All Things Catholic

Even when leaders aren’t looking to make news, sometimes the news finds them. Such was the case this week for Benedict XVI, whose plan to spend a quiet few days of vacation in Valle d’Aosta was thrown a curve when he found himself drawn in on the margins of the expanding conflict in Lebanon.

Nowhere else on earth does a local church invest the time and treasure fine-tuning the art of pastoral ministry on a local level as in the United States. The sheer volume of conferences, in-services, studies, academic programs and publications devoted to “best practices” and on-the-job training is staggering, making it one reason that parish ministry in America is the envy of the Catholic world.

Sometimes professional ecumenists, whose life’s work is reconciliation among the divided branches of the Christian family, are jokingly referred to as “ecu-maniacs.” The quip is usually one part satire, and one part grudging respect.

I'm reluctant to use the term
"unprecedented" to characterize events I cover, mostly because, upon
inspection, such claims almost always turn out to be hype. Yet it's really
the only way to describe an international gathering of more than 400
Catholic ethicists that took place in Padua, Italy, July 8-11, which lived
up to its billing as the "first international cross-cultural conference
for Catholic theological ethicists."

I've attended any number of theological congresses over the years
styled as "international," which usually means a slew of Europeans and
North Americans, and a smattering of people from other parts of the globe.
What happened in Padua, on the other hand, really was something of a
microcosm of the global church, with dozens of leading thinkers from
Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania mixing with their opposite numbers
from the north.

Benedict XVI's July 8-9
trip to Valencia, Spain, offered a classic illustration of the dilemma
facing popes when it comes to secular politics, an arena in which they are
almost literally damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they take a
stand, they risk being accused of interference in the secular sphere; if
they don't, critics will complain about their silence.

The solution modern popes have embraced is to speak in generalities
that usually leave little doubt as to their mind, but avoiding direct
statements about particular politicians, governments, or debates. That's
just what Benedict did during his brief, 26-hour trip to Valencia, Spain,
for the close of the fifth Vatican-sponsored "World Meeting of Families."