Vatican

Vatican City, Mar 21, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- As more Catholics around the world find themselves unable to receive the Eucharist due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis provided an example of a spiritual communion prayer that can be said from home.

“My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart … I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You,” Pope Francis prayed March 21 in his televised daily Mass from his residence in Vatican City.

Pope Francis invited those viewing the livestreamed Mass to find the Lord in prayer. He recited the spiritual communion prayer and then exposed the Blessed Sacrament for Eucharistic Adoration at the end of the Mass.

A spiritual communion is a uniting of oneself to the Sacrifice of the Mass through prayer, and can be made whether one is able to receive Communion or not.

“Let us pray to the Lord, let us return to Him,” the pope said in his homily.

He said that the Gospel parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee provides a lesson in how to pray. While the Pharisee was proud, the tax collector said: ‘‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

“The Lord teaches us how to pray … how we must approach the Lord: with humility,” Francis said.

“When we begin praying with our own justifications with our securities, that’s not prayer. That is like speaking to a mirror. Instead when we begin praying with our true reality – I’m a sinner – this is a good step forward in allowing the Lord to look at us. May Jesus teach us this,” he said.

Pope Francis prayed at the beginning of Mass for families who cannot leave their homes due to quarantine.

“Perhaps the farthest they can go is their balcony,” he said. “May they know how to find a way of communicating well, of building loving relationships within the family. And that they might know how to conquer the anguish of this moment together as a family.”

“We pray for peace in families today during this crisis, and for creativity,” Pope Francis said.

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Vatican City, Mar 21, 2020 / 12:19 am (CNA).- Cardinal Joseph Zen published Saturday a blog post accusing the Vatican’s secretary of state of manipulating Pope Francis, and continuing his ongoing criticism of the Holy See’s approach to the Catholic Church in China.

“My personal impression is that [Cardinal Pietro] Parolin manipulates the Pope, at least in things regarding the Church in China,” Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, wrote in a post published on his personal blog.

The post “Supplement to my answer to Cardinal G.B. Re,” was dated March 10, although it was actually published March 21. It seemed to be an addendum to a March 3 open letter Zen wrote to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

Zen’s March 21 and March 3 letters came in response to a Feb. 26 letter from Re, dean of the Church’s College of Cardinals, to the Church’s cardinals, which claimed that that the China-Vatican deal represents the minds of St. John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, and that Zen’s opposition to the deal is misguided.

Even before it was signed, Zen has been a zealous critic of the Vatican’s 2018 provisional agreement with the People’s Republic of China. He says the agreement, which has not been publicly released, concedes a deliberative role to the Chinese government in the selection of bishops, and puts at risk of persecution many of the Catholics in China.

In his March 3 letter, Zen wrote to Re that “if you want to prove to me that the recently signed agreement was already approved by Benedict XVI, you just have to show me the text of the agreement, which I am barred from seeing till now, and the archival evidence which you say you could verify.”

Zen’s more recent post claimed that while he has been critical of Re over the China deal, “The Problem is not between me and Re. The problem is with Cardinal Parolin.”

“It’s difficult to understand how this man has become so powerful to dominate the whole Roman Curia. He could dismiss the Commission for Church in China without a word and nobody stood up to protest against such impoliteness.”

Zen has previously alleged that Parolin closed the Vatican’s commission on the Church in China, which was established under Benedict XVI and included Vatican officials and Church leaders from the region, in order to silence criticism from Zen about the Church’s engagement with the Chinese government.

The cardinal’s March 21 post also criticized Parolin for assigning Archbishop Savio Hon, formerly the secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the only high-ranking Chinese cleric in the curia, to a diplomatic post in Greece.

Those moves, Zen has claimed, made it easier for Parolin to execute the 2018 agreement with Beijing.

While Zen’s March 21 post criticized that agreement, calling it “immoral” and “against the Catholic conscience,” the cardinal reserved his most stringent criticism for a set of June 2019 “pastoral guidelines” issued by the Vatican, regarding the responsibilities of Chinese priests to the country’s government.

That document, Zen said, is “blatantly evil, immoral, because it legitimizes a schismatic Church!”

The Church in mainland China has been divided for some 60 years between the underground Church, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a government-sanctioned organization.  

Zen argued that the 2019 “pastoral guidelines” legitimize the false notion of a specifically “Chinese” Catholic Church “independent” from the oversight of the pope.

“Parolin has repeatedly affirmed that the word ‘independent’ should today no more be understood as “absolutely independent”, because in the Agreement the Pope is recognized as the Head of the Catholic Church (I cannot believe this, until they show me the Chinese text of the agreement),” Zen wrote.

After outlining the cardinal’s criticism, Zen’s March 21 blog post, expressed that “during the last 20 years, because of the wrong policy of the Holy See in dealing with the Church in China, pursued by a group of people who dared even not to follow the line of the Pope, the underground community was more and more like abandoned, considered inconvenient, almost as an obstacle to unity, while in the community officially recognized by the Government the “opportunists” grow more and more numerous, fearless and defiant because encouraged by people inside and around the Vatican, intoxicated by their illusions of the Ostpolitik.”

“Are we going towards the unity of the Church in China?” Zen asked. “What kind of unity? Which kind of Church?”

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Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 05:03 pm (CNA).- The pontifical science academies issued a health statement Friday encouraging world leaders to make adjustments to short- and long-term responses to the coronavirus.

The statement was released March 20 by … […]

Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, has said that the coronavirus pandemic may justify the use of general absolution, in extraordinary circumstances, for Catholics unable to go to i… […]

Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 06:41 am (CNA).- The Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary has granted a plenary indulgence for people with COVID-19 and for those who care for them, including medical staff and family members, and for those who pray for t… […]

Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 05:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis spoke Friday about the importance of returning to God, the loving Father, in the sacrament of reconciliation.

“But think of this: to return to God is to return to the embrace, the embrac… […]

Vatican City, Mar 19, 2020 / 02:17 pm (CNA).- The prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life on Wednesday encouraged religious to intensify their prayer during the coronavirus outbreak, and to obey requests of religious and civil authorities for health’s sake.

“The most effective testimony we can provide is, in first place, the serene and convinced serenity to what we are requested from those who govern us, both at the state and church level, to everything that is requested to the protection of our health, as private citizens and as communities,” read a March 18 letter to consecrated men and women signed by Joao Cardinal Braz de Aviz and Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo, the prefect and secretary, respectively, of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

“It is a duty of both charity and gratitude that each one of us, individually and as a community, may intensify constant prayer for all those who are helping us overcome this difficult moment. Authorities, members of government, health professionals at all levels, volunteers, all those who offer their valuable work for this calamity may be object of our prayer and the offering of our sacrifices!”

Cardinal Braz de Aviz noted that we are living this Lent “in a very particular manner,” that “no one could have thought of or imagined, and that really requires each day from each one of us a change in our style and way of living.”

“Normally during Lent we multiply charitable initiatives and intense moments of prayer and meditation to prepare ourselves with a renewed and purified spirit for the Easter celebrations, and in our communities the times of celebration and gathering become also more intense. Nevertheless, this year we are called to live the intense time of faith, always with the same intensity, but in a completely different manner.”

Addressing contemplative communities, he urged them to intensify their prayer “even with greater energy … with the certainty that the Lord will not take longer to listen and in his infinite mercy will push away this grave scourge.”

Those who cannot assist at Mass he urged to “offer up to the Lord with joy” this “great sacrifice,” and to live it “in communion with all those who cannot attend regularly because of the lack of priests.”

“For those who can, please do not stop providing concrete signs of closeness with our people, always in conformity with the norms established by the authorities and in full fidelity to our own charisms.”

The cardinal recalled that “the means at our disposal to eradicate misfortunes and calamities in our highly technologically advanced times are the same that were used by our forefathers” Prayer, sacrifice, penance, fasting, and charity; powerful weapons to obtain from the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus the grace of full healing from such a devastating disease.”

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Vatican City, Mar 19, 2020 / 12:19 pm (CNA).- Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Pope Francis suspended Thursday non-urgent trials in the Vatican City State’s judicial system until after April 3.

The suspension was made at the request of the sosti… […]

Bergamo, Italy, Mar 19, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Italian dioceses surrounding Milan have reported the deaths of 30 priests during the coronavirus outbreak.

Avvenire, the Italian newspaper owned by the Italian bishops conference, attributes at least 28 … […]

Vatican City, Mar 19, 2020 / 04:45 am (CNA).- On the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the protector of families and the Church, Catholics in Italy will pray the rosary together from their homes for protection from the coronavirus.

Pope Francis said he will also be praying the rosary from his home at the Vatican.

“Mary, Mother of God, health of the sick, leads us to the luminous and transfigured face of Jesus Christ and to her Heart, to whom we turn with the prayer of the rosary, under the loving gaze of St. Joseph, Custodian of the Holy Family and of our families,” he said March 18.

The Italian bishops have asked people across Italy to pray the rosary together March 19 at 9:00 pm.

A rosary will be live broadcast at that hour on the local Catholic television station and online from Rome’s Basilica of St. Joseph al Trionfale.

The president of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, has also invited families to place a lit candle in the window of their home at that time.

Bassetti said he will be the first “to join in the prayer that will unite us in emphasizing faith, hope and, above all, that love which becomes a red thread from the Valley d’Aosta to Sicily, the red thread of charity, which is much stronger than the red zone.”

At his morning Mass in the Santa Marta guesthouse March 19, Pope Francis said he was thinking about the Church.

St. Joseph, in the midst of his ordinary life as a carpenter, was able to enter into the mystery of God, he said.

“Our faithful, our bishops, our priests, our consecrated men and women, the popes: are they capable of entering into the mystery?” he asked.

“When the Church loses the ability to enter into the mystery, she loses the ability to worship,” he stated. “The prayer of adoration can only be given when one enters the mystery of God.”

On the feast of St. Joseph, the pope prayed that the Church will be given the grace to live both the concreteness of daily life and the “concreteness” of the mystery.

Without this understanding of the mystery, the Church will just be a “pious association” of rules, lacking in adoration of God, he said.

“To enter into the mystery is not dreaming; to enter into the mystery is precisely this: to worship.”

Francis added that “to enter the mystery is doing today what we will do in the future, when we arrive in the presence of God: worship.”

“May the Lord give the Church this grace,” he prayed.

Pope Francis’ daily Masses are being livestreamed during the coronavirus emergency.

At the end of Mass, the pope invited everyone following along through the internet or TV to make a spiritual communion with him.

“I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, I wish to receive you in the poor abode which my heart offers you,” he prayed.

“In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, O my Jesus, that I come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you.”

He then led Eucharistic adoration and gave benediction.

Pope Francis’ March 19 Mass was offered for prisoners during the coronavirus outbreak.

“They suffer so much,” he said, “because of the uncertainty of what will happen inside the prison, and also thinking about their families, how they are, if someone is sick, if something is missing.”

“We are close to prisoners today who suffer so much in this moment of uncertainty and pain,” he said.

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