1567 Defensor Fidei award for Card. Zen
austraLasia 1567

Defensor Fidei - Magazine awards title to Cardinal Zen....and more

MILAN: 29th May 2006 --  The Italian magazine for Christian apologetics, Il Timone (The Helm) has awarded Cardinal Zen with the title Defensor Fidei (Defender of the Faith).  The award carries with it a sum of €10,000 which the Cardinal says will help provide lodging for visiting youth next July when Hong Kong hosts the Asian World Youth Day events.  The title is carefully worded to distinguish itself, no doubt, from the title Fidei Defensor which still appears on British-minted coins (with the initials FD) and was first granted by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII for a book he claimed authorship of - more probably written by Thomas More - in defence of the Seven Sacraments.  When the Tudor King broke from Rome, Pope Paul III revoked the title but the British Parliament re-instituted it in favour of the Head of the Church of England, always the reigning Monarch.
    Cardinal Zen's visits to Northern Italy have been reported in ANS so no need to repeat what was said there, except to add that this morning he also visited the Crocetta where he had been a student many years ago - the austraLasia correspondent at the Crocetta was keen that this aspect of his Italian visit was well publicised.  After Mass and a talk to the staff and students there, the Cardinal went off to pay a long courtesy visit to Cardinal Severino Poletti, the Archbishop of Turin.  Later in the morning he came back to spend some time chatting with the students at the Crocetta.  While in Turin he was sought out by many journalists for comment on the situation of the Church in China.
    This evening the Cardinal goes to Southern Italy, to Locri, the former diocese of Bishop Arduino, a Bishop in China.  He then comes up to Rome to take possession of the Church of St Mary Mother of the Redeemer, of which he is titular bishop.

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