The preaching of the Gospel has always been accompanied by concern for the word: the inspired word of God and the culture in which that word takes root and flourishes. Here in Scotland, I think of the three medieval universities founded here by the popes, including that of Saint Andrews which is beginning to mark the 600th anniversary of its foundation. In the last 30 years and with the assistance of civil authorities, Scottish Catholic schools have taken up the challenge of providing an integral education to greater numbers of students, and this has helped young people not only along the path of spiritual and human growth, but also in entering the professions and public life. This is a sign of great hope for the Church, and I encourage the Catholic professionals, politicians and teachers of Scotland never to lose sight of their calling to use their talents and experience in the service of the faith, engaging contemporary Scottish culture at every level. The evangelization of culture is all the more important in our times, when a “dictatorship of relativism” threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man’s nature, his destiny and his ultimate good. There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatize it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty. Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.

For this reason I appeal in particular to you, the lay faithful, in accordance with your baptismal calling and mission, not only to be examples of faith in public, but also to put the case for the promotion of faith’s wisdom and vision in the public forum. Society today needs clear voices which propose our right to live, not in a jungle of self-destructive and arbitrary freedoms, but in a society which works for the true welfare of its citizens and offers them guidance and protection in the face of their weakness and fragility. Do not be afraid to take up this service to your brothers and sisters, and to the future of your beloved nation.

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AIRPORT-INDUCED IDENTITY DYSPHORIA Describes the extent to which modern travel strips the traveler of just enough sense of identity so as to create a need to purchase stickers and gift knick-knacks that bolster their sense of slightly eroded personhood: flags of the world, family crests, school and university merchandise…..

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A curious phenomenon has emerged at the intersection of fashion, sports and crime: dozens of men and women who have robbed, beaten, stabbed and shot at their fellow New Yorkers have done so while wearing Yankees caps or clothing.

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The pattern of the pope cleaning up a mess created by other top church officials was first glimpsed in Portugal, after senior Vatican personnel had publicly compared criticism of the pope to anti-Semitism and “petty gossip.” Benedict XVI changed the tone by insisting, in comments to reporters aboard the papal plane, that the real problem was not outside attacks but sin inside the church.

That papal course correction continued on day one of his four-day trip to the United Kingdom, which got off to an inauspicious start as British papers played up a comment by German Cardinal Walter Kasper, recently retired as the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, that landing at Heathrow Airport, one has the sense of arriving in a “third world country.”

Kasper, who is not on the U.K. trip due to illness, also complained that an “aggressive atheism” is speaking in Britain.

That might have been the dominant day one story, had it not been for Pope Benedict XVI’s comments aboard the papal plane on the sexual abuse crisis. The pontiff candidly acknowledged that the church was “not sufficiently vigilant and not sufficiently quick and decisive to take the necessary measures” to combat the crisis.

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From the Queen:

Your Holiness, your presence here today reminds us of our common Christian heritage, and of the Christian contribution to the encouragement of world peace, and to the economic and social development of the less prosperous countries of the world. We are all aware of the special contribution of the Roman Catholic Church particularly in its ministry to the poorest and most deprived members of society, its care for the homeless and for the education provided by its extensive network of schools.

Religion has always been a crucial element in national identity and historical self-consciousness. This has made the relationship between the different faiths a fundamental factor in the necessary cooperation within and between nation states. It is, therefore, vital to encourage a greater mutual, and respectful understanding. We know from experience that through committed dialogue, old suspicions can be transcended and a greater mutual trust established.

I know that reconciliation was a central theme in the life of Cardinal John Henry Newman, for whom you will be holding a Mass of Beatification on Sunday. A man who struggled with doubt and uncertainty, his contribution to the understanding of Christianity continues to influence many.

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Update: The full text of the Pope’s speech is here.

One is the ruler of a global congregation recently put at nearly 1.2 billion, the other a nominal head of a worldwide communion of some 80 million….Joseph Ratzinger and Rowan Williams will [soon] meet during the papal visit to Britain. There is much to unite these seemingly disparate figures

It is common to describe Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, as the two most distinguished thinkers to hold their respective posts for several centuries. Both are former professors steeped in the classical Christian tradition, but share a gift for recasting apparently dusty or arcane material in up-to-date language. Both are excellent preachers, lucid as well as learned.

It is equally common to point up big differences between the two leaders, starting with the most divisive internal questions of our times: women bishops and homosexuality. The Pope’s conservatism on both matters is implacable. The archbishop thinks that all levels of ordained ministry should be open to candidates of both sexes; and he made several weighty pro-gay statements before his translation to Canterbury ”“ even though he now feels bound to defer to the conservative majority in worldwide Anglicanism on this subject….

Look a bit closer, though, and an apparently ill-matched pair seem a lot less different than at first sight.

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Herewith the introductory blurb:

Benedictine Father Christopher Jamison is the former Abbot of Worth Abbey in West Sussex, England. He is also very well known for the making – together with the BBC – of a television series entitled “The Monastery”. Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen asked Father Jamison what kind of reception is Pope Benedict XVIth going to receive when he touches down in the UK …
“The Prime Minster, David Cameron, has today posted on the official “N. 10 Downing Street” website a message of welcome from the PM to his Holiness (…) the fact that the government is so positive about it is really important…”
“…the government is clear that they would like him to explain how a faith community can be a positive contributer to the wellbeing of the United Kingdom and to the wellbeing of the world…”
“when you have a country which has turned its back on religion, you will immediately have an upsurge in spirituality because that dimension of humanity cannot be suppressed. So, while Britain may be the least religious country in Europe, it is also the most likely population to say: “I’m spiritual but not religious”, and so there is that spirituality – whatever we mean by that term – which is a fruitful field in which to plant the words of a truly humane religious understanding…”

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In choosing the name Benedict, the Pope linked himself with Benedict XV, the pope who tried to halt the carnage of the Great War, and, in a much longer frame of reference, St Benedict of Nursia, whose rule is the basis of the entire Western monastic tradition which preserved Europe’s culture through the Dark Ages. The universities can no longer be trusted to perform this function since they have become both beacons of relativism and cash-and-carries. Whereas his predecessor identified Marxist materialism as the greatest threat to human freedom, Benedict is so concerned about the condition of contemporary Europe that in June he established a pontifical office to help re-evangelise it.

Secularism is at the heart of Benedict’s concerns. By this the Pope does not mean the delimitation of Church and State, the sacred and profane ”“ which is intrinsic to Christian culture as well as political society since the Reformation ”“ but the amnesiac eradication of one of the principal roots of Western civilisation and the deliberate marginalisation of all religion to the private sphere. In its stead has come a society that thinks its existential despairs can be ameliorated by limitless consumer goods, or worse, by a state that racks up fathomless amounts of debt so as to throw money at problems that may have no material resolution.

While truly sinister philosophies and technologies, all camouflaged with the rhetoric of choice and freedom, infiltrate how we regard and treat the old or sick, or play around with the building blocks of life itself, the public space is dominated by a culture several notches below that of the late Roman empire.

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As Pope Benedict XVI arrived here Thursday for the first state visit to Britain by a pope, he offered his strongest criticism yet of the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of the sex abuse crisis, saying it had not been “sufficiently vigilant” or “sufficiently swift and decisive” in cracking down on abusers.

Speaking to reporters on his flight from Rome, Benedict also said that the church’s “first interest is the victims.”

“I must say that these revelations were a shock for me, a great sadness,” he said of the crisis that has undermined the church’s moral authority in many parts of Europe and beyond.

He expressed “sadness also that the authority of the church was not was not sufficiently vigilant and not sufficiently swift and decisive to take the necessary measures.”

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Delegates to the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia’s annual convention voted this week to allow the church to bless same-gender relationships.

The resolution was submitted by the Rev. Ann Lovejoy Johnson, associate rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Charleston. It “urges our Bishop to honor same-gender relationships by supporting public rites for the blessing of same-gender relationships in congregations where such blessings are supported and so desired.”

The final decision rests with the diocese’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer, who responded with a prepared statement when contacted by the Gazette on Tuesday.

“Thank you for your interest, but I wonder where your interest was when wonderful things have happened in the past in the Episcopal Church? And try as you like to make us one, we are not a one issue church,” he said in the statement. He would not comment further, and calls to St. John’s were not returned Tuesday afternoon.

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with Pope Benedict XVI as he arrived Thursday for a historic four-day visit to Britain.

The queen greeted the pope at her Scottish residence near Edinburgh, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, before sitting down with him for a private meeting. A military marching band played the national anthem God Save the Queen, for which the pope removed his white cap.

Earlier, the pope arrived at the Edinburgh airport in an Alitalia plane. A Union Jack and Vatican City flag were flown out of the cockpit windows after it landed.

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….given the combination of the expiration of the home buyer tax credit and the increasing number of loans moving to final foreclosure, we knew that home prices overall would take a hit, but it would take a while.

Well we’re here.

Two new reports out today prove the consequences of oversupply of organic inventory (12.5 months on existing homes in July according to the National Association of Realtors) and the shadow inventory of foreclosed properties (estimates vary widely and wildly). CoreLogic’s Home Price Index shows home prices “flat” in July as transaction volume continues to decline. “This was the first time in five months that no year-over-year gains were reported,” according to the release. In June, prices were up 2.4 percent year over year. In addition, “36 states experienced price declines in July, twice the number in May and the highest number since last November when prices nationally were still declining.”

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Women for the first time earned a majority of U.S. doctoral degrees, building on decades of gains in higher education.

In the 2008-2009 school year, women received just over half of all doctorates, up from 49 percent in 2007-2008 and 44 percent in 2000, according to a report released today by the Washington-based Council of Graduate Schools, which represents more than 500 universities. The report doesn’t include professional degrees in law, business and medicine.

The milestone became inevitable because women have received the majority of bachelor’s and master’s degrees since the 1980s, building a pipeline of doctoral candidates, Nathan Bell, the council’s director of research and policy analysis, said in a telephone interview. Women are building on the gains of an earlier cohort of female scholars who were pioneers, said Elizabeth Sutton, who received her Ph.D. in art history in 2009.

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IT is often thought the main threat of radical Islamism to the West and, indeed, the world, is terrorism. It is also said to be the isolation of Muslim communities, which allows extremists to recruit people to their cause.

Such views are not mistaken but they confuse effects with causes. What the world has to recognise is that we are not simply dealing with faith, but with a political, social and economic ideology. Radical Islamism is a worldview. Its nearest parallel, despite many differences, is Marxism.

Radical Islamists claim their all-encompassing program for society is rooted in fundamental Islamic sources. They reject the interpretations of Koran and sharia law offered by reformist or moderate Muslims. We must, of course, respect the faith of ordinary Muslims, but the ideology has to be met in a different way.

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This is not about secretive mutterings in the dead of night or freakish eccentrics, explained Dah Aligbonon Akpochihala, an eminent voodoo priest who has taken to the airwaves to preach the old messages of faith, fidelity and obedience integral to his religion. It is about bringing a younger generation on board.

“Voodoo is sabotaged, demonized, as if there was nothing good in it,” Mr. Aligbonon said in his austere office ”” a bare, whitewashed room, with a cracked linoleum floor and disused fan.

A slight, mild-mannered aristocrat in a blue robe, Mr. Aligbonon maintains his modest cinder-block temple on a busy commercial street in this bustling commercial capital, one of the continent’s major ports. The temple sits between a beauty parlor and a hardware stall, and offers spiritual consultation and ceremonies to Mami Wata (a water divinity) ”” along with photocopying, binding services and CDs in the Fon language of Mr. Aligbonon’s broadcasts. Chickens peck in the courtyard ”” they have multiple uses, food and sacrifice ”” laundry hangs on the rack and a baby bawls from within.

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O God, who by the preaching of thy blessed servant and bishop Ninian didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in the land of Britain: Grant, we beseech thee, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show forth our thankfulness by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

We call to mind, O God, before thy throne of grace all those whom thou hast given to be near and dear to us, and all for whom we are specially bound to pray, beseeching thee to remember them all for good, and to fulfill as may be expedient for them all their desires and wants. We commend to thee any who may have wronged us, whether by word or deed, beseeching thee to forgive them and us all our sins, and to bring us to thy heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Gavin Hamilton

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

–John 12:27,28

As the United Kingdom braces to receive one of the best-known and most controversial figures on the planet, Pope Benedict XVI, a question hangs over the state visit: Why is he coming?

The leader of the world’s 1 billion-plus Catholics does not particularly like to travel, Benedict biographer David Gibson says.

Since a high-profile visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories nearly a year-and-a-half ago, he’s gone only to a handful of small countries not far from Rome — racking up nothing like the number of air miles logged by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

And the United Kingdom is not a Catholic country. On the contrary, Britain’s break from Rome in the 16th century echoes, if faintly, to the present day, with laws on the books forbidding the heir to the British throne from marrying a Catholic.

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Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison has told House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson that a recent letter she wrote about his re-instatement has made his ministry in the diocese “more difficult.”

In a letter dated Sept. 10, Bennison also characterized Anderson’s letter as “so misleading as to raise the question whether you actually read all of the trial evidence on which your statements are based.”

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The Anglican Communion: As many of you know, there is this thing running around the Anglican Communion called the “Anglican Covenant.” It was a product (at least its concept) from the Windsor Group convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, several years ago. At Lambeth Conference it was discussed, and while I have to admit that we were told that no decisions were going to be made at Lambeth, it does appear that a decision was made that a Covenant would be presented to be adopted by all of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion.

We have people from the Episcopal Church who have been working on this group (among others) to help write a Covenant. Quite honestly, they seem to be rather supportive of such a document. As I stated last year and previously, I support the concept of a Covenant. It is what it is ”“ a Covenant, not a legal Contract. It is a way of living together, and in the larger scheme of God’s Salvific Creation, the Anglican Communion is still relatively young and is suffering from growing pains. Something that helps us is probably not a bad thing. Those who worked on it have suggested that it is broad enough, with enough “mays,” “ifs,” “possiblies” and the like, that there is much latitude for the Episcopal Church, and other Provinces to continue to move forward where the Holy Spirit appears to be leading, but at the same time, an opportunity to remind everyone that we are in relationship.

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Secularism is famously Benedict’s bête noire, and he’s coming to the right place to engage it. A recent national study found that in a household in Great Britain today where both parents are actively religious, a child stands only a 47 percent chance of becoming religious. In a household where just one parent is religious, those odds drop by a factor of half, to 24 percent, and where neither parent is religious, the odds that a child will become religious plummets to a statistically insignificant 3 percent.

David Voas of the University of Manchester draws the obvious conclusion: “In Britain, institutional religion now has a half-life of one generation.”

Benedict’s core challenge is to persuade a jaded secular public to take a new, more appreciative look at the social role of religious faith. There’s precedent to suggest he’s capable of pulling it off: In France in September 2008, his speech at Paris’ Collège des Bernardins, on the monastic contribution to Western culture, was hailed as a masterful reflection on church/state relations even by the most ideologically charged defenders of French laïcité.

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The first state visit by a pope to Britain comes at a low point in relations between Catholics and Anglicans and under the weight of the clerical sex abuse crisis.

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Scotland on Thursday morning to spend four days in Britain ”” the first visit by a pope in nearly 30 years and the first papal state visit since King Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534 over a divorce.

The trip includes a meeting with Queen Elizabeth in Scotland, a speech in Westminster Hall, an ecumenical service with the archbishop of Canterbury and the beatification of a 19th century Anglican who converted to Catholicism.

Looming over the visit are 400 years of religious tensions and more contemporary divisions.

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On the eve of the Pontiff’s visit, ZENIT spoke with Reverend Canon David Richardson, also the director of the Anglican Center in Rome, about the importance of the trip in terms of ecumenism.

Speaking about his experiences meeting the Pontiff on several occasions as part of his position, the envoy said, “He has always been warm and I admire him greatly as a theologian.”

He added, “To have in the present the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury two such towering theological figures means that this is a fascinating time to be in my appointment.”

Richardson spoke about Cardinal John Henry Newman, due to be beatified by the Holy Father on Sunday, who he said is “a somewhat ambiguous figure both within Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.”

“As an Anglican he had something of the prophet’s mantle and called the Church of England, that part of Anglicanism which was his home, back to a vision of itself which it had lost or was in danger of losing,” the representative said.

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