Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 29, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Nov 21, 2023 / 08:25 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has written a letter to four German Catholic laywomen expressing his “concerns” about the direction of the Catholic Church in Germany.
The following is CNA’s English translation of the full text of the German letter, signed by the pope on Nov. 10 and first published by the German newspaper Welt on Nov. 21:
From the Vatican, November 10, 2023
Dear Professor Westerhorstmann,
Dear Professor Schlosser,
Dear Professor Gerl-Falkovitz,
Dear Mrs. Schmidt,
I extend my gratitude for your kind letter dated November 6. Your concerns regarding the current developments within the Church in Germany have reached me, and I share your concerns. There are indeed numerous steps being taken by significant segments of this local Church that threaten to steer it increasingly away from the universal Church’s common path. This doubtlessly includes the establishment of the synodal committee you referenced. This committee aims to set up a consultative and decision-making body. However, as outlined in the corresponding resolution, its proposed structure is not in alignment with the sacramental structure of the Catholic Church. Consequently, its formation was forbidden by the Holy See in a letter dated January 16, 2023, which received my specific endorsement.
In my “Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany,” I sought not to find “salvation” in constantly evolving committees, nor to persist in self-absorbed dialogues rehashing the same themes. Rather, I aimed to reemphasize the importance of prayer, penance, and adoration. I urged an openness and a call to action to engage with our brothers and sisters, especially those found at the thresholds of our church doors, in the streets, within prisons, hospitals, public squares, and cities (as mentioned in section 8). I firmly believe that in these places, the Lord will guide us.
I commend your contributions to theology and philosophy and thank you for your witness to the Faith. May the Lord bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary keep you. I kindly ask that you continue to pray for me and for our shared commitment to unity.
United in the Lord,
Francis
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Pope Francis during his general audience in Paul VI Hall on Jan. 26, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Valletta, Malta, Jan 27, 2022 / 02:20 am (CNA).
Pope Francis intends to make a two-day visit to Malta in April, according to a local newspaper.The Ti… […]
“Abortion is a crime disguised as a solution” and “The size of your body doesn’t take away your rights” are among the signs held high by pro-life marchers in Madrid, Spain, on Sunday, March 10, 2024. / Credit: Nicolás de Cárdenas/ACI Prensa
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 11, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
In a festive atmosphere, thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid, Spain, on Sunday to participate in the annual March for Life with the theme “Yes to Life” in an event that featured powerful testimonies.
“It’s time to unmask the lies, horrors, businesses, and ideologies that sustain the culture of death and assume responsibility for repairing, healing, and making possible the culture of life and true progress,” the organizers of the pro-life event emphasized in their manifesto for the event.
Before the start of the march, the president of the Spanish Federation of Pro-Life Associations, Alicia Latorre, told the media that the objective of the march is to say “yes” to life especially “at this time when there are special attacks, not only by the laws but also against those who defend life.”
Latorre charged that “they want to turn into rights acts that are objectively perverse and that benefit no one. Not only do they take the lives of the unborn or the sick who are at the end of their life, but they also scar every person who participates in these acts and also society.”
The 2024 March for Life in Spain saw thousands of Spaniards celebrate and proclaim their pro-life convictions. Crédit: Nicolás de Cárdenas/ACI Prensa
Some of those attending the march carried banners that read “Abortion is a crime disguised as a solution,” “The size of your body doesn’t take away your rights,” “Life is valuable from its beginning to its natural end,” and “Praying is not harassment.” A group of participants marched behind a banner with the line from Luke’s Gospel “Blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
At the end of the march route, a stage was set up on Paseo de la Castellana, Madrid’s main thoroughfare, where the manifesto was read and two powerful testimonies were given.
‘Just because life isn’t easy doesn’t make it any less beautiful’
Paloma Zafrilla is the sister of Carlos, a young man who is 96% disabled. “He’s like a 6-month-old child,” Zafrilla told the assembled crowd. “He is 26 years old, but he doesn’t walk, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t communicate. He is exactly like a baby. What he does do is smile and complain when something is bothering him,” she explained.
When her brother was diagnosed at 7 months old, his parents were pressured to not have more children “because they didn’t know how they might turn out, if the diagnosis were to be repeated” and they even told them “that it was very selfish to bring children into the world who could live with this misfortune, with this tragedy,” Zafrilla said.
“They even told me how could we take care of little Carlos, that in the end there was no quality of life. I can only assure you that there is no greater life than what is in my house. And especially everything is due to my brother,” she recounted, while also acknowledging that living with a disabled person isn’t easy.
“Just because life isn’t easy doesn’t make it any less beautiful,” said Paloma Zafrilla, whose brother is 96% disabled. “And in this case it is quite the opposite. It’s much more fun. And it makes you look at everything with a much more special perspective.” Credit: Yes to Life/Sí a la Vida
Nevertheless, she added: “Just because life isn’t easy doesn’t make it any less beautiful, of course. And in this case it is quite the opposite. It’s much more fun. And it makes you look at everything with a much more special perspective,” she said to the resounding applause of those present.
Before concluding her remarks, Zafrilla observed that “a life is never less of a life according to what your abilities are, because we are not machines and our value is not based on what we produce.”
‘Half a heart trotting like a horse’
Clara and Diego, along with their three children, also gave their testimony. Their youngest child, Felipe, was diagnosed at 20 weeks with congenital heart disease (hypoplastic single ventricle syndrome). His mother stated that she and her husband were told that the boy wasn’t going to make it to birth.
During the first ultrasound at 6 weeks, Clara recounted, they heard the baby’s “half heart trotting like a horse.” When the parents were told of the diagnosis, they were given “a short and bad, catastrophic life prognosis,” she said.
Clara y Diego, together with their three children, took the stage to share their story at Spain’s 2024 March for Life. Crédit: Yes to Life/Sí a la Vida
Throughout the pregnancy, the doctors asked them if they were prepared “because it was going to be quite a complicated life,” to which Clara commented: “I think we can all say that we have complicated lives, regardless of whether there is an illness or not. And in this case, yes, it has been complicated, but full of joy.”
However, the terrible outcome didn’t materialize and the determination of Felipe’s parents made the doctors work hard to save the child. “They went all out,” Clara acknowledged, to the point that this case led to the first child organ transplant being performed in 2021 with the donor in asystole, a type of cardiac arrest and the blood type being incompatible.
Regarding her older children, Clara says proudly: “They are prepared for the suffering, the illness, and the death they know can come. They are prepared for that as well as going to the park.”
Clara concluded her remarks by encouraging everyone to overcome the fear that arises in these situations: “It paralyzes you. But any decision based on love, which is to pursue life, is well made. You are a good mother and you are a mother, even if your eyes don’t see that ultrasound because they don’t want to show it to you, even if your ears don’t hear it, you’re still a mother.”
The event concluded with releasing balloons into the sky and a live ultrasound of a baby at 25 weeks, whose beating heart was all that could be heard.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Vatican City, Dec 23, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
The Knights of Columbus have donated a state-of-the-art mobile broadcasting van to the Vatican, just in time for the start of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year…. […]
12 Comments
Too little too late or is this enough of a finger in the dike to stem a looming disaster? Continuing dissent from erring synodalists should receive clearly restrictive and unambiguous consequences. May dissenters continue to skate around the words in the letter as they’ve skated around the millennial teachings of Christ and the Church for years?
In the tale within the tale of Hans Brinker, the boy CONTINUES, all alone and despite the cold, to plug the hole with his finger, ALL NIGHT. He suffers until the villagers arrive the next day to relieve him, to repair the dike and save the country.
Will Francis and Vatican friends continue actions to repair the damage, enforce strictures, or impose sanctions in the event of recurrence? Or is the response too little, too late?
Or simply made it clear to The German Bishops that their denial of The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, has left them, ipso facto, outside The One Body Of Christ.
Surely, since the Strickland debacle, the proverb “actions not words” should be operative.
Bishop Strickland is a profoundly faithful and devout Roman Catholic. The German episcopate has manifested itself to be clearly, boldly and enthusiastically not.
Give the German episcopate the Strickland treatment and correct the scandalous injustice rendered to Bishop Joseph Strickland now.
“I sought not to find ‘salvation’ in constantly evolving committees, nor to persist in self-absorbed dialogues rehashing the same themes.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read the above!
The Synod on Synodality to find a synodal way for a synodal Church and all the other preliminary SINods were nothing but “constantly evolving committees, and persisted in self-absorbed dialogues rehashing the same themes” of women priests and the normalization of homosexual acts and other immoral behavior!
Everything Pope Francis says here is true. What is absolutely necessary is for Francis to back up his words with action, that is, if there’s no compliance within a specified time. A time limit is required here because of the history of duplicity.
If the familiar pattern of verbal chastisement followed by tolerance repeats itself, it can be discounted. Catholic Christians need be aware of the difference between oration and practice. The latter will save us. Of itself the former not [words and faith alone may have been fine for Martin Luther, not for the tradition left by Christ for the Apostles, and the long sacred history of witness by our saints and martyrs]. Words can be used as deceitful weapons to anesthetize and render inert.
Certainly we hope for favorable response and resolution. Although can we reasonably bracket the Bishop Rey, Fréjus-Toulon, France neutralization by placing a coadjutor bishop with full authority to reform a very successful priest’s formation plan because it was too conservative?
Bergoglio’s actions do not meet his words. He has no credibility. His Peronist stunt of saying one thing and doing the opposite is so evident after more than 10 years of his abominable claimed papacy that he needs to be called out for the liar and hypocrite he is. Sorry, but it’s true.
Cf. The playbook he used in Argentina to eventually come out in support of civil homosexual unions, is the same playbook adopted as regards @DerSynodaleWeg.
Too little too late or is this enough of a finger in the dike to stem a looming disaster? Continuing dissent from erring synodalists should receive clearly restrictive and unambiguous consequences. May dissenters continue to skate around the words in the letter as they’ve skated around the millennial teachings of Christ and the Church for years?
In the tale within the tale of Hans Brinker, the boy CONTINUES, all alone and despite the cold, to plug the hole with his finger, ALL NIGHT. He suffers until the villagers arrive the next day to relieve him, to repair the dike and save the country.
Will Francis and Vatican friends continue actions to repair the damage, enforce strictures, or impose sanctions in the event of recurrence? Or is the response too little, too late?
If he was really concerned he would have given them the Bishop Strickland treatment months or years ago.
Fake letter and fake news.
Or simply made it clear to The German Bishops that their denial of The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, has left them, ipso facto, outside The One Body Of Christ.
Precisely summed up by Jeremy above.
“…signifying nothing.”
More gaslighting and doublespeak from Francis. Is anyone really listening to anything this pope has to say at this point?
Surely, since the Strickland debacle, the proverb “actions not words” should be operative.
Bishop Strickland is a profoundly faithful and devout Roman Catholic. The German episcopate has manifested itself to be clearly, boldly and enthusiastically not.
Give the German episcopate the Strickland treatment and correct the scandalous injustice rendered to Bishop Joseph Strickland now.
“I sought not to find ‘salvation’ in constantly evolving committees, nor to persist in self-absorbed dialogues rehashing the same themes.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read the above!
The Synod on Synodality to find a synodal way for a synodal Church and all the other preliminary SINods were nothing but “constantly evolving committees, and persisted in self-absorbed dialogues rehashing the same themes” of women priests and the normalization of homosexual acts and other immoral behavior!
Everything Pope Francis says here is true. What is absolutely necessary is for Francis to back up his words with action, that is, if there’s no compliance within a specified time. A time limit is required here because of the history of duplicity.
If the familiar pattern of verbal chastisement followed by tolerance repeats itself, it can be discounted. Catholic Christians need be aware of the difference between oration and practice. The latter will save us. Of itself the former not [words and faith alone may have been fine for Martin Luther, not for the tradition left by Christ for the Apostles, and the long sacred history of witness by our saints and martyrs]. Words can be used as deceitful weapons to anesthetize and render inert.
Certainly we hope for favorable response and resolution. Although can we reasonably bracket the Bishop Rey, Fréjus-Toulon, France neutralization by placing a coadjutor bishop with full authority to reform a very successful priest’s formation plan because it was too conservative?
Bergoglio’s actions do not meet his words. He has no credibility. His Peronist stunt of saying one thing and doing the opposite is so evident after more than 10 years of his abominable claimed papacy that he needs to be called out for the liar and hypocrite he is. Sorry, but it’s true.
Thank you Paul!
We do not have a Catholic Pope [@Pontifex]!
Cf. The playbook he used in Argentina to eventually come out in support of civil homosexual unions, is the same playbook adopted as regards @DerSynodaleWeg.
https://twitter.com/CrucifixDamiano/status/1639630252182994944?t=Bpm8X2Dtb6-Sq4rPUcTRcw&s=19
Pope Francis seems to be doing what he does best — CONFUSING — all of us and and himself.
May God bless Germany, the land and all dwellers in that part of the world, divine blessings, peace, joy, and harmony.