Vatican City, Oct 14, 2019 / 08:00 am (CNA).- The head of the Vatican City State’s national police force has resigned, after a confidential internal memo was leaked to the press that announced the suspension of some Vatican officials and employee… […]
Vatican City, Oct 13, 2019 / 03:20 am (CNA).- Nearly two centuries ago, John Henry Newman was England’s most well-known Anglican priest, until he risked everything to become a Catholic. Today he has become a saint.
As Pope Francis named Cardinal… […]
Vatican City, Oct 12, 2019 / 09:58 am (CNA).- A bishop participating in the Vatican’s Amazon Synod said Saturday he would ordain women in his communities as deacons if the idea is recommended by the synod and permitted by Pope Francis.
Bishop Do… […]
Vatican City, Oct 12, 2019 / 06:10 am (CNA).- The Prince of Wales said Saturday that the canonization of Cardinal John Henry Newman is a cause for celebration among all Britons, those who are Catholic and those who “cherish the values by which he… […]
Vatican City, Oct 11, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- A senior legal official in the Vatican has dismissed the idea that a planned “synodal process” in Germany will be “binding,” noting that bishops must exercise their authority in unity and obedience to the authority of the pope.
Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the idea that a synodal process in any particular country could change universal Church teaching and discipline is “not a possible way of thinking” in the Church.
“It is useless for anyone to pretend that the German synod is binding, because no one has given that authority to the German synod. No one can bind the faithful beyond their authority to bind or pastors beyond their authority to bind,” Arrieta said in an Oct. 11 interview.
Arrieta was one of the drafters and signatories to a legal assessment of the draft statutes for a Synodal Assembly currently being advanced by the bishops of Germany.
That assessment, which concluded that the German plans were “not ecclesiologically valid” was sent to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, on September 4 by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Congregation for Bishops.
Speaking to Alejandro Bermudez, executive director of the ACI Group, of which CNA is a part, Arrieta explained that bishops’ conferences are not autonomous bodies, but subject to the authority of the Congregation for Bishops because of their obligation of obedience to the pope.
“The bishops and their synods, and episcopal conferences, fall under the authority of the Congregation for Bishops,” Arrieta said.
“The connection is direct; they depend upon the pope, but through the Congregation for Bishops. In a vicarious, stable, delegated way, the pope has entrusted them to the direction of the congregation.”
In March of this year, Cardinal Marx announced that the Church in Germany would embark on a “binding synodal process” to tackle what he called the “key issues” arising from the clerical abuse crisis: clerical celibacy, the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, and a reduction of clerical power.
The synodal proposals call for the creation of an assembly in partnership with the Central Committee of German Catholics, a group whose leadership supports the ending of clerical celibacy, the changing of Church teaching on sexual morality to endorse homosexual unions, and the ordination of women to the priesthood.
In May, the committee’s leadership informed its members that the group would participate in the synodal process because it had received guarantees that the synod assembly could and would treat issues of universal teaching and discipline and pass “binding” resolutions, something Arrieta said went far beyond the authority of any country’s bishops to do.
“The philosophy of legal positivism is not the way of the Church,” Arrieta said. “For the Church it is not a possible way of thinking. What truly links the Church, and the faithful, are the sacraments, the word of Christ. No authority is binding that rejects the sacraments; that is not possible, acting that way would not be possible, even if some say that it could be so.”
“Pastors depend upon the pope, and only the pope can give the authority by which a synod would be binding,” Arrieta added. “Without that, saying ‘this is binding,’ or ‘I accept that this is binding’ does not make it so; no one would be bound. It is not useful for anyone to say that it is, or for someone to pretend that it is, or write a norm about it, because the norm itself would not have authority.”
In response to Ouellet’s September letter and the PCLT assessment, Marx flew to Rome and met with both Pope Francis and Cardinal Ouellet last month. Officials in the Congregation for Bishops told CNA that Marx had used the meetings to attempt to “minimize” the significance of the synodal plans, and to insist that Vatican criticisms are unfounded.
Before Marx arrived in Rome, Matthias Kopp, a spokesman for the German bishops’ conference told Catholic News Service that the term “binding” was not meant to imply any Church figure would be bound by the synodal conclusions. “Binding means it is a vote,” not simply a discussion, Kopp said.
The German bishops’ conference subsequently voted to adopt the statutes by a margin of 51-12 with 1 abstention during their plenary session on Sept. 25. At that time, Bishop Rudolph Voderholzer of Regesburg said that there was “a dishonesty at the beginning of the Synodal Process.”
The statutes are now with the Central Committee of German Catholics, the leaders of which will agree on an amended version with Cardinal Marx.
The synodal process in Germany is due to begin on the first day of Advent.
Vatican City, Oct 11, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis will canonize four women alongside John Henry Newman this Sunday. These women — a stigmatist, a mystic, a Roman orphan, and Nobel Peace prize nominee — also proclaimed Christ through their li… […]
Vatican City, Oct 10, 2019 / 11:10 am (CNA).- Bishop Wilmar Santin of Itabituba, Brazil said Thursday that the Church has worked to eradicate the practice of tribal infanticide in the Amazon, and compared the practice to the moral evil of abortion.
Th… […]
Vatican City, Oct 10, 2019 / 07:17 am (CNA).- A Vatican spokesman denied directly on Thursday the report of an Italian journalist who wrote that that Pope Francis said he did not believe that Jesus Christ was divine.
“The Holy Father never said what Scalfari wrote,” Vatican communications head Paolo Ruffini said at an Oct. 10 press conference, adding that “both the quoted remarks and the free reconstruction and interpretation by Dr. Scalfari of the conversations, which go back to more than two years ago, cannot be considered a faithful account of what was said by the pope.”
“That will be found rather throughout the Church’s magisterium and Pope Francis’ own, on Jesus: true God and true man,” Ruffini added.
The statement came in response to an Oct. 9 column in La Repubblica, the newspaper founded by Scalfari, in which the 95-year-old self-declared atheist said that “Pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, a man, not God incarnate.”
Ruffini’s remarks followed an Oct. 9 statement from Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See’s press office.
“As already stated on other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari attributes in quotation marks to the Holy Father during talks with him cannot be considered a faithful account of what was actually said but represent a personal and free interpretation of what he heard, as appears completely evident from what is written today regarding the divinity of Jesus Christ,” Bruni said.
Some commentators responded to Bruni’s initial statement with criticism; saying the statement was too vague or was unclear. Ruffini’s remarks seemed intended to respond to that criticism.
Scalfari’s column did not claim that he had recently interviewed the pontiff, only saying that this was a topic he had discussed with Pope Francis at some time in the past.
Scalfari mentioned examples in Scriptures in which Christ prayed, among them his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, to support his thesis that Jesus Christ was not divine.
He wrote that when he raised those points to Pope Francis, the pope told him: “‘They are the definite proof that Jesus of Nazareth, once he became a man, even if he was a man of exceptional virtue, was not a God.’”
Pope Francis has made reference to Christ’s divinity frequently.
In Evangelli Gaudium, the pope speaks of the “divine life” of Jesus.
In his Dec. 24, 2013 homily, the pope said that “The grace which was revealed in our world is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, true man and true God…In him was revealed the grace, the mercy, and the tender love of the Father: Jesus is Love incarnate. He is not simply a teacher of wisdom, he is not an ideal for which we strive while knowing that we are hopelessly distant from it. He is the meaning of life and history, who has pitched his tent in our midst.”
Speaking of Jesus last October, the pope said “God chooses an uncomfortable throne, the cross, from which he reigns giving his life.”
Scalfari, who famously does not take notes during interviews has misrepresented Pope Francis in the past.
In 2018, he claimed the pope denied the existence of hell, and the Vatican subsequently said that the pope had not granted an interview, and that the journalist had inaccurately represented a conversation between the men during a private Easter visit.
“What is reported by the author in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father,” a Vatican statement said in March 2018.
The first time Scalfari reported that Pope Francis had made comments denying the existence of hell was in 2015. The Vatican dismissed that reporting as well.
In November 2013, following intense controversy over quotes the journalist had attributed to Francis, Scalfari admitted that at least some of the words he had published a month prior “were not shared by the Pope himself.”
Vatican City, Oct 10, 2019 / 04:55 am (CNA).- Pope Francis accepted Thursday the resignation of Bishop John Jenik as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York and appointed two New York priests as auxiliaries of the archdiocese.
Jenik, 75, was removed from ministry last year after the archdiocese found credible an accusation of sexual abuse against him. Jenik, who has been an auxiliary of New York since 2014, maintains his innocence.
Neither the Vatican nor the Archdiocese of New York have announced the results of a preliminary investigation into the abuse allegations against Jenik.
Jenik’s alleged victim, Michael Meenan, 53, said last November that Jenik cultivated an inappropriate relationship with him during the 1980s that involved dozens of trips upstate to Jenik’s country house, where Jenik allegedly groped him in bed.
Meenan’s allegation was reviewed by the Lay Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York, which concluded “the evidence is sufficient to find the allegation credible and substantiated.”
Jenik, who has served as pastor at Our Lady of Refuge parish since 1985, wrote in an Oct. 29 letter to his parishioners that he continues “to steadfastly deny that I have ever abused anyone at any time.”
Jenik’s case is being reviewed by the Vatican, most likely at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sources says, before being passed to Pope Francis for judgment.
Pope Francis Oct. 10 also appointed two New York priests, Fr. Edmund J. Whalen and Fr. Gerardo J. Colacicco, to serve as auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese.
Whalen, 61, has been the vicar of clergy for New York since January. He was previously dean of Monsignor Farrell High School on Staten Island for eight years.
From Staten Island, Whalen studied at Cathedral College in Douglaston, New York and at the Pontifical North American College and Gregorian University in Rome. He later received a doctorate in moral theology from the Alfonsianum, a graduate school of theology in Rome. He was ordained a priest of New York in 1984.
Fr. Gerardo J. Colacicco, 64, is from Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers and has a license in canon law from Rome’s Angelicum university.
He was ordained a priest in 1982. In addition to serving in parishes, Colacicco has worked in the archdiocesan tribunal as a defender of the bond and a judge. Since 2015, he has been pastor of St. Joseph-Immaculate Conception Parish in Millbrook.
Vatican City, Oct 9, 2019 / 03:44 pm (CNA).- While the Catholic community in Morocco is small, it bears a strong witness to the Gospel as it proclaims the message of Christ and serves those in need, said one of the Church’s new cardinals this week.
Cristóbal López Romero, archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, was among the 13 prelates elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Francis on Oct. 5.
López Romero is a member of the Salesians. Born in Spain, he moved to Morocco in 2003 to head the Salesian community there. Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop of Rabat in December 2017.
The Church in Morocco is small, with only about 30,000 Christians among 37 million Muslims, the cardinal told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency.
“Nevertheless, it’s a significant Church,” he said, adding that the Christian community is “significant because of the message we can convey to the Universal Church and the entire world.”
Although small, the cardinal said, the local Church is “young” and “lively.” In addition, he noted that Catholics living in the country “come from more than 100 nationalities, so we’re quite universal, which is what the word ‘catholic’ means.”
This protects the local Catholic community from becoming self-referential, he said. Rather, they recognize the need to build the Kingdom of God in all places and circumstances.
“We are an ecumenical Church,” López Romero continued. “We work closely with our Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox Christian brothers.”
“We are a Church that’s a bridge between Europe and Africa, between Muslims and Christians, between Spain and Morocco, between East and West, between poor and rich. A bridge. That’s what we try to be in this time in which so many to seek to raise up walls, barriers, borders, or even pits.”
The local Church is heavily engaged in inter-religious dialogue, particularly with Muslims, the cardinal added.
He also pointed to the Church’s strong tradition of service, following the example of the Good Samaritan in scripture. The Archdiocese of Rabat often cares for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who pass through Morocco, he said. Some settle there, but most are traveling to Europe.
“We are…a Church that stoops down before the person in need, the person who’s really going through hard times, to help him. Whether he’s a Muslim Moroccan or an African Christian, it doesn’t matter. Like the Good Samaritan, we reach out to the person in need without asking him where he comes from, where he’s going, why he’s in that situation.”
Reflecting on his new role as cardinal, López Romero said that 98% of his daily life and responsibilities will remain the same as before his appointment.
“I’m still the archbishop of Rabat, that is my task, that is what the Church has asked of me. But in that remaining 2%, what will change is that I’ll have to travel a little more to Rome to take part in various meetings.”
He added that while much of his focus will remain on his archdiocese, “I will have to think a little bit more about the universal Church, because the task of a cardinal is to be beside the pope to support him, advise him, if he asks our opinion, or carry out the tasks that he entrusts to us on a temporary or long-term basis.”
“So I must keep in mind that, while being responsible for the Church in Rabat, my concern will have to go beyond those limits and out to the universal Church,” he said.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
© Catholic World Report