A Pope Surrounded by Wolves

Today is Ash Wednesday.

A moment at the consistory on the 17th, during which 22 new cardinals were proclaimed, including the Spaniard Santos Abril y Castelló, in St. Peter’s Basilica. Photo by Tony Gentile of Reuters.

A Pope Surrounded by Wolves
Intrigues and power struggles are brewing over the succession of the old and infirm Benedict XVI
El País: Un Papa rodeado por lobos
Pablo Ordaz reporting from Rome February 18, 2012

They say that Pope John Paul II was once asked, “Your Holiness, how many people work in the Vatican?” and the Pole Karol Wojtyla, the Pope from 1978 to 2005, ironically answered, “About half of them.” Now we know – following this joke that wasn’t really a joke – what the other half dedicates itself to. For some weeks now, the Vatican has been in a commotion over a series of leaked secret documents that have brought the Holy See’s spokesman, Federico Lombardi, to admit that the Church is suffering from Vatileaks. The publication of an internal denunciation of corruption and a strange conspiracy to kill Benedict XVI exposed naked power struggles between those faced with the possibly imminent end of his papacy. Although he represents God on Earth, Joseph Ratzinger is in fact a sick man about to complete his 85th year of life. In the words of L’Osservatore Romano, he is “a shepherd surrounded by wolves.”

The wolves, although dressed in purple, are excited by the smell of blood. Shepherd Ratzinger already stated two years ago, in an interview with Peter Seewald that was converted into a book, that “if a Pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” Is Benedict XVI thinking of stepping down on his 85th birthday April 16 or the seventh anniversary of his papacy three days later?

Maybe only he and God know, but what is very clear is that, given this possibility, the candidates to succeed him have started to fight like men for his divine post. Or to be more specific, like Italian men. Both the surnames that litter this story of intrigues and low blows and the arms chosen for the duels are purely local. There is strong reason for this: the Chair of Peter has been occupied by foreigners since 1978. Isn’t high time already for the Holy Spirit to turn his gaze to an Italian at the next meeting of the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel?

The power struggle in the Church’s headquarters is already playing out – in a manner that is unprecedented and painful for the many true men of faith – in the pages of the papers. The stories are being treated like the latest leaks of the uncouth scandals of Silvio Berlusconi. The first blow came with the disclosure, on a television program, of a letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the current Papal Nuncio (Envoy) in the United States, in which he told the Pope about various cases of corruption inside the Vatican and requested that he not be removed from his post (at that time) as Secretary General of the Governatorato – the department in charge of business tenders and supplies. Viganò was sent far from Rome, nevertheless. The second link took the lid off a supposed plot to kill the Pontiff. The newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano published a letter sent to Benedict XVI very recently by the Colombian cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos in which he wrote that the Italian cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop of Palermo (Sicily), had taken a trip to China, and while he was there, he commented that “the Pope will die in 12 months.” But that wasn’t all. According to the Colombian bishop’s letter, written in German and sealed as “strictly confidential”, the Archbishop of Palermo spoke freely about supposed Vatican secrets, about how the Pope and his number two, Tarcisio Bertone, were going to be killed, and that the Pope was leaving everything tied up so his successor at the head of the church would be the current archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

How much of this is truth and how much is falsehood? It could be all of one or all of the other. Perhaps the only certain thing is that a sector of the Vatican curia, the caste of pontifical diplomats, thinks the current Pope has gone too far to promote transparency about Church finances and to cut out all trace of permissiveness toward the abuse of minors…too far and too fast for someone who, after all, is an 84-year old German, sick and alone, lost in a strange labyrinth of intrigue and low blows. For 26 years, the Vatican was ruled by a Polish Pope who was an expert in public relations. For the last seven, the leader has been an introverted German. It gives the impression that Italy has begun its reconquest of the Chair of Peter.

What Does the Bible Have to Say About Democracy?

原文：Original Chinese Language Article
Featured on Front Page of 電子報：ICLP Bulletin 062 (Feb. 1, 2012)

What Does the Bible Have to Say About Democracy?
English Translation of Chinese E-Bulletin Article by James Smyth

Christians have actively participated in American politics since colonial times. Unfortunately, Jesus never mentioned the Republican or Democratic Parties, so the question of what political views Christians should have is a thorny one that can even make believers come to blows. Left and right wing advocates each have their own political interpretations of Bible passages like “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common ” and “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” and “Slaves, obey your human masters in everything.”

But very few Americans have discussed the following Bible story.

After the Israelites returned to Canaan from Egypt, they established a nation that was free and independent for 400 years. They had no kings. Besides times of crisis, when a “Judge” would emerge and temporarily lead the country, the twelve tribes were free to govern themselves.

But when Judge Samuel aged (around 1020 B.C.) the Israelites made an unprecedented request from him: that he choose a king to rule them. Samuel strongly opposed them, but God told him to “listen to whatever the people say. You are not the one they are rejecting. They are rejecting me as their king… Now listen to them; but at the same time, give them a solemn warning and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them.”(1)

The next time Samuel met with the Israelites, he warned them (abridged): “The governance of the king who will rule you will be as follows: He will take your sons and daughters into his service. He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take your male and female slaves, as well as your best oxen and donkeys, and use them to do his work. He will also tithe your flocks. As for you, you will become his slaves. On that day you will cry out because of the king whom you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you.”

But the Israelites persisted: “No! There must be a king over us. We too must be like all the nations, with a king to rule us, lead us in warfare, and fight our battles.”

Israel had three kings over the next hundred years, two of which were outstanding and devoted themselves to the glory of the kingdom. The fourth king, however, was incompetent, and because of that the nation split in two. What’s worse, most of the kings who ruled both the northern and southern states after that were weak and corrupt, causing Israel’s international standing to decline. Two hundred years after the death of Samuel, the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian Empire, and one hundred fifty years later, the southern kingdom was swallowed up by the Babylonian Empire. Israel would not win its independence back until 1949(2).

I think that what this story can communicate to Americans is that sometimes a people voluntarily give up their freedom in exchange for something else like glory or security. The younger President Bush, a Christian, deeply believed that freedom was the desire of every human heart, so he thought that after the U.S. liberated Afghanistan and Iraq, their citizens would happily cooperate with America. Instead, the American military sunk into a quagmire.

What this story says to Christians about democracies as a whole is that sooner or later, their citizens will exchange freedom for national power, safety, welfare, or some other good. The same thing will eventually happen in the United States of America, the Land of the Free. Even though many Americans believe that government’s primary responsibility is to protect the freedom of the governed, and many believe that the U.S. is the freest country in the world, the American government’s grasp on its citizens tightens year after year (its airport security measures are just the most visible example) because the demands the citizens make to the government sometimes necessitate the sacrifice of personal liberty. The history of the Kingdom of Israel is a reminder to American Christians that though they may willingly give up precious liberty in exchange for glory or security, they will not be able to preserve that glory or security forever.

(1) Biblical quotations are from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.
(2) The country declared its Independence in 1948 but had to defeat four invading armies immediately after that.

Departing Spanish Government Proposes Exhuming Franco if Church Gives Consent

Departing Spanish Government Proposes Exhuming Franco if Church Gives Consent
Jáuregui requests the Rajoy government, “Please do not stash this report in a drawer”
El País: El Gobierno en funciones propone exhumar a Franco si lo autoriza la Iglesia
Natalia Junquera reporting from Madrid November 29, 2011

Thirty-six years after Franco’s death, the departing government yesterday proposed lifting the 1500 kg granite gravestone under which he is interred, exhuming his remains, and submitting them to his family. So recommended a commission of experts which presidential minister Ramón Jáuregui, six months before the election, charged with creating a plan to make the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) something different from what Franco intended it to be: a monument to himself and his victory in the Civil War. But it would be difficult to complete this task because of another condition the commission established for the removal of the dictator from the mausoleum: the authorization of the Catholic Church.

The Church was invited to the commission, but at the final hour, the Cardinal of Madrid, Antonio María Rouco Varela, retired his representative there, Archbishop Emeritus of Pamplona and Tudela, Fernando Sebastián. When asked about the movement of Franco’s remains, the episocopal conference referred the question to the Archbishop of Madrid, whose spokesman responded, “We have no comment.” The anthropologist Francisco Ferrándiz, a member of the commission, believes it is possible the Church will give its authorization: “if it opposes despite the government’s desire to remove [the remains], the Church would become the dictator’s custodian.”

Another indispensable and insuperable condition is the consent of the Popular Party, which would have to spend at least 13 million euros to “make the premises decent.” “I request that the Mariano Rajoy administration please not stash this report in a drawer,” Jáuregui pleaded yesterday in La Moncloa after presenting the signatures of the presidents of the commission, Virgilio Zapatero (president of philosophy and law) and Pedro González-Trevijano (rector of King Juan Carlos I).

The two met recently with the dictator’s daughter. Carmen Franco assured them that her father had never said he wanted to be buried in the Valley of the Fallen and that the decision was made by the Arias-Navarro goverment. In any case, she asked the commission that the remains of her father remain where they are. In the understanding of the commission, however, the wishes of the family, as opposed to those of the Church, are not binding.

An important group in the commission has been convinced from the first that it would be impossible for the Valley of the Fallen to have any other meaning without moving Franco’s remains to another location, as this newspaper wrote in June. Ultimately, three experts (González-Trevijano, Herrero y Rodríguez de Milón, and Feliciano Barrios) redacted a private vote against the exhumation of the dictator because they thought it would “contribute to dividing and radicalizing public opinion.” This is the only point over which there is not unanimity. But the meetings have been long. “All day, sometimes,” Ferrándiz admits. No member of the commission has received monetary renumeration.

Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, believes the government can do without the authorization of the church. “It would be like if a hospital with a chapel asked for permission from an episcopal conference to operate.” He doesn’t believe the plan will be brought to fruition. Nor does the State Federation of Forums for the Recovery of Memory, which on the anniversary of the death of the dictator gathered in front of the Valley of the Fallen with a girl dressed up as Franco who said, “I see that I left everything tied up, and tied up well.” It also asked: “Why doesn’t the government do what Angela Merkel did in Germany some months ago: demolish the tomb of Hitler’s lieutenant, incinerate his remains, and throw them in the Baltic so the place wouldn’t become a site for Neo-Nazi pilgrimage?”

The removal of Franco’s remains from the Valley of the Fallen would be consolation for the family members of Republicans buried there without the families’ consent and which want to recover their remains. The forensic scientist Francisco Etxeberria corroborated with a petition by the families that the crypts have deteriorated; according to two other forensic scientists sent by the government, it is now practically impossible to make individual indentifications of remains.

The commission, even so, recommends the government “dignify” the cemetery of the Valley of the Fallen, the largest communal grave of Franquismo, where nearly 34,000 people are entombed. The cemetary would become public, and a “meditation center” would be established in the area so family members who do not profess to the Catholic faith can feel “comfortable”, according to Virgilio Zapatero.

My Facebook Wall: November 2011 ~ Out of Town until Nov. 29

I’m spending Thanksgiving vacation in Sichuan. I’ll see the cities of Chengdu and Chongqing and Jiuzhaigou National Park, among other things, and I’ll return November 29. I hope you all have wonderful holidays with your families!

1: Happy All Saints Day! (Louis Armstrong – “When the Saints Go Marching In”)
2: It’s All Souls Day. My thoughts are with the departed, including those whose memorial services I’ve attended: my grandfathers James Walter Smyth Sr. and William Franco-Velez, high school classmates Laura Steffel and Daniel Zixi Song, college classmate Chris Sanders, church music minister’s son Jacob Rund, and Muranaka-san, a Japanese coworker’s father.
4: The application for the JET Programme, my former employer which brought me to Japan to teach English, is now available! It’s due December 2.
6: 可遇而不可求: “can be found by chance but not by deliberate seeking”
8: Another example of sportswriting teaching me something about life.
10: Frankfort elects 23-year old mayor: By the way, Frankfort has a summer Hot Dog Festival, and its high school sports teams are known as the “Frankfort Hot Dogs”.
10: The Greatest Abstract of All Time
10: “Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward — and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Man Murders Pregnant Woman and Commits Suicide Inside Madrid Church; Baby Saved by Posthumous C-Section

Man Murders Pregnant Woman and Commits Suicide Inside Madrid Church; Baby Saved by Posthumous C-Section
El País: Muerte a disparos en una iglesia de Madrid
September 30, 2011

It happened soon before the 8 PM Mass in a church in the Madrileño neighborhood Pinar de Chamartín. A man armed with a pistol entered the temple and shot a pregnant woman point blank. After that he pointed his gun at the altar and shot another woman, 52 years of age, leaving her gravely injured. He knelt before an image of Christ and committed suicide by shooting inside his mouth.

Four Gunshots. Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, EFE
It was in the Santa María del Pinar (Our Lady of Pinar) church that Iván Berral Cid, a disturbed indigent of 34, killed a pregnant woman with a gunshot and wounded another before taking his own life before the altar. The expectant woman was named Rocío Piñeiro. She was 36 years old and was soon to give birth to her first child. Although Samur [the emergency medical team] couldn’t do anything for the mother, it successfully saved the life of the baby by performing a Caesarean section on the dead woman. The other victim, M.L.F.C., 52 years old, was shot twice but is not in critical condition.

She Saved the Baby. Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, EFE
Ceferina Cuesta, 47 years old, couldn’t do anything for Rocío Piñeiro, but she did save the child Piñeiro was expecting. The chief of the Samur team explained that “we had to extract the baby as quickly as possible so that it would suffer the least possible damage.” “Our maximum priorty was the baby as we couldn’t do anything for the mother,” the medic stated.

The Deceased: Photo by Paul White, AP
Rocío Piñeiro Oitavén was born in the Pontevedra town of Fornelos de Montes, where her family lives. She worked in a Novacaixagalicia bank branch, and for three years she had lived a few streets from the church where she was murdered. Her mother, who was next to her during the shooting, was unharmed. She had moved to the capital to be with her daughter for the birth. The deceased was to undergo a Caesarean section this Saturday.

“The Devil is Pursuing Me.” Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, EFE
Bullet shells were found in the area indicated pn the floor. It was in this aisle, before the altar, that the murderer took his life with a gunshot underneath the chin. Iván Berral had a restraining order from his ex-partner, who is also pregnant. He lived in homeless shelters, had 7 priors [previous crimes on his record], and carried a farewell note in a bad in which one can read, “The devil is pursuing me.”

The Priest. Photo by Paul White, AP
Father Francisco Santos Domínguez was in the church at the time of the tragedy. Santos, who was going to officiate Mass, has explained to journalists that the murderer had entered the church many time before to ask what time Mass was and had a polite comportment, although he seemed rather anxious. “He shot without saying a word,” according to the pastor. Berral used a blank gun that was modified in order to shoot bullets which he carried in a racquet bag.

Witnesses of the Tragedy. Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, EFE
Some of the witnesses stated that they’d never seen the killer before. Others maintained that the perturbed man had been prowling around the area dressed in bermudas and a straw hat that covered his face. The man, who was carrying a tennis racquet bag, had once entered a bar next to the church, ordered a drink, and asked for the Mass schedule. One witness described the attack as an act of “supreme hatred.”

“They’ve Killed Me [and] My Daughter.” Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, EFE.
The pregnant woman immediately collapsed on the floor of the church to the screams of her mother, who, in a state of shock, repeatedly screamed “Me han matado a mi hija” (“They’ve killed me [and] my daughter” – in the sentence, “me” and “my daughter” are separately indicated as the direct object). “He could have killed me or someone else, but he shot at her directly,” recounted Jesús Herranz, a resident of the neighborhood who was sitting behind the victim in the pews near the back. This morning, the cleaning work in the church was finished.

Special Training for Emergencies Saves Lives
The paramedic who performed the Caesarean section on the deceased emphasized the importance of training in emergency medicine to resolve situations like the one last night: “In order to be an emergency medic, you have to be trained, as in any other specialty. I’ve spent 20 years in the streets, so I’ve had experience with C-sections. But if I hadn’t had that experience, I wouldn’t have known how to do it,” explained the doctor, who held that if the medic had been someone without that specific foundation of training, the child might not have been saved.

Man Drowns 13-Year Old Daughter During Attempted Exorcism; Belongs to Recognized Buddhist Sect with 300,000 Believers

This story hit so close to home I literally shuddered when I read it. I’ve been to Nagasu a couple times; it was a 30-minute drive from my town in Japan. The student who died was likely taught English by a good friend of mine who left the town earlier this year after finishing her contract.

Man Drowns 13-Year Old Daughter During Attempted Exorcism
Yomiuri Shimbun: 除霊すると１３歳の娘に水浴びせ死なす
September 27, 2011

The Tamana County Nakayama Shingon Buddhist Church in Nagasu, Kumamoto, where a man drowned his 13-year old daughter during an attempted exorcism.

Inside the “Waterfall Room” where Tomomi was drowned. Water was poured from the tap [between the two flags]. (Photo taken on the morning of the 27th in Miyano, Nagasu-machi, Kumamoto-ken)

The location of the Tamana County Nakayama Shingon Buddhist Church.

On the 27th, the Kumamoto Prefectural Police arrested Kumamoto City Obiyama 3 employee Atsushi Maishigi (50) and fellow Nagasu-machi Miyano resident Kazuaki Kinoshita (56) on suspicion of drowning Maishigi’s 13-year old daughter to death by pouring water on her as part of an exorcism technique nicknamed the “Way of the Waterfall”.

The two allegedly performed this same kind of “exorcism” over 100 times since March.

According to the indictment, at 9 AM on August 27, the two suspects went to the Tamana County Nakayama Shingon Buddhist Church. Mr. Maishigi made his daughter Tomomi (13) sit in a chair and tied her arms and legs to it with belts, and subjected her to the “waterfall” for 5 minutes, holding her face upward while water was poured onto it from above. This is the suspected cause of her death.

After Tomomi lost consciousness, an ambulance was called which took her to the hospital, but at 3:40 AM the next day she was pronounced dead by asphyxiation.

The two testified to investigators, “There was a demon inside [my/his] daughter. She would recover if we exorcised it, so we used the Way of the Waterfall. Because she would violently resist it, we tied her to the chair.” They denied guilt: “It was not assault.”

“The Way of the Waterfall” was performed in a 3.5 square meter building separate from the main facility inside a small concrete “Waterfall Room”. Ground water was collected and poured from a height of 2.5 meters with the aid of equipment. While Atsushi Maishigi forced Tomomi to stay underwater, Kinoshita would utter incantations, according to the police report.

Men Who Performed Fatal Exorcism Belong to Recognized Religious Sect with 300,000 Believers
Yomiuri Shimbun: 「除霊」致死の宗教法人、信者は３０万人
September 27, 2011
A junior high school student was drowned by her father during an attempted exorcism called “The Way of the Waterfall” at Tamana County Nakayama Shingon Buddhist Church.

According to the Cultural Department, the Nakayama Shingon Buddhism was recognized as a religion in 1952.

It has 350 temples and churches throughout the country, and as of December 2008 it had 305,555 believers. Its head temple is the Ryūkōtoku Temple in Miyaura, Kiyamae-machi, Saga Prefecture. In response to an interview request by this newspaper, a representative said, “We don’t know anything because we hadn’t heard about this until now.”

Spanish Catholic Church Writes Its Own Name on Thousands of Real Estate Deeds

Repairs for the Cathedral of Navarre were paid for with public money before the Church appropriated the property. Photo by Luis Azanza.

Spanish Catholic Church Writes Its Own Name on Thousands of Real Estate Deeds
A 1998 law permits bishops to take ownership of places of worship in an opaque fashion. Towns throughout Spain have discovered the appropriations by surprise.
El País: La Iglesia inscribe como propios miles de inmuebles
Carmen Morán reporting from Madrid July 11, 2011

The Spanish Catholic Church has been putting its name on the deeds of rectories, vineyards, olive gardens, vestibules, tenement buildings, and apartments which were presumed to belong to towns but were never officially registered. It has done so quietly, with no one perceiving its good fortune that its appetite for real estate is protected by Articles 206 and 304 of the Mortgage Regulation Law. The bishops can emit certificates of dominion as if they were public functionaries. The privilege was extended in 1998 when the government of the time abolished Article 5 of the cited regulation, which had impeded use of this practice for places of worship, churches, cathedrals, and hermitages.

Since that year, the church has also been able to inscribe properties in its name. This is called, in administrative jargon, inmatricular (registration of property). It is doing so to its heart’s content. One could say the cassock hierarchy has swept up the land of Navarre. Hundreds of parishes, hermitages, and basilicas, and everything inside them, are now property of the diocese, which also now owns homes and warehouses and even cemeteries, garages, and ballfields.

Is it only Navarre? No. The same procedure is being repeated throughout Spain. It is as cheap and simple for the church as it is complex for a private citizen. Many mayors and private citizens have discovered the cases to their surprise and are now fighting to return this immense patrimony of culture and real estate to the public from which they believe it was seized. “Robbery” and “exploitation” are words they repeat when asked about these cases.

“Unconstitutional” is the word on the lips of judicial experts. “[Clergymen] are not public functionaries, but they’re acting like they are. Since Article 16 of the Constitution says there is no state religion, they cannot equilibrate themselves with public servants,” began Alejandro Torres, chair of Civil Law at the Public University of Navarre.

Torres cited a 1993 ruling which declared Article 76.1 of the Urban Rent Law unconstitutional. Until then, a curate could evict a tenant from a house without proving it was necessary. A father could not evict a tenant without demonstrating, for example, that his child needed the home. The Church could. But that court went on to say that “one cannot confuse state ends with religious ends or public ends with religious ends, whether one is the church or a public corporation.”

That may well be, but for a case to arrive at the Supreme Court, a judge will have to raise the question of unconstitutionality or make an appeal for legal protection. Or a particular case will have to exhaust other judicial recourse in order to come before the tribunal.

“They have time and money, and we don’t,” said the mayor of Garisoain, Javier Ilzarbe, who has only been able to save a hermitage. “They have taken the Church of the Assumption, the atrium, the parish house and its land, and the remains of another hermitage. We realized it a couple years ago, but we didn’t think to appeal, and it isn’t possible now. We’d like to, but…”

The mayors of small towns, like this one from Navarre, don’t even have the right to get upset. “We cut the lights, since we had been paying for them until then; now they pay. They keep asking us to help with repairs, but we won’t. In the ’80s, we repaired the ceiling,” said Ilzarbe.

“We’ll need public support so the big parties or someone in the courts will put a stop to this. It’s occurring all over Spain, and it’s a monumental scandal,” said Josemari Esparza of the Navarrese advocacy group Ekimena, created in 2007 to defend the community’s heritage.

But the bishops have been going to the courts themselves, as they did over the Pilar hermitage in Garisoain, which they pressured City Hall into registering for them. The public one. “We argued that the property belonged to the people, who continue to worship there. They said no way, they wanted the property, period. On top of that, they don’t even pay the property tax,” Ilzarbe said in criticism.

In Huarte, another place in Navarre, the mayor requested a meeting with the bishop. “He declined, and the bursar received us. He sent us to the courts, and here we are. We’re lucky we have the 1820 document in which the clergy acknowledged the public’s ownership of the church,” he said.

The Spanish Episcopal Conference leaves the matter in the hands of each diocese. The Diocese of Navarre responded, “The Church is not writing its name on buildings to appropriate them, but rather because they’re its property.” In another e-mail, it said “City Hall wants to appropriate them,” so the Church has to “defend itself.”

“If the buildings pass to other hands, they aren’t guaranteed to be used for the purposes for which they were created, and such cases have already happened,” it affirmed. It denies that the property comes into church ownership simply because it writes its own name on the deed. “We are following the 1998 law and registering what was already ours.” It also explains that price of conserving this heritage is very high: “It isn’t that the Church wants to become wealthy on the back of the state, but rather that the state is saving money at the expense of the Church.”

Let us return to Navarre and its cathedral. The public paid millions to repair the building months before the diocese claimed it: 15 million euros, to be exact. In 2006, the bishop made the building the church’s own and put prices on visits and activities occurring there, the party says. “The Church wants the property for three things: sale, rent, and mortgages. We already know it is selling and renting property, and we don’t know what it’s doing about mortgages,” said Josemari Esparza.

Esparza cited a case in a book his group published, that of San Miguel de Lizoian, a 13th century church “which was burned and desecrated when City Hall made it into a civic center. In 2003, the Church claimed it, the same day it took ownership of the rest of the churches in the valley; City Hall had to repurchase it to complete the center it was planning. A redundant deal,” Esparza said, indignant. Remember that in the past, the church was the municipal center, the church, the meeting place. Everything. “They ultimately became exclusive places of worship, but that wasn’t always the case. The Church now charges 300 euros in Tallafa for bands to have the concerts they traditionally performed there. Real estate is the church’s business of the future,” continued Esparza.

The party’s book also analyzes the history of the chapel of San Fermín, emblematic of Pamplona. “The archives recount the immense efforts the city had to make to construct it, so great that they had to suspend the Running of the Bulls for six years. It couldn’t be more clear that this was public property. But the diocese claimed it in 2003. And it’s made good money off it on weddings and other rites,” Esparza said.

In Navarre, the group is requesting that mayors make rules to prevent real estate speculation in areas neighboring the churches which are being registered.

To whom do the churches belong? One has to dive into archives to find out, and there isn’t always proof. For the Church, “the peaceful possession of real estate for over 100 years is, judicially, sufficient title to merit legitimate inscription in the Property Registry.” The clergy fear that churches will be used for other ends. But this fear couldn’t also extend to tenements, olive gardens, rectories, and cemeteries, could it?

Codex Calixtinus Stolen from Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

A copy of one page of the Codex Calixtinus.

Codex Calixtinus Stolen from Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
The keys were left in the strongbox where the priceless book was held. It was uninsured. The cathedral archivists didn’t notice the theft for days.
El País: Desaparece el Códice Calixtino de la Catedral de Santiago
Jesús Duva and María Pampín reporting from Madrid and Santiago, respectively, July 7, 2011

The Codex Calixtinus, a priceless 12th century book, has disappeared from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. If not found, it would be one of the gravest thefts of historic and artistic heritage in the history of Spain. The absence of the codex, which was held in a strongbox in the archive, was discovered Tuesday afternoon, but the theft had occurred the previous week, according to police sources. The piece was not insured, Dean José María Díaz told the press, and she does not know if the cathedral’s general insurance plan will cover the loss of the book.

The Codex Calixtinus was guarded in a room that was “continuously accessed”, along with the other “most valuable” volumes, by two researchers of the cathedral archive who regularly consulted them. Only those two and the dean, José María Díaz, could freely enter the room and see the priceless – and uninsured – codex. Díaz confirmed this morning in a press conference that the collection of parchments does not have its own insurance plan, and although there is a general one for the cathedral, he doesn’t know if it would cover the theft of such a valuable item. The organization running the Ages of Man exhibition in Burgos (Spain) in 1990 requested that the codex be displayed there with other religious art; an ad hoc insurance claim valued the book at 1 billion pesetas (10 million dollars). The volume, “which has never been taken to a research room,” has only left the cathedral twice, for exhibitions, the last in 1993 for only two days, after which a fascimile was substituted for it.

“Following the recommendation of the police,” the dean does not wish to clarify anything about the security of the room where the document was held, although he has confirmed it was not forced open: the press was informed the morning he spoke that the keys were found inside the strongbox lock. Díaz said that at the end of Tuesday, one of the researchers “noticed the codex was missing” and informed the dean. “Four of us searched to make sure it wasn’t in the strongbox or in any of the adjacent rooms,” he explained. After that, he informed the police, who came to the cathedral at 10 PM. The criminal case was formally opened yesterday afternoon. “The chapter has become the victim of a robbery and a tremendous crime,” it read in part.

The dean does not want to verbalize his suspicions about the author of the crime: “if I know, I won’t say it, and if I suspect anyone, I won’t say it, primarily because it is a sin to make rash accusations. I might formulate judgment internally but I would never express it. The one who took it knows what he has done. He knows how valuable it was and how to get to it.” “The chapter has been able to conserve it for 800 years. We feel like we are the victims of a tremendous assault,” he concluded.

The few people who had access to the room have already been interrogated by the police, but none of them are suspects for now. Although access to the room was quite restrictive, control of the keys was “quite lax”, making it possible that someone intruded the premises, took the keys, and opened the treasure chest without difficulty.

The theft (it cannot be called a robbery because there was no force or violence involved) occurred last week. It was not noticed until Tuesday. At first, the disconcerted archivists thought that the first and most celebrated guide for pilgrims had been misplaced. They searched everywhere and didn’t find a trace of it. Afterward they informed the police, who started the search, and they did not make a criminal denunciation to the commisar of Santiago de Compostela until yesterday.

“The best case scenario is that the codex is in the hands of someone who knows its priceless value because then we can be sure it won’t be mistreated,” a chief of police said. The Chief Superior of the Galician Police has disposed “all tools deemed necessary” to recuperate the text, and today two investigators of the Central Brigade of Historical Patrimony join the search.

Specialists cited by El Correo Gallego believe the thieves could be an organized band acting on orders of a collector. The Cadena SER’s sources in the investigation think that the collector has already met them outside of Spain. The delegate of the Government of Galicia, Miguel Cortizo, has told the press he has activated the European protocols to control the markets that traffic works of this kind.

The First Pilgrimage Guide
Composed of five books and two appendices, assembled in a single tome since 1964, the codex, which was made to propagate devotion to the apostle St. James the Greater (“Santiago” in Spanish), was a sort of tourist guide that directed pilgrims to the city and contained advice, lodging information, and descriptions of the route, works of art, local customs, and peoples living along the path. It also contains rich illustrations and 22 polyphonic songs which are among the oldest of their kind in Europe. The complete work is 30×21 cm and has 225 parchment folios (pages).

In recent years, the security around the codex has been increased. The zone is dotted with alarms and countermeasures, but not all the action inside the rooms is recorded. In addition, according to this paper, there are five security cameras, but none of them are focused on the book. Apart from the original, which has disappeared, there is an exact replica which accredited specialists work with and which visitors can see in the Cathedral Museum. The original is only displayed on grand occasions. The last time, according to La Voz de Galicia, was two months ago during a personal visit by the Minister of Culture.

The dean, José María Díaz, yesterday informed the Cathedral Chapter and the archbishop, Monsignor Julián Barrio, of the disappearance of the codex, patronized in good part by Pope Calixtus II (hence the name), whose original Latin words were translated into Galician last year.

My Facebook Wall: June 2011

My friends’ messages and subject prompts are in italics.

6/1: Tomorrow could be Naoto Kan’s last day as Prime Minister of Japan. Three opposition parties are bringing a vote of no confidence to the floor; 5 deputy cabinet ministers are resigning to support it, and his fellow party members Hatoyama (the last Prime Minister) and Ozawa (the leader of the party’s rival faction) plan to do so as well. His party, which holds the majority of seats in the lower house, would have to make a new government. He’s so stressed he accidentally referred to the leader of the opposition party as “Prime Minister Tanigaki” today.
6/2: Kan survived the no-confidence vote after cutting a deal with his own party. He’ll step down after the Diet passes a revised budget to account for rebuilding [likely by the end of the summer].
6/2: I heard this when it came out and thought being 25 sounded pretty exciting. And it is.
6/3: For the first time in three years, I have two free weeks and no travel plans! There are so many things I want to do that I can’t wait to get started.
6/3: Happiness is fleeting. Sadness is also fleeting, then.
6/3: God bless everyone who’s leaving our school! (I’m staying another year.)
6/4: LeBron Ditches Space Jam
6/5: I just helped a Japanese high school friend translate a letter. Hopefully, together we can convince the Jonas Brothers to come to Japan.
6/10: 江山易改，本性難移 – “Rivers and mountains are easier to change than human nature.” 昨天在台大學生餐廳兩個從加州來的基督教徒突然跟我講話，討論神學。當時爲了表示相信耶穌的人不一定是「好人」，我教了他們那個句子。
6/10: RIP Activist and Proto-Rapper Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011). Another of his must-listen poems is “Whitey on the Moon”.
6/12: Man, the Heat have gotten so much bad press that I just dreamt that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade robbed my house. Chris Bosh took the night off.
6/12: Happy Father’s Day to my mentor, Jim Smyth. I may not have let on that I was heeding his example, but now in most ways I am like him. By the way, Taiwanese Father’s Day is on August 8th because 8/8 is pronunced “Baba”. Get it? Western Father’s Day is officially next Sunday…so let’s call this the beginning of a week of Father’s Day festivities!
6/12: Favorite part of morning routine? Mass.
6/13: About “A Game of Thrones”: All the bitterness in the story makes the hope and light all the sweeter because you know your heroes really earned it. They overcome enemies who will stop at nothing in a world that’s absolutely realistic and impartial. The books affect me so much because they’re so honest about what the world is like while still capturing the wonder of it all.
6/14: Basketball and Jazz: ‎‎”For too long, we’ve mistaken the speed and spontaneity of basketball and jazz as evidence that these forms of entertainment are simple and facile, somehow less complicated than football or Wagner. But nothing could be further from the truth…these improvised creations only exist because their creators have internalized the necessary set of patterns, training their brain to execute astonishingly difficult calculations in the blink of an eye. As a result, they’re able to see what we cannot, envisioning rebounds and passing lanes and melodies that the rest of us can’t even comprehend.”
6/17: ‎”What did you do over break?” “I went to karaoke three times.” “Wow! You have a lot of friends who love singing!” “You could say that…actually I went with [my friend] Andrew Chan every time.”
6/17: I’m starting to really like Grantland. I feel like I’m its target audience.
6/18: In response to a Books Vs. Kindle post: Do you ever go through a folder on your computer and reminisce about old documents? I would if I hadn’t had 2 break down on me before I could back them up…
6/19: Dad requested the following Father’s Day present: that I confess my sins and repent. To Mass and Confession I went, and now I’m contemplating my Heavenly Father’s mercy and grace. “The Tree of Life” was the perfect movie for this day.
6/20: I often kick it up a notch after telling myself to “Be a man!” Do ladies ever pump themselves up by saying “Be a woman”?
6/21: RIP Clarence Clemons, E Street Band Saxophonist
6/21: ‎”To prove his love for her, he climbed the highest mountain, swam the deepest ocean, and crossed the widest desert. But she left him – he was never at home.” (I found this joke in Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps, a fun and eye-opening book about recent scientific studies of gender differences.)
6/22: About Abusive Teachers: I think the hottest places in hell are for those who abuse authority and abdicate responsibility, and I pray that if I’m in such a position one day, I’ll have the strength and courage to serve people well.
6/22: New resolution: only think of myself from now on! I thank you on behalf of everyone you’ve helped until now! I’ve seen you make a difference in people’s lives, and that moved me.
6/25: NBA Draft Thoughts: I think everyone who passed on Faried is going to regret it, my team included, and the Celts especially should have traded up for him. He’s a genius of rebounding. The foreigners are variables as always. Kahwi Leonard will be better than George Hill, and Derrick Williams will be great.
6/26: The Japanese name for the hippocampus is the “seahorse” (海馬). And that is actually what “hippocampus” means in the original Greek as well.
6/28: Upon a friend completing the Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela: I remember praying for DA7 for a weekend inside that cathedral…I spent two full days inside and kept seeing new things and having new experiences. What a beautiful place. I saw a bit of the walk when I visited Navarre, as well, and wished I had time to do the whole thing. I’ve recommended the pilgrimage to people who are looking for that kind of experience, and I’m thrilled to now have a friend who’s done it himself. Peace be with you!
6/29: ‎”I live my life like a burning man, and I won’t get enough until my legs are broken!”
6/30: I just found my black dress shoes in the hallway of the music building. Which is open to the public. No one had touched them. For a month. Hallelujah. The story: I wore a costume at school for a presentation. On the way home, I stopped to play the piano, and I forgot my shoes there because I wasn’t accustomed to carrying them around with me. I didn’t realize they were missing because I didn’t need them for so long. The building staff said, “Shoes? On the fourth floor? You mean those massive clogs that have been there forever? We’ve been wondering who wears shoes that big!”
6/30: Just came back from my second interview with the Department of Justice. I think I did really well, although one interviewer mentioned that I “crushed (her) hand” when we shook hands. Note to self: don’t crush any more interviewers. You should have said ‎”My right hand is JUSTICE. My left hand is mercy.”

“Who Could Live in a Cloistered Convent for 84 Years Without Being Happy?”

Sor Teresita (age 103) in the Buenafuente del Sistal (Guadalajara) convent.

“Who Could Live in a Cloistered Convent for 84 Years Without Being Happy?”
Sor Teresita, 103 years old, is one of 10 nuns who tell their stories of living in a convent in a new book.
El País: “¿Quién puede estar 84 años en un convento de clausura sin ser feliz?”
Staff Report from Madrid June 29, 2011

“Who could live in a cloistered convent for 84 years without being happy? Obviously I’m happy.” Sor (Sister) Teresa is speaking of her own experience. She entered her convent April 16, 1927, the same day Pope Benedict XVI was born. Sister Teresita – her legal name is Valeria – is the Spanish nun who has spent the longest time in the cloister: she will turn 104 in September, and her cell and life are in the convent of Buenafuente del Sistal, a town of less than 200 inhabitants. She confesses that when she entered the convent, “the monks didn’t like me…luckily, we kept it in the family!” She says with humor that one day her father, after fighting with her mother, told her she would be better off if she became a nun. “To indulge him,” she said that if God gave her the vocation, she would accept it.

The youth then heard “The Call”, and ever since she has been faithful to the Rule of Saint Benedict, ora et labora (“pray and work”), in a Cistercian convent in Guadalajara. Sister Teresita is one of ten nuns who gave testimony about their religious vocations for a new book by the Madrid journalist Jesús García (born in 1977) published by LibrosLibres (Free Books). García has named the book after Burning’s famous song ¿Qué hace una chica como tú en un sitio como éste? (“What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?”) to emphasize the reasons these women, aged 23 to 103, left their family and friends to consecrate their existence to the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty.

The entertaining interview with Sister Teresita opens the book. She explains that she was born September 16, 1907 in Foronda, Álava, a town which is now part of the city of Vitoria. For more than 20 years, she was the mother superior of her religious community. In ” What is a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, she recounts that when she became a monk, she was “afraid” and “stupid” but “The Lord and Saint Teresita helped me not to lose my nerves.” Her entire life has passed in a convent that is difficult to access “in the bleak upland of the Guadalajara province”, in the author’s words.

Sister Teresita fervently believes the religious maxim that “God helps those who wake up early.” She gets up at five to pray. “We really can pray every day, and that’s what sustains us,” she says. She goes to bed at ten o’clock. She never leaves the convent anymore: “My legs don’t respond to me.” Actually, she has almost never left. Besides doctor’s appointments, she only departed for a time during the Civil War: “People were shooting at each other in this area.”

Thank You and Sorry
This monk who speaks frankly and affably says her life motto is “Always say thank you and I’m sorry, thank you and I’m sorry.” She was the oldest of seven children in a family of “laborers in the field from morning ’til night”, which obliged her to leave school at age 12. Did she have any love interests? “There were two or three men pursuing me, my friend, but the one who convinced me was The Lord, and I left everything for him.”

Logically, since her life is dedicated to prayer, she prays often, although she has some “escapes”. That’s why when she feels she’s being neglectful, she prays especially “to the Virgin: I want to see with her eyes, speak with her mouth, hear with her ears, and love with her heart.” But the nun doesn’t just speak of the spiritual: she also mans the stewpots to make her potato tortillas, which are famous in the convent, with the help of two very special people: “The Virgin gives them flavor, and Saint Joseph flips them over.” Amen.