Aftermath News

Pope Benedict as a Hitler Youth member

Blames American society for pedophile priest abuses

BBC | Apr 20, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out for the first time about growing up under the “monster” of Nazism.

The Pope was a Hitler Youth member as a teen, usual for young Germans at the time, and was conscripted by the German army near the end of World War II.

Earlier, during a Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan he again condemned paedophile Catholic priests.

Pope Benedict’s tour of the US is his first visit to the country since being elected head of the Catholic Church - it was the third anniversary of his elevation to the papacy on Saturday and the event was formally commemorated with the Mass at St Patrick’s.

Prisoner of war

Later in the day he addressed a cheering crowd of 30,000 young people on the field of St Joseph’s Seminary, in the New York suburb of Yonkers.

As a teenager, the pope was forced to join the Hitler Youth and he was conscripted into the German army towards the end of World War II, serving briefly in an anti-aircraft corps.
He deserted the German army towards the end of the war and was briefly held as a prisoner of war by the Allies in 1945.
After his release he studied theology and became a priest.
‘Banished God’

The Pope told the crowd his own years as a teenager had been “marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers”.
“Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognised for the monster it was,” he said.

“It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good.

“Let us thank God that so many people of your generation are able to enjoy the liberties which have arisen from the extension of democracy and respect for human rights.”

The earlier Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan marked the third anniversary of his election as leader of the Roman Catholic church.

Pope Benedict was greeted by the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, and the cathedral was filled with priests, deacons and members of religious orders.

A choir sang as the Pope walked down the large cathedral’s central aisle. The congregation rose and applauded and some people leaned over to touch his robe or kiss his Fisherman’s Ring.

“I join you in praying that this will be a time of purification for each and every particular Church and religious community, a time for healing,” the Pope said in his sermon, referring to the scandal of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy.

“I also encourage you to co-operate with your bishops who continue to work to effectively resolve this issue.”

‘Christian morality’

More than 4,000 US Catholic clergy have been accused of sexually abusing minors since 1950.

The Church has paid out more than $2bn (£1bn) in compensation and legal fees, most of it since the scandal erupted in 2002.

Speaking out on the issue again during the Mass at St Patrick’s, the Pope said the scandal had not only caused much damage to the victims of paedophile abuse, but had diminished the reputation of the church in US society.

“A society which seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality,” he said .
The Vatican official in charge of reviewing sexual abuse claims against clergy worldwide said on Friday that the Church was considering changes to canon law governing the handling of such cases.

The official, Cardinal William Levada, did not specify the changes but said they would make it easier to remove clergy who had sexually abused children.

The sexual abuse scandal has been a recurring theme in the Pope’s visit.

Addressing 40,000 people at a Washington stadium earlier in the week, he spoke of the issue before talking privately to a group of people who had been abused by priests.

On Sunday, he will lead prayers at the scene of the 9/11 attacks in New York and then celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium before returning to Rome later on Sunday.

Related

The Catholic Church and Nazism in Germany

The Catholic Nazi Inquisition

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Christianity’s Role in the Rise of the Nazis

Ratlines (history)
Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II.

Knights of Malta Shadow government
Catholic Knights of Malta helped thousands of the worst Nazis and members of the SS to escape to freedom down the “Ratlines”

Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is the concordat between the Holy See and Nazi Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg, respectively. It is still valid today in Germany.

Gulf Daily | Apr 19, 2008

WASHINGTON: Pope Benedict yesterday chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fuelled the church’s child sex abuse scandal, as he addressed the paedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church.

In a speech to US Catholic bishops, the pontiff berated the bishops for their poor handling of a scandal surrounding sexual abuse of children in the church.

But he urged efforts “to address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores” as well as a reassessment of “the values underpinning society.”

“What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?” the pontiff said on the first full day of his US visit.

“Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships. They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today.”

Describing clerics who sexually abuse children as “gravely immoral,” the octogenarian Pope warned that the scourge of paedophilia “is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society.” “It calls for a determined, collective response,” he said, but did not outline any firm action that the Vatican intended to take to purge the church of paedophile priests.

At the first public Mass of his US pilgrimage at the National Park stadium in Washington, he however, praised the United States as a land of opportunity and hope, though he lamented that the America’s promise fell short for Indians and blacks.

Hope for the future, he said, “is very much a part of the American character.”

Tens of thousands of worshippers filled a stadium on a clear spring day and cheered Benedict as he arrived in a white popemobile, standing in the back and waving. A crowd of 46,000 was expected, and the demand for tickets doubled the supply, organisers said.

The Pope, wearing scarlet vestments, led the service from an altar erected in the middle of the recently inaugurated baseball stadium. Rows of red-robed church leaders joined him. In brilliant spring sunshine, the pope walked down from the altar to distribute Holy Communion near the end of Mass.

“Americans have always been a people of hope,” he said during his homily. “Your ancestors came to this country with the experience of finding new freedom and opportunity.”

The US Catholic church plunged into its worst crisis in 200 years in 2002 when the archbishop of Boston confessed he had protected a priest who had sexually abused young members of his church - opening a floodgate of thousands of similar abuse cases around the country dating back decades.

Benedict angered victim support groups by praising the bishops’ efforts to heal the wounds from the scandal.

“The Pope continues to stand behind his men - the bishops who conceal clergy sex crimes,” said a Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests member, Joelle Casteix.

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Pope Benedict XVI and U.S. President George W. Bush attend the arrival ceremony for the pope on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, April 16, 2008.

George W. Bush could well be the nation’s first Catholic president.

“Certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy.”

Washington Post | Apr 13, 2008

The key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome.

By Daniel Burke

Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI’s election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff’s books about faith and culture in Western Europe.

Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope’s writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush’s inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America’s first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation’s first Catholic president.

This isn’t as strange a notion as it sounds. Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the “Catholic president” label. “He’s certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy.”

Bush attends an Episcopal church in Washington and belongs to a Methodist church in Texas, and his political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics — and thus Catholic social teaching — have for the past eight years been shaping Bush’s speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history.

“I used to say that there are more Catholics on President Bush’s speechwriting team than on any Notre Dame starting lineup in the past half-century,” said former Bush scribe — and Catholic — William McGurn.

Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation. He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition.

“There is an awareness in the White House that the rich Catholic intellectual tradition is a resource for making the links between Christian faith, religiously grounded moral judgments and public policy,” says Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things who has tutored Bush in the church’s social doctrines for nearly a decade.

In the late 1950s, Kennedy’s Catholicism was a political albatross, and he labored to distance himself from his church. Accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960, he declared his religion “not relevant.”

Bush and his administration, by contrast, have had no such qualms about their Catholic connections. At times, they’ve even seemed to brandish them for political purposes. Even before he got to the White House, Bush and his political guru Karl Rove invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to instruct the candidate on the church’s social teachings. In January 2001, Bush’s first public outing as president in the nation’s capital was a dinner with Washington’s then-archbishop, Theodore McCarrick. A few months later, Rove (an Episcopalian) asked former White House Catholic adviser Deal Hudson to find a priest to bless his West Wing office.

“There was a very self-conscious awareness that religious conservatives had brought Bush into the White House and that [the administration] wanted to do what they had been mandated to do,” says Hudson.

To conservative Catholics, that meant holding the line on same-sex marriage, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, and working to limit abortion in the United States and abroad while nominating judges who would eventually outlaw it. To make the case, Bush has often borrowed Pope John Paul II’s mantra of promoting a “culture of life.” Many Catholics close to him believe that the approximately 300 judges he has seated on the federal bench — most notably Catholics John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court — may yet be his greatest legacy.

Bush also used Catholic doctrine and rhetoric to push his faith-based initiative, a movement to open federal funding to grass-roots religious groups that provide social services to their communities. Much of that initiative is based on the Catholic principle of “subsidiarity” — the idea that local people are in the best position to solve local problems. “The president probably knows absolutely nothing about the Catholic catechism, but he’s very familiar with the principle of subsidiarity,” said H. James Towey, former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives who is now the president of a Catholic college in southwestern Pennsylvania. “It’s the sense that the government is not the savior and that problems like poverty have spiritual roots.”

Nonetheless, Bush is not without his Catholic critics. Some contend that his faith-based rhetoric is just small-government conservatism dressed up in religious vestments, and that his economic policies, including tax cuts for the rich, have created a wealth gap that clearly upends the Catholic principle of solidarity with the poor.

John Carr, a top public policy director for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, calls the Bush administration’s legacy a “tale of two policies.”

“The best of the Bush administration can be seen in their work in development assistance on HIV/AIDS in Africa,” says Carr. “In domestic policy, the conservatism trumps the compassion.”

And other prominent Catholics charge the president with disregarding Rome’s teachings on the Iraq war and torture. But even when he has taken actions that the Vatican opposes, such as invading Iraq, Bush has shown deference to church teachings. Before he sent U.S. troops into Baghdad to topple Saddam Hussein, he met with Catholic “theocons” to discuss just-war theory. White House adviser Leonard Leo, who heads Catholic outreach for the Republican National Committee, says that Bush “has engaged in dialogue with Catholics and shared perspectives with Catholics in a way I think is fairly unique in American politics.”

Moreover, people close to Bush say that he has professed a not-so-secret admiration for the church’s discipline and is personally attracted to the breadth and unity of its teachings. A New York priest who has befriended the president said that Bush respects the way Catholicism starts at the foundation — with the notion that the papacy is willed by God and that the pope is Peter’s successor. “I think what fascinates him about Catholicism is its historical plausibility,” says this priest. “He does appreciate the systematic theology of the church, its intellectual cogency and stability.” The priest also says that Bush “is not unaware of how evangelicalism — by comparison with Catholicism — may seem more limited both theologically and historically.”

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.

Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. “I think he is a secret believer,” Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a “closet Catholic.” And he was only half-kidding.

AFP | Apr 15, 2008

by Karin Zeitvogel

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday began a visit to the United States, hoping to heal the wounds left in the US church by a decades-long sex scandal that he said made him feel deep shame.

The 80-year-old pontiff was given an unprecedented welcome by President George W. Bush, who was on hand with his wife, Laura, and daughter, Jenna, at Andrews Air Force base near Washington to greet the pope.

No visiting head of state has ever been welcomed at the airport by a US president.

Standing at the top of a red carpet rolled out for the occasion, Benedict clasped both the president’s hands in his as an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers waved small, yellow and white Vatican flags and cheered loudly.

The joyous welcome contrasted sharply with the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church, and which the pontiff said during the flight to Washington has made him feel “deeply ashamed”.

“The Church will do everything it can to heal the wounds caused by pedophile priests” and ensure “events of this kind are no longer repeated,” he told reporters on the specially chartered Alitalia plane.

“The church must absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. Pedophiles cannot be priests. … I insist absolutely on this incompatibility.”

But a former Benedictine priest said the remarks were too little, too late.

“It’s a great public relations statement, but it’s 25 years too late,” Patrick Wall, who left the church 10 years ago over the child sex scandal, told AFP.

“As chief enforcer for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years, he had the power and the jurisdiction to stop this, but he did nothing,” Wall said.

“He needs to have the power and the moral fortitude to take the bishops, priests and deacons who offend against children out of ministry.”

Benedict will address the sex scandal that has left the US church financially strapped and morally battered at a meeting in New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral with Catholic clergy.

But he is not expected to grant an audience to victims of predator priests.

The largest group of victims, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called for strong actions, not mere words, from the pope.

“We’re way beyond the point at which an apology, a nice gesture, a few soothing words and promises, will be meaningful,” SNAP said in a statement.

The scandal, which SNAP estimates has affected hundreds of thousands of children, was far from over, said Wall.

“There were 51 new credible child molestation accusations against priests and bishops in the US last year. The conflict is continuing,” said the former ‘cleaner’ for the Benedictines — a priest sent to restore calm in a parish after a predator priest has been in ministry.

The pope was addressing the pedophilia scandal because of the deep financial impact it has had on the church, said Wall.

“The church has lost over three billion dollars in settlements and in the next 10 years will lose another three billion dollars if things don’t change. The church is scared,” he said.

The official welcome ceremony for the pope takes place on Wednesday — the pope’s 81st birthday — at the White House, where he will receive a 21-gun salute in front of several thousand well-wishers.

Bush and the pope will then hold “frank and open” discussions on a range of issues, including the war in Iraq, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

“I think obviously that there were differences, years back” on the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which the Vatican opposed, Perino told reporters.

The two leaders also will discuss “shared values of human rights, and the importance of fighting terrorism, and also promoting religious tolerance, especially when there are religious minorities.

“The president will thank Pope Benedict for deciding to go and visit Ground Zero and pay his respects there… that’s a very important gesture,” she said.

Benedict will hold a mass for 48,000 in Washington Thursday before going to New York to visit the scene of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and hold another huge mass at Yankee Stadium.

He will also address the UN General Assembly, where he is expected to make a plea for world peace.

“I would be surprised if he doesn’t allude to Iraq directly and maybe even make a veiled warning about incursions … to say pro-active military activities are not very welcome,” said Chester Gillis of Georgetown University’s theology department.

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Benedict XVI Protects Pedophile Priests

Pedophilia is “incompatible with the priesthood,” says Benedict.

Associated Press | Apr 15, 2008

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday he was “deeply ashamed” of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and will work to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood, addressing the toughest issue facing the American church as he began his first papal trip to the United States.

Benedict spoke in English on a special Alitalia flight from Rome to Washington, answering questions submitted by reporters in advance.

“It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.”

“I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” the pope said.

Benedict pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Catholic Church.

“We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry,” Benedict said. “It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”

Benedict’s pilgrimage was the first trip by a pontiff to the United States since the scandal involving priests sexually abusing young people rocked U.S. dioceses. The church has paid out more than $2 billion in abuse costs since 1950, the majority of it since 2002. Six U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy in recent years because of the financial toll of the scandal.

Pedophilia is “absolutely incompatible” with the priesthood,” Benedict said.

Related Story

Pope ‘led cover-up of child abuse by priests’

Vatican officials selected four questions to be read by the journalists to the pontiff aboard the plane.

Benedict described his pilgrimage as a journey to meet a “great people and a great church.” He spoke about the American model of religious values within a system of separation of church and state.

From a presidential welcome, to two Masses at baseball stadiums, to a stop for prayer at ground zero in New York, Benedict will get a heavy dose of the American experience.

President Bush planned to make the unusual gesture of greeting him at Andrews Air Force Base — the first time the president has greeted a foreign leader there.

The pope said he will discuss immigration with Bush, including the difficulties of families who are separated by immigration.

While the pope and Bush differ on such major issues on the Iraq war, capital punishment and the U.S. embargo against Cuba, they do find common ground in opposing abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, asked about the pope’s comments regarding the clergy sex abuse scandal, said she wouldn’t rule out that the topic would come up in conversation between the pope and the president.

But she added that “I don’t think it’s necessarily on the president’s top priorities” for his agenda in talking with the pope.

Perino said the two leaders would likely discuss human rights, religious tolerance and the fight against violent extremism.

As for the war in Iraq, Perino said, “Obviously, there were differences years back.” She downplayed those, emphasizing instead a strong bond between Bush and the pope.

Abuse victims’ advocates said Benedict’s comments on the scandal did not go far enough.

Peter Isely, a board member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the establish child protection policies for the worldwide church, and there should be penalties for church leaders who fail to discipline predatory priests.

“It’s easy and tempting to continually focus on the pedophile priests themselves,” Isely said. “It’s harder but crucial to focus on the broader problem — complicity in the rest of the church hierarchy.”

Jason Berry, a New Orleans writer who first drew national attention to clergy sex abuse in the 1980s, said the root of the problem is that the Vatican doesn’t punish bishops who shelter offenders. “Until the church creates a genuine system of justice to redress these wrongs the abuse crisis will continue,” said Berry, who produced a new documentary called “Vows of Silence,” which is critical of the Vatican’s justice system.

Although a few bishops accused of molestation have stepped down, no bishop has been disciplined for failing to keep abusive clergy away from children. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after church files were made public showing he and other church leaders had allowed accused clergy to continue in public ministry.

Benedict will give a speech at the United Nations during the second, New York leg of his six-day trip.

A crowd of up to 12,000, larger than the gathering for Queen Elizabeth II, is expected at the White House Wednesday to greet Benedict on his 81st birthday. Aides say he is in good health.

After making little headway in his efforts to rekindle the faith in his native Europe, the German-born Benedict will be visiting a country where many of the 65 million Catholics are eager to hear what he says.

A poll released Sunday by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found eight in 10 Catholics are somewhat or very satisfied with his leadership.

Benedict is expected to stress the importance of moral values and take on what he sees are the dangers of moral relativism — that is, that there are no absolute rights and wrongs.

He also will celebrate Mass at Nationals Park in Washington and Yankee Stadium in New York, his last major event of the trip.

Aircraft will be banned from flying under 3,000 feet
while the Pope is at Ground Zero

Telegraph | Apr 14, 2008

By Malcolm Moore in Rome

The Pope will pray for the redemption of Islamic terrorists when he visits the site of the September 11 attacks in New York next week.

The pontiff will call for terrorists to convert to Christianity, saying: “Turn to Your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.

“God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance”.

The prayer is likely to further incense the Muslim world, which has already attacked the Pope for publicly converting Magdi Allam, a journalist and one of Italy’s most high-profile Muslims, at Easter.

Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of trying to provoke “a new crusade” against Islam.

Aref Ali Nayed, a leading scholar and proponent of peaceful relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Islam, said that there were “genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the Pope’s advisers on Islam”.

He said that religious conversion should not be “made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points”.
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The Pope’s first visit to the United States begins on Tuesday. He will visit Ground Zero on April 20 and the prayer is expected to be the emotional high-point of his tour.

The Pope will also ask for “eternal light and peace to all who died” in the tragedy. His prayer will remember “the heroic first-responders: our firefighters, police officers, emergency service workers… along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy”.

Around 3,000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre, including the 19 hijackers. The prayer will also mention the victims “on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania”.

The Pope will conclude: “Bring Your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the earth.” He will then sprinkle the crater with holy water and bless the site.

Security for the visit will be some of the tightest New York has seen. Ray Kelly, the city’s police commissioner, said it would be like having a UN general assembly, followed by a parade, followed by a presidential visit.

Aircraft will be banned from flying under 3,000 feet while the Pope is at Ground Zero. No-fly zones will also be set up above St Joseph’s Seminary and Yankee Stadium while the Pope is present.

The Pope’s itinerary includes a Mass at the baseball stadium, and he will also address the United Nations.

He will visit the White House on the first leg of his trip in Washington DC, although his spokesman said yesterday that he would not attend a state dinner given in his honour.

The Vatican did not offer a reason for his absence.

The Pope will hold talks with President George W Bush, but Cardinal Raffaele Martino, one of the Vatican’s most senior prelates, said the Holy See “cannot renounce its own beliefs on this visit, which are a rejection of the [Iraq] war and the constant encouragement of dialogue to resolve differences”.

All the venues on the Pope’s itinerary will be swept for bombs, while the authorities in New York said that there would also be divers in the East River, roof-top snipers, helicopters and undercover detectives carrying tiny radiation detectors on their belts. While he is in New York, the Pope will stay with Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the papal ambassador to the UN.

The street off Fifth Avenue where the archbishop lives will be closed and all residents “will be escorted to their homes by police officers”.

The Vatican has also announced that the Pope will confront the issue of paedophile priests while he is in the United States. Several Catholic organisations have protested that he will not visit Boston, the epicentre of the sex abuse scandal.

One group took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.

However, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said that the Pope would address the issue in a speech and that the Church needed “constant purification” over the issue.

The Guardian | Apr 14, 2008

Ed Pilkington in New York

Barack Obama was forced onto the defensive at the weekend over unguarded comments he made about small-town voters across the midwest.

Obama was caught in an uncharacteristic moment of loose language. Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The comments were seized on by his rival for the Democratic party candidacy, Hillary Clinton, who saw in them the hope of reviving her flagging campaign by turning voters in the important Pennsylvania primary on April 22 against what she classed as Obama’s revealed “elitism”.

“I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America,” she said on Saturday. “His remarks are elitist and out of touch.” Clinton campaigners in North Carolina handed out stickers saying: “I’m not bitter.”

Obama’s comments are potentially incendiary in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Analysts speculated that the remarks could give white working-class voters the excuse they needed not to vote for Obama, whose candidacy has been regarded with scepticism in the state but had shown some signs of growing momentum.

The comments came to light as a result of the Huffington Post’s groundbreaking experiment in citizen journalism, Off The Bus. The website runs a network of about 1,800 unpaid researchers, interviewers and writers.

One of those writers, Mayhill Fowler, broke the story, despite being a paid-up supporter of Obama. She attended a fundraising event in San Francisco on April 6 and recorded Obama’s speech.

Fowler sat on the material for days, conflicted about what to do with it. She only published the comments last Friday.

“She had some real reservations about the story as an Obama supporter,” Amanda Michel, the director of Off The Bus, told the Guardian. “But she thought as a citizen journalist she had a duty to report the event, despite her support for Barack Obama.”

Obama initially reacted to the resultant media firestorm over the weekend by trying to stand by his comments. But he later apologised, saying: “If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that.”

Clinton will now hope the controversy will provide her with the break she desperately needs in Pennsylvania. She requires a substantial win to sustain her campaign, but recent polls have suggested Obama had eroded some of her advantage.

In this photo released by the Vatican newspaper ‘L’Osservatore Romano’, Pope Benedict XVI meets Spanish Reverend Adolfo Nicolas, the new Superior General of the Jesuits Roman Catholic order, at the Vatican Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008. Rev. Adolfo Nicolas is the 29th successor to St. Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus, as the order is formally known, in 1540. With nearly 20,000 members worldwide, it is the largest Catholic religious order.

Zenit.org | Jan 27, 2008

New Jesuit Superior Renews Obedience to Pope

Pontiff Calls Practice a “Good Custom”

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 27, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI considers the Jesuit tradition that newly elected superiors-general renew their obedience to the Pope a “good custom.”

The Pope said this Saturday upon receiving the newly elected superior-general of the Society of Jesus, Father Adolfo Nicolás, reported the General Curia of the Jesuits in a communiqué.

Father Nicolás, 71, was elected Jan. 19 to lead the order, founded in the 16th century by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He succeeds Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, 79, who presented his resignation after having led the Society for nearly 25 years.

During the audience Father Nicolás handed an envelope to the Holy Father in which he renewed in writing his obedience to the Pope, fulfilling a Jesuit tradition for newly elected superiors-general of the Society.

In addition to this tradition for those leading the order, obedience to the Pope in missionary matters is the fourth vow that all Jesuits make alongside the traditional three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

“The Pope opened the envelope right away and read the vows,” reported the Jesuits. Then he said, “This is a very good custom.”

To serve

The Spanish Priest reaffirmed “his personal respect for the Vicar of Christ as well as the esteem of the whole Society of Jesus,” as well as the “desire of the society to serve the Church all over the world.”

The General Curia of the Jesuits reported that the Holy Father “encouraged the Jesuit leader to continue with dialogue with culture and evangelization and to ensure a thorough formation of young Jesuits.”

The Jesuits reported that the Holy Father was pleased to hear a committee had been formed to study the letter he sent Jan. 10 to Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach on the occasion of the order’s 35th General Congregation.

In the letter Benedict XVI wrote: “It could prove extremely useful that the General Congregation reaffirm, in the spirit of St. Ignatius, its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine, in particular on those neuralgic points which today are strongly attacked by secular culture, as for example, the relationship between Christ and religions; some aspects of the theology of liberation; and various points of sexual morality, especially as regards the indissolubility of marriage and the pastoral care of homosexual persons.”

On Friday, Father Nicolas held a press conference in Rome in which he maintained: “The Society of Jesus has always been, from the beginning, in communion with the Holy Father, and will always be.

“The Society wants to collaborate with the Holy See, to obey the Holy Father. This has not changed, and never will.”

Fr. Adolfo Nicolas

National Catholic Reporter | Jan 19, 2008

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

A Spanish-born academic who has spent most of his career in Asia, and who is seen as an advocate for the broadly progressive theological views associated with the Asian bishops, has been elected the new Superior General of the Jesuit order.

A native of Palencia, Spain, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás was elected this morning in Rome by 217 Jesuits taking part in the order’s 35th General Congregation. He succeeds Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as head of the 20,000-strong worldwide Jesuit order.

The result has been confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI. Earlier, Benedict had approved a list of candidates that included Nicolás.

Though Nicolás, 71, was not among the most commonly mentioned candidates in the run-up to today’s vote, Jesuit sources said he represents a fairly bold choice – something of a blend between the mild personal manner and diplomatic skill of Kolvenbach, and the prophetic emphasis on justice, peace, and church reform associated with former General Fr. Pedro Arrupe.

Fr. Thomas Smolich, President of the Jesuit Conference in the United States and a member of the General Congregation that elected Nicolás, said the mood among the Jesuits was “joyous, exuberant, on cloud nine.”

Smolich spoke by phone from Rome, saying that Nicolás was elected on the second ballot this morning.

“I believe we’ve chosen the man God had in mind,” he said.

A former director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila and head of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania, Nicolás is said to be particularly close to the church in Japan. In broad strokes, Jesuit observers say he represents the theological outlook associated with the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, with emphasis on inter-religious dialogue, advocacy for justice and peace, and “inculturation” of church teachings and practices.

In comments last year to a Jesuit publication in Australia, Nicolás laid out his vision of mission.

“Those who enter into the lives of the people, they begin to question their own positions very radically,” Nicolás said. “Because they see genuine humanity in the simple people, and yet they see that this genuine humanity is finding a depth of simplicity, of honesty, of goodness that does not come from our sources.”

That conversation must continue, Nicolás said, if the church is to learn from Asia and Asia is to learn from the church.

“That is a tremendous challenge, and I think it’s a challenge that we have to face. We don’t have a monopoly, and we have a lot to learn,” he said.

Nicolás himself knows the alarms such views can sometimes set off in Rome. A Jesuit source in Rome said that several years ago, Nicolás was under consideration as Rector of the Gregorian University, but the Vatican expressed doubts about the appointment on the basis of concerns about the role he played as a theological advisor to the Japanese bishops during the 1998 Synod for Asia. During that session, prelates from across Asia, including a particularly strong push from Japan, argued for greater collegiality, or decentralization, in church authority.

The choice of Nicolás is especially significant, observers say, given that immediately prior to the election Pope Benedict XVI had addressed a letter to Kolvenbach, praising the Jesuits for their many apostolic works but also calling them to obedience on several contentious issues.

“It could prove extremely useful,” Benedict wrote, “that the General Congregation reaffirm, in the spirit of Saint Ignatius, its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine, in particular on those neuralgic points which today are strongly attacked by secular culture, as for example the relationship between Christ and religions; some aspects of the theology of liberation; and various points of sexual morality, especially as regards the indissolubility of marriage and the pastoral care of homosexual persons.”

While Nicolás will certainly not lead the Jesuits in any direct challenge to those points, observers say, his election is nevertheless a choice for a “forward thinking” outlook, as well as for a sensibility to the realities of Catholicism outside the West.

Given Nicolás’ background in inter-religious dialogue, both as a theologian and as a pastoral leader, Jesuit sources said the result could be read as a sort of response to the pope’s letter — giving the Vatican a dialogue partner who knows the issues posed by religious pluralism from the ground up.

Mercedarian Sr. Filo Hirota, who knows Nicolás well from his time in Japan, described him as “almost perfect.”

“He is a very fine theologian, very human, with a wonderful sense of humor,” Hirota said via telephone from her residence in Tokyo. She said that Nicolás played a key role in organizing a major gathering of the Japanese church in the 1980s that identified broad lines of future development, almost like a “mini-ecumenical council.”

“He is a very balanced person,” Hirota said. “He is prophetic in his vision, but he knows how to dialogue. He’s very serene and very wise.”

Smolich said that the blend of deep theological literacy and practical pastoral experience made Nicolás an attractive choice. For example, Smolich said, after Nicolás became provincial of the Jesuits in Japan, he moved to one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tokyo and got to know the social reality, a move that Smolich said “amazed and inspired people.”

Hirota added one point certainly not on the new General’s official biography: he does a winning impression, she said, of Charlie Chaplin.

The new Jesuit General speaks Spanish, Japanese, English, French and Italian.

The Jesuits this morning released the following biographical data about Nicolás:

• 29 April 1936: born in Palencia, Spagna
• 15 September 1953: Enters the novitiate at Aranjuez in the Province of Toletana (Spain).
• 1958-1960: License in Philosophy (Alcalá, Madrid)
• 1964-1968: Studies theology in Tokyo, Japan
• 17 March 1967: Priestly ordination in Tokyo, Giappone
• 1968-1971: Masters in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome
• 1971: Professor of Systematic Theology at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan
• 1978-1984: Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila (the Philippines)
• 1991-1993: Rector of the Scholasticate (Tokyo, Japan)
• 1993-1999: Provincial of the Province of Japan
• 2004-2007: Moderator of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania.

Nicolás will lead the Jesuits in a Thanksgiving Mass tomorrow, followed by a reception at the Gregorian University. On Monday morning, he will take over leadership of the General Congregation as it begins charting a future course for the Jesuit order.

Mr Nicolas has spent most of his career in the Far East

BBC | Jan 20, 2008

The Jesuits have chosen Adolfo Nicolas, a Spanish theologian with extensive experience in Asia, to be their new leader or “black pope”.

The choice of Father Nicolas follows four days of prayer and discussion among 217 electors who came to Rome from around the world.

Pope Benedict was informed of the choice and has given his approval, Vatican officials said.

Father Nicolas, 71, succeeds Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, a Dutch priest.

Father Kolvenbach was elected leader in 1983 and was widely credited with improving the Jesuits’ often tense relations with the Vatican.

Jesuit leaders traditionally serve for life, but Father Kolvenbach, who will be 80 this year, had asked to retire because of his age.

Father Nicolas was ordained in Tokyo in 1967 and spent most of his career in the Far East - directing a pastoral institute in Manila, in the Philippines, and holding leadership positions in Japan.

Jesuit superior generals are known as “black popes” because, like the pontiff, they have influence worldwide and usually keep the position for life, and also because their cassocks are black - in contrast to the Pope who usually wears white.