Reports: Cdl Müller out at the CDF [UPDATED]

The opening Mass of the Synod on Synodality in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 4, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 4, 2023 / 04:15 am (CNA).

Pope Francis opened the Synod on Synodality’s three-week assembly on Wednesday with a call to remember that the Church exists to bring Jesus to the world and should face today’s challenges with a gaze fixed on God rather than “political calculations or ideological battles.”

Speaking in St. Peter’s Square for the synod’s opening Mass on Oct. 4, Pope Francis underlined that “the primary task of the synod” is to “refocus our gaze on God, to be a Church that looks mercifully at humanity.”

“We do not want to make ourselves attractive in the eyes of the world, but to reach out to it with the consolation of the Gospel, to bear witness to God’s infinite love in a better way and to everyone,” he said.

The pope presided over Mass on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, concelebrated by nearly 500 priests, bishops, and cardinals, including 20 of the Catholic Church’s newest cardinals.

Recalling the Lord’s words to St. Francis, “Go, rebuild my Church,” Pope Francis said that the synod serves as a reminder that “our Mother the Church is always in need of purification, of being ‘repaired,’ for we are a people made up of forgiven sinners … always in need of returning to the source that is Jesus and putting ourselves back on the paths of the Spirit to reach everyone with his Gospel.”

Pope Francis highlighted a question raised by Benedict XVI at the 2012 Synod of Bishops as the “fundamental question” facing the synod: “‘The question for us is this: God has spoken, he has truly broken the great silence, he has shown himself, but how can we communicate this reality to the people of today, so that it becomes salvation?’”

Francis repeated that the synod is not “a political gathering” or a “polarized parliament,” but “a place of grace and communion.”

“Dear brother cardinals, brother bishops, sisters and brothers, we are at the opening of the General Assembly of the Synod. Here we do not need a purely natural vision, made up of human strategies, political calculations, or ideological battles. We are not here to carry out a parliamentary meeting or a plan of reformation. No. We are here to walk together with the gaze of Jesus, who blesses the Father and welcomes those who are weary and oppressed,” he said.

The 9 a.m. Mass began under bright sunshine and a soft breeze with a procession through St. Peter’s Square of the delegates in the XVI Ordinary Synod of Bishops, which for the first time includes laymen and women as full voting members.

The synod delegates will meet in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall Oct. 4-29 to advise the pope on the theme: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.” The three-week assembly is the first of the two-part Synod on Synodality that will conclude in 2024.

The Vatican choir led the crowd in the solemn “Laudes Regiæ” hymn, singing “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands” in Latin with the “Litany of the Saints.”

The Prayer of the Faithful included a prayer that the Lord will “grant those participating in the work of the synod hearts open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a readiness to listen to their brothers and sisters, and concern for the needs of the Church in today’s world.”

In his homily, Pope Francis outlined his vision for a synodal Church, saying Jesus wants “a Church that is united and fraternal … that listens and dialogues … that blesses and encourages, that helps those who seek the Lord, that lovingly stirs up the indifferent, that opens paths in order to draw people into the beauty of faith … that has God at its center and, therefore, is not divided internally and is never harsh externally.”

He urged people to imitate St. Francis, who lived at a time of “great struggles and divisions … between the institutional Church and heretical currents,” but did not criticize or “lash out” at anyone, choosing instead to take up “only the weapons of the Gospel, which are humility and unity, prayer and charity.”

The pope warned of three dangerous temptations facing the Church today: “of being a rigid Church … which arms itself against the world and looks backwards, of being a lukewarm Church, which surrenders to the fashions of the world, and of being a tired Church, turned in on itself.”

“Jesus’ blessing gaze invites us to be a Church that does not face today’s challenges and problems with a divisive and contentious spirit but, on the contrary, turns its eyes to God who is communion and, with awe and humility, blesses and adores him, recognizing him as its only Lord. We belong to him and – let us remember – we exist only to bring Him to the world,” Pope Francis said.

Following the Mass, the synod delegates will take part in the First General Congregation of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, where Pope Francis, Cardinal Mario Grech, and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich will give opening speeches.

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Vatican City, Oct 23, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- The Pontifical Swiss Guard announced Friday that two more of its members have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

The world’s smallest but oldest standing army said in a statement Oct. 23 that… […]

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2021 / 02:00 am (CNA).- Mario Draghi, an economist and retired banker, was sworn in as prime minister of Italy on Saturday, after the previous government coalition collapsed when a party pulled its support for then prime minister Giuseppe Conte.

As President Sergio Mattarella’s pick to form a new government, Draghi was an unexpected choice. But he was able to win enough support to form a new coalition, appointing a mix of technocrats and politicians to his cabinet. 

Many in Italy hope that the 73-year-old Draghi, president of the European Central Bank from 2011 to 2019, can save the country’s faltering economy. He is credited with saving the failing euro during the eurozone crisis, earning him the nickname “Super Mario.”

Pope Francis signaled his approval for the economist in July 2020, when he named him as one of 26 ordinary academicians of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which promotes the study of economic and political sciences to aid the development of the Church’s social doctrine.

But Draghi, who has had private audiences and phone calls with Pope Francis, has been seen with favor from inside the Vatican for much longer.

The former banker, who described himself in 2015 as a “liberal socialist,” was featured in a November 2019 article in the Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, which is approved by the Secretariat of State and the Holy See before publication.

The article had high praise for Draghi, saying that he “emerges as a policymaker of the highest stature: to gratitude is added the hope that his way of proceeding without rhetoric, with in-depth analysis and vision, will be adopted in broader areas of both European and Italian politics.”

Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., La Civiltà Cattolica’s editor-in-chief, told the Italian news agency AdnKronos in early February, before Draghi was confirmed as prime minister, that “the figure of Draghi was the protagonist of one of the most complex phases in the recent history of Europe.”

Spadaro, seen to be close to Pope Francis, said that while a technocratic government was not ideal for Italy, it “could be a parenthesis intended as a moment of reflection” for the country before it returns to a political government. 

Draghi’s connections to the Jesuits begin from childhood. He attended a Jesuit-run school in Rome, the Massimiliano Massimo Institute, from fourth grade through the third year of high school, an experience for which he has expressed “profound gratitude.” 

In a 2010 interview with Vatican Radio, he recalled “the dedication of the Jesuit fathers” and the moral standards that the school imparted.

“A message that expressed that things had to be done to the best of one’s ability, that honesty was important, but above all that we were all special in some way. Not so much because we went to Massimo but because [we were] special as human persons,” he said.

While serving as president of the Bank of Italy in 2009, Draghi wrote an op-ed for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, in which he commented on Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”

The economic crisis “confirms the need for a relationship between ethics and economics,” Draghi noted in the more than 1,000-word article. “Every economic decision has moral consequences. This is even more true in the era of globalization…” 

“According to the Church’s social doctrine, if the autonomy of economic discipline implies indifference to ethics, man is pushed to abuse the economic instrument,” he said. “If it is no longer a means for achieving the ultimate goal — the common good — profit risks generating poverty.”

The economist was also a featured speaker at the August 2020 Rimini Meeting, an annual gathering in Italy organized by the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation.

In 2019, he was given an honorary degree from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

At the awarding ceremony, university rector Franco Anelli called Draghi “the protagonist of an economy ‘in action,’ not just ‘in the books.’”

And in his own speech, Draghi told students of the university that he hoped they would “put their skills to public service.”

“There will be mistakes and retreats because the world is complex,” he said. “However, I hope that you will be comforted by the fact that in history, decisions based on knowledge, courage, and humility have always shown their quality.”

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