Vatican City, Dec 4, 2017 / 05:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday the Vatican announced Pope Francis' appointment of Oratorian Fr. Mario Alberto Aviles as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville.
He joins Bishop Daniel E. Flores, who has served as the sixth bishop of Brownsville since February 2010.
Aviles, who has served as Procurator General of the Confederation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri since 2012, has also been appointed the titular bishop of the See of Cataquas in modern-day Algeria.
The Oratory of St. Philip Neri is a pontifical society of apostolic life made up of Catholic priests and lay-brothers. There are 86 congregations around the world, including several in the United States.
The Procurator General acts as the representative of the congregations to the Holy See, usually residing in Rome.
Aviles, 48, was born in Mexico City on Sept. 16, 1969. In 1986 he entered the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Mexico City, two years later moving to the Pharr Oratory in the Diocese of Brownsville.
He first attended the Catholic Panamerican University in Mexico City, then transferred to Rome to study philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum University.
He received a master's of divinity at the Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn. in 2000. He also has a master's degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Phoenix.
On July 21, 1998 he was ordained a priest for the Confederation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
From his ordination he was Parochial Vicar of the parish of St. Jude Thaddeus in Pharr, Texas until 2002, he then served as parish priest of Sacred Heart parish in Hidalgo.
He was Dean of the Oratory Academy and Oratory Athenaeum in Pharr from 2005-2012 and a member of the Diocesan Pastoral Council at Brownsville since 2011.
He has been Procurator General of the Confederation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri since 2012 and speaks Spanish, English and Italian.
The Diocese of Brownsville, formed in 1965, encompasses the counties of Willacy, Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr at the southern border of Texas. Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr also border the Rio Grande River, which divides the Diocese of Brownsville from the dioceses of Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo in Mexico.
The diocese is 4,226 square miles in area with a population of approximately 978,369 inhabitants, of which 831,613 are Catholic.
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Pope Francis takes a figure of the Christ child in his arms at the end of the Vatican’s Mass for the Nativity of the Lord on Dec. 24, 2023. / Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Dec 24, 2023 / 16:31 pm (CNA).
In his Christmas homily, Pope Francis shared a message for anyone who may be feeling sad or discouraged with a reminder that the Lord was born to save the world and to give us a hope that is greater than all of our problems.
“Dear brother, dear sister, to God who changed history … you are not a number but a face. Your name is written on his heart,” Pope Francis said on Dec. 24.
“Leave behind the prison of your sorrows and embrace the tender love of the God who became a child. … Cast your cares on him and he will care for you (cf. Ps 55:22). He became flesh; he is not looking for your achievements, but for your open and trusting heart. In Him, you will rediscover who you truly are: a beloved son or daughter of God.”
Pope Francis presided over Mass for the Nativity of the Lord in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve
The Mass began with a cantor chanting the traditional Kalenda Proclamation of the Birth of Christ from the Roman Martyrology. Children from Mexico, India, South Korea, the Ivory Coast, and Italy then placed flowers before a figure of the Christ child enthroned in front of the altar.
Children place flowers before a figure of the Christ child enthroned in front of the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatican Media
“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” Pope Francis said, calling to mind the war in the Holy Land and the ongoing violence in the place of Jesus’ birth.
The pope underlined that God “revolutionizes history by becoming a part of history.” The Lord “does not eliminate pain, but transforms it,” he said. “He does not remove problems from our lives, but grants us a hope that is greater than all our problems.”
“God so greatly desires to embrace our lives that, infinite though he is, he becomes finite for our sake. In his greatness, he chooses to become small; in his righteousness, he submits to our injustice,” Pope Francis said in his homily.
“Brothers and sisters, this is the wonder of Christmas: not a mixture of sappy emotions and worldly contentment, but the unprecedented tenderness of a God who saves the world by becoming incarnate.”
The pope urged people to “rediscover worship” by learning from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the shepherds, and the Magi who “stood gazing upon Jesus with their hearts set on him.”
In his homily, Pope Francis quoted a letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son in 1941: “‘I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. … There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.’”
Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of Dec. 24, 2023. Vatican Media
The pope underlined that worship in adoration is never a waste of time, but makes “our time a dwelling place for God.”
“[To worship] is to let the seed of the Incarnation bloom within us; it is to cooperate in the work of the Lord, who, like leaven, changes the world. To worship is to intercede, to make reparation, to allow God to realign history.”
During the Mass, the choir sang traditional Christmas carols, including “The First Noel,” “Silent Night,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
About 6,500 people were present inside of the basilica for the Mass, according to the Vatican.
“While those who exercise power seek to take their place with the great ones of history, the King of history chooses the way of littleness. None of the powerful take notice of him: only a few shepherds, relegated to the margins of social life,” Pope Francis said.
Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of Dec. 24, 2023. Vatican Media
Pope Francis explained that the Lord saves us, not by waving a “magic wand” or “pushing a button,” but by drawing near to us, in order to change our world from within.
“If you look to your own heart, and think of your own inadequacies and this world that is so judgmental and unforgiving, you may feel it difficult to celebrate this Christmas. You may think things are going badly, or feel dissatisfied with your limitations, your failings, your problems, and your sins,” he said.
“Today, though, please, let Jesus take the initiative. He says to you, ‘For your sake, I became flesh; for your sake, I became just like you.’”
Pope Francis brings a figure of the Christ child over to the nativity scene inside of St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of Mass. Vatican Media
“Tonight the Lord was born to light up your life; his eyes are alight with love for you,” he added.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, served as the main celebrant at the altar for the Christmas Mass.
At the end of Mass, the 87-year-old pope was brought up in a wheelchair to the front of the altar, where he kissed a figure of the Christ child and brought it over to the nativity scene inside St. Peter’s Basilica.
“Brothers and sisters, tonight love changes history,” Pope Francis said. “Make us believe, Lord, in the power of your love, so different from the power of the world. Lord, make us, like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the Magi, gather around you and worship you. As you conform us ever more to yourself, we shall bear witness before the world to the beauty of your countenance.”
Munich, Germany, Feb 3, 2018 / 09:31 am (CNA).- The president of the German Bishops’ Conference has declared that, in his view, Catholic priests can conduct blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx told the Bavarian State Broadcasting’s radio service that “there can be no rules” about this question. Rather, the decision of whether a homosexual union should receive the Church’s blessing should be up to “a priest or pastoral worker” and made in each individual case, the German prelate stated.
Speaking on Feb. 3, on the occasion of his 10th anniversary as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Marx was asked why “the Church does not always move forward when it comes to demands from some Catholics about, for instance, the ordination of female deacons, the blessing of homosexual couples, or the abolition of compulsory [priestly] celibacy.”
Marx said that, for him, the important question to be asked regards how “the Church can meet the challenges posed by the new circumstances of life today – but also by new insights, of course,” particularly concerning pastoral care.
Describing this as a “fundamental orientation” emphasized by Pope Francis, Marx called for the Church to take “the situation of the individual, … their life-story, their biography, … their relationships” more seriously and accompany them, as individuals accordingly.
Marx has recently called for an individualized approach to pastoral care, which, he has said, is neither subject to general regulations nor is it relativism.
Such “closer pastoral care” must also apply to homosexuals, Cardinal Marx told the Bavarian State Broadcaster: “And one must also encourage priests and pastoral workers to give people in concrete situations encouragement. I do not really see any problems there.”
The specific liturgical form such blessings – or other forms of “encouragement” – should take is a quite different question, the Munich archbishop continued, and one that requires further careful consideration.
Asked whether he really was saying that he “could imagine a way to bless homosexual couples in the Catholic Church,” Marx answered, “yes” – adding however, that there could be “no general solutions.”
“It’s about pastoral care for individual cases, and that applies in other areas as well, which we can not regulate, where we have no sets of rules.”
The decision should be made by “the pastor on the ground, and the individual under pastoral care” said Marx, reiterating that, in his view, “there are things that can not be regulated.”
Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas is apostoolic nuncio to Ukraine. / Credit: Courtesy of the nuncio
Vatican City, Feb 24, 2025 / 16:05 pm (CNA).
Monday, Feb. 24, marked three years of Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion. According to … […]
2 Comments
Fantastic.
I guess no American priests were available for an American diocese leadership position.
Felicidades, el Padre Mario buen sacerdote y buen pastor en nuestra parroquia, ahora con la ayuda del Espiritu Santo y la Misericordia de Dios, sabemos que sera un buen Pastor de su rebano en la Diocesis apoyando al Bishop Flores.
Fantastic.
I guess no American priests were available for an American diocese leadership position.
Felicidades, el Padre Mario buen sacerdote y buen pastor en nuestra parroquia, ahora con la ayuda del Espiritu Santo y la Misericordia de Dios, sabemos que sera un buen Pastor de su rebano en la Diocesis apoyando al Bishop Flores.