Pope Francis: Women’s voices are needed in Vatican leadership

November 16, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 6 Print

Vatican City, Nov 16, 2019 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Saturday that more women are needed in positions of leadership in the Vatican.

“We must move forward to include women in advisory positions, also in government, without fear,” Pope Francis said Nov. 16 in a meeting with the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

“Yes, of course, also as heads of dicasteries,” the pope said, adding that he had considered two women for the appointment last week of the new prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy for which Francis ultimately selected Spanish Jesuit Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves.

Pope Francis said that it is important to always remember: “The place of women in the Church is not just as functionaries.”

“Women’s advice is very important,” he said. “The role of women in ecclesial organization, in the Church, goes further and we must work on this as well because a woman is the image of ‘Mother Church.’”

Pope Francis commended the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life for having two women under-secretaries in their leadership. Both women are married with children.

The pope told the Vatican dicastery — created in 2016 to promote the pastoral care of the family and the mission of the lay faithful — not to “clericize the laity.”

He reflected: “So many times it happened in the other diocese [Buenos Aires], a parish priest came and told me: ‘I have a wonderful lay person, he knows how to do everything, everything. Do we make him a deacon?’”

Francis lamented that too often he sees permanent deacons become “first-class altar boys or second-class priests” rather than “custodians of service.”

“This, on clericalization, is an important point,” he said.

With the papal audience, the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life headed by Cardinal Kevin Farrell concluded its first Plenary Assembly Nov. 13-16 on the identity and mission of the laity in the world.

The pope told the dicastery staff to “feel with the heart of the Church,” and to move from thinking from a local perspective to a universal perspective.

“The dicastery of which you are a part should, above all else, help the many disciples of Christ to live in daily life in conformity with the baptismal grace they have received,” he said.

“There are so many lay faithful in the world who, living their faith with humility and sincerity, become great lights for those who live next to them,” Pope Francis said.

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Vatican approves special Fatima feast day for the Traditional Latin Mass

April 6, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican office which governs the use of the extraordinary form of the Roman rite has given priests permission to say a special Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Fatima this year, noting the importance of the apparition’s centenary.

In an April 5 decree the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei gave permission for any priest of the Latin Rite to celebrate a votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 13, 2017 – the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal.

The decision was made because “many of the Christian faithful who are attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite have a particular and fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima” and out of a wish “to encourage the devotion of the faithful to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima,” according to a translation of the decree made by Gregory DiPippo, editor of New Liturgical Movement.

The permission is significant because in the extraordinary form, May 13 is the third class feast of St. Robert Bellarmine – which means Our Lady of Fatima cannot normally be celebrated.

In the ordinary form, meanwhile, May 13 is already an optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima.

If a Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart is celebrated on May 13 in the extraordinary form, it may include a commemoration of St. Robert Bellarmine, as per the rubrics of the Roman Missal of 1962.

The Marian apparitions at Fatima are among the most famous of Mary’s appearances. On May 13, 1917, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto – age 9 and 7 – and their cousin, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos, were taking their sheep to graze when they saw a figure of a woman dressed in white and holding a rosary.

After this first appearance, the Virgin Mary then appeared to the children on the 13th of every month from May until October. The message of the Fatima apparitions can be summarized primarily as a call to repentance and prayer.

Francisco and Jacinta died in 1919 and 1920, respectively, and were beatified in 2000. The path to their canonization was opened in March, when a second miracle attributed to their intercession was recognized by the Pope.

Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005. Her cause for beatification is open.

In 1930, the Church proclaimed the supernatural character of the apparitions and a shrine was erected at Fatima. It was visited by Blessed Paul VI in 1967, and later by St. John Paul II and by Benedict XVI.

St. John Paul II had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a harrowing assassination attempt in 1981, he credited his survival to her miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.

Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to the Fatima shrine for the centenary of the apparition next month.

He will visit the chapel of the apparitions and bless candles there on May 12. The following day, he will say Mass in the square before the shrine and greet the sick. He is also scheduled to meet with Portugal’s bishops, president, and prime minister.

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6 Comments

  4. During the festivities at Cana, through her timely suggestion, Mary played a vital role in raising the overall tone of the celebrations.

    Reply

  5. More women in “positions of leadership” isnt really what the Church needs right now. We need more people in positions of service to others.
    Most of the demands we hear from women come from those who confuse power and Christian service. The Church isn’t a corporate ladder. But to be fair, men can get that wrong also.

    Reply

  6. In my opinion, the heads of the dicasteries or departments within the Vatican, at last for the most part except for a few such as the Press Office have to be headed by bishops, just as in a diocese, lay faithful cannot be Vicars of the Bishop because the Church is hierarchical and its governance derives from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The heads of these departments fulfill a role which makes them similar to Auxiliary Bishops due to the fact that they exercise jurisdiction in the name of the pope.This is part of the divine origin of the Church and cannot be changed. This cannot be done by lay people, be they women or not. Besides, do women have some special revelation?

    Reply

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