Pope Francis to give monthly bonus to Vatican City employees with 3 or more children

Cardinal Sean O’Malley briefs reporters during the Vatican abuse summit. / Daniel Ibanez

Boston, Mass., May 8, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

In his role as president of the Vatican’s child protection commission, Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said the body’s recent actions “represent a major shift towards a more impact-focused direction.” 

At the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which took place from May 3–6, members adopted several new policies and updates in an attempt to address the sexual abuse crisis. 

Those changes include a proposal updating the Church’s guidelines for addressing clergy sexual abuse, a forthcoming “audit tool” to “evaluate the adequacy of local churches safeguarding guidelines,” and a new fund supported by bishops’ conferences around the world to support victims, their families, and communities in impoverished areas, according to the commission’s May 8 press release.

“At times, this new direction has been both steep and fast for all of us reflecting the urgency of the challenges. This accelerated pace over the last six months has caused growing pains as we have attempted to respond to both short and longer-term needs,” O’Malley said in the press release.

“In our plenary, we developed key adjustments to our working methodology so as to clarify our different roles and to create a sense of common ownership of our mandate and of our collective responsibility for its implementation,” O’Malley said.

During the plenary assembly, the commission also reviewed a partnership agreement that it has had with the GHR Foundation since December 2022. The GHR Foundation, a U.S.-based Catholic philanthropic organization, provides “regional safeguarding consultants” to the commission, the press release said. 

The commission reviewed the framework for the Annual Report of Safeguarding Policies and Procedures in the Church, which Pope Francis requested in April to promote “transparency and accountability” on sexual abuse responses from the local churches around the world.

“The plan adopts a human-centered design methodology that focuses on how the needs of victims and survivors can be prioritized and addressed in the Church’s reporting mechanisms with the purpose of offering proposals to the Holy Father on how gaps can be addressed,” the press release said.

As requested by Pope Francis, the commission brainstormed about ways “to animate the Church to combat the evils of online child abuse,” the press release said.

A five-year plan “identifying objectives, goals, and performance indicators to measure progress and to provide accountability to stakeholders” was also adopted by the commission, the press release said. 

Additionally, the commission collaborated with the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples “to further the goals of safeguarding through the work of the Vatican office that oversees the Church’s life in more than half the territory of the globe,” the press release said.

A new study “of the theme of vulnerability in its various forms” was commissioned “so as to equip Church entities with robust measures to combat this emerging area of abuse,” the press release said.

“The Holy Father has asked a lot from us, and we are all committed to making this work,” O’Malley said. 

“We have sought the necessary resources to respond adequately, and we are confident in the plan we have laid out and the people we have working with us,” he concluded.

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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.

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.” 

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.”

“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.”

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.

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Vatican City, Sep 13, 2018 / 04:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Thursday accepted the resignation of Bishop Michael J. Bransfield from the pastoral government of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, and asked the archbishop of Baltim… […]