All Things Catholic

Evaluating an event with the scale and complexity of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM), which drew to a close Thursday in Aparecida, Brazil, following 19 days of deliberations among 162 bishops, 81 other participants, and 23 observers and theological advisors, is inevitably an exercise in selective perception. To some extent, it comes down to whether one is inclined to see the glass as half-full, or half-empty.

On the half-full side of the ledger, one can cite some arguably significant results:

Benedict XVI hadn't even stepped off the papal plane at Rome's Ciampino airport on Monday, ending his May 9-13 Brazilian swing, when controversy from the trip caught up with him. Spokespersons for Brazil's indigenous populations were incensed by comments the pope made in Aparecida late Sunday afternoon, asserting that the arrival of Christianity did not amount to "the imposition of a foreign culture" upon the native peoples of the New World. To the natives, that seemed a nasty bit of historical revisionism.

Editor’s Note: May 9-13, Pope Benedict XVI will visit São Paolo and Aparecida, Brazil, in conjunction with the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM). John Allen will be travelling on the papal plane, and will be posting reports on the trip to his Daily News and Updates column on NCRcafe.org.

For a pope often styled as “Euro-centric,” the Brazil trip offers a vital opportunity for Benedict XVI to convince the people of the southern hemisphere, which includes two-thirds of the 1.1 billion Catholics in the world today, that they, too, stand at the center of his pastoral concern.

To the growing list of indications that something is imminent with regard to the long-awaited document from Pope Benedict XVI authorizing wider use of the pre-Vatican II Mass, I can add one item this week.

An April 3 letter from Cardinal Walter Kasper, who among other things heads the Vatican's Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, responds to concerns from the International Council of Christians and Jews about the pre-Vatican II Mass, in light of controversial passages it contains regarding Judaism. The last sentence of Kasper's letter, the text of which I have, is the key line: "While I do not know what the pope intends to state in his final text, it is clear that the decision that has been made cannot now be changed."

Imagine a media outlet running a "breaking news" story that the earth was completing its nocturnal rotation, and that dawn would shortly be breaking. Given that we all pretty much expect the sun to come up, I suppose most of us would wonder what exactly the news is.