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Parliament House for the state of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. / Stock photo via Shutterstock
Melbourne, Australia, Dec 7, 2021 / 16:31 pm (CNA).
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This year’s procession honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe in Los Angeles was well attended after a limited, cars-only procession in 2020 during the pandemic. / Víctor Aleman/Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Denver Newsroom, Dec 7, 2021 / 14:36 pm (CNA).
On Sunday, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles held its 90th annual procession and outdoor Mass honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. The celebration, which is the oldest religious procession in Los Angeles, was established by Catholics who fled persecution by the Mexican government during the Cristero War in 1931.
“It’s a joy to be reunited this year to celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe,” said Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez in a release.
This year’s event is part of the archdiocese’s Jubilee Year, “Forward in Mission,” which celebrates 250 years of Catholic faith in the region.
“We are gathered here with the desire to go ‘always forward and united in mission and hope,’ which is the theme of our procession this year, and as you know, it’s a historic year,” Gomez said.
Five East L.A. students from Bishop Mora Salesian High School kicked off the procession with a 6-mile relay run and the carrying of the Guadalupano torch from Mission San Gabriel to East Los Angeles College Stadium, where the Mass was held.
The procession included musicians, Aztec dancers, and many colorful floats honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe, who has been a symbol of “hope, compassion, unity, and love” during a difficult year, Gomez said.
“Her image has been a symbol of unity, peace, compassion, and hope for people around the world,” said the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in a statement.
The procession and Mass commemorated the 490th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and marked the culmination of a months-long pilgrimage of the images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Juan Diego throughout Los Angeles. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is an exact digital reproduction of the original image in Mexico City’s Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and was blessed by Pope St. John Paul II.
“Whenever I am in the presence of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I feel like a child who is loved,” said Archbishop José Gomez on Twitter in preparation for the event. “When you are in her presence, you can feel the warmth of her tender eyes gazing down upon you. It is a powerful feeling—a beautiful sense of being protected.”
Last year, a limited number of participants were able to participate in the procession by car only due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gomez offered his prayers for the end of the pandemic during this year’s event.
“Today, especially, we elevate our prayers for the end of the pandemic,” said Gomez in Spanish during the bilingual celebration. “We dedicate special prayers for the eternal rest of those who have died and also for those who are sick and for those who assist them.”
During the homily, Gomez called the faithful to keep following Jesus.
“We need to increase more and more in our love for Jesus, in our understanding of what God wants in our lives, in our desire to do his will,” he said.
The Diocese of San Diego also celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe with a procession and Mass on Sunday. Auxiliary Bishop Ramón Bejarano participated in the procession and celebrated the bilingual Mass, which was held in the gym at St. Augustine High School.
“We estimate that around 1,000 faithful participated in our procession, and nearly 2,000 attended the Mass, one of the largest turnouts in recent years,” said Aida Bustos, director of the Office of Media for the Diocese of San Diego.
Last year, the San Diego Mass was held outside with limited attendance due to the pandemic, and no procession took place. According to one report, this year, the San Diego celebration had floats from 32 Catholic organizations and parishes in the area, along with mariachi bands and dancers.
Following the Mass, the diocese held a tribute to former Auxiliary Bishop Gilbert Chavez, who died in March of 2020. Chavez was the second Mexican-American to be appointed auxiliary bishop in the United States, and advocated for Latinos in his ministry.
The opening of the Amazon synod at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Oct. 7, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Dec 7, 2021 / 12:40 pm (CNA).
Officials at the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops have removed a link to New Ways Ministry from a resource page after they became aware that the U.S. bishops’ conference expressed its disapproval of the LGBT outreach ministry in 2010.
Thierry Bonaventura, communication manager of the General Secretariat, told CNA on Dec. 7 that the link on the website synodresources.org had been taken down.
Writing on his Twitter account on Dec. 6, Father James Martin, S.J., had hailed the link as “a small but historic step forward for #LGBTQ Catholics.”
Martin, the author of “Building a Bridge,” a book advocating stronger ties between the Catholic Church and the LGBT community, wrote: “As Pope Francis has said, all voices must be heard at the Synod…”
New Ways Ministry was founded in 1977 in the Archdiocese of Washington by Sr. Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent, who were the subject of a notification by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999.
The notification, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, said that their positions “regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area.”
In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, then president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement emphasizing that New Ways Ministry “has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”
Bonaventura told CNA that synodresources.org is an initiative of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops for sharing resources among dioceses, bishops’ conferences, and official Catholic organizations.
But he noted that the website’s address does not end in “.va,” the internet country code top-level domain for Vatican City.
“It means that the content published doesn’t express the view of the General Secretary of the Synod or of the Vatican,” he explained.
“At the same time, even if we are open to receiving any useful resources without a particular censoring of the material, it is our desire to welcome inputs from officially recognized organizations by the Catholic Church.”
“In this case, my team was not aware of the situation of the New Ways organization and of the clarification given by the USCCB President in 2010.”
The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops is currently overseeing what has been described as one of the largest consultation exercises in human history, ahead of the 2023 Synod on Synodality.
A handbook released by the Vatican in September urged dioceses to include “all the baptized” in the process, including those on the margins of Church life.
It said: “Special care should be taken to involve those persons who may risk being excluded: women, the handicapped, refugees, migrants, the elderly, people who live in poverty, Catholics who rarely or never practice their faith, etc.”.
The Vatican announced in May that the Synod on Synodality would open with a diocesan phase starting in October 2021.
A second, continental phase will take place from September 2022 to March 2023.
The third, universal phase will begin with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission,” at the Vatican in October 2023.
The “About” section of synodresources.org says that the website is “a platform for sharing resources, stories, and experiences in the journey of the Synod 2021-2023.”
Bonaventura said: “At the same time, you have to be aware that we are studying the way to listen to all the faithful and also those organizations who are not officially in communion with the Catholic Church as it is a question of consistency of the message we want to spread out, but synodresources.org is not that place.”
Pro-choice protesters at the University of San Diego on Nov. 11, 2021. / Screenshot of Students for Life in America video
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