Vatican City, Feb 5, 2020 / 08:10 am (CNA).- After a German Catholic weekly reported that Archbishop Georg Gänswein was asked to take a leave of absence from his position as head of the papal household, the Vatican has said it cannot confirm the report, and the archbishop is still in his job.
Die Tagespost reported Feb. 5 that the German archbishop had recently been asked by Pope Francis to “focus on his role as private secretary to pope emeritus Benedict XVI.”
A Vatican source told CNA that the Die Tagepost report was on the mark. Gänswein has been requested to “stay away from his office [as prefect of the papal household] indefinitely,” the source said.
But the Holy See press office told CNA Wednesday that it has no information regarding Ganswein being on a leave of absence from the prefecture
Regarding the bishop’s absence from papal audiences in recent weeks, the press office stated “it is due to an ordinary redistribution of the various commitments and duties of the Prefect of the Papal Household, who, as you know, is also the personal secretary of the Pope emeritus.”
In January, Gänswein was absent for several weeks from his usual official seat at public appearances of the pope – such as the general audiences on Wednesdays – due to being ill with bronchitis.
Gänswein’s continued absence in the immediate wake of controversy over a new book on priestly celibacy written by Cardinal Robert Sarah and Benedict XVI, led to speculation the personal secretary of the pope emeritus had been removed as head of the papal household for this reason.
Fr. Leonardo Sapienza, regent of the prefecture, has been filling in for Gänswein at general audiences as representative of the papal household.
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Vilnius, Lithuania, Sep 22, 2018 / 02:36 pm (CNA).- Traveling Saturday to Lithuania, Pope Francis joked that, in the eyes of some, Pope St. John Paul II is considered a saint while he himself is considered “a devil.”
Father Roberto Pasolini, OFM Cap, gives the homily during a two-hour Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica on Good Friday, April 18, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2025 / 13:29 pm (CNA).
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The opening of the Amazon synod at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Oct. 7, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Jul 20, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops on Tuesday named the members of three groups helping to prepare the 2023 synod on synodality.
It listed the names on July 20, just three months before the start of a two-year preparatory phase involving Catholic dioceses worldwide.
A synod is a meeting of bishops gathered to discuss a topic of theological or pastoral significance, to prepare a document of advice or counsel to the pope.
The theme for the upcoming assembly is “For a synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission.”
The general secretariat listed the members of a steering committee, a commission for theology, and a commission for methodology.
The steering committee has five members: Archbishop Erio Castellucci, who leads the Italian dioceses of Modena-Nonantola and Carpi; Fr. Giacomo Costa, S.J., president of the San Fedele Cultural Foundation of Milan and director of the magazine Aggiornamenti Sociali; Mgsr. Pierangelo Sequeri, president of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family; Fr. Dario Vitali, full professor in the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University; and Myriam Wijlens, professor of canon law at the University of Erfurt, Germany.
The commission for theology has 25 members from around the world. The commission, which is coordinated by Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, one of two under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops, assists the synod secretariat by reviewing texts, presenting theological proposals “for the development of synodality,” and creating and sharing “materials for theological deepening,” according to the synod’s website.
The commission’s members include three Jesuits: Fr. Paul Béré, from Burkina Faso, the first African to win the prestigious Ratzinger Prize for theology; Fr. Santiago Madrigal Terrazas, a professor at the Comillas Pontifical University in Spain; and Fr. Christoph Theobald, a Franco-German theologian based at the Centre Sèvres in Paris.
The commission for methodology, coordinated by Sr. Nathalie Becquart, under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops, has nine members, including four women: Cristina Inogés Sanz, from Spain, Christina Kheng Li Lin, from Singapore, Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, C.P.S., from South Africa, and Susan Pascoe from Australia.
Also among the commission’s members is Fr. David McCallum, S.J., executive director of the Discerning Leadership Program, a collaboration between Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and other institutions.
The commission’s tasks include collecting “best practices for synodal processes at all levels,” proposing “methodologies for the synodal process in all its phases,” creating a “a brochure/website on best practices,” and working on “the methodology/process for the celebration of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023.”
Earlier this month, Pope Francis named the Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich as the relator general of the synod on synodality.
Hollerich, the president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), will help to oversee the gathering of the world’s bishops in Rome.
An infographic showing the timeline for the synod on synodality. / Vatican Media.
The synod on synodality will open with a “diocesan phase” in October 2021 and conclude with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
Pope Francis will “inaugurate the synodal path” over the weekend of Oct. 9-10 with an opening session and a Mass. All dioceses are invited also to offer an opening Mass on Sunday, Oct. 17.
During the diocesan phase, each bishop is asked to undertake a consultation process with the local Church from Oct. 17, 2021, to April 2022.
The Vatican will then release an instrumentum laboris (working document) in September 2022 for a period of “pre-synodal discernment in continental assemblies,” which will influence a second draft of the working document to be published before June 2023.
The process will culminate in a meeting of bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
Alas, how could be taken at face value if we doubt the credibility of the official response have?