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Vatican City, Feb 6, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A delegation from the Holy See is in South Korea this week to participate in the opening of the Winter Olympic games, and for the first time, to observe a key strategic meeting ahead of opening ceremony.

Msgr. Melchor Sánchez de Toca, Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, will be the Holy See’s official representative at the event. He will be accompanied by Stefano Calvigioni of the Italian Olympic Committee, who helps coordinate between his own organization, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Vatican.

Opening Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, this year’s games will last until Feb. 25. The main skiing, snowboarding and sliding events will take place in Pyeongchang, which is part of South Korea’s Gangwon province, and sits near the border with North Korea.

Other events such as skating, hockey and curling events will take place in the city of Gangneung, about an hour’s drive from Pyeongchang.

In addition to representing the Holy See at the opening ceremony, Sánchez de Toca is also participating as an observer in the Feb. 5-7 IOC Olympic Session, marking the first time they’ve been invited to attend the meeting.

The Holy See has been present at the Olympics before, having attended the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016. However, the invite to the Olympic Session marks a first for the Vatican.

In comments to CNA, Sánchez de Toca said the Holy See received the invitation from Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, and that the invite, particularly to attend the Olympic Session, “is important,” especially since the Holy See has no Olympic committee of its own.

The IOC session is a large, general meeting in which all members of the IOC, the National Olympic Committees (NOC), the presidents of Federations of Olympic sports and other organizations meet to discuss major themes on the agenda for the Olympics. Candidate cities for future Olympic events are also chosen in the session, and numerous strategic projects are approved.

Sánchez de Toca told CNA that the Holy See is present as a sovereign entity, but as representatives of the Holy Father, they bring “the voice of the conscience and morals, which ultimately come from the message of Christ and of the Gospel.”

Referring specifically to ongoing tensions between North and South Korea over the former’s nuclear programs, he said the Holy See backs any efforts for reconciliation that have been made and that will be made during the games.

After a year ripe with heightened nuclear tensions, this year’s Winter Olympics carries a significant weight, since North Korea will have 22 athletes participating in the games.

The two Koreas have endured years of diplomatic freeze over the North’s nuclear programs, and fears over a possible nuclear war have been especially acute in recent months.

However, the two Koreas have agreed to march under a unified flag at the opening ceremonies for the Games, and the two have even gone so far as to form a unified women’s hockey team, with 12 North Korean players joining South Korea’s team.

In addition to their athletes and Vice Sports Minister Won Kil U, North Korea is expected to send some 230 spectators, plus 140 more artists, journalists and taekwondo experts. The last time North Korea sent a large delegation to the South was for the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, west of Seoul.

Some experts on the region have argued that the North is planning to use increased ties with the South as a means of weakening U.S.-led sanctions against the country.

“North Korea is projecting this idea that the sanctions regime against North Korea is very artificial and also an obstacle against the improvement of inter Korean relations,” Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, told VOA News.

In his comments to CNA, Msgr. Sánchez de Toca said “we support the small gestures of peace which are able to invite the delegates of other countries to continue negotiations for peace.”

He voiced hope that the Holy See will be able to participate in future Olympic events, saying the eventual goal is to “establish some time of permanent relationship between the Holy See and the IOC.”

 

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Vatican City, Feb 18, 2019 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- At a press conference in Rome this morning, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago underscored the scope and expectations around this week’s global Vatican summit on sexual abuse.

 

The cardinal made it clear that the three-day meeting was strictly dealing with the abuse of minors, and would not look at wider issues of clerical sexual abuse – most notably the sexual abuse of adults, including seminarians.

 

Cupich warned that “including other topics” would “inflate expectations” and distract from “the task at hand.”

 

The cardinal’s comments came barely 48 hours after it was announced that Theodore McCarrick had been expelled from the clerical state for a number of sexual abuse-related offences, including adult seminarians in dioceses he formerly led.

 

The hour-long question and answer session offered more details about the aims of the summit, which will include the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world. But the scrupulously narrow focus on minors, and the stated objectives of the conference raise a number of questions about what American Catholics, including many bishops, can hope to see from Rome in response to months of scandal.

 

The clear goal of the meeting is to impress upon the world’s bishops the seriousness of dealing with child sexual abuse at all levels of the Church hierarchy. To this end, Cupich highlighted measures already in place in the United States which, he noted, were proving successful, such as safe environment programs and enhanced screening of seminary candidates.

 

More broadly, bishops in the United States have noted the effectiveness of the 2002 reforms brought in by the Dallas Charter and USCCB Essential Norms, which have coincided with a steep decline in reported abuse cases.

 

But if the wider purpose of the three-day meeting is to impress the seriousness of the child abuse crisis on bishops from elsewhere, and even underscore effective measures already in place in the U.S., American focus remains on accountability for bishops and abuse cases of all kinds involving them personally.

 

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Discussing the future of episcopal accountability, Cupich made a surprising reference to Come una madre amorivole, the 2016 motu proprio issued by Pope Francis setting out legal mechanisms for reporting and handling complaints against bishops, including for negligence or abuse of office in abuse cases.

 

“It is the document Come una madre amorivole that outlines procedures for holding bishops accountable,” Cupich said. The reference to Come una madre was surprising to many, since Pope Francis had previously said in public that he had abandoned these very processes.

 

During the inflight press conference on his return from Dublin in October last year, Pope Francis said he had effectively junked the procedures of Come una madre because they “weren’t practical and it also wasn’t convenient for the different cultures of the bishops that had to be judged.”

 

Francis even went as far as expressing frustration that prominent reform advocate Marie Collins, herself a survivor of sexual abuse and a former member of Francis’ own Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, was “a bit fixated” with the document not being used.

 

For Cupich to suggest that Come una madre was once again a living document suggests a possible second papal reversal by Francis on his own reforms, even though his original reservations seemed to center on the very global applicability this week’s summit is meant to address.

 

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In November, an instruction from the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops prevented U.S. bishops from voting on a raft of proposed measures aimed at increasing episcopal accountability – reforms which would have addressed many of the gaps left by the non-adoption of Come una madre in the first place.

 

The move left many frustrated but, on Monday, Cupich called the Baltimore measures “problematic” and said he did not believe they would have been adopted even if a vote had taken place.

 

Cupich floated an alternative proposal of his own during the Baltimore meeting. Reportedly drafted in concert with Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Cupich’s plan would rely upon existing structures within metropolitan provinces, instead of the creation of an independent national body to oversee complaints against bishops.

 

Both the original proposals and the so-called “metropolitan model” were turned over to a special USCCB committee for further study, and are expected to be discussed again in more detail when the bishops next meet, in June of this year.  

 

Despite the Baltimore setback, Cupich said, bishops’ conferences would have an important role to play in the future.

 

“The Holy Father does want episcopal conferences to take responsibility, that was never a question, but we have to do it in such a way that we work together with each other — that is part of synodality — that is part of the collegiality that this conference wanted to highlight,” Cupich said Monday.

 

What role this will be remains to be seen and, at least so far as it extends to episcopal abuse of adults like McCarrick’s, it seems unlikely it will become much clearer during this week’s summit.

 

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One thing the Chicago cardinal did say was that bishops have a personal responsibility to face up to.

 

“The Holy Father wants to make it clear to the bishops around the world, that each one of them has to claim responsibility and ownership for this problem… to make sure that people understand, on an individual basis as bishops, what their responsibilities are.”

 

Many commentators have noted in recent months that personal initiative and ownership have been distinctly lacking in some American bishops’ response to recent scandals, with many appearing to be waiting for a lead to follow, either from the USCCB or Rome.

 

A few have begun to take their own steps, especially after the inability to move forward as a group in Baltimore. Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore recently announced an independent reporting mechanism for accusations of sexual abuse in the archdiocese.

 

Other options have been discussed. It has also been proposed that the canonical role of the Promoter of Justice could be given a broader remit in diocesan child protection policy, acting as a sort of attorney general by appointment of the local bishop, but with an enhanced degree of autonomy of action.

 

Other suggestions that bishops could implement without having to seek higher approval have included the passage of more nuanced and detailed laws for handling escalating clerical misconduct, in the hopes of addressing problem behavior early – before an act of child abuse is committed.

 

Such action would also allow bishops to address the sexual abuse of victims who are not technically minors, including people in their late teenage years and seminarians. Many have noted that the current legal framework, solely reliant on an age of consent, sees a case of child sexual abuse become an instance of mere moral failure when the victim turns eighteen.

 

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Cupich also told the world’s media that “there is a new day in terms of transparency,” and said that he hoped the upcoming summit would be remembered as a “turning point” in this regard.

 

It remains to be seen if this newfound commitment to transparency will extend to responding to calls for some kind of full disclosure about how Theodore McCarrick was able to rise through the episcopal ranks, despite apparent decades of complaints about his sexual abuse.

 

In Baltimore in November, Cupich spoke against a resolution by American bishops to encourage the Holy See to make available any documentation it could on that subject as soon as possible.

 

While talk at the press conference was of new days and strong messages, there is no shortage of Catholics in the United States and elsewhere already looking at this week’s meeting with a level of skepticism.

 

Indeed, the real challenge facing Cardinal Cupich and the other organizers may prove to be less about lowering “inflated expectations,” and more about convincing Catholics wearied by scandal that any progress made in the coming days will be meaningful.

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Vatican City, Aug 2, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Dicastery for Evangelization issued a note on Thursday reaffirming that the Holy Doors of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope in Rome will be located at the four papal basilicas as well as at a prison. 

The Jubilee of Hope will take place from Dec. 24, 2024 — Christmas Eve — to Jan. 6, 2026, the feast of the Epiphany.

The Holy Doors will be located at the Basilica of St. Peter, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Mary Major, and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. A fifth door will also be located at a prison, the name of which has not yet been announced. 

The five Holy Doors were specified by Pope Francis when he officially proclaimed the 2025 Ordinary Jubilee through his bull of indiction, Spes Non Confundit (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”) on the feast of the Ascension on May 9. 

The first Holy Door will be opened by Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve this year to usher in the beginning of the Jubilee Year worldwide. This door will be the last one to be closed on the feast of the Epiphany in 2026, marking the end of the holy year. 

The Archbasilica of St. John Lateran will be the second door opened by Pope Francis — on Dec. 29, the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The Holy Father will then open the Holy Door at the Basilica of St. Mary Major on the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on Jan. 1, and then on Jan. 5 he will open the Holy Door at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. These three papal basilicas will all be closed on Dec. 28, 2025.

The Dicastery for Evangelization has not yet specified the location or dates for the opening or closing of the Holy Door at a Rome prison. 

In his papal bull, the Holy Father expressed his wish that prisoners “look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence” during the Jubilee Year.

The note released by the dicastery’s Section for Fundamental Questions regarding Evangelization in the World did not mention the opening of any other Holy Doors within Italy or abroad but issued further guidelines for the granting and use of the Jubilee 2025 indulgence when visiting cathedrals, international and national shrines, and other significant places of worship outside of Rome. 

The Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary released on May 13, mentioned in the Aug. 1 note, states that the Catholic faithful who wish to live “this moment of grace in its fullness” can obtain the 2025 Jubilee indulgence in three main ways: pilgrimages, pious visits to sacred places, and works of mercy and penance.

The upcoming holy year will be the 28th jubilee celebrated in the Catholic Church and comes 10 years after Pope Francis opened the extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015. That year, Holy Doors had been erected in basilicas and sacred sites in 40 different countries.

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