Vatican News
Cardinal O’Malley: Church acknowledges damage of abuse but ‘celibacy is not the cause’
Vatican City, Oct 29, 2024 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Seán O’Malley, archbishop of Boston and president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, stressed that “celibacy is not the cause of pedophilia” but highlighted the need for more reforms within the Church to adopt a victim-centered approach to better safeguard children.
Following the presentation of the released by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Tuesday, O’Malley stated that he has “never seen any serious studies that have indicated that celibacy and sexual abuse is related.”
“Yes, we are aware of the incredible damage that [pedophilia] has done to the credibility of the Church and our ability to have a prophetic voice in society,” the cardinal said in response to a journalist’s question on a potential “link between celibacy and sex abuse” at the Oct. 29 press briefing.
“And that only underscores the urgency of the Church to reform itself so that we can carry on Christ’s mission and be a sign of his love. And the kingdom of God is about justice and truth, and these are the core values that we’re talking about here,” he added.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, a jurist and international advocate for children’s rights who was appointed by Pope Francis as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2022, also stated that she did not see any relationship between celibacy and criminal sexual abuse against children.
“I don’t see any relationship,” she said. “Sexual relationships with children is a crime and the ones who commit this have a problem, which is related to their psychological state of mind.”
“There is no exception for this, no excuse for this crime. Children should be respected in their integrity — physical and moral. So whether celibate or not, it doesn’t matter. The children should be protected,” she said.
O’Malley stated that the goal of the pontifical commission, which he has headed since its establishment in 2014, is “to do everything possible” to address the lack of justice and recognition from people in the Church.
“Your suffering and wounds have opened our eyes to the fact that — as a Church — we have failed to care for victims, and that we didn’t defend you, and that we resisted understanding you when you needed us most,” he said at the Tuesday press briefing.
“We hope that this report — and those that will come — compiled with the help of victims and survivors at the center, will help to ensure the firm commitment that these events never happen again in the Church.”
According to O’Malley the annual safeguarding report — which outlines the Vatican’s policies and procedures for the protection of minors — is intended to complement the commission’s advocacy role as well as support the work of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
“The work of the DDF is so central in the administration of justice in the area of sexual abuse, and our task is to try and bring a pastoral dimension to that and the voice of the victims,” the cardinal said.
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors marks its 10th anniversary this year. It is now a permanent institution within the Vatican tasked with accompanying and assisting local Churches’ safeguarding ministries through formation and training.
Vatican publishes first report on Church safeguarding efforts worldwide
Vatican City, Oct 29, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).
The Vatican issued its first annual report Tuesday assessing the Catholic Church’s policies and procedures to prevent abuse in dioceses worldwide from Africa to Oceania.
The by the is the first in an annual series that aims to provide analysis of safeguarding measures in dioceses, Catholic organizations, and religious orders globally over the next five to six years.
Released on Oct. 29, the inaugural report found that “a significant part of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia have inadequate dedicated resources” available for safeguarding efforts.
The pontifical commission also identified a “persistent concern regarding the transparency in the Roman Curia’s procedures and juridical processes,” noting that this lack of transparency is likely to “foment distrust among the faithful, especially the victim/survivor community.”
It pointed to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) in particular for its slow processing of cases and lengthy canonical proceedings, which it said can be a “source of re-traumatization for victims.”
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has been a part of the DDF since Pope Francis’ reform of the Roman Curia in 2022, yet the commission has frequently underlined its from the dicastery.
The commission also called for a dedicated advocate or ombudsman in the Vatican to assist victims and advocated for further study on compensation policies.
The report is not an audit of abuse incidents within the Church but rather a review of safeguarding policies and procedures. The commission indicated that future reports could evolve to include an audit function on the incidence of abuse, including measuring progress in reducing and preventing abuse.
The commission’s pilot report evaluated diocesan safeguarding practices in a dozen countries, including Mexico, Belgium, Cameroon, and Papua New Guinea, as well as two religious orders and across Caritas’ regional offices.
The commission’s findings varied across regions. While parts of Europe displayed advanced safeguarding practices, including trauma-informed support, regions such as Central and South America, Africa, and parts of Asia face significant challenges due to limited resources and inadequate training.
The commission cited critical obstacles, from cultural and financial barriers to shortages of trained personnel in areas like canon law and psychology.
In Papua New Guinea, funding constraints restrict training for safeguarding experts, and prohibitively expensive rape kits limit the ability to gather evidence for criminal investigations. A similar lack of trained experts in canon law and psychology impedes the work of Church safeguarding offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Zambia, meanwhile, faces cultural obstacles, such as a “patriarchal society” and “a culture of silence,” which prevent survivors, particularly young girls, from reporting abuse.
In Mexico, cultural barriers to reporting abuse also pose a significant hurdle to justice, according to the report.
In response to gaps in safeguarding resources, particularly in developing regions, the commission introduced the “Memorare Initiative,” inspired by a traditional prayer to the Virgin Mary. This program aims to support the establishment of centers for abuse reporting and victim services in the Global South.
Other recommendations included streamlined procedures for removing Church leaders implicated in abuse or cover-ups, as well as policies promoting fair compensation for victims.
The report also suggested that the Vatican collaborate with pontifical universities to create specialized courses of study on safeguarding for clergy and Church workers.
Looking ahead, the commission plans to review between 15 and 20 bishops’ conferences per year during ad limina visits, with the goal of examining the entire Church over five to six years.
Pope Francis requested the commission to create the report in 2022. Cardinal Seán O’Malley, who has led the commission since it was established by Francis in 2014, emphasized that the annual reports are intended as both a tool for accountability and a step toward restoring trust in the Church’s commitment to safeguarding and transparency.
Pope Francis cuts salaries of Vatican cardinals again
ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 28, 2024 / 18:40 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis has decided to cut the salaries of the cardinals working at the Vatican again, a measure that will take effect Nov. 1.
According to the Italian news agency, layman Maximino Caballero Ledo, the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, informed the cardinals of the Holy Father’s decision in a letter dated Oct. 18, almost a month after another letter from Pope Francis on the subject.
Specifically, the cut in salaries or stipends will be in two areas: the “secretarial bonus” and the “office compensation,” two methods that were part of the monthly allowances and that will no longer be paid.
Although the Vatican does not specify how much a cardinal working in the Vatican receives, ANSA indicated that it is approximately 5,500 euros a month (about $65,000 a year). With the current cut, that amount would decrease by about 500 euros ($540).
In his letter to the cardinals, Caballero also pointed out that there are “other measures, which are being studied by the competent bodies,” and that “will require the contribution of everyone.”
Caballero also indicated that he trusts that this measure “will be welcomed in the most authentic spirit of cooperation for the good of the Church.”
In a September letter, Pope Francis indicated to the cardinals that “further effort is needed, on the part of everyone, so that the ‘zero deficit’ is not just a theoretical objective but an actually achievable goal.”
The Italian daily notes that, together with the decrease in donations from Peter’s Pence, the cost to keep paying the salaries of the 4,000 Vatican employees amounts to about 10 million euros ($10.8 million) per month. (An average of about $32,400 a year per employee).
The Vatican’s latest budget put the deficit at 83 million euros ($89.7 million).
According to the Spanish newspaper , this cut in the cardinals’ salaries will allow them to “save 180,000 euros ($194,000) a year, a symbolic figure and a gesture that lays the groundwork for being able to ask other senior Vatican officials to make sacrifices.”
In March 2021, Pope Francis decided to reduce the salaries of cardinals serving in the Vatican by 10% in order to “safeguard current jobs” and guarantee “an economically sustainable future.”
At the time, the Holy Father explained that the salary reduction was justified “in view of the deficit that has characterized the financial management of the Holy See for several years” and “taking into account the worsening of this situation following the health emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19, which has negatively affected all sources of income of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.”
The measure went into effect on April 1, 2021.
In addition, in March 2023, Pope Francis decided the possibility for cardinals and other senior Vatican officials to use free of charge or at advantageous rates housing owned by the Holy See.
Cardinal Renato Martino, longtime Vatican diplomat, dies at 91
CNA Staff, Oct 28, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, who served for 16 years as the top Vatican diplomat to the United Nations and headed up two key pontifical councils in Rome for several years, died on Monday at age 91.
The prelate died in Rome, .
The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2002–2009 and of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People from 2006–2009, Martino held those titles emeriti at the time of his death.
He also served as cardinal protodeacon from 2014 until his death. The senior cardinal deacon in the College of Cardinals, the protodeacon is given the responsibility of the “habemus papam” (announcing the election of a new pope) and also bestows the papal pallium on the new pontiff at the papal inauguration.
Martino was born in Salerno, Italy, on Nov. 23, 1932, and was ordained a priest on June 20, 1957. He held a degree in canon law and spoke five languages.
The cardinal held the title of titular archbishop of Segermes from 1980–2003. Known for his lengthy and distinguished diplomatic career, he served as permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations from Dec. 3, 1986, to Oct. 1 — the longest any diplomat has held that position since its creation in 1964.
In addition to his work at the U.N., Martino held multiple nuncio positions in Asia, serving as a Vatican diplomat in Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam.
He was made a cardinal in 2003 by Pope John Paul II and participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
Martino also served as honorary president of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute from 2010–2019.
The prelate was known at times for his outspoken defense of Catholic beliefs in the political sphere. He criticized the death sentence given to Saddam Hussein as “punishing a crime with another crime” and described a planned stretch of U.S. border wall by the George W. Bush administration as “inhumane.”
Martino was also known for helping to develop and promulgate the Vatican’s 2007 “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” commonly called the “10 Commandments for Drivers,” issued by the pontifical migrant council when Martino was president. The document directs drivers to exhibit “courtesy, uprightness, and prudence” while driving and orders drivers to treat the road as a “means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.”
Martino’s funeral will be held on Oct. 30 at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica. The liturgy will be celebrated by College of Cardinals Dean Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.
At the funeral, Pope Francis will preside over the rites of Ultima Commendatio and Valedictio, according to Vatican News.
Pope Francis to open Holy Door in Roman prison on feast of St. Stephen for 2025 Jubilee
Vatican City, Oct 28, 2024 / 13:25 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis will open a Holy Door in Rome’s Rebibbia prison on Dec. 26, the feast day of St. Stephen. It will be the second of five Holy Doors the Holy Father will open during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope taking place from Dec. 24, 2024 — Christmas Eve — to Jan. 6, 2026, the feast of the Epiphany.
The opening of the Holy Door in the Roman prison will be a “symbol of all the prisons scattered around the world,” according to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization.
“In the jubilee year we are called to be tangible signs of hope for so many brothers and sisters who live in conditions of hardship,” Fisichella told journalists on Monday, directly quoting Pope Francis’ May 9 bull of indiction (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”).
“I think of prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, daily feel the harshness of detention and its restrictions, lack of affection, and, in more than a few cases, lack of respect,” he continued.
During the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis is calling on governments worldwide to undertake initiatives to restore dignity to prisoners that “go hand in hand with a concrete commitment to respect for the law.”
“I propose to the governments that during the jubilee year they take initiatives that restore hope, forms of amnesty or pardon that help people to regain confidence in themselves and in society, ways of reintegration into the community,” the papal bull reads.
According to Fisichella, Italy is the first country to have signed a Sept. 11 “amnesty” agreement with the Vatican, which will come into effect during the holy year.
“We signed an agreement with the minister of justice of the Republic of Italy, the Honorable Carlo Nordio, and the government commissioner, the Honorable Roberto Gualtieri, to implement during the jubilee year forms of reintegration for several convicts through their employment in social commitment activities,” he stated during the Oct. 28 press briefing.
While the Dec. 26 opening of the Holy Door in the Rebibbia prison is the first time a pope has opened a Holy Door in a prison in the history of jubilees in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis opened a “door of mercy” at a Roman prison during the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015 as a sign of tangible sign of God’s forgiveness.
The other four Holy Doors of the 2025 Jubilee will be located at the Basilica of St. Peter, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Mary Major, and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
Meet ‘Luce’: The Vatican’s cartoon mascot for Jubilee 2025
Vatican City, Oct 28, 2024 / 12:55 pm (CNA).
Ahead of the 2025 Jubilee, the Vatican has launched a cartoon mascot unveiled Monday as the cheerful face of the Catholic Church’s upcoming holy year.
The mascot, named Luce — which means “light” in Italian — is intended to engage a younger audience and guide visitors through the holy year.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s chief organizer for the jubilee, described the mascot as part of the Vatican’s goal to engage with “the pop culture so beloved by our young people.”
The mascot will debut this week at the Lucca Comics and Games, Italy’s celebrated convention for all things comics, video games, and fantasy, where the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization will host a space dedicated to “Luce and Friends.”
It will be the first time that a Vatican dicastery participates in a comics convention. Fisichella, who serves as the the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s section for the new evangelization, said he hopes taking part in the convention “will allow us to speak to younger generations about the theme of hope, which is more central than ever in the evangelical message.”
Clad in a yellow raincoat, mud-stained boots, and a pilgrim’s cross, Luce’s mission is to guide young pilgrims toward hope and faith with her trusty dog Santino at her side. Shells glimmer in her eyes, recalling the scallop shell of the Camino de Santiago, an emblem of the pilgrimage journey.
Speaking at a Vatican press conference on Oct. 28 next to a plastic figurine of Luce, Fisichella described Luce’s shining eyes as “a symbol of the hope of the heart.”
Luce, he said, will also be the face of the Holy See’s pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, where she will represent the Vatican’s pavilion theme, “Beauty Brings Hope,” alongside Caravaggio’s “The Entombment of Christ,” a painting that will be temporarily on loan from the Vatican Museums for the expo.
Simone Legno, the Italian co-founder of the pop culture brand tokidoki, designed Luce and her “pilgrim friends” — Fe, Xin, and Sky, each outfitted in brightly colored jackets.
Luce’s yellow sailor’s raincoat is a nod to both the Vatican flag and to journeying through life’s storms. The mascot’s muddy boots represent a long and difficult journey, while her staff symbolizes the pilgrimage toward eternity.
Legno, who admitted a lifelong love for Japanese pop culture, said he hopes that “Luce can represent the sentiments that resonate in the hearts of the younger generations.”
“I am extremely grateful to the Dicastery for Evangelization for opening its doors to pop culture as well,” he said.
A jubilee is a special holy year of grace and pilgrimage in the Catholic Church. It typically takes place once every 25 years, though the pope can call for extraordinary jubilee years more often, such as in the case of the 2016 Year of Mercy or the 2013 Year of Faith.
The Vatican has planned a range of cultural events to accompany the lead-up to the jubilee year, including a concert on Nov. 3 of Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 5” and an art exhibit of Marc Chagall’s “White Crucifixion” painting, which will be on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago to be displayed in Rome’s Museo del Corso from Nov. 27 to Jan. 27.
The jubilee year itself will begin with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve 2024, welcoming an anticipated 30 million pilgrims into Rome by the time the Holy Year ends on Jan. 6, 2026.
Why is St. Jude the patron saint of lost causes?
CNA Staff, Oct 28, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).
On Oct. 28, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Jude, also known as Thaddeus, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles.
He is believed to have written the Letter of Jude, one of the shortest books of the Bible, and is thought to have been martyred in Beirut around 65 A.D. He is typically depicted with a club or axe, symbolizing the way he died, as well as with a flame above his head, which refers to Pentecost.
Although Jude is not mentioned much in the Bible and only had one quote attributed to him in the Gospel of John (14:22), this quiet apostle is extremely popular among Catholics today. His popularity probably stems from his patronage of lost causes. An experience Jude had while in the city of Edessa is said to be the reason why he is associated with “impossible” situations.
According to the ancient Church historian Eusebius, while Jesus was still alive, the ruler Abgar V of Edessa was afflicted with an incurable and painful disease. He had heard of the miracles of Jesus and wrote him a letter requesting a visit. Jesus responded that he would send one of his disciples.
After Jesus’ ascension into heaven, Jude went to evangelize near the city of Edessa and went to visit Abgar. Jude laid his hands on the sick ruler, and he was reportedly instantly healed.
Many people choose to carry the image of St. Jude on a medal or as a pendant on a necklace for comfort and call on him in their time of need and healing.
His feast is shared with St. Simon, who was also said to be a cousin of Jesus and is believed to have traveled to Persia with Jude, where they were both martyred.
The following prayer can be prayed on the feast of St. Jude or at any time when his intercession is needed:
Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me; I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede to God for me that he brings visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need, that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly (make your request here), and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever.
I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you. Amen.
Pope Francis in Angelus address mourns Catholic priest murdered in Mexico
Vatican City, Oct 27, 2024 / 11:40 am (CNA).
In his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Francis remembered Father Marcelo Pérez, a priest recently murdered in the violence-stricken region of Chiapas, Mexico.
The pope called the slain priest “a zealous servant of the Gospel and God’s faithful people” and said he joined the local diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, in mourning his loss.
“May his sacrifice, like that of other priests killed for fidelity to the ministry, be a seed of peace and Christian life,” Francis said.
Pérez on Oct. 20 after celebrating Mass. Described by his diocese as a “tireless apostle of peace,” Pérez’s murder came amid his ongoing efforts to defend local communities from violence and injustice.
His work had drawn serious threats; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had issued precautionary measures for Pérez’s protection since 2015 due to because of “his work in defense of human rights.”
Pérez’s murder marks the latest in a disturbing pattern of . According to the Catholic Multimedia Center, 36 Catholic priests have been killed in Mexico since 2013.
Speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis asked people to continue praying for peace in the world, particularly in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon. He called for an end to escalation and urged “respect for human life, which is sacred.”
“The first victims are among the civilian population. We see it every day,” Francis said. “Too many innocent victims. We see every day images of slaughtered children — too many children! Let us pray for peace.”
The pope also pointed to the upcoming international conference hosted by the Red Cross in honor of the 75th anniversary of the The pope expressed hope that the event will “awaken consciences” and reinforce the importance of respecting human dignity during times of conflict. He lamented the destruction of civilian facilities in war zones, including hospitals and schools, and urged adherence to international humanitarian law.
Pope Francis took the opportunity to reflect on the Church’s role in interfaith dialogue as he marked the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Church’s created by St. Paul VI. He also looked ahead to next year’s 60th anniversary of , a Vatican II declaration that significantly advanced Catholic-Jewish relations.
“Especially in these times of great suffering and tension, I encourage those who are committed locally to dialogue and peace,” he said.
In his reflection on , Pope Francis underlined the importance of charity. “When you approach a poor person and take action, it is Jesus who approaches you in the person of that poor person,” he said.
“The one who receives the most grace from almsgiving is the one who gives it because he is being watched by the eyes of the Lord,” he added.
The pope also offered prayers for the Philippines, where Tropical Storm Trami recently caused severe flooding, leaving at least 82 people dead, according to the Associated Press.
“I am close to the people of the Philippines affected by a very strong cyclone. May the Lord sustain that people so full of faith,” he said.
Pope Francis prayed the Angelus shortly after presiding over the for the Synod on Synodality’s second assembly in St. Peter’s Basilica. The synod assembly, which began on Oct. 2, focused on the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”
The assembly represented a significant phase in the Church’s global synodal process, initiated three years ago. Over the last month, synod delegates produced a outlining , including proposals for expanded women’s leadership roles, greater lay participation in decision-making, and significant structural reforms.
“Today we have concluded the Synod of Bishops,” Pope Francis told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. “Let us pray that everything we have acted on this month will go forward for the good of the Church.”
Live updates: Synod on Synodality concludes with Pope Francis forgoing apostolic exhortation
CNA Newsroom, Oct 27, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).
On Sunday, Oct. 27, the , which began on Oct. 2 and focused on the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission,” comes to a close.
At Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis says that a synodal Church must be “on the move” following Christ in serving those in need.
More than 300 priests and bishops, 70 cardinals, and nine patriarchs concelebrate the synod’s closing Mass under the canopy of the over the central altar.
As the Mass concluded, Pope Francis, from his wheelchair, led the faithful in the veneration of a — a wooden throne symbolizing the papal primacy. This relic is expected to remain on display in St. Peter’s Basilica for public veneration until Dec. 8.
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In a surprising move at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday evening, Pope Francis announces he will not issue a postsynodal apostolic exhortation, choosing instead to directly implement the Synod on Synodality’s final . .
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”What we have approved in the document is enough,“ on Saturday afternoon in Rome, marking a historic shift in how synodal reforms will be implemented in the Catholic Church as the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops draws to a close ahead of the final Mass tomorrow, Sunday.
As the second session of the Synod on Synodality draws to a close, U.S. bishops serving as delegates to the synod share their insights and experiences in a series of interviews this week with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro, Matthew Bunson, and Father Thomas Petri, OP.
The bishops highlighted how their interactions with delegates from around the world deepened their appreciation for the universal Church’s challenges and vitality, .
For those concerned about making sure the Synod on Synodality doesn’t open the way to contested changes in Church teaching and practice, the draft version of its final document appears to be good enough.
But it might not stay that way: 1,000 amendments to the text are currently being incorporated into the final document by a small writing team
That text, in turn, will be read to delegates tomorrow, Saturday, who will then vote on it that evening, paragraph by paragraph, before its final approval, writes Jonathan Liedl for the .
The prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announces more in-depth study into the differences between holy orders and authority in order to be able to entrust laywomen with leadership functions in the Church.
Cardinal Victor Fernández makes the statement during a meeting with about 100 members, guests, and experts participating in the synod to hear their questions and proposals regarding the work of group 5, .
Why are these members of a Vatican council poised to play an important role in implementing the results of the Synod on Synodality? Jonathan Liedl explains for the National Catholic Register what the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod is.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio explains the importance of balancing collaborative Church governance while maintaining the essential role of bishops in their dioceses. He also shares moving experiences of meeting bishops from regions like Nepal, where Christians are a small minority, and addresses current challenges facing military chaplains in Ukraine and Israel.
Reflecting on the synod, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and archbishop for the Military Services, USA, shares insights with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson about this year’s Synod on Synodality in Rome.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hopes the legacy of the Synod on Synodality launched by Pope Francis will be the renewal of the Catholic Church as the people of God who walks together to “better carry out the mission that Christ entrusted us” in modern-day society.
The Canadian cardinal tells EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson: “The central insight of Vatican II is that we are all enjoying equal dignity as Christians by our baptism.” .
With hot-button issues sidelined and major changes seemingly off the table, progressive Catholics feel led astray by synod organizers’ grand promises, writes Jonathan Liedl for the .
Those who have advocated for things like women deacons and the acceptance of same-sex relations are bracing for a “final cold shower.”
In a wide-ranging conversation with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson, Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin Rhoades reflects on the synod’s evolving dialogue, the role of women in the Church — and shares expectations as the assembly flows toward its culminating document this week.
Father Don Bosco Onyalla, editor-in-chief of ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, tells CNA in an interview that the theological concept of synodality “where people come together” is a reality and tradition that is already lived among Catholics across the continent. And what are African prelates saying about the gathering in Rome? .
Cardinal Víctor Fernández reaffirms Pope Francis’ position against women’s access to the diaconate, an issue that will continue to be evaluated by a specialized commission while the Synod on Synodality continues to reflect on the role of women in the Church outside of ordained ministry.
Watch the EWTN News special from the Vatican covering the last week of the Synod on Synodality. Hosts Catherine Hadro; Father Thomas Petri, OP; and Matthew Bunson analyze the latest developments from the synod with special guests.
Pope Francis canonizes 14 new saints, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
Presiding over a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, the pope declares three 19th-century founders of religious orders and the 11 “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be venerated by the global Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and service to the Church..
Sources confirm to CNA over the weekend that there is significant frustration among synod delegates over Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández’s absence from the Friday meeting about the study group on women’s roles in the Church. This includes questions surrounding the possibility of female deacons, .
How the meeting was conducted caused outrage, too, as paper slips with an email address were .
Two prominent Catholics — Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and American author George Weigel — level sharp criticisms at the Synod on Synodality, focusing particularly on the Vatican’s approach to China.
The synod takes place against the backdrop of the ongoing debate over the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and Beijing, particularly the Sino-Vatican deal on bishop appointments, writes.
After two and a half weeks, the last of two assemblies for the Synod on Synodality is now in its final stretch before officially concluding on Oct. 27.
As conversations on the agenda set by the , or working document, wrapped up last week, the focus going forward is on the writing and editing of the Synod on Synodality’s final document. .
More than 30 students — most of whom were from the U.S. — from over 10 universities attend “The University Students in Dialogue with Synod Leaders,” an event organized by the General Secretariat of the Synod held in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
The event was moderated by four young staff members of the Synod on Synodality’s communications team who presented questions to four guest panelists participating in the second global synodal session at the Vatican. .
The head of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), Cardinal Charles Bo of the Archdiocese of Yangon, Myanmar, said diocesan synods are an effective means to “build a vision and mission” for local Churches.
The high-ranking prelate from the country also known as Burma tells journalists that synodality on a diocesan level is not a new concept for the Catholic Church, .
The Catholic Church’s newest saints will include a priest whose intercession led to the miraculous healing of a man mauled by a jaguar, a woman who convinced a pope to call for a worldwide novena to the Holy Spirit, and 11 men killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam. .
Decentralizing doctrinal authority, or deciding certain doctrinal questions at local levels rather than universally, has been seen as a pivotal step for those aiming to make dramatic changes to Catholic teaching, writes Jonathan Liedl for the .
A Dutch cardinal cautions against misguided reform efforts within the Catholic Church, warning that regional solutions to contentious issues could undermine the Church’s credibility.
Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk,, emphasizes the importance of maintaining unity with the universal Church: “We must walk a common path and not deviate from the world Church,” he said, reflecting Pope Francis’ 2019. “If unity in proclamation is lost, the Church loses its credibility,” Eijk says.
We cannot “reinvent the Catholic faith” or “teach a different Catholicism in different countries,” Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, of Sydney and a delegate at the Synod on Synodality .
Should bishops’ conferences “have the authority to teach a different Catholicism in different countries or to decide a different liturgy in different countries or different Mass for different countries? Do they bring their own local culture to questions in the area of morals, for instance?” Fisher says in his interview with “EWTN News Nightly” Associate Producer Bénédicte Cedergren.
Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, the archbishop of Manaus in Brazil who is participating in the Synod on Synodality, said during a daily press briefing at the synod on Tuesday that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’” and pointed out that Pope Francis “has not closed the question” of the ordination of married men. .
The cardinal is known for being a defender of the poor, Indigenous people and is also considered “.” In the past he has stated that “” to end mandatory priestly celibacy.
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich asks participants to maintain energy levels at the gathering, reports EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser for “,” as participants delve into the theme of “places,” exploring relationships between cultures and diverse Church needs worldwide.
Meanwhile, Bishop Robert Barron, in an exclusive interview with EWTN’s Colm Flynn, defined synodality as encompassing wider consultation, greater accountability, and transparency.
The synod’s universal nature is highlighted by the presence of Eastern Catholic Churches, with Archbishop Fülöp Kocsis sharing insights on the richness of diverse experiences. Jonathan Liedl, senior editor for the National Catholic Register, points to a significant discussion on decentralization: The proposal under consideration could potentially grant national bishops’ conferences more authority in doctrinal decision-making, marking a potential shift in the Church’s governance structure.
Don’t be surprised to see a fresh round of news stories about support for ordaining women at the Synod on Synodality. It’s a reasonable expectation — writes Jonathan Liedl in his analysis for the — given an advocacy group blasted out an email, obtained by the Register, inviting synod delegates to join them at an event promoting the cause.
In so doing, they are following a familiar script that’s being used to influence the Synod on Synodality — or at least perceptions of it, he explains.
“The Synodality Tent” is the title of an initiative promoted by the Amerindia Network and the whose objective is to reflect on the presence of Latin America in the Catholic Church as well as to continue promoting the synodal process.
This place for encounter and dialogue, which also aims to offer an experience of faith, opened in Rome in the context of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, writes .
Prayer groups are sponsoring an online platform through which you can “adopt” a Synod on Synodality member to pray for during the month of October.
After submitting an email address on the webpage , the name of one of the 368 voting members of the 2024 meeting of the Synod on Synodality appears with the exhortation to pray for them. .
At a held at the Jesuits’ world headquarters in Rome this week, an influential canon lawyer argues that the Catholic Church should be governed by synods balanced according to gender, among other factors, and empowered to make decisions, not merely recommendations. Jonathan Liedl reports for the .
Pope Francis and Synod on Synodality participants pray together at the site of the first Christian martyrdoms in Rome on Friday evening.
As attendees hold candles with drip protectors imprinted with an image of the 15th-century painting “Mater Ecclesiae” (“Mother of the Church”), Pope Francis leads those present in praying the Our Father but does not give the meditation prepared for the event,.
Synod sources tell EWTN News that Bishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang of the Diocese of Hangzhou spoke to synod participants about the history of Chinese Catholicism, China’s agreement with the Vatican on the appointment of bishops, and cultural exchange. .
Archbishop Jaime Spengler, OFM, at a briefing for the Synod on Synodality confirms plans for a trial run of an Amazonian rite of the Mass and urges “openness” to the idea of married priests to serve certain communities.
The 64-year-old prelate, a descendant of German immigrants, is a prominent figure in the Church in his home country and throughout South America, heading both the Catholic bishops’ conference of Brazil and the Latin American bishops’ conference (CELAM), writes .
News media has a built-in tendency to downplay nuance and highlight novelty, and this is arguably accentuated at the Synod on Synodality, writes Jonathan Liedl for the . Two synod members say synod communications head Paolo Ruffini overstated the strength of calls for “women’s ordination.” .
Three fraternal delegates — non-Catholic representatives of Christian churches participating in this year’s session of the Synod on Synodality — take center stage at Thursday’s Synod on Synodality press briefing held at the Vatican’s Holy See Press Office.
Speaking about “the great importance of relationality” among Christian churches, Anglican Bishop Martin Warner of Chichester — co-chair of the English-Welsh Anglican-Roman Catholic Committee — speaks about the “sense of family” that has developed between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, particularly during the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Synod on Synodality events open to the public give a glimpse Wednesday evening into the private debates happening among delegates and theological experts on the issues of a bishop’s authority and his relationship to the laity in light of synodality.
Thomas Söding, vice president of the lay organization promoting the German Synodal Way, argued that bishops shouldn’t control or dictate discipleship but should encourage diverse expressions of faith.
Italian canonist Donata Horak criticized the Roman Catholic Church’s current structure as “monarchical” and out of step with democratic sensibilities. She suggested that the Latin Church adopt deliberative synods, as seen in Eastern Catholic churches, although she did not note that these do not allow lay voting, .
Australian Bishop Anthony Randazzo, a synod delegate and president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania, says St. John Henry Newman famously showed “that the Church would look foolish without the laity” and should help ease fears that collaboration with the laity is heterodoxical.
“I think that this way of thinking should liberate us in the Church from believing that any one group or vocation alone drives the bus,” the bishop of the Diocese of Broken Bay, Australia, emphasizes. Randazzo against pushes for so-called “women’s ordination,” explains Jonathan Liedl for the .
Oct.
In an interview with CNA, the first Indigenous bishop of Taiwan says he met with the two bishops from mainland China taking part in the synod and plans to meet with them again. “It’s very important to dialogue with them, to respect each other. I think it’s good … not only for the Chinese, for the whole Church,” Bishop Norbert Pu of Taiwan tells .
Paolo Ruffini, the synod’s communications head, announces the 14 members of the Final Document Commission. The seven continental delegates are:
Catherine Clifford, a theologian from St. Paul University in Ottawa, for North America
Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, for Africa
Father Clarence Davedassan of Malaysia is the pick from Asia
Bishop Shane Mackinlay of Sandhurst, Australia, for Oceania
Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio of Bogotá, Colombia, for Central and South America
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille, France, for Europe
Bishop Mounir Khairallah, a Maronite prelate, for the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Middle East
The other members include three direct picks from Pope Francis and four automatic appointments, writes .
In a video played for journalists at the Holy See Press Office on Oct. 8, Gaza parish priest Father Gabriel Romanelli thanks synod participants for both prayers and financial help, because in Gaza, “everyone is in need of everything.”
The pope’s charity office announces that synod participants donated 32,000 euros (about $35,000) for the Catholic parish in Gaza from synod participants on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
The synod donations were combined with another 30,000 euros (about $33,000) from Pope Francis’ charity coffers and sent to , the only Roman Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, which is sheltering hundreds of Palestinian Catholics.
Since the beginning of the Synod on Synodality, synod delegates and participants have echoed Pope Francis’ pleas for prayers and solidarity with communities across the war-ravaged region. As the second week of the synod gets underway, on the World Day of Prayer and Fasting held on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Pope Francis addressed Catholics in the Middle East on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel. Kristina Millare .
While the topic of “women deacons” is not formally up for discussion at the Synod on Synodality assembly this month, the official Vatican press conference for the synod showcases a female delegate who spoke about women experiencing “a call to priesthood,” Courtney Mares .
Invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary for peace in the world amid an escalating conflict in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Ukraine, Pope Francis presides over a rosary prayer in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major on Sunday evening,.
A Lebanese bishop makes for peace and forgiveness at the Synod on Synodality’s daily press briefing on Saturday as the assembly’s first week draws to a close.
Bishop Mounir Khairallah of Batroun shares his personal experience of violence and forgiveness, recounting how his parents were murdered when he was just 5 years old.
Meanwhile, a dialogue with study groups is announced for Oct. 18 after synod delegates vote for more interaction with the groups established by Pope Francis.
Pope Francis sits before the historic relic of St. Peter’s chair in the Ottoboni sacristy of St. Peter’s Basilica after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square ahead of the second session of the Synod on Synodality. What is behind this viral image? .
Closing the first week of meetings, participants from different continents put a spotlight on the plight of the world’s poor and vulnerable on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi,ports.
Vaticanist Andrea Gagliarducci the first days of the gathering in Rome. He writes: “It seems clear that while the delegates may discuss many things over the next three weeks, nothing will be decided. There will be no doctrinal changes. No diminution of the role of the bishop. No rush to resolve the question of opening the diaconate to women.”
Cardinal Mario Grech, general secretary of the synod, says at that “every believer, man or woman, and every group, association, movement, or community will be able to participate with their own contribution” via the synod’s 10 study groups.
Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, the work of participants in the second session of the Synod on Synodality is to find the “cohesive voice” that expresses the life of the Church.
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Oct. 3 shuts down speculation regarding further theological study into the possibility of women being ordained as deacons. Father Giacomo Costa, special secretary of the synod, says this month’s discussions held in the Vatican should serve as “laboratories of synodal life,”.
A study group appointed by Pope Francis to explore a synodal approach to the Church’s most debated issues — including sexual morality and life matters — proposes “contextual fidelity” and a “new paradigm” that downplays long-standing Church teaching,.
At the first meeting of the full assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Wednesday, Pope Francis says a bishop’s ministry should include cooperation with laypeople and that the synod will need to identify “differing forms” of the exercise of this ministry.
Pope Francis opens the second and final session of the Synod on Synodality, which is meant to deepen the missionary perspective of the Church, explains EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser.
“Let us be careful not to see our contributions as points to defend at all costs or agendas to be imposed,” the pope says at the synod’s opening Mass on Oct. 2,. The pontiff warns: “Ours is not a parliamentary assembly but rather a place of listening in communion.”
“More candor about the motivations of the German Synodal Path and its vision of the Catholic future would be helpful in determining what, if anything, it has to offer the world Church at Synod 2024,” in the National Catholic Register.
On the eve of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis says the Catholic Church must first acknowledge its sins and ask for forgiveness before it can be credible in carrying out the mission Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church,.
Since Pope Francis’ 2015 speech, synodality has grown from a theological concept into a guiding principle of Church governance. Analysis from Jonathan Liedl in the .
In synod closing Mass, Pope Francis calls for ‘a Church that hears the cry of the world’
Vatican City, Oct 27, 2024 / 08:55 am (CNA).
Pope Francis closed the global Synod on Synodality’s final assembly on Sunday with a call for a Church that “hears the cry of the world” without being “blind” to the urgent issues facing our time.
At the synod’s closing Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis said that a synodal Church must be “on the move” following Christ in serving those in need.
“We do not need a sedentary and defeatist Church but a Church that hears the cry of the world … and gets its hands dirty in serving the Lord,” the pope said in his homily on Oct. 27.
Pope Francis underlined that the Church cannot remain inert before “the questions raised by the women and men of today, the challenges of our time, the urgency of evangelization, and the many wounds that afflict humanity.”
“Brothers and sisters, not a sedentary Church, but a Church on her feet. Not a silent Church, but a Church that embraces the cry of humanity. Not a blind Church, but a Church, enlightened by Christ, that brings the light of the Gospel to others. Not a static Church, but a missionary Church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world,” he said.
The Mass marked the conclusion of the second assembly of the , which began on Oct. 2 and focused on the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”
The assembly represented a significant phase in the Church’s global synodal process, initiated three years ago. Over the last month, synod delegates produced a outlining , including proposals for expanded women’s leadership roles, greater lay participation in decision-making, and significant structural reforms.
In a notable departure from tradition, Pope Francis that he will forgo issuing a postsynodal apostolic exhortation. Instead, he opted to ratify the synod’s final document, . While the synod assembly has ended, will continue to examine the question of women deacons and other key topics through June 2025.
In his , Pope Francis reflected on the named Bartimaeus. He said that “blind Bartimaeus … represents that inner blindness which restrains us, keeps us stuck in one place, holds us back from the dynamism of life, and destroys our hope.”
“So many things along the way can make us blind, incapable of perceiving the presence of the Lord, unprepared to face the challenges of reality, sometimes unable to offer adequate responses to the questions of so many who cry out to us,” the pope said.
“A sedentary Church, that inadvertently withdraws from life and confines itself to the margins of reality, is a Church that risks remaining blind and becoming comfortable with its own unease,” he said. “If we remain stuck in our blindness, we will continuously fail to grasp the urgency of giving a pastoral response to the many problems of our world.”
Pope Francis, dressed in green vestments for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, delivered his homily slowly, often pausing to speak off the cuff. He described an image of a “synodal Church” as one in which “the Lord is calling us, lifting us up when we are seated or fallen down, restoring our sight so that we can perceive the anxieties and sufferings of the world in the light of the Gospel.”
“Let us remember never to walk alone or according to worldly criteria,” he added, but instead to journey by “following Jesus along the road.”
At the altar, , secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, served as the principal celebrant.
More than 300 priests and bishops, 70 cardinals, and nine patriarchs concelebrated the synod’s closing Mass under the canopy of the over the central altar.
The 400-year-old intricate bronze canopy designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini was revealed at the Mass for the first time since restoration, its twisted columns gleaming with intricately decorated Baroque angels, cherubs, bees, and golden laurel branches.
“As we admire Bernini’s majestic baldacchino, more sublime than ever, we can rediscover that it frames the true focal point of the entire basilica, namely the glory of the Holy Spirit,” the pope said. “This is the synodal Church: a community whose primacy lies in the gift of the Spirit, who makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ and raises us up to him.”
As the Mass concluded, Pope Francis, from his wheelchair, led the faithful in the veneration of a — a wooden throne symbolizing the papal primacy. This relic is expected to remain on display in St. Peter’s Basilica for public veneration until Dec. 8.
“Today, as we give thanks to the Lord for the journey we have made together, we will be able to see and venerate the relic of the carefully restored ancient chair of St. Peter,” Pope Francis said. “As we contemplate it with the wonder of faith, let us remember that this is the chair of love, the chair of unity, and the chair of mercy.”
10 questions (and answers) about the Synod on Synodality’s final document
Rome Newsroom, Oct 27, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
On Saturday, Pope Francis made the unprecedented the from the Synod of Synodality as authoritative Church teaching.
The includes a theological reflection on the nature of synodality, which it says is the fulfillment of the reforms of Vatican II, as well as proposals for how to apply synodality to relationships, structures, and processes within the Catholic Church.
The end goal is to make the Church more effective at evangelization by making it more participatory and inclusive.
Here are answers to the big questions about the Synod on Synodality’s final document:
Pope Francis immediately approved the final document after synod members voted on it. According to reforms , the Synod on Synodality’s final text is therefore part of his ordinary magisterium.
This decision is a break from previous practice, which usually sees the pope use a synod’s final document as a basis for drafting his own apostolic exhortation on the topic (think after the 2015 Synod on the Family). The fact that a synod body whose membership was 27% non-bishops just produced a magisterial text will certainly leave theologians and canonists with much to talk about.
The document says that the Synod on Synodality was the product of “putting into practice what the council taught about the Church as mystery and the Church as people of God.”
Therefore, the document says, the synodal process “constitutes an authentic further act of the reception” of Vatican II, “thus reinvigorating its prophetic force for today’s world.”
The final text says that women “continue to encounter obstacles” in living out their “charisms, vocation, and roles” in the Church.
The synod calls for women to be accepted into any role currently allowed by canon law, including leadership roles in the Church.
Regarding the question of “women’s access to diaconal ministry,” the text says the question “remains open” and that “discernment needs to continue.” A separate Vatican study group is currently considering that topic, with its final report expected in June 2025.
The document calls for episcopal conferences to play a greater role in enculturating the faith in their local context and asks for clarification about their current level of doctrinal authority. However, it does emphasize that bishops’ conferences cannot override a local bishop’s authority nor “risk either the unity or the catholicity of the Church.”
The document also calls for more plenary and provincial councils, and for the Vatican to accept these bodies’ conclusions more speedily.
While it does condemn the exclusion of others because of “their marital situation, identity, or sexuality,” the text doesn’t use the term “LGBTQ.”
The final document calls for a “synodal” reform of canon law, including removing the formula that consultative bodies have “merely a consultative” vote. It calls for the greater participation of lay people in “decision-making processes” and to do so through new synodal structures and institutions.
Church authorities, the document states, may not ignore conclusions reached by consultative, participatory bodies.
The document describes the “sensus fidei” as the “instinct for truth of the Gospel” received through baptism. It also notes that the people of God cannot err “when they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.”
Interestingly, the final document does not include additional language about the need for “authentic discipleship” to maturely exercise the sensus fidei, which was included in and is found in on the subject.
Depending on how it’s implemented, the synod’s final document could concretely impact everything from how bishops are selected to how governance decisions are made in parishes, dioceses, and the Vatican, with a greater emphasis on widespread consultation. It could also create new synodal bodies, like continental assemblies and a council of Eastern Catholic leaders to advise the pope.
Over 27% of delegates voted against continuing to explore the possibility of women deacons.
Thirteen percent voted against the paragraph emphasizing the significance of episcopal conferences, which also appears to bind a bishop to decisions made by his conference.
Twelve percent voted against establishing a study group to look into making liturgical celebrations “more an expression of synodality,” including what may be a reference to lay preaching during the liturgy.
And 11% of delegates opposed the proposal to revise canon law “from a synodal perspective.”
The final document describes synodality as “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.”
The model of synodality, the document states, is Mary because she “listens, prays, meditates, dialogues, accompanies, discerns, decides, and acts.”
Victims feel ‘betrayed’ as Vatican investigation of Rupnik hits one year with no answers
Vatican City, Oct 27, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).
One year after the Vatican announced it would open a canonical case on Father Marko Rupnik — an artist and former Jesuit accused of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse — victims say they feel disappointment and betrayal at the Church’s lack of response and transparency.
Rupnik has been accused of abusing adult women who were under his spiritual care as part of a religious community he helped found in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of these accusations became public through the media in early December 2022, although the priest’s superiors and officials at the Vatican were aware even several years earlier.
While the investigation and trial of Rupnik is still pending, the priest remains free to exercise his ministry in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia, where he was accepted in 2023.
A year ago on Oct. 27, days before the close of the 2023 assembly of the Synod on Synodality, the Holy See Press Office saying that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to open a disciplinary case against the now-disgraced priest.
“The pope is firmly convinced that if there is one thing the Church must learn from the Synod [on Synodality] it is to listen attentively and compassionately to those who are suffering, especially those who feel marginalized from the Church,” the Vatican communication said.
A full year later, as the second session of the Synod on Synodality concluded, its final report published Oct. 26 called for “healing, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of trust” in light of the scandal of different kinds of abuse.
Rupnik’s case is still open in the DDF’s disciplinary section, which handles a wide array of Church cases, from the sexual abuse of minors to excommunications for schism, as in the matter of this summer.
A person working inside the section, who asked to not be named, told CNA that the DDF does not usually comment on open cases but is looking at the merits of Rupnik’s case and examining the procedural steps that can be taken and “the mechanism by which justice can be served.”
The DDF wants to be “sensitive, respecting the process that we’re doing,” the person said, highlighting that all of the DDF’s abuse cases are treated with equal care and attention.
However, some of Rupnik’s alleged victims, and advocates for victim survivors of abuse, have indicated that a lack of transparency around Rupnik’s case and its progress is causing pain and scandal.
Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an expert on abuse prevention, told CNA via email from Bogotá, Colombia, that he had no information on Rupnik’s case at the DDF, but “uncertainty, lack of information, or lack of transparency in any kind of procedure creates much discomfort and potentially a lot of anxiety in victims of trauma as it triggers the memory of the hurtful experience.”
Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of Bishop Accountability, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of clerical abuse, told CNA: “The Vatican’s delay in issuing a verdict in the Rupnik case inflicts further harm on his victims and scandalizes the faithful.”
“We hope Pope Francis orders a resolution soon,” she said. “This is not the transparency he has promised nor the efficient process that mercy demands. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Two former religious sisters, ex-members of the Loyola Community Rupnik co-founded, shared their testimony and identities publicly for the first time .
Gloria Branciani, an alleged victim, told CNA via email Saturday that she feels “betrayed once again” that she has not received a response from the Vatican a full year after the investigation began and that “once again no one is taking responsibility for the very serious abuse I suffered.”
Branciani, who is from Italy, submitted her story twice to the Vatican; the second time she did so together with four other alleged victims in April.
“I first denounced Rupnik in 1993,” Branciani said. “In 2021, the Church asked me again to give testimony about the abuse I suffered; both times [there was no] response from the Church authority.”
She said she hopes for “a clear stance [from the Church] in favor of the victims without further ambiguity causing further suffering and discredit.”
“I hope that the just words of condemnation of the scourge on the abuse of nuns will finally be followed by concrete actions, lacking to date, for me and all the other victims of Rupnik,” Branciani added.
Mirjam Kovač, another alleged victim who went public in February, told CNA via email Oct. 26 that, “for now,” she thinks there is a lack of transparency from the Vatican on Rupnik’s case.
“When I think of what my sisters have gone through, and to some extent me too, I still feel pain and disappointment, both for the abuse and the way in which it was handled by the authorities,” the Slovenian-born former religious said. “I hope the institution and those who represent it will try with all the means possible to build relationships on truth and justice. Not with words alone, but above all with the facts.”
In August 2023, Rupnik was accepted for priestly ministry in the Diocese of Koper, in his native Slovenia, after he was expelled from the Jesuit order for disobedience.
Asked about the priest’s current whereabouts and the status of his priestly ministry, the Koper Diocese referred CNA to a press release from October 2023, which says he was accepted into the diocese “on the basis of the fact that the bishop of Koper has not received any documents of Rev. Rupnik having been found guilty of the alleged abuses before either an ecclesiastical tribunal or civil court.”
The press release also stated that “as long as Rev. Rupnik has not been found guilty in a public trial in court, he enjoys all the rights and duties of diocesan priests.”
The Holy See Press Office did not respond to CNA’s request for information about Rupnik’s status, where he is living, at what point the canonical process at the DDF is, and if there are restrictions to his ministry while he is under investigation.
There were calls for a Vatican investigation into Rupnik at the time accusations against him became public, at the end of 2022, but the doctrine dicastery said at the time he could not be investigated because too much time had passed since the alleged abuse.
Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations nearly one year later, and the DDF’s investigation into Rupnik began.
Rupnik’s case has garnered massive public attention due his already-existing notoriety as a popular Catholic mosaic artist and founder of an art and theology school in Italy.
The priest’s works, and works in the same style from students of his art school, adorn hundreds of churches, shrines, and chapels around the world.
In the wake of the allegations made against him, a debate was sparked about whether the artist’s works ought to be covered, removed, or — in the case of photos or prints online — no longer used out of respect for victims of clerical sexual abuse.
The Vatican’s own communications dicastery has for continuing to feature Rupnik art on its webpages for saints’ feast days.
This summer, the lay Catholic fraternal order the Knights of Columbus its decision to cover the floor-to-ceiling Rupnik-created mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.
Just days before the Knights’ announcement, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes in France said while he personally believes the Marian shrine’s Rupnik mosaics , he is waiting to make a final decision on their removal in the face of “strong opposition.”
As a “first step,” the French bishop said Rupnik’s mosaics would no longer be lit up during the Lourdes’ nightly rosary procession.
The Synod on Synodality’s final document: What you need to know
Rome Newsroom, Oct 26, 2024 / 16:48 pm (CNA).
In a significant departure from previous synods, Pope Francis adopted the final document of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday, forgoing the traditional apostolic exhortation in favor of direct implementation of the assembly’s conclusions.
The 52-page document, approved by 355 synod members in attendance, outlines substantial proposals for Church renewal.
The proposals include expanded women’s leadership roles, greater lay participation in decision-making, and significant structural reforms.
The document emerges from a two-year consultative process that began in 2021, incorporating 1,135 amendments from both collective and individual submissions.
Compared with its 2023 predecessor, the text presents more concrete recommendations and clearer structural guidelines.
The final document is organized into five main sections and calls for five forms of conversion: spiritual, relational, procedural, institutional, and missionary.
Among the most significant proposals is a call for strengthening pastoral councils at parish and diocesan levels.
The document advocates for regular ecclesiastical assemblies across all Church levels — including continental — and heightened ecumenical dialogue.
The text introduces the concept of synodal authority while acknowledging that in “a synodal Church, the authority of the bishop, of the episcopal college, and of the bishop of Rome in regard to decision-taking is inviolable.”
“Such an exercise of authority, however, is not without limits,” the document adds.
On this view, the text calls for a revision in canon law, “clarifying the distinction and relation between consultation and deliberation and shedding light on the responsibilities of those who play different roles in the decision-making process.”
In a notable development, the document explicitly states there is “no reason or impediment” to prevent women from assuming leadership roles in the Church.
Furthermore, “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” and that discernment should continue.
The text advocates for increased female participation in clergy formation and broader involvement in Church decision-making processes.
The document significantly expands the role of lay faithful in Church governance. It calls for their increased presence in synodal assemblies and all phases of ecclesiastical decision-making.
New procedures for selecting and evaluating bishops and expanded lay participation in diocesan leadership and canonical processes are proposed.
While Pope Francis has declared the synodal path “completed,” the document emphasizes that a crucial implementation phase lies ahead. This next stage will focus on integrating synodality as a “constitutive dimension of the Church.”
The text also addresses accountability measures, calling for enhanced financial transparency and protocols for abuse prevention, declaring: “The need within the Church for healing, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of trust has resounded at every stage of the synodal process.”
The document represents the culmination of one of the most extensive consultative processes in Church history, building on both the 2023 assembly’s work and the broader synodal journey initiated by Pope Francis in 2021.
The exercise aimed to balance traditional Church teaching with contemporary pastoral needs while promoting greater inclusivity and transparency in Church governance.
Pope Francis ratifies Synod on Synodality’s final document, marking new approach to Church reform
Rome Newsroom, Oct 26, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).
In a surprising move at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday evening, Pope Francis ratified the final report, approved its immediate publication, and said he will not publish a separate postsynodal document.
The pope is permitted in canon law to ratify the final document of a Synod of Bishops, giving more power to the assembly’s “guidelines” — something that has never been done before.
“I want, in this way, to recognize the value of the completed synodal journey, which through this document I hand over to the holy faithful people of God,” the pope said in in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Oct. 26.
“That is why I do not intend to publish an apostolic exhortation; what we have approved is enough,” . “There are already very concrete indications in the document that can be a guide for the mission of the Churches, on the different continents, in the different contexts: that is why I am making it immediately available to everyone, that is why I said it should be published.”
In 2018, Pope Francis decreed in the apostolic constitution that reformed the Synod of Bishops that the pope has the authority to approve and promulgate the final document, at which time it participates “in the ordinary magisterium.” The authority is also stipulated in .
“What Pope Francis said after approving the document is in compliance with what is provided by ,” Father Riccardo Battocchio, the synod’s special secretary, affirmed at a press conference presenting the final document Oct. 26.
The Synod of Bishops was founded in 1965 by Pope Paul VI as a way to bring bishops from around the world together to discuss important issues for the Church and to give advice to the pope.
A novelty of the 2023 and 2024 sessions of the Synod on Synodality was the inclusion of laymen and laywomen not only as “auditors,” as formerly done, but also as delegates with full participation alongside bishops, including the right to vote on synod matters and on the assembly’s final document.
The Synod on Synodality is the fifth synod of Pope Francis’ pontificate. It marks the first time he has chosen to forgo writing a postsynodal apostolic exhortation in favor of adopting the text drafted by the synod participants.
“There are and there will be decisions to be made,” Francis said in his final speech on Saturday, shortly before the assembly prayed the Te Deum to mark the end of the Synod on Synodality’s discussions.
The monthlong gathering will formally close with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 27.
The pope said for some of the document’s indications — and the topics being examined by the 10 study groups, “which must work with freedom to offer me proposals” — “time is needed to arrive at choices that involve the whole Church.”
“I, then, will continue to listen to the bishops and the Churches entrusted to them,” he continued. “This is not the classic way of postponing decisions indefinitely. It is what corresponds to the synodal style with which even the Petrine ministry is to be exercised: listening, convening, discerning, deciding, and evaluating.”
The pontiff added that the general secretariat of the synod and the Vatican’s dicasteries will assist him in this task.
The synodal Church “now needs shared words to be accompanied by deeds,” he said.
‘We walk together’: U.S. bishops reflect on last global session of Synod on Synodality
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).
As the second session of the Synod on Synodality draws to a close, several of the U.S. bishops serving as delegates to the synod shared their insights and experiences in a series of interviews this week with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro, Matthew Bunson, and Father Thomas Petri, OP.
“We walk together and, of course for us, we walk together with Christ,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told EWTN News. “We’re really all in charge; we all make up the Church, we’re all the living stones.”
Broglio, who is also the archbishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, stressed that this co-responsibility must begin at the parish level before it can effectively manifest at the diocesan level.
Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, USCCB vice president, emphasized that synodality primarily concerns the Church’s “interior culture” and how Catholics discern God’s will together.
“It’s more about ... listening to the Lord and to his word, and to the Church and to tradition; listening to one another [and] understanding what authentic aspirations are,” Lori explained.
Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, described synodality as requiring a “conversion to a sense of the style and manner of Jesus.” At the same time, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, emphasized that synodality serves the Church’s fundamental mission of evangelization.
“The end is the mission — it’s bringing the truth and beauty of the Gospel, this message of salvation in Christ — to the world,” Rhoades said. “Synodality is not the end. It’s a means towards the end.”
The bishops highlighted how their interactions with delegates from around the world deepened their appreciation for the universal Church’s challenges and vitality.
Broglio described enlightening discussions with a bishop from Nepal, where Christians face significant restrictions, including requirements for conversion affidavits.
During a break in the synod, Lori visited Ukraine, meeting with war widows and mothers who lost sons in the conflict. Despite tremendous suffering, he witnessed “tremendous faith and resiliency.”
Looking ahead, the bishops emphasized practical applications of synodality in their dioceses. Lori noted that while cultural change doesn’t happen overnight, many dioceses have already begun implementing more collaborative approaches to Church governance.
Rhoades pointed to existing structures like parish pastoral councils and presbyteral councils as vehicles for implementing a more synodal approach. “It’s about really taking these councils seriously,” he said.
Tokyo’s new cardinal shares what he is looking for in the next pope
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The archbishop of Tokyo shared in an interview with CNA what qualities he is looking for in the next pope as he faces the possibility of participating in a future papal conclave after being named one of the Catholic Church’s new cardinals.
“If a conclave happens very soon, I think what we need is somebody to succeed the policy of Pope Francis,” Cardinal-elect Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi said.
“Because he started this synodal way to create the synodal Church, and if somebody comes in with … a different agenda, then what we have been doing is just in vain, just to disappear.”
Kikuchi, who is in Rome this month as a delegate in the Synod on Synodality, said one of the difficulties facing the newly appointed cardinals — who come from sees of Tehran, Iran; Turin, Italy; and Toronto, among others — is getting know the soon-to-be 140 voting members of the College of Cardinals.
“After the announcement was made, after a few days, I went through the website to look for all the names of the cardinals under 80 years old — so those who are eligible to vote in a conclave at this moment. And, I know some of them, but I don’t know many of them,” he said.
The 65-year-old archbishop underlined that he thinks it is important for the new cardinals especially to get to know the “senior cardinals” to learn “who they are, what they are thinking, and what their abilities are.”
“Otherwise, it will be very difficult to choose somebody as a pope,” he added.
One of the many ways that Pope Francis has transformed the College of Cardinals in his 11-year pontificate is by more than doubling the number of cardinal-electors from Asia. When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, there were nine voting cardinals from Asia. After the upcoming consistory there will be 22.
“There are quite a number of cardinals from Asia and I think that among the Asians we know each other quite well,” Kikuchi said, crediting in part the annual meeting of the
As the president of Caritas Internationalis — the successor to Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle in that role — Kikuchi has had the chance to meet many cardinals and bishops from different parts of the world, but added: “But I don’t know … they are.”
The Japanese cardinal-elect noted that the synod assembly this month provided the opportunity for the leadership of the federations of bishops’ conferences of Asia, Africa, and Latin America to meet together in Rome, and expressed hope that future collaboration between these federations will help build relationships.
“We call ourselves the Global South bishops’ conferences,” he added.
Like nearly half of the new cardinals recently selected by Pope Francis, Kikuchi is a member of a religious congregation.
Kikuchi entered the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), a missionary order founded in 1875 to evangelize China, as a minor seminarian. He recalled being inspired as a young boy by the story of Cardinal Thomas Tien Ken-sin, the first cardinal from China who was a member of the Divine Word order.
“He was the archbishop of Beijing in the 1940s … and he was expelled from China in the 1950s and he died in Taiwan. I knew that story when I was in minor seminary. I really admired his courage to try to maintain his presence in Beijing when the Communist [Party] was taking over the country,” Kikuchi recalled.
“We also had many missionaries escaping from China who came to Japan for refuge. And we met many of them, and they are really inspiring for how to be a strong missionary,” he added.
After his priestly ordination in 1986, Kikuchi had his chance to become a missionary serving in Ghana, where he ministered for eight years, becoming the first Japanese priest to serve as a missionary in Africa.
Now as the archbishop of Tokyo, he oversees a diverse flock that includes Catholics from mainland China who have shared with him both their tribulations and their efforts to spread the faith in their homeland.
“We have a number of Catholics from mainland China residing in Tokyo,” he said, highlighting a Chinese parish with many members from the mainland.
Regarding the Vatican’s provisional agreement with Beijing on bishop appointments, Kikuchi pointed to the need for clarity on diocesan boundaries. He explained that the current dioceses in mainland China do not align with historical diocesan boundaries established before the rise of communist rule.
“Officially speaking, the present dioceses in mainland China are not the real dioceses. The real dioceses date from before Communist China,” he said.
Kikuchi also spoke about the significance of the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and Taiwan to the Church in the region.
“We are always watching carefully to see what will be the relationship between the Holy See and Taiwan,” he said. “The future of this relationship … will really affect the future of the Church in that area.”
The archbishop also sees the presence of 42,000 Filipinos residing in Tokyo as a potential evangelizing force in secular Japan. He recounted Tagle’s visit to Tokyo, where he encouraged Filipinos to view their presence in Japan as part of a divine plan to spread the Gospel.
“You have your own reasons … but it is the plan of God to spread the good news to Japanese society,” Kikuchi said.
Cardinal Fernández says female diaconate will be studied ‘more intensively’
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Victor Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that the female diaconate will be the subject of a more in-depth study under the impetus of the proposals sent to the commission assigned to this task. He also stated that this question, although Pope Francis considers it not “mature,” is not a “closed issue.”
To delve deeper into the differences between holy orders and authority in order to be able to entrust laywomen with leadership functions in the Church is, according to Fernández, the objective of the work of the group he leads at the Synod on Synodality to reflect on the role of women in the Church at the request of the Holy Father.
Fernández made the statement during a meeting on Thursday afternoon with about 100 members, guests, and experts participating in the synod to hear their questions and proposals regarding the work of group 5.
This meeting was called at the initiative of the cardinal in response to some members being frustrated by from a meeting scheduled for last week.
According to reports and the audio shared after the meeting, Fernández emphasized that the majority of women want to “be heard and valued,” are asking to “have authority” and to be able to develop their charisms without specifically requesting the female diaconate, since they do not want to be “clericalized.”
“I am thinking of women theologians who in some parts of the world have no opportunity for development or real freedom for theological work ... of women who have gifts for leading communities ... or of women who have great capacity to advise like the best of consultants or spiritual directors but who are not accepted because they don’t have holy orders,” he added.
The cardinal was also asked about the possibility of this matter being the main theme of the next synod. “I don’t know what the procedures are for proposing the next themes, it’s not my job, but perhaps it will be one of the themes proposed” at the end of this synod, he replied.
Fernández also noted that “the experience of the Amazon” is “very important” for this study because of the existence, he said, “of an experience of communities led by women without any priests.”
“This experience is very important for us and we have already consulted some women” who belong “to groups of laypeople who constantly visit the communities.”
The idea of the ministries, he continued, “is not a decision of the bishop who chooses a woman friend for an important position, but there is a need in the community and that there is in some persons a gift that responds to that need.”
“We must be careful with this so as not to create a structure that ultimately remains dependent on [having] authority,” he said.
In this regard, the DDF prefect said it is possible to “have a significant consensus” regarding the leadership roles of women in the Church while noting that “very concrete steps will be taken in this regard.”
“If it turns out that in the past women preached during the celebration of the Eucharist or exercised authority without having been ordained deacons, does this count for less?” the cardinal asked the members of the synod.
With the aim of carrying out a more open consultation following a “synodal style,” the Argentine cardinal renewed his invitation to send contributions and proposals to the Vatican dicastery.
“Honestly, we need to receive ideas and proposals because we try to interpret the needs and possibilities that women see, but not being a woman I don’t have their experience. So we need to understand where we can go on these concrete paths for women’s empowerment.”
To do this, the cardinal said that “the help of concrete proposals with which we can take real steps forward is really needed. What I’ve heard today seemed very, very interesting to me and it has opened my mind a little to other ideas.”
“I’m not known in the Church for being a closed-minded medieval, am I? So you can be sure that I have an open heart to see where the Holy Spirit leads us and we move forward,” he added.
Although the female diaconate has been removed from the central debates of the synod, the cardinal insisted that those who “are convinced that it is necessary to go deeper” into this question can also send their considerations to the commission chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi to further explore the subject.
He said that this body, established by the Holy Father in 2020, will resume its work with even “more effort” under the impetus of the proposals sent by the members of the synodal assembly and from other parts of the world.
Also, regarding Pope Francis’ position on the question of the diaconate, which he said was “not mature,” Fernández pointed out that this does not mean that Francis wants to “close the issue.”
This reflection will also continue, according to the cardinal, because “the conclusions of the commission’s work are not without ambiguity and there are historians who say that in the past there were cases of women being ordained as deaconesses,” while other historians claim that it was “a blessing and not a true ordination.”
Cookies and empanadas in Dilexit Nos: food references in the teachings of Pope Francis
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 16:20 pm (CNA).
“Buon pranzo e arrivederci!” (“Have a nice lunch and see you later!” ) — just hearing the way Pope Francis concludes his message to the faithful at the end of the Angelus every Sunday tells you something about the importance he attaches to food.
The Holy Father has made reference to food in a humorous tone on several occasions. During a press conference on his return from one of his apostolic journeys, he jokingly mentioned that his next destination would depend on the country’s gastronomy.
Always with a smile when addressing journalists who accompany him on his world trips, he usually wishes them a good lunch as well. On his return from Budapest last year, he laughed as he suggested in an ironic tone that he was not sure whether there would be dinner on the plane “or something to trick the stomach.”
On that occasion, he also said he had only understood two words in the Hungarian language: “goulash” (a typical Hungarian dish made mainly with meat, onions, peppers, and paprika) and “tokaji”(a typical Hungarian wine).
It has become almost a tradition for him to stop the popemobile in St. Peter’s Square when a pilgrim offers him one of the drinks he most enjoys, mate. And “chipa,” a traditional food in some Latin American countries made from manioc starch and cheese, is also one of the foods that Pope Francis likes the most. “Where’s the chipa?” he asked once during a meeting with Paraguayans at St. Peter’s.
On his trip to Luxembourg he stopped “as a surprise” at a café. He has even invited the owner of his favorite ice cream shop, Padrón, to the Vatican, and we know that his favorite sweets are the El Nazareno brand of Argentine “alfajores”(a traditional Latin American dessert).
In the “The Vatican Cookbook,” published in 2014, the Holy Father also referred to other recipes such as meat empanadas or mozzarella pizza with fainá (a chickpea pancake).
His appreciation for food is so well known that leaders or prelates who visit him in the Vatican often bring gifts that can be tasted. But without a doubt, his favorite dish, which he was able to enjoy with his family on the occasion of the 90th birthday of his cousin Daniela di Tignlioi, is the so-called “bagna calda,” well known in the Italian region of Piedmont, which is usually prepared with anchovies, oil, and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables.
However, pleasure and enjoyment are not the only reasons why the Holy Father has extolled the value of food and nutrition. Throughout his pontificate, he has also given it a pastoral focus and highlighted its spiritual significance.
Going no further than his recent encyclical , released Oct. 24, Pope Francis recalls that when he was a child, for carnival “my grandmother used to make a pastry using very thin batter.”
“When she dropped the strips of batter into the oil,” the pope continues, “they would expand, but then, when we bit into them, they were empty inside. In the dialect we spoke, those cookies were called ‘lies’… My grandmother explained why: ‘Like lies, they look big, but are empty inside; they are false, unreal’” (, 7)
In the same document he states that “no algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live.”
“When we recall how we first used a fork to seal the edges of those little homemade empanadas that we helped our mothers or grandmothers to make ... It was a moment of culinary apprenticeship, somewhere between child-play and adulthood, when we first felt responsible for working and helping one another,” the Holy Father writes (, 20).
Italian theologian Bishop Bruno Forte explained that this encyclical “offers us the key to understanding the entire magisterium” of Pope Francis. Thus, there could not be missing some reference to food.
For the Holy Father, food is also a key element of human dignity. He has repeatedly advocated for a fair distribution of food. In fact, he has even warned that to waste food “is to snatch it from the hands” of the poor.
With the poor, the most needy, he shares a feast in the Vatican every year during the World Day of the Poor. There was even a rumor in Rome that some nights, years ago, he would dress incognito and distribute food to the homeless he found around St. Peter’s.
For the Holy Father, food also has a meaning of fraternity, even of love. In at the World Day of Families in 2015 in Philadelphia, the Holy Father noted that “faith opens a ‘window’ to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures.”
“These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children, by brothers and sisters. They are little signs of tenderness, affection, and compassion. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early breakfast awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work.”
However, the Holy Father’s fundamental teaching regarding food is that which refers to the essential nourishment, the Eucharist: “Those who receive the body and blood of Christ with faith not only eat but are satisfied,” he said after in June 2022.
“To eat and to be satisfied: These are two basic necessities that are fulfilled in the Eucharist,” he affirmed.
Dilexit Nos: 7 takeaways from Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).
In his newly released encyclical, (“He Loved Us”), Pope Francis calls on Catholics worldwide to rediscover the love and compassion found in the heart of Jesus Christ.
The encyclical, issued on Oct. 24, examines the transformative power of Jesus’ heart as a font of healing for a divided world. The theologically expansive text draws from the Catholic Church’s traditional devotion to the Sacred Heart as a source of inspiration for centuries of saints, popes, and theologians.
Here are seven takeaways from on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ:
The title of the encyclical, , comes from the end of chapter 8 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 37-39).
The pope critiques what he calls the “liquid” nature of contemporary life marked by superficiality and consumerism. He says “we find ourselves immersed in societies of serial consumers who live from day to day, dominated by the hectic pace and bombarded by technology, lacking in the patience needed to engage in the processes that an interior life by its very nature requires.”
“Amid the frenetic pace of today’s world and our obsession with free time, consumption, and diversion, cellphones and social media, we forget to nourish our lives with the strength of the Eucharist,” he adds.
In contrast, he writes, the heart represents the “profound unifying center” for each person and for society. The encyclical quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who said:
“Every person needs a ‘center’ for his or her own life, a source of truth and goodness to draw upon in the events, situations, and struggles of daily existence. All of us, when we pause in silence, need to feel not only the beating of our own heart, but deeper still, the beating of a trustworthy presence, perceptible with faith’s senses and yet much more real: the presence of Christ, the heart of the world” (Angelus, June 1, 2008).
The encyclical states that “the pierced heart of Christ embodies all God’s declarations of love present in the Scriptures.”
Pope Francis writes about how great consolation can be found in contemplating the heart of Christ in his suffering and self-surrender even to death for our salvation.
“Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us,” he says.
The pope adds: “As we contemplate the heart of Christ, the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel, we can, following the example of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, ‘place heartfelt trust not in ourselves but in the infinite mercy of a God who loves us unconditionally and has already given us everything in the cross of Jesus Christ.’”
Pope Francis also writes about “the communitarian, social, and missionary dimension of all authentic devotion to the heart of Christ,” adding that Christ’s heart not only leads us to the Father but also “sends us forth to our brothers and sisters.”
“Jesus is calling you and sending you forth to spread goodness in our world,” he writes. “His call is one of service, a summons to do good, perhaps as a physician, a mother, a teacher, or a priest. Wherever you may be, you can hear his call and realize that he is sending you forth to carry out that mission.”
Pope Francis also encourages parishes to focus less on structures and bureaucracies as means of evangelizing, warning against “communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking, and mandatory programs.”
The encyclical points to the missionary examples of saints like St. Thérèse and St. Charles de Foucauld. By returning to this Sacred Heart, he writes, Catholics can find a renewed energy to address social and spiritual challenges through love.
The pope writes about how the fire of the Holy Spirit fills the heart of Christ, quoting St. John Paul II’s letter on the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s consecration of the human race to the divine heart of Jesus: “The heart of Christ is alive with the action of the Holy Spirit, to whom Jesus attributed the inspiration of his mission.”
In the encyclical, Pope Francis discusses the Catholic tradition of making acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, writing that “reparation entails the desire to render compensation” for the injuries inflicted on the Lord who is love.”
“The reparation that we offer is a freely accepted participation in his redeeming love and his one sacrifice,” he explains. “Acts of love of neighbor, with the renunciation, self-denial, suffering, and effort that they entail, can only be such when they are nourished by Christ’s own love. He enables us to love as he loved, and in this way he loves and serves others through us.”
“Sisters and brothers, I propose that we develop this means of reparation, which is, in a word, to offer the heart of Christ a new possibility of spreading in this world the flames of his ardent and gracious love,” Pope Francis said.
In , Pope Francis shares insights from the saints and frequently cites the magisterium of his papal predecessors. He describes how St. Charles de Foucauld “consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, in which he found a love without limits” inspiring his austere life in imitation of Christ, and how St. Thérèse placed her trust in the Sacred Heart’s infinite mercy.
He also points the reader to the spiritual experiences of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who experienced a remarkable series of apparitions of Christ between the end of December 1673 and June 1675.
In the first apparition, Jesus told Alacoque: “My divine heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular, that, no longer able to contain in itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must pour them out through you and be manifested to them, in order to enrich them with its precious treasures which I now reveal to you.”
Francis notes how Pope Leo XIII called for the world’s consecration to the Sacred Heart in response to the secular challenges of his time and Pius XI regarded the Sacred Heart as a “summa” of the experience of Christian faith. He also describes how St. John Paul II presented the growth of this devotion in recent centuries as “a response to the rise of rigorist and disembodied forms of spirituality that neglected the richness of the Lord’s mercy” and “as a timely summons to resist attempts to create a world that leaves no room for God.”
The encyclical also draws on thinkers like novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky and German philosopher Martin Heidegger to highlight the heart’s wider human relevance.
As modern society faces what Francis calls a “wave of secularization” and division, he sees “the heart” as a source of unity.
“It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle,” he writes.
The pope affirms that “the wounded side of Christ continues to pour forth that stream which is never exhausted, never passes away, but offers itself time and time again to all those who wish to love as he did.”
Pope Francis offers a prayer in the encyclical that the wounded world may regain its heart, writing: “In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socioeconomic disparities, and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart.”
Jesuit priest gifts Pope Francis a special wheelchair from Cambodia
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Jesuit priest and of Battambang in Cambodia Father Enrique “Kike” Figaredo this week presented Pope Francis with a wheelchair made by land mine survivors in Cambodia.
The Spanish missionary traveled to Rome from the Southeast Asian country with a special gift for the Holy Father: a Mekong wheelchair, characterized by having three wheels and made of wood.
Figaredo, who is in the Eternal City to participate in the Synod on Synodality, had the opportunity to meet with the pontiff early in the morning of Oct. 23.
“It was a wonderful encounter; Pope Francis amazes me. When he saw me, he asked me: ‘Kike, what did you bring me?’” the priest shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
According to the missionary, the Holy Father “was surprised to see the wheelchair and said it looked great.” Later, Figaredo showed the pope some of its features “and he listened very attentively.” The priest made the point that the craftsmen are not “disabled” but rather have “special abilities.”
“I invited him to sit down in it, he got up from his chair and sat on the Cambodian chair and said: ‘how beautiful.’” He also expressed his desire to use it, which for Figaredo would be “a symbol for the people injured by war.”
The apostolic prefect also stressed that this gesture holds great meaning: “That Pope Francis has a wheelchair made by the people for whom he prays and advocates, so that they might have peace.”
“The people who are victims of war are the ones who are giving [the wheelchair] to him through me. They give the pope a wheelchair, who is now disabled, so that he can continue to be the leader of the Church and the world for peace,” he added.
Figaredo has spent more than 40 years giving to the service of those most in need in Cambodia, especially to people maimed by anti-personnel mine explosions.
Over the years, Figaredo has promoted various action projects for the disabled. In 1991, he founded a school for disabled children in Phnom Penh, where they also build wooden wheelchairs known as the Mekong, in reference to the river that crosses Cambodia and five other Asian countries.
There they take in vulnerable street children, orphans, and disabled people. In Battambang there is also the where different projects for children’s education and adult training are carried out.
They also have an agricultural and livestock area, a restaurant called the , a cafeteria, a hotel, a textile center where they make Kromas — the traditional Cambodian scarf — and th clothing brand, where they sell garments that can be purchased online from Spain. All of these, according to the Spanish priest, are “small models of social integration.”
Volunteers from different countries come to the mission every year. Many come to help during the summer and the adults usually stay longer, around a year. There are others who initially plan to come for only a few months but end up staying, because these people have something that “captivates you.”
10 inspiring quotes from Pope Francis in his encyclical ‘Dilexit Nos’
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Here are some of the most inspiring quotes from Pope Francis in his new encyclical on the divine and human love of the heart of Jesus Christ:
“Mere appearances, dishonesty, and deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are. It is the basis for any sound life project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken apart from the heart. False appearances and untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed” (No. 6).
“If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the heart, we miss the messages that the mind alone cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness of our encounters with others; we miss out on poetry. We also lose track of history and our own past, since our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter” (No. 11).
“The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle” (No. 28).
“In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socio-economic disparities, and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart” (No. 31).
“If we find it hard to trust others because we have been hurt by lies, injuries, and disappointments, the Lord whispers in our ear: ‘Take heart, son!’ (Mt 9:2), ‘Take heart, daughter!’ (Mt 9:22). He encourages us to overcome our fear and to realize that, with him at our side, we have nothing to lose” (No. 37).
“Whenever we feel that everyone ignores us, that no one cares what becomes of us, that we are of no importance to anyone, he remains concerned for us” (No. 40).
“I ask, then, that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ. I also encourage everyone to consider whether there might be greater reasonableness, truth, and wisdom in certain demonstrations of love that seek to console the Lord than in the cold, distant, calculated, and nominal acts of love that are at times practiced by those who claim to possess a more reflective, sophisticated, and mature faith” (No. 160).
“Christ asks you never to be ashamed to tell others, with all due discretion and respect, about your friendship with him. He asks that you dare to tell others how good and beautiful it is that you found him” (No. 211).
“In a world where everything is bought and sold, people’s sense of their worth appears increasingly to depend on what they can accumulate with the power of money. We are constantly being pushed to keep buying, consuming, and distracting ourselves, held captive to a demeaning system that prevents us from looking beyond our immediate and petty needs. The love of Christ has no place in this perverse mechanism, yet only that love can set us free from a mad pursuit that no longer has room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitively lost” (No. 218).
“The wounded side of Christ continues to pour forth that stream which is never exhausted, never passes away, but offers itself time and time again to all those who wish to love as he did. For his love alone can bring about a new humanity” (No. 219).
Analysis: What will the final document of the Synod on Synodality be like?
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
A year ago, at the end of the Synod on Synodality’s first general assembly, electronic versions of a draft of the confidential summary report were circulated among the media and others, as inevitably happens, in the days leading up to the delegates’ last amendments and final vote.
This year, apparently to discourage such leaks, synod organizers only provided participants with hard copies of the draft report, which aren’t as easily disseminated.
The irony is that there may not be much to share.
Internally and externally over the past several weeks, the assembly has come under intense pressure to change the Church’s governing structures and even some of its basic doctrines.
Theologian Myriam Wijlens, a synod consultant, emphasized at an Oct. 23 press briefing that Pope Francis has called for “reconfiguring the Church in a synodal way.” Doing so would require changes to canon law to, for example, make parish or diocesan councils mandatory.
But bigger changes, such as opening the diaconate to women or allowing exceptions to priestly celibacy, to cite two issues that were promoted publicly this month, appear off the table.
According to sources who have spoken to CNA, what’s left is a draft report that is generating disappointment in progressive quarters but very little buzz.
Titled “Communion, Mission, and Participation,” it’s a short document — 152 paragraphs, for the time being, covering about 47 pages. According to synod sources, it is divided into five parts.
The first part deals with the shared understanding of synodality and its theological principles. The second concerns what is called a “relational conversion.” The third part speaks of ecclesial discernment, decision-making processes, the culture of transparency, accountability, and evaluation. The fourth part seeks to understand how to cultivate the exchange of gifts in new ways. Finally, the fifth part speaks of formation in and for missionary synodality.
The synod’s final document, one delegate told CNA, appears to be strongly borrowed from the document on synodality that the International Theological Commission published in 2018, titled “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church.”
After reviewing it the synod delegates can propose amendments, which the assembly will discuss and vote on this Saturday.
Two-thirds of the assembly must approve a paragraph for it to be retained. In the past, if a paragraph did not reach even two-thirds, it would not be published. It was said that it did not represent synodal communion. Pope Francis has instead wanted each paragraph of the final document to be published and that votes for or against be indicated together with the paragraph.
Beyond the talks about healthy decentrality, the draft document addresses how this decentralization should be addressed. In particular, there is a paragraph that says that in a synodal Church, the decision-making competence of the bishop and of the bishop of Rome is “inalienable” while proposing some good practices to make the diocesan and parish council representative of all the people of God, women included.
Some describe the document as interlocutory rather than definitive. One bishop observed that “the document allows everyone to manage things as they wish.” But, he added, showing some disappointment, “So what were we discussing?”
If these are the results of two synodal stages in Rome and a three-year journey of dialogue and listening before that, it’s clear that many will be disappointed. There are no revolutions, but rather a call for a change of mentality in the Church grounded in the idea that synodality has always been present in the Church.
This will be the starting point for Saturday’s concluding session.
After the publication of the final document we will have to wait for Pope Francis to act. The Holy Father could decide to adopt the final document in full as a postsynodal exhortation or he could draft a postsynodal exhortation himself, either before or after the various study groups of experts deliver their final reports in May.
In the end, everything depends on the pope.
‘People of God’ should be involved in selecting bishops, cardinal says
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, on Wednesday cited some of the “gifts” that candidates for bishops must have, a decision reserved to the Holy Father but whose selection process will increasingly involve the participation of the “people of God.”
At the beginning of his Oct. 23 address to journalists in Rome at the daily Synod on Synodality briefing, the cardinal said the question of the selection process for bishops in each episcopal conference and the way in which it is carried out has been one of the issues discussed during the synod.
“The question is: How can this process of searching for candidates be made more synodal and include the greatest participation not only of bishops but of priests, religious, and laypeople?” Prevost said.
One of the most important functions of the apostolic nuncios is to participate in this selection process. The Vatican “ambassadors” play a crucial role in the selection of candidates.
This new approach oriented toward a “synodal” style requires, according to the cardinal, that the nuncio “know the people well” during pastoral visits and that they not just be “received by the parish priest” and participate in the ceremonies.
It is also necessary to “get in touch with parish groups” to listen to their problems and reflect on the ways in which the Church can be strengthened.
Asked about the “criteria” necessary for selecting bishops, Prevost emphasized both their universal character and, at the same time, their specificity due to the particular areas in which they are carried out.
“We ask the nuncios to draw up reports that will then be sent to the dicastery and subsequently presented to the Holy Father,” which include a series of aspects about the candidate.
Among some of these requirements, the prelate mentioned the candidate’s “worthiness” in addition to the study on whether he has had “serious problems that no one knows anything about,” certain health problems, “or if there are other aspects” in his background “that would make him not a good candidate.”
“But we also look at the specific dioceses and their needs. That’s why the apostolic nuncio is in charge of reporting not only about the bishops but also about the priests, laypeople, and religious. To know what the diocese is like, its needs, and what bishop they need,” he added.
The cardinal pointed out that this closeness to the people of God should exist as long as the apostolic nuncio “does his job correctly” — that is, studying the local situation, speaking with the people, and looking for ways to find the best candidate.
He noted that Pope Francis has spoken many times about these criteria, highlighting “the smell of sheep” that bishops must have as a result of walking alongside the people of God and even “suffering with them.”
In addition, he pointed out that a candidate must also have the gift of leadership, sometimes even in “communities that have many good priests,” but without a good leader, “they’re going nowhere.”
Prevost spoke about the pastoral duties of bishops, who are not “business administrators only dedicated to organizations and structural and ceremonial matters.”
“They have to be shepherds who walk joyfully with the people of God,” he said.
The prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which is responsible for everything related to the constitution and provision of the particular Churches and the exercise of the episcopal function in the Church, emphasized that prelates are also called to be “judged and evaluated” on their actions and attitudes. For the cardinal, “the tension of being pastors and being evaluated is what it means to be bishops.”
In this regard, he quoted the Holy Father, recalling that the only authority of bishops “is to serve,” and he insisted on the importance of “changing the entire dynamic and paradigm of the structure of power,” with an eye to the service that a bishop must exercise toward all the members of his diocese.
Sacred Heart encyclical ‘key’ to Pope Francis’ pontificate, theologian says
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
A prominent Italian theologian and archbishop has called Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart “the key to his entire pontificate” and “the inspiring motive of [his] whole ministry and magisterium.”
Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto presented (“He Loved Us”) at a press conference at the Vatican on Oct. 24.
A prolific spiritual writer, Forte, who became a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in June, called the encyclical “extremely timely” for its attention to “the centrality of God’s love in Jesus Christ” and to the “dramatic challenges of the present time.”
Pope Francis released on Thursday, calling for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart in the modern era and its many pressing challenges.
Forte said Pope Francis’ magisterium is “far from being … restricted to social issues, as it has sometimes been clumsily understood,” and his message “to the entire human family stems from a single spring, presented here in a more explicit, clear way: Christ the Lord, his love for humanity.”
“It is the truth on which Jorge Mario Bergoglio has staked his whole life and continues to spend it passionately as bishop of Rome, pastor of the universal Church,” the archbishop added.
He emphasized that the encyclical “can really be considered a compendium of everything that Pope Francis, the pope that God gave the Church in these not-easy years, wanted and wants to say to every brother and sister in humanity.”
Forte presented the encyclical together with Sister Antonella Fraccaro, superior general of the Disciples of the Gospel (Discepole del Vangelo), who said: “The encyclical calls us to be missionaries.”
We are called to be “missionaries,” she added, “who transmit love, who love therefore with witness, with presence alone, with words when needed, without the need to engage in proselytism.”
‘The wheelchair bishop’: Father Kike Figaredo dedicates ministry to disabled in Cambodia
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).
“Don’t go crazy. If you want to know me, I live with others. My face is that of people. If you look for me, look for me in people.”
This was what Enrique “Kike” Figaredo — known as the “wheelchair bishop” — discerned when, at just 16 years old, he prayed to God to enlighten him and thus discovered his vocation.
Since that “special enlightenment” during a Holy Thursday spent in a Taizé monastery, when he was “looking for Jesus like a madman,” everything changed. Now a Jesuit priest and the of Battambang, Cambodia, Figaredo, a native of the Asturias region of northwestern Spain, shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, the witness of his life dedicated to those most in need.
While not a bishop, Figaredo as apostolic prefect has certain administrative faculties of a bishop.
“That day I began to ‘see’; I came out of that prayer enlightened — that is, happy. I began to see people differently, I no longer saw them as strangers and I felt that they were going to talk to me about God.”
What Figaredo didn’t yet know was that his missionary soul would take him far from his home in Gijón, Spain, to a country in Southeast Asia that he barely knew how to find on a map: Cambodia.
After being ordained a priest, he arrived at the Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand through the Jesuit Refugee Service and later moved to the Cambodian city of Battambang.
Figaredo dedicated his life to caring for the disabled, especially those maimed by anti-personnel mine explosions, a legacy of the genocide perpetrated in the 1970s by troops of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, better known as the Khmer Rouge, whose aftermath is still felt.
From that first day of his new life more than 40 years ago, FIgaredo clearly remembers having seen “the face of God in the children” and how the fear he felt when he arrived “was transformed into peace” when he saw the joy of the children playing, “happy, smiling, barefoot. There was life there, there was God,” he said.
He also described, as if time had not passed, the person in charge of the place, who was missing an eye and a leg. “He told me that for everything they needed, they would ask me. From that afternoon on, I was never afraid again; the Lord asked me to trust in him through the language of faith.”
Figaredo told ACI Prensa that these people are not “disabled” but people with “different abilities.” However, he pointed out that “they have special needs” and that caring for them is essential.
In a predominantly Buddhist country, Catholics are only “insignificant” in number, but they are very present in social and religious life. Regarding the faith of those he evangelizes, he emphasized above all their simplicity and deep spirituality, “influenced by aspects that come from Buddhist culture.”
“We come from a more functional society, where we seek results. They know how to enjoy the presence of God in silence, because they believe that reality is inhabited by God, and that is very beautiful,” he explained.
Although, he noted, “the problem in Cambodia is that they believe in too many spirits, including evil ones that can dominate people. That’s why my motto is ‘pray more and think less.’”
The missionary noted the importance of helping these people physically, although, he said, “the decisive thing is to touch their hearts … when you touch their hearts with faith, there is a change.”
Regarding the Catholic faith, he highlighted two elements that especially help conversion. On the one hand, the Passion and Resurrection. “We have passion, but it’s not the last word. After the Passion there is resurrection, and that helps them a lot.”
On the other hand, the Spirit of the Lord “is liberating, it makes us free.” For the apostolic prefect, this “has an impressive force. And there are seeds of faith already in the people. When we tell them these things, the Holy Spirit is at work.”
Figaredo could help but be moved as he remembered the conversion of Vary, a Cambodian girl who belonged to a family and an “extremely Buddhist” background but who nevertheless attended catechism classes and prayed with the missionaries.
One day, she went to the Virgin with a special request: that the director of the center for the disabled could get pregnant after a long time trying.
“Within three days, she was pregnant. So then this girl was baptized with the name Catalina and now she’s a catechist. She went to pray with faith, looking for a sign from God, and she committed herself to him,” Figaredo recalled.
The priest added that the new infant was named Karuna, which means “compassion,” since “she was born through an act of compassion from the Virgin.”
Over the years, Figaredo has promoted various action projects for the disabled, starting with , dealing “with the urgent” and gradually growing with initiatives for development, education, and social integration of the most disadvantaged people.
In 1991, he founded a school for disabled children in Phnom Penh, where they also build wooden wheelchairs known as the Mekong, in reference to the river that crosses Cambodia and five other Asian countries. Here they take in vulnerable street children, orphans, and disabled people.
In Battambang there is also the , where different projects for children’s education and adult training are carried out.
They also have an agricultural and livestock area, a restaurant called the , a cafeteria, a hotel, a textile center where they make Kromas — the traditional Cambodian scarf — and th clothing brand, where they sell garments that can be purchased online from Spain. All of these, according to the Spanish priest, are “small models of social integration.”
Volunteers from different countries come to the mission every year. Many come to help during the summer and the adults usually stay longer, about a year. Then there are others who come only for a few months and end up staying because they say the people have something that “captivates you.”
Since the beginning of October, Figaredo has been in Rome to participate in the Synod on Synodality, where he has had the opportunity to help many people “learn to point to Cambodia on the map.”
He also expressed to ACI Prensa his desire that the synodal process “makes real changes.” According to the Jesuit, the synod “is calling us to pastoral conversion” and, above all, “personal conversion.”
Figaredo explained that this conversion also requires putting the Holy Spirit in the center, “and not oneself,” in order to also be able to “go out on a mission.” He also emphasized that the Church “cannot be defined by institutions” and that “listening” is essential in this process.
“The day when we all know how to put God’s mercy at the center, we will see that what defines the synodal Church is the Trinity, the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Until we have this model embedded in our hearts, there will be no synodal Church.”
He thus pointed out that Jesus “spoke of the kingdom of God and spoke of the mission, and then came the Church.”
“If we have all these conversions, going through personal conversion, conversion in relationships, and conversion to the Trinity, then I think there will be a before and after,” he added.
He also referred to this event as “a paradigm shift,” where we go from “the static to the dynamic.” “The Church is a people that is on a journey and we must accompany her. And this will not change in a day; we need time in order to think more about the churches and less about the institutions, which are a support, but not the identity of the Church. Identity is the mission inspired by the Trinity.”
The missionary has traveled to the Eternal City with a special gift for the Holy Father: a Mekong wheelchair, characterized by having three wheels and made of wood. “The pope already knows that he has a wheelchair waiting for him,” Figaredo said.
However, he pointed out that the gift is full of meaning. “This wheelchair was invented in Cambodia; it is made with local materials and the wheels are made of rubber bicycle wheels, designed especially for the countryside, not for the city.”
“I think it’s very beautiful for Pope Francis to be sitting in a chair made by disabled people who have survived the war and who have made wheelchairs for other disabled people.”
Figaredo confessed to ACI Prensa his desire: “That the pope sit in this chair and preach for peace from there. He is a disabled person, since he has not been able to walk easily for some time, and he is the world’s great leader for peace. The fact that he should sit in the wheelchair for the disabled and preach from there has great meaning.”
Cardinal Czerny: Legacy of Synod on Synodality will be a ‘refreshed’ missionary Church
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 10:15 am (CNA).
Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hopes the legacy of the Synod on Synodality launched by Pope Francis will be the renewal of the Catholic Church as the people of God who walks together to “better carry out the mission that Christ entrusted us” in modern-day society.
“The central insight of Vatican II is that we are all enjoying equal dignity as Christians by our baptism,” the Canadian cardinal shared with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson.
“It is as the people of God that we walk together — who are ordained, or in authority, or both — are at the service of God’s people,” he elaborated. “This kind of service needs to be refreshed and, in a certain sense, brought up to date.”
To “more effectively, more flexibly, [and] more generously” respond to the “great hunger and thirst” of people, Czerny stated that synodality is intended to confirm the authority and tradition of the Catholic Church.
“If you want to sum up the synod, we are seeking ways and means to assure that kind of authority so that the Church will be able to carry out its mission and not be handicapped or distracted by sins and mistakes which, in fact, consume and eradicate authority,” he told EWTN News.
Focusing on the servant leadership of Jesus Christ, Czerny stated that he and other ordained leaders in the Church — particularly the new cardinals-elect — have to recognize their explicit mission and role to support the Holy Father and of “giving our lives” to serve the Catholic faithful.
On the topic of the participation of women in the Church, the cardinal said the different ministries of women can be better “integrated” within Church structures so as to provide better “recognition, authority, formation, [and] recompense” for the work they carry out at the service of God and others.
In spite of the “enormous challenges of our times” — such as forced migration or conflict — Czerny said many of the Catholic faithful living on the margins or peripheries are witnesses of a “hopeful Church” and are therefore an example for others.
“Migrants are not only our deep concern in terms of solidarity and support and evangelization. But they’re also a sign of the mobility and the courage that the Church needs,” Czerny said.
“They’re not lacking in hope, they’re not lacking in resourcefulness, and they’re not lacking in missionary creativity. So I would say, as much as they win our concern and sympathy, they also win our admiration,” he added.
According to the prelate, the impact and legacy of synodality will go beyond the Catholic Church and reach out to the secular world.
“I think many of us are recognizing, experiencing that synodality would go a long way to helping make this world more peaceful, more human, more just, and finally more Christian,” he said.
“That encourages us. We’re not just doing intra-Church housekeeping. We are actually preparing effective and important proposals for the world community.”
Sacred Heart shows path forward in AI era, Pope Francis says in new encyclical ‘Dilexit Nos’
Rome Newsroom, Oct 24, 2024 / 06:01 am (CNA).
Pope Francis released a new encyclical (“He Loved Us”) on Thursday, calling for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart in the modern era and its many pressing challenges.
In the document, the pope argues that the spirituality of the Sacred Heart offers a vital response to what he calls a “liquid society” dominated by technology and consumerism.
Pope Francis writes: “Living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.”
Subtitled “Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” the document is the first papal encyclical dedicated entirely to the Sacred Heart since Pope Pius XII’s in 1956.
Throughout the document, Francis weaves together traditional elements of Sacred Heart devotion with contemporary concerns, presenting Christ’s heart as the principle unifying reality in a fragmented world.
The document’s release fulfills an announcement made by the , when he noted that meditating on the Lord’s love can “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”
At a press conference presenting the document on Thursday, Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte said the encyclical expresses “in a profound way the heart and the inspiring motive of the whole ministry and magisterium of Pope Francis.”
The theologian added that in his opinion, the text is “the key to understanding this pope’s magisterium.”
Forte, who is a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented the encyclical together with Sister Antonella Fraccaro, superior general of the Disciples of the Gospel (Discepole del Vangelo).
The approximately 30,000-word encyclical draws extensively from Scripture and tradition, featuring insights from St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Charles de Foucauld.
Released as the Synod on Synodality is concluding its monthlong deliberations in Rome, the document emphasizes both personal spirituality and communal missionary commitment.
Francis develops his vision across five chapters, beginning with a philosophical and theological exploration of “the importance of the heart” before moving through reflections on Christ’s actions and words of love, the theological meaning of Sacred Heart devotion, its spiritual dynamics and social implications.
“The algorithms operating in the digital world show that our thoughts and will are much more ‘uniform’ than we had previously thought,” Francis writes, arguing that technological solutions alone cannot address the deeper needs of the human heart.
He emphasizes that the meaning of the word “heart” is not sufficiently captured by biology, psychology, anthropology, or any other science.
“In this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live,” Francis writes.
The pope emphasizes that devotion to the Sacred Heart is not merely a private spiritual practice but has profound implications for social life and human relationships.
“The world can change, beginning with the heart,” he writes, connecting individual transformation with broader social renewal.
The encyclical builds on centuries of Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart while offering fresh insights for modern challenges. Francis cites extensively from previous papal teachings, particularly from St. John Paul II.
“Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it developed in Europe two centuries ago, under the impulse of the mystical experiences of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, was a response to Jansenist rigor, which ended up disregarding God’s infinite mercy,” the late pope writes.
“The men and women of the third millennium need the heart of Christ in order to know God and to know themselves; they need it to build the civilization of love.”
In a significant theological and philosophical development, the encyclical engages deeply with modern thought, particularly through its discussion of German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s understanding of human emotion and understanding.
The pope cites Heidegger’s insight that “philosophy does not begin with a pure concept or certainty but with a shock,” as “without deep emotion, thought cannot begin. The first mental image would thus be goosebumps.”
For Francis, this is where the heart comes in as it “listens in a non-metaphoric way to ‘the silent voice’ of being, allowing itself to be tempered and determined by it.”
“The heart is also capable of unifying and harmonizing our personal history, which may seem hopelessly fragmented,” the pope writes, “yet is the place where everything can make sense.”
“The Gospel tells us this in speaking of Our Lady, who saw things with the heart.”
The document calls for a renewal of traditional Sacred Heart practices on this understanding while emphasizing their contemporary relevance.
“Our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter.”
The pope concludes by connecting this spiritual vision to the Church’s broader mission in the modern world, calling for what he — following St. John Paul II — terms a “civilization of love” built on the foundation of Christ’s love.
This vision also connects directly to previous social encyclicals by Pope Francis, and , presenting Christ’s love as the foundation for addressing and solving contemporary challenges.
Pope Francis: The Holy Spirit is ‘essential’ for unity in marriage
Vatican City, Oct 23, 2024 / 13:35 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis said the Holy Spirit plays an essential role in the unity of a husband and a wife, and advised married couples to invoke the Spirit’s help for their marriage, because the separation of spouses is a source of suffering for children.
“What can the Holy Spirit have to do with marriage, for example? A great deal, perhaps the essential,” the pope said during his weekly audience with the public in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 23.
“Christian marriage is the sacrament of self-giving, one for the other, of man and woman. This is how the Creator intended it when he ‘created man in his own image … male and female he created them (Gn 1:27),’” Francis said to crowds gathered in an overcast square.
In the Wednesday general audience, the pontiff continued his series of teachings on the Holy Spirit, focusing on the role of the Third Person of the Trinity in the sacrament of matrimony, including the couple as a “realization of the communion of love that is the Trinity.”
Francis said like the Trinity, “married couples, too, should form a first-person plural, a ‘we.’ Stand before each other as an ‘I’ and a ‘you,’ and stand before the rest of the world, including the children, as a ‘we.’”
“How much children need this unity — mother and father together — unity of parents, and how much they suffer when it is lacking,” he emphasized. “How much the children of separated parents suffer, how much they suffer.”
Drawing on the story of the wedding at Cana, Francis noted that for “so many couples, one must repeat what Mary said to Jesus, at Cana in Galilee: ‘They have no wine.’ The Holy Spirit is he who continues to perform, on a spiritual level, the miracle that Jesus worked on that occasion; namely, to change the water of habit into a new joy of being together.”
“It is not a pious illusion: It is what the Holy Spirit has done in so many marriages, when the spouses decided to invoke him."
“No one,” the pope continued, “says that such unity is an easy task, least of all in today’s world; but this is the truth of things as the Creator designed them, and it is therefore in their nature. Certainly, it may seem easier and quicker to build on sand than on rock; but Jesus tells us what the result is…”
Pope Francis noted that marriage needs the support of the Holy Spirit, “the Gift,” and recommended that marriage preparation include a deeper spiritual preparation in addition to just psychological, legal, and moral information.
“Where the Holy Spirit enters, the capacity for self-giving is reborn,” he said.
French diocese to hold ordinations after two-year halt by Vatican
Vatican City, Oct 23, 2024 / 11:10 am (CNA).
The Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in the south of France will ordain six men to the transitional diaconate on Dec. 1, ending a Vatican suspension on diocesan ordinations to the priesthood or diaconate that has lasted over two years.
Ordinations were halted by the Vatican in June 2022 following a fraternal visit to the diocese by Archbishop (now Cardinal) Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille.
The ordinations of six seminarians from the traditionalist community Missionaries of Divine Mercy will take place in the Collegiate Church of Saint-Martin in Lorgues, according to an Oct. 21 announcement from Bishop François Touvet.
Pope Francis appointed Touvet a coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in November 2023, putting him in charge of religious communities and of the training of priests and seminarians.
As coadjutor, Touvet is serving alongside Bishop Dominique Rey, who has led the French diocese since 2000. Touvet will succeed Rey upon Rey’s 75th birthday.
Touvet said this week the Dec. 1 ordinations “are the fruit of a trusting and peaceful dialogue maintained with the superior of the community [of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy] and the Dicastery for Divine Worship.”
While the Missionaries of Divine Mercy recognize the validity of the post-Vatican II liturgy, one of its three charisms is the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
The group, which was founded under diocesan law, is also dedicated to the missions of mercy and evangelization, especially among Muslims.
Touvet wrote that while the statutes of the community, founded in 2005, indicate that priests and deacons should use the liturgical books from prior to the reform of the Second Vatican Council, the community’s members “recognize the validity of the current missal and have sought, since their foundation almost 20 years ago, a true insertion in diocesan life under the authority of the bishop.”
The diaconate ordinations scheduled for later this year are a “favorable outcome” of exchanges with the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Touvet said, since permission to offer the Traditional Latin Mass “can only be granted to a recently ordained priest by the Holy See” since the 2021 promulgation of .
The bishop invited prayers for the soon-to-be deacons and “so that the liturgy is not a place of combat but of communion in Jesus Christ the savior.”
The Vatican requested the suspension of ordinations in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in summer 2022 due to “questions that certain Roman dicasteries were asking about the restructuring of the seminary and the policy of welcoming people to the diocese,” according to an announcement by Bishop Dominique Rey at the time.
The diocese had seen a record number of ordinations to the priesthood under Rey’s leadership, which began in 2000, but questions were raised about his approach to evaluating candidates for the priesthood. He was also under scrutiny for having welcomed to the diocese a large number of religious orders and lay groups across a wide spiritual spectrum that included both charismatic and traditionalist communities.
Known for his support of the Traditional Latin Mass, Rey had also ordained diocesan clerics using the 1962 Roman Pontifical and had used the same book for the ordinations of religious communities, including the Institute of the Good Shepherd.
After Pope Francis promulgated , the 2021 motu proprio restricting the celebration of Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, the bishop had highlighted the concerns of some priests and communities present in his diocese who offered Mass according to the old rite.
Aveline’s fraternal visit to Rey’s diocese took place in early 2022 at the request of the Vatican.
African bishops speak: How has the Synod on Synodality impacted the Church in Africa?
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2024 / 15:15 pm (CNA).
As the Vatican draws closer to the end of the global four-year discernment phase of the Synod on Synodality, high-ranking African delegates participating in this year’s meetings shared their perspectives on the journey of “walking together as the people of God” and its impact on the life of the Church in Africa.
Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) told journalists on Tuesday of his satisfaction with this year’s global synodal talks taking place in the Vatican.
“I must say that I am happy with the synod, which had been convened to develop a new way of being Church and not to solve specific issues which exist in the Church,” Ambongo said during the Oct. 22 press briefing.
But how has the Synod on Synodality actually impacted the Catholic Church in Africa? And, in turn, how has the Church in Africa impacted the global synodal process, when proportionately few Africans are participating in the Oct. 2–27 session at the Vatican?
Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya from Cameroon told journalists at the press briefing that synodality is an “eschatological sign” in the Church today and stressed the importance of small Christian communities as “a very big treasure for Africa.”
“We are going through a moment of a boom of Catholicism in Africa,” the Cameroonian prelate said. “Synodality comes very alive in the small Christian communities because you don’t live in anonymity as a Catholic.”
Father Don Bosco Onyalla, editor-in-chief of ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, told CNA in an interview that the theological concept of synodality “where people come together” is a reality and tradition that is already lived among Catholics across the continent.
“In Africa, the Church has been conceived as a group of families — the small Christian communities,” Onyalla explained. “The structure of the Church in Africa is from grassroots families coming together.”
Onyalla added that “the institution of the family” — which extends beyond the Western concept of the nuclear family — could “be a source of inspiration for other parts of the world.”
According to Bishop Edouard Sinayobye of Rwanda, the synodal process launched by Pope Francis for the universal Church in 2021 provides the “biblical and theological foundations” for growing in communion and reconciliation with God and others.
Rwanda is on a journey of healing following the genocide 30 years ago that killed approximately 800,000 people belonging to the minority Tutsi ethnic group.
“For us in Rwanda to talk about fraternity and unity is truly a message which is very well received by people — it helps people walk together and journey together — because after everything that’s happened we are learning to be brothers and sisters,” the bishop told journalists at the Oct. 14 Vatican press briefing.
“We must accompany the victims and the perpetrators — this is something that we do in all parishes and this synod has helped us considerably,” he added. “It was a space in which we were truly capable of deepening the way in which we can address reconciliation.”
Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla from South Sudan shared his plea for the Catholic Church worldwide to live in solidarity with the world’s poor and vulnerable living in different countries.
Mulla hopes the Synod on Synodality will promote active dialogue and collaboration among Catholics and help promote the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, including the principles of solidarity, the promotion of peace, and the preferential option for the poor.
“Synodality — going together — should be the way for us to resolve our own problems. And I hope that all of us together can resolve these problems,” the cardinal told journalists at an Oct. 18 Vatican press briefing.
“The problems that affect Sudan, or South Sudan, or Colombia, or other parts of Mediterranean countries are our problems,” he added. “We are related — interrelated — and dialogue has to happen. We must feel [compassion] about these situations.”
Aid to the Church in Need International reported that Africa is the priority region for its projects. In 2023, 31.4% of its activities were dedicated to supporting priests and local communities suffering persecution or persistent poverty throughout the continent.
5 ways St. John Paul II changed the Catholic Church forever
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).
You probably know that St. John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history with 27 years of pontificate, and he was the first non-Italian pontiff since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI in 1523.
But did you know that he also changed the Catholic Church forever during those 27 years? Here are five ways he did that:
The pope’s official biographer, George Weigel, who for decades chronicled the pope’s engagement with civic leaders, noted that the way Pope John Paul II influenced the political landscape was enormous. His political influence is seen best in the way his engagement with world leaders assisted the downfall of the U.S.S.R.
Just days before President Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, he met with the pope. According to historian and author Paul Kengor, Reagan went so far as to call Pope John Paul II his “best friend,” opining that no one knew his soul better than the Polish pontiff who had also suffered an assassination attempt and carried the burden of world leadership.
In the course of 38 official visits and 738 audiences and meetings held with heads of state, John Paul II influenced civic leaders around the world in this epic battle with a regime that would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million people.
“He thought of himself as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, dealing with sovereign political actors who were as subject to the universal moral law as anybody else,” Weigel said.
“He was willing to be a risk-taker, but he also appreciated that prudence is the greatest of political virtues. And I think he was quite respected by world political leaders because of his transparent integrity. His essential attitude toward these men and women was: How can I help you? What can I do to help?”
More than anything, John Paul II understood his role primarily as a spiritual leader.
According to Weigel, the pope’s primary impact on the world of affairs was his central role in creating the revolution of conscience that began in Poland and swept across Eastern Europe. This revolution of conscience inspired the nonviolent revolution of 1989 and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, an astounding political achievement.
One of John Paul II’s most enduring legacies is the huge number of saints he recognized. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies, during which he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds, and celebrated 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. That is more than the combined tally of his predecessors over the five centuries before.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is perhaps the best-known contemporary of John Paul II who is now officially a saint, but the first saint of the new millennium and one especially dear to John Paul II was St. Faustina Kowalska, the fellow Polish native who received the message of divine mercy.
“Sister Faustina’s canonization has a particular eloquence: By this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium,” he said in the homily of her canonization. “I pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren.”
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom Pope John Paul II beatified in 1990 and nicknamed the “man of the beatitudes,” is another popular saint elevated by the Polish pope who loved to recognize the holiness of simple persons living the call to holiness with extraordinary fidelity. At the time of his death, the 24-year-old Italian was simply a student with no extraordinary accomplishments. But his love for Christ in the Eucharist and in the poor was elevated by John Paul II as heroic and worthy of imitation.
It bears noting that Pope Francis would later surpass John Paul II when he proclaimed 800 Italian martyrs saints in a single day.
John Paul II visited some 129 countries during his pontificate — more countries than any other pope had visited up to that point.
He also created World Youth Days in 1985 and presided over 19 of them as pope.
Weigel said John Paul II understood that the pope must be present to the people of the Church, wherever they are.
“He chose to do it by these extensive travels, which he insisted were not travels, they were pilgrimages,” Weigel said.
“This was the successor of Peter, on pilgrimage to various parts of the world, of the Church. And that’s why these pilgrimages were always built around liturgical events, prayer, adoration of the holy Eucharist, ecumenical and interreligious gatherings — all of this was part of a pilgrimage experience.”
In the latter half of the 20th century — a time of enormous social change and upheaval— John Paul II’s extensive travels and proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth were just what the world needed, Weigel said.
John Paul II was a scholar who promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law during his pontificate, and authored 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, and 45 apostolic letters.
This is why Weigel said the Church has only begun to unpack what he calls the “magisterium” of John Paul II, in the form of his writings and his intellectual influence.
For example, John Paul’s theology of the body remains enormously influential in the United States and throughout the world, though Weigel said even this has yet to be unpacked.
John Paul II’s legendary evangelical fervor took fire in Africa.
He had a particular friendship with Beninese Cardinal Bernadin Gantin and visited Africa many times. His visits would inspire a generation of JPII Catholics in Africa as well as other parts of the globe.
“John Paul II was fascinated by Africa; he saw African Christianity as living, a kind of New Testament experience of the freshness of the Gospel, and he was very eager to support that, and lift it up,” Gantin said.
“It was very interesting that during the two synods on marriage and the family in 2014 and 2015, some of the strongest defenses of the Church’s classic understanding of marriage and family came from African bishops. Some of whom are first-, second-generation Christians, deeply formed in the image of John Paul II, whom they regard as a model bishop,” Gantin said.
“I think wherever you look around the world Church, the living parts of the Church are those that have accepted the magisterium ... as the authentic interpretation of Vatican II. And the dying parts of the Church, the moribund parts of the Church are those parts that have ignored that magisterium.”
John Paul II’s influence in Africa and around the globe transformed the world. It also forever transformed the Church.
Fernández: Diaconate ‘is not today’ the answer for promoting women in Church leadership
Vatican City, Oct 21, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Víctor Fernández on Monday reaffirmed Pope Francis’ position against women’s access to the diaconate, an issue that will continue to be evaluated by a specialized commission while the Synod on Synodality continues to reflect on the role of women in the Church outside of ordained ministry.
During his speech at the general congregation on Oct. 21, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recalled that for the Holy Father the question of the female diaconate “is not ripe,” and for this reason he specifically asked the members of the synod not to get sidetracked on this possibility now.
However, the cardinal indicated that those who “are convinced that it is necessary to go deeper” into this question can send their considerations to established by the Holy Father in 2020 to further study the subject. The commission is chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi.
In a similar way to what he said at the beginning of the synod, Fernández emphasized that “rushing to ask for the ordination of deaconesses is not today the most important response to promote women.”
However, he underscored that the pontiff “is very concerned” about the role of women in the Church and therefore called for further reflection “without concentrating on holy orders.”
Fernández referred once again to the reflections led by group 5, charged during the synod with exploring, among other things, “the question of the necessary participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church.”
He pointed out that this group has analyzed different forms such as the lay ministry of catechists in communities without priests, an option that emerged after and was not widely accepted.
The prelate recalled that Pope Francis has pointed out that priestly power, linked to the sacraments, “is not necessarily expressed as power or authority, and that there are forms of authority that do not require holy orders.”
Continuing his reflection, he renewed his invitation to send to the dicastery “testimonies of women who are truly community leaders or who perform important functions of authority.”
“I ask especially the women members of this synod to help collect, explain, and send to the dicastery various proposals, which we can hear in their context, on possible paths for the participation of women in the leadership of the Church,” he added.
Likewise, after the that was caused by his absence from a meeting of synod delegates in which they interacted with the Vatican study group on this issue, the cardinal confirmed that there will be a new meeting on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 4:30 p.m. local time where he will listen to ideas and proposals.
He also expressed his hope that concrete steps can be taken to understand that “there is nothing in the nature of women that prevents them from occupying very important positions in the guidance of the Churches. What truly comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”
Paolo Ruffini, secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, reported during today’s press conference that the draft of the final document was delivered this morning to the members of the synod.
The document, which will be presented to Pope Francis, is being prepared by a commission made up of a president, three secretaries, seven members representing each continent, and three members appointed by the pope.
Present at the briefing at the Holy See Press Office, cardinal-designate Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, urged against seeking “headlines” in this document, as he “this would be a mistake.” He also noted that “the synod is a profound renewal of the Church” and a “new way” of imagining it.
For her part, Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod, stated that the synod also represents a “new way of articulating the primacy” of the Petrine ministry.
Pope Francis to release new encyclical ‘Dilexit Nos’ on the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Vatican City, Oct 21, 2024 / 07:49 am (CNA).
Pope Francis will publish the fourth encyclical of his pontificate on Thursday on “the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ.”
The encyclical, titled , meaning “he has loved us,” will be published Oct. 24.
The pope had that he was preparing a document on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, noting that meditating on the Lord’s love can “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”
Pope Francis then described the document as something that “brings together the precious reflections of previous magisterial texts and a long history that goes back to the sacred Scriptures in order to re-propose today to the whole Church this devotion imbued with spiritual beauty.”
“I believe it will do us great good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love, which can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart,” Francis said at the end of his on June 5.
The encyclical is being published amid the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to , which began on Dec. 27, 2023, and will conclude on June 27, 2025.
The Vatican will hold a on Thursday, Oct. 24, on the encyclical: “Dilexit Nos: Encyclical Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.”
, an Italian theologian and a new member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will present the encyclical to the press together with Sister Antonella Fraaccaro, the head of the Italian religious order Discepole del Vangelo (“Disciples of the Gospel”).
will be Pope Francis’ fourth encyclical after published in 2020, published in 2015, and , published in 2013.
Pope Francis canonizes 14 new saints, including priests martyred in Syria
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on Sunday, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
In a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20, the pope declared three 19th-century founders of religious orders and the 11 “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be venerated by the global Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and service to the Church.
“These new saints lived Jesus’ way: service,” Pope Francis said. “They made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing good, steadfast in difficulties, and generous to the end.”
The newly canonized include St. Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who founded the Consolata missionary orders, and St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for founding an order dedicated to the service of priests.
Also among the saints are St. Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and St. Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan companions, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
The final three canonized are siblings, Sts. Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria along with the Franciscans.
Thousands of pilgrims prayed the Litany of the Saints together in St. Peter’s Square before Pope Francis declared the 14 as enrolled among the saints “for the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul.”
“We confidently ask for their intercession so that we too can follow Christ, follow him in service, and become witnesses of hope for the world,” the pope said.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted how service embodied the lives of each of the new saints. “When we learn to serve,” he said, “our every gesture of attention and care, every expression of tenderness, every work of mercy becomes a reflection of God’s love. And so we continue Jesus’ work in the world.”
The Gospel for the Mass was chanted in Greek in addition to Latin in honor of the 11 Martyrs of Damascus.
Father Marwan Dadas, a Franciscan friar from Jerusalem, was among those who attended the canonization. He said the testimony of the martyrs from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land is especially meaningful to people who are suffering due to the ongoing war and violence in the region today.
“This is a good message to say that even though we have challenges — and it seems we have death continuously — we still have the light of God that is helping us and guiding us through these difficult periods,” Dadas told CNA.
“It’s an important message for me, and I hope it will be the message for all the people of the Holy Land, not only the Holy Land but for everybody. It is a message from God saying that he is always with us.”
One of the most celebrated figures among the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, though he spent his entire life in Italy, left a global legacy by training missionaries who carried the Gospel to remote corners of Africa, Asia, and South America.
Allamano told the missionaries in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
The medical miracle that led to Allamano’s canonization involved the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a man named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the Indigenous Yanomami tribe in the Amazon, was mauled by a jaguar and left with life-threatening injuries.
As doctors treated his skull fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed in the hospital with a relic of Allamano, seeking his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered without any long-term damage, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Allamano, whose spiritual director was St. John Bosco, emphasized the importance of holiness in priestly life, telling his priests: “You must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy.” His influence has endured through the orders he founded, present today in 30 countries across the globe.
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian religious sister, also took her place among the new saints. She founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, an order whose spirituality and charism is the support of priests through both prayer and by taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”
During his homily, Pope Francis praised Paradis’ faith and underlined that “those who follow Christ, if they wish to be great, must serve by learning from him” who made himself “a servant to reach everyone with his love.”
Born in the Acadian region of Quebec, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana before founding her religious order in New Brunswick, Canada.
Paradis’ canonization was supported by the miraculous healing of a newborn in Canada attributed to her intercession.
Among the canonized was St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914), known for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Guerra, who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was instrumental in promoting the first-ever novena to the Holy Spirit under Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and spiritual leadership inspired many, including St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was her student.
For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.
During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a , asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.”
“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”
The solemnity of the ceremony was heightened as Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a group of 11 men killed in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The martyrs, including eight Franciscan friars and three laymen, were attacked in a church in the Christian quarter of Damascus during a wave of religious violence.
The canonized Franciscan friars include six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.
Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández were all declared saints.
The three laymen were brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — known for their deep piety and devotion to the Christian faith. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.
According to witnesses, the brothers were offered the chance to live if they renounced their faith, but they refused. “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly said. All 11 were brutally killed that night, some beheaded, others stabbed to death.
“They remained faithful servants,” Pope Francis said. “[They] served in martyrdom and in joy.”
The canonization ceremony was attended by pilgrims from around the world, including Catholics from Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. More than 1,000 members of the Consolata order traveled to Rome to witness the canonization of their founder.
And bagpipers from Galicia in northern Spain played traditional music at the end of the Mass to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs.
“I thank all of you who have come to honor the new saints,” Pope Francis said. “I greet the cardinals, the bishops, the consecrated men and women, especially the Friars Minor and the Maronite faithful, the Consolata Missionaries, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family and the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, as well as the other groups of pilgrims who have come from various places.”
Pope Francis led the crowd in the Angelus prayer at the end of the Mass and asked people to pray in particular for the gift of peace for “populations who are suffering as a result of war — tormented Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, tormented Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and all the others.”
The pope also greeted a group of Ugandan pilgrims who traveled from Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs and urged people to pray for missionaries on World Mission Sunday.
“Let us support, with our prayer and our aid, all the missionaries who, often at great sacrifice, bring the shining proclamation of the Gospel to every part of the world,” he said.
“May the Virgin Mary help us to be like her and like the saints courageous and joyful witnesses of the Gospel.”
Cardinal Fernández promises follow-up meeting after controversial absence
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2024 / 08:30 am (CNA).
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), has reportedly apologized for what he called a “misunderstanding” regarding his absence from an Oct. 18 meeting of Synod on Synodality delegates about a Vatican study group on women’s roles in the Church.
Attendees confirmed to CNA over the weekend that there was significant frustration among synod delegates over both the cardinal’s absence from the meeting and how the meeting itself was conducted.
More than 90 synod delegates attended the encounter expecting to engage with Fernández and members of study group 5, one of 10 announced to examine theological questions that emerged out of the first session of the Synod on Synodality last year.
This group is “some theological and canonical issues around specific ministerial forms,” in particular “the question of the necessary participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church.” This includes the questions surrounding the possibility of female deacons.
Instead, attendees on Friday were greeted by two officials from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith who were not members of the study group, according to sources. The officials reportedly distributed slips of paper with an email address for submitting feedback and could not answer most questions posed by delegates.
reported that in a statement to synod participants late on Oct. 18, Fernández said he was “sorry for the misunderstanding” and that his absence was “due not to any unwillingness but to my objective inability to attend on the scheduled day and time.”
The cardinal added that he had previously indicated two dicastery officials would attend the meeting in his place. He offered to meet with interested synod members on Oct. 21 “to listen to their reflections and receive any written documents from them.”
Earlier this month, Fernández announced that study group 5 had shifted its focus away from the question of women deacons as an ordained group.
On Oct. 2, the: “Based on the analysis so far ... there is still no room for a positive decision” on ordaining women deacons “understood as a degree of the sacrament of holy orders.”
Fernández said the group was instead examining historical ways women have exercised authority in the Church apart from ordained ministry.
The question of women deacons has been studied and debated in recent years.
In July 2024, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, “the women’s diaconate” within the context of its in-depth study of ministries.
However, Pope Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed that holy orders remain reserved for men.
In an interview published in October 2023,: “The question of whether some women in the early Church were ‘deaconesses’ or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men.”
Meanwhile, Pope Francis held two private audiences over the weekend, including participating women and the synod’s lay members. No details have been released about the content of these meetings.
He also received Grech and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator-general, and Special Secretary Riccardo Battocchio.
Synod, Zen, and Sinicization: Vatican’s China deal sparks tensions
Vatican City, Oct 19, 2024 / 11:05 am (CNA).
Two prominent Catholics — Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and American author George Weigel — have leveled sharp criticisms at the Synod on Synodality, focusing particularly on the Vatican’s approach to China.
In a , Zen, the 92-year-old bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, issued an urgent appeal for prayer as the synod enters its third week.
“We must pray for the successful (decent) ending of this synod,” Zen wrote, outlining three fundamental concerns.
The cardinal questioned the gathering’s legitimacy as a Synod of Bishops, given the inclusion of non-bishop voting members.
“With the ‘non-bishops’ voting together, it is no longer a Synod of Bishops,” Zen argued.
About the and LGBTQ issues,Zen wrote: “I think endless debate should be avoided at least on the issue of blessing same-sex couples“ and urged synod delegates: “If this issue is not resolved in the synod, the future of the Church will be very unclear, because some clergy and friends of the pope insist on changing the Church tradition in this regard.“
The bishop emeritus of Hong Kong also warned against granting individual bishops’ conferences independent authority over doctrinal matters. “If this idea succeeds, we will no longer be the Catholic Church,” Zen cautioned.
This is not the first time the cardinal has voiced concerns about the synod.
In , he argued that the synod presents “two opposing visions” of the Church’s nature and organization.
Meanwhile, Weigel, a distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, penned on Oct. 17 criticizing the presence of two Chinese bishops at the synod.
Weigel argued that Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu of Funing/Mindong and Bishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang of Hangzhou are “bent on ‘sinicizing’ the Catholic Church.”
The biographer of St. John Paul II also pointed out that Zhan Silu was for accepting consecration without papal approval. Weigel noted that Yang Yongqiang is vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which Weigel describes as “a tool of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.”
The synod takes place against the backdrop of the ongoing debate over the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and Beijing, particularly the Sino-Vatican deal on bishop appointments.
The provisional agreement was first signed in 2018 and renewed in 2020 and 2022 and is likely due for another renewal this October.
As of this report, the Vatican has not yet announced whether the agreement has been extended, though observers widely expect it to be renewed.
While critics have raised over the Vatican’s diplomatic approach to Beijing and the Chinese , the Holy See has publicly doubled down on the diplomatic strategy of supporting Beijing.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin has Xi Jinping’s campaign of “Sinicization” of religion and culture in the country, saying it relates to the Catholic concept of inculturation “without confusion and without opposition.”
Weigel strongly rejected this interpretation in a commentary for the .
More recently, Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of , wrote on Oct. 17 that the Chinese bishops at the synod emphasized their communion with the universal Church.
Tornielli quoted Yang as saying: “The Church in China is the same as the Catholic Church in other countries of the world: We belong to the same faith, share the same baptism, and we are all faithful to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”
The Vatican News director also reported Yang stating: “We follow the evangelical spirit of ‘becoming all things to all people.’ We effectively adapt to society, serve it, adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of Catholicism, and preach the good news.”
Synod delegates urge young Catholics to learn how to listen to others in a polarized world
Vatican City, Oct 19, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).
More than 30 students — most of whom were from the U.S. — from over 10 universities attended “The University Students in Dialogue with Synod Leaders,” an Oct. 18 event organized by the General Secretariat of the Synod held in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
The event was moderated by four young staff members of the Synod on Synodality’s communications team who presented questions to four guest panelists participating in the second global synodal session at the Vatican: Secretary-General of the Synod Cardinal Mario Grech; Relator General of the Synod Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich; Sister Leticia Salazar, chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California; and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
An additional 360 people worldwide watched the event live via the synod’s YouTube channel.
Before a predominantly American audience, Hollerich drew attention to the upcoming Nov. 5 U.S. elections and stressed the importance of seeing the person behind the opinion.
“When I see on television about the elections in the States, there are two worlds that seem to be opposed, and you have to be an enemy of the others — that thinking is very far from synodal thinking,” the cardinal said.
“The person with the different opinion is not an enemy. We are together part of humanity. We live in the same world and we have to find common solutions,” he added.
Further commenting on the sharp political and ideological divide within the U.S., panelist Salazar encouraged young Catholics in the country to not be afraid of sharing the faith with others.
“Living in a reality of polarization, synodality really has a gentle way of announcing the good news in a very respectful way,” she said.
“I’m very happy and very hopeful for the United States to see you [young Catholics] here [in the Vatican],” she added. “We have a lot of work to do, we have a journey to walk, but the beauty of this is that we are not by ourselves.”
During the event, synod delegate Flores said students must be “real” to be credible witnesses of the Church in a culture “that has forgotten how to talk to each other.”
“You can’t keep announcing the Gospel if you don’t have a sense of the reality people are living, and that’s part of what the listening thing is about,” he said. “Open the ears and listen on a deeper level just to hear the reality.”
“I repeat, the hardest part of synodality is listening patiently with someone you have decided is already wrong,” he said. “If somebody tells you about their life it is a gift that you should appreciate as something rather sacred.”
Here’s what’s happening during the last week of the Synod on Synodality
Vatican City, Oct 19, 2024 / 08:30 am (CNA).
After two and a half weeks, the last of two assemblies for the Synod on Synodality is about to enter its final stretch before officially concluding on Oct. 27.
As conversations on the agenda set by the , or working document, wrapped up this week, the focus going forward will be the writing and editing of the Synod on Synodality’s final document.
After having the afternoon off on Friday, Oct. 18, the synod’s lay and female participants, a minority among the mostly bishop delegates, had special meetings with Pope Francis on Saturday.
Though the two categories have some crossover, the pope met separately with women — both religious sisters and non-religious sisters — and with non-cleric, non-religious laymen and laywomen in the Apostolic Palace on Oct. 19.
The audiences followed three and a half days of debates on the last part of the 2024 , which finished Friday morning with summaries of small-group discussions due for submission by 12:30 p.m.
On Sunday, Oct. 20, the synod will attend a in St. Peter’s Square. The commission elected to oversee the creation of the final document will also meet.
The first day of the last full week of the Synod on Synodality, Oct. 21, will be mostly dedicated to prayer, including Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and a presentation of the first draft of the final document.
Oct. 22 and 23 will be devoted to small-group discussions and speeches in the full assembly about the final document, as well as the submission of requests for changes.
The text will contain the synod’s ideas, thoughts, and recommendations — the product of the group discernment undertaken over the last couple of weeks and the culmination of a synodal process first begun by Pope Francis in October 2021.
The synod, an advisory body of the Church, will then deliver the final document to the pope, who can either adopt and publish it as an official papal text or use it as a guide for writing his own postsynodal document.
Those tasked with incorporating the requested changes to the final document will work for two days while the rest of synod members have a break Oct. 24–25.
The final draft of the document will be presented to synod delegates on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 26, and then after lunch voted on paragraph by paragraph for inclusion in the final text.
The final document is expected to be published by the Vatican the evening after the vote.
The formal closing of the Synod on Synodality will be a Mass with Pope Francis on Oct. 27 inside St. Peter’s Basilica, where the baldacchino designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini after eight months of restorations.
Analysis: Is the Synod on Synodality’s focus on the local Churches a Trojan horse?
Vatican City, Oct 18, 2024 / 15:15 pm (CNA).
Is there more than meets the eye in the framing of discussions about ecclesiastical governance and the relationship between the local Churches and the universal Church — the main topic of conversation at the Synod on Synodality for the past week?
One gets the impression that many synod participants view the subject as a kind of Trojan horse, a theme that may seem innocuous on the surface but one that can be deployed to sneak sidelined issues such as married priests and women deacons back on the main agenda.
The mere possibility that this is what’s really going on has put those who want to hold the line on the Church’s governance structure and moral teaching on high alert.
The theme in question relates to Part 3 of the synod assembly’s , or working document, which “invites” the people of God “to overcome a static vision of places that orders them by successive levels or degrees according to a pyramidal model (i.e. parish, deanery, diocese, or eparchy; ecclesiastical province; episcopal conference or Eastern hierarchical structure; and universal Church).”
“This has never been our vision,” the document goes on to say. “The network of relationships and the exchange of gifts between the Churches have always been interwoven as a web of relations rather than conceived as linear in form. They are gathered in the bond of unity of which the Roman Pontiff is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation”
As Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg and the synod assembly’s relator general, emphasized during the week: “The Church from the beginning has referred to the city, to the places in which it lived, guided by the bishop in a close relationship with the territory.”
It was in this context that of Manaus, Brazil, said during a daily press briefing that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’” while arguing that Pope Francis “has not closed the question” of the ordination of married men in places like the Amazon. He advocated for the Church to be be open “to listening to cultures and religions” so that the Gospel can be “inculturated.”
What does this mean, exactly? In Steiner’s view, it allows for the possibility that some episcopal conferences might say yes to women deacons and married priests, based on cultural considerations, while others may say no. By that reasoning, even the synodal path of the Church of Germany could make sense, even though Pope Francis has not missed an opportunity to criticize and even to mock it, having made the quip to a German bishop in Belgium: “Is there a Catholic Church in Germany?”
At a pastoral-theological forum on Oct. 16 titled “The Mutual Relationship of the Local Church and the Universal Church,” Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, emphasized that local Churches are not merely parts of a larger structure but embody the true presence of the Church of Christ, achieving unity through diverse local expressions.
Echoing that theme, another forum participant, Miguel de Salis Amaral, a Portuguese priest and theology professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, said the local Churches are formed “in the image” of the universal one. Citing , the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, he emphasized that “the power, the richness of all the sacramental and spiritual gifts” resides “in every local Church.”
Another speaker, Antonio Autiero, a priest of the Diocese of Naples, Italy, and a professor emeritus of moral theology at the University of Münster, highlighted how the experience of the Church is “purely local.” He expressed support for a “ministry of listening” at the local community level, which through their “elements of discernment” could make suggestions to the local Church.
An example of local bodies shaping Church policy highlighted during the form was Australia’s Plenary Council, convened to respond to the country’s sexual abuse crisis. Comprised of 44 bishops and 275 other members, the council is authorized by an indult from the Holy See to dialogue and make decisions.
Meanwhile, within the assembly hall, there was agreement of the need to highlight “the importance of preserving the unity of the Church,” according to Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery of Communications.
How the delegates choose to articulate that consensus in the assembly’s final document at the end of the month, however, remains to be seen.
Cardinal-elect Roberto Repole, archbishop of Turin in Italy, for one, signaled that the document won’t express the views of the majority and the opposition but rather a consensus.
“We are not a parliament; we are searching for the voice of the Spirit also through listening to the voice of our brothers. Here, I see the catholicity of the Church,” he said.
“Synodality is an experience,” he added, “but requires an in-depth analysis of theological questions that cannot remain on the sidelines.”
Why did the Synod on Synodality hold extra theological meetings in 2024?
Vatican City, Oct 18, 2024 / 10:55 am (CNA).
Four different theology conferences, held publicly Oct. 9 and 16 in Rome, explain the “theological undertone of the synodal process,” according to a conference moderator and expert at this month’s Synod on Synodality.
The evening forums gave a platform to 17 handpicked theologians and canonists who spoke for about 10 minutes each on the topics of papal primacy, the people of God, the bishop’s authority, and the relationship between the local Churches and the universal Church — all in the context of how to make the Church more synodal.
One of the few novelties of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, the forums revealed some of the theological underpinnings of synodality — according to the years before Pope Francis launched the three-year synodal process — and the concrete proposals for the future of the Catholic Church.
Klara A. Csiszar, a moderator of two of these forums, an expert at the Synod on Synodality, and a Romanian-Hungarian-Austrian theologian, said at an Oct. 16 briefing for journalists that the conferences “help to better understand the theological undertone of the entire synodality process, especially the theology of the people of God, which is seen as the subject of the mission.”
“This is a fundamental theme that, in my opinion, should be translated into practical application with all its implications,” she continued, adding that “theology helps with this by learning not only to teach, so to speak, but also by listening a lot, sitting in the hall, and trying to understand what is really at stake” during the Oct. 2–27 Vatican assembly.
Other participants agreed that the goal of the forms was to examine some of the issues and concrete proposals being debated inside the Vatican synod hall in a deeper theological way.
Archbishop Roberto Repole of Turin and Susa, Italy, told CNA at a briefing earlier this week that while the forums were a way to make some of the synod debates more open to the public, they were also a good opportunity “to grasp the stakes of some possible changes” to the Catholic Church and to see the journey the Church has made to arrive at synodality since the Second Vatican Council.
“Synodality,” Repole said, “has to do with a way of living together, being Church, of deciding as Christians on the basic issues. But it also asks for some deepening on theological issues that cannot remain on the sidelines of the journey that is being made.”
At the forums, Repole and many of the meetings’ speakers from Vatican II, , in their defenses of synodality, insisting that the theological concept has its roots in the council.
Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, speaking at the same Oct. 15 briefing as Repole, explained the impetus for organizing the theological-pastoral forums.
The Brazilian cardinal said that at the end of the first session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2023, theologians expressed a desire to have a more integral and prominent part in the synodal discussions.
It was important for theologians to “participate more in the synod,” Steiner said. “And in this sense, the synod has identified a new path, a new way to consider what has been proposed.”
“Last year it was said that theology was not granted sufficient attention,” Csiszar said. “The theological and pastoral forums provide an answer and open a space in which theology, on the one hand, is learning to articulate its role in a synodal Church, and on the other, is making a substantial contribution to the development of a new synodal style, a new synodal culture.”
The four topics of the forums, she continued, “help provide orientation where there are blockages, motivate where possibilities are perhaps no longer seen, and address exhaustion when it sets in as well as offer criticism where many responses indicate that a certain path might be the wrong one.”
A group of 15 theological experts is participating in the Synod on Synodality as advisers, but they are not delegates and do not take part in voting during the Oct. 2–27 assembly.
Some of the forums’ panelists were chosen from among these over two dozen theologians and canonists. Others were chosen by synod organizers “mainly from among those who participated in the various phases of the synodal process,” Father Riccardo Battocchio, the synod’s special secretary, told the National Catholic Register in an email interview.
“Some [of the speakers] are members of the theological commission established in 2021, others were added during the preparation of the first and second , others were involved for their specific expertise and experience,” Battocchio explained.
He said the presenters “were asked not to privilege, in their presentation, a particular theological school but to convey, even in the short time available, the scope of the individual questions, the possible different answers offered by Catholic theology, helping the participants in the forums to grasp the different aspects of each theme and to ask questions.”
These are the 14 people who will be canonized saints this weekend
Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 18:10 pm (CNA).
Among the 14 people who will become the Catholic Church’s newest saints on Sunday is a priest whose intercession led to the miraculous healing of a man mauled by a jaguar, a woman who convinced a pope to call for a worldwide novena to the Holy Spirit, and 11 men killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
While not household names, the 14 soon-to-be saints each exemplified heroic virtue and witnessed to holiness within their unique vocations, including two married men — a father of eight and a father of five, respectively — and three founders of religious orders who have generations of spiritual children who have continued their spiritual legacy throughout the world.
Pope Francis invited all Catholics this week to get to “learn about these new saints and ask for their intercession” in anticipation of the canonization in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20.
“They are a clear testimony of the Holy Spirit’s action in the life of the Church,” the pope said.
Known as an Blessed Elena Guerra helped to convince Pope Leo XIII to exhort all Catholics to pray a novena to the Holy Spirit leading up to Pentecost in 1895.
Guerra is the foundress of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, a congregation of religious sisters recognized by the Church in 1882 that continues today in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
A friend of Pope Leo XIII and the teacher of St. Gemma Galgani, is remembered for her and her passionate devotion to the Holy Spirit.
“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”
For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.
During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a , asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.”
Blessed Giuseppe Allamano remained a diocesan priest in Italy his entire life yet left a global legacy by founding two missionary religious orders — the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters — that went on to spread the Gospel in Kenya, Ethiopia, Brazil, Taiwan, Mongolia, and more than two dozen other countries.
Allamano told the priests in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
“As missionaries then, you must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy. All the other gifts are not enough to make a missionary! It takes holiness, great holiness,” he said.
Allamano set the example by “combining the commitment to holiness with attention to the spiritual and social needs of his time,” Pope John Paul II said at his beatification. “He had a deep conviction that ‘the priest is first and foremost a man of charity,’ ‘destined to do the greatest possible good,’ to sanctify others ‘with example and word,’ with holiness and knowledge.”
He was deeply influenced by the spirituality of the Salesians and St. John Bosco, who served as his spiritual director, as well as the witness of his saintly uncle, St. Joseph Cafasso.
Allamano is being canonized after the Vatican recognized a unique medical miracle attributed to his intercession — the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest.
Sorino Yanomami, an Indigenous man who lived in the Amazon rainforest, was mauled by a jaguar in 1996, fracturing his skull. Due to his remote location, it took eight hours before he could be airlifted to a hospital. While he was being treated in the ICU, six Consolata missionary sisters, as well as a Consolata priest and brother, waited with the man’s wife, praying with a relic of Blessed Allamano for his intercession. The sisters also prayed a novena to Allamano asking for the man’s healing, and 10 days after his operation he woke up without any neurological damage and suffered no long-term consequences of the attack, according to the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Fifteen Consolata missionaries are bishops today, mostly in Africa and South America, including Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbataar, Mongolia.
More than 1,000 members of the Consolata orders are traveling to Rome for their founder’s canonization, Father James Lengarin, the order’s superior general, told CNA.
Canadian sister Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family.
Born Virginie Alodie in the Acadian region of Quebec, the blessed founded her institute, whose purpose was to collaborate with and support the religious of Holy Cross in educational work, in 1880 in New Brunswick.
Before founding her religious order, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s before moving to Indiana in 1870 to teach French and needlework at St. Mary’s Academy.
At the request of the bishop of Montreal, Paradis founded the Little Sisters in 1880. An important part of the the is support for priests through both intense and constant prayer, but also through taking care of the cooking at laundry in seminaries and rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant” who .
Today her sisters work in over 200 institutions of education and evangelization in Canada, the United States, Italy, Brazil, Haiti, Chile, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Pope John Paul II called Paradis the “humble among the humble” as he beatified her during his visit to Montreal in 1984, the first beatification to take place on Canadian soil.
“She was not afraid of the different forms of manual work, which are the burden that falls to so many people today, while it was held in honor in the Holy Family, in the very life of Jesus in Nazareth. There she saw the will of God for her life. With the sacrifices inherent in this work, but offered out of love, she knew a profound joy and peace,” John Paul II said.
“She knew she was referring to the fundamental attitude of Christ, ‘who came not to be served, but to serve.’ She was completely pervaded by the greatness of the Eucharist: This is one of the secrets of her spiritual motivations,” he added.
The miracle attributed to Paradis’ intercession involved the healing of a newborn baby girl who suffered from “prolonged perinatal asphyxia with multi-organ failure and encephalopathy” during her birth in 1986 at a hospital in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada, according to the Vatican.
The Church will also gain 11 new martyr saints who were killed for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The were murdered “out of hatred for the faith” in the Franciscan Church of St. Paul in Damascus, Syria, on July 10, 1860.
Eight of the martyrs are Franciscan friars — six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.
The three others are laymen who were also killed in the raid on the Franciscan church that night: Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, who were all brothers from a Maronite Catholic family.
Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.
Their martyrdom took place during the persecution of Christians by Muslims and Shia Druze in Lebanon to Syria in 1860, which resulted in thousands of victims.
Late at night extremists entered the Franciscan convent, located in the Christian quarter of Bab-Touma (St. Paul) in the Old City of Damascus, and massacred the friars: Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández.
, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, provided an account of the martyrdom of the three Massabki brothers who were also in the church that night: The assailants told Francis Massabki that his life and the lives of his brothers would be spared on the condition that he denied his Christian faith and embraced Islam, to which Francis replied: “We are Christians, and in the faith of Christ, we will die. As Christians, we do not fear those who kill the body, as the Lord Jesus said.”
He then looked at his two brothers and said: “Be courageous and stand firm in the faith, for the crown of victory is prepared in heaven for those who endure to the end.” Immediately, they proclaimed their faith in Christ with these words: “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians.”
Upon refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam, the 11 martyrs of Damascus were brutally killed, some beheaded with sabers and axes, others stabbed or clubbed to death.
Every year on July 10, the liturgical calendar of the Custody of the Holy Land commemorates these martyrs. In the Syrian capital, the Latin and Maronite communities often celebrate this day together.
Cardinal Bo: Bishops worldwide should implement ‘diocesan synods’ in home countries
Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).
The head of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), Cardinal Charles Bo of the Archdiocese of Yangon, Myanmar, said diocesan synods are an effective means to “build a vision and mission” for local Churches.
The high-ranking prelate from Myanmar told journalists on Thursday that synodality on a diocesan level is not a new concept for the Catholic Church.
“When I was made a bishop in 1990, one thing that attracted me in canon law is that about the diocesan synod,” Bo stated at a Vatican press briefing.
“All these years as a bishop — I have been in seven dioceses — I have conducted diocesan synods four times: in ‘92, ‘96, 2004, and 2014.”
Speaking from more than two decades of experience with diocesan synods, the 75-year-old cardinal said collecting feedback “from the farmers, from the villages, from parishes, and from workers, religious, and prisoners” has proven to be a worthwhile process.
According to Bo, the reports generated from synodal consultations with Catholic faithful in dioceses have provided solid foundations for the growth of local Churches in his home country of Myanmar.
The Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar is one of 22 active members of the FABC led by Bo. Earlier this year, the FABC held its synodality workshop — which was attended by 38 delegates from local Churches spread across 17 countries — in Bangkok, Thailand, from Aug. 5–8.
During the regional meeting, the need for unity and harmony were identified as key for the growth of the Catholic Church in a largely non-Christian region.
In spite of the challenges the Church faces in Asia, including the region’s geographical vastness and “deep-rooted cultures and traditions” that are resistant to change or view Christianity as foreign, Bo believes this month’s global synodal talks will be a “valuable opportunity” to bring “renewal” in local parishes.
The FABC aims to play a critical role in “guiding the Church in Asia toward a synodal mission” by placing greater attention on the participation of women, youth engagement, the poor and marginalized, and migrants at the parish level.
“It [FABC] serves as a platform for collaboration among local Churches and promotes shared pastoral priorities,” Bo said on Thursday.
“The [synodal] process has brought renewed energy and hope for the future, and the Church in Asia is committed to building a Church that includes everyone and listens to everyone,” he added.
With the final global session of the Synod on Synodality coming to a close on Oct. 27, Bo hopes the 272 bishops participating in this year’s discussions will open diocesan synods in their own dioceses.
“I wish also to encourage all bishops and all the dioceses that — based on the fruits that we gather in this Synod on Synodality — we don’t start and stop with this meeting [in the Vatican] but is a continuous effort that we try in all Churches,” Bo said during the Oct. 17 press briefing.
Cardinal from Amazon: ‘Many of our women are true deaconesses’
Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 11:55 am (CNA).
Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, the archbishop of Manaus in Brazil who is participating in the Synod on Synodality, said during a daily press briefing at the synod on Tuesday that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’” and pointed out that Pope Francis “has not closed the question” of the ordination of married men.
The cardinal is known for being a defender of the poor, Indigenous people and is also considered “.” In the past he has stated that “” to end mandatory priestly celibacy.
At the 2019 Synod on the Amazon, the Brazilian cardinal also emerged as a staunch defender of the ordination of married men, an issue on which Pope Francis has not given a definitive word, according to what the prelate said Oct. 15.
During the briefing held at the Holy See Press Office, the 74-year-old cardinal said that during that day’s session, corresponding to the third module of the (working document), the participants of the synod reflected on “the places of the Church.”
The cardinal also commented that the Church must be open “to listening to cultures and religions” so that the Gospel can be “inculturated.”
In Manaus there are nearly 2.3 million people, of which 71,713 (3%) are Indigenous. In total there are 753,357 Indigenous people in the whole Amazon, according to official data from Brazil.
Taking these figures as an example to highlight the cultural differences between the West and the inhabitants of his diocese, the cardinal said that despite the fact that for “more than a hundred years there has been no priests” in the communities, they have organized themselves and continued to pray “with different ways of praying.”
Steiner emphasized that “women participate a lot” and that they are in turn “leaders of our communities.”
The Brazilian cardinal emphasized that he wishes “that some more distant communities could celebrate some sacraments, for example baptism, without the presence of a priest.”
He continued by saying that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’ without this being official.” He also stressed that they would like to call them “deaconesses,” since they are “for all purposes,” although he preferred not to use this term “so as not to create confusion with the ordained ministry.”
For the cardinal, “unfortunately we do not have an adequate word” for their role, but “what they do and their responsibility within our Church is admirable.”
“There are many women who lead the community, who make the word of God known, who gather the community in a moment of prayer and who are active, for example, in prison ministry, in catechesis, in Caritas activities. They are the ones who carry out this activity, they are active alongside street people, they are the ones who represent our Church in many places,” he said.
Steiner emphasized his position in favor of the ordination of women to the diaconate and pointed out the existence of a that is “charged with studying this issue.”
“Why not restore the ordained female diaconate? We have already had a Church like this, with this face,” he said, referring to deacons.
“The permanent diaconate for men can go forward with that of women. I think we must reflect a lot on these questions, we must go deeper and we must remember the essential and fundamental role of women in the Church.”
He also stated that “the door should not be opened to a question of gender” but rather that it is “a question of vocations in the Church. The vocation of women within the Church and within our community.”
Responding to one of the journalists present at the press conference, the cardinal pointed out that the Synod on the Amazon “opened the possibility” of holding the Synod on Synodality.
Regarding this “process,” he commented that “a path has been opened from which there is no turning back” since “there is no point of return.”
“It is essential that we all enter into the interior of a movement that is the Church” and to feel the responsibility of the mission through baptism and the grace of God, he said.
Asked about the ordination of married men, an issue that has “disappeared” from the study groups of this second and last session, the cardinal emphasized that after the Synod on the Amazon “there was disappointment on this subject.”
He nevertheless emphasized that “the Holy Father has not closed the issue” and assured that “in some circumstances it would not be a difficulty.”
He also expressed his hope that Pope Francis “has the capacity to move forward” while indicating that he has not wanted to do so yet due to “his great sensitivity.”
Steiner reiterated that “we must continue to talk” about this issue and that “we must go deeper into the ministerial role,” since “sufficient steps” have not yet been taken.
“In some cultures celibacy is a great difficulty. That’s what I feel,” he explained.
Speaking last Saturday at Fátima, Steiner said he “lays hands” on all those women who exercise the ministry of baptism or other sacraments.
“These are very tense issues in the Church. We must not stop discussing and reflecting. And if at some time we come to the conclusion that in the past there was a female diaconate, why not reintroduce it as the permanent diaconate was reintroduced?” the cardinal reiterated.
Vatican Museums unveils ‘iconic statue’ Apollo Belvedere after years of restoration work
Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
The Vatican Museums this week unveiled one of its most celebrated acquisitions, the “Apollo Belvedere,” after years of intensive restoration work by Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums (PAVM) on the ancient marble statue.
Following the discovery of the statue in Rome in 1489, Pope Julius II requested the Apollo Belvedere to be brought to the Vatican in the early 16th century to be part of a papal collection known as the Courtyard of Statues in Belvedere, which highlighted the mythical origins of ancient Rome.
Monsignor Terence Hogan, PAVM coordinator and a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, said the restoration of Apollo Belvedere is “significant because it gives us an insight into the early history of Rome” before the rise of Christianity.
“It gives us an insight into culture and also faith and history,” Hogan said in an interview with EWTN News. “We [the Vatican Museums] are the oldest museum in the world and so people from all around the world now can appreciate the faith, the art, the history, the culture of so many centuries.”
The restoration of Apollo Belvedere, directed by the Vatican Museums’ Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, faced several challenges before its official unveiling on Oct. 15, including the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, which delayed the project.
“We closed on Christmas Eve 2019; however the actual work on the sculpture — between the research project and the actual study and restoration — has been just over two years,” said Claudia Valeri, curator of the Greek and Roman antiquities department.
“The preciousness of this sculpture is infinite because it is an iconic statue among classical sculptures,” she added.
According to Valeri, a significant archaeological discovery in northern Naples in the 1950s recovered the original plaster casts of the missing left hand of the Apollo Belvedere.
The cast was used by the Vatican’s restoration teams to create the marble copy of the hand now seen on the newly unveiled statue.
Valeri also said further study analysis of the statue of the ancient Roman god indicates that the all-white marble statue once had golden hair.
“Analysis detected traces of gold. We imagine that Apollo’s hair was golden, and by the way the Greek poets describe him to us as ‘radiant Apollo,’” Valeri told EWTN News.
Almost 500 years have passed since the last restorative works were carried out by Italian sculptor and architect Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli between 1532 and 1533.
Dutch cardinal advocates Christ-centered reform over controversial issues
Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 12:20 pm (CNA).
A Dutch cardinal has cautioned against misguided reform efforts within the Catholic Church, warning that regional solutions to contentious issues could undermine the Church’s credibility.
Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk,, emphasized the importance of maintaining unity with the universal Church.
“We must walk a common path and not deviate from the world Church,” he said, reflecting Pope Francis’ 2019.
“If unity in proclamation is lost, the Church loses its credibility,” Eijk told the magazine.
Offering a sobering perspective from a heavily secularized nation, the Dutch prelate drew parallels between the current Synod on Synodality in Rome and the Dutch Pastoral Council of the late 1960s in an with the German-language magazine Communio.
The 71-year-old archbishop warned that regional solutions to contentious issues could undermine the Church’s credibility.
“If unity in proclamation is lost, the Church loses its credibility,” he asserted, highlighting the Netherlands’ negative experience with ambiguity over the past 50 years.
He added: “People had the impression that the Church itself didn’t really know where it stood.”
Reflecting on the ongoing Synod on Synodality, Eijk said controversial topics, such as gender and women’s ordination, have gained less traction than some anticipated.
“The votes at last year’s assembly showed that the majority of participants were not enthusiastic about topics like gender or women’s ordination,” he remarked.
The Dutch prelate also challenged the idea that addressing a “reform backlog” would bring people back to the Church.
“You can learn from the Church in the Netherlands that this is a mistake,” Eijk stated. “Those who create confusion alienate people from the Church. You won’t bring anyone back this way.”
Instead, Eijk advocated for a Christ-centered approach and sound catechesis.
“In parishes where the faith is well proclaimed and the liturgy is celebrated with dignity, the churches are full,” he observed. “It’s about putting Christ at the center.”
Eijk also addressed lay participation in Church decision-making, recognizing its importance but acknowledging limits.
“Of course, people are involved in decisions,” he said, citing examples of parish-level input. However, he cautioned that this approach “doesn’t always work,” particularly with major structural changes.
Earlier, an influential canon lawyer speaking at an official Synod on Synodality event argued that the Catholic Church should be that are balanced according to gender, among other factors, and empowered to make decisions, not merely recommendations.
Australian archbishop: Synod on Synodality cannot ‘reinvent the Catholic faith’
Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 10:20 am (CNA).
We cannot “reinvent the Catholic faith” or “teach a different Catholicism in different countries,” Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, of Sydney and a delegate at the Synod on Synodality said in an interview this week.
As the synodal assembly debates part 3 of the on “places,” the bishops and laypeople are considering questions such as the future of synodality and the role and authority of national bishops’ conferences, the archbishop told “EWTN News Nightly” on Oct. 15 in an interview to be broadcast Friday.
Should bishops’ conferences “have the authority to teach a different Catholicism in different countries or to decide a different liturgy in different countries or different Mass for different countries? Do they bring their own local culture to questions in the area of morals, for instance?” Fisher told “EWTN News Nightly” Associate Producer Bénédicte Cedergren.
“Could we, for instance, envision a Church where you have ordination of women in some countries but not in other countries, or you have same-sex marriages in some countries but not in other countries, or you have an Arian Christology in some countries and a Nicene Christology in others?” he continued. “You might guess, I think no.”
The Dominican archbishop leads one of Australia’s largest archdioceses by number of Catholics. Sydney serves around 590,000 Catholics and has a population of nearly 5.3 million people.
As one of 15 bishops on the ordinary council of the Synod of Bishops for the Synod on Synodality, Fisher attended the first session of the synodal assembly in October 2023 and is back in Rome this month for the second session.
After three years of consultations at the local and universal level, at the end of this month the Catholic Church will conclude a process of discernment about how to become more synodal and more missionary.
Fisher told “EWTN News Nightly” he is “very concerned” that Catholics “hold on to the deposit of faith, the apostolic tradition, that we don’t imagine, in the vanity of our age, that we are going to reinvent the Catholic faith or the Catholic Church.”
“In fact, this is a tremendous treasure that we’ve received from generation after generation before us, all the way back to Our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. And we are here to transmit that faithfully to the next generations after us,” he said.
The archbishop acknowledged that our understanding of the deposit of faith has developed over time and will continue to develop, and added that he thinks it is an exciting feature of the Church that “we’ve managed to have a great variety of cultures and different ways of praying and different ways of evangelizing, and yet we hold together as one in Christ.”
“But it is the one faith, and it’s important to me, coming from the peripheries of the Church in Australia, about as far away as you can be from Rome in the world,” he said, that “it’s the one Church, it’s the one faith and we want to keep celebrating that even amidst our cultural diversity.”
Fisher said one of the important questions the synod is debating this week is what is “the scope and what are the limits of the local and the cultural” in the universal Catholic Church.
The Synod on Synodality is discussing the third and final part of the , or working document, Oct. 15–18. The last week of the gathering, which ends Oct. 27, will be dedicated to drafting and revising the final document.
In paragraph 91 of the third part, the document notes that there are structures such as parish councils, deaneries, and dioceses already regulated in canon law that “could prove to be even more suitable for giving a synodal approach a concrete form.”
“These councils can become subjects of ecclesial discernment and synodal decision-making …,” . “Therefore, this is one of the most promising areas on which to act for a swift implementation of the synodal proposals and orientations, leading to changes with an effective and rapid impact.”
A little further in the same part of the working document, : “Episcopal conferences are fundamental instruments for creating links and sharing experiences between the Churches and for decentralizing governance and pastoral planning.”
“From all that has been gathered so far during this synodal process, the following proposals emerge: (a) recognition of episcopal conferences as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority, assuming sociocultural diversity within the framework of a multifaceted Church and favoring the appreciation of liturgical, disciplinary, theological, and spiritual expressions appropriate to different sociocultural contexts,” the text says .
In the context of these ideas, Fisher said he thinks “we need to have the same faith, the same morals, the same Church order, and essentially the same liturgy.”
“But we do make space for the different ritual traditions in the Church and for different cultural adaptations and for different ways of evangelizing in different places,” he added.
The archbishop noted that in his Archdiocese of Sydney, for example, they have many different Catholic ritual traditions, such as the Maronites, Melkites, Chaldeans, Ukrainians, and Syro-Malabars.
“We know they bring different spiritualities ... a different Mass and different prayer forms, but also often a different understanding of synodality, of the roles of bishops, of the way you choose bishops, they have different canon law and a different Church order while still being part of the one Catholic Church,” he underlined.
“And it is part of the excitement of the Church, I think, that you can go to a Maronite Mass and it’s very different, and yet you also know it’s the same thing: It’s the Lord coming to us under the elements of bread and wine, but he’s really present, his humanity and divinity, for us.”
Pope Francis hopes for ‘reconciled differences’ with Orthodox and Protestant Christians
Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).
Pope Francis expressed hope for “reconciled differences” between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians during his Wednesday general audience, reflecting on the centuries-old “Filioque” dispute that has divided Western and Eastern Christians.
In his on the Holy Spirit on Oct. 16, Pope Francis reflected on the words of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Adopted in its earliest form at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the is recited by Catholics during Sunday Mass.
Pope Francis noted that the later addition of the “Filioque,” Latin for “and from the Son” in the creed, sparked a dispute that “has been the reason, or pretext, for so many arguments and divisions between the Church of the East and the Church of the West.”
The pope added, however, that “the climate of dialogue between the two Churches has lost the acrimony of the past and today allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance, as one of the main ‘reconciled differences.’”
Francis underscored the importance of moving beyond past disputes, calling for unity and reconciliation among Christians despite their differences. “I like to say this: ‘Reconciled differences,’” the pope said.
“Among Christians, there are many differences: He follows this school, that one another; this person is a Protestant, that person … The important thing is that these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis’ comments come as his designated peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi wraps up where he met Tuesday with a top-ranking member of the Russian Orthodox Church, , the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
More than a dozen Orthodox and Protestant leaders are also in Rome this month as “fraternal delegates” in the , including representatives of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all of Africa, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Mennonite Conference.
Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit is “life-giving” and said that this truth can unite Christians today. “Having overcome this obstacle, today we can value the most important prerogative for us that is proclaimed in the article of the Creed, namely that the Holy Spirit is ‘life-giving,’ the ‘giver of life,’” he said.
In his reflection, the pope described how in the Genesis creation account, God’s breath gave life to Adam, turning a clay figure into a “living being.”
“Now, in the new creation, the Holy Spirit is the one who gives believers new life, the life of Christ, a supernatural life, as children of God,” Francis explained. He quoted the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:2: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.”
Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit grants eternal life, which is a source of great hope.
“Where is the great and consoling news for us in all this? It is that the life given to us by the Holy Spirit is eternal life,” the pope said.
“Faith frees us from the horror of having to admit that everything ends here, that there is no redemption for the suffering and injustice that reign sovereign on earth.” Citing Romans 8:11, he added: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
“Let us cultivate this faith also for those who, often through no fault of their own, lack it and struggle to find meaning in life. And let us not forget to thank him who, through his death, has obtained this priceless gift for us,” the pope added.
Pope Francis offered greetings to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square from England, France, Brazil, Poland, Denmark, Norway, South Africa, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, and the United States.
At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis appealed once again for peace in the world, urging people not to forget to pray for countries at war.
“Let us not forget war-torn Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar,” he said. “Brothers and sisters, let us remember that war is always, always, a defeat. Let us not forget this, and let us pray for peace and work for peace.”
The pope also offered advice to a group of young people in the crowd who recently received the sacrament of confirmation.
“Dear young people, open your hearts to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit to be courageous witnesses of the Gospel,” he said.
‘Synodality Tent’: a place to reflect on the presence of Latin America in the Church
Vatican City, Oct 15, 2024 / 11:22 am (CNA).
“The Synodality Tent” is the title of an initiative promoted by the Amerindia Network and the , whose objective is to reflect on the presence of Latin America in the Catholic Church as well as to continue promoting the synodal process.
This place for encounter and dialogue, which also aims to offer an experience of faith, opened in Rome in the context of the second session of the Synod on Synodality.
Until Oct. 23, faithful visiting the Eternal City and members of the synod are invited to visit this “tent” where cultural events, panels, discussions, art exhibitions, and presentations of new books, among other activities, will take place.
According to the observatory, different themes will be addressed from a synodal viewpoint, such as the Hispanic world, people of African descent, popular movements, politics, or the laity.
At the site’s opening, Elisabeth Román, president of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry, reflected on the Hispanic Church in the United States, which constitutes approximately 40% of the Catholic population in the country.
She also noted the decline in the number of young Latino Catholics born in the United States, the relative lack of Latino representation in Catholic leadership, and pointed out the need for their integration into parish life.
According to (news sgency of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops’ Council), Román also said there are currently approximately 3,200 Latino priests in the United States, accounting for 9% of the country’s clergy.
With the support of the General Secretariat of the Synod on Synodality, two opportunities for dialogue are also planned. Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Sister Gloria Liliana Franco, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women (CLAR by its Spanish acronym), will present the topic “From the Pan-Amazonian Synod to the Synod on Synodality.”
In addition, there will also be an occasion for dialogue to “discern in the Spirit and in daily life” in which Mauricio López, director of the Amazon University Program, and Sister Daniela Cannavina, secretary general of CLAR, will participate.
The events can be followed in person at the Collegio Internazionale Sant’ Alberto dei Camelitani (on Sforza Pallavicini Street), or through the social media of Amerindia and the Latin American Observatory of Synodality. The complete program can be viewed .
Cardinal Zuppi returns to Moscow as Vatican peace envoy
Vatican City, Oct 14, 2024 / 11:45 am (CNA).
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi returned to Moscow on Monday to meet with Russian authorities as part of the peace mission entrusted to him by Pope Francis.
The cardinal’s trip to Moscow is to “evaluate further efforts to promote family reunification of Ukrainian children and the exchange of prisoners, with a view to achieving the much-hoped-for peace,” according to the Vatican.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed on Oct. 14 that the Italian cardinal began a visit to Moscow on Monday after of Zuppi shaking hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Pope Francis asked Zuppi to serve as a papal envoy to “initiate paths of peace” between Russia and Ukraine in May 2023.
The cardinal’s visit to Moscow comes days after Pope Francis met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a 35-minute private audience at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on Friday — their third such meeting since the start of the Ukraine war.
It is Zuppi’s second trip to Moscow since the war in Ukraine began. Zuppi also visited the Russian capital for 48 hours in June 2023 in which he discussed humanitarian initiatives with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill as well as government officials, including Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin.
During his previous trip to Moscow, the cardinal also met with Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights. Vatican News reported that the focus of Zuppi’s meeting with Lvova-Belova was “the issue of the over 19,000 Ukrainian minors forcibly taken to Russia,” something for which Zelenskyy has asked the Holy See’s help.
The Vatican-owned news outlet noted that “thanks to the channel opened by Zuppi, a certain number of Ukrainian children brought to Russia by the occupation forces were able to return home.”
While serving as Pope Francis’ peace envoy, Zuppi has made several other diplomatic visits across the world to promote peace between Russia and Ukraine, including stops in , and
Zuppi has strong ties to Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay association that has been Zuppi’s mission , however, the Vatican has said.
Russia and the Holy See in 2010 after maintaining limited diplomatic relations since 1990.
The day after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Pope Francis met with outgoing Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Avdeyev when the pope on Feb. 25, 2022. The Vatican said the pope went to the embassy “to show his concern for the war.”
Later, in September 2022, Pope Francis which involved calling Avdeyev “to see if something could be done, if an exchange of prisoners could be speeded up.”
Pope Francis has condemned the war and called for peace in Ukraine on numerous occasions but has also occasionally for the way he has expressed himself. The Vatican in August 2023 that the pope did not intend to exalt Russian imperialism while speaking off the cuff during a live video conference with Russian youth.
The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Tatiana Moskalkova via video call on Sept. 16 in which he thanked the Russian ombudsman for her role in the release of two Ukrainian priests, discussed prisoner swaps, and underlined the need to safeguard “the fundamental human rights enshrined in the International Conventions.”
At the end of his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Francis entrusted Ukraine to the intercession of Our Lady of Fátima and
“I appeal for the Ukrainians not to be left to freeze to death; stop the airstrikes against the civilian population, always the most affected. Stop the killing of innocent people!” Francis said Oct. 13.
Pope Francis: ‘True wealth is being loved by God’
Vatican City, Oct 13, 2024 / 11:12 am (CNA).
Happiness is not found in material things but in God himself, who shows us the joy found in making our lives a gift for others, Pope Francis said in his Sunday Angelus address.
“Let us remember this: True wealth is not the goods of this world. True wealth is being loved by God and learning to love like him,” Francis Oct. 13.
Speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace, the pope reflected on how many people “carry in [their] hearts an irrepressible need for happiness and for a life full of meaning.”
“However,” he added, “we can fall into the illusion of thinking that the answer is found in the possession of material things and earthly securities.”
“Jesus wants to bring us back to the truth of our desires and to make us discover that, in reality, the goodness we yearn for is God himself, his love for us and the eternal life that he and he alone can give us.”
The pope offered this reflection in response to the from Chapter 10 of the , which will be read aloud in every Roman Catholic church around the world at Mass this Sunday.
The Gospel tells the story of a rich man who knelt before Jesus and asked him: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Pope Francis noted that although this man “has many riches, he is dissatisfied. He feels restlessness inside. He is searching for a fuller life.”
“As the sick and the possessed often do, [the rich man] throws himself at the Master’s feet; he is rich yet in need of healing,” the pope said. “Jesus looks at him with love and then proposes a ‘therapy’ — sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and follow him.” The Gospel recounts that the rich man went away sad because he had many possessions.
Jesus was trying to help the man realize that “true wealth is being looked at with love by the Lord — this is great wealth,” Pope Francis explained.
“And loving each other by making our lives a gift for others,” he added.
“Selling everything to give it to the poor means stripping ourselves of … our false securities, paying attention to those in need and sharing our possessions — not just things, but what we are — our talents, our friendship, our time, and so on,” he said.
Pope Francis encouraged people to pray for the intercession of the Virgin Mary “to help us discover the treasure of life in Jesus.”
After praying the in Latin and offering his blessing to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope renewed his call for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East, urging all parties to halt violence and seek peace through dialogue.
“I am close to all the populations involved, in Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon, where I ask that the United Nations peacekeeping forces be respected,” he said.
The pope offered prayers for victims of the conflict, displaced persons, and the hostages, calling for their swift release. He condemned the cycle of hatred and revenge fueling the violence, describing war as “an illusion” and “a defeat for everyone, especially for those who believe they are invincible.”
“Stop, please!” he urged, emphasizing that war will “never bring peace” nor “security.”
Pope Francis broadened his appeal to include other regions facing violence, including Ukraine, where he called for an end to air attacks on civilians and the protection of those most vulnerable as the weather turns cold, “so that the Ukrainians are not left to freeze to death.”
He also spoke about the escalating violence in Haiti, where citizens are fleeing their homes due to gang violence, and he urged the international community to support peace and reconciliation efforts in the country.
“Let us never forget our Haitian brothers and sisters,” the pope said, praying for an end to violence and a defense of the dignity and rights of all.
The pope also highlighted a global prayer initiative scheduled for Oct. 18, organized by the Aid to the Church in Need foundation, which asksfor peace.
Noting that this Sunday marks the anniversary of the last apparition of Our Lady of Fátima, Pope Francis entrusted to the intercession of the Virgin Mary “tormented Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, and the other populations suffering from the war and every form of violence and misery.”