Paven

Father Z. er en av de ganske konservative katolske bloggerne som har gjort mest for å se den nye pavens måte å handle på som en fortsettelse av pave Benedikts styre. Han har til og med laget et bilde på toppen av sin blogg som uttrykker akkurat dette:

Han skriver også om det i dette blogginnlegget (fra onsdagsauduensen denne uka). Og i en diskusjon om pave Frans’ liturgier i den stille uke tar han samme spørsmål opp. Og her (fra 28/3) prøver han å analysere hva pave Frans sannsynligvis prøver å gjøre.

Zenit.org skrev i går at Vatikan-kjenneren Andrea Tornielli er kommet med en bok om pave Frans. Et utdrag av boka kan leses her, og Zenit intervjuet Tornielli om paven, og om boka. Her er et utdrag – han ser ikke noe brudd mellom pave Benedikt og pave Frans:

…. ZENIT: As a journalist, you know well the perils of being an actor on the world stage. Based on Cardinal Bergoglio’s relationship with media in Argentina, what are you expecting from this pontificate in terms of communication and media?

Tornielli: I know the peril very well, but I want to tell you that it does not exist with Pope Francis because he is who he is and he will not change his lifestyle. I think that from the point of view of communication with and to the media, the first days of the pontificate are wonderful: the Pope is perfectly able to communicate in a very simple and direct manner. I don’t know how long the «honeymoon» with the media will last, but I think we have a Pope that is able to communicate heart to heart with people around the world.

ZENIT: Related to question two, now that Francis is under global scrutiny, seemingly small choices — say, the color of shoes, or style of chair — might be given far-reaching interpretations, something along the lines of «He is using a simpler white chair, so he’s making a break with his predecessor (or predecessors.)» What’s your perspective on Francis’ choices in these first days as Pope?

Tornielli: I don’t agree with the analysis about the breaks with his predecessor. Gossip over continuity and breaks with previous popes based on mozzettas, ermine furs and red shoes is threatening to overshadow the reality of true continuity between Benedict XVI and Francis. Theirs is a continuity that finds proof in several passages, in small deeds and acts that were seen and heard during the first few days of this pontificate: the humility shown by both, their shared knowledge that the Church is ultimately led by God, and their sense of peace. ….

ZENIT: I recently asked another of Francis’ biographers to summarize the new Pope’s personality, albeit aware that a person cannot be summarized in a few sentences. How would you summarize him?

Tornielli: A humble priest, a real pastor, who knows that the gift of faith and the experience of an encounter with Jesus the Lord is not a property or a sacred power, but exists to be communicated to the people, especially those who live in the peripheries, not only geographic but also existential. …

Mange har blitt overrasket over pave Frans’ nye stil, men han er ikke noe spesielt språkmektig skriver Sandro Magister i en artikkel jeg siterer litt fra her (paven snakker visst bare italiensk offentlig, ikke en gang spansk). Pave Johannes Paul II var ung da han ble biskop og utviklet etter hvert en måte å gjøre ting på som vi er blitt vant til, pave Benedikt hadde vært i Vatikanet i over 20 år da han ble pave, og fortsatte mange av forgjengerens tradisjoner. Så kommer det en mann helt uten denne erfaringen, og han gjør naturlig nok en del ting på sin egen måte. Slik åpner Magister sin artikkel:

Outside of Argentina, very little had been published about Jorge Mario Bergoglio before his election as pope.

But now the translations of his writings, speeches, interviews are multiplying rapidly. And they are helping to make less surprising the actions of Pope Francis.

The following are some of these “surprises» small and large, which however no longer appear as such in the light of his autobiography, published in 2010 in Argentina in the book-length interview by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti, entitled «El Jesuita,» now on sale in other countries as well, including Italy.

It is true, Pope Francis loves to listen to music but does not sing, neither during solemn Masses nor in imparting the blessing. It is said that the Jesuits “non rubricant nec cantant,» meaning that they do not love ceremonies or singing. But the explanation is simpler than that.

At the age of 21 he came down with a severe case of pneumonia and “three cysts were removed along with the upper portion of his right lung. That experience left him with a pulmonary deficiency that, while not influencing him significantly, makes him feel his own human limitation.”

Therefore he does not sing simply because he does not have sufficient breath to do so, as can also be intuited from how he speaks, with short breaths and in a subdued voice. In any case he has confessed: “I am completely tone deaf.”

In effect he speaks Italian well. And he also understands the Piedmontese dialect of his family of origin. But “as far as the other languages are concerned,” he admits in his autobiography, “I must say that I used to speak them but do not speak them, because of lack of practice. I used to speak French fairly well, and I got along in German. What has always caused the most problems for me has been English, especially the phonetics.”

The fact remains that, in refusing to speak in languages other than Italian, Bergoglio seems to have decided to sacrifice – in public – even his mother tongue, Spanish.

On Easter he even declined to give the greetings in 65 languages unfailingly recited by his predecessor pontiffs. …

Fr. Longenecker (en amerikansk prest som har en blogg jeg ofte leser) har skrevet en artikkel han har kalt «Brothers in Arms: St. Benedict and St. Francis – The two saints were different kinds of reformers, and the Church needs both». Her skriver han bl.a.:

The long papacy of Bl. John Paul II means that many of us have not lived with a variety of popes. Now, within eight years we have gotten used to three popes, and with the retirement of Pope Benedict, some Catholics are finding it difficult to accept Pope Francis.

It’s therefore helpful to remember that in the divine economy, the saints all have different parts to play according to their own charisms and personalities. St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote, “How different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls! Souls are as different as faces!” The variety of saints is like different flowers, trees and shrubs in a garden. Studying the saints helps us understand God’s wonderful ways of working in the world. Therefore, looking at St. Benedict and St. Francis of Assisi will help us see how Pope Benedict and Pope Francis complement one another.

St. Benedict was born into a society in chaos. At the end of the fifth century, the Roman Empire was crumbling, and it began to drift into decadence, despair and pessimism. The armies had been pulled back and the barbarians were invading. In the midst of the encroaching darkness, Benedict established little core communities of radical disciples. Men withdrew from the world with Benedict to live quiet lives of prayer, study and work. Those core communities became the seeds of what flowered into the great civilization we know as medieval Christendom.

As we understand Benedict the Saint, we will understand Benedict the Pope. …..

…. Like St. Benedict before him, St. Francis was also born into a Church in chaos. In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church was besieged by corruption from within and threatened with persecution from without. St. Francis came on the scene with his famous vow of poverty, a life of joyful simplicity and an outgoing personality. Francis also followed the religious life, but it was lived out not in a Benedictine monastery, but in the burgeoning cities and in wandering through the world.

As we saw St. Benedict alive in Pope Benedict; likewise, we are already seeing, (and can expect to see more of) St. Francis alive in Pope Francis. The two are not contradictory, but complementary, and the way to see how they work together is to see the big picture of the different gifts these two saints bring to the Church, and therefore the different gifts each pope will bring. …

The Catholic Herald skriver at selv om de fleste eksperte tippet helt feil ved årets pavevalg, var noen av de beste italienske kjennerne klar over hva som kunne skje:

…. In fact, five ballots were enough to make a visibly stunned Bergoglio the successor of St Peter – only one more than was necessary to elect his predecessor, and three fewer than it took to elect John Paul II in 1978. So the pundits were wrong, myself included. Or were they?

In fact, some of the best-informed Italian journalists had noticed that his name was recurring in the talk during the final days of the build-up. Andrea Tornielli, that oracle among vaticanologists, not only mentioned him on the morning the conclave began, but later the same day brazenly offered his own version of the state of the deliberations still under way among the sequestered cardinals.

As all know, the participants in a conclave are vowed to the strictest secrecy. Nonetheless, once it is over the details usually come out in dribs and drabs until something like a clear picture can be formed. It is now known that Bergoglio was the only other serious contended to rival Ratzinger in 2005. Tornielli, however, seemed to have inside information even as the voting proceeded. Perhaps this was merely a priori calculation on the basis of information obtained beforehand, but in any case, Tornielli’s analysis proved remarkable prescient. He averred confidently that there was a deadlock in the conclave, but he mentioned Bergoglio, along with Scola and Ouellet, as one of the three front-runners. …

St Olavs redaktør, Heidi Øyma, skriver en grundig og interessant lederartikkel om pave Benedikt i siste nummer av tidsskriftet (les det her), artikkelen begynner slik:

Det er ikke lett å sammenfatte pave Benedikts rikholdige pontifikat – så mye på bare åtte år! Heldigvis har han selv gitt oss tolkningsnøkkelen.

«Biskopen av Roma sitter på sin bispestol for å vitne om Kristus». Den nyvalgte pave Benedikt uttalte dette under sin høytidelige innsettelse på bispestolen i Romas katedral, Laterankirken. Det er umulig å forstå Benedikt XVI hvis man ikke tar utgangspunkt i de to store temaene i hans liv: kjærligheten til Kristus og kjærligheten til Kirken. Det er en kjærlighet som ikke har gjort blind, men tvert imot gitt ham et forbausende klarsyn – en realisme som også er født av dyp ydmykhet.

Josef Ratzinger deltok med stor begeistring på Det annet vatikankonsil og formidlet underveis til katolikker i hjemlandet hva Konsilet betød. Etter kirkemøtets første sesjon holdt han i januar 1963 et langt foredrag på universitetet i Bonn. Han avslutter sin entusiastiske og skarpsindige analyse av konsilarbeidene med to bemerkninger om hva Konsilet aldri vil kunne gjøre. Den første av dem lyder: «Konsilet kan ikke eliminere Kirkens menneskelige natur. Selv etter Konsilet vil denne naturen ha behov for fornyelse. Den vil vare helt til Herrens gjenkomst.»

Femti år senere lyder dette som profetiske ord, særlig når man tenker på den euforiske stemningen og nesten grenseløse optimismen som hersket i Kirken da de ble uttalt, en tro på at (til dels høyst påkrevde!) reformer skulle bety en slags endelig løsning på alle vanskeligheter. …

Lederartikkelen er ganske lang, så her hopper jeg over en hel del, og tar med avslutningen:

Pave Benedikts beslutning, som han tok «etter gjentatte ganger å ha ransaket min samvittighet fremfor Gud», er også et resultat av hans realisme og ydmykhet, samt åpenhet for ukonvensjonelle valg så sant de er i samsvar med sannheten. Den utløste en medieinteresse uten like. Blant de tidlige kommentarene kunne vi ofte lese at katolikkene og Kirken nå var «rystet». Det pussige var at det var utrolig vanskelig å finne en katolikk som faktisk ga uttrykk for rystelse. Vemodige, ja, med en følelse av «faderløshet», som biskop Eidsvig uttrykte det i takksigelsesmessen for Benedikts pontifikat, jo, absolutt. Noen satt også med en opplevelse av at paven kanskje ikke hadde handlet rett. Men rystet? Nei. Hvorfor i all verden skulle vi være det?

Mye som ble sagt i dagene mellom annonseringen av Benedikts avgang og valget av en ny pave, tyder på at media ironisk nok langt overvurderer pavens betydning. Benedikt gjør ikke det. I sin selvbiografi beskriver han levende det overdådige oppbudet i hjembyen da han og storebroren kom hjem for å feire sine første hellige messer. Han gikk der og hørte på jubelen og sa til seg selv: «Dette er ikke til ære for deg, Josef, det er ikke til ære for deg.»

Kirkens glede over en nyviet prest eller over en nyvalgt pave eller æresbevisninger for en pave som går av, skyldes ikke personen selv, men ham som er Kirkens Herre. Derfor kunne Benedikt etter å ha mottatt en langvarig applaus fra kardinalene og de fremmøtte – en applaus han vanligvis ville avbrutt, men denne gangen ga rom for – si takk for deretter å konkludere: «La oss vende tilbake til bønnen.»

… Igjen og igjen under sine siste dager på Peters stol understreket pave Benedikt at Kirken ikke tilhører oss – heller ikke tilhører hun paven – men Kristus, han som ikke svikter. Slik kan abdikasjonen også sees som en stor troshandling. Som paven sa det da han annonserte sin avgang: «Jeg takker dere hjertelig for den kjærlighet med hvilken dere har båret byrden av min tjeneste sammen med meg, og det arbeid dere har gjort. Jeg ber om tilgivelse for alle mine mangler. Nå betror vi Kirken til den øverste Hyrde, Vår Herre, Jesus Kristus.»

«Biskopen av Roma sitter på sin bispestol for å vitne om Kristus». Benedikt vitnet om Kirkens Herre ikke minst da han reiste seg fra stolen.

George Weigel er ikke hvem som helst (les om ham på Wikipedia , bl.a. om alle bøkene han har skrevet), og han skriver i dag på FirstThings om pave Frans, i stor grad ut fra et møte han hadde med ham i Argentina for et knapt år siden – for å finne materiale til sin siste bok, «Evangeliske katolikker«. Han skriver svært positivt om den nye paven, bl.a.:

What kind of man is (pope Francis)? Some impressions from an hour’s conversation last May:

A man of God.The new pope struck me then as someone who lived from the inside out: a man whose rich interior life was the basis of his public life; a leader whose decisions grew from prayer and discernment, not calculation.

A man of profound humility. I had long been interested in getting to know then-Cardinal Bergoglio, but I had the hardest time getting him to talk about his own life and experiences. I didn’t detect shyness in this, or false modesty, but a true evangelical humility. Pope Francis will not have the effervescence of a John Paul II; but like the Polish pope who created him cardinal, Jorge Bergoglio has spent his life saying, not “Look at me,” but rather, “Look to Jesus Christ.”

A man of keen and realistic intelligence. Pope Francis is not the university professor that John Paul II and Benedict XVI had been in their pre-papal lives. And while that model of preparing for the papacy served the Church well for thirty-five years, it’s not the only possible model. Now, rather than a professor who learned how to be a pastor, the Church has been given a pastor who has long experience of being a pastor.

Nonetheless, I was struck last May by Bergoglio’s sharp mind, his familiarity with issues throughout the world Church, and his prudence in judging people and situations. He was, for example, completely realistic and lucid about the Church’s situation in Latin America. …

A man of the New Evangelization. The new pope played a significant role in shaping the Latin American bishops’ 2007 “Aparecida Document,” which embraced the New Evangelization and put it at the center of the Church’s life. In our conversation, …

A man of reform. We spoke of the Latin American edition of my book The Courage To Be Catholic, for which he thanked me. And in discussing Vatican affairs, then-Cardinal Bergoglio displayed a shrewd, but not cynical, grasp of just what was wrong with the Church’s central bureaucratic machinery, and why. …

A man of freedom rightly understood. In addition to Pope Francis’ lifetime commitment to the poor I’d also note his commitment to human rights and democracy, both of which are under severe pressure in Argentina. The new pope knows the fragility of democratic self-governance, and will work to shore up democracy’s eroding moral-cultural foundations throughout the West.

Alle som ikke hadde anledning til å se pave Frans’ innsettelsesmesse direkte (som jeg selv ikke hadde), kan se hele messen (pluss alt som skjer før og etter messen) her:

Og på katolsk.no kan man lese en norsk oversettelse av pavens preken ved denne anledning.

Det er virkelig en helt ny stil nå som pave Frans er på plass, fra zenit.org kan vi lese en oversettelse av gårsdagens Angelus:

Brothers and sisters, hello!

After the first meeting last Wednesday, today I can again offer my greeting to everyone! And I am glad to do it on Sunday, the Lord’s day! This is beautiful and important for us Christians: coming together on Sunday, greeting each other, talking with each other like we are doing now here in the piazza; a piazza that, thanks to the media, has the dimensions of the world. On this fifth Sunday of Lent, the Gospel presents us with the episode of the adulterous woman (cf. John 8:1-11), who Jesus saves from the death sentence.

Jesus attitude is striking: we do not hear words of scorn, we do not hear words of condemnation, but only words of love, of mercy, that invite us to conversion. Neither do I condemn you: go and sin no more! (8:11). Well, brothers and sisters, the face of God is that of a merciful father, who always has patience. Have you thought about God’s patience, the patience that he has for each of us? That is his mercy. He always has patience, patience with us, he understands us, he waits for us, he does not weary of forgiving us if we know how to return to him with a contrite heart. Great is the mercy of the Lord, the Psalm says.

These last several days I have been able to read a book by a cardinal, Cardinal Kasper, a smart theologian, a good theologian on mercy. And it did me much good that book, but dont think that I am advertising the books of my cardinals! It is not that way! But it did me much good, much good… Cardinal Kasper said that hearing the word mercy, this word changes everything. It is the best word we can hear: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to rightly understand this mercy of God, this merciful Father, who has a lot of patience … Let us remember the prophet Isaiah, who says that even if our sins are bright red, God’s mercy can make them white as snow. Mercy is beautiful!

I remember, when I had just become a bishop, in the year 1992, Our Lady of Fatima had just arrived in Buenos Aires and there was a big Mass for the sick. I went to hear confessions at that Mass. And near the end of the Mass I got up, because I had to administer holy oil.

An old lady came to me, a humble lady, very humble, over 80 years old; I looked at her and I said to her: Grandma, because in our country this is what we call old people: ‘Grandma do you want to go to confession?’ ‘Yes,’ she said to me. But if you havent sinned…, [I said]. And she said to me: We have all sinned… . ‘But maybe the Lord does not forgive them’… [I replied].

The Lord forgives everything, she told me, certain of what she was saying. But how do you know that, madam? If the Lord did not forgive everything, [she said], the world wouldnt exist. I felt like asking her, Tell me, madam, did you study at the Gregorian? because thats the wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives: interior wisdom about the mercy of God.

Let us not forget this: God never wearies of forgiving us, never! So, father, whats the problem? Well, the problem is that we grow weary, we do not want to, we tire of asking for forgiveness. He never tires of forgiving, but we, at times, we tire of asking forgiveness. Let us never tire, let us never tire! He is the loving Father, who always forgives, who has that heart of mercy for all of us. And we too learn to be merciful with everyone. We invoke the intercession of Our Lady who held in her arms the Mercy of God made man. Now let us all together pray the Angelus. [Following the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted those present in Italian.]

I offer a cordial greeting to all the pilgrims. Thanks for your welcome and for your prayers. I ask you to pray for me. I renew my embrace of the faithful of Rome and I extend it to all of you, who come from various parts of Italy and of the world, and to those who are joining through different media. I chose the name of the Patron of Italy, St. Francis of Assisi, and that reinforces my spiritual bond with this land, where as you know my family has its origins. But Jesus has called us to be part of a new family: his Church, this family of God, walking together along the way of the Gospel.

May the Lord bless you, may Our Lady protect you. Do not forget this: the Lord never wearies of forgiving! We are the ones who weary of asking for forgiveness. Have a good Sunday and a good lunch!

Det skriver Sandro Magister på www.chiesa:

By electing as pope at the fourth scrutiny the archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the conclave has made a move as surprising as it is brilliant.

Surprising for those – almost everyone – who had not noticed, during the preceding days, the effective appearance of his name in the conversations among the cardinals. His relatively advanced age, 76 years and three months, led him to be classified more among the great electors than among the possible elect.

In the conclave of 2005 the opposite had happened for him. Bergoglio was one of the most decisive supporters of the appointment of Joseph Ratzinger as pope. And instead he found himself voted for, against his own will, precisely by those who wanted to block the appointment of Benedict XVI.

The fact remains that both one and the other became pope. Bergoglio with the unprecedented name of Francis. …..

Les hele denne artikkelen her.

Alle ser ut til å tenke at det er hl Frans av Assisi som er helgenen bak det nye pavenavnet, men kunne det ikke være like naturlig (for en jesuitt) at det er den hellige Frans Xaver – verdens nest mest kjente jesuitt (etter hl Ignatius) og Kirkens nest mest kjente misjonær (etter apostelen Paulus)? Det kan også være en annen kjent jesuitt, hl Frans Borgia, en av de første jesuittgeneralene.

Selv kjenner jeg godt til hl Frans Xaver pga Fransiskus-søstrene i Bergen, der jeg bodde i mange år. Han var med og stiftet Jesuitt-selskapet, og var deretter misjonær i India, Sri Lanka og Japan, og døde på vei inn (for å misjonere) i Kina.

Vi blir sikkert informert om dette etter hvert – og det kan jo være at flere av disse helgenene sammen han fått paven til å velge navnet Frans.

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam.

Qui nomen sibi imposuit Franciscum.

Imponerende at katolsk.no hadde klar en presentasjon av den nye paven – på tross av at valget var nokså overraskende.

På katolsk.no kan vi lese en interessant og morsom side som forteller hvordan den nye pavens navn kunngjøres av protodiakonen. Først sier han «Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; Habemus Papam!” Deretter sier han den nye pavens døpe-/fornavn, og her har man laget en liste over de mest aktuelle kandidatene, slik at man kan gjenkjenne personen før etternavnet (etter flere kunstpauser) endelig nevnes. Her er listen:

Petrum – f.eks. Peter Turkson og Peter Erdö
Angelum – f.eks. Angelo Scola og Angelo Bagnasco
Marcum – f.eks. Marc Ouellet
Ioannem Francus — f.eks. Gianfranco Ravasi
Leonardum – f.eks. Leonardo Sandri
Christophorum – f.eks. Christoph Schönborn
Timotheum – f.eks. Timothy Dolan
Ioannem – f.eks. Sean O’Malley
Ludovicem – f.eks. Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle

Under ser vi hvordan dette gjøres i oktober 1978, da pave Johannes Paul II ble valgt – en interessant video jeg aldri hadde sett før.

Fra bloggen «Whispers in the Loggia»:

The First Scrutiny having been completed, at 7.41pm Rome, the Black Smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chimney.

As previously mentioned, the opening ballot’s principal purpose is to provide the first complete picture of who the electors view as contenders (and don’t), allowing early bases of significant support to be built upon, and less prevalent ones to be winnowed into other blocs.

In other words, only on the basis of tonight’s snapshot does the papal «horse-race» – which the Italians have dubbed «Il Totopapa,» the «Popestakes» – begin in earnest. With the cardinals now locked away and cut off from the world outside for the duration, though, only after the 266th Pontiff emerges will we learn how that shaped out.

The day’s official business ended, the cardinals are being transported back to the «Conclave Hotel» at the Domus for dinner in common and discussions likely to extend into the night.

The usual voting pattern begins tomorrow as Ballots 2 and 3 get underway at 9.30am Rome. Expected to be another round of black, the smoke signaling the combined end of both votes can be expected sometime around Vatican Noon. Barring a resolution, Ballots 4 and 5 would then start at 4.30pm, with their smoke to come in the area of 6pm or later. (Repeat cycle until white smoke or, should it be necessary, the mandatory pause-day for reflection would kick in, apparently on Saturday.) …..

PRESS COMMUNIQUÉ FROM THE HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE

The eighth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals has decided that the Conclave for the election of the Pope will begin on Tuesday, 12 March 2013.

A «pro eligendo Romano Pontifice» Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning. In the afternoon the cardinals will enter into the Conclave.

Fra Vatikanets egne nettsider.