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Let us start at the Vatican in Rome. St. Peter’s Basilica has a strict dress code: no skirts above the knee, no shorts, no bare shoulders, and you must wear shoes. At the entrance there are signs picturing these instructions. To some visitors this comes somewhat as a surprise. Becky Haskin, age 44, from Fort Worth, Texas, said: “The information we got was that the dress code only applied when the pope was there.”

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ममतामयी Mother Teresa मदर टेरेसा का संत बनना वाकई में बहुत खुशी और गर्व की बात है.   संत बनी मदर टेरेसा इसलिए आज उनका पहनावा पहन कर बहुत अच्छा महसूस हो रहा है.. ममता और मानवता की मूर्ति का नाम है मदर टेरेसा.. शांति की शुरुआत मुस्कराहट से होती है  संत बनी मदर टेरेसा ने बहुत […]

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A psychiatrist’s couch is no place to debate the existence of God. Yet spiritual health is an inseparable part of mental or psychological health. Something no psychiatrist should regard with clinical indifference. But what does spiritual or religious health involve? This can’t just include normalized versions of monistic theism – but the entire set of human dispositions that may be thought of in spiritual terms.

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The unbelievable story of the Roman convent of Sant’Ambrogio in Rome is about crime and murder, feigned holiness, forbidden sexuality, and the abuse of power over others. Does this controversial story, which casts high dignitaries of the 19^th century Catholic Church in a less than flattering light, need to be retold for the 21^st century?

The answer is: absolutely. It is a mere stroke of luck for Church historical research that the well-hidden files from the Inquisition trial have been unearthed in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What happened to the German Princess Katharina von Hohenlohe at the place of her yearning, a contemplative convent in Rome, is most probably an isolated case: the young novice mistress Maria Luisa feigned to have visions and to work miracles in order to manipulate her surroundings and to satisfy her needs. Supported by various accomplices and protected by mighty men she swept her opponents out of her way – literally under the pope’s eyes.

The files provide evidence of how dangerous exaggerated piety and blind obedience can be, producing a disastrous combination of power, sex, and false holiness within the Roman convent of Sant’Ambrogio.

The nuns were deemed to be “buried alive”; shielded from the outer world that was perceived as threatening by superiors who demanded strict obedience. However, the nuns of the convent weren’t dumb and the supposed saint, Maria Luisa, was always confronted with antagonists. Ultimately, however, she managed to cover up even her worst crimes with outrageous lies about the devil in human form, letters written by the Virgin Mary, and divine punishments. She established a perfidious system that brought unpopular young nuns to the point of praying for their own death. The confessors were no critical authority at all – on the contrary, they themselves were Maria Luisa’s greatest admirers. However the history of Sant’Ambrogio is full of surprises: in the end, Maria Luisa, for instance, appears as the distressed victim of a system that she herself had perfected, and the Roman Inquisition proves to be comparably mild despite its ill fame.

But how did a false saint manage to turn the heads of half of the curia? In order to understand how Maria Luisa achieved this, it must be considered in its context in 19^th century Rome. Maria Luisa would have never got away with her lies if she was not part of an environment that wanted to believe her at all costs. The atmosphere in the Vatican was heavy with anxiety, as Pope Pius IX had long lost the support of broad circles of the population and rightly feared he might lose power in the Church state. In 1848, he was forced to flee the Revolution and go into exile. The pope himself increasingly sought refuge in a naïve childish faith. He was convinced that the Mother of God had saved him from drowning when he was a child and that one day she would descend from heaven in order to defend the Church state with the angelic hosts. Simply put, he and those around him wistfully longed for miracles.

The Sant’Ambrogio scandal reveals the dark side of this superficially pious environment, and it put an indelible stain on the history of the Catholic Church that can still be seen today. This is because Pope Pius IX and his predecessors were involved in the scandal of Sant’Ambrogio. Maria Luisa was very close to some figures connected to Neo-scholasticism, the predominant theological orientation at the time, and to the most eminent fathers of the First Vatican Council, which proclaimed the controversial dogmas of the infallibility of the pope and of his primacy of jurisdiction. The story of the convent in scandal tells a lot about the dialectics of enlightened modernity: it is about canting zealots put on the defensive and their longing for a newly enchanted world, in which saints proclaim simple truths, good and evil are easily discernible, the end justifies the means, and in which there always is hope for a miracle. Furthermore, Maria Luisa’s power strategies tell much about the role of women in the Catholic Church of the time, which was clearly dominated by the clergy.

Not even in the 19^th century was the Catholic Church as monolithic as it appears from anticlerical clichés. The adherents of mysticism as well as the supporters of rationalism contended for influence in the Vatican. On a church-political level they pursued different strategies; the ultramontane adherents of anti-modernism were confronted with the moderate liberals. The Inquisition trial became a struggle for power between the two most important parties in the Curia; the basic conflict in the background is recognizable if put under a microscope.

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From 5-19 October 2014, Pope Francis held the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome. The purpose of the synod was to discuss the Church’s stance on such issues as divorce, birth control, and especially, the legalization of gay marriage. On 13 October, the Synod released a relatio (a mid-term report) on its preliminary findings. Paragraph 50 of the relatio stated:

Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are we capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing them a place of fellowship in our communities? Oftentimes, they want to encounter a Church which offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of this, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?

Even though the paragraph was phrased more as a question than a statement, it was immediately pronounced an “earthquake” in the history of Catholicism. Apparent sympathy toward homosexuals delighted liberal Catholics while horrifying conservatives and traditionalists. When the synod concluded, this language was removed from the final version of the document, having failed to acquire a necessary two-thirds vote from participants.

Although the Mother Church has always held synods and councils to reassess doctrines and practices, it presents itself as timeless and immutable. In the nineteenth century American bishop John Ireland mused, “The church never changes and yet she changes.” When change does occur (or is even suggested), conservatives often respond with horror. The paradox of an unchangeable, changing Church creates what sociologist Peter Berger calls a grenzsituation (drawing on the work of psychologist Karl Jaspers), in which a taken for granted reality suddenly appears alien and factitious. To articulate their feeling of betrayal, critics of Church Reform frequently invoke the language of evil and the demonic.

Following the “earthquake” of 13 October, those opposed to the relatio used a variety of strategies to express their dissent including legalistic arguments, suggestions that devil was confusing the synod, hints of conspiracy, and even snippets of prophecy delivered by Marian seers at Fatima and other apparition sites. This response demonstrated the same constellation of forces that occurred in the aftermath of Vatican II when traditionalist Catholics turned to a homemaker from Queens who claimed to see visions of the Virgin Mary. Veronica Lueken, “The Seer of Bayside,” was declared “the seer of age” primarily because her prophecies offered a framework by which traditionalists could make sense of the radical changes of Vatican II. Lueken’s most controversial revelation was that Paul VI––the pope who approved the Council’s reforms––had been replaced by a Soviet doppelganger. Accordingly, loyal Catholics were justified in rejecting Vatican II because it was, in reality, the product of a demonic conspiracy unfolding in the final days.

Today, as in the 1970s, conservative Catholics express pain and outrage that a pope would challenge their understanding of what it means to be Catholic. Some have presented legalistic arguments, citing such documents as a 1986 letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith that described homosexuality as “an objective disorder.” But repeatedly, conservatives have articulated their dissent by invoking a dark triad of demonology, conspiracy theory, and millennial prophecy.

On 20 October, Archbishop Charles Chaput gave a talk entitled “Stranger in a Strange Land,” in which he suggested that Catholics were now the targets of intolerance for advocating traditional family values. When asked about the synod, Chaput first specified that he had not been there and that the media might be distorting what was actually said. He then added, “I think confusion is of the devil, and I think the public image that came across was one of confusion.”

In the Catholic magazine First Things, Peter Leithart discussed the synod in terms of spiritual warfare, suggesting that advocates of gay marriage are the victims of demonic deception. He explained, “When Christians see something that looks like a collective delusion, they’re looking at demonic deception and/or divine judgment. We live in a culture that has venerated idol-ologies of unbounded freedom with relentless zeal, and God has given us over to the logic of our folly.”

Others invoked the language of willful betrayal and conspiracy, rather than demonically-inspired confusion. John Smeaton, co-founder of Voice of the Family, commented, “Those who are controlling the Synod have betrayed Catholic parents worldwide. We believe that the Synod’s mid-way report is one of the worst official documents drafted in Church history.” In this assessment, it is not the synod itself that has betrayed Catholic families, but by a shadowy “them” who are controlling it.

Outside the sphere of mainstream discourse, traditionalist groups have been much more explicit in framing the synod in terms of an apocalyptic war with Satan. Lueken died in 1995, but her followers, known as “Baysiders,” strongly opposed the 13 October announcement. These Last Days Ministries, a Baysider, website, prefaced a report on the relatio with a prophecy delivered by Lueken on behalf of Jesus on 3 May 1978:

The Eternal Father has given mankind a set of rules, and in discipline they must be obeyed. It behooves Me to say that My heart is torn by the actions, the despicable actions, of My clergy. I unite, as your God, man and woman into the holy state of matrimony. And what I have bound together no man must place asunder. And what do I see but broken homes, marriages dissolved through annulments! It has scandalized your nation, and it is scandalizing the world. Woe to the teachers and leaders who scandalize the sheep!”

A Catholic author named Kelly Bowring even speculated that the relatio signaled a the beginning of an prophesied end times scenario, writing:

Will today be remembered as the first day that led to the Church’s prophesied schism? Quite likely yes. By many accounts people are waking up to see that the Family Synod of October 2014 is an officially Vatican-orchestrated work of manipulation. The mid-way report was released October 13th, a day of great spiritual significance.

Like many apocalyptic Marian groups, Bowring has located the relatio within a “theology of history” by finding other significant dates that also occurred on 13 October. On 13 October 1884, Pope Leo XIII composed the prayer to Saint Michael. According to Catholic legend, he did so after a mystical experience in which he overheard a conversation between God and Satan in which Satan was given “time and power” so that he could attempt to overthrow the Church. The “Miracle of the Sun” in Fatima, Portugal occurred on 13 October 1917. The Marian apparitions at Fatima were the most significant in modern history and the three “secrets of Fatima” delivered by the child seers remain the object of intense speculation among traditionalist Catholics. Finally, on 13 October 1973, Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, a Marian seer near Akita, Japan, delivered a prophecy of a great schism that would destroy the Church. By forming these connections, Bowring can locate new developments like the relatio within a cosmic scheme of history.

These responses––from off-the-cuff remarks equating confusion with the devil, to intricate webs of numerical correspondences––can be read as attempts to make sense of what previously seemed unthinkable. For some, it is easy to dismiss such language as hysterical or even evidence of mental illness. But demonology, conspiracy, and millennial prophecies are all interpretive tools that can be brought to bear in times of crisis. For lay Catholics who feel helpless and betrayed as strangers in Rome attempt to shift the core values of their tradition, these are also discourses of resistance.

Critics of Veronica Lueken claimed she was either mad or a con artist. (One reporter even suggested that her visions were a side effect of diet pills.) But if we examine Catholic tradition as an asymmetric collaboration between lay Catholics and Church authorities, figures like Veronica Lueken are easier to understand. Marian seers do not simply pop up fully formed. Instead events like Church reform create an alignment of social forces in which seers arise. The relationship that forms between seers and their followers creates a charismatic authority that––in some cases––can rival the authority of the Catholic hierarchy. For this reason, it seems likely that as Pope Francis continues to voice his preference for social justice rather than tradition, we can expect a backlash that imbues reform with dark and apocalyptic significance. Like Paul VI, Francis will likely be a pope who gives rise to seers.

Featured image credit: “General Audience with Pope Francis” (2013) by Catholic Church England and Wales. © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

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By Dr. Robert V. McNamee

On Sunday, 29 March 1739, two young men, aspiring authors and student friends from Eton College and Cambridge, departed Dover for the Continent. The twenty-two year old Horace Walpole, 4th earl of Orford (1717–1797), was setting out on his turn at the Grand Tour. Accompanying him on the journey, which would take them through France to Italy, was Thomas Gray (1716–1771), future author of the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”. The pair stayed abroad until September 1741, when an argument saw Gray return to England alone.

Travelling through Catholic domains, they would witness at arms-length one of the longest transfers of papal power in history, only four days shorter than the Interregnum, later imposed by the Napoleonic French, between the expulsion from the Papal States of Pius VI (who died 1799) and the election of Pius VII (14 March 1800). The on-going power struggle between the papacy and Catholic rulers of Europe, particularly with France, Spain and Portugal, had reached new levels of intensity — the latter two objecting in particular to unwelcome Jesuit interference in their treatment (read, “mistreatment”) of native populations in their overseas empires. The issue was still critical twenty years later, when Voltaire, under the pseudonym M. Demand, wrote to the Journal encyclopédique (1 April 1759), in the guise of identifying the real author of Candide, offering in partial evidence reports from the confrontations between Jesuits and colonial officials over their dealings with native populations in Paraguay.

The correspondence and journals of Gray and Walpole chart their travels, visits and discoveries across France and into Italy. The two young English travellers arrived in Florence on 16 December 1739, after a two days’ journey from Bologna across the Apennines. It was only two months before the ancient drama of papal passing and election would attract the attention of the world. Gray reported this news, when it came, to his friend Dr Thomas Wharton, writing on Saturday, 12 March 1740:

I conclude you will write to me; won’t you? oh! yes, when you know, that in a week I set out for Rome, & that the Pope is dead, & that I shall be (I should say, God willing; & if nothing extraordinary intervene; & if I’m alive, & well; & in all human probability) at the Coronation of a new one.

Clement XII (Papa Clemens duodecimus, born Lorenzo Corsini) had been pope from his election on 12 July 1730. He was the oldest person to become pope until Benedict XVI was elected in 2005. Clement died on 6 February 1740, and was eventually succeeded by Benedict XIV (Papa Benedictus quartus decimus, born Pròspero Lorenzo Lambertini), who was elected six months later on 17 August 1740. In a well-known anecdote of the election, Benedict is reported to have said to the cardinals: “If you wish to elect a saint, choose Gotti; a statesman, Aldrovandi; an honest man, me” (M. J. Walsh, Pocket Dictionary of Popes, London: Burns & Oates, 2006) — though as we will see from a contemporary report below, this is a rather colourless translation of the original.

A week later, Gray wrote to his mother Dorothy (Saturday, 19 March 1740):

The Pope is at last dead, and we are to set out for Rome on Monday next. The Conclave is still sitting there, and likely to continue so some time longer, as the two French Cardinals are but just arrived, and the German ones are still expected. It agrees mighty ill with those that remain inclosed: Ottoboni is already dead of an apoplexy; Altieri and several others are said to be dying, or very bad: Yet it is not expected to break up till after Easter. We shall lie at Sienna the first night, spend a day there, and in two more get to Rome. One begins to see in this country the first promises of an Italian spring, clear unclouded skies, and warm suns, such as are not often felt in England; yet, for your sake, I hope at present you have your proportion of them, and that all your frosts, and snows, and short-breaths are, by this time, utterly vanished. I have nothing new or particular to inform you of; and, if you see things at home go on much in their old course, you must not imagine them more various abroad. The diversions of a Florentine Lent are composed of a sermon in the morning, full of hell and the devil; a dinner at noon, full of fish and meager diet; and, in the evening, what is called a Conversazione, a sort of aſsembly at the principal people’s houses, full of I cannot tell what: Besides this, there is twice a week a very grand concert.

Two weeks later, after their arrival in Rome, Gray wrote another Saturday letter to his mother (2 April 1740):

St. Peter’s I saw the day after we arrived, and was struck dumb with wonder. I there saw the Cardinal d’Auvergne, one of the French ones, who, upon coming off his journey, immediately repaired hither to offer up his vows at the high altar, and went directly into the Conclave; the doors of which we saw opened to him, and all the other immured Cardinals came thither to receive him. Upon his entrance they were closed again directly. It is supposed they will not come to an agreement about a Pope till after Easter, though the confinement is very disagreeable.”

The conflict between catholic rulers, their national churches and the papacy led to prolonged disagreements and manoeuvrings in the Conclave, as evidenced by this letter from Walpole and Gray to their schoolboy friend, then fellow of King’s College Cambridge (Rome, 14 May 1740):

Boileau’s Discord dwelt in a College of Monks. At present the Lady is in the Conclave. Cardinal Corsini has been interrogated about certain Millions of Crowns that are absent from the Apostolic Chamber; He refuses giving Account, but to a Pope: However he has set several Arithmeticians to work, to compose Summs, & flourish out Expenses, which probably never existed. Cardinal Cibo pretends to have a Banker at Genoa, who will prove that he has received three Millions on the Part of the Eminent Corsini. This Cibo is a madman, but set on by others. He had formerly some great office in the government, from whence they are generally rais’d to the Cardinalate. After a time, not being promoted as he expected, he resign’d his Post, and retir’d to a Mountain where He built a most magnificient Hermitage. There He inhabited for two years, grew tir’d, came back and received the Hat.

Other feuds have been between Card. Portia and the Faction of Benedict the Thirteenth, by whom He was made Cardinal. About a month ago, he was within three Votes of being Pope. he did not apply to any Party, but went gleaning privately from all & of a sudden burst out with a Number; but too soon, & that threw Him quite out. Having been since left out of their Meetings, he ask’d one of the Benedictine Cardinals the reason; who replied, that he never had been their Friend, & never should be of their assemblies; & did not even hesitate to call him Apostate. This flung Portia into such a Rage that He spit blood, & instantly left the Conclave with all his Baggage. But the great Cause of their Antipathy to Him, was His having been one of the Four, that voted for putting Coscia to Death; Who now regains his Interest, & may prove somewhat disagreable to his Enemies; Whose Honesty is not abundantly heavier than His Own. He met Corsini t’other Day, & told Him, He heard His Eminence had a mind to his Cell: Corsini answer’d He was very well contented with that He had. Oh, says Coscia, I don’t mean here in the Conclave; but in the Castle St. Angelo.

With all these Animosities, One is near having a Pope. Card. Gotti, an Old, inoffensive Dominican, without any Relations, wanted yesterday but two voices; & is still most likely to succeed. Card. Altieri has been sent for from Albano, whither he was retir’d upon account of his Brother’s Death, & his own Illness; & where He was to stay till the Election drew nigh. There! there’s a sufficient Competency of Conclave News, I think. We have miserable Weather for the Season; Coud You think I was writing to You by my fireside at Rome in the middle of May? the Common People say tis occasion’d by the Pope’s Soul, which cannot find Rest.

As the bickering and accusations continued, Gray returned to Florence, where he reported to his father Philip (10 July 1740):

The Conclave we left in greater uncertainty than ever; the more than ordinary liberty they enjoy there, and the unusual coolneſs of the season, makes the confinement leſs disagreeable to them than common, and, consequently, maintains them in their irresolution. There have been very high words, one or two (it is said) have come even to blows; two more are dead within this last month, Cenci and Portia; the latter died distracted; and we left another (Altieri) at the extremity: Yet nobody dreams of an election till the latter end of September. All this gives great scandal to all good catholics, and everybody talks very freely on the subject.

Finally, on Sunday, 21 August 1740, Gray wrote again to his mother with the news of the new pope’s election:

The day before yesterday arrived the news of a Pope; and I have the mortification of being within four days journey of Rome, and not seeing his coronation, the heats being violent, and the infectious air now at its height. We had an instance, the other day, that it is not only fancy. Two country fellows, strong men, and used to the country about Rome, having occasion to come from thence hither, and travelling on foot, as common with them, one died suddenly on the road; the other got hither, but extremely weak, and in a manner stupid; he was carried to the hospital, but died in two days. So, between fear and lazineſs, we remain here, and must be satisfied with the accounts other people give us of the matter. The new Pope is called Benedict XIV. being created Cardinal by Benedict XIII. the last Pope but one. His name is Lambertini, a noble Bolognese, and Archbishop of that city. When I was first there, I remember to have seen him two or three times; he is a short, fat man, about sixty-five years of age, of a hearty, merry countenance, and likely to live some years. He bears a good character for generosity, affability, and other virtues; and, they say, wants neither knowledge nor capacity. The worst side of him is, that he has a nephew or two; besides a certain young favourite, called Melara, who is said to have had, for some time, the arbitrary disposal of his purse and family. He is reported to have made a little speech to the Cardinals in the Conclave, while they were undetermined about an election, as follows: ‘Most eminent Lords, here are three Bolognese of different characters, but all equally proper for the Popedom. If it be your pleasures, to pitch upon a Saint, there is Cardinal Gotti; if upon a Politician, there is Aldrovandi; if upon a Booby, here am I.’ The Italian is much more expreſsive, and, indeed, not to be translated; wherefore, if you meet with any body that understands it, you may show them what he said in the language he spoke it. ‘Eminſsimi. Sigri. Ci siamo tré, diversi sì, mà tutti idonei al Papato. Si vi piace un Santo, c’ è l’Gotti; se volete una testa scaltra, e Politica, c’ è l’Aldrovandé;c se un Coglione, eccomi!’ Cardinal Coscia is restored to his liberty, and, it is said, will be to all his benefices. Corsini (the late Pope’s nephew) as he has had no hand in this election, it is hoped, will be called to account for all his villanous practices.”

Dr. Robert V. McNamee is the Director of the Electronic Enlightenment Project, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Electronic Enlightenment is a scholarly research project of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, and is available exclusively from Oxford University Press. It is the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas, and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century — reconstructing one of the world’s great historical “conversations”.

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Image Credit: (1) Print Collection portrait file, Thomas Gray, Portraits. Source NYPL Digital Gallery
(2) Print Collection portrait file, B, Pope Benedict XIV. Source NYPL Digital Gallery

The post Thomas Gray and Horace Walpole on the grand tour to spread news of a papal election, 1739/1740 appeared first on OUPblog.

By Gerald O’Collins, SJ

“Pope Benedict is 78 years of age. Father O’Collins, do you think he’ll resign at 80?” “Brian,” I said, “give him a chance. He hasn’t even started yet.” It was the afternoon of 19 April 2005, and I was high above St Peter’s Square standing on the BBC World TV platform with Brian Hanrahan. The senior cardinal deacon had just announced from the balcony of St Peter’s to a hundred thousand people gathered in the square: “Habemus Papam.” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been elected pope.

Less than an hour earlier, white smoke pouring from a chimney poking up from the Sistine Chapel let the world know that the cardinal electors had chosen a successor to Pope John Paul II. The bells of Rome were supposed to ring out the news at once. But it took a quarter of an hour for them to chime in. When Hanrahan asked me why the bells hadn’t come in on cue, I pointed the finger at local inefficiency: “We’re in Italy, Brian.”

I was wrong. The keys to the telephone that should have let someone contact the bellringers were in the pocket of the dean of the college of cardinals, Joseph Ratzinger. He had gone into a change room to put on his white papal attire, and didn’t hand over the keys until he came out dressed as pope.

One of the oldest cardinals ever to be elected pope, after less than eight years in office Benedict XVI has now bravely decided to retire or, to use the “correct” word, abdicate. His declining health has made him surrender his role as Bishop of Rome, successor of St Peter, and visible head of the Catholic Christendom. He no longer has the stamina to give the Church the leadership it deserves and needs.

Years ago an Irish lady, after watching Benedict’s predecessor in action, said to me: “He popes well.” You didn’t need to be a specialized Vatican watcher to notice how John Paul II and Benedict “poped” very differently.

A charismatic, photogenic, and media-savvy leader, John Paul II proved a global, political figure who did as much as anyone to end European Communism. He more or less died on camera, with thousands of young people holding candles as they prayed and wept for their papal friend dying in his dimly lit apartment above St Peter’s Square.

Now Benedict’s papacy ends very differently. He will not be laid out for several million people to file past his open coffin. His fisherman’s ring will not be ceremoniously broken. There will be no official nine days of mourning or funeral service attended by world leaders and followed on television or radio by several billion people. He will not be lifted high above the crowd like a Viking king, as his coffin is carried for burial into the Basilica of St Peter’s. The first pope to use a pacemaker will quietly walk off the world stage.

In my latest book, an introduction to Catholicism, I naturally included a (smiling) picture of Pope Benedict. But he pales in comparison with the photos of John Paul II anointing and blessing the sick on a 1982 visit to the UK; meeting the Dalai Lama before going to pray for world peace in Assisi; in a prison cell visiting Mehmet Ali Agca, who had tried to assassinate him in May 1981; and hugging Mother Teresa of Calcutta after visiting one of her homes for the destitute and dying.

Yet the bibliography of that introduction contains no book written by John Paul II either before or after he became pope. But it does contain the enduring classic by Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (originally published 1967). Both as pope and earlier, it was through the force of his ideas rather than the force of his personality that Benedict XVI exercised his leadership.

The public relations record of Pope Benedict was far from perfect. He will be remembered for quoting some dismissive remarks about Islam made by a Byzantine emperor. That 2006  speech in Regensburg led to riots and worse in the Muslim world. Many have forgotten his visit later that year to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul when he turned towards Mecca and joined his hosts in silent prayer.

Catholics and other Christians around the world hope now for a forward-looking pope who can offer fresh leadership and deal quickly with some crying needs like the ordination of married men and the return to the local churches of the decision-making that some Vatican offices have arrogated to themselves.

When he speaks at midday from his apartment to the people gathered in St Peter’s Square on 24 February, the last Sunday before his resignation kicks in, Pope Benedict will be making his final public appearance before the people of Rome. A vast crowd will have streamed in from the city and suburbs to thank him with their thunderous applause. They cherished the clear, straightforward language of his sermons and homilies, and admire him for what will prove the defining moment of his papacy—his courageous decision to resign and pass the baton to a much younger person.

Gerald O’Collins received his Ph.D. in 1968 at the University of Cambridge, where he was a research fellow at Pembroke College. From 1973-2006, he taught at the Gregorian University (Rome) where he was also dean of the theology faculty (1985-91). Alone or with others, he has published fifty books, including Catholicism: A Very Short Introduction and The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions. As well as receiving over the years numerous honorary doctorates and other awards, in 2006 he was created a Companion of the General Division of the Order of Australia (AC), the highest civil honour granted through the Australian government. Currently he is a research professor of theology at St Mary’s University College,Twickenham (UK).

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Image Credits: Pope Benedict XVI during general audition By Tadeusz Górny, public domain via Wikimedia Commons; Church of the Carmine, Martina Franca, Apulia, Italy. Statues of Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II By Tango7174, creative commons licence via Wikimedia Commons

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The project will make some 1.5 million digitized pages freely available online from the two institutions' collections of Greek manuscripts, 15th-century incunabula, Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books.

Well, we’ve made it through the full anthology. Virtues and traits demonstrated in the first 11 stories include:

Compassion & Conscientiousness

Loyalty & Courage

Respect for others

Truth

Right vs. Wrong

Honor

Contrition

Patience

Good vs. Evil

Equality

Responsibility

 Take a gander at how these compare to our character education criteria too at the Litland.com website  .

 It’s been quite an adventure, on and off earth, in and out of space, deep into the minds of people, aliens, and hybrids. Often too much like life today, such as the surrogate raising of droids in Cathedral which mirrors today’s legal battles to permit renting a womb. Characters who seem to be losing their mind; hearing voices. Profound emptiness. Real friendship. Virtual delusions in Otherworld. A fast paced, well written collection, I recommend Infinite Space, Infinite God II for family and youth group book clubs as well as classroom reading…each story provides much to think about and discuss! A good teaching tool, but also just good ol’ fiction for all to enjoy!

  12 days of sci-fi: The end!

 Our final story is a bit of a mind-bender from the view of physical existence as well as spiritual beliefs…

 Dyads by Ken Pick and Alan Loewen

 Editor’s note: “The Church has not yet spoken definitively on whether or not the Christian faith applies to aliens… The current thinking is that God will manifest Himself to intelligent species in a specific manner that makes sense to them. In the case of the Thalendri–fox-like sentients who mate for life–God has revealed his sacred Trinity as Husband, Wife, and Eternal Dance. They also make it very clear that what is holy and right for Thalendri is not necessarily holy and right for humans…”

 It is a time of post Vatican VI; post Islamic wars which desecrated all physical signs of the original Christian church including the Vatican. A post-apocalyptic religion story that portrays those of a sincere faith contrasted to self-possessed fanatics. Bucky Bible refers to himself as Christian but clearly acts contrary to the foundations of his faith; extreme Muslims who cause the Islamic wars, exterminating even their Muslim brethren; and fuzzy aliens who take revenge in the name of their fuzzy religion. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from Fr. Heidler’s travelogue, the insights of which set the tone. Read the various litanies of saints closely too, to see which are real and which are of a time not yet seen!

 As indicated in the editor’s notes, this story purports that God manifests himself to aliens in a way that they understand. However, the attempt to demonstrate the alien religion is unacceptable for humans is based upon physical differences of the two species, and not theological error of the alien religion. This leaves the reader open to considering God’s relationship with his creation in a manner that differs from God’s revelation to us through scripture and tradition. As such, some readers may be offended.  Given the general belief today that people do not develop solid judgment and decision making abilities until after age 20, this story might have been better placed in an adult anthology rather than one aimed towards teens. Therefore, parents are advised to consider this within their own family values.

 (Alan Loewen lives near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, three children, a Sheltie, a homicidal parrot and way too many cats. A pastor for two small country churches and a writer, he is working with fellow author Ken Pick on a trilogy that will further expand the adventures of Father Eric Heidler and Jill Noir, a character that appeared in Mask of the Ferret in Infinite Space, Infinite God I. His blog documenting his writing adventures can be found at http://literary-equine.livejournal.com/ .

 Ken Pick (“Dyads”): Ken Pick is a computer programmer and moderately-practicing Catholic layman from Southern California. Cursed with a hyperactive imagination, he writes (among many-many other things) in an attempt to stay sane. He is currently working with co-author Alan Loewen expanding “Mask of the Ferret” (Infinite Space, Infinite God I) and “Dyads” into a braided novel, the first book in a projected trilogy. An additional story in the same arc, “Down to Cathuria”, appeared in the small-press anthology Different Worlds, Diff