Father Marko Rupnik, SJ. / Screenshot Vatican News
Vatican City, Oct 27, 2023 / 08:52 am (CNA).
The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis has decided to lift the statute of limitations in the case of Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit … […]
Synod members, led by Cardinal Gabetti, process into Saint Peter’s Basilica to pray the Rosary for Peace. / Credit:
© Evandro Inetti/EWTN News/Vatican Pool
Vatican City, Oct 27, 2023 / 05:55 am (CNA).
Synod delegates gathered in St. Peter’s … […]
Bishop Robert Barron speaks to EWTN’s Colm Flynn about evangelizing the culture today. October 2023. / Credit: Word on Fire
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
Bishop Robert Barron said he regrets the Catholic Church’s “hand-wringing” in recent decades over how to share the Christian message with a secular culture.
In an exclusive interview with EWTN News this week, the 63-year-old bishop of Winona-Rochester said he wants to see the Church today embrace sharing the Gospel with the same gusto and confidence as when Sts. Peter and Paul evangelized Rome.
“Much of my adult life — and I say this with regret — the Church has been in a kind of hand-wringing mode of, ‘Well, what do we know, and who are we to tell you? And we’re here, really, to learn more from you.’ Come on!” Barron said during an interview at the North American College in Rome.
“Peter and Paul came to this town a long time ago and they weren’t here just to listen to Roman culture,” the bishop continued. “They were here with a message: ‘euangelion,’ there’s good news, and it’s good news that will change the world. And in fact it worked.”
“The fact that over there [St. Peter’s Basilica], Peter lies buried to this day, but dominating this once imperial capital is the cross of Jesus. That didn’t come welling up from Roman culture. That came from a message that these [apostles] brought. We should do our work with the same energy and the same panache and the same confidence,” Barron encouraged.
Barron, founder of the Word on Fire media apostolate, is in Rome to participate in the Oct. 4–29 session of the Synod on Synodality.
He said despite the apparent decline in faith and rise in what have been described as spiritual “nones” — people with no belief whatsoever — he still has hope in Christ and in the message of the Catholic Church.
“Being here in Rome with the synod, every day, people from all corners of the world — well, that means there’s something in Catholicism that is still very compelling to people, and that when it’s laid out in a way that’s intellectually satisfying and aesthetically pleasing and morally compelling, they respond to it,” he argued.
The bishop said he does not believe the “new atheist nonsense” will hold people’s hearts and minds in the long run.
“And the Church?” Barron added. “I look out at the city of Rome here: [The Church has] been around for a long time and we’ve been through a lot worse than we’re going through right now. So we will endure.”
“So Christ gives me hope and the Holy Spirit gives me hope,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot worse and there’s still nothing better on the table. There’s no fresher fish on the market than Christianity. It’s still the most beautiful, compelling message that we’ve got.”
The popular speaker and writer also said he does not think disagreements in the Church are worse than they were in the ’60s, ’70s, or ’80s.
People are not only critical of Pope Francis, he said, noting that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were also attacked during their papacies, though without social media so it may not have been as much on people’s radars.
Barron also attended the Synod of Bishops on young people in October 2018.
Practically speaking, he said, the synodal assembly this month is more comfortable than the youth synod.
Prior synods were held in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall, which has theater-like seating. Barron described it as “a somewhat claustrophobic room” and like sitting in “the middle seat on an airplane.”
He added that the larger space of the Paul VI Hall, with tables and chairs, as well as wearing suits instead of cassocks every day, is also “more comfortable, more humane … easier to get through.”
“The best part of [the Synod on Synodality]” is being with Catholics from all over the world, he said.
He recalled the “cacophonous sound” of hundreds of people speaking in different languages at the three-day retreat held ahead of the synodal assembly in a town outside Rome.
“It was the universality of the Church in all of us,” he said, “a kind of cacophonous wonder. There’s no other group or society in the world, I don’t think, that could muster that kind of international universality, and that is an extraordinary thing.”
Watch EWTN’s full interview with Bishop Barron below.
Catherine Clifford, a professor at St. Paul University in Ottawa, and Archbishop Stanisław Gadecki of Poland at the Synod on Synodality’s Oct. 26, 2023, press briefing. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 13:35 pm (CNA).
A Polish archbishop said Thursday one difficulty of synodality lies in distinguishing pastoral practice — which can be adapted to different cultural circumstances — from Church doctrine.
“In doctrine, the Church cannot bring to it the different viewpoints of those coming from the other continents or other parts of the world. Doctrine has to be ‘catholic’ [universal] and the same for everyone,” Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan said at a press briefing for the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 26.
This is in contrast, the president of the Polish bishops’ conference said, to “different pastoral expressions” of doctrine as appear in different cultures, languages, and historical situations.
Gadecki is one of three Polish bishops participating in the Vatican’s Oct. 4–29 assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.
He said the method of this synod brings both differences and agreements, and participants are not hiding the challenges.
“It would be useless to get together for a month and hide difficulties that exist in different situations or in connection with different issues that require an answer,” he said.
On pastoral practice versus doctrine, Gadecki underlined that “countries have their own histories and they must also be in tune with that history” — including negative responses to the Church’s actions.
He said different pastoral expressions do not influence Christian doctrine, the magisterium, holy Scripture, and sacred tradition.
“As far as the essential things are concerned, there cannot be a development of Christian doctrine, but in the things that are not essential, there can always be a change as long as that change is a true development,” he said, referencing the theological concept of the development of doctrine.
A Romanian Orthodox bishop, who is taking part in the synod as a fraternal delegate, a participant without a vote, said one challenge in the Orthodox understanding of synodality is in reaching a consensus among bishops.
“In the Orthodox church, it’s not the majority that ‘decides’ as we often see in synodal processes,” Metropolitan Iosef of Western and Southern Europe said.
The good thing about synodality, he added, “is you’re never alone when you make decisions.”
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has served as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops since April 12, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 11:25 am (CNA).
Synod on Synodality delegate Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost… […]
Pope Francis leads the Synod delegates in prayer, Oct. 25, 2024. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 06:55 am (CNA).
Pope Francis denounced clericalism and called it a “scandal” to see young priests buying lace vestments at tailor shop… […]
Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/ACI Prensa
ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 25, 2023 / 19:00 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, the primatial archbishop of Mexico, downplayed the issues that have generated some controversy durin… […]
Sister María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, whose religious name was María Antonia of St. Joseph. / Credit: Public domain
CNA Staff, Oct 25, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
The Vatican on Tuesday announced that Pope Francis has authorized the promulgation o… […]
Delegates to the Synod on Synodality meet in the final days of the synod, Oct. 25, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA).
The Synod on Synodality has addressed the members of the Catholic Church in a let… […]
Pope Francis at the general audience at St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 25, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2023 / 12:13 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis in his ongoing catechetical series on apostolic zeal on Wednesday spoke about the example of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century “apostles of the Slavs” whose mission was built on three pillars: unity, inculturation, and liberty.
At the center of the pope’s Oct. 25 general audience was an emphasis on the relationship — and harmonization — between culture and faith. This process of inculturation is seen in the example of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, whose task was to “study the culture of those peoples in depth,” the pope said.
Pope Francis recounted the story of the two brothers as one of encounter with the Slavic people, who had to confront a “pagan” culture, thereby integrating the faith into the specific, local cultural context.
Sts. Cyril and Methodius, born circa 826 and 815, respectively, hailed from modern-day Thessaloniki, Greece. Pope Francis recalled how the brothers, who came from an aristocratic family, “renounced a political career to devote themselves to monastic life.”
Departing from his prepared remarks, the pope stressed that “faith must be inculturated and culture must be evangelized. The inculturation of faith, evangelization of culture — always.”
At the center of the saints’ effort to evangelize was localizing the faith. For Cyril, this work consisted of developing a native, Slavic alphabet. “Indeed, to proclaim the Gospel and to pray, one needed a proper, suitable, specific tool. So, he invented the Glagolitic alphabet. He translated the Bible and liturgical texts. People felt that the Christian faith was no longer ‘foreign,’ but rather it became their faith, spoken in their mother tongue,” the pope said.
The Holy Father went on to remark: “Just think: two Greek monks giving an alphabet to the Slavs. It is this openness of heart that rooted the Gospel among them.”
“Some opposition emerged on the part of some Latins, who saw themselves deprived of their monopoly on preaching to the Slavs,” he said.
Taking a moment to go off script, the pope emphasized: “That struggle within the Church, always like this.”
“Their objection was religious, but only in appearance: God can be praised, they said, only in the three languages written on the cross: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin,” Francis continued.
Again departing from the prepared text, the pope excoriated those who opposed their efforts by saying: “These were closed-minded to defend their autonomy.”
The pope, showcasing Cyril’s tenacity and love of God, said: “But Cyril responds forcefully: God wants every person to praise him in their own language.”
The theme of unity has been at the center of Pope Francis’ pontificate and at the fore of Synod of Synodality, which closes its first session this weekend.
In the Sep. 30 public consistory for the creation of cardinals, Pope Francis reminded the newly-created cardinals that they were “representing the harmony and synodality of the Church.”
“Mother Church, who speaks all languages, is one and is Catholic,” he said, stressing that “the faith is transmitted in dialect.”
During Wednesday’s audience, the pope went on to stress that the evangelical mission of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is one rooted in unity, between “the Greeks, the pope, the Slavs.” He continued: “At that time, there was an undivided Christianity in Europe, which collaborated in order to evangelize,” the pope said.
“Evangelizing culture and inculturation shows that evangelization and culture are closely connected. You cannot preach an abstract, distilled Gospel. No, the Gospel must be inculturated and it is also an expression of culture,” the pope said.
The saints hold a special place both for the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. St. John Paul II, the first Slav to become pope, made the saints co-patrons of Europe, alongside St. Benedict, in 1980. They are also venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Churches as “equal-to-apostles,” a title given to those saints whose contribution to the spread of Christianity is equivalent in scope and magnitude to the apostles. They have the additional appellation of “enlighteners of the Slavs.”
The pope closed his audience highlighting the third element present in their witness: “In preaching you need freedom, but freedom always needs courage. A person is free the more courageous he is and doesn’t let himself be chained by many things that take away his freedom.”
At the end of the greetings to the various pilgrim groups present in the piazza, Pope Francis renewed his appeal for peace.
“I always think of the serious situation in Palestine and Israel: I encourage the release of the hostages and the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said. “I continue to pray for those who suffer and to hope for paths of peace, in the Middle East, in the tormented Ukraine, and in other regions wounded by war.”
“I remind everyone that the day after tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 27, we will experience a day of fasting, prayer, and penance at 6 p.m. in St. Peter’s [Square]; we will gather to pray to implore peace in the world,” he concluded.
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