These are the cardinals from the U.S. and Canada participating in the conclave

Vatican City, May 20, 2019 / 11:19 am (CNA).- French bishops will meet with the children of priests in June to hear their testimonies of hidden suffering.

Monsignor Olivier Ribadeu Dumas, secretary of the French bishops’ conference, confirmed that three members of the French association Children of Silence will share their stories June 13 at the Bishops Conference of France headquarters in Paris, Le Monde reported.

The president of Children of Silence, Anne-Marie Jarzac, called the June meeting a welcome step. Jarzac met previously with Msgr. Dumas and Father Emmanuel Coquet in February in preparation for the June testimony.

“It was a very moving moment,” Jarzac told Le Monde. “For the first time, we felt that the Church opened its doors to us, that there was no more denial, but a listening and an awareness of what we have lived.”

Jarzac is the daughter of a priest and a nun. She leads the French association for children of priests with more than 50 members.

In February 2019, the Vatican confirmed the existence of an internal document from the Congregation of Clergy outlining criteria on the protection of children of priests. “Notes concerning the practice of the Congregation for the Clergy with regard to clerics with children” is a template document used to aid individual bishops dealing with these cases.

In many cases involving priestly paternity, priests either request dispensation or are dismissed from the clerical state because of the parental responsibility and obligation owed to the child.

“Each case is examined on its merits and its own particular circumstances,” Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, told L’Osservatore Romano in an interview Feb. 27. Stella also noted that exceptions to the loss of the clerical state are rare.

“The child’s well-being and care of the child must be at the centre of attention for the Church, so that the child does not lack, not only the necessities of life, but especially the educative role and the affection of a father,” Cardinal Stella said.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy also responded to claims that the existence of children of priests somehow undermines the value of priestly celibacy in the Church.

“The fact that some priests have experienced relationships and have brought children into the world does not affect the theme of priestly celibacy, which represents a precious gift for the Latin church, the ever-present value of which has been expressed by the recent Popes, from St. Paul VI to Pope Francis,” he said.

[…]

Vatican City, Jan 29, 2019 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- In a recent interview, Cardinal Kevin Farrell offered his view of criticisms of the apostolic exhortation on love in the family, Amoris laetitia.

“There is nothing in ‘Amoris Laetitia’ that is contrary to the Gospel. What does Francis do? He goes to the gospel. Look at every chapter, its straight out of one of the gospels or the letters of St Paul,” Farrell asserted in an interview with Christopher Lamb of The Tablet, a weekly British magazine, published Jan. 23.

Excerpts of the interview were published Jan. 25.

Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, also touched on his association with Archbishop Theodore McCarrick while the two were in the Archdiocese of Washington; opposition to Pope Francis; and the sexual abuse crisis.

Lamb wrote that Farrell’s tasks as prefect include “the implementation of Amoris Laetitia.”

“From what I see from information that is coming to us from the conferences of bishops and lay groups involved in marriage and family life in different parts of the world, [Amoris laetitia] is very well received, overwhelmingly well received,” Farrell stated.

He did acknowledge that “there are some elements in the United States, on the continent of Africa, and some here in Europe – but not very strong” who have not received Amoris laetitia warmly.

“Cardinal Farrell said the teaching is clear: the Pope is opening a way for divorced and remarried Catholics to return to communion following a process of discernment and on a case-by-case basis,” Lamb wrote.

According to Farrell “It’s not just a question of going up to a priest and saying ‘can I receive communion?’ It is a process, a process that could take one year could take two years, could take three years. It depends on the people. Fundamentally, this is about encountering people where they are.”

Farrell told Lamb that those opposed to admitting the divorced-and-remarried to Communion say those people are “outside the Church for ever.”

“There’s no redemption whatsoever? None? You mean to tell me that Christ and Christ’s redemption didn’t work for those people? No.”

The cardinal called opposition to the pope’s policy “an ideological conflict … deep down.”

He discussed “theological courses” offered at the World Meeting of Families, which is organized by his dicastery.

He contrasted a “practical” viewpoint with those of theology and canon law.

“We wanted to ensure that ‘Amoris Laetitia’ was dealt with from a practical point of view, not from a theological-canonical point of view,” Farrell stated. “And, therefore, I didn’t include any courses on Canon Law. None.”

The cardinal characterized opposition to Pope Francis as “unprecedented” and “vicious”, and claimed that the pope “has put the Church on an evangelical road” based on the Gospel.

He also said that “it’s so important that lay people take responsibility for the Church, and for the future of the Church.”

Discussing the sexual abuse crisis, he focused on the meeting being held at the Vatican next month among presidents of bishops’ conferences, saying, “My hope is that there would be a clear vision of where we are going in the future,” while managing expectations for the summit: “expectations for the meeting are being created that can’t humanly be met”.

“Instead of passing the problem to Rome, I think bishops need to take responsibility for the situation in their own nation,” he added.

Farrell also faced questions about his time living with now-disgraced Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

“I lived in the episcopal residence, where there were six other priests, two bishops. Did I ever know? No. Did I ever suspect? No. Did he ever abuse any seminarian in Washington? No. I never went anywhere with him. I was the Vicar-General, I was the one stuck in the offices all the time, dealing with all the problems. The archbishop of the diocese is out and about. He’s in Rome, he’s in Latin America, all over the world.”

[…]

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2018 / 08:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his annual Lenten meeting with the priests of Rome last week, Pope Francis confirmed that Blessed Pope Paul VI will be made a saint sometime this year.

“Paul VI will be a saint this year,” the Pope said Feb. 15, at the end of a long question and answer session with priests of Rome. The text of the private meeting was published by the Vatican Feb. 17.

During the meeting, Francis gave lengthy answers to four questions from priests. Afterward, texts containing meditations by Pope Paul VI, a gift from the Pope, were handed out to each of the priests. “I saw it and I loved it,” Francis said about the book.

“There are two [recent] Bishops of Rome already saints,” he continued, referring to St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II, who were canonized together in April 2014.

Besides Blessed Pope Paul VI, he noted that John Paul I’s cause for beatification is also ongoing. “And Benedict and I,” he added, are “on the waiting list: pray for us!”

According to Vatican Insider, Feb. 6 the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the second miracle needed for the canonization of Bl. Pope Paul VI by a unanimous vote.

The next step is for Pope Francis to also give his approval, with an official decree from the Vatican. Then the date for the canonization can be set. The canonization could take place in October of this year, during the Synod of Bishops on the youth, Vatican Insider reported.

The miracle attributed to the cause of Paul VI is the healing of an unborn child in the fifth month of pregnancy. The case was brought forward in 2014 for study.

The mother, originally from the province of Verona, Italy, had an illness that risked her own life and the life of her unborn child, and was advised to have an abortion.

A few days after the beatification of Paul VI on Oct. 19, 2014, she went to pray to him at the Shrine of Holy Mary of Grace in the town of Brescia. The baby girl was later born in good health, and remains in good health today.

The healing was first ruled as medically inexplicable by the medical council of the congregation last year, while the congregation’s consulting theologians agreed that the healing occurred through the late pope’s intercession.
 

[…]