A bishop has authorized and published a prayer for private devotion to Pope Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in Rome.
Bishop Carlos Rossi Keller of the Diocese of Frederico Westphalen in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul published the prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian.
“As children of the Church we must pray and ask God for his eternal rest in heaven,” the prelate said in sharing the prayer in Portuguese on his Facebook page.
“But as testimonies of his generous dedication to God and knowing that his last words were ‘Lord, I love you,’ we can also privately ask for his intercession,” Rossi explained.
In his post, the prelate stressed that “in accordance with the decrees of Pope Urban VIII, we declare that in no way is it intended to preclude the judgment of the ecclesiastical authority and that this prayer has no purpose for public worship.”
The bishop likewise noted that the graces attributed to the intercession of Pope Benedict XVI must be communicated to the Vicariate of Rome, with a letter written to the following address:
His Eminence Cardinal Vicar for the Diocese of Rome
Piazza di S. Giovanni in Laterano
6, 00184 Rome RM, Italy
The prayer for private devotion:
Eternal and Almighty God, who inspired in the heart of your servant Pope Benedict XVI the sincere desire to encounter you and announce you, becoming a humble “co-operator with the truth” and offering himself as a servant, for Christ and for the Church, make me also know how to love the Church of Christ and to be able to follow in my life the eternal truths that she proclaims. Deign, Lord, to glorify your servant, Pope Benedict XVI, and grant, through his intercession, the favor I now ask of you (mention your petition). Amen.
Pray an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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View of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/CNA.
Vatican City, Jun 11, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).
For the second time in months, Pope Francis has ordered an inspection of a top Vatican dicastery whose head will step down, revealing a modus operandi that might be replicated in other transitions.
The news of the inspection emerged days before the appointment of the congregation’s new prefect, the South Korean Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik, on June 11.
Bishop Egidio Miragoli of Mondovì, in northern Italy, told priests of his diocese on June 7 that the pope had entrusted him with an inspection of the Congregation for the Clergy, responsible for the world’s diocesan priests and deacons.
Miragoli began the inspection last Wednesday, and he anticipated that the inspections would last “for the whole month of June” and commit him “from two to three days per week.”
He also said that the pope told him in a private meeting on June 3 about the scope of the inspection.
No official information on the inspection has been released.
According to a source close to the Congregation for the Clergy, the inspection “is conducted via interviews and talks with the Congregation officials.”
“Pope Francis wants to focus on tasks and roles of each member of the congregation, to decide how to better organize the staff for the new prefect,” the source said.
Bishop You succeeds Cardinal Beniamino Stella. One of the pope’s closest confidants, Stella turns 80 on Aug. 18, meaning that he will be five years older than the customary age for retirement. On June 11, the Vatican said that Stella would remain in the post until his successor takes office.
Miragoli has already begun the inspection and had one-to-one meetings with some of the congregation’s officials, the source said.
In March, Bishop Claudio Maniago of Castellaneta, southern Italy, inspected the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments. Also in that case, there was no official release about the inspection and the scope of the inspection was not revealed. Maniago reportedly concluded the inspection quite quickly.
The inspection began after Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah, who had served as prefect of the congregation since 2014. Sarah resigned because he had turned 75, the age when a bishop is expected to retire.
According to the source, Pope Francis is willing to send an inspection any time a transition occurs in the Roman Curia.
“The next dicasteries to be inspected might be the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Eastern Churches,” he said.
The prefect of the Congregation for Bishops is Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who just turned 77. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, will be 78 in November.
The source maintained that the inspections were “not intended as a punishment, but as a way to enact the curia reform.”
The reform, which has been under discussion ever since Pope Francis’ election in 2013, will change the composition of the curia, merge some dicasteries into others and tweak the statutes of each dicastery to better fit with the pope’s indications, with priority given to the notion of a “missionary Church.”
According to the source, Bishop Miragoli came to the pope’s attention while he was serving in the college for the examination of appeals in matters of delicta reservata (serious offenses) at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pope Francis appointed Miragoli as a member of the college on July 29. 2019.
The college’s president is Archbishop Charles Scicluna, archbishop of Malta and adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).
During the Good Friday liturgy at the Vatican, presided over by Pope Francis, the papal preacher reflected on the triumph of the cross, noting that it is an event that changed the universal perception of God’s omnipotence, revealing his humility.
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap., said during his homily.
Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At approximately 5 p.m. Rome time, Pope Francis made his way into Saint Peter’s Basilica, in a wheelchair, vested in a red chasuble. Cast against the backdrop of complete and palpable silence, the Holy Father paused in meditation before the Papal Altar underneath Bernini’s Baldacchino (covered in scaffolding for its restoration), while the congregation knelt.
For the past several years the pope has been unable to lay prostrate due to his fragile health, which includes persistent knee problems and several bouts of pulmonary inflammation.
After the chanting of the passion from the Gospel of John, Cantalamessa — who was made a cardinal in 2020 after more than 40 years as Preacher of the Papal Household — opened his homily reflecting on Christ’s self-affirmation of “I am,” words he said come without any qualification and carry “an absolute, metaphysical significance” and is an “unprecedented novelty.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him God, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
The cardinal stressed that this new paradigm can only be understood by looking at Christ’s preceding words heard in the passion: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man.”
Observing that “to be lifted up” refers to the crucifixion, the cardinal noted that the sum of these words express a “total reversal of the human idea of God,” revealing “the true face of God.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” he said. ““He humbly behaves in the glory of the resurrection as in the annihilation of Calvary. The concern of the risen Jesus is not to confuse his enemies, but to immediately go and reassure his lost disciples and, before them, the women who had never stopped believing in him.”
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
“Understood in this light,” Cantalamessa continued, “the word of Christ takes on a universal significance that challenges those who read it, in any era and situation, including ours.”
The cardinal warned not to conflate God’s omnipotence, and the “definitive and irreversible triumph” of the cross with temporal triumphs, as God’s triumph showcases humility.
“It takes little power to show off,” the cardinal noted, “Instead, it takes a lot to step aside, to cancel. God is this limitless power of self-concealment.”
“The resurrection takes place in the mystery,” he continued. “As a resurrected one, Jesus appears only to a few disciples, out of the spotlight. With this he wanted to tell us that after suffering, we must not expect an external, visible triumph, like an earthly glory.”
Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At the end of Cantalamessa’s homily, the faithful sat in a moment of deep silence and reflection. This was followed by the reading of the Oratio Universalis, the universal prayer also known as the Solemn Intercessions.
Then, a deacon, flanked by two candle bearers, stopped at three separate points in the central nave of the basilica, proclaiming, with an increasing pitch, “Ecce lignum crucis” (“behold the wood of the cross”). After the third proclamation, the deacon, holding an unveiled crucifix, brought it to the papal chair for the pope’s veneration.
Once the crucifix was fixed in a central place, the Sistine Chapel Choir chanted the Improperia, or the Good Friday Reproaches, a series of antiphons sung in alternating manner between a cantor and the choir. The cardinals, who sat opposite the pope, filed in line to kneel before and kiss the crucifix.
After the final prayer over the people, the pope left the basilica just as he entered: solemn, and in silence.
Here’s a tip as a Catholic. We don’t need a bishops permission to pray for Benedict, publicly or privately, or anyone else. This isn’t canonization it’s a prayer literally “For God’s sake.”
I’m a big admirer of the late Pope Benedict, but this is too soon. I think some time has to pass before so we can objectively look at a Pope’s legacy before we put him on the Canonization Conveyor Belt.
Too soon.
Here’s a tip as a Catholic. We don’t need a bishops permission to pray for Benedict, publicly or privately, or anyone else. This isn’t canonization it’s a prayer literally “For God’s sake.”
Is there a Latin version?
Latin? Why am I not surprised? Spot on.
I’m a big admirer of the late Pope Benedict, but this is too soon. I think some time has to pass before so we can objectively look at a Pope’s legacy before we put him on the Canonization Conveyor Belt.