Pope Francis meets with abuse survivors in Ireland

Three aid workers were hurt when the delivery van they were riding in was struck by artillery fire in Ukraine. / Vulnerable People Project

Boston, Mass., Mar 16, 2022 / 15:05 pm (CNA).
Three aid workers for a Catholic charity operating in Ukrai… […]

CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2020 / 02:25 pm (CNA).- The Vatican has intervened to halt a controversial plan to reorganize a German diocese.
 
Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier met with the heads of the Congregation for Clergy and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome June 5 to discuss the diocesan plans to restructure several hundred parishes into 35 “XXL parishes.”
 
On June 6, the diocese confirmed that the meeting took place between Ackermann and diocesan officials, and Cardinal Beniamino Stella and Archbishop Filippo Iannone, who lead the two curial departments. While the meeting was held in a “positive atmosphere,” CNA Deutsch reported Tuesday that the diocesan plans may not be implemented in their current form.
 
According to a statement from the diocese, “the Congregation for Clergy, like the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, has concerns about the proposed reform of the parishes, as described in the law on the implementation of the results of the diocesan synod.”
 
The diocese said that the concerns were “in particular as regards the role of the pastor in the leadership team of the parish, the service of other priests, the conception of the parish bodies, the size of the future parishes and the speed of implementation.”
 
The restructuring program was formally adopted by the diocese in October last year, following a three-year diocesan synod aimed at addressing declining Mass attendance, a shortage of vocations, and other challenges facing the Church in Germany.
 
After Bishop Ackermann announced the Law for the Implementation of the Results of the Diocesan Synod (2013-2016), several local Catholics, including some priests, voiced concerns about its provisions, and in November last year the Congregation for Clergy and PCLT asked that the plan be delayed while it was studied in Rome.
 
The plans included the merger of all of the diocese’s 887 parishes into 35 larger parishes, led by “pastoral teams” of laypeople and priest. Under the plans, a local lay group said, “the specific transmission of the preaching, especially the homily, to volunteers/lay people will lose the specific nature of the priestly office.” Other concerns included the centralization of parishes, meaning Catholics in some parts of the diocese would have to travel up to 50 miles for Mass.
 
Following the meeting in Rome last week, the diocese released a statement saying that “during the conversation, the bishop made it clear what challenges the diocese of Trier is currently facing.”
 
“In particular, these include: the reduction in the faithful’s commitment to church life over [several] years, the decline in [local] church involvement and the tremors caused by the discovery of sexual abuse by clerics in the people of God.”
 
“In addition,” the diocese said, “demographic change, declining financial resources and the lack of priests are limiting pastoral opportunities in the diocese.”
 
The diocese said that Bishop Ackermann would now work with staff and members of his diocesan curia to form a new plan that respects the “mandate” of the three-year diocesan synod and addresses Rome’s concerns.

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Naples, Italy, Sep 19, 2018 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples usually does not faint at the sight of blood.

He has celebrated the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, an early martyr, many times over the years.

But this year, something caused Sepe to “blanch” and sit down during the Sept. 19 celebration of the miracle, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

While he refused to leave the altar, Sepe felt too faint to carry the phials of blood outside to show the crowds who had gathered in anticipation of the miracle, which typically occurs three times a year.

It is unknown what caused Sepe to feel ill during the celebration, though ANSA reported that it was “perhaps because of the heat.”

The blood did liquefy during the celebration, according to ANSA.

St. Januarius, or San Gennaro in Italian, is patron of Naples was a bishop of the city in the third century, whose bones and blood are preserved in the cathedral as relics. He is believed to have been martyred during Diocletian persecution.

The reputed miracle is locally known and accepted, though has not been the subject of official Church recognition. The liquefaction reportedly happens at least three times a year: Sept. 19, the saint’s feast day, the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, and Dec. 16, the anniversary of the 1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

During the miracle, the dried, red-colored mass confined to one side of the reliquary becomes blood that covers the entire glass. In local lore, the failure of the blood to liquefy signals war, famine, disease or other disaster.

The blood did not liquefy in December 2016, but Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, abbot of the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, said it was a sign that Catholics should pray rather than worry about what the lack of miracle could mean.

“We must not think of disasters and calamities. We are men of faith and we must pray,” he said at the time.

The vial has sometimes changed upon the visit of a pope.

On March 21, 2015, Pope Francis met with priests, religious and seminarians at the cathedral and gave a blessing with the relic.

Sepe then received the vial back from the pope and noted that the blood had partially liquefied.

The last time blood liquefied in the presence of a pope was in 1848 when Bl. Pius IX visited. The phenomenon didn’t happen when St. John Paul II visited the city in October 1979, or when Benedict XVI visited in October 2007.

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