Vatican City, Oct 26, 2019 / 01:10 pm (CNA).- In his closing remarks for the Amazon synod Saturday, Pope Francis urged the media not to give undue attention to aspects of the assembly’s final report addressing Church discipline while ignoring the assembly’s “diagnoses” of cultural, social, pastoral and ecological issues in the Pan-Amazonian region.
It’s “in small disciplinary things, which have their significance but that would not do the good that this synod has to do,” he said Oct. 26, “that society takes care of the diagnosis we have made in the four dimensions.”
“There is always a group of elite Christians who like to take up this kind of diagnosis as if they were universal,” he continued, “however small, or in this kind of more inter-ecclesiastical disciplinary resolutions.”
There is a danger, the pope said Oct. 26, of only looking to see “what they decided on this disciplinary issue, what they decided on another, making of the world who won this game, lost this…”
“No, we all win with the diagnoses we made and as far as we arrive in the pastoral and inter-ecclesiastical issues, but don’t get locked in on that.”
“Thinking today about these Catholic and Christian elites sometimes, but especially Catholics who want to go to the little things and forget the big things, I remembered a phrase from Péguy and went to look for it, I try to translate it well, I think it can help when describing these groups that want the little thing and forget about the thing: ‘Because they don’t have the courage to be with the world, they believe they are with God. Because they don’t have the courage to compromise on man’s options, on man’s life options, they believe they are fighting for God. Because they don’t love anyone, they believe they love God,’” said the Holy Father.
The Vatican synod hall responded to the pope’s remark with long applause.
Pope Francis spoke inside the synod hall at the end of the final session of the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazonian Region, which will officially end with a closing Mass Oct. 27.
During the session, the Amazon synod’s final report was presented, and voted on paragraph by paragraph by the 185 synod members.
In his remarks, Pope Francis said, based on a request in the final report, he will re-open the Church’s study of the possibility of women deacons.
He said he will re-open his 2016 commission on the study of the possibility of having a female diaconate, possibly adding new members and having it operate within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
He noted that the commission ended its work without a consensus on the topic, but he had heard the request by some on this topic and would “pick up the gauntlet.”
In May, the pope said the commission he opened in August 2016 to study the possibility of a female diaconate, with or without the sacrament of ordination, had been unable to reach a consensus, though further study would continue to take place.
In his speech, Francis noted that there were three issues which are ideas for the “next synod” and received a majority of votes, one of which is synodality.
“I do not know if that will be chosen or not, I have not yet decided, I am reflecting and thinking,” he said. “But I can certainly say that we have walked a lot and we have to walk more on this path of synodality. Thank you very must for this company.”
He said he would like to write a post-synodal exhortation on the Amazon synod “before the end of the year so that not much time passes,” adding that “it all depends on the time you have to think.”
Francis praised tradition as not a “museum of old things,” but “safeguarding the future.”
In his speech, he also praised another proposal he had received, that young priests who are studying to enter the Holy See’s diplomatic corps could first spend one year serving alongside a bishop in a mission territory.
The creation of an “Amazonian rite” of liturgy, the pope said, would fall under the competency of the Congregation for Divine Worship.
He proposed the creation of a regional bishops’ group for the Amazon and said he would ask Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, to open a new section on the Amazon within his Vatican department.
He said the main dimension of the synod, which includes everyone, is the proclamation of the Gospel. This is the “pastoral dimension,” he said. “But that is understood, that is assimilated, that is understood by those cultures.”
“And there was talk of how lay people, priests, permanent deacons, religious men and women have to point to that point, and they talked about what they do and to strengthen that.”
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Bishop Michael Warfel. His resignation as bishop of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings was accepted by Pope Francis on Aug. 22, 2023. / Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana.
Vatican City, Aug 22, 2023 / 04:41 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Tues… […]
Vatican City, Jun 17, 2017 / 09:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
The Pope met June 16 with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, giving his approval for the causes to move forward.
He recognized the martyrdom of Venerable Teresio Olivelli, a layman “killed in hatred of the Faith” Jan. 17, 1945, at the age of 29.
Venerable Olivelli was born in 1916. He graduated with a degree in law and went on to comment in papers on legal and social issues of the time before becoming a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II.
During the war, his views towards the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini soured. He founded a newspaper dedicated to promoting the Christian message and tried to infuse a Christian message into the regime.
He later broke from it entirely after seeing the reality of the deportation of Jewish people as per racial laws. He became part of the Italian Resistance movement in Milan.
He was apprehended on April 27, 1944 and taken to a prison where he was tortured and beaten before being moved to another prison. On July 11 his name was added to a list of 70 inmates to be shot, but he fled and hid in a field until he was recaptured.
He was then transferred to a concentration camp in northern Italy before being moved to the Flossenburg and Hersbruck camps in Germany. While there he shared food rations with inmates and treated their injuries.
He died from injuries he received after defending a Ukrainian inmate from being attacked. He was kicked in the stomach and intestines and struck 25 times.
Olivelli’s beatification process began in 1988. Originally sought as a martyrdom, this was rejected because of doubts, though he was found to have lived a life of heroic virtue and was named ‘Venerable’ by Pope Francis in 2015.
Officials of the cause remained adamant that Olivelli was killed in hatred of his faith and therefore re-submitted a “positio” – a collection of documents submitted for sainthood causes – in 2016, hoping it would lead to his beatification without the usual required miracle.
Based on new findings it was approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and now by Pope Francis, affirming that he was killed “in hatred of the faith,” paving the way for his beatification.
Another cause moving forward is that of Sr. Maria degli Angeli, born Giuseppa Margherita Operte in Turin in 1871.
Born into a wealthy family, she experienced loss at the young age of 14 when her father and brother died within three months of each other. Left alone with her mother, they entered more deeply into the Christian life, becoming Third Order lay Carmelites.
When Giuseppa heard that a priest in a neighboring parish was circulating the rumor that she would open an institute for poor young girls, she took it as a sign of her calling and in 1894 opened the Institute of St. Joseph in a palace inherited from her parents.
She began a religious community of Third Order Carmelites who live an active apostolate according to the spirituality of the great reformers of Carmel, which since 1970 is called the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Teresa of Turin, and has two branches, one contemplative and one active.
She died in the monastery of Cascine Vica on Oct. 7, 1949, having lived an active life centered on contemplation.
The other persons declared ‘Venerable’ are: Bishop Antonio Jose de Souza Barroso of Porto (1854-1918); Bishop Jose de Jesus López y González of Aguascalientes, founder of the Congregation of the Maestro Catholic Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1872-1950); Bishop Agostino Ernesto Castrillo, OFM, of San Marco and Bisignano, (1904-1955); Fr. Giacomo da Balduina, OFM Cap., (1900-1948); and Sr. Umiltà Patlán Sánchez of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (1895-1970).
Pallbearers carry the wooden coffin of Pope Francis, marked with a cross, into St. Peter’s Square for the funeral Mass on April 26, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 26, 2025 / 05:03 am (CNA).
More than 200,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday as the world said goodbye to the first Latin American pope who led the Catholic Church for the past 12 years.
Under the bright Roman sun and amid crowds extending down the Via della Conciliazione, the funeral Mass unfolded within the great colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica. Heads of state, religious leaders, and pilgrims from across the globe gathered for the historic farewell.
An aerial view of St. Peter’s Square filled with thousands of mourners, clergy, and dignitaries gathered for Pope Francis’s funeral Mass under clear blue skies in Vatican City on April 26, 2025.`. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the Mass, delivering a homily that paid tribute to Francis’ missionary vision, human warmth, spontaneity, witness to mercy, and “charisma of welcome and listening.”
“Evangelization was the guiding principle of his pontificate,” Re said.
Pope Francis “often used the image of the Church as a ‘field hospital’ after a battle in which many were wounded; a Church determined to take care of the problems of people and the great anxieties that tear the contemporary world apart; a Church capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds.”
As bells tolled solemnly, the funeral rite began with the intonation of the entrance antiphon: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.”
The late pope’s closed plain wooden coffin lay in front of the altar throughout the Mass.
A view of the coffin of Pope Francis resting before the altar at the funeral Mass on St. Peter’s Square, April 26, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
“In this majestic Saint Peter’s Square, where Pope Francis celebrated the Eucharist so many times and presided over great gatherings over the past twelve years, we are gathered with sad hearts in prayer around his mortal remains,” Re said.
“With our prayers, we now entrust the soul of our beloved Pontiff to God, that he may grant him eternal happiness in the bright and glorious gaze of his immense love,” he added.
View of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Funeral Mass of Pope Francis on April 26, 2025. Peter Gagnon / EWTN
Among the more than 50 heads of state present were U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, alongside former President Joe Biden. Also in attendance were Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Argentine President Javier Milei, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva joined the throng of international dignitaries along with representatives of religious traditions from around the world.
Royal families also paid their respects, with Prince William representing King Charles III and Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia seated near the altar.
Pilgrims arrived before sunrise to claim their spots in St. Peter’s Square for the Mass with the first in line camping out the night before.
The funeral followed the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, the official liturgical order for papal funerals, which was updated at Pope Francis’ own request in 2024. Scripture readings included Acts 10:34-43, Philippians 3:20–4:1, Psalm 22, and the Gospel of John 21:15-19 — a passage in which the risen Christ tells Peter: “Feed my sheep.”
More than 200 cardinals and 750 bishops and priests concelebrated the funeral Mass. More than 4,000 journalists representing 1,800 media outlets reported on the event. All told, the Holy See said more than 250,000 mourners attended.
In his homily, Cardinal Re reflected on key moments in Pope Francis’ pontificate from his risk-defying trip to Iraq to visit Christians communities persecuted by the Islamic State to his Mass on the border between Mexico and the United States during his journey to Mexico.
“Faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions,” the cardinal said, causing the crowd to erupt in spontaneous applause.
Pope Francis’ coffin lies in St. Peter’s Square during the papal funeral Mass on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Credit: EWTN News
“Pope Francis always placed the Gospel of mercy at the center, repeatedly emphasizing that God never tires of forgiving us. He forgives, whatever the situation might be of the person who asks for forgiveness and returns to the right path,” Re reflected. “Mercy and the joy of the Gospel are two key words for Pope Francis.”
The cardinal presided over the final commendation and farewell for Pope Francis, praying: “Dear brothers and sisters, let us commend to God’s tender mercy the soul of Pope Francis, bishop of the Catholic Church, who confirmed his brothers and sisters in the faith of the resurrection.”
“Let us pray to God our Father through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit; may he deliver him from death, welcome him to eternal peace and raise up him on the last day,” he said.
After the crowd chanted the Litany of Saints in Latin, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, offered a final prayer: “O God, faithful rewarder of souls, grant that your departed servant and our bishop, Pope Francis, whom you made successor of Peter and shepherd of your Church, may happily enjoy forever in your presence in heaven the mysteries of your grace and compassion, which he faithfully ministered on earth.”
A poignant moment followed as Eastern Catholic patriarchs, major archbishops, and metropolitans from the “sui iuris” Churches approached the coffin while a choir chanted a Greek prayer from the Byzantine Funeral Office.
Re blessed the coffin with holy water and incense as the choir sang in Latin: “I know that my Redeemer lives: on the last day I shall rise again.”
At the end of the Mass, the traditional antiphon “In Paradisum” was sung in Latin, asking for the angels to guide the pope’s soul to heaven.
“May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come and welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May choirs of angels welcome you and with Lazarus, who is poor no longer, may you have eternal rest.”
In keeping with his wishes, Pope Francis will not be buried in the Vatican grottoes alongside his predecessors. Instead, his body will be taken in procession through the streets of Rome in a vehicle to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a church he visited over 100 times in his lifetime to pray before an icon of the Virgin Mary, “Salus Populi Romani,” particularly before and after his papal journeys.
Pope Francis’ wooden coffin is transported on the popemobile through the streets of Rome as crowds of faithful line the procession route from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, April 26, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
In Rome’s most important Marian basilica, Pope Francis will be laid to rest in a simple tomb marked with a single word: Franciscus.
Remembering Pope Francis
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and entered the Society of Jesus at age 21. Following his ordination in 1969, he served as a Jesuit provincial, seminary rector, and professor before St. John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992. He became archbishop of the Argentine capital in 1998 and was created cardinal in 2001.
The surprise election of Cardinal Bergoglio on March 13, 2013, at age 76 marked several historic firsts: He became the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first to choose the name Francis, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to poverty, peace, and creation.
His 12-year pontificate was characterized by a focus on mercy, care for creation, and attention to what he called the “peripheries” of both the Church and society. He made 47 apostolic journeys outside Italy, though he never visited his native Argentina.
During his tenure, Pope Francis canonized 942 saints — more than any other pope in history — including his predecessors John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. He published four encyclicals and seven apostolic exhortations while promulgating 75 motu proprio documents.
Throughout his papacy, Francis significantly reshaped the College of Cardinals through 10 consistories, creating 163 new cardinals. His appointments reflected his vision of a global Church, elevating prelates from the peripheries and creating cardinals in places that had never before had one, including Mongolia and South Sudan.
Health challenges marked the pope’s final years. He underwent surgery in July 2021 and in June 2023. In November 2023, he suffered from pulmonary inflammation, and in February 2025, he was hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for bronchitis and a respiratory infection.
His papacy faced unprecedented challenges, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, during which he offered historic moments of prayer for humanity, notably the extraordinary urbi et orbi blessing in an empty St. Peter’s Square in March 2020. He also repeatedly called for peace amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Holy Land.
Francis convoked four synods, including the Synod on Synodality, whose second session concluded in October 2024. He implemented significant reforms of the Roman Curia and took several steps to address the clergy abuse crisis, including the 2019 motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi.
Pope Francis’ funeral marks the first day in the Catholic Church’s traditional nine-day mourning period that will include nine days of requiem Masses to be offered for the repose of his soul.
“Pope Francis used to conclude his speeches and meetings by saying, ‘Do not forget to pray for me,’ Re recalled at the end of his homily.
“Dear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us. May you bless the Church, bless Rome, and bless the whole world from heaven as you did last Sunday from the balcony of this Basilica in a final embrace with all the people of God, but also embrace humanity that seeks the truth with a sincere heart and holds high the torch of hope.”
Peguy was killed in the Battle of the Marne, by a single shot through the head–a “small thing” (much like the hole in the Titanic). He had something to say about SINGLE transgressions, which can be quoted to good effect by both the so-called “elites” and their marginalizing and equally elitist anti-elite critics:
Peguy on the little things and the big things:
“We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is officially recorded, confirmed, a single wrong to humanity, a single wrong to justice and to right, particularly if it is universally, legally, nationally, commodiously accepted, that a single crime shatters and is sufficient to shatter the whole social pact, the whole social contract, that a single legal crime, a single dishonorable act will bring about the loss of ones honor, the dishonor of a whole people. It is a touch of gangrene that corrupts the entire body.”
And in his “Freedom, God Speaks”, Peguy concludes something about PROSTRATIONS:
All the prostrations [Pachamama?] in the world
Are not worth the beautiful upright attitude of a free man as he kneels.
All the submission, all the dejection in the world
Are not equal in value to the soaring up point,
The beautiful straight [!] soaring up of one single invocation
From a love that is free.”
As for “tradition” sometimes, yes, in the form of a museum, Churchill also had this to say in 1940 to the House of Commons: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” Or, pertaining directly to the Church, this: “Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living; Tradition is the LIVING FAITH of the dead.”
Points to ponder more thoughtfully once any single applause, one way or the other, dies down.
There’s nothing quite like the already-decided, per-determinined “discernment” of a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit…or a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit pope…and a room full of non-judgmental, non-elites sycophantically applauding him….and themselves.
BTW, the “small disciplinary things?” Most of Catholic Christian doctrine and dogma. But may I add also even any worldly notion of scandal or moral outrage.
Certainly no “elites” among Bergoglio’s appointments (like Fr. Ricca)…just a lot of “love.” Nothing “elite” going on with Papal Foundation monies…just the “big” stuff of “love” that the “elites” and their “small disciplinary things” (and Bergoglio knows who they are) “would not do” and they would NEVER do (because they do not “love.) Beautiful words to end the Synod with!
Bergoglio cannot resist assaulting Catholic teachings and those who “actually believe that stuff” and defend it.
For Bergoglio, an example of “elite” beliefs are really Catholic beliefs, the “particularism” of the Magisterium, the Catechism, and Christ Himself as Savior really… The Declaration of Truths and those who signed or actually believe in those Truths of our Faith. Even people who believed in half of those listed beliefs…”elites” and “they do not love.”
“It’s ‘in small disciplinary things, which have their significance but that would not do the good that this synod has to do,’ he said Oct. 26, ‘that society takes care of the diagnosis we have made in the four dimensions.'”
Oh yes, let’s acknowledge that the “small disciplinary things” indeed “have their significance” yes…with Ignatian/Bergoglian self-talk subtitles now provdied: “Be balanced, say things that suggest I am balanced. The others are not balanced. But it has to sound like the ‘things’ though it’s really…the enemies I love…the criticism I welcome. They are neurotic. There’s ‘something there.’ There’s ‘something there.’ They are elites. I am balanced. They need to do their Examen…two or three minutes. I have complete inner liberty. I have complete inner liberty. I have complete inner and outer liberty. Synodality now. Synodality now. ”
Yes, the 10 Commandments, starting with the first, “small disciplinary things.”
There’s nothing quite like the already-decided, pre-determinined “discernment” of a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit…or a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit pope…and a room full of non-judgmental, non-elites sycophantically applauding him….and themselves.
Pope John XII reigned for 9 years.
Amazing how one can feel so connected to a situation that happened 1100 years ago.
Peguy was killed in the Battle of the Marne, by a single shot through the head–a “small thing” (much like the hole in the Titanic). He had something to say about SINGLE transgressions, which can be quoted to good effect by both the so-called “elites” and their marginalizing and equally elitist anti-elite critics:
Peguy on the little things and the big things:
“We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is officially recorded, confirmed, a single wrong to humanity, a single wrong to justice and to right, particularly if it is universally, legally, nationally, commodiously accepted, that a single crime shatters and is sufficient to shatter the whole social pact, the whole social contract, that a single legal crime, a single dishonorable act will bring about the loss of ones honor, the dishonor of a whole people. It is a touch of gangrene that corrupts the entire body.”
And in his “Freedom, God Speaks”, Peguy concludes something about PROSTRATIONS:
All the prostrations [Pachamama?] in the world
Are not worth the beautiful upright attitude of a free man as he kneels.
All the submission, all the dejection in the world
Are not equal in value to the soaring up point,
The beautiful straight [!] soaring up of one single invocation
From a love that is free.”
As for “tradition” sometimes, yes, in the form of a museum, Churchill also had this to say in 1940 to the House of Commons: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” Or, pertaining directly to the Church, this: “Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living; Tradition is the LIVING FAITH of the dead.”
Points to ponder more thoughtfully once any single applause, one way or the other, dies down.
There’s nothing quite like the already-decided, per-determinined “discernment” of a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit…or a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit pope…and a room full of non-judgmental, non-elites sycophantically applauding him….and themselves.
BTW, the “small disciplinary things?” Most of Catholic Christian doctrine and dogma. But may I add also even any worldly notion of scandal or moral outrage.
Certainly no “elites” among Bergoglio’s appointments (like Fr. Ricca)…just a lot of “love.” Nothing “elite” going on with Papal Foundation monies…just the “big” stuff of “love” that the “elites” and their “small disciplinary things” (and Bergoglio knows who they are) “would not do” and they would NEVER do (because they do not “love.) Beautiful words to end the Synod with!
Bergoglio cannot resist assaulting Catholic teachings and those who “actually believe that stuff” and defend it.
For Bergoglio, an example of “elite” beliefs are really Catholic beliefs, the “particularism” of the Magisterium, the Catechism, and Christ Himself as Savior really… The Declaration of Truths and those who signed or actually believe in those Truths of our Faith. Even people who believed in half of those listed beliefs…”elites” and “they do not love.”
“It’s ‘in small disciplinary things, which have their significance but that would not do the good that this synod has to do,’ he said Oct. 26, ‘that society takes care of the diagnosis we have made in the four dimensions.'”
Oh yes, let’s acknowledge that the “small disciplinary things” indeed “have their significance” yes…with Ignatian/Bergoglian self-talk subtitles now provdied: “Be balanced, say things that suggest I am balanced. The others are not balanced. But it has to sound like the ‘things’ though it’s really…the enemies I love…the criticism I welcome. They are neurotic. There’s ‘something there.’ There’s ‘something there.’ They are elites. I am balanced. They need to do their Examen…two or three minutes. I have complete inner liberty. I have complete inner liberty. I have complete inner and outer liberty. Synodality now. Synodality now. ”
Yes, the 10 Commandments, starting with the first, “small disciplinary things.”
Correction:
There’s nothing quite like the already-decided, pre-determinined “discernment” of a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit…or a non-judgmental, non-elite Jesuit pope…and a room full of non-judgmental, non-elites sycophantically applauding him….and themselves.
“A little leaven spoils the whole loaf.” I guess this is one of those “little things”.