Europe

No Picture
News Briefs

Christmas 2023 at the Vatican: Nativity to recall St. Francis’ first-ever manger scene

October 30, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis visits the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square following vespers on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 30, 2023 / 12:45 pm (CNA).

The Christmas 2023 Nativity scene at the Vatican will evoke the first-ever live manger, which was created by St. Francis of Assisi in Italy in the 1200s, the Vatican said Monday.

The Vatican’s Nativity scene, which is different every year, will be unveiled at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 9. The Christmas tree will also be lit for the first time this season at the same event.

The Christmas tree and Nativity scenes will remain in place through the Christmas season, until Jan. 7, 2024, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

St. Francis’ meditations on the life of Christ while visiting the Holy Land led him to create a representation of the birth of Jesus on Christmas in Greccio, Italy, in 1223. It is believed to be the origin of the Nativity scene.

The Vatican’s Nativity scenes in St. Peter’s Square and the Paul VI Hall will “revive the atmosphere of Christmas 1223 … when St. Francis, returning from a journey to the Holy Land, asked to reenact the birth of Jesus in a village that reminded him of Bethlehem,” a press release said.

Christmas 2023 marks 800 years since St. Francis of Assisi staged the first manger scene in the hill town of Greccio, about 50 miles north of Rome.

In addition to the traditional Nativity figures of Mary, Joseph, the child Jesus, and the ox and donkey, the life-size painted terracotta statues will depict St. Francis and some of the principal characters who helped him create the first live creche.

The structure behind the figures will be of the rock still present at the Catholic shrine in Greccio and the fresco painted above it. The surrounding countryside and the four Franciscan shrines of that area will also be depicted.

The Nativity scene inside the Paul VI Hall, where Pope Francis holds his Wednesday audiences with the public during the winter months, will be made from thousands of glass Venetian tiles.

The 82-foot-tall white spruce to be used for the Vatican Christmas tree comes from the Italian Alps close to the border with France.

Instead of traditional ornaments, the tree will be decorated with thousands of edelweiss, a white mountain flower that grows in the Alps and other areas of high altitude.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Pope Francis on women deacons: ‘Holy orders is reserved for men’

October 25, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during his Angelus address on Oct. 15, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Oct 25, 2023 / 12:35 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released Tuesday in Italy.

The question of whether some women in the early Church were “deaconesses” or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is “not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men,” the pope said.

The pope’s answers to questions about women’s roles in the Church were included in a book published in June in Spanish as “El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones sobre su pontificado.”

The book, whose title means in English “The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy,” was released in Italian on Oct. 24. The Italian edition is titled “Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze,” or “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.”

About the possibility of women deacons, Francis pointed out that the diaconate “is the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”

He said he formed commissions in 2016 and 2020 to study the question further, after a study in the 1980s by the International Theological Commission established that the role of deaconesses in the early Church “was comparable to the benedictions of abbesses.”

In response to a question about why he is “against female priesthood,” Francis told Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin and Italian journalist Francesca Ambrogetti, the authors of the book, that it is “a theological problem.”

“I think we would undermine the essence of the Church if we considered only the priestly ministry, that is, the ministerial way,” he said, pointing out that women mirror Jesus’ bride the Church.

“The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important,” he said. “I think we err in our catechesis in explaining these things, and ultimately we fall back on an administrative criterion that does not work in the long run.”

“On the other hand, with respect to the charism of women, I want to say very clearly that from my personal experience, they have a great ecclesial intuition,” he said.

Asked about women’s ordination bringing “more people closer to the Church” and optional priestly celibacy helping with priest shortages, Pope Francis said he does not share these views.

“Lutherans ordain women, but still few people go to church,” he said. “Their priests can marry, but despite that they can’t grow the number of ministers. The problem is cultural. We should not be naive and think that programmatic changes will bring us the solution.”

“Mere ecclesiastical reforms do not serve to solve underlying issues. Rather, paradigmatic changes are what is needed,” he added, pointing to his 2019 letter to German Catholics for further considerations on the issue.

[…]