Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus address on Aug. 4, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Aug 4, 2024 / 10:03 am (CNA).
During his first Angelus address of the month, Pope Francis asked his listeners on Sunday to seek the path of charity, “which keeps nothing for itself but shares everything.”
“Material things do not give fullness to life. They are important but they do not fill life. Only love can do that,” the Holy Father said to crowds of local and international pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 4.
Reflecting on Sunday’s Gospel reading (John 6:24-35) — which recounts how many people followed Jesus because they were looking for bread to eat and not because they believed in him or his miracles — the pope challenged his listeners to ask themselves: “What kind of relationship do I have with material things? Am I a slave to them? Or do I use them freely as instruments to give and receive love?”
Alongside the virtue of charity, Pope Francis said gratitude and generosity are essential qualities that enable a Christian to grow in the love of God and others.
“Am I able to say thank you? Thank you to God and my brothers and sisters for the gifts I have received? And do I know how to share them with others?” he asked.
During his address, the pope also spoke about how a selfish and disordered attachment to money and material goods can be a source of conflict and division within families.
“How sad, on the other hand, when they [families] fight over inheritance. I’ve seen many cases of this. It’s sad,” he said. “For money, they don’t speak to each other for years!”
Pilgrims display Brazilian flags in St. Peter’s Square during Pope Francis’ Angelus address on Aug. 4, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
With a prayer to Mary, the Holy Father petitioned the Mother of God “to teach us to make everything an instrument of love” for the good of others.
On Sunday the Holy Father asked pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square to pray for justice through the intercession of the newly beatified 18th-century Maronite historian Patriarch Estephan Douaihy and for the people suffering in Lebanon, the Holy Land, Palestine, and Israel due to violent conflict.
The pontiff also expressed his concern about the ongoing political unrest and protracted humanitarian crises occurring in Venezuela and Myanmar and asked for prayers for those who have recently died or are left homeless in India due to torrential rains and floods.
Before departing from the window in the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square from which the pope prays his Sunday Angelus with the public, he asked the crowds of waving and cheering pilgrims to pray for him.
“I continue to pray for you, please do the same for me. I wish you all a lovely Sunday, but please don’t forget to pray for me!” he said.
St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credit: Thoom/Shutterstock
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Pope Francis’ brief remarks during the Angelus July 21, 2024, focused on the day’s Gospel passage from Mark, which demonstrates how rest and compassion for others go together. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jul 21, 2024 / 07:30 am (CNA).
Do not be consumed by “the anxiety of doing,” but spend time in rest and silent prayer to receive God’s grace, Pope Francis said on Sunday.
The pontiff told Catholics, especially those in ministry, to beware “the dictatorship of doing” during his weekly reflection and Angelus on July 21.
The Angelus is a Marian prayer traditionally recited at three different hours throughout the day: at 6 a.m., 12 p.m., and 6 p.m.
“It is only possible to have a compassionate gaze, which knows how to respond to the needs of others, if our heart is not consumed by the anxiety of doing, if we know how to stop and how to receive the grace of God, in the silence of adoration,” Pope Francis said on a hot and humid day during the peak of summer in Rome.
Addressing the large crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said we are often “held prisoner by haste.” He called it an important warning, especially for those in engaged in ministry and pastoral service in the Church.
“Am I able to stop during my days? Am I capable of taking a moment to be with myself and with the Lord, or am I always in a hurry for things to do?” he said from a window of the Apostolic Palace.
He added that sometimes families are forced to live a frenetic pace; for example, when a father has to work from dawn until dusk to put food on the table. But this is a social injustice, he said, and we should help families in this situation.
Religious sisters wave Spanish flags at Pope Francis during his weekly Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, July 21, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
The pope’s brief remarks focused on the day’s Gospel passage, which demonstrates how Jesus is able to combine both rest and compassion for others.
In the Gospel, Jesus invites his apostles to “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while,” but when they get out of the boat, they find the crowd already waiting for them.
Jesus’ “heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things,” the Gospel of Mark, chapter six says.
“These may seem like two incompatible things — resting and being compassionate — but they actually go together,” Pope Francis underlined.
Jesus is concerned for his disciples’ tiredness, the pontiff said, because he is aware of the danger of our ministries and lives falling victim to an over concern with “things to do and with results.”
“We become agitated and lose sight of what is essential,” he emphasized.
Francis also explained that the rest proposed by Jesus is not “an escape from the world, a retreat into a merely personal well-being,” but a rest that helps us to have more compassion for others.
“Only if we learn how to rest can we have compassion,” he said.
After leading the Angelus, the pope spoke about the Summer Olympic Games, set to start in Paris on July 26, and the Paralympics, which will follow in August.
Sports, he said, have “a great social force, capable of peacefully uniting people of different cultures.”
“I hope that this event can be a sign of the inclusive world we want to build and that the athletes, with their sporting testimony, will be messengers of peace and good role models for young people,” he added.
Francis also recalled the tradition from Ancient Greece of the “Olympic Truce,” noting that such an initiative would be an opportunity to “demonstrate a sincere desire for peace.”
Bishops process into St. Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass of the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 29, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The guiding document for the final part of the Synod on Synodality, published Tuesday, focuses on how to implement certain of the synod’s aims, while laying aside some of the more controversial topics from last year’s gathering, like women’s admission to the diaconate.
“Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible,” the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working tool,” says.
The six sections of the roughly 30-page document will be the subject of prayer, conversation, and discernment by participants in the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held throughout the month of October in Rome.
Instead of focusing on questions and “convergences,” as in last year’s Instrumentum Laboris, “it is now necessary that … a consensus can be reached,” said a FAQ page from synod organizers, also released July 9, answering a question about why the structure was different from last year’s Instrumentum Laboris.
The guiding document for the first session of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 covered such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, and LGBTQ outreach.
By contrast, this year’s text mostly avoids these subjects, while offering concrete proposals for instituting a listening and accompaniment ministry, greater lay involvement in parish economics and finances, and more powerful parish councils.
“It is difficult to imagine a more effective way to promote a synodal Church than the participation of all in decision-making and taking processes,” it states.
The working tool also refers to the 10 study groups formed late last year to tackle different themes deemed “matters of great relevance” by the Synod’s first session in October 2023. These groups will continue to meet through June 2025 but will provide an update on their progress at the second session in October.
The possibility of the admission of women to the diaconate will not be a topic during the upcoming assembly, the Instrumentum Laboris said.
The new document was presented at a July 9 press conference by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, together with the special secretaries of the synodal assembly: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa and Father Riccardo Battocchio.
“The Synod is already changing our way of being and living the Church regardless of the October assembly,” Hollerich said, pointing to testimonies shared in the most recent reports sent by bishops’ conferences.
The Oct. 2-27 gathering of the Synod on Synodality will mark the end of the discernment phase of the Church’s synodal process, which Pope Francis opened in 2021.
Participants in the fall meeting, including Catholic bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world, will use the Instrumentum Laboris as a guide for their “conversations in the Spirit,” the method of discussion introduced at the 2023 assembly. They will also prepare and vote on the Synod on Synodality’s advisory final document, which will then be given to the pope, who decides the Church’s next steps and if he wishes to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own.
The third phase of the synod — after “the consultation of the people of God” and “the discernment of the pastors” — will be “implementation,” according to organizers.
Prominent topics
The 2024 Instrumentum Laboris also addresses the need for transparency to restore the Church’s credibility in the face of sexual abuse of adults and minors and financial scandals.
“If the synodal Church wants to be welcoming,” the document reads, “then accountability and transparency must be at the core of its action at all levels, not only at the level of authority.”
It recommends effective lay involvement in pastoral and economic planning, the publication of annual financial statements certified by external auditors, annual summaries of safeguarding initiatives, the promotion of women to positions of authority, and periodic performance evaluations on those exercising a ministry or holding a position in the Church.
“These are points of great importance and urgency for the credibility of the synodal process and its implementation,” the document says.
The greater participation of women in all levels of the Church, a reform of the education of priests, and greater formation for all Catholics are also included in the text.
Bishops’ conferences, it says, noticed an untapped potential for women’s participation in many areas of Church life. “They also call for further exploration of ministerial and pastoral modalities that better express the charisms and gifts the Spirit pours out on women in response to the pastoral needs of our time,” the document states.
Formation in listening is identified as “an essential initial requirement” for Catholics, as well as how to engage in the practice of “conversation in the Spirit,” which was employed in the first session of the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis and delegates at the Synod on Synodality at the conclusion of the assembly on Oct. 28, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
The document says the need for formation has been one of the most universal and strong themes throughout the synodal process. Interreligious dialogue also is identified as an important aspect of the synodal journey.
On the topic of the liturgy, the Instrumentum Laboris says there was “a call for adequately trained lay men and women to contribute to preaching the Word of God, including during the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“It is necessary that the pastoral proposals and liturgical practices preserve and make ever more evident the link between the journey of Christian initiation and the synodal and missionary life of the Church,” the document says. “The appropriate pastoral and liturgical arrangements must be developed in the plurality of situations and cultures in which the local Churches are immersed …”
How it was drafted
Dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2,” the document released Tuesday has been in preparation since early June when approximately 20 experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law held a closed-door meeting to analyze around 200 synod reports from bishops’ conferences and religious communities responding to what the Instrumentum Laboris called “the guiding question” of the next stage of the Synod on Synodality: “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
After the 10-day gathering, “an initial version” of the text was drafted based on those reports and sent to around 70 people — priests, religious, and laypeople — “from all over the world, of various ecclesial sensitivities and from different theological ‘schools,’” for consultation, according to the synod website.
The XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with consultants of the synod secretariat, finalized the document.
According to the working tool, soliciting new reports and feedback after the consultation phase ended is “consistent with the circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.”
“In preparation for the Second Session, and during its work, we continue to address this question: how can the identity of the synodal People of God in mission take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place?” it says.
The document says “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten Study Groups.”
Expectations for final session
According to the guiding document, the second session of the Synod on Synodality can “expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law (there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived.)”
“Nonetheless,” it continues, “we cannot expect the answer to every question. In addition, other proposals will emerge along the way, on the path of conversion and reform that the Second Session will invite the whole Church to undertake.”
The Instrumentum Laboris says, “Synodality is not an end in itself … If the Second Session is to focus on certain aspects of synodal life, it does so with a view to greater effectiveness in mission.”
In its brief conclusion, the text states: “The questions that the Instrumentum Laboris asks are: how to be a synodal Church in mission; how to engage in deep listening and dialogue; how to be co-responsible in the light of the dynamism of our personal and communal baptismal vocation; how to transform structures and processes so that all may participate and share the charisms that the Spirit pours out on each for the common good; how to exercise power and authority as service. Each of these questions is a service to the Church and, through its action, to the possibility of healing the deepest wounds of our time.”
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus address on Aug. 4, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
