Pope Francis presides at a memorial Mass of St. John XXIII, which also marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, at St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 11, 2022. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Oct 11, 2022 / 13:04 pm (CNA).
On the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to leave behind criticism and anger and to live the faith with joy.
“May the Church be overcome with joy. If she should fail to rejoice, she would deny her very self, for she would forget the love that begot her,” the pope said during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Oct. 11.
“Yet,” he continued, “how many of us are unable to live the faith with joy, without grumbling and criticizing? A Church in love with Jesus has no time for quarrels, gossip, and disputes. May God free us from being critical and intolerant, harsh, and angry. This is not a matter of style but of love. For those who love, as the Apostle Paul teaches, do everything without murmuring.”
The Mass marked the 60th anniversary of the day the Second Vatican Council was opened by St. John XXIII on Oct. 11, 1962. The council closed on Dec. 8, 1965.
Oct. 11 is also celebrated as St. John XXIII’s feast day in the Catholic Church.
In his homily, Pope Francis encouraged members of the Church to return “to the council’s pure sources of love.”
“Let us rediscover the council’s passion and renew our own passion for the council,” he said. “Immersed in the mystery of the Church, Mother and Bride, let us also say, with St. John XXIII: Gaudet Mater Ecclesia.”
Francis also warned Catholics about the strategy of the devil, who sows weeds of division among the faithful. “Let us not succumb to his flattery, let us not give in to the temptation of polarization,” he urged.
“How many times since the council have Christians gone out of their way to choose a side in the Church, not realizing that they were tearing their Mother’s heart,” the pope said. “How many times have they preferred to be ‘supporters of their own group’ rather than servants of all, progressives and conservatives rather than brothers and sisters, ‘of the right’ or ‘of the left’ rather than of Jesus; standing up as ‘guardians of the truth’ or ‘soloists of novelty,’ rather than recognizing themselves as humble and grateful children of holy Mother Church.”
All people are children of God and our brothers, he added. “The Lord does not want us this way: We are his sheep, his flock, and we are so only together, united. Let us overcome polarization and guard communion, let us become more and more ‘one,’ as Jesus pleaded before he gave his life for us.”
Pope Francis noted that there is always the temptation to start from one’s self and one’s agenda, rather than from God and his Gospel.
We “let ourselves be caught up in the winds of worldliness in order to chase the fashions of the moment or to turn back the time that Providence has granted us,” he said. “Yet let us be careful: both the ‘progressivism’ that lines up behind the world and the traditionalism — or ‘indietrism’ — that longs for a bygone world are not evidence of love, but of infidelity.”
“Let us rediscover the council in order to restore primacy to God, to what is essential: to a Church madly in love with its Lord and with all the men and women whom he loves; to a Church that is rich in Jesus and poor in assets; to a Church that is free and freeing. This was the path that the council pointed out to the Church,” he said.
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Alfred Magero, Matthew Njogu, and Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi are three Catholic fathers from Africa who recently shared insights about being a present dad, protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and being a model of family values for their children with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. / Credit: Photos courtesy of ACI Africa
ACI Africa, Jun 17, 2024 / 12:37 pm (CNA).
On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.
The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.
Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise
Tony Nnachetta shares a moment with Pope Francis. The married father of four is a parishioner in the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachettahas been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from the Archdiocese of Onitsha.
I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.
First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.
Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.
Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family.
I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.
You can’t always be there to take the bullet for them, but you can support them through prayers. Our family relies a lot on the intercession of the saints. We call ourselves a family of Jesuits because the school my children went to is under the patronage of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Fatherhood is a full-time engagement. It is not like you can be a father in the morning and take a break in the evening. You worry about your children even when they are grown and have left your home. They preoccupy you everywhere. You wonder whether they are warm and if they have had their meal. But all this brings a father immense joy.
Young fathers in Africa are overburdened by poverty. Because of poverty they don’t have a way to help their families. Others are scared to enter the marriage institution. Poverty has made young men weak and helpless. Some are leaving their young families and going to faraway places outside the continent to make a living.
Poverty is eroding family values because some fathers do what they do, including stealing, for their children to survive. In doing so, they are setting a bad example for their children …
It is important for our leaders to confront this situation. They must accept that they have let us down.
Matthew Njogu, 75: Tips on being a present dad
Matthew Njogu is the moderator of the Catholic Men Association at St. Austin’s Msongari Parish of Kenya’s Archdiocese of Nairobi. His children are now adults. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Fathers need to be present in the lives of their children. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the mother’s responsibility to take care of the young children; fathers kept off. But being absent in the lives of your children hurts your relationship with them. They end up growing up without you having any impact on their lives.
Unfortunately, some fathers assume that fatherhood ends at providing material things… They don’t pay attention to their children’s growth milestones. And when they eventually try to establish a connection, they find that the children are already all grown without knowing anything about their fathers.
Simple things like dropping your children off at school help you connect with them. While stuck in traffic on the way to school, you can talk about things that will help you understand your child and for him to know you.
Always try as much as possible to have dinner with your children and help them with schoolwork. And always try to make up for the time you don’t spend with them.
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi, 53: Raising a Christ-like family
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyia runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two, though he tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Nkamanyi runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two children ages 16 and 20. He tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many,” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Here are his insights into nurturing a Christ-like family.
It is the joy of every responsible young man to be called “daddy” or “papa.” Having a Christ-like family is the greatest gift for a father; a family like that of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
My appeal for Catholic fathers is to hold their families firmly, to provide for them, and to protect them from all dangers in the contemporary society, where values are being eroded.
I don’t believe that being a father is a challenging task. God already gave us the innate potential to be fathers. I believe that God can’t give you a role that you can’t perform.
It is unfortunate that many young men are choosing to be absentee fathers. From what I have seen, many children raised by a single parent end up adopting wayward behaviors.
Alfred Magero, 48: Being a present dad in a low-income setting
Alfred Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Catholic Parish of in the Nairobi Archdiocese. The father of three has been married for 29 years. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Parish of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The father of three has been married for 29 years and shares his experience and that of other Catholic dads raising their children in a low-income neighborhood.
I am raising my children to become God-fearing adults. This is not an easy task in the community in which we live, where there is a lot of poverty, drunkenness, and other characteristics typical of a low-income [neighborhood].
Many fathers rarely interact with their children since their main focus is to provide for their families. They leave for work before their children wake up and come back at night when the children have already gone to bed.
The young men and boys we are raising are experiencing a different environment from ours when we were growing up. With the whole world brought to them on the palm of their hand by a simple tap on the phone, this generation is dangerously exposed. They need us, their fathers, to constantly give them direction. They need us to be their role models.
They need us to constantly remind them that they are in Africa and that they should not adopt alien cultures, especially those bound to destroy the family.
As fathers, we must remind our young ones to uphold African values that kept the family unit and the society glued together. Africans knew the importance of loving and caring for each other. Unfortunately, this value is being eroded, and in its place, now we have individualism. Older men in families would educate young men to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, we no longer have this kind of education.
ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 12, 2023 / 11:45 am (CNA).
Two Catholic Relief Services (CRS) workers were shot and killed April 9, Easter Sunday, while riding in a CRS vehicle in the Amhara region of Ethiopia on their way back from an assign… […]
9 Comments
One criticism of Gaudium et spes (“The Joys and Hopes”) has been its early-1960s and Teilhardian optimism, when subsequent history has shown all of us that this is a more complicated and conflicted age. As suggested in the balancing next few words of the same document’s title line: “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age…”
This big picture is forced toward “the temptation of polarization” only when the second half is still dismissed. So, yes to hope and joy, but also sober thought and governance, as in acting unambiguously on the obvious adulteration of joyful synodality.
Rescue the real Vatican II from the termites—the council’s Ratzinger over today’s Batzinger. (Also Marx, Hollerich, Grech, and the backstage Kasper).
As a 40 year street grunt in the pro-life movement, I do appreciate the strong definitive statement for defending life in GS. But in reading the complete document the overall bias is that of an optimism that seems to trivialize an awareness of original sin and the permanent imperfectability of the human condition. This could not help but provide impetus for validating the nefarious “spirit” of Vatican II.
Espléndida o Asquerosa. A Church espléndida, madly in love, free and freeing. Progressivism that lines up behind the world. Or Asquerosa. Traditionalism. Indietrism that longs for a bygone world not of love, but of infidelity.
Rarely has El Capo so clearly defined the divergent paths taken from the Council. And the one true path he, he alone has revealed. An epiphany. Rich with intoxicating freedom. Expansive. The other, stifling, mean, judgmental. His Holiness extols this “Church that is free and freeing. The path the council pointed out to the Church” [how could so many of us have missed this?].
New doctrine, paradigmatic that liberates us from repentance, the sacrament of marriage instituted for a man and woman. Free from remaining imprisoned in a body with which we’re disappointed. Love all. Love who you wish. Love as you wish.
Liberation at last. Free at last. After 2000 years of constricted infidelity worshiping a mistake, delusional martyrs spilling their blood for naught. Until the deliverance of El Gran Libertador.
Jorge Bergoglio’s apostasy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque)and demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly:
“If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque), Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin. To deny The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, is to deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost, which is Apostasy.
From The Catechism Of The Catholic Church:
II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN
“1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.”
It is a sin to accomodate an occasion of sin, and thus cooperate with evils.”
Pray for the safety of Pope Benedict XVI.
Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Mirror Of Justice And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that The True Pope, Pope Benedict XVI,and those Faithful Bishops In Communion With Christ and His Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, will do The Consecration Of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, exactly as you requested, visibly separating the counterfeit church from The True Church Of Christ, and affirming The Filioque. Although at the end of the Day, it is still a Great Mystery, It is no Mystery, that we exist, because God, The Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Exists.
Disposed apologetically having recognized [while watching Arroyo’s George Weigel interview] my error of misinterpreting Pope Francis on a “Progressivism that lines up behind the world” that he is actually criticizing not approving, emphasizing unity. My apology to Francis.
A mind with as little self-awareness as his, as Orwellian as his, is very far gone. It seems the only hope would be for someone, acting with the instrumentality of God’s grace were to get in his face, behind closed doors, and read him the riot act, and not stop until the Swiss Guards dragged him out.
Our Lady at the Annunciation was NOT first moved on or with joy. She was moved in prudence. Joy is always a fruit and we have it as a set lesson from the BVM in the way of being immaculate.
The Holy Father needs to be careful. The problems he here distills, do not define VATICAN II, on the one hand; and on the other, do not address differing realities in specific situations.
Wrong prescriptions would sustain wrongs and make them worse. And meantime his supplying over-riding spiritual direction -as for eg., he is now doing with “desire”- would root them in deeper.
More generally, I feel the Holy Father has lost sight of the fact that he is not the only one who can raise a valid criticism. He points fingers at partisans, then protects particular erring sides.
This word indietrism is not helpful. People will understand “indoctrination” easier. Indietrism is allowing things to pass as “not indoctrinating” that in fact push irreligion and anti-faith.
One criticism of Gaudium et spes (“The Joys and Hopes”) has been its early-1960s and Teilhardian optimism, when subsequent history has shown all of us that this is a more complicated and conflicted age. As suggested in the balancing next few words of the same document’s title line: “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age…”
This big picture is forced toward “the temptation of polarization” only when the second half is still dismissed. So, yes to hope and joy, but also sober thought and governance, as in acting unambiguously on the obvious adulteration of joyful synodality.
Rescue the real Vatican II from the termites—the council’s Ratzinger over today’s Batzinger. (Also Marx, Hollerich, Grech, and the backstage Kasper).
As a 40 year street grunt in the pro-life movement, I do appreciate the strong definitive statement for defending life in GS. But in reading the complete document the overall bias is that of an optimism that seems to trivialize an awareness of original sin and the permanent imperfectability of the human condition. This could not help but provide impetus for validating the nefarious “spirit” of Vatican II.
Espléndida o Asquerosa. A Church espléndida, madly in love, free and freeing. Progressivism that lines up behind the world. Or Asquerosa. Traditionalism. Indietrism that longs for a bygone world not of love, but of infidelity.
Rarely has El Capo so clearly defined the divergent paths taken from the Council. And the one true path he, he alone has revealed. An epiphany. Rich with intoxicating freedom. Expansive. The other, stifling, mean, judgmental. His Holiness extols this “Church that is free and freeing. The path the council pointed out to the Church” [how could so many of us have missed this?].
New doctrine, paradigmatic that liberates us from repentance, the sacrament of marriage instituted for a man and woman. Free from remaining imprisoned in a body with which we’re disappointed. Love all. Love who you wish. Love as you wish.
Liberation at last. Free at last. After 2000 years of constricted infidelity worshiping a mistake, delusional martyrs spilling their blood for naught. Until the deliverance of El Gran Libertador.
Jorge Bergoglio’s apostasy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque)and demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly:
“If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque), Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin. To deny The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, is to deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost, which is Apostasy.
From The Catechism Of The Catholic Church:
II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN
“1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.”
It is a sin to accomodate an occasion of sin, and thus cooperate with evils.”
Pray for the safety of Pope Benedict XVI.
Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Mirror Of Justice And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that The True Pope, Pope Benedict XVI,and those Faithful Bishops In Communion With Christ and His Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, will do The Consecration Of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, exactly as you requested, visibly separating the counterfeit church from The True Church Of Christ, and affirming The Filioque. Although at the end of the Day, it is still a Great Mystery, It is no Mystery, that we exist, because God, The Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Exists.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Come, Holy Ghost”.
Disposed apologetically having recognized [while watching Arroyo’s George Weigel interview] my error of misinterpreting Pope Francis on a “Progressivism that lines up behind the world” that he is actually criticizing not approving, emphasizing unity. My apology to Francis.
“Pope Francis noted that there is always the temptation to start from one’s self and one’s agenda, rather than from God and his Gospel.”
Take a long look in the mirror, Pope Francis.
A mind with as little self-awareness as his, as Orwellian as his, is very far gone. It seems the only hope would be for someone, acting with the instrumentality of God’s grace were to get in his face, behind closed doors, and read him the riot act, and not stop until the Swiss Guards dragged him out.
Joy was in my heart when I heard them sing, let’s go to God’s House. Saint John XXIII – Pray for us.
Our Lady at the Annunciation was NOT first moved on or with joy. She was moved in prudence. Joy is always a fruit and we have it as a set lesson from the BVM in the way of being immaculate.
The Holy Father needs to be careful. The problems he here distills, do not define VATICAN II, on the one hand; and on the other, do not address differing realities in specific situations.
Wrong prescriptions would sustain wrongs and make them worse. And meantime his supplying over-riding spiritual direction -as for eg., he is now doing with “desire”- would root them in deeper.
More generally, I feel the Holy Father has lost sight of the fact that he is not the only one who can raise a valid criticism. He points fingers at partisans, then protects particular erring sides.
This word indietrism is not helpful. People will understand “indoctrination” easier. Indietrism is allowing things to pass as “not indoctrinating” that in fact push irreligion and anti-faith.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252522/pope-francis-on-vatican-ii-anniversary-may-the-church-be-overcome-with-joy
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252527/pope-francis-desire-points-our-discernment-in-the-right-direction