{"id":347,"date":"2009-03-18T14:37:01","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T14:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/benedict-in-cameroon-day-1-pop.html"},"modified":"2009-03-18T14:37:01","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T14:37:01","slug":"benedict-in-cameroon-day-1-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/benedict-in-cameroon-day-1-pop.html","title":{"rendered":"Benedict in Cameroon, Day 1: Pope Leo?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Pope<\/span>Not to worry–unlike the feisty cub the pope sported with in the Vatican last month<\/a>, this one at right (AP foto via Rocco<\/a>) isn’t going to hurt a bit. <\/p>\n

Such are the marvelous incongruities of a papal visit to a place like Cameroon. And of course serious issues, like the formation of priests–lots of vocation, but challenges in discernment–and of course liturgy. That’s a big one for Benedict, and a big difference in style with African Catholicism. <\/p>\n

Rocco has full texts; CNS’s John Thavis has the roundup<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\n

The meeting with bishops was a simple affair. After adoration of the Eucharist and a few songs from the church’s choir, the pope delivered his talk in French and English. He focused on the bishops’ responsibility to guide the country’s priests and make sure there is “serious discernment” in choosing candidates for the priesthood. Cameroon has enjoyed a boom in vocations and currently has 1,360 seminarians.<\/p>\n

The pope said the bishops should have personal and profound knowledge of priesthood candidates, overseeing formation programs that guarantee they are “mature and balanced men” when ordained.<\/p>\n

He urged the bishops to be “especially vigilant regarding the faithfulness of priests and consecrated persons to the commitments made at their ordination or entry into religious life.”<\/p>\n

“The authenticity of their witness requires that there be no dichotomy between what they teach and the way they live each day,” he said. The pope was not specific, but in the past Vatican officials have expressed concern that the commitment to priestly celibacy be better understood and respected among African clergy.<\/font><\/p>\n

[snip]
<\/font>
The pope praised the “festive and joyful” liturgies in Cameroon, which reflect the happiness of those participating. But he told the bishops it was essential that “the joy expressed in this way does not obstruct, but rather facilitates dialogue and communion with God” through the structure of the Catholic liturgy. The dignity of liturgical celebrations must be preserved, especially when large crowds of faithful are attending, he said.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not to worry–unlike the feisty cub the pope sported with in the Vatican last month, this one at right (AP foto via Rocco) isn’t going to hurt a bit. Such are the marvelous incongruities of a papal visit to a place like Cameroon. And of course serious issues, like the formation of priests–lots of vocation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nBenedict in Cameroon, Day 1: Pope Leo? - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/benedict-in-cameroon-day-1-pop.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Benedict in Cameroon, Day 1: Pope Leo? - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not to worry–unlike the feisty cub the pope sported with in the Vatican last month, this one at right (AP foto via Rocco) isn’t going to hurt a bit. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}