Florence, Italy, Jan 10, 2021 / 08:01 am (CNA).- The Archbishop of Florence has said no new students have entered his diocesan seminary this year, calling the low number of priestly vocations a “wound” in his episcopate.
Cardinal Giuseppe … […]
Vatican City, Jan 10, 2021 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed Sunday for the United States, asking the Immaculate Virgin Mary to help foster a “culture of encounter” after the recent violence at the U.S. Capitol Building.
“I extend an affectionate greeting to the people of the United States of America, shaken by the recent siege of Congress. I pray for those who lost their lives, five lost in those dramatic moments,” Pope Francis said after his Angelus address Jan. 10.
“I reaffirm that violence is always self-destructive. Nothing is gained with violence and so much is lost. I urge the authority of the state and the entire population to maintain a high sense of responsibility in order to calm the spirits, promote national reconciliation and protect the democratic values rooted in American society,” the pope said.
In the midday Marian prayer broadcast live from the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis invoked the intercession of the Immaculate Conception, who was proclaimed patroness of the United States in 1846.
“May the Immaculate Virgin, Patroness of the United States of America, help to keep alive the culture of encounter, the culture of care, as the main way to build the common good together,” the pope said.
Pope Francis’ comments came four days after pro-Donald Trump protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building Jan. 6 as Congress was in the process of certifying the presidential election results, leading to the evacuation of lawmakers and the deadly shooting of one protester by law enforcement. A U.S. Capitol police officer also died from injuries sustained during the attack, and three other protesters died due to medical emergencies.
In a video clip published Jan. 9, Pope Francis said that he was “astonished” by this incident that occurred in the U.S. Capitol Building.
“I was astonished, because they are a people so disciplined in democracy, right? But it’s a reality,” the pope said in the clip published to the website of the Italian news program TgCom24.
“Something isn’t working,” Francis continued. With “people taking a path against the community, against democracy, against the common good. Thanks be to God that this has broken out and there was a chance to see it well so that now you can try and heal it. Yes, this must be condemned, this movement…”
The clip was published as a preview of a longer interview with Pope Francis by Vatican journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, who works for the Italian television network Mediaset.
The interview will air on the evening of Jan. 10, and will be followed by a Mediaset-produced film on the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, from his youth in Argentina until his election as Pope Francis in 2013.
In his Angelus address, Pope Francis reflected on the manifestation of the Holy Trinity at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.
“After this gesture of compassion from Jesus, an extraordinary thing happens: the heavens open and the Trinity is finally revealed. The Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove and the Father says to Jesus: ‘You are my beloved Son.’ God manifests himself when mercy appears,” Pope Francis said.
“Do not forget this: God manifests himself when mercy appears, because that is his face. Jesus becomes the servant of sinners and is proclaimed Son; He lowers himself upon us and the Spirit descends upon him. Love calls love. It is also true for us: in every gesture of service, in every work of mercy that we perform, God manifests himself, God sets his gaze on the world.”
The pope said that “God overcomes the evil of the world by humbling himself.”
He added: “It is also the way in which we can lift others up: not judging, not in commanding what to do, but by becoming neighbors, by empathizing, by sharing God’s love.”
CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2021 / 08:22 pm (CNA).- Inspired by Pope Francis’ message for the World Day of Peace, a Vietnamese bishop is encouraging Catholics to establish an action plan to serve people in need during the Lunar New Year. Bishop Stephanus Tr… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2021 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- The Wyoming legislature will again consider a bill to protect infants born alive in legal abortion attempts. Its backers say it is needed to push abortion doctors to provide health care to any baby who survives… […]
Rome, Italy, Jan 9, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis’ personal doctor, Fabrizio Soccorsi, has died from health complications related to the coronavirus, according to the Vatican.
The 78-year-old physician, who was being treated for an “oncological pathology,” died at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, according to Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Pope Francis named Soccorsi his personal physician in August 2015, after not renewing the term of papal doctor Patrizio Polisca, who was also head of the Vatican’s healthcare services.
Since the pontificate of St. Pope John Paul II, the two positions had been tied together, but Pope Francis diverged from this custom by choosing Soccorsi, a doctor from outside the Vatican.
As Francis’ personal physician, Soccorsi traveled with the pope on his international trips. During his visit to Fatima, Portugal in May 2017, Pope Francis laid two bunches of white roses before the statue of the Virgin Mary for Soccorsi’s daughter, who was critically ill, and died the following month.
Soccorsi trained in medicine and surgery at Rome’s La Sapienza University. His career included both medical practice and teaching, especially in the areas of hepatology, the digestive system, and immunology.
The doctor also did consulting for the health and hygiene office of the Vatican City State and was part of the council of medical experts at the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
Vatican City, Jan 9, 2021 / 09:51 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has said he was surprised by the news of the incursion of pro-Donald Trump protestors into the U.S. Capitol Building this week, and has encouraged people to learn from the event in order to heal… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).- In an online panel Friday, the incoming chair of the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee discussed the Church’s opposition to the death penalty as a matter of fighting the “throwaway culture.&rdq… […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 8, 2021 / 05:02 pm (CNA).- A Catholic podcast featuring a priest reading and analyzing the Bible has been at the top of the Apple Podcast charts since Jan. 2, ahead of secular podcasts produced by such organizations as The New York Times, NBC News, and NPR.
“The Bible in a Year (With Fr. Mike Schmitz),” produced by Ascension Catholic Faith Formation, part of Ascension Press, features episodes containing two to three scriptural readings, a reflection on those readings by Fr. Mike Schmitz, and a prayer. Each episode is about 15 to 25 minutes long, and a new episode is set to be released each day of 2021.
Instead of reading the Bible from cover to cover, the podcast follows “The Great Adventure Bible Timeline,” which was developed by Jeff Cavins. Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, told CNA that this approach, which centers on “14 critical narrative books” interspersed with the remaining non-narrative books, helps to maintain the story structure of salvation history.
“A lot of times, what derails people is when they’re reading the story of Genesis and Exodus and Numbers, and all of a sudden they read Leviticus and like, ‘wait, I lost the story now,’” Schmitz told CNA in a Jan. 7 interview.
“So what we’ve done is we built those other books, those non-narrative books around the narrative story or on the narrative,” he said.
“And so one of the things that it is doing is it keeps people connected like, ‘Oh, okay, now this makes sense that here you are in the wilderness, and that’s why we’re reading Leviticus, because this is where God needs to give his people the law regarding the tabernacle.’”
The “timeline” approach also means that listeners will not have to wait until very late in the year to hear about Christ.
“If we (read the Bible) straight through like that, we wouldn’t get to the New Testament until I think November,” said Schmitz. “So it was like, ‘that is not good.’ We’ve not spent 10 months not talking about Jesus very clearly.”
To help remedy this, Schmitz said there will be four “messianic checkpoints” that will introduce listeners to Christ. The first of these will occur “right around day 90,” and will consist of the Gospel of John over the course of about a week.
“I’m really excited about that. Just to be able to say, in the midst of this Old Testament story, ‘here is the revelation of Christ,’” said Schmitz.
Catholics in America read the Bible less often than do Protestants. Schmitz believes that this is due in part to how Catholics are accustomed to having Scripture “proclaimed” to them at Mass.
“I mean, the whole reason the New Testament is called the New Testament is because it was read at the celebration of the new covenant, the Eucharist,” he said.
“And so one of the things that we are used to is having the Bible read out loud, we’re used to having the Bible, as I said, proclaimed. And I think maybe because of that, we kind of sit on our laurels a little bit, and don’t necessarily dig in and ask all the questions about, you know, translations, the questions about, contexts and whatnot.”
Despite this, Schmitz thinks that “we still have this hunger to know,” and that many people are discouraged by the “daunting” nature of the Bible. He hopes his podcast, with its unique formatting of salvation history with a timeline, changes this perception.
“So the appeal, I think, of a Bible in a Year podcast is not only, you’re going to be able to go through the entire Bible in one year, but then secondly, is it’s going to be in bite size chunks. And third, you’re going to have some kind of guidance,” he said.
“And I think that that for a lot of people just makes something that might seem inaccessible, accessible.”
The success of the podcast took both Schmitz and Matthew Pinto, CEO of Ascension Press, by surprise. Schmitz said that he has been warned by his friends and family to “not let (the success) go to his head,” something he says never even occurred to him.
“I’m thinking like, ‘well, I’m literally reading the Bible.’ So I don’t know how much that could go to my head,” said Schmitz.
“I think that it’s, it’s very clearly less about me, and the fact that it’s me reading the Bible, and far more about, I think, people’s hunger” for God’s word, said Schmitz.
Pinto was willing to credit Schmitz with at least some of the show’s success.
“We knew it was going to be a great program, but clearly this has struck a nerve beyond, really what we expected,” Pinto told CNA in a phone interview Jan. 7. “Our first thought
was that, for some reason, God has anointed this particular project.”
Pinto credited the “charism of Fr. Mike and the uniqueness of the Bible timeline” as two of the factors behind the success of the show–along with God’s blessing, of course.
The success of the show caught Ascension “flat-footed,” said Pinto, and The Great Adventure Catholic Bible, which the show is centered around, sold out. Pinto told CNA it should be available again to order in the coming months.
God has, said Pinto, given the podcast “a special grace that is beyond simple human explanation.”
“And, so it’s our hope that we will just be good stewards of it, and really use this as an opportunity to expand and reach, even more. So we’re not going to stop at really where it is,” said Pinto.
“We’re going to ask God for additional blessing, and work as hard as we can to, to get the Word of God out to as many people as we can using this most unique method.”
Vatican City, Jan 8, 2021 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- For the first time, the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia will be presided by a layperson after Pope Francis appointed professor Vincenzo Buonomo, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. And it is possible that more laypersons will be appointed for other Vatican positions.
The Commission is composed of a president and six members. Established by St. John Paul II in 1981, the Commission rules whether an administrative sanction – i.e., suspension or firing – can be imposed on a Roman Curia official is pertinent or not.
Pope Francis also appointed two new members of the Commission: Monsignor Alejandro W. Bunge, president of the Labor Office of the Apostolic See, known by the Italian acronym ULSA; and Mr. Maximino Caballero Ledo, General Secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy.
The appointment of professor Buonomo, a layperson, as a president is unprecedented. According to the Commission’s Statutes, issued in 2016, the president of the Commission must be a cardinal or at least a bishop. The statutes have a five-year validity. Until now, the Commission had five presidents: three cardinals, an archbishop, and a bishop. The last president was Bishop Giorgio Corbellini, who was also president of the ULSA. Corbellini died in November 2019, leaving the position open.
Article 4 of the Statutes read that “the Commission is composed by a Cardinal or Bishop president and other six members, both laymen and clergy, appointed for a five-year term by the Pontiff.”
Article 4 also states that the Vatican Secretariat of State’s adviser and the secretary of the administrative section of the Secretariat for the Economy are members de iure (officially sanctioned) of the same Commission. That means that also Monsignor Luigi Cona, is a member of the Commission.
The other Commission members are Bishop Juan Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and Flaminia Giovannelli, undersecretary emeritus of the Dicastery for the Service to the Integral Human Development. Vincenzo Buonomo was also a member before being elevated to the chairmanship of the Commission. Pope Francis may now appoint another member of the Commission.
Buonomo has garnered growing attention during the years. Pope Francis called him in 2018 to be the first lay rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. Since he became the rector, Pope Francis has paid a visit to the university twice.
Since 2014, Buonomo is also a counselor of the Vatican City State Administration and was part of the committee that drafted the first Vatican law on procurements, issued in July 2020.
A professor in the Pontifical Lateran University since 1984, Buonomo began his collaboration with the Vatican Secretariat of State during the 1980s.
Since 2007, Buonomo is office chief of the Vatican’s delegation to the U.N. Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO,) where he has served since 1993.
In 2015, he was a member of the Secretariat of State’s working group for the drafting of the Holy See Periodic Reports to the U.N. Committees on the Rights of Children, on Racial discrimination, and Against Torture.
The appointment of Buonomo as president of the Commission is certainly a sign of trust by Pope Francis. Pope Francis is also continuing his policy of appointing laypeople as Curia top-officials.
In the last year, Pope Francis appointed Maximino Caballero Ledo as general secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy and Fabio Gasperini as general secretary of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA, a sort of Vatican central bank). In 2018, Pope Francis appointed another layperson, Paolo Ruffini, as prefect of the Dicastery of Communication.
There are rumors that Pope Francis might also choose a layperson as general secretary of the Vatican City State Administration. The current general secretary, Bishop Fernando Vergez Alzaga, already turned 75, the official retirement age.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 8, 2021 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- A woman convicted of murdering a woman and stealing her unborn child should be granted clemency ahead of her scheduled execution on Jan. 12, her lawyer told CNA.
Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2007 for the Dec. 16, 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant. Montgomery, who told Stinnett her name was “Darlene Fischer,” claimed to be pregnant as well, and the two communicated online prior to meeting at Stinnett’s home in Skidmore, Missouri.
Montgomery strangled Stinnett, and then cut her stomach to deliver the child, a girl, via a rudimentary cesarean section. The newborn baby girl was discovered, alive, one day later when Montgomery was arrested in Kansas. Montgomery reportedly told her husband that the baby was hers.
The federal government tried the case in part as it involved a kidnapping over state lines.
“We’ve asked President Trump to commute Mrs. Montgomery’s sentence from death to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole … for several reasons,” Kelley Henry, lead counsel on the case, said to CNA in a phone interview Jan. 6.
“First, she is a person who suffers from serious mental illness as well as brain damage, and a lifetime of physical and sexual torture at the hands of her caregivers, and the men that her mother trafficked her to, for years,” said Henry.
Henry noted that despite the documentation of numerous similar crimes in the United States, Montgomery is the only person to be sentenced to death on either the federal or state levels.
“The prosecution normally understands that people who commit this particular sort of crime are individuals with severe mental illness and trauma history,” Henry explained.
“Mrs. Montgomery’s trauma history is the most severe of any case I’ve ever seen in 30 years of practice.”
Unlike others on death row, Montgomery “has expressed deep and severe remorse from the moment of her arrest,” said Henry.
Henry told CNA that those who wish to see Montgomery’s sentence commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole to visit the website SaveLisa.org, sign the petition, and write “letters and emails” to the president and other leaders.
“These executions are, after all, carried out in the names of the citizens of the United States, and they should make it be known to the president that they would support mercy in this case,” said Henry, “which would be life in prison without the possibility of parole.”
© Catholic World Report