Vatican City, Apr 11, 2018 / 12:48 pm (CNA).- The Pontifical Commission for Latin America has proposed that Pope Francis convoke a synod on the role of women in the life and mission of the Church.
The proposal is contained in a 15-paragraph statement approved by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America’s plenary assembly one month ago, and published April 11 in L’Osservatore Romano.
The Pontifical Commission for Latin America stressed that the Catholic Church “must be freed from prejudices, stereotypes and discriminations” women are subjected to, and for this reason a “pastoral conversion” is needed in order to ask women’s forgiveness “for all the situations” in which Christian communities “have been and are accomplices of attempt against women’s dignity.”
The document also challenged local dioceses to be courageous, and to “denounce all the forms of discrimination and oppression, of violence and exploitation” to which women have been subjected.
The commission warned against “cultural and ideological colonization” spread from “well organized lobbies” sometimes “instrumentalizing feminist claims” in order to argue against the truth of marriage and family.
The Pontifical Commission of Latin America asked the Church to “multiply and widen the places and the opportunities of women’s cooperation to pastoral structure” in parishes, dioceses, episcopal conferences and in Roman Curia.
It is – according to the document – “a needed and urgent opening,” that requires “an investment in the Christian, theological and professional formation” of women – whether they are religious sisters or members of the laity – so that they can “work at the same level with men.”
The statement promoted an education tackling “male chauvinist resistance, frequent paternal and familiar absence, and irresponsibility in sexual behaviour.”
It also promoted research on those issue in Catholic universities, as “the era of feminism might be a good liberating occasion,” that might “claim the full respect of women’s dignity and at the same time a responsible paternity” committed to “raising children, at the mother’s side.”
The statement said that the modern era requires “a change of mentality and a process of transformation” similar to that which Pope Francis “made concrete” with the two synods on the family “that led to the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia,” to be followed by the upcoming bishops’ synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment, to be held next October.
The plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America was held March 6-9. The theme, chosen by Pope Francis, was “The woman: a pillar in the edification of the Church and society in Latin America.”
Exceptionally, the plenary assembly included some women, unusual because all members and consultors of the commission are cardinals and bishops. Topics of discussion during the assembly were the promotion of the woman in Latin America, the presence of the Virgin and the role of women in evangelizing Latin American people, and also the woman as “pillar of the family,” and the role of women in catechesis, society, politics.
It is expected that the role of women will be discussed at a Special Synod for the Panamazonic Region in 2019, and at the October 2018 synod on young adults and vocations. It is possible that the next Ordinary Synod Bishops, scheduled for 2021, could also be dedicated to a discussion on women.
Pope Francis has often spoken about the importance of the role of the woman in society, and in 2016 he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons.
Archbishop Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was appointed president of a commission composed of 12 members, 6 men and 6 women. The members are: Msgr. Piero Coda; Sr. Nuria Calduch-Benages; Francesca Cocchini; Fr. Robert Dodaro; Fr. Santiago Madrigal Terrazas; Sr. Mary Malone; Fr. Karl-Heinz Menke; Fr. Amailble Musoni; Fr. Bernard Pottier; Marianne Schlosser; Michelina Tenace; Phyllis Zagano.
According to sources, the commission is drafting its final report, expected to be presented to the pope within this year.
The issue of women deacons had been discussed in the recent past. A 2002 report issued by the International Theological Commission, titled “From Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles,” dedicated a whole chapter to the role of women deacons in the ancient Church.
With regard to the ordination of women to the diaconate, the documents stressed that “deaconesses” of the tradition of the ancient Church cannot be considered the same as ordained deacons. In addition, the document underscored that both the ecclesial tradition and the magisterium consider diaconal ministry an element of holy orders.
Based on those two points, the document suggested that women could not be ordained to diaconate.
Though he was aware of the work done in the past, Pope Francis wanted to appoint a new commission, in order to clear out any possible doubt and to have a final word on that.
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Vatican City, May 6, 2020 / 11:47 am (CNA).- The annual swearing-in of new Swiss Guards, which would usually take place May 6, was moved to Oct. 4 because of the coronavirus.
Instead, the Pontifical Swiss Guards marked Wednesday’s anniversary of… […]
Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to resign the papacy during a meeting of cardinals Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which he made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
On Feb. 11, 2013, before a gathering of cardinals who had come to the Vatican expecting to hear the announcement of upcoming canonizations, Pope Benedict XVI dropped a bombshell.
After a few announcements about Church business at the conclusion of the meeting, the pope took out two sheets of paper and read a prepared statement in Latin.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the then 85-year-old pontiff told the gathering of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking clergymen.
Because he spoke in Latin, the language used for official Vatican proclamations, reporters present did not at first realize that the pope had just stepped down.
‘Total surprise, total shock’
The assembled cardinals, on the other hand, who knew their Latin, reacted with stunned silence.
American Cardinal James Stafford later told CNA that the pope’s statement was received with “total surprise, total shock.”
“A cardinal who was sitting next to me said, ‘Did he resign?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he did. He resigned.’ And we just all stood at our places.”
Cardinals react to Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his intention to resign the papacy Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which Benedict made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. Vatican Media
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was present that morning, said the announcement was a “surprise, like thunder that gives no notice that it’s coming,” reported The Catholic Telegraph.
In renouncing the papacy, Benedict became only the second pope in almost 600 years to voluntarily step down. In 1294, Pietro da Morrone, an elderly hermit, was crowned Pope Celestine V, but finding the demands of the job too much for him, he resigned after only five months.
In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned, but under very different circumstances — he stepped down in order to end a crisis within the Church known as the Great Western Schism.
Title, white clothes, and papal coat of arms
What happened next with Benedict XVI was no less surprising to those who expected him to live as a retired cardinal.
In his last official statement as pope, before a general audience on Feb. 27, 2013, Pope Benedict assured the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him speak as pope for the last time that even though he was stepping back from official duties, he would remain, in essence, pope.
“The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” Benedict said.
“I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord,” he told the crowd.
A day earlier, on Feb. 26, 2013, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, had silenced speculation over what Benedict would be called and what he would wear. He would, Lombardi said, retain the trappings of the papacy — most significantly, his title and dress.
“He will still be called His Holiness Benedict XVI,” Lombardi said. “But he will also be called Pope Emeritus or Roman Pontiff Emeritus.”
Lombardi said Benedict would continue to wear a white cassock but without the mozzetta, the short cape that covers the shoulders. The pope’s fisherman’s ring would be replaced by a ring from his time as cardinal. The red shoes would go as well, Lombardi said, and be replaced by a pair of brown ones.
“The city of León is known for beautiful shoes, and very comfortable shoes. And when the pope was asked what he wanted to wear he said, ‘I want the shoes from León in Mexico,’” Lombardi said at the press conference.
On May 2, the cardinal who designed Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005 told CNA that he had written the pope emeritus suggesting that his coat of arms would need to be redesigned to reflect his new status. Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo proposed making the keys of St. Peter smaller and less prominent.
“That shows that he had a historic possession but not a current jurisdiction,” said the cardinal at the time.
Benedict, however, it seems, politely declined a new coat of arms. La Stampa reported the following year that the Vatican Publishing House’s manual of ecclesiastical heraldry in the Catholic Church contained the following note:
“Expressing deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to the author for the interesting study sent to him, [Benedict] made it known that he prefers not to adopt an expressive heraldic emblem of the new situation created with his renouncing of the Petrine Ministry.”
By his decision to continue to dress in white like the pope, retain the title of pope, and keep the coat of arms of his papacy, Benedict revealed that in giving up the “active exercise of the ministry,” he was not forsaking the role of pope altogether.
Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI pray together at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo March 23, 2013, their first meeting after Francis’ election. Vatican Media
An expanded Petrine ministry
In his 2013 announcement, Benedict clearly expressed his intention to step aside, even determining the date and time of his official departure. Nonetheless, his decision to keep the title of pope and maintain the ceremonial protocol that goes along with the papacy led some to speculate whether there were not actually “two popes.”
Benedict’s personal secretary and closest confidante, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, sought to clear up any confusion in 2016.
In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on May 20, 2016, Gänswein said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another but represent one “expanded” Petrine office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”
Parsing Benedict’s speech, Gänswein explained that in stepping down, Benedict was not giving up his ministry.
“The key word in that statement is ‘munus petrinum,’ translated — as happens most of the time — with ‘Petrine ministry.’ And yet, ‘munus,’ in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: It can mean service, duty, guide, or gift, even prodigy. Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry [munus],’” Gänswein said.
“He left the papal throne and yet, with the step he took on Feb. 11, 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, saying the latter scenario was something “quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”
Benedict himself later made clear in an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald that he saw himself as continuing in his ministry. He said that a pope who steps down is like a father whose role changes, but always remains a father.
“Of course a father does not stop being father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such. It was also this way for bishops,” Benedict said.
“I think it is also clear that the pope is no superman and his mere existence is not sufficient to conduct his role, rather he likewise exercises a function.
“If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function. In this respect one comes to understand that the office of the pope has lost none of its greatness, even if the humanity of the office is perhaps becoming more clearly evident,” Benedict said.
Benedict’s decision “not to abandon his ministry” inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, with some questioning whether the pope emeritus truly stepped down because of his age and frailty.
George Weigel, author of the definitive biography of St. John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” dismissed such speculation in an interview with CNA.
“I have no reason to think that there was anything more to Pope Benedict’s resignation than what he said was its cause: his conviction that he no longer had the strength, physical and intellectual, to give the Church what it needed from a pope,” he said.
“Everything else written about this is sheer speculation. Let’s take Benedict at his word,” Weigel said.
A life of prayer
In retiring to live in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, Benedict did not completely withdraw from the world. He attended public events in his new capacity as pope emeritus, received visitors, and pursued a life of fruitful study, writing, and prayer.
Pope Francis visits Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City to exchange Christmas greetings Dec. 23, 2013. Vatican Media
Matthew Bunson, Catholic historian, author, and executive editor of EWTN News, told CNA that Benedict was determined not to exercise authority in his new role.
“He really embraced what it means to be pope emeritus, and refrained from making public comments, to instead live a life of prayer and reflection,” Bunson said.
“Benedict really was on retreat, and in prayer,” he said, “and that means we have his prayer for us as a Church.”
While becoming increasingly frail, Benedict continued to celebrate Mass daily with the other residents of the monastery and was known to enjoy spending time in the Vatican Gardens praying his daily rosary.
In the fall of 2021, more than eight years after Benedict stepped down, his private secretary, Gänswein, told Domradio in Cologne, Germany, that Benedict was “stable in his frailty.”
He described the pope emeritus as very weak physically but still clear in mind. Gänswein said he had not lost his “typical Bavarian humor.”
The meaning of Benedict’s renunciation for future popes
In 2013, after Benedict announced that he would step down as pope, Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canonist chosen by Pope Francis to be a cardinal, wrote an essay on what should happen when a pope steps down.
In the article, published in Civiltà Cattolica, Ghirlanda suggested the retiring Benedict take the title bishop emeritus of Rome.
“It is evident that the pope who has resigned is no longer pope; therefore he no longer has any power in the Church and cannot interfere in any government affair. One may wonder what title Benedict XVI will retain. We think that he should be given the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, like any other diocesan bishop who ceases,” he said.
In December 2021, at a congress on papal resignations, Ghirlanda took up the theme again.
“Having two people with the title of ‘pope,’ even if one added ’emeritus,’ it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion,” he said.
To make clear that the pope who resigns is no longer pope, he said, he should perhaps be called “former Roman pontiff” or “former supreme pontiff.”
Pope Francis in July 2022 told reporters that if he were to retire from the papacy he would do things differently from his predecessor.
“The first experience went very well,” Pope Francis said, because Benedict XVI “is a holy and discreet man.”
In the future, however, “it would be better to define things or explain them better,” the pontiff added.
“I am the bishop of Rome. In that case I would be the bishop emeritus of Rome,” he said, and then suggested he would live in St. John Lateran Palace rather than at the Vatican.
Pope Francis celebrated Mass for Rome’s Congolese community in St. Peter’s Basilica on July 3, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Jul 3, 2022 / 04:10 am (CNA).
Amid singing, clapping, and dancing to traditional Congolese music, Pope Francis celebrated the Zaire Use of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday.
The pope began his homily on July 3 with the word, “esengo,” which means “joy” in Lingala, the Bantu-based creole spoken in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and by millions of speakers across Central Africa.
Pope Francis celebrated the Mass for Rome’s Congolese community on the day that he was due to offer Mass in Kinshasa before his trip to Africa was canceled at the request of the pope’s doctors.
The pope, whose mobility has been limited due to a knee injury, remained seated throughout the Mass. Francis presided over the Liturgy of the Word and gave the homily. Archbishop Richard Gallagher offered the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
“Today, dear brothers and sisters, let us pray for peace and reconciliation in your homeland, in the wounded and exploited Democratic Republic of Congo,” Pope Francis said.
“We join the Masses celebrated in the country according to this intention and pray that Christians may be witnesses of peace, capable of overcoming any feeling of resentment, any feeling of vengeance, overcoming the temptation that reconciliation is not possible, any unhealthy attachment to their own group that leads to despising others.”
The pope underlined that the Lord calls all Christians to be “ambassadors of peace.”
The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced a wave of violence in recent years. Dozens of armed groups are believed to operate in the eastern region of DR Congo despite the presence of more than 16,000 UN peacekeepers. Local Catholic bishops have repeatedly appealed for an end to the bloodshed.
“Brother, sister, peace begins with us,” Pope Francis said.
“If you live in his peace, Jesus arrives and your family, your society changes. They change if your heart is not at war in the first place, it is not armed with resentment and anger, it is not divided, it is not double, it is not false. Putting peace and order in one’s heart, defusing greed, extinguishing hatred and resentment, fleeing corruption, fleeing cheating and cunning: this is where peace begins.”
Peace was expected to be a key theme of the pope’s canceled Africa trip. Pope Francis was planning to spend July 2-5 in the Congolese cities of Kinshasa and Goma, and July 5-7 in the South Sudanese capital Juba.
After the Vatican announced that the trip was postponed due to the ongoing medical treatment for the pope’s knee pain, Pope Franics said on June 13: “We will bring Kinshasa to St. Peter’s, and there we will celebrate with all the Congolese in Rome, of which there are many.”
About 2,000 people were present in the inculturated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the first Sunday of July.
Women in brightly colored traditional dresses sang and danced as they prayed the Gloria. People clapped and shouted as Archbishop Richard Gallagher incensed the main altar.
The gifts were brought up to the altar in a dancing procession. Religious sisters in the pews stepped from side to side together to the music.
At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis greeted some members of the local Congolese community from his wheelchair.
“May the Lord help us to be missionaries today, going in the company of brother and sister; having on his lips the peace and closeness of God; carrying in the heart the meekness and goodness of Jesus, Lamb who takes away the sins of the world,” the pope said.
The Zaire Use of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is an inculturated Mass formally approved in 1988 for the dioceses of what was then known as the Republic of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The only inculturated Eucharistic celebration approved after the Second Vatican Council, it was developed following a call for adaptation of the liturgy in “Sacrosanctum concilium,” Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.
In a video message in 2020, Pope Francis said: “The experience of the Congolese rite of the celebration of Mass can serve as an example and model for other cultures.”
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