The Holy See on Saturday confirmed that it had sent a diplomatic letter to the French embassy over a French court ruling involving a Canadian cardinal’s alleged wrongful dismissal of a nun.
A French court in Lorient, in Brittany, earlier this month had fined Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, along with several other parties, for the October 2020 wrongful dismissal of Sabine Baudin de la Valette, whose religious name was Mother Marie Ferréol.
Baudin de la Valette, 57, had reportedly lived in the French monastery since 1987 without any significant incidents, but in 2011 she denounced “serious abuses and facts” happening in the community.
She was dismissed from the community after a visit from Ouellet. It was never made public what exactly the Vatican accused her of, though the former sister reportedly said the dismissal decree “accused her of having an evil spirit but gave no concrete reasons.”
On Saturday, meanwhile, Vatican News reported that Director of the Holy See Press Office Matteo Bruni confirmed to reporters the Vatican Secretariat of State’s transmission of a “Note Verbal,” or a diplomatic message, to the Embassy of France to the Holy See.
The letter addressed the “alleged decision of the Tribunal of Lorient in France in a civil dispute concerning the dismissal from a religious Institute of Ms. Sabine de la Valette (formerly Sister Marie Ferréol),” Bruni told reporters.
“A potential ruling from the Lorient Tribunal,” Bruni told journalists, “could raise not only significant issues concerning immunity, but if it ruled on internal discipline and membership in a religious institute, it might have constituted a serious violation of the fundamental rights to religious freedom and freedom of association of Catholic faithful.”
Ouellet, who previously served as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, “never received any summons from the Lorient Tribunal,” Bruni said.
The Vatican learned of the tribunal’s decision “only from the press,” Bruni said on Saturday.
The court also accused the religious community, among other things, of not correctly following the dismissal procedure. There was no prior warning and no reason for the dismissal from the community.
In addition, the court said, the community breached its duty of care when dismissing Baudin de la Valette, who was not offered any financial compensation that would have enabled her to “enjoy appropriate civil living conditions after 34 years of religious life and service to her community in the spirit of justice and charity as set out in canon law.”
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Nell O’Leary, managing editor of Blessed Is She. / Therese Westby
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 3, 2022 / 11:01 am (CNA).
When Nell O’Leary sat down with her team to brainstorm a new book for Catholic women, she said they felt drawn to the theme of “identity.”
“This one kept coming back, this idea of identity, of who we are as Catholic women, made in God’s image and likeness,” O’Leary, the managing editor of Blessed Is She, told CNA. This identity, she said, gets battered by the world “with all these lies that you are what you look like, you are your social media following, you are how successful you are, you are how many kids you have.”
Instead, O’Leary says, every woman is unconditionally loved as a “beloved daughter of God.”
This message is central to Made New: 52 Devotions for Catholic Women, a weekly devotional released in December. The book houses personal stories from five writers associated with Blessed Is She (BIS), a “sisterhood” of Catholic women who desire to grow in their faith through prayer and community. Each of the five — O’Leary, Leana Bowler, Brittany Calavitta, Jenna Guizar, and Liz Kelly — focus on a theme under the umbrella of identity: beheld, belong, beloved, believing, and becoming.
While their stories are different, their tone is consistent. Each writer engages the reader with the frank, casual tone of a friend who’s honest about her struggles, hopeful for the future, and, well, confident in her identity.
“I invite you to journey with me, dear sister, to walk through the next fifty-two weeks as we rediscover our value, our worth, and our identity in Our Lord’s eyes,” Guizar, the founder of BIS, writes in the book’s opening. “He is waiting for you and me, and He desires to be in relationship with us. All it takes is a response to His call: yes.”
Each week begins with a short reflection or personal story from one of the writers and concludes with a scripture passage and two questions for the reader to ask herself. Along the way, artwork interrupts the text to greet readers with dusty, muted colors and shapes. The rose-gold cover impresses a feminine touch, along with a pink ribbon bookmark. Leaves and plants adorn the pages, suggesting growth and life made new.
A saint’s calling
If readers come away remembering one thing, O’Leary wants them to believe and remember that “there’s no one way, cookie-cutter way, to become a saint.”
“God is calling you personally, through the circumstances in your life, through the challenges, through the blessings, to grow in holiness in who you are and where you are,” she said. “And to compare yourself to other women and feel like you can’t measure up is simply not where you want to put your energies.”
Instead, she said, God is calling each woman — in her particular, unique life — to become a saint.
Every woman is different, something that the five writers themselves demonstrate. According to O’Leary, they are not all just a “bunch of young moms.” One struggles with infertility, another married later in life, one started a family before marriage, and another has no children.
“I think that however old the reader is, they will find part of their own story,” O’Leary said. “When we write [our stories], we want the reader to actually be able to contemplate and ponder… to kind of find their own story. So you’re not just consuming another person’s content, you’re actually looking at yourself too.”
One story particularly moved O’Leary (even though she compared picking her favorite to “picking a favorite flower”). She pointed to writer Liz Kelly, who shares with readers her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis toward the end of the book.
While Kelly originally “thought that meant her role would become really small,” God “used her in that time and in that diagnosis to broadcast his message even further than she thought,” O’Leary summarized.
She added, “I think the reason I love that story so much is because where we see limitations, God just sees more opportunities for grace.”
Unconditional love
A theme in the book that O’Leary herself touches on is God’s unconditional love — that he loves you as you are right now, regardless of what you do or don’t do, regardless of how your family or friends treat you, regardless of your past or future. He loves you.
“I suppose people in general struggle with the idea of unconditional love because it’s so rarely manifest in our human interaction,” O’Leary said of accepting God’s love. “And so, because the human level of relationship in our lives are fraught with other imperfect people, to really trust in and experience God’s love takes this trust and this faith.”
Her first piece of advice for women who doubt God’s love or think they aren’t good enough is to visit the confessional.
“Get all those embarrassing sins off your chest,” she said. “The priest has heard it all … you can go behind the screen.”
“It’s nothing that’s too embarrassing to bring to the sacrament and really unload yourself of the burden of all those sins and experience God’s grace filling you,” she added. God’s unconditional love can get “so shrouded and clouded by my own, my own humanity, my own mistakes, my own sinfulness.”
Community and Covid
Another topic in the book — and a priority for Blessed Is She as a whole — is community. O’Leary addressed the challenges of community, particularly during the pandemic.
“Living in a global pandemic, so many things being more online, we just see that highlights reel…those drive those envy twinges of, ‘Her life looks perfect. She doesn’t have my struggles,’” she said. “Really puts in wedges in our sisterhood and we need our sisterhood.”
“When we can’t be together, it just starts to look like everyone has it together,” she added. “We don’t.”
O’Leary advised women to read the free daily devotions offered by Blessed Is She. And delete social media apps off of their phones, even if just for the weekend.
“I know that our phones and the internet are wonderful for connecting us, but they’re also really toxic for making it feel more lonely,” she said. “Live the life that’s in front of you.”
The personal
O’Leary talked about her personal life and her own struggle with identity. The fourth of five children, she said she grew up surrounded by high-achieving parents and siblings. While she thought that one day she might have a family, she worked toward becoming an attorney. She ended up marrying her “law school love” and worked as an attorney. Then, she became a stay-at-home mom.
“Realizing that I had hung so much on my identity being what I did, and what the world could see and applaud, that becoming a mom and then eventually staying at home with our kids,” she said. “It’s such a hidden life.”
“The children are not cheering you on, ‘You did a great job!’ there’s no affirmation, there’s no feedback other than the deep satisfaction I guess, that no one went to the ER,” she added.
The experience changed her.
“What I realized that I had to have a big mentality shift from, I’m not what I do and I’m not what I accomplish and I’m not even how my children behave,” she said. “That really, in these hidden moments in prayer with God, to say, ‘I know I’m your beloved daughter. I know I’m made in your image and likeness.’”
Pope Francis at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 24, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, May 24, 2023 / 09:25 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has established that the auditor general of the Holy See will continue to carry out its tasks during a sede vacante.
A sede vacante is the period between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of his successor. According to Holy See law, during a sede vacante, “all heads of curial institutions and members cease from their office,” though secretaries “attend to the ordinary governance of curial institutions, taking care of ordinary business only.”
Francis ruled that the Office of the Auditor General, which does not have a secretary, may also continue its “ordinary administration” in the case of a vacant papal see.
The auditor general is responsible for auditing the financial statements of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.
It was also responsible for precipitating the investigation into the Secretariat of State’s controversial investment in a London building — a purchase now at the heart of a major Vatican finance trial.
The IOR, commonly called the Vatican bank, first agreed to give a loan to the Secretariat of State for the mortgage on the London property. But the IOR suddenly changed course and made a report to the auditor general, who investigated.
The pronouncement was part of a May 24 rescript on the tasks of the Office of the Auditor General signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state. The rescript was issued following an April 24 meeting between Parolin and Pope Francis.
The pope said in light of the provisions of the Church’s apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, “the ordinary administration, in case of a vacant Apostolic See, would not be interrupted and that the function of control would continue to be exercised by the Office of the Auditor General under the supervision of the Cardinal Camerlengo.”
The camerlengo is responsible for overseeing the preparations for a papal conclave and managing the administration of the Holy See during the sede vacante.
Pope Francis has also decided to change part of an article in the statutes of the Office of Auditor General.
According to the rescript, after analyzing suspicious activity reports, the auditor general will no longer present them to a special commission of the councilor for general affairs of the Secretariat of State, the secretary prelate of the Council for the Economy, and the secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy.
Instead, using the wording of Praedicate Evangeliumin paragraph 2 of article 224, the auditor will present a report of the suspicious activity notifications to the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, and if he deems it necessary, to the cardinal coordinator of the Council for the Economy.
This change means the Secretariat of State does not receive a report from the auditor on the suspicious activity notifications the office has received.
Suspicious activity reports that have been substantiated should continue to be transmitted to the proper judicial authorities, the rescript added.
The pope’s rescript on the function of the Office of Auditor General comes as a former Holy See auditor and his deputy sue the Secretariat of State for wrongful dismissal.
The two are seeking compensation for loss of earnings, damage to their reputations, and emotional suffering, which they claim they bore after being forced from their jobs in 2017.
Milone said soon after stepping down in the middle of his five-year mandate that he was “threatened” into resignation by an “old guard” opposed to his work.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, then second-in-command at the Secretariat of State, has been said to be responsible for the firing of Milone.
Becciu told Reuters in 2017 that Milone “went against all the rules and was spying on the private lives of his superiors and staff, including me.”
The cardinal has pointed to Pope Francis, claiming the pope told him he no longer had trust in Milone and wanted Becciu to tell the auditor he should resign.
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2019 / 10:20 am (CNA).- A Brazilian bishop has called for the ordination of women to the diaconate for service in the Amazon region. The bishop said that 2009 revisions to canon law could allow for the ordination of women deacons, but a leading canon lawyer in the Vatican has disputed that idea.
Bishop Evaristo Pascoal Spengler, OFM leads the territorial prelature of Marajó in Brazil and is participating as a member of the Synod on the Pan-Amazonian region in Rome.
During a press conference on Oct. 25, Spengler said that “there is a path that is open for the ordination of women,” citing a 2009 document from Pope Benedict XVI.
While referencing the role of women leaders, saints, and teachers in the history of the Church in making, Spengler did not account for the theological and sacramental impediments to such a development.
“We know that in the history of the Church there are women deacons. A role that should be expanded on.”
Spengler said a canonical possibility for the ordination of women was created by Pope Benedict in 2009.
“In 2009 the pope made a change in canon law according to which the bishop, the priest and the deacon receive their mission and the faculty to act in the name of Christ. But this was changed by Pope Benedict, who changed this paragraph [which] said that, from that moment onward, that deacons were no longer linked to Christ but be able to serve the people of God in the diaconate in the liturgy of the word and in charity,” Spengler said.
“So, we realize that there is a path that is open for the ordination of women.”
The bishop was referencing Benedict’s 2009 motu proprioOmnium in mentem, which revised canons 1008 and 1009 of the Code of Canon Law.
Benedict’s document noted that some language in canon law did not fully reflect the teaching of Vatican Council II on the nature of the diaconate, and that Pope John Paul II had already updated the Catechism of the Catholic Church to address the same issue. Benedict’s document revised the law to emphasize the distinction between diaconal and priestly ministry.
“Those who are constituted in the order of the episcopate or the presbyterate receive the mission and capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head, whereas deacons are empowered to serve the People of God in the ministries of the liturgy, the word and charity,” the revised canon 1009 says.
While the new wording reflects that deacons do not act in the person of Christ through the celebration of Mass, Benedict left intact canonical wording which reflects the unity of the sacrament of orders at all three grades of deacon, priest and bishop.
Canon 1008 states that “By divine institution, some of the Christian faithful are marked with an indelible character and constituted as sacred ministers by the sacrament of holy orders. They are thus consecrated and deputed so that, each according to his own grade, they may serve the People of God by a new and specific title.”
Benedict’s reforms left intact the essential provision of canon 1024, which states that “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.”
Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, told CNA that Benedict made revisions to canon law to “better distinguish the ministry of priests and deacons.”
“The canon was changed to reflect the Catechism,” he added.
“Nothing is said or mentioned regarding women,” Arietta said.
Arrieta mentioned that Pope Francis established in 2016 a commission to study the female diaconate which has thus far reached no definitive conclusion Earlier this year, the pope said that while there is no consensus on questions related to the issue, the matter will continue to be studied.
Spengler also said that “we know that in the history of the Church there are women deacons. A role that should be expanded on – deaconess – and how to include this in the Church.”
In May, the pope said that the deaconesses described by St. Paul in the New Testament, and referenced by Spengler on Friday, can not be understood as equivalent to the modern sacramental notion of the diaconate.
A 2002 document published by the International Theological Commission concluded that female deacons in the early Church did not have the same functions as male deacons, and had “no liturgical function,” nor a sacramental one. It also said that even in the fourth century “the way of life of deaconesses was very similar to that of nuns.”
“The formulas of female deacons’ ‘ordination’ found until now, according to the commission, are not the same for the ordination of a male deacon and are more similar to what today would be the abbatial blessing of an abbess,” Francis said May 7 during an in-flight press conference returning from North Macedonia and Bulgaria.
“For the female diaconate, there is a way to imagine it with a different view from the male diaconate,” said the pope while insisting that the issue needed further study.
Bishop Spengler did not mention either Pope Francis or the commission for the study of women deacons on Friday.
During the press conference, several journalists groaned when Spengler was asked about the Church’s sacramental theology and its restriction of ordination to men alone.
Earlier in the session, applause broke out among some journalists after Paulo Ruffini, Prefect for the Vatican Dicastery of Communications, intervened to correct a question from veteran Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister.
Magister had made reference to an earlier event held in the Vatican gardens, during which a group of participants knelt in a circle around several carved items arranged around a controversial statue, variously identified as an earth mother figure or fertility symbol.
Ruffini insisted that the event was not an “official” synod event, and that questions about such events did not have to be answered. He also said that “there was no ritual” and “no prostration,” to applause from several journalists present at the press conference.
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