Tuesday, April 01, 2008

News: New dicastery for Catholic bloggers formed

CNS is reporting a development in the Roman Curia from late last night:
Pope forms Congregation for Internet Evangelization

By Fred Yulent
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- Verifying rumors that Francis Cardinal Arinze was due to be replaced as the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Pope Benedict XVI named Arinze the head of a new dicastery late Monday night.

In an audience held at 10:30 PM (EDT), the Pope presented a signed Apostolic Constitution, motu proprio, which defined the congregation and laid down its rules and responsibilities. Arinze graciously accepted his new appointment, effective immediately.

The Cardinal has a web site, containing a podcast and regular video updates, through which he has been representing the Church's stance on liturgical matters. It is believed the Pope selected him to be the Prefect of the new congregation because of his familiarity with the medium and his strong internet presence.

The Apostolic Constitution Technologium saeculum ("The Age of Technology") addresses the growing need for "liturgical and biblical catechesis at the click of a button" and recognizes the efforts of hundreds of Catholic bloggers, many of whom are priests and religious, in providing "the genuine Catholic faith to millions of internet-savvy people of varying religions".

Although the Constitution did not name names, the Pope did speak of two priests in particular: Fr. John Zuhlsdorf and Fr. Tim Finigan.

Among the duties of the Congregatio pro Evangelizatione Interretiali is the painstaking process of registering the Catholics who present catechetical material on their blogs; this registration will allow the orthodox Catholic bloggers to present an authentic seal of approval from the dicastery, similar to the nihil obstat and imprimatur of printed works.

13 comments:

Jeff Miller said...

Good parody! But this being April Fools I immediately picked up on Fred Yulent.

Anonymous said...

Hohoho. You almost ran out of time here (2hrs left!).

Moonshadow said...

Very good!

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

But how cool would a seal be?!!! Anyone want to design one?

PraiseDivineMercy said...

Very fun. It might have made me wonder for a bit if it wasn't April Fools day, though the reference to Father Z and Father Finigan gave it away.
Hm... I wish it was possible to get a seal of approval.

Banshee said...

I suggest the following:

On a field argent, a heart proper.
Superimposed on that, a seal rampant.

The motto would be "Set me as a seal on your heart". :)

Anonymous said...

When I first saw this I actually believed it!

Rev Mons Reno Liegghio

Animadversor said...

Ah, ought that not to be Congregatio pro Evangelizatione Interretiali? I think that those of us who press for the greater use of Latin in the Church ought to be very careful not to make easily avoidable mistakes when using Latin ourselves, lest we open ourselves up to easy ridicule which undermines our cause.

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

animadversor - I've corrected it in the post. Thanks for the correction; I'm not very good with composing Latin, I admit. Is this the ablative?

Animadversor said...

It is, Japhy. Evangelizatione is pretty straightforward, but Interretiali may prove a bit tricky to some. Usually one expects a third declension i-stem to end in -e, e.g., nocte, but here we have Interretiali and not Interretiale. Why? Because it's an adjective, and adjectives have to have masculine, feminine, and neuter forms. The neuter nominative and accusative singular of i-stem adjectives already ends in -e, so instead the ablative ends in -i, to avoid confusion. At least that's how I understand it. If someone else can give a fuller or more correct explanation, I should like to read it.

Animadversor said...

Perhaps if I should have any questions about Perl you can help?

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't sure about the ablative (which I'm told is a bit of a catch-all declension)...

And as far as Perl questions go, yes, I am a good resource. I haven't expanded my Perl horizons in quite some time (that is, I haven't learned anything new) but I've been using the language for over a decade.

Richard Chonak said...

I still don't feel comfortable about Latin words containing a "z".