The First Synod after the Conclave Gets Underway. The Pope Is Being Tested

The élite of the Catholic hierarchy worldwide are meeting again in Rome, half a year after the election of Benedict XVI. And they’re evaluating his first steps, beginning with his cleaning house within the Church

by Sandro Magister
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ROMA, October 3 – For three weeks beginning at the start of October, 250 cardinals and bishops from all over the world – the élite of the Catholic hierarchy – are meeting in synod in Rome. They will be dealing with the theme that Benedict XVI has put at the center from the beginning of his pontificate: the Eucharist.

An abstract theme? On the contrary. Joseph Ratzinger has been stressing this point for months: it is in the sacrament of the Mass that the Church comes to life; it is here that it has its model, here that it offers itself to the world. He has pointed to the example of Pope Gregory the Great: a great celebrator of the liturgy, a great constructor of civilization.

For Benedict XVI, everything hinges on this. In the homily for the Mass on October 2 in St. Peter’s Basilica, he explained that the opposite of the Eucharist is the devastation of “the Lord’s vineyard”: excluding God from public life in the name of a tolerance which in reality is “hypocrisy,” injustice, “the dominance of power and interests.”
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Inside the Church, there is uncertainty about who will be named as the new secretary of state, and to other high offices in the curia.

But one important replacement has already taken everyone by surprise: as his successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the pope called an American, William J. Levada, who was part of the U.S. commission charged with remedying the scandal of pedophile priests.

And since his nomination, there have been measures proposed by the bucketful, aimed at cleansing the Church of the “filth” lamented by Ratzinger in the memorable Stations of the Cross last Good Friday.

The first decree signed by the new prefect, Levada, dated May 27, came against an Italian religious, Gino Burresi, 73, founder of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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Much more here.