Vatican Paper Criticizes Phony Penitents

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano sharply criticized an article published by a weekly Italian newspaper based on a series of false confessions, Spero News reported.

In order “to reveal” what Italian priests teach in confessionals on certain matters of ethics and morality, reporters of the weekly L’Espresso acted as penitents — a sacrilegious act.

L’Osservatore Romano denounced the “attack on religious sensitivities,” and breach of “professional ethics,” saying it “has desecrated the sacrament ... attacking the religious sensibilities of the faithful and deceiving the good faith of priests, seriously wounding the inviolability of pastoral ministry.”

Cardinal Zen: Get Tougher With China

The Associated Press reported Jan. 27 that Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, 75, of Hong Kong said it was time for the Vatican to take a more uncompromising line toward the Chinese government, which broke with the Church more than a half-century ago and has sought to maintain control of Catholic institutions.

“I think in this moment the most important thing we have to do is to assess the situation, to assess what we have done in many years and realize that we must change strategy,” he said. “Because in so many years we have accepted compromises which in the beginning were good and necessary, but after so many years we can see there is a bad side effect.”
He added, “Maybe people don’t like to take a hard line, but I would say clearer lines are needed.”

Catholics in Iraq Mark Important Day

The tiny Armenian Catholic community in Iraq will have an archbishop for the first time in more than five years, reported the British weekly The Universe.

Pope Benedict XVI gave his assent to the Armenian Catholic bishops’ election of Father Emmanuel Dabbaghian, 73, as the Armenian Catholic archbishop of Baghdad, the Vatican announced Jan. 26. The post had been vacant since the October 2001 retirement of Archbishop Paul Coussa at the age of 84.

The Armenian Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad covers all of Iraq, and since 2001 Vatican statistics have given the Armenian Catholic population of the country as 2,000 faithful. The archbishop-elect, 73, is currently the vicar for Georgia of the Ordinariate for Armenians of Eastern Europe. Until his election, Bishop-elect Dabbaghian was a parish priest in Tiflis, Georgia, and responsible for the Armenian-Catholic Seminary.

Latinist Tries to Keep the Language Alive

Carmeline Father Reginald Foster, the Pope’s top adviser on Latin, has launched a new Latin Academy in Rome, in his final effort to prevent it from dying out, the London Sunday Telegraph reported.

“It is dying in the Church. I’m not optimistic about Latin. The young priests and bishops are not studying it,” said Father Foster, 68, who was appointed the Papal Latinist 38 years ago by Pope Paul VI. “You cannot understand St. Augustine in English. He thought in Latin. It is like listening to Mozart through a jukebox.”

He spends his mornings at the Vatican, in an office just along the corridor from Pope Benedict. Outside his door, he has reprogrammed a Vatican cash machine to display instructions in Latin: “Inserito scidulam quaeso ut faciundum cognoscas rationem” (Insert your card so that the account may be recognized.)