Vatican City, Jan 8, 2021 / 05:20 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed on Friday the first lay head of the Roman Curia’s disciplinary commission.
The Holy See press office announced on Jan. 8 that the pope had named Vincenzo Buonomo, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, as president of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia.
Buonomo succeeds the Italian Bishop Giorgio Corbellini, who served in the role from 2010 until his death on Nov. 13, 2019.
The commission, founded in 1981, is the main disciplinary body within the curia, the administrative apparatus of the Holy See. It is responsible for determining sanctions against curial employees accused of misconduct, ranging from suspension to dismissal.
Buonomo, 59, is a professor of international law who has served as a consultant to the Holy See since the 1980s.
He worked with Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Vatican Secretary of State from 1979 to 1990, as well as Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State from 2006 to 2013. He edited a book of Bertone’s speeches.
Pope Francis appointed the law professor as an adviser to Vatican City in 2014.
Buonomo made history in 2018 when he became the first lay professor to be named rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, also known as the “Pope’s university.”
The disciplinary commission consists of a president and six members appointed for five-year terms by the pope.
Its first president was Venezuelan Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, who served from 1981 to 1990. He was succeeded by Italian Cardinal Vincenzo Fagiolo, who led the commission from 1990 to 1997, when he stepped aside for Italian Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda, who served as president until 1999.
The Spanish Cardinal Julián Herranz Casado oversaw the commission from 1999 to 2010.
The Holy See press office also announced on Jan. 8 the appointment of two new members of the commission: Msgr. Alejandro W. Bunge, the Argentine president of the Labor Office of the Apostolic See, and the Spanish layman Maximino Caballero Ledero, secretary-general of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy.
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Pope Francis praying at the general audience on St. Peter’s Square / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
Rome Newsroom, Nov 23, 2022 / 02:37 am (CNA).
Pope Francis used the example of several Catholic saints to explain the concept of spiritual consolation during his weekly audience on Wednesday.
“What is spiritual consolation?” he said Nov. 23. “It is a profound experience of interior joy, consisting in seeing God’s presence in everything. It strengthens faith and hope, and even the ability of doing good.”
The pope continued his teachings on the theme of discernment at his public audience in St. Peter’s Square, where he contrasted last week’s reflection on spiritual desolation with consolation, as experienced by several of the Church’s saints.
“The person who experiences consolation never gives up in the face of difficulties because he or she always experiences a peace that is stronger than any trial,” Francis said. Consolation “is, therefore, a tremendous gift for the spiritual life as well as life in general.”
Pope Francis arriving for the general audience on St. Peter’s Square, Nov. 23, 2022. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
The pope began his explanation by drawing from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who wrote about rules for the discernment of spirits.
Francis said “consolation is an interior movement that touches our depths. It is not flashy but soft, delicate, like a drop of water on a sponge.”
He went on to describe consolation as not “a passing euphoria,” nor something which tries to force our will or inhibit our freedom. “Even the suffering caused, for example, by our own sins can become a reason for consolation,” he added.
St. Augustine was consoled when he spoke with his mother, St. Monica, about the beauty of eternal life, the pope said. And St. Francis of Assisi experienced perfect joy despite the difficult situations he had to bear.
“Let’s think of the many saints who were able to do great things not because they thought they were magnificent or capable, but because they had been conquered by the peaceful
sweetness of God’s love,” Pope Francis said. “This is the peace that St. Ignatius discovered in himself with such amazement when he would read the lives of the saints.”
The pope also quoted St. Edith Stein, who is also known by the name she took in religious life: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
A year after her baptism as a Christian, following her conversion from Judaism, St. Edith Stein wrote about her interior feeling of peace: “As I abandon myself to this feeling, little by little a new life begins to fill me and — without any pressure on my will — to drive me toward new realizations. This living inpouring seems to spring from an activity and it gives a strength that is not mine and which, without doing me any violence, becomes active in me.”
Francis emphasized the importance of action following consolation.
“Consolation is such peace, but not to sit there enjoying it, no, it gives you peace and draws you to the Lord and sets you on a path to do things, to do good things,” he said.
“In a time of consolation, when we are consoled, we get the desire to do so much good, always. Instead, when there is a time of desolation, we get the urge to close in on ourselves and do nothing. Consolation pushes you forward, in service to others, to society, to people.”
He recalled when St. Therese of the Child Jesus, at the age of 14, visited the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome.
The girl from Lisieux, France, “tried to touch the nail venerated there, one of the nails with which Jesus was crucified,” the pope said. “Therese understood her daring as a transport of love and confidence. Later, she wrote, ‘I truly was too audacious. But the Lord sees the depths of our hearts. He knows my intention was pure […] I acted with him as a child who believes everything is permissible and who considers the Father’s treasures their own.’”
This, Pope Francis said, is a “splendid description of spiritual consolation.”
“We can feel a sense of tenderness toward God that makes us audacious in our desire to participate in his own life, to do what is pleasing to him because we feel familiar with him, we feel that his house is our house, we feel welcome, loved, restored,” he added.
Consolation gives one the strength to continue in the face of difficulty, Francis said, pointing to St. Therese’s request to the pope to enter the Carmelite order even though she was too young.
According to the pope, St. Bernard teaches us about consolation and discernment, especially the pitfall of “false consolations.”
“If an authentic consolation is like a drop on a sponge, is soft and intimate, its imitations are noisier and flashier, like straw fires, lacking substance, leading us to close in on ourselves and not to take care of others,” Francis said. This is where discernment comes in.
“False consolation can become a danger if we seek it obsessively as an end in itself, forgetting the Lord,” he pointed out. “As St. Bernard would say, this is like seeking the consolations of God rather than the God of consolations.”
There is a risk of treating our relationship with God in a childish way, he concluded, “of reducing it to an object that we use and consume, losing the most beautiful gift which is God himself.”
Pope Francis speaks during the Angelus prayer. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Aug 29, 2021 / 05:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday urged Christians to intensify their prayer, penance, and fasting for the situation in Afghanistan, as he entrusted… […]
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