Vatican City, Feb 25, 2019 / 10:11 am (CNA).- On Monday, in the Vatican’s first follow-up to last week’s child abuse summit, officials emphasized “encounter” and the need for concrete responses as called for by Catholics.
The focus of the four-hour meeting Feb. 25 was “first and unanimously” on Pope Francis’ desire for encounter, according to a statement by papal spokesman Alessandro Gisotti.
In attendance were some senior officials of the Secretariat of State, the heads of several Vatican dicasteries, and abuse summit organizers Fr. Federico Lombardi, Fr. Hans Zollner, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, and Cardinal Blase Cupich.
The group agreed to continue to hold similar interdicasterial meetings “in the name of synodality and synergy” to monitor progress on commitments made at the summit.
Gisotti said that dicastery heads, speaking openly, affirmed their commitment to following “the example of Pope Francis in the fight against abuses,” with an emphasis on encounter and on listening to victims.
Other discussion topics during the meeting were the need for better child protection training and greater involvement from laity, Gisotti said.
Organizers outlined for officials the principles behind the forthcoming documents and task forces – the promised outcomes of the abuse summit which were announced Sunday.
The concrete commitments made at the end of the Vatican’s sex abuse summit Sunday included the publication of a motu proprio from Pope Francis “on the protection of minors and vulnerable persons,” Lombardi announced Feb. 24.
Vatican City State is supposed also to receive in the coming weeks its own new child protection law, and the Vicariate of Vatican City new child protection guidelines. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will publish a “vademecum,” or handbook, with the tasks and obligations of bishops, Lombardi said.
Another measure slated to take place over the next months is the creation of task forces specifically to help local Churches in need of help in solving problems and developing initiatives in their bishops’ conferences and dioceses.
The summit on the protection of minors in the Church took place Feb. 21-24, and included the participation, from around the world, of around 190 presidents of bishops’ conferences, heads of Eastern Catholic Churches, and several superiors general of religious congregations.
The meeting was called in response to the crisis of clergy sexual abuse around the world, with a stated purpose of educating the world’s bishops on their responsibility for protecting minors from abuse within the Church.
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St. Peter’s Basilica / Simone Savoldi / Unsplash (CC0)
Rome Newsroom, Oct 2, 2022 / 03:00 am (CNA).
The world’s newest bishops gathered in Rome last month to learn more about what it means to be a Catholic bishop.
While the week’s presentations spanned a range of topics, three U.S. bishops who attended told CNA that synodality emerged as a key theme.
The Vatican’s annual formation course, sometimes known by the nickname “baby bishop school,” was canceled for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic — making the 2022 edition the largest yet, with approximately 330 participating bishops across two sessions.
“People kind of picture baby bishop school as nuts and bolts, like ‘how to be a bishop.’ It’s not that at all,” Bishop Erik Pohlmeier of the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, told CNA at the end of the course.
“It’s kind of whatever the Church is talking about at that time, bringing that to the bishops that are coming on board,” he said. “The synodal process has been … a hallmark of conversation for the last couple of years, so now as we’re new bishops … the reflections revolved around that.”
The seminar’s first session was primarily attended by bishops consecrated in 2019 and 2020, while the second session was mostly those who joined the ranks in 2021 and the first part of 2022.
Thirty-nine U.S. bishops and auxiliary bishops attended, divided between the two weeks.
Pohlmeier was the freshest U.S. bishop to join. He was ordained a bishop on July 22 — just two days after his 51st birthday and seven weeks before arriving in Rome for the Sept. 12–19 course.
Speaking to CNA in Rome on Sept. 19, Pohlmeier said that as a new bishop, there are many things you do not know, but that’s where one’s fellow bishops come in.
“Every bishop knows other bishops,” he explained, like the bishop of the diocese where they served as a priest. “And they’re always, I mean to a person, helpful.”
Bishop Gregory Gordon, the first-ever auxiliary bishop of Las Vegas, Nevada, told CNA on Sept. 19 that the U.S. bishops’ conference also organizes meetings between bishops of the same ordination year, or “class,” as a way to build fraternity and create a network of support.
Bishop Gregory Gordon greets Pope Francis at the end of the course Sept. 19, 2022. Vatican Media
While the formal theme of this year’s seminar was how to announce the Gospel in changing times, Pohlmeier, Gordon, and Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Illinois, said the unofficial topic of the week was synodality.
What they talked about
“We’re in the midst of the synod,” Tylka, who attended the seminar Sept. 1–8, told CNA by phone from his diocese. So the course, he added, focused on questions such as: “What does it mean to be a synodal Church? What is the ministry of the bishop in relation to that?”
Care for the planet and one’s neighbor, themes important to Pope Francis’ pontificate, were also a major part of the seminar, Tylka said.
The week’s presentations also covered child protection and the sexual abuse crisis.
“That’s one of those things that I think we will take home, saying we will be very, very careful not to neglect,” Gordon said.
Some talks, Pohlmeier noted, were directly about synodality and what it means. At the same time, those of a more practical nature, such as canon law for bishops, “would always include some comment on the synodal approach.”
“You’re going to get different articulations of what that means depending on who you talk to, but in general, my understanding is that it is more of a listening posture,” the St. Augustine bishop said.
A bishop takes a photo of Pope Francis during their encounter on Sept. 19, 2022. Vatican Media
Bishop Gordon said Pope Francis himself modeled this listening attitude in their meeting with him on the final day of formation.
In the nearly two-hour meeting, he said most of the time was spent with the pope answering the bishops’ questions. “So you finished the course, [the pope] said. You’ve heard a lot already… Now I want to hear from you.”
This was Gordon’s big takeaway from the week: “It has to go back to the Holy Father’s words to us as he was answering our own questions, you know, asking us to exercise that episcopal closeness.”
The week also included time for communal prayer, Mass, adoration, and confession.
Bishop Tylka of Peoria said his personal opinion is that “a big part of synodality is the willingness and openness to create space for people to share their stories, to share their own encounters with Christ, to share their own experiences of how life is going.”
“So I think the role of the bishop clearly is to model that openness and that willingness to engage in dialogue,” he said.
This was my small group for discussion on Synodality! What an amazing group of bishops from around the world. Such a rich discussion on the Church! pic.twitter.com/fIOPLXwnfo
But there is also a lighter side to being a new bishop, as Pohlmeier evidenced with an amusing scene from the end of the week.
“Here we are, brand new and so … we got instructions on what we’re supposed to wear to meet the pope,” Pohlmeier said.
He explained that bishops in the Latin Church have two main styles of a full-length garment called a cassock. The new bishops were told to meet the pope. They should wear a black cassock with red trim, a purple fascia, and a purple zucchetto. (There is also a purple cassock with red trim for special liturgical events.)
Pohlmeier said it was funny to watch the bishops get ready for Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and, afterward, the meeting with Pope Francis. Many of them were helping each other figure out where each piece of the complicated attire went — including the tall headpiece, called a mitre, which bishops wear to denote their office.
Today I joined the celebration in St Peter’s for the beatification of Blessed John Paul I. The rain did not dampen the joy of lifting up the ‘Smiling Pope.’ Humbled to be with the universal Church for such a celebration. pic.twitter.com/08AtzMUlMd
“Guys are literally opening up bags that haven’t been opened with miters from right there, from Euroclero,” Pohlmeier said, pointing over his shoulder in the direction of a clerical supply store next to St. Peter’s Square.
“You could see everybody that bought one this morning because they all matched,” he chuckled. “There were several people that were literally opening it up and pulling it out of the package and trying to get it on straight, and get things attached right, and not sure what clips go where and what’s right.”
“Those kinds of things are funny,” Pohlmeier said, “but nobody just tells you, ‘OK, buy this stuff, here’s what you need.’”
Vatican City, Nov 19, 2019 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Tuesday appointed Msgr. Francis Malone, pastor of an Arkansa parish known for having generated many priestly vocations, as the next bishop of Shreveport, Louisiana.
Vatican City, Nov 11, 2020 / 03:50 am (CNA).- Pope Francis acknowledged the publication of the McCarrick Report at the general audience Wednesday.
In brief remarks at the end of the audience Nov. 11, the pope noted that the report on disgraced former … […]
4 Comments
Call me Ysma’el if you wish. Or a cynic. My initial reaction was anger. But in this tragic instance it adds to Polarization. Unity of our Church, Jesus’ Mystical Body is of essence. Nonetheless we mustn’t desist from seeking Justice. That is the unfortunate failure of Pontiff and Bishop attendees. The failure of our bishops is apparently a myopic vision of authority and subservience. What is mistakenly deemed appropriate. We’re dying of appropriateness. Cardinals Burke and Brandmuller admonished Bishops to address the core issue [clerical child abuse has already been effectively addressed with sharp decline] of mutual homosexual relations within clerical ranks and predation of vulnerable priests,seminarians. And not remain Silent. It did not motivate. An apparent Vatican agenda to normalize adult homosexuality seems in process. There is strange intransigence among our Hierarchy. As if a foreign spirit holds sway. Recent Chair of Peter office readings cited Saint Pope Leo the Great on Peter’s Confession of Faith, “The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. It’s words are the word of life”. Paradoxically I’d rather be called a mistaken cynic regards continued Synods. Aimed at resolving what? Aimed at advancing an agenda. Faith is useless if it is not proclaimed in season and out.
Yay the voice of TRUTH. I 100% agree. I look forward always to your comments as I can rely on them. The prayer “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” came so strongly to mind just now. It was so powerful converting the pagans of his time, ahem. If some have not heard it, look it up. I call on the Most Holy Trinity
source of all real UNITY to come to us and make this agenda that is at work, to right itself. Encounter who?? Listen where?? Soon we will be asked to dialog about the dialog. Truth is simple and understandable to all. I call on the intersession of the Blessed Mother, come to our aid.
Yup. Encounter, handbooks, documents, task forces, interdicasterial “synodality and synergy”…
Here’s some other verbiage, for a Summit Agenda, that might give credibility to an organizing committee:
1. While 96 percent of the clergy are NOT implicated and should be more celebrated, the sexual abuse crisis is in fact a “seamless-garment” MALIGNANCY; future protocols must not be limited to only the abuse of minors, e.g., the McCarrick factor will be aired out in 30 days, and then corrected.
2. Past catechesis, for the past half century, on broad morality has tended to replace (not supplement) the Commandments with the Beatitudes. This egregious SIN OF OMISSION will be corrected under the guidance of the CDC.
3. Proclamation of the whole Gospel message also involves STEADFASTNESS. In justice, the slanderous labeling of steadfast Vatican critics as “bigots” and “rigid” will be repented with adequate public restitution.
4. WORD GAMES: the 2002 cover-story of “pedophilia” must yield to a forthright treatment of correctly-labeled “homosexual infiltration” into the Church. Gay “marriage” and de facto redefinition of priestly “celibacy” (among “consenting adults”) are off the table.
5. Needed explanations are forthcoming, and an ACTION CALENDAR announced, for example:
(a) Conference actions in France and Italy were accepted, but in the United States put on ice? Why?
(b) Compromised high-level papal lieutenants will be identified and removed within 30 days.
(c) With the newly-assembled support of the presidents of national conferences now on record, the St. Gallen clique and shadow popes will be called out and rebuked, within 7 days.
(d) As local progress gets underway (with the followup help identified in the above article), a Summit follow-up will be convened to directly exchange best-practices, in 180 days.
(e) The CDC will prepare a complete response to the dubia in 60 days (on whether the Church still has a clear morality to teach, or not), with the valued and invited assistance of the previous head of the CDC.
(f) Local bishops remain responsible personally and wholly(as individual successors of the apostles), such that synodal actions and inactions will not be either offered or pretended as cover. Even ecumenical councils are only what the Church DOES, not what the Church IS.
All of this (which took less than half an hour), or something better, could fit within a ten-minute speech from the podium.
The current Vicar of Christ views his American flock as village idiots and medieval peasants.
He dosen’t like us……Oh’ no!! Not that many of us any longer care.
Death by meetings, death by Jesuit-speak. That is the agenda.
Call me Ysma’el if you wish. Or a cynic. My initial reaction was anger. But in this tragic instance it adds to Polarization. Unity of our Church, Jesus’ Mystical Body is of essence. Nonetheless we mustn’t desist from seeking Justice. That is the unfortunate failure of Pontiff and Bishop attendees. The failure of our bishops is apparently a myopic vision of authority and subservience. What is mistakenly deemed appropriate. We’re dying of appropriateness. Cardinals Burke and Brandmuller admonished Bishops to address the core issue [clerical child abuse has already been effectively addressed with sharp decline] of mutual homosexual relations within clerical ranks and predation of vulnerable priests,seminarians. And not remain Silent. It did not motivate. An apparent Vatican agenda to normalize adult homosexuality seems in process. There is strange intransigence among our Hierarchy. As if a foreign spirit holds sway. Recent Chair of Peter office readings cited Saint Pope Leo the Great on Peter’s Confession of Faith, “The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. It’s words are the word of life”. Paradoxically I’d rather be called a mistaken cynic regards continued Synods. Aimed at resolving what? Aimed at advancing an agenda. Faith is useless if it is not proclaimed in season and out.
Yay the voice of TRUTH. I 100% agree. I look forward always to your comments as I can rely on them. The prayer “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” came so strongly to mind just now. It was so powerful converting the pagans of his time, ahem. If some have not heard it, look it up. I call on the Most Holy Trinity
source of all real UNITY to come to us and make this agenda that is at work, to right itself. Encounter who?? Listen where?? Soon we will be asked to dialog about the dialog. Truth is simple and understandable to all. I call on the intersession of the Blessed Mother, come to our aid.
Yup. Encounter, handbooks, documents, task forces, interdicasterial “synodality and synergy”…
Here’s some other verbiage, for a Summit Agenda, that might give credibility to an organizing committee:
1. While 96 percent of the clergy are NOT implicated and should be more celebrated, the sexual abuse crisis is in fact a “seamless-garment” MALIGNANCY; future protocols must not be limited to only the abuse of minors, e.g., the McCarrick factor will be aired out in 30 days, and then corrected.
2. Past catechesis, for the past half century, on broad morality has tended to replace (not supplement) the Commandments with the Beatitudes. This egregious SIN OF OMISSION will be corrected under the guidance of the CDC.
3. Proclamation of the whole Gospel message also involves STEADFASTNESS. In justice, the slanderous labeling of steadfast Vatican critics as “bigots” and “rigid” will be repented with adequate public restitution.
4. WORD GAMES: the 2002 cover-story of “pedophilia” must yield to a forthright treatment of correctly-labeled “homosexual infiltration” into the Church. Gay “marriage” and de facto redefinition of priestly “celibacy” (among “consenting adults”) are off the table.
5. Needed explanations are forthcoming, and an ACTION CALENDAR announced, for example:
(a) Conference actions in France and Italy were accepted, but in the United States put on ice? Why?
(b) Compromised high-level papal lieutenants will be identified and removed within 30 days.
(c) With the newly-assembled support of the presidents of national conferences now on record, the St. Gallen clique and shadow popes will be called out and rebuked, within 7 days.
(d) As local progress gets underway (with the followup help identified in the above article), a Summit follow-up will be convened to directly exchange best-practices, in 180 days.
(e) The CDC will prepare a complete response to the dubia in 60 days (on whether the Church still has a clear morality to teach, or not), with the valued and invited assistance of the previous head of the CDC.
(f) Local bishops remain responsible personally and wholly(as individual successors of the apostles), such that synodal actions and inactions will not be either offered or pretended as cover. Even ecumenical councils are only what the Church DOES, not what the Church IS.
All of this (which took less than half an hour), or something better, could fit within a ten-minute speech from the podium.
The current Vicar of Christ views his American flock as village idiots and medieval peasants.
He dosen’t like us……Oh’ no!! Not that many of us any longer care.
Death by meetings, death by Jesuit-speak. That is the agenda.