Want peace and love? Remember to pray, Pope Francis says

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Kevin Farrell has reportedly barred several speakers set to address an annual women’s event inside the Vatican over concerns about their LGBT positions, prompting organizers to find another venue.

First held in 2014, the “Voices of Faith” (VoF) event has taken place inside the Vatican’s Casina Pio IV, headquarters of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, every March for the past four years.

Established in 2014 in response to Pope Francis’ call to “broaden the space within the Church for a more incisive feminine presence,” the event is scheduled each year to coincide with the March 8 celebration of International Women’s Day, and typically draws speakers from various backgrounds to give testimonies and speak on a specific theme.

Organizers have relocated the 2018 conference, titled “Why Women Matter,” to another location outside Vatican grounds, after two high-profile speakers didn’t meet Vatican approval: Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland, and Ssenfuka Juanita Warry, who runs a non-profit advocating for LGBT Catholics in Uganda.

According to Chantal Gotz, founder and managing director of VoF, the list of speakers required approval from Cardinal Farrell before they could move forward with planning. When he returned a list of approved names, McAleese and Warry were not included.

Farrell heads the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, the office in charge of organizing the World Meeting of Families this August and the 2019 international World Youth Day in Panama. Given the topic of this year’s Synod of Bishops, which will reflect on “Faith, young people and the discernment of vocation,” Farrell’s office is also a key player in organizing that event.

In comments to CNA, Gotz said the conference organizers were not given a reason for having the speakers barred, so “we engaged in dialogue with the cardinal and asked him for an explanation for blocking the names,” however “we were not able to go further since an explanation was not forthcoming.”

While an official reason for blocking the speakers might be lacking, it is widely believed Farrell made the decision because of the proposed speakers’ controversial stances on the question of homosexuality.

McAleese has a son who is gay, and according to the Irish Independent, at one point said her son had gone through “torture” when he learned about the Catholic Church’s position on the issue.

McAleese has previously advocated for same-sex marriage, accusing the Catholic Church of “hypocrisy” for its stance on marriage. She has also publicly advocated for the ordination of women to the priesthood, in opposition to the teachings of the Church expressed in Pope St. John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

According to a Feb. 2 press release from VoF, as the former president of Ireland McAleese “is no stranger to the Vatican, having held the highest position in public office in a predominantly Catholic country.”

“She is known for her staunch support for gay and women’s rights and has often spoken publicly about her frustrations with her Catholic faith.”

Warry is also an active campaigner on issues related to homosexuality.

Gotz told CNA she was “stunned” by Farrell’s decision, as such issues have never been a problem in the past.

In previous years the conference has invited a host of speakers who hold opposing views to the Church’s position on major issues such as abortion, contraception and women’s ordination, she said. Some of them have spoken openly about their positions during the event, however, this marks the first year that any of the speakers have been rejected.

“We have always been respectful of the viewpoints of the Church,” Gotz told CNA, “yet we, like Pope Francis, recognize there is a critical need to open the church to more dialogue.”

In the press release, the purpose of the VoF event is to “empower and advocate for Catholic women to have a seat at the table of decision making in the Catholic Church.”

The statement also voices the organization’s belief that a key solution to various problems the Church faces “lies in having a diversity of thought, expertise and education at the leadership level, skill sets they say can be brought by women and lay people if only they were more welcomed into these structures.”

The conference, she said, “allows us to not only celebrate the wonderful work Catholic women are doing across the globe, but also create discussion and dialogue on the current power and leadership structures of our Church today.”

More than anything, “we hope it will help create a bridge to dialogue between those who have feared that dialogue for too long,” she said.

“Women are willing and ready to share their faith and their gifts. They should be afforded a seat at the table so that women’s voices and perspectives become an integrated part of decision making within the Church.”

Rather than taking McAleese and Warry off of their list of speakers, organizers of VoF opted for a change of location, and the conference will now take place at the Jesuit Curia in Rome.

“The Jesuits, in true form, have welcomed us and our speakers,” Gotz told CNA, explaining that she is unsure if the rift with Cardinal Farrell will affect future VoF events.

Cardinal Farrell could not be reached for comment.

CNA’s Perry West contributed reporting for this story.

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Vatican City, Feb 17, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nur Essa, a Muslim Syrian woman whose family was brought to Rome from Lesbos by Pope Francis last April, said that the openness he has shown to those of different faiths has deeply impressed her.

“For me, I was surprised,” she told CNA. “(He is) very open to all of the cultures, all of the religions, and he sets an example for all the religious people in the world, because he uses religion to serve the human being.”

Essa, 31, has met the Pope on several occasions, most recently during the Pope’s visit Feb. 17th to Roma Tre University, a public research university in Rome where she currently studies.

She was one of four students of the university to ask the Pope a question, which he answered during his visit.

Essa’s question was about the integration of immigrants in Italy: what they must do to integrate into their host country, but also what the rights of the immigrant are.

Before this, Essa and her husband and their little boy met Pope Francis when he brought them to Rome April 16th, 2016, along with two other Syrian refugee families who had been staying in a camp on the Island of Lesbos. She said that the Pope greeted them and blessed her son.

Essa also had an opportunity to speak with him at length when they were invited to be guests at a lunch Aug. 11th at the Vatican, which Essa said was an “honor.”

“He’s very, very modest, a very simple man, a very real human being,” she said.
 
Essa has both an undergraduate degree and a master’s in microbiology, and is studying biology at Roma Tre.

She said that she and her husband are both from the city of Damascus in Syria and chose to flee the country because her husband had been asked to join the military service there.

They went from Damascus to Turkey, and then from Turkey to Greece, where they stayed in a refugee camp for one month before they were fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the families the Pope brought back to Rome.

Pope Francis visited Roma Tre University at the request of the Dean of the university, who wanted to invite a public figure for the university’s 25th anniversary.

According to Fr. John D’Orazio, who is a Catholic chaplain assigned to the university by the Diocese of Rome, the last pope to make a formal visit was St. John Paul II for the university’s 10th anniversary in 2002.

The chaplaincy just finished constructing its first Catholic chapel for students nearby to the university, something they’ve been wanting to do for a long time, Fr. D’Orazio said.

He said that although students don’t live on campus, they still try “to create opportunities for students to meet together” and to reflect on their Catholic faith and “what it means for them in their own studies and in being citizens in today’s world and in society.”

It’s a very diverse campus, he said, with students of no faith or of different religions, including Muslim students. “I think it’s very interesting and beautiful to be a chaplain inside of a state university,” he said, “because it means creating dialogue, creating collaboration.”

“It’s almost like mission work, because you’re working in a place where there are all kinds of different people, different backgrounds, different points of view. So it’s a good place to create bridges,” he said.

“Pope Francis talks a lot about creating bridges and not walls. And I think that also the chaplaincy in a state university is all about creating bridges of dialogue and collaboration.”

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Pope Benedict XVI wears the “Saturno” hat as he blesses the pilgrims during the weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, June 30, 2010. / Alessia Pierdomenico / Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 31, 2022 / 05:25 am (CNA).

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a leading theologian of the 20th century and the first pope to resign from office in nearly 600 years, has died at the age of 95.

Follow along here for live updates:

Dec. 31, 7:19 a.m.: Funeral Mass of Benedict XVI to be held Jan. 5

The Vatican announced Saturday that the funeral Mass of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will take place on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis will preside over the funeral, which, in keeping with Benedict’s wishes, “will be carried out under the sign of simplicity,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

You can read more here.

Dec. 31, 6:44 a.m.

The Pontifical Academy for Life called the late pope emeritus, “one of the most influential theological personalities of the twentieth century, constantly striving to make the faith understandable and reliable for modern man.”

Dec. 31, 5:45 a.m.: PHOTOS: Key moments from Benedict XVI’s papacy

The faithful can follow Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy as told through photos here.

Dec. 31, 4:59 a.m.: Benedict XVI dead at 95: The ‘humble worker’ and his legacy of hope to the Catholic Church

Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was elected pope on April 19, 2005, and took the name Benedict XVI. Eight years later, on Feb. 11, 2013, the 85-year-old shocked the world with the announcement — made in Latin — that he was resigning from the papacy. It was the first resignation of a pope in nearly 600 years. He cited his advanced age and lack of strength as unsuitable for the exercise of his office.

However, the enormous legacy of his theologically profound contributions to the Church and the world will continue to be the source of reflection and study.

You can read more here.

Dec. 31, 4:44 a.m.: BREAKING: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at age 95

His death was announced in Rome on Dec. 31. His funeral Mass will be held on Jan. 5, 2023, in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican said.

The Vatican press office director, Matteo Bruni, said Dec. 31: “With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.”

Benedict XVI’s body will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica beginning on Jan. 2, 2023.

You can read more here.

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