Posted in category "Popes"
The late John Paul II was wounded in a 1982 knife attack. The would-be assassin, a priest, attacked the pope during a visit to Fatima Square in Portugal. The priest was opposed to the reforms adopted by the church after Vatican II.
The pope kept the injury secret. He carried on with the trip without disclosing his wound.
The incident is described in a new film, Testimony, and is based on the 2007 book of the same name by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope’s long-time secretary and friend. Cardinal Dziwisz accompanied Karol Wojtyla from his time in Poland until his last days in the Vatican. The film is a testimony of John Paul II’s life, presenting many new facts and interpretations. 
The film premiered at the Vatican on October 16, 2008. It is narrated by actor Michael York.
Dziwisz, who is now cardinal of Krakow, Poland, was John Paul’s private secretary and closest aide for nearly 40 years, including all his 27 years as pontiff.
“Today I can say what up to now we have kept secret,” Dziwisz said in the move. “That priest wounded the Holy Father..When we got back to the room there was blood.”
The attack occured on May 12, 1982, when Juan Fernandez Krohn lunged at John Paul with a bayonet during a ceremony in the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. The Pope had gone to the shrine to give thanks for surviving a gunshot wound from Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.
Krohn was an ultra conservative priest, and former member of the Society of Saint Pius X. He was expelled from that group because he openly proclaimed Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre opposition to Pope John Paul II was too weak. 
Krohn was expelled from Portugal in 1985 after serving half of a six year jail sentence.
St. Peter Damian was a monk. He lived in Italy in the 11th century. A reformer, he focused on homosexuality in the clergy. 
Ironically, his time and writing are a distant mirror to our own day – perceptions of rampant homosexuality in the hierarchy and clergy; sex abuse or at least use, of young men and boys. The prescription for reform was the same: harsh punishment, including banning gay men from religious orders and seminaries.
Were monasteries and clerics ripe for reform? Yes. But it also appears that reformers like Peter Damian didn’t possess the healthiest psychological state. His ferocity and leaning toward an eremtic life didn’t have a broad appeal. In fact, I believe they stemmed from his own internal fear and loathing.
Among his most famous writings is his lengthy treatise, Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah (Liber Gomorrhianus). It was presented to Pope Leo IX in 1049 or 1051. Leaving nothing to misinterpretation, Damian distinguishes between the various forms of sodomy beginning with solitary and mutual masturbation and ending with interfemoral (between the thighs) stimulation and anal sex.
Pope Leo IX accepted his letter, agreed with everything he had to say, and outside of a few examples, did very little.
What kind of a man was Peter Damian? 
- He couldn’t bear the “distractions” of university life so he left
- He wore a hairshirt “to arm himself against the alurements of pleasure and the wiles of the devil”
- His excessive “watchings” brought on a severe insomnia which was cured with difficulty
- Both as a novice and professed religious his fevour led him to such extremes of penance his health was affected. This included fasting and mortification, including self-flagellation.
Previously used as a punishment, St. Damian played a crucial role in popularizing this practice. This is discussed at length in the book, In Praise of the Whip by Niklas Largier, a professor of German at the University of California-Berkeley 
Is this the type of person we want creating a moral blueprint for sex?
France has withdrawn its nomination of an openly gay man as ambassador to the Holy See following objections from the Vatican.
The diplomat in question is Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge, former ambassador to Bulgaria, head of the Consular Affairs Directorate, and an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. 
According to the Italian daily La Repubblica, not only is Kuhn-Delforge out, he is “stably united with an official companion.”
I’m not *suprised* the Vatican said no. I am also not surprised the French couldn’t resist giving the Vatican at little tweak I hope it was not at Mr. Kuhn-Delforge’s expense…
Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge is ostensibly qualified for this diplomatic post. He is a cultural if not practicing Catholic. Why did the Holy See reject his appointment? Because he’s out; or because he’s in a committed relationship with a man? Either one would probably have gotten him blackballed.
Compare his situation to the pomp accused sex abuser Fr. Marcial Marciel, founder of the Legionaires of Christ, was accustomed to receive in Rome!
I guess the moral of the story is – be in the closet, and stick to forcing yourself on boys and young men. That’s ok. But don’t walk into a diplomatic function with a man on your arm—if you’re a man. That presents a moral infraction the Church cannot possibly accept.
Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, celebrated a Mass to mark the 30th anniversary of the election of John Paul I, “the smiling Pope.” Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected Pope on August 26, 1978. Acclaimed for his refreshing candor, spontaneity and wit, he was described by Cardinal Basil Hume as “God’s candidate.” 
John Paul I was the first Pope to have a composite name, a gesture to honor his two predecessors – John XXIII and Paul VI.
The “smiling Pope” died on September 28, 1978, 33 days after his election to the papacy, allegedly of a heart attack.
Many people, myself included, believe he was murdered for changes he planned to implement in the Vatican.
Most conspiracy theorists believe John Paul I was the victim of a plot involving powerful men linked to the Mafia, the Vatican Bank, and P2, an illegal Masonic Lodge whose membership included senior Italian politicians. One of these men was Bishop Paul Marcinkus, then head of the Vatican Bank.
According to some investigators, John Paul I was murdered not only because he was planning to purge the Vatican Bank, but also because he was planning to demote or dismiss powerful figures in the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy.
There were several other rumors that may also have contributed to his assassination: the belief he was planning to proceed with the ordination of women; and continue to push the reforms of Vatican II, particularly with the bureaucracy.
The late Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider of Brazil, a strong supporter of John Paul I, decided to speak out 20 years later. He had to “record with sorrow” that the official version of John Paul I’ death was open to question. The cardinal noted that Cardinal Jean Villot, the then Secretary of State, had refused to allow a post mortem examination. 
“I have to say that a suspicion remains in our hearts,” Cardinal Lorscheider said.
Three well-known books about the death of Pope John Paul I include: In God’s Name by David Yallop; Murder in the Vatican by Lucien Gregoire; and A Thief in the Night: The Mysterious Death of Pope John Paul I by John Cornwell.
Is Catholic art getting too excremental?
In recent years we’ve been treated to “Senation,” a Virgin Mary pelted with elephant dung; and ”Piss Christ”- a crucifix immersed in the artist’s urine.
Now it’s “Zuerst dei Fuesse” (Feet First). A green frog is nailed to a cross holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in the other. The frog wears a green loincloth and is pinned to the cross in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth. 
The 4′ wood sculpture was made by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger.
Franz Pahl, an official from the Trentino-Alto Adige region in northern Italy, said the pope had written to him to complain about the frog, which was installed in May at Museion, the modern art museum in Bolzano.
In a letter dated August 7, 2008, Pope Benedict said that the sculpture “injured the religious feeling of many people who see the Cross the symbol of the love of God and of our salvation, which deserves recognition and religious devotion.”
The board of the Museion museum decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of the exhibit.
Museum officials said the artist, who died in 1997, considered the sculpture to be a self-portrait illustrating human angst. “Fred the Frog” was Kippenberger’s alter-ego.
An art critic exclaimed: “In this work Kippenberger represents a society that appears perfect but is actually hypocritical…the frog on the cross represents men reduced to animals, that drink to the point of demeaning themselves, that cannot free themselves from the cross of alcohol lived as a plague. And Kippenberger condemns a society that, one the one hand claims to be Christian and on the other, right under and before Christ that it reckons to venerate, can only express its worst side.”
“A crucifixion is always an invitation to reflect on suffering,” said another critic. “In any event of contemporary art you will find more or less strong works on religion. It is part of people’s life, it is normal for it to become an ingredient of art. Society is getting used to being hypersensitive about certain themes but nobody can feel offended by a work of art.”
Well, Pope Benedict, who is German himself, obviously doesn’t agree.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, the retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia, and former head of a panel investigating sexual abuse in that country, wrote a book in which he explores what he sees as the roots of abuse in the Church. Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church was published in the fall of 2007.
The book’s genesis, according to Robinson, came from his work as a member and then chairman of the Australian bishops’ commitee charged with addressing the sexual abuse crisis.
“For nine years it completely dominated my life,” he said of his committee work from 1994 to 2003. “It was an experience that changed me in so many ways that even if I wanted to, I could not now go back to being the person I was before.” 
Meeting and speaking with abuse survivors and their families convinced him that the roots of clergy sexual abuse lay in fundamental church attitudes toward power and sex, and that the only solution was first to examine and then to change those attitudes.
“Sexual abuse is all about power and sex, so to counter abuse, we must be free to ask serious questions about power and sex in the institution of the church,” he said. “Without this freedom, we would be attempting to respond to abuse while handcuffed and blindfolded.”
On a personal note, Robinson said his work with abuse survivors created an inner conflict between his loyalty to the pope and his “loyalty to that portion of God’s people that the Australian bishops had assigned to me, the victims of abuse.”
“It was the conflict between being a pope’s man and a victims’ man,” he said with emotion. “At all times, I would have loved to be both.”
“The conflict eventually became a genuine crisis for me when the pope of those years (Pope John Paul II) gave no real leadership in relation to abuse,” he said. 
In a May 8 statement, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference listed its concerns with the book. The bishops said that “after correspondence and conversation” with Bishop Robinson, “it is clear that doctrinal difficulties remain.” Chief among them, they said, is Bishop Robinson’s “questioning of the authority of the Catholic Church to teach the truth definitively.”
In a brief statement dated May 15, Robinson responded, “In their statement, the bishops appear to be saying that in seeking to respond to abuse, we may investigate all other factors contributing to abuse, but we may not ask questions concerning ways in which teachings, laws, and attitudes concerning power and sex within the church may have contributed. This imposes impossible restrictions on any serious and objective study, and it is where I have broken from the bishops’ conference,” he said.
Before he left Australia for a book tour, Bishop Robinson sent a letter notifying several U.S. bishops of his speaking engagements in their dioceses. His May 16-June 12 tour included stops in Pennsylania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, Washington State and California.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, and 10 U.S. bishops asked him to cancel his speaking tour. Bishop Tod D. Brown of Orange, CA and Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles refused him persmission to speak in their dioceses.
Bishop Robinson said the call in his book for confrontation is a “confrontation of issues, not of people,” adding that “confronting bishops will not achieve change.”
“The major changes we seek cannot at present come from any source other than the pope, and we must be aware of the relative powerlessness of the bishops before the power of the papacy and the Vatican systems that support it,” he said.
“I suggest that we must, therefore, learn to work with the bishops rather than against them,” he said. “It will be a lengthy process in which we engage them in conversation, gradually show them there are problems in the culture they have been living in and that the new culture we would like to introduce to them has a real beauty and freedom in it.”
His book, he contended, was not an attack on the church, “but the beginning of a debate which will eventually lead to a better church.”
It seems that one day, in a private conversation with a visiting archbishop in his office in the Vatican, the Pope shared his own great sadness that so many people of good will all over the world had come to believe that the Church rejected and condemned them.
It’s easy to understand the Pope’s emotion here. Indeed, sometimes the Church does seem to hold certain people at a greater distance than others. It does seem to open its doors only partly, leaving outside the gates certain ones who do not measure up.
Then the Pope turned to the crucifix which stood on the little table in his office as said with deep emotion: “But I must be like Christ. I open wide my arms to embrace them. I love them and I am their father. I am always ready to welcome them.” Then turning to his visitor, the Pope said: “Monsignor, all that the gospel requires of us has not yet been understood.”
(As related by Bill Huebsch . The story is from the book The Transitional Pope by Ernesto Balducci, McGraw-Hill, NY, 1964.)
