‘You don’t play with life:’ Pope Francis condemns euthanasia, abortion on papal plane

In response to the long wait times to enter St. Peter’s Basilica, those who wish to enter for Mass, confession, or adoration can now do so via a special “prayer entrance” immediately to the right of the barricades to enter through the metal detectors on the right side of the piazza. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Apr 14, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

With 100,000 people cramming into St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the lines to enter the Vatican basilica have returned to their pre-pandemic wait times.

In light of the influx of tourists to the Eternal City, the Vatican has introduced a separate “prayer entrance” for Catholics who want to enter St. Peter’s Basilica for Mass, confession, or adoration.

The entrance, signaled only by a small sign, is immediately to the right of the barricades to enter through the metal detectors on the right side of the piazza.

Mountain Butorac, who leads small groups of Catholics on pilgrimages to Rome with his company The Catholic Traveler, calls the prayer entrance “long overdue.”

According to Butorac, it can take up to two hours of waiting in a long line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica during the peak tourism season.

“When I first moved to Rome, I was always going to Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s … but then standing in line for an hour and a half to go to Mass got old pretty fast,” he told CNA.

“We also do weekly family confession there and we always would have to go right at 7 or 8 a.m. And now we can go later in the day,” he added.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, said the prayer entrance was introduced during Holy Week on an “experimental basis.”

“In line with the Holy Father’s wish, we would like to restore maximum accessibility to the sanctuary for spiritual, liturgical, and celebratory life,” Gambetti said.

The cardinal expressed hope that the new entrance will “allow the faithful, prayer groups, and pilgrims to come to pray in St. Peter’s and participate in the sacraments easily, without waiting in long queues.”

The prayer entrance will soon lead to a “pilgrim path” designated by red velvet ropes that will guide people along the right side wall of the basilica, while the throngs of tourists and guided groups will remain in the main part of the basilica.

The new path will bring pilgrims past Michelangelo’s Pietà and the tomb of St. John Paul II directly to the chapel with daily eucharistic adoration and the back corner of the basilica reserved for confessions.

Pilgrims will also be able to access two of the chapels where daily public Masses are held: the Altar of the Chair and Altar of St. Joseph.

However, it appears that the Vatican is still coordinating the logistics of this prayer path after the soft launch of the new entrance during Holy Week, as the current prayer entrance merely drops pilgrims off at the front of the line to enter through security, essentially allowing those who wish to access the sacraments in the basilica an option to “skip the line.”

To enter, tell the security guard near the new prayer entrance sign that you are coming to the basilica to pray.

Elizabeth Hince, who lives near St. Peter’s Basilica with her husband and two young children, said: “We’re very excited to not have to get up at 7 a.m. to avoid the line when we want to go to confession or adoration!”

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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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Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jun 13, 2024 / 09:42 am (CNA).

The Vatican published a 130-page study on papal primacy on Thursday containing suggestions from Orthodox and Protestant Christian communities for how the role of the Bishop of Rome might look in a future “reunited Church.”

The study document, titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint,” is the first Vatican text since the Second Vatican Council to outline the entire ecumenical debate on papal primacy.

In addition to identifying the theological questions surrounding papal primacy in ecumenical dialogue, the document goes a step further to provide suggestions “for a ministry of unity in a reunited Church,” including “a differentiated exercise of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.”

The end of the text published on June 13 includes a section of proposals from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on “the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” including recommendations for “a synodal exercise” of papal primacy.

Synodality

The dicastery concludes that “growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church” and that “many synodal institutions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches could inspire the Latin Church.” 

It adds that “a synodality ad extra” could include regular meetings among Christian representatives at the worldwide level in a “conciliar fellowship” to deepen communion.

This builds off of dialogue with some Orthodox representatives who have asserted that “any restoration of full communion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will require, on both sides, a strengthening of synodal structures and a renewed understanding of a universal primacy – both serving communion among the churches.”

At a Vatican press conference on June 13, Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, said that this study document is being released as a very “convenient time” as the Church prepares for the second session of the Synod on Synodality in the fall. 

A representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, who joined the press conference via video link, underlined that “the synodality of the Catholic Church is an important criterion for the Oriental Orthodox churches on our way to full communion.”

Defining responsibilities of the pope

The Catholic Church holds that Jesus made Peter the “rock” of his Church, giving him the keys to the Kingdom and instituting him as the shepherd of the whole flock. The pope as Peter’s successor is the “perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful,” as described in one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium.

The new study document proposes “a clearer distinction be made between the different responsibilities of the Pope, especially between his ministry as head of the Catholic Church and his ministry of unity among all Christians, or more specifically between his patriarchal ministry in the Latin Church and his primatial ministry in the communion of Churches.”

It notes the possibility of “extending this idea to consider how other Western Churches might relate to the Bishop of Rome as primate while having a certain autonomy themselves.”

The text notes that Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches emphasized the importance of regional leadership in the Church and advocated “a balance between primacy and primacies.” It adds that some ecumenical dialogues with Western Christian communities also applied this to the Catholic Church by calling for “a strengthening of Catholic episcopal conferences, including at the continental level, and for a continuing ‘decentralization’ inspired by the model of the ancient patriarchal Churches.”

Invoking the principle of subsidiarity, which means that no matter that can properly be dealt with at a lower level should be taken to a higher one, the text describes how some ecumenical dialogues argued that “the power of the Bishop of Rome should not exceed that required for the exercise of his ministry of unity at the universal level, and suggest a voluntary limitation in the exercise of his power.”

“In a reconciled Christianity, such communion presupposes that the Bishop of Rome’s relationship to the Eastern Churches and their bishops […] would have to be substantially different from the relationship now accepted in the Latin Church,” it says.

‘Rewording’ of teachings of Vatican I

Another concrete proposal put forward by the dicastery is “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation,’ ‘official interpretation,’  ‘updated commentary,’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” particularly with regard to definitions on primacy of jurisdiction and papal infallibility.

The First Vatican Council, which took place between 1869 and 1870 under Pope Pius IX, dogmatically defined papal infallibility in the constitution, Pastor Aeternus, which said that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he officially teaches in his capacity of the universal shepherd of the Church on a doctrine on a matter of faith or morals and addresses it to the entire world, the defined doctrine is irreformable.

An Anglican representative who spoke at the Vatican press conference highlighted how certain aspects of Vatican I have been a particular “stumbling block” for Angelicans. 

The study document released by the Vatican pointed to how arguments have been made in ecumenical dialogue that some of the teachings of Vatican I “were deeply conditioned by their historical context” and suggested that “the Catholic Church should look for new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention but integrated into a communio ecclesiology and adapted to the current  cultural and ecumenical context.”

It describes how some ecumenical dialogues “were able to clarify the wording of the dogma of infallibility and even to agree on certain aspects of its purpose, recognizing the need, in some circumstances, for a personal exercise of the teaching ministry, given that Christian unity is a unity in truth and love.”

“In spite of these clarifications, the dialogues still express concerns regarding the relation of infallibility to the primacy of the Gospel, the indefectibility of the whole Church, the exercise of episcopal collegiality and the necessity of reception,” it adds.

‘That they all may be one’

The document summarizes responses by different Christian communities to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, Ut Unum Sint (“That They All May Be One”).

In particular to the Polish pope’s invitation in the encyclical for Christian leaders and theologians to engage in a patient and fraternal dialogue on papal primacy.

“It is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry. I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek — together, of course — the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned,” John Paul II wrote.

Ut Unum Sint says that the bishop of Rome as the successor of the Apostle Peter has a “specific duty” to work for the cause of Christian unity.

The study document published by the Vatican is the result of more than three years of work summarizing some 30 responses to Ut unum sint and 50 ecumenical dialogue documents on the subject.

Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholics experts were consulted in collaboration with the Institute for Ecumenical Studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, noted at the press conference that one of the fruits of the ecumenical theological dialogue in the past three decades has been “a renewed reading of the ‘Petrine texts,’” in which dialogue partners were invited to “consider afresh the role of Peter among the apostles.”

The Vatican notes that the “the concerns, emphases and conclusions of the different dialogues varied according to the confessional traditions involved.”

As a study document, its goal is only to offer “an objective synthesis of the ecumenical discussions” on papal primacy, and “does not claim to exhaust the subject nor summarize the entire Catholic magisterium on the subject.”

Cardinal Koch explained that Pope Francis gave his approval for the dicastery to publish the document, but this does not mean that the pope approved every sentence.

Ian Ernest, the director of the Anglican Center in Rome, thanked Catholic leaders for publishing the new document, which he said “opens up new perspectives for ecumenical relations on the much debated question of the relationship between primacy and synodality.”

“As the personal representative of the archbishop of Canterbury, I am delighted that one of the most comprehensive and detailed responses to St. John Paul II’s invitation in Ut unum sint was given by the House of bishops of the Church of England in 1997,” he said.

Ernest described the Anglican Lambeth Conference and Primates’ Meeting as examples of “synodality at work,” which enable the Anglican communion “to prayerfully understand the ecumenical dialogues and new perspectives which touch on … important doctrinal aspects.”

In response to questions from journalists, Cardinal Grech acknowledged that different Christian churches have different ways of conceiving synodality.

Grech noted that the synthesis report from the 2023 assembly of the Synod on Synodality asked theologians to examine “the way in which a renewed understanding of the episcopate within a synodal Church affects the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the Roman Curia.” 

He added that “the debate is still open” as the Church continues the synodal process with the second assembly in the fall. 

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