Pope accepts resignation of NY auxiliary under investigation for abuse

Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, S.J., with the official image of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome. / Screenshot from Diocesi di Roma YouTube channel.

Vatican City, Mar 7, 2023 / 11:12 am (CNA).
Father Marko Rupnik concelebrated Mass at a basil… […]

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims during his March 28, 2018 general audience in St. Peter’s Square. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

CNA Staff, May 5, 2021 / 06:20 am (CNA).

Pope Francis will issue an apostolic letter next week on the ministry of catechist.

The Holy See press office said May 5 that the papal letter, issued motu proprio (“on his own impulse”), would be presented at a press conference on May 11.

It described the apostolic letter, Antiquum ministerium, as the means “by which the ministry of catechist is instituted.”

The Italian section of the Vatican News website said: “The motu proprio therefore will formally establish the ministry of catechist, developing that evangelizing dimension of the laity called for by Vatican II.”

It noted that in a 2018 video message, Pope Francis said that the vocation of catechists “demands to be recognized as a true and genuine ministry of the Church, which we particularly need.”

Further details will be unveiled at the news conference, which will take place at the Vatican. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, and Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the Pontifical Council’s delegate for catechesis, will speak at the event.

The Code of Canon Law (Can. 785) defines catechists as “lay members of the Christian faithful, duly instructed and outstanding in Christian life, who devote themselves to setting forth the teaching of the gospel and to organizing liturgies and works of charity under the direction of a missionary.”

“Catechists are to be formed in schools designated for this purpose or, where such schools are lacking, under the direction of missionaries,” it says.

In his 1990 encyclical Redemptoris missio, Pope John Paul II described catechists as “irreplaceable evangelizers.”

He wrote: “It is with good reason that the older and established churches, committed to a new evangelization, have increased the numbers of their catechists and intensified catechetical activity. But ‘the term “catechists” belongs above all to the catechists in mission lands … Churches that are flourishing today would not have been built up without them.’”

“Even with the extension of the services rendered by lay people both within and outside the Church, there is always need for the ministry of catechists, a ministry with its own characteristics.”

He continued: “Catechists are specialists, direct witnesses and irreplaceable evangelizers who, as I have often stated and experienced during my missionary journeys, represent the basic strength of Christian communities, especially in the young churches.”

A 1993 guide for catechists, issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said: “Through religious instruction, preparation for the sacraments, animation of prayer and other works of charity, they help the baptized to grow in the fervor of the Christian life.”

“Where there is a shortage of priests, the catechists are also entrusted with the pastoral guidance of the little community separated from the center. Often, they are called to witness to their faith by harsh trials and painful privations.”

“The history of evangelization past and present attests to their constancy even to the giving of life itself. Catechists are truly the pride of the missionary Church!”

In his 2020 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis said that there was a need to strengthen lay leadership in the Amazon region.

He wrote: “A Church of Amazonian features requires the stable presence of mature and lay leaders endowed with authority and familiar with the languages, cultures, spiritual experience and communal way of life in the different places, but also open to the multiplicity of gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows on every one. For wherever there is a particular need, he has already poured out the charisms that can meet it.”

“This requires the Church to be open to the Spirit’s boldness, to trust in, and concretely to permit, the growth of a specific ecclesial culture that is distinctively lay. The challenges in the Amazon region demand of the Church a special effort to be present at every level, and this can only be possible through the vigorous, broad and active involvement of the laity.”

In January this year, the pope issued a motu proprio, Spiritus Domini, changing canon law to allow women to serve as lectors and acolytes.

Lector and acolyte are publicly recognized ministries instituted by the Church. The roles were once considered “minor orders” in the tradition of the Church and were changed to ministries by Pope Paul VI.

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Pope Francis waves to people in St. Peter’s Square during his Regina caeli address May 2, 2021. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.

Vatican City, May 2, 2021 / 05:30 am (CNA).

It is our task as Christians to proclaim the good news of the Gospel and to bear the good fruit of love in the world, Pope Francis said at his Regina caeli address on Sunday.

“The fruit that, like the branches, we must give, bears witness to our Christian life,” the pope said May 2.

“After Jesus ascended to the Father, it is the task of the disciples – it is our task – to continue to proclaim the Gospel in words and in deeds,” he added. “And they and us, disciples of Jesus, do so by bearing witness to his love: the fruit to be borne is love.”

Francis gave his weekly Sunday reflection from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square. Afterward, he led the recitation of the Regina caeli, a Marian prayer said during the Easter season.

The pope explained the importance of being attached to Christ, the vine, so that “we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and in this way we can do good to our neighbor and do good to society, to the Church.”

“We recognize the tree by its fruits,” he stated. “A truly Christian life bears witness to Christ.”

Pope Francis’ meditation centered on the day’s Gospel reading from St. John, in which Jesus tells his disciples “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

“The Lord presents himself as the true vine, and speaks of us as the branches that cannot live without being united to him,” the pope said, noting that Jesus used the verb “to abide,” also sometimes translated as “to remain,” seven times in the Gospel reading.

Francis said to abide or remain in Jesus is not a passive activity, “letting oneself be lulled by life,” but an active and reciprocal action: “We abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us.”

“How can we do this?” he said. “Jesus says to us: ‘If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.'”

“The fruitfulness of our life depends on prayer,” he stated, explaining that in prayer we can ask Jesus for the gift of seeing the world with his eyes.

This way, he said, we can “love our brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest and those who suffer the most, as he did, and to love them with his heart and to bring to the world fruits of goodness, fruits of charity, and fruits of peace.”

Pope Francis explained that first of all, we need the Lord. Before we can follow God’s commandments, before we can live the beatitudes, and perform works of mercy, “it is necessary to be joined to him, to abide in him.”

“We cannot be good Christians if we do not abide in Jesus. And yet with him, we can do everything,” he underlined. “With him we can do everything.”

“Let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary,” he concluded. “She remained fully united to Jesus and bore much fruit. May she help us abide in Christ, in his love, in his word, to bear witness in the world to the Risen Lord.”

At the end of the Regina caeli, Pope Francis sent his good wishes to Christians of the Orthodox Church and Eastern and Latin Catholic Churches, who celebrate Easter according to the Julian calendar, which falls this year on May 2.

“May the risen Lord fill them with light and peace, and comfort the communities living in particularly difficult situations. Happy Easter to them!” he said.

The pope also referenced the ongoing situation in Burma, where security forces have opened fire on people protesting the military coup, resulting in injuries and deaths.

He said the Church in Burma is encouraging everyone to devote one Hail Mary of their daily rosary during the month of May for peace in Burma.

“Each of us turns to our mother when he or she is in need or in difficulty,” he said. “We, this month, ask our Heavenly Mother to speak to the hearts of all those responsible in Myanmar, so that they may find the courage to walk the path of encounter, reconciliation and peace.”

Pope Francis also expressed his closeness to the people of Israel, where crowds at a Jewish religious festival on Mount Maron led to a crush of people resulting in 45 deaths and some 150 injuries the night of April 29 to April 30.

“I assure my remembrance in prayer for the victims of this tragedy and their families,” he said.

Francis also mentioned the example of Bl. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, who was beatified in Caracas, Venezuela on April 30.

“He was a doctor, rich in science and faith. He was able to recognize the face of Christ in the sick and, as a good Samaritan, he helped them with evangelical charity. May his example help us to take care of those who suffer in body and spirit,” he said, encouraging a round of applause for the new blessed.

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