Pope Francis names Cardinal Kevin Farrell camerlengo

Vatican City, Jul 8, 2018 / 04:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Sunday that God always surprises people with the way he works, and because of this, believers should be open to the Lord’s way of thinking and acting, rather than expecting him to conform to their aspirations.

“Today the Lord invites us to assume an attitude of humble listening and docile waiting, because the grace of God often presents itself to us in surprising ways, which don’t line up with our expectations,” the pope said July 8.

He noted how certain “prejudices” can be nurtured in Christians which prevent them from accepting the reality of how God works, however, “the Lord does not conform to prejudices. We have to force ourselves to open the mind and heart to welcome the divine reality that comes to meet us.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Angelus address, which focused on the day’s Gospel reading from Mark. In the passage, Jesus returned to his native land to do ministry, but was unable to perform the same miraculous works he had done in other places since people knew him and were skeptical of his preaching and ministry.

In his speech, Francis said the people were “scandalized” by what Jesus was doing, since they recognized him as one of them.

Asking how it is possible for Jesus’ fellow citizens to go from marvel to disbelief, the pope said this is because they made a comparison between the “humble origins” of Jesus and his current abilities to preach and perform miracles.

“He is a carpenter, he did not study, yet he preaches better than the scribes and performs miracles. And instead of opening themselves to the reality, [the people] are scandalized,” he said, noting that for the inhabitants of Nazareth, “God is too great to lower himself to speak through such a simple man!”

This, he said, is “the scandal of the incarnation: the shocking event of a God made flesh, who thinks with a human mind, works and acts with human hands, loves with a human heart; a God who struggles, eats and sleeps as one of us.”

However, in becoming flesh, Jesus “overturns every human scheme: it is not the disciples who washed the feet of the Lord, but it is the Lord who washed the feet of the disciples,” the pope said, noting that this fact is “a cause of scandal and disbelief in every age, even today.”

In off-the-cuff remarks, Francis pointed to St. Teresa of Calcutta, who he canonized in September 2016, as a modern-day example of someone simple who performed great works. Even though she was “a small sister,”  St. Teresa through prayer and simplicity was able to “work wonders,” he said, adding that “she is an example from our day.”

Closing his address, Pope Francis said learning to have a mind and heart open to God’s logic above all means having faith.

“The lack of faith is an obstacle to God’s grace,” he said, noting that many baptized Catholics “live as if Christ does not exist: they repeat the signs and acts of faith, but they do not correspond to a real adhesion to the person of Jesus and his Gospel.”

Every Christian, he said, “is called to deepen this fundamental belonging, trying to bear witness with a coherent conduct of life, whose leitmotif is charity.”

After leading pilgrims in the traditional Angelus prayer, the pope gave a shout-out to patriarchs and representatives from Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches in the Middle East who were present for an July 7 ecumenical gathering in Bari to pray for peace in the region.

Francis said the event was “an eloquent sign of Christian unity,” and thanked all those who participated.

He also noted how July 8 marks the “Sunday of the Sea,” which is dedicated to seafarers and fisherman, and prayed for them and their families, and for the chaplains and volunteers who do ministry to them.

The pope offered a special prayer for those who live at sea in situations of “undignified work,” and for all those who are committed to freeing the sea of pollution.

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Vatican City, May 24, 2018 / 11:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a closed-door speech to Italian bishops on Monday, Pope Francis reportedly spoke about the number and quality of seminary candidates, including concerns about their sexual orientation.

At the start of his May 21 audience with Italian bishops, Pope Francis voiced three areas of concern for the Church in Italy, the first of which was the lack of vocations.

Francis’ brief remarks on his concerns, which also touched on evangelical poverty and transparency and the incorporation of Italian dioceses, were televised; however, his discussion with the bishops afterward was not.

In his public remarks on vocations, Pope Francis lamented the culture of the provisional, of relativism, and of the dictatorship of money, which hinder young people from discerning consecrated life. He also proposed that Italian dioceses with an abundance of vocations lend some of their priests to those Italian dioceses lacking in priests.

But according to Italian media sites, in the discussion that followed the pope was more direct, telling the bishops to care more for the quality of seminary candidates than the quantity.

He reportedly touched on the topic of homosexuality, particularly when it comes to individuals with “deep-seated tendencies” or who practice “homosexual acts”, yet who want to enter the seminary.

In these cases, “if you have even the slightest doubt it’s better not to let them enter,” Francis said, because these acts or deep-seated tendencies can lead to scandals and can compromise the life of the seminary, as well as the man himself and his future priesthood.

Pope Francis’ comments were allegedly made during the opening May 21 session of the 71st general assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference. Several Italian news sites have reported on the pope’s comments, but they have not been confirmed by the Vatican or by the Italian bishops.

However, the pope’s statements on the issue of homosexuality and the seminary reflect the Church’s teaching on the topic.

In the 2016 edition of the Congregation for Clergy’s ratio on priestly formation, the dicastery had written that “in relation to people with homosexual tendencies who approach seminaries, or who discover this situation in the course of formation, in coherence with her own magisterium, ‘the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called “gay culture”.’”

The ratio quoted from the Congregation for Catholic Education’s 2005 instruction “Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.”

The instruction noted that those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the gay culture “find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

It distinguished those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies from those “with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem – for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded.”

Men with transitory homosexual tendencies could be admitted to seminary, the congregation wrote, though “such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.”

The instruction drew, in turn, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a 1985 memo from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and a 2002 letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Though Pope Francis has not addressed the topic publicly, he alluded to problems of homosexuality in seminary formation during a recent meeting with Chilean bishops.

In a letter written to the bishops which was leaked to Chilean media, the pope issued a sharp correction of his brother prelates for a systematic cover-up of clerical abuse in the country.

One footnote in the letter noted how abuses were not limited to just one person or group, but was rather the result of a fractured seminary process.

In the case of many abusers in Chile, Francis noted how problems had been detected while they were in seminary or the novitiate, but rather than expelling these individuals, some bishops or superiors “sent priests suspected of active homosexuality to these educational institutions.”

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Vatican City, Feb 21, 2017 / 05:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican and one of Islam’s most renowned schools of Sunni thought are joining forces to discuss how they can work together in combating religious extremism that uses God’s name to … […]