at Pope Benedict XVI’s statement on the unique claims of the Roman Catholic Church and, as a natural result of those beliefs, the Vatican’s highly logical point of view on the sacramental claims of other Christian flocks.
Rome considers other Christian groups to be “churches” based on the degree to which they claim ancient, apostolic, sacramental ties that bind.
The Vatican document repeated many of the contentious claims of a document issued in 2000 by the Vatican office on orthodoxy, which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed for more than two decades before being elected pope in 2005.
The document released Tuesday focused largely on the Vatican definition of what constitutes a church, which it defined as being traceable through its bishops to Christ’s original apostles. Thus, it said, the world’s Orthodox Christians make up a church because of shared history, if “separated” from the “proper” Catholic tradition, while Protestants split from Catholicism during the Reformation are considered only “Christian communities.”
In other words, the Eastern Churches and Rome are in a state of broken Communion, while the Protestant bodies do not share the same concept of Communion and apostolic succession. This is precisely, I would think, how most Eastern Orthodox leaders would view Rome. We are mourning an ancient and real schism.
There is some question as to why the pope elected to release this statement, since it repeated claims from the “Dominus Iesus” text in 2000. It appears, to me, that Benedict XVI may be underlining the unique bonds between Rome and the East and, this would be more controversial, putting new distance between Rome and the Anglican Communion that also insists that it can claim true ties to the early apostles (through centuries of shared history with Rome before the Reformation).
The disappointment of the Anglicans was evident in the response of Canon Gregory Cameron, Dr Williams’s former chaplain in Wales and a leading canonical lawyer and scholar who is now ecumenical officer of the Anglican Communion.
Canon Cameron said: “In the commentary of this document we are told that ‘Catholic ecumenism’ appears ‘somewhat paradoxical.’ It is paradoxical for leaders of the Roman Catholic Church to indicate to its ecumenical partners that it no longer expects all other Christians merely to return to the true (Roman Catholic) Church, but then for Rome to say that it alone has ‘full identity’ with the Church of Christ, and that all others of us are lacking.”
The Rev David Phillips, General Secretary of the Church Society, said: “Nothing new is said, but it does clarify the way in which the Vatican has torn apart Christianity because of its lust for power. They remind us that in their view that to be a true church one has to accept the ludicrous idea that



the Pope is in some special way the successor of the apostle Peter and the supreme earthly leader of the Church.
“These claims cannot be justified, biblically, or historically, yet they have been used not only to divide Christians but to persecute them and put them to death.
“We are grateful that the Vatican has once again been honest in declaring their view that the Church of England is not a proper Church. Too much dialogue proceeds without such honesty. Therefore, we would wish to be equally open; unity will only be possible when the papacy renounces its errors and pretensions.”
George Weigel, who has written biographies of Pope Benedict and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, said the document contains nothing new, and questioned why it had been issued now.
It “does not deny the presence of God’s grace in other Christian communions, but the Catholic Church is never going to say . . . that it is anything other than the most properly ordered expression of the will of Christ for his church,” he said. “If people do not want to contend with that, then ecumenism has simply become another form of political correctness,” Weigel said.
Interesting, but rather predictable. But check this out, with one jab at Rome and then another at the mainstream media:
Weigel faulted the Vatican for failing to place documents on ecumenism in context, leading to the pope’s intentions being misinterpreted.
“The inability of the Vatican to communicate the meaning of these documents is a serious problem, but it’s a serious problem magnified by the inability of the Western press to admit that its cartoon picture of Joseph Ratzinger was mistaken,” he said.
So the Vatican needs to do a better job of helping journalists get religion?





















Pope Announces Pilgrimage To Israel
03/08/09 · Pope Benedict XVI has announced that he will make a long-planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May, visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as Jordan.

The Pope told pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square, "I will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to ask the Lord for the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East, and for all humanity."

Stops include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jordan's largest mosque in Amman.


The visit follows the controversy over the pope's decision to lift the excommunication of a bishop who has denied the Holocaust happened.

In a further sign of Jewish-Catholic tensions, the pope will not visit Israel's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, where a caption on a photo of World War II-era Pope Pius XII accuses the pontiff of silence during the Holocaust.

Israel's ambassador to the Vatican, Mordechai Levi, told the Italian news agency ANSA that the pope will attend a memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem, but will not visit the museum itself.

The Vatican has sought for years to persuade Yad Vashem to remove the caption, which it considers defamatory.


Body language says a lot about a world leader's audience with the Pope. During his 2007 visit to Pope Benedict XVI's private library, President George W. Bush sat down across the desk from the Pontiff as if he had just landed on his own porch in Crawford, Texas: leaning back in the velvet chair, legs crossed, apparently eager to show his command of the situation.

When President Barack Obama sat down in that same spot on Friday, July 10, for his first papal meeting, his posture was altogether different. Leaning forward from the front edge of the chair, his shoulders slightly hunched, his crossed hands resting softly on the edge of the Pope's desk, the leader of the free world looked more like a schoolboy who'd arrived to humbly plead his case to the principal. "You must be used to getting your picture taken," Obama commented to the Pope as a scrum of photographers clicked away, then continued, "I'm still getting used to it."

The 82-year-old Pope in white, the world's most recognizable religious leader and head of its largest single denomination, came face-to-face with the charismatic Black President of the world's last superpower.

As a child in Indonesia, Obama's Muslim father enrolled him in Catholic school for a few years. President Obama is a Protestant.

Pope Benedict issued a major document calling for a "new world financial order" guided by ethics and the search for the common good, denouncing the profit-at-all-cost mentality blamed for bringing about the global financial meltdown after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

There was a poignant footnote to President Obama's historic July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Behind closed doors in the papal library, Obama handed Benedict a letter that Senator Edward Kennedy had asked him to personally deliver to the pontiff. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later told reporters that nobody - not even the President - knew the contents of the sealed missive. Obama himself asked Benedict to pray for Kennedy, and called the ailing Senator afterward to fill him in on his encounter with the 82-year-old Pope.
The letter, most likely already re-sealed and tucked away in the Vatican archives, was probably just a dying Catholic's request for a papal blessing. In the eyes of the traditionalist wing of the Church, however, Kennedy should have been asking the Pope for forgiveness. The Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported Kennedy's death, praising his work on civil rights and fighting poverty, but noted that his record was marred by his stance on abortion. As of yet, unlike some other world leaders, Pope Benedict has not commented or issued an official communique in response to Kennedy's death. One veteran official at the Vatican, of U.S. nationality, expressed the view of many conservatives about the Kennedy clan's rapport with the Catholic Church: "Why would he even write a letter to the Pope? The Kennedys have always been defiantly in opposition to the Roman Catholic magisterium." Magisterium is the formal expression for the authority of Church teaching.
Since Kennedy's death on Aug. 25, commentators have been poring over the Liberal Lion's many legislative achievements and the details of his biography. But it is also worth remembering that for four decades Ted Kennedy remained the nation's most prominent Roman Catholic politician, and brother of America's first and only Catholic President. Ted Kennedy received his first communion directly from Pope Pius XII, and his marriage in 1958 was performed by Cardinal Francis Spellman, the influential Archbishop of New York. His mother, Rose Kennedy, once reportedly said that she'd dreamed that her youngest son Teddy would become a priest rather than a politician, destined to ultimately rise to bishop status.
Edward Kennedy, it can be said, was not cut out for the priestly life. His first marriage to former model Virginia Joan Bennett, ended in divorce in 1982, with the marriage annulled by the Roman Rota more than a decade later. And there are the infamous episodes in his life that showed a man not quite in control of his demons. But ultimately, beyond his personal travails, Kennedy's relationship with the Church hierarchy was destined for conflict because of politics. The Senator became both the face and engine of the liberal wing of the Democratic party that has long led the battle for abortion rights, stem cell research and gay marriage, all of which Catholic doctrine strictly forbids.
"He is a complicated figure," says Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and the culture editor of the Catholic magazine America. "Catholics on the right are critical because of his stance on abortion. Catholics on the left celebrate his achievements on immigration, fighting poverty and other legislation that is a virtual mirror of the Church's social teaching."
Back at headquarters, however, there is little room for nuance. "Here in Rome Ted Kennedy is nobody. He's a legend with his own constituency," says the Vatican official. "If he had influence in the past it was only with the Archdiocese of Boston and that eventually disappeared too." Some say the final sunset on the Kennedy name within Catholic halls of power was the Vatican's decision in 2007 to overturn the annulment of the first marriage of former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert Kennedy. The successful appeal by Joe Kennedy's ex-wife Sheila Rauch, an Episcopalian, was another blow for the Kennedy image in Catholic circles.
During Benedict's 2008 trip to the U.S., there was some heated debate (with conflicting photographs and eyewitness accounts) about whether or not Kennedy took Holy Communion at the papal mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington, with conservatives insisting that the Pope says the rite should be denied to pro-choice politicians. With this in mind, Church observers are keen to see if Boston's Archbishop Cardinal Sean O'Malley will preside over Kennedy's funeral.
In what may mark the final flicker of Kennedy influence in American Catholicism, reports circulated last spring that Obama was considering JFK's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, as the possible next U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. That was not to be. Indeed in the wake of Uncle Ted's death came word Thursday 27 August 2009 that Obama's final choice had arrived in Rome to take up the diplomatic post at the Holy See. His name is Miguel Diaz, a little-known Cuban-born professor of theology firmly on the record as pro-life.

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not come, except there comes a falling away first and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing that he is God. (2 Thess. 2:3,4)
And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and the Law. (Dan. 7:25)
And all the world wondered after the Beast. (Rev. 13:3)