Vatican City, Oct 26, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- In a world of constant change, young people need the Church to be a source of stability and consistent teaching, a prominent Irish archbishop said Friday.
“Young people are yearning for some kind of … […]
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2018 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Catholic leaders in Asia need to be proactive in implementing preventative sex abuse policies, a bishop from Malaysia told the 2018 Synod of Bishops.
“In the Asian context, these are often no… […]
Hong Kong, China, Oct 26, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The recent agreement between the Vatican and China is a step towards the “annihilation” of the Catholic Church in China, Cardinal Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong, wrote in a New York … […]
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- As the 2018 synod of bishops considers a draft text of the meeting’s final document, discussion has turned to the nature of the synod itself.
According to early reports, the third section of … […]
Washington D.C., Oct 25, 2018 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Catholic and Lutheran agencies jointly released a report Oct. 17 to document the two agencies’ role in helping to reunite migrant families separated at the U.S./Mexico border.
The U.S. Conference … […]
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- As the 2018 Synod of Bishops draws to a close, young people and bishops walked together along a medieval pilgrimage route to the tomb of St. Peter.
“For me this pilgrimage is a time for refle… […]
Vatican City, Oct 25, 2018 / 12:54 pm (CNA).- Women, including religious and consecrated women, have had an active role in the 2018 synod of bishops: they have listened to the synod’s discussions, spoken on the floor of the synod hall, participated in small discussion groups of synod participants, and helped draft key synod texts.
Yet women will not be voting on the final text of the synod document, and some at the meeting have asked why not.
According to the canonical norms governing synods of bishops, only clerics – that is deacons, priests, or bishops – can be voting members.
Canon law specifies that the members of the Synod of Bishops are bishops, as well as “some members of clerical religious institutes,” that is priests from religious orders.
Despite the norm that reserves formal membership to clergy alone, two non-ordained religious brothers attending the current synod have been given the right to vote as full members. This has raised questions in Rome about how such an exception was made, and whether it might also be made for religious sisters and other participating women.
Synod norms
On Sept. 15, Pope Francis promulgated a new apostolic constitution governing the Synod of Bishops, Episcopalis communio. This document replaced previously issued documents on synod processes, but upheld the law on synod membership written in canon 346 of the Code of Canon Law.
In the document, the pope directed the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops, headed by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, to issue an instruction on the conduct of synods in general and on the regulations for each specific synod assembly, in conformity with canon law.
Baldisseri’s general instruction, published Oct. 1, outlined norms on voting members, formally called Synod Fathers, with specific directions on how they are to be elected, including how many delegates each bishops’ conference should elect as representatives.
The instruction also provided for “ten clerics belonging to institutes of consecrated life, elected by the respective representative bodies of the superiors general.”
The “representative body of superiors general” is the Union of Superiors General (an umbrella group representing about 185,000 priests and brothers).
Although the synod instruction specifies that they should be “clerics,” the ten elected by the superiors to attend the 2018 synod include two non-ordained men: Br. Robert Schieler, superior general of the De La Salle Brothers and Br. Ernesto Sánchez Barba, superior general of the Marist Brothers. These brothers are expected to vote on the synod’s final document.
During the September presentation of the pope’s new constitution for the synod, Bishop Fabio Fabene, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, said that non-ordained religious brothers had also been Synod Fathers at the 2014 and 2015 synodal sessions on the family, and so the Union of Superiors General could continue to elect non-priest religious if they choose to do so, despite the text of the instruction and canon 346.
Fabene also said it was possible, even “in the near future,” that religious sisters might also vote on the deliberations of future synods. Despite Fabene’s remark, recent comments from the pope himself suggest that he believes the synod is a unique expression of the ministry and role of bishops.
The role of bishops
The pope has said that special consideration should be given during synods to the participation and contribution of religious brothers and sisters, consecrated men and women, and members of apostolic societies. He has also emphasized the voice of lay Catholics in the synod process.
But while the pope seems to value the consultative voice of other Catholics, he has also emphasized that bishops function uniquely as representatives of the People of God.
“Although structurally [the synod] is essentially configured as an episcopal body, this does not mean that the synod exists separately from the rest of the faithful. On the contrary, it is a suitable instrument to give voice to the entire People of God, specifically via the bishops,” he wrote in Episcopalis communio.
Francis said the bishops are “established by God as ‘authentic guardians, interpreters and witnesses of the faith of the whole Church’ demonstrating, from one assembly to another, that it is an eloquent expression of synodality as a ‘constitutive element of the Church.’”
Pope Francis has indicated he wants the synod to reflect the “spirit and method” of an ecumenical council. While he wants to include more inclusion of the laity, the pope has made it clear that the output of the synod – the final report – should hold “a qualitative ecclesial weight.”
“During every Synodal Assembly,” he wrote, “consultation of the faithful must be followed by discernment on the part of the Bishops chosen for the task.”
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- While European bishops discuss how to bring young people back to the Church at the 2018 Synod of Bishops, one bishop from Cameroon said that he has the opposite problem.
“My churches are all bursting, and I don’t have space to keep the young people,” said Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe said at a Vatican press conference Oct. 24. “And my shortest Mass would be about two and a half hours,” he added.
A study by Pew Research Center in August 2018 found that church attendance and prayer frequency was highest in sub-Saharan Africa and lowest in Western Europe. Four out of five Christians in Cameroon said that they pray everyday.
“People ask me, ‘Why are your churches full?’” the Cameroonian bishop said.
For Bishop Fuanya, it all comes down to family, community, and traditional values.
“Coming from Africa, the family is a very, very strong institution,” Fuanya said. “We come from a culture in which tradition normally is handed from one generation to the other.”
“Our traditional values still equate to the values of the Church, and so we hand over the tradition to our young people undiluted and uncontaminated,” he continued.
When asked about the potential inclusion of so-called “LGBT” language in the synod’s final document, the bishop reiterated that point.
“I wouldn’t vote for any article that has LGBT.” Fuanya said, explained that “99.9 percent” of the young people in his diocese would “stand at my door and say, ‘What’s this?’”
“With matters of doctrine that the church teaches, it is not like in this synod we are trying to invent new teaching … Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life … we cannot be taking positions that contradict the Gospels,” he added.
On that point, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, told the press conference: “Quite honestly I don’t remember that we had discussed this issue in Germany so I can’t acknowledge that there is a specific conversation on this.”
“This is not a synod on sexuality. It is a synod on the young,” Marx added.
Fuanya suggested that two of the key ways in which the faith and teaching of the Church is handed over to younger generations are through the family and community. In these, he said, the African Church was setting an example.
“Church as community. Church as family is very strong for us,” said the bishop. A strong sense of community in the Church is something “very important that Europe can learn from Africa,” Fuanya said.
In Africa, “there’s still a lot of things we do as community. That is the difference. What we are trying to do in these small Christian communities is to fight the increeping of individualism,” he added.
There are significant demographic differences in family size in Europe and Africa.
A 2010 USAID report on the number of children desired by people in various parts of the world, showed that the desired number of children is highest among people in western and middle Africa, ranging from 4.8 in Ghana to 9.1 in Niger and 9.2 in Chad, with an average of 6.1 children for the region.
In the European Union, 47 percent of households with any children only have one child, only thirteen percent have three or more children, according to 2017 data.
While the differences between Europe and Africa could provide helpful lessons, Fuanya noted that the synod was about seeking a universal perspective.
“It is not like Africa has come to help Europe solve their youth problem, it is the Church that has come together to see how to solve the problem of the youth,” Fuanya said.
“When we are looking at things in the synod, we are not solving problems of particular continents or particular local churches. We are looking at the Church from a global point of view.”
“We reflect on the empty churches, but at the same time we reflect on the poverty situation. We reflection on migration. We reflect on all those things that show the Church from a holistic point of view,” Fuanya said.
For Cardinal Marx, one global issue that needs to be addressed is the sexual abuse crisis.
“The discussion on sexual abuses in the past few months … drew global attention. I believe it is an important global matter that needs to be discussed,” Marx said in German.
“It is the Church that needs to change … the youth have said this,” he continued. “We need to do this together in the theme of accompaniment.”
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The synod of bishops on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment is being held at the Vatican Oct. 3-28.
CNA plans to provide a brief regular summary of the sessions, provided by the synodal fathers from Poland.
Please find below the Polish fathers’ summary of the Oct. 24 session:
The morning session on October 24th began with the organization of the bishops’ pilgrimage ad Petri Sedem, which will take place tomorrow morning. The second topic was the draft of the Letter of Synod Fathers to the Youth of the World. Thirdly, the rules for the election of the members of the Council’s Secretariat, 21 from each continent, were discussed.
“Ordinaries and prelates with the same rights as ordinaires may be elected members of the Council’s Secretariat, whereas the auxiliary bishops may only make vote but not be elected. The Council’s Secretariat meets once or twice a year to prepare a prolongation of the text that the Holy Father will probably publish as an apostolic exhortation,” said Archbishop Stanisław Gadecki, President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference.
During the deliberations, further amendments to the final document were submitted.
“The opinion prevails that the text of the final document is much better than the instrumentum laboris. The fact of reading the two documents together was also questioned. The additions to the final text concerned, among other things, catechesis, some attention was also devoted to catechists,” said Archbishop Gądecki.
Many spoke out evoking the spirituality of the young; there were practical tips, such as the creation of a breviary intended only for young people.
“There was also an interesting theological intervention which noted that accompaniment is not a pedagogical strategy, but a theological fact that stems from the Incarnation. Jesus becomes a man’s, a Christian’s companion on his path, firstly by accepting the human body and the fate of man,” the Polish episcopate’s president reported.
It was also pointed out that part of the crisis among young people is caused by social and political conditions, and that it is not only the fault of the Church.
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 04:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Wednesday removed Bishop Martin D. Holley from the pastoral government of the Diocese of Memphis and appointed Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville to oversee the diocese until further notice.
The Vatican announced Oct. 24 that Pope Francis “has relieved” Bishop Holley “from the pastoral government of the diocese of Memphis” and appointed Archbishop Kurtz temporary apostolic administrator “ad nutum Sanctae Sedis,” meaning “at the disposition of the Holy See.”
The removal follows a Vatican investigation into the Diocese of Memphis in June to address concerns about major changes Bishop Holley, 63, had made. Among these was the reassignment of up to two-thirds of the 60 active priests in the diocese, according to local media reports.
The apostolic visitation, as it is called, was carried out by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta and Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis. They spent three days “fact-finding” in the diocese, including conducting interviews with Memphis-area clergy and laypeople, according to Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal.
The outcome of the apostolic visitation has not been made public.
In a letter to his priests in June, reported on by The Commercial Appeal, Holley said: “Many of you may have read, seen or heard news this week that an apostolic visitation was made to our diocese.”
“We are respectful of the confidentiality of the Apostolic Nunciature’s process and are thankful that some of you were invited to participate in that process,” he said.
Holley was installed as bishop of Memphis Oct. 19, 2016, after serving as auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C. for 12 years.
In July, he was one of three Tennessee bishops who issued a letter to the state’s governor encouraging him to halt the then-pending execution of Billy Irick, who died by lethal injection August 9.
The bishops emphasized the value of all human life, even that of those convicted of horrendous crimes, offering themselves a resource to the governor for any questions regarding Catholic teaching on the subject.
While in Washington, Bishop Holley had served on multiple committees for Cultural Diversity, as well as subcommittees for Africa; African-American Catholics; Laity, Women, Children and Youth; and Migration.
He had also been a member of the International Catholic Foundation for the Service of Deaf People and been on a number of committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, including the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Pro-Life Activities; and the Subcommittee for Hispanic Affairs.
Holley was born Dec. 31, 1954, in Pensacola, Fl., and ordained a priest for the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 1987.
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