Pope Francis to issue apostolic exhortation on holiness, “Gaudete et exsultate”
Subtitled “on the call to holiness in the contemporary world”, the exhortation will be presented April 9 by Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome and archpriest of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.
Pope Francis gestures during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 4. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Vatican City, Apr 5, 2018 / 10:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will next week publish an apostolic exhortation on holiness titled Gaudete et exsultate, or “Rejoice and be glad”, the Vatican announced Thursday.
Subtitled “on the call to holiness in the contemporary world”, the exhortation will be presented April 9 by Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome and archpriest of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.
Italian journalist Gianni Valente and Paola Bignardi, former president of Catholic Action Italy, will also speak at the presentation.
Gaudete et exsultate will be the third apostolic exhortation issued by Pope Francis. In 2016 he issued Amoris laetitia, on love in the family, and in 2013 Evangelii gaudium, on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world.
An apostolic exhortation is one form of the ordinary teaching authority of the Pope. Through an exhortation, the Pope conveys a message to faithful about a particular area relevant to living out the Catholic faith.
An apostolic exhortation is often written as a follow-up document to a Synod of Bishops, as was the case for Amoris laetitia.
Gaudete et exsultate follows just a little more than a month behind the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s March 1 letter to bishops on certain aspects of Christian salvation, Placuit Deo, which refers to the errors of Pelagianism and Gnosticism in helping to explain the threat of the errors Pope Francis has called “new Pelagianism” and “new Gnosticism.”
According to Placuit Deo, the new Pelagianism is an “individualism centered on the autonomous subject [which] tends to see the human person as a being whose sole fulfilment depends only on his or her own strength.”
The document cites a 2013 address of Pope Francis to explain that the new Gnosticism “presumes to liberate the human person from the body and from the material universe, in which traces of the provident hand of the Creator are no longer found, but only a reality deprived of meaning, foreign to the fundamental identity of the person, and easily manipulated by the interests of man.”
In his latest exhortation, Pope Francis will likely expound on these modern errors giving guidance on how to avoid them and how to achieve holiness in the modern age.
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Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 2, 2023 / 05:15 am (CNA).
On Palm Sunday, Pope Francis said Jesus voluntarily took on the pain and abandonment of his Passion and Crucifixion so that he could be with us in whatever sorrow or difficulty we might be experiencing.
Jesus “experienced abandonment in order not to leave us prey to despair, in order to stay at our side forever,” the pope said during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 2.
“He did this for me, for you,” he said, “because whenever you or I or anyone else seems pinned to the wall — and we have seen someone pinned to the wall — you see someone lost in a blind alley, plunged into the abyss of abandonment, sucked into a whirlwind of ‘whys’ without answer, there can still be some hope…”
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Pope Francis presided over the Palm Sunday Mass one day after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
The pope was admitted to the hospital for three days beginning March 29 for treatment for a bronchitis infection, the Vatican said.
An estimated 60,000 people were at the papal Mass, according to the Vatican Gendarmes.
In his homily, Francis spoke in a soft voice as he emphasized that whatever situation of abandonment we find ourselves in, Jesus is at our side.
The pope also said that we will find Jesus in those who are abandoned, recalling the death in November last year of a homeless man from Germany, who was found under the colonnade of St. Peter‘s Square.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Jesus “wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who resemble him most, those experiencing extreme suffering and solitude,” he said. “Today, brothers and sisters, there are entire peoples who are exploited and abandoned; the poor live on our streets and we look the other way, we turn around; there are migrants who are no longer faces but numbers; prisoners are disowned; people written off as problems.”
Pope Francis said these people are “Christs” for us: “People who are abandoned, invisible, hidden, discarded with white gloves,” such as the unborn, the isolated elderly, the forgotten sick, the abandoned disabled, and the lonely young.
“Jesus, in his abandonment, asks us to open our eyes and hearts to all who find themselves abandoned,” he said.
Pope Francis entered St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile April 2. He was driven to the central obelisk for the blessing of the palms and the proclamation of a reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew and the singing of Psalm 23.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The blessing followed the procession of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, and laypeople carrying palm fronds, olive branches, and the large weaved palms called “parmureli” to commemorate Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. Pope Francis has not led the procession since 2019.
For the start of Mass, the pope was again driven in the popemobile from the obelisk to the altar in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, which will lead in to the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and concludes with the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection beginning at the Easter Vigil.
On Palm Sunday, the Mass includes the reading of the Lord’s Passion from the Gospel of St. Matthew.
In his homily on April 2, Pope Francis focused on a line from the Gospel and repeated in the Psalm — Jesus’ cry of abandonment to the Father — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ In the Bible, the word ‘forsake’ is powerful,” the pope said.
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
He noted how one might feel forsaken “at moments of extreme pain: love that fails, or is rejected or betrayed; children who are rejected and aborted; situations of repudiation, the lot of widows and orphans; broken marriages, forms of social exclusion, injustice and oppression; the solitude of sickness.”
“In a word, in the drastic severing of the bonds that unite us to others,” he said. “There [Jesus] tells us this word: abandonment. Christ brought all of this to the cross; upon his shoulders, he bore the sins of the world. And at the supreme moment, Jesus, the only begotten, beloved Son of the Father, experienced a situation utterly alien to his very being: the abandonment, the distance of God.”
“But, why did it have to come to this? For us. There is no other answer: Us,” Francis underlined. “He became one of us to the very end, in order to be completely and definitively one with us.”
At the end of his homily, Pope Francis remained in silence for over two and a half minutes before the singing of the Creed.
Jesus, the pope said, “has endured the distance of abandonment in order to take up into his love every possible distance that we can feel. So that each of us might say: in my failings — each of you has fallen many times — and I can say in my failings, in my desolation, whenever I feel betrayed or I have betrayed someone, when I feel cast aside or I have cast aside others, or when I feel forsaken or have forsaken others, we can think that Jesus was abandoned, betrayed, cast aside.”
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
In our failures, we can remember that Jesus is at our side, Pope Francis said. “When I feel lost and confused, when I feel that I can’t go on, he is with me, he is there. In the thousand fits of ‘why…?’ and with many ‘whys’ unanswered, he is there.”
At the conclusion of Mass, Pope Francis led the Angelus, a traditional prayer honoring Mary.
In a brief message before the prayer, he invited Catholics to live Holy Week “as the tradition of God’s holy faithful people teaches us, that is, accompanying the Lord Jesus with faith and love.”
“Let us learn from our Mother, the Virgin Mary,” he said. “She followed her Son with the closeness of her heart; she was one soul with him and, although she did not understand everything, together with him she surrendered herself fully to the will of God the Father.”
“May Our Lady help us to be close to Jesus present in the suffering, discarded, abandoned people. May Our Lady take us by the hand to Jesus present in these people,” he said. “To all, happy journey toward Easter.”
From the popemobile, Pope Francis greeted those gathered in the square and in the adjoining thoroughfare after the Mass.
The full text of Pope Francis’ homily for Palm Sunday 2023 can be read here.
Would rather wait for another pontiff to write an apostolic exhortation on holiness. In fact, the People of God could use one on holiness and wisdom. Pope Francis lack sufficient credibility since he is too judgmental toward traditional Catholics, indicating some lack of humility, and unwisely gives aid and comfort to enemies of the Church all too frequently. Developing a reputation for sowing confusion and not cleaning up after your own messes will make it hard for many of the faithful to not tune him out or otherwise willingly cite his words even if the content of the proposed apostolic exhortation proves laudable.
Is this document the result of a groundswell of demand by the faithful… because the words of Christ just don’t cut it?
One weakness of the post Vatican II media watching the Church now… period… is this idea that Popes should constantly write, travel or talk…or all three with Francis…because the media wants travel or books or great sayings.
And the recent Popes like the travel/author part….because it’s easier than cleaning house…admin work…you know…ruling. There is a thing called global administrative work…checking what can be done about pro abortion speakers at Catholic colleges…why are there night coed visitation rights at Catholic colleges while some Catholic colleges have sizable hookup rate percentages per the Newman Society website….are there lgbt clubs on campuses that affirm gay sex while the Holy Spirit condemns such in Romans 1:26-27. Popes should be cleaning house worldwide…not just Francis. St. John Paul II was writing TOB for months while sexual abuse was simultaneously taking place against children in some cases. Irony at its maximum. Benedict wrote too much on the saints. We have Catholic authors trying to make a living for their families to do that. When will we again have Popes who don’t turn the office into a writer in residence stint. There should be nothing untoward at any Catholic colleges if Popes we’re doing their essential job of ruling the worldwide Church a sufficient percent of each day. Frankly Benedict quit when the admin jobs had grown up to his ears while he was writing.
Given everything we have seen, read, and observed over the past five years, a reasonable forecast is that it will equate holiness with secular left-wing political shibboleths, including open borders, gun control, climate-change activism, the abolition of the death penalty and lifetime imprisonment, the socialism of central planners, the “positive aspects” of homosexuality and pan-sexual gender ideology, and the smashing of rigid, traditional “idols of truth”. Let us not forget that this pope is explicitly on record as declaring that Communists. In other words, we should prepare ourselves for yet another anti-magisterial “apostolic exhortation”.
Gaudete et Exultate in which he will likely decree that the new theological virtues are tolerance, diversity and inclusion. That the new cardinal virtues are accompaniment, flexibility, indifference and not judging.
Be glad and exult because Francis says there is no hell, or there is, but no one goes there, or they do, but not forever… Gay commitment rites and transgender rebaptisms – just as long as you don’t call it marriage…
So, Go therefore into all the world and build bridges, not walls.
I suppose that is why Pope Bergoglio chose the name of a 13th century saint named Francis of Assisi whose life of absolute poverty is so widely followed in the “new times” of today.
The title of this Apostolic Exhortation is beyond ironic in the mouth of a pipe who praises the destruction of the Church’s “idols of truth” and claims that the divine commandments of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage and exceptionless negative moral norms are merely “ideals” that are impossible as a practical matter:
“11 beati estis cum maledixerint vobis et persecuti vos fuerint et dixerint omne malum adversum vos mentientes propter me 12 gaudete et exultate quoniam merces vestra copiosa est in caelis sic enim persecuti sunt prophetas qui fuerunt ante vos. (Mt. 5:11-12)
What’s the under/over on whether Francis’ main themes of holiness will be dialogue, accompanying, openness, love for migrants, climate change, etc., blah, blah, blah. The Church is being destroyed from within and Francis is leading the charge.
I can hardly wait! 🙂
Sounds like the pope has been reading the Opus Dei 101 documents. He’s run out of ramblings and he’s channeling modern saints now.
Who wrote it?
What has Tucho been up to?
Would rather wait for another pontiff to write an apostolic exhortation on holiness. In fact, the People of God could use one on holiness and wisdom. Pope Francis lack sufficient credibility since he is too judgmental toward traditional Catholics, indicating some lack of humility, and unwisely gives aid and comfort to enemies of the Church all too frequently. Developing a reputation for sowing confusion and not cleaning up after your own messes will make it hard for many of the faithful to not tune him out or otherwise willingly cite his words even if the content of the proposed apostolic exhortation proves laudable.
Is this document the result of a groundswell of demand by the faithful… because the words of Christ just don’t cut it?
One weakness of the post Vatican II media watching the Church now… period… is this idea that Popes should constantly write, travel or talk…or all three with Francis…because the media wants travel or books or great sayings.
And the recent Popes like the travel/author part….because it’s easier than cleaning house…admin work…you know…ruling. There is a thing called global administrative work…checking what can be done about pro abortion speakers at Catholic colleges…why are there night coed visitation rights at Catholic colleges while some Catholic colleges have sizable hookup rate percentages per the Newman Society website….are there lgbt clubs on campuses that affirm gay sex while the Holy Spirit condemns such in Romans 1:26-27. Popes should be cleaning house worldwide…not just Francis. St. John Paul II was writing TOB for months while sexual abuse was simultaneously taking place against children in some cases. Irony at its maximum. Benedict wrote too much on the saints. We have Catholic authors trying to make a living for their families to do that. When will we again have Popes who don’t turn the office into a writer in residence stint. There should be nothing untoward at any Catholic colleges if Popes we’re doing their essential job of ruling the worldwide Church a sufficient percent of each day. Frankly Benedict quit when the admin jobs had grown up to his ears while he was writing.
Betting it will be a mixed bag, fine on fundamentals, questionable with respect to contemporary application.
Given everything we have seen, read, and observed over the past five years, a reasonable forecast is that it will equate holiness with secular left-wing political shibboleths, including open borders, gun control, climate-change activism, the abolition of the death penalty and lifetime imprisonment, the socialism of central planners, the “positive aspects” of homosexuality and pan-sexual gender ideology, and the smashing of rigid, traditional “idols of truth”. Let us not forget that this pope is explicitly on record as declaring that Communists. In other words, we should prepare ourselves for yet another anti-magisterial “apostolic exhortation”.
I think you’re right
Let us not forget that this pope is explicitly on record as declaring that Communists are closet Christians.
Gaudete et Exultate in which he will likely decree that the new theological virtues are tolerance, diversity and inclusion. That the new cardinal virtues are accompaniment, flexibility, indifference and not judging.
Be glad and exult because Francis says there is no hell, or there is, but no one goes there, or they do, but not forever… Gay commitment rites and transgender rebaptisms – just as long as you don’t call it marriage…
So, Go therefore into all the world and build bridges, not walls.
Perhaps he would care to “exhort” confrere James Martin “SJ” to cease exhorting sodomy?
Credence spent poorly is not easily regained.
New times call for fresh ways of being holy.
I suppose that is why Pope Bergoglio chose the name of a 13th century saint named Francis of Assisi whose life of absolute poverty is so widely followed in the “new times” of today.
The title of this Apostolic Exhortation is beyond ironic in the mouth of a pipe who praises the destruction of the Church’s “idols of truth” and claims that the divine commandments of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage and exceptionless negative moral norms are merely “ideals” that are impossible as a practical matter:
“11 beati estis cum maledixerint vobis et persecuti vos fuerint et dixerint omne malum adversum vos mentientes propter me 12 gaudete et exultate quoniam merces vestra copiosa est in caelis sic enim persecuti sunt prophetas qui fuerunt ante vos. (Mt. 5:11-12)
What’s the under/over on whether Francis’ main themes of holiness will be dialogue, accompanying, openness, love for migrants, climate change, etc., blah, blah, blah. The Church is being destroyed from within and Francis is leading the charge.