Man desecrates altar of St. Peter’s Basilica

Pope Francis at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, April 6, 2025, wearing nasal cannulas for supplemental oxygen as he continues recovering from bilateral pneumonia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/ EWTN News

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis made a surprise second appearance Thursday at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, arriving in a wheelchair around 12:30 p.m. local time.

In videos posted on social media, Pope Francis is seen without his usual white cassock and skullcap, wearing dark pants and a white shirt covered with a striped poncho.

The pontiff went directly to the monumental Chair of St. Peter, a symbol of the episcopal authority of history’s first pope, according to Vatican News.

This relic, housed behind the basilica’s altar, is framed by an imposing gilded bronze baroque structure designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Completed in 1666 after more than a decade of work, it includes two angels holding the papal insignia: the keys and the three-tiered papal crown.

The Holy Father’s visit coincided with the recent restoration of this sculptural ensemble, carried out as part of the Jubilee of Hope, which also included the cleaning of St. Peter’s baldachin, another of Bernini’s masterpieces.

This was Pope Francis’ second public appearance since his return to the Vatican on March 23 following a 38-day stay at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.

After taking a look at the work done on the chair, he headed to the tomb of St. Pius X, known as the “Pope of the Eucharist,” where he remained in silence for a few minutes.

He also took the opportunity to greet several faithful and tourists present in the basilica as well as the restoration team working on the conservation work.

After the visit, the Holy Father returned to his residence at St. Martha’s House, where he continues his recovery.

Although it had initially been announced that he would not make public appearances or receive visitors during his convalescence, Pope Francis also surprised everyone last Sunday by participating in the Jubilee for the Sick.

After going to confession and passing through the Holy Door, the pontiff entered the cordoned walkway that divided off one of the areas of St. Peter’s Square, where hundreds of faithful were gathered. They greeted him with great enthusiasm and exultant happiness upon seeing him.

“Happy Sunday; thank you all!” he said, his voice strained and his breathing labored when the microphone was brought to him.

The Holy Father wore the nasal cannulas through which he receives oxygen at specific times of the day, as for the moment he is unable to get enough oxygen on his own. 

Likewise, on Wednesday, he received King Charles III of the United Kingdom and Queen Camilla in a private audience, despite the meeting having been previously canceled as a precaution.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Washington D.C., Apr 11, 2019 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- After the April 11 publication of a new essay by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, commentators are mostly discussing their perception of the politics surrounding the release, or Benedict’s assessment of the sexual revolution and its relationship to the crisis.

But lost in that discussion is the immediate practical application of the document, which articulates a theology of law that seems to support the ‘zero tolerance’ approach to addressing sexual abusers in the Church, which Pope Francis has long endorsed, even while he has not yet arrived at a practical way of delivering it.

At the heart of his new argument, the former pontiff insists that the purpose of punishing the perpetrators of sexual abuse is the salvation of souls, which is the highest law of the Church.

Recalling that, in the 1980s, the crisis of abuse began to reach Rome after decades of building at the diocesan level, Benedict’s essay explained that there was in Rome a double failure of law and theology, which left both victims of abuse and the faith itself unprotected.

While the previous Code of Canon Law contained a long list of specific crimes a cleric could commit – including a litany of sexual delicts – “the deliberately loosely constructed criminal law of the new Code” of 1983 offered a much pared down set of penal norms, Benedict argued.

He added that in accord with a prevailing ecclesiology at the time there also emerged among many canonists and bishops a false dichotomy between justice and mercy, in which mercy was seen to pre-empt and exclude the former, rather than following and tempering it.
 
Benedict highlighted the emergence of a kind of legal “guarantorism,” in which the rights of the accused seemed to be afforded the central concern of the canonical process, often at the expense of victims, restorative justice, and the public good.

Temporary suspensions and stints in therapy for abusive clerics were treated as adequate punishment, and local bishops were left with abusive priests they were expected to rehabilitate.

Under Pope St. John Paul II, reforms to the process began, starting with Rome’s decision to raise the canonical age of majority for these cases to 18, and to extend the canonical statute of limitations. The reforms under Pope St. John Paul II culminated in 2001, when Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela established new legal norms for the handling of “major crimes” against faith and morals in canon law.

Among the most crucial of St. John Paul’s reforms was, Benedict noted, the transfer of competence of sexual abuse cases from the Congregation for Clergy to the Congregation for the Doctrine if the Faith. This change was not, the pope emeritus explained, a merely bureaucratic move, but one rooted in a proper understanding of the nature and gravity of the crime of sexual abuse.

Benedict said the decision was a recognition that sexual abuse of minors is a crime against the immediate victim, and against the faith itself.

Certainly, the experience of recent decades appears to bear out the effect of the sexual abuse scandals on the faith all of Catholics, at least some of whom have lapsed in the practice of the faith following the sexual abuse crises.

This does not suggest that Benedict’s essay ignored concern for the right of defense. Instead, Benedict argued that “a properly formed canon law must contain a double guarantee — legal protection of the accused, legal protection of the good at stake.”

The idea that there is a legal necessity to defending the “good of the faith” in sex abuse cases will likely prove the most important contribution Benedict will makes to the ongoing progress of reform.

Benedict’s essay articulated its own version of  “zero tolerance” in that framework, noting that “Jesus protects the deposit of the faith with an emphatic threat of punishment to those who do it harm.”

Presenting sexual abuse as a crime against the soul, not just the body, and recognizing that it can have cascading tiers of victims, refocuses the legal process through the lens of its most quoted maxim: “salus animarum suprema lex est.”

Benedict seems to argue that if the salvation of souls is the Church’s highest law, the protection of the faith should be understood as a legal good at least as important as protecting the rights of accused abusers.

From that vantage point, Benedict observed that there is much legal reform still to be done, and that Pope Francis is rightly carrying it forward.

Much of the ongoing discussion has centered around what other kinds of sexual misconduct, in addition to the abuse of children, should be canonically criminalized.

Some prominent bishops have insisted on distinguishing between the sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct between adults, arguing that potentially consensual sexual misconduct by clerics should not be accorded the status of a major crime. In light of Benedict’s essay, some are likely to see in that approach the juridic framework that Benedict described as guarantorism.

But other bishops, including Cardinal Séan O’Malley of Boston, have emphasized the importance of seeing sexual abuse of clerical power treated with the same gravity as abuse of a minor.

The pope seems to thinking along the same lines as O’Malley, demonstrated by his recent expansion of the definition of a “vulnerable adult” in the canonical norms of the Roman Curia and the Vatican City State.

Benedict’s theology of penal law, which holds at its center the crimes against the faith of the Church — and of the victims of abuse — offers a powerful rationale for Pope Francis’ action.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea,” Benedict quotes from the gospel.

These little ones, the Pope emeritus wrote, are not only those who physically suffer abuse but also the “common believers who can be confounded in their faith,” be they children or adults.

‘It is important to see,” Benedict says, “that such misconduct by clerics ultimately damages the Faith.”

Set against this understanding of the depth of sexual abuse as a crime both physical and spiritual, Pope Francis’ ongoing efforts to articulate legally the policy of “zero tolerance” may find a renewed impetus.

Such a policy, Benedict has now argued, is essential to the salvation of souls.

[…]

President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi (center) attends the consistory for the creation of new cardinals at St. Peter’s Basilica on Aug. 27, 2022, in Vatican City. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Jul 17, 2023 / 05:25 am (CNA).

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Italian prelate tasked by Pope Francis to head a peace mission between Ukraine and Russia, is traveling to Washington, D.C. this week, the Vatican announced.

The cardinal’s visit comes only weeks after the Biden administration announced it was sending an additional $800 million in weapons to aid Ukraine’s counteroffensive — including morally problematic “cluster bombs” that have been banned by most countries, including the Holy See.

Zuppi, who has already visited both Ukraine and Russia, will be in the U.S. capital from July 17-19 and will be accompanied by an official from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

“The visit will take place in the context of the peace promotion mission in Ukraine and aims to exchange ideas and views on the current tragic situation and to support humanitarian initiatives to alleviate the suffering of the most affected and most fragile people, especially children,” read the Vatican statement announcing Cardinal Zuppi’s visit.

The Vatican has not disclosed with whom Zuppi will meet during his three-day visit.

The United States has been a major provider of military support to Ukraine since the country was invaded by Russia on Feb. 24, 2022. To date, the U.S. has sent $41.3 billion in military aid to the Eastern European country, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The latest round of support has drawn criticism from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), as well as bishops conferences from other countries, for its inclusion of cluster bombs in the military package. Cluster bombs present an especially grave threat to civilians given that they impact indiscriminately large areas and often do not explode until long after impact.

One hundred twenty-three countries signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Bombs, which explicitly bans the use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of the munitions. The U.S., however, along with Russia and Ukraine, are not signatories of the convention.

In a statement following the Biden administration’s announcement, Bishop David Malloy, head of the USCCB’s international justice and peace committee, underscored that the U.S. bishops have long advocated the U.S. government to sign the convention.

“Pope Francis has addressed the conventions on antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions, exhorting all countries to commit to these conventions ‘so that there are no more mine victims,’” Malloy wrote.

“While recognizing Ukraine’s right to self-defense, we must continue to pray for dialogue and peace,” he added. “I join with our Holy Father in supporting and sharing in his moral concern and aspiration.”

Cardinal Zuppi has played a prominent role in promoting peace between Ukraine and Russia since Pope Francis asked him in May to lead a peace mission on behalf of the Vatican. The cardinal, who is the archbishop of Bologna and the president of the Italian bishops’ conference, has strong ties to the influential peace-building community Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic association that has taken part in peace negotiations in many countries including Mozambique, South Sudan, Congo, Burundi, and the Central African Republic.

As part of his peace mission, he visited Kyiv June 5-6, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other political and religious leaders. The papal envoy then visited Moscow from June 28-29, a trip that included a meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

[…]