Pope Francis urges professors to ‘seek the truth’ in visit to 600-year-old Belgian university

Monument of the Guardian Angel of Portugal apparition to the three little shepherd children of Fatima. / Daniel Ibanez / CNA.

National Catholic Register, May 13, 2024 / 14:09 pm (CNA).
May 13 is the optional memorial of Our Lady of Fátima, argu… […]

Munich, Germany, Apr 19, 2018 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The German bishops’ conference has denied reports that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has rejected its planned proposal to publish guidelines permitting non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist in some limited circumstances.

“Reports that the Vatican, whether the Holy Father or dicasteries, has rejected the handout are false,” conference spokesman Matthias Kopp said April 19.

In February, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising announced that the German bishops’ conference would publish a pastoral handout for married couples that allows Protestant spouses of Catholics “in individual cases” and “under certain conditions” to receive Holy Communion, provided they “affirm the Catholic faith in the Eucharist”.

The announcement concerned a draft version of the guidelines, which were adopted “after intenstive debate” during a Feb. 19-22 general assembly of the German bishops’ conference under the leadership of Cardinal Marx, who is the conference chairman.

In his statement on Thursday, Kopp Cardinal Marx will inform his fellow bishops on the matter of the guidelines at an April 23 meeting.

The Archbishop of Munich and Freising has been invited to Rome by Pope Francis to discuss the problem. Several sources claim that Cardinal Rainier Woelki of Cologne, who has asked for clarification on the draft guidelines from the Vatican, has been invited as well.

It was reported yesterday by CNA and other media that the CDF had raised objections about the German bishops’ proposal; sources close to the congregation had confirmed this to CNA.

It is unclear whether the Vatican has asked the bishops’ conference to modify the contents of the draft guidelines, whether they have suspended the development of a draft while the matter is considered further, or whether it has been entirely rejected.

Last month, seven German bishops, led by Cardinal Woelki, sent a letter to the CDF and to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity asking for clarification on the matter, appending a copy of the drafted guidelines. The signatories did not consult beforehand with Cardinal Marx.

The seven bishops reportedly asked whether the question of Holy Communion for Protestant spouses in interdenominational marriages can be decided on the level of a national bishops’ conference, or if rather, “a decision of the Universal Church” is required in the matter.

The letter was also signed by Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg, Bishop Gregor Hanke of Eichstätt, Bishop Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg, Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, and Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz.

“From the view of the signatories, the goal in a question of such centrality to the Faith and the unity of the Church must be to avoid separate national paths and arrive at a globally unified, workable solution by way of an ecumenical dialogue,” the Archdiocese of Cologne told CNA Deutsch April 4.

The Code of Canon Law already provides that in the danger of death or if “some other grave necessity urges it,” Catholic ministers licitly administer penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick to Protestants “who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.”

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Bologna, Italy, Aug 8, 2019 / 10:03 am (CNA).- The first image to greet visitors to the basilica containing the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna, Italy is a mosaic of the saint next to a dog carrying a flaming torch in its mouth.

This is not a depiction of a pyromaniacal game of fetch, but a reference to a dream which foretold the 13th-century preacher’s mission in the world — to be the bearer of Divine fire across Europe, illuminating the darkness of heresy and sin with truth and charity.

“When St. Dominic’s mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth, running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words,” Dominican Fr. Ezra Sullivan, lecturer at the Angelicum University in Rome, told CNA.

“In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord,” Fr. Thomas Petri, dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, explained.

Throughout history St. Dominic has been depicted in paintings and statues standing beside a canine companion.

“One source recounts that the dog Blessed Jane saw in her vision was a greyhound. That seems right to me,” Petri said. “St. Dominic should be associated with breeds that are fast and useful for herding.”

“Imitating Christ himself, St. Dominic is a hound nipping at your heels to bring you to God,” he added.

“In the early thirteenth century, the Church was experiencing increasing devotion among the lay faithful that was unmatched by the clergy. At a time when bishops, priests, and monks were living extravagantly and rarely preaching, St. Dominic came to see that the Church needed priests who lived in poverty but who were also preachers of grace and truth, especially in the face of heretical cults that were leaching the faithful away from the Church of Jesus Christ,” Petri explained.

St. Dominic Guzman was born in Caleruega, Spain on Aug. 8, 1170. Throughout his life, he is said to have converted some 100,000 people through his preaching missions. He spread the devotion to the rosary, and played a key role in doctrinal debates combating the Albigensian heresy, a revival of Manichaeism, which had taken hold in southern France.

Dominic founded the Order of Preachers – the Dominicans – in France in 1216, adapting the Rule of St. Augustine in obedience to the pope, with an emphasis on study and community life in poverty. He died in Bologna, Italy after several weeks of illness on Aug. 6, 1221.

Benedict XVI said in Feb. 2010 that St. Dominic “reminds us that in the heart of the Church, a missionary fire must always burn.”

“Saint Dominic was given the grace not only to have a fervent zeal and love for Jesus Christ, especially Christ crucified, but also the wisdom to preach the Gospel with force and conviction,” Petri said.

Fr. Sullivan noted: “It was also said that ‘he always spoke either about God or to God,’ and therefore his words were like fiery darts that always hit their targets.”

St. Catherine of Siena, a third order Dominican, is frequently quoted as saying, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

However, Fr. Petri explained that a more accurate translation of what St. Catherine wrote in a letter in her dying days is, “If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only there.”

She wrote this to her follower Stefano Maconi because she was “concerned that he was tepid in his devotion and pleaded with him to go to Rome to light the fire of Divine charity there amid the turmoil of schism and infidelity the city was experiencing,” Petri said.

St. Catherine of Siena spoke of cultivating the ‘Divine fire’ as “cultivating the charity of God in one’s soul,” he explained.

“The way we cultivate charity is by committing ourselves to be with Christ in prayer, in study, at work, in the home, and at every other moment in our day,” he said.

“Most especially, however, such communion with Christ is nourished and strengthened by receiving the Sacrament of Charity—the Holy Eucharist—in which the One who is Charity itself comes into us and lights our souls aflame in love for him and for our neighbor.”

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