Vatican releases document to mark 1,700th anniversary of First Council of Nicaea

St. Peter’s Basilica / Simone Savoldi / Unsplash (CC0)

Rome Newsroom, Oct 2, 2022 / 03:00 am (CNA).

The world’s newest bishops gathered in Rome last month to learn more about what it means to be a Catholic bishop.

While the week’s presentations spanned a range of topics, three U.S. bishops who attended told CNA that synodality emerged as a key theme.

The Vatican’s annual formation course, sometimes known by the nickname “baby bishop school,” was canceled for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic — making the 2022 edition the largest yet, with approximately 330 participating bishops across two sessions.

“People kind of picture baby bishop school as nuts and bolts, like ‘how to be a bishop.’ It’s not that at all,” Bishop Erik Pohlmeier of the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, told CNA at the end of the course.

“It’s kind of whatever the Church is talking about at that time, bringing that to the bishops that are coming on board,” he said. “The synodal process has been … a hallmark of conversation for the last couple of years, so now as we’re new bishops … the reflections revolved around that.”

The seminar’s first session was primarily attended by bishops consecrated in 2019 and 2020, while the second session was mostly those who joined the ranks in 2021 and the first part of 2022.

Thirty-nine U.S. bishops and auxiliary bishops attended, divided between the two weeks.

Pohlmeier was the freshest U.S. bishop to join. He was ordained a bishop on July 22 — just two days after his 51st birthday and seven weeks before arriving in Rome for the Sept. 12–19 course. 

Speaking to CNA in Rome on Sept. 19, Pohlmeier said that as a new bishop, there are many things you do not know, but that’s where one’s fellow bishops come in.

“Every bishop knows other bishops,” he explained, like the bishop of the diocese where they served as a priest. “And they’re always, I mean to a person, helpful.”

Bishop Gregory Gordon, the first-ever auxiliary bishop of Las Vegas, Nevada, told CNA on Sept. 19 that the U.S. bishops’ conference also organizes meetings between bishops of the same ordination year, or “class,” as a way to build fraternity and create a network of support.

While the formal theme of this year’s seminar was how to announce the Gospel in changing times, Pohlmeier, Gordon, and Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Illinois, said the unofficial topic of the week was synodality.

What they talked about

“We’re in the midst of the synod,” Tylka, who attended the seminar Sept. 1–8, told CNA by phone from his diocese. So the course, he added, focused on questions such as: “What does it mean to be a synodal Church? What is the ministry of the bishop in relation to that?”

Care for the planet and one’s neighbor, themes important to Pope Francis’ pontificate, were also a major part of the seminar, Tylka said.

The week’s presentations also covered child protection and the sexual abuse crisis.

“That’s one of those things that I think we will take home, saying we will be very, very careful not to neglect,” Gordon said. 

Some talks, Pohlmeier noted, were directly about synodality and what it means. At the same time, those of a more practical nature, such as canon law for bishops, “would always include some comment on the synodal approach.”

“You’re going to get different articulations of what that means depending on who you talk to, but in general, my understanding is that it is more of a listening posture,” the St. Augustine bishop said.

Bishop Gordon said Pope Francis himself modeled this listening attitude in their meeting with him on the final day of formation.

In the nearly two-hour meeting, he said most of the time was spent with the pope answering the bishops’ questions. “So you finished the course, [the pope] said. You’ve heard a lot already… Now I want to hear from you.”

This was Gordon’s big takeaway from the week: “It has to go back to the Holy Father’s words to us as he was answering our own questions, you know, asking us to exercise that episcopal closeness.”

The week also included time for communal prayer, Mass, adoration, and confession. 

Bishop Tylka of Peoria said his personal opinion is that “a big part of synodality is the willingness and openness to create space for people to share their stories, to share their own encounters with Christ, to share their own experiences of how life is going.”

“So I think the role of the bishop clearly is to model that openness and that willingness to engage in dialogue,” he said.

What (not) to wear

But there is also a lighter side to being a new bishop, as Pohlmeier evidenced with an amusing scene from the end of the week.

“Here we are, brand new and so … we got instructions on what we’re supposed to wear to meet the pope,” Pohlmeier said.

He explained that bishops in the Latin Church have two main styles of a full-length garment called a cassock. The new bishops were told to meet the pope. They should wear a black cassock with red trim, a purple fascia, and a purple zucchetto. (There is also a purple cassock with red trim for special liturgical events.)

Pohlmeier said it was funny to watch the bishops get ready for Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and, afterward, the meeting with Pope Francis. Many of them were helping each other figure out where each piece of the complicated attire went — including the tall headpiece, called a mitre, which bishops wear to denote their office.

“Guys are literally opening up bags that haven’t been opened with miters from right there, from Euroclero,” Pohlmeier said, pointing over his shoulder in the direction of a clerical supply store next to St. Peter’s Square.

“You could see everybody that bought one this morning because they all matched,” he chuckled. “There were several people that were literally opening it up and pulling it out of the package and trying to get it on straight, and get things attached right, and not sure what clips go where and what’s right.”

“Those kinds of things are funny,” Pohlmeier said, “but nobody just tells you, ‘OK, buy this stuff, here’s what you need.’”

[…]

St. Peter’s Dome. / Credit: dade72 via Shutterstock

Vatican City, Jan 4, 2024 / 10:10 am (CNA).

The Vatican’s doctrine office issued a response on Thursday to “clarify the reception of Fiducia Supplicans” amid widespread international backlash to the Vatican’s recent declaration on same-sex blessings.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), published a five-page press release on Jan. 4 that refers to Fiducia Supplicans as “perennial doctrine” and underlines that pastoral blessings of couples in irregular situations should not be “an endorsement of the life led by those who request them.”

Fernández said that the responses he has received from bishops’ conferences around the world to the declaration highlight “the need for a more extended period of pastoral reflection” and that what is expressed in these bishops’ statements “cannot be interpreted as doctrinal opposition because the document is clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality.”

“There is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church, or blasphemous,” the cardinal said, pointing to a few paragraphs in the text of the original declaration that affirms the Church’s doctrine on marriage. You can read the full text of the press release at the bottom of this story.

The clarification was published two and a half weeks after the Dec. 18 publication of Fiducia Supplicans, which prompted strong backlash from bishops in several African and Eastern European countries as well as confusion and division from other parts of the world.

Some bishops have welcomed the declaration, some are approaching it with caution, and others are refusing to implement it.

In the press release, published in six languages, Fernández provides one “concrete example” of what the spontaneous “pastoral blessings” might look like in practice, explaining that they should only last “about 10 or 15 seconds.”

“Since some have raised the question of what these blessings might look like, let us look at a concrete example: Let us imagine that among a large number making a pilgrimage a couple of divorced people, now in a new union, say to the priest: ‘Please give us a blessing, we cannot find work, he is very ill, we do not have a home and life is becoming very difficult: May God help us!” he said.

“In this case, the priest can recite a simple prayer like this: ‘Lord, look at these children of yours, grant them health, work, peace, and mutual help. Free them from everything that contradicts your Gospel and allow them to live according to your will. Amen.’ Then it concludes with the sign of the cross on each of the two persons.”

Fernández said that priests giving these types of blessings should “not impose conditions” or “enquire about the intimate lives of these people.”

He added that “this non-ritualized form of blessing, with the simplicity and brevity of its form, does not intend to justify anything that is not morally acceptable.”

“It remains clear, therefore, that the blessing must not take place in a prominent place within a sacred building, or in front of an altar, as this also would create confusion,” Fernández added in the clarification.

The press release did not mention anything about cases in which priests have already violated the terms stipulated in the Fiducia Supplicans declaration, which requires that blessings be spontaneous and cannot be a “blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion.”

The cardinal emphasized that the “real novelty of this declaration” is “the invitation to distinguish between two different forms of blessings: ‘liturgical or ritualized’ and ‘spontaneous or pastoral.’”

“The central theme … is to have a broader understanding of blessings and of the proposal that these pastoral blessings, which do not require the same conditions as blessings in a liturgical or ritual context, flourish. Consequently, leaving polemics aside, the text requires an effort to reflect serenely, with the heart of shepherds, free from all ideology,” he said.

The DDF’s press release says that the same-sex blessing declaration may require more time for its application “depending on local contexts and the discernment of each diocesan bishop with his diocese.”

“In some places, no difficulties arise for their immediate application, while in others it will be necessary not to introduce them, while taking the time necessary for reading and interpretation,” Fernández said.

The cardinal added that it is fine that some bishops have, for example, established that priests perform these blessings only in private, so long as this is “expressed with due respect for a text signed and approved by the Supreme Pontiff himself, while attempting in some way to accommodate the reflection contained in it.”

The clarification also notes that in countries where there are “laws that condemn the mere act of declaring oneself as a homosexual with prison and in some cases with torture and even death, it goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent.”

The press release was signed by Fernández and Monsignor Armando Matteo, the secretary for the doctrinal section of the dicastery.

“We will all have to become accustomed to accepting the fact that, if a priest gives this type of simple blessings, he is not a heretic, he is not ratifying anything nor is he denying Catholic doctrine,” it said.

“We can help God’s people to discover that these kinds of blessings are just simple pastoral channels that help people give expression to their faith, even if they are great sinners. For this reason, in giving a blessing to two people who come together to ask for it spontaneously, we are not consecrating them nor are we congratulating them nor indeed are we approving that type of union.”

[…]

Vatican City, Jan 17, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Sunday that great joy is found when one offers his life in service to God’s call.

“There are different ways of carrying out the plan that God has for each of us, which is always a plan of love. … And the greatest joy for every believer is to respond to this call, to offer all of himself at the service of God and his brothers and sisters,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Jan. 17.

Speaking from the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope said that each time that God calls someone it is “an initiative of His love.”

“God calls to life, He calls to faith, and He calls to a particular state in life,” he said.

“God’s first call is to life, through which He makes us persons; it is an individual call because God does not make things in sets. Then God calls us to faith and to become part of His family as children of God. Lastly, God calls us to a particular state in life: to give of ourselves on the path of marriage, or that of the priesthood or the consecrated life.”

In the live video broadcast, the pope offered a reflection on Jesus’ first encounter and call of his disciples Andrew and Simon Peter in the Gospel of John.

“The two follow Him and remained that  afternoon with Him. It is not difficult to imagine them seated asking Him questions and above all  listening to Him, feeling their hearts inflamed ever more while the Master spoke,” he said.

“They sense the beauty of the words that respond to their greatest hope. And all of a sudden they discover that, even though it is evening, … that light that only God can give burst within them. … When they leave and return to their  brothers, that joy, this light overflows from their hearts like a raging river. One of the two, Andrew, tells his brother Simon – whom Jesus will call Peter when he meets him: ‘We have found the Messiah.’”

Pope Francis said that God’s call is always love and should always be responded to only with love.

“Brothers and sisters, faced with the call of the Lord, which can reach us in a thousand ways even through people, happy or sad events, sometimes our attitude can be one of rejection: ‘No, I’m afraid” — rejection because it seems contrary to our aspirations; and also fear, because we consider it too demanding and uncomfortable: ‘Oh I won’t make it, better not, better a more peaceful life… God there, I am here.’ But God’s call is love, we must try to find the love that is behind every call, and respond to it only with love,” he said.

“At the beginning there is an encounter, or rather, there is ‘the encounter’ with Jesus who speaks to us of His Father, He makes His love known to us. And then the desire to communicate it to the people we love will spontaneously arise within us too: ‘I met Love.’ ‘I met the Messiah.’ ‘I met God.’ ‘I met Jesus.’ ‘I found the meaning of life.’ In a word: ‘I found God.’”

The pope invited each person to remember the moment in his life in which “God made himself present more strongly, with a call.”

At the end of his Angelus address, Pope Francis expressed his closeness to the people of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, which was hit by a strong earthquake on Jan. 15.

“I pray for the dead, for the wounded and for those who have lost their homes and jobs. May the Lord comfort them and support the efforts of those who are committed to helping,” the pope said.

Pope Francis also recalled that the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” will begin Jan. 18. This year’s theme is “Remain in my love and you will bear much fruit.”

“In these days, let us pray together so that Jesus’ desire may be fulfilled: ‘That all may be one.’ Unity is always superior to conflict,” he said.

[…]