RADIO VATICANA REPORT: “The
Church pays great attention to the suffering of couples with infertility, she
cares for them and, precisely because of this, encourages medical research.”,
said Pope Benedict XVI, in his address Saturday to members of the Pontifical
Academy for Life.
Over the past week the Academy has gathered together experts from the world of medicine, scientific research, theology and philosophy to the Vatican to discuss infertility, how it is diagnosed, how it can be treated and how it impacts couples.
Pope Benedict said : “The human and Christian dignity of procreation, consists not in a "product", but in its connection with the conjugal act, an expression of love of the spouses, their union which is not only biological but also spiritual”.
He said: “This approach is moved not only from the desire to gift the couple a child, but to restore fertility to couple and with it all the dignity of being responsible for their own reproductive choices, to be God's collaborators in the generation of a new human being. The search for a diagnosis and therapy is scientifically the correct approach to the issue of infertility, but it must also be respectful of the integral humanity of those involved. In fact, the union of man and woman in that community of love and life that is marriage, is the only "place" worthy for the call into existence of a new human being, which is always a gift”.
But what happens when even science cannot provide the answer to a couples desire for parenthood? Here the Pope warned against what he described as “the lure of the technology of artificial insemination” where “scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation, to the point of limiting many other areas of research”.
The Holy Father noted that “So I would like to remind the couples who are experiencing the condition of infertility, that their vocation to marriage is no less because of this. Spouses, for their own baptismal and marriage vocation, are called to cooperate with God in the creation of a new humanity. The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to the gift of self and this is a possibility that no organic condition can prevent. There, where science has not yet found an answer, the answer that gives light comes from Christ”.
Pope Benedict concluded: “I encourage all of you gathered here for these study days, and who sometimes work in a medical-scientific dimension where the truth is blurred: to continue on their journey of a science that is intellectually honest and fascinated by the constant research for the good of man", not forgetting in this intellectual journey, the dialogue with faith. Citing his appeal expressed in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope said that Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. "(n. 28). On the other hand, precisely the cultural matrix created by Christianity - rooted in the affirmation of the existence of truth and intelligibility of reality in the light of Supreme Truth - has made the development of in modern scientific knowledge possible in medieval Europe, a knowledge that in earlier cultures had remained but a seed".
“Distinguished scientists and all of you members of the Academy who undertake to promote the life and dignity of the human person, also keep in mind your important cultural role in society and carry out the influence you have in shaping public opinion…people trust in you, who serve life, they trust in your commitment to support those who need comfort and hope. Never succumb to the temptation to treat what’s best for people by reducing it to a mere technical problem! The indifference of conscience to what is true and good, represents a dangerous threat to genuine scientific progress”.SOURCE: RADIOVATICANA.ORG
Over the past week the Academy has gathered together experts from the world of medicine, scientific research, theology and philosophy to the Vatican to discuss infertility, how it is diagnosed, how it can be treated and how it impacts couples.
Pope Benedict said : “The human and Christian dignity of procreation, consists not in a "product", but in its connection with the conjugal act, an expression of love of the spouses, their union which is not only biological but also spiritual”.
He said: “This approach is moved not only from the desire to gift the couple a child, but to restore fertility to couple and with it all the dignity of being responsible for their own reproductive choices, to be God's collaborators in the generation of a new human being. The search for a diagnosis and therapy is scientifically the correct approach to the issue of infertility, but it must also be respectful of the integral humanity of those involved. In fact, the union of man and woman in that community of love and life that is marriage, is the only "place" worthy for the call into existence of a new human being, which is always a gift”.
But what happens when even science cannot provide the answer to a couples desire for parenthood? Here the Pope warned against what he described as “the lure of the technology of artificial insemination” where “scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation, to the point of limiting many other areas of research”.
The Holy Father noted that “So I would like to remind the couples who are experiencing the condition of infertility, that their vocation to marriage is no less because of this. Spouses, for their own baptismal and marriage vocation, are called to cooperate with God in the creation of a new humanity. The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to the gift of self and this is a possibility that no organic condition can prevent. There, where science has not yet found an answer, the answer that gives light comes from Christ”.
Pope Benedict concluded: “I encourage all of you gathered here for these study days, and who sometimes work in a medical-scientific dimension where the truth is blurred: to continue on their journey of a science that is intellectually honest and fascinated by the constant research for the good of man", not forgetting in this intellectual journey, the dialogue with faith. Citing his appeal expressed in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope said that Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. "(n. 28). On the other hand, precisely the cultural matrix created by Christianity - rooted in the affirmation of the existence of truth and intelligibility of reality in the light of Supreme Truth - has made the development of in modern scientific knowledge possible in medieval Europe, a knowledge that in earlier cultures had remained but a seed".
“Distinguished scientists and all of you members of the Academy who undertake to promote the life and dignity of the human person, also keep in mind your important cultural role in society and carry out the influence you have in shaping public opinion…people trust in you, who serve life, they trust in your commitment to support those who need comfort and hope. Never succumb to the temptation to treat what’s best for people by reducing it to a mere technical problem! The indifference of conscience to what is true and good, represents a dangerous threat to genuine scientific progress”.SOURCE: RADIOVATICANA.ORG
ASIA : AFGHANISTAN : 20 - DEATH TOLL FROM KORAN BURNING PROTEST
ASIA NEWS
REPORT;Toll from unrest rises to 20 dead. Another
protester killed in Logar province (eastern Turkey). Afghan workers at Bagram
base: U.S. military burned the sacred books of ignoring our
pleas.
Kabul (AsiaNews) - The toll from five-days of protests over the burning of the Koran has risen to 20 dead and hundreds injured. Today thousands of demonstrators surrounded the UN complex in Kunduz (Northern Afghanistan) trying to storm the building guarded by police and army. In Mehterlam, capital of the eastern province of Logar, a crowd of hundreds of people stormed the offices of the governor. In the clashes, police killed a protester.
Meanwhile, experts say the episode is putting into serious question the image of the U.S. Army and ten years of struggle against Islamic extremism.
In these days the authorities have collected the testimonies of workers employed in the military base in Bagram to shed light on the incident. From the accounts it emerges that the U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran while ignoring the pleas of Muslim workers.
Jamil Sayed, an Afghan of 22 years, said that last February 20 he was working with other Afghan colleagues in one of the waste disposal areas on the base, when three soldiers arrived on the site aboard a military truck full of books and religious material and have started to throw the contents into the incinerator. "When we realized that they were copies of the Koran - Jamil says - we alerted the driver asking why they wanted to burn the book. The soldier responded by saying that it was material of the prison and they were ordered to discard it". The men plunged their hands into the oven to try to save the texts, some burning their fingers and hands as they pulled eight Koran copies from the fire, he said. The reaction of the Afghan workers scared the soldiers who fled with the still carrying more than half of the box full of copies of the Koran.http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Fifth-day-of-protests-over-Koran-burning.-UN-headquarters-in-Kunduz-attacked-24075.html
Kabul (AsiaNews) - The toll from five-days of protests over the burning of the Koran has risen to 20 dead and hundreds injured. Today thousands of demonstrators surrounded the UN complex in Kunduz (Northern Afghanistan) trying to storm the building guarded by police and army. In Mehterlam, capital of the eastern province of Logar, a crowd of hundreds of people stormed the offices of the governor. In the clashes, police killed a protester.
Meanwhile, experts say the episode is putting into serious question the image of the U.S. Army and ten years of struggle against Islamic extremism.
In these days the authorities have collected the testimonies of workers employed in the military base in Bagram to shed light on the incident. From the accounts it emerges that the U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran while ignoring the pleas of Muslim workers.
Jamil Sayed, an Afghan of 22 years, said that last February 20 he was working with other Afghan colleagues in one of the waste disposal areas on the base, when three soldiers arrived on the site aboard a military truck full of books and religious material and have started to throw the contents into the incinerator. "When we realized that they were copies of the Koran - Jamil says - we alerted the driver asking why they wanted to burn the book. The soldier responded by saying that it was material of the prison and they were ordered to discard it". The men plunged their hands into the oven to try to save the texts, some burning their fingers and hands as they pulled eight Koran copies from the fire, he said. The reaction of the Afghan workers scared the soldiers who fled with the still carrying more than half of the box full of copies of the Koran.http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Fifth-day-of-protests-over-Koran-burning.-UN-headquarters-in-Kunduz-attacked-24075.html
EUROPE : BELGIUM : PAX CHRISTI MOVEMENT SEEK SECRETARY-GENERAL
Pax Christi International is in search of a new Secretary-General, who will be based at the Pax Christi International Secretariat in Brussels, Belgium.
The Secretary-General will inspire and lead Pax Christi as an international movement and ensure active engagement of the member organisations around the world.
This will require vision and enthusiasm, strategic leadership, effective management and professionalism, as well as a personal commitment to Christian values at the heart of peace and reconciliation, social and ecological justice, nonviolence and participation.
For additional information see: http://archive.paxchristi.net/JOB_OPENINGS/SG.pdf
AUSTRALIA : 20000 SURVIVORS OF QUAKE AT MEMORIAL
ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY PRESS
RELEASE:
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
22 Feb 2012
More than 20,000 survivors of Christchurch's earthquake gathered
at the city's Hagley Park to mark the first anniversary of the devastating
tremor that struck the city at 12.51 pm exactly one year ago today.
The Catholic Bishop of Christchurch, the Most Rev Barry Jones led the final prayers after two minutes silence to remember the 182 who lost their lives.
Commending them to God's mercy, he also prayed for the many grieving and distraught families as well as the quake survivors whom he said "bear the wounds and scars and injuries both visible and invisible from the earthquakes which have continued to oppress us."
Although the first earthquake to hit Christchurch in September 2010 was a massive 7.0, there was no real damage until the 6.2 aftershock of February 22 last year. This was when the city, which until September had been unaware it was built on an active fault line, was devastated.
Already weakened by the 7.0 quake, high rise buildings in the
CBD pancaked and the domes and towers of the city's landmark Catholic cathedral
and the city's imposing Anglican cathedral, after which Christchurch was named,
toppled and collapsed into rubble.
Entire suburbs of New Zealand's third largest city suffered severe damage with houses destroyed, many suffering wide cracks and jolted off their foundations. Roads buckled and liquefaction triggered mud and slush throughout the city's eastern suburbs. Water mains were ripped apart and electricity and the rest of the city's infrastructure severely damaged.
The port of Lyttleton near the centre of the quake was also devastated with houses sliding down the steep cliffs bordering the harbour.
Since then the city has been wracked by continuing aftershocks and as recently as December 2011, Christchurch had to cope with one measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale which brought down more buildings, weakened others and along with liquefaction and oozing mud, triggered severe power outages and broken water mains.
According to counsellors and therapists, 12 months on from the February 22 quake, many of the 338,000 inhabitants of New Zealand's third largest city are severely traumatised, and with the continuing aftershocks and uncertainty about the future, suffering a combination of despair and depression.
With entire suburbs now condemned, many have been forced to walk away from homes that have been in their families for generations. Others have simply packed up and left to start new lives in other cities in New Zealand or across the Tasman, here in Australia.
But despite what many have gone through, today's memorial at Hagley Park was a time not only for reflection but one of hope.
"Let us work together to
rebuild a city fit for heroes," the Mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker urged
those who attended the Memorial ceremony. "We've learned that when we work
together, when we listen to each other, extraordinary things can happen."
He praised the way friends and neighbours had reach out to one another and said the city was now seeing a resurgence of strength and spirit.
"No city has ever been more strongly united in wanting to recover, rebuild, and once more be a great place to live and to work," he said.
The ceremony which was also attended by NZ Prime Minister John Key, the Governor General of NZ, Sir Jerry Mateparae, paid tribute to the bravery of residents in the aftermath of last year's earthquake and presented more than 140 awards for acts of heroism.
Then as a group of children released 182 monarch butterflies, the names of those who had lost their lives were read out. This was followed by two minute's silence after which the Catholic Bishop of Christchurch led a moving and heartfelt prayer.
The prayer in full is
printed below:
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
22 Feb 2012
Christchurch residents comfort one another at
today's
memorial service one year after a quake devastated the city
memorial service one year after a quake devastated the city
The Catholic Bishop of Christchurch, the Most Rev Barry Jones led the final prayers after two minutes silence to remember the 182 who lost their lives.
Commending them to God's mercy, he also prayed for the many grieving and distraught families as well as the quake survivors whom he said "bear the wounds and scars and injuries both visible and invisible from the earthquakes which have continued to oppress us."
Although the first earthquake to hit Christchurch in September 2010 was a massive 7.0, there was no real damage until the 6.2 aftershock of February 22 last year. This was when the city, which until September had been unaware it was built on an active fault line, was devastated.
Catholic Bishop Barry Jones led the
final
prayer at the memorial
of Chrsitchurch's devastating quake
prayer at the memorial
of Chrsitchurch's devastating quake
Entire suburbs of New Zealand's third largest city suffered severe damage with houses destroyed, many suffering wide cracks and jolted off their foundations. Roads buckled and liquefaction triggered mud and slush throughout the city's eastern suburbs. Water mains were ripped apart and electricity and the rest of the city's infrastructure severely damaged.
The port of Lyttleton near the centre of the quake was also devastated with houses sliding down the steep cliffs bordering the harbour.
Since then the city has been wracked by continuing aftershocks and as recently as December 2011, Christchurch had to cope with one measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale which brought down more buildings, weakened others and along with liquefaction and oozing mud, triggered severe power outages and broken water mains.
According to counsellors and therapists, 12 months on from the February 22 quake, many of the 338,000 inhabitants of New Zealand's third largest city are severely traumatised, and with the continuing aftershocks and uncertainty about the future, suffering a combination of despair and depression.
With entire suburbs now condemned, many have been forced to walk away from homes that have been in their families for generations. Others have simply packed up and left to start new lives in other cities in New Zealand or across the Tasman, here in Australia.
But despite what many have gone through, today's memorial at Hagley Park was a time not only for reflection but one of hope.
Christchurch Cathedral's bell tower was
destroyed in the February earthquake
destroyed in the February earthquake
He praised the way friends and neighbours had reach out to one another and said the city was now seeing a resurgence of strength and spirit.
"No city has ever been more strongly united in wanting to recover, rebuild, and once more be a great place to live and to work," he said.
The ceremony which was also attended by NZ Prime Minister John Key, the Governor General of NZ, Sir Jerry Mateparae, paid tribute to the bravery of residents in the aftermath of last year's earthquake and presented more than 140 awards for acts of heroism.
Then as a group of children released 182 monarch butterflies, the names of those who had lost their lives were read out. This was followed by two minute's silence after which the Catholic Bishop of Christchurch led a moving and heartfelt prayer.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed
Sacrament
taken two weeks ago from the air
taken two weeks ago from the air
O God whose mercies are without number,
and whose treasure and goodness is infinite,
graciously increase the faith of your people
that all may grasp and rightly understand
by whose love they have been created.
Your Son Jesus has taught us
to open our hearts to you in sincere prayer,
today after one year,
we commend to your love and mercy
all those whose lives have been changed forever
by the earthquake of 22 February 2011.
We commend to your mercy
those who lost their lives in that terrible time.
We remember too,
those who were evacuated in great stress
from city rest homes
and who have since departed this life
Grieving and distraught families, friends and workmates
entered thereby into a time of sadness,
loneliness and heartbreak.
Have mercy on them all O God.
We commend also to you those living survivors
who bear wounds and scars and injuries
both visible and invisible
from the earthquakes which have continued to oppress us.
May their trust and confidence in you never fail,
but rather grow to be strong and life-giving
for themselves and for those close to them.
Your Son Jesus
showed himself to be the physician of souls.
May those burdened by fear, anxiety,
worry and hopelessness,
know your healing hand.
Many of our people Lord carry painful memories
of building and structures falling,
and persons being crushed and trapped.
Have mercy on them and grant them peace.
We pray in Jesus' name
Amen
CISA
REPORT:
CISA REPORT: BAMAKO, February
24, 2012 (CISA) -The Malian government must end bomb attacks against the
civilian population in the north of the country, Amnesty International said on
February 23 after a four year old girl was killed amid shelling.
Fata Walette Ahmedou was injured after an army helicopter shelled the Kel Essouck camp near the northern town of Kidal, some 1,600 km north-east of the capital Bamako. She died of her injuries on Thursday February 23 in the morning.
At least 12 other people were wounded in the attack, says Amnesty International.
“It’s the civilian population who is bearing the brunt of this indiscriminate bombing. In addition to human casualties, the attacks have killed dozens of cattle, camels and goats which the Nomad Tuareg population rely on,” said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher on West Africa.
“These bombings violate international humanitarian law and the government must stop them immediately,” she added.
The Kidal area has been bombed by Malian army helicopters since February 11.
The Azawad National Liberation Movement (Mouvement national de liberation de l’Azawad, (MNLA), a Tuareg armed opposition group, launched a military uprising in the north of the country last month.
Since then dozens of people have been killed and thousands displaced by fighting between the MNLA and Mali’s military.
Thousands of people have fled across the border into neighbouring Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
CISA REPORT: BAMAKO, February
24, 2012 (CISA) -The Malian government must end bomb attacks against the
civilian population in the north of the country, Amnesty International said on
February 23 after a four year old girl was killed amid shelling.Fata Walette Ahmedou was injured after an army helicopter shelled the Kel Essouck camp near the northern town of Kidal, some 1,600 km north-east of the capital Bamako. She died of her injuries on Thursday February 23 in the morning.
At least 12 other people were wounded in the attack, says Amnesty International.
“It’s the civilian population who is bearing the brunt of this indiscriminate bombing. In addition to human casualties, the attacks have killed dozens of cattle, camels and goats which the Nomad Tuareg population rely on,” said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher on West Africa.
“These bombings violate international humanitarian law and the government must stop them immediately,” she added.
The Kidal area has been bombed by Malian army helicopters since February 11.
The Azawad National Liberation Movement (Mouvement national de liberation de l’Azawad, (MNLA), a Tuareg armed opposition group, launched a military uprising in the north of the country last month.
Since then dozens of people have been killed and thousands displaced by fighting between the MNLA and Mali’s military.
Thousands of people have fled across the border into neighbouring Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
AMERICA : PERU : MINING PROJECT THREATENS LIFE
Agenzia
Fides report – It is an initiative that should be rejected because it "has no
reference to the defense of life, population health, environmental protection":
this is the opinion expressed by Mgr. Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, S.J.,
Archbishop of Huancayo, who criticized the proposal to "bless", with government
approval, a controversial mining project that is creating serious environmental
problems and to public health. In Peru there is a "PAMA" ("Programa De
Adecuacion Y Manejo Ambiental "), a sort of "certificate" that the government
grants to industrial and mining projects, ensuring environmental sustainability
and health care. The Parliamentary Huaire Casio proposed that the approval
granted to a mining project, and its metallurgical complex is given to the Doe
Run Company and active in the district of Junin. The mining project, according
to the Environmental Commission established by the diocese, "creates shameful
living conditions for local people, to the advantage of the Doe Run Company,"
said the Archbishop.
As reported to Fides by the "Coordination of National Radio in Peru," even Mar Perez, of the National Commission of Human Rights expressed his views on the issue. Perez said that the current government has a "mistaken view of human rights because it gives a misleading picture of development. It offers a false model development, focused only on revenues from the mines." "In the case of Doe Run – he continued - the state is failing in its obligation to protect fundamental human rights. The need for development cannot be an excuse for neglecting the protection of human rights. Protecting the right to health and environment is a way to ensure real development for the country".
According to observers, the Doe Run mining project generates poverty and suffering in society, because of the high rate of pollution: families will be forced to deal with diseases contracted due to contamination with toxic gases. The exposure of citizens to high levels of pollution - are warning local committees - involves high social costs, lives are destroyed and leads to a serious deterioration of public health. (CE)
As reported to Fides by the "Coordination of National Radio in Peru," even Mar Perez, of the National Commission of Human Rights expressed his views on the issue. Perez said that the current government has a "mistaken view of human rights because it gives a misleading picture of development. It offers a false model development, focused only on revenues from the mines." "In the case of Doe Run – he continued - the state is failing in its obligation to protect fundamental human rights. The need for development cannot be an excuse for neglecting the protection of human rights. Protecting the right to health and environment is a way to ensure real development for the country".
According to observers, the Doe Run mining project generates poverty and suffering in society, because of the high rate of pollution: families will be forced to deal with diseases contracted due to contamination with toxic gases. The exposure of citizens to high levels of pollution - are warning local committees - involves high social costs, lives are destroyed and leads to a serious deterioration of public health. (CE)
TODAY'S MASS ONLINE WITH CARDINAL COLLINS : SAT. FEB. 25, 2012
| Luke
5: 27 - 32
| |
| 27 | After this he went out, and saw a tax collector, named Levi, sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, "Follow me." |
| 28 | And he left everything, and rose and followed him. |
| 29 | And Levi made him a great feast in his house; and there was a large company of tax collectors and others sitting at table with them. |
| 30 | And the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" |
| 31 | And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; |
| 32 | I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance." |
TODAY'S SAINT : FEB. 25 : ST. TARASIUS PATRIARCH
St. Tarasius
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
Feast: February 25
 Information:
|
|
Tarasius was born about the middle of the eighth century.
His parents were both of patrician families. His father, George, was a judge, in
great esteem for his well-known justice, and his mother, Eucratia, no less
celebrated for her piety. She brought him up in the practice of the most eminent
virtues. Above all things, she recommended to him to keep no company but that of
the most virtuous. The young man, by his talents and virtue, gained the esteem
of all, and was raised to the greatest honours of the empire, being made consul,
and afterwards secretary of state to Emperor Constantine and the Empress Irene,
his mother. In the midst of the court, and in its highest honours, surrounded by
all that could flatter pride or gratify sensuality, he led a life like that of a
religious man.
Leo, the Isaurian, his son, Constantine Copronymus, and his
grandson, Leo, surnamed Chazarus, three successive emperors, had established,
with all their power, the heresy of the Iconoclasts, or image-breakers, in the
East. The Empress Irene, wife to the last, was always privately a Catholic,
though an artful, ambitious woman. Her husband dying miserably, in 780, after a
five years' reign, and having left his son Constantine, but ten years old, under
her guardianship, she so managed the nobility in her favour as to get the
regency and whole government of the state into her hands, and put a stop to the
persecution of the Catholics. Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, the third of
that name, had been raised to that dignity by the late emperor. Though, contrary
to the dictates of his own conscience, he had conformed in some respects to the
then reigning heresy; he had, however, several good qualities, and was not only
singularly beloved by the people for his charity to the poor, but highly
esteemed by the empress and the whole court for his great prudence. Finding
himself indisposed, and being touched with remorse for his condescension to the
Iconoclasts in the former reign, without communicating his design to any one, he
quitted the patriarchal see and put on a religious habit in the Monastery of
Florus, in Constantinople. The empress was no sooner informed of it, but taking
with her the young emperor, went to the monastery to dissuade a person so useful
to her from persisting in such a resolution, but all in vain, for the patriarch
assured them, with tears and bitter lamentations, that, in order to repair the
scandal he had given, he had taken an unalterable resolution to end his days in
that monastery, so desired them to provide the church of Constantinople with a
worthy pastor in his room. Being asked whom he thought equal to the charge, he
immediately named Tarasius, and dying soon after this declaration, Tarasius was
accordingly chosen patriarch by the unanimous consent of the court, clergy, and
people. Tarasius finding it in vain to oppose his election] declared, however,
that he thought he could not in conscience accept of the government of a see
which had been cut off from the catholic communion but upon condition that a
general council should be called to compose the disputes which divided the
church at that time in relation to holy images. This being agreed to, he was
solemnly declared patriarch, and consecrated soon after, on Christmas-day. He
was no sooner installed but he sent his synodal letters to Pope Adrian, to whom
the empress also wrote in her own and her son's name on the subject of a general
council, begging that he would either come in person, or at least send some
venerable and learned men as his legates to Constantinople. Tarasius wrote
likewise a letter to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem,
wherein he desires them to send their respective legates to the intended
council. His letter to the pope was to the same effect. The pope sent his
legates, as desired, and wrote by them to the emperor, the empress, and the
patriarch; applauded their zeal, showing at large the impiety of the Iconoclast
heresy, insisting that the false council of the Iconoclasts, held under
Copronymus for the establishment of Iconoclasm, should be first condemned in
presence of his legates, and conjuring them before God to re-establish holy
images at Constantinople, and in all Greece, on the footing they were before. He
recommends to the emperor and empress his two legates to the council, who were
Peter, archpriest of the Roman church, and Peter, priest and abbot of St. Sabas,
in Rome. The eastern patriarchs being under the Saracen yoke, could not come for
fear of giving offence to their jealous masters, who prohibited, under the
strictest penalties, all commerce with the empire. However, with much difficulty
and through many dangers, they sent their deputies.
The legates of the pope and the oriental patriarchs being
arrived, as also the bishops under their jurisdiction, the council was opened on
the 1st of August in the Church of the Apostles, at Constantinople, in 786. But
the assembly being disturbed by the violences of the Iconoclasts, and desired by
the empress to break up and withdraw for the present, the council met again the
year following in the Church of St. Sophia, at Nice. The two legates from the
pope are named first in the Acts, St. Tarasius next, and after him the legates
of the oriental patriarchs-namely, John, priest and monk, for the Patriarchs of
Antioch and Jerusalem, and Thomas, priest and monk, for the Patriarch of
Alexandria. The council consisted of three hundred and fifty bishops, besides
many abbots and other holy priests and confessors, who having declared the sense
of the present church in relation to the matter in debate, which was found to be
the allowing to holy pictures and images a relative honour, the council was
closed with the usual acclamations and prayers for the prosperity of the emperor
and empress; after which synodal letters were sent to all the churches, and in
particular to the pope, who approved the council.
The good patriarch, pursuant to the decrees of the synod,
restored holy images throughout the extent of his jurisdiction. He also laboured
zealously to abolish simony, and wrote a letter upon that subject to Pope
Adrian, in which, by saying it was the glory of the Roman church to preserve the
purity of the priesthood, he intimated that that church was free from this
reproach. The life of this holy patriarch was a model of perfection to his
clergy and people. His table had nothing of superfluity. He allowed himself very
little time for sleep, being always up the first and last in his family. Reading
and prayer filled all his leisure hours. It was his pleasure, in imitation of
our blessed Redeemer, to serve others instead of being served by them; on which
account he would scarce permit his own servants to do any thing for him. Loving
humility in himself, he sought sweetly to induce all others to the love of that
virtue. He banished the use of gold and scarlet from among the clergy, and
labored to extirpate all the irregularities among the people. His charity and
love for the poor seemed to surpass his other virtues. He often took the dishes
of meat from his table to distribute among them with his own hands: and he
assigned them a large fixed revenue. And that none might be overlooked, he
visited all the houses and hospitals in Constantinople. In Lent, especially, his
bounty to them was incredible. His discourses were powerful exhortations to the
universal mortification of the senses, and he was particularly severe against
all theatrical entertainments. Some time after, the emperor became enamored of
Theodota, a maid of honor to his wife, the empress Mary, whom he had always
hated; and forgetting what he owed to God, he was resolved to divorce her in
795, after seven years' cohabitation. He used all his efforts to gain the
patriarch, and sent a principal officer to him for that purpose, accusing his
wife of a plot to poison him. St. Tarasius answered the messenger, saying, "I
know not how the emperor can bear the infamy of so scandalous an action in the
sight of the universe, nor how he will be able to hinder or punish adulteries
and debaucheries if he himself set such an example. Tell him that I will rather
suffer death and all manner of torments than consent to his design." The
emperor, hoping to prevail with him by flattery, sent for him to the palace, and
said to him, I can conceal nothing from you, whom I regard as my father. No one
can deny but I may divorce one who has attempted my life. She deserves death or
perpetual penance." He then produced a vessel, as he pretended, full of the
poison prepared for him. The patriarch, with good reason, judging the whole to
be only an artful contrivance to impose upon him, answered that he was too well
convinced that his passion for Theodota was at the bottom of all his complaints
against the empress. He added that though she were guilty of the crime he laid
to her charge, his second marriage during her life with any other would still be
contrary to the law of God, and that he would draw upon himself the censures of
the church by attempting it. The monk John, who had been legate of the eastern
patriarchs in the seventh council, being present, spoke also very resolutely to
the emperor on the subject, so that the pretors and patricians threatened to
stab him on the spot: and the emperor, boiling with rage, drove them both from
his presence. As soon as they were gone, he turned the Empress Mary out of his
palace, and obliged her to put on a religious veil. Tarasius persisting in his
refusal to marry him to Theodota, the ceremony was performed by Joseph,
treasurer of the church of Constantinople. This scandalous example was the
occasion of several governors and other powerful men divorcing their wives or
taking more than one at the same time, and gave great encouragement to public
lewdness. SS. Plato and Theodorus separated themselves from the emperor's
communion, to show their abhorrence of his crime. But Tarasius did not think it
prudent to proceed to excommunication, as he had threatened, apprehensive that
the violence of his temper, when further provoked, might carry him still greater
lengths, and prompt him to re-establish the heresy which he had taken such
effectual measures to suppress. Thus the patriarch, by his moderation, prevented
the ruin of religion, but drew upon himself the emperor's resentment, who
persecuted him many ways during the remainder of his reign. Not content to set
spies and guards over him under the name of Syncelli, who watched all his
actions and suffered no one to speak to him without their leave, he banished
many of his domestics and relations. This confinement gave the saint the more
leisure for contemplation, and he never ceased in it to recommend his flock to
God. The ambitious Irene, finding that all her contrivances to render her son
odious to his subjects had proved ineffectual to her design, which was to
engross the whole power to herself, having gained over to her party the
principal officers of the court and army, she made him prisoner, and caused his
eyes to be plucked out: this was executed with so much violence that the unhappy
prince died of it, in 797. After this she reigned alone five years, during which
she recalled all the banished, but at length met with the deserved reward of her
ambition and cruelty from Nicephorus, a patrician, and the treasurer-general,
who, in 802, usurped the empire, and having deposed her, banished her into the
Isle of Lesbos, where she soon after died with grief.
St. Tarasius, on the death of the late emperor, having
interdicted and deposed the treasurer Joseph, who had married and crowned
Theodota, St. Plato and others who had censured his lenity became thoroughly
reconciled to him. The saint, under his successor, Nicephorus, a patrician,
persevered peaceably in his practices of penance, and in the functions of his
pastoral charge. In his last sickness he still continued to offer daily the holy
sacrifice so long as he was able to move. A little before his death he fell into
a kind of trance, as the author of his life, who was an eyewitness, relates,
wherein he was heard to dispute and argue with a number of accusers, very busy
in sifting his whole life, and objecting all they could to it. He seemed in a
great fright and agitation on this account, and, defending himself, answered
everything laid to his charge. This filled all present with fear, seeing the
endeavors of the enemy of man to find something to condemn even in the life of
so holy and so irreprehensible a bishop. But a great serenity succeeded, and the
holy man gave up his soul to God in peace, on the 25th of February, in 806,
having sat twenty-one years and two months. God honoured his memory with
miracles, some of which are related by the author of his life. His festival
began to be celebrated under his successor. The Latin and Greek churches both
honour his memory on this day. Fourteen years after his decease, Leo the
Armenian, the Iconoclast emperor, dreamt a little before his own death that he
saw St. Tarasius highly incensed against him, and heard him command one Michael
to stab him. Leo, judging this Michael to be a monk in the saint's monastery,
ordered him the next morning to be sought for, and even tortured some of the
religious to oblige them to a discovery of the person; but it happened there was
none of that name among them, and Leo was killed six days after by Michael
Balbus.
The virtue of St. Tarasius was truly great, because constant
and crowned with perseverance, though exposed to continual dangers of illusion
or seduction amidst the artifices of hypocrites and a wicked court. St.
Chrysostom observes1 that the path of virtue is narrow, and lies between
precipices, in which it is easier for the traveller to be seized with giddiness
even near the end of his course, and fall. Hence this father most grievously
laments the misfortune of king Ozias, who, after long practising the most heroic
virtures, fell, and perished through pride; and he strenuously exhorts all who
walk in the service of God, constantly to live in fear, watchfulness, humility,
and compunction. "A soul," says he, "often wants not so much spurring in the
beginning of her conversion; her own fervor and cheerfulness make her run
vigorously. But this fervor, unless it be continually nourished, cools by
degrees: then the devil assails her with all his might. Pirates wait for and
principally attack ships when they are upon the return home laden with riches
rather than empty vessels going out of the port. Just so the devil, when he sees
that a soul has gathered great spiritual riches, by fasts, prayer, alms,
chastity, and all other virtues, when he sees our vessel fraught with rich
commodities, then he falls upon her, and seeks on all sides to break in. What
exceedingly aggravates the evil is the extreme difficulty of ever rising again
after such a fall. To err in the beginning may be in part a want of experience,
but to fall after a long course is mere negligence, and can deserve no excuse or
pardon."
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source: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/T/sttarasius.asp#ixzz1nObsuBKO
