Archimandrite Pavel Stefanov

Vatican confessors’ crash course
By Christian Fraser
BBC news, Rome

The Vatican is putting priests who hear confession through a refresher course to tackle a recent crisis of confidence among church-goers in Italy.
There has been a sharp decline in the number of those going to confession, with some blaming the performance of priests hearing their litany of sins.

Many are ill-equipped to deal with contrite Catholics, critics argue.

The Vatican’s crash course aims to strengthen priestly training in a bid to improve relations with believers.

The Catholic Church has long been aware of the dissatisfaction expressed by penitents about the priests who hear their confessions.

According to the latest available data, around 30% of Italian Catholics do not believe it is necessary to have priests in the confessions.

Furthermore, 10% believe the presence of a priest “impedes direct dialogue with the Lord”.

Another 20% admit to finding it difficult to talk about their sins with another person.

Special attention

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, who heads the tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said the sacrament of confession was in a “serious state of difficulty”.

The new training organised by his department includes some role play of real life examples.

The people who will come forward include divorced and so called “irregular” couples - as well as same-sex couples.

For cohabiting divorced and homosexual couples, the Catholic Church dictates that absolution may be given only if those living together transform their relationship into one of “friendship and solidarity”.

Remarried divorcees can not receive communion because their condition is seen by the Church as a permanent state of sin.

But Bishop Girotti said priests should pay special attention to such people “especially if they are ill or in danger of dying”.

With homosexual Catholics, he said priests must be “a fair judge” and a “good doctor of the spirit”.

When faced with sinners possessed by the devil, the bishop advised priests to proceed with caution - and to request the intervention of an exorcist.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7280525.stm

Published: 2008/03/06

История на Русия IX - XX век

автор: Е.Ф.Шмурло

22.00 лв.

Евгений Франциевич Шмурло (1853-1934) е сред най-изявените и ерудирани руски историци. Професор, член-кореспондент на Руската академия на науките, удостоен с почетни титли от престижни
световни университети, той се посвещава на задълбочено и многопластово изследване на руската история. Усърдно проучва руски и чуждестранни архиви, за да проследи политическите и културните връзки на Русия със Запада. Участник в авторитетни научни дружества и общности в страната и зад граница, неведнъж е награждаван за заслуги към историческата наука. Биографите и анализаторите акцентират особено върху стремежа и способността му да разглежда руската история в нейната цялост, да откроява тенденции и закономерности, както и тяхната естествена и логична връзка с европейския исторически процес.

“История на Русия. IХ-ХХ век” е едно от най-значимите съчинения на Шмурло, плод на четири десетилетия упорита работа и събиране на богат документален материал. Публикувана в Мюнхен през 1922 г., по-късно преведена и на други езици, книгата получава висока оценка от западноевропейските академични среди.

В своя исторически труд, писан за образована и любознателна аудитория извън пределите на Русия, Е. Ф. Шмурло предлага обективен, научнообоснован поглед към политическото и духовното развитие на една от най-мощните и влиятелни държави в света.

Lives of the Eighth Century Popes AD 715-817, The

Davis, Raymond (trans.)

2nd ed.,  Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2007, 272 pp.
(Translated Texts for Historians, 13)

First Published 1992

		price: £ 16.95 ISBN 9781846311543 Customers in North America and Mexico click here to order.

Synopsis
In The Lives of The Eighth-Century Popes the translator and commentator continues from the year AD 715, where his Book of the Pontiffs (revised edition, Liverpool, 2000) stopped, and deals with the next nine biographies from the Liber Pontificalis of the Roman Church down to AD 817. This was the period which saw much of Italy shake off what was left of Byzantine control, the development of the tempo¬ral sovereignty of the papacy, the collapse of the Lombard kingdom and the involvement of the Franks in Italian affairs – the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor by Pope Leo III being the best known inci¬dent. Sources for this crucial century in European history are relatively plentiful from north of the Alps but far less so from Italy; and it is these biographies from Rome, compiled by contemporary writers as a semi¬official papal chronicle, which provide by far the most detailed account of much of the history from the Italian perspective. Politics apart, the biographies, with their details of donations made to churches in Rome, provide a wealth of information of great value to art historians.

RAYMOND DAVIS read Greats at University College, Oxford, where he subsequently took a BPhil degree in the Later Roman Empire and wrote his Doctoral thesis on donations to churches during the fourth and fifth centuries recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. He is now Honorary Senior Research Fellow of Queen’s University, Belfast, and having taken early retirement, he lives and works in Oxford, continuing to specialize in the Later Empire and to delve even deeper into his favourite text.

From reviews of the first edition

‘Anyone interested in the revolutionary developments of the 715 to 817 period…will welcome Davis’s valuable work.’ Catholic Historical Review ‘Davis’s Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes is more than just a translation; it is an invaluable contribution to the study of the early middle ages.’ Ecclesiastical History