Thomas Sternberg, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), speaks at a ‘Synodal Way’ press conference. / Rudolf Gehrig/CNA Deutsch.
CNA Staff, Mar 16, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Catholics and Protestants in Germany announced on Tuesday that they would press ahead with intercommunion at an event in May despite Vatican objections.
In a March 16 press release, organizers of the third Ecumenical Church Congress (ÖKT) in Frankfurt said that they planned to invite Christians to attend celebrations “in many churches” in the city and across Germany on May 15.
According to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, they said: “Christians of all denominations have the opportunity on this evening to come and enter, to get to know different traditions and — following their own conscience — to celebrate the living memory of Jesus Christ.”
“The signal should go out from Frankfurt to continue to seek ecumenical togetherness, in everyday life and in the mutual visit of congregations.”
The press release quoted Thomas Sternberg, president of the influential Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), as saying that any baptized Christians could make a “decision of conscience” to partake of the celebrations, based on a statement of “Common Witness” adopted in the fall of 2020 by the ÖKT’s leadership.
“The doors are open,” said Sternberg, who is also co-president of the German Church’s controversial “Synodal Way,” together with the German Catholic bishops’ conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg.
The event has already raised alarm at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which objected to a proposal for a “Eucharistic meal fellowship” between Catholics and Protestants last September.
The proposal was made by the Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (ÖAK) in a 2019 document entitled “Together at the Lord’s Table.”
In a four-page critique and letter to Bätzing, the doctrinal congregation emphasized that significant differences in understanding of the Eucharist and ministry remained between Protestants and Catholics.
“The doctrinal differences are still so important that they currently rule out reciprocal participation in the Lord’s Supper and the Eucharist,” the CDF said.
“The document cannot therefore serve as a guide for an individual decision of conscience about approaching the Eucharist.”
The CDF cautioned against any steps towards intercommunion between Catholics and members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), an organization representing 20 Protestant groups.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has also expressed serious misgivings about the “Eucharistic meal fellowship” proposal.
Earlier this month, Bätzing wrote to priests in Limburg diocese, which also includes the city of Frankfurt, where the ÖKT will take place on May 13-16.
He said in a March 1 letter to clergy that they could give Holy Communion to non-Catholic individuals if they requested it after examining their consciences.
In the four-page letter, he told priests that there could, however, be “no general, inter-denominational reception of the Eucharist” or “new forms of Eucharistic celebration.”
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CNA Newsroom, Aug 7, 2023 / 08:45 am (CNA).
The Spiritual Family “The Work,” a Catholic community founded in 1938 by Mother Julia Verhaeghe and recognized by St. John Paul II in 2001 as a “family of conse… […]
Cardinal Celestino Aós Braco of Santiago de Chile peaches at a Te Deum service marking Chile’s independence, Sept. 18, 2022 / Iglesia de Santiago
Santiago, Chile, Sep 19, 2022 / 13:06 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Celestino Aós Braco of Santiago de Chile said in a Te Deum prayer service marking the country’s independence that neither violence nor corruption will build Chile.
The prelate encouraged living centered on Christ to bear good fruit and working together for the common good.
The cardinal gave a homily at the ecumenical Te Deum that was held Sept. 18 in the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral in the presence of the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and his ministers of state.
Chile’s Fiestas Patrias marks the anniversary of the first meeting of the country’s post-colonial government in 1810.
“Violence does not build. The violent neither make a present nor a future for Chile, nor do the corrupt build it,” the prelate said.
“We cannot make the other person who doesn’t think like us into an enemy. The people voted in the plebiscite and it’s wrong to do violence with insults or threats to those who voted one way or the other,” he stressed.
In a Sept. 4 plebiscite, 62% of voters rejected a draft constitution that created a right to abortion and euthanasia and was supported by Boric.
The cardinal also encouraged people to live the authentic freedom that comes from Christ, to face the current “cultural, ideological, economic, and social slaveries.”
The archbishop of Santiago stressed that the large voter turnout in the plebiscite is an impressive fact, “but political participation does not end or stop there.”
“Christians should get involved in politics because it is a lofty form of charity. Among us all we have to build Chile, a country of brothers, where no one is unnecessary and no one is marginalized,” he emphasized.
In his homily, Aós encouraged always seeking “prayer, Sunday Mass, and the sacraments, which are not a luxury, but a necessity for all” in order to bear good fruit, united with God.
“There is an unequivocal criterion, by their fruits you shall know them,” the cardinal said.
“The person who lives in violence, who slanders or insults his adversary, who violates marital fidelity, who kills life, who falsifies or lies, does he bear fruit from the good tree or from the bad tree, always peace and good, unity and harmony,” or does he produce “bitterness, disunity, hatred?” the cardinal asked.
The prelate encouraged getting involved in politics to defend the people’s essential rights, such as “dignity, the equality of citizens, seeking the common good, justice and peace, favoring democratic participation, acting with honesty and transparency in the administration of public goods, caring for and fostering life, family, marriage, the right of parents to educate their children, social justice and solidarity, and the defense of peace.”
The archbishop of Santiago noted that “religious freedom is a right of every human being.” Hostility or contempt for religion is not a healthy separation of church and state but virulent secularism, he said.
Aós said that “the big question is what kind of fruit have you borne this year, what are you going to change to bear good fruit. Faith and works are important, it’s not enough to have ideas and beliefs, you have to put them into practice.”
“Let’s not tire of doing good, because if we don’t give up we will reap the fruits at some point,” he remarked.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
Who will be the first to excommunicate the German bishops involved with this?