Vatican requires vaccine pass for visitors, employees

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 01:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday, Pope Francis moved the responsibility for Catholic shrines to be under the Congregation for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, stating that shrines, as sacred places, are especially suitable to conversion and the strengthening of faith.

April 1 the Pope issued the edict – called a motu proprio – formally moving the competency of shrines from the Congregation for Clergy to the Vatican department on the New Evangelization.

“The large influx of pilgrims, the humble and simple prayer of God’s people alternating in the liturgical celebrations, the fulfillment of so many graces that many believers certify that they have received and the natural beauty of these places allow you to see how the shrines…express an irreplaceable opportunity for evangelization in our time,” Francis states in the letter.

According to the document, titled “Ecclesia in Sanctuarium,” the tasks of the congregation will include: the establishment of new national and international shrines, studying and implementing measures for promoting their role in evangelization, and promoting systematic pastoral care of the shrines and specific training for those who operate them.

They will also be in charge of the promotion of national and international meetings to promote communal pastoral renewal and pilgrimages to various shrines, spiritual guidance for pilgrims, and “cultural and artistic enhancement of the Shrines according to the via pulchritudinis (way of beauty) as a particular mode of evangelization of the Church,” Pope Francis said.

Shrines and other places of pilgrimage “despite the crisis of faith that invests the contemporary world, are still perceived as sacred spaces to which pilgrims go to find a moment of rest, silence and contemplation in the often hectic life of today,” the letter continues.

“A hidden desire creates for many a nostalgia for God; and shrines can be a real refuge to rediscover themselves and regain the necessary strength for their conversion.”

People have made pilgrimages to holy sites since the first century, the Pope said, and even today, in every part of the world, they remain “a distinctive sign of the simple and humble faith of believers.”

The shrine is a “sacred place,” where the celebration of the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist, as well as the witness of charity, “express the great commitment of the Church for evangelization; and therefore it stands as a genuine place of evangelization…” he stated.

The proclamation, which was signed by Pope Francis on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, goes into effect 15 days from its publication.

Also April 1, the Vatican announced the Pope’s appointment of 11 new members to the Congregation for Clergy, including Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, who heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is also a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Francis’ appointment of Fr. Zollner to the Congregation for Clergy reinforces his strong commitment to fight abuse, especially at the level of priestly formation.

The other nominations to the department include seven priests, one archbishop and two lay professors.

Their names are: Archbishop Erio Castellucci, Arcchbishop of Modena-Nonantola; Fr. Maurice Monier, Pro-Dean of the Roman Rota; Msgr. Vito Angelo Todisco, Prelate Auditor of the Roman Rota; Fr. Bruno Esposito, O.P., professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas; Fr. George Augustin, S.A.C., dogmatic theologian; Fr. Ennio Apeciti, Rector of the Pontifical Lombard Seminary; Fr. Janusz Kowal, S.I., professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University; Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, S.I., consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization; Professor Luigi Janiri, specializing in psychiatry and psychopathology at the University of the Sacred Heart; Professor Paolo Papanti-Pelletier, judge of the Court of Vatican City State.

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Vatican City, May 15, 2018 / 02:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This week 34 Chilean bishops are meeting with Pope Francis to discuss the country’s clerical sexual abuse scandal, which involves at least one of the bishops attending the meeting. The meeting is significant, but not unprecedented.

Francis summoned Chile’s bishops to Rome in an April 8 letter admitting he had made “serious mistakes” in judgment of the nation’s abuse crisis, and which was a follow-up to the results of an in-depth investigation into accusations of abuse cover-up carried out by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top prosecutor on clerical abuse.

In April 2002, Pope St. John Paul II called 13 U.S. cardinals and bishops to discuss a large-scale clerical sexual abuse crisis. Benedict XVI followed suit when the abuse crisis in Ireland came to light in 2009, inviting high-ranking Irish prelates and members of the Roman Curia to meet at the Vatican in February 2010.

It is practically unheard of, at least in recent history, that the pope would summon an entire bishops conference – or even the leading bishops and cardinals of a country – to Rome for a previously unplanned emergency visit. But sexual abuse, and cover-ups within ecclesial environments, seems to have merited that treatment more than other issues.

While John Paul was the first of the three most recent popes to make such a drastic request, Vatican observers say that a letter sent by Benedict XVI to the Catholics of Ireland in March 2010 set the tone for the Vatican’s approach to sexual abuse crises around the world.

The letter, which was published after Benedict met with Irish prelates, is still widely read, taught, and referenced as a clear example of how the Vatican should respond to instance of abuse and cover-up.

According to veteran Vatican journalist John Allen, when the American bishops came to the Vatican in April 2002 to discuss the abuse crisis exploding in the U.S., the final results of the meeting were a mixed bag.

On one hand, John Paul II’s declaration that “people need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young” empowered American bishops to develop the June 2002 “Dallas Charter,” which set national standards in place for the prevention and reporting of child abuse.

On the other hand, Allen says, the documents outlining resolutions made by US bishops and the Vatican going into the future were rushed, and were considered by most in both the U.S. and Vatican delegations to be an inaccurate account of the discussion, and the plans that had been made.

In all, it would seem that the Vatican communiques following the meeting were a missed opportunity for the Church to send a strong, unified message to the world on the issue of clerical abuse.

However, Benedict XVI, who was present for the meeting with U.S. bishops in his capacity as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, got a first-hand account of the scope of the problem, the failures that allowed the abuse, the steps that needed to be taken in the future, and the damages done to individuals and to the credibility of the Church in an entire nation.

He likely drew from the experience when dealing with Ireland’s abuse scandal in 2009, and his insights seemed to guide his own discussion with Irish prelates, his handling of the conclusions of their meeting, and his 2010 letter to Irish Catholics.

During a May 14 press conference ahead of the meeting with Pope Francis to discuss their own country’s abuse crisis, Chilean bishops Fernando Ramos and Juan Ignacio González said they and their brother bishops had recently read Benedict’s 2010, and that it provides essential guidelines for them to follow in their own country.

In the letter, Benedict addressed Catholics in Ireland not only with the concern of a father, but also “with the affection of a fellow Christian, scandalized and hurt by what has occurred in our beloved Church.”

He divided the letter into sections addressed to particular groups of people, including victims and their families, parents, priests and religious guilty of abusing children, children and youth from Ireland, priests and religious from Ireland, Irish bishops themselves, and Irish Catholics on the whole.

Benedict apologized to victims, saying that nothing could undo the wrongs they had endured, and that it was understandable if they were unable to forgive and reconcile with the Church.

“In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel. At the same time, I ask you not to lose hope,” he said.

Among other things, Benedict urged greater formation on the issue of abuse for priests and religious, which was echoed by the Chilean bishops during their press conference.

He also highlighted several factors he said were causes in the abuse crisis. In addition to a rapidly changing and secularized cultural landscape, he said the procedures for finding suitable candidates for the priesthood and religious life were “inadequate,” and cited “insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates” as one of the causes of institutional failure.

Also a problem, he said, was clericalism and an exaggerated respect for those in authority, as well as a “misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person.”

In terms of concrete action, Benedict proposed a number of concrete initiatives, the first of which was to do penance.

He asked Ireland’s bishops to dedicate Lent of that year, 2010, as a time “to pray for an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church in your country.”

Benedict also asked that Irish Catholics offer their Friday penances for that intention for a year – from Lent 2010 to Easter 2011 – requesting that they offer their regular prayer, fasting and acts of charity for healing and renewal for the Church of Ireland, and that they go to confession more frequently.

He said special attention ought to be paid to Eucharistic adoration, especially in parishes, seminaries, religious houses and monasteries in order to “make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm” and to ask for the grace of a renewed sense of their mission.

Benedict also announced that he would carry out an apostolic visitation to certain dioceses, seminaries and religious congregations and said he would implement a mission for bishops, priests and religious from Ireland.

The hope for the mission, he said, was that by access to holy preachers and with a careful rereading of conciliar documents, liturgical rites of ordination and recent pontifical teachings, consecrated persons would “come to a more profound appreciation of your respective vocations, so as to rediscover the roots of your faith in Jesus Christ and to drink deeply from the springs of living water that he offers you through his Church.”

During the press conference Monday with Chilean bishops, Ramos and González called Benedict’s letter “a precious and beautiful text full of guidelines that we will follow or are following.”

They also made comments reminiscent of the sentiments voiced by Benedict XVI, saying they are coming into the meeting this week with “shame and pain,” but they also voiced hope that the discussion will be a fresh start for the bishops, and will provide a decisive direction going forward.

However, while they have Benedict’s guidelines in mind, the bishops said that as far as this week goes, they are in Rome at the beckoning of Pope Francis, and their task “is to listen to Peter, to listen to the pope.”

“Conclusions will come, new paths will come out,” González said, adding that “the pope gives us light” indicating the path to be taken.

Meetings between Pope Francis and the Chilean bishops began early in the afternoon Monday, and will continue through Thursday, May 17. Unlike the 2002 meeting, the Vatican has already said there will be no communique or press release after the meeting, in order to keep the discussion confidential.

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Pope Francis meets with Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, at the Vatican on Nov. 9, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Newsroom, Nov 9, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis announced on Saturday that St. Isaac … […]