{"id":415,"date":"2008-01-30T11:47:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T11:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/calling-ecclesiology-geeks.html"},"modified":"2008-01-30T11:47:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T11:47:14","slug":"calling-ecclesiology-geeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/calling-ecclesiology-geeks.html","title":{"rendered":"Calling Ecclesiology Geeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tell us what this means, from today’s “Other Pontifical Acts”:<\/a><\/p>\n

Reorganised the Greek-Catholic Slovak Church, making in a “sui iuris” Metropolitan Church and adopting the following provisions:
\n– Elevating the eparchy of Presov for Catholics of Byzantine rite (Catholics 137,203, priests 259, permanent deacons 1, religious 111) to the status of metropolitan see and promoting Bishop Jan Babjak S.J. of Presov to the office of metropolitan archbishop. The archbishop-elect was born in Hazin nad Chirochou, Slovakia in 1953, he was ordained a priest in 1978 and consecrated a bishop in 2003.
\n– Elevating the apostolic exarchate of Kosice for Catholics of Byzantine rite (Catholics 81,132, priests 161, permanent deacons 3, religious 65) to the status of eparchy, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of Presov, and appointing the current exarch, Bishop Milan Chautur C.SS.R., to the office of eparchal bishop.
\n– Erecting the eparchy of Bratislava for Catholics of Byzantine rite, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of Presov, and appointing Fr. Peter Rusnak, pastor of the Greek-Catholic parish of the Exaltation of the Cross in Bratislava and proto-preist of the proto-presbyterate of the same name, as first bishop of the new eparchy. The bishop-elect was born in Humenne, Slovakia in 1950, and ordained a priest in 1987.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As long as we’re doing Vatican stuff..
\nToday, the Holy Father also appointed a coadjutor for Hong Kong: Bishop John Tong Hon, auxiliary bishop.
\nVia PRF, the Lenten retreat preacher and author of the Good Friday Stations:<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Benedict XVI has chosen French Cardinal Albert Vanhoye<\/a>, the Biblicist whom he made a cardinal in the first consistory of his Pontificate, to preach the spiritual exercises for the Pope and the Roman Curia during the traditional retreat at the start of the Lenten season, according to the French online agency, I-Media.
\nVanhoye, 84, is a Jesuit scholar who is a specialist in the New Testament.
\nPrevious preachers chosen by Benedict XVI in the first two retreats of his Pontificate were also retired prelates – Cardinal Marco Ce, emeritus Patriarch of Venice, in 2006, and Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, emeritus Archbishop of Florence, last year.
\n[Equally noteworthy was the Pope’s choice of Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hongkong to write the meditations and prayers for the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on Good Friday.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And for those of you who’ve not seen it, a recent Magister piece on small, but telling Curial changes. <\/a><\/p>\n

2. In an interview with “L’Osservatore Romano” on January 9, and in an unsigned note published by the same newspaper four days later, cardinal Jos\u00e9 Saraiva Martins, prefect of the congregation for the causes of saints, announced that toward the end of February there will be the public presentation of the instruction “Sanctorum Mater,” on the opening of causes of beatification, an instruction that until now was known only to those directly involved in the process.
\nThe document \u2013 dated May 17, 2007, the Italian text of which was published in “Acta Apostolicae Sedis” issue no. 6, June 1, 2007, pp. 465-510 \u2013 translates into precise norms the guidelines that Benedict XVI gave to the congregation for the causes of saints in a message on April 27, 2006.
\nCaution and accuracy: these are the criteria that the pope and the congregation want to see more closely observed.
\nIn particular, the instruction demands that “the seriousness of the investigations” into the alleged miracles “be safeguarded, […] the procedures for the examination of which have, over the last twenty years, produced problematic elements.”
\nGreater guarantees have also been established concerning the “reputation of sanctity.” Without this \u2013 without, that is, an exemplary Christian life already recognized as such by a great number of the faithful, no process of beatification will be opened anymore. In other words: the pride and entrepreneurship of a religious order toward their founder or confrere are not enough.
\nOther stringent norms concern the gathering of documents and testimonies. Questions will be posed to the witnesses in a simple and concise manner, so as “to solicit answers that exhibit knowledge of concrete facts and the sources of this knowledge.” This is meant to avoid formulations that are “insidious, deceptive, suggesting the desired answers.”
\nIt remains the case that, in order for the cause to proceed “there must emerge absolutely no element that goes against faith or good morals,” so due emphasis must be given to “any findings that contradict the reputation of sanctity.”
\nThe document recommends moreover that the bishops avoid “any action that might induce the faithful to believe wrongly” that the investigation underway must necessarily lead to beatification or canonization. Before the conclusion of the diocesan cause, it must on the contrary be assured and certified that the servant of God “not be the object of undue devotion.”
\nIt is easy to read in these norms a correction of the tendency toward an “inflationary” approach toward beatifications and canonizations that had crept in during the past few decades.
\nOne of the very first decisions of Joseph Ratzinger, following his election as pope, was that of reserving only the canonizations for himself and of delegating beatifications to others, generally in the country of origin of the new blessed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, you might want to take a look at the most recent episode of “Rome Reports” – which airs on EWTN<\/a>, but can also be viewed online. Near the end of this week’s program, there’s a feature about the new editor of L’Osservatore Romano<\/em> and the new directions the paper is taking – which will, it was said, include putting the entire paper online in “many” languages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tell us what this means, from today’s “Other Pontifical Acts”: Reorganised the Greek-Catholic Slovak Church, making in a “sui iuris” Metropolitan Church and adopting the following provisions: – Elevating the eparchy of Presov for Catholics of Byzantine rite (Catholics 137,203, priests 259, permanent deacons 1, religious 111) to the status of metropolitan see and promoting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCalling Ecclesiology Geeks - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/calling-ecclesiology-geeks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Calling Ecclesiology Geeks - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}