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IMAGE: CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once wrote that he was grateful for being born on a day that fell during the church's most intense liturgical season.

Born and baptized on April 16, 1927, which was Holy Saturday that year, "my life from the beginning was immersed in the paschal mystery, which could not be anything other than a blessing," he wrote in his book, "Milestones."

This year, the retired German pope turns 90 on Easter Sunday -- and like many past birthdays, it will be very low-key with a few visitors and a decidedly "Bavarian" touch, according to Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to the retired pope.

"This is the only thing he accepted," the longtime aide told the Italian weekly television talk show, Matrix, "because he doesn't want a big party."

Cards and letters have been pouring in, the German archbishop added, and certainly there will be some presents, including a "Festschrift" -- a collection of essays celebrating the work of a well-known scholar on an important occasion -- in this case Pope Benedict and his 90th birthday.

Creating a commemorative volume is a popular German tradition among academics and one that the pope is very familiar with. He has received them before, including one from the University of Notre Dame in 2012 for his 85th birthday, which featured essays by theologians and scholars who reflected on the past 60 years of Joseph Ratzinger's theology, writings and teachings.

This year, the Vatican publishing house and the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation pieced together a "Festschrift" titled after the pope's episcopal motto, "Cooperatores Veritatis" (Co-workers of the truth).

It was written by all 13 winners to date of the "Ratzinger Prize," an award to distinguished scholars in theology or related studies. They are an Anglican Biblicist, an Ambrosian priest; a French philosopher, a Polish theologian, a U.S. Jesuit, a Brazilian Jesuit, a Spanish theologian, a Cistercian abbot in Austria, a Lebanese scholar, a Greek Orthodox theologian, a French theologian, a German theologian and an Italian historian.

From 11 different countries and diverse religious and scholarly backgrounds, the Ratzinger laureates "promptly and enthusiastically" participated, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said in the book's introduction.

The essays, published in their original language, cover a wide range of topics such as the pope's contributions to: understanding the church's relationship with Judaism; seeing Christian-Islamic dialogue in light of Vatican II; Christianity and culture; and understanding Jesus of Nazareth through his trilogy -- the first volume of which was released in 2007 on the pope's 80th birthday.

While each author focused on a topic related to his or her specialized research, they folded in the impact or implications Ratzinger-Benedict's teachings have had on their work.

One legacy the authors highlighted was how Joseph Ratzinger -- the professor-theologian-Christian, and Benedict, the pope, sought to embrace and harmonize so many artificially divorced aspects of human existence: theory and practice; words and deeds; faith and reason; intelligence and feeling; science and religion; the material world and the transcendent; subjective experience and objective truth.

"Even with his shyness," wrote Jesuit Father Mario De Franca Miranda, he showed the way toward "the realization of this difficult synthesis."

Pope Benedict demonstrated that reason needs faith if questions about life and human existence are ever going to have a meaningful response and avoid irrational or fanatical beliefs, wrote the Brazilian theologian, who worked with Cardinal Ratzinger with the International Theological Commission.

Faith, too, demands reason because faith in God is always a free, rational, conscious response to experiencing God's loving presence, he added.

Love is always the great mover and shaker, the priest wrote.

Love, not blind obedience, is what motivates an authentic desire to seek out and follow God, and reach out to one's neighbor because it draws people out of their shells and changes them from within, letting them see the world with new eyes, he added.

That is why Pope Benedict always insisted evangelization is about attraction. Realizing God is love is attractive and it opens the heart up to faith -- a trusting surrender to someone "who loves me and wants me to be happy."

U.S. Jesuit Father Brian E. Daley, a patristics expert and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, looked at a topic near to Pope Benedict's heart: what the church fathers said about faith and reason, and the role of love.

St. Augustine taught that authentic faith isn't found in a "heavy tome," but is accessed when one's heart is set on fire with love, he wrote.

"Faith is not a blind surrender to the irrational," rather it is the quest for true meaning, the "logos" and truth itself, the U.S. Jesuit said.

The 460-page commemorative volume gathers just a slice of the kind of rigorous research still being done today "in the light of faith," and in the footsteps of a 90-year-old pope.

They are presented as fellow "co-workers of the truth," whose widely diverse contributions, Father Lombardi wrote, "appear like so many arrows loosed from different vantage points, but all aimed at a single target" -- experiencing the embrace of truth and love.

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By Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Throughout the U.S., cities, states, places of worship, university campuses and religious communities have been publicly declaring themselves as places of "sanctuary" for migrants, particularly for those who have voiced fears and worries about stepped-up deportation efforts from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

Their fears were stoked when Donald Trump became president and said he would deport the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., issuing new guidelines that expanded the pool targeted for deportation.

Among members of the Catholic Church, some officials as well as parishioners and others have said they will protect their brothers and sisters from the anti-immigrant sentiments brewing as well as from deportation threats. Some declared themselves "sanctuary" spaces as a way to express to immigrants that regardless of their status, they're safe, welcome and protected among them.

While the intention to protect members of a faith community may be real, there's little legal protection to be found in declaring sanctuary and, in some cases, it may even attract unwanted attention.

"It just basically is a signal to immigrants that they can come there and feel protected although in truth, they aren't," said Kevin Appleby, senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York. "It really has no legal standing."

Publicly declaring sanctuary is not advisable, said Appleby, because it can make a church a "target for ICE."

Though it's not a law, under President Barack Obama, the Department of Homeland Security, which operates ICE, issued a memo in 2011 saying agents would respect "sensitive locations," and not apprehend immigrants at those sensitive locations, which include churches and other places of worship. But that policy came into question when immigration officials in February apprehended a group of homeless men at a church-run hypothermia shelter in Alexandria, Virginia.

While there aren't a lot of rock-solid assurances that a church or church organization can give on what can and can't happen on "sanctuary" grounds, what officials can say is: "We'll do everything within the law to protect you," said Appleby. That means doing something similar to what the Archdiocese of Chicago did when it asked priests as well as principals of Catholic schools in the archdiocese to not allow immigration officials on church grounds without a warrant.

"If they do not have a warrant and it is not a situation that someone is in imminent danger, tell them politely they cannot come on the premises," Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich wrote in a letter issued in late February, addressing the matter with staff.

"That's all legal and basically makes them (immigration agents) do everything they have to do in order to pursue someone and there's nothing wrong with that," Appleby said.

Ultimately, law enforcement has the right to detain and deport a person, and if they have probable cause that someone's in the church that they need to apprehend, they can step on to its property and do so, Appleby said, even if that space has declared itself a "sanctuary."

But "sanctuary" in 2017 can mean a lot of different things, said Ashley Feasley, policy director for Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

"It does not have to be just the physical act of providing shelter," she said. "Sanctuary can be other forms of relief and support."

Feasley said a "sanctuary" space may mean it's a place where migrants can find pastoral accompaniment, education and awareness to help them navigate uncertain waters. A "sanctuary" parish can mean that it can help immigrants with legal screenings, with presentations that teach them about their rights, what to say what not to say, how to register with consulates, how to create a family preparation plan in case a member is apprehended, she said.

They also can become places where parishioners organize to bring the plight of unauthorized immigrants to the attention of local and federal lawmakers and fight for their protection, she said. Recently, Feasley said, Congress has been looking at a bill that would make the "sensitive location" policy a law, meaning it couldn't be ignored at will by immigration agents.

"It is important that elected officials know this is a top issue to Catholics and community members in general," Feasley said.

But others fear that all those actions may not be enough should deportation efforts increase. Some are preparing for a "sanctuary movement" similar to the one that protected refugees fleeing civil wars in Central America in the 1980s.

If the country begins to see mass deportations of people who haven't committed major crimes, or groups such as minors who were to brought the U.S. without legal permission, it's not out of the question to start seeing something similar to the sanctuary movement of the past, Appleby said, but even back then, the movement wasn't something that was sanctioned by the church.

Back then, parishes, church members, certain priests and religious, were housing and protecting refugees fleeing the turmoil of places such as Guatemala and El Salvador, which were involved in civil wars. In 1984, a Catholic sister, Sister Dianne Muhlenkamp of Indiana, along with a social worker from another faith community, was arrested in Texas while driving a car belonging to the Diocese of Brownsville in which she was transporting Salvadorans fleeing the war.

Around the country, some members of faith communities, including Jewish and evangelical groups, are organizing for more of the same. Some have formed "rapid response teams," which would not only help families in danger of deportation, but also provide legal help to look at their options.

Appleby said what might be helpful to do, given the lack of clarity about what will and won't happen on the immigration front, is to be prepared at the parish level and at the diocesan level for what to do in case any number of scenarios take place.

Beside preparing for what to do should immigration officials arrive on church property without a warrant, church officials also may want to prepare for the possibility in which an unauthorized immigrant enters a church and requests sanctuary, he said.

If the person "enters a church and says, 'I'm not leaving,' and then it draws media attention, it draws the bishop's attention, and the bishop and his staff need to really understand what the law is in this regard," Appleby said. Bishops or others in the diocese may end up in the unusual position of acting as a go-between with immigration agents on one side and the person seeking protection on the other, he said.

Right now is good time to share information among like-minded communities of faith, said Feasley, letting others know what church staff, or other organizations, can do and letting immigrants know their rights, and what to do should an unusual event involving immigration occur on church property grounds.

The church's position, said Appleby, is not so much to provide sanctuary but to provide vigilance to protect the rights of immigrants to the degree that the law allows. The church is not in the business of asking people for immigration documents to worship, he said, but it can say "we offer a welcoming environment to all regardless of their legal status."

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Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.

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Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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