Ann Widdecombe as Vatican Ambassador?

Interesting piece of speculation here in Kent News.

Ann Widdecombe has played down reports that she has been approached to become the next British ambassador to the Vatican.

The Conservative MP for Maidstone and the Weald, who is standing down at the next election, was responding to reports in the national press that she was front-runner for the Holy See position.

“I have not heard a single official whisper,” she said. “All the comments have all come from my friends but I’m not sure about where it’s come from.

Although she's playing it down, it's still not inconceivable or improbable. Widdecombe would make a very good ambassador, although one can't help feeling she's more needed back home. Lord Alton, also quoted in the article, would also make a very good representative at the Vatican. However, the current ambassador, Francis Campbell, may be staying on beyond June next year, and as far as I know the position is expected to eventually go to another career diplomat.

More Curia Changes

Latest changes to the Secretariat of State which I've written about for the Register:

Pope Benedict XVI made the latest in a series of important changes within the Roman Curia today by appointing Msgr. Pietro Parolin as apostolic nuncio to Venezuela. The appointment has been speculated by Vatican commentators for some time.

Msgr. Parolin, originally from Schiavon in northern Italy, has been the Vatican’s deputy foreign minister since 2002 (officially titled Under-Secretary in the Secretariat of State’s Relations with States section).

During that time he has built up a very good reputation as a diplomatic fixer, playing an important behind-the-scenes role in negotiating improved relations with a number of states, most notably China, Vietnam and Israel.

Vatican sources say he is being sent to Venezuela to help improve worsening relations between Hugo Chavez and the Holy See. He will be consecrated as bishop by Pope Benedict XVI on September 12, along with other recently appointed apostolic nuncios.

Msgr. Parolin has been replaced by 42 year old Msgr. Ettore Balestrero from Genoa. A genial Vatican diplomat who is popular among conservative, Orthodox Catholics, Msgr. Balestrero has until now been responsible for overseeing the Holy See’s relations with Europe and, in particular, the Church’s role in an increasingly secular continent.

As well as being assigned to important ‘dossiers’ such as China, Vietnam and the Middle East, his task will be to oversee the work of the office and maintain contacts with ambassadors around the world. Msgr. Balestrero has an American mother and speaks fluent English as well as French, Spanish, German and Dutch.

The appointments today come after other recent changes within the senior ranks of the Secretariat of State. Last month Msgr. Peter Wells, an American from Tulsa, was tapped as Assessor of General Affairs – essentially the Holy See’s chief of staff.

Photo: Msgr. Pietro Parolin

Reaction to My Newsweek Article on Benedict XVI

I had a feeling my recent article in Newsweek looking at possible contenders to succeed the Holy Father would cause a little controversy.

Phil Lawler of Catholic Culture - someone whom I respect very much - has weighed in here with some charitable comments and sound points. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was reluctant to write the piece for the reasons he implicitly points out. But my reasoning was that they were going to get someone to write it, and I felt I could do it with enough sensitivity, without getting into unnecessary Church politics. It also didn't start out as a papabili piece, but rather a reflection on BXVI's vision for the Church.

Also for the record, the published piece is quite different to the one I originally wrote, and it's as much a work of the editors as it is of mine. The opening paragraph - and much else - is not my wording, though the words 'potential frailty' I thought were well chosen as they referred to his relative fitness for someone of his age - in other words, thankfully the Holy Father's not yet frail in the sense of being struck down with disease, and well enough to continue for a number of years yet.

As for the list of papabili, I chose them not because they are allies of Pope Benedict, but rather because I believe they would be the most favoured in a conclave on the grounds of their holiness, character and personal gifts. I left Cardinal Bertone off the list because although he is by all accounts an excellent priest, his running of the Secretariat of State is not at the same level, and I feel sure most of the College of Cardinals would not want a poor administrator as Pope. He also doesn't speak English which is a severe handicap.

Hopefully the article has served some purpose, if anything in showing what a great Holy Father we have, and putting something of a dampener on any further speculation who his successor might be.

Ad multos annos Santo Padre!

URGENT: EU Directive Threatens Religious Freedom

I was alerted to this a little late unfortunately, but hopefully others have already seen it and made their opposition known.

The Government Equalities Office (GEO) is undertaking a Consultation on the proposed Equal Treatment Directive. The perils of this dangerous Directive are clear and manifest. If implemented in its current form, the Directive increases inequality and places severe restrictions on Christians expressing their faith. Indeed, if implemented, we expect massive censorship of Christian freedom of speech and the free exercise of conscience of religious people. The closing date is 28th July 2009. If you can it is URGENT that you add your written response to this consultation.

Many problems with the E.U.’s so-called “Equal Treatment” Directive exist, but perhaps the most troubling are its harassment provisions. The Directive extends “discrimination” law, often used to compel UK Christians to act against their consciences, to the provision of healthcare, social security, housing and education across the European Union. The Directive expressly applies discrimination proscriptions for those of an unorthodox sexual orientation, or those who profess a religion or belief, to the provision of goods, facilities and services, (so that customers, clients or service users will be able to sue). Thus, according to the Directive, things like the provision of healthcare, social security, housing and education, all fall within the competence of the E.U. The Directive proscribes not just discrimination, but also something the directive calls “harassment”.

The Directive vaguely defines “harassment” in Article 2(3) to include unwanted conduct having: ...the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Every Christian believes in the innate human dignity of every person. No Christian would wish to harass anyone in the true sense of that term. “Harassment,” as defined in the Directive however, allows an individual to accuse someone of discrimination merely for expressing something the individual allegedly perceives as offensive. Individuals can easily alleged offence from a discussion about faith or sexual ethics between an employee and a customer during the provision of a public or commercial service. For example, in a Christian book and coffee shop, such a conversation might arise whilst selling books or serving coffee. If, during the conversation a Christian sales assistant states he believes Jesus is the only way to God, or that he does not believe that civil partnerships are pleasing to God, the customer may allege offence and sue.

The freedom to speak freely about one’s religious beliefs should not be considered “harassment”, but should remain a fundamental right in a democratic society. The extension of the civil law of harassment is unnecessary, because there is already a criminal offence of harassment and a civil remedy for it in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This harassment legislation requires a “course of conduct” (rather than a single act or statement) and the opinion of a reasonable person that such a course of conduct amounts to harassment, before the crime or the civil wrong could be proved. Giving people the right to sue someone because they allege that they feel offended is extremely dangerous for freedom of speech, not least because markedly different opinions exist concerning religions, beliefs and sexual ethics.

Adopting a provision covering harassment on the grounds of religion or belief or sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities and services creates a massive chilling effect on freedom of speech and the free exercise of conscience by religious people. It denies religious believers to right to preach and to proselytise and makes it virtually impossible for religious individuals or groups to deliver services to the public. A further chilling effect on these fundamental freedoms is created by Article 14 of the Directive. Article 14 makes clear that when an accuser sues a provider of goods, facilities or services, the accuser can receive unlimited compensation from the provider. This could result in bankruptcy for many Christian organisations. The ill-thought out Directive fails to include necessary balances and exceptions to protect the exercise of one’s conscience or the manifestation of one’s faith. Christians, and all those who value freedom, must act now.

Action Needed

It is important to respond to this Consultation. The UK Government, as one of the 27 Member States, will soon negotiate on the contents of the Directive in the Council of the European Union (the Council of Ministers). Passing the Directive requires unanimity. In view of its effect upon Christian freedoms, we hope and pray that one of the Member States does veto it. If agreed, the Directive will be transposed into the laws of all Member States including the UK. We recommend you answer questions 1, 2 and 3 concerning harassment. You can find these questions on page 16 of the Consultation by clicking here. Please use our response to the Consultation and add ideas of your own. Please argue that Article 2(3) on harassment should be removed from the Directive. If you have time, you may wish to answer the general question on page 25 of the GEO consultation, which allows you to comment on the draft Directive as a whole. You can then raise other issues of particular concern using ideas from our more detailed response, such as the suggestion of removing the grounds of “sexual orientation” and “religion or belief” so that the Directive is restored to its original intention of focusing on disability.

Andrea Minichiello Williams
Christian Concern for our Nation

This text and more details on how to respond can be found here: http://www.ccfon.org

Looking Ahead (Reluctantly) to a Post-Benedict Era

Newsweek asked me this week to look into the possibility of a post-Benedict Church and who his successor might be.

I agreed but with some reluctance as such articles are obviously somewhat distasteful when the Holy Father is still alive, and actually very fit despite his recent fall. But after a fair amount of too-ing and fro-ing with the editors to make it more sensitive to Catholics, I think we got there in the end, though I probably should have written that women priests and married clergy are dogmas rejected on grounds of "Scripture or tradition" rather than "Scripture and tradition". As a reader correctly pointed out, priestly celibacy is not strictly related to Scripture, but it is very much part of the tradition of Latin Rite Catholics.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/207930

Curtain Raiser on Benedict XVI's New Encyclical

Article I wrote for Newsmax, posted 2 July 2009:

Pope Benedict XVI’s first social encyclical will be published a year later than scheduled — but with a timely focus to address the global financial crisis, just as world leaders are meeting in Italy.

Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), which the Vatican announced will be published Tuesday, was supposed to be unveiled more than a year ago to commemorate the 40th anniversary of another landmark social encyclical, Pope Paul VI's Populorum Progressio.

But it is believed that Pope Benedict delayed publication because he wasn’t happy with its content. Economics, by his own admission, isn’t his strongest field, even though his writings on the subject before he was elected Pope show more than a competent grasp of the subject. He therefore wanted to be sure he and his consultors were going to write something scholarly and accurate.

Then the financial crisis came along, and the Pope naturally wanted to add some reflections on that.

Translation difficulties caused further delays, but all of these setbacks have ensured a very timely publication date: on the eve of the G8 meeting of world leaders in Italy, in the midst of a financial crisis that is being met with fiscal irresponsibility, and just a week after the financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail for masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

The Pope has hinted about its contends in recent addresses and homilies. On June 13, he said the global crisis proves that the rules and values that have dominated the economy in past years need to be replaced by a concept that is “respectful of the needs and rights of the weakest.”

The Pope will highlight that globalization is not an evil in itself, but it cannot be left to self-regulation, according to leaked excerpts reported in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. He will suggest an international agreement to lead the process of globalization, an authority that should be regulated by law and one that should stick coherently to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity.

Although he will emphasize the need for an ethical foundation that will sustain the free market, he won’t go into technical economic theory or policy specifics, nor will he come down on the political left or the right.

Rather, he is more likely to appeal to the Christian requirement of love of God and love of neighbor in forging a more just economic system.

As Pope Benedict often makes clear: A culture that lives as if there is no God and pays no attention to eternal truths is on a path toward its own destruction.

He made a similar point about the need for an ethical foundation to economics as far back as 1985, when he headed the church's top doctrinal body as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The online archives of the Acton Institute www.acton.org provides this key excerpt from that prescient speech, given at a symposium in Rome entitled “Church and Economy in Dialogue”

“It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse. An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group — indeed, not only to the common good of a determinate state — but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength. The political formation of a will that employs the inherent economic laws towards this goal appears, in spite of all humanitarian protestations, almost impossible today. It can only be realized if new ethical powers are completely set free. A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality. A scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific. Today we need a maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialized economic understanding may enter the service of the right goals. Only in this way will its knowledge be both politically practicable and socially tolerable.”

Al Faisal at the Vatican

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, visited the Vatican on Friday, according to a Holy See press statement released today.

Prince Al Faisal, together with a delegation, met with Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and other dicastery officials.

During the meeting, the statement read, views were exchanged on the follow-up note to the Madrid Conference (16-18 July 2008) – an initiative of Saudi’s King Abdullah which brought together interreligious leaders from around the world.

Prince Al Faisal was last here in 2007 when he helped pave the way for King Abdullah’s historic visit to the Pope later that year. On that occasion, Al Faisal had a private and low-key meeting with the Holy Father.

His visit this time is the latest attempt by the Muslim world to engage with the Vatican – a pattern of improving relations that accelerated after the Pope’s Regensburg address in 2006.

What's interesting about this meeting is that it may signify greater religious freedom for Christians in Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah has already made private worship easier, stopping religious police from cracking down on prayer meetings in houses. But it's perhaps stretching it to suggest Al Faisal's visit yesterday will lead to churches being built in the country. That's something that's decades away, if not more.