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Amazon synod discussion groups support married priests, female deacons

October 18, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Oct 18, 2019 / 10:26 am (CNA).- At least four of the 12 language groups at the Amazon synod overtly propose the ordination of married men to the priesthood in summary reports published by the Vatican Friday, with the majority of the discussion groups expressing openness to the idea.

“We ask, Holy Father, that you accept, for the Pan Amazon region, men to the priestly ministry and women to the diaconate, preferably indigenous, respected and recognized by their community, even if they already have a constituted and stable family, in order to assure the sacraments that accompany and sustain the Christian life of the community,” Portuguese language group A, moderated by Bishop Jesús Maria Cizuarre Berdonces of Bragança do Pará, stated in their report Oct. 18.

The Vatican released summary reports in Spanish and Portuguese from the Amazon synod’s 12 “circoli minori,” small synod discussion groups divided by language: five in Spanish, four in Portuguese, two in Italian, and one in English/French.

All four of the Portuguese discussion groups express openness to the possibility of the ordination of viri probati – a term referring to mature, married men – in remote areas of the Amazon to the priesthood.

“The ordination of the viri probati was considered necessary for Panamazonía. Married men candidates for ordination, after a fruitful diaconate must meet the following criteria, among others: life of prayer and love of the Word of God and the Church, Eucharistic life that is reflected in a life of donation and service, community experience, missionary spirit,” Portuguese group B stated in their summary report.

The Portuguese group moderated by Archbishop Pedro Brito Guimarães of Palmas proposed that the implementation the ordination of married men as priests could be delegated to the bishops’ conferences in the region or entrusted to the local bishops.

The first Italian group noted that there has been concern among some synod fathers that that the proposal of married priests in the Amazon would have implications for the Church other regions of the world.

“Other synod fathers believe that the proposal concerns all continents, that it could reduce the value of celibacy, or make the missionary impulse to serve the most distant communities be lost. They believe that, in virtue of the theological principle of synodality, the subject should be placed before the opinion of the whole Church and therefore suggest a universal Synod in this regard,” the Italian group A report stated.

The majority of Spanish groups also expressed open support for ministerial alternatives for women, including female deacons.

“Given the tradition of the Church, it is possible to recognize women’s access to the existent ministries of the lectorate and the acolyte, as well as the permanent diaconate,” Spanish language group C, moderated by Bishop Jonny Eduardo Reyes Sequera, Vicar Apostolic of Puerto Ayacucho, stated.

Spanish group E, however, stated it was against the ordination of female deacons, but proposed instead some other ministerial alternative for women. This language group is moderated by Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa.

Italians participating in the Amazon synod proposed in their report the development of an “Amazonian Rite” that would open a path for married priests and female deacons.

The group, moderated by Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the creation of an “Amazon Rite” would “express the liturgical, theological, disciplinary and spiritual heritage” of the local culture.

The Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is an Oct. 6-27 meeting on the Church’s life and ministry in the Pan-Amazonian region.

“These are not final texts,” Fr. Giacomo Costa, a communications official for the Amazon synod, said at the synod press conference presenting the language group reports Oct. 18.

“Everybody has something important to say … The synod must consider everyone’s contribution,” he added.

The synod drafting committee will meet over the next week to assemble into a document the recommendations of the language groups into the final document of the Amazon synod.

The final document of the synod will then be voted on by synod members, on the penultimate day of the gathering. Per synod norms, it must pass with a 2/3 majority.

The document of synod recommendations will then be given to Pope Francis for him to use, or not, as he desires, in the writing of a post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

“The final document of the synod is offered exclusively to the Holy Father who is then going to do with it what he thinks fit,” Costa said.

[…]

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Vatican denies Indian nun’s appeal of dismissal from religious life for disobedience

October 17, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2019 / 02:22 pm (CNA).- The Congregation for the Oriental Churches has rejected the appeal of Sister Lucy Kalapura, who was dismissed from religious life in August for several acts of disobedience, including a protest of the handling of another nun’s accusation that a bishop serially raped her.

The congregation’s Sept. 26 decree denying recourse to the nun of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation  was conveyed in an Oct. 11 letter from the apostolic nunciature in India.

Sr. Lucy has the right to further appeal to the Apostolic Signatura.

However, she told the BBC that “I don’t see any point in doing that since they have made up their mind. I will now go to court on behalf of all the people who are being suppressed and facing illegal behaviour from authorities of the congregation.”

She maintained: “I am not going to leave the convent. The lifestyle I lead is as per the rules and regulations.”

Sr. Lucy was sent a letter Aug. 5 from the superior general of the FCC, Sr. Ann Joseph, notifying her she had been dismissed from the community, which decision had been confirmed by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

Sr. Lucy has led a life against the principles of religious life, the community says, by disobeying a transfer order, publishing poems after having been denied permission to do so, buying a vehicle, withholding her salary from the congregation, and participating in a protest against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jullundur, who has been charged with several instances of raping a nun of a different congregation.

The letter from Sr. Ann Joseph said that Sr. Lucy “did not show the needed remorse and you failed to give a satisfactory explanation for your lifestyle in violation of the proper law of the FCC.”

Sr. Lucy had been sent a letter of warning Jan. 1, asking that she appear before Sr. Ann by Jan. 9 to explain her disobediences, or face expulsion from the congregation.

In January Sr. Lucy said that the congregation was trying to silence her, and denied any wrongdoing.

She was sent a second letter of warning in February, and India Times reported that she “failed to respond to a notice issued against her in March”.

The congregation’s General Council, held May 11, voted unanimously to dismiss Sr. Lucy, and asked for confirmation from the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

In the January letter of warning sent to Sr. Lucy, the superior general wrote that she joined a protest regarding Bishop Mulakkal “without the permission of your superior. You have published articles in some non-Christian newspapers and weeklies … gave interviews to ‘Samayam’ without seeking permission from the provincial superior. Through Facebook, channel discussions and the articles, you belittled the Catholic leadership by making false accusations against it and tried to bring down the sacraments. You tried to defame FCC also. Your performance through social media as a religious sister was culpable, arising grave scandal.”

The letter also said Sr. Lucy failed to obey a transfer order given her in 2015 by her provincial superior, and that she published a book of poems despite being denied permission to do so, and used 50,000 Indian rupees ($700) from the congregation’s account “without proper permission” to do so.

Sr. Kalapura is also accused of buying a car for about $5,670 and learning to drive without permission, and failing to entrust her salary from December 2017.

Sr. Ann Joseph called these acts “a grave infringement of the vow of poverty.”

The superior general added that Sr. Kalapura has been corrected and warned several times by her provincial over her “improper behaviour and violations of religious discipline.”

“Instead of correcting yourself, you are simply denying the allegations against you stating that you have to live your own beliefs, ideologies and conviction. You are repeatedly violating the vows of obedience and poverty. The evangelization and social work you do should be according to the FCC values, principles and rules. The present mode of your life is a grave violation of the profession you have made,” Sr. Ann Joseph wrote.

Another nun of the FCC, Sister Lissy Vadakkel, was transferred earlier this year from Muvattupuzha to Vijawada.

Sister Alphonas Abraham, superior of the FCC’s Nirmala Province, said in February that Sr. Lissy’s transfer was unrelated to her acting as a witness in the case against Bishop Mulakkal.

In April, Bishop Mulakkal was charged with rape.

[…]

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News Briefs

Pope Francis: God has a universal desire for salvation

October 16, 2019 CNA Daily News 3

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2019 / 10:01 am (CNA).- God wills the salvation of all persons, Pope Francis said in his General Audience Wednesday, refelcting on the Acts of the Apostles.

God “wants His children to overcome all particularism in order to be open to the universality of salvation,” the pope said Oct. 16 in St. Peter’s Square.

“This is the aim: to overcome particularism and open oneself to the universality of salvation, because God wants to save everyone. Those who are reborn by water and the Spirit – the baptized – are called to come out of themselves and open themselves up to others, to live close together, in the style of living together, which transforms every interpersonal relationship into an experience of fraternity.”

He said St. Peter is “the witness of this process of ‘fraternization’ that the Spirit wants to trigger in history, citing Peter’s vision in which he was told to eat animals that were impure in Jewish law.

“With this fact, the Lord wants Peter no longer to evaluate events and people according to the categories of the pure and the impure, but to learn to go beyond, to look at the person and the intentions of his heart,” Francis said. “What makes man impure, in fact, does not come from outside but only from within, from the heart. Jesus said this clearly.”

After his vision, St. Peter preached “the crucified and risen Christ and the forgiveness of sins to whoever believes in Him” to the household of Cornelius, a gentile, and baptized there.

“This extraordinary fact – it is the first time that something of this type has happened – becomes known in Jerusalem, where the brothers, scandalized by Peter’s behaviour, harshly reproach him. Peter did something that went beyond what was usual, beyond the law, and for this reason they rebuke him,” the pope stated.

“But after the encounter with Cornelius, Peter is more free from himself and more in communion with God and with others, because he has seen God’s will in action in the Holy Spirit.”

Because of this, St. Peter can “understand that the election of Israel is not the reward for merits, but the sign of the gratuitous call to mediate the divine blessing among pagan peoples.”

For Pope Francis, St. Peter teaches “that an evangelizer cannot be an impediment to the creative work of God … but one that fosters the encounter of hearts with the Lord.”

He asked: “How do we behave with our brothers and sisters, especially with those who are not Christians? Are we impediments to the encounter with God? Do we hinder or facilitate their encounter with the Father?”

The pope concluded, saying: “Today we ask for the grace to allow ourselves to be astonished by God’s surprises, not to hinder His creativity, but to recognize and encourage the ever new ways in which the Risen One pours out His Spirit into the world and attracts hearts.”

[…]

The Dispatch

Vatican communications official: Carved figure at Amazon synod not Virgin Mary

October 16, 2019 CNA Daily News 8

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2019 / 07:18 am (CNA).- Fr. Giacomo Costa, a communications official for the Amazon synod, said Wednesday a wooden figure of a nude pregnant woman, which has been present at events related to the synod, is not the Virgin Mary, but is instead a female figure representing life.

“It is not the Virgin Mary, who said it is the Virgin Mary?” Costa said Oct. 16 at a press conference for the Amazon synod, a meeting taking place in the Vatican Oct. 6-27 on the ministry of the Church in the region.

Costa referred to a controversial image of a female figure which was part of a tree-planting ceremony in the Vatican Oct. 4. The same figure has been present in the vicinity of the Vatican at various events happening during the synod, under the “Casa Comun” initiative.

The wooden figure of a pregnant woman has been described as both a Marian image and as a traditional indigenous religious symbol of the goddess Pachamama, or Mother Earth.

When told “many people have said” the woman is a figure of the Virgin Mary, Costa added “‘many have said,’ okay, as you like, but I have never heard that.”

“There is nothing to know. It is an indigenous woman who represents life,” he stated, adding that his information commission will look for more information about it, but “it is a feminine figure” and is “neither pagan nor sacred.”

Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican communications dicastery, said Wednesday he sees the figure as “representing life.”
 
“Fundamentally, it represents life. And enough. I believe to try and see pagan symbols or to see… evil, it is not,” he said, adding that “it represents life through a woman.” He equated the image to that of a tree, saying “a tree is a sacred symbol.”

Ruffini said that interpretation is his personal opinion, and he was not speaking as the head of Vatican communications or synod communications.

He added that “We know that some things in history have many interpretations” and he would look for more information about the image and inform journalists about what he finds out.

Cristiane Murray, vice director of the Holy See press office, added that more information about the wooden figure should be sought from REPAM or the organizers of the events where the image has been present.

Mauricio Lopez, REPAM’s executive secretary, told CNA after the press conference that he could not comment on the press conference, directing CNA to Costa’s remarks, as the “official spokesperson” of the Synod.

REPAM (the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network), a group backed by the bishops’ conferences in Latin America, describes itself as an advocacy organization for the rights and dignity of indigenous people in the Amazon. The network is involved in operations for the synod assembly and is one of 14 groups on the organizing committee of the Casa Comun initiative, which is promoting more than 115 events hosted by a loose network of groups, connected in varying degrees to the Catholic Church.

[…]

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Missionary: Married priests in Amazon wouldn’t get to the root of the problem

October 15, 2019 CNA Daily News 3

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- A South American missionary to Angola who is participating in the Amazon Synod at the invitation of the pope has said the proposal to ordain as priests married men to solve the lack of evangelization in the Amazon is “illusory”.

“Is the lack of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the Amazon a pastoral challenge, or rather is it the consequence of theological-pastoral options that have not yielded the expected or partial results? In my opinion, the proposal of ‘viri probati’ as a solution to evangelization is an illusory proposal, almost magical, which does not address the real underlying problem,” Fr. Martín Lasarte Topolanski, a Salesian priest, said in a text published by Sandro Magister Oct. 12 in his Settimo Cielo column at L’Espresso.

The Uruguayan priest and missionary in Angola is responsible for missionary efforts in Africa and Latin America for the Salesian congregation. Pope Francis included him among the 33 ecclesiastics he personally called to participate in the Synod on the Amazon.

The text published by Magister is a summary of Fr. Lasarte’s Aug. 12 article “Amazonia: Are ‘viri probati’ a solution?” published in Settimana News.

In his text, the missionary pointed out that the argument that ordaining married men as priests because it is hard to reach remote communities with the ministry “commits the sin of major  clericalism” because it sets aside the work of lay people, believing that the Church where “the ‘priest’ is not there doesn’t function. That’s an ecclesiological and pastoral aberration. Our faith, being a Christian, is rooted in baptism, not in priestly ordination,” he said.

As examples he gave Korea, Japan, Angola, and Guatemala, where the laity were essential.

He noted  that the Church in Korea got its start thanks to layman Yi Seung-hun, who was baptized in China and baptized other Catholics. “For 51 years (1784-1835) since its foundation the Church in Korea was evangelized by lay people, with the occasional presence of some priest. This Catholic community flourished and expanded enormously despite the terrible persecutions, thanks to the leadership of the baptized,” Lasarte said.

In the case of Japan, after the martyrdom of the last priest in 1644, priests did not return until 200 years later, finding “a living Church” made up of “hidden Christians.”

Regarding his 25 years of experience in Angola, the priest said that “when the civil war was over in 2002, I had the possibility of visiting Christian communities, which for 30 years did not have the Eucharist, nor did they see a priest, but they were strong  in faith and were dynamic communities guided by the ‘catechist,’ an essential ministry in Africa (…) A living Church, laity with the absence of priests.”

In Latin America he gave as an example “the Quetchi from central Guatemala (Verapaz), where despite the absence of priests in some communities the lay ministers also had living communities” where the evangelicals “were little able to penetrate.” He said that despite the shortage of priests “it is a local Church rich in indigenous priestly vocations” and “men and women religious congregations of totally indigenous origin.”

In that regard, he noted that in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, Pope Francis pointed out that the shortage of vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life is often “due to the absence of contagious apostolic fervor in communities which lack enthusiasm and thus fail to attract.”

“The Holy Father gives the key to the problem. It’s not the lack of vocations but the poor proposal, the lack of apostolic fervor, the lack of fraternity and prayer; the lack of serious and profound processes of evangelization,” the Salesian priest said.

Thus with regard to the question why after 200 to 400 years of evangelization vocations are lacking in the Amazon, the priest said that “one of the pastoral problems in various parts of Latin America, and in particular in Amazonia, is the insistence on the ‘old ways’. There is a great conservatism in various churches and ecclesial structures, I’m not referring just to pre-conciliar traditionalists, but to pastoral lines, mentalities, that remain stuck  in ’68 and in the 1970-1980 decade,” Lasarte pointed out.

The Salesian priest indicated three kinds of “Alzheimer pastoral ministry” which affect evangelization in the Amazon.

The first is “cultural anthopologism,” which originated after the 1971 Barbados Declaration, put together by 12 anthropologists, which “claimed that the Good News of Jesus is bad news for the indigenous peoples.”

Although “from this provocation emerged in various places a fruitful dialogue between anthropologists and missionaries, which served mutual enrichment,” in other places “it fell into a self-censorship, losing ‘the joy of evangelizing,” with “cases of religious that decided to not announce Jesus Christ, or give catechesis ‘out of respect for the indigenous culture,’” and that “they would limit themselves to witness and service” claiming that this “substitutes for the proclamation.”

The missionary recalled that in Evangelii nuntiandi Saint Paul VI said that “the Good News proclaimed by the witness of life sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the word of life. There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed.”

Fr. Lasarte said that the second kind of “Alzheimer pastoral ministry” is “social moralism.” “In more than one place I have heard similar expressions from pastoral workers: ‘When people require services they come to us (the Catholic Church), but when they are looking for meaning to their lives, they go to others (evangelicals, etc.)’  It is evident and observable that the church that wants to be a ‘Samaritan Church’ has forgotten to be  a ‘Magdelene Church’, a Church providing services that doesn’t announce the joy of the Resurrection of the Lord,” he pointed out.

The missionary reaffirmed that the social commitment of the Church and the option for the poorest continues to be “a constitutive aspect of the evangelizing process” and a richness; but “the problem is when this kind of activity has absorbed the rest of the life and dynamism of the Church, leaving in the shadows, silencing, or taking for granted the other dimensions: kerygmatic, catechetical, liturgical, koinonia. We are in an unresolved tension of Martha and Mary.”

He said that the “great hemorrhaging” of Catholics toward evangelical communities has to do with several factors, certainly “the lack of a much ‘more religious’ pastoral ministry and a ‘less sociologized’ one has had a very great influence”.

“I visited a diocese where at the beginning of the 1980’s, 95% of the population was Catholic, today they are 20%. I remember the comment of one of the European missionaries that systematically had ‘de-evangelized’ the region: ‘We do not foster superstition but human dignity’…I think that says everything,” he said. “The Church is some places has been transformed into a grand manager of services (healthcare, educational, development, advocacy…) but little as a mother of the faith.”

Finally there is secularism. He said, “a church secularizes when its pastoral workers interiorize dynamics from a secularized mentality: the absence or a very timid, almost apologizing, manifestation of the faith.”

He said that the consequences “are reflected in vocational sterility or the lack of perseverance in the path undertaken, because of a lack of deep motivations,” since “no one leaves everything to be a social director, no one dedicates his existence to an ‘opinion,’ no one offers what is absolute in his life for what is relative, but only to the Absolute which is God.”

“When this theological, religious dimension is not evident, patent, and alive in the mission, there will never exist options for evangelical radicalness, which is an indicator that the evangelization touched the soul of a Christian community,” he pointed out.

To conclude his article, Lasarte said that a Christian community that “does not generate priestly and religious vocations, is a community carrying some kind of spiritual disease. We can ordain the ‘viri probati, the honeste mulieribus, the pueribus bonum, but the underlying problems will remain: an evangelization without the Gospel, a Christianity without Christ, a spirituality without the Holy Spirit.”

“Logically in a horizontal vision of the dominant culture, where God is absent or reduced to a few symbolic, cultural or moral concepts, it’s impossible to come to appreciate the fruitful spiritual and pastoral value of priestly celibacy as a precious gift from God and of a total and sublime disposition of love and service to the Church and to humanity.”

The Salesian missionary said that “there will only be able to be authentic priestly vocations when an authentic, demanding, free and personal relationship is established with the person of Jesus Christ. Perhaps this may be simplistic, but the way I see things, the ‘new path’ for the evangelization of Amazonia is the novelty of Christ.”

[…]

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Newman scholar critiques Catholic universities

October 15, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Catholic universities should try to do more than run an assembly line of information for students who never learn to think, a prominent scholar told said this week, adding that many contemporary Catholic un… […]