JOHN PAUL II RETURNS TO THE AMERICAS IN WHAT IS POSSIBLY HIS FAREWELL TOUR TO THE NEW WORLD

EDITOR'S NOTE: We will be updating this page several times a day during the week. The following news articles are provided by CWN - Catholic World News and Noticias Eclesias CHURCH NEWS. For live up-to-date coverage of the papal trip to Mexico and the United States, visit EWTN. Continuous Spanish- language coverage is also available at Spanish Coverage.

January 23, 1999

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- A smiling and relaxed Pope John Paul II began his pastoral visit to Mexico and the United States on Friday, January 22.

      Three hours into the flight from Rome to Mexico, the Pope strolled to the back of the plane for what has become a regular routine of his voyages: an informal chat with reporters.

      The light-hearted encounter began when a Mexican journalist offered the Holy Father a sombrero, which the laughing Pope promptly put on his head. In a reference to the fact that his first trip to Mexico occurred 20 years ago, the Pope teased reporters by saying, "We are all 20 years older now-- not just me."

      On a more serious note, the Pontiff observed that some important changes had taken place during those 20 years. The first such change, he said, was a breakdown of the rigid old distinction between North and South America. The Synod of the Americas, he said, had dramatized that change, "for the first time, laying open the whole of America, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

      Mexico, too, has changed, he continued, recalling that when he first visited the country in 1979, it was illegal for priests and bishops to wear their clerical garb in public. ("I broke the law at that time," he chuckled, remembering that he had worn his white cassock throughout the visit.) Church-state relations in Mexico are now much friendlier, he said. "But the Mexican people have not changed," he insisted. "They are always enthusiastic.... The Mexican people won't let me sleep, because they sing so much!"

      In a reference to liberation theology, a prime concern during his first Mexican visit, the Pope said that "one does not hear so much about liberation theology today, but there are still some indigenous theologies which are influenced my Marxism. We must put that behind us, and insist on solidarity and dialogue."

      Things have also changed dramatically for the United States, the Pope said, pointing first to the end of the Cold War. That important political change, he said, should help the US to become more intimately involved in the development of the American hemisphere.

      Asked if he is still enthusiastic about foreign travel, the Holy Father replied with gusto, insisting that he still has ambitions for some major trips. He mentioned his desire to visit Russia, then China.

      ROME, 22 (NE) "Reaffirming the positive values of our faith," and "avoiding the deterioration of them are fundamental challenges for the evangelization in the American continent," Cardinal Dario Castrillon, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, pointed out recently. He also declared that Pope John Paul II will visit the American continent "as what he is: a prophet of reconciliation and hope, of understanding between people, of peace and human rights."

      In declarations to the Mexican newspaper El Universal, Cardinal Castrillon stated that he considered the current moment to be a time of opportunities for the American continent, for in it are concentrated the greatest number of Catholics in the whole world. "This must be taken as a responsibility," he added, pointing out the crucial role these countries play in the New Evangelization, "new in its aims, in its forms, in its methods and its manifestations." The Cardinal highlighted as well the necessity of avoiding cultural imposition of approaches and uses that are opposed to the Catholic moral, referring explicitly to abortion.

      Regarding the Pope's pilgrimage to Mexico and the United States, the Cardinal affirmed that the visit will be an opportunity to live a continental unity, as well as giving a positive answer to the challenge that the Holy Father will present through his Post-synodal Exhortation. The Pope's visit will be plentiful with positive fruits not only for the Church, but also for the rest of the sectors of society because of the content of the messages he will expound during his 85th international trip, Cardinal Castrillon concluded.

      LIMA, 22 (NE) Today, the 22 of January, is the centenary of Pope Leo XIII´s Apostolic Letter Testem benevolentiae. With this document, written in 1899 in Latin, and addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons, then Archbishop of Baltimore, Pope Leo XIII expressed his deep concerns to all the Shepherds of the United States. The pontifical Letter was indeed sent to all the circa 80 American bishops of that time. It was first issued in an English translation in a newspaper in Baltimore, and later published in newspapers and magazines at other cities.

      Long passages of this Apostolic Letter can be read in different collections of magisterial texts, such as the one by Henry Denzinger, as well as that by Justo Collantes. It is actual in many aspects. In the Internet, translations of the Testem benevolentiae may also be found. Spokesmen of the Biblioteca Electrónica Cristiana (BEC) (Christian Electronic Library) www.multimedios.org have informed that on the occasion of the centenary a new Spanish translation of the official Latin text will be posted. An English translation of the Testem benevolentiae may be found with the searcher at www.ewtn.com.

      In the document, Pope Leo XIII wrote that he was not going to repeat the praises he had formerly expressed to the North American people in other occasions. On the contrary, he wanted to point out certain mistaken ideas that had begun to become evident in the North American country as well as in Europe, included by the term "Americanism." He emphasized that they should "be avoided and corrected".

      In this document Pope Leo XIII pointed out -with reference to the false ideas that were being propagated- that the excuse on which they were based was that "in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions, recently introduced in the peoples." The Holy Father, on account of his apostolic office, having "to guard the integrity of the faith and the security of the faithful," warned in that Apostolic Letter that "many believe that these concessions should be made not only in matters of discipline, but even in regard to doctrines that belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of the teachings of the Church, as if they were of minor importance, or to tone them down so as to change the meaning which the Church has always attached to them."

      "It does not need many words," continued the Pontiff, "to prove with what an inadmissible design such things have been thought. It is enough to recall the nature and origin of the doctrine the Church proposes." Quoting the I Vatican Council, Pope Leo XIII added: "For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed, has not been proposed like a philosophic invention to be perfected by human creativity, but it has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence the meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretence or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them."

      "Let it be far from anyone´s mind," added the Pontiff, "to diminish or suppress for any reason any doctrine that has been handed down. Such a policy would tend rather to separate Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who differ." The rule of life laid down for Catholics is not of such nature that it cannot accommodate itself to the exigencies of various times and places, explained the Pope. Moreover, he continued, through the years, the Church "has been accustomed to so yield that, the divine principles of moral being kept intact, she has never neglected the character and genius of the nations which she embraces."

      The Letter also corrects diverse matters, such as that related to the interpretation of the active and passive virtues, spiritual direction, direct influx of the Holy Spirit on the will and other topics related to both pragmatist and individualistic interpretations of the life of faith. Pope Saint Pious X refers to some of these teachings in his constitution on the sanctity of the clergy, Haerent animo, in which he quotes the Letter of Pope Leo XIII.

      The reactions were manifold. Those who held the ideas that were object of this Apostolic Letter even talked about a "phantom heresy," while some North American Archbishops, led by Archbishop Corrigan of New York sent quick expressions of gratitude to the Pontiff, for having precisely corrected these errors, and thanked him in name of all the faithful. A voluminous monographic work by the Jesuit historian Gerald Fogarty on the activities of the main coordinator of the Americanist group in Europe and the United States, Father Denis J. O´Connell, during the years 1885 and 1903, effectively revealed the existence of a group, at the end of last century, very related to modernism, organized on the ideas and the work alluded by Pope Leo XIII in his Apostolic Letter Testem benevolentiae.

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- Contradicting rumors which have appeared in the media both in Italy and in Mexico, a senior Mexican official has revealed that the guerrilla war in Chiapas will not be on the agenda for discussion when Pope John Paul II meets with Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo.

      Juan Rebolledo Gout, the deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Mexico that in preliminary talks between his government and the Vatican Secretariat of State, it had been agreed that the conflict in Chiapas "would not be included formally in the discussion, because the intention is to bring us closer together, not to generate differences." Gout observed that the papal visit to Mexico "is of a pastoral nature," and that discussion of political affairs would be secondary-- although he admitted that the Pontiff could explore "any theme which he considers pertinent" in his public talks.

      Bishop Felipe Arizmendi of Tapachula said that the Holy Father is "very well informed" about the Chiapas conflict, because the Mexican bishops have provided him with the latest information.

January 22, 1999

      BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CWNews.com) - Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) announced on Thursday that it will immediately begin broadcasting its live television signal on the Internet at its web site (http://www.ewtn.com/).

      EWTN's live broadcasts will coincide with the visit by Pope John Paul II to Mexico and the US from January 22-27. "It is significant that this service begins by airing events from Guadalupe, Mexico, where Our Lady herself began the evangelization of the Americas," said Mother Angelica, EWTN's founder and Chairman of the Board.

      The television signal will be available 24 hours per day using RealNetwork's RealVideo technology available on most computer platforms. The web site had already offered live broadcast of EWTN's shortwave radio station WEWN.

      HAVANA (CWNews.com) - The Cuban Communist government said on Thursday that a year after Pope John Paul II's historic visit to the island-nation, relations between the Church and state remain good.

      Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said at a weekly news conference that positive results remain. "A good level of relations and communication with the church has been maintained," he said. The Holy Father arrived in Cuba on January 21, 1998 for a five-day visit.

      Gonzalez said some issues had been resolved satisfactorily, including authorization of public religious processions, the entry of foreign priests into the country, and the reinstatement of Christmas as a public holiday. Other issues, such as greater access to the government-controlled media and the right to open church-run schools, remain to be discussed.

      Meanwhile, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico said Thursday that Latin American bishops will meet in Cuba next month. Exact dates have still not been set for the meeting of the Latin American Episcopal Conference, he said.

      BOGOTA (CWNews.com) - President Andres Pastrana announced on Thursday that he will meet Pope John Paul II early next month in order to request the Vatican's support for his peace talks with Marxist guerrillas.

      Pastrana said that a meeting with the Holy Father will take place in Rome on February 1, at the end of a European tour that will also bring him to Germany and Switzerland. In all of the places, the president will try to draw international support for his still uncertain peace program. According to "El Pais" newspaper, President Pastrana will ask the Pope to express support for the peace process "as a way to put pressure on the rebels in a country in which even guerrilla leaders claim to be Catholic."

      "El Pais" also said that the President "wants the Vatican to authorize a greater involvement of the Colombian Bishops' Conference in the peace process, if possible in the form of a formal mediator or a mediating commission headed by a Catholic bishop." Pastrana is at present holding two different dialogues, one with the "Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces" (FARC) and another with the "National Liberation Army" (ELN). After a histrionic opening, the dialogue with FARC hit a snag on Wednesday, when the rebels left the negotiations, conditioning their return on the government's acceptance of some of its demands.