The Daily Compass interviewed the world famous writer Vittorio Messori on his close friendship with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, which began with the book-interview, The Ratzinger Report in 1985, and which provoked an earthquake in the Church. «He was the opposite of the closed man and censor they wanted to depict, I have never met a more humble person». «I am absolutely certain that he went straight to Heaven, I won’t be praying for him, but I will pray to him for me». "And about that one-on-one meeting you had after he resigned..."

We don't wish you a happy new year, We don't wish you serenity, peace and harmony for the coming year, because all of this is only good. Instead, we at the Daily Compass want the best for you... We at the Daily Compass wish you and ourselves to be saints.

It was an essential pontificate that aimed straight at the heart of the mortal disease of our time, a world that has erased God. And the Church, too, fascinated by shared values, was the reason Benedict was so opposed. But he pointed to the only solution there is for human happiness: God at the centre of the liturgy, the liturgy at the centre of the Church, the Church at the centre of the world.
- BENEDICT'S ASCENT TO HEAVEN LEAVES THE EARTH MORE IN THE DARK, by Stefano Fontana

Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.
The light of faith, married to reason, shone and shines in Benedict's theological writings, in the clarity of his magisterial interventions. Referring to him made one sure of not being confused, but confirmed in the truths of faith and reason. In his magisterium all truths came together and found their proper place. He challenged the heart of modernity, to which the Church is not called to "adapt". Therefore Benedict does not represent the past but the future.

An excursus of the introits of the Christmas masses, sung in Gregorian chant, enables us to live the same experience of expectation, the vision of the incarnate God and the contemplation of the Theotokos experienced by the shepherds. Gregorian chant, as the Second Vatican Council states, is an irreplaceable nourishment for the faithful.

The serious sexual abuses committed by Father Rupnik against the nuns who were under his spiritual care, and the serious crime of absolution of the accomplice, which procured his excommunication, are now established facts. But the powerful network of complicity and protection thanks to which he still goes unpunished has now reached even the Holy Father: he alone had the power to remit the excommunication. So what happened? Adequate answers are still awaited from the Vatican.

One of Francis' main aims was and remains the secularisation of the papacy. This is demonstrated by two recent facts: his words about resigning for various reasons, already signed and stored who knows where, a trivialisation that gives the papacy the image of a temporary job. And the handling of the Rupnik scandal, which erases the demand for justice through interventions from above.

Dom Helder Camara could soon be declared venerable. Protagonist of liberation theology, sympathetic towards the USSR and China, revolutionary armed struggle was planned in his diocese. A "media and ideological", rather than a religious saint, Julio Loredo, president of the Italian TFP, tells The Compass.

The PAL's Basic Text is incompatible with St John Paul II's 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor. The new course of the Pontifical Academy for Life denies the claim that there are actions that can never become good. Infringing these moral absolutes leads to overturning the Church's entire teaching on sin, on merit, on the reality of Hell, on the meaning of Creation and the redemptive Incarnation. And also on martyrdom, the meaning of which disappears. Reflections at the Conclusion of the Conference A Response to the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Gender theory seriously contradicts the nature of man and has serious implications for the proclamation of the foundations of the Christian faith by undermining the role of the father, the mother, marriage, and the relationship between children and parents. Many believers and bishops feel that a document setting out the Catholic Church's vision is urgently needed.

The ad limina visit is now the pretext to endorse the overturning of faith and morals accompanied by (Roman) pats on the back. To clear the way for the blessing of homosexual couples, Cardinal De Kesel relies on the words of Philippe Bordeyne, president of the John Paul II Institute, in the name of an openness to everything – except conversion.

After Blessed Michał Sopoćko, the process of beatification in Poland has also begun for Father Jozef Andrasz. He was the first spiritual director of the Saint of Mercy and also her last; he was often mentioned by Sister Faustina in her famous Diary. He was an important figure in spreading the cult of the Divine Mercy. Vice-postulator Father Mariusz Balcerak talks about him.